ROBERT HUGH

BENSON

COLLECTION

11 BOOKS

COPYRIGHT © 2016 BY AETERNA PRESS.

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PUBLISHED BY AETERNA PRESS.

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BOOKS INDEX

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

ROBERT HUGH BENSON COLLECTION

BY WHAT AUTHORITY?

COME RACK! COME ROPE!

DAWN OF ALL

LORD OF THE WORLD

LOURDES

NONE OTHER GODS

ODDSFISH!

PARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM

THE HISTORY OF RICHARD RAYNAL SOLITARY

THE KING’S TRIUMPH

THE NECROMANCERS

ILLUSTRATIONS

ROBERT HUGH BENSON COLLECTION

Robert Hugh Benson AFSC (18 November 1871 – 19 October 1914) was an English Anglican priest who in 1903 was received into the Roman Catholic Church in which he was ordained priest in 1904. He was lauded in his own day as one of the leading figures in English literature, having written the notable novel Lord of the World (1907). Benson was the youngest son of Edward White Benson (Archbishop of Canterbury) and his wife, Mary, and the younger brother of Edward Frederic Benson and A. C. Benson. Benson was educated at Eton College and then studied classics and theology at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1890 to 1893. In 1895, Benson was ordained a priest in the Church of England by his father, who was the then Archbishop of Canterbury. After his father died suddenly in 1896, Benson was sent on a trip to the Middle East to recover his own health. While there he began to question the status of the Church of England and to consider the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. His own piety began to tend toward the High Church tradition, and he started exploring religious life in various Anglican communities, eventually obtaining permission to join the Community of the Resurrection.

BY WHAT

AUTHORITY?

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

AUTHOR OF “THE LIGHT INVISIBLE,” “THE KING’S ACHIEVEMENT,” “A BOOK OF THE LOVE OF JESUS,” ETC.

BENIZIGER BROS. PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE, NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO.

I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE A GREAT DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO THE REVEREND DOM BEDE CAMM., O.S.B., WHO KINDLY READ THIS BOOK IN PROOF, AND MADE MANY VALUABLE CORRECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS.

OCTOBER 27, 1904

PENATIBVS · FOCISQVE · CARIS NECNON · TRIBVS · CARIORIBVS APVD · QVAS · SCRIPSI IN · QVARVM · AVRES · LEGI A · QVIBVS · ADMONITVS EMENDAVI HVNC · LIBRVM D.

CONTENTS

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PART I

CHAPTER I

THE SITUATION

CHAPTER II

THE HALL AND THE HOUSE

CHAPTER III

LONDON TOWN

CHAPTER IV

MARY CORBET

CHAPTER V

A RIDER FROM LONDON

CHAPTER VI

MR. STEWART

CHAPTER VII

THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL

CHAPTER VIII

THE TAKING OF MR. STEWART

CHAPTER IX

VILLAGE JUSTICE

CHAPTER X

A CONFESSOR

CHAPTER XI

MASTER CALVIN

CHAPTER XII

A WINDING-UP

PART II

CHAPTER I

ANTHONY IN LONDON

CHAPTER II

SOME NEW LESSONS

CHAPTER III

HUBERT’S RETURN

CHAPTER IV

A COUNTER-MARCH

CHAPTER V

THE COMING OF THE JESUITS

CHAPTER VI

SOME CONTRASTS

CHAPTER VII

A MESSAGE FROM THE CITY

CHAPTER VIII

THE MASSING-HOUSE

CHAPTER IX

FROM FULHAM TO GREENWICH

CHAPTER X

THE APPEAL TO CÆSAR

CHAPTER XI

A STATION OF THE CROSS

CHAPTER XII

A STRIFE OF TONGUES

CHAPTER XIII

THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

CHAPTER XIV

EASTER DAY

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE COMING OF SPAIN

CHAPTER II

MEN OF WAR AND PEACE

CHAPTER III

HOME-COMING

CHAPTER IV

STANFIELD PLACE

CHAPTER V

JOSEPH LACKINGTON

CHAPTER VI

A DEPARTURE

CHAPTER VII

NORTHERN RELIGION

CHAPTER VIII

IN STANSTEAD WOODS

CHAPTER IX

THE ALARM

CHAPTER X

THE PASSAGE TO THE GARDEN-HOUSE

CHAPTER XI

THE GARDEN-HOUSE

CHAPTER XII

THE NIGHT-RIDE

CHAPTER XIII

IN PRISON

CHAPTER XIV

AN OPEN DOOR

CHAPTER XV

THE ROLLING OF THE STONE

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PART I

CHAPTER I

THE SITUATION

To the casual Londoner who lounged, intolerant and impatient, at the blacksmith’s door while a horse was shod, or a cracked spoke mended, Great Keynes seemed but a poor backwater of a place, compared with the rush of the Brighton road eight miles to the east from which he had turned off, or the whirling cauldron of London City, twenty miles to the north, towards which he was travelling.

The triangular green, with its stocks and horse-pond, overlooked by the grey benignant church-tower, seemed a tame exchange for seething Cheapside and the crowded ways about the Temple or Whitehall; and it was strange to think that the solemn-faced rustics who stared respectfully at the gorgeous stranger were of the same human race as the quick-eyed, voluble townsmen who chattered and laughed and grimaced over the news that came up daily from the Continent or the North, and was tossed to and fro, embroidered and discredited alternately, all day long.

And yet the great waves and movements that, rising in the hearts of kings and politicians, or in the sudden strokes of Divine Providence, swept over Europe and England, eventually always rippled up into this placid country village; and the lives of Master Musgrave, who had retired upon his earnings, and of old Martin, who cobbled the ploughmen’s shoes, were definitely affected and changed by the plans of far-away Scottish gentlemen, and the hopes and fears of the inhabitants of South Europe. Through all the earlier part of Elizabeth’s reign, the menace of the Spanish Empire brooded low on the southern horizon, and a responsive mutter of storm sounded now and again from the north, where Mary Stuart reigned over men’s hearts, if not their homes; and lovers of secular England shook their heads and were silent as they thought of their tiny country, so rent with internal strife, and ringed with danger.

For Great Keynes, however, as for most English villages and towns at this time, secular affairs were so deeply and intricately interwoven with ecclesiastical matters that none dared decide on the one question without considering its relation to the other; and ecclesiastical affairs, too, touched them more personally than any other, since every religious change scored a record of itself presently within the church that was as familiar to them as their own cottages.

On none had the religious changes fallen with more severity than on the Maxwell family that lived in the Hall, at the upper and southern end of the green. Old Sir Nicholas, though his convictions had survived the tempest of unrest and trouble that had swept over England, and he had remained a convinced and a stubborn Catholic, yet his spiritual system was sore and inflamed within him. To his simple and obstinate soul it was an irritating puzzle as to how any man could pass from the old to a new faith, and he had been known to lay his whip across the back of a servant who had professed a desire to try the new religion.

His wife, a stately lady, a few years younger than himself, did what she could to keep her lord quiet, and to save him from incurring by his indiscretion any further penalties beyond the enforced journeys before the Commission, and the fines inflicted on all who refused to attend their parish church. So the old man devoted himself to his estates and the further improvement of the house and gardens, and to the inculcation of sound religious principles into the minds of his two sons who were living at home with their parents; and strove to hold his tongue, and his hand, in public.

The elder of these two, Mr. James as he was commonly called, was rather a mysterious personage to the village, and to such neighbours as they had. He was often in town, and when at home, although extremely pleasant and courteous, never talked about himself and seemed to be only very moderately interested in the estate and the country-life generally. This, coupled with the fact that he would presumably succeed his father, gave rise to a good deal of gossip, and even some suspicion.

His younger brother Hubert was very different; passionately attached to sport and to outdoor occupations, a fearless rider, and in every way a kindly, frank lad of about eighteen years old. The fifth member of the family, Lady Maxwell’s sister, Mistress Margaret Torridon, was a quiet-faced old lady, seldom seen abroad, and round whom, as round her eldest nephew, hung a certain air of mystery.

The difficulties of this Catholic family were considerable. Sir Nicholas’ religious sympathies were, of course, wholly with the spiritual side of Spain, and all that that involved, while his intense love of England gave him a horror of the Southern Empire that the sturdiest patriot might have envied. And so with his attitude towards Mary Stuart and her French background. While his whole soul rose in loathing against the crime of Darnley’s murder, to which many of her enemies proclaimed her accessory, it was kindled at the thought that in her or her child lately crowned as James VI. of Scotland, lay the hope of a future Catholic succession; and this religious sympathy was impassioned by the memory of an interview a few years ago, when he had kissed that gracious white hand, and looked into those alluring eyes, and, kneeling, stammered out in broken French his loyalty and his hopes. Whether it was by her devilish craft as her enemies said, or her serene and limpid innocence as her friends said, or by a maddening compound of the two, as later students have said—at least she had made the heart and confidence of old Sir Nicholas her own.

But there were troubles more practical than these mental struggles; it was a misery, beyond describing, to this old man and his wife to see the church, where once they had worshipped and received the sacraments, given over to what was, in their opinion, a novel heresy, and the charge of a schismatic minister. There, in the Maxwell chapel within, lay the bones of their Catholic ancestors; and there they had knelt to adore and receive their Saviour; and now for them all was gone, and the light was gone out in the temple of the Lord. In the days of the previous Rector matters were not so desperate; it had been their custom to receive from his hands at the altar-rail of the Church hosts previously consecrated at the Rectory; for the incumbent had been an old Marian priest who had not scrupled so to relieve his Catholic sheep of the burden of recusancy, while he fed his Protestant charges with bread and wine from the Communion table. But now all that was past, and the entire family was compelled year by year to slip off into Hampshire shortly before Easter for their annual duties, and the parish church that their forefathers had built, endowed and decorated, knew them no more.

But the present Rector, the Reverend George Dent, was far from a bigot; and the Papists were more fortunate than perhaps, in their bitterness, they recognised; for the minister was one of the rising Anglican school, then strange and unfamiliar, but which has now established itself as the main representative section of the Church of England. He welcomed the effect but not the rise of the Reformation, and rejoiced that the incrustations of error had been removed from the lantern of the faith. But he no less sincerely deplored the fanaticism of the Puritan and Genevan faction. He exulted to see England with a church truly her own at last, adapted to her character, and freed from the avarice and tyranny of a foreign despot who had assumed prerogatives to which he had no right. But he reverenced the Episcopate, he wore the prescribed dress, he used the thick singing-cakes for the Communion, and he longed for the time when nation and Church should again be one; when the nation should worship through a Church of her own shaping, and the Church share the glory and influence of her lusty partner and patron.

But Mrs. Dent had little sympathy with her husband’s views; she had assimilated the fiery doctrines of the Genevan refugees, and to her mind her husband was balancing himself to the loss of all dignity and consistency in an untenable position between the Popish priesthood on the one side and the Gospel ministry on the other. It was an unbearable thought to her that through her husband’s weak disposition and principles his chief parishioners should continue to live within a stone’s throw of the Rectory in an assured position of honour, and in personal friendliness to a minister whose ecclesiastical status and claims they disregarded. The Rector’s position then was difficult and trying, no less in his own house than elsewhere.

The third main family in the village was that of the Norrises, who lived in the Dower House, that stood in its own grounds and gardens a few hundred yards to the north-west of the village green. The house had originally been part of the Hall estate; but it had been sold some fifty years before. The present owner, Mr. Henry Norris, a widower, lived there with his two children, Isabel and Anthony, and did his best to bring them up in his own religious principles. He was a devout and cultivated Puritan, who had been affected by the New Learning in his youth, and had conformed joyfully to the religious changes that took place in Edward’s reign. He had suffered both anxiety and hardships in Mary’s reign, when he had travelled abroad in the Protestant countries, and made the acquaintance of many of the foreign reformers—Beza, Calvin, and even the great Melancthon himself. It was at this time, too, that he had lost his wife. It had been a great joy to him to hear of the accession of Elizabeth, and the re-establishment of a religion that was sincerely his own; and he had returned immediately to England with his two little children, and settled down once more at the Dower House. Here his whole time that he could spare from his children was divided between prayer and the writing of a book on the Eucharist; and as his children grew up he more and more retired into himself and silence and communing with God, and devoted himself to his book. It was beginning to be a great happiness to him to find that his daughter Isabel, now about seventeen years old, was growing up into active sympathy with his principles, and that the passion of her soul, as of his, was a tender deep-lying faith towards God, which could exist independently of outward symbols and ceremonies. But unlike others of his school he was happy too to notice and encourage friendly relations between Lady Maxwell and his daughter, since he recognised the sincere and loving spirit of the old lady beneath her superstitions, and knew very well that her friendship would do for the girl what his own love could not.

The other passion of Isabel’s life at present lay in her brother Anthony, who was about three years younger than herself, and who was just now more interested in his falcons and pony than in all the religious systems and human relationships in the world, except perhaps in his friendship for Hubert, who besides being three or four years older than himself, cared for the same things.

And so relations between the Hall and the Dower House were all that they should be, and the path that ran through the gardens of the one and the yew hedge and orchard of the other was almost as well trodden as if all still formed one estate.

As for the village itself, it was exceedingly difficult to gauge accurately the theological atmosphere. The Rector despaired of doing so. It was true that at Easter the entire population, except the Maxwells and their dependents, received communion in the parish church, or at least professed their willingness and intention to do so unless prevented by some accident of the preceding week; but it was impossible to be blind to the fact that many of the old beliefs lingered on, and that there was little enthusiasm for the new system. Rumours broke out now and again that the Catholics were rising in the north; that Elizabeth contemplated a Spanish or French marriage with a return to the old religion; that Mary Stuart would yet come to the throne; and with each such report there came occasionally a burst of joy in unsuspected quarters. Old Martin, for example, had been overheard, so a zealous neighbour reported, blessing Our Lady aloud for her mercies when a passing traveller had insisted that a religious league was in progress of formation between France and Spain, and that it was only a question of months as to when mass should be said again in every village church; but then on the following Sunday the cobbler’s voice had been louder than all in the metrical psalm, and on the Monday he had paid a morning visit to the Rectory to satisfy himself on the doctrine of Justification, and had gone again, praising God and not Our Lady, for the godly advice received.

But again, three years back, just before Mr. Dent had come to the place, there had been a solemn burning on the village-green of all such muniments of superstition as had not been previously hidden by the priest and Sir Nicholas; and in the rejoicings that accompanied this return to pure religion practically the whole agricultural population had joined. Some Justices had ridden over from East Grinsted to direct this rustic reformation, and had reported favourably to the new Rector on his arrival of the zeal of his flock. The great Rood, they told him, with SS. Mary and John, four great massy angels, the statue of St. Christopher, the Vernacle, a brocade set of mass vestments and a purple cope, had perished in the flames, and there had been no lack of hands to carry faggots; and now the Rector found it difficult to reconcile the zeal of his parishioners (which indeed he privately regretted) with the sudden and unexpected lapses into superstition, such as was Mr. Martin’s gratitude to Our Lady, and others of which he had had experience.

As regards the secular politics of the outside world, Great Keynes took but little interest. It was far more a matter of concern whether mass or morning prayer was performed on Sunday, than whether a German bridegroom could be found for Elizabeth, or whether she would marry the Duke of Anjou; and more important than either were the infinitesimal details of domestic life. Whether Mary was guilty or not, whether her supporters were rising, whether the shadow of Spain chilled the hearts of men in London whose affair it was to look after such things; yet the cows must be milked, and the children washed, and the falcons fed; and it was these things that formed the foreground of life, whether the sky were stormy or sunlit.

And so, as the autumn of ‘69 crept over the woods in flame and russet, and the sound of the sickle was in folks’ ears, the life at Great Keynes was far more tranquil than we should fancy who look back on those stirring days. The village, lying as it did out of the direct route between any larger towns, was not so much affected by the gallop of the couriers, or the slow creeping rumours from the Continent, as villages that lay on lines of frequent communication. So the simple life went on, and Isabel went about her business in Mrs. Carroll’s still-room, and Anthony rode out with the harriers, and Sir Nicholas told his beads in his room—all with nearly as much serenity as if Scotland were fairyland and Spain a dream.

CHAPTER II

THE HALL AND THE HOUSE

Anthony Norris, who was now about fourteen, went up to King’s College, Cambridge, in October. He was closeted long with his father the night before he left, and received from him much sound religious advice and exhortation; and in the morning, after an almost broken-hearted good-bye from Isabel, he rode out with his servant following on another horse and leading a packhorse on the saddle of which the falcons swayed and staggered, and up the curving drive that led round into the village green. He was a good-hearted and wholesome-minded boy, and left a real ache behind him in the Dower House.

Isabel indeed ran up to his room, after she had seen his feathered cap disappear at a trot through the gate, leaving her father in the hall; and after shutting and latching the door, threw herself on his bed, and sobbed her heart out. They had never been long separated before. For the last three years he had gone over to the Rectory morning by morning to be instructed by Mr. Dent; but now, although he would never make a great scholar, his father thought it well to send him up to Cambridge for two or three years, that he might learn to find his own level in the world.

Anthony himself was eager to go. If the truth must be told, he fretted a little against the restraints of even such a moderate Puritan household as that of his father’s. It was a considerable weariness to Anthony to kneel in the hall on a fresh morning while his father read, even though with fervour and sincerity, long extracts from “Christian Prayers and Holy Meditations,” collected by the Reverend Henry Bull, when the real world, as Anthony knew it, laughed and rippled and twinkled outside in the humming summer air of the lawn and orchard; or to have to listen to godly discourses, however edifying to elder persons, just at the time when the ghost-moth was beginning to glimmer in the dusk, and the heavy trout to suck down his supper in the glooming pool in the meadow below the house.

His very sports, too, which his father definitely encouraged, were obviously displeasing to the grave divines who haunted the house so often from Saturday to Monday, and spoke of high doctrinal matters at meal-times, when, so Anthony thought, lighter subjects should prevail. They were not interested in his horse, and Anthony never felt quite the same again towards one good minister who in a moment of severity called Eliza, the glorious peregrine that sat on the boy’s wrist and shook her bells, a “vanity.” And so Anthony trotted off happy enough on his way to Cambridge, of which he had heard much from Mr. Dent; and where, although there too were divines and theology, there were boys as well who acted plays, hunted with the hounds, and did not call high-bred hawks “vanities.”

Isabel was very different. While Anthony was cheerful and active like his mother who had died in giving him life, she, on the other hand, was quiet and deep like her father. She was growing up, if not into actual beauty, at least into grace and dignity: but there were some who thought her beautiful. She was pale with dark hair, and the great grey eyes of her father; and she loved and lived in Anthony from the very difference between them. She frankly could not understand the attraction of sport, and the things that pleased her brother; she was afraid of the hawks, and liked to stroke a horse and kiss his soft nose better than to ride him. But, after all, Anthony liked to watch the towering bird, and to hear and indeed increase the thunder of the hoofs across the meadows behind the stomping hawk; and so she did her best to like them too; and she was often torn two ways by her sympathy for the partridge on the one hand, as it sped low and swift across the standing corn with that dread shadow following, and her desire, on the other hand, that Anthony should not be disappointed.

But in the deeper things of the spirit, too, there was a wide difference between them. As Anthony fidgeted and sighed through his chair-back morning and evening, Isabel’s soul soared up to God on the wings of those sounding phrases. She had inherited all her father’s tender piety, and lived, like him, on the most intimate terms with the spiritual world. And though, of course, by training she was Puritan, by character she was Puritan too. As a girl of fourteen she had gone with Anthony to see the cleansing of the village temple. They had stood together at the west end of the church a little timid at the sight of that noisy crowd in the quiet house of prayer; but she had felt no disapproval at that fierce vindication of truth. Her father had taught her of course that the purest worship was that which was only spiritual; and while since childhood she had seen Sunday by Sunday the Great Rood overhead, she had never paid it any but artistic attention. The men had the ropes round it now, and it was swaying violently to and fro; and then, even as the children watched, a tie had given, and the great cross with its pathetic wide-armed figure had toppled forward towards the nave, and then crashed down on the pavement. A fanatic ran out and furiously kicked the thorn-crowned head twice, splintering the hair and the features, and cried out on it as an idol; and yet Isabel, with all her tenderness, felt nothing more than a vague regret that a piece of carving so ancient and so delicate should be broken.

But when the work was over, and the crowd and Anthony with them had stamped out, directed by the justices, dragging the figures and the old vestments with them to the green, she had seen something which touched her heart much more. She passed up alone under the screen, which they had spared, to see what had been done in the chancel; and as she went she heard a sobbing from the corner near the priest’s door; and there, crouched forward on his face, crying and moaning quietly, was the old priest who had been rector of the church for nearly twenty years. He had somehow held on in Edward’s time in spite of difficulties; had thanked God and the Court of Heaven with a full heart for the accession of Mary; had prayed and deprecated the divine wrath at the return of the Protestant religion with Elizabeth; but yet had somehow managed to keep the old faith alight for eight years more, sometimes evading, sometimes resisting, and sometimes conforming to the march of events, in hopes of better days. But now the blow had fallen, and the old man, too ill-instructed to hear the accents of new truth in the shouting of that noisy crowd and the crash of his images, was on his knees before the altar where he had daily offered the holy sacrifice through all those troublous years, faithful to what he believed to be God’s truth, now bewailing and moaning the horrors of that day, and, it is to be feared, unchristianly calling down the vengeance of God upon his faithless flock. This shocked and touched Isabel far more than the destruction of the images; and she went forward timidly and said something; but the old man turned on her a face of such misery and anger that she had run straight out of the church, and joined Anthony as he danced on the green.

On the following Sunday the old priest was not there, and a fervent young minister from London had taken his place, and preached a stirring sermon on the life and times of Josiah; and Isabel had thanked God on her knees after the sermon for that He had once more vindicated His awful Name and cleansed His House for a pure worship.

But the very centre of Isabel’s religion was the love of the Saviour. The Puritans of those early days were very far from holding a negative or colourless faith. Not only was their belief delicately dogmatic to excess; but it all centred round the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Isabel had drunk in this faith from her father’s lips, and from devotional books which he gave her, as far back as she could remember anything. Her love for the Saviour was even romantic and passionate. It seemed to her that He was as much a part of her life, and of her actual experience, as Anthony or her father. Certain places in the lanes about, and certain spots in the garden, were sacred and fragrant to her because her Lord had met her there. It was indeed a trouble to her sometimes that she loved Anthony so much; and to her mind it was a less worthy kind of love altogether; it was kindled and quickened by such little external details, by the sight of his boyish hand brown with the sun, and scarred by small sporting accidents, such as the stroke of his bird’s beak or talons, or by the very outline of the pillow where his curly head had rested only an hour or two ago. Whereas her love for Christ was a deep and solemn passion that seemed to well not out of His comeliness or even His marred Face or pierced Hands, but out of His wide encompassing love that sustained and clasped her at every moment of her conscious attention to Him, and that woke her soul to ecstasy at moments of high communion. These two loves, then, one so earthly, one so heavenly, but both so sweet, every now and then seemed to her to be in slight conflict in her heart. And lately a third seemed to be rising up out of the plane of sober and quiet affections such as she felt for her father, and still further complicating the apparently encountering claims of love to God and man.

Isabel grew quieter in a few minutes and lay still, following Anthony with her imagination along the lane that led to the London road, and then presently she heard her father calling, and went to the door to listen.

“Isabel,” he said, “come down. Hubert is in the hall.”

She called out that she would be down in a moment; and then going across to her own room she washed her face and came downstairs. There was a tall, pleasant-faced lad of about her own age standing near the open door that led into the garden; and he came forward nervously as she entered.

“I came back last night, Mistress Isabel,” he said, “and heard that Anthony was going this morning: but I am afraid I am too late.”

She told him that Anthony had just gone.

“Yes,” he said, “I came to say good-bye; but I came by the orchard, and so we missed one another.”

Isabel asked a word or two about his visit to the North, and they talked for a few minutes about a rumour that Hubert had heard of a rising on behalf of Mary: but Hubert was shy and constrained, and Isabel was still a little tremulous. At last he said he must be going, and then suddenly remembered a message from his mother.

“Ah!” he said, “I was forgetting. My mother wants you to come up this evening, if you have time. Father is away, and my aunt is unwell and is upstairs.”

Isabel promised she would come.

“Father is at Chichester,” went on Hubert, “before the Commission, but we do not expect him back till to-morrow.”

A shadow passed across Isabel’s face. “I am sorry,” she said.

The fact was that Sir Nicholas had again been summoned for recusancy. It was an expensive matter to refuse to attend church, and Sir Nicholas probably paid not less than £200 or £300 a year for the privilege of worshipping as his conscience bade.

In the evening Isabel asked her father’s leave to be absent after supper, and then drawing on her hood, walked across in the dusk to the Hall. Hubert was waiting for her at the boundary door between the two properties.

“Father has come back,” he said, “but my mother wants you still.” They went on together, passed round the cloister wing to the south of the house: the bell turret over the inner hall and the crowded roofs stood up against the stars, as they came up the curving flight of shallow steps from the garden to the tall doorway that led into the hall.

It was a pleasant, wide, high room, panelled with fresh oak, and hung with a little old tapestry here and there, and a few portraits. A staircase rose out of it to the upper story. It had a fret-ceiling, with flower-de-luce and rose pendants, and on the walls between the tapestries hung a few antlers and pieces of armour, morions and breast-plates, with a pair of pikes or halberds here and there. A fire had been lighted in the great hearth as the evenings were chilly; and Sir Nicholas was standing before it, still in his riding-dress, pouring out resentment and fury to his wife, who sat in a tall chair at her embroidery. She turned silently and held out a hand to Isabel, who came and stood beside her, while Hubert went and sat down near his father. Sir Nicholas scarcely seemed to notice their entrance, beyond glancing up for a moment under his fierce white eyebrows; but went on growling out his wrath. He was a fine rosy man, with grey moustache and pointed beard, and a thick head of hair, and he held in his hand his flat riding cap, and his whip with which from time to time he cut at his boot.

“It was monstrous, I told the fellow, that a man should be haled from his home like this to pay a price for his conscience. The religion of my father and his father and all our fathers was good enough for me; and why in God’s name should the Catholic have to pay who had never changed his faith, while every heretic went free? And then to that some stripling of a clerk told me that a religion that was good enough for the Queen’s Grace should be good enough for her loyal subjects too; but my Lord silenced him quickly. And then I went at them again; and all my Lord would do was to nod his head and smile at me as if I were a child; and then he told me that it was a special Commission all for my sake, and Sir Arthur’s, who was there too, my dear.... Well, well, the end was that I had to pay for their cursed religion.”

“Sweetheart, sweetheart,” said Lady Maxwell, glancing at Isabel.

“Well, I paid,” went on Sir Nicholas, “but I showed them, thank God, what I was: for as we came out, Sir Arthur and I together, what should we see but another party coming in, pursuivant and all; and in the mid of them that priest who was with us last July.—Well, well, we’ll leave his name alone—him that said he was a priest before them all in September; and I went down on my knees, thank God, and Sir Arthur went down on his, and we asked his blessing before them all, and he gave it us: and oh! my Lord was red and white with passion.”

“That was not wise, sweetheart,” said Lady Maxwell tranquilly, “the priest will have suffered for it afterwards.”

“Well, well,” grumbled Sir Nicholas, “a man cannot always think, but we showed them that Catholics were not ashamed of their religion—yes, and we got the blessing too.”

“Well, but here is supper waiting,” said my lady, “and Isabel, too, whom you have not spoken to yet.”

Sir Nicholas paid no attention.

“Ah! but that was not all,” he went on, savagely striking his boot again, “at the end of all who should I see but that—that—damned rogue—whom God reward!”—and he turned and spat into the fire—”Topcliffe. There he was, bowing to my Lord and the Commissioners. When I think of that man,” he said, “when I think of that man—” and Sir Nicholas’ kindly old passionate face grew pale and lowering with fury, and his eyebrows bent themselves forward, and his lower lip pushed itself out, and his hand closed tremblingly on his whip.

His wife laid down her embroidery and came to him.

“There, sweetheart,” she said, taking his cap and whip. “Now sit down and have supper, and leave that man to God.”

Sir Nicholas grew quiet again; and after a saying a word or two of apology to Isabel, left the room to wash before he sat down to supper.

“Mistress Isabel does not know who Topcliffe is,” said Hubert.

“Hush, my son,” said his mother, “your father does not like his name to be spoken.”

Presently Sir Nicholas returned, and sat down to supper. Gradually his good nature returned, and he told them what he had seen in Chichester, and the talk he had heard. How it was reported to his lordship the Bishop that the old religion was still the religion of the people’s hearts—how, for example, at Lindfield they had all the images and the altar furniture hidden underground, and at Battle, too; and that the mass could be set up again at a few hours’ notice: and that the chalices had not been melted down into communion cups according to the orders issued, and so on. And that at West Grinsted, moreover, the Blessed Sacrament was there still—praise God—yes, and was going to remain there. He spoke freely before Isabel, and yet he remembered his courtesy too, and did not abuse the new-fangled religion, as he thought it, in her presence; or seek in any way to trouble her mind. If ever in an excess of anger he was carried away in his talk, his wife would always check him gently; and he would always respond and apologise to Isabel if he had transgressed good manners. In fact, he was just a fiery old man who could not change his religion even at the bidding of his monarch, and could not understand how what was right twenty years ago was wrong now.

Isabel herself listened with patience and tenderness, and awe too; because she loved and honoured this old man in spite of the darkness in which he still walked. He also told them in lower tones of a rumour that was persistent at Chichester that the Duke of Norfolk had been imprisoned by the Queen’s orders, and was to be charged with treason; and that he was at present at Burnham, in Mr. Wentworth’s house, under the guard of Sir Henry Neville. If this was true, as indeed it turned out to be later, it was another blow to the Catholic cause in England; but Sir Nicholas was of a sanguine mind, and pooh-poohed the whole affair even while he related it.

And so the evening passed in talk. When Sir Nicholas had finished supper, they all went upstairs to my lady’s withdrawing-room on the first floor. This was always a strange and beautiful room to Isabel. It was panelled like the room below, but was more delicately furnished, and a tall harp stood near the window to which my lady sang sometimes in a sweet tremulous old voice, while Sir Nicholas nodded at the fire. Isabel, too, had had some lessons here from the old lady; but even this mild vanity troubled her puritan conscience a little sometimes. Then the room, too, had curious and attractive things in it. A high niche in the oak over the fireplace held a slender image of Mary and her Holy Child, and from the Child’s fingers hung a pair of beads. Isabel had a strange sense sometimes as if this holy couple had taken refuge in that niche when they were driven from the church; but it seemed to her in her steadier moods that this was a superstitious fancy, and had the nature of sin.

This evening the old lady went to her harp, while Isabel sat down near her in the wide window seat and looked out over the dark lawn, where the white dial glimmered like a phantom, and thought of Anthony again. Sir Nicholas went and stretched himself before the fire, and closed his eyes, for he was old, and tired with his long ride; and Hubert sat down in a dark corner near him whence he could watch Isabel. After a few rippling chords my lady began to sing a song by Sir Thomas Wyatt, whom she and Sir Nicholas had known in their youth; and which she had caused to be set to music by some foreign chapel master. It was a sorrowful little song, with the title, “He seeketh comfort in patience,” and possibly she chose it on purpose for this evening.

“Patience! for I have wrong,

And dare not shew wherein;

Patience shall be my song;

Since truth can nothing win.

Patience then for this fit;

Hereafter comes not yet.”

While she sang, she thought no doubt of the foolish brave courtier who lacked patience in spite of his singing, and lost his head for it; her voice shook once or twice: and old Sir Nicholas shook his drowsy head when she had finished, and said “God rest him,” and then fell fast asleep.

Then he presently awoke as the others talked in whispers, and joined in too: and they talked of Anthony, and what he would find at Cambridge; and of Alderman Marrett, and his house off Cheapside, where Anthony would lie that night; and of such small and tranquil topics, and left fiercer questions alone. And so the evening came to an end; and Isabel said good-night, and went downstairs with Hubert, and out into the garden again.

“I am sorry that Sir Nicholas has been so troubled,” she said to Hubert, as they turned the corner of the house together. “Why cannot we leave one another alone, and each worship God as we think fit?”

Hubert smiled in the darkness to himself.

“I am afraid Queen Mary did not think it could be done, either,” he said. “But then, Mistress Isabel,” he went on, “I am glad that you feel that religion should not divide people.”

“Surely not,” she said, “so long as they love God.”

“Then you think—” began Hubert, and then stopped. Isabel turned to him.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Nothing,” said Hubert.

They had reached the door in the boundary wall by now, and Isabel would not let him come further with her and bade him good-night. But Hubert still stood, with his hand on the door, and watched the white figure fade into the dusk, and listened to the faint rustle of her skirt over the dry leaves; and then, when he heard at last the door of the Dower House open and close, he sighed to himself and went home.

Isabel heard her father call from his room as she passed through the hall; and went in to him as he sat at his table in his furred gown, with his books about him, to bid him good-night and receive his blessing. He lifted his hand for a moment to finish the sentence he was writing, and she stood watching the quill move and pause and move again over the paper, in the candlelight, until he laid the pen down, and rose and stood with his back to the fire, smiling down at her. He was a tall, slender man, surprisingly upright for his age, with a delicate, bearded, scholar’s face; the little plain ruff round his neck helped to emphasise the fine sensitiveness of his features; and the hands which he stretched out to his daughter were thin and veined.

“Well, my daughter,” he said, looking down at her with his kindly grey eyes so like her own, and holding her hands.

“Have you had a good evening, sir?” she asked.

He nodded briskly.

“And you, child?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling up at him.

“And was Sir Nicholas there?”

She told him what had passed, and how Sir Nicholas had been fined again for his recusancy; and how Lady Maxwell had sung one of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s songs.

“And was no one else there?” he asked.

“Yes, father, Hubert.”

“Ah! And did Hubert come home with you?”

“Only as far as the gate, father. I would not let him come further.”

Her father said nothing, but still looked steadily down into her eyes for a moment, and then turned and looked away from her into the fire.

“You must take care,” he said gently. “Remember he is a Papist, born and bred; and that he has a heart to be broken too.”

She felt herself steadily flushing; and as he turned again towards her, dropped her eyes.

“You will be prudent and tender, I know,” he added. “I trust you wholly, Isabel.”

Then he kissed her on the forehead and laid his hand on her head, and looked up, as the Puritan manner was.

“May the God of grace bless you, my daughter; and make you faithful to the end.” And then he looked into her eyes again, smiled and nodded; and she went out, leaving him standing there.

Mr. Norris had begun to fear that the boy loved Isabel, but as yet he did not know whether Isabel understood it or even was aware of it. The marriage difficulties of Catholics and Protestants were scarcely yet existing; and certainly there was no formulated rule of dealing with them. Changes of religion were so frequent in those days that difficulties, when they did arise, easily adjusted themselves. It was considered, for example, by politicians quite possible at one time that the Duke of Anjou should conform to the Church of England for the sake of marrying the Queen: or that he should attend public services with her, and at the same time have mass and the sacraments in his own private chapel. Or again, it was open to question whether England as a whole would not return to the old religion, and Catholicism be the only tolerated faith.

But to really religious minds such solutions would not do. It would have been an intolerable thought to this sincere Puritan, with all his tolerance, that his daughter should marry a Catholic; such an arrangement would mean either that she was indifferent to vital religion, or that she was married to a man whose creed she was bound to abhor and anathematise: and however willing Mr. Norris might be to meet Papists on terms of social friendliness, and however much he might respect their personal characters, yet the thought that the life of any one dear to him should be irretrievably bound up with all that the Catholic creed involved, was simply an impossible one.

Besides all this he had no great opinion of Hubert. He thought he detected in him a carelessness and want of principle that would make him hesitate to trust his daughter to him, even if the insuperable barrier of religion were surmounted. Mr. Norris liked a man to be consistent and zealous for his creed, even if that creed were dark and superstitious—and this zeal seemed to him lamentably lacking in Hubert. More than once he had heard the boy speak of his father with an air of easy indulgence, that his own opinion interpreted as contempt.

“I believe my father thinks,” he had once said, “that every penny he pays in fines goes to swell the accidental glory of God.”

And Hubert had been considerably startled and distressed when the elder man had told him to hold his tongue unless he could speak respectfully of one to whom he owed nothing but love and honour. This had happened, however, more than a year ago; and Hubert had forgotten it, no doubt, even if Mr. Norris had not.

And as for Isabel.

It is exceedingly difficult to say quite what place Hubert occupied in her mind. She certainly did not know herself much more than that she liked the boy to be near her; to hear his footsteps coming along the path from the Hall. This morning when her father had called up to her that Hubert was come, it was not so hard to dry her tears for Anthony’s departure. The clouds had parted a little when she came and found this tall lad smiling shyly at her in the hall. As she had sat in the window seat, too, during Lady Maxwell’s singing, she was far from unconscious that Hubert’s face was looking at her from the dark corner. And as they walked back together her simplicity was not quite so transparent as the boy himself thought.

Again when her father had begun to speak of him just now, although she was able to meet his eyes steadily and smilingly, yet it was just an effort. She had not mentioned Hubert herself, until her father had named him; and in fact it is probably safe to say that during Hubert’s visit to the north, which had lasted three or four months, he had made greater progress towards his goal, and had begun to loom larger than ever in the heart of this serene grey-eyed girl, whom he longed for so irresistibly.

And now, as Isabel sat on her bed before kneeling to say her prayers. Hubert was in her mind even more than Anthony. She tried to wonder what her father meant, and yet only too well she knew that she knew. She had forgotten to look into Anthony’s room where she had cried so bitterly this morning, and now she sat wide-eyed, and self-questioning as to whether her heavenly love were as lucid and single as it had been; and when at last she went down on her knees she entreated the King of Love to bless not only her father, and her brother Anthony who lay under the Alderman’s roof in far-away London; but Sir Nicholas and Lady Maxwell, and Mistress Margaret Hallam, and—and—Hubert—and James Maxwell, his brother; and to bring them out of the darkness of Papistry into the glorious liberty of the children of the Gospel.

CHAPTER III

LONDON TOWN

Isabel’s visit to London, which had been arranged to take place the Christmas after Anthony’s departure to Cambridge, was full of bewildering experiences to her. Mr. Norris from time to time had references to look up in London, and divines to consult as to difficult points in his book on the Eucharist; and this was a favourable opportunity to see Mr. Dering, the St. Paul’s lecturer; so the two took the opportunity, and with a couple of servants drove up to the City one day early in December to the house of Alderman Marrett, the wool merchant, and a friend of Mr. Norris’ father; and for several days both before and after Anthony’s arrival from Cambridge went every afternoon to see the sights. The maze of narrow streets of high black and white houses with their iron-work signs, leaning forward as if to whisper to one another, leaving strips of sky overhead; the strange play of lights and shades after nightfall; the fantastic groups; the incessant roar and rumble of the crowded alleys—all the commonplace life of London was like an enchanted picture to her, opening a glimpse into an existence of which she had known nothing.

To live, too, in the whirl of news that poured in day after day borne by splashed riders and panting horses;—this was very different to the slow round of country life, with rumours and tales floating in, mellowed by doubt and lapse of time, like pensive echoes from another world. For example, morning by morning, as she came downstairs to dinner, there was the ruddy-faced Alderman with his fresh budget of news of the north;—Lords Northumberland and Westmoreland with a Catholic force of several thousands, among which were two cousins of Mrs. Marrett herself—and the old lady nodded her head dolorously in corroboration—had marched southwards under the Banner of the Five Wounds, and tramped through Durham City welcomed by hundreds of the citizens; the Cathedral had been entered, old Richard Norton with the banner leading; the new Communion table had been cast out of doors, the English Bible and Prayer-book torn to shreds, the old altar reverently carried in from the rubbish heap, the tapers rekindled, and amid hysterical enthusiasm Mass had been said once more in the old sanctuary.

Then they had moved south; Lord Sussex was powerless in York; the Queen, terrified and irresolute, alternately storming and crying; Spain was about to send ships to Hartlepool to help the rebels; Mary Stuart would certainly be rescued from her prison at Tutbury. Then Mary had been moved to Coventry; then came a last flare of frightening tales: York had fallen; Mary had escaped; Elizabeth was preparing to flee.

And then one morning the Alderman’s face was brighter: it was all a lie, he said. The revolt had crumbled away; my Lord Sussex was impregnably fortified in York with guns from Hull; Lord Pembroke was gathering forces at Windsor; Lords Clinton, Hereford and Warwick were converging towards York to relieve the siege. And as if to show Isabel it was not a mere romance, she could see the actual train-bands go by up Cheapside with the gleam of steel caps and pike-heads, and the mighty tramp of disciplined feet, and the welcoming roar of the swarming crowds.

Then as men’s hearts grew lighter the tale of chastisement began to be told, and was not finished till long after Isabel was home again. Green after green of the windy northern villages was made hideous by the hanging bodies of the natives, and children hid their faces and ran by lest they should see what her Grace had done to their father.

In spite of the Holy Sacrifice, and the piteous banner, and the call to fight for the faith, the Catholics had hung back and hesitated, and the catastrophe was complete.

The religion of London, too, was a revelation to this country girl. She went one Sunday to St. Paul’s Cathedral, pausing with her father before they went in to see the new restorations and the truncated steeple struck by lightning eight years before, which in spite of the Queen’s angry urging the citizens had never been able to replace.

There was a good congregation at the early morning prayer; and the organs and the singing were to Isabel as the harps and choirs of heaven. The canticles were sung to Shephard’s setting by the men and children of St. Paul’s all in surplices: and the dignitaries wore besides their grey fur almuces, which had not yet been abolished. The grace and dignity of the whole service, though to older people who remembered the unreformed worship a bare and miserable affair, and to Mr. Norris, with his sincere simplicity and spirituality, a somewhat elaborate and sensuous mode of honouring God, yet to Isabel was a first glimpse of what the mystery of worship meant. The dim towering arches, through which the dusty richly-stained sunbeams poured, the far-away murmurous melodies that floated down from the glimmering choir, the high thin pealing organ, all combined to give her a sense of the unfathomable depths of the Divine Majesty—an element that was lacking in the clear-cut personal Puritan creed, in spite of the tender associations that made it fragrant for her, and the love of the Saviour that enlightened and warmed it. The sight of the crowds outside, too, in the frosty sunlight, gathered round the grey stone pulpit on the north-east of the Cathedral, and streaming down every alley and lane, the packed galleries, the gesticulating black figure of the preacher—this impressed on her an idea of the power of corporate religion, that hours at her own prayer-desk, or solitary twilight walks under the Hall pines, or the uneventful divisions of the Rector’s village sermons, had failed to give.

It was this Sunday in London that awakened her quiet soul from the lonely companionship of God, to the knowledge of that vast spiritual world of men of which she was but one tiny cell. Her father observed her quietly and interestedly as they went home together, but said nothing beyond an indifferent word or two. He was beginning to realise the serious reality of her spiritual life, and to dread anything that would even approximate to coming between her soul and her Saviour. The father and daughter understood one another, and were content to be silent together.

Her talks with Mrs. Marrett, too, left their traces on her mind. The Alderman’s wife, for the first time in her life, found her views and reminiscences listened to as if they were oracles, and she needed little encouragement to pour them out in profusion. She was especially generous with her tales of portents and warnings; and the girl was more than once considerably alarmed by what she heard while the ladies were alone in the dim firelit parlour on the winter afternoons before the candles were brought in.

“When you were a little child, my dear,” began the old lady one day, “there was a great burning made everywhere of all the popish images and vestments; all but the copes and the altar-cloths that they made into dresses for the ministers’ new wives, and bed-quilts to cover them; and there were books and banners and sepulchres and even relics. I went out to see the burning at Paul’s, and though I knew it was proper that the old papistry should go, yet I was uneasy at the way it was done.

“Well,” went on the old lady, glancing about her, “I was sitting in this very room only a few days after, and the air began to grow dark and heavy, and all became still. There had been two or three cocks crowing and answering one another down by the river, and others at a distance; and they all ceased: and there had been birds chirping in the roof, and they ceased. And it grew so dark that I laid down my needle and went to the window, and there at the end of the street over the houses there was coming a great cloud, with wings like a hawk, I thought; but some said afterwards that, when they saw it, it had fingers like a man’s hand, and others said it was like a great tower, with battlements. However that may be, it grew nearer and larger, and it was blue and dark like that curtain there; and there was no wind to stir it, for the windows had ceased rattling, and the dust was quiet in the streets; and still it came on quickly, growing as it came; and then there came a far-away sound, like a heavy waggon, or, some said, like a deep voice complaining. And I turned away from the window afraid; and there was the cat, that had been on a chair, down in the corner, with her back up, staring at the cloud: and then she began to run round the room like a mad thing, and presently whisked out of the door when I opened it. And I went to find Mr. Marrett, and he had not come in, and all the yard was quiet. I could only hear a horse stamp once or twice in the stable. And then as I saw calling out for some one to come, the storm broke, and the sky was all one dark cloud from side to side. For three hours it went on, rolling and clapping, and the lightning came in through the window that I had darkened and through the clothes over my head; for I had gone to my bed and rolled myself round under the clothes. And so it went on—and, my dear—” and Mrs. Marrett put her head close to Isabel’s—”I prayed to our Lady and the saints, which I had not done since I was married; and asked them to pray God to keep me safe. And then at the end came a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning more fearful than all that had gone before; and at that very moment, so Mr. Marrett told me when he came in, two of the doors in St. Denys’ Church in Fanshawe Street were broken in pieces by something that crushed them in, and the stone steeple of Allhallow Church in Bread Street was broken off short, and a part of it killed a dog that was beneath, and overthrew a man that played with the dog.”

Isabel could hardly restrain a shiver and a glance round the dark old room, so awful were Mrs. Marrett’s face and gestures and loud whispering tone, as she told this.

“Ah! but, my dear,” she went on, “there was worse happened to poor King Hal, God rest him—him who began to reform the Church, as they say, and destroyed the monasteries. All the money that he left for masses for his soul was carried off with the rest at the change of religion; and that was bad enough, but this is worse. This is a tale, my dear, that I have heard my father tell many a time; and I was a young woman myself when it happened. The King’s Grace was threatened by a friar, I think of Greenwich, that if he laid hands on the monasteries he should be as Ahab whose blood was licked by dogs in the very place which he took from a man. Well, the friar was hanged for his pains, and the King lived. And then at last he died, and was put in a great coffin, and carried through London; and they put the coffin in an open space in Sion Abbey, which the King had taken. And in the night there came one to view the coffin, and to see that all was well. And he came round the corner, and there stood the great coffin—(for his Grace was a great stout man, my dear)—on trestles in the moonlight, and beneath it a great black dog that lapped something: and the dog turned as the man came, and some say, but not my father, that the dog’s eyes were red as coals, and that his mouth and nostrils smoked, and that he cast no shadow; but (however that may be) the dog turned and looked and then ran; and the man followed him into a yard, but when he reached there, there was no dog. And the man went back to the coffin afraid; and he found the coffin was burst open, and—and—”

Mrs. Marrett stopped abruptly. Isabel was white and trembling.

“There, there, my dear. I am a foolish old woman; and I’ll tell you no more.”

Isabel was really terrified, and entreated Mrs. Marrett to tell her something pleasant to make her forget these horrors; and so she told her old tales of her youth, and the sights of the city, and the great doings in Mary’s reign; and so the time passed pleasantly till the gentlemen came home.

At other times she told her of Elizabeth and the great nobles, and Isabel’s heart beat high at it, and at the promise that before she left she herself should see the Queen, even if she had to go to Greenwich or Nonsuch for it.

“God bless her,” said Mrs. Marrett loyally, “she’s a woman like ourselves for all her majesty. And she likes the show and the music too, like us all. I declare when I see them all a-going down the water to Greenwich, or to the Tower for a bear-baiting, with the horns blowing and the guns firing and the banners and the barges and the music, I declare sometimes I think that heaven itself can be no better, God forgive me! Ah! but I wish her Grace ‘d take a husband; there are many that want her; and then we could laugh at them all. There’s so many against her Grace now who’d be for her if she had a son of her own. There’s Duke Charles whose picture hangs in her bedroom, they say; and Lord Robert Dudley—there’s a handsome spark, my dear, in his gay coat and his feathers and his ruff, and his hand on his hip, and his horse and all. I wish she’d take him and have done with it. And then we’d hear no more of the nasty Spaniards. There’s Don de Silva, for all the world like a monkey with his brown face and mincing ways and his grand clothes. I declare when Captain Hawkins came home, just four years ago last Michaelmas, and came up to London with his men, all laughing and rolling along with the people cheering them, I could have kissed the man—to think how he had made the brown men dance and curse and show their white teeth! and to think that the Don had to ask him to dinner, and grin and chatter as if nought had happened.”

And Mrs. Marrett’s good-humoured face broke into mirth at the thought of the Ambassador’s impotence and duplicity.

Anthony’s arrival in London a few days before Christmas removed the one obstacle to Isabel’s satisfaction—that he was not there to share it with her. The two went about together most of the day under their father’s care, when he was not busy at his book, and saw all that was to be seen.

One afternoon as they were just leaving the courtyard of the Tower, which they had been visiting with a special order, a slight reddish-haired man, who came suddenly out of a doorway of the White Tower, stopped a moment irresolutely, and then came towards them, bare-headed and bowing. He had sloping shoulders and a serious-looking mouth, with a reddish beard and moustache, and had an air of strangely mingled submissiveness and capability. His voice too, as he spoke, was at once deferential and decided.

“I ask your pardon, Mr. Norris,” he said. “Perhaps you do not remember me.”

“I have seen you before,” said the other, puzzled for a moment.

“Yes, sir,” said the man, “down at Great Keynes; I was in service at the Hall, sir.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Norris, “I remember you perfectly. Lackington, is it not?”

The man bowed again.

“I left about eight years ago, sir; and by the blessing of God, have gained a little post under the Government. But I wished to tell you, sir, that I have been happily led to change my religion. I was a Papist, sir, you know.”

Mr. Norris congratulated him.

“I thank you, sir,” said Lackington.

The two children were looking at him; and he turned to them and bowed again.

“Mistress Isabel and Master Anthony, sir, is it not?”

“I remember you,” said Isabel a little shyly, “at least, I think so.”

Lackington bowed again as if gratified; and turned to their father.

“If you are leaving, Mr. Norris, would you allow me to walk with you a few steps? I have much I would like to ask you of my old master and mistress.”

The four passed out together; the two children in front; and as they went Lackington asked most eagerly after the household at the Hall, and especially after Mr. James, for whom he seemed to have a special affection.

“It is rumoured,” said Mr. Norris, “that he is going abroad.”

“Indeed, sir,” said the servant, with a look of great interest, “I had heard it too, sir; but did not know whether to believe it.”

Lackington also gave many messages of affection to others of the household, to Piers the bailiff, and a couple of the foresters: and finished by entreating Mr. Norris to use him as he would, telling him how anxious he was to be of service to his friends, and asking to be entrusted with any little errands or commissions in London that the country gentleman might wish performed.

“I shall count it, sir, a privilege,” said the servant, “and you shall find me prompt and discreet.”

One curious incident took place just as Lackington was taking his leave at the turning down into Wharf Street; a man hurrying eastwards almost ran against them, and seemed on the point of apologising, but his face changed suddenly, and he spat furiously on the ground, mumbling something, and hurried on. Lackington seemed to see nothing.

“Why did he do that?” interrupted Mr. Norris, astonished.

“I ask your pardon, sir?” said Lackington interrogatively.

“That fellow! did you not see him spit at me?”

“I did not observe it, sir,” said the servant; and presently took his leave.

“Why did that man spit at you, father?” asked Isabel, when they had come indoors.

“I cannot think, my dear; I have never seen him in my life.”

“I think Lackington knew,” said Anthony, with a shrewd air.

“Lackington! Why, Lackington did not even see him.”

“That was just it,” said Anthony.

Anthony’s talk about Cambridge during these first evenings in London was fascinating to Isabel, if not to their father, too. It concerned of course himself and his immediate friends, and dealt with such subjects as cock-fighting a good deal; but he spoke also of the public disputations and the theological champions who crowed and pecked, not unlike cocks themselves, while the theatre rang with applause and hooting. The sport was one of the most popular at the universities at this time. But above all his tales of the Queen’s visit a few years before attracted the girl, for was she not to see the Queen with her own eyes?

“Oh! father,” said the lad, “I would I had been there five years ago when she came. Master Taylor told me of it. They acted the Aulularia, you know, in King’s Chapel on the Sunday evening. Master Taylor took a part, I forget what; and he told me how she laughed and clapped. And then there was a great disputation before her, one day, in St. Mary’s Church, and the doctors argued, I forget what about, but Master Taylor says that of course the Genevans had the best of it; and the Queen spoke, too, in Latin, though she did not wish to, but my lord of Ely persuaded her to it; so you see she could not have learned it by heart, as some said. And she said she would give some great gift to the University; but Master Taylor says they are still waiting for it; but it must come soon, you see, because it is the Queen’s Grace who has promised it; but Master Taylor says he hopes she has forgotten it, but he laughs when I ask him what he means, and says it again.”

“Who is this Master Taylor?” asked his father.

“Oh! he is a Fellow of King’s,” said Anthony, “and he told me about the Provost too. The Provost is half a Papist, they say: he is very old now, and he has buried all the vessels and the vestments of the Chapel, they say, somewhere where no one knows; and he hopes the old religion will come back again some day; and then he will dig them up. But that is Papistry, and no one wants that at Cambridge. And others say that he is a Papist altogether, and has a priest in his house sometimes. But I do not think he can be a Papist, because he was there when the Queen was there, bowing and smiling, says Master Taylor; and looking on the Queen so earnestly, as if he worshipped her, says Master Taylor, all the time the Chancellor was talking to her before they went into the chapel for the Te Deum. But they wished they had kept some of the things, like the Provost, says Master Taylor, because they were much put to it when her Grace came down for stuffs to cover the communion-tables and for surplices, for Cecil said she would be displeased if all was bare and poor. Is it true, father,” asked Anthony, breaking off, “that the Queen likes popish things, and has a crucifix and tapers on the table in her chapel?”

“Ah! my son,” said Mr. Norris, smiling, “you must ask one who knows. And what else happened?”

“Well,” said Anthony, “the best is to come. They had plays, you know, the Dido, and one called Ezechias, before the Queen. Oh! and she sent for one of the boys, they say, and—and kissed him, they say; but I think that cannot be true.”

“Well, my son, go on!”

“Oh! and some of them thought they would have one more play before she went; but she had to go a long journey and left Cambridge before they could do it, and they went after her to—to Audley End, I think, where she was to sleep, and a room was made ready, and when all was prepared, though her Grace was tired, she came in to see the play. Master Taylor was not there; he said he would rather not act in that one; but he had the story from one who acted, but no one knew, he said, who wrote the play. Well, when the Queen’s Grace was seated, the actors came on, dressed, father, dressed”—and Anthony’s eyes began to shine with amusement—”as the Catholic Bishops in the Tower. There was Bonner in his popish vestments—some they had from St. Benet’s—with a staff and his tall mitre, and a lamb in his arms; and he stared at it and gnashed his teeth at it as he tramped in; and then came the others, all like bishops, all in mass-vestments or cloth cut to look like them; and then at the end came a dog that belonged to one of them, well-trained, with the Popish Host in his mouth, made large and white, so that all could see what it was. Well, they thought the Queen would laugh as she was a Protestant, but no one laughed; some one said something in the room, and a lady cried out; and then the Queen stood up and scolded the actors, and trounced them well with her tongue, she did, and said she was displeased; and then out she went with all her ladies and gentlemen after her, except one or two servants who put out the lights at once without waiting, and broke Bonner’s staff, and took away the Host, and kicked the dog, and told them to be off, for the Queen’s Grace was angered with them; and so they had to get back to Cambridge in the dark as well as they might.”

“Oh! the poor boys!” said Mrs. Marrett, “and they did it all to please her Grace, too.”

“Yes,” said the Alderman, “but the Queen thought it enough, I dare say, to put the Bishops in prison, without allowing boys to make a mock of them and their faith before her.”

“Yes,” said Anthony, “I thought that was it.”

When the Alderman came in a day or two later with the news that Elizabeth was to come up from Nonsuch the next day, and to pass down Cheapside on her way to Greenwich, the excitement of Isabel and Anthony was indescribable.

Cheapside was joyous to see, as the two, with their father behind them talking to a minister whose acquaintance he had made, sat at a first-floor window soon after mid-day, waiting to see the Queen go by. Many of the people had hung carpets or tapestries, some of taffetas and cloth-of-gold, out of their balconies and windows, and the very signs themselves,—fantastic ironwork, with here and there a grotesque beast rampant, or a bright painting, or an escutcheon;—with the gay, good-tempered crowds beneath and the strip of frosty blue sky, crossed by streamers from side to side, shining above the towering eaves and gables of the houses, all combined to make a scene so astonishing that it seemed scarcely real to these country children.

It was yet some time before she was expected; but there came a sudden stir from the upper end of Cheapside, and then a burst of cheering and laughter and hoots. Anthony leaned out to see what was coming, but could make out nothing beyond the head of a horse, and a man driving it from the seat of a cart, coming slowly down the centre of the road. The laughter and noise grew louder as the crowds swayed this way and that to make room. Presently it was seen that behind the cart a little space was kept, and Anthony made out the grey head of a man at the tail of the cart, and the face of another a little way behind; then at last, as the cart jolted past, the two children saw a man stripped to the waist, his hands tied before him to the cart, his back one red wound; while a hangman walked behind whirling his thonged whip about his head and bringing it down now and again on the old man’s back. At each lash the prisoner shrank away, and turned his piteous face, drawn with pain, from side to side, while the crowd yelled and laughed.

“What’s it for, what’s it for?” inquired Anthony, eager and interested.

A boy leaning from the next window answered him.

“He said Jesus Christ was not in heaven.”

At that moment a humorist near the cart began to cry out:

“Way for the King’s Grace! Way for the King’s Grace!” and the crowd took the idea instantly: a few men walking with the cart formed lines like gentlemen ushers, uncovering their heads and all crying out the same words; and one eager player tried to walk backwards until he was tripped up. And so the dismal pageant of this red-robed king of anguish went by; and the hoots and shouts of his heralds died away. Anthony turned to Isabel, exultant and interested.

“Why, Isabel,” he said, “you look all white. What is it? You know he’s a blasphemer.”

“I know, I know,” said Isabel.

Then suddenly, far away, came the sound of trumpets, and gusts of distant cheering, like the sound of the wind in thick foliage. Anthony leaned out again, and an excited murmur broke out once more, as all faces turned westwards. A moment more, and Anthony caught a flash of colour from the corner near St. Paul’s Churchyard; then the shrill trumpets sounded nearer, and the cheering broke out at the end, and ran down the street like a wave of noise. From every window faces leaned out; even on the roofs and between the high chimney pots were swaying figures.

Masses of colour now began to emerge, with the glitter of steel, round the bend of the street, where the winter sunshine fell; and the crowds began to surge back, and against the houses. At first Anthony could make out little but two moving rippling lines of light, coming parallel, pressing the people back; and it was not until they had come opposite the window that he could make out the steel caps and pikeheads of men in half-armour, who, marching two and two with a space between them, led the procession and kept the crowds back. There they went, with immovable disciplined faces, grounding their pike-butts sharply now and again, caring nothing for the yelp of pain that sometimes followed. Immediately behind them came the aldermen in scarlet, on black horses that tossed their jingling heads as they walked. Anthony watched the solemn faces of the old gentlemen with a good deal of awe, and presently made out his friend, Mr. Marrett, who rode near the end, but who was too much engrossed in the management of his horse to notice the two children who cried out to him and waved. The serjeants-of-arms followed, and then two lines again of gentlemen-pensioners walking, bare-headed, carrying wands, in short cloaks and elaborate ruffs. But the lad saw little of them, for the splendour of the lords and knights that followed eclipsed them altogether. The knights came first, in steel armour with raised vizors, the horses too in armour, moving sedately with a splendid clash of steel, and twinkling fiercely in the sunshine; and then, after them (and Anthony drew his breath swiftly) came a blaze of colour and jewels as the great lords in their cloaks and feathered caps, metal-clasped and gemmed, came on their splendid long-maned horses; the crowd yelled and cheered, and great names were tossed to and fro, as the owners passed on, each talking to his fellow as if unconscious of the tumult and even of the presence of these shouting thousands. The cry of the trumpets rang out again high and shattering, as the trumpeters and heralds in rich coat-armour came next; and Anthony looked a moment, fascinated by the lions and lilies, and the brightness of the eloquent horns, before he turned his head to see the Lord Mayor himself, mounted on a great stately white horse, that needed no management, while his rider bore on a cushion the sceptre. Ah! she was coming near now. The two saw nothing of the next rider who carried aloft the glittering Sword of State, for their eyes were fixed on the six plumed heads of the horses, with grooms and footmen in cassock-coats and venetian hose, and the great gilt open carriage behind that swayed and jolted over the cobbles. She was here; she was here; and the loyal crowds yelled and surged to and fro, and cloths and handkerchiefs flapped and waved, and caps tossed up and down, as at last the great creaking carriage came under the window.

This is what they saw in it.

A figure of extraordinary dignity, sitting upright and stiff like a pagan idol, dressed in a magnificent and fantastic purple robe, with a great double ruff, like a huge collar, behind her head; a long taper waist, voluminous skirts spread all over the cushions, embroidered with curious figures and creatures. Over her shoulders, but opened in front so as to show the ropes of pearls and the blaze of jewels on the stomacher, was a purple velvet mantle lined with ermine, with pearls sewn into it here and there. Set far back on her head, over a pile of reddish-yellow hair drawn tightly back from the forehead, was a hat with curled brims, elaborately embroidered, with the jewelled outline of a little crown in front, and a high feather topping all.

And her face—a long oval, pale and transparent in complexion, with a sharp chin, and a high forehead; high arched eyebrows, auburn, but a little darker than her hair; her mouth was small, rising at the corners, with thin curved lips tightly shut; and her eyes, which were clear in colour, looked incessantly about her with great liveliness and good-humour.

There was something overpowering to these two children who looked, too awed to cheer, in this formidable figure in the barbaric dress, the gorgeous climax of a gorgeous pageant. Apart from the physical splendour, this solitary glittering creature represented so much—it was the incarnate genius of the laughing, brutal, wanton English nation, that sat here in the gilded carriage and smiled and glanced with tight lips and clear eyes. She was like some emblematic giant, moving in a processional car, as fantastic as itself, dominant and serene above the heads of the maddened crowds, on to some mysterious destiny. A sovereign, however personally inglorious, has such a dignity in some measure; and Elizabeth added to this an exceptional majesty of her own. Henry would not have been ashamed for this daughter of his. What wonder then that these crowds were delirious with love and loyalty and an exultant fear, as this overwhelming personality went by:—this pale-faced tranquil virgin Queen, passionate, wanton, outspoken and absolutely fearless; with a sufficient reserve of will to be fickle without weakness; and sufficient grasp of her aims to be indifferent to her policy; untouched by vital religion; financially shrewd; inordinately vain. And when this strange dominant creature, royal by character as by birth, as strong as her father and as wanton as her mother, sat in ermine and velvet and pearls in a royal carriage, with shrewd-faced wits, and bright-eyed lovers, and solemn statesmen, and great nobles, vacuous and gallant, glittering and jingling before her; and troops of tall ladies in ruff and crimson mantle riding on white horses behind; and when the fanfares went shattering down the street, vibrating through the continuous roar of the crowd and the shrill cries of children and the mellow thunder of church-bells rocking overhead, and the endless tramp of a thousand feet below; and when the whole was framed in this fantastic twisted street, blazing with tapestries and arched with gables and banners, all bathed in glory by the clear frosty sunshine—it is little wonder that for a few minutes at least this country boy felt that here at last was the incarnation of his dreams; and that his heart should exult, with an enthusiasm he could not interpret, for the cause of a people who could produce such a queen, and of a queen who could rule such a people; and that his imagination should be fired with a sudden sense that these were causes for which the sacrifice of a life would be counted cheap, if they might thereby be furthered.

Yet, in this very moment, by one of those mysterious suggestions that rise from the depth of a soul, the image sprang into his mind, and poised itself there for an instant, of the grey-haired man who had passed half an hour ago, sobbing and shrinking at the cart’s tail.

CHAPTER IV

MARY CORBET

The spring that followed the visit to London passed uneventfully at Great Keynes to all outward appearances; and yet for Isabel they were significant months. In spite of herself and of the word of warning from her father, her relations with Hubert continued to draw closer. For one thing, he had been the first to awaken in her the consciousness that she was lovable in herself, and the mirror that first tells that to a soul always has something of the glow of the discovery resting upon it.

Then again his deference and his chivalrous air had a strange charm. When Isabel rode out alone with Anthony, she often had to catch the swinging gate as he rode through after opening it, and do such little things for herself; but when Hubert was with them there was nothing of that kind.

And, once more, he appealed to her pity; and this was the most subtle element of all. There was no doubt that Hubert’s relations with his fiery old father became strained sometimes, and it was extraordinarily sweet to Isabel to be made a confidant. And yet Hubert never went beyond a certain point; his wooing was very skilful: and he seemed to be conscious of her uneasiness almost before she was conscious of it herself, and to relapse in a moment into frank and brotherly relations again.

He came in one night after supper, flushed and bright-eyed, and found her alone in the hall: and broke out immediately, striding up and down as she sat and watched him.

“I cannot bear it; there is Mr. Bailey who has been with us all Lent; he is always interfering in my affairs. And he has no charity. I know I am a Catholic and that; but when he and my father talk against the Protestants, Mistress Isabel, I cannot bear it. They were abusing the Queen to-night—at least,” he added, for he had no intention to exaggerate, “they were saying she was a true daughter of her father; and sneers of that kind. And I am an Englishman, and her subject; and I said so; and Mr. Bailey snapped out, ‘And you are also a Catholic, my son,’ and then—and then I lost my temper, and said that the Catholic religion seemed no better than any other for the good it did people; and that the Rector and Mr. Norris seemed to me as good men as any one; and of course I meant him and he knew it; and then he told me, before the servants, that I was speaking against the faith; and then I said I would sooner speak against the faith than against good Christians; and then he flamed up scarlet, and I saw I had touched him; and then my father got scarlet too, and my mother looked at me, and my father told me to leave the table for an insolent puppy; and I knocked over my chair and stamped out—and oh! Mistress Isabel, I came straight here.”

And he flung down astride of a chair with his arms on the back, and dropped his head on to them.

It would have been difficult for Hubert, even if he had been very clever indeed, to have made any speech which would have touched Isabel more than this. There was the subtle suggestion that he had defended the Protestants for her sake; and there was the open defence of her father, and defiance of the priests whom she feared and distrusted; there was a warm generosity and frankness running through it all; and lastly, there was the sweet flattering implication that he had come to her to be understood and quieted and comforted.

Then, when she tried to show her disapproval of his quick temper, and had succeeded in showing a poorly disguised sympathy instead, he had flung away again, saying that she had brought him to his senses as usual, and that he would ask the priest’s pardon for his insolence at once; and Isabel was left standing and looking at the fire, fearing that she was being wooed, and yet not certain, though she loved it. And then, too, there was the secret hope that it might be through her that he might escape from his superstitions, and—and then—and she closed her eyes and bit her lip for joy and terror.

She did not know that a few weeks later Hubert had an interview with his father, of which she was the occasion. Lady Maxwell had gone to her husband after a good deal of thought and anxiety, and told him what she feared; asking him to say a word to Hubert. Sir Nicholas had been startled and furious. It was all the lad’s conceit, he said; he had no real heart at all; he only flattered his vanity in making love; he had no love for his parents or his faith, and so on. She took his old hand in her own and held it while she spoke.

“Sweetheart,” she said, “how old were you when you used to come riding to Overfield? I forget.” And there came peace into his angry, puzzled old eyes, and a gleam of humour.

“Mistress,” he said, “you have not forgotten.” For he had been just eighteen, too. And he took her face in his hands delicately, and kissed her on the lips.

“Well, well,” he said, “it is hard on the boy; but it must not go on. Send him to me. Oh! I will be easy with him.”

But the interview was not as simple as he hoped; for Hubert was irritable and shamefaced; and spoke lightly of the Religion again.

“After all,” he burst out, “there are plenty of good men who have left the faith. It brings nothing but misery.”

Sir Nicholas’ hands began to shake, and his fingers to clench themselves; but he remembered the lad was in love.

“My son,” he said, “you do not know what you say.”

“I know well enough,” said Hubert, with his foot tapping sharply. “I say that the Catholic religion is a religion of misery and death everywhere. Look at the Low Countries, sir.”

“I cannot speak of that,” said his father; and his son sneered visibly; “you and I are but laymen; but this I know, and have a right to say, that to threaten me like that is the act of a—is not worthy of my son. My dear boy,” he said, coming nearer, “you are angry; and, God forgive me! so am I; but I promised your mother,” and again he broke off, “and we cannot go on with this now. Come again this evening.”

Hubert stood turned away, with his head against the high oak mantelpiece; and there was silence.

“Father,” he said at last, turning round, “I ask your pardon.”

Sir Nicholas stepped nearer, his eyes suddenly bright with tears, and his mouth twitching, and held out his hand, which Hubert took.

“And I was a coward to speak like that—but, but—I will try,” went on the boy. “And I promise to say nothing to her yet, at any rate. Will that do? And I will go away for a while.”

The father threw his arms round him.

As the summer drew on and began to fill the gardens and meadows with wealth, the little Italian garden to the south-west of the Hall was where my lady spent most of the day. Here she would cause chairs to be brought out for Mistress Margaret and herself, and a small selection of devotional books, an orange leather volume powdered all over with pierced hearts, filled with extracts in a clear brown ink, another book called Le Chappellet de Jésus, while from her girdle beside her pocket-mirror there always hung an olive-coloured “Hours of the Blessed Virgin,” fastened by a long strip of leather prolonged from the binding. Here the two old sisters would sit, in the shadow of the yew hedge, taking it by turns to read and embroider, or talking a little now and then in quiet voices, with long silences broken only by the hum of insects in the hot air, or the quick flight of a bird in the tall trees behind the hedge.

Here too Isabel often came, also bringing her embroidery; and sat and talked and watched the wrinkled tranquil faces of the two old ladies, and envied their peace. Hubert had gone, as he had promised his father, on a long visit, and was not expected home until at least the autumn.

“James will be here to-morrow,” said Lady Maxwell, suddenly, one hot afternoon. Isabel looked up in surprise; he had not been at home for so long; but the thought of his coming was very pleasant to her.

“And Mary Corbet, too,” went on the old lady, “will be here to-morrow or the day after.”

Isabel asked who this was.

“She is one of the Queen’s ladies, my dear; and a great talker.”

“She is very amusing sometimes,” said Mistress Margaret’s clear little voice.

“And Mr. James will be here to-morrow?” said Isabel.

“Yes, my child. They always suit one another; and we have known Mary for years.”

“And is Miss Corbet a Catholic?”

“Yes, my dear; her Grace seems to like them about her.”

When Isabel went up again to the Hall in the evening, a couple of days later, she found Mr. James sitting with his mother and aunt in the same part of the garden. Mr. James, who rose as she came through the yew archway, and stood waiting to greet her, was a tall, pleasant, brown-faced man. Isabel noticed as she came up his strong friendly face, that had something of Hubert’s look in it, and felt an immediate sense of relief from her timidity at meeting this man, whose name, it was said, was beginning to be known among the poets, and about whom the still more formidable fact was being repeated, that he was a rising man at Court and had attracted the Queen’s favour.

As they sat down again together, she noticed, too, his strong delicate hand in its snowy ruff, for he was always perfectly dressed, as it lay on his knee; and again thought of Hubert’s browner and squarer hand.

“We were talking, Mistress Isabel, about the play, and the new theatres. I was at the Blackfriars’ only last week. Ah! and I met Buxton there,” he went on, turning to his mother.

“Dear Henry,” said Lady Maxwell. “He told me when I last saw him that he could never go to London again; his religion was too expensive, he said.”

Mr. James’ white teeth glimmered in a smile.

“He told me he was going to prison next time, instead of paying the fine. It would be cheaper, he thought.”

“I hear her Grace loves the play,” said Mistress Margaret.

“Indeed she does. I saw her at Whitehall the other day, when the children of the Chapel Royal were acting; she clapped and called out with delight. But Mistress Corbet can tell you more than I can—Ah! here she is.”

Isabel looked up, and saw a wonderful figure coming briskly along the terrace and down the steps that led from the house. Miss Corbet was dressed with what she herself would have said was a milkmaid’s plainness; but Isabel looked in astonishment at the elaborate ruff and wings of muslin and lace, the shining peacock gown, the high-piled coils of black hair, and the twinkling buckled feet. She had a lively bright face, a little pale, with a high forehead, and black arched brows and dancing eyes, and a little scarlet mouth that twitched humorously now and then after speaking. She rustled up, flicking her handkerchief, and exclaiming against the heat. Isabel was presented to her; she sat down on a settle Mr. James drew forward for her, with the handkerchief still whisking at the flies.

“I am ashamed to come out like this,” she began. “Mistress Plesse would break her heart at my lace. You country ladies have far more sense. I am the slave of my habits. What were you talking of, that you look so gravely at me?”

Mr. James told her.

“Oh, her Grace!” said Miss Corbet. “Indeed, I think sometimes she is never off the stage herself. Ah! and what art and passion she shows too!”

“We are all loyal subjects here,” said Mr. James; “tell us what you mean.”

“I mean what I say,” she said. “Never was there one who loved play-acting more and to occupy the centre of the stage, too. And the throne too, if there be one,” she added.

Miss Corbet talked always at her audience; she hardly ever looked directly at any one, but up or down, or even shut her eyes and tilted her face forward while she talked; and all the while she kept an incessant movement of her lips or handkerchief, or tapped her foot, or shifted her position a little. Isabel thought she had never seen any one so restless.

Then she went on to tell them of the Queen. She was so startlingly frank that Lady Maxwell again and again looked up as if to interrupt; but she always came off the thin ice in time. It was abominable gossip; but she talked with such a genial air of loyal good humour, that it was very difficult to find fault. Miss Corbet was plainly accustomed to act as Court Circular, or even as lecturer and show-woman on the most popular subject in England.

“But her Grace surpassed herself in acting the tyrant last January; you would have sworn her really angry. This was how it fell out. I was in the anteroom one day, waiting for her Grace, when I thought I heard her call. So I tapped; I got no clear answer, but I heard her voice within, so I entered. And there was her Majesty, sitting a little apart in a chair by herself, with the Secretary—poor rat—white-faced at the table, writing what she bade him, and looking at her, quick and side-ways, like a child at a lifted rod; and there was her Grace: she had kicked her stool over, and one shoe had fallen; and she was striking the arm of her chair as she spoke, and her rings rapped as loud as a drunken watchman. And her face was all white, and her eyes glaring”—and Mary began to glare and raise her voice too—”and she was crying out, ‘By God’s Son, sir, I will have them hanged. Tell the——’ (but I dare not say what she called my Lord Sussex, but few would have recognised him from what she said)—’tell him that I will have my will done. These—’ (and she called the rebels a name I dare not tell you)—’these men have risen against me these two months; and yet they are not hanged. Hang them in their own villages, that their children may see what treason brings.’ All this while I was standing at the open door, thinking she had called me; but she was as if she saw nought but the gallows and hell-fire beyond; and I spoke softly to her, asking what she wished; and she sprang up and ran at me, and struck me—yes; again and again across the face with her open hand, rings and all—and I ran out in tears. Yes,” went on Miss Corbet in a moment, dropping her voice, and pensively looking up at nothing, “yes; you would have said she was really angry, so quick and natural were her movements and so loud her voice.”

Mr. James’ face wrinkled up silently in amusement; and Lady Maxwell seemed on the point of speaking; but Miss Corbet began again:

“And to see her Grace act the lover. It was a miracle. You would have said that our Artemis repented of her coldness; if you had not known it was but play-acting; or let us say perhaps a rehearsal—if you had seen what I once saw at Nonsuch. It was on a summer evening; and we were all on the bowling green, and her Grace was within doors, not to be disturbed. My Lord Leicester was to come, but we thought had not arrived. Then I had occasion to go to my room to get a little book I had promised to show to Caroline; and, thinking no harm, I ran through into the court, and there stood a horse, his legs apart, all steaming and blowing. Some courier, said I to myself, and never thought to look at the trappings; and so I ran upstairs to go to the gallery, across which lay my chamber; and I came up, and just began to push open the door, when I heard her Grace’s voice beyond, and, by the mercy of God, I stopped; and dared not close the door again nor go downstairs for fear I should be heard. And there were two walking within the gallery, her Grace and my lord, and my lord was all disordered with hard riding, and nearly as spent as his poor beast below. And her Grace had her arm round his neck, for I saw them through the chink; and she fondled and pinched his ear, and said over and over again, ‘Robin, my sweet Robin,’ and then crooned and moaned at him; and he, whenever he could fetch a breath—and oh! I promise you he did blow—murmured back, calling her his queen, which indeed she was, and his sweetheart and his moon and his star—which she was not: but ‘twas all in the play. Well, again by the favour of God, they did not see how the door was open and I couched behind it, for the sun was shining level through the west window in their eyes; but why they did not hear me as I ran upstairs and opened the door, He only knows—unless my lord was too sorely out of breath and her Grace too intent upon her play-acting. Well, I promise you, the acting was so good—he so spent and she so tender—that I nearly cried out Brava as I saw them; but that I remembered in time ‘twas meant to be a private rehearsal. But I have seen her Grace act near as passionate a part before the whole company sometimes.”

The two old ladies seemed not greatly pleased with all this talk; and as for Isabel she sat silent and overwhelmed. Mary Corbet glanced quickly at their faces when she had done, and turned a little in her seat.

“Ah! look at that peacock,” she cried out, as a stately bird stepped delicately out of the shrubbery on to the low wall a little way off, and stood balancing himself. “He is loyal too, and has come to hear news of his Queen.”

“He has come to see his cousin from town,” said Mr. James, looking at Miss Corbet’s glowing dress, “and to learn of the London fashions.”

Mary got up and curtseyed to the astonished bird, who looked at her with his head lowered, as he took a high step or two, and then paused again, with his burnished breast swaying a little from side to side.

“He invites you to a dance,” went on Mr. James gravely, “a pavane.”

Miss Corbet sat down again.

“I dare not dance a pavane,” she said, “with a real peacock.”

“Surely,” said Mr. James, with a courtier’s air, “you are too pitiful for him, and too pitiless for us.”

“I dare not,” she said again, “for he never ceases to practise.”

“In hopes,” said Mr. James, “that one day you will dance it with him.”

And then the two went off into the splendid fantastic nonsense that the wits loved to talk; that grotesque, exaggerated phrasing made fashionable by Lyly. It was like a kind of impromptu sword-exercise in an assault of arms, where the rhythm and the flash and the graceful turns are of more importance than the actual thrusts received. The two old ladies embroidered on in silence, but their eyes twinkled, and little wrinkles flickered about the corners of their lips. But poor Isabel sat bewildered. It was so elaborate, so empty; she had almost said, so wicked to take the solemn gift of speech and make it dance this wild fandango; and as absurdity climbed and capered in a shower of sparks and gleams on the shoulders of absurdity, and was itself surmounted; and the names of heathen gods and nymphs and demi-gods and loose-living classical women whisked across the stage, and were tossed higher and higher, until the whole mad erection blazed up and went out in a shower of stars and gems of allusions and phrases, like a flight of rockets, bright and bewildering at the moment, but leaving a barren darkness and dazzled eyes behind—the poor little Puritan country child almost cried with perplexity and annoyance. If the two talkers had looked at one another and burst into laughter at the end, she would have understood it to be a joke, though, to her mind, but a poor one. But when they had ended, and Mary Corbet had risen and then swept down to the ground in a great silent curtsey, and Mr. James, the grave, sensible gentleman, had solemnly bowed with his hand on his heart, and his heels together like a Monsieur, and then she had rustled off in her peacock dress to the house, with her muslin wings bulging behind her; and no one had laughed or reproved or explained; it was almost too much, and she looked across to Lady Maxwell with an appeal in her eyes.

Mr. James saw it and his face relaxed.

“You must not take us too seriously, Mistress Isabel,” he said in his kindly way. “It is all part of the game.”

“The game?” she said piteously.

“Yes,” said Mistress Margaret, intent on her embroidery, “the game of playing at kings and queens and courtiers and ruffs and high-stepping.”

Mr. James’ face again broke into his silent laugh.

“You are acid, dear aunt,” he said.

“But——” began Isabel again.

“But it is wrong, you think,” he interrupted, “to talk such nonsense. Well, Mistress Isabel, I am not sure you are not right.” And the dancing light in his eyes went out.

“No, no, no,” she cried, distressed. “I did not mean that. Only I did not understand.”

“I know, I know; and please God you never will.” And he looked at her with such a tender gravity that her eyes fell.

“Isabel is right,” went on Mistress Margaret, in her singularly sweet old voice; “and you know it, my nephew. It is very well as a pastime, but some folks make it their business; and that is nothing less than fooling with the gifts of the good God.”

“Well, aunt Margaret,” said James softly, “I shall not have much more of it. You need not fear for me.”

Lady Maxwell looked quickly at her son for a moment, and down again. He made an almost imperceptible movement with his head, Mistress Margaret looked across at him with her tender eyes beaming love and sorrow; and there fell a little eloquent silence; while Isabel glanced shyly from one to the other, and wondered what it was all about.

Miss Mary Corbet stayed a few weeks, as the custom was when travelling meant so much; but Isabel was scarcely nearer understanding her. She accepted her, as simple clean souls so often have to accept riddles in this world, as a mystery that no doubt had a significance, though she could not recognise it. So she did not exactly dislike or distrust her, but regarded her silently out of her own candid soul, as one would say a small fearless bird in a nest must regard the man who thrusts his strange hot face into her green pleasant world, and tries to make endearing sounds. For Isabel was very fascinating to Mary Corbet. She had scarcely ever before been thrown so close to any one so serenely pure. She would come down to the Dower House again and again at all hours of the day, rustling along in her silk, and seize upon Isabel in the little upstairs parlour, or her bedroom, and question her minutely about her ways and ideas; and she would look at her silently for a minute or two together; and then suddenly laugh and kiss her—Isabel’s transparency was almost as great a riddle to her as her own obscurity to Isabel. And sometimes she would throw herself on Isabel’s bed, and lie there with her arms behind her head, to the deplorable ruin of her ruff; with her buckled feet twitching and tapping; and go on and on talking like a running stream in the sun that runs for the sheer glitter and tinkle of it, and accomplishes nothing. But she was more respectful to Isabel’s simplicity than at first, and avoided dangerous edges and treacherous ground in a manner that surprised herself, telling her of the pageants at Court and fair exterior of it all, and little about the poisonous conversations and jests and the corrupt souls that engaged in them.

She was immensely interested in Isabel’s religion.

“Tell me, child,” she said one day, “I cannot understand such a religion. It is not like the Protestant religion at Court at all. All that the Protestants do there is to hear sermons—it is all so dismal and noisy. But here, with you, you have a proper soul. It seems to me that you are like a little herb-garden, very prim and plain, but living and wholesome and pleasant to walk in at sunset. And these Protestants that I know are more like a paved court at noon—all hot and hard and glaring. They give me the headache. Tell me all about it.”

Of course Isabel could not, though she tried again and again. Her definitions were as barren as any others.

“I see,” said Mary Corbet one day, sitting up straight and looking at Isabel. “It is not your religion but you; your religion is as dull as all the rest. But your soul is sweet, my dear, and the wilderness blossoms where you set your feet. There is nothing to blush about. It’s no credit to you, but to God.”

Isabel hated this sort of thing. It seemed to her as if her soul was being dragged out of a cool thicket from the green shadow and the flowers, and set, stripped, in the high road.

Another time Miss Corbet spoke yet more plainly.

“You are a Catholic at heart, my dear; or you would be if you knew what the Religion was. But your father, good man, has never understood it himself; and so you don’t know it either. What you think about us, my dear, is as much like the truth as—as—I am like a saint, or you like a sinner. I’ll be bound now that you think us all idolaters!”

Isabel had to confess that she did think something of the sort.

“There, now, what did I say? Why haven’t either of those two old nuns at the Hall taught you any better?”

“They—they don’t talk to me about religion.”

“Ah! I see; or the Puritan father would withdraw his lamb from the wolves. But if they are wolves, my dear, you must confess that they have the decency to wear sheep’s clothing, and that the disguise is excellent.”

And so it gradually came about that Isabel began to learn an immense deal about what the Catholics really believed—far more than she had ever learnt in all her life before from the ladies at the Hall, who were unwilling to teach her, and her father, who was unable.

About half-way through Miss Corbet’s visit, Anthony came home. At first he pronounced against her inexorably, dismissing her as nonsense, and as a fine lady—terms to him interchangeable. Then his condemnation began to falter, then ceased; then acquittal, and at last commendation succeeded. For Miss Corbet asked his advice about the dogs, and how to get that wonderful gloss on their coats that his had; and she asked his help, too, once or twice and praised his skill, and once asked to feel his muscle.

And then she was so gallant in ways that appealed to him. She was not in the least afraid of Eliza. She kissed that ferocious head in spite of the glare of that steady yellow eye; and yet all with an air of trusting to Anthony’s protection. She tore her silk stocking across the instep in a bramble and scratched her foot, without even drawing attention to it, as she followed him along one of his short cuts through the copse; and it was only by chance that he saw it. And then this gallant girl, so simple and ignorant as she seemed out of doors, was like a splendid queen indoors, and was able to hold her own, or rather to soar above all these elders who were so apt to look over Anthony’s head on grave occasions; and they all had to listen while she talked. In fact, the first time he saw her at the Hall in all her splendour, he could hardly realise it was the same girl, till she laughed up at him, and nodded, and said how much she had enjoyed the afternoon’s stroll, and how much she would have to tell when she got back to Court. In short, so incessant were her poses and so skilful her manner and tone, and so foolish this poor boy, that in a very few days, after he had pronounced her to be nonsense, Anthony was at her feet, hopelessly fascinated by the combination of the glitter and friendliness of this fine Court lady. To do her justice, she would have behaved exactly the same to a statue, or even to nothing at all, as a peacock dances and postures and vibrates his plumes to a kitten; and had no more deliberate intention of giving pain to anybody than a nightshade has of poisoning a silly sheep.

The sublime conceit of a boy of fifteen made him of course think that she had detected in him a nobility that others overlooked, and so Anthony began a gorgeous course of day-dreaming, in which he moved as a kind of king, worshipped and reverenced by this splendid creature, who after a disillusionment from the empty vanities of a Court life and a Queen’s favour, found at last the lord of her heart in a simple manly young countryman. These dreams, however, he had the grace and modesty to keep wholly to himself.

Mary came down one day and found the two in the garden together.

“Come, my child,” she said, “and you too, Master Anthony, if you can spare time to escort us; and take me to the church. I want to see it.”

“The church!” said Isabel, “that is locked: we must go to the Rectory.”

“Locked!” exclaimed Mary, “and is that part of the blessed Reformation? Well, come, at any rate.”

They all went across to the village and down the green towards the Rectory, whose garden adjoined the churchyard on the south side of the church. Anthony walked with something of an air in front of the two ladies. Isabel told her as they went about the Rector and his views. Mary nodded and smiled and seemed to understand.

“We will tap at the window,” said Anthony, “it is the quickest way.”

They came up towards the study window that looked on to the drive; when Anthony, who was in front, suddenly recoiled and then laughed.

“They are at it again,” he said.

The next moment Mary was looking through the window too. The Rector was sitting in his chair opposite, a small dark, clean-shaven man, but his face was set with a look of distressed determination, and his lower lip was sucked in; his eyes were fixed firmly on a tall, slender woman whose back was turned to the window and who seemed to be declaiming, with outstretched hand. The Rector suddenly saw the faces at the window.

“We seem to be interrupting,” said Mary coolly, as she turned away.

CHAPTER V

A RIDER FROM LONDON

“We will walk on, Master Anthony,” said Mistress Corbet. “Will you bring the keys when the Rector and his lady have done?”

She spoke with a vehement bitterness that made Isabel look at her in amazement, as the two walked on by the private path to the churchyard gate. Mary’s face was set in a kind of fury, and she went forward with her chin thrust disdainfully out, biting her lip. Isabel said nothing.

As they reached the gate they heard steps behind them; and turning saw the minister and Anthony hastening together. Mr. Dent was in his cassock and gown and square cap, and carried the keys. His little scholarly face, with a sharp curved nose like a beak, and dark eyes set rather too close together, was not unlike a bird’s; and a way he had of sudden sharp movements of his head increased the likeness. Mary looked at him with scarcely veiled contempt. He glanced at her sharply and uneasily.

“Mistress Mary Corbet?” he said, interrogatively.

Mary bowed to him.

“May we see the church, sir; your church, I should say perhaps; that is, if we are not disturbing you.”

Mr. Dent made a polite inclination, and opened the gate for them to go through. Then Mary changed her tactics; and a genial, good-humoured look came over her face; but Isabel, who glanced at her now and again as they went round to the porch at the west-end, still felt uneasy.

As the Rector was unlocking the porch door, Mary surveyed him with a pleased smile.

“Why, you look quite like a priest,” she said. “Do your bishops, or whatever you call them, allow that dress? I thought you had done away with it all.”

Mr. Dent looked at her, but seeing nothing but geniality and interest in her face, explained elaborately in the porch that he was a Catholic priest, practically; though the word minister was more commonly used; and that it was the old Church still, only cleansed from superstitions. Mary shook her head at him cheerfully, smiling like a happy, puzzled child.

“It is all too difficult for me,” she said. “It cannot be the same Church, or why should we poor Catholics be so much abused and persecuted? Besides, what of the Pope?”

Mr. Dent explained that the Pope was one of the superstitions in question.

“Ah! I see you are too sharp for me,” said Mary, beaming at him.

Then they entered the church; and Mary began immediately on a running comment.

“How sad that little niche looks,” she said. “I suppose Our Lady is in pieces somewhere on a dunghill. Surely, father—I beg your pardon, Mr. Dent—it cannot be the same religion if you have knocked Our Lady to pieces. But then I suppose you would say that she was a superstition, too. And where is the old altar? Is that broken, too? And is that a superstition, too? What a number there must have been! And the holy water, too, I see. But that looks a very nice table up there you have instead. Ah! And I see you read the new prayers from a new desk outside the screen, and not from the priest’s stall. Was that a superstition too? And the mass vestments? Has your wife had any of them made up to be useful? The stoles are no good, I fear; but you could make charming stomachers out of the chasubles.”

They were walking slowly up the centre aisle now. Mr. Dent had to explain that the vestments had been burnt on the green.

“Ah! yes; I see,” she said, “and do you wear a surplice, or do you not like them? I see the chancel roof is all broken—were there angels there once? I suppose so. But how strange to break them all! Unless they are superstitions, too? I thought Protestants believed in them; but I see I was wrong. What do you believe in, Mr. Dent?” she asked, turning large, bright, perplexed eyes upon him for a moment: but she gave him no time to answer.

“Ah!” she cried suddenly, and her voice rang with pain, “there is the altar-stone.” And she went down on her knees at the chancel entrance, bending down, it seemed, in an agony of devout sorrow and shame; and kissed with a gentle, lingering reverence the great slab with its five crosses, set in the ground at the destruction of the altar to show there was no sanctity attached to it.

She knelt there a moment or two, her lips moving, and her black eyes cast up at the great east window, cracked and flawed with stones and poles. The Puritan boy and girl looked at her with astonishment; they had not seen this side of her before.

When she rose from her knees, her eyes seemed bright with tears, and her voice was tender.

“Forgive me, Mr. Dent,” she said, with a kind of pathetic dignity, putting out a slender be-ringed hand to him, “but—but you know—for I think perhaps you have some sympathy for us poor Catholics—you know what all this means to me.”

She went up into the chancel and looked about her in silence.

“This was the piscina, Mistress Corbet,” said the Rector.

She nodded her head regretfully, as at some relic of a dead friend; but said nothing. They came out again presently, and turned through the old iron gates into what had been the Maxwell chapel. The centre was occupied by an altar-tomb with Sir Nicholas’ parents lying in black stone upon it. Old Sir James held his right gauntlet in his left hand, and with his right hand held the right hand of his wife, which was crossed over to meet it; and the two steady faces gazed upon the disfigured roof. The altar, where a weekly requiem had been said for them, was gone, and the footpace and piscina alone showed where it had stood.

“This was a chantry, of course?” said Mistress Corbet.

The Rector confessed that it had been so.

“Ah!” she said mournfully, “the altar is cast out and the priest gone; but—but—forgive me, sir, the money is here still? But then,” she added, “I suppose the money is not a superstition.”

When they reached the west entrance again she turned and looked up the aisle again.

“And the Rood!” she said. “Even Christ crucified is gone. Then, in God’s name what is left?” And her eyes turned fiercely for a moment on the Rector.

“At least courtesy and Christian kindness is left, madam,” he said sternly.

She dropped her eyes and went out; and Isabel and Anthony followed, startled and ashamed. But Mary had recovered herself as she came on to the head of the stone stairs, beside which the stump of the churchyard cross stood; standing there was the same tall, slender woman whose back they had seen through the window, and who now stood eyeing Mary with half-dropped lids. Her face was very white, with hard lines from nose to mouth, and thin, tightly compressed lips. Mary swept her with one look, and then passed on and down the steps, followed by Isabel and Anthony, as the Rector came out, locking the church door again behind him.

As they went up the green, a shrill thin voice began to scold from over the churchyard wall, and they heard the lower, determined voice of the minister answering.

“They are at it again,” said Anthony, once more.

“And what do you mean by that, Master Anthony?” said Mistress Corbet, who seemed herself again now.

“She is just a scold,” said the lad, “the village-folk hate her.”

“You seem not to love her,” said Mary, smiling.

“Oh! Mistress Corbet, do you know what she said—” and then he broke off, crimson-faced.

“She is no friend to Catholics, I suppose,” said Mary, seeming to notice nothing.

“She is always making mischief,” he went on eagerly. “The Rector would be well enough but for her. He is a good fellow, really.”

“There, there,” said Mary, “and you think me a scold, too, I daresay. Well, you know I cannot bear to see these old churches—well, perhaps I was—” and then she broke off again, and was silent.

The brother and sister presently turned back to the Dower House; and Mary went on, and through the Hall straight into the Italian garden where Mistress Margaret was sitting alone at her embroidery.

“My sister has been called away by the housekeeper,” she explained, “but she will be back presently.”

Mary sat down and took up the little tawny book that lay by Lady Maxwell’s chair, and began to turn it over idly while she talked. The old lady by her seemed to invite confidences.

“I have been to see the church,” said Mary. “The Rector showed it to me. What a beautiful place it must have been.”

“Ah!” said Mistress Margaret “I only came to live here a few years ago; so I have never known or loved it like my sister or her husband. They can hardly bear to enter it now. You know that Sir Nicholas’ father and grandfather are buried in the Maxwell chapel; and it was his father who gave the furniture of the sanctuary, and the images of Our Lady and Saint Christopher that they burned on the green.”

“It is terrible,” said Mary, a little absently, as she turned the pages of the book.

Mistress Margaret looked up.

“Ah! you have one of my books there,” she said. “It is a little collection I made.”

Miss Corbet turned to the beginning, but only found a seal with an inscription.

“But this belonged to a nunnery,” she said.

“Yes,” said Mistress Margaret, tranquilly, “and I am a nun.”

Mary looked at her in astonishment.

“But, but,” she began.

“Yes, Mistress Corbet; we were dispersed in ‘38; some entered the other nunneries; and some went to France; but, at last, under circumstances that I need not trouble you with, I came here under spiritual direction, and have observed my obligations ever since.”

“And have you always said your offices?” Mary asked astonished.

“Yes, my dear; by the mercy of God I have never failed yet. I tell you this of course because you are one of us, and because you have a faithful heart.” Mistress Margaret lifted her great eyes and looked at Mary tenderly and penetratingly.

“And this is one of your books?” she asked.

“Yes, my dear. I was allowed at least to take it away with me. My sister here is very fond of it.”

Mary opened it again, and began to turn the pages.

“Is it all in your handwriting, Mistress Torridon?”

“Yes, my child; I continued writing in it ever since I first entered religion in 1534; so you see the handwriting changes a little,” and she smiled to herself.

“Oh, but this is charming,” cried Mary, intent on the book.

“Read it, my dear, aloud.”

Mary read:

“Let me not rest, O Lord, nor have quiet,

But fill my soul with spiritual travail,

To sing and say, O mercy, Jesu sweet;

Thou my protection art in the battail.

Set thou aside all other apparail;

Let me in thee feel all my affiance.

Treasure of treasures, thou dost most avail.

Grant ere I die shrift, pardon, repentance.”

Her voice trembled a little and ceased.

“That is from some verses of Dan John Lydgate, I think,” said Mistress Margaret.

“Here is another,” said Mary in a moment or two.

“Jesu, at thy will, I pray that I may be,

All my heart fulfil with perfect love to thee:

That I have done ill, Jesu forgive thou me:

And suffer me never to spill, Jesu for thy pity.”

“The nuns of Hampole gave me that,” said Mistress Margaret. “It is by Richard Rolle, the hermit.”

“Tell me a little,” said Mary Corbet, suddenly laying down the book, “about the nunnery.”

“Oh, my dear, that is too much to ask; but how happy we were. All was so still; it used to seem sometimes as if earth were just a dream; and that we walked in Paradise. Sometimes in the Greater Silence, when we had spoken no word nor heard one except in God’s praise, it used to seem that if we could but be silent a little longer, and a little more deeply, in our hearts as well, we should hear them talking in heaven, and the harps; and the Saviour’s soft footsteps. But it was not always like that.”

“You mean,” said Mary softly, “that, that—” and she stopped.

“Oh, it was hard sometimes; but not often. God is so good. But He used to allow such trouble and darkness and noise to be in our hearts sometimes—at least in mine. But then of course I was always very wicked. But sitting in the nymph-hay sometimes on a day like this, as we were allowed to do; with just tall thin trees like poplars and cypresses round us: and the stream running through the long grass; and the birds, and the soft sky and the little breeze; and then peace in our hearts; and the love of the Saviour round us—it seemed, it seemed as if God had nothing more to give; or, I should say, as if our hearts had no more space.”

Mary was strangely subdued and quiet. Her little restless movements were still for once; and her quick, vivacious face was tranquil and a little awed.

“Oh, Mistress Margaret, I love to hear you talk like that. Tell me more.”

“Well, my dear, we thought too much about ourselves, I think; and too little about God and His poor children who were not so happy as we were; so then the troubles began; and they got nearer and nearer; and at last the Visitor came. He—he was my brother, my dear, which made it harder; but he made a good end. I will tell you his story another time. He took away our great crucifix and our jewelled cope that old Mr. Wickham used to wear on the Great Festivals; and left us. He turned me out, too; and another who asked to go, but I went back for a while. And then, my dear, although we offered everything; our cows and our orchard and our hens, and all we had, you know how it ended; and one morning in May old Mr. Wickham said mass for us quite early, before the sun was risen, for the last time; and,—and he cried, my dear, at the elevation; and—and we were all crying too I think, and we all received communion together for the last time—and,—and, then we all went away, leaving just old Dame Agnes to keep the house until the Commissioner came. And oh, my dear, I don’t think the house ever looked so dear as it did that morning, just as the sun rose over the roofs, and we were passing out through the meadow door where we had sat so often, to where the horses were waiting to take us away.”

Miss Corbet’s own eyes were full of tears as the old lady finished: and she put out her white slender hand, which Mistress Torridon took and stroked for a moment.

“Well,” she said, “I haven’t talked like this for a long while; but I knew you would understand. My dear, I have watched you while you have been here this time.”

Mary Corbet smiled a little uneasily.

“And you have found me out?” she answered smiling.

“No, no; but I think our Saviour has found you out—or at least He is drawing very near.”

A slight discomfort made itself felt in Mary’s heart. This nun then was like all the rest, always trying to turn the whole world into monks and nuns by hints and pretended intuitions into the unseen.

“And you think I should be a nun too?” she asked, with just a shade of coolness in her tone.

“I should suppose not,” said Mistress Margaret, tranquilly. “You do not seem to have a vocation for that, but I should think that our Lord means you to serve Him where you are. Who knows what you may not accomplish?”

This was a little disconcerting to Mary Corbet; it was not at all what she had expected. She did not know what to say; and took up the leather book again and began to turn over the pages. Mistress Margaret went on serenely with her embroidery, which she had neglected during the last sentence or two; and there was silence.

“Tell me a little more about the nunnery,” said Mary in a minute or two, leaning back in her chair, with the book on her knees.

“Well, my dear, I scarcely know what to say. It is all far off now like a childhood. We talked very little; not at all until recreation; except by signs, and we used to spend a good deal of our time in embroidery. That is where I learnt this,” and she held out her work to Mary for a moment. It was an exquisite piece of needlework, representing a stag running open-mouthed through thickets of green twining branches that wrapped themselves about his horns and feet. Mary had never seen anything quite like it before.

“What does it mean?” she asked, looking at it curiously.

“Quemadmodum cervus,”—began Mistress Margaret; “as the hart brayeth after the waterbrooks,”—and she took the embroidery and began to go on with it.—”It is the soul, you see, desiring and fleeing to God, while the things of the world hold her back. Well, you see, it is difficult to talk about it; for it is the inner life that is the real history of a convent; the outer things are all plain and simple like all else.”

“Well,” said Mary, “is it really true that you were happy?”

The old lady stopped working a moment and looked up at her.

“My dear, there is no happiness in the world like it,” she said simply. “I dream sometimes that we are all back there together, and I wake crying for joy. The other night I dreamed that we were all in the chapel again, and that it was a spring morning, with the dawn beginning to show the painted windows, and that all the tapers were burning; and that mass was beginning. Not one stall was empty; not even old Dame Gertrude, who died when I was a novice, was lacking, and Mr. Wickham made us a sermon after the creed, and showed us the crucifix back in its place again; and told us that we were all good children, and that Our Lord had only sent us away to see if we would be patient; and that He was now pleased with us, and had let us come home again; and that we should never have to go away again; not even when we died; and then I understood that we were in heaven, and that it was all over; and I burst out into tears in my stall for happiness; and then I awoke and found myself in bed; but my cheeks were really wet.—Well, well, perhaps, by the mercy of God it may all come true some day.”

She spoke so simply that Mary Corbet was amazed; she had always fancied that the Religious Life was a bitter struggle, worth, indeed, living for those who could bear it, for the sake of the eternal reward; but it had scarcely even occurred to her that it was so full of joy in itself; and she looked up under her brows at the old lady, whose needle had stopped for a moment.

A moment after and Lady Maxwell appeared coming down the steps into the garden; and at her side Anthony, who was dressed ready for riding.

Old Mistress Margaret had, as she said, been watching Mary Corbet those last few weeks; and had determined to speak to her plainly. Her instinct had told her that beneath this flippancy and glitter there was something that would respond; and she was anxious to leave nothing undone by which Mary might be awakened to the inner world that was in such danger of extinction in her soul. It cost the old lady a great effort to break through her ordinary reserve, but she judged that Mary could only be reached on her human side, and that there were not many of her friends whose human sympathy would draw her in the right direction. It is strange, sometimes, to find that some silent old lady has a power for sounding human character, which far shrewder persons lack; and this quiet old nun, so ignorant, one would have said, of the world and of the motives from which ordinary people act, had managed somehow to touch springs in this girl’s heart that had never been reached before.

And now as Miss Corbet and Lady Maxwell talked, and Anthony lolled embarrassed beside them, attempting now and then to join in the conversation, Mistress Margaret, as she sat a little apart and worked away at the panting stag dreamed away, smiling quietly to herself, of all the old scenes that her own conversation had called up into clearer consciousness; of the pleasant little meadow of the Sussex priory, with the old apple-trees and the straight box-lined path called the nun’s walk from time immemorial; all lighted with the pleasant afternoon glow, as it streamed from the west, throwing the slender poplar shadows across the grass; and of the quiet chatter of the brook as it over-flowed from the fish ponds at the end of the field and ran through the meadows beyond the hedge. The cooing of the pigeons as they sunned themselves round the dial in the centre of this Italian garden and on the roof of the hall helped on her reminiscences, for there had been a dovecote at the priory. Where were all her sisters now, those who had sat with her in the same sombre habits in the garth, with the same sunshine in their hearts? Some she knew, and thanked God for it, were safe in glory; others were old like her, but still safe in Holy Religion in France where as yet there was peace and sanctuary for the servants of the Most High; one or two—and for these she lifted up her heart in petition as she sat—one or two had gone back to the world, relinquished everything, and died to grace. Then the old faces one by one passed before her; old Dame Agnes with her mumbling lips and her rosy cheeks like wrinkled apples, looking so fresh and wholesome in the white linen about her face; and then the others one by one—that white-faced, large-eyed sister who had shown such passionate devotion at first that they all thought that God was going to raise up a saint amongst them—ah! God help her—she had sunk back at the dissolution, from those heights of sanctity towards whose summits she had set her face, down into the muddy torrent of the world that went roaring down to the abyss—and who was responsible? There was Dame Avice, the Sacristan, with her businesslike movements going about the garden, gathering flowers for the altar, with her queer pursed lips as she arranged them in her hands with her head a little on one side; how annoying she used to be sometimes; but how good and tender at heart—God rest her soul! And there was Mr. Wickham, the old priest who had been their chaplain for so many years, and who lived in the village parsonage, waited upon by Tom Downe, that served at the altar too—he who had got the horses ready when the nuns had to go at last on that far-off May morning, and had stood there, holding the bridles and trying to hide his wet face behind the horses; where was Tom now? And Mr. Wickham too—he had gone to France with some of the nuns; but he had never settled down there—he couldn’t bear the French ways—and besides he had left his heart behind him buried in the little Sussex priory among the meadows.

And so the old lady sat, musing; while the light and shadow of reminiscence moved across her face; and her lips quivered or her eyes wrinkled up with humour, at the thought of all those old folks with their faces and their movements and their ways of doing and speaking. Ah! well, please God, some day her dream would really come true; and they shall all be gathered again from France and England with their broken hearts mended and their tears wiped away, and Mr. Wickham himself shall minister to them and make them sermons, and Tom Downe too shall be there to minister to him—all in one of the many mansions of which the Saviour spoke.

And so she heard nothing of the talk of the others; though her sister looked at her tenderly once or twice; and Mary Corbet chattered and twitched her buckles in the sun, and Anthony sat embarrassed in the midst of Paradise; and she knew nothing of where she was nor of what was happening round her, until Mary Corbet said that it was time for the horses to be round, and that she must go and get ready and not keep Mr. James and Mr. Anthony waiting. Then, as she and Anthony went towards the house, the old lady looked up from the braying stag and found herself alone with her sister.

Mistress Margaret waited until the other two disappeared up the steps, and then spoke.

“I have told her all, sister,” she said, “she can be trusted.”

Lady Maxwell nodded gently.

“She has a good heart,” went on the other, “and our Lord no doubt will find some work for her to do at Court.”

There was silence again; broken by the gentle little sound of the silk being drawn through the stuff.

“You know best, Margaret,” said Lady Maxwell.

Even as she spoke there was the sound of a door thrown violently open and old Sir Nicholas appeared on the top of the steps, hatless and plainly in a state of great agitation; beside him stood a courier, covered with the dust of the white roads, and his face crimson with hard riding. Sir Nicholas stood there as if dazed, and Lady Maxwell sprang up quickly to go to him. But a moment after there appeared behind him a little group, his son James, Miss Corbet and a servant or two; while Anthony hung back; and Mr. James came up quickly, and took his father by the arm; and together the little company came down the steps into the still and sunny garden.

“What is it?” cried Lady Maxwell, trying to keep her voice under control; while Mistress Margaret laid her work quietly down, and stood up too.

“Tell my lady,” said Sir Nicholas to the courier, who stood a little apart.

“If you please, my lady,” he said, as if repeating a lesson, “a Bull of the Holy Father has been found nailed to the door of the Bishop of London’s palace, deposing Elizabeth and releasing all her subjects from their allegiance.”

Lady Maxwell went to her husband and took him by the arm gently.

“What does it mean, sweetheart?” she asked.

“It means that Catholics must choose between their sovereign and their God.”

“God have mercy,” said a servant behind.

CHAPTER VI

MR. STEWART

Sir Nicholas’ exclamatory sentence was no exaggeration. That terrible choice of which he spoke, with his old eyes shining with the desire to make it, did not indeed come so immediately as he anticipated; but it came none the less. From every point of view the Bull was unfortunate, though it may have been a necessity; for it marked the declaration of war between England and the Catholic Church. A gentle appeal had been tried before; Elizabeth, who, it must be remembered had been crowned during mass with Catholic ceremonial, and had received the Blessed Sacrament, had been entreated by the Pope as his “dear daughter in Christ” to return to the Fold; and now there seemed to him no possibility left but this ultimatum.

It is indeed difficult to see what else, from his point of view, he could have done. To continue to pretend that Elizabeth was his “dear daughter” would have discredited his fatherly authority in the eyes of the whole Christian world. He had patiently made an advance towards his wayward child; and she had repudiated and scorned him. Nothing was left but to recognise and treat her as an enemy of the Faith, an usurper of spiritual prerogatives, and an apostate spoiler of churches; to do this might certainly bring trouble upon others of his less distinguished but more obedient children, who were in her power; but to pretend that the suffering thus brought down upon Catholics was unnecessary, and that the Pope alone was responsible for their persecution, is to be blind to the fact that Elizabeth had already openly defied and repudiated his authority, and had begun to do her utmost to coax and compel his children to be disobedient to their father.

The shock of the Bull to Elizabeth was considerable; she had not expected this extreme measure; and it was commonly reported too that France and Spain were likely now to unite on a religious basis against England; and that at least one of these Powers had sanctioned the issue of the Bull. This of course helped greatly to complicate further the already complicated political position. Steps were taken immediately to strengthen England’s position against Scotland with whom it was now, more than ever, to be feared that France would co-operate; and the Channel Fleet was reinforced under Lord Clinton, and placed with respect to France in what was almost a state of war, while it was already in an informal state of war with Spain. There was fierce confusion in the Privy Council. Elizabeth, who at once began to vacillate under the combined threats of La Mothe, the French ambassador, and the arguments of the friend of Catholics, Lord Arundel, was counter-threatened with ruin by Lord Keeper Bacon unless she would throw in her lot finally with the Protestants and continue her hostility and resistance to the Catholic Scotch party. But in spite of Bacon Elizabeth’s heart failed her, and if it had not been for the rashness of Mary Stuart’s friends, Lord Southampton and the Bishop of Ross, the Queen might have been induced to substitute conciliation for severity towards Mary and the Catholic party generally. Southampton was arrested, and again there followed the further encouragement of the Protestant camp by the rising fortunes of the Huguenots and the temporary reverses to French Catholicism; so the pendulum swung this way and that. Elizabeth’s policy changed almost from day to day. She was tormented with temporal fears of a continental crusade against her, and by the spiritual terrors of the Pope’s Bull; and her unfathomable fickleness was the despair of her servants.

Meanwhile in the religious world a furious paper war broke out; and volleys from both sides followed the solemn roar and crash of Regnans in Excelsis.

But while the war of words went on, and the theological assaults and charges were given and received, repulsed or avoided, something practical must, it was felt, be done immediately; and search was made high and low for other copies of the Bull. The lawyers in the previous year had fallen under suspicion of religious unsoundness; judges could not be trusted to convict Catholics accused of their religion; and counsel was unwilling to prosecute them; therefore the first inquisition was made in the Inns of Court; and almost immediately a copy of the Bull was found in the room of a student in Lincoln’s Inn, who upon the rack in the Tower confessed that he had received it from one John Felton, a Catholic gentleman who lived upon his property in Southwark. Upon Felton’s arrest (for he had not attempted to escape) he confessed immediately, without pressure, that he had affixed the Bull to the Bishop of London’s gate; but although he was racked repeatedly he would not incriminate a single person besides himself; but at his trial would only assert with a joyous confidence that he was not alone; and that twenty-five peers, six hundred gentlemen, and thirty thousand commoners were ready to die in the Holy Father’s quarrel. He behaved with astonishing gallantry throughout, and after his condemnation had been pronounced upon the fourth of August at the Guildhall, on the charge of high-treason, he sent a diamond ring from his own finger, of the value of £400, to the Queen to show that he bore her no personal ill-will. He had been always a steadfast Catholic; his wife had been maid of honour to Mary and a friend of Elizabeth’s. On August the eighth he suffered the abominable punishment prescribed; he was drawn on a hurdle to the gate of the Bishop’s palace in S. Paul’s Churchyard, where he had affixed the Bull, hanged upon a new gallows, cut down before he was unconscious, disembowelled and quartered. His name has since been placed on the roll of the Blessed by the Apostolic See in whose quarrel he so cheerfully laid down his life.

News of these and such events continued of course to be eagerly sought after by the Papists all over the kingdom; and the Maxwells down at Great Keynes kept in as close touch with the heart of affairs as almost any private persons in the kingdom out of town. Sir Nicholas was one of those fiery natures to whom opposition or pressure is as oil to flame. He began at once to organise his forces and prepare for the struggle that was bound to come. He established first a kind of private post to London and to other Catholic houses round; for purposes however of defence rather than offence, so that if any steps were threatened, he and his friends might be aware of the danger in time. There was great sorrow at the news of John Felton’s death; and mass was said for his soul almost immediately in the little oratory at Maxwell Court by one of the concealed priests who went chiefly between Hampshire and Sussex ministering to the Catholics of those districts. Mistress Margaret spent longer than ever at her prayers; Lady Maxwell had all she could do to keep her husband from some furious act of fanatical retaliation for John Felton’s death—some useless provocation of the authorities; the children at the Dower House began to come to the Hall less often, not because they were less welcomed, but because there was a constraint in the air. All seemed preoccupied; conversations ceased abruptly on their entrance, and fits of abstraction would fall from time to time upon their kindly hosts. In the meanwhile, too, the preparations for James Maxwell’s departure, which had already begun to show themselves, were now pushed forward rapidly; and one morning in the late summer, when Isabel came up to the Hall, she found that Lady Maxwell was confined to her room and could not be seen that day; she caught a glimpse of Sir Nicholas’ face as he quickly crossed the entrance hall, that made her draw back from daring to intrude on such grief; and on inquiry found that Mr. James had ridden away that morning, and that the servants did not know when to expect him back, nor what was his destination.

In other ways also at this time did Sir Nicholas actively help on his party. Great Keynes was in a convenient position and circumstances for agents who came across from the Continent. It was sufficiently near London, yet not so near to the highroad or to London itself as to make disturbance probable; and its very quietness under the spiritual care of a moderate minister like Mr. Dent, and its serenity, owing to the secret sympathy of many of the villagers and neighbours, as well as from the personal friendship between Sir Nicholas and the master of the Dower House—an undoubted Protestant—all these circumstances combined to make Maxwell Hall a favourite halting-place for priests and agents from the Continent. Strangers on horseback or in carriages, and sometimes even on foot, would arrive there after nightfall, and leave in a day or two for London. Its nearness to London enabled them to enter the city at any hour they thought best after ten or eleven in the forenoon. They came on very various businesses; some priests even stayed there and made the Hall a centre for their spiritual ministrations for miles round; others came with despatches from abroad, some of which were even addressed to great personages at Court and at the Embassies where much was being done by the Ambassadors at this time to aid their comrades in the Faith, and to other leading Catholics; and others again came with pamphlets printed abroad for distribution in England, some of them indeed seditious, but many of them purely controversial and hortatory, and with other devotional articles and books such as it was difficult to obtain in England, and might not be exposed for public sale in booksellers’ shops: Agnus Deis, beads, hallowed incense and crosses were being sent in large numbers from abroad, and were eagerly sought after by the Papists in all directions. It was remarkable that while threatening clouds appeared to be gathering on all sides over the Catholic cause, yet the deepening peril was accompanied by a great outburst of religious zeal. It was reported to the Archbishop that “massing” was greatly on the increase in Kent; and was attributed, singularly enough, to the Northern Rebellion, which had ended in disaster for the Papists; but the very fact that such a movement could take place at all probably heartened many secret sympathisers, who had hitherto considered themselves almost alone in a heretic population.

Sir Nicholas came in one day to dinner in a state of great fury. One of his couriers had just arrived with news from London; and the old man came in fuming and resentful.

“What hypocrisy!” he cried out to Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret, who were seated at table. “Not content with persecuting Catholics, they will not even allow us to say we are persecuted for the faith. Here is the Lord Keeper declaring in the Star Chamber that no man is to be persecuted for his private faith, but only for his public acts, and that the Queen’s Grace desires nothing so little as to meddle with any man’s conscience. Then I suppose they would say that hearing mass was a public act and therefore unlawful; but then how if a man’s private faith bids him to hear mass? Is not that meddling with his private conscience to forbid him to go to mass? What folly is this? And yet my Lord Keeper and her Grace are no fools! Then are they worse than fools?”

Lady Maxwell tried to quiet the old man, for the servants were not out of the room; and it was terribly rash to speak like that before them; but he would not be still nor sit down, but raged up and down before the hearth, growling and breaking out now and again. What especially he could not get off his mind was that this was the Old Religion that was prescribed. That England for generations had held the Faith, and that then the Faith and all that it involved had been declared unlawful, was to him iniquity unfathomable. He could well understand some new upstart sect being persecuted, but not the old Religion. He kept on returning to this.

“Have they so far forgotten the Old Faith as to think it can be held in a man’s private conscience without appearing in his life, like their miserable damnable new fangled Justification by faith without works? Or that a man can believe in the blessed sacrament of the altar and yet not desire to receive it; or in penance and yet not be absolved; or in Peter and yet not say so, nor be reconciled. You may believe, say they, of their clemency, what you like; be justified by that; that is enough! Bah!”

However mere declaiming against the Government was barren work, and Sir Nicholas soon saw that; and instead, threw himself with more vigour than ever into entertaining and forwarding the foreign emissaries.

Mary Corbet had returned to London by the middle of July; and Hubert was not yet returned; so Sir Nicholas and the two ladies had the Hall to themselves. Now it must be confessed that the old man had neither the nature nor the training for the rôle of a conspirator, even of the mildest description. He was so exceedingly impulsive, unsuspicious and passionate that it would have been the height of folly to entrust him with any weighty secret, if it was possible to dispense with him; but the Catholics over the water needed stationary agents so grievously; and Sir Nicholas’ name commanded such respect, and his house such conveniences, that they overlooked the risk involved in making him their confidant, again and again; besides it need not be said that his honour and fidelity was beyond reproach; and those qualities after all balance favourably against a good deal of shrewdness and discretion. He, of course, was serenely unable to distinguish between sedition and religion; and entertained political meddlers and ordinary priests with an equal enthusiasm. It was pathetic to Lady Maxwell to see her simple old husband shuffling away his papers, and puzzling over cyphers and perpetually leaving the key of them lying about, and betraying again and again when he least intended it, by his mysterious becks and nods and glances and oracular sayings, that some scheme was afoot. She could have helped him considerably if he had allowed her; but he had an idea that the capacities of ladies in general went no further than their harps, their embroidery and their devotions; and besides, he was chivalrously unwilling that his wife should be in any way privy to business that involved such risks as this.

One sunny morning in August he came into her room early just as she was finishing her prayers, and announced the arrival of an emissary from abroad.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “will you prepare the east chamber for a young man whom we will call Mr. Stewart, if you please, who will arrive to-night. He hopes to be with us until after dusk to-morrow when he will leave; and I shall be obliged if you will—— No, no, my dear. I will order the horses myself.”

The old man then bustled off to the stableyard and ordered a saddle-horse to be taken at once to Cuckfield, accompanied by a groom on another horse. These were to arrive at the inn and await orders from a stranger “whom you will call Mr. Stewart, if you please.” Mr. Stewart was to change horses there, and ride on to Maxwell Hall, and Sir Nicholas further ordered the same two horses and the same groom to be ready the following evening at about nine o’clock, and to be at “Mr. Stewart’s” orders again as before.

This behaviour of Sir Nicholas’ was of course most culpably indiscreet. A child could not but have suspected something, and the grooms, who were of course Catholics, winked merrily at one another when the conspirator’s back was turned, and he had hastened in a transport of zeal and preoccupation back again to the house to interrupt his wife in her preparations for the guest.

That evening “Mr. Stewart” arrived according to arrangements. He was a slim red-haired man, not above thirty years of age, the kind of man his enemies would call foxy, with a very courteous and deliberate manner, and he spoke with a slight Scotch accent. He had the air of doing everything on purpose. He let his riding-whip fall as he greeted Lady Maxwell in the entrance hall; but picked it up with such a dignified grace that you would have sworn he had let it fall for some wise reason of his own. He had a couple of saddle-bags with him, which he did not let out of his sight for a moment; even keeping his eye upon them as he met the ladies and saluted them. They were carried up to the east chamber directly, their owner following; where supper had been prepared. There was no real reason, since he arrived with such publicity, why he should not have supped downstairs, but Sir Nicholas had been peremptory. It was by his directions also that the arrival had been accomplished in the manner it had.

After he had supped, Sir Nicholas receiving the dishes from the servants’ hands at the door of the room with the same air of secrecy and despatch, his host suggested that he should come to Lady Maxwell’s drawing-room, as the ladies were anxious to see him. Mr. Stewart asked leave to bring a little valise with him that had travelled in one of the bags, and then followed his host who preceded him with a shaded light along the gallery.

When he entered he bowed again profoundly, with a slightly French air, to the ladies and to the image over the fire; and then seated himself, and asked leave to open his valise. He did so with their permission, and displayed to them the numerous devotional articles and books that it contained. The ladies and Sir Nicholas were delighted, and set aside at once some new books of devotion, and then they fell to talk. The Netherlands, from which Mr. Stewart had arrived two days before, on the east coast, were full at this time of Catholic refugees, under the Duke of Alva’s protection. Here they had been living, some of them even from Elizabeth’s accession, and Sir Nicholas and his ladies had many inquiries to make about their acquaintances, many of which Mr. Stewart was able to satisfy, for, from his conversation he was plainly one in the confidence of Catholics both at home and abroad. And so the evening passed away quietly. It was thought better by Sir Nicholas that Mr. Stewart should not be present at the evening devotions that he always conducted for the household in the dining-hall, unless indeed a priest were present to take his place; so Mr. Stewart was again conducted with the same secrecy to the East Chamber; and Sir Nicholas promised at his request to look in on him again after prayers. When prayers were over, Sir Nicholas went up to his guest’s room, and found him awaiting him in a state of evident excitement, very unlike the quiet vivacity and good humour he had shown when with the ladies.

“Sir Nicholas,” he said, standing up, as his host came in, “I have not told you all my news.” And when they were both seated he proceeded:

“You spoke a few minutes ago, Sir Nicholas, of Dr. Storey; he has been caught.”

The old man exclaimed with dismay. Mr. Stewart went on:

“When I left Antwerp, Sir Nicholas, Dr. Storey was in the town. I saw him myself in the street by the Cathedral only a few hours before I embarked. He is very old, you know, and lame, worn out with good works, and he was hobbling down the street on the arm of a young man. When I arrived at Yarmouth I went out into the streets about a little business I had with a bookseller, before taking horse. I heard a great commotion down near the docks, at the entrance of Bridge Street; and hastened down there; and there I saw pursuivants and seamen and officers all gathered about a carriage, and keeping back the crowd that was pressing and crying out to know who the man was; and presently the carriage drove by me, scattering the crowd, and I could see within; and there sat old Dr. Storey, very white and ill-looking, but steady and cheerful, whom I had seen the very day before in Antwerp. Now this is very grievous for Dr. Storey; and I pray God to deliver him; but surely the Duke and the King of Spain must move now. They cannot leave him in Cecil’s hands; and then, Sir Nicholas, we must all be ready, for who knows what may happen.”

Sir Nicholas was greatly moved. There was one of the perplexities which so much harassed all the Papists at this time. It seemed certain that Mr. Stewart’s prediction must be fulfilled. Dr. Storey was a naturalised subject of King Philip and in the employment of Alva, and he had been carried off forcibly by the English Government. It afterwards came out how it had been done. He had been lured away from Antwerp and enticed on board a trader at Bergen-op-Zoom, by Cecil’s agents with the help of a traitor named Parker, on pretext of finding heretical books there arriving from England; and as soon as he had set foot on deck he was hurried below and carried straight off to Yarmouth. Here then was Sir Nicholas’ perplexity. To welcome Spain when she intervened and to work actively for her, was treason against his country; to act against Spain was to delay the re-establishment of the Religion—something that appeared to him very like treason against his faith. Was the dreadful choice between his sovereign and his God, he wondered as he paced up and down and questioned Mr. Stewart, even now imminent?

The whole affair, too, was so formidable and so mysterious that the hearts of these Catholics and of others in England when they heard the tale began to fail them. Had the Government then so long an arm and so keen an eye? And if it was able to hale a man from the shadow of the Cathedral at Antwerp and the protection of the Duke of Alva into the hands of pursuivants at Yarmouth within the space of a few hours, who then was safe?

And so the two sat late that night in the East Chamber; and laid schemes and discussed movements and probabilities and the like, until the dawn began to glimmer through the cracks of the shutters and the birds to chirp in the eaves; and Sir Nicholas at last carried to bed with him an anxious and a heavy heart. Mr. Stewart, however, did not seem so greatly disturbed; possibly because on the one side he had not others dearer to him than his own life involved in these complex issues: and partly because he at any rate has not the weight of suspense and indecision that so drew his host two ways at once, for Mr. Stewart was whole-heartedly committed already, and knew well how he would act should the choice present itself between Elizabeth and Philip.

The following morning Sir Nicholas still would not allow his guest to come downstairs, and insisted that all his meals should be served in the East Chamber, while he himself, as before, received the food at the door and set it before Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart was greatly impressed and touched by the kindness of the old man, although not by his capacity for conspiracy. He had intended indeed to tell his host far more than he had done of the movements of political and religious events, for he could not but believe, before his arrival, that a Catholic so prominent and influential as Sir Nicholas was becoming by reputation among the refugees abroad, was a proper person to be entrusted even with the highest secrets; but after a very little conversation with him the night before, he had seen how ingenuous the old man was, with his laughable attempts at secrecy and his lamentable lack of discretion; and so he had contented himself with general information and gossip, and had really told Sir Nicholas very little indeed of any importance.

After dinner Sir Nicholas again conducted his guest to the drawing-room, where the ladies were ready to receive him. He had obtained Mr. Stewart’s permission the night before to tell his wife and sister-in-law the news about Dr. Storey; and the four sat for several hours together discussing the situation. Mr. Stewart was able to tell them too, in greater detail, the story of Lord Sussex’s punitive raid into Scotland in the preceding April. They had heard of course the main outline of the story with the kind of embroideries attached that were usual in those days of inaccurate reporting; but their guest was a Scotchman himself and had had the stories first-hand in some cases from those rendered homeless by the raid, who had fled to the Netherlands where he had met them. Briefly the raid was undertaken on the pretended plea of an invitation from the “King’s men” or adherents of the infant James; but in reality to chastise Scotland and reduce it to servility. Sussex and Lord Hunsdon in the east, Lord Scrope on the west, had harried, burnt, and destroyed in the whole countryside about the Borders. Especially had Tiviotdale suffered. Altogether it was calculated that Sussex had burned three hundred villages and blown up fifty castles, and forty more “strong houses,” some of these latter, however, being little more than border peels. Mr. Stewart’s accounts were the more moving in that he spoke in a quiet delicate tone, and used little picturesque phrases in his speech.

“Twelve years ago,” said Mr. Stewart, “I was at Branxholme myself. It was a pleasant house, well furnished and appointed; fortified, too, as all need to be in that country, with sheaves of pikes in all the lower rooms, and Sir Walter Scott gave me a warm welcome, for I was there on a business that pleased him. He showed me the gardens and orchards, all green and sweet, like these of yours, Lady Maxwell. And it seemed to me a home where a man might be content to spend all his days. Well, my Lord Sussex has been a visitor there now; and what he has left of the house would not shelter a cow, nor what is left of the pleasant gardens sustain her. At least, so one of the Scots told me whom I met in the Netherlands in June.”

He talked, too, of the extraordinary scenes of romance and chivalry in which Mary Queen of Scots moved during her captivity under Lord Scrope’s care at Bolton Castle in the previous year. He had met in his travels in France one of her undistinguished adherents who had managed to get a position in the castle during her detention there.

“The country was alive with her worshippers,” said Mr. Stewart. “They swarmed like bees round a hive. In the night voices would be heard crying out to her Grace out of the darkness round the castle; and when the guards rode out they would find no man but maybe hear just a laugh or two. Her men would lie out at night and watch her window (for she would never go to rest till late), and pray towards it as if it were a light before the blessed sacrament. When she rode out a-hunting, with her guards of course about her, and my Lord Scrope or Sir Francis Knollys never far away, a beggar maybe would be sitting out on the road and ask an alms; and cry out ‘God save your Grace’; but he would be a beggar who was accustomed to wear silk next his skin except when he went a-begging. Many young gentlemen there were, yes and old ones too, who would thank God for a blow or a curse from some foul English trooper for his meat, if only he might have a look from the Queen’s eyes for his grace before meat. Oh! they would plot too, and scheme and lie awake half the night spinning their webs, not to catch her Grace indeed, but to get her away from that old Spider Scrope; and many’s the word and the scrap of paper that would go in to her Grace, right under the very noses of my Lord Scrope and Sir Francis themselves, as they sat at their chess in the Queen’s chamber. It’s a long game of chess that the two Queens are playing; but thank our Lady and the Saints it’s not mate yet—not mate yet; and the White Queen will win, please God, before the board’s over-turned.”

And he told them, too, of the failure of the Northern Rebellion, and the wretchedness of the fugitives.

“They rode over the moors to Liddisdale,” he said, “ladies and all, in bitter weather, wind and snow, day after day, with stories of Clinton’s troopers all about them, and scarcely time for bite or sup or sleep. My lady Northumberland was so overcome with weariness and sickness that she could ride no more at last, and had to be left at John-of-the-Side’s house, where she had a little chamber where the snow came in at one corner, and the rats ran over my lady’s face as she lay. My Lords Northumberland and Westmoreland were in worse case, and spent their Christmas with no roof over them but what they could find out in the braes and woods about Harlaw, and no clothes but the foul rags that some beggar had thrown away, and no food but a bird or a rabbit that they could pick up here and there, or what their friends could get to them now and again privately. And then my Lord Northumberland’s little daughters whom he was forced to leave behind at Topcliff—a sweet Christmas they had! Their money and food was soon spent; they could have scarcely a fire in that bitter hard season; and God who feeds the ravens alone knows how they were sustained; and for entertainment to make the time pass merrily, all they had was to see the hanging of their own servants in scores about the house, who had served them and their father well; and all their music at night was the howling of the wind in those heavily laden Christmas-trees, and the noise of the chains in which the men were hanged.”

Mr. Stewart’s narratives were engrossing to the two ladies and Sir Nicholas. They had never come so close to the struggles of the Catholics in the north before; and although the Northern Rebellion had ended so disastrously, yet it was encouraging, although heartbreaking too, to hear that delicate women and children were ready gladly to suffer such miseries if the religious cause that was so dear to them could be thereby helped. Sir Nicholas, as has been said, was in two minds as to the lawfulness of rising against a temporal sovereign in defence of religious liberties. His whole English nature revolted against it, and yet so many spiritual persons seemed to favour it. His simple conscience was perplexed. But none the less he could listen with the most intense interest and sympathy to these tales of these co-religionists of his own, who were so clearly convinced of their right to rebel in defence of their faith.

And so with such stories the August afternoon passed away. It was a thundery day, which it would have been pleasanter to spend in the garden, but that, Sir Nicholas said, under the circumstances was not to be thought of; so they threw the windows wide to catch the least breath of air; and the smell of the flower-garden came sweetly up and flooded the low cool room; and so they sat engrossed until the evening.

Supper was ordered for Mr. Stewart at half-past seven o’clock; and this meal Sir Nicholas had consented should be laid downstairs in his own private room opening out of the hall, and that he and his ladies should sit down to table at the same time. Mr. Stewart went to his room an hour before to dress for riding, and to superintend the packing of his saddle-bags; and at half-past seven he was conducted downstairs by Sir Nicholas who insisted on carrying the saddle-bags with his own hands, and they found the two ladies waiting for them in the panelled study that had one window giving upon the terrace that ran along the south of the house above the garden. When supper had been brought in by Sir Nicholas’ own body-servant, Mr. Boyd, they sat down to supper after a grace from Sir Nicholas. The horses were ordered for nine o’clock.

CHAPTER VII

THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL

On the morning of the day after Mr. Stewart’s secret arrival at Maxwell Hall, the Rector was walking up and down the lawn that adjoined the churchyard.

He had never yet wholly recovered from the sneers of Mistress Corbet; the wounds had healed but had not ceased to smart. How blind these Papists were, he thought! how prejudiced for the old trifling details of worship! how ignorant of the vital principles still retained! The old realities of God and the faith and the Church were with them still, in this village, he reminded himself; it was only the incrustations of error that had been removed. Of course the transition was difficult and hearts were sore; but the Eternal God can be patient. But then, if the discontent of the Papists smouldered on one side, the fanatical and irresponsible zeal of the Puritans flared on the other. How difficult, he thought, to steer the safe middle course! How much cool faith and clearsightedness it needed! He reminded himself of Archbishop Parker who now held the rudder, and comforted himself with the thought of his wise moderation in dealing with excesses, his patient pertinacity among the whirling gusts of passion, that enabled him to wait upon events to push his schemes, and his tender knowledge of human nature.

But in spite of these reassuring facts Mr. Dent was anxious. What could even the Archbishop do when his suffragans were such poor creatures; and when Leicester, the strongest man at Court, was a violent Puritan partisan? The Rector would have been content to bear the troubles of his own flock and household if he had been confident of the larger cause; but the vagaries of the Puritans threatened all with ruin. That morning only he had received a long account from a Fellow of his own college of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and a man of the same views as himself, of the violent controversy raging there at that time.

“The Professor,” wrote his friend, referring to Thomas Cartwright, “is plastering us all with his Genevan ways. We are all Papists, it seems! He would have neither bishop nor priest nor archbishop nor dean nor archdeacon, nor dignitaries at all, but just the plain Godly Minister, as he names it. Or if he has the bishop and the deacon they are to be the Episcopos and the Diaconos of the Scripture, and not the Papish counterfeits! Then it seems that the minister is to be made not by God but by man—that the people are to make him, not the bishop (as if the sheep should make the shepherd). Then it appears we are Papists too for kneeling at the Communion; this he names a ‘feeble superstition.’ Then he would have all men reside in their benefices or vacate them; and all that do not so, it appears, are no better than thieves or robbers.

“And so he rages on, breathing out this smoky stuff, and all the young men do run after him, as if he were the very Pillar of Fire to lead them to Canaan. One day he says there shall be no bishop—and my Lord of Ely rides through Petty Cury with scarce a man found to doff cap and say ‘my lord’ save foolish ‘Papists’ like myself! Another day he will have no distinction of apparel; and the young sparks straight dress like ministers, and the ministers like young sparks. On another he likes not Saint Peter his day, and none will go to church. He would have us all to be little Master Calvins, if he could have his way with us. But the Master of Trinity has sent a complaint to the Council with charges against him, and has preached against him too. But no word hath yet come from the Council; and we fear nought will be done; to the sore injury of Christ His holy Church and the Protestant Religion; and the triumphing of their pestilent heresies.”

So the caustic divine wrote, and the Rector of Great Keynes was heavy-hearted as he walked up and down and read. Everywhere it was the same story; the extreme precisians openly flouted the religion of the Church of England; submitted to episcopal ordination as a legal necessity and then mocked at it; refused to wear the prescribed dress, and repudiated all other distinctions too in meats and days as Judaic remnants; denounced all forms of worship except those directly sanctioned by Scripture; in short, they remained in the Church of England and drew her pay while they scouted her orders and derided her claims. Further, they cried out as persecuted martyrs whenever it was proposed to insist that they should observe their obligations. But worse than all, for such conscientious clergymen as Mr. Dent, was the fact that bishops preferred such men to livings, and at the same time were energetic against the Papist party. It was not that there was not an abundance of disciplinary machinery ready at the bishop’s disposal or that the Queen was opposed to coercion—rather she was always urging them to insist upon conformity; but it seemed rather to such sober men as the Rector that the principle of authority had been lost with the rejection of the Papacy, and that anarchy rather than liberty had prevailed in the National Church. In darker moments it seemed to him and his friends as if any wild fancy was tolerated, so long as it did not approximate too closely to the Old Religion; and they grew sick at heart.

It was all the more difficult for the Rector, as he had so little sympathy in the place; his wife did all she could to destroy friendly relations between the Hall and the Rectory, and openly derided her husband’s prelatical leanings; the Maxwells themselves disregarded his priestly claims, and the villagers thought of him as an official paid to promulgate the new State religion. The only house where he found sympathy and help was the Dower House; and as he paced up and down his garden now, his little perplexed determined face grew brighter as he made up his mind to see Mr. Norris again in the afternoon.

During his meditations he heard, and saw indistinctly, through the shrubbery that fenced the lawn from the drive, a mounted man ride up to the Rectory door. He supposed it was some message, and held himself in readiness to be called into the house, but after a minute or two he heard the man ride off again down the drive into the village. At dinner he mentioned it to his wife, who answered rather shortly that it was a message for her; and he let the matter drop for fear of giving offence; he was terrified at the thought of provoking more quarrels than were absolutely necessary.

Soon after dinner he put on his cap and gown, and to his wife’s inquiries told her where he was going, and that after he had seen Mr. Norris he would step on down to Comber’s, where was a sick body or two, and that she might expect him back not earlier than five o’clock. She nodded without speaking, and he went out. She watched him down the drive from the dining-room window and then went back to her business with an odd expression.

Mr. Norris, whom he found already seated at his books again after dinner, took him out when he had heard his errand, and the two began to walk up and down together on the raised walk that ran along under a line of pines a little way from the house.

The Rector had seldom found his friend more sympathetic and tender; he knew very well that their intellectual and doctrinal standpoints were different, but he had not come for anything less than spiritual help, and that he found. He told him all his heart, and then waited, while the other, with his thin hands clasped behind his back, and his great grey eyes cast up at the heavy pines and the tender sky beyond, began to comfort the minister.

“You are troubled, my friend,” he said, “and I do not wonder at it, by the turbulence of these times. On all sides are fightings and fears. Of course I cannot, as you know, regard these matters you have spoken of—episcopacy, ceremonies at the Communion and the like—in the grave light in which you see them; but I take it, if I understand you rightly, that it is the confusion and lack of any authority or respect for antiquity that is troubling you more. You feel yourself in a sad plight between these raging waves; tossed to and fro, battered upon by both sides, forsaken and despised and disregarded. Now, indeed, although I do not stand quite where you do, yet I see how great the stress must be; but, if I may say so to a minister, it is just what you regard as your shame that I regard as your glory. It is the mark of the cross that is on your life. When our Saviour went to his passion, he went in the same plight as that in which you go; both Jew and Gentile were against him on this side and that; his claims were disallowed, his royalty denied; he was despised and rejected of men. He did not go to his passion as to a splendid triumph, bearing his pain like some solemn and mysterious dignity at which the world wondered and was silent; but he went battered and spat upon, with the sweat and the blood and the spittle running down his face, contemned by the contemptible, hated by the hateful, rejected by the outcast, barked upon by the curs; and it was that that made his passion so bitter. To go to death, however painful, with honour and applause, or at least with the silence of respect, were easy; it is not hard to die upon a throne; but to live on a dunghill with Job, that is bitterness. Now again I must protest that I have no right to speak like this to a minister, but since you have come to me I must needs say what I think; and it is this that some wise man once said, ‘Fear honour, for shame is not far off. Covet shame, for honour is surely to follow.’ If that be true of the philosopher, how much more true is it of the Christian minister whose profession it is to follow the Saviour and to be made like unto him.”

He said much more of the same kind; and his soft balmy faith soothed the minister’s wounds, and braced his will. The Rector could not help half envying his friend, living, as it seemed, in this still retreat, apart from wrangles and controversy, with the peaceful music and sweet fragrance of the pines, and the Love of God about him.

When he had finished he asked the Rector to step indoors with him; and there in his own room took down and read to him a few extracts from the German mystics that he thought bore upon his case. Finally, to put him at his ease again, for it seemed an odd reversal that he should be coming for comfort to his parishioners, Mr. Norris told him about his two children, and in his turn asked his advice.

“About Anthony,” he said, “I am not at all anxious. I know that the boy fancies himself in love; and goes sighing about when he is at home; but he sleeps and eats heartily, for I have observed him; and I think Mistress Corbet has a good heart and means no harm to him. But about my daughter I am less satisfied, for I have been watching her closely. She is quiet and good, and, above all, she loves the Saviour; but how do I know that her heart is not bleeding within? She has been taught to hold herself in, and not to show her feelings; and that, I think, is as much a drawback sometimes as wearing the heart upon the sleeve.”

Mr. Dent suggested sending her away for a visit for a month or two. His host mused a moment and then said that he himself had thought of that; and now that his minister said so too, probably, under God, that was what was needed. The fact that Hubert was expected home soon was an additional reason; and he had friends in Northampton, he said, to whom he could send her. “They hold strongly by the Genevan theology there,” he said smiling, “but I think that will do her no harm as a balance to the Popery at Maxwell Hall.”

They talked a few minutes more, and when the minister rose to take his leave, Mr. Norris slipped down on his knees as if it was the natural thing to do and as if the minister were expecting it; and asked his guest to engage in prayer. It was the first time he had ever done so; probably because this talk had brought them nearer together spiritually than ever before. The minister was taken aback, and repeated a collect or two from the Prayer-book; then they said the Lord’s Prayer together, and then Mr. Norris without any affectation engaged in a short extempore prayer, asking for light in these dark times and peace in the storm; and begging the blessing of God upon the village and “upon their shepherd to whom Thou hast given to drink of the Cup of thy Passion,” and upon his own children, and lastly upon himself, “the chief of sinners and the least of thy servants that is not worthy to be called thy friend.” It touched Mr. Dent exceedingly, and he was yet more touched and reconciled to the incident when his host said simply, remaining on his knees, with eyes closed and his clear cut tranquil face upturned:

“I ask your blessing, sir.”

The Rector’s voice trembled a little as he gave it. And then with real gratitude and a good deal of sincere emotion he shook his friend’s hand, and rustled out from the cool house into the sunlit garden, greeting Isabel who was walking up and down outside a little pensively, and took the field-path that led towards the hamlet where his sick folk were expecting him.

As he walked back about five o’clock towards the village he noticed there was thunder in the air, and was aware of a physical oppression, but in his heart it was morning and the birds singing. The talk earlier in the afternoon had shown him how, in the midst of the bitterness of the Cup, to find the fragrance where the Saviour’s lips had rested and that was joy to him. And again, his true pastor’s heart had been gladdened by the way his ministrations had been received that afternoon. A sour old man who had always scowled at him for an upstart, in his foolish old desire to be loyal to the priest who had held the benefice before him, had melted at last and asked his pardon and God’s for having treated him so ill; and he had prepared the old man for death with great contentment to them both, and had left him at peace with God and man. On looking back on it all afterwards he was convinced that God had thus strengthened him for the trouble that was awaiting him at home.

He had hardly come into his study when his wife entered with a strange look, breathing quick and short; she closed the door, and stood near it, looking at him apprehensively.

“George,” she said, rather sharply and nervously, “you must not be vexed with me, but——”

“Well?” he said heavily, and the warmth died out of his heart. He knew something terrible impended.

“I have done it for the best,” she said, and obstinacy and a kind of impatient tenderness strove in her eyes as she looked at him. “You must show yourself a man; it is not fitting that loose ladies of the Court should mock—” He got up; and his eyes were determined too.

“Tell me what you have done, woman,” he cried.

She put out her hand as if to hold him still, and her voice rang hard and thin.

“I will say my say,” she said. “It is not for that that I have done it. But you are a Gospel-minister, and must be faithful. The Justice is here. I sent for him.”

“The Justice?” he said blankly; but his heart was beating heavily in his throat.

“Mr. Frankland from East Grinsted, with a couple of pursuivants and a company of servants. There is a popish agent at the Hall, and they are come to take him.”

The Rector swallowed with difficulty once or twice, and then tried to speak, but she went on. “And I have promised that you shall take them in by the side door.”

“I will not!” he cried.

She held up her hand again for silence, and glanced round at the door.

“I have given him the key,” she said.

This was the private key, possessed by the incumbent for generations past, and Sir Nicholas had not withdrawn it from the Protestant Rector.

“There is no choice,” she said. “Oh! George, be a man!” Then she turned and slipped out.

He stood perfectly still for a moment; his pulses were racing; he could not think. He sat down and buried his face in his hands; and gradually his brain cleared and quieted. Then he realised what it meant, and his soul rose in blind furious resentment. This was the last straw; it was the woman’s devilish jealousy. But what could he do? The Justice was here. Could he warn his friends? He clenched his fingers into his hair as the situation came out clear and hard before his brain. Dear God, what could he do?

There were footsteps in the flagged hall, and he raised his head as the door opened and a portly gentleman in riding-dress came in, followed by Mrs. Dent. The Rector rose confusedly, but could not speak, and his eyes wandered round to his wife again and again as she took a chair in the shadow and sat down. But the magistrate noticed nothing.

“Aha!” he said, beaming, “You have a wife, sir, that is a jewel. Solomon never spoke a truer word; an ornament to her husband, he said, I think; but you as a minister should know better than I, a mere layman”; and his face creased with mirth.

What did the red-faced fool mean? thought the Rector. If only he would not talk so loud! He must think, he must think. What could he do?

“She was very brisk, sir,” the magistrate went on, sitting down, and the Rector followed his example, sitting too with his back to the window and his hand to his head.

Then Mr. Frankland went on with his talk; and the man sat there, still glancing from time to time mechanically towards his wife, who was there in the shadow with steady white face and hands in her lap, watching the two men. The magistrate’s voice seemed to the bewildered man to roll on like a wheel over stones; interminable, grinding, stupefying. What was he saying? What was that about his wife? She had sent to him the day before, had she, and told him of the popish agent’s coming?—Ah! A dangerous man was he, a spreader of seditious pamphlets? At least they supposed he was the man.—Yes, yes, he understood; these fly-by-nights were threateners of the whole commonwealth; they must be hunted out like vermin—just so; and he as a minister of the Gospel should be the first to assist.—Just so, he agreed with all his heart, as a minister of the Gospel. (Yes, but, dear Lord, what was he to do? This fat man with the face of a butcher must not be allowed to—) Ah! what was that? He had missed that. Would Mr. Frankland be so good as to say it again? Yes, yes, he understood now; the men were posted already. No one suspected anything; they had come by the bridle path.—Every door? Did he understand that every door of the Hall was watched? Ah! that was prudent; there was no chance then of any one sending a warning in? Oh, no, no, he did not dream for a moment that there was any concealed Catholic who would be likely to do such a thing. But he only wondered.—Yes, yes, the magistrate was right; one could not be too careful. Because—ah!—What was that about Sir Nicholas? Yes, yes, indeed he was a good landlord, and very popular in the village.—Ah! just so; it had better be done quietly, at the side door. Yes, that was the one which the key fitted. But, but, he thought perhaps, he had better not come in, because Sir Nicholas was his friend, and there was no use in making bad blood.—Oh! not to the house; very well, then, he would come as far as the yew hedge at—at what time did the magistrate say? At half-past eight; yes, that would be best as Mr. Frankland said, because Sir Nicholas had ordered the horses for nine o’clock; so they would come upon them just at the right time.—How many men, did Mr. Frankland say? Eight? Oh yes, eight and himself, and—he did not quite follow the plan. Ah! through the yew hedge on to the terrace and through the south door into the hall; then if they bolted—they? Surely he had understood the magistrate to say there was only one? Oh! he had not understood that. Sir Nicholas too? But why, why? Good God, as a harbourer of priests?—No, but this fellow was an agent, surely. Well, if the magistrate said so, of course he was right; but he would have thought himself that Sir Nicholas might have been left—ah! Well, he would say no more. He quite saw the magistrate’s point now.—No, no, he was no favourer; God forbid! his wife would speak for him as to that; Marion would bear witness.—Well, well, he thanked the magistrate for his compliments, and would he proceed with the plan? By the south door, he was saying, yes, into the hall.—Yes, the East room was Sir Nicholas’ study; or of course they might be supping upstairs. But it made no difference; no, the magistrate was right about that. So long as they held the main staircase, and had all the other doors watched, they were safe to have him.—No, no, the cloister wing would not be used; they might leave that out of their calculations. Besides, did not the magistrate say that Marion had seen the lights in the East wing last night? Yes, well, that settled it.—And the signal? Oh, he had not caught that; the church bell, was it to be? But what for? Why did they need a signal? Ah! he understood, for the advance at half-past eight.—Just so, he would send Thomas up to ring it. Would Marion kindly see to that?—Yes, indeed, his wife was a woman to be proud of; such a faithful Protestant; no patience with these seditious rogues at all. Well, was that all? Was there anything else?—Yes, how dark it was getting; it must be close on eight o’clock. Thomas had gone, had he? That was all right.—And had the men everything they wanted?—Well, yes; although the village did go to bed early it would perhaps be better to have no lights; because there was no need to rouse suspicion.—Oh! very well; perhaps it would be better for Mr. Frankland to go and sit with the men and keep them quiet. And his wife would go, too, just to make sure they had all they wanted.—Very well, yes; he would wait here in the dark until he was called. Not more than a quarter of an hour? Thank you, yes.—

Then the door had closed; and the man, left alone, flung himself down in his chair, and buried his face again in his arms.

Ah! what was to be done? Nothing, nothing, nothing. And there they were at the Hall, his neighbours and friends. The kind old Catholic and his ladies! How would he ever dare to meet their eyes again? But what could be done? Nothing!

How far away the afternoon seems; that quiet sunny walk beneath the pines. His friend is at his books, no doubt, with the silver candles, and the open pages, and his own neat manuscript growing under his white scholarly fingers. And Isabel; at her needlework before the fire.—How peaceful and harmless and sweet it all is! And down there, not fifty yards away, is the village; every light out by now; and the children and parents, too, asleep.—Ah! what will the news be when they wake to-morrow?—And that strange talk this afternoon, of the Saviour and His Cup of pain, and the squalor and indignity of the Passion! Ah! yes, he could suffer with Jesus on the Cross, so gladly, on that Tree of Life—but not with Judas on the Tree of Death!

And the minister dropped his face lower, over the edge of his desk; and the hot tears of misery and self-reproach and impotence began to run. There was no help, no help anywhere. All were against him—even his wife herself; and his Lord.

Then with a moan he lifted his hot face into the dusk.

“Jesus,” he cried in his soul, “Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.”

There came a tapping on the door; and the door opened an inch.

“It is time,” whispered his wife’s voice.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TAKING OF MR. STEWART

They were still sitting over the supper-table at the Hall. The sun had set about the time they had begun, and the twilight had deepened into dark; but they had not cared to close the shutters as they were to move so soon. The four candles shone out through the windows, and there still hung a pale glimmer outside owing to the refraction of light from the white stones of the terrace. Beyond on the left there sloped away a high black wall of impenetrable darkness where the yew hedge stood; over that was the starless sky. Sir Nicholas’ study was bright with candlelight, and the lace and jewels of Lady Maxwell (for her sister wore none) added a vague pleasant sense of beauty to Mr. Stewart’s mind; for he was one who often fared coarsely and slept hard. He sighed a little to himself as he looked out over this shining supper-table past the genial smiling face of Sir Nicholas to the dark outside; and thought how in less than an hour he would have left the comfort of this house for the grey road and its hardships again. It was extraordinarily sweet to him (for he was a man of taste and a natural inclination to luxury) to stay a day or two now and again at a house like this and mix again with his own equals, instead of with the rough company of the village inn, or the curious foreign conspirators with their absence of educated perception and their doubtful cleanliness. He was a man of domestic instincts and good birth and breeding, and would have been perfectly at his ease as the master of some household such as this; with a chapel and a library and a pleasant garden and estate; spending his days in great leisure and good deeds. And instead of all this, scarcely by his own choice but by what he would have called his vocation, he was partly an exile living from hand to mouth in lodgings and inns, and when he was in his own fatherland, a hunted fugitive lurking about in unattractive disguises. He sighed again once or twice. There was silence a moment or two.

There sounded one note from the church tower a couple of hundred yards away. Lady Maxwell heard it, and looked suddenly up; she scarcely knew why, and caught her sister’s eyes glancing at her. There was a shade of uneasiness in them.

“It is thundery to-night,” said Sir Nicholas. Mr. Stewart did not speak. Lady Maxwell looked up quickly at him as he sat on her right facing the window; and saw an expression of slight disturbance cross his face. He was staring out on to the quickly darkening terrace, past Sir Nicholas, who with pursed lips and a little frown was stripping off his grapes from the stalk. The look of uneasiness deepened, and the young man half rose from his chair, and sat down again.

“What is it, Mr. Stewart?” said Lady Maxwell, and her voice had a ring of terror in it. Sir Nicholas looked up quickly.

“Eh, eh?”—he began.

The young man rose up and recoiled a step, still staring out.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I have just seen several men pass the window.”

There was a rush of footsteps and a jangle of voices outside in the hall; and as the four rose up from table, looking at one another, there was a rattle at the handle outside, the door flew open, and a ruddy strongly-built man stood there, with a slightly apprehensive air, and holding a loaded cane a little ostentatiously in his hand; the faces of several men looked over his shoulder.

Sir Nicholas’ ruddy face had paled, his mouth was half open with dismay, and he stared almost unintelligently at the magistrate. Mr. Stewart’s hand closed on the handle of a knife that lay beside his plate.

“In the Queen’s name,” said Mr. Frankland, and looked from the knife to the young man’s white determined face, and down again. A little sobbing broke from Lady Maxwell.

“It is useless, sir,” said the magistrate; “Sir Nicholas, persuade your guest not to make a useless resistance; we are ten to one; the house has been watched for hours.”

Sir Nicholas took a step forward, his mouth closed and opened again. Lady Maxwell took a swift rustling step from behind the table, and threw her arm round the old man’s neck. Still none of them spoke.

“Come in,” said the magistrate, turning a little. The men outside filed in, to the number of half a dozen, and two or three more were left in the hall. All were armed. Mistress Margaret who had stood up with the rest, sat down again, and rested her head on her hand; apparently completely at her ease.

“I must beg pardon, Lady Maxwell,” he went on, “but my duty leaves me no choice.” He turned to the young man, who, on seeing the officers had laid the knife down again, and now stood, with one hand on the table, rather pale, but apparently completely self-controlled, looking a little disdainfully at the magistrate.

Then Sir Nicholas made a great effort; but his face twitched as he spoke, and the hand that he lifted to his wife’s arm shook with nervousness, and his voice was cracked and unnatural.

“Sit down, my dear, sit down.—What is all this?—I do not understand.—Mr. Frankland, sir, what do you want of me?—And who are all these gentlemen?—Won’t you sit down, Mr. Frankland and take a glass of wine. Let me make Mr. Stewart known to you.” And he lifted a shaking hand as if to introduce them.

The magistrate smiled a little on one side of his mouth.

“It is no use, Sir Nicholas,” he said, “this gentleman, I fear, is well known to some of us already.—No, no, sir,” he cried sharply, “the window is guarded.”

Mr. Stewart, who had looked swiftly and sideways across at the window, faced the magistrate again.

“I do not know what you mean, sir,” he said. “It was a lad who passed the window.”

There was a movement outside in the hall; and the magistrate stepped to the door.

“Who is there?” he cried out sharply.

There was a scuffle, and a cry of a boy’s voice; and a man appeared, holding Anthony by the arm.

Mistress Margaret turned round in her seat; and said in a perfectly natural voice, “Why, Anthony, my lad!”

There was a murmur from one or two of the men.

“Silence,” called out the magistrate. “We will finish the other affair first,” and he made a motion to hold Anthony for a moment.—”Now then, do any of you men know this gentleman?”

A pursuivant stepped out.

“Mr. Frankland, sir; I know him under two names—Mr. Chapman and Mr. Wode. He is a popish agent. I saw him in the company of Dr. Storey in Antwerp, four months ago.”

Mr. Stewart blew out his lips sharply and contemptuously.

“Pooh,” he said; and then turned to the man and bowed ironically.

“I congratulate you, my man,” he said, in a tone of bitter triumph. “In April I was in France. Kindly remember this man’s words, Mr. Frankland; they will tell in my favour. For I presume you mean to take me.”

“I will remember them,” said the magistrate.

Mr. Stewart bowed to him; he had completely regained his composure. Then he turned to Sir Nicholas and Lady Maxwell, who had been watching in a bewildered silence.

“I am exceedingly sorry,” he said, “for having brought this annoyance on you, Lady Maxwell; but these men are so sharp that they see nothing but guilt everywhere. I do not know yet what my crime is. But that can wait. Sir Nicholas, we should have parted anyhow in half an hour. We shall only say good-bye here, instead of at the door.”

The magistrate smiled again as before; and half put up his hand to hide it.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Chapman; but you need not part from Sir Nicholas yet. I fear, Sir Nicholas, that I shall have to trouble you to come with us.”

Lady Maxwell drew a quick hissing breath; her sister got up swiftly and went to her, as she sat down in Sir Nicholas’ chair, still holding the old man’s hand.

Sir Nicholas turned to his guest; and his voice broke again and again as he spoke.

“Mr. Stewart,” he said, “I am sorry that any guest of mine should be subject to these insults. However, I am glad that I shall have the pleasure of your company after all. I suppose we ride to East Grinsted,” he added harshly to the magistrate, who bowed to him.—”Then may I have my servant, sir?”

“Presently,” said Mr. Frankland, and then turned to Anthony, who had been staring wild-eyed at the scene, “Now who is this?”

A man answered from the rank.

“That is Master Anthony Norris, sir.”

“Ah! and who is Master Anthony Norris? A Papist, too?”

“No, sir,” said the man again, “a good Protestant; and the son of Mr. Norris at the Dower House.”

“Ah!” said the magistrate again, judicially. “And what might you be wanting here, Master Anthony Norris?”

Anthony explained that he often came up in the evening, and that he wanted nothing. The magistrate eyed him a moment or two.

“Well, I have nothing against you, young gentleman. But I cannot let you go, till I am safely set out. You might rouse the village. Take him out till we start,” he added to the man who guarded him.

“Come this way, sir,” said the officer; and Anthony presently found himself sitting on the long oak bench that ran across the western end of the hall, at the foot of the stairs, and just opposite the door of Sir Nicholas’ room where he had just witnessed that curious startling scene.

The man who had charge of him stood a little distance off, and did not trouble him further, and Anthony watched in silence.

The hall was still dark, except for one candle that had been lighted by the magistrate’s party, and it looked sombre and suggestive of tragedy. Floor walls and ceiling were all dark oak, and the corners were full of shadows. A streak of light came out of the slightly opened door opposite, and a murmur of voices. The rest of the house was quiet; it had all been arranged and carried out without disturbance.

Anthony had a very fair idea of what was going forward; he knew of course that the Catholics were always under suspicion, and now understood plainly enough from the conversation he had heard that the reddish-haired young man, standing so alert and cheerful by the table in there, had somehow precipitated matters. Anthony himself had come up on some trifling errand, and had run straight into this affair; and now he sat and wondered resentfully, with his eyes and ears wide open.

There were men at all the inner doors now; they had slipped in from the outer entrances as soon as word had reached them that the prisoners were secured, and only a couple were left outside to prevent the alarm being raised in the village. These inner sentinels stood motionless at the foot of the stairs that rose up into the unlighted lobby overhead, at the door that led to the inner hall and the servants’ quarters, and at those that led to the cloister wing and the garden respectively.

The murmur of voices went on in the room opposite; and presently a man slipped out and passed through the sentinels to the door leading to the kitchens and pantry; he carried a pike in his hand, and was armed with a steel cap and breast-piece. In a minute he had returned followed by Mr. Boyd, Sir Nicholas’ body-servant; the two passed into the study—and a moment later the dark inner hall was full of moving figures and rustlings and whisperings, as the alarmed servants poured up from downstairs.

Then the study door opened again, and Anthony caught a glimpse of the lighted room; the two ladies with Sir Nicholas and his guest were seated at table; there was the figure of an armed man behind Mr. Stewart’s chair, and another behind Lady Maxwell’s; then the door closed again as Mr. Boyd with the magistrate and a constable carrying a candle came out.

“This way, sir,” said the servant; and the three crossed the hall, and passing close by Anthony, went up the broad oak staircase that led to the upper rooms. Then the minutes passed away; from upstairs came the noise of doors opening and shutting, and footsteps passing overhead; from the inner hall the sound of low talking, and a few sobs now and again from a frightened maid; from Sir Nicholas’ room all was quiet except once when Mr. Stewart’s laugh, high and natural, rang out. Anthony thought of that strong brisk face he had seen in the candlelight; and wondered how he could laugh, with death so imminent—and worse than death; and a warmth of admiration and respect glowed at the lad’s heart. The man by Anthony sighed and shifted his feet.

“What is it for?” whispered the lad at last.

“I mustn’t speak to you, sir,” said the man.

At last the footsteps overhead came to the top of the stairs. The magistrate’s voice called out sharply and impatiently:

“Come along, come along”; and the three, all carrying bags and valises came downstairs again and crossed the hall. Again the door opened as they went in, leaving the luggage on the floor; and Anthony caught another glimpse of the four still seated round the table; but Sir Nicholas’ head was bowed upon his hands.

Then again the door closed; and there was silence.

Once more it was flung open, and Anthony saw the interior of the room plainly. The four were standing up, Mr. Stewart was bowing to Lady Maxwell; the magistrate stood close beside him; then a couple of men stepped up to the young man’s side as he turned away, and the three came out into the hall and stood waiting by the little heap of luggage. Mr. Frankland came next, with the man-servant close beside him, and the rest of the men behind; and the last closed the door and stood by it. There was a dead silence; Anthony sprang to his feet in uncontrollable excitement. What was happening? Again the door opened, and the men made room as Mistress Margaret came out, and the door shut.

She came swiftly across, with her little air of dignity and confidence, towards Anthony, who was standing forward.

“Why, Master Anthony,” she said, “dear lad; I did not know they had kept you,” and she took his hand.

“What is it, what is it?” he whispered sharply.

“Hush,” she said; and the two stood together in silence.

The moments passed; Anthony could hear the quick thumping beat of his own heart, and the breathing of Mistress Margaret; but the hall was perfectly quiet, where the magistrate with the prisoner and his men stood in an irregular dark group with the candle behind them; and no sound came from the room beyond.

Then the handle turned, and a crack of light showed; but no further sound; then the door opened wide, a flood of light poured out and Sir Nicholas tottered into the hall.

“Margaret, Margaret,” he cried. “Where are you? Go to her.”

There was a strange moaning sound from the brightly lighted room. The old lady dropped Anthony’s hand and moved swiftly and unfalteringly across, and once more the door closed behind her.

There was a sharp word of command from the magistrate, and the sentries from every door left their posts, and joined the group which, with Sir Nicholas and his guest and Mr. Boyd in the centre, now passed out through the garden door.

The magistrate paused as he saw Anthony standing there alone.

“I can trust you, young gentleman,” he said, “not to give the alarm till we are gone?”

Anthony nodded, and the magistrate passed briskly out on to the terrace, shutting the door behind him; there was a rush of footsteps and a murmur of voices and the hall was filled with the watching servants.

As the chorus of exclamations and inquiries broke out, Anthony ran straight through the crowd to the garden door, and on to the terrace. They had gone to the left, he supposed, but he hesitated a moment to listen; then he heard the stamp of horses’ feet and the jingle of saddlery, and saw the glare of torches through the yew hedge; and he turned quickly and ran along the terrace, past the flood of light that poured out from the supper room, and down the path that led to the side-door opposite the Rectory. It was very dark, and he stumbled once or twice; then he came to the two or three stairs that led down to the door in the wall, and turned off among the bushes, creeping on hands and feet till he reached the wall, low on this side, but deep on the other; and looked over.

The pursuivants with their men had formed a circle round the two prisoners, who were already mounted and who sat looking about them as the luggage was being strapped to their saddles before and behind; the bridles were lifted forward over the horses’ heads, and a couple of the guard held each rein. The groom who had brought round the two horses for Mr. Stewart and himself stood white-faced and staring, with his back to the Rectory wall. The magistrate was just mounting at a little distance his own horse, which was held by the Rectory boy. Mr. Boyd, it seemed, was to walk with the men. Two or three torches were burning by now, and every detail was distinct to Anthony, as he crouched among the dry leaves and peered down on to the group just beneath.

Sir Nicholas’ face was turned away from him; but his head was sunk on his breast, and he did not stir or lift it as his horse stamped at the strapping on of the valise Mr. Boyd had packed for him. Mr. Stewart sat erect and motionless, and his face as Anthony saw it was confident and fearless.

Then suddenly the door in the Rectory wall opposite was flung open, and a figure in flying black skirts, but hatless, rushed out and through the guard straight up to the old man’s knee. There was a shout from the men and a movement to pull him off, but the magistrate who was on his horse and just outside the circle spoke sharply, and the men fell back.

“Oh, Sir Nicholas, Sir Nicholas,” sobbed the minister, his face half buried in the saddle. Anthony saw his shoulders shaking, and his hands clutching at the old man’s knee. “Forgive me, forgive me.”

There was no answer from Sir Nicholas; he still sat unmoved, his chin on his breast, as the Rector sobbed and moaned at his stirrup.

“There, there,” said the magistrate decidedly, over the heads of the guard, “that is enough, Mr. Dent”; and he made a motion with his hand.

A couple of men took the minister by the shoulders and drew him, still crying out to Sir Nicholas, outside the group; and he stood there dazed and groping with his hands. There was a word of command; and the guard moved off at a sharp walk, with the horses in the centre, and as they turned, the lad saw in the torchlight the old man’s face drawn and wrinkled with sorrow, and great tears running down it.

The Rector leaned against his own wall, with his hands over his face; and Anthony looked at him with growing suspicion and terror as the flare of the torches on the trees faded, and the noise of the troop died away round the corner.

CHAPTER IX

VILLAGE JUSTICE

The village had never known such an awakening as on the morning that followed Sir Nicholas’ arrest. Before seven o’clock every house knew it, and children ran half-dressed to the outlying hamlets to tell the story. Very little work was done that day, for the estate was disorganised; and the men had little heart for work; and there were groups all day on the green, which formed and re-formed and drifted here and there and discussed and sifted the evidence. It was soon known that the Rectory household had had a foremost hand in the affair. The groom, who had been present at the actual departure of the prisoners had told the story of the black figure that ran out of the door, and of what was cried at the old man’s knee; and how he had not moved nor spoken in answer; and Thomas, the Rectory boy, was stopped as he went across the green in the evening and threatened and encouraged until he told of the stroke on the church-bell, and the Rectory key, and the little company that had sat all the afternoon in the kitchen over their ale. He told too how a couple of hours ago he had been sent across with a note to Lady Maxwell, and that it had been returned immediately unopened.

So as night fell, indignation had begun to smoulder fiercely against the minister, who had not been seen all day; and after dark had fallen the name “Judas” was cried in at the Rectory door half a dozen times, and a stone or two from the direction of the churchyard had crashed on the tiles of the house.

Mr. Norris had been up all day at the Hall, but he was the only visitor admitted. All day long the gate-house was kept closed, and the same message was given to the few horsemen and carriages that came to inquire after the truth of the report from the Catholic houses round, to the effect that it was true that Sir Nicholas and a friend had been taken off to London by the Justice from East Grinsted; and that Lady Maxwell begged the prayers of her friends for her husband’s safe return.

Anthony had ridden off early with a servant, at his father’s wish, to follow Sir Nicholas and learn any news of him that was possible, to do him any service he was able, and to return or send a message the next day down to Great Keynes; and early in the afternoon he returned with the information that Sir Nicholas was at the Marshalsea, that he was well and happy, that he sent his wife his dear love, and that she should have a letter from him before nightfall. He rode straight to the Hall with the news, full of chastened delight at his official importance, just pausing to tell a group that was gathered on the green that all was well so far, and was shown up to Lady Maxwell’s own parlour, where he found her, very quiet and self-controlled, and extremely grateful for his kindness in riding up to London and back on her account. Anthony explained too that he had been able to get Sir Nicholas one or two comforts that the prison did not provide, a pillow and an extra coverlet and some fruit; and he left her full of gratitude.

His father had been up to see the ladies two or three times, and in spite of the difference in religion had prayed with them, and talked a little; and Lady Maxwell had asked that Isabel might come up to supper and spend the evening. Mr. Norris promised to send her up, and then added:

“I am a little anxious, Lady Maxwell, lest the people may show their anger against the Rector or his wife, about what has happened.”

Lady Maxwell looked startled.

“They have been speaking of it all day long,” he said, “they know everything; and it seems the Rector is not so much to blame as his wife. It was she who sent for the magistrate and gave him the key and arranged it all; he was only brought into it too late to interfere or refuse.”

“Have you seen him?” asked the old lady.

“I have been both days,” he said, “but he will not see me; he is in his study, locked in.”

“I may have treated him hardly,” she said, “I would not open his note; but at least he consented to help them against his friend.” And her old eyes filled with tears.

“I fear that is so,” said the other sadly.

“But speak to the people,” she said, “I think they love my husband, and would do nothing to grieve us; tell them that nothing would pain either of us more than that any should suffer for this. Tell them they must do nothing, but be patient and pray.”

There was a group still on the green near the pond as Isabel came up to supper that evening about six o’clock. Her father, who had given Lady Maxwell’s message to the people an hour or two before, had asked her to go that way and send down a message to him immediately if there seemed to be any disturbance or threatening of it; but the men were very quiet. Mr. Musgrave was there, she saw, sitting with his pipe, on the stocks, and Piers, the young Irish bailiff, was standing near; they all were silent as the girl came up, and saluted her respectfully as usual; and she saw no signs of any dangerous element. There were one or two older women with the men, and others were standing at their open doors on all sides as she went up. The Rectory gate was locked, and no one was to be seen within.

Supper was laid in Sir Nicholas’ room, as it generally was, and as it had been two nights ago; and it was very strange to Isabel to know that it was here that the arrest had taken place; the floor, too, she noticed as she came in, all about the threshold was scratched and dented by rough boots.

Lady Maxwell was very silent and distracted during supper; she made efforts to talk again and again, and her sister did her best to interest her and keep her talking; but she always relapsed after a minute or two into silence again, with long glances round the room, at the Vernacle over the fireplace, the prie-dieu with the shield of the Five Wounds above it, and all the things that spoke so keenly of her husband.

What a strange room it was, too, thought Isabel, with its odd mingling of the two worlds, with the tapestry of the hawking scene and the stiff herons and ladies on horseback on one side, and the little shelf of devotional books on the other; and yet how characteristic of its owner who fingered his cross-bow or the reins of his horse all day, and his beads in the evening; and how strange that an old man like Sir Nicholas, who knew the world, and had as much sense apparently as any one else, should be willing to sacrifice home and property and even life itself, for these so plainly empty superstitious things that could not please a God that was Spirit and Truth! So Isabel thought to herself, with no bitterness or contempt, but just a simple wonder and amazement, as she looked at the painted tokens and trinkets.

It was still daylight when they went upstairs to Lady Maxwell’s room about seven, but the clear southern sky over the yew hedges and the tall elms where the rooks were circling, was beginning to be flushed with deep amber and rose. Isabel sat down in the window seat with the sweet air pouring in and looked out on to the garden with its tiled paths and its cool green squares of lawn, and the glowing beds at the sides. Over to her right the cloister court ran out, with its two rows of windows, bedrooms above with galleries beyond, as she knew, and parlours and cloisters below; the pleasant tinkle of the fountain in the court came faintly to her ears across the caw of the rooks about the elms and the low sounds from the stables and the kitchen behind the house. Otherwise the evening was very still; the two old ladies were sitting near the fireplace; Lady Maxwell had taken up her embroidery, and was looking at it listlessly, and Mistress Margaret had one of her devotional books and was turning the pages, pausing here and there as she did so.

Presently she began to read, without a word of introduction, one of the musings of the old monk John Audeley in his sickness, and as the tender lines stepped on, that restless jewelled hand grew still.

“As I lay sick in my languor

In an abbey here by west;

This book I made with great dolour,

When I might not sleep nor rest.

Oft with my prayers my soul I blest,

And said aloud to Heaven’s King,

‘I know, O Lord, it is the best

Meekly to take thy visiting.

Else well I wot that I were lorn

(High above all lords be he blest!)

All that thou dost is for the best;

By fault of Thee was no man lost,

That is here of woman born.’”

And then she read some of Rolle’s verses to Jesus, the “friend of all sick and sorrowful souls,” and a meditation of his on the Passion, and the tranquil thoughts and tender fragrant sorrows soothed the torn throbbing soul; and Isabel saw the old wrinkled hand rise to her forehead, and the embroidery, with the needle still in it slipped to the ground; as the holy Name “like ointment poured forth” gradually brought its endless miracle and made all sweet and healthful again.

Outside the daylight was fading; the luminous vault overhead was deepening to a glowing blue as the sunset contracted on the western horizon to a few vivid streaks of glory; the room was growing darker every moment; and Mistress Margaret’s voice began to stumble over words.

The great gilt harp in the corner only gleamed here and there now in single lines of clear gold where the dying daylight fell on the strings. The room was full of shadows and the image of the Holy Mother and Child had darkened into obscurity in their niche. The world was silent now too; the rooks were gone home and the stir of the household below had ceased; and in a moment more Mistress Margaret’s voice had ceased too, as she laid the book down.

Then, as if the world outside had waited for silence before speaking, there came a murmur of sound from the further side of the house. Isabel started up; surely there was anger in that low roar from the village; was it this that her father had feared? Had she been remiss? Lady Maxwell too sprang up and faced the window with wide large eyes.

“The letter!” she said; and took a quick step towards the door; but Mistress Margaret was with her instantly, with her arm about her.

“Sit down, Mary,” she said, “they will bring it at once”; and her sister obeyed; and she sat waiting and looking towards the door, clasping and unclasping her hands as they lay on her lap; and Mistress Margaret stood by her, waiting and watching too. Isabel still stood by the window listening. Had she been mistaken then? The roar had sunk into silence for a moment; and there came back the quick beat of a horse’s hoofs outside on the short drive between the gatehouse and the Hall. They were right, then; and even as she thought it, and as the wife that waited for news of her husband drew a quick breath and half rose in her seat at the sound of that shod messenger that bore them, again the roar swelled up louder than ever; and Isabel sprang down from the low step of the window-seat into the dusky room where the two sisters waited.

“What is that? What is that?” she whispered sharply.

There was a sound of opening doors, and of feet that ran in the house below; and Lady Maxwell rose up and put out her hand, as a man-servant dashed in with a letter.

“My lady,” he said panting, and giving it to her, “they are attacking the Rectory.”

Lady Maxwell, who was half-way to the window now, for light to read her husband’s letter, paused at that.

“The Rectory?” she said. “Why—Margaret——” then she stopped, and Isabel close beside her, saw her turn resolutely from the great sealed letter in her hand to the door, and back again.

“Jervis told us, my lady; none saw him as he rode through—they were breaking down the gate.”

Then Lady Maxwell, with a quick movement, lifted the letter to her lips and kissed it, and thrust it down somewhere out of sight in the folds of her dress.

“Come, Margaret,” she said.

Isabel followed them down the stairs and out through the hall-door; and there, as they came out on to the steps that savage snarling roar swelled up from the green. There was laughter and hooting mixed with that growl of anger; but even the laughter was fierce. The gatehouse stood up black against the glare of torches, and the towers threw great swinging shadows on the ground and the steps of the Hall.

Isabel followed the two grey glimmering figures, and was astonished at the speed with which she had to go. The hoofs of the courier’s horse rang on the cobbles of the stable-yard as they came down towards the gatehouse, and the two wings of the door were wide-open through which he had passed just now; but the porter was gone.

Ah! there was the crowd; but not at the Rectory. On the right the Rectory gate lay wide open, and a flood of light poured out from the house-door at the end of the drive. Before them lay the dark turf, swarming with black figures towards the lower end; and a ceaseless roar came from them. There were half a dozen torches down there, tossing to and fro; Isabel saw that the crowd was still moving down towards the stocks and the pond.

Now the two ladies in front of her were just coming up with the skirts of the crowd; and there was an exclamation or two of astonishment as the women and children saw who it was that was coming. Then there came the furious scream of a man, and the crowd parted, as three men came reeling out together, two of them trying with all their power to restrain a fighting, kicking, plunging man in long black skirts, who tore and beat with his hands. The three ladies stopped for a moment, close together; and simultaneously the struggling man broke free and dashed back into the crowd, screaming with anger and misery.

“Marion, Marion—I am coming—O God!”

And Isabel saw with a shock of honor that sent her crouching and clinging close to Mistress Margaret, that it was the Rector. But the two men were after him and caught him by the shoulders as he disappeared; and as they turned they faced Lady Maxwell.

“My lady, my lady,” stammered one, “we mean him no harm. We——” But his voice stopped, as there came a sudden silence, rent by a high terrible shriek and a splash; followed in a moment by a yell of laughter and shouting; and Lady Maxwell threw herself into the crowd in front.

There were a few moments of jostling in the dark, with the reek and press of the crowd about her; and Isabel found herself on the brink of the black pond, with Lady Maxwell on one side, and Piers on the other keeping the crowd back, and a dripping figure moaning and sobbing in the trampled mud at Lady Maxwell’s feet. There was silence enough now, and the ring of faces opposite stared astonished and open-mouthed at the tall old lady with her grey veiled head upraised, as she stood there in the torchlight and rated them in her fearless indignant voice.

“I am ashamed, ashamed!” cried Lady Maxwell. “I thought you were men. I thought you loved my husband; and—and me.” Her voice broke, and then once more she cried again. “I am ashamed, ashamed of my village.”

And then she stooped to that heaving figure that had crawled up, and laid hold tenderly of the arms that were writhed about her feet.

“Come home, my dear,” Isabel heard her whisper.

It was a strange procession homeward up the trampled turf. The crowd had broken into groups, and the people were awed and silent as they watched the four women go back together. Isabel walked a little behind with her father and Anthony, who had at last been able to come forward through the press and join them; and a couple of the torchbearers escorted them. In front went the three, on one side Lady Maxwell, her lace and silk splashed and spattered with mud, and her white hands black with it, and on the other the old nun, each with an arm thrown round the woman in the centre who staggered and sobbed and leaned against them as she went, with her long hair and her draggled clothes streaming with liquid mud every step she took. Once they stopped, at a group of three men. The Rector was sitting up, in his torn dusty cassock, and Isabel saw that one of his buckled shoes was gone, as he sat on the grass with his feet before him, but quiet now, with his hands before him, and a dazed stupid look in his little black eves that blinked at the light of the torch that was held over him; he said nothing as he looked at his wife between the two ladies, but his lips moved, and his eyes wandered for a moment to Lady Maxwell’s face, and then back to his wife.

“Take him home presently,” she said to the men who were with him—and then passed on again.

As they got through the gatehouse, Isabel stepped forward to Mistress Margaret’s side.

“Shall I come?” she whispered; and the nun shook her head; so she with her father and brother stood there to watch, with the crowd silent and ashamed behind. The two torchbearers went on and stood by the steps as the three ladies ascended, leaving black footmarks as they went. The door was open and faces of servants peeped out, and hands were thrust out to take the burden from their mistress, but she shook her head, and the three came in together, and the door closed.

As the Norrises went back silently, the Rector passed them, with a little group accompanying him too; he, too, could hardly walk alone, so exhausted was he with his furious struggles to rescue his wife.

“Take your sister home,” said Mr. Norris to Anthony; and they saw him slip off and pass his arm through the Rector’s, and bend down his handsome kindly face to the minister’s staring eyes and moving lips as he too led him homewards.

Even Anthony was hushed and impressed, and hardly spoke a word until he and Isabel turned off down the little dark lane to the Dower House.

“We could do nothing,” he said, “father and I—until Lady Maxwell came.”

“No,” said Isabel softly, “she only could have done it.”

CHAPTER X

A CONFESSOR

Sir Nicholas and the party were lodged at East Grinsted the night of their arrest, in the magistrate’s house. Although he was allowed privacy in his room, after he had given his word of honour not to attempt an escape, yet he was allowed no conversation with Mr. Stewart or his own servant except in the presence of the magistrate or one of the pursuivants; and Mr. Stewart, since he was personally unknown to the magistrate, and since the charge against him was graver, was not on any account allowed to be alone for a moment, even in the room in which he slept. The following day they all rode on to London, and the two prisoners were lodged in the Marshalsea. This had been for a long while the place where Bishop Bonner was confined; and where Catholic prisoners were often sent immediately after their arrest; and Sir Nicholas at any rate found to his joy that he had several old friends among the prisoners. He was confined in a separate room; but by the kindness of his gaoler whom he bribed profusely as the custom was, through his servant, he had many opportunities of meeting the others; and even of approaching the sacraments and hearing mass now and then.

He began a letter to his wife on the day of his arrival and finished it the next day which was Saturday, and it was taken down immediately by the courier who had heard the news and had called at the prison. In fact, he was allowed a good deal of liberty; although he was watched and his conversation listened to, a good deal more than he was aware. Mr. Stewart, however, as he still called himself, was in a much harder case. The saddle-bags had been opened on his arrival, and incriminating documents found. Besides the “popish trinkets” they were found to contain a number of “seditious pamphlets,” printed abroad for distribution in England; for at this time the College at Douai, under its founder Dr. William Allen, late Principal of St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford, was active in the production of literature; these were chiefly commentaries on the Bull; as well as exhortations to the Catholics to stand firm and to persevere in recusancy, and to the schismatic Catholics, as they were called, to give over attending the services in the parish churches. There were letters also from Dr. Storey himself, whom the authorities already had in person under lock and key at the Tower. These were quite sufficient to make Mr. Stewart a prize; and he also was very shortly afterwards removed to the Tower.

Sir Nicholas wrote a letter at least once a week to his wife; but writing was something of a labour to him; it was exceedingly doubtful to his mind whether his letters were not opened and read before being handed to the courier, and as his seal was taken from him his wife could not tell either. However they seemed to arrive regularly; plainly therefore the authorities were either satisfied with their contents or else did not think them worth opening or suppressing. He was quite peremptory that his wife should not come up to London; it would only increase his distress, he said; and he liked to think of her at Maxwell Hall; there were other reasons too that he was prudent enough not to commit to paper, and which she was prudent enough to guess at, the principal of which was, of course, that she ought to be there for the entertaining and helping of other agents or priests who might be in need of shelter.

The old man got into good spirits again very soon. It pleased him to think that God had honoured him by imprisonment; and he said as much once or twice in his letters to his wife. He was also pleased with a sense of the part he was playing in the rôle of a conspirator; and he underlined and put signs and exclamation marks all over his letters of which he thought his wife would understand the significance, but no one else; whereas in reality the old lady was sorely puzzled by them, and the authorities who opened the letters generally read them of course like a printed book.

One morning about ten days after his arrival the Governor of the prison looked in with the gaoler, and announced to Sir Nicholas, after greeting him, that he was to appear before the Council that very day. This, of course, was what Sir Nicholas desired, and he thanked the Governor cordially for his good news.

“They will probably keep you at the Tower, Sir Nicholas,” said the Governor, “and we shall lose you. However, sir, I hope you will be more comfortable there than we have been able to make you.”

The knight thanked the Governor again, and said good-day to him with great warmth; for they had been on the best of terms with one another during his short detention at the Marshalsea.

The following day Sir Nicholas wrote a long letter to his wife describing his examination.

“We are in royal lodgings here at last, sweetheart; Mr. Boyd brought my luggage over yesterday; and I am settled for the present in a room of my own in the White Tower; with a prospect over the Court. I was had before my lords yesterday in the Council-room; we drove hither from the Marshalsea. There was a bay window in the room. I promise you they got little enough from me. There was my namesake, Sir Nicholas Bacon, my lords Leicester and Pembroke, and Mr. Secretary Cecil; Sir James Crofts, the Controller of the Household, and one or two more; but these were the principal. I was set before the table on a chair alone with none to guard me; but with men at the doors I knew very well. My lords were very courteous to me; though they laughed more than was seemly at such grave times. They questioned me much as to my religion. Was I a papist? If they meant by that a Catholic, that I was, and thanked God for it every day—(those nicknames like me not). Was I then a recusant? If by that they meant, Did I go to their Genevan Hotch-Potch? That I did not nor never would. I thought to have said a word here about St. Cyprian his work De Unitate Ecclesiae, as F——r X. told me, but they would not let me speak. Did I know Mr. Chapman? If by that they meant Mr. Stewart, that I did, and for a courteous God-fearing gentleman too. Was he a Papist, or a Catholic if I would have it so? That I would not tell them; let them find that out with their pursuivants and that crew. Did I think Protestants to be fearers of God? That I did not; they feared nought but the Queen’s Majesty, so it seemed to me. Then they all laughed at once—I know not why. Then they grew grave; and Mr. Secretary began to ask me questions, sharp and hard; but I would not be put upon, and answered him again as he asked. Did I know ought of Dr. Storey? Nothing, said I, save that he is a good Catholic, and that they had taken him. He is a seditious rogue, said my Lord Pembroke. That he is not, said I. Then they asked me what I thought of the Pope and his Bull, and whether he can depose princes. I said I thought him to be the Vicar of Christ; and as to his power to depose princes, that I supposed he could do, if he said so. Then two or three cried out on me that I had not answered honestly; and at that I got wrath; and then they laughed again, at least I saw Sir James Crofts at it. And Mr. Secretary, looking very hard at me asked whether if Philip sent an armament against Elizabeth to depose her, I would fight for him or her grace. For neither, said I: I am too old. For which then would you pray? said they. For the Queen’s Grace, said I, for that she was my sovereign. This seemed to content them; and they talked a little among themselves. They had asked me other questions too as to my way of living; whether I went to mass. They asked me too a little more about Mr. Stewart. Did I know him to be a seditious rascal? That I did not, said I. Then how, asked they, did you come to receive him and his pamphlets? Of his pamphlets, said I, I know nothing; I saw nothing in his bags save beads and a few holy books and such things. (You see, sweetheart, I did him no injury by saying so, because I knew that they had his bags themselves.) And I said I had received him because he was recommended to me by some good friends of mine abroad, and I told them their names too; for they are safe in Flanders now.

“And when they had done their questions they talked again for a while; and I was sent out to the antechamber to refresh myself; and Mr. Secretary sent a man with me to see that I had all I needed; and we talked together a little, and he said the Council were in good humour at the taking of Dr. Storey; and he had never seen them so merry. Then I was had back again presently; and Mr. Secretary said I was to stay in the Tower; and that Mr. Boyd was gone already to bring my things. And so after that I went by water to the Tower, and here I am, sweetheart, well and cheerful, praise God....

“My dearest, I send you my heart’s best love. God have you in his holy keeping.”

The Council treated the old knight very tenderly. They were shrewd enough to see his character very plainly; and that he was a simple man who knew nothing of sedition, but only had harboured agents thinking them to be as guileless as himself. As a matter of fact, Mr. Stewart was an agent of Dr. Storey’s; and was therefore implicated in a number of very grave charges. This of course was a very serious matter; but both in the examination of the Council, and in papers in Mr. Stewart’s bags, nothing could be found to implicate Sir Nicholas in any political intrigue at all. The authorities were unwilling too to put such a man to the torture. There was always a possibility of public resentment against the torture of a man for his religion alone; and they were desirous not to arouse this, since they had many prisoners who would be more productive subjects of the rack than a plainly simple and loyal old man whose only crime was his religion. They determined, however, to make an attempt to get a little more out of Sir Nicholas by a device which would excite no resentment if it ever transpired, and one which was more suited to the old man’s nature and years.

Sir Nicholas thus described it to his wife.

“Last night, my dearest, I had a great honour and consolation. I was awakened suddenly towards two o’clock in the morning by the door of my room opening and a man coming in. It was somewhat dark, and I could not see the man plainly, but I could see that he limped and walked with a stick, and he breathed hard as he entered. I sat up and demanded of him who he was and what he wanted; and telling me to be still, he said that he was Dr. Storey. You may be sure, sweetheart, that I sprang up at that; but he would not let me rise; and himself sat down beside me. He said that by the kindness of a gaoler he had been allowed to come; and that he must not stay with me long; that he had heard of me from his good friend Mr. Stewart. I asked him how he did, for I heard that he had been racked; and he said yes, it was true; but that by the mercy of God and the prayers of the saints he had held his peace and they knew nothing from him. Then he asked me a great number of questions about the men I had entertained, and where they were now; and he knew many of their names. Some of them were friends of his own, he said; especially the priests. We talked a good while, till the morning light began; and then he said he must be gone or the head gaoler would know of his visit, and so he went. I wish I could have seen his face, sweetheart, for I think him a great servant of God; but it was still too dark when he went, and we dared not have a light for fear it should be seen.”

This was as a matter of fact a ruse of the authorities. It was not Dr. Storey at all who was admitted to Sir Nicholas’ prison, but Parker, who had betrayed him at Antwerp. It was so successful, for Sir Nicholas told him all that he knew (which was really nothing at all) that it was repeated a few months later with richer results; when the conspirator Baily, hysterical and almost beside himself with the pain of the rack, under similar circumstances gave up a cypher which was necessary to the Council in dealing with the correspondence of Mary Stuart. However, Sir Nicholas never knew the deception, and to the end of his days was proud that he had actually met the famous Dr. Storey, when they were both imprisoned in the Tower together, and told his friends of it with reverent pride when the doctor was hanged a year later.

Hubert, who had been sent for to take charge of the estate, had come to London soon after his father’s arrival at the Tower; and was allowed an interview with him in the presence of the Lieutenant. Hubert was greatly affected; though he could not look upon the imprisonment with the same solemn exultation as that which his father had; but it made a real impression upon him to find that he took so patiently this separation from home and family for the sake of religion. Hubert received instructions from Sir Nicholas as to the management of the estate, for it was becoming plain that his father would have to remain in the Tower for the present; not any longer on a really grave charge, but chiefly because he was an obstinate recusant and would promise nothing. The law and its administration at this time were very far apart; the authorities were not very anxious to search out and punish those who were merely recusants or refused to take the oath of supremacy; and so Hubert and Mr. Boyd and other Catholics were able to come and go under the very nose of justice without any real risk to themselves; but it was another matter to let a sturdy recusant go from prison who stoutly refused to give any sort of promise or understanding as to future behaviour.

Sir Nicholas was had down more than once to further examination before the Lords Commissioners in the Lieutenant’s house; but it was a very tame and even an amusing affair for all save Sir Nicholas. It was so easy to provoke him; he was so simple and passionate that they could get almost anything they wanted out of him by a little adroit baiting; and more than once his examination formed a welcome and humorous entr’acte between two real tragedies. Sir Nicholas, of course, never suspected for a moment that he was affording any amusement to any one. He thought their weary laughter to be sardonic and ironical, and he looked upon himself as a very desperate fellow indeed; and wrote glowing accounts of it all to his wife, full of apostrophic praises to God and the saints, in a hand that shook with excitement and awe at the thought of the important scenes in which he played so prominent a part.

But there was no atmosphere of humour about Mr. Stewart. He had disappeared from Sir Nicholas’ sight on their arrival at the Marshalsea, and they had not set eyes on one another since; nor could all the knight’s persuasion and offer of bribes make his gaoler consent to take any message or scrap of paper between them. He would not even answer more than the simplest inquiries about him,—that he was alive and in the Tower, and so forth; and Sir Nicholas prayed often and earnestly for that deliberate and vivacious young man who had so charmed and interested them all down at Great Keynes, and who had been so mysteriously engulfed by the sombre majesty of the law.

“I fear,” he wrote to Lady Maxwell, “I fear that our friend must be sick or dying. But I can hear no news of him; when I am allowed sometimes to walk in the court or on the leads he is never there. My attendant Mr. Jakes looks glum and says nothing when I ask him how my friend does. My dearest, do not forget him in your prayers nor your old loving husband either.”

One evening late in October Mr. Jakes did not come as usual to bring Sir Nicholas his supper at five o’clock; the time passed and still he did not come. This was very unusual. Presently Mrs. Jakes appeared instead, carrying the food which she set down at the door while she turned the key behind her. Sir Nicholas rallied her on having turned gaoler; but she turned on him a face with red eyes and lined with weeping.

“O Sir Nicholas,” she said, for these two were good friends, “what a wicked place this is! God forgive me for saying so; but they’ve had that young man down there since two o’clock; and Jakes is with them to help; and he told me to come up to you, Sir Nicholas, with your supper, if they weren’t done by five; and if the young gentleman hadn’t said what they wanted.”

Sir Nicholas felt sick.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Why, who but Mr. Stewart?” she said; and then fell weeping again, and went out forgetting to lock the door behind her in her grief. Sir Nicholas sat still a moment, sick and shaken; he knew what it meant; but it had never come so close to him before. He got up presently and went to the door to listen for he knew not what. But there was no sound but the moan of the wind up the draughty staircase, and the sound of a prisoner singing somewhere above him a snatch of a song. He looked out presently, but there was nothing but the dark well of the staircase disappearing round to the left, and the glimmer of an oil lamp somewhere from the depths below him, with wavering shadows as the light was blown about by the gusts that came up from outside. There was nothing to be done of course; he closed the door, went back and prayed with all his might for the young man who was somewhere in this huge building, in his agony.

Mr. Jakes came up himself within half an hour to see if all was well; but said nothing of his dreadful employment or of Mr. Stewart; and Sir Nicholas did not like to ask for fear of getting Mrs. Jakes into trouble. The gaoler took away the supper things, wished him good-night, went out and locked the door, apparently without noticing it had been left undone before. Possibly his mind was too much occupied with what he had been seeing and doing. And the faithful account of all this went down in due time to Great Keynes.

The arrival of the courier at the Hall on Wednesday and Saturday was a great affair both to the household and to the village. Sir Nicholas sent his letter generally by the Saturday courier, and the other brought a kind of bulletin from Mr. Boyd, with sometimes a message or two from his master. These letters were taken by the ladies first to the study, as if to an oratory, and Lady Maxwell would read them slowly over to her sister. And in the evening, when Isabel generally came up for an hour or two, the girl would be asked to read them slowly all over again to the two ladies who sat over their embroidery on either side of her, and who interrupted for the sheer joy of prolonging it. And they would discuss together the exact significance of all his marks of emphasis and irony; and the girl would have all she could do sometimes not to feel a disloyal amusement at the transparency of the devices and the simplicity of the loving hearts that marvelled at the writer’s depth and ingenuity. But she was none the less deeply impressed by his courageous cheerfulness, and by the power of a religion that in spite of its obvious weaknesses and improbabilities yet inspired an old man like Sir Nicholas with so much fortitude.

At first, too, a kind of bulletin was always issued on the Sunday and Thursday mornings, and nailed upon the outside of the gatehouse, so that any who pleased could come there and get first-hand information; and an interpreter stood there sometimes, one of the educated younger sons of Mr. Piers, and read out to the groups from Lady Maxwell’s sprawling old handwriting, news of the master.

“Sir Nicholas has been had before the Council,” he read out one day in a high complacent voice to the awed listeners, “and has been sent to the Tower of London.” This caused consternation in the village, as it was supposed by the country-folk, not without excuse, that the Tower was the antechamber of death; but confidence was restored by the further announcement a few lines down that “he was well and cheerful.”

Great interest, too, was aroused by more domestic matters.

“Sir Nicholas,” it was proclaimed, “is in a little separate chamber of his own. Mr. Jakes, his gaoler, seems an honest fellow. Sir Nicholas hath a little mattress from a friend that Mr. Boyd fetched for him. He has dinner at eleven and supper at five. Sir Nicholas hopes that all are well in the village.”

But other changes had followed the old knight’s arrest. The furious indignation in the village against the part that the Rectory had played in the matter, made it impossible for the Dents to remain there. That the minister’s wife should have been publicly ducked, and that not by a few blackguards but by the solid fathers and sons with the applause of the wives and daughters, made her husband’s position intolerable, and further evidence was forthcoming in the behaviour of the people towards the Rector himself; some boys had guffawed during his sermon on the following Sunday, when he had ventured on a word or two of penitence as to his share in the matter, and he was shouted after on his way home.

Mrs. Dent seemed strangely changed and broken during her stay at the Hall. She had received a terrible shock, and it was not safe to move her back to her own house. For the first two or three nights, she would start from sleep again and again screaming for help and mercy and nothing would quiet her till she was wide awake and saw in the fire-light the curtained windows and the bolted door, and the kindly face of an old servant or Mistress Margaret with her beads in her hand. Isabel, who came up to see her two or three times, was both startled and affected by the change in her; and by the extraordinary mood of humility which seemed to have taken possession of the hard self-righteous Puritan.

“I begged pardon,” she whispered to the girl one evening, sitting up in bed and staring at her with wide, hard eyes, “I begged pardon of Lady Maxwell, though I am not fit to speak to her. Do you think she can ever forgive me? Do you think she can? It was I, you know, who wrought all the mischief, as I have wrought all the mischief in the village all these years. She said she did, and she kissed me, and said that our Saviour had forgiven her much more. But—but do you think she has forgiven me?” And then again, another night, a day or two before they left the place, she spoke to Isabel again.

“Look after the poor bodies,” she said, “teach them a little charity; I have taught them nought but bitterness and malice, so they have but given me my own back again. I have reaped what I have sown.”

So the Dents slipped off early one morning before the folk were up; and by the following Sunday, young Mr. Bodder, of whom the Bishop entertained a high opinion, occupied the little desk outside the chancel arch; and Great Keynes once more had to thank God and the diocesan that it possessed a proper minister of its own, and not a mere unordained reader, which was all that many parishes could obtain.

Towards the end of September further hints began to arrive, very much underlined, in the knight’s letters, of Mr. Stewart and his sufferings.

“You remember our friend,” Isabel read out one Saturday evening, “not Mr. Stewart.” (This puzzled the old ladies sorely till Isabel explained their lord’s artfulness.) “My dearest, I fear the worst for him. I do not mean apostacy, thank God. But I fear that these wolves have torn him sadly, in their dens.” Then followed the story of Mrs. Jakes, with all its horror, all the greater from the obscurity of the details.

Isabel put the paper down trembling, as she sat on the rug before the fire in the parlour upstairs, and thought of the bright-eyed, red-haired man with his steady mouth and low laugh whom Anthony had described to her.

Lady Maxwell posted upon the gatehouse:

“Sir Nicholas fears that a friend is in sore trouble; he hopes he may not yield.”

Then, after a few days more, a brief notice with a black-line drawn round it, that ran, in Mr. Bodder’s despite:

“Our friend has passed away. Pray for his soul.”

Sir Nicholas had written in great agitation to this effect.

“My sweetheart, I have heavy news to-day. There was a great company of folks below my window to-day, in the Inner Ward, where the road runs up below the Bloody Tower. It was about nine of the clock. And there was a horse there whose head I could see; and presently from the Beauchamp Tower came, as I thought, an old man between two warders; and then I could not very well see; the men were in my way; but soon the horse went off, and the men after him; and I could hear the groaning of the crowd that were waiting for them outside. And when Mr. Jakes brought me my dinner at eleven of the clock, he told me it was our friend—(think of it, my dearest—him whom I thought an old man!)—that had been taken off to Tyburn. And now I need say no more, but bid you pray for his soul.”

Isabel could hardly finish reading it; for she heard a quick sobbing breath behind her, and felt a wrinkled old hand caressing her hair and cheek as her voice faltered.

Meanwhile Hubert was in town. Sir Nicholas had at first intended him to go down at once and take charge of the estate; but Piers was very competent, and so his father consented that he should remain in London until the beginning of October; and this too better suited Mr. Norris’ plans who wished to send Isabel off about the same time to Northampton.

When Hubert at last did arrive, he soon showed himself extremely capable and apt for the work. He was out on the estate from morning till night on his cob, and there was not a man under him from Piers downwards who had anything but praise for his insight and industry.

There was in Hubert, too, as there so often is in country-boys who love and understand the life of the woods and fields, a balancing quality of a deep vein of sentiment; and this was now consecrated to Isabel Norris. He had pleasant dreams as he rode home in the autumn evening, under the sweet keen sky where the harvest moon rose large and yellow over the hills to his left and shed a strange mystical light that blended in a kind of chord with the dying daylight. It was at times like that, when the air was fragrant with the scent of dying leaves, with perhaps a touch of frost in it, and the cottages one by one opened red glowing eyes in the dusk, that the boy began to dream of a home of his own and pleasant domestic joys; of burning logs on the hearth and lighted candles, and a dear slender figure moving about the room. He used to rehearse to himself little meetings and partings; look at the roofs of the Dower House against the primrose sky as he rode up the fields homewards; identify her window, dark now as she was away; and long for Christmas when she would be back again. The only shadow over these delightful pictures was the uncertainty as to the future. Where after all would the home be? For he was a younger son. He thought about James very often. When he came back would he live at home? Would it all be James’ at his father’s death, these woods and fields and farms and stately house? Would it ever come to him? And, meanwhile where should he and Isabel live, when the religious difficulty had been surmounted, as he had no doubt that it would be sooner or later?

When he thought of his father now, it was with a continually increasing respect. He had been inclined to despise him sometimes before, as one of a simple and uneventful life; but now the red shadow of the Law conferred dignity. To have been imprisoned in the Tower was a patent of nobility, adding distinction and gravity to the commonplace. Something of the glory even rested on Hubert himself as he rode and hawked with other Catholic boys, whose fathers maybe were equally zealous for the Faith, but less distinguished by suffering for it.

Before Anthony went back to Cambridge, he and Hubert went out nearly every day together with or without their hawks. Anthony was about three years the younger, and Hubert’s additional responsibility for the estate made the younger boy more in awe of him than the difference in their ages warranted. Besides, Hubert knew quite as much about sport, and had more opportunities for indulging his taste for it. There was no heronry at hand; besides, it was not the breeding time which is the proper season for this particular sport; so they did not trouble to ride out to one; but the partridges and hares and rabbits that abounded in the Maxwell estate gave them plenty of quarreys. They preferred to go out generally without the falconer, a Dutchman, who had been taken into the service of Sir Nicholas thirty years before when things had been more prosperous; it was less embarrassing so; but they would have a lad to carry the “cadge,” and a pony following them to carry the game. They added to the excitement of the sport by making it a competition between their birds; and flying them one after another, or sometimes at the same quarry, as in coursing; but this often led to the birds’ crabbing.

Anthony’s peregrine Eliza was almost unapproachable; and the lad was the more proud of her as he had “made” her himself, as an “eyess” or young falcon captured as a nestling. But, on the other hand, Hubert’s goshawk Margaret, a fiery little creature, named inappropriately enough after his tranquil aunt, as a rule did better than Anthony’s Isabel, and brought the scores level again.

There was one superb day that survived long in Anthony’s memory and conversation; when he had done exceptionally well, when Eliza had surpassed herself, and even Isabel had acquitted herself with credit. It was one of those glorious days of wind and sun that occasionally fall in early October, with a pale turquoise sky overhead, and air that seems to sparkle and intoxicate like wine. They went out together after dinner about noon; their ponies and spaniels danced with the joy of life; Lady Maxwell cried to them from the north terrace to be careful, and pointed out to Mr. Norris who had dined with them what a graceful seat Hubert had; and then added politely, but as an obvious afterthought, that Anthony seemed to manage his pony with great address. The boys turned off through the village, and soon got on to high ground to the west of the village and all among the stubble and mustard, with tracts of rich sunlit country, of meadows and russet woodland below them on every side. Then the sport began. It seemed as if Eliza could not make a mistake. There rose a solitary partridge forty yards away with a whirl of wings; (the coveys were being well broken up by now) Anthony unhooded his bird and “cast off,” with the falconer’s cry “Hoo-ha, ha, ha, ha,” and up soared Eliza with the tinkle of bells, on great strokes of those mighty wings, up, up, behind the partridge that fled low down the wind for his life. The two ponies were put to the gallop as the peregrine began to “stoop”; and then down like a plummet she fell with closed wings, “raked” the quarry with her talons as she passed; recovered herself, and as Anthony came up holding out the tabur-stycke, returned to him and was hooded and leashed again; and sat there on his gloved wrist with wet claws, just shivering slightly from her nerves, like the aristocrat she was; while her master stroked her ashy back and the boy picked up the quarry, admiring the deep rent before he threw it into the pannier.

Then Hubert had the next turn; but his falcon missed his first stoop, and did not strike the quarry till the second attempt, thus scoring one to Anthony’s account. Then the peregrines were put back on the cadge as the boys got near to a wide meadow in a hollow where the rabbits used to feed; and the goshawks Margaret and Isabel were taken, each in turn sitting unhooded on her master’s wrist, while they all watched the long thin grass for the quick movement that marked the passage of a rabbit;—and then in a moment the bird was cast off. The goshawk would rise just high enough to see the quarry in the grass, then fly straight with arched wings and pounces stretched out as she came over the quarry; then striking him between the shoulders would close with him; and her master would come up and take her off, throw the rabbit to the game-carrier; and the other would have the next attempt.

And so they went on for three or four hours, encouraging their birds, whooping the death of the quarry, watching with all the sportsman’s keenness the soaring and stooping of the peregrines, the raking off of the goshawks; listening to the thrilling tinkle of the bells, and taking back their birds to sit triumphant and complacent on their master’s wrists, when the quarry had been fairly struck, and furious and sullen when it had eluded them two or three times till their breath left them in the dizzy rushes, and they “canceliered” or even returned disheartened and would fly no more till they had forgotten—till at last the shadows grew long, and the game more wary, and the hawks and ponies tired; and the boys put up the birds on the cadge, and leashed them to it securely; and jogged slowly homewards together up the valley road that led to the village, talking in technical terms of how the merlin’s feather must be “imped” to-morrow; and of the relative merits of the “varvels” or little silver rings at the end of the jesses through which the leash ran, and the Dutch swivel that Squire Blackett always used.

As they got nearer home and the red roofs of the Dower House began to glow in the ruddy sunlight above the meadows, Hubert began to shift the conversation round to Isabel, and inquire when she was coming home. Anthony was rather bored at this turn of the talk; but thought she would be back by Christmas at the latest; and said that she was at Northampton—and had Hubert ever seen such courage as Eliza’s? But Hubert would not be put off; but led the talk back again to the girl; and at last told Anthony under promise of secrecy that he was fond of Isabel, and wished to make her his wife;—and oh! did Anthony think she cared really for him. Anthony stared and wondered and had no opinion at all on the subject; but presently fell in love with the idea that Hubert should be his brother-in-law and go hawking with him every day; and he added a private romance of his own in which he and Mary Corbet should be at the Dower House, with Hubert and Isabel at the Hall; while the elders, his own father, Sir Nicholas, Mr. James, Lady Maxwell, and Mistress Torridon had all taken up submissive and complacent attitudes in the middle distance.

He was so pensive that evening that his father asked him at supper whether he had not had a good day; which diverted his thoughts from Mistress Corbet, and led him away from sentiment on a stream of his own talk with long backwaters of description of this and that stoop, and of exactly the points in which he thought the Maxwells’ falconer had failed in the training of Hubert’s Jane.

Hubert found a long letter waiting from his father which Lady Maxwell gave him to read, with messages to himself in it about the estate, which brought him down again from the treading of rosy cloud-castles with a phantom Isabel whither his hawks and the shouting wind and the happy day had wafted him, down to questions of barns and farm-servants and the sober realities of harvest.

CHAPTER XI

MASTER CALVIN

Isabel reached Northampton a day or two before Hubert came back to Great Keynes. She travelled down with two combined parties going to Leicester and Nottingham, sleeping at Leighton Buzzard on the way; and on the evening of the second day reached the house of her father’s friend Dr. Carrington, that stood in the Market Square.

Her father’s intention in sending her to this particular town and household was to show her how Puritanism, when carried to its extreme, was as orderly and disciplined a system, and was able to control the lives of its adherents, as well as the Catholicism whose influence on her character he found himself beginning to fear. But he wished also that she should be repelled to some extent by the merciless rigidity she would find at Northampton, and thus, after an oscillation or two come to rest in the quiet eclecticism of that middle position which he occupied himself.

The town indeed was at this time a miniature Geneva. There was something in the temper of its inhabitants that made it especially susceptible to the wave of Puritanism that was sweeping over England. Lollardy had flourished among them so far back as the reign of Richard II; when the mayor, as folks told one another with pride, had plucked a mass-priest by the vestment on the way to the altar in All Saints’ Church, and had made him give over his mummery till the preacher had finished his sermon.

Dr. Carrington, too, a clean-shaven, blue-eyed, grey-haired man, churchwarden of Saint Sepulchre’s, was a representative of the straitest views, and desperately in earnest. For him the world ranged itself into the redeemed and the damned; these two companies were the pivots of life for him; and every subject of mind or desire was significant only so far as it bore relations to be immutable decrees of God. But his fierce and merciless theological insistence was disguised by a real human tenderness and a marked courtesy of manner; and Isabel found him a kindly and thoughtful host.

Yet the mechanical strictness of the household, and the overpowering sense of the weightiness of life that it conveyed, was a revelation to Isabel. Dr. Carrington at family prayers was a tremendous figure, as he kneeled upright at the head of the table in the sombre dining-room; and it seemed to Isabel in her place that the pitiless all-seeing Presence that kept such terrifying silence as the Doctor cried on Jehovah, was almost a different God to that whom she knew in the morning parlour at home, to whom her father prayed with more familiarity but no less romance, and who answered in the sunshine that lay on the carpet, and the shadows of boughs that moved across it, and the chirp of the birds under the eaves. And all day long she thought she noticed the same difference; at Great Keynes life was made up of many parts, the love of family, the country doings, the worship of God, the garden, and the company of the Hall ladies; and the Presence of God interpenetrated all like light or fragrance; but here life was lived under the glare of His eye, and absorption in any detail apart from the consciousness of that encompassing Presence had the nature of sin.

On the Saturday after her arrival, as she was walking by the Nen with Kate Carrington, one of the two girls, she asked her about the crowd of ministers she had seen in the streets that morning.

“They have been to the Prophesyings,” said Kate. “My father says that there is no exercise that sanctifies a godly young minister so quickly.”

Kate went on to describe them further. The ministers assembled each Saturday at nine o’clock, and one of their number gave a short Bible-reading or lecture. Then all present were invited to join in the discussion; the less instructed would ask questions, the more experienced would answer, and debate would run high. Such a method Kate explained, who herself was a zealous and well instructed Calvinist, was the surest and swiftest road to truth, for every one held the open Scriptures in his hand, and interpreted and checked the speakers by the aid of that infallible guide.

“But if a man’s judgment lead him wrong?” asked Isabel, who professedly admitted authority to have some place in matters of faith.

“All must hold the Apostles’ Creed first of all,” said Kate, “and must set his name to a paper declaring the Pope to be antichrist, with other truths upon it.”

Isabel was puzzled; for it seemed now as if Private Judgment were not supreme among its professors; but she did not care to question further. It began to dawn upon her presently, however, why the Queen was so fierce against Prophesyings; for she saw that they exercised that spirit of exclusiveness, the property of Papist and Puritan alike; which, since it was the antithesis of the tolerant comprehensiveness of the Church of England, was also the enemy of the theological peace that Elizabeth was seeking to impose upon the country; and that it was for that reason that Papist and Puritan, sundered so far in theology, were united in suffering for conscience’ sake.

On the Sunday morning Isabel went with Mrs. Carrington and the two girls to the round Templars’ Church of Saint Sepulchre, for the Morning Prayer at eight o’clock, and then on to St. Peter’s for the sermon. It was the latter function that was important in Puritan eyes; for the word preached was considered to have an almost sacramental force in the application of truth and grace to the soul; and crowds of people, with downcast eyes and in sombre dress, were pouring down the narrow streets from all the churches round, while the great bell beat out its summons from the Norman tower. The church was filled from end to end as they came in, meeting Dr. Carrington at the door, and they all passed up together to the pew reserved for the churchwarden, close beneath the pulpit.

As Isabel looked round her, it came upon her very forcibly what she had begun to notice even at Great Keynes, that the religion preached there did not fit the church in which it was set forth; and that, though great efforts had been made to conform the building to the worship. There had been no half measures at Northampton, for the Puritans had a loathing of what they called a “mingle-mangle.” Altars, footpaces, and piscinæ had been swept away and all marks of them removed, as well as the rood-loft and every image in the building; the stained windows had been replaced by plain glass painted white; the walls had been whitewashed from roof to floor, and every suspicion of colour erased except where texts of Scripture ran rigidly across the open wall spaces: “We are not under the Law, but under Grace,” Isabel read opposite her, beneath the clerestory windows. And, above all, the point to which all lines and eyes converged, was occupied no longer by the Table but by the tribunal of the Lord. Yet underneath the disguise the old religion triumphed still. Beneath the great plain orderly scheme, without depth of shadows, dominated by the towering place of Proclamation where the crimson-faced herald waited to begin, the round arches and the elaborate mouldings, and the cool depths beyond the pillars, all declared that in the God for whom that temple was built, there was mystery as well as revelation, Love as well as Justice, condescension as well as Majesty, beauty as well as awfulness, invitations as well as eternal decrees.

Isabel looked up presently, as the people still streamed in, and watched the minister in his rustling Genevan gown, leaning with his elbows on the Bible that rested open on the great tasselled velvet cushion before him. Everything about him was on the grand scale; his great hands were clasped and protruded over the edge of the Book; and his heavy dark face looked menacingly round on the crowded church; he had the air of a melancholy giant about to engage in some tragic pleasure. But Isabel’s instinctive dislike began to pass into positive terror so soon as he began to preach.

When the last comers had found a place, and the talking had stopped, he presently gave out his text, in a slow thunderous voice, that silenced the last whispers:

“What shall we then say to these things? If God be on our side, who can be against us?”

There were a few slow sentences, in a deep resonant voice, uttering each syllable deliberately like the explosion of a far-off gun, and in a minute or two he was in the thick of Calvin’s smoky gospel. Doctrine, voice, and man were alike terrible and overpowering.

There lay the great scheme in a few minutes, seen by Isabel as though through the door of hell, illumined by the glare of the eternal embers. The huge merciless Will of God stood there before her, disclosed in all its awfulness, armed with thunders, moving on mighty wheels. The foreknowledge of God closed the question henceforth, and, if proof were needed, made predestination plain. There was man’s destiny, irrevocably fixed, iron-bound, changeless and immovable as the laws of God’s own being. Yet over the rigid and awful Face of God, flickered a faint light, named mercy; and this mercy vindicated its existence by demanding that some souls should escape the final and endless doom that was the due reward of every soul conceived and born in enmity against God and under the frown of His Justice.

Then, heralded too by wrath, the figure of Jesus began to glimmer through the thunderclouds; and Isabel lifted her eyes, to look in hope. But He was not as she had known him in His graciousness, and as He had revealed Himself to her in tender communion, and among the flowers and under the clear skies of Sussex. Here, in this echoing world of wrath He stood, pale and rigid, with lightning in His eyes, and the grim and crimson Cross behind him; and as powerless as His own Father Himself to save one poor timid despairing hoping soul against whom the Eternal Decree had gone forth. Jesus was stern and forbidding here, with the red glare of wrath on His Face too, instead of the rosy crown of Love upon His forehead; His mouth was closed with compressed lips which surely would only open to condemn; not that mouth, quivering and human, that had smiled and trembled and bent down from the Cross to kiss poor souls that could not hope, nor help themselves, that had smiled upon Isabel ever since she had known Him. It was appalling to this gentle maiden soul that had bloomed and rejoiced so long in the shadow of His healing, to be torn out of her retreat and set thus under the consuming noonday of the Justice of this Sun of white-hot Righteousness.

For, as she listened, it was all so miserably convincing; her own little essays of intellect and flights of hopeful imagination were caught up and whirled away in the strong rush of this man’s argument; her timid expectancy that God was really Love, as she understood the word in the vision of her Saviour’s Person,—this was dashed aside as a childish fancy; the vision of the Father of the Everlasting Arms receded into the realm of dreams; and instead there lowered overhead in this furious tempest of wrath a monstrous God with a stony Face and a stonier Heart, who was eternally either her torment or salvation; and Isabel thought, and trembled at the blasphemy, that if God were such as this, the one would be no less agony than the other. Was this man bearing false witness, not only against his neighbour, but far more awfully, against his God? But it was too convincing; it was built up on an iron hammered framework of a great man’s intellect and made white hot with another great man’s burning eloquence. But it seemed to Isabel now and again as if a thunder-voiced virile devil were proclaiming the Gospel of Everlasting shame. There he bent over the pulpit with flaming face and great compelling gestures that swayed the congregation, eliciting the emotions he desired, as the conductor’s baton draws out the music (for the man was a great orator), and he stormed and roared and seemed to marshal the very powers of the world to come, compelling them by his nod, and interpreting them by his voice; and below him sat this poor child, tossed along on his eloquence, like a straw on a flood; and yet hating and resenting it and struggling to detach herself and disbelieve every word he spoke.

As the last sands were running out in his hour-glass, he came to harbour from this raging sea; and in a few deep resonant sentences, like those with which he began, he pictured the peace of the ransomed soul, that knows itself safe in the arms of God; that rejoices, even in this world, in the Light of His Face and the ecstasy of His embrace; that dwells by waters of comfort and lies down in the green pastures of the Heavenly Love; while, round this little island of salvation in an ocean of terror, the thunders of wrath sound only as the noise of surge on a far-off reef.

The effect on Isabel was very great. It was far more startling than her visit to London; there her quiet religion had received high sanction in the mystery of S. Paul’s. But here it was the plainest Calvinism preached with immense power. The preacher’s last words of peace were no peace to her. If it was necessary to pass those bellowing breakers of wrath to reach the Happy Country, then she had never reached it yet; she had lived so far in an illusion; her life had been spent in a fool’s paradise, where the light and warmth and flowers were but artificial after all; and she knew that she had not the heart to set out again. Though she recognised dimly the compelling power of this religion, and that it was one which, if sincerely embraced, would make the smallest details of life momentous with eternal weight, yet she knew that her soul could never respond to it, and whether saved or damned that it could only cower in miserable despair under a Deity that was so sovereign as this.

So her heart was low and her eyes sad as she followed Mrs. Carrington out of church. Was this then really the Revelation of the Love of God in the Person of Jesus Christ? Had all that she knew as the Gospel melted down into this fiery lump?

The rest of the day did not alter the impression made on her mind. There was little talk, or evidence of any human fellowship, in the Carrington household on the Lord’s Day; there was a word or two of grave commendation on the sermon during dinner; and in the afternoon there was the Evening Prayer to be attended in St. Sepulchre’s followed by an exposition, and a public catechising on Calvin’s questions and answers. Here the same awful doctrines reappeared, condensed with an icy reality, even more paralysing than the burning presentation of them in the morning’s sermon. She was spared questions herself, as she was a stranger; and sat to hear girls of her own age and older men and women who looked as soft-hearted as herself, utter definitions of the method of salvation and the being and character of God that compelled the assent of her intellect, while they jarred with her spiritual experience as fiercely as brazen trumpets out of tune.

In the evening there followed further religious exercises in the dark dining-room, at the close of which Dr. Carrington read one of Mr. Calvin’s Genevan discourses, from his tall chair at the head of the table. She looked at him at first, and wondered in her heart whether that man, with his clear gentle voice, and his pleasant old face crowned with iron-grey hair seen in the mellow candlelight, really believed in the terrible gospel of the morning; for she heard nothing of the academic discourse that he was reading now, and presently her eyes wandered away out of the windows to the pale night sky. There still glimmered a faint streak of light in the west across the Market Square; it seemed to her as a kind of mirror of her soul at this moment; the tender daylight had faded, though she could still discern the token of its presence far away, and as from behind the bars of a cage; but the night of God’s wrath was fast blotting out the last touch of radiance from her despairing soul.

Dr. Carrington looked at her with courteous anxiety, but with approval too, as he held her hand for a moment as she said good-night to him. There were shadows of weariness and depression under her eyes, and the corners of her mouth drooped a little; and the doctor’s heart stirred with hope that the Word of God had reached at last this lamb of His who had been fed too long on milk, and sheltered from the sun; but who was now coming out, driven it might be, and unhappy, but still on its way to the plain and wholesome pastures of the Word that lay in the glow of the unveiled glory of God.

Isabel in her dark room upstairs was miserable; she stood long at her window her face pressed against the glass, and looked at the sky, from which the last streak of light had now died, and longed with all her might for her own oak room at home, with her prie-dieu and the familiar things about her; and the pines rustling outside in the sweet night-wind. It seemed to her as if an irresistible hand had plucked her out from those loved things and places, and that a penetrating eye were examining every corner of her soul. In one sense she believed herself nearer to God than ever before, but it was heartbreaking to find Him like this. She went to sleep with the same sense of a burdening Presence resting on her spirit.

The next morning Dr. Carrington saw her privately and explained to her a notice that she had not understood when it had been given out in church the day before. It was to the effect that the quarterly communion would be administered on the following Sunday, having been transferred that year from the Sunday after Michaelmas Day, and that she must hold herself in readiness on the Wednesday afternoon to undergo the examination that was enforced in every household in Northampton, at the hands of the Minister and Churchwardens.

“But you need not fear it, Mistress Norris,” he said kindly, seeing her alarm. “My daughter Kate will tell you all that is needful.”

Kate too told her it would be little more than formal in her case.

“The minister will not ask you much,” she said, “for you are a stranger, and my father will vouch for you. He will ask you of irresistible grace, and of the Sacrament.” And she gave her a couple of books from which she might summarise the answers; especially directing her attention to Calvin’s Catechism, telling her that that was the book with which all the servants and apprentices were obliged to be familiar.

When Wednesday afternoon came, one by one the members of the household went before the inquisition that held its court in the dining-room; and last of all Isabel’s turn came. The three gentlemen who sat in the middle of the long side of the table, with their backs to the light, half rose and bowed to her as she entered; and requested her to sit opposite to them. To her relief it was the Minister of St. Sepulchre’s who was to examine her—he who had read the service and discoursed on the Catechism, not the morning preacher. He was a man who seemed a little ill at ease himself; he had none of the superb confidence of the preacher; but appeared to be one to whose natural character this stern rôle was not altogether congenial. He asked a few very simple questions; as to when she had last taken the Sacrament; how she would interpret the words, “This is my Body”; and looked almost grateful when she answered quietly and without heat. He asked her too three or four of the simpler questions which Kate had indicated to her; all of which she answered satisfactorily; and then desired to know whether she was in charity with all men; and whether she looked to Jesus Christ alone as her one Saviour. Finally he turned to Dr. Carrington, and wished to know whether Mistress Norris would come to the sacrament at five or nine o’clock, and Dr. Carrington answered that she would no doubt wish to come with his own wife and daughters at nine o’clock; which was the hour for the folks who were better to do. And so the inquisition ended much to Isabel’s relief.

But this was a very extraordinary experience to her; it gave her a first glimpse into the rigid discipline that the extreme Puritans wished to see enforced everywhere; and with it a sense of corporate responsibility that she had not appreciated before; the congregation meant something to her now; she was no longer alone with her Lord individually, but understood that she was part of a body with various functions, and that the care of her soul was not merely a personal matter for herself, but involved her minister and the officers of the Church as well. It astonished her to think that this process was carried out on every individual who lived in the town in preparation for the sacrament on the following Sunday.

Isabel, and indeed the whole household, spent the Friday and Saturday in rigid and severe preparation. No flesh food was eaten on either of the days; and all the members of the family were supposed to spend several hours in their own rooms in prayer and meditation. She did not find this difficult, as she was well practised in solitude and prayer, and she scarcely left her room all Saturday except for meals.

“O Lord,” Isabel repeated each morning and evening at her bedside during this week, “the blind dulness of our corrupt nature will not suffer us sufficiently to weigh these thy most ample benefits, yet, nevertheless, at the commandment of Jesus Christ our Lord, we present ourselves to this His table, which He hath left to be used in remembrance of His death until His coming again, to declare and witness before the world, that by Him alone we have received liberty and life; that by Him alone dost thou acknowledge us to be thy children and heirs; that by Him alone we have entrance to the throne of thy grace; that by Him alone we are possessed in our spiritual kingdom, to eat and drink at His table, with whom we have our conversation presently in heaven, and by whom our bodies shall be raised up again from the dust, and shall be placed with Him in that endless joy, which Thou, O Father of mercy, hast prepared for thine elect, before the foundation of the world was laid.”

And so she prepared herself for that tryst with her Beloved in a foreign land where all was strange and unfamiliar about her: yet He was hourly drawing nearer, and she cried to Him day by day in these words so redolent to her with associations of past communions, and of moments of great spiritual elevation. The very use of the prayer this week was like a breeze of flowers to one in a wilderness.

On the Saturday night she ceremoniously washed her feet as her father had taught her; and lay down happier than she had been for days past, for to-morrow would bring the Lover of her soul.

On the Sunday all the household was astir early at their prayers, and about half-past eight o’clock all, including the servants who had just returned from the five o’clock service, assembled in the dining-room; the noise of the feet of those returning from church had ceased on the pavement of the square outside, and all was quiet except for the solemn sound of the bells, as Dr. Carrington offered extempore prayer for all who were fulfilling the Lord’s ordinance on that day. And Isabel once more felt her heart yearn to a God who seemed Love after all.

St. Sepulchre’s was nearly full when they arrived. The mahogany table had been brought down from the eastern wall to beneath the cupola, and stood there with a large white cloth, descending almost to the ground on every side; and a row of silver vessels, flat plates and tall new Communion cups and flagons, shone upon it. Isabel buried her face in her hands, and tried to withdraw into the solitude of her own soul; but the noise of the feet coming and going, and the talking on all sides of her, were terribly distracting. Presently four ministers entered and Isabel was startled to see, as she raised her face at the sudden silence, that none of them wore the prescribed surplice; for she had not been accustomed to the views of the extreme Puritans to whom this was a remnant of Popery; an indifferent thing indeed in itself, as they so often maintained; but far from indifferent when it was imposed by authority. One entered the pulpit; the other three took their places at the Holy Table; and after a metrical Psalm sung in the Genevan fashion, the service began. At the proper place the minister in the pulpit delivered an hour’s sermon of the type to which Isabel was being now introduced for the first time; but bearing again and again on the point that the sacrament was a confession to the world of faith in Christ; it was in no sense a sacrificial act towards God, “as the Papists vainly taught”; this part of the sermon was spoiled, to Isabel’s ears at least, by a flood of disagreeable words poured out against the popish doctrine; and the end of the sermon consisted of a searching exhortation to those who contemplated sin, who bore malice, who were in any way holding aloof from God, “to cast themselves mightily upon the love of the Redeemer, bewailing their sinful lives, and purposing to amend them.” This act, wrought out in the silence of the soul even now would transfer the sinner from death unto life; and turn what threatened to be poison into a “lively and healthful food.” Then he turned to those who came prepared and repentant, hungering and thirsting after the Bread of Life and the Wine that the Lord had mingled; and congratulated them on their possession of grace, and on the rich access of sanctification that would be theirs by a faithful reception of this comfortable sacrament; and then in half a dozen concluding sentences he preached Christ, as “food to the hungry; a stream to the thirsty; a rest for the weary. It is He alone, our dear Redeemer, who openeth the Kingdom of Heaven, to which may He vouchsafe to bring us for His Name’s sake.”

Isabel was astonished to see that the preacher did not descend from the pulpit after the sermon, but that as soon as he had announced that the mayor would sit at the Town Hall with the ministers and churchwardens on the following Thursday to inquire into the cases of all who had not presented themselves for Communion, he turned and began to busy himself with the great Bible that lay on the cushion. The service went on, and the conducting of it was shared among the three ministers standing, one at the centre of the table which was placed endways, and the others at the two ends. As the Prayer of Consecration was begun, Isabel hid her face as she was accustomed to do, for she believed it to be the principal part of the service, and waited for the silence that in her experience generally followed the Amen. But a voice immediately began from the pulpit, and she looked up, startled and distracted.

“Then Jesus said unto them,” pealed out the preacher’s voice, “All ye shall be offended by me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. But after I am risen, I will go into Galilee before you.”

Ah! why would not the man stop? Isabel did not want the past Saviour but the present now; not a dead record but a living experience; above all, not the minister but the great High Priest Himself.

“He began to be troubled and in great heaviness, and said unto them, My soul is very heavy, even unto the death; tarry here and watch.”

The three ministers had communicated by now; and there was a rustle and clatter of feet as the empty seats in front, hung with houselling cloths, began to be filled. The murmur of the three voices below as the ministers passed along with the vessels were drowned by the tale of the Passion that rang out overhead.

“Couldest thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is ready, but the flesh is weak.”

It was coming near to Isabel’s turn; the Carringtons already were beginning to move; and in a moment or two she rose and followed them out. The people were pressing up the aisles; and as she stood waiting her turn to pass into the white-hung seat, she could not help noticing the disorder that prevailed; some knelt devoutly, some stood, some sat to receive the sacred elements; and all the while louder and louder, above the rustling and the loud whispering of the ministers and the shuffling of feet, the tale rose and fell on the cadences of the preacher’s voice. Now it was her turn; she was kneeling with palms outstretched and closed eyes. Ah! would he not be silent for one moment? Could not the reality speak for itself, and its interpreter be still? Surely the King of Love needed no herald when Himself was here.

“And anon in the dawning, the high Priests held a Council with Elders and the Scribes and the whole Council, and bound Jesus and led Him away.” ...

And so it was over presently, and she was back again in her seat, distracted and miserable; trying to pray, forcing herself to attend now to the reader, now to her Saviour with whom she believed herself in intimate union, and finding nothing but dryness and distraction everywhere. How interminable it was! She opened her eyes, and what she saw amazed and absorbed her for a few moments; some were sitting back and talking; some looking cheerfully about them as if at a public entertainment; one man especially overwhelmed her imagination; with a great red face and neck like a butcher, animal and brutal, with a heavy hanging jowl and little narrow lack-lustre eyes—how bored and depressed he was by this long obligatory ceremony! Then once more she closed her eyes in self-reproach at her distractions; here were her lips still fragrant with the Wine of God, the pressure of her Beloved’s arm still about her; and these were her thoughts, settling like flies, on everything....

When she opened them again the last footsteps were passing down the aisle, the dripping Cups were being replaced by the ministers, and covered with napkins, and the tale of Easter was in telling from the pulpit like the promise of a brighter day.

“And they said one to another, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away (for it was a very great one).”

So read the minister and closed the book; and Our Father began.

In the evening, when all was over, and the prayers said and the expounding and catechising finished, in a kind of despair she slipped away alone, and walked a little by herself in the deepening twilight beside the river; and again she made effort after effort to catch some consciousness of grace from this Sacrament Sunday, so rare and so precious; but an oppression seemed to dwell in the very air. The low rain-clouds hung over the city, leaden and chill, the path where she walked was rank with the smell of dead leaves, and the trees and grass dripped with lifeless moisture. As she goaded and allured alternately her own fainting soul, it writhed and struggled but could not rise; there was no pungency of bitterness in her self-reproach, no thrill of joy in her aspiration; for the hand of Calvin’s God lay heavy on the delicate languid thing.

She walked back at last in despair over the wet cobblestones of the empty market square; but as she came near the house, she saw that the square was not quite empty. A horse stood blowing and steaming before Dr. Carrington’s door, and her own maid and Kate were standing hatless in the doorway looking up and down the street. Isabel’s heart began to beat, and she walked quicker. In a moment Kate saw her, and began to beckon and call; and the maid ran to meet her.

“Mistress Isabel, Mistress Isabel,” she cried, “make haste.”

“What is it?” asked the girl, in sick foreboding.

“There is a man come from Great Keynes,” began the maid, but Kate stopped her.

“Come in, Mistress Isabel,” she said, “my father is waiting for you.”

Dr. Carrington met her at the dining-room door; and his face was tender and full of emotion.

“What is it?” whispered the girl sharply. “Anthony?”

“Dear child,” he said, “come in, and be brave.”

There was a man standing in the room with cap and whip in hand, spurred and splashed from head to foot; Isabel recognised one of the grooms from the Hall.

“What is it?” she said again with a piteous sharpness.

Dr. Carrington laid his hands gently on her shoulders, and looked into her eyes.

“It is news of your father,” he said, “from Lady Maxwell.”

He paused, and the steady gleam of his eyes strengthened and quieted her, then he went on deliberately, “The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken it.”

He paused as if for an answer, but no answer came; Isabel was staring white-faced with parted lips into those strong blue eyes of his: and he finished:

“Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

CHAPTER XII

A WINDING-UP

The curtained windows on the ground-floor of the Dower House shone red from within as Isabel and Dr. Carrington, with three or four servants behind, rode round the curving drive in front late on the Monday evening. A face peeped from Mrs. Carroll’s window as the horse’s hoofs sounded on the gravel, and by the time that Isabel, pale, wet, and worn-out with her seventy miles’ ride, was dismounted, Mistress Margaret herself was at the door, with Anthony’s face at her shoulder, and Mrs. Carroll looking over the banisters.

Isabel was not allowed to see her father’s body that night, but after she was in bed, Lady Maxwell herself, who had been sent for when he lay dying, came down from the Hall, and told her what there was to tell; while Mistress Margaret and Anthony entertained Dr. Carrington below.

“Dear child,” said the old lady, leaning with her elbow on the bed, and holding the girl’s hand tenderly as she talked, “it was all over in an hour or two. It was the heart, you know. Mrs. Carroll sent for me suddenly, on Saturday morning; and by the time I reached him he could not speak. They had carried him upstairs from his study, where they had found him; and laid him down on his bed, and—yes, yes—he was in pain, but he was conscious, and he was praying I think; his lips moved. And I knelt down by the bed and prayed aloud; he only spoke twice; and, my dear, it was your name the first time, and the name of His Saviour the second time. He looked at me, and I could see he was trying to speak; and then on a sudden he spoke ‘Isabel.’ And I think he was asking me to take care of you. And I nodded and said that I would do what I could, and he seemed satisfied and shut his eyes again. And then presently Mr. Bodder began a prayer—he had come in a moment before; they could not find him at first—and then, and then your dear father moved a little and raised his hand, and the minister stayed; and he was looking up as if he saw something; and then he said once, ‘Jesus’ clear and loud; and, and—that was all, dear child.”

The next morning she and Anthony, with the two old ladies, one of whom was always with them during these days, went into the darkened oak room on the first floor, where he had died and now rested. The red curtains made a pleasant rosy light, and it seemed to the children impossible to believe that that serene face, scarcely more serene than in life, with its wide closed lids under the delicate eyebrows, and contented clean-cut mouth, and the scholarly hands closed on the breast, all in a wealth of autumn flowers and dark copper-coloured beech leaves, were not the face and hands of a sleeping man.

But Isabel did not utterly break down till she saw his study. She drew the curtains aside herself, and there stood his table; his chair was beside it, pushed back and sideways as if he had that moment left it; and on the table itself the books she knew so well.

In the centre of the table stood his inlaid desk, with the papers lying upon it, and his quill beside them, as if just laid down; even the ink-pot was uncovered just as he had left it, as the agony began to lay its hand upon his heart. She stooped and read the last sentence.

“This is the great fruit, that unspeakable benefit that they do eat and drink of that labour and are burden, and come—” and there it stopped; and the blinding tears rushed into the girl’s eyes, as she stooped to kiss the curved knob of the chair-arm where his dear hand had last rested.

When all was over a day or two later the two went up to stay at the Hall, while the housekeeper was left in charge of the Dower House. Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret had been present at the parish church on the occasion of the funeral, for the first time ever since the old Marian priest had left; and had assisted too at the opening of the will, which was found, tied up and docketed in one of the inner drawers of the inlaid desk; and before its instructions were complied with, Lady Maxwell wished to have a word or two with Isabel and Anthony.

She made an opportunity on the morning of Anthony’s departure for Cambridge, two days after the funeral, when Mistress Margaret was out of the room, and Hubert had ridden off as usual with Piers, on the affairs of the estate.

“My child,” said she to Isabel, who was lying back passive and listless on the window-seat. “What do you think your cousin will direct to be done? He will scarcely wish you to leave home altogether, to stay with him. And yet, you understand, he is your guardian.”

Isabel shook her head.

“We know nothing of him,” she said, wearily, “he has never been here.”

“If you have a suggestion to make to him you should decide at once,” the other went on, “the courier is to go on Monday, is he not, Anthony?”

The boy nodded.

“But will he not allow us,” he said, “to stay at home as usual? Surely——”

Lady Maxwell shook her head.

“And Isabel?” she asked, “who will look after her when you are away?”

“Mrs. Carroll?” he said interrogatively.

Again she shook her head.

“He would never consent,” she said, “it would not be right.”

Isabel looked up suddenly, and her eyes brightened a little.

“Lady Maxwell—” she began, and then stopped, embarrassed.

“Well, my dear?”

“What is it, Isabel?” asked Anthony.

“If it were possible—but, but I could not ask it.”

“If you mean Margaret, my dear”; said the old lady serenely, drawing her needle carefully through, “it was what I thought myself; but I did not know if you would care for that. Is that what you meant?”

“Oh, Lady Maxwell,” said the girl, her face lighting up.

Then the old lady explained that it was not possible to ask them to live permanently at the Hall, although of course Isabel must do so until an arrangement had been made; because their father would scarcely have wished them to be actually inmates of a Catholic house; but that he plainly had encouraged close relations between the two houses, and indeed, Lady Maxwell interpreted his mention of his daughter’s name, and his look as he said it, in the sense that he wished those relations to continue. She thought therefore that there was no reason why their new guardian’s consent should not be asked to Mistress Margaret’s coming over to the Dower House to take charge of Isabel, if the girl wished it. He had no particular interest in them; he lived a couple of hundred miles away, and the arrangement would probably save him a great deal of trouble and inconvenience.

“But you, Lady Maxwell,” Isabel burst out, her face kindled with hope, for she had dreaded the removal terribly, “you will be lonely here.”

“Dear child,” said the old lady, laying down her embroidery, “God has been gracious to me; and my husband is coming back to me; you need not fear for me.” And she told them, with her old eyes full of happy tears, how she had had a private word, which they must not repeat, from a Catholic friend at Court, that all had been decided for Sir Nicholas’ release, though he did not know it himself yet, and that he would be at home again for Advent. The prison fever was beginning to cause alarm, and it seemed that a good fine would meet the old knight’s case better than any other execution of justice.

So then, it was decided; and as Isabel walked out to the gatehouse after dinner beside Anthony, with her hand on his horse’s neck, and as she watched him at last ride down the village green and disappear round behind the church, half her sorrow at losing him was swallowed up in the practical certainty that they would meet again before Christmas in their old home, and not in a stranger’s house in the bleak North country.

On the following Thursday, Sir Nicholas’ weekly letter showed evidence that the good news of his release had begun to penetrate to him; his wife longed to tell him all she had heard, but so many jealous eyes were on the watch for favouritism that she had been strictly forbidden to pass on her information. However there was little need.

“I am in hopes,” he wrote, “of keeping Christmas in a merrier place than prison. I do not mean heaven,” he hastened to add, for fear of alarming his wife. “Good Mr. Jakes tells me that Sir John is ill to-day, and that he fears the gaol-fever; and if it is the gaol-fever, sweetheart, which pray God it may not be for Sir John’s sake, it will be the fourteenth case in the Tower; and folks say that we shall all be let home again; but with another good fine, they say, to keep us poor and humble, and mindful of the Queen’s Majesty her laws. However, dearest, I would gladly pay a thousand pounds, if I had them, to be home again.”

But there was news at the end of the letter that caused consternation in one or two hearts, and sent Hubert across, storming and almost crying, to Isabel, who was taking a turn in the dusk at sunset. She heard his step beyond the hedge, quick and impatient, and stopped short, hesitating and wondering.

He had behaved to her with extraordinary tact and consideration, and she was very conscious of it. Since her sudden return ten days before from the visit which had been meant to separate them, he had not spoken a word to her privately, except a shy sentence or two of condolence, stammered out with downcast eyes, but which from the simplicity and shortness of the words had brought up a sob from her heart. She guessed that he knew why she had been sent to Northampton, and had determined not to take advantage in any way of her sorrow. Every morning he had disappeared before she came down, and did not come back till supper, where he sat silent and apart, and yet, when an occasion offered itself, behaved with a quick attentive deference that showed her where his thoughts had been.

Now she stood, wondering and timid, at that hurried insistent step on the other side of the hedge. As she hesitated, he came quickly through the doorway and stopped short.

“Mistress Isabel,” he said, with all his reserve gone, and looking at her imploringly, but with the old familiar air that she loved, “have you heard? I am to go as soon as my father comes back. Oh! it is a shame!”

His voice was full of tears, and his eyes were bright and angry. Her heart leapt up once and then seemed to cease beating.

“Go?” she said; and even as she spoke knew from her own dismay how dear that quiet chivalrous presence was to her.

“Yes,” he went on in the same voice. “Oh! I know I should not speak; and—and especially now at all times; but I could not bear it; nor that you should think it was my will to go.”

She stood still looking at him.

“May I walk with you a little,” he said, “but—I must not say much—I promised my father.”

And then as they walked he began to pour it out.

“It is some old man in Durham,” he said, “and I am to see to his estates. My father will not want me here when he comes back, and, and it is to be soon. He has had the offer for me; and has written to tell me. There is no choice.”

She had turned instinctively towards the house, and the high roofs and chimneys were before them, dark against the luminous sky.

“No, no,” said Hubert, laying his hand on her arm; and at the touch she thrilled so much that she knew she must not stay, and went forward resolutely up the steps of the terrace.

“Ah! let me speak,” he said; “I have not troubled you much, Mistress Isabel.”

She hesitated again a moment.

“In my father’s room,” he went on, “and I will bring the letter.”

She nodded and passed into the hall without speaking, and turned to Sir Nicholas’ study; while Hubert’s steps dashed up the stairs to his mother’s room. Isabel went in and stood on the hearth in the firelight that glowed and wavered round the room on the tapestry and the prie-dieu and the table where Hubert had been sitting and the tall shuttered windows, leaning her head against the mantelpiece, doubtful and miserable.

“Listen,” said Hubert, bursting into the room a moment later with the sheet open in his hand.

“‘Tell Hubert that Lord Arncliffe needs a gentleman to take charge of his estates; he is too old now himself, and has none to help him. I have had the offer for Hubert, and have accepted it; he must go as soon as I have returned. I am sorry to lose the lad, but since James——’” and Hubert broke off. “I must not read that,” he said.

Isabel still stood, stretching her hands out to the fire, turned a little away from him.

“But what can I say?” went on the lad passionately, “I must go; and—and God knows for how long, five or six years maybe; and I shall come back and find you—and find you——” and a sob rose up and silenced him.

“Hubert,” she said, turning and looking with a kind of wavering steadiness into his shadowed eyes, and even then noticing the clean-cut features and the smooth curve of his jaw with the firelight on it, “you ought not——”

“I know, I know; I promised my father; but there are some things I cannot bear. Of course I do not want you to promise anything; but I thought that if perhaps you could tell me that you thought—that you thought there would be no one else; and that when I came back——”

“Hubert,” she said again, resolutely, “it is impossible: our religions——”

“But I would do anything, I think. Besides, in five years so much may happen. You might become a Catholic—or—or, I might come to see that the Protestant Religion was nearly the same, or as true at least—or—or—so much might happen.—Can you not tell me anything before I go?”

A keen ray of hope had pierced her heart as he spoke; and she scarcely knew what she said.

“But, Hubert, even if I were to say——”

He seized her hands and kissed them again and again.

“Oh! God bless you, Isabel! Now I can go so happily. And I will not speak of it again; you can trust me; it will not be hard for you.”

She tried to draw her hands away, but he still held them tightly in his own strong hands, and looked into her face. His eyes were shining.

“Yes, yes, I know you have promised nothing. I hold you to nothing. You are as free as ever to do what you will with me. But,”—and he lifted her hands once more and kissed them, and dropped them; seized his cap and was gone.

Isabel was left alone in a tumult of thought and emotion. He had taken her by storm; she had not guessed how desperately weak she was towards him, until he had come to her like this in a whirlwind of passion and stood trembling and almost crying, with the ruddy firelight on his face, and his eyes burning out of shadow. She felt fascinated still by that mingling of a boy’s weakness and sentiment and of a man’s fire and purpose; and she sank down on her knees before the hearth and looked wonderingly at her hands which he had kissed so ardently, now transparent and flaming against the light as if with love. Then as she looked at the red heart of the fire the sudden leaping of her heart quieted, and there crept on her a glow of steady desire to lean on the power of this tall young lover of hers; she was so utterly alone without him it seemed as if there were no choice left; he had come and claimed her in virtue of the master-law, and she—how much had she yielded? She had not promised; but she had shown evidently her real heart in those half dozen words; and he had interpreted them for her; and she dared not in honesty repudiate his interpretation. And so she knelt there, clasping and unclasping her hands, in a whirl of delight and trembling; all the bounds of that sober inner life seemed for the moment swept away; she almost began to despise its old coldnesses and limitations. How shadowy after all was the love of God, compared with this burning tide that was bearing her along on its bosom!...

She sank lower and lower into herself among the black draperies, clasping those slender hands tightly across her breast.

Suddenly a great log fell with a crash, the red glow turned into leaping flames; the whole dark room seemed alive with shadows that fled to and fro, and she knelt upright quickly and looked round her, terrified and ashamed.—What was she doing here? Was it so soon then that she was setting aside the will of her father, who trusted and loved her so well, and who lay out there in the chancel vault? Ah! she had no right here in this room—Hubert’s room now, with his cap and whip lying across the papers and the estate-book, and his knife and the broken jesses on the seat of the chair beside her. There was his step overhead again. She must be gone before he came back.

There was high excitement on the estate and in the village a week or two later when the rumour of Sir Nicholas’ return was established, and the paper had been pinned up to the gatehouse stating, in Lady Maxwell’s own handwriting, that he would be back sometime in the week before Advent Sunday. Reminiscences were exchanged of the glorious day when the old knight came of age, over forty years ago; of the sports on the green, of the quintain-tilting for the gentlefolks, and the archery in the meadow behind the church for the vulgar; of the high mass and the dinner that followed it. It was rumoured that Mr. Hubert and Mr. Piers had already selected the ox that was to be roasted whole, and that materials for the bonfire were in process of collection in the woodyard of the home farm.

Sir Nicholas’ letters became more and more emphatically underlined and incoherent as the days went on, and Lady Maxwell less and less willing for Isabel to read them; but the girl often found the old lady hastily putting away the thin sheets which she had just taken out to read to herself once again, on which her dear lord had scrawled down his very heart itself, as if his courting of her were all to do again.

It was not until the Saturday morning that the courier rode in through the gatehouse with the news that Sir Nicholas was to be released that day, and would be down if possible before nightfall. All the men on the estate were immediately called in and sent home to dress themselves; and an escort of a dozen grooms and servants led by Hubert and Piers rode out at once on the north road, with torches ready for kindling, to meet the party and bring them home; and all other preparations were set forward at once.

Towards eight o’clock Lady Maxwell was so anxious and restless that Isabel slipped out and went down to the gatehouse to look out for herself if there were any signs of the approach of the party. She went up to one of the little octagonal towers, and looked out towards the green.

It was a clear starlight night, but towards the village all was bathed in the dancing ruddy light of the bonfire. It was burning on a little mound at the upper end of the green, just below where Isabel stood, and a heavy curtain of smoke drifted westwards. As she looked down on it she saw against it the tall black posts of the gigantic jack and the slowly revolving carcass of the ox; and round about the stirring crowd of the village folk, their figures black on this side, luminous on that. She could even make out the cassock and square cap of Mr. Bodder as he moved among his flock. The rows of houses on either side, bright and clear at this end, melted away into darkness at the lower end of the green, where on the right the church tower rose up, blotting out the stars, itself just touched with ruddy light, and on the top of which, like a large star itself, burned the torch of the watcher who was looking out towards the north road. There was a ceaseless hum of noise from the green, pierced by the shrill cries of the children round the glowing mass of the bonfire, but there was no disorder, as the barrels that had been rolled out of the Hall cellars that afternoon still stood untouched beneath the Rectory garden-wall. Isabel contrasted in her mind this pleasant human tumult with the angry roaring she had heard from these same country-folk a few months before, when she had followed Lady Maxwell out to the rescue of the woman who had injured her; and she wondered at these strange souls, who attended a Protestant service, but were so fierce and so genial in their defence and welcome of a Catholic squire.

As she thought, there was a sudden movement of the light on the church tower; it tossed violently up and down, and a moment later the jubilant clangour of the bells broke out. There was a sudden stir in the figures on the green, and a burst of cheering rose. Isabel strained her eyes northwards, but the road took a turn beyond the church and she could see nothing but darkness and low-hung stars and one glimmering window. She turned instinctively to the house behind her, and there was the door flung wide, and she could make out the figures of the two ladies against the brightly lit hall beyond, wrapped like herself, in cloak and hood, for the night was frosty and cold.

As she turned once more she heard the clear rattle of trotting hoofs on the hard road, and a glow began to be visible at the lower dark end of the village. The cheering rose higher, and the bells were all clashing together in melodious discord, as in the angle of the road a group of tossing torches appeared. Then she could make out the horsemen; three riding together, and the others as escort round them. The crowd had poured off the grass on to the road by now, and the horses were coming up between two shouting gesticulating lines which closed after them as they went. Now she could make out the white hair of Sir Nicholas, as he bowed bare-headed right and left; and Hubert’s feathered cap, on one side of him, and Mr. Boyd’s black hat on the other. They had passed the bonfire now, and were coming up the avenue, the crowds still streaming after them, and the church tower bellowing rough music overhead. Isabel leaned out over the battlements, and saw beneath her the two old ladies waiting just outside the gate by the horse-block; and then she drew back, her eyes full of tears, for she saw Sir Nicholas’ face as he caught sight of his wife.

There was a sudden silence as the horses drew up; and the crowds ceased shouting, and when Isabel leaned over again Sir Nicholas was on the horse-block, the two ladies immediately behind him, and the people pressing forward to hear his voice. It was a very short speech; and Isabel overhead could not catch more than detached phrases of it, “for the faith”—”my wife and you all”—”home again”—”my son Hubert here”—”you and your families”—”the Catholic religion”—”the Queen’s grace”—”God save her Majesty.”

Then again the cheering broke out; and Isabel crossed over to see them pass up to the house and to the bright door set wide for them, and even as she watched them go up the steps, and Hubert’s figure close behind, she suddenly dropped her forehead on to the cold battlement, and drew a sharp breath or two, for she remembered again what it all meant to him and to herself.

PART II

CHAPTER I

ANTHONY IN LONDON

The development of a nation is strangely paralleled by the development of an individual. There comes in both a period of adolescence, of the stirring of new powers, of an increase of strength, of the dawn of new ideals, of the awaking of self-consciousness; contours become defined and abrupt, awkward and hasty movements succeed to the grace of childhood; and there is a curious mingling of refinement and brutality, stupidity and tenderness; the will is subject to whims; it is easily roused and not so easily quieted. Yet in spite of the attendant discomforts the whole period is undeniably one of growth.

The reign of Elizabeth coincided with this stage in the development of England. The young vigour was beginning to stir—and Hawkins and Drake taught the world that it was so, and that when England stretched herself catastrophe abroad must follow. She loved finery and feathers and velvet, and to see herself on the dramatic stage and to sing her love-songs there, as a growing maid dresses up and leans on her hand and looks into her own eyes in the mirror—and Marlowe and Greene and Shakespeare are witnesses to it. Yet she loved to hang over the arena too and watch the bear-baiting and see the blood and foam and listen to the snarl of the hounds, as a lad loves sport and things that minister death. Her policy, too, under Elizabeth as her genius, was awkward and ill-considered and capricious, and yet strong and successful in the end, as a growing lad, while he is clumsier, yet manages to leap higher than a year ago.

And once more, to carry the parallel still further, during the middle period of the reign, while the balance of parties and powers remained much the same, principles and tendencies began to assert themselves more definitely, just as muscles and sinews begin to appear through the round contour of the limbs of a growing child.

Thus, from 1571 to 1577, while there was no startling reversal of elements in the affairs of England, the entire situation became more defined. The various parties, though they scarcely changed in their mutual relations, yet continued to develop swiftly along their respective lines, growing more pronounced and less inclined to compromise; foreign enmities and expectations became more acute; plots against the Queen’s life more frequent and serious, and the countermining of them under Walsingham more patient and skilful; competition and enterprise in trade more strenuous; Scottish affairs more complicated; movements of revolt and repression in Ireland more violent.

What was true of politics was also true of religious matters, for the two were inextricably mingled. The Puritans daily became more clamorous and intolerant; their “Exercises” more turbulent, and their demands more unreasonable and one-sided. The Papists became at once more numerous and more strict; and the Government measures more stern in consequence. The act of ‘71 made it no less a crime than High Treason to reconcile or be reconciled to the Church of Rome, to give effect to a Papal Bull, to be in possession of any muniments of superstition, or to declare the Queen a heretic or schismatic. The Church of England, too, under the wise guidance of Parker, had begun to shape her course more and more resolutely along the lines of inclusiveness and moderation; to realise herself as representing the religious voice of a nation that was widely divided on matters of faith; and to attempt to include within her fold every individual that was not an absolute fanatic in the Papist or Puritan direction.

Thus, in every department, in home and foreign politics, in art and literature, and in religious independence, England was rising and shaking herself free; the last threads that bound her to the Continent were snapped by the Reformation, and she was standing with her soul, as she thought, awake and free at last, conscious of her beauty and her strength, ready to step out at last before the world, as a dominant and imperious power.

Anthony Norris had been arrested, like so many others, by the vision of this young country of his, his mother and mistress, who stood there, waiting to be served. He had left Cambridge in ‘73, and for three years had led a somewhat aimless life; for his guardian allowed him a generous income out of his father’s fortune. He had stayed with Hubert in the north, had yawned and stretched himself at Great Keynes, had gone to and fro among friends’ houses, and had at last come to the conclusion, to which he was aided by a chorus of advisers, that he was wasting his time.

He had begun then to look round him for some occupation, and in the final choice of it his early religious training had formed a large element. It had kept alive in him a certain sense of the supernatural, that his exuberance of physical life might otherwise have crushed; and now as he looked about to see how he could serve his country, he became aware that her ecclesiastical character had a certain attraction for him; he had had indeed an idea of taking Orders; but he had relinquished this by now, though he still desired if he might to serve the National Church in some other capacity. There was much in the Church of England to appeal to her sons; if there was a lack of unity in her faith and policy, yet that was largely out of sight, and her bearing was gallant and impressive. She had great wealth, great power and great dignity. The ancient buildings and revenues were hers; the civil power was at her disposal, and the Queen was eager to further her influence, and to protect her bishops from the encroaching power of Parliament, claiming only for the crown the right to be the point of union for both the secular and ecclesiastical sections of the nation, and to stamp by her royal approval or annul by her veto the acts of Parliament and Convocation alike. It seemed then to Anthony’s eyes that the Church of England had a tremendous destiny before her, as the religious voice of the nation that was beginning to make itself so dominant in the council of the world, and that there was no limit to the influence she might exercise by disciplining the exuberant strength of England, and counteracting by her soberness and self-restraint the passionate fanaticism of the Latin nations. So little by little in place of the shadowy individualism that was all that he knew of religion, there rose before him the vision of a living church, who came forth terrible as an army with banners, surrounded by all the loyalty that nationalism could give her, with the Queen herself as her guardian, and great princes and prelates as her supporters, while at the wheels of her splendid car walked her hot-blooded chivalrous sons, who served her and spread her glories by land and sea, not perhaps chiefly for the sake of her spiritual claims, but because she was bone of their bone; and was no less zealous than themselves for the name and character of England.

When, therefore, towards the end of ‘76, Anthony received the offer of a position in the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, through the recommendation of the father of one of his Cambridge friends, he accepted it with real gratitude and enthusiasm.

The post to which he was appointed was that of Gentleman of the Horse. His actual duties were not very arduous owing to the special circumstances of Archbishop Grindal; and he had a good deal of time to himself. Briefly, they were as follows—He had to superintend the Yeoman of the Horse, and see that he kept full accounts of all the horses in stable or at pasture, and of all the carriages and harness and the like. Every morning he had to present himself to the Archbishop and receive stable-orders for the day, and to receive from the yeoman accounts of the stables. Every month he examined the books of the yeoman before passing them on to the steward. His permission too was necessary before any guest’s or stranger’s horse might be cared for in the Lambeth stables.

He was responsible also for all the men and boys connected with the stable; to engage them, watch their morals and even the performance of their religious duties, and if necessary report them for dismissal to the steward of the household. In Archbishop Parker’s time this had been a busy post, as the state observed at Lambeth and Croydon was very considerable; but Grindal was of a more retiring nature, disliking as was said, “lordliness”; and although still the household was an immense affair, in its elaborateness and splendour beyond almost any but royal households of the present day, still Anthony’s duties were far from heavy. The Archbishop indeed at first dispensed with this office altogether, and concentrated all the supervision of the stable on the yeoman, and Anthony was the first and only Gentleman of the Horse that Archbishop Grindal employed. The disgrace and punishment under which the Archbishop fell so early in his archiepiscopate made this particular post easier than it would even otherwise have been; as fewer equipages were required when the Archbishop was confined to his house, and the establishment was yet further reduced.

Ordinarily then his duties were over by eleven o’clock, except when special arrangements were to be made. He rose early, waited upon the Archbishop by eight o’clock, and received his orders for the day; then interviewed the yeoman; sometimes visited the stables to receive complaints, and was ready by half-past ten to go to the chapel for the morning prayers with the rest of the household. At eleven he dined at the Steward’s table in the great hall, with the other principal officers of the household, the chaplain, the secretaries, and the gentlemen ushers, with guests of lesser degree. This great hall with its two entrances at the lower end near the gateway, its magnificent hammer-beam roof, its daïs, its stained glass, was a worthy place of entertainment, and had been the scene of many great feasts and royal visits in the times of previous archbishops in favour with the sovereign, and of a splendid banquet at the beginning of Grindal’s occupancy of the see. Now, however, things were changed. There were seldom many distinguished persons to dine with the disgraced prelate; and he himself preferred too to entertain those who could not repay him again, after the precept of the gospel; and besides the provision for the numerous less important guests who dined daily at Lambeth, a great tub was set at the lower end of the hall as it had been in Parker’s time, and every day after dinner under the steward’s direction was filled with food from the tables, which was afterwards distributed at the gate to poor people of the neighbourhood.

After dinner Anthony’s time was often his own, until the evening prayers at six, followed by supper again spread in the hall. It was necessary for him always to sleep in the house, unless leave was obtained from the steward. This gentleman, Mr. John Scot, an Esquire, took a fancy to Anthony, and was indulgent to him in many ways; and Anthony had, as a matter of fact, little difficulty in coming and going as he pleased so soon as his morning duties were done.

Lambeth House had been lately restored by Parker, and was now a very beautiful and well-kept place. Among other repairs and buildings he had re-roofed the great hall that stood just within Morton’s gateway; he had built a long pier into the Thames where the barge could be entered easily even at low tide; he had rebuilt the famous summerhouse of Cranmer’s in the garden, besides doing many sanitary alterations and repairs; and the house was well kept up in Grindal’s time.

Anthony soon added a great affection and tenderness to the awe that he felt for the Archbishop, who was almost from the first a pathetic and touching figure. When Anthony first entered on his duties in November ‘76, he found the Archbishop in his last days of freedom and good favour with the Queen. Elizabeth, he soon learnt from the gossip of the household, was as determined to put down the Puritan “prophesyings” as the popish services; for both alike tended to injure the peace she was resolved to maintain. Rumours were flying to and fro; the Archbishop was continually going across the water to confer with his friends and the Lords of the Council, and messengers came and went all day; and it was soon evident that the Archbishop did not mean to yield. It was said that his Grace had sent a letter to her Majesty bidding her not to meddle with what did not concern her, telling her that she, too, would one day have to render account before Christ’s tribunal, and warning her of God’s anger if she persisted.

Her Majesty had sworn like a trooper, a royal page said one day as he lounged over the fire in the guard-room, and had declared that if she was like Ozeas and Ahab and the rest, as Grindal had said she was, she would take care that he, at least, should be like Micaiah the son of Imlah, before she had done with him. Then it began to leak out that Elizabeth was sending her commands to the bishops direct instead of through their Metropolitan; and, as the days went by, it became more and more evident that disgrace was beginning to shadow Lambeth. The barges that drew up at the watergate were fewer as summer went on, and the long tables in hall were more and more deserted; even the Archbishop himself seemed silent and cast down. Anthony used to watch him from his window going up and down the little walled garden that looked upon the river, with his hands clasped behind him and his black habit gathered up in them, and his chin on his breast. He would be longer than ever too in chapel after the morning prayer, and the company would wait and wonder in the anteroom till his Grace came in and gave the signal for dinner. And at last the blow fell.

On one day in June, Anthony, who had been on a visit to Isabel at Great Keynes, returned to Lambeth in time for morning prayer and dinner just before the gates were shut by the porter, having ridden up early with a couple of grooms. There seemed to him to be an air of constraint abroad as the guests and members of the household gathered for dinner. There were no guests of high dignity that day, and the Archbishop sat at his own table silent and apart. Anthony, from his place at the steward’s table, noticed that he ate very sparingly, and that he appeared even more preoccupied and distressed than usual. His short-sighted eyes, kind and brown, surrounded by wrinkles from his habit of peering closely at everything, seemed full of sadness and perplexity, and his hand fumbled with his bread continually. Anthony did not like to ask anything of his neighbours, as there were one or two strangers dining at the steward’s table that day; and the moment dinner was over, and grace had been said and the Archbishop retired with his little procession preceded by a white wand, an usher came running back to tell Master Norris that his Grace desired to see him at once in the inner cloister.

Anthony hastened round through the court between the hall and the river, and found the Archbishop walking up and down in his black habit with the round flapped cap, that, as a Puritan, he preferred to the square head-dress of the more ecclesiastically-minded clergy, still looking troubled and cast down, continually stroking his dark forked beard, and talking to one of his secretaries. Anthony stood at a little distance at the open side of the court near the river, cap in hand, waiting till the Archbishop should beckon him. The two went up and down in the shade in the open court outside the cloisters, where the pump stood, and where the pulpit had been erected for the Queen’s famous visit to his predecessor; when she had sat in a gallery over the cloister and heard the chaplain’s sermon. On the north rose up the roof of the chapel. The cloisters themselves were poor buildings—little more than passages with a continuous row of square windows running along them the height of a man’s head.

After a few minutes the secretary left the Archbishop with an obeisance, and hastened into the house through the cloister, and presently the Archbishop, after a turn or two more with the same grave air, peered towards Anthony and then called him.

Anthony immediately came towards him and received orders that half a dozen horses with grooms should be ready as soon as possible, who were to receive orders from Mr. Richard Frampton, the secretary; and that three or four horses more were to be kept saddled till seven o’clock that evening in case further messages were wanted.

“And I desire you, Mr. Norris,” said the Archbishop, “to let the men under your charge know that their master is in trouble with the Queen’s Grace; and that they can serve him best by being prompt and obedient.”

Anthony bowed to the Archbishop, and was going to withdraw, but the Archbishop went on:

“I will tell you,” he said, “for your private ear only at present, that I have received an order this day from my Lords of the Council, bidding me to keep to my house for six months; and telling me that I am sequestered by the Queen’s desire. I know not how this will end, but the cause is that I will not do her Grace’s will in the matter of the Exercises, as I wrote to tell her so; and I am determined, by God’s grace, not to yield in this thing; but to govern the charge committed to me as He gives me light. That is all, Mr. Norris.”

The whole household was cast into real sorrow by the blow that had fallen at last on the master; he was “loving and grateful to servants”; and was free and liberal in domestic matters, and it needed only a hint that he was in trouble, for his officers and servants to do their utmost for him.

Anthony’s sympathy was further aroused by the knowledge that the Papists, too, hated the old man, and longed to injure him. There had been a great increase of Catholics this year; the Archbishop of York had reported that “a more stiff-necked, wilful, or obstinate people did he never hear of”; and from Hereford had come a lament that conformity itself was a mockery, as even the Papists that attended church were a distraction when they got there, and John Hareley was instanced as “reading so loud upon his Latin popish primer (that he understands not) that he troubles both minister and people.” In November matters were so serious that the Archbishop felt himself obliged to take steps to chastise the recusants; and in December came the news of the execution of Cuthbert Maine at Launceston in Cornwall.

How much the Catholics resented this against the Archbishop was brought to Anthony’s notice a day or two later. He was riding back for morning prayer after an errand in Battersea, one frosty day, and had just come in sight of Morton’s Gateway, when he observed a man standing by it, who turned and ran, on hearing the horse’s footsteps, past Lambeth Church and disappeared in the direction of the meadows behind Essex House. Anthony checked his horse, doubtful whether to follow or not, but decided to see what it was that the man had left pinned to the door. He rode up and detached it, and found it was a violent and scurrilous attack upon the Archbishop for his supposed share in the death of the two Papists. It denounced him as a “bloody pseudo-minister,” compared him to Pilate, and bade him “look to his congregation of lewd and profane persons that he named the Church of England,” for that God would avenge the blood of his saints speedily upon their murderers.

Anthony carried it into the hall, and after showing it to Mr. Scot, put it indignantly into the fire. The steward raised his eyebrows.

“Why so, Master Norris?” he asked.

“Why,” said Anthony sharply, “you would not have me frame it, and show to my lord.”

“I am not sure,” said the other, “if you desire to injure the Papists. Such foul nonsense is their best condemnation. It is best to keep evidence against a traitor, not destroy it. Besides, we might have caught the knave, and now we cannot,” he added, looking at the black shrivelling sheet half regretfully.

“It is a mystery to me,” said Anthony, “how there can be Papists.”

“Why, they hate England,” said the steward, briefly, as the bell rang for morning prayer. As Anthony followed him along the gallery, he thought half guiltily of Sir Nicholas and his lady, and wondered whether that was true of them. But he had no doubt that it was true of Catholics as a class; they had ceased to be English; the cause of the Pope and the Queen were irreconcilable; and so the whole incident added more fuel to the hot flame of patriotism and loyalty that burnt so bright in the lad’s soul.

But it was fanned yet higher by a glimpse he had of Court-life; and he owed it to Mary Corbet whom he had only seen momentarily in public once or twice, and never to speak to since her visit to Great Keynes over six years ago. He had blushed privately and bitten his lip a good many times in the interval, when he thought of his astonishing infatuation, and yet the glamour had never wholly faded; and his heart quickened perceptibly when he opened a note one day, brought by a royal groom, that asked him to come that very afternoon if he could, to Whitehall Palace, where Mistress Corbet would be delighted to see him and renew their acquaintance.

As he came, punctual to the moment, into the gallery overlooking the tilt-yard, the afternoon sun was pouring in through the oriel window, and the yard beyond seemed all a haze of golden light and dust. He heard an exclamation, as he paused, dazzled, and the servant closed the door behind him; and there came forward to him in the flood of glory, the same resplendent figure, all muslin and jewels, that he remembered so well, with the radiant face, looking scarcely older, with the same dancing eyes and scarlet lips. All the old charm seemed to envelop him in a moment as he saluted her with all the courtesy of which he was capable.

“Ah!” she cried, “how happy I am to see you again—those dear days at Great Keynes!” And she took both his hands with such ardour that poor Anthony was almost forced to think that he had never been out of her thoughts since.

“How can I serve you, Mistress Corbet?” he asked.

“Serve me? Why, by talking to me, and telling me of the country. What does the lad mean? Come and sit here,” she said, and she drew him to the window seat.

Anthony looked out into the shining haze of the tilt-yard. Some one with a long pole was struggling violently on the back of a horse, jerking the reins and cursing audibly.

“Look at that fool,” said Mary, “he thinks his horse as great a dolt as himself. Chris, Chris,” she screamed through her hands—”you sodden ass; be quieter with the poor beast—soothe him, soothe him. He doesn’t know what you want of him with your foul temper and your pole going like a windmill about his ears.”

The cursing and jerking ceased, and a red furious face with thick black beard and hair looked up. But before the rider could speak, Mary went on again:

“There now, Chris, he is as quiet as a sheep again. Now take him at it.”

“What does he want?” asked Anthony. “I can scarcely see for the dust.”

“Why, he’s practising at the quintain;—ah! ah!” she cried out again, as the quintain was missed and swung round with a hard buffet on the man’s back as he tore past. “Going to market, Chris? You’ve got a sturdy shepherd behind you. Baa, baa, black sheep.”

“Who’s that?” asked Anthony, as the tall horseman, as if driven by the storm of contumely from the window, disappeared towards the stable.

“Why that’s Chris Hatton—whom the Queen calls her sheep, and he’s as silly as one, too, with his fool’s face and his bleat and his great eyes. He trots about after her Grace, too, like a pet lamb. Bah! I’m sick of him. That’s enough of the ass; tell me about Isabel.”

Then they fell to talking about Isabel; and Mary eyed him as he answered her questions.

“Then she isn’t a Papist, yet?” she asked.

Anthony’s face showed such consternation that she burst out laughing.

“There, there, there!” she cried. “No harm’s done. Then that tall lad, who was away last time I was there—well, I suppose he’s not turned Protestant?”

Anthony’s face was still more bewildered.

“Why, my dear lad,” she said, “where are your eyes?”

“Mistress Corbet,” he burst out at last, “I do not know what you mean. Hubert has been in Durham for years. There is no talk——” and he stopped.

Mary’s face became sedate again.

“Well, well,” she said, “I always was a tattler. It seems I am wrong again. Forgive me, Master Anthony.”

Anthony was indeed astonished at her fantastic idea. Of course he knew that Hubert had once been fond of Isabel, but that was years ago, when they had been all children together. Why, he reflected, he too had been foolish once—and he blushed a little.

Then they went on to talk of Great Keynes, Sir Nicholas, and Mr. Stewart’s arrest and death; and Mary asked Anthony to excuse her interest in such matters, but Papistry had always been her religion, and what could a poor girl do but believe what she was taught? Then they went on to speak of more recent affairs, and Mary made him describe to her his life at Lambeth, and everything he did from the moment he got up to the moment he went to bed again; and whether the Archbishop was a kind master, and how long they spent at prayers, and how many courses they had at dinner; and Anthony grew more and more animated and confidential—she was so friendly and interested and pretty, as she leaned towards him and questioned and listened, and the faint scent of violet from her dress awakened his old memories of her.

And then at last she approached the subject on which she had chiefly wished to see him—which was that he should speak to the steward at Lambeth on behalf of a young man who was to be dismissed, it seemed, from the Archbishop’s service, because his sister had lately turned Papist and fled to a convent abroad. It was a small matter; and Anthony readily promised to do his best, and, if necessary, to approach the Archbishop himself: and Mistress Corbet was profusely grateful.

They had hardly done talking of the matter, when a trumpet blew suddenly somewhere away behind the building they were in. Mary held up a white finger and put her head on one side.

“That will be the Ambassador,” she said.

Anthony looked at her interrogatively.

“Why, you country lad!” she said, “come and see.”

She jumped up, and he followed her down the gallery, and along through interminable corridors and ante-chambers, and up and down the stairs of this enormous palace; and Anthony grew bewildered and astonished as he went at the doors on all sides, and the roofs that ranged themselves every way as he looked out. And at last Mary stopped at a window, and pointed out.

The courtyard beneath was alive with colour and movement. In front of the entrance opposite waited the great gilded state carriage, and another was just driving away. On one side a dozen ladies on grey horses were drawn up, to follow behind the Queen when she should come out; and a double row of liveried servants were standing bare-headed round the empty carriage. The rest of the court was filled with Spanish and English nobles, mounted, with their servants on foot; all alike in splendid costumes—the Spaniards with rich chains about their necks, and tall broad-brimmed hats decked with stones and pearls, and the Englishmen in feathered buckled caps and short cloaks thrown back. Two or three trumpeters stood on the steps of the porch. Anthony did not see much state at Lambeth, and the splendour and gaiety of this seething courtyard exhilarated him, and he stared down at it all, fascinated, while Mary Corbet poured out a caustic commentary:

“There is the fat fool Chris again, all red with his tilting. I would like to baa at him again, but I dare not with all these foreign folk. There is Leicester, that tall man with a bald forehead in the cap with the red feather, on the white horse behind the carriage—he always keeps close to the Queen. He is the enemy of your prelate, Master Anthony, you know.... That is Oxford, just behind him on the chestnut. Yes, look well at him. He is the prince of the tilt-yard; none can stand against him. You would say he was at his nine-pins, when he rides against them all.... And he can do more than tilt. These sweet-washed gloves”—and she flapped an embroidered pair before Anthony—”these he brought to England. God bless and reward him for it!” she added fervently.... “I do not see Burghley. Eh! but he is old and gouty these days; and loves a cushion and a chair and a bit of flannel better than to kneel before her Grace. You know, she allows him to sit when he confers with her. But then, she is ever prone to show mercy to bearded persons.... Ah! there is dear Sidney; that is a sweet soul. But what does he do here among the stones and mortar when he has the beeches of Penshurst to walk beneath. He is not so wise as I thought him.... But I must say I grow weary of his nymphs and his airs of Olympus. And for myself, I do not see that Flora and Phœbus and Maia and the rest are a great gain, instead of Our Lady and Saint Christopher and the court of heaven. But then I am a Papist and not a heathen, and therefore blind and superstitious. Is that not so, Master Anthony?... And there is Maitland beside him, with the black velvet cap and the white feather, and his cross eyes and mouth. Now I wish he were at Penshurst, or Bath—or better still, at Jericho, for it is further off. I cannot bear that fellow.... Why, Sussex is going on the water, too, I see. Now what brings him here? I should have thought his affairs gave him enough to think of.... There he is, with his groom behind him, on the other chestnut. I am astonished at him. He is all for this French marriage, you know. So you may figure to yourself Mendoza’s love for him! They will be like two cats together on the barge; spitting and snarling softly at one another. Her Grace loves to balance folk like that; first one stretches his claws, and then the other; then one arches his back and snarls, and the other scratches his face for him; and then when all is flying fur and blasphemy, off slips her Grace and does what she will.”

It was an astonishing experience for Anthony. He had stepped out from his workaday life among the grooms and officers and occasional glimpses of his lonely old master, into an enchanted region, where great personages whose very names were luminous with fame, now lived and breathed and looked cheerful or sullen before his very eyes; and one who knew them in their daily life stood by him and commented and interpreted them for him. He listened and stared, dazed with the strangeness of it all.

Mistress Corbet was proceeding to express her views upon the foreign element that formed half the pageant, when the shrill music broke out again in the palace, and the trumpeters on the steps took it up; and a stir and bustle began. Then out of the porch began to stream a procession, like a river of colour and jewels, pouring from the foot of the carved and windowed wall, and eddying in a tumbled pool about the great gilt carriage;—ushers and footmen and nobles and ladies and pages in bewildering succession. Anthony pressed his forehead to the glass as he watched, with little exclamations, and Mary watched him, amused and interested by his enthusiasm.

And last moved the great canopy bending and swaying under the doorway, and beneath it, like two gorgeous butterflies, at the sight of whom all the standing world fell on its knees, came the pale Elizabeth with her auburn hair, and the brown-faced Mendoza, side by side; and entered the carriage with the five plumes atop and the caparisoned horses that stamped and tossed their jingling heads. The yard was already emptying fast, en route for Chelsea Stairs; and as soon as the two were seated, the shrill trumpets blew again, and the halberdiers moved off with the carriage in the midst, the great nobles going before, and the ladies behind. The later comers mounted as quickly as possible, as their horses were brought in from the stable entrance, and clattered away, and in five minutes the yard was empty, except for a few sentries at their posts, and a servant or two lounging at the doorway; and as Anthony still stared at the empty pavement and the carpeted steps, far away from the direction of the Abbey came the clear call of the horns to tell the loyal folk that the Queen was coming.

It was a great inspiration for Anthony. He had seen world-powers incarnate below him in the glittering rustling figure of the Queen, and the dark-eyed courtly Ambassador in his orders and jewels at her side. There they had sat together in one carriage; the huge fiery realm of the south, whose very name was redolent with passion and adventure and boundless wealth; and the little self-contained northern kingdom, now beginning to stretch its hands, and quiver all along its tingling sinews and veins with fresh adolescent life. And Anthony knew that he was one of the cells of this young organism; and that in him as well as in Elizabeth and this sparkling creature at his side ran the fresh red blood of England. They were all one in the possession of a common life; and his heart burned as he thought of it.

After he had parted from Mary he rode back to Westminster, and crossed the river by the horse-ferry that plied there. And even as he landed and got his beast, with a deal of stamping and blowing, off the echoing boards on to the clean gravel again, there came down the reaches of the river the mellow sound of music across a mile of water, mingled with the deep rattle of oars, and sparkles of steel and colour glittered from the far-away royal barges in the autumn sunshine; and the lad thought with wonder how the two great powers so savagely at war upon the salt sea, were at peace here, sitting side by side on silken cushions and listening to the same trumpets of peace upon the flowing river.

CHAPTER II

SOME NEW LESSONS

The six years that followed Sir Nicholas’ return and Hubert’s departure for the North had passed uneventfully at Great Keynes. The old knight had been profoundly shocked that any Catholic, especially an agent so valuable as Mr. Stewart, should have found his house a death-trap; and although he continued receiving his friends and succouring them, he did so with more real caution and less ostentation of it. His religious zeal and discretion were further increased by the secret return to the “Old Religion” of several of his villagers during the period; and a very fair congregation attended Mass so often as it was said in the cloister wing of the Hall. The new rector, like his predecessor, was content to let the squire alone; and unlike him had no wife to make trouble.

Then, suddenly, in the summer of ‘77, catastrophes began, headed by the unexpected return of Hubert, impatient of waiting, and with new plans in his mind.

Isabel had been out with Mistress Margaret walking in the dusk one August evening after supper, on the raised terrace beneath the yews. They had been listening to the loud snoring of the young owls in the ivy on the chimney-stack opposite, and had watched the fierce bird slide silently out of the gloom, white against the blackness, and disappear down among the meadows. Once Isabel had seen him pause, too, on one of his return journeys, suspicious of the dim figures beneath, silhouetted on a branch against the luminous green western sky, with the outline of a mouse with its hanging tail plain in his crooked claws, before he glided to his nest again. As Isabel waited she heard the bang of the garden-door, but gave it no thought, and a moment after Mistress Margaret asked her to fetch a couple of wraps from the house for them both, as the air had a touch of chill in it. She came down the lichened steps, crossed the lawn, and passed into the unlighted hall. As she entered, the door opposite opened, and for a moment she saw the silhouette of a man’s figure against the bright passage beyond. Her heart suddenly leapt, and stood still.

“Anthony!” she whispered, in a hush of suspense.

There was a vibration and a step beside her.

“Isabel!” said Hubert’s voice. And then his arms closed round her for the first time in her life. She struggled and panted a moment as she felt his breath on her face; and he released her. She recoiled to the door, and stood there silent and panting.

“Oh! Isabel!” he whispered; and again, “Isabel!”

She put out her hand and grasped the door-post behind her.

“Oh! Hubert! Why have you come?”

He came a step nearer and she could see the faint whiteness of his face in the western glimmer.

“I cannot wait,” he said, “I have been nearly beside myself. I have left the north—and I cannot wait so long.”

“Well?” she said; and he heard the note of entreaty and anxiety in her voice.

“I have my plans,” he answered; “I will tell you to-morrow. Where is my aunt?”

Isabel heard a step on the gravel outside.

“She is coming,” she said sharply. Hubert melted into the dark, and she saw the opposite door open and let him out.

The next day Hubert announced his plans to Sir Nicholas, and a conflict followed.

“I cannot go on, sir,” he said, “I cannot wait for ever. I am treated like a servant, too; and you know how miserably I am paid, I have obeyed you for six years, sir; and now I have thrown up the post and told my lord to his face that I can bear with him no longer.”

Sir Nicholas’ face, as he sat in his upright chair opposite the boy, grew flushed with passion.

“It is your accursed temper, sir,” he said violently. “I know you of old. Wait? For what? For the Protestant girl? I told you to put that from your mind, sir.”

Hubert did not propose as yet to let his father into all his plans.

“I have not spoken her name, sir, I think. I say I cannot wait for my fortune; I may be impatient, sir—I do not deny it.”

“Then how do you propose to better it?” sneered his father.

“In November,” said Hubert steadily, looking his father in the eyes, “I sail with Mr. Drake.”

Sir Nicholas’ face grew terrific. He rose, and struck the table twice with his clenched fist.

“Then, by God, sir, Mr. Drake may have you now.”

Hubert’s face grew white with anger; but he had his temper under control.

“Then I wish you good-day, sir,” and he left the room.

When the boy had left the house again for London, as he did the same afternoon, Lady Maxwell tried to soothe the old man. It was impossible, even for her, to approach him before.

“Sweetheart,” she said tranquilly, as he sat and glowered at his plate when supper was over and the men had left the room, “sweetheart, we must have Hubert down here again. He must not sail with Mr. Drake.”

The old man’s face flared up again in anger.

“He may follow his own devices,” he cried. “I care not what he does. He has given up the post that I asked for him; and he comes striding and ruffling home with his hat cocked and—and——”; his voice became inarticulate.

“He is only a boy, sweetheart; with a boy’s hot blood—you would sooner have him like that than a milk-sop. Besides—he is our boy.”

The old man growled. His wife went on:

“And now that James cannot have the estate, he must have it, as you know, and carry on the old name.”

“He has disgraced it,” burst out the angry old man, “and he is going now with that damned Protestant to harry Catholics. By the grace of God I love my country, and would serve her Grace with my heart’s blood—but that my boy should go with Drake——!” and again his voice failed.

It was a couple of days before she could obtain her husband’s leave to write a conciliatory letter, giving leave to Hubert to go with Drake, if he had made any positive engagement (because, as she represented to Sir Nicholas, there was nothing actually wrong or disloyal to the Faith in it)—but entreating him with much pathos not to leave his old parents so bitterly.

“Oh, my dear son,” the end of the letter ran, “your father is old; and God, in whose hand are our days, alone knows how long he will live; and I, too, my son, am old. So come back to us and be our dear child again. You must not think too hardly of your father’s words to you; he is quick and hot, as you are, too—but indeed we love you dearly. Your room here is ready for you; and Piers wants a firm hand now over him, as your father is so old. So come back, my darling, and make our old hearts glad again.”

But the weeks passed by, and no answer came, and the old people’s hearts grew sick with suspense; and then, at last, in September the courier brought a letter, written from Plymouth, which told the mother that it was too late; that he had in fact engaged himself to Mr. Drake in August before he had come to Great Keynes at all; and that in honour he must keep his engagement. He asked pardon of his father for his hastiness; but it seemed a cold and half-hearted sorrow; and the letter ended by announcing that the little fleet would sail in November; and that at present they were busy fitting the ships and engaging the men; and that there would be no opportunity for him to return to wish them good-bye before he sailed. It was plain that the lad was angry still.

Sir Nicholas did not say much; but a silence fell on the house. Lady Maxwell sent for Isabel, and they had a long interview. The old lady was astonished at the girl’s quietness and resignation.

Yes, she said, she loved Hubert with all her heart. She had loved him for a long while. No, she was not angry, only startled. What would she do about the difference in religion? Could she marry him while one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant? No, they would never be happy like that; and she did not know what she would do. She supposed she would wait and see. Yes, she would wait and see; that was all that could be done.—And then had come a silent burst of tears, and the girl had sunk down on her knees and hidden her face in the old lady’s lap, and the wrinkled jewelled old hand passed quietly over the girl’s black hair; but no more had been said, and Isabel presently got up and went home to the Dower House.

The autumn went by, and November came, and there was no further word from Hubert. Then towards the end of November a report reached them from Anthony at Lambeth that the fleet had sailed; but had put back into Falmouth after a terrible storm in the Channel. And hope just raised its head.

Then one evening after supper Sir Nicholas complained of fever and restlessness, and went early to bed. In the night he was delirious. Mistress Margaret hastened up at midnight from the Dower House, and a groom galloped off to Lindfield before morning to fetch the doctor, and another to fetch Mr. Barnes, the priest, from Cuckfield. Sir Nicholas was bled to reduce the fever of the pneumonia that had attacked him. All day long he was sinking. About eleven o’clock that night he fell asleep, apparently, and Lady Maxwell, who had watched incessantly, was persuaded to lie down; but at three o’clock in the morning, on the first of December, Mistress Margaret awakened her, and together they knelt by the bedside of the old man. The priest, who had anointed him on the previous evening, knelt behind, repeating the prayers for the dying.

Sir Nicholas lay on his back, supported by pillows, under the gloom of the black old four-posted bed. A wood-fire glowed on the hearth, and the air was fragrant with the scent of the burning cedar-logs. A crucifix was in the old man’s hands; but his eyes were bright with fever, and his fingers every now and then relaxed, and then tightened their hold again on the cool silver of the figure of the crucified Saviour. His lips were moving tremulously, and his ruddy old face was pale now.

The priest’s voice went on steadily; the struggle was beginning.

“Proficiscere, anima christiana, de hoc mundo.—Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who was shed forth upon thee; In the name of Angels and Archangels; in the name of Thrones and Dominions; in the name of Principalities and Powers——”

Suddenly the old man, whose head had been slowly turning from side to side, ceased his movement, and his open mouth closed; he was looking steadily at his wife, and a look of recognition came back to his eyes.

“Sweetheart,” he said; and smiled, and died.

Isabel did not see much of Mistress Margaret for the next few days; she was constantly with her sister, and when she came to the Dower House now and then, said little to the girl. There were curious rumours in the village; strangers came and went continually, and there was a vast congregation at the funeral, when the body of the old knight was laid to rest in the Maxwell chapel. The following day the air of mystery deepened; and young Mrs. Melton whispered to Isabel, with many glances and becks, that she and her man had seen lights through the chapel windows at three o’clock that morning. Isabel went into the chapel presently to visit the grave, and there was a new smear of black on the east wall as if a taper had been set too near.

The courier who had been despatched to announce to Hubert that his father had died and left him master of the Hall and estate, with certain conditions, returned at the end of the month with the news that the fleet had sailed again on the thirteenth, and that Hubert was gone with it; so Lady Maxwell, now more silent and retired than ever, for the present retained her old position and Mr. Piers took charge of the estate.

Although Isabel outwardly was very little changed in the last six years, great movements had been taking place in her soul, and if Hubert had only known the state of the case, possibly he would not have gone so hastily with Mr. Drake.

The close companionship of such an one as Mistress Margaret was doing its almost inevitable work; and the girl had been learning that behind the brilliant and even crude surface of the Catholic practice, there lay still and beautiful depths of devotion which she had scarcely dreamed of. The old nun’s life was a revelation to Isabel; she heard from her bed in the black winter mornings her footsteps in the next room, and soon learnt that Mistress Margaret spent at least two hours in prayer before she appeared at all. Two or three times in the day she knew that she retired again for the same purpose, and again an hour after she was in bed, there were the same gentle movements next door. She began to discover, too, that for the Catholic, as well as for the Puritan, the Person of the Saviour was the very heart of religion; that her own devotion to Christ was a very languid flame by the side of the ardent inarticulate passion of this soul who believed herself His wedded spouse; and that the worship of the saints and the Blessed Mother instead of distracting the love of the Christian soul rather seemed to augment it. The King of Love stood, as she fancied sometimes, to Catholic eyes, in a glow of ineffable splendour; and the faces of His adoring Court reflected the ruddy glory on all sides; thus refracting the light of their central Sun, instead of, as she had thought, obscuring it.

Other difficulties, too, began to seem oddly unreal and intangible, when she had looked at them in the light of Mistress Margaret’s clear old eyes and candid face. It was a real event in her inner life when she first began to understand what the rosary meant to Catholics. Mistress Corbet had told her what was the actual use of the beads; and how the mysteries of Christ’s life and death were to be pondered over as the various prayers were said; but it had hitherto seemed to Isabel as if this method were an elaborate and superstitious substitute for reading the inspired record of the New Testament.

She had been sitting out in the little walled garden in front of the Dower House one morning on an early summer day after her father’s death, and Mistress Margaret had come out in her black dress and stood for a moment looking at her irresolutely, framed in the dark doorway. Then she had come slowly across the grass, and Isabel had seen for the first time in her fingers a string of ivory beads. Mistress Margaret sat down on a garden chair a little way from her, and let her hands sink into her lap, still holding the beads. Isabel said nothing, but went on reading. Presently she looked up again, and the old lady’s eyes were half-closed, and her lips just moving; and the beads passing slowly through her fingers. She looked almost like a child dreaming, in spite of her wrinkles and her snowy hair; the pale light of a serene soul lay on her face. This did not look like the mechanical performance that Isabel had always associated with the idea of beads. So the minutes passed away; every time that Isabel looked up there was the little white face with the long lashes lying on the cheek, and the crown of snowy hair and lace, and the luminous look of a soul in conscious communion with the unseen.

When the old lady had finished, she twisted the beads about her fingers and opened her eyes. Isabel had an impulse to speak.

“Mistress Margaret,” she said, “may I ask you something?”

“Of course, my darling,” the old lady said.

“I have never seen you use those before—I cannot understand them.”

“What is it,” asked the old lady, “that you don’t understand?”

“How can prayers said over and over again like that be any good?”

Mistress Margaret was silent for a moment.

“I saw young Mrs. Martin last week,” she said, “with her little girl in her lap. Amy had her arms round her mother’s neck, and was being rocked to and fro; and every time she rocked she said ‘Oh, mother.’”

“But then,” said Isabel, after a moment’s silence, “she was only a child.”

“‘Except ye become like little children—’” quoted Mistress Margaret softly—”you see, my Isabel, we are nothing more than children with God and His Blessed Mother. To say ‘Hail Mary, Hail Mary,’ is the best way of telling her how much we love her. And then this string of beads is like Our Lady’s girdle, and her children love to finger it, and whisper to her. And then we say our paternosters, too; and all the while we are talking she is shewing us pictures of her dear Child, and we look at all the great things He did for us, one by one; and then we turn the page and begin again.”

“I see,” said Isabel; and after a moment or two’s silence Mistress Margaret got up and went into the house.

The girl sat still with her hands clasped round her knee. How strange and different this religion was to the fiery gospel she had heard last year at Northampton from the harsh stern preacher, at whose voice a veil seemed to rend and show a red-hot heaven behind! How tender and simple this was—like a blue summer’s sky with drifting clouds! If only it was true! If only there were a great Mother whose girdle was of beads strung together, which dangled into every Christian’s hands; whose face bent down over every Christian’s bed; and whose mighty and tender arms that had held her Son and God were still stretched out beneath her other children. And Isabel, whose soul yearned for a mother, sighed as she reminded herself that there was but “one Mediator between God and man—the man, Christ Jesus.”

And so the time went by, like an outgoing tide, silent and steady. The old nun did not talk much to the girl about dogmatic religion, for she was in a difficult position. She was timid certainly of betraying her faith by silence, but she was also timid of betraying her trust by speech. Sometimes she felt she had gone too far, sometimes not far enough; but on the whole her practice was never to suggest questions, but only to answer them when Isabel asked; and to occupy herself with affirmative rather than with destructive criticism. More than this she hesitated to do out of honour for the dead; less than this she dared not do out of love for God and Isabel. But there were three or four conversations that she felt were worth waiting for; and the look on Isabel’s face afterwards, and the sudden questions she would ask sometimes after a fit of silence, made her friend’s heart quicken towards her, and her prayers more fervent.

The two were sitting together one December day in Isabel’s upstairs room and the girl, who had just come in from a solitary walk, was half kneeling on the window-seat and drumming her fingers softly on the panes as she looked out at the red western sky.

“I used to think,” she said, “that Catholics had no spiritual life; but now it seems to me that in comparison we Puritans have none. You know so much about the soul, as to what is from God and what from the Evil One; and we have to grope for ourselves. And yet our Saviour said that His sheep should know His voice. I do not understand it.” And she turned towards Mistress Margaret who had laid down her work and was listening.

“Dear child,” she said, “if you mean our priests and spiritual writers, it is because they study it. We believe in the science of the soul; and we consult our spiritual guides for our soul’s health, as the leech for our body’s health.”

“But why must you ask the priest, if the Lord speaks to all alike?”

“He speaks through the priest, my dear, as He does through the physician.”

“But why should the priest know better than the people?” pursued Isabel, intent on her point.

“Because he tells us what the Church says,” said the other smiling, “it is his business. He need not be any better or cleverer in other respects. The baker may be a thief or a foolish fellow; but his bread is good.”

“But how do you know,” went on Isabel, who thought Mistress Margaret a little slow to see her point—”how do you know that the Church is right?”

The old nun considered a moment, and then lifted her embroidery again.

“Why do you think,” she asked, beginning to sew, “that each single soul that asks God’s guidance is right?”

“Because the Holy Ghost is promised to such,” said Isabel wondering.

“Then is it not likely,” went on the other still stitching, “that the millions of souls who form Holy Church are right, when they all agree together?” Isabel moved a little impatiently.

“You see,” went on Mistress Margaret, “that is what we Catholics believe our Saviour meant when He said that the gates of hell should not prevail against His Church.”

But Isabel was not content. She broke in:

“But why are not the Scriptures sufficient? They are God’s Word.”

The other put down her embroidery again, and smiled up into the girl’s puzzled eyes.

“Well, my child,” she said, “do they seem sufficient, when you look at Christendom now? If they are so clear, how is it that you have the Lutherans, and the Anabaptists, and the Family of Love, and the Calvinists, and the Church of England, all saying they hold to the Scriptures alone. Nay, nay; the Scriptures are the grammar, and the Church is the dame that teaches out of it, and she knows so well much that is not in the grammar, and we name that tradition. But where there is no dame to teach, the children soon fall a-fighting about the book and the meaning of it.”

Isabel looked at Mistress Margaret a moment, and then turned back again to the window in silence.

At another time they had a word or two about Peter’s prerogatives.

“Surely,” said Isabel suddenly, as they walked together in the garden, “Christ is the one Foundation of the Church, St. Paul tells us so expressly.”

“Yes, my dear,” said the nun, “but then Christ our Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.’ So he who is the only Good Shepherd, said to Peter, ‘Feed My sheep’; and He that is Clavis David and that openeth and none shutteth said to him, ‘I will give thee the keys, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’ That is why we call Peter the Vicar of Christ.”

Isabel raised her eyebrows.

“Surely, surely——” she began.

“Yes, my child,” said Mistress Margaret, “I know it is new and strange to you; but it was not to your grandfather or his forbears: to them, as to me, it is the plain meaning of the words. We Catholics are a simple folk. We hold that what our Saviour said simply He meant simply: as we do in the sacred mystery of His Body and Blood. To us, you know,” she went on, smiling, with a hand on the girl’s arm, “it seems as if you Protestants twisted the Word of God against all justice.”

Isabel smiled back at her; but she was puzzled. The point of view was new to her. And yet again in the garden, a few months later, as they sat out together on the lawn, the girl opened the same subject.

“Mistress Margaret,” she said, “I have been thinking a great deal; and it seems very plain when you talk. But you know our great divines could answer you, though I cannot. My father was no Papist; and Dr. Grindal and the Bishops are all wise men. How do you answer that?”

The nun looked silently down at the grass a moment or two.

“It is the old tale,” she said at last, looking up; “we cannot believe that the babes and sucklings are as likely to be right in such matters as the wise and prudent—even more likely, if our Saviour’s words are to be believed. Dear child, do you not see that our Lord came to save all men, and call all men into His Church; and that therefore He must have marked His Church in such a manner that the most ignorant may perceive it as easily as the most learned? Learning is very well, and it is the gift of God; but salvation and grace cannot depend upon it. It needs an architect to understand why Paul’s Church is strong and beautiful, and what makes it so; but any child or foolish fellow can see that it is so.”

“I do not understand,” said Isabel, wrinkling her forehead.

“Why this—that you are as likely to know the Catholic Church when you see it, as Dr. Grindal or Dr. Freake, or your dear father himself. Only a divine can explain about it and understand it, but you and I are as fit to see it and walk into it, as any of them.”

“But then why are they not all Catholics?” asked Isabel, still bewildered.

“Ah!” said the nun, softly, “God alone knows, who reads hearts and calls whom He will. But learning, at least, has nought to do with it.”

Conversations of this kind that took place now and then between the two were sufficient to show Mistress Margaret, like tiny bubbles on the surface of a clear stream, the swift movement of this limpid soul that she loved so well. But on the other hand, all the girl’s past life, and most sacred and dear associations, were in conflict with this movement; the memory of her quiet, wise father rose and reproached her sometimes; Anthony’s enthusiastic talk, when he came down from Lambeth, on the glorious destinies of the Church of England, of her gallant protest against the corruptions of the West, and of her future unique position in Christendom as the National Church of the most progressive country—all this caused her to shrink back terrified from the bourne to which she was drifting, and from the breach that must follow with her brother. But above all else that caused her pain was the shocking suspicion that her love for Hubert perhaps was influencing her, and that she was living in gross self-deception as to the sincerity of her motives.

This culminated at last in a scene that seriously startled the old nun; it took place one summer night after Hubert’s departure in Mr. Drake’s expedition. Mistress Margaret had seen Isabel to her room, and an hour later had finished her night-office and was thinking of preparing herself to bed, when there was a hurried tap at the door, and Isabel came quickly in, her face pale and miserable, her great grey eyes full of trouble and distraction, and her hair on her shoulders.

“My dear child,” said the nun, “what is it?”

Isabel closed the door and stood looking at her, with her lips parted.

“How can I know, Mistress Margaret,” she said, in the voice of a sleep-walker, “whether this is the voice of God or of my own wicked self? No, no,” she went on, as the other came towards her, frightened, “let me tell you. I must speak.”

“Yes, my child, you shall; but come and sit down first,” and she drew her to a chair and set her in it, and threw a wrap over her knees and feet; and sat down beside her, and took one of her hands, and held it between her own.

“Now then, Isabel, what is it?”

“I have been thinking over it all so long,” began the girl, in the same tremulous voice, with her eyes fixed on the nun’s face, “and to-night in bed I could not bear it any longer. You see, I love Hubert, and I used to think I loved our Saviour too; but now I do not know. It seems as if He was leading me to the Catholic Church; all is so much more plain and easy there—it seems—it seems—to make sense in the Catholic Church; and all the rest of us are wandering in the dark. But if I become a Catholic, you see, I can marry Hubert then; and I cannot help thinking of that; and wanting to marry him. But then perhaps that is the reason that I think I see it all so plainly; just because I want to see it plainly. And what am I to do? Why will not our Lord shew me my own heart and what is His Will?”

Mistress Margaret shook her head gently.

“Dear child,” she said, “our Saviour loves you and wishes to make you happy. Do you not think that perhaps He is helping you and making it easy in this way, by drawing you to His Church through Hubert. Why should not both be His Will? that you should become a Catholic and marry Hubert as well?”

“Yes,” said Isabel, “but how can I tell?”

“There is only one thing to be done,” went on the old lady, “be quite simple and quiet. Whenever your soul begins to be disturbed and anxious, put yourself in His Hands, and refuse to decide for yourself. It is so easy, so easy.”

“But why should I be so anxious and disturbed, if it were not our Lord speaking and warning me?”

“In the Catholic Church,” said Mistress Margaret, “we know well about all those movements of the soul; and we call them scruples. You must resist them, dear child, like temptations. We are told that if a soul is in grace and desires to serve God, then whenever our Lord speaks it is to bring sweetness with Him; and when it is the evil one, he brings disturbance. And that is why I am sure that these questionings are not from God. You feel stifled, is it not so, when you try to pray? and all seems empty of God; the waves and storms are going over you. But lie still and be content; and refuse to be disturbed; and you will soon be at peace again and see the light clearly.”

Mistress Margaret found herself speaking simply in short words and sentences as to a child. She had seen that for a long while past the clouds had been gathering over Isabel, and that her soul was at present completely overcast and unable to perceive or decide anything clearly; and so she gave her this simple advice, and did her utmost to soothe her, knowing that such a clean soul would not be kept long in the dark.

She knelt down with Isabel presently and prayed aloud with her, in a quiet even voice; a patch of moonlight lay on the floor, and something of its white serenity seemed to be in the old nun’s tones as she entreated the merciful Lord to bid peace again to this anxious soul, and let her see light again through the dark.

And when she had taken Isabel back again to her own room at last, and had seen her safely into bed, and kissed her good-night, already the girl’s face was quieter as it lay on the pillow, and the lines were smoothed out of her forehead.

“God bless you!” said Mistress Margaret.

CHAPTER III

HUBERT’S RETURN

After the sailing of Mr. Drake’s expedition, the friends of the adventurers had to wait in patience for several months before news arrived. Then the Elizabeth, under the command of Mr. Winter, which had been separated from Mr. Drake’s Pelican in a gale off the south-west coast of America, returned to England, bringing the news of Mr. Doughty’s execution for desertion; but of the Pelican herself there was no further news until complaints arrived from the Viceroy of New Spain of Mr. Drake’s ravages up the west coast. Then silence again fell for eighteen months.

Anthony had followed the fortunes of the Pelican, in which Hubert had sailed, with a great deal of interest: and it was with real relief that after the burst of joy in London at the news of her safe return to Plymouth with an incalculable amount of plunder, he had word from Lady Maxwell that she hoped he would come down at once to Great Keynes, and help to welcome Hubert home. He was not able to go at once, for his duties detained him; but a couple of days after the Hall had welcomed its new master, Anthony was at the Dower House again with Isabel. He found her extraordinarily bright and vivacious, and was delighted at the change, for he had been troubled the last time he had seen her a few months before, at her silence and listlessness; but her face was radiant now, as she threw herself into his arms at the door, and told him that they were all to go to supper that night at the Hall; and that Hubert had been keeping his best stories on purpose for his return. She showed him, when they got up to his room at last, little things Hubert had given her—carved nuts, a Spanish coin or two, and an ingot of gold—but of which she would say nothing, but only laugh and nod her head.

Hubert, too, when he saw him that evening seemed full of the same sort of half-suppressed happiness that shone out now and again suddenly. There he sat, for hours after supper that night, broader and more sunburnt than ever, with his brilliant eyes glancing round as he talked, and his sinewy man’s hand, in the delicate creamy ruff, making little explanatory movements, and drawing a map once or twice in spilled wine on the polished oak; the three ladies sat forward and watched him breathlessly, or leaned back and sighed as each tale ended, and Anthony found himself, too, carried away with enthusiasm again and again, as he looked at this gallant sea-dog in his gold chain and satin and jewels, and listened to his stories.

“It was bitter cold,” said Hubert in his strong voice, telling them of Mr. Doughty’s death, “on the morning itself: and snow lay on the decks when we rose. Mr. Fletcher had prepared a table in the poop-cabin, with a white cloth and bread and wine; and at nine of the clock we were all assembled where we might see into the cabin: and Mr. Fletcher said the Communion service, and Mr. Drake and Mr. Doughty received the sacrament there at his hands. Some of Mr. Doughty’s men had all they could do to keep back their tears; for you know, mother, they were good friends. And then when it was done, we made two lines down the deck to where the block stood by the main-mast; and the two came down together; and they kissed one another there. And Mr. Doughty spoke to the men, and bade them pray for the Queen’s Grace with him; and they did. And then he and Mr. Drake put off their doublets, and Mr. Doughty knelt at the block, and said another prayer or two, and then laid his head down, and he was shivering a little with cold, and then, when he gave the sign, Mr. Drake——” and Hubert brought the edge of his hand down sharply, and the glasses rang, and the ladies drew quick hissing breaths; and Lady Maxwell put her hand on her son’s arm, as he looked round on all their faces.

Then he told them of the expedition up the west coast, and of the towns they sacked; and the opulent names rolled oddly off his tongue, and seemed to bring a whiff of southern scent into this panelled English room,—Valparaiso, Tarapaca, and Arica—; and of the capture of the Cacafuego off Quibdo; and of the enormous treasure they took, the great golden crucifix with emeralds of the size of pigeon’s eggs, and the chests of pearls, and the twenty-six tons of silver, and the wedges of pure gold from the Peruvian galleon, and of the golden falcon from the Chinese trader that they captured south of Guatulco. And he described the search up the coast for the passage eastwards that never existed; and of Drake’s superb resolve to return westwards instead, by the Moluccas; and how they stayed at Ternate, south of Celebes, and coasted along Java seeking a passage, and found it in the Sunda straits, and broke out from the treacherous islands into the open sea; crossed to Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope; came up the west coast, touching at Sierra Leone, and so home again along the Spanish and French coasts, to Plymouth Sound and the pealing of Plymouth bells.

And he broke out into something very like eloquence when he spoke of Drake.

“Never was such a captain,” he cried, “with his little stiff beard and his obstinate eyes. I have seen him stand on the poop, when the arrows were like hail on the deck, with one finger in the ring round his neck,—so”: and Hubert thrust a tanned finger into a link of his chain, and lifted his chin, “just making little signs to the steersman, with his hand behind his back, to bring the ship nearer to the Spaniard; as cool, I tell you, as cool as if he were playing merelles. Oh! and then when we boarded, out came his finger from his ring; and there was none that struck so true and fierce; and all in silence too, without an oath or a cry or a word; except maybe to give an order. But he was very sharp with all that angered him. When we sighted the Madre di Dios, I ran into his cabin to tell him of it, without saluting, so full was my head of the chase. And he looked at me like ice; and then roared at me to know where my manners were, and bade me go out and enter again properly, before he would hear my news; and then I heard him rating the man that stood at his door for letting me pass in that state. At his dinner, too, which he took alone, there were always trumpets to blow, as when her Grace dines. When he laughed it seemed as if he did it with a grave face. There was a piece of grand fooling when we got out from among those weary Indian islands; where the great crabs be, and flies that burn in the dark, as I told you. Mr. Fletcher, the minister, played the coward one night when we ran aground; and bade us think of our sins and our immortal souls, instead of urging us to be smart about the ship; and he did it, too, not as Mr. Drake might do, but in such a melancholy voice as if we were all at our last hour; so when we were free of our trouble, and out on the main again, we were all called by the drum to the forecastle, and there Mr. Drake sat on a sea-chest as solemn as a judge, so that not a man durst laugh, with a pair of pantoufles in his hand; and Mr. Fletcher was brought before him, trying to smile as if ‘twas a jest for him too, between two guards; and there he was arraigned; and the witnesses were called; and Tom Moore said how he was tapped on the shoulder by Mr. Fletcher as he was getting a pick from the hold; and how he was as white as a ghost and bade him think on Mr. Doughty, how there was no mercy for him when he needed it, and so there would be none for us—and then other witnesses came, and then Mr. Fletcher tried to make his defence, saying how it was the part of a minister to bid men think on their souls; but ‘twas no good. Mr. Drake declared him guilty; and sentenced him to be kept in irons till he repented of that his cowardice; and then, which was the cream of the joke, since the prisoner was a minister, Mr. Drake declared him excommunicate, and cut off from the Church of God, and given over to the devil. And he was put in irons, too, for a while; so ‘twas not all a joke.”

“And what is Mr. Drake doing now?” asked Lady Maxwell.

“Oh! Drake is in London,” said Hubert. “Ah! yes, and you must all come to Deptford when her Grace is going to be there. Anthony, lad, you’ll come?”

Anthony said he would certainly do his best; and Isabel put out her hand to her brother, and beamed at him; and then turned to look at Hubert again.

“And what are you to do next?” asked Mistress Margaret.

“Well,” he said, “I am to go to Plymouth again presently, to help to get the treasure out of the ships; and I must be there, too, for the spring and summer, for Drake wants me to help him with his new expedition.”

“But you are not going with him again, my son?” said his mother quickly.

Hubert put out his hand to her.

“No, no,” he said, “I have written to tell him I cannot. I must take my father’s place here. He will understand”; and he gave one swift glance at Isabel, and her eyes fell.

Anthony was obliged to return to Lambeth after a day or two, and he carried with him a heart full of admiration and enthusiasm for his friend. He had wondered once or twice, too, as his eyes fell on Isabel, whether there was anything in what Mistress Corbet had said; but he dared not speak to her, and still less to Hubert, unless his confidence was first sought.

The visit to Deptford, which took place a week or two later, gave an additional spurt to Anthony’s nationalism. London was all on fire at the return of the buccaneers, and as Anthony rode down the south bank of the river from Lambeth to join the others at the inn, the three miles of river beyond London Bridge were an inspiriting sight in the bright winter sunshine, crowded with craft of all kinds, bright with bunting, that were making their way down to the naval triumph. The road, too, was thick with vehicles and pedestrians.

It was still early when he met his party at the inn, and Hubert took them immediately to see the Pelican that was drawn up in a little creek on the south bank. Mistress Margaret had not come, so the four went together all over the ship that had been for these years the perilous home of this sunburnt lad they all loved so well. Hubert pointed out Drake’s own cabin at the poop, with its stern-windows, where the last sacrament of the two friends had been celebrated; and where Drake himself had eaten in royal fashion to the sound of trumpets and slept with all-night sentries at his door. He showed them too his own cabin, where he had lived with three more officers, and the upper poop-deck where Drake would sit hour after hour with his spy-glass, ranging the horizons for treasure-ships. And he showed them, too, the high forecastle, and the men’s quarters; and Isabel fingered delicately the touch-holes of the very guns that had roared and snapped so fiercely at the Dons; and they peered down into the dark empty hold where the treasure-chests had lain, and up at the three masts and the rigging that had borne so long the swift wings of the Pelican. And they heard the hiss and rattle of the ropes as Hubert ordered a man to run up a flag to show them how it was done; and they smelled the strange tarry briny smell of a sea-going ship.

“You are not tired?” Anthony said to his sister, as they walked back to the inn from which they were to see the spectacle. She shook her head happily; and Anthony, looking at her, once more questioned himself whether Mistress Corbet were right or not.

When they had settled down at last to their window, the crowds were gathering thicker every moment about the entrance to the ship, which lay in the creek perhaps a hundred yards from the inn, and on the road along which the Queen was to come from Greenwich. Anthony felt his whole heart go out in sympathy to these joyous shouting folk beneath, who were here to celebrate the gallant pluck of a little bearded man and his followers, who for the moment stood for England, and in whose presence just now the Queen herself must take second place. Even the quacks and salesmen who were busy in their booths all round used patriotism to push their bargains.

“Spanish ointment, Spanish ointment!” bellowed a red-faced herbalist in a doctor’s gown, just below the window. “The Dons know what’s best for wounds and knocks after Frankie Drake’s visit”; and the crowd laughed and bought up his boxes. And another drove a roaring business in green glass beads, reported to be the exact size of the emeralds taken from the Cacafuego; and others sold little models of the Pelican, warranted to frighten away Dons and all other kinds of devils from the house that possessed one. Isabel laughed with pleasure, and sent Anthony down to buy one for her.

But perhaps more than all else the sight of the seamen themselves stirred his heart. Most of them, officers as well as men, were dressed with absurd extravagance, for the prize-money, even after the deduction of the Queen’s lion-share, had been immense, but beneath their plumed and jewel-buckled caps, brown faces looked out, alert and capable, with tight lips and bright, puckered eyes, with something of the terrier in their expression. There they swaggered along with a slight roll in their walk, by ones or twos, through the crowd that formed lanes to let them pass, and surged along in their wake, shouting after them and clapping them on the back. Anthony watched them eagerly as they made their way from all directions to where the Pelican lay; for it was close on noon. Then from far away came the boom of the Tower guns, and then the nearer crash of those that guarded the dockyard; and last the deafening roar of the Pelican broadside; and then the smoke rose and drifted in a heavy veil in the keen frosty air over the cheering crowds. When it lifted again, there was the flash of gold and colour from the Greenwich road, and the high braying of the trumpets pierced the roaring welcome of the people. But the watchers at the windows could see no more over the heads of the crowd than the plumes of the royal carriage, as the Queen dismounted, and a momentary glimpse of her figure and the group round her as she passed on to the deck of the Pelican and went immediately below to the banquet, while the parish church bells pealed a welcome.

Lady Maxwell insisted that Isabel should now dine, as there would be no more to be seen till the Queen should come up on deck again.

Of the actual ceremony of the knighting of Mr. Drake they had a very fair view, though the figures were little and far away. The first intimation they had that the banquet was over was the sight of the scarlet-clad yeomen emerging one by one up the little hatchway that led below. The halberdiers lined the decks already, with their weapons flashing in long curved lines; and by the time that the trumpets began to sound to show that the Queen was on her way from below, the decks were one dense mass of colour and steel, with a lane left to the foot of the poop-stairs by which she would ascend. Then at last the two figures appeared, the Queen radiant in cloth of gold, and Mr. Drake, alert and brisk, in his Court suit and sword. There was silence from the crowd as the adventurer knelt before the Queen, and Anthony held his breath with excitement as he caught the flash of the slender sword that an officer had put into the Queen’s hand; and then an inconceivable noise broke out as Sir Francis Drake stood up. The crowd was one open mouth, shouting, the church bells burst into peals overhead, answered by the roll of drums from the deck and the blare of trumpets; and then the whole din sank into nothingness for a moment under the heart-shaking crash of the ship’s broadside, echoed instantly by the deeper roar of the dockyard guns, and answered after a moment or two from far away by the dull boom from the Tower. And Anthony leaned yet further from the window and added his voice to the tumult.

As he rode back alone to Lambeth, after parting with the others at London Bridge, for they intended to go down home again that night, he was glowing with national zeal. He had seen not only royalty and magnificence but an apotheosis of character that day. There in the little trim figure with the curly hair kneeling before the Queen was England at its best—England that sent two ships against an empire; and it was the Church that claimed Sir Francis Drake as a son, and indeed a devoted one, in a sense, that Anthony himself was serving here at Lambeth, and for which he felt a real and fervent enthusiasm.

He was surprised a couple of days later to receive a note in Lady Maxwell’s handwriting, brought up by a special messenger from the Hall.

“There is a friend of mine,” she wrote, “to come to Lambeth House presently, he tells me, to be kept a day or two in ward before he is sent to Wisbeach. He is a Catholic, named Mr. Henry Buxton, who showed me great love during the sorrow of my dear husband’s death; and I write to you to show kindness to him, and to get him a good bed, and all that may comfort him: for I know not whether Lambeth Prison is easy or hard; but I hope perhaps that since my Lord Archbishop is a prisoner himself he has pity on such as are so too; and so my pains be in vain. However, if you will see Mr. Buxton at least, and have some talk with him, and show him this letter, it will cheer him perhaps to see a friend’s face.”

Anthony of course made inquiries at once, and found that Mr. Buxton was to arrive on the following afternoon. It was the custom to send prisoners occasionally to Lambeth, more particularly those more distinguished, or who, it was hoped, could be persuaded to friendly conference. Mr. Buxton, however, was thought to be incorrigible, and was only sent there because there was some delay in the preparations for his reception at Wisbeach, which since the previous year had been used as an overflow prison for Papists.

On the evening of the next day, which was Friday, Anthony went straight out from the Hall after supper to the gateway prison, and found Mr. Buxton at a fish supper in the little prison in the outer part of the eastern tower. He introduced himself, but found it necessary to show Lady Maxwell’s letter before the prisoner was satisfied as to his identity.

“You must pardon me, Mr. Norris,” he said, when he had read the letter and asked a question or two, “but we poor Papists are bound to be shy. Why, in this very room,” he went on, pointing to the inner corner away from the door, and smiling, “for aught I know a man sits now to hear us.”

Anthony was considerably astonished to see this stranger point so confidently to the hiding-hole, where indeed the warder used to sit sometimes behind a brick partition, to listen to the talk of the prisoners; and showed his surprise.

“Ah, Mr. Norris,” the other said, “we Papists are bound to be well informed; or else where were our lives? But come, sir, let us sit down.”

Anthony apologised for interrupting him at his supper, and offered to come again, but Mr. Buxton begged him not to leave, as he had nearly finished. So Anthony sat down, and observed the prison and the prisoner. It was fairly well provided with necessaries: a good straw bed lay in one corner on trestles; and washing utensils stood at the further wall; and there was an oil lamp that hung high up from an iron pin. The prisoner’s luggage lay still half unpacked on the floor, and a row of pegs held a hat and a cloak. Mr. Buxton himself was a dark-haired man with a short beard and merry bright eyes; and was dressed soberly as a gentleman; and behaved himself with courtesy and assurance. But it was a queer place with this flickering lamp, thought Anthony, for a gentleman to be eating his supper in. When Mr. Buxton had finished his dish of roach and a tankard of ale, he looked up at Anthony, smiling.

“My lord knows the ways of Catholics, then,” he said, pointing to the bones on his plate.

Anthony explained that the Protestants observed the Friday abstinence, too.

“Ah yes,” said the other, “I was forgetting the Queen’s late injunctions. Let us see; how did it run? ‘The same is not required for any liking of Papish Superstitions or Ceremonies (is it?) hitherto used, which utterly are to be detested of all Christian folk’; (no, the last word or two is a gloss), ‘but only to maintain the mariners in this land, and to set men a-fishing.’ That is the sense of it, is it not, sir? You fast, that is, not for heavenly reasons, which were a foolish and Papish thing to do; but for earthly reasons, which is a reasonable and Protestant thing to do.”

Anthony might have taken this assault a little amiss, if he had not seen a laughing light in his companion’s eyes; and remembered, too, that imprisonment is apt to breed a little bitterness. So be smiled back at him. Then soon they fell to talking of Lady Maxwell and Great Keynes, where it seemed that Mr. Buxton had stayed more than once.

“I knew Sir Nicholas well,” he said, “God rest his soul. It seems to me he is one of those whose life continually gave the lie to men who say that a Catholic can be no true Englishman. There never beat a more loyal heart than his.”

Anthony agreed; but asked if it were not true that Catholics were in difficulties sometimes as to the proper authority to be obeyed—the Pope or the Prince.

“It is true,” said the other, “or it might be. Yet the principle is clear, Date Cæsari quae sunt Cæsaris. The difficulty lies but in the application of the maxim.”

“But with us,” said Anthony—”Church of England folk,—there hardly can be ever any such difficulty; for the Prince of the State is the Governor of the Church as well.”

“I take your point,” said Mr. Buxton. “You mean that a National Church is better, for that spiritual and temporal authorities are then at one.”

“Just so,” said Anthony, beginning to warm to his favourite theme. “The Church is the nation regarded as religious. When England wars on land it is through her army, which is herself under arms; when on sea she embarks in the navy; and in the warfare with spiritual powers, it is through her Church. And surely in this way the Church must always be the Church of the people. The Englishman and the Spaniard are like cat and dog; they like not the same food nor the same kind of coat; I hear that their buildings are not like ours; their language, nay, their faces and minds, are not like ours. Then why should be their prayers and their religion? I quarrel with no foreigner’s faith; it is God who made us so.”

Anthony stopped, breathless with his unusual eloquence; but it was the subject that lay nearest to his heart at present, and he found no lack of words. The prisoner had watched him with twinkling eyes, nodding his head as if in agreement; and when he had finished his little speech, nodded again in meditative silence.

“It is complete,” he answered, “complete. And as a theory would be convincing; and I envy you, Master Norris, for you stand on the top of the wave. That is what England holds. But, my dear sir, Christ our Lord refused such a kingdom as that. My kingdom, He said, is not of this world—is not, that is, ruled by the world’s divisions and systems. You have described Babel,—every nation with its own language. But it was to undo Babel and to build one spiritual city that our Saviour came down, and sent the Holy Ghost to make the Church at Pentecost out of Arabians and Medes and Elamites—to break down the partition-walls, as the apostle tells us,—that there be neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian—and to establish one vast kingdom (which for that very reason we name Catholic), to destroy differences between nation and nation, by lifting each to be of the People of God—to pull down Babel, the City of Confusion, and build Jerusalem the City of Peace. Dear God!” cried Mr. Buxton, rising in his excitement, and standing over Anthony, who looked at him astonished and bewildered. “You and your England would parcel out the Kingdom of heaven into national Churches, as you name them—among all the kingdoms of the world; and yet you call yourselves the servants of Him who came to do just the opposite—yes, and who will do it, in spite of you, and make the kingdoms of this world, instead, the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Why, if each nation is to have her Church, why not each county and each town—yes, and each separate soul, too; for all are different! Nay, nay, Master Norris, you are blinded by the Prince of this world. He is shewing you even now from an high mountain the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them: lift your eyes, dear lad, to the hills from whence cometh your help; those hills higher than the mountain where you stand; and see the new Jerusalem, and the glory of her, coming down from God to dwell with men.”

Mr. Buxton stood, his eyes blazing, plainly carried away wholly by enthusiasm; and Anthony, in spite of himself, could not be angry. He moistened his lips once or twice.

“Well, sir; of course I hold with what you say, in one sense; but it is not come yet; and never will, till our Lord comes back to make all plain.”

“Not come yet?” cried the other, “Not come yet! Why, what is the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but that? There you have one visible kingdom, gathered out of every nation and tongue and people, as the apostle said. I have a little estate in France, Master Norris, where I go sometimes; and there are folk in their wooden shoes, talking a different human tongue to me, but, thank God! the same divine one—of contrition and adoration and prayer. There we have the same mass, the same priesthood, the same blessed sacrament and the same Faith, as in my own little oratory at Stanfield. Go to Spain, Africa, Rome, India; wherever Christ is preached; there is the Church as it is here—the City of Peace. And as for you and your Church! with whom do you hold communion?”

This stung Anthony, and he answered impulsively.

“In Geneva and Frankfort, at least, there are folk who speak the same divine tongue, as you call it, as we do; they and we are agreed in matters of faith.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. Burton sharply, “then what becomes of your Nationalism, and the varied temperaments that you told me God had made?”

Anthony bit his lip; he had overshot his mark. But the other swept on; and as he talked began to step up and down the little room, in a kind of rhapsody.

“Is it possible?” he cried, “that men should be so blind as to prefer the little divided companies they name National Churches—all confusion and denial—to that glorious kingdom that Christ bought with his own dear blood, and has built upon Peter, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Yes, I know it is a flattering and a pleasant thought that this little nation should have her own Church; and it is humbling and bitter that England should be called to submit to a foreign potentate in the affairs of faith—Nay, cry they like the Jews of old, not Christ but Barabbas—we will not have this Man to reign over us. And yet this is God’s will and not that. Mark me, Mr. Norris, what you hope will never come to be—the Liar will not keep his word—you shall not have that National Church that you desire: as you have dealt, so will it be dealt to you: as you have rejected, so will you be rejected. England herself will cast you off: your religious folk will break into a hundred divisions. Even now your Puritans mock at your prelates—so soon! And if they do thus now, what will they do hereafter? You have cast away Authority, and authority shall forsake you. Behold your house is left unto you desolate.”

“Forgive me, Mr. Norris,” he added after a pause, “if I have been discourteous, and have forgotten my manners; but—but I would, as the apostle said, that you were altogether as I am, except these bonds.”

CHAPTER IV

A COUNTER-MARCH

Isabel was sitting out alone in the Italian garden at the Hall, one afternoon in the summer following the visit to Deptford. Hubert was down at Plymouth, assisting in the preparations for the expedition that Drake hoped to conduct against Spain. The two countries were technically at peace, but the object with which he was going out, with the moral and financial support of the Queen, was a corporate demonstration against Spain, of French, Portuguese, and English ships under the main command of Don Antonio, the Portuguese pretender; it was proposed to occupy Terceira in the Azores; and Drake and Hawkins entertained the highest hopes of laying their hands on further plunder.

She was leaning back in her seat, with her hands behind her head, thinking over her relations with Hubert. When he had been at home at the end of the previous year, he had apparently taken it for granted that the marriage would be celebrated; he had given her the gold nugget, that she had showed Anthony, telling her he had brought it home for the wedding-ring; and she understood that he was to come for his final answer as soon as his work at Plymouth was over. But not a word of explanation had passed between them on the religious difficulty. He had silenced her emphatically and kindly once when she had approached it; and she gathered from his manner that he suspected the direction in which her mind was turning and was generously unwilling for her to commit herself an inch further than she saw. Else whence came his assurance? And, for herself, things were indeed becoming plain: she wondered why she had hesitated so long, why she was still hesitating; the cup was brimming above the edge; it needed but a faint touch of stimulus to precipitate all.

And so Isabel lay back and pondered, with a touch of happy impatience at the workings of her own soul; for she dared not act without the final touch of conviction. Mistress Margaret had taught her that the swiftest flight of the soul was when there was least movement, when the soul knew how to throw itself with that supreme effort of cessation into the Hands of God, that He might bear it along: when, after informing the intellect and seeking by prayer for God’s bounty, the humble client of Heaven waited with uplifted eyes and ready heart until God should answer. And so she waited, knowing that the gift was at hand, yet not daring to snatch it. But, in the meanwhile, her imagination at least might act without restraint; so she sent it out, like a bird from the Ark, to bring her the earnest of peace. There, in the cloister-wing, somewhere, lay the chapel, where she and Hubert would kneel together;—somewhere beneath that grey roof. That was the terrace where she would walk one day as one who has a right there. Which of these windows would be hers? Not Lady Maxwell’s, of course; she must keep that.... Ah! how good God was!

The tall door on to the terrace opened, and Mistress Margaret peered out with a letter in her hand. Isabel called to her; and the old nun came down the steps into the garden. Why did she walk so falteringly, the girl wondered, as if she could not see? What was it? What was it?

Isabel rose to her feet, startled, as the nun with bent head came up the path. “What is it, Mistress Margaret?”

The other tried to smile at her, but her lips were trembling too much; and the girl saw that her eyes were brimming with tears. She put the letter into her hand.

Isabel lifted it in an agony of suspense; and saw her name, in Hubert’s handwriting.

“What is it?” she said again, white to the lips.

The old lady as she turned away glanced at her; and Isabel saw that her face was all twitching with the effort to keep back her tears. The girl had never seen her like that before, even at Sir Nicholas’ death. Was there anything, she wondered as she looked, worse than death? But she was too dazed by the sight to speak, and Mistress Margaret went slowly back to the house unquestioned.

Isabel turned the letter over once or twice; and then sat down and opened it. It was all in Hubert’s sprawling handwriting, and was dated from Plymouth.

It gave her news first about the squadron; saying how Don Antonio had left London for Plymouth, and was expected daily; and then followed this paragraph:

“And now, dearest Isabel, I have such good news to give you. I have turned Protestant; and there is no reason why we should not be married as soon as I return. I know this will make you happy to think that our religions are no longer different. I have thought of this so long; but would not tell you before for fear of disappointing you. Sir Francis Drake’s religion seems to me the best; it is the religion of all the ‘sea-dogs’ as they name us; and of the Queen’s Grace, and it will be soon of all England; and more than all it is the religion of my dearest mistress and love. I do not, of course, know very much of it as yet; but good Mr. Collins here has shown me the superstitions of Popery; and I hope now to be justified by faith without works as the gospel teaches. I fear that my mother and aunt will be much distressed by this news; I have written, too, to tell them of it. You must comfort them, dear love; and perhaps some day they, too, will see as we do.” Then followed a few messages, and loving phrases, and the letter ended.

Isabel laid it down beside her on the low stone wall; and looked round her with eyes that saw nothing. There was the grey old house before her, and the terrace, and the cloister-wing to the left, and the hot sunshine lay on it all, and drew out scents and colours from the flower-beds, and joy from the insects that danced in the trembling air; and it all meant nothing to her; like a picture when the page is turned over it. Five minutes ago she was regarding her life and seeing how the Grace of God was slowly sorting out its elements from chaos to order—the road was unwinding itself before her eyes as she trod on it day by day—now a hand had swept all back into disorder, and the path was hidden by the ruins.

Then gradually one thought detached itself, and burned before her, vivid and startling; and in all its terrible reality slipped between her and the visible world on which she was staring. It was this: to embrace the Catholic Faith meant the renouncing of Hubert. As a Protestant she might conceivably have married a Catholic; as a Catholic it was inconceivable that she should marry an apostate.

Then she read the letter through again carefully and slowly; and was astonished at the unreality of Hubert’s words about Romish superstition and gospel simplicity. She tried hard to silence her thoughts; but two reasons for Hubert’s change of religion rose up and insisted on making themselves felt; it was that he might be more in unity with the buccaneers whom he admired; second, that there might be no obstacle to their marriage. And what then, she asked, was the quality of the heart he had given her?

Then, in a flash of intuition, she perceived that a struggle lay before her, compared with which all her previous spiritual conflicts were as child’s play; and that there was no avoiding it. The vision passed, and she rose and went indoors to find the desolate mother whose boy had lost the Faith.

A month or two of misery went by. For Lady Maxwell they passed with recurring gusts of heart-broken sorrow and of agonies of prayer for her apostate son. Mistress Margaret was at the Hall all day, soothing, encouraging, even distracting her sister by all the means in her power. The mother wrote one passionate wail to her son, appealing to all that she thought he held dear, even yet to return to the Faith for which his father had suffered and in which he had died; but a short answer only returned, saying it was impossible to make his defence in a letter, and expressing pious hopes that she, too, one day would be as he was; the same courier brought a letter to Isabel, in which he expressed his wonder that she had not answered his former one.

And as for Isabel, she had to pass through this valley of darkness alone. Anthony was in London; and even if he had been with her could not have helped her under these circumstances; her father was dead—she thanked God for that now—and Mistress Margaret seemed absorbed in her sister’s grief. And so the girl fought with devils alone. The arguments for Catholicism burned pitilessly clear now; every line and feature in them stood out distinct and hard. Catholicism, it appeared to her, alone had the marks of the Bride, visible unity, visible Catholicity, visible Apostolicity, visible Sanctity;—there they were, the seals of the most High God. She flung herself back furiously into the Protestantism from which she had been emerging; there burned in the dark before her the marks of the Beast, visible disunion, visible nationalism, visible Erastianism, visible gulfs where holiness should be: that system in which now she could never find rest again glared at her in all its unconvincing incoherence, its lack of spirituality, its adulterous union with the civil power instead of the pure wedlock of the Spouse of Christ. She wondered once more how she dared to have hesitated so long; or dared to hesitate still.

On the theological side intellectual arguments of this kind started out, strong and irrefutable; her emotional drawings towards Catholicism for the present retired. Feelings might have been disregarded or discredited by a strong effort of the will; these apparently cold phenomena that presented themselves to her intellect, could not be thus dealt with. Yet, strangely enough, even now she would not throw herself resolutely into Catholicism: the fierce stimulus instead of precipitating the crisis, petrified it. More than once she started up from her knees in her own dark room, resolved to awaken the nun and tell her she would wait no longer, but would turn Catholic at once and have finished with the misery of suspense: and even as she moved to the door her will found itself against an impenetrable wall.

And then on the other side all her human nature cried out for Hubert—Hubert—Hubert. There he stood by her in fancy, day and night, that chivalrous, courteous lad, who had been loyal to her so long; had waited so patiently; had run to her with such dear impatience; who was so wholesome, so strong, so humble to her; so quick to understand her wants, so eager to fulfil them; so bound to her by associations; so fit a mate for the very differences between them. And now these two claims were no longer compatible; in his very love for her he had ended that possibility. All those old dreams; the little scenes she had rehearsed, of their first mass, their first communion together; their walks in the twilight; their rides over the hills; the new ties that were to draw the old ladies at the Hall and herself so close together—all this was changed; some of those dreams were now for ever impossible, others only possible on terms that she trembled even to think of. Perhaps it was worst of all to reflect that she was in some measure responsible for his change of religion; she fancied that it was through her slowness to respond to light, her delaying to confide in him, that he had been driven through impatience to take this step. And so week after week went by and she dared not answer his letter.

The old ladies, too, were sorely puzzled at her. It was impossible for them to know how far her religion was changing. She had kept up the same reserve towards them lately as towards Hubert, chiefly because she feared to disappoint them; and so after an attempt to tell each other a little of their mutual sympathy, the three women were silent on the subject of the lad who was so much to them all.

She began to show her state a little in her movements and appearance. She was languid, soon tired and dispirited; she would go for short, lonely walks, and fall asleep in her chair worn out when she came in. Her grey eyes looked longer and darker; her eyelids and the corners of her mouth began to droop a little.

Then in October he came home.

Isabel had been out a long afternoon walk by herself through the reddening woods. They had never, since the first awakening of the consciousness of beauty in her, meant so little to her as now. It appeared as if that keen unity of a life common to her and all living things had been broken or obscured; and that she walked in an isolation all the more terrible in that she was surrounded by the dumb presence of what she loved. Last year the quick chattering cry of the blackbird, the evening mists over the meadows, the stir of the fading life of the woods, the rustling scamper of the rabbit over the dead leaves, the solemn call of the homing rooks—all this, only last year, went to make up the sweet natural atmosphere in which her spirit moved and breathed at ease. Now she was excommunicate from that pleasant friendship, banned by nature and forgotten by the God who made it and was immanent within it. Her relations to the Saviour, who only such a short time ago had been the Person round whom all the joys of life had centred, from whom they radiated, and to whom she referred them all—these relations had begun to be obscured by her love for Hubert, and now had vanished altogether. She had regarded her earthly and her heavenly lover as two persons, each of whom had certain claims upon her heart, and each of whom she had hoped to satisfy in different ways; instead of identifying the two, and serving each not apart from, but in the other. And it now seemed to her that she was making experience of a Divine jealousy that would suffer her to be satisfied neither with God nor man. Her soul was exhausted by internal conflict, by the swift alternations of attraction and repulsion between the poles of her supernatural and natural life; so that when it turned wearily from self to what lay outside, it was not even capable, as before, of making that supreme effort of cessation of effort which was necessary to its peace. It seemed to her that she was self-poised in emptiness, and could neither touch heaven or earth—crucified so high that she could not rest on earth, so low that she could not reach to heaven.

She came in weary and dispirited as the candles were being lighted in her sitting-room upstairs; but she saw the gleam of them from the garden with no sense of a welcoming brightness. She passed from the garden into the door of the hall which was still dark, as the fire had nearly burned itself out. As she entered the door opposite opened, and once more she saw the silhouette of a man’s figure against the lighted passage beyond; and again she stopped frightened, and whispered “Anthony.”

There was a momentary pause as the door closed and all was dark again; and then she heard Hubert’s voice say her name; and felt herself wrapped once more in his arms. For a moment she clung to him with furious longing. Ah! this is a tangible thing, she felt, this clasp; the faint cleanly smell of his rough frieze dress refreshed her like wine, and she kissed his sleeve passionately. And the wide gulf between them yawned again; and her spirit sickened at the sight of it.

“Oh! Hubert, Hubert!” she said.

She felt herself half carried to a high chair beside the fire-place and set down there; then he re-arranged the logs on the hearth, so that the flames began to leap again, showing his strong hands and keen clear-cut face; then he turned on his knees, seized her two hands in his own, and lifted them to his lips; then laid them down again on her knee, still holding them; and so remained.

“Oh! Isabel,” he said, “why did you not write?”

She was silent as one who stares fascinated down a precipice.

“It is all over,” he went on in a moment, “with the expedition. The Queen’s Grace has finally refused us leave to go—and I have come back to you, Isabel.”

How strong and pleasant he looked in this leaping fire-light! how real! and she was hesitating between this warm human reality and the chilly possibilities of an invisible truth. Her hands tightened instinctively within his, and then relaxed.

“I have been so wretched,” she said piteously.

“Ah! my dear,” and he threw an arm round her neck and drew her face down to his, “but that is over now.” She sat back again; and then an access of purpose poured into her and braced her will to an effort.

“No, no,” she began, “I must tell you. I was afraid to write. Hubert, I must wait a little longer. I—I do not know what I believe.”

He looked at her, puzzled.

“What do you mean, dearest?’

“I have been so much puzzled lately—thinking so much—and—and—I am sorry you have become a Protestant. It makes all so hard.”

“My dear, this is—I do not understand.”

“I have been thinking,” went on Isabel bravely, “whether perhaps the Catholic Church is not right after all.”

Hubert loosed her hands and stood up. She crouched into the shadow of the interior of the high chair, and looked up at him, terrified. His cheek twitched a little.

“Isabel, this is foolishness. I know what the Catholic faith is. It is not true; I have been through it all.”

He was speaking nervously and abruptly. She said nothing. Then he suddenly dropped on his knees himself.

“My dearest, I understand. You were doing this for me. I quite understand. It is what I too——” and then he stopped.

“I know, I know,” she cried piteously. “It is just what I have feared so terribly—that—that our love has been blinding us both. And yet, what are we to do, what are we to do? Oh! God—Hubert, help me.”

Then he began to speak in a low emphatic voice, holding her hands, delicately stroking one of them now and again, and playing with her fingers. She watched his curly head in the firelight as he talked, and his keen face as he looked up.

“It is all plain to me,” he said, caressingly. “You have been living here with my aunt, a dear old saint; and she has been talking and telling you all about the Catholic religion, and making it seem all true and good. And you, my dear child, have been thinking of me sometimes, and loving me a little, is it not so? and longing that religion should not separate us; and so you began to wish it was true; and then to hope it was; and at last you have begun to think it is. But it is not your true sweet self that believes it. Ah! you know in your heart of hearts, as I have known so long, that it is not true; that it is made up by priests and nuns; and it is very beautiful, I know, my dearest, but it is only a lovely tale; and you must not spoil all for the sake of a tale. And I have been gradually led to the light; it was your—” and his voice faltered—”your prayers that helped me to it. I have longed to understand what it was that made you so sweet and so happy; and now I know; it is your own simple pure religion; and—and—it is so much more sensible, so much more likely to be true than the Catholic religion. It is all in the Bible you see; so plain, as Mr. Collins has showed me. And so, my dear love, I have come to believe it too; and you must put all these fancies out of your head, these dreams; though I love you, I love you,” and he kissed her hand again, “for wishing to believe them for my sake—and—and we will be married before Christmas; and we will have our own fairy-tale, but it shall be a true one.”

This was terrible to Isabel. It seemed as if her own haunting thought that she was sacrificing a dream to reality had become incarnate in her lover and was speaking through his lips. And yet in its very incarnation, it seemed to reveal its weakness rather than its strength. As a dark suggestion the thought was mighty; embodied in actual language it seemed to shrink a little. But then, on the other hand—and so the interior conflict began to rage again.

She made a movement as if to stand up; but he pressed her back into the chair.

“No, my dearest, you shall be a prisoner until you give your parole.”

Twice Isabel made an effort to speak; but no sound came. It seemed as if the raging strife of thoughts deafened and paralysed her.

“Now, Isabel,” said Hubert.

“I cannot, I cannot,” she cried desperately, “you must give me time. It is too sudden, your returning like this. You must give me time. I do not know what I believe. Oh, dear God, help me.”

“Isabel, promise! promise! Before Christmas! I thought it was all to be so happy, when I came in through the garden just now. My mother will hardly speak to me; and I came to you, Isabel, as I always did; I felt so sure you would be good to me; and tell me that you would always love me, now that I had given up my religion for love of you. And now——” and Hubert’s voice ended in a sob.

Her heart seemed rent across, and she drew a sobbing sigh. Hubert heard it, and caught at her hands again as he knelt.

“Isabel, promise, promise.”

Then there came that gust of purpose into her heart again; she made a determined effort and stood up; and Hubert rose and stood opposite her.

“You must not ask me,” she said, bravely. “It would be wicked to decide yet. I cannot see anything clearly. I do not know what I believe, nor where I stand. You must give me time.”

There was a dead silence. His face was so much in shadow that she could not tell what he was thinking. He was standing perfectly still.

“Then that is all the answer you will give me?” he said, in a perfectly even voice.

Isabel bowed her head.

“Then—then I wish you good-night, Mistress Norris,” and he bowed to her, caught up his cap and went out.

She could not believe it for a moment, and caught her breath to cry out after him as the door closed; but she heard his step on the stone pavement outside, the crunch of the gravel, and he was gone. Then she went and leaned her head against the curved mantelshelf and stared into the logs that his hands had piled together.

This, then, she thought, was the work of religion; the end of all her aspirations and efforts, that God should mock them by bringing love into their life, and then when they caught at it and thanked him for it, it was whisked away again, and left their hands empty. Was this the Father of Love in whom she had been taught to believe, who treated His children like this? And so the bitter thoughts went on; and yet she knew in her heart that she was powerless; that she could not go to the door and call Hubert and promise what he asked. A great Force had laid hold of her, it might be benevolent or not—at this moment she thought not—but it was irresistible; and she must bow her head and obey.

And even as she thought that, the door opened again, and there was Hubert. He came in two quick steps across the room to her, and then stopped suddenly.

“Mistress Isabel,” he asked, “can you forgive me? I was a brute just now. I do not ask for your promise. I leave it all in your hands. Do with me what you will. But—but, if you could tell me how long you think it will be before you know——”

He had touched the right note. Isabel’s heart gave a leap of sorrow and sympathy. “Oh, Hubert,” she said brokenly, “I am so sorry; but I promise I will tell you—by Easter?” and her tone was interrogative.

“Yes, yes,” said Hubert. He looked at her in silence, and she saw strange lines quivering at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes large and brilliant in the firelight. Then the two drew together, and he took her in his arms strongly and passionately.

There was a scene that night between the mother and son. Mistress Margaret had gone back to the Dower House for supper; and Lady Maxwell and Hubert were supping in Sir Nicholas’ old study that would soon be arranged for Hubert now that he had returned for good. They had been very silent during the meal, while the servants were in the room, talking only of little village affairs and of the estate, and of the cancelling of the proposed expedition. Hubert had explained to his mother that it was generally believed that Elizabeth had never seriously intended the English ships to sail, but that she only wished to draw Spain’s attention off herself by setting up complications between that country and France; and when she had succeeded in this by managing to get the French squadron safe at Terceira, she then withdrew her permission to Drake and Hawkins, and thus escaped from the quarrel altogether. But it was a poor makeshift for conversation.

When the servants had withdrawn, a silence fell. Presently Hubert looked across the table between the silver branched candlesticks.

“Mother,” he said, “of course I know what you are thinking. But I cannot consent to go through all the arguments; I am weary of them. Neither will I see Mr. Barnes to-morrow at Cuckfield or here. I am satisfied with my position.”

“My son,” said Lady Maxwell with dignity, “I do not think I have spoken that priest’s name; or indeed any.”

“Well,” said Hubert, impatiently, “at any rate I will not see him. But I wish to say a few words about this house. We must have our positions clear. My father left to your use, did he not, the whole of the cloister-wing? I am delighted, dear mother, that he did so. You will be happy there I know; and of course I need not say that I hope you will keep your old room overhead as well; and, indeed, use the whole house as you have always done. I shall be grateful if you will superintend it all, as before—at least, until a new mistress comes.”

“Thank you, my son.”

“I will speak of that in a moment,” he went on, looking steadily at the table-cloth; “but there was a word I wished to say first. I am now a loyal subject of her Grace in all things; in religion as in all else. And—and I fear I cannot continue to entertain seminary priests as my father used to do. My—my conscience will not allow that. But of course, mother, I need not say that you are at perfect liberty to do what you will in the cloister-wing; I shall ask no questions; and I shall set no traps or spies. But I must ask that the priests do not come into this part of the house, nor walk in the garden. Fortunately you have a lawn in the cloister; so that they need not lack fresh air or exercise.”

“You need not fear, Hubert,” said his mother, “I will not embarrass you. You shall be in no danger.”

“I think you need not have said that, mother; I am not usually thought a coward.”

Lady Maxwell flushed a little, and began to finger her silver knife.

“However,” Hubert went on, “I thought it best to say that. The chapel, you see, is in that wing; and you have that lawn; and—and I do not think I am treating you hardly.”

“And is your brother James not to come?” asked his mother.

“I have thought much over that,” said Hubert; “and although it is hard to say it, I think he had better not come to my part of the house—at least not when I am here; I must know nothing of it. You must do what you think well when I am away, about him and others too. It is very difficult for me, mother; please do not add to the difficulty.”

“You need not fear,” said Lady Maxwell steadily; “you shall not be troubled with any Catholics besides ourselves.”

“Then that is arranged,” said the lad. “And now there is a word more. What have you been doing to Isabel?” And he looked sharply across the table. His mother’s eyes met his fearlessly.

“I do not understand you,” she said.

“Mother, you must know what I mean. You have seen her continually.”

“I have told you, my son, that I do not know.”

“Why,” burst out Hubert, “she is half a Catholic.”

“Thank God,” said his mother.

“Ah! yes; you thank God, I know; but whom am I to thank for it?”

“I would that you could thank Him too.”

Hubert made a sharp sound of disgust.

“Ah! yes,” he said scornfully, “I knew it; Non nobis Domine, and the rest.”

“Hubert,” said Lady Maxwell, “I do not think you mean to insult me in this house; but either that is an insult, or else I misunderstood you wholly, and must ask your pardon for it.”

“Well,” he said, in a harsh voice, “I will make myself plain. I believe that it is through the influence of you and Aunt Margaret that this has been brought about.”

At the moment he spoke the door opened.

“Come in, Margaret,” said her sister, “this concerns you.”

The old nun came across to Hubert with her anxious sweet face; and put her old hand tenderly on his black satin sleeve as he sat and wrenched at a nut between his fingers.

“Hubert, dear boy,” she said, “what is all this? Will you tell me?”

Hubert rose, a little ashamed of himself, and went to the door and closed it; and then drew out a chair for his aunt, and put a wine-glass for her.

“Sit down, aunt,” he said, and pushed the decanter towards her.

“I have just left Isabel,” she said, “she is very unhappy about something. You saw her this evening, dear lad?”

“Yes,” said Hubert, heavily, looking down at the table and taking up another nut, “and it is of that that I have been speaking. Who has made her unhappy?”

“I had hoped you would tell us that,” said Mistress Margaret; “I came up to ask you.”

“My son has done us—me—the honour——” began Lady Maxwell; but Hubert broke in:

“I left Isabel here last Christmas happy and a Protestant. I have come back here now to find her unhappy and half a Catholic, if not more—and——”

“Oh! are you sure?” asked Mistress Margaret, her eyes shining. “Thank God, if it be so!”

“Sure?” said Hubert, “why she will not marry me; at least not yet.”

“Oh, poor lad,” she said tenderly, “to have lost both God and Isabel.”

Hubert turned on her savagely. But the old nun’s eyes were steady and serene.

“Poor lad!” she said again.

Hubert looked down again; his lip wrinkled up in a little sneer.

“As far as I am concerned,” he said, “I can understand your not caring, but I am astonished at this response of yours to her father’s confidence!”

Lady Maxwell grew white to the lips.

“I have told you,” she began—”but you do not seem to believe it—that I have had nothing to do, so far as I know, with her conversion, which”—and she raised her voice bravely—”I pray God to accomplish. She has, of course, asked me questions now and then; and I have answered them—that is all.”

“And I,” said Mistress Margaret, “plead guilty to the same charge, and to no other. You are not yourself, dear boy, at present; and indeed I do not wonder at it; and I pray God to help you; but you are not yourself, or you would not speak like this to your mother.”

Hubert rose to his feet; his face was white under the tan, and the ruffle round his wrist trembled as he leaned heavily with his fingers on the table.

“I am only a plain Protestant now,” he said bitterly, “and I have been with Protestants so long that I have forgotten Catholic ways; but——”

“Stay, Hubert,” said his mother, “do not finish that. You will be sorry for it presently, if you do. Come, Margaret.” And she moved towards the door; her son went quickly past and opened it.

“Nay, nay,” said the nun. “Do you be going, Mary. Let me stay with the lad, and we will come to you presently.” Lady Maxwell bowed her head and passed out, and Hubert closed the door.

Mistress Margaret looked down on the table.

“You have given me a glass, dear boy; but no wine in it.”

Hubert took a couple of quick steps back, and faced her.

“It is no use, it is no use,” he burst out, and his voice was broken with emotion, “you cannot turn me like that. Oh, what have you done with my Isabel?” He put out his hand and seized her arm. “Give her back to me, Aunt Margaret; give her back to me.”

He dropped into his seat and hid his face on his arm; and there was a sob or two.

“Sit up and be a man, Hubert,” broke in Mistress Margaret’s voice, clear and cool.

He looked up in amazement with wet indignant eyes. She was looking at him, smiling tenderly.

“And now, for the second time, give me half a glass of wine, dear boy.”

He poured it out, bewildered at her self-control.

“For a man that has been round the world,” she said, “you are but a foolish child.”

“What do you mean?”

“Have you never thought of a way of yet winning Isabel,” she asked.

“What do you mean?” he repeated.

“Why, come back to the Church, dear lad; and make your mother and me happy again, and marry Isabel, and save your own soul.”

“Aunt Margaret,” he cried, “it is impossible. I have truly lost my faith in the Catholic religion; and—and—you would not have me a hypocrite.”

“Ah! ah!” said the nun, “you cannot tell yet. Please God it may come back. Oh! dear boy, in your heart you know it is true.”

“Before God, in my heart I know that it is not true.”

“No, no, no,” she said; but the light died out of her eyes, and she stretched a tremulous hand.

“Yes, Aunt Margaret, it is so. For years and years I have been doubting; but I kept on just because it seemed to me the best religion; and—and I would not be driven out of it by her Grace’s laws against my will, like a dog stoned from his kennel.”

“But you are only a lad still,” she said piteously. He laughed a little.

“But I have had the gift of reason and discretion nearly twenty years, a priest would tell me. Besides, Aunt Margaret, I could not be such a—a cur—as to come back without believing. I could never look Isabel in the eyes again.”

“Well, well,” said the old lady, “let us wait and see. Do you intend to be here now for a while?”

“Not while Isabel is like this,” he said. “I could not. I must go away for a while, and then come back and ask her again.”

“When will she decide?”

“She told me by next Easter,” said Hubert. “Oh, Aunt Margaret, pray for us both.”

The light began to glimmer again in her eyes.

“There, dear boy,” she said, “you see you believe in prayer still.”

“But, aunt,” said Hubert, “why should I not? Protestants pray.”

“Well, well,” said the old nun again. “Now you must come to your mother; and—and be good to her.”

CHAPTER V

THE COMING OF THE JESUITS

The effect on Anthony of Mr. Buxton’s conversation was very considerable. He had managed to keep his temper very well during the actual interview; but he broke out alone afterwards, at first with an angry contempt. The absurd arrogance of the man made him furious—the arrogance that had puffed away England and its ambitions and its vigour—palpable evidences of life and reality, and further of God’s blessing—in favour of a miserable Latin nation which had the presumption to claim the possession of Peter’s Chair and of the person of the Vicar of Christ! Test it, said the young man to himself, by the ancient Fathers and Councils that Dr. Jewel quoted so learnedly, and the preposterous claim crumbled to dust. Test it, yet again, by the finger of Providence; and God Himself proclaimed that the pretensions of the spiritual kingdom, of which the prisoner in the cell had bragged, are but a blasphemous fable. And Anthony reminded himself of the events of the previous year.

Three great assaults had been made by the Papists to win back England to the old Religion. Dr. William Allen, the founder of Douai College, had already for the last seven or eight years been pouring seminary priests into England, and over a hundred and twenty were at work among their countrymen, preparing the grand attack. This was made in three quarters at once.

In Scotland it was chiefly political, and Anthony thought, with a bitter contempt, of the Count d’Aubigny, Esmé Stuart, who was supposed to be an emissary of the Jesuits; how he had plotted with ecclesiastics and nobles, and professed Protestantism to further his ends; and of all the stories of his duplicity and evil-living, told round the guard-room fire.

In Ireland the attempt was little else than ludicrous. Anthony laughed fiercely to himself as he pictured the landing of the treacherous fools at Dingle, of Sir James FitzMaurice and his lady, very wretched and giddy after their voyage, and the barefooted friars, and Dr. Sanders, and the banner so solemnly consecrated; and of the sands of Smerwick, when all was over a year later, and the six hundred bodies, men and women who had preferred Mr. Buxton’s spiritual kingdom to Elizabeth’s kindly rule, stripped and laid out in rows, like dead game, for Lord Grey de Wilton to reckon them by.

But his heart sank a little as he remembered the third method of attack, and of the coming of the Jesuits. By last July all London knew that they were here, and men’s hearts were shaken with apprehension. They reminded one another of the April earthquake that had tolled the great Westminster bell, and thrown down stones from the churches. One of the Lambeth guards, a native of Blunsdon, in Wiltshire, had told Anthony himself that a pack of hell-hounds had been heard there, in full cry after a ghostly quarry. Phantom ships had been seen from Bodmin attacking a phantom castle that rode over the waves off the Cornish coast. An old woman of Blasedon had given birth to a huge-headed monster with the mouth of a mouse, eight legs, and a tail; and, worse than all, it was whispered in the Somersetshire inns that three companies of black-robed men, sixty in number, had been seen, coming and going overhead in the gloom. These two strange emissaries, Fathers Persons and Campion—how they appealed to the imagination, lurking under a hundred disguises, now of servants, now of gentlemen of means and position! It was known that they were still in England, going about doing good, their friends said who knew them; stirring up the people, their enemies said who were searching for them. Anthony had seen with his own eyes some of the papers connected with their presence—that containing a statement of their objects in coming, namely, that they were spiritual not political agents, seeking recruits for Christ and for none else; Campion’s “Challenge and Brag,” offering to meet any English Divine on equal terms in a public disputation; besides one or two of the controversial pamphlets, purporting to be printed at Douai, but really emanating from a private printing-press in England, as the Government experts had discovered from an examination of the water-marks of the paper employed.

Yet as the weeks went by, and his first resentment cooled, Mr. Buxton’s arguments more and more sank home, for they had touched the very point where Anthony had reckoned that his own strength lay. He had never before heard Nationalism and Catholicism placed in such flat antithesis. In fact, he had never before really heard the statement of the Catholic position; and his fierce contempt gradually melted into respect. Both theories had a concrete air of reality about them; his own imaged itself under the symbols of England’s power; the National Church appealed to him so far as it represented the spiritual side of the English people; and Mr. Buxton’s conception appealed to him from its very audacity. This great spiritual kingdom, striding on its way, trampling down the barriers of temperament and nationality, disregarding all earthly limitations and artificial restraints, imperiously dominating the world in spite of the world’s struggles and resentment—this, after all, as he thought over it, was—well—was a new aspect of affairs. The coming of the Jesuits, too, emphasised the appeal: here were two men, as the world itself confessed, of exceptional ability—for Campion had been a famous Oxford orator, and Persons a Fellow of Balliol—choosing, under a free-will obedience, first a life of exile, and then one of daily peril and apprehension, the very thought of which burdened the imagination with horror; hunted like vermin, sleeping and faring hard, their very names detested by the majority of their countrymen, with the shadow of the gallows moving with them, and the reek of the hangman’s cauldron continually in their nostrils—and for what? For Mr. Buxton’s spiritual kingdom! Well, Anthony thought to himself as the weeks went by and his new thoughts sank deeper, if it is all a superstitious dream, at least it is a noble one!

What, too, was the answer, he asked himself, that England gave to Father Campion’s challenge, and the defence that the Government was preparing against the spiritual weapons of the Jesuits? New prisons at Framingham and Battersea; new penalties enacted by Parliament; and, above all, the unanswerable argument of the rack, and the gallows finally to close the discussion. And what of the army that was being set in array against the priests, and that was even now beginning to scour the country round Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and London? Anthony had to confess to himself that they were queer allies for the servants of Christ; for traitors, liars, and informers were among the most trusted Government agents.

In short, as the spring drew on, Anthony was not wholly happy. Again and again in his own room he studied a little manuscript translation of Father Campion’s “Ten Reasons,” that had been taken from a popish prisoner, and that a friend had given him; and as he read its exultant rhetoric, he wondered whether the writer was indeed as insincere and treacherous as Mr. Scot declared. There seemed in the paper a reckless outspokenness, calculated rather to irritate than deceive.

“I turn to the Sacraments,” he read, “none, none, not two, not one, O holy Christ, have they left. Their very bread is poison. Their baptism, though it be true, yet in their judgment is nothing. It is not the saving water! It is not the channel of Grace! It brings not Christ’s merits to us! It is but a sign of salvation!” And again the writer cried to Elizabeth to return to the ancient Religion, and to be in truth what she was in name, the Defender of the Faith.

“‘Kings shall be thy nursing fathers,’ thus Isaiah sang, ‘and Queens thy nursing mothers.’ Listen, Elizabeth, most Mighty Queen! To thee the great Prophet sings! He teaches thee thy part. Join then thyself to these princes!... O Elizabeth, a day, a day shall come that shall show thee clearly which have loved thee the better, the Society of Jesus or Luther’s brood!”

What arrogance, thought Anthony to himself, and what assurance too!

Meanwhile in the outer world things were not reassuring to the friends of the Government: it was true that half a dozen priests had been captured and examined by torture, and that Sir George Peckham himself, who was known to have harboured Campion, had been committed to the Marshalsea; but yet the Jesuits’ influence was steadily on the increase. More and more severe penalties had been lately enacted; it was now declared to be high treason to reconcile or be reconciled to the Church of Rome; overwhelming losses in fortune as well as liberty were threatened against all who said or heard Mass or refused to attend the services of the Establishment; but, as was discovered from papers that fell from time to time into the hands of the Government agents, the only answer of the priests was to inveigh more strenuously against even occasional conformity, declaring it to be the mortal sin of schism, if not of apostasy, to put in an appearance under any circumstances, except those of actual physical compulsion, at the worship in the parish churches. Worse than all, too, was the fact that this severe gospel began to prevail; recusancy was reported to be on the increase in all parts of the country; and many of the old aristocracy began to return to the faith of their fathers: Lords Arundel, Oxford, Vaux, Henry Howard, and Sir Francis Southwell were all beginning to fall under the suspicion of the shrewdest Government spies.

The excitement at Lambeth ran higher day by day as the summer drew on; the net was being gradually contracted in the home counties; spies were reported to be everywhere, in inns, in the servants’ quarters of gentlemen’s houses, lounging at cross roads and on village greens. Campion’s name was in every mouth. Now they were on his footsteps, it was said; now he was taken; now he was gone back to France; now he was in London; now in Lancashire; and each rumour in turn corrected its predecessor.

Anthony shared to the full in the excitement; the figure of the quarry, after which so many hawks were abroad, appealed to his imagination. He dreamed of him at night, once as a crafty-looking man with narrow eyes and stooping shoulders, that skulked and ran from shadow to shadow across a moonlit country; once as a ruddy-faced middle-aged gentleman riding down a crowded street; and several times as a kind of double of Mr. Stewart, whom he had never forgotten, since he had watched him in the little room of Maxwell Hall, gallant and alert among his enemies.

At last one day in July, as it drew on towards evening, and as Anthony was looking over the stable-accounts in his little office beyond the Presence Chamber, a buzz of talk and footsteps broke out in the court below; and a moment later the Archbishop’s body-servant ran in to say that his Grace wished to see Mr. Norris at once in the gallery that opened out of the guard-room.

“And I think it is about the Jesuits, sir,” added the man, evidently excited.

Anthony ran down at once and found his master pacing up and down, with a courier waiting near the steps at the lower end that led to Chichele’s tower. The Archbishop stopped by a window, emblazoned with Cardinal Pole’s emblem, and beckoned to him.

“See here, Master Norris,” he said, “I have received news that Campion is at last taken: it may well be false, as so often before; but take horse, if you please, and ride into the city and find the truth for me. I will not send a groom; they believe the maddest tales. You are at liberty?” he added courteously.

“Yes, your Grace, I will ride immediately.”

As he rode down the river-bank towards London Bridge ten minutes later, he could not help feeling some dismay as well as excitement at the news he was to verify. And yet what other end was possible? But what a doom for the brilliant Oxford orator, even though he had counted the cost!

Streams of excited people were pouring across the bridge into the city; Campion’s name was on every tongue; and Anthony, as he passed under the high gate, noticed a man point up at the grim spiked heads above it, and laugh to his companion. There seemed little doubt, from the unanimity of those whom he questioned, that the rumour was true; and some even said that the Jesuit was actually passing down Cheapside on his way to the Tower. When at last Anthony came to the thoroughfare the crowd was as dense as for a royal progress. He checked his horse at the door of an inn-yard, and asked an ostler that stood there what it was all about.

“It is Campion, the Jesuit, sir,” said the man. “He has been taken at Lyford, and is passing here presently.”

The man had hardly finished speaking when a yell came from the end of the street, and groans and hoots ran down the crowd. Anthony turned in his saddle, and saw a great stir and movement, and then horses’ and men’s heads moving slowly down over the seething surface of the crowd, as if swimming in a rough sea. He could make little out, as the company came towards him, but the faces of the officers and pursuivants who rode in the front rank, four or five abreast; then followed the faces of three or four others, also riding between guards, and Anthony looked eagerly at them; but they were simple faces enough, a little pale and quiet; one was like a farmer’s, ruddy and bearded;—surely Campion could not be among those! Then more and more, riding two and two, with a couple of armed guards with each pair; some looked like country-men or servants, some like gentlemen, and one or two might be priests; but the crowd seemed to pay them no attention beyond a glance or two. Ah! what was this coming behind?

There was a space behind the last row of guards, and then came a separate troop riding all together, of half a dozen men at least, and one in the centre, with something white in his hat. The ferment round this group was tremendous; men were leaping up and yelling, like hounds round a carted stag; clubs shot up menacingly, and a storm of ceaseless execration raged outside the compact square of guards who sat alert and ready to beat off an attack. Once a horse kicked fiercely as a man sprang to his hind-quarters, and there was a scream of pain and a burst of laughing.

Anthony sat trembling with excitement as the first group had passed, and this second began to come opposite the entrance where he sat. This then was the man!

The rider in the centre sat his horse somewhat stiffly, and Anthony saw that his elbows were bound behind his back, and his hands in front; the reins were drawn over his horse’s head and a pursuivant held them on either side. The man was dressed as a layman, in a plumed hat and a buff jerkin, such as soldiers or plain country-gentlemen might use; and in the hat was a great paper with an inscription. Anthony spelt it out.

“Campion, the Seditious Jesuit.”

Then he looked at the man’s face.

It was a comely refined face, a little pale but perfectly serene: his pointed dark brown beard and moustache were carefully trimmed; and his large passionate eyes looked cheerfully about him. Anthony stared at him, wholly fascinated; for above the romance that hung about the hunted priest and the glamour of the dreaded Society which he represented, there was a chivalrous fearless look in his face that drew the heart of the young man almost irresistibly. At least he did not look like the skulking knave at whom all the world was sneering, and of whom Anthony had dreamt so vividly a few nights before.

The storm of execration from the faces below, and the faces crowding at the windows, seemed to affect him not at all; and he looked from side to side as if they were cheering him rather than crying against him. Once his eyes met Anthony’s and rested on them for a moment; and a strange thrill ran through him and he shivered sharply.

And yet he felt, too, a distinct and irresistible movement of attraction towards this felon who was riding towards his agony and passion; and he was conscious at the same time of that curious touch of wonder that he had felt years before towards the man whipped at the cart’s tail, as to whether the solitary criminal were not in the right, and the clamorous accusers in the wrong. Campion in a moment had passed on and turned his head.

In that moment, too, Anthony caught a sudden clear instantaneous impression of a group of faces in the window opposite. There were a couple of men in front, stout city personages no doubt, with crimson faces and open mouths cursing the traitorous Papist and the crafty vagrant fox trapped at last; but between them, looking over their shoulders, was a woman’s face in which Anthony saw the most intense struggle of emotions. The face was quite white, the lips parted, the eyes straining, and sorrow and compassion were in every line, as she watched the cheerful priest among his warders; and yet there rested on it, too, a strange light as of triumph. It was the face of one who sees victory even at the hour of supremest failure. In an instant more the face had withdrawn itself into the darkness of the room.

When the crowds had surged down the street in the direction of the Tower, yelling in derision as Campion saluted the lately defaced Cheapside Cross, Anthony guided his horse out through the dispersing groups, realising as he did so, with a touch of astonishment at the coincidence, that he had been standing almost immediately under the window whence he and Isabel had leaned out so many years before.

The sun was going down behind the Abbey as he rode up towards Lambeth, and the sky above and the river beneath were as molten gold. The Abbey itself, with Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament below, stood up like mystical palaces against the sunset; and it seemed to Anthony as he rode, as if God Himself were illustrating in glorious illumination the closing pages of that human life of which a glimpse had opened to him in Cheapside. It did not appear to him as it had done in the days of his boyish love as if heaven and earth were a stage for himself to walk and pose upon; but he felt intensely now the dominating power of the personality of the priest; and that he himself was no more than a spectator of this act of a tragedy of which the priest was both hero and victim, and for which this evening glory formed so radiant a scene. The old intellectual arguments against the cause that the priest represented for the moment were drowned in this flood of splendour. When he arrived at Lambeth and had reached the Archbishop’s presence, he told him the news briefly, and went to his room full of thought and perplexity.

In a few days the story of Campion’s arrest was known far and wide. It had been made possible by the folly of one Catholic and the treachery of another; and when Anthony heard it, he was stirred still more by the contrast between the Jesuit and his pursuers. The priest had returned to the moated grange at Lyford, after having already paid as long a visit there as was prudent, owing to the solicitations of a number of gentlemen who had ridden after him and his companion, and who wished to hear his eloquence. He had returned there again, said mass on the Sunday morning, and preached afterwards, from a chair set before the altar, a sermon on the tears of the Saviour over apostate Jerusalem. But a false disciple had been present who had come in search of one Payne; and this man, known afterwards by the Catholics as Judas Eliot or Eliot Iscariot, had gathered a number of constables and placed them about the manor-house; and before the sermon was over he went out quickly from the table of the Lord, the house was immediately surrounded, and the alarm was raised by a watcher placed in one of the turrets after Eliot’s suspicious departure. The three priests present, Campion and two others, were hurried into a hiding-hole over the stairs. The officers entered, searched, and found nothing; and were actually retiring, when Eliot succeeded in persuading them to try again; they searched again till dark, and still found nothing. Mrs. Yate encouraged them to stay the night in the house, and entertained them with ale; and then when all was quiet, insisted on hearing some parting words from her eloquent guest. He came out into the room where she had chosen to spend the night until the officers were gone; and the rest of the Catholics, some Brigittine nuns and others, met there through private passages and listened to him for the last time. As the company was dispersing one of the priests stumbled and fell, making a noise that roused the sentry outside. Again the house was searched, and again with no success. In despair they were leaving it, when Jenkins, Eliot’s companion, who was coming downstairs with a servant of the house, beat with his stick on the wall, saying that they had not searched there. It was noticed that the servant showed signs of agitation; and men were fetched to the spot; the wall was beaten in and the three priests were found together, having mutually shriven one another, and made themselves ready for death.

Campion was taken out and sent first to the Sheriff of Berkshire, and then on towards London on the following day.

The summer days went by, and every day brought its fresh rumour about Campion. Sir Owen Hopton, Governor of the Tower, who at first had committed his prisoner to Little-Ease, now began to treat him with more honour; he talked, too, mysteriously, of secret interviews and promises and understandings; and gradually it began to get about that Campion was yielding to kindness; that he had seen the Queen; that he was to recant at Paul’s Cross; and even that he was to have the See of Canterbury. This last rumour caused great indignation at Lambeth, and Anthony was more pressed than ever to get what authentic news he could of the Jesuit. Then at the beginning of August came a burst of new tales; he had been racked, it was said, and had given up a number of names; and as the month went by more and more details, authentic and otherwise, were published. Those favourably inclined to the Catholics were divided in opinion; some feared that he had indeed yielded to an excess of agony; others, and these proved to be in the right when the truth came out, that he had only given up names which were already known to the authorities; though even for this he asked public pardon on the scaffold.

Towards the end of August the Archbishop again sent expressly for Anthony and bade him accompany his chaplain on the following day to the Tower, to be present at the public disputation that was to take place between English divines and the Jesuit.

“Now he will have the chance he craved for,” said Grindal. “He hath bragged that he would meet any and all in dispute, and now the Queen’s clemency hath granted it him.”

On the following day in the early morning sunshine the minister and Anthony rode down together to the Tower, where they arrived a few minutes before eight o’clock, and were passed through up the stairs into St. John’s chapel to the seats reserved for them.

It was indeed true that the authorities had determined to give Campion his chance, but they had also determined to make it as small as possible. He was not even told that the discussion was to take place until the morning of its occasion, and he was allowed no opportunity for developing his own theological position; the entire conduct of the debate was in the hands of his adversaries; he might only parry, seldom riposte, and never attack.

When Anthony found himself in his seat he looked round the chapel. Almost immediately opposite him, on a raised platform against a pillar, stood two high seats occupied by Deans Nowell and Day, who were to conduct the disputation, and who were now talking with their heads together while a secretary was arranging a great heap of books on the table before them. On either side, east and west, stretched chairs for the divines that were to support them in debate, should they need it; and the platform on which Anthony himself had a chair was filled with a crowd of clergy and courtiers laughing and chatting together. A little table, also heaped with books, with seats for the notaries, stood in the centre of the nave, and not far from it were a number of little wooden stools which the prisoners were to occupy. Plainly they were to be allowed no advisers and no books; even the physical support of table and chairs was denied to them in spite of their weary racked bodies. The chapel, bright with the morning sunlight that streamed in through the east windows of the bare Norman sanctuary, hummed with the talk and laughter of those who had come to see the priest-baiting and the vindication of the Protestant Religion; though, as Anthony looked round, he saw here and there an anxious or a downcast face of some unknown friend of the Papists.

He himself was far from easy in his mind. He had been studying Campion’s “Ten Reasons” more earnestly than ever, and was amazed to find that the very authorities to which Dr. Jewel deferred, namely, the Scriptures interpreted by Fathers and Councils and illustrated by History, were exactly Campion’s authorities, too; and that the Jesuit’s appeal to them was no less confident than the Protestant’s. That fact had, of course, suggested the thought that if there were no further living authority in existence to decide between these two scholars, Christendom was in a poor position. When doctors differed, where was the layman to turn? To his own private judgment, said the Protestant. But then Campion’s private judgment led him to submit to the Catholic claim! This then at present weighed heavily on Anthony’s mind. Was there or was there not an authority on earth capable of declaring to him the Revelation of God? For the first time he was beginning to feel a logical and spiritual necessity for an infallible external Judge in matters of faith; and that the Catholic Church was the only system that professed to supply it. The question of the existence of such an authority was, with the doctrine of justification, one of those subjects continually in men’s minds and conversations, and to Anthony, unlike others, it appeared more fundamental even than its companion. All else seemed secondary. Indulgences, the Mass, Absolution, the Worship of Mary and the Saints—all these must stand or fall on God’s authority made known to man. The one question for him was, Where was that authority to be certainly found?

There came the ringing tramp of footsteps; the buzz of talk ceased and then broke out again, as the prisoners, with all eyes bent upon them, surrounded by a strong guard of pikemen, were seen advancing up the chapel from the north-west door towards the stools set ready for them. Anthony had no eyes but for Campion who limped in front, supported on either side by a warder. He could scarcely believe at first that this was the same priest who had ridden so bravely down Cheapside. Now he was bent, and walked like an old broken man; his face was deathly pale, with shadows and lines about his eyes, and his head trembled a little. There were one or two exclamations of pity, for all knew what had caused the change; and Anthony heard an undertone moan of sorrow and anger from some one in a seat behind him.

The prisoners sat down; and the guards went to their places. Campion took his seat in front, and turned immediately from side to side, running his dark eyes along the faces to see where were his adversaries; and once more Anthony met his eyes, and thrilled at it. Through the pallor and pain of his face, the same chivalrous spirit looked out and called for homage and love, that years ago at Oxford had made young men, mockingly nicknamed after their leader, to desire his praise more passionately than anything on earth, and even to imitate his manners and dress and gait, for very loyalty and devotion. Anthony could not take his eyes off him; he watched the clear-cut profile of his face thrown fearlessly forward, waited in tense expectation to hear him speak, and paid no attention to the whisperings of the chaplain beside him.

Presently the debate began. It was opened by Dean Nowell from his high seat, who assured Father Campion of the disinterested motives of himself and his reverend friends in holding this disputation. It was, after all, only what the priest had demanded; and they trusted by God’s grace that they would do him good and help him to see the truth. There was no unfairness, said the Dean, who seemed to think that some apology was needed, in taking him thus unprepared, since the subject of debate would be none other than Campion’s own book. The Jesuit looked up, nodded his head, and smiled.

“I thank you, Mr. Dean,” he said, in his deep resonant voice, and there fell a dead hush as he spoke. “I thank you for desiring to do me good, and to take up my challenge; but I must say that I would I had understood of your coming, that I might have made myself ready.”

Campion’s voice thrilled strangely through Anthony, as the glance from his eyes had done. It was so assured, so strong and delicate an instrument, and so supremely at its owner’s command, that it was hardly less persuasive than his personality and his learning that made themselves apparent during the day. And Anthony was not alone in his impressions of the Jesuit. Lord Arundel afterwards attributed his conversion to Campion’s share in the discussions. Again and again during the day a murmur of applause followed some of the priest’s clean-cut speeches and arguments, and a murmur of disapproval the fierce thrusts and taunts of his opponents; and by the end of the day’s debate, so marked was the change of attitude of the crowd that had come to triumph over the Papist, and so manifest their sympathy with the prisoners, that it was thought advisable to exclude the public from the subsequent discussions.

On this first day, all manner of subjects were touched upon, such as the comparative leniency of Catholic and Protestant governments, the position of Luther with regard to the Epistle of St. James, and other matters comparatively unimportant, in the discussion of which a great deal of time was wasted. Campion entreated his opponents to leave such minor questions alone, and to come to doctrinal matters; but they preferred to keep to details rather than to principles, and the priest had scarcely any opportunity to state his positive position at all. The only doctrinal matter seriously touched upon was that of Justification by Faith; and texts were flung to and fro without any great result. “We are justified by faith,” cried one side. “Though I have all faith and have not charity, I am nothing,” cried the other. The effect on Anthony of this day’s debate arose rather from the victorious personality of the priest than from his arguments. His gaiety, too, was in strange contrast to the solemn Puritanism of his enemies. For instance, he was on the point that Councils might err in matters of fact, but that the Scriptures could not.

“As for example,” he said, his eyes twinkling out of his drawn face, “I am bound under pain of damnation to believe that Toby’s dog had a tail, because it is written, he wagged it.”

The Deans looked sternly at him, as the audience laughed.

“Now, now,” said one of them, “it becomes not to deal so triflingly with matters of weight.”

Campion dropped his eyes, demurely, as if reproved.

“Why, then,” he said, “if this example like you not, take another. I must believe that Saint Paul had a cloak, because he willeth Timothy to bring it with him.”

Again the crowd laughed; and Anthony laughed, too, with a strange sob in his throat at the gallant foolery, which, after all, was as much to the point as a deal that the Deans were saying.

But the second day’s debate, held in Hopton’s Hall, was on more vital matters; and Anthony again and again found himself leaning forward breathlessly, as Drs. Goode and Fulke on the one side, and Campion on the other, respectively attacked and defended the Doctrine of the Visible Church; for this, for Anthony, was one of the crucial points of the dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism. Anthony believed already that the Church was one; and if it was visible, surely, he thought to himself, it must be visibly one; and in that case, it is evident where that Church is to be found. But if it is invisible, it may be invisibly one, and then as far as that matter is concerned, he may rest in the Church of England. If not—and then he recoiled from the gulf that opened.

“It must be an essential mark of the Church,” said Campion, “and such a quality as is inseparable. It must be visible, as fire is hot, and water moist.”

Goode answered that when Christ was taken and the Apostles fled, then at least the Church was invisible; and if then, why not always?

“It was a Church inchoate,” answered the priest, “beginning, not perfect.”

But Goode continued to insist that the true Church is known only to God, and therefore invisible.

“There are many wolves within,” he said, “and many sheep without.”

“I know not who is elect,” retorted Campion, “but I know who is a Catholic.”

“Only the elect are of the Church,” said Goode.

“I say that both good and evil are of the visible Church,” answered the other.

“To be elect or true members of Christ is one thing,” went on Goode, “and to be in the visible Church is another.”

As the talk went on, Anthony began to see where the confusion lay. The Protestants were anxious to prove that membership in a visible body did not ensure salvation but then the Catholics never claimed that it did; the question was: Did or did not Christ intend there to be a visible Church, membership in which should be the normal though not the infallible means of salvation?

They presently got on to the a priori point as to whether a visible Church would seem to be a necessity.

“There is a perpetual commandment,” said the priest, “in Matthew eighteen—’Tell the Church’; but that cannot be unless the Church is visible; ergo, the visibility of the Church is continual.”

“When there is an established Church,” said Goode, “this remedy is to be sought for. But this cannot be always had.”

“The disease is continual,” answered Campion; “ergo the remedy must be continual.” Then he left the a priori ground and entered theirs. “To whom should I have gone,” he cried, “before Luther’s time? What prelates should I have made my complaint unto in those days? Where was your Church nine hundred years ago? Whose were John Huss, Jerome of Prague, the Waldenses? Were they yours?” Then he turned scornfully to Fulke, “Help him, Master Doctor.”

And Fulke repeated Goode’s assertion, that valuable as the remedy is, it cannot always be had.

Anthony sat back, puzzled. Both sides seemed right. Persecution must often hinder the full privileges of Church membership and the exercise of discipline. Yet the question was, What was Christ’s intention? Was it that the Church should be visible? It seemed that even the ministers allowed that, now. And if so, why then the Catholic’s claim that Christ’s intention had never been wholly frustrated, but that a visible unity was to be found amongst themselves—surely this was easier to believe than the Protestant theory that the Church which had been visible for fifteen centuries was not really the Church at all; but that the true Church had been invisible—in spite of Christ’s intention—during all that period, and was now to be found only in small separated bodies scattered here and there. How of the prevailing of the gates of hell, if that were allowed to be true?

At two o’clock they reassembled for the afternoon conference; and now they got even closer to the heart of the matter, for the subject was to be, whether the Church could err?

Fulke asserted that it could, and did; and made a syllogism:

“Whatsoever error is incident to every member, is incident to the whole. But it is incident to every member to err; ergo, to the whole.”

“I deny both major and minor,” said Campion quietly. “Every man may err, but not the whole gathered together; for the whole hath a promise, but so hath not every particular man.”

Fulke denied this stoutly, and beat on the table.

“Every member hath the spirit of Christ,” he said, “which is the spirit of truth; and therefore hath the same promise that the whole hath.”

“Why, then,” said Campion, smiling, “there should be no heretics.”

“Yes,” answered Fulke, “heretics may be within the Church, but not of the Church.”

And so they found themselves back again where they started from.

Anthony sat back on the oak bench and sighed, and glanced round at the interested faces of the theologians and the yawns of the amateurs, as the debate rolled on over the old ground, and touched on free will, and grace, and infant baptism; until the Lieutenant interposed:

“Master Doctors,” he said, with a judicial air, “the question that was appointed before dinner was, whether the visible Church may err”—to which Goode retorted that the digressions were all Campion’s fault.

Then the debate took the form of contradictions.

“Whatsoever congregation doth err in matters of faith,” said Goode, “is not the true Church; but the Church of Rome erreth in matters of faith; ergo, it is not the true Church.”

“I deny your minor,” said Campion, “the Church of Rome hath not erred.” Then the same process was repeated over the Council of Trent; and the debate whirled off once more into details and irrelevancies about imputed righteousness, and the denial of the Cup to the laity.

Again the audience grew restless. They had not come there, most of them, to listen to theological minutiæ, but to see sport; and this interminable chopping of words that resulted in nothing bored them profoundly. A murmur of conversation began to buzz on all sides.

Campion was in despair.

“Thus shall we run into all questions,” he cried hopelessly, “and then we shall have done this time twelve months.”

But Fulke would not let him be; but pressed on a question about the Council of Nice.

“Now we shall have the matter of images,” sighed Campion.

“You are nimis acutus,” retorted Fulke, “you will leap over the stile or ever you come to it. I mean not to speak of images.”

And so with a few more irrelevancies the debate ended.

The third debate in September (on the twenty-third), at which Anthony was again present, was on the subject of the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament.

Fulke was in an evil temper, since it was common talk that Campion had had the best of the argument on the eighteenth.

“The other day,” he said, “when we had some hope of your conversion, we forbare you much, and suffered you to discourse; but now that we see you are an obstinate heretic, and seek to cover the light of the truth with multitude of words, we mean not to allow you such large discourses as we did.”

“You are very imperious to-day,” answered Campion serenely, “whatsoever the matter is. I am the Queen’s prisoner, and none of yours.”

“Not a whit imperious,” said Fulke angrily,—”though I will exact of you to keep the right order of disputation.”

Then the argument began. It soon became plain to Anthony that it was possible to take the Scripture in two senses, literally and metaphorically. The sacrament either was literally Christ’s body, or it was not. Who then was to decide? Father Campion said it meant the one; Dr. Fulke the other. Could it be possible that Christ should leave His people in doubt as to such a thing? Surely not, thought Anthony. Well, then, where is the arbiter? Father Campion says, The Church; Dr. Fulke says, The Scripture. But that is a circular argument, for the question to be decided is: What does the Scripture mean? for it may mean at least two things, at least so it would seem. Here then he found himself face to face with the claims of the Church of Rome to be that arbiter; and his heart began to grow sick with apprehension as he saw how that Church supplied exactly what was demanded by the circumstances of the case—that is, an infallible living guide as to the meaning of God’s Revelation. The simplicity of her claim appalled him.

He did not follow the argument closely, since it seemed to him but a secondary question now; though he heard one or two sentences. At one point Campion was explaining what the Church meant by substance. It was that which transcended the senses.

“Are you not Dr. Fulke?” he said. “And yet I see nothing but your colour and exterior form. The substance of Dr. Fulke cannot be seen.”

“I will not vouchsafe to reply upon this answer,” snarled Fulke, whose temper had not been improved by the debate—”too childish for a sophister!”

Then followed interminable syllogisms, of which Campion would not accept the premises; and no real progress was made. The Jesuit tried to explain the doctrine that the wicked may be said not to eat the Body in the Sacrament, because they receive not the virtue of It, though they receive the Thing; but Fulke would not hear him. The distinction was new to Anthony, with his puritan training, and he sat pondering it while the debate passed on.

The afternoon discussion, too, was to little purpose. More and more Anthony, and others with him, began to see that the heart of the matter was the authority of the Church; and that unless that was settled, all other debate was beside the point; and the importance of this was brought out for him more clearly than ever on the 27th of the month, when the fourth and last debate took place, and on the subject of the sufficiency of the Scriptures unto salvation.

Mr. Charke, who had now succeeded as disputant, began with extempore prayer, in which as usual the priest refused to join, praying and crossing himself apart.

Mr. Walker then opened the disputation with a pompous and insolent speech about “one Campion,” an “unnatural man to his country, degenerated from an Englishman, an apostate in religion, a fugitive from this realm, unloyal to his prince.” Campion sat with his eyes cast down, until the minister had done.

Then the discussion began. The priest pointed out that Protestants were not even decided as to what were Scriptures and what were not, since Luther rejected three epistles in the New Testament; therefore, he argued, the Church is necessary as a guide, first of all, to tell men what is Scripture. Walker evaded by saying he was not a Lutheran but a Christian; and then the talk turned on to apocryphal books. But it was not possible to evade long, and the Jesuit soon touched his opponent.

“To leave a door to traditions,” he said, “which the Holy Ghost may deliver to the true Church, is both manifest and seen: as in the Baptism of infants, the Holy Ghost proceeding from Father to Son, and such other things mentioned, which are delivered by tradition. Prove these directly by the Scripture if you can!”

Charke answered by the analogy of circumcision which infants received, and by quoting Christ’s words as to “sending” of the Comforter; and they were soon deep in detailed argument; but once more Anthony saw that it was all a question of the interpretation of Scripture; and, therefore, that it would seem that an authoritative interpreter was necessary—and where could such be found save in an infallible living Voice? And once more a question of Campion’s drove the point home.

“Was all Scripture written when the Apostles first taught?” And Charke dared not answer yes.

The afternoon’s debate concerned justification by faith, and this, more than ever, seemed to Anthony a secondary matter, now that he was realising what the claim of a living authority meant; and he sat back, only interested in watching the priest’s face, so controlled yet so transparent in its simplicity and steadfastness, as he listened to the ministers’ brutal taunts and insolence, and dealt his quiet skilful parries and ripostes to their incessant assaults. At last the Lieutenant struck the table with his hand, and intimated that the time was past, and after a long prayer by Mr. Walker, the prisoners were led back to their cells.

As Anthony rode back alone in the evening sunlight, he was as one who was seeing a vision. There was indeed a vision before him, that had been taking shape gradually, detail by detail, during these last months, and ousting the old one; and which now, terribly emphasised by Campion’s arguments and illuminated by the fire of his personality, towered up imperious, consistent, dominating—and across her brow her title, The Catholic Church. Far above all the melting cloudland of theory she moved, a stupendous fact; living, in contrast with the dead past to which her enemies cried in vain; eloquent when other systems were dumb; authoritative when they hesitated; steady when they reeled and fell. About her throne dwelt her children, from every race and age, secure in her protection, and wise with her knowledge, when other men faltered and questioned and doubted: and as Anthony looked up and saw her for the first time, he recognised her as the Mistress and Mother of his soul; and although the blinding clouds of argument and theory and self-distrust rushed down on him again and filled his eyes with dust, yet he knew he had seen her face in very truth, and that the memory of that vision could never again wholly leave him.

CHAPTER VI

SOME CONTRASTS

In the Lambeth household the autumn passed by uneventfully. The rigour of the Archbishop’s confinement had been mitigated, and he had been allowed now and again to visit his palace at Croydon; but his inactivity still continued as the sequestration was not removed; Elizabeth had refused to listen to the petition of Convocation in ‘80 for his reinstatement. Anthony went down to the old palace once or twice with him; and was brought closer to him in many ways; and his affection and tenderness towards his master continually increased. Grindal was a pathetic figure at this time, with few friends, in poor health, out of favour with the Queen, who had disregarded his existence; and now his afflictions were rendered more heavy than ever by the blindness that was creeping over him. The Archbishop, too, in his loneliness and sorrow, was drawn closer to his young officer than ever before; and gradually got to rely upon him in many little ways. He would often walk with Anthony in the gardens at Lambeth, leaning upon his arm, talking to him of his beloved flowers and herbs which he was now almost too blind to see; telling him queer facts about the properties of plants; and even attempting to teach him a little irrelevant botany now and then.

They were walking up and down together, soon after Campion’s arrest, one August morning before prayers in a little walled garden on the river that Grindal had laid out with great care in earlier years.

“Ah,” said the old man, “I am too blind to see my flowers now, Mr. Norris; but I love them none the less; and I know their places. Now there,” he went on, pointing with his stick, “there I think grows my mastick or marum; perhaps I smell it, however. What is that flower like, Mr. Norris?”

Anthony looked at it, and described its little white flower and its leaves.

“That is it,” said the Archbishop, “I thought my memory served me. It is a kind of marjoram, and it has many virtues, against cramps, convulsions and venomous bites—so Galen tells us.” Then he went on to talk of the simple old plants that he loved best; of the two kinds of basil that he always had in his garden; and how good it was mixed in sack against the headache; and the male penny-royal, and how well it had served him once when he had great internal trouble.

“Mr. Gerrard was here a week or two ago, Mr. Norris, when you were down at Croydon for me. He is my Lord Burghley’s man; he oversees his gardens at Wimbledon House, and in the country. He was telling me of a rascal he had seen at a fair, who burned henbane and made folks with the toothache breathe in the fumes; and then feigned to draw a worm forth from the aching tooth; but it was no worm at all, but a lute string that he held ready in his hand. There are sad rascals abroad, Mr. Norris.”

The old man waxed eloquent when they came to the iris bed.

“Ah! Mr. Norris, the flowers-de-luce are over by now, I fear; but what wonderful creatures of God they are, with their great handsome heads and their cool flags. I love to hear a bed of them rustle all together and shake their spears and nod their banners like an army in array. And then they are not only for show. Apuleius says that they are good against the gout. I asked Mr. Gerrard whether my lord had tried them; but he said no, he would not.”

At the violet bed he was yet more emphatic.

“I think, Mr. Norris, I love these the best of all. They are lowly creatures; but how sweet! and like other lowly creatures exalted by their Maker to do great things as his handmaidens. The leaves are good against inflammations, and the flowers against ague and hoarseness as well. And then there is oil-of-violets, as you know; and violet-syrup and sugar-violet; then they are good for blisters; garlands of them were an ancient cure for the headache, as I think Dioscorides tells us. And they are the best of all cures for some children’s ailments.”

And so they walked up and down together; the Archbishop talking quietly on and on; and helping quite unknown to himself by his tender irrelevant old man’s talk to soothe the fever of unrest and anxiety that was beginning to torment Anthony so much now. His conversation, like the very flowers he loved to speak of, was “good against inflammations.”

Anthony came to him one morning, thinking to please him, and brought him a root that he had bought from a travelling pedlar just outside the gateway.

“This is a mandrake root, your Grace; I heard you speak of it the other day.”

The Archbishop took it, smiling, felt it carefully, peered at it a minute or two. “No, my son,” he said, “I fear you have met a knave. This is briony-root carved like a mandrake into the shape of a man’s legs. It is worthless, I fear; but I thank you for the kind thought, Mr. Norris,” and he gave the root back to him. “And the stories we hear of the mandrake, I fear, are fables, too. Some say that they only grow beneath gallows from that which falls there; that the male grows from the corruption of a man’s body; and the female from that of a woman’s; but that is surely a lie, and a foul one, too. And then folks say that to draw it up means death; and that the mandrake screams terribly as it comes up; and so they bid us tie a dog to it, and then drive the dog from it so as to draw it up so. I asked Mr. Baker, the chirurgeon in the household of my Lord Oxford, the other day, about that; and he said that such tales be but doltish dreams and old wives’ fables. But the true mandrake is a clean and wholesome plant. The true ointment Populeon should have the juice of the leaves in it; and the root boiled and strained causes drowsiness. It hath a predominate cold faculty, Galen saith; but its true home is not in England at all. It comes from Mount Garganus in Apulia.”

It was pathetic, Anthony thought sometimes, that this old prelate should be living so far from the movements of the time, owing to no fault of his own. During these months the great tragedy of Campion’s passion was proceeding a couple of miles away; but the Archbishop thought less of it than of the death of an old tree. The only thing from the outside world that seemed to ruffle him was the behaviour of the Puritans. Anthony was passing through “le velvet-room” one afternoon when he heard voices in the Presence Chamber beyond; and almost immediately heard the Archbishop, who had recognised his step, call his name. He went in and found him with a stranger in a dark sober dress.

“Take this gentleman to Mr. Scot,” he said, “and ask him to give him some refreshment; for that he must be gone directly.”

When Anthony had taken the gentleman to the steward, he returned to the Archbishop for any further instructions about him.

“No, Mr. Norris, my business is done with him. He comes from my lord of Norwich, and must be returning this evening. If you are not occupied, Mr. Norris, will you give me your arm into the garden?”

They went out by the vestry-door into the little cloisters, and skirting the end of the creek that ran up by Chichele’s water-tower began to pace up and down the part of the garden that looked over the river.

“My lord has sent to know if I know aught of one Robert Browne, with whom he is having trouble. This Mr. Browne has lately come from Cambridge, and so my lord thought I might know something of him; but I do not. This gentleman has been saying some wild and foolish things, I fear; and desires that every church should be free of all others; and should appoint its own minister, and rule its own affairs without interference, and that prophesyings should be without restraint. Now, you know, Mr. Norris, I have always tried to serve that party, and support them in their gospel religion; but this goes too far. Where were any governance at all, if all this were to come about? where were the Rule of Faith? the power of discipline? Nay, where were the unity for which our Saviour prayed? It liketh me not. Good Dr. Freake, as his messenger tells me, feels as I do about this; and desires to restrain Mr. Browne, but he is so hot he will not be restrained; and besides, he is some kin to my Lord Burghley, so I fear his mouth will be hard to stop.”

Anthony could not help thinking of Mr. Buxton’s prediction that the Church of England had so repudiated authority, that in turn her own would one day be repudiated.

“A Papist prisoner, your Grace,” he said, “said to me the other day that this would be sure to come: that the whole principle of Church authority had been destroyed in England; and that the Church of England would more and more be deserted by her children; for that there was no necessary centre of unity left, now that Peter was denied.”

“It is what a Papist is bound to say,” replied the Archbishop; “but it is easy to prophesy, when fulfilment may be far away. Indeed, I think we shall have trouble with some of these zealous men; and the Queen’s Grace was surely right in desiring some restraint to be put upon the Exercises. But it is mere angry raving to say that the Church of England will lose the allegiance of her children.”

Anthony could not feel convinced that events bore out the Archbishop’s assertion. Everywhere the Puritans were becoming more outrageously disloyal. There were everywhere signs of disaffection and revolt against the authorities of the Establishment, even on the part of the most sincere and earnest men, many of whom were looking forward to the day when the last rags of popery should be cast away, and formal Presbyterianism inaugurated in the Church of England. Episcopal Ordination was more and more being regarded as a merely civil requirement, but conveying no ministerial commission; recognition by the congregation with the laying on of the hands of the presbyterate was the only ordination they allowed as apostolic.

Anthony said a word to the Archbishop about this.

“You must not be too strict,” said the old man. “Both views can be supported by the Scriptures; and although the Church of England at present recognises only Episcopal Ordination within her own borders, she does not dare to deny, as the Papists fondly do, that other rites may not be as efficacious as her own. That, surely, Master Norris, is in accordance with the mind of Christ that hath the spirit of liberty.”

Much as Anthony loved the old man and his gentle charity, this doctrinal position as stated by the chief pastor of the Church of England scarcely served to establish his troubled allegiance.

During these autumn months, too, both between and after the disputations in the Tower, the image of Campion had been much in his thoughts. Everywhere, except among the irreconcilables, the Jesuit was being well spoken of: his eloquence, his humour, and his apparent sincerity were being greatly commented on in London and elsewhere. Anthony, as has been seen, was being deeply affected on both sides of his nature; the shrewd wit of the other was in conflict with his own intellectual convictions, and this magnetic personality was laying siege to his heart. And now the last scene of the tragedy, more affecting than all, was close at hand.

Anthony was present first at the trial in Westminster Hall, which took place during November, and was more than ever moved by what he saw and heard there. The priest, as even his opponents confessed, had by now “won a marvellously good report, to be such a man as his like was not to be found, either for life, learning, or any other quality which might beautify a man.” And now here he stood at the bar, paler than ever, so numbed with racking that he could not lift his hand to plead—that supple musician’s hand of his, once so skilful on the lute—so that Mr. Sherwin had to lift it for him out of the furred cuff in which he had wrapped it, kissing it tenderly as he did so, in reverence for its sufferings; and he saw, too, the sleek face of Eliot, in his red yeoman’s coat, as he stood chatting at the back, like another Barabbas whom the people preferred to the servant of the Crucified. And, above all, he heard Campion’s stirring defence, spoken in that same resonant sweet voice, though it broke now and then through weakness, in spite of the unconquerable purpose and cheerfulness that showed in his great brown eyes, and round his delicate humorous mouth. It was indeed an astonishing combination of sincerity and eloquence, and even humour, that was brought to bear on the jury, and all in vain, during those days.

“If you want to dispute as though you were in the schools,” cried one of the court, when he found himself out of his depth, “you are only proving yourself a fool.”

“I pray God,” said Campion, while his eyes twinkled, “I pray God make us both sages.” And, in spite of the tragedy of the day, a little hum of laughter ran round the audience.

“If a sheep were stolen,” he argued again, in answer to the presupposition that since some Catholics were traitors, therefore these were—”and a whole family called in question for the same, were it good manner of proceeding for the accusers to say ‘Your great grandfathers and fathers and sisters and kinsfolk all loved mutton; ergo, you have stolen the sheep’?”

Again, in answer to the charge that he and his companions had conspired abroad, he said,

“As for the accusation that we plotted treason at Rheims, reflect, my lords, how just this charge is! For see! First we never met there at all; then, many of us have never been at Rheims at all; finally, we were never in our lives all together, except at this hour and in prison.”

Anthony heard, too, Campion expose the attempt that was made to shift the charge from religion to treason.

“There was offer made to us,” he cried indignantly, “that if we would come to the church to hear sermons and the word preached, we should be set at large and at liberty; so Pascall and Nicholls”—(two apostates) “otherwise as culpable in all offences as we, upon coming to church were received to grace and had their pardon granted; whereas, if they had been so happy as to have persevered to the end, they had been partakers of our calamities. So that our religion was cause of our imprisonment, and ex consequenti, of our condemnation.”

The Queen’s Counsel tried to make out that certain secrets that Campion, in an intercepted letter, had sworn not to reveal, must be treasonable or he would not so greatly fear their publication. To this the priest made a stately defence of his office, and declaration of his staunchness. He showed how by his calling as a priest he was bound to secrecy in matters heard in confession, and that these secret matters were of this nature.

“These were the hidden matters,” he said, “these were the secrets, to the revealing whereof I cannot nor will not be brought, come rack, come rope!”

And again, when Sergeant Anderson interpreted a phrase of Campion’s referring to the great day to which he looked forward, as meaning the day of a foreign papal invasion, the prisoner cried in a loud voice:

“O Judas, Judas! No other day was in my mind, I protest, than that wherein it should please God to make a restitution of faith and religion. Whereupon, as in every pulpit every Protestant doth, I pronounced a great day, not wherein any temporal potentate should minister, but wherein the terrible Judge should reveal all men’s consciences, and try every man of each kind of religion. This is the day of change, this is the great day which I threatened; comfortable to the well-behaving, and terrible to all heretics. Any other day but this, God knows I meant not.”

Then, after the other prisoners had pleaded, Campion delivered a final defence to the jury, with a solemnity that seemed to belong to a judge rather than a criminal. The babble of tongues that had continued most of the day was hushed to a profound silence in court as he stood and spoke, for the sincerity and simplicity of the priest were evident to all, and combined with his eloquence and his strange attractive personality, dominated all but those whose minds were already made up before entering the court.

“What charge this day you sustain,” began the priest, in a steady low voice, with his searching eyes bent on the faces before him, “and what account you are to render at the dreadful Day of Judgment, whereof I could wish this also were a mirror, I trust there is not one of you but knoweth. I doubt not but in like manner you forecast how dear the innocent is to God, and at what price He holdeth man’s blood. Here we are accused and impleaded to the death,”—he began to raise his voice a little—”here you do receive our lives into your custody; here must be your device, either to restore them or condemn them. We have no whither to appeal but to your consciences; we have no friends to make there but your heeds and discretions.” Then he touched briefly on the evidence, showing how faulty and circumstantial it was, and urged them to remember that a man’s life by the very constitution of the realm must not be sacrificed to mere probabilities or presumptions; then he showed the untrustworthiness of his accusers, how one had confessed himself a murderer, and how another was an atheist. Then he ended with a word or two of appeal.

“God give you grace,” he cried, “to weigh our causes aright, and have respect to your own consciences; and so I will keep the jury no longer. I commit the rest to God, and our convictions to your good discretions.”

When the jury had retired, and all the judges but one had left the bench until the jury should return, Anthony sat back in his place, his heart beating and his eyes looking restlessly now on the prisoners, now on the door where the jury had gone out, and now on Judge Ayloff, whom he knew a little, and who sat only a few feet away from him on one side. He could hear the lawyers sitting below the judge talking among themselves; and presently one of them leaned over to him.

“Good-day, Mr. Norris,” he said, “you have come to see an acquittal, I doubt not. No man can be in two minds after what we have heard; at least concerning Mr. Campion. We all think so, here, at any rate.”

The lawyer was going on to say a word or two more as to the priest’s eloquence, when there was a sharp exclamation from the judge. Anthony looked up and saw Judge Ayloff staring at his hand, turning it over while he held his glove in the other; and Anthony saw to his surprise that the fingers were all blood-stained. One or two gentlemen near him turned and looked, too, as the judge, still staring and growing a little pale, wiped the blood quickly away with the glove; but the fingers grew crimson again immediately.

“‘S’Body!” said Ayloff, half to himself; “‘tis strange, there is no wound.” A moment later, looking up, he saw many of his neighbours glancing curiously at his hand and his pale face, and hastily thrust on his glove again; and immediately after the jury returned, and the judges filed in to take their places. Anthony’s attention was drawn off again, and the buzz of talk in the court was followed again by a deep silence.

The verdict of Guilty was uttered, as had been pre-arranged, and the Queen’s Counsel demanded sentence.

“Campion and the rest,” said Chief Justice Wray, “What can you say why you should not die?”

Then Campion, still steady and resolute, made his last useless appeal.

“It was not our death that ever we feared. But we knew that we were not lords of our own lives, and therefore for want of answer would not be guilty of our own deaths. The only thing that we have now to say is, that if our religion do make us traitors, we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise are and have been true subjects as ever the Queen had. In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors,” and as he said this, his voice began to rise, and he glanced steadily and mournfully round at the staring faces about him, “all the ancient priests, bishops, and kings—all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.” Then, as he went on, he flung out his wrenched hands, and his voice rang with indignant defiance. “For what have we taught,” he cried, “however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned with these old lights—not of England only, but of the world—by their degenerate descendants, is both gladness and glory to us.” Then, with a superb gesture, he sent his voice pealing through the hall: “God lives, posterity will live; their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now about to sentence us to death.”

There was a burst of murmurous applause as he ended, which stilled immediately, as the Chief Justice began to deliver sentence. But when the horrible details of his execution had been enumerated, and the formula had ended, it was the prisoner’s turn to applaud:—

“Te Deum laudamus!” cried Campion; “Te Dominum confitemur.”

“Haec est dies,” shouted Sherwin, “quam fecit Dominus; exultemus et laetemur in illâ”: and so with the thanksgiving and joy of the condemned criminals, the mock-trial ended.

When Anthony rode down silently and alone in the rain that December morning a few days later, to see the end, he found a vast silent crowd assembled on Tower Hill and round the gateway, where the four horses were waiting, each pair harnessed to a hurdle laid flat on the ground. He would not go in, for he could scarcely trust himself to speak, so great was his horror of the crime that was to be committed; so he backed his horse against the wall, and waited over an hour in silence, scarcely hearing the murmurs of impatience that rolled round the great crowd from time to time, absorbed in his own thoughts. Here was the climax of these days of misery and self-questioning that had passed since the trial in Westminster Hall. It was no use, he argued to himself, to pretend otherwise. These three men of God were to die for their religion—and a religion too which was gradually detaching itself to his view from the mists and clouds that hid it, as the one great reality and truth of God’s Revelation to man. He had come, he knew, to see not an execution but a martyrdom.

There was a trampling from within, the bolts creaked, and the gate rolled back; a company of halberdiers emerged, and in their midst the three priests in laymen’s dress; behind followed a few men on horseback, with a little company of ministers, bible in hand; and then a rabble of officers and pursuivants. Anthony edged his horse in among the others, as the crowd fell back, and took up his place in the second rank of riders between a gentleman of his acquaintance who made room for him on the one side, and Sir Francis Knowles on the other, and behind the Tower officials.

Then, once more he heard that ringing bass voice whose first sound silenced the murmurs of the surging excited crowd.

“God save you all, gentlemen! God bless you and make you all good Catholics.”

Then, as the priest turned to kneel towards the east, he saw his face paler than ever now, after his long fast in preparation for death. The rain was still falling as Campion in his frieze gown knelt in the mud. There was silence as he prayed, and as he ended aloud by commending his soul to God.

“In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.”

The three were secured to the hurdles, Briant and Sherwin on the one, Campion on the other, all lying on their backs, with their feet towards the horse’s heels. The word to start was given by Sir Owen Hopton who rode with Charke, the preacher of Gray’s Inn, in the front rank; the lashed horses plunged forward, with the jolting hurdles spattering mud behind them; and the dismal pageant began to move forward through the crowd on that way of sorrows. There was a ceaseless roar and babble of voices as they went. Charke, in his minister’s dress, able now to declaim without fear of reply, was hardly silent for a moment from mocking and rebuking the prisoners, and making pompous speeches to the people.

“See here,” he cried, “these rogueing popish priests, laid by the heels—aye, by the heels—at last; in spite of their tricks and turns. See this fellow in his frieze gown, dead to the world as he brags; and know how he skulked and hid in his disguises till her Majesty’s servants plucked him forth! We will disguise him, we will disguise him, ere we have done with him, that his own mother should not know him. Ha, now! Campion, do you hear me?”

And so the harsh voice rang out over the crowd that tramped alongside, and up to the faces that filled every window; while the ministers below kept up a ceaseless murmur of adjuration and entreaty and threatening, with a turning of leaves of their bibles, and bursts of prayer, over the three heads that jolted and rocked at their feet over the cobblestones and through the mud. The friends of the prisoners walked as near to them as they dared, and their lips moved continually in prayer.

Every now and then as Anthony craned his head, he could see Campion’s face, with closed eyes and moving lips that smiled again and again, all spattered and dripping with filth; and once he saw a gentleman walking beside him fearlessly stoop down and wipe the priest’s face with a handkerchief. Presently they had passed up Cheapside and reached Newgate; in a niche in the archway itself stood a figure of the Mother of God looking compassionately down; and as Campion’s hurdle passed beneath it, her servant wrenched himself a few inches up in his bonds and bowed to his glorious Queen; and then laid himself down quietly again, as a chorus of lament rose from the ministers over his superstition and obstinate idolatry that seemed as if it would last even to death; and Charke too, who had become somewhat more silent, broke out again into revilings.

The crowd at Tyburn was vast beyond all reckoning. Outside the gate it stretched on every side, under the elms, a few were even in the branches, along the sides of the stream; everywhere was a sea of heads, out of which, on a little eminence like another Calvary, rose up the tall posts of the three-cornered gallows, on which the martyrs were to suffer. As the hurdles came slowly under the gate, the sun broke out for the first time; and as the horses that drew the hurdles came round towards the carts that stood near the gallows and the platform on which the quartering block stood, a murmur began that ran through the crowd from those nearest the martyrs.—”But they are laughing, they are laughing!”

The crowd gave a surge to and fro as the horses drew up, and Anthony reined his own beast back among the people, so that he was just opposite the beam on which the three new ropes were already hanging, and beneath which was standing a cart with the back taken out. In the cart waited a dreadful figure in a tight-fitting dress, sinewy arms bare to the shoulder, and a butcher’s knife at his leather girdle. A little distance away stood the hateful cauldron, bubbling fiercely, with black smoke pouring from under it: the platform with the block and quartering-axe stood beneath the gallows; and round this now stood the officers, with Norton the rack-master, and Sir Owen Hopton and the rest, and the three priests, with the soldiers forming a circle to keep the crowd back.

The hangman stooped as Anthony looked, and a moment later Campion stood beside him on the cart, pale, mud-splashed, but with the same serene smile; his great brown eyes shone as they looked out over the wide heaving sea of heads, from which a deep heart-shaking murmur rose as the famous priest appeared. Anthony could see every detail of what went on; the hangman took the noose that hung from above, and slipped it over the prisoner’s head, and drew it close round his neck; and then himself slipped down from the cart, and stood with the others, still well above the heads of the crowd, but leaving the priest standing higher yet on the cart, silhouetted, rope and all, framed in the posts and cross-beam, from which two more ropes hung dangling against the driving clouds and blue sky over London city.

Campion waited perfectly motionless for the murmur of innumerable voices to die down; and Anthony, fascinated and afraid beneath that overpowering serenity, watched him turn his head slowly from side to side with a “majestical countenance,” as his enemies confessed, as if he were on the point of speaking. Silence seemed to radiate out from him, spreading like a ripple, outwards, until the furthest outskirts of that huge crowd was motionless and quiet; and then without apparent effort, his voice began to peal out.

“‘Spectaculum facti sumus Deo, angelis et hominibus.’ These are the words of Saint Paul, Englished thus, ‘We are made a spectacle or sight unto God, unto His angels, and unto men’;—verified this day in me, who am here a spectacle unto my Lord God, a spectacle unto His angels, and unto you men, satisfying myself to die as becometh a true Christian and Catholic man.”

He was interrupted by cries from the gentlemen beneath, and turned a little, looking down to see what they wished.

“You are not here to preach to the people,” said Sir Francis Knowles, angrily, “but to confess yourself a traitor.”

Campion smiled and shook his head.

“No, no,” he said: and then looking up and raising his voice,—”as to the treasons which have been laid to my charge, and for which I am come here to suffer, I desire you all to bear witness with me, that I am thereof altogether innocent.”

There was a chorus of anger from the gentlemen, and one of them called up something that Anthony could not hear. Campion raised his eyebrows.

“Well, my lord,” he cried aloud, and his voice instantly silenced again the noisy buzz of talk, “I am a Catholic man and a priest: in that faith have I lived, and in that faith do I intend to die. If you esteem my religion treason, then am I guilty; as for other treason, I never committed any, God is my judge. But you have now what you desire. I beseech you to have patience, and suffer me to speak a word or two for discharge of my conscience.”

There was a furious burst of refusals from the officers.

“Well,” said Campion, at last, looking straight out over the crowd, “it seems I may not speak; but this only will I say; that I am wholly innocent of all treason and conspiracy, as God is my judge; and I beseech you to credit me, for it is my last answer upon my death and soul. As for the jury I do not blame them, for they were ignorant men and easily deceived. I forgive all who have compassed my death or wronged me in any whit, as I hope to be forgiven; and I ask the forgiveness of all those whose names I spoke upon the rack.”

Then he said a word or two more of explanation, such as he had said during his trial, for the sake of those Catholics whom this a concession of his had scandalised, telling them that he had had the promise of the Council that no harm should come to those whose names he revealed; and then was silent again, closing his eyes; and Anthony, as he watched him, saw his lips moving once more in prayer.

Then a harsh loud voice from behind the cart began to proclaim that the Queen punished no man for religion but only for treason. A fierce murmur of disagreement and protest began to rise from the crowd; and Anthony turning saw the faces of many near him frowning and pursing their lips, and there was a shout or two of denial here and there. The harsh voice ceased, and another began:

“Now, Mr. Campion,” it cried, “tell us, What of the Pope? Do you renounce him?”

Campion opened his eyes and looked round.

“I am a Catholic,” he said simply; and closed his eyes again for prayer, as the voice cried brutally:

“In your Catholicism all treason is contained.”

Again a murmur from the crowd.

Then a new voice from the black group of ministers called out:

“Mr. Campion, Mr. Campion, leave that popish stuff, and say, ‘Christ have mercy on me.’”

Again the priest opened his eyes.

“You and I are not one in religion, sir, wherefore I pray you content yourself. I bar none of prayer, but I only desire them of the household of faith to pray with me; and in mine agony to say one creed.”

Again he closed his eyes.

“Pater noster qui es in cælis.”...

“Pray in English, pray in English!” shouted a voice from the minister’s group.

Once more the priest opened his eyes; and, in spite of the badgering, his eyes shone with humour and his mouth broke into smiles, so that a great sob of pity and love broke from Anthony.

“I will pray to God in a language that both He and I well understand.”

“Ask her Grace’s forgiveness, Mr. Campion, and pray for her, if you be her true subject.”

“Wherein have I offended her? In this I am innocent. This is my last speech; in this give me credit—I have and do pray for her.”

“Aha! but which queen?—for Elizabeth?”

“Ay, for Elizabeth, your queen and my queen, unto whom I wish a long quiet reign with all prosperity.”

There was the crack of a whip, the scuffle of a horse’s feet, a rippling movement over the crowd, and a great murmured roar, like the roar of the waves on a pebbly beach, as the horse’s head began to move forward; and the priest’s figure to sway and stagger on the jolting cart. Anthony shut his eyes, and the murmur and cries of the crowd grew louder and louder. Once more the deep sweet voice rang out, loud and penetrating:

“I die a true Catholic....”

Anthony kept his eyes closed, and his head bent, as great sobs began to break up out of his heart....

Ah! he was in his agony now! that sudden cry and silence from the crowd showed it. What was it he had asked? one creed?—

“I believe in God the Father Almighty.” ...

The soft heavy murmur of the crowd rose and fell. Catholics were praying all round him, reckless with love and pity:

“Jesu, Jesu, save him! Be to him a Jesus!”...

“Mary pray! Mary pray!”...

“Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem.”...

“Passus sub Pontio Pilato.”...

“Crucified dead and buried.”...

“The forgiveness of sins.”...

“And the Life Everlasting.”...

Anthony dropped his face forward on to his horse’s mane.

CHAPTER VII

A MESSAGE FROM THE CITY

Sir Francis Walsingham sat in his private room a month after Father Campion’s death.

He had settled down again now to his work which had been so grievously interrupted by his mission to France in connection with a new treaty between that country and England in the previous year. The secret detective service that he had inaugurated in England chiefly for the protection of the Queen’s person was a vast and complicated business, and the superintendence of this, in addition to the other affairs of his office, made him an exceedingly busy man. England was honeycombed with mines and countermines both in the political and the religious world, and it needed all this man’s brilliant and trained faculties to keep abreast with them. His spies and agents were everywhere; and not only in England: they circled round Mary of Scotland like flies round a wounded creature, seeking to settle and penetrate wherever an opening showed itself. These Scottish troubles would have been enough for any ordinary man; but Walsingham was indefatigable, and his agents were in every prison, lurking round corridors in private houses, found alike in thieves’ kitchens and at gentlemen’s tables.

Just at present Walsingham was anxious to give all the attention he could to Scottish affairs; and on this wet dreary Thursday morning in January as he sat before his bureau, he was meditating how to deal with an affair that had come to him from the heart of London, and how if possible to shift the conduct of it on to other shoulders.

He sat and drummed his fingers on the desk, and stared meditatively at the pigeon-holes before him. His was an interesting face, with large, melancholy, and almost fanatical eyes, and a poet’s mouth and forehead; but it was probably exactly his imaginative faculties that enabled him to picture public affairs from the points of view of the very various persons concerned in them; and thereby to cope with the complications arising out of these conflicting interests.

He stroked his pointed beard once or twice, and then struck a hand-bell at his side; and a servant entered.

“If Mr. Lackington is below,” he said, “show him here immediately,” and the servant went out.

Lackington, sometime servant to Sir Nicholas Maxwell, had entered Sir Francis’ service instead, at the same time that he had exchanged the Catholic for the Protestant religion; and he was now one of his most trusted agents. But he had been in so many matters connected with recusancy, that a large number of the papists in London were beginning to know him by sight; and the affairs were becoming more and more scarce in which he could be employed among Catholics with any hope of success. It was his custom to call morning by morning at Sir Francis’ office and receive his instructions; and just now he had returned from business in the country. Presently he entered, closing the door behind him, and bowed profoundly to his master.

“I have a matter on hand, Lackington,” said Sir Francis, without looking at him, and without any salutation beyond a glance and a nod as he entered,—”a matter which I have not leisure to look into, as it is not, I think, anything more than mere religion; but which might, I think, repay you for your trouble, if you can manage it in any way. But it is a troublesome business. These are the facts.

“No. 3 Newman’s Court, in the City, has been a suspected house for some while. I have had it watched, and there is no doubt that the papists use it. I thought at first that the Scots were mixed up with it; but that is not so. Yesterday, a boy of twelve years old, left the house in the afternoon, and was followed to a number of houses, of which I will give you the list presently; and was finally arrested in Paul’s Churchyard and brought here. I frightened him with talk of the rack; and I think I have the truth out of him now; I have tested him in the usual ways—and all that I can find is that the house is used for mass now and then; and that he was going to the papists’ houses yesterday to bid them come for next Sunday morning. But he was stopped too soon: he had not yet told the priest to come. Now unless the priest is told to-night by one whom he trusts, there will be no mass on Sunday, and the nest of papists will escape us. It is of no use to send the boy; as he will betray all by his behaviour, even if we frighten him into saying what we wish to the priest. I suppose it is of no use your going to the priest and feigning to be a Catholic messenger; and I cannot at this moment see what is to be done. If there were anything beyond mere religion in this, I would spare no pains to hunt them out; but it is not worth my while. Yet there is the reward; and if you think that you can do anything, you can have it for your pains. I can spare you till Monday, and of course you shall have what men you will to surround the house and take them at mass, if you can but get the priest there.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Lackington deferentially. “Have I your honour’s leave to see the boy in your presence?”

Walsingham struck the bell again.

“Bring the lad that is locked in the steward’s parlour,” he said, when the servant appeared.—”Sit down, Lackington, and examine him when he comes.”

And Sir Francis took down some papers from a pigeon-hole, sorted out one or two, and saying, “Here are his statements,” handed them to the agent; who began to glance through them at once. Walsingham then turned to his table again and began to go on with his letters.

In a moment or two the door opened, and a little lad of twelve years old, came in, followed by the servant.

“That will do,” said Walsingham, without looking up; “You can leave him here,” and the servant went out. The boy stood back against the wall by the door, his face was white and his eyes full of horror, and he looked in a dazed way at the two men.

“What is your name, boy?” began Lackington in a sharp, judicial tone.

“John Belton,” said the lad in a tremulous voice.

“And you are a little papist?” asked the agent.

“No sir; a Protestant.”

“Then how is it that you go on errands for papists?”

“I am a servant, sir,” said the boy imploringly.

Lackington turned the papers over for a moment or two.

“Now you know,” he began again in a threatening voice, “that this gentleman has power to put you on the rack; you know what that is?”

The boy nodded in mute white-faced terror.

“Well, now, he will hear all you say; and will know whether you say the truth or not. Now tell me if you still hold to what you said yesterday.”

And then Lackington with the aid of the papers ran quickly over the story that Sir Francis had related. “Now do you mean to tell me, John Belton,” he added, “that you, a Protestant, and a lad of twelve, are employed on this work by papists, to gather them for mass?”

The boy looked at him with the same earnest horror.

“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” he said, and there was a piteous sob in his voice. “Indeed it is all true: but I do not often go on these messages for my master. Mr. Roger generally goes: but he is sick.”

“Oho!” said Lackington, “you did not say that yesterday.”

The boy was terrified.

“No, sir,” he cried out miserably, “the gentleman did not ask me.”

“Well, who is Mr. Roger? What is he like?”

“He is my master’s servant, sir; and he wears a patch over his eye; and stutters a little in his speech.”

These kinds of details were plainly beyond a frightened lad’s power of invention, and Lackington was more satisfied.

“And what was the message that you were to give to the folk and the priest?”

“Please, sir, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’”

This was such a queer answer that Lackington gave an incredulous exclamation.

“It is probably true,” said Sir Francis, without looking up from his letters; “I have come across the same kind of cypher, at least once before.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the agent. “And now, my boy, tell me this. How did you know what it meant?”

“Please, sir,” said the lad, a little encouraged by the kinder tone, “I have noticed that twice before when Mr. Roger could not go, and I was sent with the same message, all the folks and the priest came on the next Sunday; and I think that it means that all is safe, and that they can come.”

“You are a sharp lad,” said the spy approvingly. “I am satisfied with you.”

“Then, sir, may I go home?” asked the boy with hopeful entreaty in his voice.

“Nay, nay,” said the other, “I have not done with you yet. Answer me some more questions. Why did you not go to the priest first?”

“Because I was bidden to go to him last,” said the boy. “If I had been to all the other houses by five o’clock last night, then I was to meet the priest at Papists’ Corner in Paul’s Church. But if I had not done them—as I had not,—then I was to see the priest to-night at the same place.”

Lackington mused a moment.

“What is the priest’s name?” he asked.

“Please, sir, Mr. Arthur Oldham.”

The agent gave a sudden start and a keen glance at the boy, and then smiled to himself; then he meditated, and bit his nails once or twice.

“And when was Mr. Roger taken ill?”

“He slipped down at the door of his lodging and hurt his foot, at dinner-time yesterday; and he could not walk.”

“His lodging? Then he does not sleep in the house?”

“No sir; he sleeps in Stafford Alley, round the corner.”

“And where do you live?”

“Please, sir, I go home to my mother nearly every night; but not always.”

“And where does your mother live?”

“Please, sir, at 4 Bell’s Lane.”

Lackington remained deep in thought, and looked at the boy steadily for a minute or two.

“Now, sir; may I go?” he asked eagerly.

Lackington paid no attention, and he repeated his question. The agent still did not seem to hear him, but turned to Sir Francis, who was still at his letters.

“That is all, sir, for the present,” he said. “May the boy be kept here till Monday?”

The lad broke out into wailing; but Lackington turned on him a face so savage that his whimpers died away into horror-stricken silence.

“As you will,” said Sir Francis, pausing for a moment in his writing, and striking the bell again; and, on the servant’s appearance, gave orders that John Belton should be taken again to the steward’s parlour until further directions were received. The boy went sobbing out and down the passage again under the servant’s charge, and the door closed.

“And the mother?” asked Walsingham abruptly, pausing with pen upraised.

“With your permission, sir, I will tell her that her boy is in trouble, and that if his master sends to inquire for him, she is to say he is sick upstairs.”

“And you will report to me on Monday?”

“Yes, sir; by then I shall hope to have taken the crew.”

Sir Francis nodded his head sharply, and the pen began to fly over the paper again; as Lackington slipped out.

Anthony Norris was passing through the court of Lambeth House in the afternoon of the same day, when the porter came to him and said there was a child waiting in the Lodge with a note for him; and would Master Norris kindly come to see her. He found a little girl on the bench by the gate, who stood up and curtseyed as the grand gentleman came striding in; and handed him a note which he opened at once and read.

“For the love of God,” the note ran, “come and aid one who can be of service to a friend: follow the little maid Master Norris, and she will bring you to me. If you have any friends at Great Keynes, for the love you bear to them, come quickly.”

Anthony turned the note over; it was unsigned, and undated. On his inquiry further from the little girl, she said she knew nothing about the writer; but that a gentleman had given her the note and told her to bring it to Master Anthony Norris at Lambeth House; and that she was to take him to a house that she knew in the city; she did not know the name of the house, she said.

It was all very strange, thought Anthony, but evidently here was some one who knew about him; the reference to Great Keynes made him think uneasily of Isabel and wonder whether any harm had happened to her, or whether any danger threatened. He stood musing with the note between his fingers, and then told the child to go straight down to Paul’s Cross and await him there, and he would follow immediately. The child ran off, and Anthony went round to the stables to get his horse. He rode straight down to the city and put up his horse in the Bishop’s stables, and then went round with his riding-whip in his hand to Paul’s Cross.

It was a dull miserable afternoon, beginning to close in with a fine rain falling, and very few people were about; and he found the child crouched up against the pulpit in an attempt to keep dry.

“Come,” he said kindly, “I am ready; show me the way.”

The child led him along by the Cathedral through the churchyard, and then by winding passages, where Anthony kept a good look-out at the corners; for a stab in the back was no uncommon thing for a well-dressed gentleman off his guard. The houses overhead leaned so nearly together that the darkening sky disappeared altogether now and then; at one spot Anthony caught a glimpse high up of Bow Church spire; and after a corner or two the child stopped before a doorway in a little flagged court.

“It is here,” she said; and before Anthony could stop her she had slipped away and disappeared through a passage. He looked at the house. It was a tumble-down place; the door was heavily studded with nails, and gave a most respectable air to the house: the leaded windows were just over his head, and tightly closed. There was an air of mute discretion and silence about the place that roused a vague discomfort in Anthony’s mind; he slipped his right hand into his belt and satisfied himself that the hilt of his knife was within reach. Overhead the hanging windows and eaves bulged out on all sides; but there was no one to be seen; it seemed a place that had slipped into a backwater of the humming stream of the city. The fine rain still falling added to the dismal aspect of the little court. He looked round once more; and then rapped sharply at the door to which the child had pointed.

There was silence for at least a minute; then as he was about to knock again there was a faint sound overhead, and he looked up in time to see a face swiftly withdrawn from one of the windows. Evidently an occupant of the house had been examining the visitor. Then shuffling footsteps came along a passage within, and a light shone under the door. There was a noise of bolts being withdrawn, and the rattle of a chain; and then the handle turned and the door opened slowly inwards, and an old woman stood there holding an oil lamp over her head. This was not very formidable at any rate.

“I have been bidden to come here,” he said, “by a letter delivered to me an hour ago.”

“Ah,” said the old woman, and looked at him peeringly, “then you are for Mr. Roger?”

“I daresay,” said Anthony, a little sharply. He was not accustomed to be treated like this. The old woman still looked at him suspiciously; and then, as Anthony made a movement of impatience, she stepped back.

“Come in, sir,” she said.

He stepped in, and she closed and fastened the door again behind him; and then, holding the oil-lamp high over her head, she advanced in her slippers towards the staircase, and Anthony followed. On the stairs she turned once to see if he was coming, and beckoned him on with a movement of her head. Anthony looked about him as he went up: there was nothing remarkable or suspicious about the house in any way. It was cleaner than he had been led to expect by its outside aspect; wainscoted to the ceiling with oak; and the stairs were strong and well made. It was plainly a very tolerably respectable place; and Anthony began to think from its appearance that he had been admitted at the back door of some well-to-do house off Cheapside. The banisters were carved with some distinction; and there were the rudimentary elements of linen-pattern design on the panels that lined the opposite walls up to the height of the banisters. The woman went up and up, slowly, panting a little; at each landing she turned and glanced back to see that her companion was following: all the doors that they passed were discreetly shut; and the house was perfectly dark except for the flickering light of the woman’s lamp, and silent except for the noise of the footsteps and the rush of a mouse now and then behind the woodwork.

At the third landing she stopped, and came close up to Anthony.

“That is the door,” she whispered hoarsely; and pointed with her thumb towards a doorway that was opposite the staircase. “Ask for Master Roger.”

And then without saying any more, she set the lamp down on the flat head of the top banister and herself began to shuffle downstairs again into the dark house.

Anthony stood still a moment, his heart beating a little. What was this strange errand? and Isabel! what had she to do with this house buried away in the courts of the great city? As he waited he heard a door close somewhere behind him, and the shuffling footsteps had ceased. He touched the hilt of his knife once again to give himself courage; and then walked slowly across and rapped on the door. Instantly a voice full of trembling expectancy, cried to him to come in; he turned the handle and stepped into the fire-lit room.

It was extremely poorly furnished; a rickety table stood in the centre with a book or two and a basin with a plate, a saucepan hissed and bubbled on the fire; in the corner near the window stood a poor bed; and to this Anthony’s attention was immediately directed by a voice that called out hoarsely:

“Thank God, sir, thank God, sir, you have come! I feared you would not.”

Anthony stepped towards it wondering and expectant, but reassured. Lying in the bed, with clothes drawn up to the chin was the figure of a man. There was no light in the room, save that given by the leaping flames on the hearth; and Anthony could only make out the face of a man with a patch over one eye; the man stretched a hand over the bed clothes as he came near, and Anthony took it, a little astonished, and received a strong trembling grip of apparent excitement and relief: “Thank God, sir!” the man said again, “but there is not too much time.”

“How can I serve you?” said Anthony, sitting on a chair near the bedside. “Your letter spoke of friends at Great Keynes. What did you mean by that?”

“Is the d-door closed, sir?” asked the man anxiously; stuttering a little as he spoke.

Anthony stepped up and closed it firmly; and then came back and sat down again.

“Well then, sir; I believe you are a friend of the priest Mr. M-Maxwell’s.”

Anthony shook his head.

“There is no priest of that name that I know.”

“Ah,” cried the man, and his voice shook, “have I said too much? You are Mr. Anthony Norris of the Dower House, and of the Archbishop’s household?”...

“I am,” said Anthony, “but yet——”

“Well, well,” said the man, “I must go forward now. He whom you know as Mr. James Maxwell is a Catholic p-priest, known to many under the name of Mr. Arthur Oldham. He is in sore d-danger.”

Anthony was silent through sheer astonishment. This then was the secret of the mystery that had hung round Mr. James so long. The few times he had met him in town since his return, it had been on the tip of his tongue to ask what he did there, and why Hubert was to be master of the Hall; but there was something in Mr. James’ manner that made the asking of such a question appear an impossible liberty; and it had remained unasked.

“Well,” said the man in bed, in anxious terror, “there is no mistake, is there?”

“I said nothing,” said Anthony, “for astonishment; I had no idea that he was a priest. And how can I serve him?”

“He is in sore danger,” said the man, and again and again there came the stutter. “Now I am a Catholic: you see how much I t-trust you sir. I am the only one in this house. I was entrusted with a m-message to Mr. Maxwell to put him on his guard against a danger that threatens him. I was to meet him this very evening at five of the clock; and this afternoon as I left my room, I slipped and so hurt my foot that I cannot put it to the ground. I dared not send a l-letter to Mr. Maxwell, for fear the child should be followed; I dared not send to another Catholic; nor indeed did I know where to find one whom Mr. M-Maxwell would know and trust, as he is new to us here; but I had heard him speak of his friend Mr. Anthony Norris, who was at Lambeth House; and I determined, sir, to send the child to you; and ask you to do this service for your friend; for an officer of the Archbishop’s household is beyond suspicion. N-now, sir, will you do this service? If you do it not, I know not where to turn for help.”

Anthony was silent. He felt a little uneasy. Supposing that there was sedition mixed up in this! How could he trust the man’s story? How could he be certain in fact that he was a Catholic at all? He looked at him keenly in the fire-light. The man’s one eye shone in deep anxiety, and his forehead was wrinkled; and he passed his hand nervously over his mouth again and again.

“How can I tell,” said Anthony, “that all this is true?”

The man with an impatient movement unfastened his shirt at the neck and drew up on a string that was round his neck a little leather case.

“Th-there, sir,” he stammered, drawing the string over his head. “T-take that to the fire and see what it is.”

Anthony took it curiously, and holding it close to the fire drew off the little case; there was the wax medal stamped with the lamb, called Agnus Dei.

“Th-there,” cried the man from the bed, “now I have p-put myself in your hands—and if more is w-wanted——” and as Anthony came back holding the medal, the man fumbled beneath the pillow and drew out a rosary.

“N-now, sir, do you believe me?”

It was felony to possess these things and Anthony had no more doubts.

“Yes,” he said, “and I ask your pardon.” And he gave back the Agnus Dei. “But there is no sedition in this?”

“N-none, sir, I give you my word,” said the man, apparently greatly relieved, and sinking back on his pillow. “I will tell you all, and you can judge for yourself; but you will promise to be secret.” And when Anthony had given his word, he went on.

“M-Mass was to have been said in Newman’s Court on Sunday, at number 3, but that c-cursed spy Walsingham, hath had wind of it. His men have been lurking round there; and it is not safe. However, there is no need to say that to Mr. Maxwell; he will understand enough if you will give him a message of half a dozen words from me,—Mr. Roger. You can tell him that you saw me, if you wish to. But ah! sir, you give me your word to say no more to any one, not even to Mr. Maxwell himself, for it is in a public place. And then I will tell you the p-place and the m-message; but we must be swift, because the time is near; it is at five of the clock that he will look for a messenger.”

“I give you my word,” said Anthony.

“Well, sir, the place is Papists’ Corner in the Cathedral, and the words are these, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ You know sir, that we Catholics go in fear of our lives, and like the poor hares have to double and turn if we would escape. If any overhears that message, he will never know it to be a warning. And it was for that that I asked your word to say no more than your message, with just the word that you had seen me yourself. You may tell him, of course sir, that Mr. Roger had a patch over his eye and st-stuttered a little in his speech; and he will know it is from me then. Now, sir, will you tell me what the message is, and the place, to be sure that you know them; and then, sir, it will be time to go; and God bless you, sir. God bless you for your kindness to us poor papists!”

The man seized Anthony’s gloved hand and kissed it fervently once or twice.

Anthony repeated his instructions carefully. He was more touched than he cared to show by the evident gratitude and relief of this poor terrified Catholic.

“Th-that is right, sir; that is right; and now, sir, if you please, be gone at once; or the Father will have left the Cathedral. The child will be in the court below to show you the way out to the churchyard. God bless you, sir; and reward you for your kindness!”

And as Anthony went out of the room he heard benedictions mingled with sobs following him. The woman was nowhere to be seen; so he took the oil-lamp from the landing, and found his way downstairs again, unfastened the front door, and went out, leaving the lamp on the floor. The child was leaning against the wall opposite; he could just see the glimmer of her face in the heavy dusk.

“Come, my child,” he said, “show me the way to the churchyard.”

She came forward, and he began to follow her out of the little flagged court. He turned round as he left the court and saw high up against the blackness overhead a square of window lighted with a glow from within; and simultaneously there came the sound of bolts being shut in the door that he had just left. Evidently the old woman had been on the watch, and was now barring the door behind him.

It wanted courage to do as Anthony was doing, but he was not lacking in that; it was not a small matter to go to Papists’ Corner and give a warning to a Catholic priest: but firstly, James Maxwell was his friend, and in danger: secondly, Anthony had no sympathy with religious persecution; and thirdly, as has been seen, the last year had made a really deep impression upon him: he was more favourably inclined to the Catholic cause than he had ever imagined to be possible.

As he followed the child through the labyrinth of passages, passing every now and then the lighted front of a house, or a little group of idlers (for the rain had now ceased) who stared to see this gentleman in such company, his head was whirling with questions and conjectures. Was it not after all a dishonourable act to the Archbishop in whose service he was, thus to take the side of the Papists? But that it was too late to consider now.—How strange that James Maxwell was a priest! That of course accounted at once for his long absence, no doubt in the seminary abroad, and his ultimate return, and for Hubert’s inheriting the estates. And then he passed on to reflect as he had done a hundred times before on this wonderful Religion that allured men from home and wealth and friends, and sent them rejoicing to penury, suspicion, hatred, peril, and death itself, for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.

Suddenly he found himself in the open space opposite the Cathedral—the child had again disappeared.

It was less dark here; the leaden sky overhead still glimmered with a pale sunset light; and many house-windows shone out from within. He passed round the south side of the Cathedral, and entered the western door. The building was full of deep gloom only pricked here and there by an oil-lamp or two that would presently be extinguished when the Cathedral was closed. The air was full of a faint sound, made up from echoes of the outside world and the footsteps of a few people who still lingered in groups here and there in the aisles, and talked among themselves. The columns rose up in slender bundles and faded into the pale gloom overhead; as he crossed the nave on the way to Papists’ Corner far away to the east rose the dark carving of the stalls against the glimmering stone beyond. It was like some vast hall of the dead; the noise of the footsteps seemed like an insolent intrusion on this temple of silence; and the religious stillness had an active and sombre character of its own more eloquent and impressive than all the tumult that man could make.

As Anthony came to Papists’ Corner he saw a very tall solitary figure passing slowly from east to west; it was too dark to distinguish faces; so he went towards it, so that at the next turn they would meet face to face. When he was within two or three steps the man before him turned abruptly; and Anthony immediately put out his hand smiling.

“Mr. Arthur Oldham,” he said.

The man started and peered curiously through the gloom at him.

“Why Anthony!” he exclaimed, and took his hand, “what is your business here?” And they began slowly to walk westwards together.

“I am come to meet Mr. Oldham,” he said, “and to give him a message; and this is it, ‘Come, for all things are now ready!’”

“My dear boy,” said James, stopping short, “you must forgive me; but what in the world do you mean by that?”

“I come from Mr. Roger,” said Anthony, “you need not be afraid. He has had an accident and sent for me.”

“Mr. Roger?” said James interrogatively.

“Yes,” said Anthony, “he hath a patch over one eye; and stutters somewhat.”

James gave a sigh of relief.

“My dear boy,” he said, “I cannot thank you enough. You know what it means then?”

“Why, yes,” said Anthony.

“And you a Protestant, and in the Archbishop’s household?”

“Why, yes,” said Anthony, “and a Christian and your friend.”

“God bless you, Anthony,” said the priest; and took his hand and pressed it.

They were passing out now under the west door, and stood together for a moment looking at the lights down Ludgate Hill. The houses about Amen Court stood up against the sky to their right.

“I must not stay,” said Anthony, “I must fetch my horse and be back at Lambeth for evening prayers at six. He is stabled at the Palace here.”

“Well, well,” said the priest, “I thank God that there are true hearts like yours. God bless you again my dear boy—and—and make you one of us some day!”

Anthony smiled at him a little tremulously, for the gratitude and the blessing of this man was dear to him; and after another hand grasp, he turned away to the right, leaving the priest still half under the shadow of the door looking after him.

He had done his errand promptly and discreetly.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MASSING-HOUSE

Newman’s Court lay dark and silent under the stars on Sunday morning a little after four o’clock. The gloomy weather of the last three or four days had passed off in heavy battalions of sullen sunset clouds on the preceding evening, and the air was full of frost. By midnight thin ice was lying everywhere; pendants of it were beginning to form on the overhanging eaves; and streaks of it between the cobble-stones that paved the court. The great city lay in a frosty stillness as of death.

The patrol passed along Cheapside forty yards away from the entrance of the court, a little after three o’clock; and a watchman had cried out half an hour later, that it was a clear night; and then he too had gone his way. The court itself was a little rectangular enclosure with two entrances, one to the north beneath the arch of a stable that gave on to Newman’s Passage, which in its turn opened on to St. Giles’ Lane that led to Cheapside; the other, at the further end of the long right-hand side, led by a labyrinth of passages down in the direction of the wharfs to the west of London Bridge. There were three houses to the left of the entrance from Newman’s Passage; the back of a ware-house faced them on the other long side with the door beyond; and the other two sides were respectively formed by the archway of the stable with a loft over it, and a blank high wall at the opposite end.

A few minutes after four o’clock the figure of a woman suddenly appeared soundlessly in the arch under the stables; and after standing there a moment advanced along the front of the houses till she reached the third door. She stood here a moment in silence, listening and looking towards the doorway opposite, and then rapped gently with her finger-nail eleven or twelve times. Almost immediately the door opened, showing only darkness within; she stepped in, and it closed silently behind her. Then the minutes slipped away again in undisturbed silence. At about twenty minutes to five the figure of a very tall man dressed as a layman slipped in through the door that led towards the river, and advanced to the door where he tapped in the same manner as the woman before him, and was admitted at once. After that people began to come more frequently, some hesitating and looking about them as they entered the court, some slipping straight through without a pause, and going to the door, which opened and shut noiselessly as each tapped and was admitted. Sometimes two or three would come together, sometimes singly; but by five o’clock about twenty or thirty persons had come and been engulfed by the blackness that showed each time the door opened; while no glimmer of light from any of the windows betrayed the presence of any living soul within. At five o’clock the stream stopped. The little court lay as silent under the stars again as an hour before. It was a night of breathless stillness; there was no dripping from the eaves; no sound of wheels or hoofs from the city; only once or twice came the long howl of a dog across the roofs.

Ten minutes passed away.

Then without a sound a face appeared like a pale floating patch in the dark door that opened on to the court. It remained hung like a mask in the darkness for at least a minute; and then a man stepped through on to the cobblestones. Something on his head glimmered sharply in the starlight; and there was the same sparkle at the end of a pole that he carried in his hand; he turned and nodded; and three or four men appeared behind him.

Then out of the darkness of the archway at the other end of the court appeared a similar group. Once a man slipped on the frozen stones and cursed under his breath, and the leader turned on him with a fierce indrawing of his breath; but no word was spoken.

Then through both entrances streamed dark figures, each with a steely glitter on head and breast, and with something that shone in their hands; till the little court seemed half full of armed men; but the silence was still formidable in its depth.

The two leaders came together to the door of the third house, and their heads were together; and a few sibilant consonants escaped them. The breath of the men that stood out under the starlight went up like smoke in the air. It was now a quarter-past five.

Three notes of a hand-bell sounded behind the house; and then, without any further attempt at silence, the man who had entered the court first advanced to the door and struck three or four thundering blows on it with a mace, and shouted in a resonant voice:

“Open in the Queen’s Name.”

The men relaxed their cautious attitudes, and some grounded their weapons; others began to talk in low voices; a small party advanced nearer their leaders with weapons, axes and halberds, uplifted.

By now the blows were thundering on the door; and the same shattering voice cried again and again:

“Open in the Queen’s name; open in the Queen’s name!”

The middle house of the three was unoccupied; but the windows of the house next the stable, and the windows in the loft over the archway, where the stable-boys slept, suddenly were illuminated; latches were lifted, the windows thrust open and heads out of them.

Then one or two more pursuivants came up the dark passage bearing flaming torches with them. A figure appeared on the top of the blank wall at the end, and pointed and shouted. The stable-boys in a moment more appeared in their archway, and one or two persons came out of the house next the stable, queerly habited in cloaks and hats over their night-attire.

The din was now tremendous; the questions and answers shouted to and fro were scarcely audible under the thunder that pealed from the battered door; a party had advanced to it and were raining blows upon the lock and hinges. The court was full of a ruddy glare that blazed on the half-armour and pikes of the men, and the bellowing and the crashes and the smoke together went up into the night air as from the infernal pit. It was a hellish transformation from the deathly stillness of a few minutes—a massacre of the sweet night silence. And yet the house where the little silent stream of dark figures had been swallowed up rose up high above the smoky cauldron, black, dark, and irresponsive.

There rose a shrill howling from behind the house, and the figure on the top of the wall capered and gesticulated again. Then footsteps came running up the passage, and a pursuivant thrust his way through to the leaders; and, in a moment or two, above the din a sharp word was given, and three or four men hurried out through the doorway by which the man had come. Almost at the same moment the hinges of the door gave way, the whole crashed inwards, and the attacking party poured into the dark entrance hall beyond. By this time the noise had wakened many in the houses round, and lights were beginning to shine from the high windows invisible before, and a concourse of people to press in from all sides. The approaches had all been guarded, but at the crash of the door some of the sentries round the nearer corners hurried into the court, and the crowd poured after them; and by the time that the officers and men had disappeared into the house, their places had been filled by the spectators, and the little court was again full of a swaying, seething, shouting mass of men, with a few women with hoods and cloaks among them—inquiries and information were yelled to and fro.

“It was a nest of papists—a wasp’s nest was being smoked out—what harm had they done?—It was a murder; two women had had their throats cut.—No, no; it was a papists’ den—a massing-house.—Well, God save her Grace and rid her of her enemies. With these damned Spaniards everywhere, England was going to ruin.—They had escaped at the back. No; they tried that way, but it was guarded.—There were over fifty papists, some said, in that house.—It was a plot. Mary was mixed up in it. The Queen was to be blown up with powder, like poor Darnley. The barrels were all stored there.—No, no, no! it was nothing but a massing-house.—Who was the priest?—Well, they would see him at Tyburn on a hurdle; and serve him right with his treasonable mummery.—No, no! they had had enough of blood.—Campion had died like a man; and an Englishman too—praying for his Queen.”—The incessant battle and roar went up.

Meanwhile lights were beginning to shine everywhere in the dark house. A man with a torch was standing in a smoky glare half way up the stairs seen through the door, and the interior of the plain hall was illuminated. Then the leaded panes overhead were beginning to shine out. Steel caps moved to and fro; gigantic shadows wavered; the shadow of a halberd head went across a curtain at one of the lower windows.

A crimson-faced man threw open a window and shouted instructions to the sentry left at the door, who in answer shook his head and pointed to the bellowing crowd; the man at the window made a furious gesture and disappeared. The illumination began to climb higher and higher as the searchers mounted from floor to floor; thin smoke began to go up from one or two of the chimneys in the frosty air;—they were lighting straw to bring down any fugitives concealed in the chimneys. Then the sound of heavy blows began to ring out; they were testing the walls everywhere for hiding-holes; there was a sound of rending wood as the flooring was torn up. Then over the parapet against the stairs looked a steel-crowned face of a pursuivant. The crowd below yelled and pointed at first, thinking he was a fugitive; but he grinned down at them and disappeared.

Then at last came an exultant shout; then a breathless silence; then the crowd began to question and answer again.

“They had caught the priest!—No, the priest had escaped,—damn him!—It was half a dozen women. No, no! they had had the women ten minutes ago in a room at the back.—What fools these pursuivants were!—They had found the chapel and the altar.—What a show it would all make at the trial!—Ah! ah! it was the priest after all.”

Those nearest the door saw the man with the torch on the stairs stand back a little; and then a dismal little procession began to appear round the turn.

First came a couple of armed men, looking behind them every now and then; then a group of half a dozen women, whom they had found almost immediately, but had been keeping for the last few minutes in a room upstairs; then a couple more men. Then there was a little space; and then more constables and more prisoners. Each male prisoner was guarded by two men; the women were in groups. All these came out to the court. The crowd began to sway back against the walls, pointing and crying out; and a lane with living walls was formed towards the archway that opened into Newman’s Passage.

When the last pursuivants who brought up the rear had reached the door, an officer, who had been leaning from a first-floor window with the pale face of Lackington peering over his shoulder, gave a sharp order; and the procession halted. The women, numbering fourteen or fifteen, were placed in a group with some eight men in hollow square round them; then came a dozen men, each with a pursuivant on either side. But plainly they were not all come; they were still waiting for something; the officer and Lackington disappeared from the window; and for a moment too, the crowd was quiet.

A murmur of excitement began to rise again, as another group was seen descending the stairs within. The officer came first, looking back and talking as he came; then followed two pursuivants with halberds, and immediately behind them, followed by yet two men, walked James Maxwell in crimson vestments all disordered, with his hands behind him, and his comely head towering above the heads of the guard. The crowd surged forward, yelling; and the men at the door grounded their halberds sharply on the feet of the front row of spectators. As the priest reached the door, a shrill cry either from a boy or a woman pierced the roaring of the mob. “God bless you, father,” and as he heard it he turned and smiled serenely. His face was white, and there was a little trickle of blood run down across it from some wound in his head. The rest of the prisoners turned towards him as he came out; and again he smiled and nodded at them. And so the Catholics with their priest stood a moment in that deafening tumult of revilings, before the officer gave the word to advance.

Then the procession set forward through the archway; the crowd pressing back before them, like the recoil of a wave, and surging after them again in the wake. High over the heads of all moved the steel halberds, shining like grim emblems of power; the torches tossed up and down and threw monstrous stalking shadows on the walls as they passed; the steel caps edged the procession like an impenetrable hedge; and last moved the crimson-clad priest, as if in some church function, but with a bristling barrier about him; then came the mob, pouring along the narrow passages, jostling, cursing, reviling, swelled every moment by new arrivals dashing down the alleys and courts that gave on the thoroughfare; and so with tramp and ring of steel the pageant went forward on its way of sorrows.

Before six o’clock Newman’s Court was empty again, except for one armed figure that stood before the shattered door of No. 3 to guard it. Inside the house was dark again except in one room high up where the altar had stood. Here the thick curtains against the glass had been torn down, and the window was illuminated; every now and again the shadows on the ceiling stirred a little as if the candle was being moved; and once the window opened and a pale smooth face looked out for a moment, and then withdrew again. Then the light disappeared altogether; and presently shone out in another room on the same floor; then again after an half an hour or so it was darkened; and again reappeared on the floor below. And so it went on from room to room; until the noises of the waking city began, and the stars paled and expired. Over the smokeless town the sky began to glow clear and brilliant. The crowing of cocks awoke here and there; a church bell or two began to sound far away over the roofs. The pale blue overhead grew more and more luminous; the candle went out on the first floor; the steel-clad man stretched himself and looked at the growing dawn.

A step was heard on the stairs, and Lackington came down, carrying a small valise apparently full to bursting. He looked paler than usual; and a little hollow-eyed for want of sleep. He came out and stood by the soldier, and looked about him. Everywhere the court showed signs of the night’s tumult. Crumbled ice from broken icicles and trampled frozen pools lay powdered on the stones. Here and there on the walls were great smears of black from the torches, and even one or two torn bits of stuff and a crushed hat marked where the pressure had been fiercest. Most eloquent of all was the splintered door behind him, still held fast by one stout bolt, but leaning crookedly against the dinted wall of the interior.

“A good night’s work, friend,” said Lackington to the man. “Another hive taken, and here”—and he tapped his valise—”here I bear the best of the honey.”

The soldier looked heavily at the bag. He was tired too; and he did not care for this kind of work.

“Well,” said Lackington again, “I must be getting home safe. Keep the door; you shall be relieved in one hour.”

The soldier nodded at him; but still said nothing; and Lackington lifted the valise and went off too under the archway.

That same morning Lady Maxwell in her room in the Hall at Great Keynes awoke early before dawn with a start. She had had a dream but could not remember what it was, except that her son James was in it, and seemed to be in trouble. He was calling on her to save him, she thought, and awoke at the sound of his voice. She often dreamt of him at this time; for the life of a seminary priest was laid with snares and dangers. But this dream seemed worse than all.

She struck a light, and looked timidly round the room; it seemed still ringing with his voice. A great tapestry in a frame hung over the mantelpiece, Actæon followed by his hounds; the hunter panted as he ran, and was looking back over his shoulder; and the long-jawed dogs streamed behind him down a little hill.

So strong was the dream upon the old lady that she felt restless, and presently got up and went to the window and opened a shutter to look out. A white statue or two beyond the terrace glimmered in the dusk, and the stars were bright in the clear frosty night overhead. She closed the shutter and went back again to bed; but could not sleep. Again and again as she was dozing off, something would startle her wide awake again: sometimes it was a glimpse of James’ face; sometimes he seemed to be hurrying away from her down an endless passage with closed doors; he was dressed in something crimson. She tried to cry out, her voice would not rise above a whisper. Sometimes it was the dream of his voice; and once she started up crying out, “I am coming, my son.” Then at last she awoke again at the sound of footsteps coming along the corridor outside; and stared fearfully at the door to see what would enter. But it was only the maid come to call her mistress. Lady Maxwell watched her as she opened the shutters that now glimmered through their cracks, and let a great flood of light into the room from the clear shining morning outside.

“It is a frosty morning, my lady,” said the maid.

“Send one of the men down to Mistress Torridon,” said Lady Maxwell, “and ask her to come here as soon as it is convenient. Say I am well; but would like to see her when she can come.”

There was no priest in the house that Sunday, so there could be no mass; and on these occasions Mistress Margaret usually stayed at the Dower House until after dinner; but this morning she came up within half an hour of receiving the message.

She did not pretend to despise her sister’s terror, or call it superstitious.

“Mary,” she said, taking her sister’s jewelled old fingers into her own two hands, “we must leave all this to the good God. It may mean much, or little, or nothing. He only knows; but at least we may pray. Let me tell Isabel; a child’s prayers are mighty with Him; and she has the soul of a little child still.”

So Isabel was told; and after church she came up to dine at the Hall and spend the day there; for Lady Maxwell was thoroughly nervous and upset: she trembled at the sound of footsteps, and cried out when one of the men came into the room suddenly.

Isabel went again to evening prayer at three o’clock; but could not keep her thoughts off the strange nervous horror at the Hall, though it seemed to rest on no better foundation than the waking dreams of an old lady—and her mind strayed away continually from the darkening chapel in which she sat, so near where Sir Nicholas himself lay, to the upstairs parlour where the widow sat shaken and trembling at her own curious fancies about her dear son.

Mr. Bodder’s sermon came to an end at last; and Isabel was able to get away, and hurry back to the Hall. She found the old ladies as she had left them in the little drawing-room, Lady Maxwell sitting on the window-seat near the harp, preoccupied and apparently listening for something she knew not what. Mistress Margaret was sitting in a tall padded porter’s chair reading aloud from an old English mystic, but her sister was paying no attention, and looked strangely at the girl as she came in. Isabel sat down near the fire and listened; and as she listened the memory of that other day, years ago, came to her when she sat once before with these two ladies in the same room, and Mistress Margaret read to them, and the letter came from Sir Nicholas; and then the sudden clamour from the village. So now she sat with terror darkening over her, glancing now and again at that white expectant face, and herself listening for the first far-away rumour of the dreadful interruption that she now knew must come.

“The Goodness of God,” read the old nun, “is the highest prayer, and it cometh down to the lowest part of our need. It quickeneth our soul and bringeth it on life, and maketh it for to waxen in grace and virtue. It is nearest in nature; and readiest in grace: for it is the same grace that the soul seeketh, and ever shall seek till we know verily that He hath us all in Himself enclosed. For he hath no despite of that He hath made, nor hath He any disdain to serve us at the simplest office that to our body belongeth in nature, for love of the soul that He hath made to His own likeness. For as the body is clad in the clothes, and the flesh in the skin, and the bones in the flesh, and the heart in the whole, so are we, soul and body, clad in the Goodness of God, and enclosed. Yea, and more homely; for all these may waste and wear away, but the Goodness of God is ever whole; and more near to us without any likeness; for truly our Lover desireth that our soul cleave to Him with all its might, and that we be evermore cleaving to His goodness. For of all things that heart may think, this most pleaseth God, and soonest speedeth us. For our soul is so specially loved of Him that is highest, that it overpasseth the knowing of all creatures——”

“Hush,” said Lady Maxwell suddenly, on her feet, with a lifted hand.

There was a breathless silence in the room; Isabel’s heart beat thick and heavy and her eyes grew large with expectancy; it was a windless frosty night again, and the ivy outside on the wall, and the laurels in the garden seemed to be silently listening too.

“Mary, Mary,” began her sister, “you——;” but the old lady lifted her hand a little higher; and silence fell again.

Then far away in the direction of the London road came the clear beat of the hoofs of a galloping horse.

Lady Maxwell bowed her head, and her hand slowly sank to her side. The other two stood up and remained still while the beat of the hoofs grew and grew in intensity on the frozen road.

“The front door,” said Lady Maxwell.

Mistress Margaret slipped from the room and went downstairs; Isabel took a step or two forward, but was checked by the old lady’s uplifted hand again. And again there was a breathless silence, save for the beat of the hoofs now close and imminent.

A moment later the front door was opened, and a great flood of cold air swept up the passages; the portrait of Sir Nicholas in the hall downstairs, lifted and rattled against the wall. Then came the clatter on the paved court; and the sound of a horse suddenly checked with the slipping up of hoofs and the jingle and rattle of chains and stirrups. There were voices in the hall below, and a man’s deep tones; then came steps ascending.

Lady Maxwell still stood perfectly rigid by the window, waiting, and Isabel stared with white face and great open eyes at the door; outside, the flame of a lamp on the wall was blowing about furiously in the draught.

Then a stranger stepped into the room; evidently a gentleman; he bowed to the two ladies, and stood, with the rime on his boots and a whip in his hand, a little exhausted and disordered by hard riding.

“Lady Maxwell?” he said.

Lady Maxwell bowed a little.

“I come with news of your son, madam, the priest; he is alive and well; but he is in trouble. He was taken this morning in his mass-vestments; and is in the Marshalsea.”

Lady Maxwell’s lips moved a little; but no sound came.

“He was betrayed, madam, by a friend. He and thirty other Catholics were taken all together at mass.”

Then Lady Maxwell spoke; and her voice was dead and hard.

“The friend, sir! What was his name?”

“The traitor’s name, madam, is Anthony Norris.”

The room turned suddenly dark to Isabel’s eyes; and she put up her hand and tore at the collar round her throat.

“Oh no, no, no, no!” she cried, and tottered a step or two forward and stood swaying.

Lady Maxwell looked from one to another with eyes that seemed to see nothing; and her lips stirred again.

Mistress Margaret who had followed the stranger up, and who stood now behind him at the door, came forward to Isabel with a little cry, with her hands trembling before her. But before she could reach her, Lady Maxwell herself came swiftly forward, her head thrown back, and her arms stretched out towards the girl, who still stood dazed and swaying more and more.

“My poor, poor child!” said Lady Maxwell; and caught her as she fell.

CHAPTER IX

FROM FULHAM TO GREENWICH

Anthony in London, strangely enough, heard nothing of the arrest on the Sunday, except a rumour at supper that some Papists had been taken. It had sufficient effect on his mind to make him congratulate himself that he had been able to warn his friend last week.

At dinner on Monday there were a few guests; and among them, one Sir Richard Barkley, afterwards Lieutenant of the Tower. He sat at the Archbishop’s table, but Anthony’s place, on the steward’s left hand, brought him very close to the end of the first table where Sir Richard sat. Dinner was half way through, when Mr. Scot who was talking to Anthony, was suddenly silent and lifted his hand as if to check the conversation a moment.

“I saw them myself,” said Sir Richard’s voice just behind.

“What is it?” whispered Anthony.

“The Catholics,” answered the steward.

“They were taken in Newman’s Court, off Cheapside,” went on the voice, “nearly thirty, with one of their priests, at mass, in his trinkets too—Oldham his name is.”

There was a sudden crash of a chair fallen backwards, and Anthony was standing by the officer.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Richard Barkley,” he said;—and a dead silence fell in the hall.—”But is that the name of the priest that was taken yesterday?”

Sir Richard looked astonished at the apparent insolence of this young official.

“Yes, sir,” he said shortly.

“Then, then,——” began Anthony; but stopped; bowed low to the Archbishop and went straight out of the hall.

Mr. Scot was waiting for him in the hall when he returned late that night. Anthony’s face was white and distracted; he came in and stood by the fire, and stared at him with a dazed air.

“You are to come to his Grace,” said the steward, looking at him in silence.

Anthony nodded without speaking, and turned away.

“Then you cannot tell me anything?” said Mr. Scot. The other shook his head impatiently, and walked towards the inner door.

The Archbishop was sincerely shocked at the sight of his young officer, as he came in and stood before the table, staring with bewildered eyes, with his dress splashed and disordered, and his hands still holding the whip and gloves. He made him sit down at once, and after Anthony had drunk a glass of wine, he made him tell his story and what he had done that day.

He had been to the Marshalsea; it was true Mr. Oldham was there, and had been examined. Mr. Young had conducted it.—The house at Newman’s Court was guarded: the house behind Bow Church was barred and shut up, and the people seemed gone away.—He could not get a word through to Mr. Oldham, though he had tried heavy bribery.—And that was all.

Anthony spoke with the same dazed air, in short broken sentences; but became more himself as the wine and the fire warmed him; and by the time he had finished he had recovered himself enough to entreat the Archbishop to help him.

“It is useless,” said the old man. “What can I do? I have no power. And—and he is a popish priest! How can I interfere?”

“My lord,” cried Anthony desperately, flushed and entreating, “all has been done through treachery. Do you not see it? I have been a brainless fool. That man behind Bow Church was a spy. For Christ’s sake help us, my lord!”

Grindal looked into the lad’s great bright eyes; sighed; and threw out his hands despairingly.

“It is useless; indeed it is useless, Mr. Norris. But I will tell you all that I can do. I will give you to-morrow a letter to Sir Francis Walsingham. I was with him abroad as you know, in the popish times of Mary: and he is still in some sort a friend of mine—but you must remember that he is a strong Protestant; and I do not suppose that he will help you. Now go to bed, dear lad; you are worn out.”

Anthony knelt for the old man’s blessing, and left the room.

The interview next day was more formidable than he had expected. He was at the Secretary’s house by ten o’clock, and waited below while the Archbishop’s letter was taken up. The servant came back in a few minutes, and asked him to follow; and in an agony of anxiety, but with a clear head again this morning, and every faculty tense, he went upstairs after him, and was ushered into the room where Walsingham sat at a table.

There was silence as the two bowed, but Sir Francis did not offer to rise, but sat with the Archbishop’s letter in his hand, glancing through it again, as the other stood and waited.

“I understand,” said the Secretary at last, and his voice was dry and unsympathetic,—”I understand, from his Grace’s letter, that you desire to aid a popish priest called Oldham or Maxwell, arrested at mass on Sunday morning in Newman’s Court. If you will be so good as to tell me in what way you desire to aid him, I can be more plain in my answer. You do not desire, I hope, Mr. Norris, anything but justice and a fair trial for your friend?”

Anthony cleared his throat before answering.

“I—he is my friend, as you say, Sir Francis; and—and he hath been caught by foul means. I myself was used, as I have little doubt, in his capture. Surely there is no justice, sir, in betraying a man by means of his friend.” And Anthony described the ruse that had brought it all about.

Sir Francis listened to him coldly; but there came the faintest spark of amusement into his large sad eyes.

“Surely, Mr. Norris,” he said, “it was somewhat simple; and I have no doubt at all that it all is as you say; and that the poor stuttering cripple with a patch was as sound and had as good sight and power of speech as you and I; but the plan was, it seems, if you will forgive me, not so simple as yourself. It would be passing strange, surely that the man, if a friend of the priest’s, could find no Catholic to take his message; but not at all strange if he were his enemy. I do not think sincerely, sir, that it would have deceived me. But that is not now the point. He is taken now, fairly or foully, and—what was it you wished me to do?”

“I hoped,” said Anthony, in rising indignation at this insolence, “that you would help me in some way to undo this foul unjustice. Surely, sir, it cannot be right to take advantage of such knavish tricks.”

“Good Mr. Norris,” said the Secretary, “we are not playing a game, with rules that must not be broken, but we are trying to serve justice”—his voice rose a little in sincere enthusiasm—”and to put down all false practices, whether in religion or state, against God or the prince. Surely the point for you and me is not, ought this gentleman to have been taken in the manner he was; but being taken, is he innocent or guilty?”

“Then you will not help me?”

“I will certainly not help you to defeat justice,” said the other. “Mr. Norris, you are a young man; and while your friendship does your heart credit, your manner of forwarding its claims does not equally commend your head. I counsel you to be wary in your speech and actions; or they may bring you into trouble some day yourself. After all, as no doubt your friends have told you, you played what, as a minister of the Crown, I must call a knave’s part in attempting to save this popish traitor, although by God’s Providence, you were frustrated. But it is indeed going too far to beg me to assist you. I have never heard of such audacity!”

Anthony left the house in a fury. It was true, as the Archbishop had said, that Sir Francis Walsingham was a convinced Protestant; but he had expected to find in him some indignation at the methods by which the priest had been captured; and some desire to make compensation for it.

He went again to the Marshalsea; and now heard that James had been removed to the Tower, with one or two of the Catholics who had been in trouble before. This was serious news; for to be transferred to the Tower was often but the prelude to torture or death. He went on there, however, and tried again to gain admittance, but it was refused, and the doorkeeper would not even consent to take a message in. Mr. Oldham, he said, was being straitly kept, and it would be as much as his place was worth to admit any communication to him without an order from the Council.

When Anthony got back to Lambeth after this fruitless day, he found an imploring note from Isabel awaiting him; and one of the grooms from the Hall to take his answer back.

“Write back at once, dear Anthony,” she wrote, “and explain this terrible thing, for I know well that you could not do what has been told us of you. But tell us what has happened, that we may know what to think. Poor Lady Maxwell is in the distress you may imagine; not knowing what will come to Mr. James. She will come to London, I think, this week. Write at once now, my Anthony, and tell us all.”

Anthony scribbled a few lines, saying how he had been deceived; and asking her to explain the circumstances to Lady Maxwell, who no doubt would communicate them to her son as soon as was possible; he added that he had so far failed to get a message through the gaoler. He gave the note himself to the groom; telling him to deliver it straight into Isabel’s hands, and then went to bed.

In the morning he reported to the Archbishop what had taken place.

“I feared it would be so,” Grindal said. “There is nothing to be done but to commit your friend into God’s hands, and leave him there.”

“My Lord,” said Anthony, “I cannot leave it like that. I will go and see my lord bishop to-day; and then, if he can do nothing to help, I will even see the Queen’s Grace herself.”

Grindal threw up his hands with a gesture of dismay.

“That will ruin all,” he said. “An officer of mine could do nothing but anger her Grace.”

“I must do my best,” said Anthony; “it was through my folly he is in prison, and I could never rest if I left one single thing undone.”

Just as Anthony was leaving the house, a servant in the royal livery dashed up to the gate; and the porter ran out after Anthony to call him back. The man delivered to him a letter which he opened then and there. It was from Mistress Corbet.

“What can be done,” the letter ran, “for poor Mr. James? I have heard a tale of you from a Catholic, which I know is a black lie. I am sure that even now you will be doing all you can to save your friend. I told the man that told me, that he lied and that I knew you for an honest gentleman. But come, dear Mr. Anthony; and we will do what we can between us. Her Grace noticed this morning that I had been weeping; I put her off with excuses that she knows to be excuses; and she is so curious that she will not rest till she knows the cause. Come after dinner to-day; we are at Greenwich now; and we will see what may be done. It may even be needful for you to see her Grace yourself, and tell her the story. Your loving friend, Mary Corbet.”

Anthony gave a message to the royal groom, to tell Mistress Corbet that he would do as she said, and then rode off immediately to the city. There was another disappointing delay as the Bishop was at Fulham; and thither he rode directly through the frosty streets under the keen morning sunshine, fretting at the further delay.

He had often had occasion to see the Bishop before, and Aylmer had taken something of a liking to this staunch young churchman; and now as the young man came hurrying across the grass under the elms, the Bishop, who was walking in his garden in his furs and flapped cap, noticed his anxious eyes and troubled face, and smiled at him kindly, wondering what he had come about. The two began to walk up and down together. The sunshine was beginning to melt the surface of the ground, and the birds were busy with breakfast-hunting.

“Look at that little fellow!” cried the Bishop, pointing to a thrush on the lawn, “he knows his craft.”

The thrush had just rapped several times with his beak at a worm’s earth, and was waiting with his head sideways watching.

“Aha!” cried the Bishop again, “he has him.” The thrush had seized the worm who had come up to investigate the noise, and was now staggering backwards, bracing himself, and tugging at the poor worm, who, in a moment more was dragged out and swallowed.

“My lord,” said Anthony, “I came to ask your pity for one who was betrayed by like treachery.”

The Bishop looked astonished, and asked for the story; but when he heard who it was that had been taken, and under what circumstances, the kindliness died out of his eyes. He shook his head severely when Anthony had done.

“It is useless coming to me, sir,” he said. “You know what I think. To be ordained beyond the seas and to exercise priestly functions in England is now a crime. It is useless to pretend anything else. It is revolt against the Queen’s Grace and the peace of the realm. And I must confess I am astonished at you, Mr. Norris, thinking that anything ought to be done to shield a criminal, and still more astonished that you should think I would aid you in that. I tell you plainly that I am glad that the fellow is caught, for that I think there will be presently one less fire-brand in England. I know it is easy to cry out against persecution and injustice; that is ever the shallow cry of the mob; but this is not a religious persecution, as you yourself very well know. It is because the Roman Church interferes with the peace of the realm and the Queen’s authority that its ordinances are forbidden; we do not seek to touch a man’s private opinions. However, you know all that as well as I.”

Anthony was raging now with anger.

“I am not so sure, my lord, as I was,” he said. “I had hoped from your lordship at any rate to find sympathy for the base trick whereby my friend was snared; and I find it now hard to trust the judgment of any who do not feel as I do about it.”

“That is insolence, Mr. Norris,” said Aylmer, stopping in his walk and turning upon him his cold half-shut eyes, “and I will not suffer it.”

“Then, my lord, I had better begone to her Grace at once.”

“To her Grace!” exclaimed the Bishop.

“Appello Cæsarem,” said Anthony, and was gone again.

As Anthony came into the courtyard of Greenwich Palace an hour or two later he found it humming with movement and noise. Cooks were going to and fro with dishes, as dinner was only just ending; servants in the royal livery were dashing across with messages; a few great hounds for the afternoon’s baiting were in a group near one of the gateways, snuffing the smell of cookery, and howling hungrily now and again.

Anthony stopped one of the men, and sent him with a message to Mistress Corbet; and the servant presently returned, saying that the Court was just rising from dinner, and Mistress Corbet would see him in a parlour directly, if the gentleman would kindly follow him. A groom took his horse off to the stable, and Anthony himself followed the servant to a little oak-parlour looking on to a lawn with a yew hedge and a dial. He felt as one moving in a dream, bewildered by the rush of interviews, and oppressed by the awful burden that he bore at his heart. Nothing any longer seemed strange; and he scarcely gave a thought to what it meant when he heard the sound of trumpets in the court, as the Queen left the Hall. In five minutes more Mistress Corbet burst into the room; and her anxious look broke into tenderness at the sight of the misery in the lad’s face.

“Oh, Master Anthony,” she cried, seizing his hand, “thank God you are here. And now what is to be done for him?”

They sat down together in the window-seat. Mary was dressed in an elaborate rose-coloured costume; but her pretty lips were pale, and her eyes looked distressed and heavy.

“I have hardly slept,” she said, “since Saturday night. Tell me all that you know.”

Anthony told her the whole story, mechanically and miserably.

“Ah,” she said, “that was how it was. I understand it now. And what can we do? You know, of course, that he has been questioned in the Tower.”

Anthony turned suddenly white and sick.

“Not the—not the——” he began, falteringly.

She nodded at him mutely with large eyes and compressed lips.

“Oh, my God,” said Anthony; and then again, “O God.”

She took up one of his brown young hands and pressed it gently between her white slender ones.

“I know,” she said, “I know; he is a gallant gentleman.”

Anthony stood up shaking; and sat down again. The horror had goaded him into clearer consciousness.

“Ah! what can we do?” he said brokenly. “Let me see the Queen. She will be merciful.”

“You must trust to me in this,” said Mary, “I know her; and I know that to go to her now would be madness. She is in a fury with Pinart to-day at something that has passed about the Duke. You know Monsieur is here; she kissed him the other day, and the Lord only knows whether she will marry him or not. You must wait a day or two; and be ready when I tell you.”

“But,” stammered Anthony, “every hour we wait, he suffers.”

“Oh, you cannot tell that,” said Mary, “they give them a long rest sometimes; and it was only yesterday that he was questioned.”

Anthony sat silently staring out on the fresh lawn; there was still a patch of frost under the shadow of the hedge he noticed.

“Wait here a moment,” said Mary, looking at him; and she got up and went out.

Anthony still sat staring and thinking of the horror. Presently Mary was at his side again with a tall venetian wine-glass brimming with white wine.

“Here,” she said, “drink this,”—and then—”have you dined to-day?”

“There was not time,” said Anthony.

She frowned at him almost fiercely.

“And you come here fasting,” she said, “to face the Queen! You foolish boy; you know nothing. Wait here,” she added imperiously, and again she left the room.

Anthony still stared out of doors, twisting the empty glass in his hand; until again came her step and the rustle of her dress. She took the glass from him and put it down. A servant had followed her back into the room in a minute or two with a dish of meat and some bread; he set it on the table, and went out.

“Now,” said Mary, “sit down and eat before you speak another word.” And Anthony obeyed. The servant presently returned with some fruit, and again left them. All the while Anthony was eating, Mary sat by him and told him how she had heard the whole story from another Catholic at court; and how the Queen had questioned her closely the night before, as to what the marks of tears meant on her cheeks.

“It was when I heard of the racking,” explained Mary, “I could not help it. I went up to my room and cried and cried. But I would not tell her Grace that: it would have been of no use; so I said I had a headache; but I said it in such a way as to prepare her for more. She has not questioned me again to-day; she is too full of anger and of the bear-baiting; but she will—she will. She never forgets; and then Mr. Anthony, it must be you to tell her. You are a pleasant-faced young man, sir, and she likes such as that. And you must be both forward and modest with her. She loves boldness, but hates rudeness. That is why Chris is so beloved by her. He is a fool, but he is a handsome fool, and a forward fool, and withal a tender fool; and sighs and cries, and calls her his Goddess; and says how he takes to his bed when she is not there, which of course is true. The other day he came to her, white-faced, sobbing like a frightened child, about the ring she had given Monsieur le petit grenouille. And oh, she was so tender with him. And so, Mr. Anthony, you must not be just forward with her, and frown at her and call her Jezebel and tyrant, as you would like to do; but you must call her Cleopatra, and Diana as well. Forward and backward all in one; that is the way she loves to be wooed. She is a woman, remember that.”

“I must just let my heart speak,” said Anthony, “I cannot twist and turn.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mary, “that is what I mean; but mind that it is your heart.”

They went on talking a little longer; when suddenly the trumpets pealed out again. Mary rose with a look of consternation.

“I must fly,” she said, “her Grace will be starting for the pit directly; and I must be there. Do you follow, Mr. Anthony; I will speak to a servant in the court about you.” And in a moment she was gone.

When Anthony had finished the fruit and wine, he felt considerably refreshed; and after waiting a few minutes, went out into the court again, which he found almost deserted, except for a servant or two. One of these came up to him, and said respectfully that Mistress Corbet had left instructions that Mr. Norris was to be taken to the bear-pit; so Anthony followed him through the palace to the back.

It was a startlingly beautiful sight that his eyes fell upon when he came up the wooden stairs on to the stage that ran round the arena where the sport was just beginning. It was an amphitheatre, perhaps forty yards across; and the seats round it were filled with the most brilliant costumes, many of which blazed with jewels. Hanging over the top of the palisade were rich stuffs and tapestries. The Queen herself no doubt with Alençon was seated somewhere to the right, as Anthony could see by the canopy, with the arms of England and France embroidered upon its front; but he was too near to her to be able to catch even a glimpse of her face or figure. The awning overhead was furled, as the day was so fine, and the winter sunshine poured down on the dresses and jewels. All the Court was there; and Anthony recognised many great nobles here and there in the specially reserved seats. A ceaseless clangour of trumpets and cymbals filled the air, and drowned not only the conversation but the terrific noise from the arena where half a dozen great dogs, furious with hunger and excited as much by the crowds and the brazen music overhead as by the presence of their fierce adversary, were baiting a huge bear chained to a ring in the centre of the sand.

Anthony’s heart sank a little as he noticed the ladies of the Court applauding and laughing at the abominable scene below, no doubt in imitation of their mistress who loved this fierce sport; and as he thought of the kind of heart to which he would have to appeal presently.

So through the winter afternoon the bouts went on; the band answered with harsh chords the death of the dogs one by one, and welcomed the collapse of the bear with a strident bellowing passage on the great horns and drums; and by the time it was over and the spectators rose to their feet, Anthony’s hopes were lower than ever. Can there be any compassion left, he wondered, in a woman to whom such an afternoon was nothing more than a charming entertainment?

By the time he was able to get out of his seat and return to the courtyard, the procession had again disappeared, but he was escorted by the same servant to the parlour again, where Mistress Corbet presently rustled in.

“You must stay to-night,” she said, “as late as possible. I wish you could sleep here; but we are so crowded with these Frenchmen and Hollanders that there is not a bed empty. The Queen is in better humour, and if the play goes well, it may be that a word said even to-night might reach her heart. I will tell you when it is over. You must be present. I will send you supper here directly.”

Anthony inquired as to his dress.

“Nay, nay,” said Mistress Corbet, “that will do very well; it is sober and quiet, and a little splashed: it will appear that you came in such haste that you could not change it. Her Grace likes to see a man hot and in a hurry sometimes; and not always like a peacock in the shade.—And, Master Anthony, it suits you very well.”

He asked what time the play would be over, and that his horse might be saddled ready for him when he should want it; and Mary promised to see to it.

He felt much more himself as he supped alone in the parlour. The bewilderment had passed; the courage and spirit of Mary had infected his own, and the stirring strange life of the palace had distracted him from that dreadful brooding into which he had at first sunk.

When he had finished supper he sat in the window seat, pondering and praying too that the fierce heart of the Queen might be melted, and that God would give him words to say.

There was much else too that he thought over, as he sat and watched the illuminated windows round the little lawn on which his own looked, and heard the distant clash of music from the Hall where the Queen was supping in state. He thought of Mary and of her gay and tender nature; and of his own boyish love for her. That indeed had gone, or rather had been transfigured into a brotherly honour and respect. Both she and he, he was beginning to feel, had a more majestic task before them than marrying and giving in marriage. The religion which made this woman what she was, pure and upright in a luxurious and treacherous Court, tender among hard hearts, sympathetic in the midst of selfish lives—this Religion was beginning to draw this young man with almost irresistible power. Mary herself was doing her part bravely, witnessing in a Protestant Court to the power of the Catholic Faith in her own life; and he, what was he doing? These last three days were working miracles in him. The way he had been received by Walsingham and Aylmer, their apparent inability to see his point of view on this foul bit of treachery, the whole method of the Government of the day;—and above all the picture that was floating now before his eyes over the dark lawn, of the little cell in the Tower and the silent wrenched figure lying upon the straw—the “gallant gentleman” as Mary had called him, who had reckoned all this price up before he embarked on the life of a priest, and was even now paying it gladly and thankfully, no doubt—all this deepened the previous impressions that Anthony’s mind had received; and as he sat here amid the stir of the royal palace, again and again a vision moved before him, of himself as a Catholic, and perhaps—— But Isabel! What of Isabel? And at the thought of her he rose and walked to and fro.

Presently the servant came again to take Anthony to the Presence Chamber, where the play was to take place.

“I understand, sir, from Mistress Corbet,” said the man, closing the door of the parlour a moment, “that you are come about Mr. Maxwell. I am a Catholic, too, sir, and may I say, sir, God bless and prosper you in this.—I—I beg your pardon, sir, will you follow me?”

The room was full at the lower end where Anthony had to stand, as he was not in Court dress; and he could see really nothing of the play, and hear very little either. The children of Paul’s were acting some classical play which he did not know: all he could do was to catch a glimpse now and again of the protruding stage, with the curtains at the back, and the glitter of the armour that the boys wore; and hear the songs that were accompanied by a little string band, and the clash of the brass at the more martial moments. The Queen and the Duke, he could see, sat together immediately opposite the stage, on raised seats under a canopy; a group of halberdiers guarded them, and another small company of them was ranged at the sides of the stage. Anthony could see little more than this, and could hear only isolated sentences here and there, so broken was the piece by the talking and laughing around him. But he did not like to move as Mistress Corbet had told him to be present, so he stood there listening to the undertone talk about him, and watching the faces. What he did see of the play did not rouse him to any great enthusiasm. His heart was too heavy with his errand, and it seemed to him that the occasional glimpses he caught of the stage showed him a very tiresome hero, dressed in velvet doubled and hose and steel cap, strangely unconvincing, who spoke his lines pompously, and was as unsatisfactory as the slender shrill-voiced boy who, representing a woman of marvellous beauty and allurement, was supposed to fire the conqueror’s blood with passion.

At last it ended; and an “orator” in apparel of cloth of gold, spoke a kind of special epilogue in rhyming metre in praise of the Virgin Queen, and then retired bowing.

Immediately there was a general movement; the brass instruments began to blare out, and an usher at the door desired those who were blocking the way to step aside to make way for the Queen’s procession, which would shortly pass out. Anthony himself went outside with one or two more, and then stood aside waiting.

There was a pause and then a hush; and the sound of a high rating woman’s voice, followed by a murmur of laughter.

In a moment more the door was flung open again, and to Anthony’s surprise Mistress Corbet came rustling out, as the people stepped back to make room. Her eyes fell on Anthony near the door, and she beckoned him to follow, and he went down the corridor after her, followed her silently along a passage or two, wondering why she did not speak, and then came after her into the same little oak parlour where he had supped. A servant followed them immediately with lighted candles which he set down and retired.

Anthony looked at Mistress Corbet, and saw all across her pale cheek the fiery mark of the five fingers of a hand, and saw too that her eyes were full of tears, and that her breath came unevenly.

“It is no use to-night,” she said, with a sob in her voice; “her Grace is angry with me.”

“And, and——” began Anthony in amazement.

“And she struck me,” said Mary, struggling bravely to smile. “It was all my fault,”—and a bright tear or two ran down on to her delicate lace. “I was sitting near her Grace, and I could not keep my mind off poor James Maxwell; and I suppose I looked grave, because when the play was over, she beckoned me up, and—and asked how I liked it, and why I looked so solemn—for she would know—was it for Scipio Africanus, or some other man? And—and I was silent; and Alençon, that little frog-man burst out laughing and said to her Grace something—something shameful—in French—but I understood, and gave him a look; and her Grace saw it, and, and struck me here, before all the Court, and bade me begone.”

“Oh! it is shameful,” said Anthony, furiously, his own eyes bright too, at the sight of this gallant girl and her humiliation.

“You cannot stay here, Mistress Corbet. This is the second time at least, is it not?”

“Ah! but I must stay,” she said, “or who will speak for the Catholics? But now it is useless to think of seeing her Grace to-night. Yet to-morrow, maybe, she will be sorry,—she often is—and will want to make amends; and then will be our time, so you must be here to-morrow by dinner-time at least.”

“Oh, Mistress Corbet,” said the boy, “I wish I could do something.”

“You dear lad!” said Mary, and then indeed the tears ran down.

Anthony rode back to Lambeth under the stars, anxious and dispirited, and all night long dreamed of pageants and progresses that blocked the street down which he must ride to rescue James. The brazen trumpets rang out whenever he called for help or tried to explain his errand; and Elizabeth rode by, bowing and smiling to all save him.

The next day he was at Greenwich again by dinner-time, and again dined by himself in the oak parlour, waited upon by the Catholic servant. He was just finishing his meal when in sailed Mary, beaming.

“I told you so,” she said delightedly, “the Queen is sorry. She pinched my ear just now, and smiled at me, and bade me come to her in her private parlour in half an hour; and I shall put my petition then; so be ready, Master Anthony, be ready and of a good courage; for, please God, we shall save him yet.”

Anthony looked at her, white and scared.

“What shall I say?” he said.

“Speak from your heart, sir, as you did to me yesterday. Be bold, yet not overbold. Tell her plainly that he is your friend; and that it was through your action he was betrayed. Say that you love the man. She likes loyalty.—Say he is a fine upstanding fellow, over six feet in height, with a good leg. She likes a good leg.—Say that he has not a wife, and will never have one. Wives and husbands like her not—in spite of le petit grenouille.—And look straight in her face, Master Anthony, as you looked in mine yesterday when I was a cry-baby. She likes men to do that.—And then look away as if dazzled by her radiancy. She likes that even more.”

Anthony looked so bewildered by these instructions that Mary laughed in his face.

“Here then, poor lad,” she said, “I will tell you in a word. Tell the truth and be a man;—a man! She likes that best of all; though she likes sheep too, such as Chris Hatton, and frogs like the Duke, and apes like the little Spaniard, and chattering dancing monkeys like the Frenchman—and—and devils, like Walshingham. But do you be a man and risk it. I know you can manage that.” And Mary smiled at him so cheerfully, that Anthony felt heartened.

“There,” she said, “now you look like one. But you must have some more wine first, I will send it in as I go. And now I must go. Wait here for the message.” She gave him her hand, and he kissed it, and she went out, nodding and smiling over her shoulder.

Anthony sat miserably on the window-seat.

Ah! so much depended on him now. The Queen was in a good humour, and such a chance might never occur again;—and meantime James Maxwell waited in the Tower.

The minutes passed; steps came and went in the passage outside; and Anthony’s heart leaped into his mouth at each sound. Once the door opened, and Anthony sprang to his feet trembling. But it was only the servant with the wine. Anthony took it—a fiery Italian wine, and drew a long draught that sent his blood coursing through his veins, and set his heart a-beating strongly again. And even as he set the cup down, the door was open again, and a bowing page was there.

“May it please you, sir, the Queen’s Grace has sent me for you.”

Anthony got up, swallowed in his throat once or twice, and motioned to go; the boy went out and Anthony followed.

They went down a corridor or two, passing a sentry who let the well-known page and the gentleman pass without challenging; ascended a twisted oak staircase, went along a gallery, with stained glass of heraldic emblems in the windows, and paused before a door. The page, before knocking, turned and looked meaningly at Anthony, who stood with every pulse in his body racing; then the boy knocked, opened the door; Anthony entered, and the door closed behind him.

CHAPTER X

THE APPEAL TO CÆSAR

The room was full of sunshine that poured in through two tall windows opposite, upon a motionless figure that sat in a high carved chair by the table, and watched the door. This figure dominated the whole room: the lad as he dropped on his knees, was conscious of eyes watching him from behind the chair, of tapestried walls, and a lute that lay on the table, but all those things were but trifling accessories to that scarlet central figure with a burnished halo of auburn hair round a shadowed face.

There was complete silence for a moment or two; a hound bayed in the court outside, and there came a far-away bang of a door somewhere in the palace. There was a rustle of silk that set every nerve of his body thrilling, and then a clear hard penetrating voice spoke two words.

“Well, sir?”

Anthony drew a breath, and swallowed in his throat.

“Your Grace,” he said, and lifted his eyes for a moment, and dropped them again. But in the glimpse every detail stamped itself clear on his imagination. There she sat in vivid scarlet and cloth of gold, radiating light; with high puffed sleeves; an immense ruff fringed with lace. The narrow eyes were fixed on him, and as he now waited again, he knew that they were running up and down his figure, his dark splashed hose and his tumbled doublet and ruff.

“You come strangely dressed.”

Anthony drew a quick breath again.

“My heart is sick,” he said.

There was another slight movement.

“Well, sir,” the voice said again, “you have not told us why you are here.”

“For justice from my queen,” he said, and stopped. “And for mercy from a woman,” he added, scarcely knowing what he said.

Again Elizabeth stirred in her chair.

“You taught him that, you wicked girl,” she said.

“No, madam,” came Mary’s voice from behind, subdued and entreating, “it is his heart that speaks.”

“Enough, sir,” said Elizabeth; “now tell us plainly what you want of us.”

Then Anthony thought it time to be bold. He made a great effort, and the sense of constraint relaxed a little.

“I have been, your Grace, to Sir Francis Walsingham, and my lord Bishop of London, and I can get neither justice nor mercy from either; and so I come to your Grace, who are their mistress, to teach them manners.”

“Stay,” said Elizabeth, “that is insolence to my ministers.”

“So my lord said,” answered Anthony frankly, looking into that hard clear face that was beginning to be lined with age. And he saw that Elizabeth smiled, and that the face behind the chair nodded at him encouragingly.

“Well, insolence, go on.”

“It is on behalf of one who has been pronounced a felon and a traitor by your Grace’s laws, that I am pleading; but one who is a very gallant Christian gentleman as well.”

“Your friend lacks not courage,” interrupted Elizabeth to Mary.

“No, your Grace,” said the other, “that has never been considered his failing.”

Anthony waited, and then the voice spoke again harshly.

“Go on with the tale, sir. I cannot be here all day.”

“He is a popish priest, your Majesty; and he was taken at mass in his vestments, and is now in the Tower; and he hath been questioned on the rack. And, madam, it is piteous to think of it. He is but a young man still, but passing strong and tall.”

“What has this to do with me, sir?” interrupted the Queen harshly. “I cannot pardon every proper young priest in the kingdom. What else is there to be said for him?”

“He was taken through the foul treachery of a spy, who imposed upon me, his friend, and caused me all unknowing to say the very words that brought him into the net.”

And then, more and more, Anthony began to lose his self-consciousness, and poured out the story from the beginning; telling how he had been brought up in the same village with James Maxwell; and what a loyal gentleman he was; and then the story of the trick by which he had been deceived. As he spoke his whole appearance seemed to change; instead of the shy and rather clumsy manner with which he had begun, he was now natural and free; he moved his hands in slight gestures; his blue eyes looked the Queen fairly in the face; he moved a little forward on his knees as he pleaded, and he spoke with a passion that astonished both Mary and himself afterwards when he thought of it, in spite of his short and broken sentences. He was conscious all the while of an intense external strain and pressure, as if he were pleading for his life, and the time was short. Elizabeth relaxed her rigid attitude, and leaned her chin on her hand and her elbow on the table and watched him, her thin lips parted, the pearl rope and crown on her head, and the pearl pendants in her ears moving slightly as she nodded at points in his story.

“Ah! your Grace,” he cried, lifting his open hands towards her a little, “you have a woman’s heart; all your people say so. You cannot allow this man to be so trapped to his death! Treachery never helped a cause yet. If your men cannot catch these priests fairly, then a-God’s name, let them not catch them at all! But to use a friend, and make a Judas of him; to make the very lips that have spoken friendly, speak traitorously; to bait the trap like that—it is devilish. Let him go, let him go, madam! One priest more or less cannot overthrow the realm; but one more foul crime done in the name of justice can bring God’s wrath down on the nation. I hold that a trick like that is far worse than all the disobedience in the world; nay—how can we cry out against the Jesuits and the plotters, if we do worse ourselves? Madam, madam, let him go! Oh! I know I cannot speak as well in this good cause, as some can in a bad cause, but let the cause speak for itself. I cannot speak, I know.”

“Nay, nay,” said Elizabeth softly, “you wrong yourself. You have an honest face, sir; and that is the best recommendation to me.

“And so, Minnie,” she went on, turning to Mary, “this was your petition, was it; and this your advocate? Well, you have not chosen badly. Now, you speak yourself.”

Mary stood a moment silent, and then with a swift movement came round the arm of the Queen’s chair, and threw herself on her knees, with her hands upon the Queen’s left hand as it lay upon the carved boss, and her voice was as Anthony had never yet heard it, vibrant and full of tears.

“Oh! madam, madam; this poor lad cannot speak, as he says; and yet his sad honest face, as your Grace said, is more eloquent than all words. And think of the silence of the little cell upstairs in the Tower; where a gallant gentleman lies, all rent and torn with the rack; and,—and how he listens for the footsteps outside of the tormentors who come to drag him down again, all aching and heavy with pain, down to that fierce engine in the dark. And think of his gallant heart, your Grace, how brave it is; and how he will not yield nor let one name escape him. Ah! not because he loves not your Grace nor desires to serve you; but because he serves your Grace best by serving and loving his God first of all.—And think how he cannot help a sob now and again; and whispers the name of his Saviour, as the pulleys begin to wrench and twist.—And,—and,—do not forget his mother, your Grace, down in the country; how she sits and listens and prays for her dear son; and cannot sleep, and dreams of him when at last she sleeps, and wakes screaming and crying at the thought of the boy she bore and nursed in the hands of those harsh devils. And—and, you can stop it all, your Grace, with one little word; and make that mother’s heart bless your name and pray for you night and morning till she dies;—and let that gallant son go free, and save his racked body before it be torn asunder;—and you can make this honest lad’s heart happy again with the thought that he has saved his friend instead of slaying him. Look you, madam, he has come confessing his fault; saying bravely to your Grace that he did try to do his friend a service in spite of the laws, for that he held love to be the highest law. Ah! how many happy souls you can make with a word; because you are a Queen.—What is it to be a Queen!—to be able to do all that!—Oh! madam, be pitiful then, and show mercy as one day you hope to find it.”

Mary spoke with an intense feeling; her voice was one long straining sob of appeal; and as she ended her tears were beginning to rain down on the hand she held between her own; she lifted it to her streaming face and kissed it again and again; and then dropped her forehead upon it, and so rested in dead silence.

Elizabeth swallowed in her throat once or twice; and then spoke, and her voice was a little choked.

“Well, well, you silly girl.—You plead too well.”

Anthony irresistibly threw his hands out as he knelt.

“Oh! God bless your Grace!” he said; and then gave a sob or two himself.

“There, there, you are a pair of children,” she said; for Mary was kissing her hand again and again. “And you are a pretty pair, too,” she added. “Now, now, that is enough, stand up.”

Anthony rose to his feet again and stood there; and Mary went round again behind the chair.

“Now, now, you have put me in a sore strait,” said Elizabeth; “between you I scarcely know how to keep my word. They call me fickle enough already. But Frank Walsingham shall do it for me. He is certainly at the back of it all, and he shall manage it. It shall be done at once. Call a page, Minnie.”

Mary Corbet went to the back of the room into the shadow, opened a door that Anthony had not noticed, and beckoned sharply; in a moment or two a page was bowing before Elizabeth.

“Is Sir Francis Walsingham in the palace?” she asked,—”then bring him here,” she ended, as the boy bowed again.

“And you too,” she went on, “shall hear that I keep my word,”—she pointed towards the door whence the page had come.—”Stand there,” she said, “and leave the door ajar.”

Mary gave Anthony her hand and a radiant smile as they went together.

“Aha!” said Elizabeth, “not in my presence.”

Anthony flushed with fury in spite of his joy.

They went in through the door, and found themselves in a tiny panelled room with a little slit of a window; it was used to place a sentry or a page within it. There were a couple of chairs, and the two sat down to wait.

“Oh, thank God!” whispered Anthony.

Again the harsh voice rang out from the open door.

“Now, now, no love-making within there!”

Mary smiled and laid her finger on her lips. Then there came the ripple of a lute from the outer room, played not unskilfully. Mary smiled again and nodded at Anthony. Then, a metallic voice, but clear enough and tuneful, began to sing a verse of the little love-song of Harrington’s, Whence comes my love?

It suddenly ceased in the middle of the line, and the voice cried to some one to come in.

Anthony could hear the door open and close again, and a movement or two, which doubtless represented Walsingham’s obeisance. Then the Queen’s voice began again, low, thin, and distinct. The two in the inner room listened breathlessly.

“I wish a prisoner in the Tower to be released, Sir Francis; without any talk or to-do. And I desire you to do it for me.”

There was silence, and then Walsingham’s deep tones.

“Your Grace has but to command.”

“His name is James Maxwell, and he is a popish priest.”

A longer silence followed.

“I do not know if your Grace knows all the circumstances.”

“I do, sir, or I should not interfere.”

“The feeling of the people was very strong.”

“Well, and what of that?”

“It will be a risk of your Grace’s favour with them.”

“Have I not said that my name was not to appear in the matter? And do you think I fear my people’s wrath?”

There was silence again.

“Well, Sir Francis, why do you not speak?”

“I have nothing to say, your Grace.”

“Then it will be done?”

“I do not see at present how it can be done, but doubtless there is a way.”

“Then you will find it, sir, immediately,” rang out the Queen’s metallic tones.

(Mary turned and nodded solemnly at Anthony, with pursed lips.)

“He was questioned on the rack two days ago, your Grace.”

“Have I not said I know all the circumstances? Do you wish me to say it again?”

The Queen was plainly getting angry.

“I ask your pardon, madam; but I only meant that he could not travel probably, yet awhile. He was on the rack for four hours, I understand.”

(Anthony felt that strange sickness rise again; but Mary laid her cool hand on his and smiled at him.)

“Well, well,” rasped out Elizabeth, “I do not ask impossibilities.”

“They would cease to be so, madam, if you did.”

(Mary within the little room put her lips to Anthony’s ear:

“Butter!” she whispered.)

“Well, sir,” went on the Queen, “you shall see that he has a physician, and leave to travel as soon as he will.”

“It shall be done, your Grace.”

“Very well, see to it.”

“I beg your Grace’s pardon; but what——”

“Well, what is it now?”

“I would wish to know your Grace’s pleasure as to the future for Mr. Maxwell. Is no pledge of good behaviour to be exacted from him?”

“Of course he says mass again at his peril. Either he must take the oath at once, or he shall be allowed forty-eight hours’ safe-conduct with his papers for the Continent.”

“Your Grace, indeed I must remonstrate——”

Then the Queen’s wrath burst out; they heard a swift movement, and the rap of her high heels as she sprang to her feet.

“By God’s Son,” she screamed, “am I Queen or not? I have had enough of your counsel. You presume, sir—” her ringed hand came heavily down on the table and they heard the lute leap and fall again.—”You presume on your position, sir. I made you, and I can unmake you, and by God I will, if I have another word of your counselling. Be gone, and see that it be done; I will not bid twice.”

There was silence again; and they heard the outer door open and close.

Anthony’s heart was beating wildly. He had sprung to his feet in a trembling excitement as the Queen had sprung to hers. The mere ring of that furious royal voice, even without the sight of her pale wrathful face and blazing eyes that Walsingham looked upon as he backed out from the presence, was enough to make this lad’s whole frame shiver. Mary apparently was accustomed to this; for she looked up at Anthony, laughing silently, and shrugged her shoulders.

Then they heard the Queen’s silk draperies rustle and her pearls chink together as she sank down again and took up her lute and struck the strings. Then the metallic voice began again, with a little tremor in it, like the ground-swell after a storm; and she sang the verse through in which she had been interrupted:

“Why thus, my love, so kind bespeak

Sweet eye, sweet lip, sweet blushing cheek—

Yet not a heart to save my pain;

O Venus, take thy gifts again!

Make not so fair to cause our moan,

Or make a heart that’s like your own.”

The lute rippled away into silence.

Mary rose quietly to her feet and nodded to Anthony.

“Come back, you two!” cried the Queen.

Mary stepped straight through, the lad behind her.

“Well,” said the Queen, turning to them and showing her black teeth in a smile. “Have I kept my word?”

“Ah! your Grace,” said Mary, curtseying to the ground, “you have made some simple loving hearts very happy to-day—I do not mean Sir Francis’.”

The Queen laughed.

“Come here, child,” she said, holding out her glittering hand, “down here,” and Mary sank down on the Queen’s footstool, and leaned against her knee like a child, smiling up into her face; while Elizabeth put her hand under her chin and kissed her twice on the forehead.

“There, there,” she said caressingly, “have I made amends? Am I a hard mistress?”

And she threw her left hand round the girl’s neck and began to play with the diamond pendant in her ear, and to stroke the smooth curve of her cheek with her flashing fingers.

Anthony, a little on one side, stood watching and wondering at this silky tigress who raged so fiercely just now.

Elizabeth looked up in a moment and saw him.

“Why, here is the tall lad here still,” she said, “eyeing us as if we were monsters. Have you never yet seen two maidens loving one another, that you stare so with your great eyes? Aha! Minnie; he would like to be sitting where I am—is it not so, sir?”

“I would sooner stand where I am, madam,” said Anthony, by a sudden inspiration, “and look upon your Grace.”

“Why, he is a courtier already,” said the Queen. “You have been giving him lessons, Minnie, you sly girl.”

“A loyal heart makes the best courtier, madam,” said Mary, taking the Queen’s hand delicately in her own.

“And next to looking upon my Grace, Mr. Norris,” said Elizabeth, “what do you best love?”

“Listening to your Grace,” said Anthony, promptly.

Mary turned and flashed all her teeth upon him in a smile, and her eyes danced in her head.

Elizabeth laughed outright.

“He is an apt pupil,” she said to Mary.

“—You mean the lute, sir?” she added.

“I mean your Grace’s voice, madam. I had forgotten the lute.”

“Ah, a little clumsy!” said the Queen; “not so true a thrust as the others.”

“It was not for lack of good-will,” said poor Anthony blushing a little. He felt in a kind of dream, fencing in language with this strange mighty creature in scarlet and pearls, who sat up in her chair and darted remarks at him, as with a rapier.

“Aha!” said the Queen, “he is blushing! Look, Minnie!” Mary looked at him deliberately. Anthony became scarlet at once; and tried a desperate escape.

“It is your livery, madam,” he said.

Mary clapped her hands, and glanced at the Queen.

“Yes, Minnie; he does his mistress credit.”

“Yes, your Grace; but he can do other things besides talk,” explained Mary.

Anthony felt like a horse being shown off by a skilful dealer, but he was more at his ease too after his blush.

“Extend your mercy, madam,” he said, “and bid Mistress Corbet hold her tongue and spare my shame.”

“Silence, sir!” said the Queen. “Go on, Minnie; what else can he do?”

“Ah! your Grace, he can hawk. Oh! you should see his peregrine;—named after your Majesty. That shows his loyal heart.”

“I am not sure of the compliment,” said the Queen; “hawks are fierce creatures.”

“It was not for her fierceness,” put in Anthony, “that I named her after your Grace.”

“Why, then, Mr. Norris?”

“For that she soars so high above all other creatures,” said the lad, “and—and that she never stoops but to conquer.”

Mary gave a sudden triumphant laugh, and glanced up, and Elizabeth tapped her on the cheek sharply.

“Be still, bad girl,” she said. “You must not prompt during the lesson.”

And so the talk went on. Anthony really acquitted himself with great credit, considering the extreme strangeness of his position; but such an intense weight had been lifted off his mind by the Queen’s pardon of James Maxwell, that his nature was alight with a kind of intoxication.

All his sharpness, such as it was, rose to the surface; and Mary too was amazed at some of his replies. Elizabeth took it as a matter of course; she was accustomed to this kind of word-fencing; she did not do it very well herself: her royalty gave her many advantages which she often availed herself of; and her address was not to be compared for a moment with that of some of her courtiers and ladies. But still she was amused by this slender honest lad who stood there before her in his graceful splashed dress, and blushed and laughed and parried, and delivered his point with force, even if not with any extraordinary skill.

But at last she began to show signs of weariness; and Mary managed to convey to Anthony that it was time to be off. So he began to make his adieux.

“Well,” said Elizabeth, “let us see you at supper to-night; and in the parlours afterwards.—Ah!” she cried, suddenly, “neither of you must say a word as to how your friend was released. It must remain the act of the Council. My name must not appear; Walsingham will see to that, and you must see to it too.”

They both promised sincerely.

“Well, then, lad,” said Elizabeth, and stretched out her hand; and Mary rose and stood by her. Anthony came up and knelt on the cushion and received the slender scented ringed hand on his own, and kissed it ardently in his gratitude. As he released it, it cuffed him gently on the cheek.

“There, there!” said Elizabeth, “Minnie has taught you too much, it seems.”

Anthony backed out of the presence, smiling; and his last glimpse was once more of the great scarlet-clad figure with the slender waist, and the priceless pearls, and the haze of muslin behind that crowned auburn head, and the pale oval face smiling at him with narrow eyes—and all in a glory of sunshine.

He did not see Mary Corbet again until evening as she was with the Queen all the afternoon. Anthony would have wished to return to Lambeth; but it was impossible, after the command to remain to supper; so he wandered down along the river bank, rejoicing in the success of his petition; and wondering whether James had heard of his release yet.

Of course it was just a fly in the ointment that his own agency in the matter could never be known. It would have been at least some sort of compensation for his innocent share in the whole matter of the arrest. However, he was too happy to feel the sting of it. He felt, of course, greatly drawn to the Queen for her ready clemency; and yet there was something repellent about her too in spite of it. He felt in his heart that it was just a caprice, like her blows and caresses; and then the assumption of youth sat very ill upon this lean middle-aged woman. He would have preferred less lute-playing and sprightly innuendo, and more tenderness and gravity.

Mary had arranged that a proper Court-suit should be at his disposal for supper, and a room to himself; so after he had returned at sunset, he changed his clothes. The white silk suit with the high hosen, the embroidered doublet with great puffed and slashed sleeves, the short green-lined cloak, the white cap and feather, and the slender sword with the jewelled hilt, all became him very well; and he found too that Mary had provided him with two great emerald brooches of her own, that he pinned on, one at the fastening of the crisp ruff and the other on his cap.

He went to the private chapel for the evening prayer at half-past six; which was read by one of the chaplains; but there were very few persons present, and none of any distinction. Religion, except as a department of politics, was no integral part of Court life. The Queen only occasionally attended evening-prayer on week days; and just now she was too busy with the affair of the Duke of Alençon to spend unnecessary time in that manner.

When the evening prayer was over he followed the little company into the long gallery that led towards the hall, through which the Queen’s procession would pass to supper; and there he attached himself to a group of gentlemen, some of whom he had met at Lambeth. While they were talking, the clang of trumpets suddenly broke out from the direction of the Queen’s apartments; and all threw themselves on their knees and remained there. The doors were flung open by servants stationed behind them; and the wands advanced leading the procession; then came the trumpeters blowing mightily, with a drum or two beating the step; and then in endless profusion, servants and guards; gentlemen pensioners magnificently habited, for they were continually about the Queen’s person; and at last, after an official or two bearing swords, came the Queen and Alençon together; she in a superb purple toilet with brocaded underskirt and high-heeled twinkling shoes, and breathing out essences as she swept by smiling; and he, a pathetic little brown man, pockmarked, with an ill-shapen nose and a head too large for his undersized body, in a rich velvet suit sparkling all over with diamonds.

As they passed Anthony he heard the Duke making some French compliment in his croaking harsh voice. Behind came the crowd of ladies, nodding, chattering, rustling; and Anthony had a swift glance of pleasure from Mistress Corbet as she went by, talking at the top of her voice.

The company followed on to the hall, behind the distant trumpets, and Anthony found himself still with his friends somewhere at the lower end—away from the Queen’s table, who sat with Alençon at her side on a daïs, with the great folks about her. All through supper the most astonishing noise went on. Everyone was talking loudly; the servants ran to and fro over the paved floor; there was the loud clatter over the plates of four hundred persons; and, to crown all, a band in the musicians’ gallery overhead made brazen music all supper-time. Anthony had enough entertainment himself in looking about the great banqueting-hall, so magnificently adorned with tapestries and armour and antlers from the park; and above all by the blaze of gold and silver plate both on the tables and on the sideboards; and by watching the army of liveried servants running to and fro incessantly; and the glowing colours of the dresses of the guests.

Supper was over at last; and a Latin grace was exquisitely sung in four parts by boys and men stationed in the musicians’ gallery; and then the Queen’s procession went out with the same ceremony as that with which it had entered. Anthony followed behind, as he had been bidden by the Queen to the private parlours afterwards; but he presently found his way barred by a page at the foot of the stairs leading to the Queen’s apartments.

It was in vain that he pleaded his invitation; it was useless, as the young gentleman had not been informed of it. Anthony asked if he might see Mistress Corbet. No, that too was impossible; she was gone upstairs with the Queen’s Grace and might not be disturbed. Anthony, in despair, not however unmixed with relief at escaping a further ordeal, was about to turn away, leaving the officious young gentleman swaggering on the stairs like a peacock, when down came Mistress Corbet herself, sailing down in her splendour, to see what was become of the gentleman of the Archbishop’s house.

“Why, here you are!” she cried from the landing as she came down, “and why have you not obeyed the Queen’s command?”

“This young gentleman,” said Anthony, indicating the astonished page, “would not let me proceed.”

“It is unusual, Mistress Corbet,” said the boy, “for her Grace’s guests to come without my having received instructions, unless they are great folk.”

Mistress Corbet came down the last six steps like a stooping hawk, her wings bulged behind her; and she caught the boy one clean light cuff on the side of the head.

“You imp!” she said, “daring to doubt the word of this gentleman. And the Queen’s Grace’s own special guest!”

The boy tried still to stand on his dignity and bar the way, but it was difficult to be dignified with a ringing head and a scarlet ear.

“Stand aside,” said Mary, stamping her little buckled foot, “this instant; unless you would be dragged by your red ear before the Queen’s Grace. Come, Master Anthony.”

So the two went upstairs together, and the lad called up after them bitterly:

“I beg your pardon, Mistress; I did not recognise he was your gallant.”

“You shall pay for that,” hissed Mary over the banisters.

They went along a passage or two, and the sound of a voice singing to a virginal began to ring nearer as they went, followed by a burst of applause.

“Lady Leicester,” whispered Mary; and then she opened the door and they went in.

There were three rooms opening on one another with wide entrances, so that really one long room was the result. They were all three fairly full; that into which they entered, the first in the row, was occupied by some gentlemen-pensioners and ladies talking and laughing; some playing shove-groat, and some of them still applauding the song that had just ended. The middle room was much the same; and the third, which was a step higher than the others, was that in which was the Queen, with Lady Leicester and a few more. Lady Leicester had just finished a song, and was laying her virginal down. There was a great fire burning in the middle room, with seats about it, and here Mary Corbet brought Anthony. Those near him eyed him a little; but his companion was sufficient warrant of his respectability; and they soon got into talk, which was suddenly interrupted by the Queen’s voice from the next room.

“Minnie, Minnie, if you can spare a moment from your lad, come and help us at a dance.”

The Queen was plainly in high good-humour; and Mary got up and went into the Queen’s room. Those round the fire stood up and pushed the seats back, and the games ceased in the third room; as her Grace needed spectators and applause.

Then there arose the rippling of lutes from the ladies in the next room, in slow swaying measure, with the gentle tap of a drum now and again; and the pavane began—a stately dignified dance; and among all the ladies moved the great Queen herself, swaying and bending with much grace and dignity. It was the strangest thing for Anthony to find himself here, a raven among all these peacocks, and birds of paradise; and he wondered at himself and at the strange humour of Providence, as he watched the shimmer of the dresses and the sparkle of the shoes and jewels, and the soft clouds of muslin and lace that shivered and rustled as the ladies stepped; the firelight shone through the wide doorway on this glowing movement, and groups of candles in sconces within the room increased and steadied the soft intensity of the light. The soft tingling instruments, with the slow tap-tap marking the measure like a step, seemed a translation into chord and melody of this stately tender exercise. And so this glorious flower-bed, loaded too with a wealth of essences in the dresses and the sweet-washed gloves, swayed under the wind of the music, bending and rising together in slow waves and ripples. Then it ceased; and the silence was broken by a quick storm of applause; while the dancers waited for the lutes. Then all the instruments broke out together in quick triple time; the stringed instruments supplying a hasty throbbing accompaniment, while the shrill flutes began to whistle and the drums to gallop;—there was yet a pause in the dance, till the Queen made the first movement;—and then the whole whirled off on the wings of a coranto.

It was bewildering to Anthony, who had never even dreamed of such a dance before. He watched first the lower line of the shoes; and the whole floor, in reality above, and in the mirror of the polished boards below, seemed scintillating in lines of diamond light; the heavy underskirts of brocade, puffed satin, and cloth of gold, with glimpses of foamy lace beneath, whirled and tossed above these flashing vibrations. Then he looked at the higher strata, and there was a tossing sea of faces and white throats, borne up as it seemed—now revealed, now hidden—on clouds of undulating muslin and lace, with sparkles of precious stones set in ruff and wings and on high piled hair.

He watched, fascinated, the faces as they appeared and vanished; there was every imaginable expression; the serious looks of one who took dancing as a solemn task, and marked her position and considered her steps; the wild gaiety of another, all white teeth and dimples and eyes, intoxicated by movement and music and colour, as men are by wine, and guided and sustained by the furious genius of the dance, rather than by intention of any kind. There was the courtly self-restraint of one tall beauty, who danced as a pleasant duty and loved it, but never lost control of her own bending, slender grace; ah! and there was the oval face crowned with auburn hair and pearls, the lower lip drawn up under the black teeth with an effort, till it appeared to snarl, and the ropes of pearls leaping wildly on her lean purple stomacher. And over all the grave oak walls and the bright sconces and the taper flames blown about by the eddying gusts from the whirlpool beneath.

As Anthony went down the square winding staircase, an hour later when the evening was over, and the keen winter air poured up to meet him, his brain was throbbing with the madness of dance and music and whirling colour. Here, it seemed to him, lay the secret of life. For a few minutes his old day-dreams came back but in more intoxicating dress. The figure of Mary Corbet in her rose-coloured silk and her clouds of black hair, and her jewels and her laughing eyes and scarlet mouth, and her violet fragrance and her fire—this dominated the boy. As he walked towards the stables across the starlit court, she seemed to move before him, to hold out her hands to him, to call him her own dear lad; to invite him out of the drab-coloured life that lay on all sides, behind and before, up into a mystic region of jewelled romance, where she and he would live and be one in the endless music of rippling strings and shrill flutes and the maddening tap of a little hidden drum.

But the familiar touch of his own sober suit and the creaking saddle as he rode home to Lambeth, and the icy wind that sang in the river sedges, and the wholesome smell of the horse and the touch of the coarse hair at the shoulder, talked and breathed the old Puritan common sense back to him again. That warm-painted, melodious world he had left was gaudy nonsense; and dancing was not the same as living; and Mary Corbet was not just a rainbow on the foam that would die when the sun went in; but both she and he together were human souls, redeemed by the death of the Saviour, with His work to do and no time or energy for folly; and James Maxwell in the Tower—(thank God, however, not for long!)—James Maxwell with his wrenched joints and forehead and lips wet with agony, was in the right; and that lean bitter furious woman in the purple and pearls, who supped to the blare of trumpets, and danced to the ripple of lutes, wholly and utterly and eternally in the wrong.

CHAPTER XI

A STATION OF THE CROSS

Philosophers tell us that the value of existence lies not in the objects perceived, but in the powers of perception. The tragedy of a child over a broken doll is not less poignant than the anguish of a worshipper over a broken idol, or of a king over a ruined realm. Thus the conflict of Isabel during those past autumn and winter months was no less august than the pain of the priest on the rack, or the struggle of his innocent betrayer to rescue him, or the misery of Lady Maxwell over the sorrows that came to her in such different ways through her two sons.

Isabel’s soul was tender above most souls; and the powers of feeling pain and of sustaining it were also respectively both acute and strong. The sense of pressure, or rather of disruption, became intolerable. She was indeed a soul on the rack; if she had been less conscientious she would have silenced the voice of Divine Love that seemed to call to her from the Catholic Church; if she had been less natural and feminine she would have trampled out of her soul the appeal of the human love of Hubert. As it was, she was wrenched both ways. Now the cords at one end or the other would relax a little, and the corresponding relief was almost a shock; but when she tried to stir and taste the freedom of decision that now seemed in her reach, they would tighten again with a snap; and she would find herself back on the torture. To herself she seemed powerless; it appeared to her, when she reflected on it consciously, that it was merely a question as to which part of her soul would tear first, as to which ultimately retained her. She began to be terrified at solitude; the thought of the coming night, with its long hours of questioning and torment until the dawn, haunted her during the day. She would read in her room, or remain at her prayers, in the hopes of distracting herself from the struggle, until sleep seemed the supreme necessity: then, when she lay down, sleep would flap its wings in mockery and flit away, leaving her wide-awake staring at the darkness of the room or of her own eyelids, until the windows began to glimmer and the cocks to crow from farm buildings.

In spite of her first resolve to fight the battle alone, she soon found herself obliged to tell Mistress Margaret all that was possible; but she felt that to express her sheer need of Hubert, as she thought it, was beyond her altogether. How could a nun understand?

“My darling,” said the old lady, “it would not be Calvary without the darkness; and you cannot have Christ without Calvary. Remember that the Light of the World makes darkness His secret place; and so you see that if you were able to feel that any human soul really understood, it would mean that the darkness was over. I have suffered that Night twice myself; the third time I think, will be in the valley of death.”

Isabel only half understood her; but it was something to know that others had tasted the cup too; and that what was so bitter was not necessarily poisonous.

At another time as the two were walking together under the pines one evening, and the girl had again tried to show to the nun the burning desolation of her soul, Mistress Margaret had suddenly turned.

“Listen, dear child,” she said, “I will tell you a secret. Over there,” and she pointed out to where the sunset glowed behind the tree trunks and the slope beyond, “over there, in West Grinsted, rests our dear Lord in the blessed sacrament. His Body lies lonely, neglected and forgotten by all but half a dozen souls; while twenty years ago all England reverenced It. Behold and see if there be any sorrow—” and then the nun stopped, as she saw Isabel’s amazed eyes staring at her.

But it haunted the girl and comforted her now and then. Yet in the fierceness of her pain she asked herself again and again, was it true—was it true? Was she sacrificing her life for a dream, a fairy-story? or was it true that there the body, that had hung on the cross fifteen hundred years ago, now rested alone, hidden in a silver pyx, within locked doors for fear of the Jews.—Oh! dear Lord, was it true?

Hubert had kept his word, and left the place almost immediately after his last interview; and was to return at Easter for his final answer. Christmas had come and gone; and it seemed to her as if even the tenderest mysteries of the Christian Religion had no touch with her now. She walked once more in the realm of grace, as in the realm of nature, an exile from its spirit. All her sensitive powers seemed so absorbed in interior pain that there was nothing in her to respond to or appreciate the most keen external impressions. As she awoke and looked up on Christmas morning early, and saw the frosted panes and the snow lying like wool on the cross-bars, and heard the Christmas bells peal out in the listening air; as she came downstairs and the old pleasant acrid smell of the evergreens met her, and she saw the red berries over each picture, and the red heart of the wood-fire; nay, as she knelt at the chancel rails, and tried in her heart to adore the rosy Child in the manger, and received the sacred symbols of His Flesh and Blood, and entreated Him to remember His loving-kindness that brought Him down from heaven—yet the whole was far less real, less intimate to her, than the sound of Hubert’s voice as he had said good-bye two months ago; less real than one of those darting pangs of thought that fell on her heart all day like a shower of arrows.

And then, when the sensitive strings of her soul were stretched to anguish, a hand dashed across them, striking a wailing discord, and they did not break. The news of Anthony’s treachery, and still more his silence, performed the incredible, and doubled her pain without breaking her heart.

On the Tuesday morning early Lady Maxwell had sent her note by a courier; bidding him return at once with the answer. The evening had come, and he had not appeared. The night passed and the morning came; and it was not till noon that the man at last arrived, saying he had seen Mr. Norris on the previous evening, and that he had read the note through there and then, and had said there was no answer. Surely there could be but one explanation of that—that no answer was possible.

It could not be said that Isabel actively considered the question and chose to doubt Anthony rather than to trust him. She was so nearly passive now, with the struggle she had gone through, that this blow came on her with the overwhelming effect of an hypnotic suggestion. Her will did not really accept it, any more than her intellect really weighed it; but she succumbed to it; and did not even write again, nor question the man further. Had she done this she might perhaps have found out the truth, that the man, a stupid rustic with enough shrewdness to lie, but not enough to lie cleverly, had had his foolish head turned by the buzz of London town and the splendour of Lambeth stables and the friendliness of the grooms there, and had got heavily drunk on leaving Anthony; that the answer which he had put into his hat had very naturally fallen out and been lost; and that when at last he returned to the country already eight hours after his time, and found the note was missing, he had stalwartly lied, hoping that the note was unimportant and that things would adjust themselves or be forgotten before a day of reckoning should arrive.

And so Isabel’s power of resistance collapsed under this last blow; and her soul lay still at last, almost too much tormented to feel. Her last hope was gone; Anthony had betrayed his friend.

The week crept by, and Saturday came. She went out soon after dinner to see a sick body or two in an outlying hamlet; for she had never forgotten Mrs. Dent’s charge, and, with the present minister’s approval, still visited the sick one or two days a week at least. Then towards sunset she came homewards over some high ground on the outskirts of Ashdown Forest. The snow that had fallen before Christmas, had melted a week or two ago; and the frost had broken up; it was a heavy leaden evening, with an angry glow shining, as through chinks of a wall, from the west towards which she was going. The village lay before her in the gloom; and lights were beginning to glimmer here and there. She contrasted in a lifeless way that pleasant group of warm houses with their suggestions of love and homeliness with her own desolate self. She passed up through the village towards the Hall, whither she was going to report on the invalids to Lady Maxwell; and in the appearance of the houses on either side she thought there was an unaccustomed air. Several doors stood wide open with the brightness shining out into the twilight, as if the inhabitants had suddenly deserted their homes. Others were still dark and cold, although the evening was drawing on. There was not a moving creature to be seen. She passed up, wondering a little, through the gatehouse, and turned into the gravel sweep; and there stopped short at the sight of a great crowd of men and women and children, assembled in dead silence. Some one was standing at the entrance-steps, with his head bent as if he were talking to those nearest him in a low voice.

As she came up there ran a whisper of her name; the people drew back to let her through, and she passed, sick with suspense, to the man on the steps, whom she now recognised as Mr. James’ body-servant. His face looked odd and drawn, she thought.

“What is it?” she asked in a sharp whisper.

“Mr. James is here, madam; he is with Lady Maxwell in the cloister-wing. Will you please to go up?”

“Mr. James! It is no news about Mr. Anthony—or—or Mr. Hubert!”

“No, madam.” The man hesitated. “Mr. James has been racked, madam.”

The man’s voice broke in a great sob as he ended.

“Ah!”

She reeled against the post; a man behind caught her and steadied her; and there was a quick breath of pity from the crowd.

“Ah, poor thing!” said a woman’s voice behind her.

“I beg your pardon, madam,” said the servant. “I should not have——”

“And—and he is upstairs?”

“He and my lady are together, madam.”

She looked at him a moment, dazed with the horror of it; and then going past him, pushed open the door and went through into the inner hall. Here again she stopped suddenly: it was half full of people, silent and expectant—the men, the grooms, the maid-servants, and even two or three farm-men. She heard the rustle of her name from the white faces that looked at her from the gloom; but none moved; and she crossed the hall alone, and turned down the lower corridor that led to the cloister-wing.

At the foot of the staircase she stopped again; her heart drummed in her ears, as she listened intently with parted lips. There was a profound silence; the lamp on the stairs had not been lighted, and the terrace window only let in a pale glimmer.

It was horrible to her! this secret presence of incarnate pain that brooded somewhere in the house, this silence of living anguish, worse than death a thousand times!

Where was he? What would it look like? Even a scream somewhere would have relieved her, and snapped the tension of the listening stillness that lay on her like a shocking nightmare. This lobby with its well-known doors—the banister on which her fingers rested—the well of the staircase up which she stared with dilated eyes—all was familiar; and yet, somewhere in the shadows overhead lurked this formidable Presence of pain, mute, anguished, terrifying....

She longed to run back, to shriek for help; but she dared not: and stood panting. She went up a couple of steps—stopped, listened to the sick thumping of her heart—took another step and stopped again; and so, listening, peering, hesitating, came to the head of the stairs.

Ah! there was the door, with a line of light beneath it. It was there that the horror dwelt. She stared at the thin bright line; waited and listened again for even a moan or a sigh from within, but none came.

Then with a great effort she stepped forward and tapped.

There was no answer; but as she listened she heard from within the gentle tinkle of some liquid running into a bowl, rhythmically, and with pauses. Then again she tapped, nervously and rapidly, and there was a murmur from the room; she opened the door softly, pushed it, and took a step into the room, half closing it behind her.

There were two candles burning on a table in the middle of the room, and on the near side of it was a group of three persons....

Isabel had seen in one of Mistress Margaret’s prayer-books an engraving of an old Flemish Pietà—a group of the Blessed Mother holding in her arms the body of her Crucified Son, with the Magdalen on one side, supporting one of the dead Saviour’s hands. Isabel now caught her breath in a sudden gasp; for here was the scene reproduced before her.

Lady Maxwell was on a low seat bending forwards; the white cap and ruff seemed like a veil thrown all about her head and beneath her chin; she was holding in her arms the body of her son, who seemed to have fainted as he sat beside her; his head had fallen back against her breast, and his pointed beard and dark hair and her black dress beyond emphasised the deathly whiteness of his face on which the candlelight fell; his mouth was open, like a dead man’s. Mistress Margaret was kneeling by his left hand, holding it over a basin and delicately sponging it; and the whole air was fragrant and aromatic with some ointment in the water; a long bandage or two lay on the ground beside the basin. The evening light over the opposite roofs through the window beyond mingled with the light of the tapers, throwing a strange radiance over the group. The table on which the tapers stood looked to Isabel like a stripped altar.

She stood by the door, her lips parted, motionless; looking with great eyes from face to face. It was as if the door had given access to another world where the passion of Christ was being re-enacted.

Then she sank on her knees, still watching. There was no sound but the faint ripple of the water into the basin and the quiet breathing of the three. Lady Maxwell now and then lifted a handkerchief in silence and passed it across her son’s face. Isabel, still staring with great wide eyes, began to sigh gently to herself.

“Anthony, Anthony, Anthony!” she whispered.

“Oh, no, no, no!” she whispered again under her breath. “No, Anthony! you could not, you could not!”

Then from the man there came one or two long sighs, ending in a moan that quavered into silence; he stirred slightly in his mother’s arms; and then in a piteous high voice came the words “Jesu ... Jesu ... esto mihi ... Jesus.”

Consciousness was coming back. He fancied himself still on the rack.

Lady Maxwell said nothing, but gathered him a little closer, and bent her face lower over him.

Then again came a long sobbing indrawn breath; James struggled for a moment; then opened his eyes and saw his mother’s face.

Mistress Margaret had finished with the water; and was now swiftly manipulating a long strip of white linen. Isabel still sunk on her knees watched the bandage winding in and out round his wrist, and between his thumb and forefinger.

Then he turned his head sharply towards her with a gasp as if in pain; and his eyes fell on Isabel.

“Mistress Isabel,” he said; and his voice was broken and untuneful.

Mistress Margaret turned; and smiled at her; and at the sight the intolerable compression on the girl’s heart relaxed.

“Come, child,” she said, “come and help me with his hand. No, no, lie still,” she added; for James was making a movement as if to rise.

James smiled at her as she came forward; and she saw that his face had a strange look as if after a long illness.

“You see, Mistress Isabel,” he said, in the same cracked voice, and with an infinitely pathetic courtesy, “I may not rise.”

Isabel’s eyes filled with sudden tears, his attempt at his old manner was more touching than all else; and she came and knelt beside the old nun.

“Hold the fingers,” she said; and the familiar old voice brought the girl a stage nearer her normal consciousness again.

Isabel took the priest’s fingers and saw that they were limp and swollen. The sleeve fell back a little as Mistress Margaret manipulated the bandage; and the girl saw that the forearm looked shapeless and discoloured.

She glanced up in swift terror at his face, but he was looking at his mother, whose eyes were bent on his; Isabel looked quickly down again.

“There,” said Mistress Margaret, tying the last knot, “it is done.”

Mr. James looked his thanks over his shoulder at her, as she nodded and smiled before turning to leave the room.

Isabel sat slowly down and watched them.

“This is but a flying visit, Mistress Isabel,” said James. “I must leave to-morrow again.”

He had sat up now, and settled himself in his seat, though his mother’s arm was still round him. The voice and the pitiful attempt were terrible to Isabel. Slowly the consciousness was filtering into her mind of what all this implied; what it must have been that had turned this tall self-contained man into this weak creature who lay in his mother’s arms, and fainted at a touch and sobbed. She could say nothing; but could only look, and breathe, and look.

Then it suddenly came to her mind that Lady Maxwell had not spoken a word. She looked at her; that old wrinkled face with its white crown of hair and lace had a new and tremendous dignity. There was no anxiety in it; scarcely even grief; but only a still and awful anguish, towering above ordinary griefs like a mountain above the world; and there was the supreme peace too that can only accompany a supreme emotion—she seemed conscious of nothing but her son.

Isabel could not answer James; and he seemed not to expect it; he had turned back to his mother again, and they were looking at one another. Then in a moment Mistress Margaret came back with a glass that she put to James’ lips; and he drank it without a word. She stood looking at the group an instant or two, and then turned to Isabel.

“Come downstairs with me, my darling; there is nothing more that we can do.”

They went out of the room together; the mother and son had not stirred again; and Mistress Margaret slipped her arm quickly round the girl’s waist, as they went downstairs.

In the cloister beneath was a pleasant little oak parlour looking out on to the garden and the long south side of the house. Mistress Margaret took the little hand-lamp that burned in the cloister itself as they passed along silently together, and guided the girl through into the parlour on the left-hand side. There was a tall chair standing before the hearth, and as Mistress Margaret sat down, drawing the girl with her, Isabel sank down on the footstool at her feet, and hid her face on the old nun’s knees.

There was silence for a minute or two. Mistress Margaret set down the lamp on the table beside her, and passed her hands caressingly over the girl’s hands and hair; but said nothing, until Isabel’s whole body heaved up convulsively once or twice, before she burst into a torrent of weeping.

“My darling,” said the old lady in a quiet steady voice, “we should thank God instead of grieving. To think that this house should have given two confessors to the Church, father and son! Yes, yes, dear child, I know what you are thinking of, the two dear lads we both love; well, well, we do not know, we must trust them both to God. It may not be true of Anthony; and even if it be true—well, he must have thought he was serving his Queen. And for Hubert——”

Isabel lifted her face and looked with a dreadful questioning stare.

“Dear child,” said the nun, “do not look like that. Nothing is so bad as not trusting God.”

“Anthony, Anthony!”... whispered the girl.

“James told us the same story as the gentleman on Sunday,” went on the nun. “But he said no hard word, and he does not condemn. I know his heart. He does not know why he is released, nor by whose order: but an order came to let him go, and his papers with it: and he must be out of England by Monday morning: so he leaves here to-morrow in the litter in which he came. He is to say mass to-morrow, if he is able.”

“Mass? Here?” said the girl, in the same sharp whisper; and her sobbing ceased abruptly.

“Yes, dear; if he is able to stand and use his hands enough. They have settled it upstairs.”

Isabel continued to look up in her face wildly.

“Ah!” said the old nun again. “You must not look like that. Remember that he thinks those wounds the most precious things in the world—yes—and his mother too!”

“I must be at mass,” said Isabel; “God means it.”

“Now, now,” said Mistress Margaret soothingly, “you do not know what you are saying.”

“I mean it,” said Isabel, with sharp emphasis; “God means it.”

Mistress Margaret took the girl’s face between her hands, and looked steadily down into her wet eyes. Isabel returned the look as steadily.

“Yes, yes,” she said, “as God sees us.”

Then she broke into talk, at first broken and incoherent in language, but definite and orderly in ideas, and in her interpretations of these last months.

Kneeling beside her with her hands clasped on the nun’s knee, Isabel told her all her struggles; disentangling at last in a way that she had never been able to do before, all the complicated strands of self-will and guidance and blindness that had so knotted and twisted themselves into her life. The nun was amazed at the spiritual instinct of this Puritan child, who ranged her motives so unerringly; dismissing this as of self, marking this as of God’s inspiration, accepting this and rejecting that element of the circumstances of her life; steering confidently between the shoals of scrupulous judgment and conscience on the one side, and the hidden rocks of presumption and despair on the other—these very dangers that had baffled and perplexed her so long—and tracing out through them all the clear deep safe channel of God’s intention, who had allowed her to emerge at last from the tortuous and baffling intricacies of character and circumstance into the wide open sea of His own sovereign Will.

It seemed to the nun, as Isabel talked, as if it needed just a final touch of supreme tragedy to loosen and resolve all the complications; and that this had been supplied by the vision upstairs. There she had seen a triumphant trophy of another’s sorrow and conquest. There was hardly an element in her own troubles that was not present in that human Pietà upstairs—treachery—loneliness—sympathy—bereavement—and above all the supreme sacrificial act of human love subordinated to divine—human love, purified and transfigured and rendered invincible and immortal by the very immolation of it at the feet of God—all this that the son and mother in their welcome of pain had accomplished in the crucifixion of one and the heart-piercing of the other—this was light opened to the perplexed, tormented soul of the girl—a radiance poured out of the darkness of their sorrow and made her way plain before her face.

“My Isabel,” said the old nun, when the girl had finished and was hiding her face again, “this is of God. Glory to His Name! I must ask James’ leave; and then you must sleep here to-night, for the mass to-morrow.”

The chapel at Maxwell Hall was in the cloister wing; but a stranger visiting the house would never have suspected it. Opening out of Lady Maxwell’s new sitting-room was a little lobby or landing, about four yards square, lighted from above; at the further end of it was the door into her bedroom. This lobby was scarcely more than a broad passage; and would attract no attention from any passing through it. The only piece of furniture in it was a great tall old chest as high as a table, that stood against the inner wall beyond which was the long gallery that looked down upon the cloister garden. The lobby appeared to be practically as broad as the two rooms on either side of it; but this was effected by the outer wall being made to bulge a little; and the inner wall being thinner than inside the two living-rooms. The deception was further increased by the two living-rooms being first wainscoted and then hung with thick tapestry; while the lobby was bare. A curious person who should look in the chest would find there only an old dress and a few pieces of stuff. This lobby, however, was the chapel; and through the chest was the entrance to one of the priest’s hiding holes, where also the altar-stone and the ornaments and the vestments were kept. The bottom of the chest was in reality hinged in such a way that it would fall, on the proper pressure being applied in two places at once, sufficiently to allow the side of the chest against the wall to be pushed aside, which in turn gave entrance to a little space some two yards long by a yard wide; and here were kept all the necessaries for divine worship; with room besides for a couple of men at least to be hidden away. There was also a way from this hole on to the roof, but it was a difficult and dangerous way; and was only to be used in case of extreme necessity.

It was in this lobby that Isabel found herself the next morning kneeling and waiting for mass. She had been awakened by Mistress Margaret shortly before four o’clock and told in a whisper to dress herself in the dark; for it was impossible under the circumstances to tell whether the house was not watched; and a light seen from outside might conceivably cause trouble and disturbance. So she had dressed herself and come down from her room along the passages, so familiar during the day, so sombre and suggestive now in the black morning with but one shaded light placed at the angles. Other figures were stealing along too; but she could not tell who they were in the gloom. Then she had come through the little sitting-room where the scene of last night had taken place and into the lobby beyond.

But the whole place was transformed.

Over the old chest now hung a picture, that usually was in Lady Maxwell’s room, of the Blessed Mother and her holy Child, in a great carved frame of some black wood. The chest had become an altar: Isabel could see the slight elevation in the middle of the long white linen cloth where the altar-stone lay, and upon that again, at the left corner, a pile of linen and silk. Upon the altar at the back stood two slender silver candlesticks with burning tapers in them; and a silver crucifix between them. The carved wooden panels, representing the sacrifice of Isaac on the one half and the offering of Melchisedech on the other, served instead of an embroidered altar-frontal. Against the side wall stood a little white-covered folding table with the cruets and other necessaries upon it.

There were two or three benches across the rest of the lobby; and at these were kneeling a dozen or more persons, motionless, their faces downcast. There was a little wind such as blows before the dawn moaning gently outside; and within was a slight draught that made the taper flames lean over now and then.

Isabel took her place beside Mistress Margaret at the front bench; and as she knelt forward she noticed a space left beyond her for Lady Maxwell. A moment later there came slow and painful steps through the sitting-room, and Lady Maxwell came in very slowly with her son leaning on her arm and on a stick. There was a silence so profound that it seemed to Isabel as if all had stopped breathing. She could only hear the slow plunging pulse of her own heart.

James took his mother across the altar to her place, and left her there, bowing to her; and then went up to the altar to vest. As he reached it and paused, a servant slipped out and received the stick from him. The priest made the sign of the cross, and took up the amice from the vestments that lay folded on the altar. He was already in his cassock.

Isabel watched each movement with a deep agonising interest; he was so frail and broken, so bent in his figure, so slow and feeble in his movements. He made an attempt to raise the amice but could not, and turned slightly; and the man from behind stepped up again and lifted it for him. Then he helped him with each of the vestments, lifted the alb over his head and tenderly drew the bandaged hands through the sleeves; knit the girdle round him; gave him the stole to kiss and then placed it over his neck and crossed the ends beneath the girdle and adjusted the amice; then he placed the maniple on his left arm, but so tenderly! and lastly, lifted the great red chasuble and dropped it over his head and straightened it—and there stood the priest as he had stood last Sunday, in crimson vestments again; but bowed and thin-faced now.

Then he began the preparation with the servant who knelt beside him in his ordinary livery, as server; and Isabel heard the murmur of the Latin words for the first time. Then he stepped up to the altar, bent slowly and kissed it and the mass began.

Isabel had a missal, lent to her by Mistress Margaret; but she hardly looked at it; so intent was she on that crimson figure and his strange movements and his low broken voice. It was unlike anything that she had ever imagined worship to be. Public worship to her had meant hitherto one of two things—either sitting under a minister and having the word applied to her soul in the sacrament of the pulpit; or else the saying of prayers by the minister aloud and distinctly and with expression, so that the intellect could follow the words, and assent with a hearty Amen. The minister was a minister to man of the Word of God, an interpreter of His gospel to man.

But here was a worship unlike all this in almost every detail. The priest was addressing God, not man; therefore he did so in a low voice, and in a tongue as Campion had said on the scaffold “that they both understood.” It was comparatively unimportant whether man followed it word for word, for (and here the second radical difference lay) the point of the worship for the people lay, not in an intellectual apprehension of the words, but in a voluntary assent to and participation in the supreme act to which the words were indeed necessary but subordinate. It was the thing that was done; not the words that were said, that was mighty with God. Here, as these Catholics round Isabel at any rate understood it, and as she too began to perceive it too, though dimly and obscurely, was the sublime mystery of the Cross presented to God. As He looked down well pleased into the silence and darkness of Calvary, and saw there the act accomplished by which the world was redeemed, so here (this handful of disciples believed), He looked down into the silence and twilight of this little lobby, and saw that same mystery accomplished at the hands of one who in virtue of his participation in the priesthood of the Son of God was empowered to pronounce these heart-shaking words by which the Body that hung on Calvary, and the Blood that dripped from it there, were again spread before His eyes, under the forms of bread and wine.

Much of this faith of course was still dark to Isabel; but yet she understood enough; and when the murmur of the priest died to a throbbing silence, and the worshippers sank in yet more profound adoration, and then with terrible effort and a quick gasp or two of pain, those wrenched bandaged hands rose trembling in the air with Something that glimmered white between them; the Puritan girl too drooped her head, and lifted up her heart, and entreated the Most High and most Merciful to look down on the Mystery of Redemption accomplished on earth; and for the sake of the Well-Beloved to send down His Grace on the Catholic Church; to strengthen and save the living; to give rest and peace to the dead; and especially to remember her dear brother Anthony, and Hubert whom she loved; and Mistress Margaret and Lady Maxwell, and this faithful household: and the poor battered man before her, who, not only as a priest was made like to the Eternal Priest, but as a victim too had hung upon a prostrate cross, fastened by hands and feet; thus bearing on his body for all to see the marks of the Lord Jesus.

Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret both rose and stepped forward after the Priest’s Communion, and received from those wounded hands the Broken Body of the Lord.

And then the mass was presently over; and the server stepped forward again to assist the priest to unvest, himself lifting each vestment off, for Father Maxwell was terribly exhausted by now, and laying it on the altar. Then he helped him to a little footstool in front of him, for him to kneel and make his thanksgiving. Isabel looked with an odd wonder at the server; he was the man that she knew so well, who opened the door for her, and waited at table; but now a strange dignity rested on him as he moved confidently and reverently about the awful altar, and touched the vestments that even to her Puritan eyes shone with new sanctity. It startled her to think of the hidden Catholic life of this house—of these servants who loved and were familiar with mysteries that she had been taught to dread and distrust, but before which she too now was to bow her being in faith and adoration.

After a minute or two, Mistress Margaret touched Isabel on the arm and beckoned to her to come up to the altar, which she began immediately to strip of its ornaments and cloth, having first lit another candle on one of the benches. Isabel helped her in this with a trembling dread, as all the others except Lady Maxwell and her son were now gone out silently; and presently the picture was down, and leaning against the wall; the ornaments and sacred vessels packed away in their box, with the vestments and linen in another. Then together they lifted off the heavy altar stone. Mistress Margaret next laid back the lid of the chest; and put her hands within, and presently Isabel saw the back of the chest fall back, apparently into the wall. Mistress Margaret then beckoned to Isabel to climb into the chest and go through; she did so without much difficulty, and found herself in the little room behind. There was a stool or two and some shelves against the wall, with a plate or two upon them and one or two tools. She received the boxes handed through, and followed Mistress Margaret’s instructions as to where to place them; and when all was done, she slipped back again through the chest into the lobby.

The priest and his mother were still in their places, motionless. Mistress Margaret closed the chest inside and out, beckoned Isabel into the sitting-room and closed the door behind them. Then she threw her arms round the girl and kissed her again and again.

“My own darling,” said the nun, with tears in her eyes. “God bless you—your first mass. Oh! I have prayed for this. And you know all our secrets now. Now go to your room, and to bed again. It is only a little after five. You shall see him—James—before he goes. God bless you, my dear!”

She watched Isabel down the passage; and then turned back again to where the other two were still kneeling, to make her own thanksgiving.

Isabel went to her room as one in a dream. She was soon in bed again, but could not sleep; the vision of that strange worship she had assisted at; the pictorial details of it, the glow of the two candles on the shoulders of the crimson chasuble as the priest bent to kiss the altar or to adore; the bowed head of the server at his side; the picture overhead with the Mother and her downcast eyes, and the radiant Child stepping from her knees to bless the world—all this burned on the darkness. With the least effort of imagination too she could recall the steady murmur of the unfamiliar words; hear the rustle of the silken vestment; the stirrings and breathings of the worshippers in the little room.

Then in endless course the intellectual side of it all began to present itself. She had assisted at what the Government called a crime; it was for that—that collection of strange but surely at least innocent things—actions, words, material objects—that men and women of the same flesh and blood as herself were ready to die; and for which others equally of one nature with herself were ready to put them to death. It was the mass—the mass—she had seen—she repeated the word to herself, so sinister, so suggestive, so mighty. Then she began to think again—if indeed it is possible to say that she had ever ceased to think of him—of Anthony, who would be so much horrified if he knew; of Hubert, who had renounced this wonderful worship, and all, she feared, for love of her—and above all of her father, who had regarded it with such repugnance:—yes, thought Isabel, but he knows all now. Then she thought of Mistress Margaret again. After all, the nun had a spiritual life which in intensity and purity surpassed any she had ever experienced or even imagined; and yet the heart of it all was the mass. She thought of the old wrinkled quiet face when she came back to breakfast at the Dower House: she had soon learnt to read from that face whether mass had been said that morning or not at the Hall. And Mistress Margaret was only one of thousands to whom this little set of actions half seen and words half heard, wrought and said by a man in a curious dress, were more precious than all meditation and prayer put together. Could the vast superstructure of prayer and effort and aspiration rest upon a piece of empty folly such as children or savages might invent?

Then very naturally, as she began now to get quieter and less excited, she passed on to the spiritual side of it.

Had that indeed happened that Mistress Margaret believed—that the very Body and Blood of her own dear Saviour, Jesus Christ, had in virtue of His own clear promise—His own clear promise!—become present there under the hands of His priest? Was it, indeed,—this half-hour action,—the most august mystery of time, the Lamb eternally slain, presenting Himself and His Death before the Throne in a tremendous and bloodless Sacrifice—so august that the very angels can only worship it afar off and cannot perform it; or was it all a merely childish piece of blasphemous mummery, as she had been brought up to believe? And then this Puritan girl, who was beginning to taste the joys of release from her misery now that she had taken this step, and united a whole-hearted offering of herself to the perfect Offering of her Lord—now her soul made its first trembling movement towards a real external authority. “I believe,” she rehearsed to herself, “not because my spiritual experience tells me that the Mass is true, for it does not; not because the Bible says so, because it is possible to interpret that in more than one way; but because that Society which I now propose to treat as Divine—the Representative of the Incarnate Word—nay, His very mystical Body—tells me so: and I rely upon that, and rest in her arms, which are the Arms of the Everlasting, and hang upon her lips, through which the Infallible Word speaks.”

And so Isabel, in a timid peace at last, from her first act of Catholic faith, fell asleep.

She awoke to find the winter sun streaming into her room, and Mistress Margaret by her bedside.

“Dear child,” said the old lady, “I would not wake you earlier; you have had such a short night; but James leaves in an hour’s time; and it is just nine o’clock, and I know you wish to see him.”

When she came down half an hour later she found Mistress Margaret waiting for her outside Lady Maxwell’s room.

“He is in there,” she said. “I will tell Mary”; and she slipped in. Isabel outside heard the murmur of voices, and in a moment more was beckoned in by the nun.

James Maxwell was sitting back in a great chair, looking exhausted and white. His mother, with something of the same look of supreme suffering and triumph, was standing behind his chair. She smiled gravely and sweetly at Isabel, as if to encourage her; and went out at the further door, followed by her sister.

“Mistress Isabel,” said the priest, without any introductory words, in his broken voice, and motioning her to a seat, “I cannot tell you what joy it was to see you at mass. Is it too much to hope that you will seek admission presently to the Catholic Church?”

Isabel sat with downcast eyes. His tone was a little startling to her. It was as courteous as ever, but less courtly: there was just the faintest ring in it, in spite of its weakness, as of one who spoke with authority.

“I—I thank you, Mr. James,” she said. “I wish to hear more at any rate.”

“Yes, Mistress Isabel; and I thank God for it. Mr. Barnes will be the proper person. My mother will let him know; and I have no doubt that he will receive you by Easter, and that you can make your First Communion on that day.”

She bowed her head, wondering a little at his assurance.

“You will forgive me, I know, if I seem discourteous,” went on the priest, “but I trust you understand the terms on which you come. You come as a little child, to learn; is it not so? Simply that?”

She bowed her head again.

“Then I need not keep you. If you will kneel, I will give you my blessing.”

She knelt down at once before him, and he blessed her, lifting his wrenched hand with difficulty and letting it sink quickly down again.

By an impulse she could not resist she leaned forward on her knees and took it gently into her two soft hands and kissed it.

“Oh! forgive him, Mr. Maxwell; I am sure he did not know.” And then her tears poured down.

“My child,” said his voice tenderly, “in any case I not only forgive him, but I thank him. How could I not? He has brought me love-tokens from my Lord.”

She kissed his hand again, and stood up; her eyes were blinded with tears; but they were not all for grief.

Then Mistress Margaret came in from the inner room, and led the girl out; and the mother came in once more to her son for the ten minutes before he was to leave her.

CHAPTER XII

A STRIFE OF TONGUES

Anthony now settled down rather drearily to the study of religious controversy. The continual contrasts that seemed forced upon him by the rival systems of England and Rome (so far as England might be said to have a coherent system at this time), all tended to show him that there were these two sharply-divided schemes, each claiming to represent Christ’s Institution, and each exclusive of the other. Was it of Christ’s institution that His Church should be a department of the National Life; and that the civil prince should be its final arbiter and ruler, however little he might interfere in its ordinary administration? This was Elizabeth’s idea. Or was the Church, as Mr. Buxton had explained it, a huge unnational Society, dependent, it must of course be, to some extent on local circumstances, but essentially unrestricted by limit of nationality or of racial tendencies? This was the claim of Rome. Of course an immense number of other arguments circled round this—in fact, most of the arguments that are familiar to controversialists at the present day; but the centre of all, to Anthony’s mind, as indeed it was to the mind of the civil and religious authorities of the time, was the question of supremacy—Elizabeth or Gregory?

He read a certain number of books; and it will be remembered that he had followed, with a good deal of intelligence, Campion’s arguments. Anthony was no theologian, and therefore missed perhaps the deep, subtle arguments; but he had a normal mind, and was able to appreciate and remember some salient points.

For example, he was impressed greatly by the negative character of Protestantism in such books as Nicholl’s “Pilgrimage.” In this work a man was held up as a type to be imitated whose whole religion to all appearances consisted of holding the Pope to be Antichrist, and his Church the synagogue of Satan, of disliking the doctrines of merit and of justification by works, of denying the Real Presence, and of holding nothing but what could be proved to his own satisfaction by the Scriptures.

Then he read as much as he could of the great Jewell controversy. This Bishop of Salisbury, who had, however, recanted his Protestant opinions under Mary, and resumed them under Elizabeth, had published in 1562 his “Apology of the Church of England,” a work of vast research and learning. Mr. Harding, who had also had the advantage of having been on both sides, had answered it; and then the battle was arrayed. It was of course mostly above Anthony’s head; but he gained from what he was able to read of it a very fair estimate of the conflicting theses, though he probably could not have stated them intelligibly. He also made acquaintance with another writer against Jewell,—Rastall; and with one or two of Mr. Willet’s books, the author of “Synopsis Papismi” and “Tretrastylon Papisticum.”

Even more than by paper controversy, however, he was influenced by history that was so rapidly forming before his eyes. The fact and the significance of the supremacy of the Queen in religion was impressed upon him more vividly by her suspension of Grindal than by all the books he ever read: here was the first ecclesiastic of the realm, a devout, humble and earnest man, restrained from exercising his great qualities as ruler and shepherd of his people, by a woman whose religious character certainly commanded no one’s respect, even if her moral life were free from scandal; and that, not because the Archbishop had been guilty of any crime or heresy, or was obviously unfitted for his post, but because his conscientious judgment on a point of Church discipline and liberty differed from hers; and this state of things was made possible not by an usurpation of power, but by the deliberately ordered system of the Church of England. Anthony had at least sufficient penetration to see that this, as a fundamental principle of religion, however obscured it might be by subsequent developments, was yet fraught with dangers compared with which those of papal interference were comparatively trifling—dangers that is, not so much to earthly peace and prosperity, as to the whole spiritual nature of the nation’s Christianity.

Yet another argument had begun to suggest itself, bearing upon the same point, of the relative advantages and dangers of Nationalism. When he had first entered the Archbishop’s service he had been inspired by the thought that the Church would share in the rising splendour of England; now he began to wonder whether she could have strength to resist the rising worldliness that was bound to accompany it. It is scarcely likely that men on fire with success, whether military or commercial, will be patient of the restraints of religion. If the Church is independent of the nation, she can protest and denounce freely; if she is knit closely to the nation, such rebuke is almost impossible.

A conversation that Anthony had on this subject at the beginning of February helped somewhat to clear up this point.

He was astonished after dinner one day to hear that Mr. Henry Buxton was at the porter’s lodge desiring to see him, and on going out he found that it was indeed his old acquaintance, the prisoner.

“Good-day, Master Norris,” said the gentleman, with his eyes twinkling; “you see the mouse has escaped, and is come to call upon the cat.”

Anthony inquired further as to the details of his release.

“Well, you see,” said Mr. Buxton, “they grew a-weary of me. I talked so loud at them all for one thing; and then you see I was neither priest nor agent nor conspirator, but only a plain country gentleman: so they took some hundred or two pounds off me, to make me still plainer; and let me go. Now, Mr. Norris, will you come and dine with me, and resume our conversation that was so rudely interrupted by my journey last time? But then you see her Majesty would take no denial.”

“I have just dined,” said Anthony, “but——”

“Well, I will not ask you to see me dine again, as you did last time; but will you then sup with me? I am at the ‘Running Horse,’ Fleet Street, until to-morrow.”

Anthony accepted gladly; for he had been greatly taken with Mr. Buxton; and at six o’clock that evening presented himself at the “Running Horse,” and was shown up to a private parlour.

He found Mr. Buxton in the highest good-humour; he was even now on his way from Wisbeach, home again to Tonbridge, and was only staying in London to finish a little business he had.

Before supper was over, Anthony had laid his difficulties before him.

“My dear friend,” said the other, and his manner became at once sober and tender, “I thank you deeply for your confidence. After being thought midway between a knave and a fool for over a year, it is a comfort to be treated as an honest gentleman again. I hold very strongly with what you say; it is that, under God, that has kept me steady. As I said to you last time, Christ’s Kingdom is not of this world. Can you imagine, for example, Saint Peter preaching religious obedience to Nero to be a Christian’s duty? I do not say (God forbid) that her Grace is a Nero, or even a Poppæa; but there is no particular reason why some successor of hers should not be. However, Nero or not, the principle is the same. I do not deny that a National Church may be immensely powerful, may convert thousands, may number zealous and holy men among her ministers and adherents—but yet her foundation is insecure. What when the tempest of God’s searching judgments begins to blow?

“Or, to put it plainer, in a parable, you have seen, I doubt not, a gallant and his mistress together. So long as she is being wooed by him, she can command; he sighs and yearns and runs on errands—in short, she rules him. But when they are wedded—ah me! It is she—if he turns out a brute, that is—she that stands while my lord plucks off his boots—she who runs to fetch the tobacco-pipe and lights it and kneels by him. Now I hold that to wed the body spiritual to the body civil, is to wed a delicate dame to a brute. He may dress her well, give her jewels, clap her kindly on the head—but she is under him and no free woman. Ah!”—and then Mr. Buxton’s eyes began to shine as Anthony remembered they had done before, and his voice to grow solemn,—”and when the spouse is the Bride of Christ, purchased by His death, what then would be the sin to wed her to a carnal nation, who shall favour her, it may be, while she looks young and fair; but when his mood changes, or her appearance, then she is his slave and his drudge! His will and his whims are her laws; as he changes, so must she. She has to do his foul work; as she had to do for King Henry, as she is doing it now for Queen Bess; and as she will always have to do, God help her, so long as she is wedded to the nation, instead of being free as the handmaiden and spouse of Christ alone. My faith would be lost, Mr. Norris, and my heart broken quite, if I were forced to think the Church of England to be the Church of Christ.”

They talked late that evening in the private baize-curtained parlour on the third floor. Anthony produced his difficulties one by one, and Mr. Buxton did his best to deal with them. For example, Anthony remarked on the fact that there had been no breach of succession as to the edifices and endowments of the Church; that the sees had been canonically filled, and even the benefices; and that therefore, like it or not, the Church of England now was identical with the Pre-Reformation Church.

“Distinguo,” said his friend. “Of course she is the successor in one sense: what you say is very true. It is impossible to put your finger all along the line of separation. It is a serrated line. The affairs of a Church and a nation are so vast that that is sure to be so; although if you insist, I will point to the Supremacy Act of 1559 and the Uniformity Act of the same year as very clear evidences of a breach with the ancient order; in the former the governance is shifted from its original owner, the Vicar of Christ, and placed on Elizabeth; it was that that the Carthusian Fathers and Sir Thomas More and many others died sooner than allow: and the latter Act sweeps away all the ancient forms of worship in favour of a modern one. But I am not careful to insist upon those points; if you deny or disprove them,—though I do not envy any who attempts that—yet even then my principle remains, that all that to which the Church of England has succeeded is the edifices and the endowments; but that her spirit is wholly new. If a highwayman knocks me down to-morrow, strips me, clothes himself with my clothes, and rides my horse, he is certainly my successor in one sense; yet he will be rash if he presents himself to my wife and sons—though I have none, by the way—as the proper owner of my house and name.”

“But there is no knocking down in the question,” said Anthony. “The bishops and clergy, or the greater part of them, consented to the change.”

Mr. Buxton smiled.

“Very well,” he said; “yet the case is not greatly different if the gentleman threatens me with torture instead, if I do not voluntarily give him my clothes and my horse. If I were weak and yielded to him, yes, and made promises of all kinds in my cowardice—yet he would be no nearer being the true successor of my name and fortune. And if you read her Grace’s Acts, and King Henry’s too, you will find that that was precisely what took place. My dear sir,” Mr. Buxton went on, “if you will pardon my saying it, I am astounded at the effrontery of your authorities who claim that there was no breach. Your Puritans are wiser; they at least frankly say that the old was Anti-Christian; that His Holiness (God forgive me for saying it!), was an usurper: and that the new Genevan theology is the old gospel brought to light again. That I can understand; and indeed most of your churchmen think so too; and that there was a new beginning made with Protestantism. But when her Grace calls herself a Catholic, and tells the poor Frenchmen that it is the old religion here still: and your bishops, or one or two of them rather, like Cheyney, I suppose, say so too—then I am rendered dumb—(if that were possible). If it is the same, then why, a-God’s name, were the altars dragged down, and the screens burned, and the vestments and the images and the stoups and the pictures and the ornaments, all swept out? Why, a-God’s name, was the old mass blotted out and this new mingle-mangle brought in, if it be all one? And for the last time, a-God’s name, why is it death to say mass now, if it be all one? Go, go: Such talk is foolishness, and worse.”

Mr. Buxton was silent for a moment as Anthony eyed him; and then burst out again.

“Ah! but worse than all are the folks that stand with one leg on either stool. We are the old Church, say they;—standing with the Protestant leg in the air,—therefore let us have the money and the buildings: they are our right. And then when a poor Catholic says, Then let us have the old mass, and the old penance and the old images: Nay, nay, nay, they say, lifting up the Catholic leg and standing on the other, those are Popery; and we are Protestants; we have made away with all such mummery and muniments of superstition. And so they go see-sawing to and fro. When you run at one leg they rest them on the other, and you know not where to take them.”

And so the talk went on. When the evening was over, and Anthony was rising to return to Lambeth, Mr. Buxton put his hand on his arm.

“Good Mr. Norris,” he said, “you have been very patient with me. I have clacked this night like an old wife, and you have borne with me: and now I ask your pardon again. But I do pray God that He may show you light and bring you to the true Church; for there is no rest elsewhere.”

Anthony thanked him for his good wishes.

“Indeed,” he said, too, “I am grateful for all that you have said. You have shown me light, I think, on some things, and I ask your prayers.”

“I go to Stanfield to-morrow,” said Mr. Buxton; “it is a pleasant house, though its master says so, not far from Sir Philip Sidney’s: if you would but come and see me there!”

“I am getting greatly perplexed,” said Anthony, “and I think that in good faith I cannot stay long with the Archbishop; and if I leave him how gladly will I come to you for a few days; but it must not be till then.”

“Ah! if you would but make the Spiritual Exercises in my house; I will provide a conductor; and there is nothing that would resolve your doubts so quickly.”

Anthony was interested in this; and asked further details as to what these were.

“It is too late,” said Mr. Buxton, “to tell you to-night. I will write from Stanfield.”

Mr. Buxton came downstairs with Anthony to see him on to his horse, and they parted with much good-will; and Anthony rode home with a heavy and perplexed heart to Lambeth.

He spent a few days more pondering; and then determined to lay his difficulties before the Archbishop; and resign his position if Grindal thought it well.

He asked for an interview, and the Archbishop appointed an hour in the afternoon at which he would see him in Cranmer’s parlour, the room above the vestry which formed part of the tower that Archbishop Cranmer had added to Lambeth House.

Anthony, walking up and down in the little tiled cloisters by the creek, a few minutes before the hour fixed, heard organ-music rolling out of the chapel windows; and went in to see who was playing. He came in through the vestry, and looking to the west end gallery saw there the back of old Dr. Tallis, seated at the little positive organ that the late Archbishop had left in his chapel, and which the present Archbishop had gladly retained, for he was a great patron of music, and befriended many musicians when they needed help—Dr. Tallis, as well as Byrd, Morley and Tye. There were a few persons in the chapel listening, the Reverend Mr. Wilson, one of the chaplains, being among them; and Anthony thought that he could not do better than sit here a little and quiet his thoughts, which were nervous and distracted at the prospect of his coming interview. He heard voices from overhead, which showed that the Archbishop was engaged; so he spoke to an usher stationed in the vestry, telling him that he was ready as soon as the Archbishop could receive him, and that he would wait in the chapel; and then made his way down to one of the return stalls at the west end, against the screen, and took his seat there.

This February afternoon was growing dark, and the only lights in the chapel were those in the organ loft; but there was still enough daylight outside to make the windows visible—those famous windows of Morton’s, which, like those in King’s Chapel, Cambridge, combined and interpreted the Old and New Testaments by an ingenious system of types and antitypes, in the manner of the “Biblia Pauperum.” There was then only a single subject in each light; and Anthony let his eyes wander musingly to and fro in the east window from the central figure of the Crucified to the types on either side, especially to a touching group of the unconscious Isaac carrying the wood for his own death, as Christ His Cross. Beneath, instead of the old stately altar glowing with stuffs and precious metals and jewels which had once been the heart of this beautiful shrine, there stood now a plain solid wooden table that the Archbishop used for the Communion. Anthony looked at it, and sighed a little to himself. Did the altar and the table then mean the same thing?

Meanwhile the glorious music was rolling overhead in the high vaulted roof. The old man was extemporising; but his manner was evident even in that; there was a simple solemn phrase that formed his theme, and round this adorning and enriching it moved the grave chords. On and on travelled the melody, like the flow of a broad river; now sliding steadily through a smiling land of simple harmonies, where dwelt a people of plain tastes and solid virtues; now passing over shallows where the sun glanced and played in the brown water among the stones, as light arpeggio chords rippled up and vanished round about the melody; now entering a land of mighty stones and caverns where the echoes rang hollow and resonant, as the counterpoint began to rumble and trip like boulders far down out of sight, in subaqueous gloom; now rolling out again and widening, fuller and deeper as it went, moving in great masses towards the edge of the cataract that lies like a line across the landscape: it is inevitable now, the crash must come;—a chord or two pausing,—pausing;—and then the crash, stupendous and sonorous.

Then on again through elaborate cities where the wits and courtiers dwell, and stately palaces slide past upon the banks, and barges move upon its breast, on to the sea—that final full close that embraces and engulfs all music, all effort, all doubts and questionings, whether in art or theology, all life of intellect, heart or will—that fathomless eternal deep from which all comes and to which all returns, that men call the Love of God.

Anthony stirred in his seat; he had been here ten minutes, proposing to take his restless thoughts in hand and quiet them; and, lo! it had been done for him by the master who sat overhead. Here he, for the moment, remained, ready for anything—glad to take up the wood and bear it to the Mount of Sacrifice—content to be carried on in that river of God’s Will to the repose of God’s Heart—content to dwell meantime in the echoing caverns of doubt—in the glancing shadows and lights of an active life—in his own simple sunlit life in the country—or even to plunge over the cataract down into the fierce tormented pools in the dark—for after all the sea lay beyond; and he who commits himself to the river is bound to reach it.

He heard a step, and the usher stood by him.

“His Grace is ready, Master Norris.”

Anthony rose and followed him.

The Archbishop received him with the greatest kindness. As Anthony came in he half rose, peering with his half-blind eyes, and smiling and holding out his hands.

“Come, Master Norris,” he said, “you are always welcome. Sit down;” and he placed him in a chair at the table close by his own.

“Now, what is it?” he said kindly; for the old man’s heart was a little anxious at this formal interview that had been requested by this favourite young officer of his.

Then Anthony, without any reserve, told him all; tracing out the long tale of doubt by landmarks that he remembered; mentioning the effect produced on his mind by the Queen’s suspension of the Archbishop, especially dwelling on the arrest, the examination and the death of Campion, that had made such a profound impression upon him; upon his own reading and trains of thought, and the conversations with Mr. Buxton, though of course he did not mention his name; he ended by saying that he had little doubt that sooner or later he would be compelled to leave the communion of the Church of England for that of Rome; and by placing his resignation in the Archbishop’s hands, with many expressions of gratitude for the unceasing kindness and consideration that he had always received at his hands.

There was silence when he had finished. A sliding panel in the wall near the chapel had been pushed back, and the mellow music of Dr. Tallis pealed softly in, giving a sweet and melodious background, scarcely perceived consciously by either of them, and yet probably mellowing and softening their modes of expression during the whole of the interview.

“Mr. Norris,” said the Archbishop at last, “I first thank you for the generous confidence you have shown towards me: and I shall put myself under a further obligation to you by accepting your resignation: and this I do for both our sakes. For yours, because, as you confess, this action of the Queen’s—(I neither condemn nor excuse it myself)—this action has influenced your thoughts: therefore you had best be removed from it to a place where you can judge more quietly. And I accept it for my own sake too; for several reasons that I need not trouble you with. But in doing this, I desire you, Mr. Norris, to continue to draw your salary until Midsummer:—nay, nay, you must let me have my say. You are at liberty to withdraw as soon as you have wound up your arrangements with Mr. Somerdine; he will now, as Yeoman of the Horse, have your duties as well as his own; for I do not intend to have another Gentleman of the Horse. As regards an increase of salary for him, that can wait until I see him myself. In any case, Mr. Norris, I think you had better withdraw before Mid-Lent Sunday.

“And now for your trouble. I know very well that I cannot be of much service to you. I am no controversialist. But I must bear my witness. This Papist with whom you have had talk seems a very plausible fellow. His arguments sound very plain and good; and yet I think you could prove anything by them. They seem to me like that openwork embroidery such as you see on Communion linen sometimes, in which the pattern is formed by withdrawing certain threads. He has cleverly omitted just those points that would ruin his argument; and he has made a pretty design. But any skilful advocate could make any other design by the same methods. He has not thought fit to deal with such words of our Saviour as what He says on Tradition; with what the Scriptures say against the worshipping of angels; with what St. Paul says in his Epistle to the Colossians, in the second chapter, concerning all those carnal ordinances which were done away by Christ, but which have been restored by the Pope in his despite; he does not deal with those terrible words concerning the man of sin and the mystery of iniquity. In fact, he takes just one word that Christ let fall about His Kingdom, and builds this great edifice upon it. You might retort to him in a thousand ways such as these. Bishop Jewell, in his book, as you know, deals with these questions and many more; far more fully than it is possible for you and me even to dream of doing. Nay, Mr. Norris; the only argument I can lay before you is this. There are difficulties and troubles everywhere; that there are such in the Church of England, who would care to deny? that there are equally such, aye, and far more, in the Church of Rome, who would care to deny, either? Meanwhile, the Providence of God has set you here and not there. Whatever your difficulties are here, are not of your choosing; but if you fly there (and I pray God you will not) there they will be. Be content, Master Norris; indeed you have a goodly heritage; be content with it; lest losing that you lose all.”

Anthony was greatly touched by this moderate and courteous line that the Archbishop was taking. He knew well in his heart that the Church of Rome was, in the eyes of this old man, a false and deceitful body, for whom there was really nothing to be said. Grindal, in his travels abroad during the Marian troubles, had been deeply attracted by the Genevan theology, with whose professors he had never wholly lost touch; and Anthony guessed what an effort it was costing him, and what a strain it was on his conscience, thus to combine courtesy with faithfulness to what he believed to be true.

Grindal apparently feared he had sacrificed his convictions, for he presently added: “You know, Mr. Norris, that I think very much worse of Papistry than I have expressed; but I have refrained because I think that would not help you; and I desire to do that more than to relieve myself.”

Anthony thanked him for his gentleness; saying that he quite understood his motives in speaking as he had done, and was deeply obliged to him for it.

The Archbishop, however, as indeed were most of the English Divines of the time, was far more deeply versed in destructive than constructive theology; and, to Anthony’s regret, was presently beginning in that direction.

“It is beyond my imagination. Mr. Norris,” he said, “that any who have known the simple Gospel should return to the darkness. See here,” he went on, rising, and fumbling among his books, “I have somewhere here what they call an Indulgence.”

He searched for a few minutes, and presently shook out of the leaves of Jewell’s book a paper which he peered at, and then pushed over to Anthony.

It was a little rectangular paper, some four or five inches long; bearing a figure of Christ, wounded, with His hands bound together before Him, and the Cross with the superscription rising behind. In compartments on either side were instruments of the Passion, the spear, and the reed with the sponge, with other figures and emblems. Anthony spelt out the inscription.

“Read it aloud, Mr. Norris,” said the Archbishop.

“‘To them,’” read Anthony, “‘that before this image of pity devoutly say five paternosters, five aves and a credo, piteously beholding these arms of Christ’s Passion, are granted thirty-two thousand seven hundred and fifty-five years of pardon.’”

“Now, Mr. Norris,” said the Archbishop, “have you considered that it is to that kind of religion that you are attracted? I will not comment on it; there is no need.”

“Your Grace,” said Anthony slowly, laying the paper down, “I need not say, I think, that this kind of thing is deeply distasteful to me too. Your Grace cannot dislike it more than I do. But then I do not understand it; I do not know what indulgences mean; I only know that were they as mad and foolish as we Protestants think them, no truthful or good man could remain a Papist for a day; but then there are many thoughtful and good men Papists; and I conclude from that that what we think the indulgences to be, cannot be what they really are. There must be some other explanation.

“And again, my lord, may I add this? If I were a Turk I should find many things in the Christian religion quite as repellent to me; for example, how can it be just, I should ask, that the death of an innocent man, such as Christ was, should be my salvation? How, again, is it just that faith should save? Surely one who has sinned greatly ought to do something towards his forgiveness, and not merely trust to another. But you, my lord, would tell me that there are explanations of these difficulties, and of many more too, of which I should gradually understand more and more after I was a Christian. Or again, it appears to me even now, Christian as I am, judging as a plain man, that predestination contradicts free-will; and no explanation can make them both reasonable. Yet, by the grace of God, I believe all these doctrines and many more, not because I understand them, for I do not; but because I believe that they are part of the Revelation of God. It is just so, too, with the Roman Catholic Church. I must not take this or that doctrine by itself; but I must make up my mind whether or no it is the one only Catholic Church, and then I shall believe all that she teaches, because she teaches it, and not because I understand it. You must forgive my dulness, my lord; but I am but a layman, and can only say what I think in simple words.”

“But we must judge of a Christian body by what that body teaches,” said the Archbishop. “On what other grounds are you drawn to the Papists, except by what they teach?”

“Yes, your Grace,” said Anthony, “I do judge of the general body of doctrine, and of the effect upon the soul as a whole; but that is not the same as taking each small part, and making all hang upon that.”

“Well, Mr. Norris,” said the Archbishop, “I do not think we can talk much more now. It is new to me that these difficulties are upon you. But I entreat you to talk to me again as often as you will; and to others also—Dr. Redmayn, Mr. Chambers and others will be happy if they can be of any service to you in these matters: for few things indeed would grieve me more than that you should turn Papist.”

Anthony thanked the Archbishop very cordially for his kindness, and, after receiving his blessing, left his presence. He had two or three more talks with him before he left, but his difficulties were in no way resolved. The Archbishop had an essentially Puritan mind, and could not enter into Anthony’s point of view at all. It may be roughly said that from Grindal’s standpoint all turned on the position and responsibility of the individual towards the body to which he belonged: and that Anthony rather looked at the corporate side first and the individual second. Grindal considered, for example, the details of the Catholic religion in reference to the individual, asking whether he could accept this or that: Anthony’s tendency was rather to consider the general question first, and to take the difficulties in his stride afterwards. Anthony also had interviews with the Archdeacon and chaplain whom Grindal had recommended; but these were of even less service to him, as Dr. Redmayn was so frankly contemptuous, and Mr. Chambers so ignorant, of the Romish religion that Anthony felt he could not trust their judgment at all.

In the meanwhile, during this last fortnight of Anthony’s Lambeth life, he received a letter from Mr. Buxton, explaining what were the Spiritual Exercises to which he had referred, and entreating Anthony to come and stay with him at Stanfield.

“Now come, dear Mr. Norris,” he wrote, “as soon as you leave the Archbishop’s service; I will place three or four rooms at your disposal, if you wish for quiet; for I have more rooms than I know what to do with; and you shall make the Exercises if you will with some good priest. They are a wonderful method of meditation and prayer, designed by Ignatius Loyola (one day doubtless to be declared saint), for the bringing about a resolution of all doubts and scruples, and so clearing the eye of the soul that she discerns God’s Will, and so strengthening her that she gladly embraces it. And that surely is what you need just now in your perplexity.”

The letter went on to describe briefly the method followed, and ended by entreating him again to come and see him. Anthony answered this by telling him of his resignation of his post at Lambeth, and accepting his invitation; and he arranged to spend the last three weeks before Easter at Stanfield, and to go down there immediately upon leaving Lambeth. He determined not to go to Great Keynes first, or to see Isabel, lest his resolution should be weakened. Already, he thought, his motives were sufficiently mixed and perverted without his further aggravating their earthly constituents.

He wrote to his sister, however, telling her of his decision to leave Lambeth; and adding that he was going to stay with a friend until Easter, when he hoped to return to the Dower House, and take up his abode there for the present. He received what he thought a very strange letter in return, written apparently under excitement strongly restrained. He read in it a very real affection for himself, but a certain reserve in it too, and even something of compassion; and there was a sentence in it that above all others astonished him.

“J. M. has been here, and is now gone to Douai. Oh! dear brother, some time no doubt you will tell us all. I feel so certain that there is much to explain.”

Had she then guessed his part in the priest’s release? Anthony wondered; but at any rate he knew, after his promise to the Queen, that he must not give her any clue. He was also surprised to hear that James had been to Great Keynes. He had inquired for him at the Tower on the Monday after his visit to Greenwich, and had heard that Mr. Maxwell was already gone out of England. He had not then troubled to write again, as he had no doubt but that his message to Lady Maxwell, which he had sent in his note to Isabel, had reached her; and that certainly she, and probably James too, now knew that he had been an entirely unconscious and innocent instrument in the priest’s arrest. But that note, as has been seen, never reached its destination. Lady Maxwell did not care to write to the betrayer of her son; and Isabel on the one hand hoped and believed now that there was some explanation, but on the other did not wish to ask for it again, since her first request had been met by silence.

As the last days of his life at Lambeth were coming to an end, Anthony began to send off his belongings on pack-horses to Great Keynes; and by the time that the Saturday before Mid-Lent Sunday arrived, on which he was to leave, all had gone except his own couple of horses and the bags containing his personal luggage.

His last interview with the Archbishop affected him very greatly.

He found the old man waiting for him, walking up and down Cranmer’s parlour in an empty part of the room, where there was no danger of his falling. He peered anxiously at Anthony as he entered.

“Mr. Norris,” he said, “you are greatly on my mind. I fear I have not done my duty to you. My God has taken away the great charge he called me to years ago, to see if I were fit or not for the smaller charge of mine own household, and not even that have I ruled well.”

Anthony was deeply moved.

“My lord,” he said, “if I may speak plainly to you, I would say that to my mind the strongest argument for the Church of England is that she brings forth piety and goodness such as I have seen here. If it were not for that, I should no longer be perplexed.”

Grindal held up a deprecating hand.

“Do not speak so, Mr. Norris. That grieves me. However, I beseech you to forgive me for all my remissness towards you, and I wish to tell you that, whatever happens, you shall never cease to have an old man’s prayers. You have been a good and courteous servant to me always—more than that, you have been my loving friend—I might almost say my son: and that, in a world that has cast me off and forgotten me, I shall not easily forget. God bless you, my dear son, and give you His light and grace.”

When Anthony rode out of the gateway half an hour later, with his servant and luggage behind him, it was only with the greatest difficulty that he could keep from tears as he thought of the blind old man, living in loneliness and undeserved disgrace, whom he was leaving behind him.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

Anthony found that Mr. Buxton had seriously underestimated himself in describing his position as that of a plain country gentleman. Stanfield was one of the most beautiful houses that he had ever seen. On the day after his arrival, his host took him all over the house, at his earnest request, and told him its story; and as they passed from room to room, again and again Anthony found himself involuntarily exclaiming at the new and extraordinary beauties of architecture and furniture that revealed themselves.

The house itself had been all built in the present reign, before its owner had got into trouble; and had been fitted throughout on the most lavish scale, with furniture of German as well as of English manufacture. Mr. Buxton was a collector of pictures and other objects of art; and his house contained some of the very finest specimens of painting, bronzes, enamels, plate and woodwork procurable from the Continent.

The house was divided into two sections; the chief living rooms were in a long suite looking to the south on to the gardens, with a corridor on the north side running the whole length of the house on the ground-floor, from which a staircase rose to a similar corridor or gallery on the first floor. The second section of the house was a block of some half-dozen smallish rooms, with a private staircase of their own, and a private entrance and little walled garden as well in front. The house was mostly panelled throughout, and here and there hung pieces of magnificent tapestry and cloth of arras. All was kept, too, with a care that was unusual in those days—the finest woodwork was brought to a high polish, as well as all the brass utensils and steel fire-plates and dogs and such things. No two rooms were alike; each possessed some marked characteristic of its own—one bedroom, for example, was distinguished by its fourpost bed with its paintings on the canopy and head—another, by its little two-light high window with Adam and Eve in stained glass; another with a little square-window containing a crucifix, which was generally concealed by a sliding panel; another by two secret cupboards over the fire-place, and its recess fitted as an oratory; another by a magnificent piece of tapestry representing Saint Clara and Saint Thomas of Aquin, each holding a monstrance, with a third great monstrance in the centre, supported by angels.

Downstairs the rooms were on the same scale of magnificence. The drawing-room had an exquisite wooden ceiling with great pendants elaborately carved; the dining-room was distinguished by its glass, containing a collection of coats-of-arms of many of Mr. Buxton’s friends who had paid him visits; the hall by its vast fire-place and the tapestries that hung round it.

The exterior premises were scarcely less remarkable; a fine row of stables, and kennels where greyhounds were kept, stood to the north and the east of the house; but the wonder of the country was the gardens to the south. Anthony hardly knew what to say for admiration as he went slowly through these with his host, on the bright spring morning, after visiting the house. These were elaborately laid out, and under Mr. Buxton’s personal direction, for he was one of the few people in England at this time who really understood or cared for the art. His avenue of small clipped limes running down the main walk of the garden, his yew-hedges fashioned with battlements and towers; his great garden house with its vane; his fantastic dial in the fashion of a tall striped pole surmounted by a dragon;—these were the astonishment of visitors; and it was freely said that had not Mr. Buxton been exceedingly adroit he would have paid the penalty of his magnificence and originality by being forced to receive a royal visit—a favour that would have gone far to impoverish, if not to ruin him. The chancel of the parish-church overlooked the west end of his lime-avenue, while the east end of the garden terminated in a great gateway, of stone posts and wrought iron gates that looked out to the meadows and farm buildings of the estate, and up to which some day no doubt a broad carriage drive would be laid down. But at present the sweep of the meadows was unbroken.

It was to this beautiful place that Anthony found himself welcomed. His host took him at once on the evening of his arrival to the west block, and showed him his bedroom—that with the little cupboards and the oratory recess; and then, taking him downstairs again, showed him a charming little oak parlour, which he told him would be altogether at his private service.

“And you see,” added Mr. Buxton, “in this walled garden in front you can have complete privacy, and thus can take the air without ever coming to the rest of the house; to which there is this one entrance on the ground floor.” And then he showed him how the lower end of the long corridor communicated with the block.

“The only partners of this west block,” he added, “will be the two priests—Mr. Blake, my chaplain, and Mr. Robert, who is staying with me a week or two; and who, I hope, will conduct you through the Exercises, as he is very familiar with them. You will meet them both at supper: of course they will be both dressed as laymen. The Protestants blamed poor Campion for that, you know; but had he not gone in disguise, they would only have hanged him all the sooner. I like not hypocrisy.”

Anthony was greatly impressed by Father Robert when he met him at supper. He was a tall and big man, who seemed about forty years of age, with a long square-jawed face, a pointed beard and moustache, and shrewd penetrating eyes. He seemed to be a man in advance of his time; he was full of reforms and schemes that seemed to Anthony remarkably to the point; and they were reforms too quite apart from ecclesiasticism, but rather such as would be classed in our days under the title of Christian Socialism.

For example, he showed a great sympathy for the condition of the poor and outcast and criminals; and had a number of very practical schemes for their benefit.

“Two things,” he said, in answer to a question of Anthony’s, “I would do to-morrow if I had the power. First I would allow of long leases for fifty and a hundred years. Everywhere the soil is becoming impoverished; each man squeezes out of it as much as he can, and troubles not to feed the land or to care for it beyond his time. Long leases, I hold, would remedy this. It would encourage the farmer to look before him and think of his sons and his sons’ sons. And second, I would establish banks for poor men. There is many a man now a-begging who would be living still in his own house, if there had been some honest man whom he could have trusted to keep his money for him, and, maybe, give him something for the loan of it: for in these days, when there is so much enterprise, money has become, as it were, a living thing that grows; or at the least a tool that can be used; and therefore, when it is lent, it is right that the borrower should pay a little for it. This is not the same as the usury that Holy Church so rightly condemns: at least, I hold not, though some, I know, differ from me.”

After supper the talk turned on education: here, too, the priest had his views.

“But you are weary of hearing me!” he said, in smiling apology. “You will think me a schoolmaster.”

“And I pray you to consider me your pupil,” said Mr. Buxton. The priest made a little deprecating gesture.

“First, then,” he said, “I would have a great increase of grammar schools. It is grievous to think of England as she will be when this generation grows up: the schooling was not much before; but now she has lost first the schools that were kept by Religious, and now the teaching that the chantry-priests used to give. But this perhaps may turn to advantage; for when the Catholic Religion is re-established in these realms, she will find how sad her condition is; and, I hope, will remedy it by a better state of things than before—first, by a great number of grammar schools where the lads can be well taught for small fees, and where many scholarships will be endowed; and then, so great will be the increase of learning, as I hope, that we shall need to have a third university, to which I should join a third Archbishoprick, for the greater dignity of both; and all this I should set in the north somewhere, Durham or Newcastle, maybe.”

He spoke, too, with a good deal of shrewdness of the increase of highway robbery, and the remedies for it; remarking that, although in other respects the laws were too severe, in this matter their administration was too lax; since robbers of gentle birth could generally rely on pardon. He spoke of the Holy Brotherhood in Spain (with which country he seemed familiar), and its good results in the putting down of violence.

Anthony grew more and more impressed by this man’s practical sense and ability; but less drawn to him in consequence as his spiritual guide. He fancied that true spirituality could scarcely exist in this intensely practical nature. When supper was over, and the priests had gone back to their rooms, and his host and he were seated before a wide blazing hearth in Mr. Buxton’s own little room downstairs, he hinted something of the sort. Mr. Buxton laughed outright.

“My dear friend,” he said, “you do not know these Jesuits (for of course you have guessed that he is one); their training and efficiency is beyond all imagining. In a week from now you will be considering how ever Father Robert can have the heart to eat his dinner or say ‘good-day’ with such a spiritual vision and insight as he has. You need not fear. Like the angel in the Revelation, he will call you up to heaven, hale you to the abyss and show you things to come. And, though you may not believe it, it is the man’s intense and simple piety that makes him so clear-sighted and practical; he lives so close to God that God’s works and methods, so perplexing to you and me, are plain to him.”

They went on talking together for a while. Mr. Buxton said that Father Robert had thought it best for Anthony not to enter Retreat until the Monday evening; by which time he could have sufficiently familiarised himself with his new surroundings, so as not to find them a distraction during his spiritual treatment. Anthony agreed to this. Then they talked of all kinds of things. His host told him of his neighbours; and explained how it was that he enjoyed such liberty as he did.

“You noticed the church, Mr. Norris, did you not, at your arrival, overlooking the garden? It is a great advantage to me to have it so close. I can sit in my own garden and hear the Genevan thunders from within. He preaches so loud that I might, if I wished, hear sermons, and thus satisfy the law and his Reverence; and at the same time not go inside an heretical meeting-house, and thus satisfy my own conscience and His Holiness. But I fear that would not have saved me, had I not the ear of his Reverence. I will tell you how it was. When the laws began to be enforced hereabouts, his Reverence came to see me; and sat in that very chair that you now occupy.

“‘I hear,’ said he, cocking his eye at me, ‘that her Grace is becoming strict, and more careful for the souls of her subjects.’

“I agreed with him, and said I had heard as much.

“‘The fine is twenty pounds a month,’ says he, ‘for recusancy,’ and then he looks at me again.”

“At first I did not catch his meaning; for, as you have noticed, Mr. Norris, I am but a dull man in dealing with these sharp and subtle Protestants: and then all at once it flashed across me.

“‘Yes, your Reverence,’ I said, ‘and it will be the end of poor gentlemen like me, unless some kind friend has pity on them. How happy I am in having you!’ I said, ‘I have never yet shown my appreciation as I should: and I propose now to give you, to be applied to what purposes you will, whether the sustenance of the minister or anything else, the sum of ten pounds a month; so long as I am not troubled by the Council. Of course, if I should be fined by the Council, I shall have to drop my appreciation for six months or so.’

“Well, Mr. Norris, you will hardly believe it, but the old doctor opened his mouth and gulped and rolled his eyes, like a trout taking a fly; and I was never troubled until fifteen months ago, when they got at me in spite of him. But he has lost, you see, a matter of one hundred and fifty pounds while I have been at Wisbeach; and I shall not begin to appreciate him again for another six months; so I do not think I shall be troubled again.”

Anthony was amazed, and said so.

“Well,” said the other, “I was astonished too; and should never have dreamt of appreciating him in such a manner unless he had proposed it. I had a little difficulty with Mr. Blake, who told me that it was a libellum, and that I should be ashamed to pay hush money. But I told him that he might call it what he pleased, but that I would sooner pay ten pounds a month and be in peace, than twenty pounds a month and be perpetually harassed: and Father Robert agrees with me, and so the other is content now.”

The next day, which was Sunday, passed quietly. Mass was no doubt said somewhere in the house; though Anthony saw no signs of it. He himself attended the reverend doctor’s ministrations in the morning; and found him to be what he had been led to expect.

In the afternoon he walked up and down the lime avenue with Father Robert, while the evening prayer and sermon rumbled forth through the broken chancel window; and they talked of the Retreat and the arrangements.

“You no doubt think, Mr. Norris,” said the priest, “that I shall preach at you in this Retreat, and endeavour to force you into the Catholic Church; but I shall do nothing of the kind. The whole object of the Exercises is to clear away the false motives that darken the soul; to place the Figure of our Redeemer before the soul as her dear and adorable Lover and King; and then to kindle and inspire the soul to choose her course through the grace of God, for the only true final motive of all perfect action,—that is, the pure Love of God. Of course I believe, with the consent of my whole being, that the Catholic Church is in the right; but I shall not for a moment attempt to compel you to accept her. The final choice, as indeed the Retreat too, must be your free action, not mine.”

They arranged too the details of the Retreat; and Anthony was shown the little room beyond Father Robert’s bedroom, where the Exercises would be given; and informed that another gentleman who lived in the neighbourhood would come in every day for them too, but that he would have his meals separately, and that Anthony himself would have his own room and the room beneath entirely at his private disposal, as well as the little walled garden to walk in.

The next day Mr. Buxton took Anthony a long ride, to invigorate him for the Retreat that would begin after supper. Anthony learned to his astonishment and delight that Mary Corbet was a great friend of Mr. Buxton’s.

“Why, of course I know her,” he said. “I have known her since she was a tiny girl, and threw her mass-book at the minister’s face the first time he read the morning prayer. God only knows why she was so wroth with the man for differing from herself on a point that has perplexed the wisest heads: but at any rate, wroth she was, and bang went her book. I had to take her out, and she was spitting like a kitten all down the aisle when the dog puts his head into the basket.

“‘What’s that man doing here?’ she screamed out; ‘where’s the altar and the priest?’ And then at the door, as luck would have had it, she saw that Saint Christopher was gone; and she began bewailing and bemoaning him until you’d have thought he’d have been bound to come down from heaven, as he did once across the dark river, and see what in the world the crying child wanted with him.”

They came about half-way in their ride through the village of Penshurst; and on reaching the Park turned off under the beeches towards the house.

“We have not time to go in,” said Mr. Buxton, “but I hope you will see the house sometime; it is a pattern of what a house should be; and has a pattern master.”

As they came up to the Edwardine Gate-house, a pleasant-faced, quietly-dressed gentleman came riding out alone.

“Why, here he is!” said Mr. Buxton, and greeted him with great warmth, and made Anthony known to him.

“I am delighted to know Mr. Norris,” said Sidney, with that keen friendly look that was so characteristic of him. “I have heard of him from many quarters.”

He entreated them to come in; but Mr. Buxton said they had not time; but would if they might just glance into the great court. So Sidney took them through the gate-house and pointed out one or two things of interest from the entrance, the roof of the Great Hall built by Sir John de Pulteney, the rare tracery in its windows and the fine living-rooms at one side.

“I thank God for it every day,” said Sidney gravely. “I cannot imagine why He should have given it me. I hope I am not fool enough to disparage His gifts, and pretend they are nothing: indeed, I love it with all my heart. I would as soon think of calling my wife ugly or a shrew.”

“That is a good man and a gentleman,” said Mr. Buxton, as they rode away at last in the direction of Leigh after leaving Sidney to branch off towards Charket, “and I do not know why he is not a Catholic. And he is a critic and a poet, men say, too.”

“Have you read anything of his?” asked Anthony.

“Well,” said the other, “to tell the truth, I have tried to read some sheets of his that he wrote for his sister, Lady Pembroke. He calls it ‘Arcadia’; I do not know whether it is finished or ever will be. But it seemed to me wondrous dull. It was full of shepherds and swains and nymphs, who are perpetually eating collations which Phœbus or sunburnt Autumn, and the like, provides of his bounty; or any one but God Almighty; or else they are bathing and surprising one another all day long. It is all very sweet and exquisite, I know; and the Greece, where they all live and love one another, must be a very delightful country, as unlike this world as it is possible to imagine; but it wearies me. I like plain England and plain folk and plain religion and plain fare; but then I am a plain man, as I tell you so often.”

As the afternoon sun drew near setting, they came through Tonbridge.

“Now, what can a man ask more,” said Mr. Buxton, as they rode through it, “than a good town like this? It is not a great place, I know, with solemn buildings and wide streets; neither is it a glade or a dell; but it is a good clean English town; and I would not exchange it for Arcadia or Athens either.”

Stanfield lay about two miles to the west; and on their way out, Mr. Buxton talked on about the country and its joys and its usefulness.

“Over there,” he said, pointing towards Eridge, “was the first cannon made in England. I do not know if that is altogether to its credit, but it at least shows that we are not quite idle and loutish in the country. Then all about here is the iron; the very stirrups you ride in, Mr. Norris, most likely came from the ground beneath your feet; but it is sad to see all the woods cut down for the smelting of it. All these places for miles about here, and about Great Keynes too, are all named after the things of forestry and hunting. Buckhurst, Hartfield, Sevenoaks, Forest Row, and the like, all tell of the country, and will do so long after we are dead and gone.”

They reached Stanfield, rode past the green and the large piece of water there, and up the long village street, and turned into the iron gates beyond the church, just as the dusk fell.

That evening after supper the Retreat began. The conduct of the Spiritual Exercises had not reached the elaboration to which they have been perfected since; nor, in Anthony’s case, a layman and a young man, did Father Robert think fit to apply it even in all the details in which it would be used for a priest or for one far advanced in the spiritual life; but it was severe enough.

Every evening Father Robert indicated the subject of the following day’s meditation; and then after private prayer Anthony retired to his room. He rose about seven o’clock in the morning, and took a little food at eight; then shortly before nine the first meditation was given elaborately. The first examination of conscience was made at eleven; followed by dinner at half-past. From half-past twelve to half-past one Anthony rested in his room; then until three he was encouraged to walk in the garden; at three the meditation was to be recalled point by point in the chapel, followed by spiritual reading; at five o’clock supper was served; and at half-past six the meditation was repeated with tremendous emphasis and fervent acts of devotion; at half-past eight a slight collation was laid in his room; and at half-past nine the meditation for the following day was given. Father Robert in his previous talks with Anthony had given him instructions as to how to occupy his own time, to keep his thoughts fixed and so forth. He had thought it wise too not to extend the Retreat for longer than a fortnight; so that it was proposed to end it on Palm Sunday. Two or three times in the week Anthony rode out by himself; and Father Robert was always at his service, besides himself coming sometimes to talk to him when he thought the strain or the monotony was getting too heavy.

As for the Exercises themselves, the effect of them on Anthony was beyond all description. First the circumstances under which they were given were of the greatest assistance to their effectiveness. There was every aid that romance and mystery could give. Then it was in a strange and beautiful house where everything tended to caress the mind out of all self-consciousness. The little panelled room in which the exercises were given looked out over the quiet garden, and no sound penetrated there but the far-off muffled noises of the peaceful village life, the rustle of the wind in the evergreens, and the occasional coo or soft flapping flight of a pigeon from the cote in the garden. The room itself was furnished with two or three faldstools and upright wooden arm-chairs of tolerable comfort; a table was placed at the further end, on which stood a realistic Spanish crucifix with two tapers always burning before it; and a little jar of fragrant herbs. Then there was the continual sense of slight personal danger that is such a spur to refined natures; here was a Catholic house, of which every member was strictly subject to penalties, and above all one of that mysterious Society of Jesus, the very vanguard of the Catholic army, and of which every member was a picked and trained champion. Then there was the amazing enthusiasm, experience, and skill of Father Robert, as he called himself; who knew human nature as an anatomist knows the structure of the human body; to whom the bewildering tangle of motives, good, bad and indifferent, in the soul, was as plain as paths in a garden; who knew what human nature needed, what it could dispense with, what was its power of resistance; and who had at his disposal for the storming of the soul an armoury of weapons and engines, every specimen of which he had tested and wielded over and over again. Little as Anthony knew it, Father Robert, during the first two days after his arrival, had occupied himself with sounding and probing the lad’s soul, trying his intellect by questions that scarcely seemed to be so, taking the temperature of his emotional nature by tales and adroit remarks, and watching the effect of them; in short, with studying the soul who had come for his treatment as a careful doctor examines the health of a new patient before he issues his prescription. And then, lastly, there were the Exercises themselves, a mighty weapon in any hands; and all but irresistible when directed by the skill, and inspired by the enthusiasm and sincere piety of such a man as Father Robert.

The Exercises fell into three parts, each averaging in Anthony’s case about five days. First came the Purgative Exercises: the object of these was to cleanse and search out the very recesses of the soul; as fire separates gold from alloy.

As Anthony knelt in the little room before the Crucifix day by day, it seemed to him as if the old conventional limitations and motives of action and control were rolling back, revealing the realities of the spiritual world. The Exercises began with an elaborate exposition of the End of man—which may be roughly defined as the Glory of God attained through the saving and sanctifying of the individual. Every creature of God, then, that the soul encounters must be tested by this rule, How far does the use of it serve for the final end? For it must be used so far, and no farther. Here then was a diagram of the Exercises, given in miniature at the beginning.

Then the great facts that practically all men acknowledge, and upon which so few act, were brought into play. Hell, Judgment and Death in turn began to work upon the lad’s soul—these monstrous elemental Truths that underlie all things. As Father Robert’s deep vibrating voice spoke, it appeared to Anthony as if the room, the walls, the house, the world, all shrank to filmy nothingness before the appalling realities of these things. In that strange and profound “Exercise of the senses” he heard the moaning and the blasphemies of the damned, of those rebellious free wills that have enslaved themselves into eternal bondage by a deliberate rejection of God—he put out his finger and tasted the bitterness of their furious tears—the very reek of sin came to his nostrils, of that corruption that is in existence through sin; nay, he saw the very flaming hells red with man’s wrath against his Maker.

Then he traced back, under the priest’s direction, the Judgment through which every soul must pass; he saw the dead, great and small, stand before God; the books, black with blotted shame, were borne forth by the recording angels and spread before the tribunal. His ears tingled with that condemning silence of the Judge beyond Whom there is no appeal, from whose sentence there is no respite, and from whose prison there is no discharge; and rang with that pealing death-sentence at which the angels hide their faces, but to which the conscience of the criminal assents that it is just. His soul looked out at those whirling hosts on either side, that black cloud going down to despair, that radiant company hastening to rise to the Uncreated Light in whom there is no darkness at all—and cried in piteous suspense to know on which side she herself one day would be.

Then he came yet one step further back still, and told himself the story of his death. He saw the little room where he would lie, his bed in one corner; he saw Isabel beside the bed; he saw himself, white, gasping, convulsed, upon it—the shadows of the doctor and the priest were upon the wall—he heard his own quick sobbing breath, he put out his finger and touched his own forehead wet with the death-dew—he tasted and smelt the faint sickly atmosphere that hangs about a death chamber; and he watched the grey shadow of Azrael’s wing creep across his face. Then he saw the sheet and the stiff form beneath it; and knew that they were his features that were hidden; and that they were his feet that stood up stark below the covering. Then he visited his own grave, and saw the month-old grass blowing upon it, and the little cross at the head; then he dug down through the soil, swept away the earth from his coffin-plate; drew the screws and lifted the lid....

Then he placed sin beneath the white light; dissected it, analysed it, weighed it and calculated its worth, watched its development in the congenial surroundings of an innocent soul, that is rich in grace and leisure and gifts, and saw the astonishing reversal of God’s primal law illustrated in the process of corruption—the fair, sweet, fragrant creature passing into foulness. He looked carefully at the stages and modes of sin—venial sins, those tiny ulcers that weaken, poison and spoil the soul, even if they do not slay it—lukewarmness, that deathly slumber that engulfs the living thing into gradual death—and, finally, mortal sin, that one and only wholly hideous thing. He saw the indescribable sight of a naked soul in mortal sin; he saw how the earth shrank from it, how nature grew silent at it, how the sun darkened at it, how hell yelled at it, and the Love of God sickened at it.

And so, as the purgative days went by, these tempests poured over his soul, sifted through it, as the sea through a hanging weed, till all that was not organically part of his life was swept away, and he was left a simple soul alone with God. Then the second process began.

To change the metaphor, the canvas was now prepared, scoured, bleached and stretched. What is the image to be painted upon it? It is the image of Christ.

Now Father Robert laid aside his knives and his hammer, and took up his soft brushes, and began stroke by stroke, with colours beyond imagining, to lay upon the eager canvas the likeness of an adorable Lover and King. Anthony watched the portrait grow day by day with increasing wonder. Was this indeed the Jesus of Nazareth of whom he had read in the Gospels? he rubbed his eyes and looked; and yet there was no possibility of mistake,—line for line it was the same.

But this portrait grew and breathed and moved, and passed through all the stages of man’s life. First it was the Eternal Word in the bosom of the Father, the Beloved Son who looked in compassion upon the warring world beneath; and offered Himself to the Father who gave Him through the Energy of the Blessed Spirit.

Then it was a silent Maid that he saw waiting upon God, offering herself with her lily beside her; and in answer on a sudden came the lightning of Gabriel’s appearing, and, lo! the Eternal Word stole upon her down a ray of glory. And then at last he saw the dear Child born; and as he looked he was invited to enter the stable; and again he put out his hand and touched the coarse straw that lay in the manger, and fingered the rough brown cord that hung from Mary’s waist, and smelled the sweet breath of the cattle, and the burning oil of Joseph’s lantern hung against the wall, and shivered as the night wind shrilled under the ill-fitting door and awoke the tender Child.

Then he watched Him grow to boyhood, increasing in wisdom and stature, Him who was uncreated Wisdom, and in whose Hands are the worlds—followed Him, loving Him more at every step, to and from the well at Nazareth with the pitcher on His head: saw Him with blistered hands and aching back in the carpenter’s shop; then at last went south with Him to Jordan; listened with Him, hungering, to the jackals in the wilderness; rocked with Him on the high Temple spire; stared with Him at the Empires of all time, and refused them as a gift. Then he went with Him from miracle to miracle, laughed with joy at the leper’s new skin; wept in sorrow and joy with the mother at Nain, and the two sisters at Bethany; knelt with Mary and kissed His feet; went home with Matthew and Zaccheus, and sat at meat with the merry sinners; and at last began to follow silent and amazed with face set towards Jerusalem, up the long lonely road from Jericho.

Then, with love that almost burned his heart, he crouched at the moonlit door outside and watched the Supper begin. Judas pushed by him, muttering, and vanished in the shadows of the street. He heard the hush fall as the Bread was broken and the Red Wine uplifted; and he hid his face, for he dared not yet look with John upon a glory whose veils were so thin. Then he followed the silent company through the overhung streets to the Temple Courts, and down across the white bridge to the garden door. Then, bolder, he drew near, left the eight and the three and knelt close to the single Figure, who sobbed and trembled and sweated blood. Then he heard the clash of weapons and saw the glare of the torches, and longed to warn Him but could not; saw the bitter shame of the kiss and the arrest and the flight; and followed to Caiaphas’ house; heard the stinging slap; ran to Pilate’s house; saw that polished gentleman yawn and sneer; saw the clinging thongs and the splashed floor when the scourging was over; followed on to Calvary; saw the great Cross rise up at last over the heads of the crowd, and heard the storm of hoots and laughter and the dry sobs of the few women. Then over his head the sun grew dull, and the earth rocked and split, as the crosses reeled with their swinging burdens. Then, as the light came back, and the earth ended her long shudder, he saw in the evening glow that his Lord was dead. Then he followed to the tomb; saw the stone set and sealed and the watch appointed; and went home with Mary and John, and waited.

Then on Easter morning, wherever his Lord was, he was there too; with Mary in that unrecorded visit; with the women, with the Apostles; on the road to Emmaus; on the lake of Galilee; and his heart burned with Christ at his side, on lake and road and mountain.

Then at last he stood with the Twelve and saw that end that was so glorious a beginning; saw that tender sky overhead generate its strange cloud that was the door of heaven; heard far away the trumpets cry, and the harps begin to ripple for the new song that the harpers had learned at last; and then followed with his eyes the Lord whom he had now learned to know and love as never before, as He passed smiling and blessing into the heaven from which one day He will return....

There, then, as Anthony looked on the canvas, was that living, moving face and figure. What more could He have done that He did not do? What perfection could be dreamed of that was not already a thousand times His?

And when the likeness was finished, and Father Robert stepped aside from the portrait that he had painted with such tender skill and love, it is little wonder that this lad threw himself down before that eloquent vision and cried with Thomas, My Lord and my God!

Then, very gently, Father Robert led him through those last steps; up from the Illuminative to the Unitive; from the Incarnate Life with its warm human interests to that Ineffable Light that seems so chill and unreal to those who only see it through the clouds of earth, into that keen icy stillness, where only favoured and long-trained souls can breathe, up the piercing air of the slopes that lead to the Throne, and there in the listening silence of heaven, where the voice of adoration itself is silent through sheer intensity, where all colours return to whiteness and all sounds to stillness, all forms to essence and all creation to the Creator, there he let him fall in self-forgetting love and wonder, breathe out his soul in one ardent all-containing act, and make his choice.

CHAPTER XIV

EASTER DAY

Holy Week passed for Anthony like one of those strange dreams in which the sleeper awakes to find tears on his face, and does not know whether they are for joy or sorrow. At the end of the Retreat that closed on Palm Sunday evening, Anthony had made his choice, and told Father Robert.

It was not the Exercises themselves that were the direct agent, any more than were the books he had read: the books had cleared away intellectual difficulties, and the Retreat moral obstacles, and left his soul desiring the highest, keen to see it, and free to embrace it. The thought that he would have to tell Isabel appeared to him of course painful and difficult; but it was swallowed up in the joy of his conversion. He made an arrangement with Father Robert to be received at Cuckfield on Easter Eve; so that he might have an opportunity of telling Isabel before he took the actual step. The priest told him he would give him a letter to Mr. Barnes, so that he might be received immediately upon his arrival.

Holy Week, then, was occupied for Anthony in receiving instruction each morning in the little oak parlour from Father Robert; and in attending the devotions in the evening with the rest of the household. He also heard mass each day.

It was impossible, of course, to carry out the special devotions of the season with the splendour and elaboration that belonged to them; but Anthony was greatly impressed by what he saw. The tender reverence with which the Catholics loved to linger over the details of the Passion, and to set them like precious jewels in magnificent liturgical settings, and then to perform these stately heart-broken approaches to God with all the dignity and solemnity possible, appealed to him in strong contrast to the cold and loveless services, as he now thought them, of the Established Church that he had left.

On the Good Friday evening he was long in the parlour with Father Robert.

“I am deeply thankful, my son,” he said kindly, “that you have been able to come to a decision. Of course I could have wished you to enter the Society; but God has not given you a vocation to that apparently. However, you can do great work for Him as a seminary priest; and I am exceedingly glad that you will be going to Douai so soon.”

“I must just put my affairs in order at home,” he said, “and see what arrangements my sister will wish to make; and by Midsummer at the latest I shall hope to be gone.”

“I must be off early to-morrow,” said the priest. “I have to be far from here by to-morrow night, in a house where I shall hope to stay until I, too, go abroad again. Possibly we may meet at Douai in the autumn. Well, my son, pray for me.”

Anthony knelt for his blessing, and the priest was gone.

Presently Mr. Buxton came in and sat down. He was full of delight at the result of his scheme; and said so again and again.

“Who could have predicted it?” he cried. “To think that you were visiting me in prison fifteen months ago; and now this has come about in my house! Truly the Gospel blessing on your action has not been long on the way! And that you will be a priest, too! You must come and be my chaplain some day; if we are both alive and escape the gallows so long. Old Mr. Blake is sore displeased with me. I am a trial to him, I know. He will hardly speak to me in my own house; I declare I tremble when I meet him in the gallery; for fear he will rate me before my servants. I forget what his last grievance is; but I think it is something to do with a saint that he wishes me to be devout to; and I do not like her. Of course I do not doubt her sanctity; but Mr. Blake always confuses veneration and liking. I yield to none in my veneration for Saint What’s-her-name; but I do not like her; and that is an end of the matter.”

After a little more talk, Mr. Buxton looked at Anthony curiously a moment or two; and then said:

“I wonder you have not guessed yet who Father Robert is; for I am sure you know that that cannot be his real name.”

Anthony looked at him wonderingly.

“Well, he is in bed now; and will be off early to-morrow; and I have his leave to tell you. He is Father Persons, of whom you may have heard.”

Anthony stared.

“Yes,” said his host, “the companion of Campion. All the world supposes him to be in Rome; and I think that not half-a-dozen persons besides ourselves know where he is; but at this moment, I assure you, Father Robert Persons, of the Society of Jesus, is asleep (or awake, as the case may be) in the little tapestry chamber overhead.”

“Now,” went on Mr. Buxton, “that you are one of us, I will tell you quite plainly that Father Robert, as we will continue to call him, is in my opinion one of the most devout priests that ever said mass; and also one of the most shrewd men that ever drew breath; but I cannot follow him everywhere. You will find, Mr. Anthony, that the Catholics in England are of two kinds: those who seem to have as their motto the text I quoted to you in Lambeth prison; and who count their duty to Cæsar as scarcely less important than their direct duty to God. I am one of these: I sincerely desire above all things to serve her Grace, and I would not, for all the world, join in any confederacy to dethrone her, for I hold she is my lawful and true Prince. Then there is another party who would not hesitate for a moment to take part against their Prince, though I do not say to the slaying of her, if thereby the Catholic Religion could be established again in these realms. It is an exceedingly difficult point; and I understand well how honest and good men can hold that view: for they say, and rightly, that the Kingdom of God is the first thing in the world, and while they may not commit sin of course to further it, yet in things indifferent they must sacrifice all for it; and, they add, it is indifferent as to who sits on the throne of England; therefore one Prince may be pushed off it, so long as no crime is committed in the doing of it, and another seated there; if thereby the Religion may be so established again. You see the point, Mr. Anthony, no doubt; and how fine and delicate it is. Well, Father Robert is, I think, of that party; and so are many of the authorities abroad. Now I tell you all this, and on this sacred day too, because I may have no other opportunity; and I do not wish you to be startled or offended after you have become a Catholic. And I entreat you to be warm and kindly to those who take other views than your own; for I fear that many troubles lie in front of us of our own causing: for there are divisions amongst us already: although not at all of course (for which I thank God) on any of the saving truths of the Faith.”

Anthony’s excitement on hearing Father Robert’s real name was very great. As he lay in bed that night the thought of it all would hardly let him sleep. He turned to and fro, trying to realise that there, within a dozen yards of him, lay the famous Jesuit for whose blood all Protestant England was clamouring. The name of Persons was still sinister and terrible even to this convert; and he could scarcely associate in his thoughts all its suggestiveness with that kindly fervent lover of Jesus Christ who had led him with such skill and tenderness along the way of the Gospel. Others in England were similarly astonished in later years to learn that a famous Puritan book of devotions was scarcely other than a reprint of Father Persons’ “Christian Directory.”

The following day about noon, after an affectionate good-bye to his host and Mr. Blake, Anthony rode out of the iron-wrought gates and down the village street in the direction of Great Keynes.

It was a perfect spring-day. Overhead there was a soft blue sky with translucent clouds floating in it; underfoot and on all sides the mystery of life was beginning to stir and manifest itself. The last touch of bitterness had passed from the breeze, and all living growth was making haste out into the air. The hedges were green with open buds, and bubbling with the laughter and ecstasy of the birds; the high sloping overhung Sussex lanes were sweet with violets and primroses; and here and there under the boughs Anthony saw the blue carpet of bell-flowers spread. Rabbits whisked in and out of the roots, superintending and provisioning the crowded nurseries underground; and as Anthony came out, now and again on the higher and open spaces larks vanished up their airy spirals of song into the illimitable blue; or hung, visible musical specks against a fleecy cloud, pouring down their thin cataract of melody. And as he rode, for every note of music and every glimpse of colour round him, his own heart poured out pulse after pulse of that spiritual essence that lies beneath all beauty, and from which all beauty is formed, to the Maker of all this and the Saviour of himself. There were set wide before him now the gates of a kingdom, compared to which this realm of material life round about was but a cramped and wintry prison after all.

How long he had lived in the cold and the dark! he thought; kept alive by the refracted light that stole down the steps to where he sat in the shadow of death; saved from freezing by the warmth of grace that managed to survive the chill about him; and all the while the Catholic Church was glowing and pulsating with grace, close to him and yet unseen; that great realm full of heavenly sunlight, that was the life of all its members—that sunlight that had poured down so steadily ever since the winter had rolled away on Calvary; and that ever since then had been elaborating and developing into a thousand intricate forms all that was capable of absorbing it. One by one the great arts had been drawn into that Kingdom, transformed and immortalised by the vital and miraculous sap of grace; philosophies, languages, sciences, all in turn were taken up and sanctified; and now this Puritan soul, thirsty for knowledge and grace, and so long starved and imprisoned, was entering at last into her heritage.

All this was of course but dimly felt in the direct perceptions of Anthony; but Father Robert had said enough to open something of the vision, and he himself had sufficient apprehension to make him feel that the old meagre life was passing away, and a new life of unfathomed possibilities beginning. As he rode the wilderness appeared to rejoice and blossom like the rose, as the spring of nature and grace stirred about and within him; and only an hour or two’s ride away lay the very hills and streams of the Promised Land.

About half-past three he crossed the London road, and before four o’clock he rode round to the door of the Dower House, dismounted, telling the groom to keep his horse saddled.

He went straight through the hall, calling Isabel as he went, and into the garden, carrying his flat cap and whip and gloves: and as he came out beneath the holly tree, there she stood before him on the top of the old stone garden steps, that rose up between earthen flower-jars to the yew-walk on the north of the house. He went across the grass smiling, and as he came saw her face grow whiter and whiter. She was in a dark serge dress with a plain ruff, and a hood behind it, and her hair was coiled in great masses on her head. She stood trembling, and he came up and took her in his arms tenderly and kissed her, for his news would be heavy presently.

“Why, Isabel,” he said, “you look astonished to see me. But I could not well send a man, as I had only Geoffrey with me.”

She tried to speak, but could not; and looked so overwhelmed and terrified that Anthony grew frightened; he saw he must be very gentle.

“Sit down,” he said, drawing her to a seat beside the path at the head of the steps: “and tell me the news.”

By a great effort she regained her self-control.

“I did not know when you were coming,” she said tremulously. “I was startled.”

He talked of his journey for a few minutes; and of the kindness of the friend with whom he had been staying, and the beauty of the house and grounds, and so on; until she seemed herself again; and the piteous startled look had died out of her eyes: and then he forced himself to approach his point; for the horse was waiting saddled; and he must get to Cuckfield and back by supper if possible.

He took her hand and played with it gently as he spoke, turning over her rings.

“Isabel,” he said, “I have news to tell you. It is not bad news—at least I think not—it is the best thing that has ever come to me yet, by the grace of God, and so you need not be anxious or frightened. But I am afraid you may think it bad news. It—it is about religion, Isabel.”

He glanced at her, and saw that terrified look again in her face: she was staring at him, and her hand in his began to twitch and tremble.

“Nay, nay,” he said, “there is no need to look like that. I have not lost my faith in God. Rather, I have gained it. Isabel, I am going to be a Catholic.”

A curious sound broke from her lips; and a look so strange came into her face that he threw his arm round her, thinking she was going to faint: and he spoke sharply.

“Isabel, Isabel, what is there to fear? Look at me!”

Then a cry broke from her white lips, and she struggled to stand up.

“No, no, no! you are mocking me. Oh! Anthony, what have I done, that you should treat me like this?”

“Mocking!” he said, “before God I am not. My horse is waiting to take me to the priest.”

“But—but—” she began again. “Oh! then what have you done to James Maxwell?”

“James Maxwell! Why? What do you mean? You got my note!”

“No—no. There was no answer, he said.”

Anthony stared.

“Why, I wrote—and then Lady Maxwell! Does she not know, and James himself?”

Isabel shook her head and looked at him wildly.

“Well, well, that must wait; one thing at a time,” he said. “I cannot wait now. I must go to Cuckfield. Ah! Isabel, say you understand.”

Once or twice she began to speak, but failed; and sat panting and staring at him.

“My darling,” he said, “do not look like that: we are both Christians still: we at least serve the same God. Surely you will not cast me off for this?”

“Cast you off?” she said; and she laughed piteously and sharply; and then was grave again. Then she suddenly cried,

“Oh, Anthony, swear to me you are not mocking me.”

“My darling,” he said, “why should I mock you? I have made the Exercises, and have been instructed; and I have here a letter to Mr. Barnes from the priest who has taught me; so that I may be received to-night, and make my Easter duties: and Geoffrey is still at the door holding Roland to take me to Cuckfield to-night.”

“To Cuckfield!” she said. “You will not find Mr. Barnes there.”

“Not there! why not? Where shall I find him? How do you know?”

“Because he is here,” she went on in the same strange voice, “at the Hall.”

“Well,” said Anthony, “that saves me a journey. Why is he here?”

“He is here to say mass to-morrow.”

“Ah!”

“And—and——”

“What is it, Isabel?”

“And—to receive me into the Church to-night.”

The brother and sister walked up and down that soft spring evening after supper, on the yew-walk; with the whispers and caresses of the scented, breeze about them, the shy dewy eyes of the stars looking down at them between the tall spires of the evergreens overhead; and in their hearts the joy of lovers on a wedding-night.

Anthony had soon told the tale of James Maxwell and Isabel had nearly knelt to ask her brother’s pardon for having ever allowed even the shadow of a suspicion to darken her heart. Lady Maxwell, too, who had come down with her sister to see Isabel about some small arrangement, was told; and she too had been nearly overwhelmed with the joy of knowing that the lad was innocent, and the grief of having dreamed he could be otherwise, and at the wholly unexpected news of his conversion; but she had gone at last back to the Hall to make all ready for the double ceremony of that night, and the Paschal Feast on the next day. Mistress Margaret was in Isabel’s room, moving about with a candle, and every time that the two reached the turn at the top of the steps they saw her light glimmering.

Then Anthony, as they walked under the stars, told Isabel of his great hope that he, too, one day would be a priest, and serve God and his countrymen that way.

“Oh, Anthony,” she whispered, and clung to that dear arm that held her own; terrified for the moment at the memory of what had been the price of priesthood to James Maxwell.

“And where shall you be trained for it?” she asked.

“At Douai: and—Isabel—I think I must go this summer.”

“This summer!” she said. “Why——” and she was silent.

“Anthony,” she went on, “I would like to tell you about Hubert.”

And then the story of the past months came out; she turned away her face as she talked; and at last she told him how Hubert had come for his answer, a week before his time.

“It was on Monday,” she said. “I heard him on the stairs, and stood up as he came in; and he stopped at the door in silence, and I could not bear to look at him. I could hear him breathing quickly; and then I could not bear to—think of it all; and I dropped down into my chair again, and hid my face in my arm and burst into crying. And still he said nothing, but I felt him come close up to me and kneel down by me; and he put his hand over mine, and held them tight; and then he whispered in a kind of quick way:

“‘I will be what you please; Catholic or Protestant, or what you will’; and I lifted my head and looked at him, because it was dreadful to hear him—Hubert—say that: and he was whiter than I had ever seen him; and then—then he began to wrinkle his mouth—you know the way he does when his horse is pulling or kicking: and then he began to say all kinds of things: and oh! I was so sorry; because he had behaved so well till then.”

“What did he say?” asked Anthony quickly.

“Ah! I have tried to forget,” said Isabel. “I do not want to think of him as he was when he was angry and disappointed. At last he flung out of the room and down the stairs, and I have not seen him since. But Lady Maxwell sent for me the same evening an hour later; and told me that she could not live there any longer. She said that Hubert had ridden off to London; and would not be down again till Whitsuntide; but that she must be gone before then. So I am afraid that he said things he ought not; but of course she did not tell me one word. And she asked me to go with her. And, and—Anthony, I did not know what to say; because I did not know what you would do when you heard that I was a Catholic; I was waiting to tell you when you came home—but now—but now——Oh, Anthony, my darling!”

At last the two came indoors. Mistress Margaret met them in the hall. She looked for a moment at the two; at Anthony in his satin and lace and his smiling face over his ruff and his steady brown eyes; and Isabel on his arm, with her clear pale face and bosom and black high-piled hair, and her velvet and lace, and a rope of pearls.

“Why,” said the old nun, smiling, “you look a pair of lovers.”

Then presently the three went together up to the Hall.

An hour or two passed away; the Paschal moon was rising high over the tall yew hedge behind the Italian garden; and the Hall lay beneath it with silver roofs and vane; and black shadows under the eaves and in the angles. The tall oriel window of the Hall looking on to the terrace shone out with candlelight; and the armorial coats of the Maxwells and the families they had married with glimmered in the upper panes. From the cloister wing there shone out above the curtains lines of light in Lady Maxwell’s suite of rooms, and the little oak parlour beneath, as well as from one or two other rooms; but the rest of the house, with the exception of the great hall and the servants’ quarters, was all dark. It was as if the interior life had shifted westwards, leaving the remainder desolate. The gardens to the south were silent, for the night breeze had dropped; and the faint ripple of the fountain within the cloister-court was the only sound that broke the stillness. And once or twice the sleepy chirp of a bird nestling by his mate in the deep shrubberies showed that the life of the spring was beating out of sight.

And then at last the door in the west angle of the terrace, between the cloister wing and the front of the house, opened, and a flood of mellow light poured out on to the flat pavement. A group stood within the little oaken red-tiled lobby; Lady Maxwell and her sister, slender and dignified in their dark evening dresses and ruffs; Anthony holding his cap, and Isabel with a lace shawl over her head, and at the back the white hair and ruddy face of old Mr. Barnes in his cassock at the bottom of the stairs.

As Mistress Margaret opened the door and looked out, Lady Maxwell took Isabel in her arms and kissed her again and again. Then Anthony took the old lady’s hand and kissed it, but she threw her other hand round him and kissed him too on the forehead. Then without another word the brother and sister came out into the moonlight, passed down the side of the cloister wing, and turning once to salute the group who waited, framed and bathed in golden light, they turned the corner to the Dower House. Then the door closed; the oriel window suddenly darkened, and an hour after the lights in the wing went out, and Maxwell Hall lay silver and grey again in the moonlight.

The night passed on. Once Isabel awoke, and saw her windows blue and mystical and her room full of a dim radiance from the bright night outside. It was irresistible, and she sprang out of bed and went to the window across the cool polished oak floor, and leaned with her elbows on the sill, looking out at the square of lawn and the low ivied wall beneath, and the tall trees rising beyond ashen-grey and olive-black in the brilliant glory that poured down from almost directly overhead, for the Paschal moon was at its height above the house.

And then suddenly the breathing silence was broken by a ripple of melody, and another joined and another; and Isabel looked and wondered and listened, for she had never heard before the music of the mysterious night-flight of the larks all soaring and singing together when the rest of the world is asleep. And she listened and wondered as the stream of song poured down from the wonderful spaces of the sky, rising to far-off ecstasies as the wheeling world sank yet further with its sleeping meadows and woods beneath the whirling singers; and then the earth for a moment turned in its sleep as Isabel listened, and the trees stirred as one deep breath came across the woods, and a thrush murmured a note or two beside the drive, and a rabbit suddenly awoke in the field and ran on to the lawn and sat up and looked at the white figure at the window; and far away from the direction of Lindfield a stag brayed.

“So longeth my soul,” whispered Isabel to herself.

Then all grew still again; the trees hushed; the torrent of music, more tumultuous as it neared the earth, suddenly ceased; and Isabel at the window leaned further out and held her hands in the bath of light; and spoke softly into the night:

“Oh, Lord Jesus, how kind Thou art to me!”

Then at last the morning came, and Christ was risen beyond a doubt.

Just before the sun came up, when all the sky was luminous to meet him, the two again passed up and round the corner, and into the little door in the angle. There was the same shaded candle or two, for the house was yet dark within; and they passed up and on together through the sitting-room into the chapel where each had made a First Confession the night before, and had together been received into the Catholic Church. Now it was all fragrant with flowers and herbs; a pair of tall lilies leaned their delicate heads towards the altar, as if to listen for the soundless Coming in the Name of the Lord; underfoot all about the altar lay sprigs of sweet herbs, rosemary, thyme, lavender, bay-leaves; with white blossoms scattered over them—a soft carpet for the Pierced Feet; not like those rustling palm-swords over which He rode to death last week. The black oak chest that supported the altar-stone was glorious in its vesture of cloth-of-gold; and against the white-hung wall at the back, behind the silver candlesticks, leaned the gold plate of the house, to do honour to the King. And presently there stood there the radiant rustling figure of the Priest, his personality sheathed and obliterated beneath the splendid symbolism of his vestments, stiff and chinking with jewels as he moved.

The glorious Mass of Easter Day began.

“Immolatus est Christus. Itaque epulemur,” Saint Paul cried from the south corner of the altar to the two converts. “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast, but not with the old leaven.”

“Quis revolvet nobis lapidem?” wailed the women. “Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”

“And when they looked,” cried the triumphant Evangelist, “they saw that the stone was rolled away; for it was very great”—”erat quippe magnus valde.”

Here then they knelt at last, these two come home together, these who had followed their several paths so resolutely in the dark, not knowing that the other was near, yet each seeking a hidden Lord, and finding both Him and one another now in the full and visible glory of His Face—orto jam sole—for the Sun of Righteousness had dawned, and there was healing for all sorrows in His Wings.

“Et credo in unam sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam”—their hearts cried all together. “I believe at last in a Catholic Church; one, for it is built on one and its faith is one; holy, for it is the Daughter of God and the Mother of Saints; Apostolic, for it is guided by the Prince of Apostles and very Vicar of Christ.”

“Et exspecto vitam venturi saeculi.” “I look for the life of the world to come; and I count all things but loss, houses and brethren and sisters and father and mother and wife and children and lands, when I look to that everlasting life, and Him Who is the Way to it. Amen.”

So from step to step the liturgy moved on with its sonorous and exultant tramp, and the crowding thoughts forgot themselves, and watched as the splendid heralds went by; the triumphant trumpets of Gloria in excelsis had long died away; the proclamation of the names and titles of the Prince had been made. Unum Dominum Jesum Christum; Filium Dei Unigenitum; Ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula; Deum de Deo; Lumen de Lumine; Deum Verum de Deo Vero; Genitum non factum; Consubstantialem Patri.

Then His first achievement had been declared; “Per quem omnia facta sunt.”

Then his great and later triumphs; how He had ridden out alone from the Palace and come down the steep of heaven in quest of His Love; how He had disguised Himself for her sake; and by the crowning miracle of love, the mightiest work that Almighty God has ever wrought, He was made man; and the herald hushed his voice in awe as he declared it, and the people threw themselves prostrate in honour of this high and lowly Prince; then was recounted the tale of those victories that looked so bitterly like failures, and the people held their breath and whispered it too; then in rising step after step His last conquests were told; how the Black Knight was overthrown, his castle stormed and his prison burst; and the story of the triumph of the return and of the Coronation and the Enthronement at the Father’s Right Hand on high.

The heralds passed on; and mysterious figures came next, bearing Melchisedech’s gifts; shadowing the tremendous event that follows on behind.

After a space or two came the first lines of the bodyguard, the heavenly creatures dimly seen moving through clouds of glory, Angels, Dominations, Powers, Heavens, Virtues, and blessed Seraphim, all crying out together to heaven and earth to welcome Him Who comes after in the bright shadow of the Name of the Lord; and the trumpets peal out for the last time, “Hosanna in the highest.”

Then a hush fell, and presently in the stillness came riding the great Personages who stand in heaven about the Throne; first, the Queen Mother herself, glorious within and without, moving in clothing of wrought gold, high above all others; then, the great Princes of the Blood Royal, who are admitted to drink of the King’s own Cup, and sit beside Him on their thrones, Peter and Paul and the rest, with rugged faces and scarred hands; and with them great mitred figures, Linus, Cletus and Clement, with their companions.

And then another space and a tingling silence; the crowds bow down like corn before the wind, the far-off trumpets are silent; and He comes—He comes!

On He moves, treading under foot the laws He has made, yet borne up by them as on the Sea of Galilee; He Who inhabits eternity at an instant is made present; He Who transcends space is immanent in material kind; He Who never leaves the Father’s side rests on His white linen carpet, held yet unconfined; in the midst of the little gold things and embroidery and candle-flames and lilies, while the fragrance of the herbs rises about Him. There rests the gracious King, before this bending group; the rest of the pageant dies into silence and nothingness outside the radiant circle of His Presence. There is His immediate priest-herald, who has marked out this halting-place for the Prince, bowing before Him, striving by gestures to interpret and fulfil the silence that words must always leave empty; here behind are the adoring human hearts, each looking with closed eyes into the Face of the Fairest of the children of men, each crying silently words of adoration, welcome and utter love.

The moments pass; the court ceremonies are performed. The Virgins that follow the Lamb, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha and the rest step forward smiling, and take their part; the Eternal Father is invoked again in the Son’s own words; and at length the King, descending yet one further step of infinite humility, flings back the last vesture of His outward Royalty and casts Himself in a passion of haste and desire into the still and invisible depths of these two quivering hearts, made in His own Image, that lift themselves in an agony of love to meet Him....

Meanwhile the Easter morning is deepening outside; the sun is rising above the yew hedge, and the dew flashes drop by drop into a diamond and vanishes; the thrush that stirred and murmured last night is pouring out his song; and the larks that rose into the moonlight are running to and fro in the long meadow grass. The tall slender lilies that have not been chosen to grace the sacramental Presence-Chamber, are at least in the King’s own garden, where He walks morning and evening in the cool of the day; and waiting for those who will have seen Him face to face....

And presently they come, the tall lad and his sister, silent and together, out into the radiant sunlight; and the joy of the morning and the singing thrush and the jewels of dew and the sweet swaying lilies are shamed and put to silence by the joy upon their faces and in their hearts.

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE COMING OF SPAIN

The conflict between the Old Faith and the lusty young Nation went steadily forward after the Jesuit invasion; more and more priests poured into England; more and more were banished, imprisoned and put to death. The advent of Father Holt, the Jesuit, to Scotland in 1583 was a signal for a new outburst of Catholic feeling, which manifested itself not only in greater devotion to Religion, but, among the ill-instructed and impatient, in very questionable proceedings. In fact, from this time onward the Catholic cause suffered greatly from the division of its supporters into two groups; the religious and the political, as they may be named. The former entirely repudiated any desire or willingness to meddle with civil matters; its members desired to be both Catholics and Englishmen; serving the Pope in matters of Faith and Elizabeth in matters of civil life; but they suffered greatly from the indiscretions and fanaticism of the political group. The members of that party frankly regarded themselves as at war with an usurper and an heretic; and used warlike methods to gain their ends; plots against the Queen’s life were set on foot; and their promoters were willing enough to die in defence of the cause. But the civil Government made the fatal mistake of not distinguishing between the two groups; again and again loyal Englishmen were tortured and hanged as traitors, because they shared their faith with conspirators.

There was one question, however, that was indeed on the borderline, exceedingly difficult to answer in words, especially for scrupulous consciences; and that was whether they believed in the Pope’s deposing power; and this question was adroitly and deliberately used by the Government in doubtful cases to ensure a conviction. But whether or not it was possible to frame a satisfactory answer in words, yet the accused were plain enough in their deeds; and when the Armada at length was launched in ‘88, there were no more loyal defenders of England than the persecuted Catholics. Even before this, however, there had appeared signs of reaction among the Protestants, especially against the torture and death of Campion and his fellows; and Lord Burghley in ‘83 attempted to quiet the people’s resentment by his anonymous pamphlet, “Execution of Justice in England,” to which Cardinal Allen presently replied.

Ireland, which had been profoundly stirred by the military expedition from the continent in ‘80, at length was beaten and slashed into submission again; and the torture and execution of Hurley by martial law, which Elizabeth directed on account of his appointment to the See of Cashel, when the judges had pronounced there to be no case against him; and a massacre on the banks of the Moy in ‘86 of Scots who had come across as reinforcements to the Irish;—these were incidents in the black list of barbarities by which at last a sort of temporary quiet was brought to Ireland.

In Scottish affairs, the tangle, unravelled even still, of which Mary Stuart was the centre, led at last to her death. Walsingham, with extraordinary skill, managed to tempt her into a dangerous correspondence, all of which he tapped on the way: he supplied to her in fact the very instrument—an ingeniously made beer-barrel—through which the correspondence was made possible, and, after reading all the letters, forwarded them to their several destinations. When all was ripe he brought his hand down on a group of zealots, to whose designs Mary was supposed to be privy; and after their execution, finally succeeded, in ‘87, in obtaining Elizabeth’s signature to her cousin’s death-warrant. The storm already raging against Elizabeth on the Continent, but fanned to fury by this execution, ultimately broke in the Spanish Armada in the following year.

Meanwhile, at home, the affairs of the Church of England were far from prosperous. Puritanism was rampant; and a wail of dismay was evoked by the new demands of a Commission under Whitgift’s guidance, in ‘82, whereby the Puritan divines were now called upon to assent to the Queen’s Supremacy, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Prayer Book. In spite of the opposition, however, of Burghley and the Commons, Whitgift, who had by this time succeeded to Canterbury upon Grindal’s death, remained firm; and a long and dreary dispute began, embittered further by the execution of Mr. Copping and Mr. Thacker in ‘83 for issuing seditious books in the Puritan cause. A characteristic action in this campaign was the issuing of a Puritan manifesto in ‘84, consisting of a brief, well-written pamphlet of a hundred and fifty pages under the title “A Learned Discourse of Ecclesiastical Government,” making the inconsistent claim of desiring a return to the Primitive and Scriptural model, and at the same time of advocating an original scheme, “one not yet handled.” It was practically a demand for the Presbyterian system of pastorate and government. To this Dr. Bridges replies with a tremendous tome of over fourteen hundred pages, discharged after three years of laborious toil; and dealing, as the custom then was, line by line, with the Puritan attack. To this in the following year an anonymous Puritan, under the name of Martin Marprelate, retorts with a brilliant and sparkling riposte addressed to “The right puissant and terrible priests, my clergy-masters of the Convocation-house,” in which he mocks bitterly at the prelates, accusing them of Sabbath-breaking, time-serving, and popery,—calling one “dumb and duncetical,” another “the veriest coxcomb that ever wore velvet cap,” and summing them up generally as “wainscot-faced bishops,” “proud, popish, presumptuous, profane paltry, pestilent, and pernicious prelates.”

The Archbishop had indeed a difficult team to drive; especially as his coadjutors were not wholly proof against Martin’s jibes. In ‘84 his brother of York had been mixed up in a shocking scandal; in ‘85 the Bishop of Lichfield was accused of simony; Bishop Aylmer was continually under suspicion of avarice, dishonesty, vanity and swearing; and the Bench as a whole was universally reprobated as covetous, stingy and weak.

In civil matters, England’s relation with Spain was her most important concern. Bitter feeling had been growing steadily between the two countries ever since Drake’s piracies in the Spanish dominions in America; and a gradually increasing fleet at Cadiz was the outward sign of it. Now the bitterness was deepened by the arrest of English ships in the Spanish ports in the early summer of ‘85, and the swift reprisals of Drake in the autumn; who intimidated and robbed important towns on the coast, such as Vigo, where his men behaved with revolting irreverence in the churches, and Santiago; and then proceeded to visit and spoil S. Domingo and Carthagena in the Indies.

Again in ‘87 Drake obtained the leave of the Queen to harass Spain once more, and after robbing and burning all the vessels in Cadiz harbour, he stormed the forts at Faro, destroyed Armada stores at Corunna, and captured the great treasure-ship San Felipe.

Elizabeth was no doubt encouraged in her apparent recklessness by the belief that with the Netherlands, which she had been compelled at last to assist, in a state of revolt, Spain would have little energy for reprisals upon England; but she grew more and more uneasy when news continued to arrive in England of the growing preparations for the Armada; France, too, was now so much involved with internal struggles, as the Protestant Henry of Navarre was now the heir to her Catholic throne, that efficacious intervention could no longer be looked for from that quarter, and it seemed at last as if the gigantic Southern power was about to inflict punishment upon the little northern kingdom which had insulted her with impunity so long.

In the October of ‘87 certain news arrived in England of the gigantic preparations being made in Spain and elsewhere: and hearts began to beat, and tongues to clack, and couriers to gallop. Then as the months went by, and tidings sifted in, there was something very like consternation in the country. Men told one another of the huge armament that was on its way, the vast ships and guns—all bearing down on tiny England, like a bull on a terrier. They spoke of the religious fervour, like that of a crusade, that inspired the invasion, and was bringing the flower of the Spanish nobility against them: the superstitious contrasted their own Lion, Revenge, and Elizabeth Jonas with the Spanish San Felipe, San Matteo, and Our Lady of the Rosary: the more practical thought with even deeper gloom of the dismal parsimony of the Queen, who dribbled out stores and powder so reluctantly, and dismissed her seamen at the least hint of delay.

Yet, little by little, as midsummer came and went, beacons were gathering on every hill, ships were approaching efficiency, and troops assembling at Tilbury under the supremely incompetent command of Lord Leicester.

Among the smaller seaports on the south coast, Rye was one of the most active and enthusiastic; the broad shallow bay was alive with fishing-boats, and the steep cobbled streets of the town were filled all day with a chattering exultant crowd, cheering every group of seamen that passed, and that spent long hours at the quay watching the busy life of the ships, and predicting the great things that should fall when the Spaniards encountered the townsfolk, should the Armada survive Drake’s onslaught further west.

About July the twentieth more definite news began to arrive. At least once a day a courier dashed in through the south-west gate, with news that all must hold themselves ready to meet the enemy by the end of the month; labour grew more incessant and excitement more feverish.

About six o’clock on the evening of the twenty-ninth, as a long row of powder barrels was in process of shipping down on the quay, the men who were rolling them suddenly stopped and listened; the line of onlookers paused in their comments, and turned round. From the town above came an outburst of cries, followed by the crash of the alarm from the church-tower. In two minutes the quay was empty. Out of every passage that gave on to the main street poured excited men and women, some hysterically laughing, some swearing, some silent and white as they ran. For across the bay westwards, on a point beyond Winchelsea, in the still evening air rose up a stream of smoke shaped like a pine-tree, with a red smouldering root; and immediately afterwards in answer the Ypres tower behind the town was pouring out a thick drifting cloud that told to the watchers on Folkestone cliffs that the dreaded and longed-for foe was in sight of England.

Then the solemn hours of waiting began to pass. Every day and night there were watchers, straining their eyes westwards in case the Armada should attempt to coast along England to force a landing anywhere, and southwards in case they should pass nearer the French coast on their way to join the Prince of Parma; but there was little to be seen over that wide ring of blue sea except single vessels, or now and again half-a-dozen in company, appearing and fading again on some unknown quest. The couriers that came in daily could not tell them much; only that there had been indecisive engagements; that the Spaniards had not yet attempted a landing anywhere; and that it was supposed that they would not do so until a union with the force in Flanders had been effected.

And so four days of the following week passed; then on Thursday, August the fourth, within an hour or two after sunrise, the solemn booming of guns began far away to the south-west; but the hours passed; and before nightfall all was silent again.

The suspense was terrible; all night long there were groups parading the streets, anxiously conjecturing, now despondently, now cheerfully.

Then once again on the Friday morning a sudden clamour broke out in the town, and almost simultaneously a pinnace slipped out, spreading her wings and making for the open sea. A squadron of English ships had been sighted flying eastwards; and the pinnace was gone to get news. The ships were watched anxiously by thousands of eyes, and boats put out all along the coast to inquire; and within two or three hours the pinnace was back again in Rye harbour, with news that set bells ringing and men shouting. On Wednesday, the skipper reported, there had been an indecisive engagement during the dead calm that had prevailed in the Channel; a couple of Spanish store-vessels had been taken on the following morning, and a general action had followed, which again had been indecisive; but in which the English had hardly suffered at all, while it was supposed that great havoc had been wrought upon the enemy.

But the best of the news was that the Rye contingent was to set sail at once, and unite with the English fleet westward of Calais by mid-day on Saturday. The squadron that had passed was under the command of the Admiral himself, who was going to Dover for provisions and ammunition, and would return to his fleet before evening.

Before many hours were passed, Rye harbour was almost empty, and hundreds of eyes were watching the ships that carried their husbands and sons and lovers out into the pale summer haze that hung over the coast of France; while a few sharp-eyed old mariners on points of vantage muttered to one another that in the haze there was a patch of white specks to be seen which betokened the presence of some vast fleet.

That night the sun set yellow and stormy, and by morning the cobble-stones of Rye were wet and dripping with storm-showers, and a swell was beginning to lap and sob against the harbour walls.

CHAPTER II

MEN OF WAR AND PEACE

The following days passed in terrible suspense for all left behind at Rye. Every morning all the points of vantage were crowded; the Ypres tower itself was never deserted day or night; and all the sharpest eyes in the town were bent continually out over that leaden rolling sea that faded into haze and storm-cloud in the direction of the French coast. But there was nothing to be seen on that waste of waters but the single boats that flew up channel or laboured down it against the squally west wind, far out at sea. Once or twice fishing-boats put in at Rye; but their reports were so contradictory and uncertain that they increased rather than allayed the suspense and misery. Now it was a French boat that reported the destruction of the Triumph; now an Englishman that swore to having seen Drake kill Medina-Sidonia with his own hand on his poop; but whatever the news might be, the unrest and excitement ran higher and higher. St. Clare’s chapel in the old parish church of St. Nicholas was crowded every morning at five o’clock by an excited congregation of women, who came to beg God’s protection on their dear ones struggling out there somewhere towards the dawn with those cruel Southern monsters. Especially great was the crowd on the Tuesday morning following the departure of the ships; for all day on Monday from time to time came a far-off rolling noise from the direction of Calais; which many declared to be thunder, with an angry emphasis that betrayed their real opinion.

When they came out of church that morning, and were streaming down to the quay as usual to see if any news had come in during the night, a seaman called to them from a window that a French vessel was just entering the harbour.

When the women arrived at the water’s edge they found a good crowd already assembled on the quay, watching the ship beat in against the north-west wind, which had now set in; but she aroused no particular comment as she was a well-known boat plying between Boulogne and Rye; and by seven o’clock she was made fast to the quay.

There were the usual formalities, stricter than usual during war, to be gone through before the few passengers were allowed to land: but all was in order; the officers left the boat, and the passengers came up the plank, the crowd pressing forward as they came, and questioning them eagerly. No, there was no certain news, said an Englishman at last, who looked like a lawyer; it was said at Boulogne the night before that there had been an engagement further up beyond the Straits; they had all heard guns; and it was reported by the last cruiser who came in before the boat left that a Spanish galleasse had run aground and had been claimed by M. Gourdain, the governor of Calais; but probably, added the shrewd-eyed man, that was just a piece of their dirty French pride. The crowd smiled ruefully; and a French officer of the boat who was standing by the gangway scowled savagely, as the lawyer passed on with a demure face.

Then there was a pause in the little stream of passengers; and then, out of the tiny door that led below decks, walking swiftly, and carrying a long cloak over her arm, came Isabel Norris, in a grey travelling dress, followed by Anthony and a couple of servants. The crowd fell back for the lady, who passed straight up through them; but one or two of the men called out for news to Anthony. He shook his head cheerfully at them.

“I know no more than that gentleman,” he said, nodding towards the lawyer; and then followed Isabel; and together they made their way up to the inn.

Anthony was a good deal changed in the last six years; his beard and moustache were well grown; and he had a new look of gravity in his brown eyes; when he had smiled and shaken his head at the eager crowd just now, showing his white regular teeth, he looked as young as ever; but the serious look fell on his face again, as he followed Isabel up the steep little cobbled slope in his buff dress and plumed hat.

There was not so much apparent change in Isabel; she was a shade graver too, her walk a little slower and more dignified, and her lips, a little thinner, had a line of strength in them that was new; and even now as she was treading English ground again for the first time for six years, the look of slight abstraction in her eyes that is often the sign of a strong inner life, was just a touch deeper than it used to be.

They went up together with scarcely a word; and asked for a private room and dinner in two hours’ time; and a carriage and horses for the servants to be ready at noon. The landlord, who had met them at the door, shook his head.

“The private room, sir, and the dinner—yes, sir—but the horses——” and he spread his hands out deprecatingly. “There is not one in the stall,” he added.

Anthony considered a moment.

“Well, what do you propose? We are willing to stay a day or two, if you think that by then——”

“Ah,” said the landlord, “to-morrow is another matter. I expect two of my carriages home to-night, sir, from London; but the horses will not be able to travel till noon to-morrow.”

“That will do,” said Anthony; and he followed Isabel upstairs.

It was very strange to them both to be back in England after so long. They had settled down at Douai with the Maxwells; but, almost immediately on their arrival, Mistress Margaret was sent for by her Superior to the house of her Order at Brussels; and Lady Maxwell was left alone with Isabel in a house in the town; for Anthony was in the seminary.

Then, in ‘86 Lady Maxwell had died, quite suddenly. Isabel herself had found her at her prie-dieu in the morning, still in her evening dress; she was leaning partly against the wall; her wrinkled old hands were clasped tightly together on a little ivory crucifix, on the top of the desk; and her snow-white head, with the lace drooping from it like a bridal veil, was bowed below them. Isabel, who had not dared to move her, had sent instantly for a little French doctor, who had thrown up his hands in a kind of devout ecstasy at that wonderful old figure, rigid in an eternal prayer. The two tall tapers she had lighted eight hours before were still just alight beside her, and looked strange in the morning sunshine.

“Pendant ses oraisons! pendant ses oraisons!” he murmured over and over again; and then had fallen on his knees and kissed the drooping lace of her sleeve.

“Priez pour moi, madame,” he whispered to the motionless figure.

And so the old Catholic who had suffered so much had gone to her rest. The fact that her son James had been living in the College during her four years’ stay at Douai had been perhaps the greatest possible consolation to her for being obliged to be out of England; for she saw him almost daily; and it was he who sang her Requiem. Isabel had then gone to live with other friends in Douai, until Anthony had been ordained priest in the June of ‘88, and was ready to take her to England; and now the two were bound for Stanfield, where Anthony was to act as chaplain for the present, as Mr. Buxton had predicted so long before. Old Mr. Blake had died in the spring of the year, still disapproving of his patron’s liberal notions, and Mr. Buxton had immediately sent a special messenger all the way to Douai to secure Anthony’s services; and had insisted moreover that Isabel should accompany her brother. They intended however to call at the Dower House on the way, which had been left under the charge of old Mrs. Carroll; and renew the memories of their own dear home.

They talked little at dinner; and only of general matters, their journey, the Armada, their joy at getting home again; for they had been expressly warned by their friends abroad against any indiscreet talk even when they thought themselves alone, and especially in the seaports, where so constant a watch was kept for seminary priests. The presence of Isabel, however, was the greatest protection to Anthony; as it was almost unknown that a priest should travel with any but male companions.

Then suddenly, as they were ending dinner, a great clamour broke out in the town below them; a gun was fired somewhere; and footsteps began to rush along the narrow street outside. Anthony ran to the window and called to know what was the matter; but no one paid any attention to him; and he presently sat down again in despair, and with one or two wistful looks.

“I will go immediately,” he said to Isabel, “and bring you word.”

A moment after a servant burst into the room.

“It is a Spanish ship, sir,” he said, “a prize—rounding Dungeness.”

In the afternoon, when the first fierce excitement was over, Anthony went down to the quay. He did not particularly wish to attract attention, and so he kept himself in the background somewhat; but he had a good view of her as she lay moored just off the quay, especially when one of the town guard who had charge of the ropes that kept the crowd back, seeing a gentleman in the crowd, beckoned him through.

“Your honour will wish to see the prize?” he said, in hopes of a trifle for himself; “make way there for the gentleman.”

Anthony thought it better under these circumstances to accept the invitation, so he gave the man something, and slipped through. On the quay was a pile of plunder from the ship: a dozen chests carved and steel-clamped stood together; half-a-dozen barrels of powder; the ship’s bell rested amid a heap of rich clothes and hangings; a silver crucifix and a couple of lamps with their chains lay tumbled on one side; and a parson was examining a finely carved mahogany table that stood near.

He looked up at Anthony.

“For the church, sir,” he said cheerfully. “I shall make application to her Grace.”

Anthony smiled at him.

“A holy revenge, sir,” he said.

The ship herself had once been a merchantman brig; so much Anthony could tell, though he knew little of seamanship; but she had been armed heavily with deep bulwarks of timber, pierced for a dozen guns on each broadside. Now, however, she was in a terrible condition. The solid bulwarks were rent and shattered, as indeed was her whole hull; near the waterline were nailed sheets of lead, plainly in order to keep the water from entering the shot-holes; she had only one mast; and that was splintered in more than one place; a spar had been rigged up on to the stump of the bowsprit. The high poop such as distinguished the Spanish vessels was in the same deplorable condition; as well as the figure-head, which represented a beardless man with a halo behind his head, and which bore the marks of fierce hacks as well as of shot.

Anthony read the name,—the San Juan da Cabellas.

From the high quay too he could see down on to the middle decks, and there was the most shocking sight of all, for the boards and the mast-stumps and the bulwarks and the ship’s furniture were all alike splashed with blood, some of the deeper pools not even yet dry. It was evident that the San Juan had not yielded easily.

Presently Anthony saw an officer approaching, and not wishing to be led into conversation slipped away again through the crowd to take Isabel the news.

The two remained quietly upstairs the rest of the afternoon, listening to the singing and the shouting in the streets, and watching from their window the groups that swung and danced to and fro in joy at Rye’s contribution to the defeat of the invaders. When the dusk fell the noise was louder than ever as the men began to drink more deep, and torches were continually tossing up and down the steep cobbled streets; the din reached its climax about half-past nine, when the main body of the revellers passed up towards the inn, and, as Anthony saw from the window, finally entered through the archway below; and then all grew tolerably quiet. Presently Isabel said that she would go to bed, but just before she left the room, the servant again came in.

“If you please, sir, Lieutenant Raxham, of the Seahorse, is telling the tale of the capture of the Spanish ship; and the landlord bid me come and tell you.”

Anthony glanced at Isabel, who nodded at him.

“Yes; go,” she said, “and come up and tell me the news afterwards, if it is not very late.”

When Anthony came downstairs he found to his annoyance that the place of honour had been reserved for him in a tall chair next to the landlord’s at the head of the table. The landlord rose to meet his guest.

“Sit here, sir,” he said. “I am glad you have come. And now, Mr. Raxham——”

Anthony looked about him with some dismay at this extreme publicity. The room was full from end to end. They were chiefly soldiers who sat at the table—heavy-looking rustics from Hawkhurst, Cranbrook and Appledore, in brigantines and steel caps, who had been sent in by the magistrates to the nearest seaport to assist in the defence of the coast—a few of them wore corselets with almain rivets and carried swords, while the pike-heads of the others rose up here and there above the crowd. The rest of the room was filled with the townsmen of Rye—those who had been retained for the defence of the coast, as well as others who for any physical reason could not serve by sea or land. There was an air of extraordinary excitement in the room. The faces of the most stolid were transfigured, for they were gathered to hear of the struggle their own dear England was making; the sickening pause of those months of waiting had ended at last; the huge southern monster had risen up over the edge of the sea, and the panting little country had flown at his throat and grappled him; and now they were hearing the tale of how deep her fangs had sunk.

The crowd laughed and applauded and drew its breath sharply, as one man; and the silence now and then was startling as the young officer told his story; although he had few gifts of rhetoric, except a certain vivid vocabulary. He himself was a lad of eighteen or so, with a pleasant reckless face, now flushed with drink and excitement, and sparkling eyes; he was seated in a chair upon the further end of the table, so that all could hear his story; and he had a cup of huff-cup in his left hand as he talked, leaving his right hand free to emphasise his points and slap his leg in a clumsy sort of oratory. His tale was full of little similes, at which his audience nodded their heads now and then, approvingly. He had apparently already begun his story, for when Anthony had taken his seat and silence had been obtained, he went straight on without any further introduction.

The landlord leaned over to Anthony. “The San Juan,” he whispered behind his hot hairy hand, and nodded at him with meaning eyes.

“And every time they fired over us,” went on the lieutenant, “and we fired into them; and the only damage they did us was their muskets in the tops. They killed Tom Dane like that”—there was a swift hiss of breath from the room; but the officer went straight on—”shot him through the back as he bent over his gun; and wounded old Harry and a score more; but all the while, lads, we were a-pounding at them with the broadsides as we came round, and raking them with the demi-cannon in the poop, until—well; go you and see the craft as she lies at the quay if you would know what we did. I tell you, as we came at her once towards the end, I saw that she was bleeding through her scuppers like a pig, from the middle deck. They were all packed up there together—sailors and soldiers and a priest or two; and scarce a ball could pass between the poop and the forecastle without touching flesh.”

The lad stopped a moment and took a pull at his cup, and a murmur of talk broke out in the room. Anthony was surprised at his accent and manner of speaking, and heard afterwards that he was the son of the parson at one of the inland villages, and had had an education. In a moment he went on.

“Well—it would be about noon, just before the Admiral came up from Calais, that the old Seahorse was lost. We came at the dons again as we had done before, only closer than ever; and just as the captain gave the word to put her about, a ball from one of their guns which they had trained down on us, cut old Dick Kemp in half at the helm, and broke the tiller to splinters.”

“Old Dick?” said a man’s voice out of the reeking crowd, “Old Dick?”

There was a murmur round him, bidding him hold his tongue; and the lad went on.

“Well, we drifted nearer and nearer. There was nought to do but to bang at them; and that we did, by God—and to board her if we touched. Well, I worked my saker, and saw little else—for the smoke was like a black sea-fog; and the noise fit to crack your ears. Mine sing yet with it; the captain was bawling from the poop, and there were a dozen pikemen ready below; and then on a sudden came the crash; and I looked up and there was the Spaniards’ decks above us, and the poop like a tower, with a grinning don or two looking down; and there was I looking up the muzzle of a culverin. I skipped towards the poop, shouting to the men; and the dons fired their broadside as I went.—God save us from that din! But I knew the old Seahorse was done this time—the old ship lurched and shook as the balls tore through her and broke her back; and there was such a yell as you’ll never hear this side of hell. Well—I was on the poop by now, and the men after me; for you see the poop of the Seahorse was as high as the middle deck of the Spaniard, and we must board from there or not at all. Well, lads, there was the captain before me. He had fought cool till then, as cool as a parson among his roses, with never an oath from his mouth—but now he was as scarlet as a poppy, and his eyes were like blue fire, and his mouth jabbered and foamed; he was so hot, you see, at the loss of his ship. He was dancing to and fro waiting while the poop swung round on the tide; and the old craft plunged deeper in every wave that lifted her, but he cared no more for that nor for the musket-balls from the tops, nor for the brown grinning devils who shook their pikes at him from the decks, than—than a mad dog cares for a shower of leaves; but he stamped there and cursed them and damned them as they laughed at him; and then in a moment the poop touched.

“Well, lads—” and the lieutenant set his cup down on the table, clapped his hands on his knees, laughed shortly and nervously once or twice, and looked round. “Well, lads, I have never seen the like. The captain went for them like a wild cat; one step on the rail and the next among them; and was gone like a stone into water”—and the lad clapped his hand on his thigh. “I saw one face slit up from chin to eye; and another split across like an apple; and then we were after him. The men were mad, too—what was left of us; and we poured up on to the decks and left the old Seahorse to die. Well, we had our work before us—but it was no good. The dons could do nothing; I was after the captain as he went through the pack and came out just behind him; there were half a dozen of them down now; and the noise and the foreign oaths went up like smoke; and the captain himself was bleeding down one side of his face and grunting as he cut and stabbed; and I had had a knife through the arm; but he went up on to the poop; and as I followed, the Spaniards broke and threw down their arms—they saw ‘twas no use, you see. When we reached the poop-stairs an officer in a blue coat came forward jabbering some jargon; but the captain would have no parley with him, but flung his dag clean into the man’s face, and over he went backwards—with his damned high heels in the air.”

There was a sudden murmur of laughter from the room; Anthony glanced off the lieutenant’s grinning ruddy face for a moment, and saw the rows of listening faces all wrinkled with mirth.

“Well,” went on the lad, “up went the captain, and I after him. Then there came across the deck, very slow and stately, the Spanish captain himself, in a fine laced coat and a plumed hat, and he was holding out his sword by the blade and bowed as we ran towards him, and began some damned foreign nonsense, with his Señor—but the captain would have none o’ that, I tell you he was like Tom o’ Bedlam now—so as the Señor grinned at him with his monkey face and bowed and wagged, the captain fetched him a slash across the cheek with his sword that cut up into his head; and that don went spinning across the poop like a morris-man and brought up against the rail, and then down he came,” and the lad dashed his hand on his thigh again—”as dead as mutton.”

Again came a louder gust of laughter from the room. Anthony half rose in his chair, and then sat down again.

“Well,” said the lad, “and that was not all. Down he raged again to the decks and I behind him—I tell you, it was like a butcher’s shop—but it was quieter now—the fighting was over—and the Spaniards were all run below, except half-a-dozen in the tops; looking down like young rooks at an archer. There had been a popish priest too with his crucifix in one hand and his god-almighty in the other, over a dying man as we came up; but as we came down there he lay in his black gown with a hole through his heart and his crucifix gone. One of the lads had got it no doubt. Well, the captain brought up at the main mast. ‘God’s blood,’ he bawled, ‘where are the brown devils got to?’ Some one told him, and pointed down the hatch. Well, then I turned sick with my wound and the smell of the place and all; and I knew nothing more till I found myself sitting on a dead don, with the captain holding me up and pouring a cordial down my throat.”

Then talk and laughter broke out in the audience; but the landlord held up his hand for silence.

“And what of the others?” he shouted.

“Dead meat too,” said the lad—”the captain went down with a dozen or more and hunted them out and finished them. There was one, Dick told me afterwards,” and the lieutenant gave a cackle of mirth, “that they hunted twice round the ship before he jumped over yelling to some popish saint to help him; but it seems he was deaf, like the old Baal that parson tells of o’ Sundays. The dirty swine to run like that! Well, he’s got his bellyful now of the salt water that he came so far to see. And then the captain with his own hands trained a robinet that was on the poop on to the tops; and down the birds came, one by one; for their powder up there was all shot off.”

“And the Seahorse?” said the landlord again.

There fell a dead silence: all in the room knew that the ship was lost, but it was terrible to hear it again. The lad’s face broke into lines of grief, and he spoke huskily.

“Gone down with the dead and wounded; and the rest of the fleet a mile away.”

Then the lieutenant went on to describe how he himself had been deputed to bring the San Juan into port with the wounded on board, while the captain and the rest of the crew by Drake’s orders attached themselves to various vessels that were short-handed, and how the English fleet had followed what was left of the Spaniards when the fight ended at sunset, up towards the North Sea.

When he finished his story there was a tremendous outburst of cheering and hammering upon the table, and the feet and the pike-butts thundered on the floor, and a name was cried again and again as the cups were emptied.

“God save her Grace and old England!” yelled a slim smooth-faced archer from Appledore.

“God send the dons and all her foes to hell!” roared a burly pikeman with his cup in the air. Then the room shook again as the toasts were drunk with applauding feet and hands.

Anthony turned to the landlord, who had just ceased thumping with his great red fists on the table.

“What was the captain’s name?” he asked, when a slight lull came.

“Maxwell,” said the crimson-faced man. “Hubert Maxwell—one of Drake’s own men.”

When Anthony came upstairs he heard his name called through the door, and went in to Isabel’s room to find her sitting up in bed in the gloom of the summer night; the party below had broken up, and all was quiet except for the far-off shouts and hoots of cheerful laughter from the dispersing groups down among the narrow streets.

“Well?” she said, as he came in and stood in the doorway.

“It is just the story of the prize,” he said, “and it seems that Hubert had the taking of it.”

There was silence a moment. Anthony could see her face, a motionless pale outline, and her arms clasped round her knees as she sat up in bed.

“Hubert?” she asked in an even voice.

“Yes, Hubert.”

There was silence a moment.

“Well?” she said again.

“He is safe,” said Anthony, “and fought gallantly. I will tell you more to-morrow.”

“Ah!” said Isabel softly; and then lay down again.

“Good-night, Anthony.”

“Good-night.”

But Anthony dared not tell her the details next day, after all.

There was still a difficulty about the horses; they had not arrived until the Wednesday morning, and were greatly exhausted by a long and troublesome journey; so the travellers consented to postpone their journey for yet one more day. The weather, which had been thickening, grew heavier still in the afternoon, and great banks of clouds were rising out of the west. Anthony started out about four o’clock for a walk along the coast; and, making a long round in the direction of Lydd, did not finally return until about seven. As he came in at the north-east of the town he noticed how empty the streets were, and passed on down in the direction of the quay. As he turned down the steep street into the harbour groups began to pour up past him, laughing and exclaiming; and in a moment more came Isabel walking alone. He looked at her anxiously, for he saw something had happened. Her quiet face was lit up with some interior emotion, and her mouth was trembling.

“The Armada is routed,” she said; “and I have seen Hubert.”

The two turned back together and walked silently up to the inn. There she told him the story. She had been told that Captain Maxwell was come in the Elizabeth, for provisions for Lord Howard Seymour’s squadron, to which his new command was attached; and that he was even now in harbour. At that she had gone straight down alone.

“Oh, Anthony!” she cried, “you know how it is with me. I could not help it. I am not ashamed of it. God Almighty knows all, and is not wrath with me. So I went down and was in the crowd as he came down again with the mayor, Mr. Hamon; we all made way for them, and the men cheered themselves scarlet; but he came down cool and quiet; you know his way—with his eyes half shut; and—and—he was so brown; and he looks sad—and he had a great plaister on the left temple. And then he saw me.”

Isabel sprang up, and came up to Anthony and took his hands. “Oh! Anthony; I was very happy then; because he took off his cap and bowed; and his face was all lighted; and he took my hand and kissed it—and then made Mr. Hamon known to me. The crowd laughed and said things—but I did not care; and he soon silenced them, he looked round so fiercely; and then I went on board with him—he would have it so—and he showed us everything—and we sat a little in the cabin; and he told me of his wife and child. She is the daughter of a Plymouth minister; he knew her when he was with Drake; and he told me all about her, so you see——” Isabel broke off; and sat down in the high window seat. “And then he asked me about you; and I said you were here; and that we were going to stay a little while with Mr. Buxton of Stanfield—you see I knew we could trust him; and Mr. Hamon was in the passage just then looking at the guns; and then a sailor came in to say that all was ready; and so we came away. But it was so good to see him again; and to know that he was so happy.”

Anthony looked at his sister in astonishment; her quiet manner was gone, and she was talking again almost like an excited child; and so happily. It was very strange, he thought. He sat down beside her.

“Oh, Anthony!” she said, “do you understand? I love him dearly still; and his wife and child too. God bless them all and keep them!”

The mystery was still deep to him; and he feared to say what he should not; so he kissed Isabel silently; and the two sat there together and looked out over the crowding red roofs to the glowing western sky across the bay below them.

CHAPTER III

HOME-COMING

It was a stormy summer evening as the brother and sister rode up between the last long hills that led to Great Keynes. A south-west wind had been rising all day, that same wind that was now driving the ruined Armada up into the fierce North Sea, with the fiercer men behind to bar the return. But here, twenty miles inland, with the high south-downs to break the gale, the riders were in comparative quiet, though the great trees overhead tossed their heavy rustling heads as the gusts struck them now and again.

The party had turned off, as the dusk was falling, from the main-road into bridle-paths that they knew well, and were now approaching the village through the water meadows on the south-east side along a ride that would bring them, round the village, direct to the Dower House. In the gloom Anthony could make out the tall reeds, and the loosestrife and willowherb against them, that marked the course of the stream where he had caught trout, as a boy; and against the western sky, as he turned in his saddle, rose up the high windy hills where he had hawked with Hubert so many years before. It was a strange thought to him as he rode along that his very presence here in his own country was an act of high treason by the law lately passed, and that every day he lived here must be a day of danger.

For Isabel, too, it was strange to be riding up again towards the battlefield of her desires—that battlefield where she had lived for years in such childish faith and peace without a suspicion of the forces that were lurking beneath her own quiet nature. But to both of them the sense of home-coming was stronger than all else—that strange passion for a particular set of inanimate things—or, at the most, for an association of ideas—that has no parallel in human emotions; and as they rode up the darkening valley and the lights of the high windows of the Hall began to show over the trees on their right, Anthony forgot his treason and Isabel her conflicts, and both felt a lump rise in the throat, and their hearts begin to beat quicker with a strange pleasurable pulse, and to Isabel’s eyes at least there rose up great tears of happiness and content; neither dared speak, but both looked eagerly about at the pool where the Mayflies used to dance, at the knoll where the pigeons nested, at the little low bridge beneath which their inch-long boats used to slide sideways into darkness, and the broad marshy flats where the gorgeous irises grew.

“How the trees have grown!” said Anthony at last, with an effort; “I cannot see the lights from the house.”

“Mrs. Carroll will have made ready the first-floor rooms then, on the south.”

“I am sorry they are not our own,” said Anthony.

“Ah, look! there is the dovecote,” cried Isabel.

They were passing up now behind the farm buildings; and directly afterwards came round in front of the little walled garden to the west of the house.

There was a sudden exclamation from Anthony; and Isabel stared in silent dismay. The old house rose up before them with its rows of square windows against the night sky, dark. There was not a glimmer anywhere; even Mrs. Carroll’s own room on the south was dark. They reined their horses in and stood a moment.

“Oh, Anthony, Anthony!” cried Isabel suddenly, “what is it? Is there no one there?”

Anthony shook his head; and then put his tired beast to a shambling trot with Isabel silent again with weariness and disappointment behind him. They passed along outside the low wall, turned the corner of the house and drew up at the odd little doorway in the angle at the back of the house. The servants had drawn up behind them, and now pressed up to hold their horses; and the brother and sister slipped off and went towards the door. Anthony passed under the little open porch and put his hand out to the door; it was quite dark underneath the porch, and he felt further and further, and yet there was no door; his foot struck the step. He felt his way to the doorposts and groped for the door; but still there was none; he could feel the panelling of the lobby inside the doorway, and that was all. He drew back, as one would draw back from a dead face on which one had laid a hand in the dark.

“Oh, Anthony!” said Isabel again, “what is it?” She was still outside.

“Have you a light?” said Anthony hoarsely to the servants.

The man nearest him bent and fumbled in the saddle-bags, and after what seemed an interminable while kindled a little bent taper and handed it to him. As he went towards the porch shading it with his hand, Isabel sprang past him and went before; and then, as the light fell through the doorway, stopped in dead and bewildered silence.

The door was lying on the floor within, shattered and splintered.

Anthony stepped beside her, and she turned and clung to his arm, and a sob or two made itself heard. Then they looked about them. The banisters above them were smashed, and like a cataract, down the stairs lay a confused heap of crockery, torn embroidery and clothes, books, and broken furniture.

Anthony’s hand shook so much that the shadows of the broken banisters waved on the wall above like thin exulting dancers.

Suddenly Anthony started.

“Mrs. Carroll,” he exclaimed, and he darted upstairs past the ruins into her two rooms halfway up the flight; and in a minute or two was back with Isabel.

“She has escaped,” he said in a low voice; and then the two stood looking about them silently again. The door leading to the cellars on the left was broken too; and fragments of casks and bottles lay about the steps; the white wall was splashed with drink, and there was a smell of spirits in the air. Evidently the stormers had thought themselves worthy of their hire.

“Come,” he said again; and leaving the entrance lobby, the two passed to the hall-door and pushed that open and looked. There was the same furious confusion there; the tapestry was lying tumbled and rent on the floor—the high oak mantelpiece was shattered, and doleful cracks and splinters in the panelling all round showed how mad the attack had been; one of the pillars of the further archway was broken clean off, and the brickwork showed behind; the pictures had been smashed and added to the heap of wrecked furniture and broken glass in the middle.

“Come,” he said once more; and the two passed silently through the broken archway, and going up the other flight of stairs, gradually made the round of the house. Everywhere it was the same, except in the servants’ attics, where, apparently, the mob had not thought it worth while to go.

Isabel’s own room was the most pitiable of all; the windows had only the leaden frames left, and those bent and battered; the delicate panelling was scarred and split by the shower of stones that had poured in through the window and that now lay in all parts of the room. A painting of her mother that had hung over her bed was now lying face downwards on the floor. Isabel turned it over silently; a stone had gone through the face; and it had been apparently slit too by some sharp instrument. Even the slender oak bed was smashed in the centre, as if half a dozen men had jumped upon it at once; and the little prie-dieu near the window had been deliberately hacked in half. Isabel looked at it all with wide startled eyes and parted lips; and then suddenly sank down on the wrecked bed where she had hoped to sleep that night, and began to sob like a child.

“Ah! I did think—I did think——” she began.

Anthony stooped and tried to lift her.

“Come, my darling,” he said, “is not this a high honour? Qui relinquit domos!”

“Oh! why have they done it?” sobbed Isabel. “What harm have we done them?” and she began to wail. She was thoroughly over-tired and over-wrought; and Anthony could not find it in his heart to blame her; but he spoke again bravely.

“We are Catholics,” he said; “that is why they have done it. Do not throw away this grace that our Lord has given us; embrace it and make it yours.”

It was the priest that was speaking now; and Isabel turned her face and looked at him; and then got up and hid her face on his shoulder.

“Oh, Anthony, help me!” she said; and so stood there, quiet.

He came down presently to the servants, while Isabel went upstairs to prepare the rooms in the attics; for it was impossible for them to ride further that night; so they settled to sleep there, and stable the horses; and to ride on early the next day, and be out of the village before the folks were about. Anthony gave directions to the servants, who were Catholics too, and explained in a word or two what had happened; and bade them come up to the house as soon as they had fed and watered the beasts; meanwhile he took the saddle-bags indoors and spread out their remaining provisions in one of the downstairs rooms; and soon Isabel joined him.

“I have made up five beds,” she said, and her voice and lips were steady, and her eyes grave and serene again.

The five supped together in the wrecked kitchen, a fine room on the east of the house, supported by a great oak pillar to which the horses of guests were sometimes attached when the stable was full.

Isabel managed to make a fire and to boil some soup; but they hung thick curtains across the shattered windows, and quenched the fire as soon as the soup was made, for fear that either the light or the smoke from the chimney should arouse attention.

When supper was over, and the two men-servants and Isabel’s French maid were washing up in the scullery, Isabel suddenly turned to Anthony as they sat together near the fireplace.

“I had forgotten,” she said, “what we arranged as we rode up. I must go and tell her still.”

Anthony looked at her steadily a moment.

“God keep you,” he said.

She kissed him and took her riding-cloak, drew the hood over her head, and went out into the dark.

It was with the keenest relief that, half an hour later, Anthony heard her footstep again in the red-tiled hall outside. The servants were gone upstairs by now, and the house was quiet. She came in, and sat by him again and took his hand.

“Thank God I went,” she said. “I have left her so happy.”

“Tell me all,” said Anthony.

“I went through the garden,” said Isabel, “but came round to the front of the house so that they might not think I came from here. When the servant came to the door—he was a stranger, and a Protestant no doubt—I said at once that I brought news of Mr. Maxwell from Rye; and he took me straight in and asked me to come in while he fetched her woman. Then her woman came out and took me upstairs, up into Lady Maxwell’s old room; and there she was lying in bed under the great canopy. Oh, Anthony, she is so pretty! her golden hair was lying out all over the pillow, and her face is so sweet. She cried out when I came in, and lifted herself on her elbow; so I just said at once, ‘He is safe and well’; and then she went off into sobs and laughter; so that I had to go and soothe her—her woman was so foolish and helpless; and very soon she was quiet: and then she called me her darling, and she kissed me again and again; and told the woman to go and leave us together; and then she lifted the sheet; and showed me the face of a little child. Oh Anthony; Hubert’s child and hers, the second, born on Tuesday—only think of that. ‘Mercy, I was going to call her,’ she said, ‘if I had not heard by to-morrow, but now I shall call her Victory.’”

Anthony looked quickly at his sister, with a faint smile in his eyes.

“And what did you say?” he asked.

Isabel smiled outright; but her eyes were bright with tears too.

“‘You have guessed,’ she said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘call her Mercy all the same,’ and she kissed me again, and cried, and said that she would. And then I told her all about Hubert; and about his little wound; and how well he looked; and how all the fighting was most likely over; and what his cabin looked like. And then she suddenly guessed who I was, and asked me; and I could not deny it, you know; but she promised not to tell. Then she told me all about the house here; and how she was afraid Hubert had said something impatient about people who go to foreign parts and leave their country to be attacked, ‘But you know he did not really mean it,’ she said; and of course he did not. Well, the people had remembered that, and it spread and spread; and when the news of the Armada came last week, a mob came over from East Grinsted, and they sat drinking and drinking in the village; and of course Grace could not go out to them; and all the old people are gone, and the Catholics on the estate—and so at last they all came out roaring and shouting down the drive, and Mrs. Carroll was warned and slipped out to the Hall; and she is now gone to Stanfield to wait for us—and then the crowd broke into the house—but, oh Anthony, Grace was so sorry, and cried sore to think of us here; and asked us to come and stay there; but of course I told her we could not: and then I said a prayer for her; and we kissed one another again; and then I came away.”

Anthony looked at his sister, and there was honour and pride of her in his eyes.

The ride to Stanfield next day was a long affair, at a foot’s-pace all the way: the horses were thoroughly tired with their journey, and they were obliged to start soon after three o’clock in the morning after a very insufficient rest; they did not reach Groombridge till nearly ten o’clock, when they dined, and then rode on towards Tonbridge about noon. There were heavy hearts to be carried as well. The attempt to welcome the misery of their home-coming was a bitter effort; all the more bitter for that it was an entirely unexpected call upon them. During those six years abroad probably not a day had passed without visions of Great Keynes, and the pleasant and familiar rooms and garden of their own house, and mental rehearsals of their return. The shock of the night before too had been emphasised by the horror of the cold morning light creeping through the empty windows on to the cruel heaps within. The garden too, seen in the dim morning, with its trampled lawns and wrecked flower-beds heaped with withered sunflowers, bell-blossoms and all the rich August growth, with the earthen flower-bowls smashed, the stone balls on the gate overturned, and the laurels at the corner uprooted—all this was a horrible pain to Isabel, to whom the garden was very near as dear and familiar as her own room. So it was a silent and sorrowful ride; and Anthony’s heart rose in relief as at last up the grey village-street he saw the crowded roofs of Stanfield Place rise over the churchyard wall.

Their welcome from Mr. Buxton went far to compensate for all.

“My dear boy,” he said, “or, my dear father, as I should call you in private, you do not know what happiness is mine to-day. It is a great thing to have a priest again; but, if you will allow me to say so, it is a greater to have my friend—and what a sister you have upstairs!”

They were in Mr. Buxton’s own little room on the ground-floor, and Isabel had gone to rest until supper.

Anthony told him of the grim surprise that had awaited them at Great Keynes. “So you must forgive my sister if she is a little sad.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Buxton, “I had heard from Mrs. Carroll last night when she arrived here. But there was no time to warn you. I had expected you to-day, though Mrs. Carroll did not.”

(Anthony had sent a man straight from Rye to Stanfield.)

“But Mistress Isabel, as I shall venture to call her, must do what she can with this house and garden. I need not say how wholly it is hers. And I shall call you Anthony,” he added—”in public, at least. And, for strangers, you are just here as my guest; and you shall be called Capell—a sound name; and you shall be Catholics too; though you are no priest, of course, in public—and you have returned from the Continent. I hold it is no use to lie when you can be found out. I do not know what your conscience is, Father Anthony; but, for myself, I count us Catholics to be in statu belli now; and therefore I shall lie frankly and fully when there is need; and you may do as you please. Old Mr. Blake used to bid me prevaricate instead; but that always seemed to me two lies instead of one—one to the questioning party and the other to myself; and so I always said to him, but he would not have it so. I wondered he did not tell me that two negatives made an affirmative; but he was not clever enough, the good father. So my own custom is to tell one plain lie when needed, and shame the devil.”

It was pleasant to Anthony to hear his friend talk again, and he said so. His host’s face softened into a great tenderness.

“Dear lad, I know what you mean. Please God you may find this a happy home.”

A couple of hours later, when Anthony and Isabel came down together from their rooms in the old wing, they found Mr. Buxton in his black satin and lace in the beautiful withdrawing-room on the ground-floor. It was already past the supper-hour, but their host showed no signs of going into the hall. At last he apologised.

“I ask your pardon, Mistress Isabel; but I have a guest come to stay with me, who only arrived an hour ago; and she is a great lady and must have her time. Ah! here she is.”

The door was flung open and a radiant vision appeared. The door was a little way off, and there were no candles near it; but there swelled and rustled into the room a figure all in blue and gold, with a white delicate ruff; and diamond buckles shone beneath the rich brocaded petticoat. Above rose a white bosom and throat scintillating with diamonds, and a flushed face with scarlet lips, all crowned by piles of black hair, with black dancing eyes beneath. Still a little in the shadow this splendid figure swept down with a great curtsey, which Isabel met by another, while the two gentlemen bowed low; and then, as the stranger swayed up again into the full light of the sconces, Anthony recognised Mary Corbet.

He stood irresolute with happy hesitation; and she came up smiling brilliantly; and before he could stay her dropped down on one knee and took his hand and kissed it; just as the man left the room.

“God bless you, Father Anthony!” she said; and as he looked at her, as she glanced up, he could not tell whether her eyes shone with tears or laughter.

“This is very charming and proper, Mistress Corbet, and like a true daughter of the Church,” put in Mr. Buxton, “but I shall be obliged to you if you will not in future kiss priests’ hands nor call them Father in the presence of the servants—at least not in my house.”

“Ah!” she said, “you were always prudent. Have you seen his secret doors?” she went on to Anthony. “The entire Catholic Church might play hare and hounds with the Holy Father as huntsman and the Cardinals as the whips, through Mr. Buxton’s secret labyrinths.”

“Wait until you are hare, and it is other than Holy Church that is a-hunting,” said Mr. Buxton, “and you will thank God for my labyrinths, as you call them.”

Then she greeted Isabel with great warmth.

“Why, my dear,” she said, “you are not the little Puritan maiden any longer. We must have a long talk to-night; and you shall tell me everything.”

“Mistress Mary is not so greatly changed,” said Isabel, smiling. “She always would be told everything.”

It was strange to Anthony to meet Mary again after so long, and to find her so little changed, as Isabel had said truly. He himself had passed through so much since they had last met at Greenwich over six years ago—his conversion, his foreign sojourn, and, above all, the bewildering and intoxicating sweetness of his ordination and priestly life. And yet he felt as close to Mary as ever, knit in a bond of wonderful good fellowship and brotherhood such as he had never felt to any other in just that kind and degree. He watched her, warm and content, as she talked across the polished oak and beneath the gleam of the candles; and listened, charmed by her air and her talk.

“There is not so much news of her Grace,” she said, “save that she is turning soldier in her old age. She rode out to Tilbury, you know, the other day, in steel cuirass and scarlet; out to see her dear Robin and the army; and her royal face was all smiles and becks, and lord! how the soldiers cheered! But if you had seen her as I did, in her room when she first buckled on her armour, and the joints did not fit—yes, and heard her! there were no smiles to spare then. She lodged at Mr. Rich’s, you know, two nights; but he would be Mr. Poor, I should suppose, by the time her Grace left him; for he will not see the worth of a shoelace again of all that he expended on her.”

“You see,” remarked Mr. Buxton to Isabel, “how fortunate we are in having such a friend of her Grace’s with us. We hear all the cream of the news, even though it be a trifle sour sometimes.”

“A lover of her Grace,” said Mary, “loves the truth about her, however bitter. But then I have no secret passages where I may hide from my sovereign!”

“The cream can scarce be but sour,” said Anthony, “near her Grace: there is so much thunder in the air.”

“Yes, but the sun came out when you were there, Anthony,” put in Isabel, smiling.

“But even the light of her glorious countenance is trying,” said Mary. “She is overpowering in thunder and sunshine alike.”

“We have had enough of that metaphor,” observed Mr. Buxton.

Then Anthony had to talk, and tell all the foreign news of Douai and Rome and Cardinal Allen; and of Father Persons’ scheme for a college at Valladolid.

“Father Robert is a superb beggar—as he is superb in all things,” said Mr. Buxton. “I dare not think how much he got from me for his college; and then I do not even approve of his college. His principles are too logical for me. I have ever had a weakness for the non sequitur.”

This led on to the Armada; Anthony told his experience of it; how he had seen at least the sails of Lord Howard’s squadron far away against the dawn; and this led on again to a sharp discussion when the servants had left the room.

“I do not know,” said Mary at last; “it is difficult—is not the choice between God and Elizabeth? If I were a man, why should I not take up arms to defend my religion? Since I am a woman, why should I not pray for Philip’s success? It is a bitter hard choice, I know; but why need I prefer my country to my faith? Tell me that, Father Anthony.”

“I can only tell you my private opinion,” said Anthony, “and that is, that both duties may be done. As Mr. Buxton here used to tell me, the duty to Cæsar is as real as the duty to God. A man is bound to both; for each has its proper bounds. When either oversteps them it must be resisted. When Elizabeth bids me deny my faith, I tell her I would sooner die. When a priest bids me deny my country, I tell him I would sooner be damned.”

Mary clapped her hands.

“I like to hear a man talk like that,” she cried. “But what of the Holy Father and his excommunication of her Grace?”

Anthony looked up at her sharply, and then smiled; Isabel watched him with a troubled face.

“Aquinas holds,” he said, “that an excommunication of sovereign and people in a lump is invalid. And until the Holy Father tells me himself that Aquinas is wrong, I shall continue to think he is right.”

“God-a-mercy!” burst in Mr. Buxton, “what a to-do! Leave it alone until the choice must be made; and meanwhile say your prayers for Pope and Queen too, and hear mass and tell your beads and hold your tongue: that is what I say to myself. Mistress Mary, I will not have my chaplain heckled; here is his lady sister all a-tremble between heresy and treason.”

They sat long over the supper-table, talking over the last six years and the times generally. More than once Mary showed a strange bitterness against the Queen. At last Mr. Buxton showed his astonishment plainly.

“I do not understand you,” he said. “I know that at heart you are loyal; and yet one might say you meditated her murder.”

Mary’s face grew white with passion and her eyes blazed.

“Ah!” she hissed, “you do not understand, you say? Then where is your heart? But then you did not see Mary Stuart die.”

Anthony looked at her, amazed.

“And you did, Mistress Mary?” he asked.

Mary bowed, with her lips set tight to check their trembling.

“I will tell you,” she said, “if our host permits”; and she glanced at him.

“Then come this way,” he said, and they rose from table.

They went back again to the withdrawing-room; a little cedar-fire had been kindled under the wide chimney; and the room was full of dancing shadows. The great plaster-pendants, the roses, the crowns, and the portcullises on the ceiling seemed to waver in the firelight, for Mr. Buxton at a sign from Mary blew out the four tapers that were burning in the sconces. They all sat down in the chairs that were set round the fire, Mary in a tall porter’s chair with flaps that threw a shadow on her face when she leaned back; and she took a fan in her hand to keep the fire, or her friends’ eyes, from her face should she need it.

She first told them very briefly of the last months of Mary’s life, of the web that was spun round her by Walsingham’s tactics, and her own friends’ efforts, until it was difficult for her to stir hand or foot without treason, real or pretended, being set in motion somewhere. Then she described how at Christmas ‘86 Elizabeth had sent her—Mary Corbet—as a Catholic, up to the Queen of the Scots at Fotheringay, on a private mission to attempt to win the prisoner’s confidence, and to persuade her to confess to having been privy to Babington’s conspiracy; and how the Scottish Queen had utterly denied it, even in the most intimate conversations. Sentence had been already passed, but the warrant had not been signed; and it never would have been signed, said Mistress Corbet, if Mary had owned to the crime of which she was accused.

“Ah! how they insulted her!” cried Mary Corbet indignantly. “She showed me one day the room where her throne had stood. Now the cloth of state had been torn down by Sir Amyas Paulet’s men, and he himself dared to sit with his hat on his head in the sovereign’s presence! The insolence of the hound! But the Queen showed me how she had hung a crucifix where her royal arms used to hang. ‘J’appelle,’ she said to me, ‘de la reine au roi des rois.’”

Mistress Corbet went on to tell of the arrival of Walsingham’s brother-in-law, Mr. Beale, with the death-warrant on that February Sunday evening.

“I saw his foxy face look sideways up at the windows as he got off his horse in the courtyard; and I knew that our foes had triumphed. Then the other bloodhounds began to arrive; my lord of Kent on the Monday and Shrewsbury on the Tuesday. Then they came in to us after dinner; and they told her Grace it was to be for next day. I was behind her chair and saw her hand on the boss of the arm, and it did not stir nor clench; she said it could not be. She could not believe it of Elizabeth.

“When she did at last believe it, there was no wild weeping or crying for mercy; but she set her affairs in order, queenly, and yet sedately too. She first thought of her soul, and desired that M. de Preau might come to her and hear her confession; but they would not permit it. They offered her Dr. Fletcher instead, ‘a godly man,’ as my lord of Kent called him. ‘Je ne m’en doute pas,’ she said, smiling. But it was hard not to have a priest.

“Then she set her earthly affairs in order when she had examined her soul and made confession to God without the Dean’s assistance. We all supped together when it was growing late; and I thought, Father Anthony—indeed I did—of another Supper long ago. Then M. Gorion was sent for to arrange some messages and gifts; and until two of the clock in the morning we watched with her or served her as she wrote and gave orders. The court outside was full of comings and goings. As I passed down the passage I saw the torches of the visitors that were come to see the end; and once I heard a hammering from the great hall. Then she went to her bed; and I think few lay as quiet as she in the castle that night. I was with her ladies when they waked her before dawn; and it was hard to see that sweet face on the pillow open its eyes again to what was before her.

“Then when she was dressed I went in again, and we all went to the oratory, where she received our Saviour from the golden pyx which the Holy Father had sent her; for, you see, they would allow no priest to come near her....

“Presently the gentlemen knocked. When we tried to follow we were prevented; they wished her to die alone among her enemies; but at last two of the ladies were allowed to go with her.

“I ran out another way, and sent a message to my Lord Shrewsbury, who knew me at court. As I waited in the courtyard, the musicians there were playing ‘The Witches’ Dirge,’ as is done at the burnings—and all to mock at my queen! At last a halberdier was sent to bring me in.”

Mary Corbet was silent a moment or two and leaned back in her chair; and the others dared not speak. The strange emotion of her voice and the stillness of that sparkling figure in the porter’s chair affected them profoundly. Her face was now completely shaded by a fan.

“It was in the hall, where a great fire was burning on the hearth. The stage stood at the upper end; all was black. The crowd of gentlemen filled the hall and all were still and reverent except—except a devil who laughed as my queen came in, all in black. She was smiling and brave, and went up the steps and sat on her black throne and looked about her. The—the things were just in front of her.

“Then the warrant was read by Beale, and I saw the lords glance at her as it ended; but there was nought but joyous hope in her face. She looked now and again gently on the ivory crucifix in her hand, as she listened; and her lips moved to—to—Him who was delivered to death for her.”

Mary Corbet gave one quick sob, and was silent again for an instant. Then she went on in a yet lower voice.

“Dr. Fletcher tried to address her, but he stammered and paused three or four times; and the queen smiled on him and bade him not trouble himself, for that she lived and died a Catholic. But they would not let her be; so she looked on her crucifix and was silent; and even then my lord of Kent badgered her and told her Christ crucified in her hand would not save her, except He was engraved on her heart.

“Then she knelt at her chair and tried to pray softly to herself; but Fletcher would not have that, and prayed himself, aloud, and all the gentlemen in the hall began to pray aloud with him. But Mary prayed on in Latin and English aloud, and prevailed, for all were silent at the end but she.

“And at last she kissed the crucifix and cried in a sweet piercing voice, ‘As thine arms, O Jesus, were spread upon the Cross, so receive me into Thy mercy and forgive me my sins!’”

Again Mistress Corbet was silent; and Anthony drew a long sobbing breath of pure pity, and Isabel was crying quietly to herself.

“When the headsmen offered to assist her,” went on the low voice, “the queen smiled at the gentlemen and said that she had never had such grooms before; and then they let the ladies come up. When they began to help her with her dress I covered my face—I could not help it. There was such a stillness now that I could hear her beads chink at her girdle. When I looked again, she was ready, with her sweet neck uncovered: all round her was black but the headsman, who wore a white apron over his velvet, and she, in her beauty, and oh! her face was so fair and delicate and her eyes so tender and joyous. And as her ladies looked at her, they sobbed piteously. ‘Ne criez vous,’ said she.

“Then she knelt down, and Mistress Mowbray bound her eyes. She smiled again under the handkerchief. ‘Adieu,’ she said, and then, ‘Au revoir.’

“Then she said once more a Latin psalm, and then laid her head down, as on a pillow.

“‘In manus tuas, Domine,’ she said.”

Mary Corbet stopped, and leaned forward a little, putting her hand into her bosom; Anthony looked at her as she drew up a thin silk cord with a ruby ring attached to it.

“This was hers,” she said simply, and held it out. Each of the Catholics took it and kissed it reverently, and Mary replaced it.

“When they lifted her,” she added, “a little dog sprang out from her clothes and yelped. And at that the man near me, who had laughed as she came in, wept.”

Then the four sat silent in the firelight.

CHAPTER IV

STANFIELD PLACE

Life at Stanfield Place was wonderfully sweet to Anthony and Isabel after their exile abroad, for both of them had an intense love of England and of English ways. The very sight of fair-faced children, and the noise of their shrill familiar voices from the village street, the depths of the August woods round them, the English manners of living—all this was alive with a full deliberate joy to these two. Besides, there was the unfailing tenderness and gaiety of Mr. Buxton; and at first there was the pleasant company of Mary Corbet as well.

There was little or no anxiety resting on any of them. “God was served,” as the celebration of mass was called, each morning in the little room where Anthony had made the exercises, and the three others were always present. It was seldom that the room was not filled to over-flowing on Sundays and holy-days with the household and the neighbouring Catholics.

Everything was, of course, perfection in the little chapel when it was furnished; as was all that Mr. Buxton possessed. There was a wonderful golden crucifix by an unknown artist, that he had picked up in his travels, that stood upon the altar, with the bird-types of the Saviour at each of the four ends; a pelican at the top, an eagle on the right supporting its young which were raising their wings for a flight, on the left a phœnix amid flames, and at the foot a hen gathering her chickens under her wings—all the birds had tiny emerald eyes; the figure on the cross was beautifully wrought, and had rubies in hands and feet and side. There were also two silver altar-candlesticks designed by Marrina for the Piccolomini chapel in the church of St. Francis in Siena; and two more, plainer, for the Elevation. The vestments were exquisite; those for high festivals were cloth of gold; and the other white ones were beautifully worked with seed pearls, and jewelled crosses on the stole and maniple. The other colours, too, were well represented, and were the work of a famous convent in the south of France. All the other articles, too, were of silver: the lavabo basin, the bell, the thurible, the boat and spoon, and the cruets. It was a joy to all the Catholics who came to see the worship of God carried on with such splendour, when in so many places even necessaries were scarcely forthcoming.

There was a little hiding-hole between the chapel and the priest’s room, just of a size to hold the altar furniture and the priests in case of a sudden alarm; and there were several others in the house too, which Mr. Buxton had showed to Anthony with a good deal of satisfaction, on the morning after his arrival.

“I dared not show them to you the last time you were here,” he said, “and there was no need; but now there must be no delay. I have lately made some more, too. Now here is one,” he said, stopping before the great carved mantelpiece in the hall.

He looked round to see that no servant was in the room, and then, standing on a settee before the fire, touched something above, and a circular hole large enough for a man to clamber through appeared in the midst of the tracery.

“There,” he said, “and you will find some cured ham and a candle, with a few dates within, should you ever have need to step up there—which, pray God, you may not.”

“What is the secret?” asked Anthony, as the tracery swung back into place, and his host stepped down.

“Pull the third roebuck’s ears in the coat of arms, or rather push them. It closes with a spring, and is provided with a bolt. But I do not recommend that refuge unless it is necessary. In winter it is too hot, for the chimney passes behind it; and in summer it is too oppressive, for there is not too much air.”

At the end of the corridor that led in the direction of the little old rooms where Anthony had slept in his visit, Mr. Buxton stopped before the portrait of a kindly-looking old gentleman that hung on the wall.

“Now there is an upright old man you would say; and indeed he was, for he was my own uncle, and made a godly end of it last year. But now see what a liar I have made of him!”

Mr. Buxton put his hand behind the frame, and the whole picture opened like a door showing a space within where three or four could stand. Anthony stepped inside and his friend followed him, and after showing him some clothes hanging against the wall closed the picture after them, leaving them in the dark.

“Now see what a sharp-eyed old fellow he is too,” whispered his host. Anthony looked where he was guided, and perceived two pinholes through which he could see the whole length of the corridor.

“Through the centre of each eye,” whispered his friend. “Is he not shrewd and secret? And now turn this way.”

Anthony turned round and saw the opposite wall slowly opening; and in a moment more he stepped out and found himself in the lobby outside the little room where he had made the exercises six years ago. He heard a door close softly as he looked about him in astonishment, and on turning round saw only an innocent-looking set of shelves with a couple of books and a little pile of paper and packet of quills upon them.

“There,” said Mr. Buxton, “who would suspect Tacitus his history and Juvenal his satires of guarding the passage of a Christian ecclesiastic fleeing for his life?”

Then he showed him the secret, how one shelf had to be drawn out steadily, and the nail in another pressed simultaneously, and how then the entire set of shelves swung open.

Then they went back and he showed him the spring behind the frame of the picture.

“You see the advantage of this,” he went on: “on the one side you may flee upstairs, a treasonable skulking cassocked jack-priest with the lords and the commons and the Queen’s Majesty barking at your heels; and on the other side you may saunter down the gallery without your beard and in a murrey doublet, a friend of Mr. Buxton’s, taking the air and wondering what the devil all the clamouring be about.”

Then he took him downstairs again and showed him finally the escape of which he was most proud—the entrance, designed in the cellar-staircase, to an underground passage from the cellars, which led, he told him, across to the garden-house beyond the lime-avenue.

“That is the pride of my heart,” he said, “and maybe will be useful some day; though I pray not. Ah! her Grace and her honest Council are right. We Papists are a crafty and deceitful folk, Father Anthony.”

The four grew very intimate during those few weeks; they had many memories and associations in common on which to build up friendship, and the aid of a common faith and a common peril with which to cement it. The gracious beauty of the house and the life at Stanfield, too, gilded it all with a very charming romance. They were all astonished at the easy intimacy with which they behaved, one to another.

Mary Corbet was obliged to return to her duties at Court at the beginning of September; and she had something of an ache at her heart as the time drew on; for she had fallen once more seriously in love with Isabel. She said a word of it to Mr. Buxton. They were walking in the lime-avenue together after dinner on the last day of Mary’s visit.

“You have a good chaplain,” she said; “what an honest lad he is! and how serious and recollected! Please God he at least may escape their claws!”

“It is often so,” said Mr. Buxton, “with those wholesome out-of-door boys; they grow up into such simple men of God.”

“And Isabel!” said Mary, rustling round upon him as she walked. “What a great dame she is become! I used to lie on her bed and kick my heels and laugh at her; but now I would like to say my prayers to her. She is somewhat like our Lady herself, so grave and serious, and yet so warm and tender.”

Mr. Buxton nodded sharply.

“I felt sure you would feel it,” he said.

“Ah! but I knew her when she was just a child; so simple that I loved to startle her. But now—but now—those two ladies have done wonders with her. She has all the splendour of Mary Maxwell, and all the softness of Margaret.”

“Yes,” said the other meditatively; “the two ladies have done it—or, the grace of God.”

Mary looked at him sideways and her lips twitched a little.

“Yes—or the grace of God, as you say.”

The two laughed into each other’s eyes, for they understood one another well. Presently Mary went on:

“When you and I fence together at table, she does not turn frigid like so many holy folk—or peevish and bewildered like stupid folk—but she just looks at us, and laughs far down in those deep grey eyes of hers. Oh! I love her!” ended Mary.

They walked in silence a minute or two.

“And I think I do,” said Mr. Buxton softly.

“Eh?” exclaimed Mary, “you do what?” She had quite forgotten her last sentence.

“It is no matter,” he said yet more softly; and would say no more.

Presently the talk fell on the Maxwells; and came round to Hubert.

“They say he would be a favourite at Court,” said Mary, “had he not a wife. But her Grace likes not married men. She looked kindly upon him at Deptford, I know; and I have seen him at Greenwich. You know, of course, about Isabel?”

Mr. Buxton shook his head.

“Why, it was common talk that they would have been man and wife years ago, had not the fool apostatised.”

Her companion questioned her further, and soon had the whole story out of her. “But I am thankful,” ended Mary, “that it has so ended.”

The next day she went back to Court; and it was with real grief that the three watched her wonderful plumed riding-hat trot along behind the top of the churchyard wall, with her woman beside her, and her little liveried troop of men following at a distance.

The days passed by, bringing strange tidings to Stanfield. News continued to reach the Catholics of the good confessions witnessed here and there in England by priests and laity. At the end of July, three priests, Garlick, Ludlam and Sympson, had been executed at Derby, and at the end of August the defeat of the Armada seemed to encourage Elizabeth yet further, and Mr. Leigh, a priest, with four laymen and Mistress Margaret Ward, died for their religion at Tyburn.

By the end of September the news of the hopeless defeat and disappearance of the Armada had by now been certified over and over again. Terrible stories had come in during August of that northward flight of all that was left of the fleet over the plunging North Sea up into the stormy coast of Scotland; then rumours began of the miseries that were falling on the Spaniards off Ireland—Catholic Ireland from which they had hoped so much. There was scarcely a bay or a cape along the west coast where some ship had not put in, with piteous entreaties for water and aid—and scarcely a bay or a cape that was not blood-guilty. Along the straight coast from Sligo Bay westwards, down the west coast, Clew Bay, Connemara, and haunted Dingle itself, where the Catholic religion under arms had been so grievously chastened eight years ago—everywhere half-drowned or half-starved Spaniards, piteously entreating, were stripped and put to the sword either by the Irish savages or the English gentlemen. The church-bells were rung in Stanfield and in every English village, and the flame of national pride and loyalty burned fiercer and higher than ever.

On the last day of September Isabel, just before dinner in her room, heard the trot of a couple of horses coming up the short drive, and on going downstairs almost ran against Hubert as he came from the corridor into the hall, as the servant ushered him in.

The two stopped and looked at one another in silence.

Hubert was flushed with hard riding and looked excited; Isabel’s face showed nothing but pleasure and surprise. The servant too stopped, hesitating.

Then Isabel put out her hand, smiling; and her voice was natural and controlled.

“Why, Mr. Hubert,” she said, “it is you! Come through this way”; and she nodded to the servant, who went forward and opened the door of the little parlour and stood back, as Isabel swept by him.

When the door was closed, and the servant’s footsteps had died away, Hubert, as he stood facing Isabel, spoke at last.

“Mistress Isabel,” he said almost imploringly, “what can I say to you? Your home has been wrecked; and partly through those wild and foolish words of mine; and you repay it by that act of kindness to my wife! I am come to ask your pardon, and to thank you. I only reached home last night.”

“Ah! that was nothing,” said Isabel gently; “and as for the house——”

“As for the house,” he said, “I was not master of myself when I said those words that Grace told you of; and I entreat you to let me repair the damage.”

“No, no,” she said, “Anthony has given orders; that will all be done.”

“But what can I do then?” he cried passionately; “if you but knew my sorrow—and—and—more than that, my——”

Isabel had raised her grave eyes and was looking him full in the face now; and he stopped abashed.

“How is Grace, and Mercy?” she asked in perfectly even tones.

“Oh! Isabel——” he began; and again she looked at him, and then went to the door.

“I hear Mr. Buxton,” she said; and steps came along through the hall; she opened the door as he came up. Mr. Buxton stopped abruptly, and the two men drew themselves up and seemed to stiffen, ever so slightly. A shade of aggressive contempt came on Hubert’s keen brown face that towered up so near the low oak ceiling; while Mr. Buxton’s eyelids just drooped, and his features seemed to sharpen. There was an unpleasant silence: Isabel broke it.

“You remember Master Hubert Maxwell?” she said almost entreatingly. He smiled kindly at her, but his face hardened again as he turned once more to Hubert.

“I remember the gentleman perfectly,” he said, “and he no doubt knows me, and why I cannot ask him to remain and dine with us.”

Hubert smiled brutally.

“It is the old story of course, the Faith! I must ask your pardon, sir, for intruding. The difficulty never came into my mind. The truth is that I have lived so long now among Protestants that I had quite forgotten what Catholic charity is like!”

He said this with such extreme bitterness and fury that Isabel put out her hand instinctively to Mr. Buxton, who smiled at her once more, and pressed it in his own. Hubert laughed again sharply; his face grew white under the tan, and his lips wrinkled back once or twice.

“So, if you can spare me room to pass,” he went on in the same tone, “I will begone to the inn.”

Mr. Buxton stepped aside from the door, and Hubert bowed to Isabel so low that it was almost an insult in itself, and strode out, his spurs ringing on the oak boards.

When he half turned outside the front door to beckon to his groom to bring up the horses, he became aware that Isabel was beside him.

“Hubert,” she said, “Hubert, I cannot bear this.”

There were tears in her voice, and he could not help turning and looking at her. Her face, more grave and transparent than ever, was raised to his; her red down-turned lips were trembling, and her eyes were full of a great emotion. He turned away again sharply.

“Hubert,” she said again, “I was not born a Catholic, and I do not feel like Mr. Buxton. And—and I do thank you for coming; and for your desire to repair the house; and—and will you give my love to Grace?”

Then he suddenly turned to her with such passion in his eyes that she shrank back. At the same moment the groom brought up the horses; he turned and mounted without a word, but his eyes were dim with love and anger and jealousy. Then he drove his spurs into his great grey mare, and Isabel watched him dash between the iron gates, with his groom only half mounted holding back his own plunging horse. Then she went within doors again.

CHAPTER V

JOSEPH LACKINGTON

It was a bitter ride back to Great Keynes for Hubert. He had just returned from watching the fifty vessels, which were all that were left of the Great Armada, pass the Blaskets, still under the nominal command of Medina Sidonia, on their miserable return to Spain; and he had come back as fast as sails could carry him, round the stormy Land’s-End up along the south coast to Rye, where on his arrival he had been almost worshipped by the rejoicing townsfolk. Yet all through his voyage and adventures, at any rate since his interview with her at Rye, it had been the face of Isabel there, and not of Grace, that had glimmered to him in the dark, and led him from peril to peril. Then, at last, on his arrival at home, he had heard of the disaster to the Dower House, and his own unintended share in it; and of Isabel’s generous visit to his wife; and at that he had ordered his horse abruptly over-night and ridden off without a word of explanation to Grace on the following morning. And he had been met by a sneering man who would not sit at table with him, and who was the protector and friend of Isabel.

He rode up through the village just after dark and in through the gatehouse up to the steps. A man ran to open the door, and as Hubert came through told him that a stranger had ridden down from London and had arrived at mid-day, and that he had been waiting ever since.

“I gave the gentleman dinner in the cloister parlour, sir; and he is at supper now,” added the man.

Hubert nodded and pushed through the hall. He heard his name called timidly from upstairs, and looking up saw his wife’s golden head over the banisters.

“Well!” he said.

“Ah, it is you. I am so glad.”

“Who else should it be?” said Hubert, and passed through towards the cloister wing, and opened the door of the little parlour where Isabel and Mistress Margaret had sat together years before, the night of Mr. James’ return, and of the girl’s decision.

A stranger rose up hastily as he came in, and bowed with great deference. Hubert knew his face, but could not remember his name.

“I ask your pardon, Mr. Maxwell; but your man would take no denial,” and he indicated the supper-table with a steaming dish and a glass jug of wine ruddy in the candlelight. Hubert looked at him curiously.

“I know you, sir,” he said, “but I cannot put a name to your face.”

“Lackington,” said the man with a half smile; “Joseph Lackington.”

Hubert still stared; and then suddenly burst into a short laugh.

“Why, yes,” he said; “I know now. My father’s servant.”

The man bowed.

“Formerly, sir; and now agent to Sir Francis Walsingham,” he said, with something of dignity in his manner.

Hubert saw the hint, but could not resist a small sneer.

“Why, I am pleased to see you,” he said. “You have come to see your old—home?” and he threw himself into a chair and stretched his legs to the blaze, for he was stiff with riding. Lackington instantly sat down too, for his pride was touched.

“It was not for that, Mr. Maxwell,” he said almost in the tone of an equal, “but on a mission for Sir Francis.”

Hubert looked at him a moment as he sat there in the candlelight, with his arm resting easily on the table. He was plainly prosperous, and was even dressed with some distinction; his reddish beard was trimmed to a point; his high forehead was respectably white and bald; and his seals hung from his belt beside his dagger with an air of ease and solidity. Perhaps he was of some importance; at any rate, Sir Francis Walsingham was. Hubert sat up a little.

“A mission to me?” he said.

Lackington nodded.

“A few questions on a matter of state.”

He drew from his pouch a paper signed by Sir Francis authorising him as an agent, for one month, and dated three days back; and handed it to Hubert.

“I obtained that from Sir Francis on Monday, as you will see. You can trust me implicitly.”

“Will the business take long?” asked Hubert, handing the paper back.

“No, Mr. Maxwell; and I must be gone in an hour in any case. I have to be at Rye at noon to-morrow; and I must sleep at Mayfield to-night.”

“At Rye,” said Hubert, “why I came from there yesterday.”

Lackington bowed again, as if he were quite aware of this; but said nothing.

“Then I will sup here,” went on Hubert, “and we will talk meantime.”

When a place had been laid for him, he drew his chair round to the table and began to eat.

“May I begin at once?” asked Lackington, who had finished.

Hubert nodded.

“Then first I believe it to be a fact that you spoke with Mistress Isabel Morris on board the Elizabeth at Rye on the tenth of August last.”

Hubert had started violently at her name; but did his utmost to gain outward command of himself again immediately.

“Well?” he said.

—”And with Master Anthony Norris, lately made a priest beyond the seas.”

“That is a lie,” said Hubert.

Lackington politely lifted his eyebrows.

“Indeed?” he said. “That he was made a priest, or that you spoke with him?”

“That I know aught of him,” said Hubert. His heart was beating furiously.

Lackington made a note rather ostentatiously; he could see that Hubert was frightened, and thought that it was because of a possible accusation of having dealings with a traitor.

“And as regards Mistress Norris,” he said judicially, with his pencil raised, “you deny having spoken with her?”

Hubert was thinking furiously. Then he saw that Lackington knew too much for its being worth his own while to deny it.

“No, I never denied that,” he said, lifting his fork to his mouth; and he went on eating with a deliberate ease as Lackington again made a note.

The next question was a home-thrust.

“Where are they both now?” asked Lackington, looking at him. Hubert’s mind laboured like a mill.

“I do not know,” he said.

“You swear it?”

“I swear it.”

“Then Mistress Norris has changed her plans?” said Lackington swiftly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Why she told you where they were going when you met?” said the other in a remonstrating tone.

Hubert suddenly saw the game. If the authorities really knew that, it would have been a useless question. He stared at Lackington with an admirable vacancy.

“Indeed she did not,” he said. “For aught I know, they—she is in France again.”

“They?” said Lackington shrewdly. “Then you do know somewhat of the priest?”

But Hubert was again too sharp.

“Only what you told me just now, when you said he was at Rye. I supposed you were telling the truth.”

Lackington passed his hand smoothly over his mouth and beard, and smiled. Either Hubert was very sharp or else he had told everything; and he did not believe him sharp.

“Thank you, Mr. Maxwell,” he said, with a complete dropping of his judicial manner. “I will not pretend not to be disappointed; but I believe what you say about France is true; and that it is no use looking for him further.”

Hubert experienced an extraordinary relief. He had saved Isabel. He drank off a glass of claret. “Tell me everything,” he said.

“Well,” said Lackington, “Mr. Thomas Hamon is my informant. He sent up to Sir Francis the message that a lady of the name of Norris had been introduced to him at Rye; because he thought he remembered some stir in the county several years ago about some reconciliations to Rome connected with that name. Of course we knew everything about that: and we have our agents at the seminaries too; so we concluded that she was one of our birds; the rest, of course, was guesswork. Mr. Norris has certainly left Douai for England; and he may possibly even now be in England; but from your information and others’, I now believe that Mistress Isabel came across first, and that she found the country too hot, what with the Spaniards and all; and that she returned to France at once. Of course during that dreadful week, Mr. Maxwell, we could not be certain of all vessels that came and went; so I think she just slipped across again; and that they are both waiting in France. We shall keep good watch now at the ports, I can promise you.”

Hubert’s emotions were varied during this speech. First shame at having entirely forgotten the mayor of Rye and his own introduction of Isabel to him; then astonishment at the methods of Walsingham’s agents; and lastly intense triumph and relief at having put them off Isabel’s track. For Anthony, too, he had nothing but kindly feelings; so, on the whole, he thought he had done well for his friends.

The two talked a little longer; Lackington was a stimulating companion from both his personality and his position; and Hubert found himself almost sorry when his companion said he must be riding on to Mayfield. As he walked out with him to the front door, he suddenly thought of Mr. Buxton again and his reception in the afternoon. They had wandered in their conversation so far from the Norrises by now that he felt sure he could speak of him without doing them any harm. So, as they stood on the steps together, waiting for Lackington’s horse to come round, he suddenly said:

“Do you know aught of one Buxton, who lives somewhere near Tonbridge, I think?”

“Buxton, Buxton?” said the other.

“I met him in town once,” went on Hubert smoothly; “a little man, dark, with large eyes, and looks somewhat like a Frenchman.”

“Buxton, Buxton?” said the other again. “A Papist, is he not?”

“Yes,” said Hubert, hoping to get some information against him.

“A friend?” asked Lackington.

“No,” said Hubert with such vehemence that Lackington looked at him.

“I remember him,” he said in a moment; “he was imprisoned at Wisbeach six or seven years ago. But I do not think he has been in trouble since. You wish, you wish——?” he went on interrogatively.

“Nothing,” said Hubert; but Lackington saw the hatred in his eyes.

The horses came round at this moment; and Lackington said good-bye to Hubert with a touch of the old deference again, and mounted. Hubert watched him out under the gatehouse-lamp into the night beyond, and then he went in again, pondering.

His wife was waiting for him in the hall now—a delicate golden-haired figure, with pathetic blue eyes turned up to him. She ran to him and took his arm timidly in her two hands.

“Oh! I am glad that man has gone, Hubert.”

He looked down at her almost contemptuously.

“Why, you know nothing of him!” he said.

“Not much,” she said, “but he asked me so many questions.”

Hubert started and looked suddenly at her, in terror.

“Oh, Hubert!” she said, shrinking back frightened.

“Questions!” he said, seizing her hands. “Questions of whom?”

“Of—of—Mistress Isabel Norris,” she said, almost crying.

“And—and—what did you say? Did you tell him?”

“Oh, Hubert!—I am so sorry—ah! do not look like that.”

“What did you say? What did you say?” he said between his teeth.

“I—I—told a lie, Hubert; I said I had never seen her.”

Hubert took his wife suddenly in his two arms and kissed her three or four times.

“You darling, you darling!” he said; and then stooped and picked her up, and carried her upstairs, with her head against his cheek, and her tears running down because he was pleased with her, instead of angry.

They went upstairs and he set her down softly outside the nursery door.

“Hush,” she said, smiling up at him; and then softly opened the door and listened, her finger on her lip; there was no sound from within; then she pushed the door open gently, and the wife and husband went in.

There was a shaded taper still burning in a high bracket where an image of the Mother of God had stood in the Catholic days of the house. Hubert glanced up at it and remembered it, with just a touch at his heart. Beneath it was a little oak cot, where his four-year-old boy lay sleeping; the mother went across and bent over it, and Hubert leaned his brown sinewy hands on the end of the cot and watched him. There his son lay, with tangled curls on the pillow; his finger was on his lips as if he bade silence even to thought. Hubert looked up, and just above the bed, where the crucifix used to hang when he himself had slept in this nursery, probably on the very same nail, he thought to himself, was a rusty Spanish spur that he himself had found in a sea-chest of the San Juan. The boy had hung up with a tarry bit of string this emblem of his father’s victory, as a protection while he slept.

The child stirred in his sleep and murmured as the two watched him.

“Father’s home again,” whispered the mother. “It is all well. Go to sleep again.”

When she looked up again to her husband, he was gone.

It was not often that Hubert had regrets for the Faith he had lost; but to-night things had conspired to prick him. There was his rebuff from Mr. Buxton; there was the sight of Isabel in the dignified grace that he had noticed so plainly before; there had been the interview with the ex-Catholic servant, now a spy of the Government, and a remorseless enemy of all Catholics; and lastly there were the two little external reminders of the niche and the nail over his son’s bed.

He sat long before the fire in Sir Nicholas’ old room, now his own study. As he lay back and looked about him, how different this all was, too! The mantelpiece was almost unaltered; the Maxwell devices, two-headed eagles, hurcheons and saltires, on crowded shields, interlaced with the motto Reviresco, all newly gilded since his own accession to the estate, rose up in deep shadow and relief; but over it, instead of the little old picture of the Vernacle that he remembered as a child, hung his own sword. Was that a sign of progress? he wondered. The tapestry on the east wall was the same, a hawking scene with herons and ladies in immense headdresses that he had marvelled at as a boy. But then the books on the shelves to the right of the door, they were different; there had been old devotional books in his father’s time, mingled strangely with small works on country life and sports; now the latter only remained, and the nearest to a devotional book was a volume of a mystical herbalist who identified plants with virtues, strangely and ingeniously. Then the prie-dieu, where the beads had hung and the little wooden shield with the Five Wounds painted upon it—that was gone; and in its place hung a cupboard where he kept a crossbow and a few tools for it; and old hawk-lures and jesses and the like.

Then he lay back again, and thought.

Had he then behaved unworthily? This old Faith that had been handed down from father and son for generations; that had been handed to him too as the most precious heirloom of all—for which his father had so gladly suffered fines and imprisonment, and risked death—he had thrown it over, and for what? For Isabel, he confessed to himself; and then the—the Power that stands behind the visible had cheated him and withdrawn that for which he had paid over that great price. Was that a reckless and brutal bargain on his side—to throw over this strange delicate thing called the Faith for which so many millions had lived and died, all for a woman’s love? A curious kind of family pride in the Faith began to prick him. After all, was not honour in a manner bound up with it too; and most of all when such heavy penalties attached themselves to the profession of it? Was that the moment when he should be the first of his line to abandon it?

Reviresco—”I renew my springtide.” But was not this a strange grafting—a spur for a crucifix, a crossbow for a place of prayer? Reviresco—There was sap indeed in the old tree; but from what soil did it draw its strength?

His heart began to burn with something like shame, as it had burned now and again at intervals during these past years. Here he lay back in his father’s chair, in his father’s room, the first Protestant of the Maxwells. Then he passed on to a memory.

As he closed his eyes, he could see even now the chapel upstairs, with the tapers alight and the stiff figure of the priest in the midst of the glow; he could smell the flowers on the altar, the June roses strewn on the floor in the old manner, and their fresh dewy scent mingled with the fragrance of the rich incense in an intoxicating chord; he could hear the rustle that emphasised the silence, as his mother rose from his side and went up for communion, and the breathing of the servants behind him.

Then for contrast he remembered the whitewashed church where he attended now with his wife, Sunday by Sunday, the pulpit occupied by the black figure of the virtuous Mr. Bodder pronouncing his discourse, the great texts that stood out in their new paint from the walls, the table that stood out unashamed and sideways in the midst of the chancel. And which of the two worships was most like God?...

Then he compared the worshippers in either mode. Well, Drake, his hero, was a convinced Protestant; the bravest man he had ever met or dreamed of—fiery, pertinacious, gloriously insolent. He thought of his sailors, on whom a portion of Drake’s spirit fell, their gallantry, their fearlessness of death and of all that comes after; of Mr. Bodder, who was now growing middle-aged in the Vicarage—yes, indeed, they were all admirable in various ways, but were they like Christ?

On the other hand, his father, in spite of his quick temper, his mother, brother, aunt, the priests who came and went by night, Isabel—and at that he stopped: and like a deep voice in his ear rose up the last tremendous question, What if the Catholic Religion be true after all? And at that the supernatural began to assert itself. It seemed as if the empty air were full of this question, rising in intensity and emphasis. What if it is true? What if it is true? What if it is true?

He sat bolt upright and looked sharply round the room; the candles burned steadily in the sconce near the door. The tapestry lifted and dropped noiselessly in the draught; the dark corners beyond the press and in the window recesses suggested presences that waited; the wide chimney sighed suddenly once.

Was that a voice in his ear just now, or only in his heart? But in either case——

He made an effort to command himself, and looked again steadily round the room; but there seemed no one there. But what if the old tale be true? In that case he is not alone in this little oak room, for there is no such thing as loneliness. In that case he is sitting in full sight of Almighty God, whom he has insulted; and of the saints whose power he has repudiated; and of the angels good and bad who have—— Ah! what was that? There had seemed to come a long sigh somewhere behind him; on his left surely.—What was it? Some wandering soul? Was it, could it be the soul of one who had loved him and desired to warn him before it was too late? Could it have been——and then it came again; and the hair prickled on his head.

How deathly still it is, and how cold! Ah! was that a rustle outside; a tap?... In God’s name, who can that be?...

And then Hubert licked his dry lips and brought them together and smiled at Grace, who had come down, opening the doors as she came, to see why he had not come to bed.

Bah! what a superstitious fool he was, after all!

CHAPTER VI

A DEPARTURE

The months went by happily at Stanfield; and, however ill went the fortunes of the Church elsewhere, here at least were peace and prosperity. Most discouraging news indeed did reach them from time to time. The severe penalties now enacted against the practice of the Catholic Religion were being enforced with great vigour, and the weak members of the body began to fail. Two priests had apostatised at Chichester earlier in the year, one of them actually at the scaffold on Broyle Heath; and then in December there were two more recantations at Paul’s Cross. Those Catholics too who threw up the Faith generally became the most aggressive among the persecutors, to testify to their own consciences, as well to the Protestants, of the sincerity of their conversion.

But in Stanfield the Church flourished, and Anthony had the great happiness of receiving his first convert in the person of Mr. Rowe, the young owner of a house called East Maskells, separated from Stanfield Place by a field-path of under a mile in length, though the road round was over two; and the comings and goings were frequent now between the two houses. Mr. Rowe was at present unmarried, and had his aunt to keep house for him, a tolerant old maiden lady who had conformed placidly to the Reformed Religion thirty years before, and was now grown content with it. Several “schismatics” too—as those Catholics were called who attended their parish church—had waxed bolder, and given up their conformity to the Establishment; so it was a happy and courageous flock that gathered Sunday by Sunday at Stanfield Place.

Just before Christmas, Anthony received a long and affectionate letter from James Maxwell, who was still at Douai.

“The Rector will still have me here,” he wrote, “and shows me to the young men as if I were a kind of warrior; which is bad for pride; but then he humbles me again by telling me I am of more use here as an example, than I should be in England; and that humbles me again. So I am content to stay. It is a humbling thing, too, to find young men who can tell me the history of my arms and legs better than I know it myself. But the truth is, I can never walk well again—yet laudetur Jesus Christus.”

Then James Maxwell wrote a little about his grief for Hubert; gave a little news of foreign movements among the Catholics; and finally ended as follows:

“At last I understand who your friend was behind Bow Church, who stuttered and played the Catholic so well. It was our old servant Lackington; who turned Protestant and entered Walsingham’s service. I hear all this from one P. lately in the same affairs, but now turned to Christ his service instead; and who has entered here as a student. So beware of him; he has a pointed beard now, and a bald forehead. I hear, too, from the same source that he was on your track when you landed, but now thinks you to be in France. However, he knows of you; so I counsel you not to abide over long in one place. Perhaps you may go to Lancashire; that is like heaven itself for Catholics. Their zeal and piety there are beyond praise; but I hear they somewhat lack priests. God keep you always, my dear Brother; and may the Queen of Heaven intercede for you. Pray for me.”

Soon after the New Year, Mary Corbet was able to get away from Court and come down again to her friends for a month or two at Stanfield.

During her stay they all had an adventure together at East Maskells. They had been out a long expedition into the woods one clear frosty day and rode in just at sunset for an early supper with Mr. Rowe and his aunt.

They had left their horses at the stable and come in round the back of the house; so that they missed the servant Miss Rowe had placed at the front door to warn them, and came straight into the winter-parlour, where they found Miss Rowe in conversation with an ecclesiastic. There was no time to retreat; and Anthony in a moment more found himself being introduced to a minister he had met at Lambeth more than once—the Reverend Robert Carr, who had held the odd title of “Archbishop’s Curate” and the position of minister in charge of the once collegiate church of All Saints’, Maidstone, ever since the year ‘59. He had ridden up from Maidstone for supper and lodging, and was on his way to town.

Anthony managed to interrupt Miss Rowe before she came to his assumed name Capell, and remarked rather loudly that he had met Mr. Carr before; who recognised him too, and greeted him by his real name.

It was an uncomfortable situation, as Mr. Carr was quite unaware of the religion of five out of six of those present, and very soon began to give voice to his views on Papistry. He was an oldish man by now, and of some importance in Maidstone, where he had been appointed Jurat by the Corporation, and was a very popular and influential man.

“The voice of the people,” he said in the midst of a conversation on the national feeling towards Spain, “that is what we must hearken to. Even sovereigns themselves must come to that some day. They must rule by obeying; as man does with God’s laws in nature.”

“Would you say that, sir, of her Grace?” asked Mary Corbet meekly.

“I should, madam; though I fear she has injured her power by her behaviour this year. It was her people who saved her.—Hawkins, who is now ruined as he says; my lord Howard, who has paid from his own purse for the meat and drink of her Grace’s soldiers, and those who fought with them; and not her Grace, who saved them; or Leicester, now gone to his account, who sat at Tilbury and did the bowing and the prancing and the talking while Hawkins and the rest did the fighting. No, madam, it is the voice of the people to which we must hearken.”

This was rather confused and dangerous talking too; but here was plainly a man to be humoured; he looked round him with a suffused face and the eye of a cock, and a little white plume on his forehead increased his appearance of pugnacity.

“It is the same in religion,” he said, when all preserved a deferential silence; “it is that that lies at the root of papist errors. As you know very well,” he went on, turning suddenly on Anthony, “our bishops do nothing to guide men’s minds; they only seem to: they ride atop like the figure on a cock-horse, but it is the legs beneath that do the work and the guiding too: now that is right and good; and the Church of England will prosper so long as she goes like that. But if the bishops try to rule they will find their mistake. Now the Popish Church is not like that; she holds that power comes from above, that the Pope guides the bishops, the bishops the priests, and the priests the people.”

“And the Holy Ghost the Pope; is it not so, sir?” asked Mr. Buxton.

Mr. Carr turned an eye on him.

“So they hold, sir,” he said after a pause.

“They think then, sir, that the shepherds guide the sheep?” asked Anthony humbly.

Mary Corbet gave a yelp of laughter; but when Mr. Carr looked at her she was grave and deferential again. Miss Rowe looked entreatingly from face to face. The minister did not notice Anthony’s remark; but swept on again on what was plainly his favourite theme,—the infallibility of the people. It was a doctrine that was hardly held yet by any; but the next century was to see its gradual rise until it reached its climax in the Puritanism of the Stuart times. It was true, as Mr. Carr said, that Elizabeth had ruled by obeying; and that the people of England, encouraged by success in resisting foreign domination, were about to pass on to the second position of resisting any domination at all.

Presently he pulled out of his pocket a small printed sheet, and was soon declaiming from it. It was not very much to the point, except as illustrating the national spirit which he believed so divine. It was a ballad describing the tortures which the Spaniards had intended to inflict upon the heretic English, and began:

“All you that list to look and see

What profit comes from Spain,

And what the Pope and Spaniards both

Prepared for our gain.

Then turn your eyes and lend your ears

And you shall hear and see

What courteous minds, what gentle hearts,

They bear to thee and me!

And it ended in the same spirit:

“Be these the men that are so mild

Whom some so holy call!

The Lord defend our noble Queen

And country from them all!”

“There!” the minister cried when he had done, “that is what the Papists are like! Trust me; I know them I should know one in a moment if he ventured into this room, by his crafty face. But the Lord will defend His own Englishmen; nay! He has done so. ‘God blew and they were scattered,’” he ended, quoting from the Armada medal.

As the four rode home by pairs across the field-path in the frosty moonlight Mr. Buxton lamented to Anthony the effect of the Armada.

“The national spirit is higher than ever,” he said, “and it will be the death of Catholicism here for the present. Our country squires, I fear, faithful Catholics to this time, are beginning to wonder and question. When will our Catholic kings learn that Christ His Kingdom is not of this world? Philip has smitten the Faith in England with the weapon which he drew in its defence, as he thought.”

“I was once of that national spirit myself,” said Anthony.

“I remember you were,” said Mr. Buxton, smiling; “and what grace has done to you it may do to others.”

The spring went by, and in the week after Easter, James’ news about Lancashire was verified by a letter from a friend of Mr. Buxton’s, a Mr. Norreys, the owner of one of the staunch Catholic houses, Speke Hall, on the bank of the Mersey.

“Here,” he wrote, “by the mercy of God there is no lack of priests, though there be none to spare; my own chaplain says mass by dispensation thrice on Sunday; but on the moors the sheep look up and are not fed; and such patient sheep! I heard but last week of a church where the folk resort, priest or no, each Sunday to the number of two hundred, and are led by a lector in devotion, ending with an act of spiritual communion made all together. These damnable heresies of which the apostle wrote have not poisoned the springs of sound doctrine; some of us here know naught yet of Elizabeth and her supremacy, or even of seven-wived Harry his reformation. Send us then, dear friend, a priest, or at least the promise of one; lest we perish quite.”

Mr. Buxton had a sore struggle with himself over this letter; but at last he carried it to Anthony.

“Read that,” he said; and stood waiting.

Anthony looked up when he had done.

“I am your chaplain,” he said, “but I am God’s priest first.”

“Yes, dear lad,” said his friend, “I feared you would say so; and I will say so to Norreys”; and he left the room at once.

And so at last it came to be arranged that Anthony should leave for Lancashire at the end of July; and that after his departure Stanfield should be served occasionally by the priest who lived on the outskirts of Tonbridge; but the daily mass would have to cease, and that was a sore trouble to Mr. Buxton. No definite decision could be made as to when Anthony could return; that must wait until he saw the needs of Lancashire; but he hoped to be able at least to pay a visit to Stanfield again in the spring of the following year.

It was arranged also, of course, that Isabel should accompany her brother. They were both of large independent means, and could travel in some dignity; and her presence would be under these circumstances a protection as well as a comfort to Anthony. It would need very great sharpness to detect the seminary priest under Anthony’s disguise, and amid the surroundings of his cavalcade of four or five armed servants, a French maid, and a distinguished-looking lady.

Yet, in spite of this, Mr. Buxton resolved to do his utmost to prevent Isabel from going to Lancashire; partly, of course, he disliked the thought of the dangers and hardships that she was certain to encounter; but the real motive was that he had fallen very deeply in love with her. It was her exceptional serenity that seemed to him her greatest charm; her movements, her face, her grey eyes, the very folds of her dress seemed to breathe with it; and to one of Mr. Buxton’s temperament such a presence was cool and sweet and strangely fascinating.

It was now April, and he resolved to devote the next month or two to preparing her for his proposal; and he wrote frankly to Mary Corbet telling her how matters stood, entreating her to come down for July and counsel him. Mary wrote back at once, rather briefly, promising to come; but not encouraging him greatly.

“I would I could cheer you more,” she wrote; “of course I have not seen Isabel since January; but, unless she has changed, I do not think she will marry you. I am writing plainly you see, as you ask in your letter. But I can still say, God prosper you.”

As the spring went by and the summer came on, Isabel grew yet more silent. As the evenings began to lengthen out she used to spend much time before and after supper in walking up and down the clipped lime avenue between the east end of the church and the great gates that looked over the meadows across which the stream and the field-path ran towards East Maskells. Mr. Buxton would watch her sometimes from an upstairs window, himself unseen, and occasionally would go out and talk with her; but he found it harder than he used to get on to intimate relations; and he began to suspect that he had displeased her in some way, and that Mary Corbet was right. In the afternoon she and Anthony would generally ride out together, once or twice going round by Penshurst, and their host would torture himself by his own indecision as regards accompanying them; sometimes doing so, sometimes refraining, and regretting whichever he did. More and more he began to look forward to Mary’s coming and the benefit of her advice; and at last, at the end of June, she came.

Their first evening together was delightful for them all. She was happy at her escape from Court; her host was happy at the prospect of her counsel; and all four were happy at being together again.

They did not meet till supper, and even that was put off an hour, because Mary had not come, and when she did arrive she was full of excitement.

“I will tell you all at supper,” she said to her host, whom she met in the hall. “Oh! how late I am!” and she whirled past him and upstairs without another word.

“I will first give you the news in brief,” she said, when Anthony had said grace and they were seated, all four of them as before; and the trumpet-flourish was silent that had announced the approach of the venison.

“Mutton’s new chaplain, Dr. Bancroft, will be in trouble soon; he hath been saying favourable things for some of us poor papists, and hath rated the Precisians soundly. Sir Francis Knollys is wroth with him; but that is no matter.—Her Grace played at cards till two of the clock this morning, and that is why I am so desperate sleepy to-night, for I had to sit up too; and that is a great matter.—Drake and Norris, ‘tis said, have whipped the dons again at Corunna; and the Queen has sworn to pull my lord Essex his ears for going with them and adventuring his precious self; and that is no matter at all, but will do him good.—George Luttrell hath put up a coat of arms in his hall at Dunster, which is a great matter to him, but to none else;—and I have robbed a highwayman this day in the beech woods this side of Groombridge.”

“Dear lady,” said Mr. Buxton resignedly, as the others looked up startled, “you are too swift for our dull rustic ears; we will begin at the end, if you please. Is it true you have robbed an highwayman?”

“It is perfectly true,” she said, and unlatched a ruby brooch, made heart-shape, from her dress. “There is the plunder,” and she held it out for inspection.

“Then tell us the tale,” said Anthony.

“It would be five of the clock,” said Mary, “as we came through Groombridge, and then into the woods beyond. I had bidden my knaves ride on before with my woman; I came down into a dingle where there was a stream; and, to tell the truth, I had my head down and was a-nodding, when my horse stopped; and I looked up of a sudden and there was a man on a bay mare, with a mask to his mouth, a gay green suit, a brown beard turning grey, and this ruby brooch at his throat; and he had caught my bridle. I saw him start when I lifted my head, as if he were taken aback. I said nothing, but he led my horse off the road down among the trees with a deep little thicket where none could see us. As we went I was thinking like a windmill; for I knew I had seen the little red brooch before.

“When we reached the little open space, I asked him what he wished with me.

“‘Your purse, madam,’ said he.

“‘My woman hath it,’ said I.

“‘Your jewels then, madam,’ said he.

“‘My woman hath them,’ said I, ‘save this paste buckle in my hat, to which you are welcome.’ It was diamonds, you know; but I knew he would not know that.

“‘What a mistake,’ I said, ‘to stop the mistress and let the maid go free!’

“‘Nay,’ he said, ‘I am glad of it; for at least I will have a dance with the mistress; and I could not with the maid.’

“‘You are welcome to that,’ I said, and I slipped off my horse, to humour him, and even as I slipped off I knew who he was, for although many have red brooches, and many brown beards turning grey, few have both together; but I said nothing. And there—will you believe it?—we danced under the beech-trees like Phyllis and Corydon, or whoever they are that Sidney is always prating of; or like two fools, I would sooner say. Then when we had done, I made him a curtsey.

“‘Now you must help me up,’ said I, and he mounted me without a word, for he was a stoutish gallant and somewhat out of breath. And then what did the fool do but try to kiss me, and as he lifted his arm I snatched the brooch and put spur to my horse, and as we went up the bank I screamed at him, ‘Claude, you fool, go home to your wife and take shame to yourself.’ And when I was near the road I looked back, and he still stood there all agape.”

“And what was his name?” asked Anthony.

“Nay, nay, I have mocked him enough. And I know four Claudes, so you need not try to guess.”

When supper was over, Mr. Buxton and Mary walked up and down the south path of the garden between the yews, while the other two sat just outside the hall window on a seat placed on the tiled terrace that ran round the house.

“How I have longed for you to come, Mistress Mary,” he said, “and counsel me of the matter we wrote about. Tell me what to do.”

Mary looked meditatively out to the strip of moon that was rising out to the east in the June sky. Then she looked tenderly at her friend.

“I hate to pain you,” she said, “but cannot you see that it is impossible? I may be wrong; but I think her heart is so given to our Saviour that there is no love of that sort left.”

“Ah, how can you say that?” he cried; “the love of the Saviour does not hinder earthly love; it purifies and transfigures it.”

“Yes,” said Mary gravely, “it is often so—but the love of the true spouse of Christ is different. That leaves no room for an earthly bridegroom.”

Mr. Buxton was silent a moment or two.

“You mean it is the love of the consecrated soul?”

Mary bowed her head. “But I cannot be sure,” she added.

“Then what shall I do?” he said again, almost piteously; and Mary could see even in the faint moonlight that his pleasant face was all broken up and quivering. She laid her hand gently on his arm, and her rings flashed.

“You must be very patient,” she said, “very full of deference—and grave. You must not be ardent nor impetuous, but speak slowly and reverently to her, but at no great length; be plain with her; do not look in her face, and do not show anxiety or despair or hope. You need not fear that your love will not be plain to her. Indeed, I think she knows it already.”

“Why, I have not——” he began.

“I know you have not spoken to her; but I saw that she only looked at you once during supper, and that was when your face was turned from her; she does not wish to look you in the eyes.”

“Ah, she hates me,” he sighed.

“Do not be foolish,” said Mary, “she honours you, and loves you, and is grieved for your grief; but I do not think she will marry you.”

“And when shall I speak?” he asked.

“You must wait; God will make the opportunity—in any case. You must not attempt to make it. That would terrify her.”

“And you will speak for me.”

Mary smiled at him.

“Dear friend,” she said, “sometimes I think you do not know us at all. Do you not see that Isabel is greater than all that? What she knows, she knows. I could tell her nothing.”

The days passed on; the days of the last month of the Norrises’ stay at Stanfield. Half-way through the month came the news of the Oxford executions.

“Ah! listen to this,” cried Mr. Buxton, coming out to them one evening in the garden with a letter in his hand. “‘Humphrey Prichard,’” he read, “‘made a good end. He protested he was condemned for the Catholic Faith; that he willingly died for it; that he was a Catholic. One of their ministers laughed at him, saying he was a poor ignorant fellow who knew not what it was to be a Catholic. ‘I know very well;’ said Humphrey, ‘though I cannot say it in proper divinity language.’ There is the Religion for you!” went on Mr. Buxton; “all meet there, wise and simple alike. There is no difference; no scholarship is needed for faith. ‘I know what it is,’ cried Humphrey, ‘though I cannot explain it!’”

The news came to Anthony just when he needed it; he felt he had done so little to teach his flock now he was to leave them; but if he had only done something to keep alive the fire of faith, he had not lost his time; and so he went about his spiritual affairs with new heart, encouraging the wavering, whom he was to leave, warning the over-confident, urging the hesitating, and saying good-bye to them all. Isabel went with him sometimes; or sometimes walked or rode with Mary, and was silent for the most part in public. The master of the house himself did his affairs, and carried a heavier heart each day. And at last the opportunity came which Mary had predicted.

He had come in one evening after a hot ride alone over to Tonbridge on some business with the priest there; and had dressed for supper immediately on coming in.

As there was still nearly an hour before supper, he went out to walk up and down the same yew-alley near the garden-house where he had walked with Mary. Anthony and Isabel had returned a little later from East Maskells, and they too had dressed early. Isabel threw a lace shawl over her head, and betook herself too to the alley; and there she turned a corner and almost ran into her host.

It was, as Mary had said, a God-made opportunity. Neither time nor place could have been improved. If externals were of any value to this courtship, all that could have helped was there. The setting of the picture was perfect; a tall yew-hedge ran down the northern side of the walk, cut, as Bacon recommended, not fantastically but “with some pretty pyramids”; a strip of turf separated it from the walk, giving a sense both of privacy and space; on the south side ran flower-beds in the turf, with yews and cypresses planted here and there, and an oak paling beyond; to the east lay the “fair mount,” again recommended by the same authority, but not so high, and with but one ascent; to the west the path darkened under trees, and over all rose up against the sunset sky the tall grotesque towers and vanes of the garden-house. The flowers burned with that ember-like glow which may be seen on summer evenings, and poured out their scent; the air was sweet and cool, and white moths were beginning to poise and stir among the blossoms. The two actors on this scene too were not unworthy of it; his dark velvet and lace with the glimmer of diamonds here and there, and his delicate bearded clean-cut face, a little tanned, thrown into relief by the spotless crisp ruff beneath, and above all his air of strength and refinement and self-possession—all combined to make him a formidable stormer of a girl’s heart. And as he looked on her—on her clear almost luminous face and great eyes, shrined in the drooping lace shawl, through which a jewel or two in her black hair glimmered, her upright slender figure in its dark sheath, and the hand, white and cool, that held her shawl together over her breast—he had a pang of hope and despair at once, at the sudden sense of need of this splendid creature of God to be one with him, and reign with him over these fair possessions; and of hopelessness at the thought that anything so perfect could be accomplished in this imperfect world.

He turned immediately and walked beside her, and they both knew, in the silence that followed, that the crisis had come.

“Mistress Isabel,” he said, still looking down as he spoke, and his voice sounded odd to her ears, “I wonder if you know what I would say to you.”

There came no sound from her, but the rustle of her dress.

“But I must say it,” he went on, “follow what may. It is this. I love you dearly.”

Her walk faltered beside him, and it seemed as if she would stand still.

“A moment,” he said, and he lifted his white restrained face. “I ask you to be patient with me. Perhaps I need not say that I have never said this to any woman before; but more, I have never even thought it. I do not know how to speak, nor what I should say; beyond this, that since I first met you at the door across there, a year ago, you have taught me ever since what love means; and now I am come to you, as to my dear mistress, with my lesson learnt.”

They were standing together now; he was still turned a little away from her, and dared not lift his eyes to her face again. Then of a sudden he felt her hand on his arm for a moment, and he looked up, and saw her eyes all swimming with sorrow.

“Dear friend,” she said quite simply, “it is impossible—Ah! what can I say?”

“Give me a moment more,” he said; and they walked on slowly. “I know what presumption this is; but I will not spin phrases about that. Nor do I ask what is impossible; but I will only ask leave to teach you in my turn what love means.”

“Oh! that is the hardest of all to say,” she said, “but I know already.”

He did not quite understand, and glanced at her a moment.

“I once loved too,” she whispered. He drew a sharp breath.

“Forgive me,” he said, “I forced that from you.”

“You are never anything but courteous and kind,” she said, “and that makes this harder than all.”

They walked in silence half a dozen steps.

“Have I distressed you?” he asked, glancing at her again.

Then she looked full in his face, and her eyes were overflowing.

“I am grieved for your sorrow,” she said, “and at my own unworthiness, you know that?”

“I know that you are now and always will be my dear mistress and queen.”

His voice broke altogether as he ended, and he bent and took her hand delicately in his own, as if it were royal, and kissed it. Then she gave a great sob and slipped away through the opening in the clipped hedge; and he was left alone with the dusk and his sorrow.

A week later Anthony and Isabel were saying good-bye to him in the early summer morning: the pack-horses had started on before, and there were just the two saddle-horses at the low oak door, with the servants’ behind. When Mr. Buxton had put Isabel into the saddle, he held her hand for a moment; Anthony was mounting behind.

“Mistress Isabel,” he whispered; “forgive me; but I find I cannot take your answer; you will remember that.”

She shook her head without speaking, but dared not even look into his eyes; though she turned her head as she rode out of the gates for a last look at the peaked gables and low windows of the house where she had been so happy. There was still the dark figure motionless against the pale oak door.

“Oh, Anthony!” she whispered brokenly, “our Lord asks very much.”

CHAPTER VII

NORTHERN RELIGION

The Northern counties were distinguished among all in England for their loyalty to the old Faith; and this was owing, no doubt, to the characters of both the country and the inhabitants;—it was difficult for the officers of justice to penetrate to the high moorland and deep ravines, and yet more difficult to prevail with the persons who lived there. Twenty-two years before the famous Lancashire League had been formed, under the encouragement of Dr. Allen, afterwards the Cardinal, whose members pledged themselves to determined recusancy; with the result that here and there church-doors were closed, and the Book of Common Prayer utterly refused. Owing partly to Bishop Downman’s laxity towards the recusants, the principles of the League had retained their hold throughout the county, ever since ‘68, when ten obstinate Lancastrians had been haled before the Council, of whom one, the famous Sir John Southworth himself, suffered imprisonment more than once.

Anthony and Isabel then found their life in the North very different to that which they had been living at Stanfield. Near the towns, of course, precaution was as necessary as anywhere else in England, but once they had passed up on to the higher moorlands they were able to throw off all anxiety, as much as if the penal laws of England were not in force there.

It was pleasant, too, to go, as they did, from great house to great house, and find the old pre-Reformation life of England in full vigour; the whole family present at mass so often as it was said, desirous of the sacraments, and thankful for the opportunities of grace that the arrival of the priest afforded. Isabel would often stay at such houses a week or two together, while Anthony made rounds into the valleys and to the moorland villages round-about; and then the two would travel on together with their servants to the next village. Anthony’s ecclesiastical outfit was very simple. Among Isabel’s dresses lay a brocade vestment that might easily pass notice if the luggage was searched; and Anthony carried in his own luggage a little altar-stone, a case with the holy oils, a tiny chalice and paten, singing-cakes, and a thin vellum-bound Missal and Ritual in one volume, containing the order of mass, a few votive masses, and the usual benedictions for holy-water, rue and the like, and the occasional offices.

In this manner they first visited many of the famous old Lancashire houses, some of which still stand, Borwick Hall, Hall-i’-the-Wood, Lydiate Hall, Thurnham, Blainscow, where Campion had once been so nearly taken, and others, all of which were provided with secret hiding-places for the escape of the priest, should a sudden alarm be raised. In none of them, however, did he find the same elaboration of device as at Stanfield Place.

First, however, they went to Speke Hall, the home of Mr. Norreys, on the banks of the Mersey, a beautiful house of magpie architecture, and furnished with a remarkable underground passage to the shore of the Mersey, the scene of Richard Brittain’s escape.

Here they received a very warm welcome.

“It is as I wrote to Mr. Buxton,” said his host on the evening of their arrival, “in many places in this country any religion other than the Catholic is unknown. The belief of the Protestant is as strange as that of the Turk, both utterly detested. I was in Cumberland a few months back; there in more than one village the old worship goes on as it has done since Christianity first came to this island. But I hope you will go up there, now that you have come so far. You would do a great work for Christ his Church.”

He told him, too, a number of stories of the zeal and constancy shown on behalf of the Religion; of small squires who were completely ruined by the fines laid upon them; of old halls that were falling to pieces through the ruin brought upon their staunch owners; and above all of the priests that Lancashire had added to the roll of the martyrs—Anderton, Marsden, and Thompson among others—and of the joy shown when the glorious news of their victory over death reached the place where they had been born or where they had ministered.

“At Preston,” he said, “when the news of Mr. Greenaway’s death reached them, they tolled the bells for sorrow. But his old mother ran from her house to the street when they had broken the news to her: ‘Peal them, peal them!’ she cried, ‘for I have borne a martyr to God.’”

He talked, too, of Campion, of his sermons on “The King who went a journey,” and the “Hail, Mary”; and told him of the escape at Blainscow Hall, where the servant-girl, seeing the pursuivants at hand, pushed the Jesuit, with quick wit and courage, into the duck-pond, so that he came out disguised indeed—in green mud—and was mocked at by the very officers as a clumsy suitor of maidens.

Anthony’s heart warmed within him as he sat and listened to these tales of patience and gallantry.

“I would lay down my life to serve such folk,” he said; and Isabel looked with deep-kindled eyes from the one to the other.

They did not stay more than a day or two at Speke Hall, for, as Mr. Norreys said, the necessaries of salvation were to be had there already; but they moved on almost at once northwards, always arriving at some central point for Saturdays and Sundays, so that the Catholics round could come in for shrift and housel. In this manner they passed up through Lancashire, and pushed still northwards, hearing that a priest was sorely needed, through the corner of Westmoreland, up the Lake country, through into Cumberland itself. At Kendal, where they stayed two nights, Anthony received a message that determined him, after consultation with Isabel, to push on as far as Skiddaw, and to make that the extreme limit of his journey. He sent the messenger, a wild-looking North-countryman, back with a verbal answer to that effect, and named a date when they would arrive.

It was already dark, two weeks later, when they arrived at the point where the guide was to meet them, as they had lost their way more than once already. Here were a couple of men with torches, waiting for them behind a rock, who had come down from the village, a mile farther on, to bring them up the difficult stony path that was the only means of access to it. The track went up a ravine, with a rock-wall rising on their left, on which the light of the torches shone, and tumbled ground, covered with heather, falling rapidly away on their right down to a gulf of darkness whence they could hear the sound of the torrent far below; the path was uneven, with great stones here and there, and sharp corners in it, and as they went it was all they could do to keep their tired horses from stumbling, for a slip would have been dangerous under the circumstances. The men who led them said little, as it was impossible for a horse and a man to walk abreast, but Anthony was astonished to see again and again, as they turned a corner, another man with a torch and some weapon, a pike, or a sword, start up and salute him, or sometimes a group, with barefooted boys, and then attach themselves to the procession either before or behind; until in a short while there was an escort of some thirty or forty accompanying the cavalcade. At last, as they turned a corner, the lighted windows of a belfry showed against the dark moor beyond, and in a moment more, as if there were a watcher set there to look out for the torches, a peal of five bells clashed out from the tower; then, as they rose yet higher, the path took a sudden turn and a dip between two towering rocks, and the whole village lay beneath them, with lights in every window to welcome the priest, the first that they had seen for eight months, when the old Marian rector, the elder brother of the squire, had died.

It was now late, so Anthony and Isabel were conducted immediately to the Hall, an old house immediately adjoining the churchyard; and here, too, the windows were blazing with welcome, and the tall squire, Mr. Brian, with his wife and children behind, was standing before the bright hall-door at the top of the steps. The men and boys that had brought them so far, and were standing in the little court with their torches uplifted, now threw themselves on their knees to receive the priest’s blessing, before they went home; and Anthony blessed them and thanked them, and went indoors with his sister, strangely moved and uplifted.

The two following days were full of hard work and delight for Anthony. He was to say mass at half-past six next morning, and came out of the house a little after six o’clock; the sun was just rising to his right over a shoulder of Skiddaw, which dominated the eastern horizon; and all round him, stretched against the sky in all directions, were the high purple moors in the strange dawn-light. Immediately in front of him, not thirty yards away, stood the church, with its tower, two aisles, and a chapel on a little promontory of rock which jutted out over the bed of the torrent along which he had climbed the night before; and to his left lay the straggling street of the village. All was perfectly still except for the dash of the stream over the rocks; but from one or two houses a thin skein of smoke was rising straight into the air. Anthony stood rapt in delight, and drew long breaths of the cool morning air, laden with freshness and fragrant with the mellow scent of the heather and the autumnal smells.

He was completely taken by surprise when he entered the church, for, for the first time since he could remember, he saw an English church in its true glory. It had been built for a priory-church of Holm-Cultram, but for some reason had never been used as that, and had become simply the parish church of the village. Across the centre and the northern aisle ran an elaborate screen, painted in rich colours, and the southern chapel, which ran eastwards of the porch, was separated in a similar way from the rest of the church. Over the central screen was the great rood, with its attendant figures, exquisitely carved and painted; in every direction, as Anthony looked beyond the screens, gleamed rich windows, with figures and armorial bearings; here and there tattered banners hung on the walls; St. Christopher stood on the north wall opposite the door, to guard from violence all who looked upon him day by day; a little painting of the Baptist hung on a pillar over against the font, and a Vernacle by the pulpit; and all round the walls hung little pictures, that the poor and unlearned might read the story of redemption there. But the chief glory of all was the solemn high altar, with its riddells surmounted by taper-bearing gilded angels, with its brocade cloth, and its painted halpas behind; and above it, before the rich window which smouldered against the dawn, hung the awful pyx, covered by the white silk cloth, but empty; waiting for the priest to come and bid the Shechinah of the Lord to brood there again over this gorgeous throne beneath, against the brilliant halo of the painted glass behind.

Anthony knelt a moment and thanked God for bringing him here, and then passed up into the north aisle, where the image of the Mother of God presided, as she had done for three hundred years, over her little altar against the wall. Anthony said his preparation and vested at the altar; and was astonished to find at least thirty people to hear mass: none, of course, made their communion, but Anthony, when he had ended, placed the Body of the Lord once more in the hanging pyx and lit the lamp before it.

Then all day he sat in the north chapel, with the dash and loud thunder of the mountain stream entering through the opened panes of the east window, and the stained sunlight, in gorgeous colours, creeping across the red tiles at his feet, glowing and fading as the clouds moved over the sun, while the people came and were shriven; with the exception of an hour in the middle of the day and half an hour for supper in the evening, he was incessantly occupied until nine o’clock at night. From the upland dales all round they streamed in, at news of the priest, and those who had come from far and were fasting he communicated at once from the Reserved Sacrament. At last, tired out, but intensely happy, he went back to the Hall.

But the next morning was yet more startling. Mass was at eight o’clock, and by the time Anthony entered the church he found a congregation of nearly two hundred souls; the village itself did not number above seventy, but many came in from the country round, and some had stayed all night in the church-porch. Then, too, he heard the North-country singing in the old way; all the mass music was sung in three parts, except the unchanging melody of the creed, which, like the tremendous and unchanging words themselves, at one time had united the whole of England; but what stirred Anthony more than all were the ancient hymns sung here and there during the service, some in Latin, which a few picked voices rendered, and some in English, to the old lilting tunes which were as much the growth of the north-country as the heather itself. The “Ave Verum Corpus” was sung after the Elevation, and Anthony felt that his heart would break for very joy; as he bent before the Body of his Lord, and the voices behind him rose and exulted up the aisles, the women’s and children’s voices soaring passionately up in the melody, the mellow men’s voices establishing, as it seemed, these ecstatic pinnacles of song on mighty and immovable foundations.

Vespers were said at three o’clock, after baptisms and more confessions; and Anthony was astonished at the number of folk who could answer the priest. After vespers he made a short sermon, and told the people something of what he had seen in the South, of the martyrdoms at Tyburn, and of the constancy of the confessors.

“‘Be thou faithful unto death,’” he said. “So our Saviour bids us, and He gives us a promise too: ‘I will give thee a crown of life.’ Beloved, some day the tide of heresy will creep up these valleys too; and it will bear many things with it, the scaffold and the gallows and the knife maybe. And then our Lord will see which are His; then will be the time that grace will triumph—that those who have used the sacraments with devotion; that have been careful and penitent with their sins, that have hungered for the Bread of Life—the Lord shall stand by them and save them, as He stood by Mr. Sherwin on the rack, and Father Campion on the scaffold, and Mistress Ward and many more, of whom I have not had time to tell you. He who bids us be faithful, Himself will be faithful; and He who wore the crown of thorns will bestow upon us the crown of life.”

Then they sang a hymn to our Lady:

“Hail be thou, Mary, the mother of Christ,”

and the old swaying tune rocked like a cradle, and the people looked up towards their Mother’s altar as they sang—their Mother who had ruled them so sweetly and so long—and entreated her in their hearts, who stood by her Son’s Cross, to stand by theirs too should God ever call them to die upon one.

The next day Mr. Brian took Anthony a long walk as soon as dinner was over, across the moors towards the north side of Skiddaw. Anthony found the old man a delightful and garrulous companion, full of tales of the countryside, historical, religious, naturalistic, and supernatural. As they stood on a little eminence and looked back to where the church-tower pricked out of the deep crack in the moors where it stood, he told him the tale of the coming of the pursuivants.

“They first troubled us in ‘72,” he said; “they had not thought it worth while before to disturb themselves for one old man like my brother, who was like to die soon; but in April of that year they first sent up their men. But it was only a pair of pursuivants, for they knew nothing of the people; they came up, the poor men, to take my brother down to Cockermouth to answer on his religion to some bench of ministers that sat there. Well, they met him, in his cassock and square cap, coming out of the church, where he had just replaced the Most Holy Sacrament after giving communion to a dying body. ‘Heh! are you the minister?’ say they.

“‘Heh! I am the priest, if that is what you mean,’ he answers back. (He was a large man, like myself, was my brother.)

“‘Well, come, old man,’ say they, ‘we must help you down to Cockermouth.’

“Well, a few words passed; and the end was that he called out to Tim, who lived just against the church; and told them what was forward.

“Well, the pursuivants got back to Cockermouth with their lives, but not much else; and reported to the magistrates that the wild Irish themselves were little piminy maids compared to the folk they had visited that day.

“So there was a great to-do, and a deal of talk; and in the next month they sent up thirty pikemen with an officer and a dozen pursuivants, and all to take one old priest and his brother. I had been in Kendal in April when they first came—but they put it all down to me.

“Well, we were ready for them this time; the bells had been ringing to call in the folk since six of the clock in the morning; and by dinner-time, when the soldiers were expected, there was a matter of two hundred men, I should say, some with scythes and sickles, and some with staves or shepherds’ crooks; the children had been sent down sooner to stone the men all the way up the path; and by the time that they had reached the churchyard gate there was not a man of them but had a cut or a bruise upon him. Then, when they turned the corner, black with wrath, there were the lads gathered about the church-porch each with his weapon, and each white and silent, waiting for what should fall.

“Now you wonder where we were. We were in the church, my brother and I; for our people had put us there against our will, to keep us safe, they said. Eh! but I was wroth when Olroyd and the rest pushed me through the door. However, there we were, locked in; I was up in one window, and my brother was in the belfry as I thought, each trying to see what was forward. I saw the two crowds of them, silent and wrathful, with not twenty yards between them, and a few stones still sailing among the soldiers now and again; the pikes were being set in array, and our lads were opening out to let the scythes have free play, when on a sudden I heard the tinkle of a bell round the outside of the tower, and I climbed down from my place, and up again to one of the west windows; there was a fearsome hush outside now, and I could see some of the soldiers in front were uneasy; they had their eyes off the lads and round the side of the tower. And then I saw little Dickie Olroyd in his surplice ringing a bell and bearing a candle, and behind him came my brother, in a purple cope I had never set eyes on before, with his square cap and a great book, and his eyes shining out of his head, and his lips opening and mouthing out Latin; and then he stopped, laid the book reverently on a tombstone, lifted both hands, and brought them down with the fingers out, and his eyes larger than ever. I could see the soldiers were ready to break and scatter, for some were Catholics no doubt, and many more feared the priest; and then on a sudden my brother caught the candle out of Dickie’s hand, blew it out with a great puff, while Dickie rattled upon the bell, and then he dashed the smoking candle among the soldiers. The soldiers broke and fled like hares, out of the churchyard, down the street and down the path to Cockermouth; the officer tried to stay them, but ‘twas no use; the fear of the Church was upon them, and her Grace herself could not have prevailed with them. Well, when they let us out, the lads were all a-trembling too; for my brother’s face, they said, was like the destroying angel; and I was somewhat queer myself, and I was astonished too; for he was kind-hearted, was my brother, and would not hurt a fly’s body; much less damn his soul; and, after all, the poor soldiers were not to blame; and ‘twas a queer cursing, I thought too, to be done like that; but maybe ‘twas a new papal method. I went round to the north chapel, and there he was taking off his cope.

“‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘how did I do it?’

“‘Do it?’ I said; ‘do it? Why, you’ve damned those poor lads’ souls eternally. The hand of the Lord was with you,’ I said.

“‘Damned them?’ said he; ‘nonsense! ‘Twas only your old herbal that I read at them; and the cope too, ‘twas inside out.’”

Then the old man told Anthony other stories of his earlier life, how he had been educated at the university and been at Court in King Henry’s reign and Queen Mary’s, but that he had lost heart at Elizabeth’s accession, and retired to his hills, where he could serve God according to his conscience, and study God’s works too, for he was a keen naturalist. He told Anthony many stories about the deer, and the herds of wild white hornless cattle that were now practically extinct on the hills, and of a curious breed of four-horned sheep, skulls of all of which species hung in his hall, and of the odd drinking-horns that Anthony had admired the day before. There was one especially that he talked much of, a buffalo horn on three silver feet fashioned like the legs of an armed man; round the centre was a filleting inscribed, “Qui pugnat contra tres perdet duos,” and there was a cross patée on the horn, and two other inscriptions, “Nolite extollere cornu in altu’” and “Qui bibat me adhuc siti’.” Mr. Brian told him it had been brought from Italy by his grandfather.

They put up a quantity of grouse and several hares as they walked across the moor; one of the hares, which had a curious patch of white between his ears like a little night-cap, startled Mr. Brian so much that he exclaimed aloud, crossed himself, and stood, a little pale, watching the hare’s head as it bobbed and swerved among the heather.

“I like it not,” he said to Anthony, who inquired what was the matter. “Satan hath appeared under some such form to many in history. Joachimus Camerarius, who wrote de natura dæmonum, tells, I think, a story of a hare followed by a fox that ran across the path of a young man who was riding on a horse, and who started in pursuit. Up and down hills and dales they went, and soon the fox was no longer there, and the hare grew larger and blacker as it went; and the young man presently saw that he was in a country that he knew not; it was all barren and desolate round him, and the sky grew dark. Then he spurred his horse more furiously, and he drew nearer and nearer to the great hare that now skipped along like a stag before him; and then, as he put out his hand to cut the hare down, the creature sprang into the air and vanished, and the horse fell dead; and the man was found in his own meadow by his friends, in a swound, with his horse dead beside him, and trampled marks round and round the field, and the pug-marks of what seemed like a great tiger beside him, where the beast had sprung into the air.”

When Mr. Brian found that Anthony was interested in such stories, he told him plenty of them; especially tales that seemed to join in a strange unity of life, demons, beasts and men. It was partly, no doubt, his studies as a naturalist that led him to insist upon points that united rather than divided the orders of creation; and he told him stories first from such writers as Michael Verdunus and Petrus Burgottus, who relate among other marvels how there are ointments by the use of which shepherds have been known to change themselves into wolves and tear the sheep that they should have protected; and he quoted to him St. Augustine’s own testimony, to the belief that in Italy certain women were able to change themselves into heifers through the power of witchcraft. Finally, he told him one or two tales of his own experience.

“In the year ‘63,” he said, “before my marriage, I was living alone in the Hall; I was a young man, and did my best to fear nought but deadly sin. I was coming back late from Threlkeld, round the south of Skiddaw that you see over there; and was going with a lantern, for it would be ten o’clock at night, and the time of year was autumn. I was still a mile or two from the house, and was saying my beads as I came, for I hold that is a great protection; when I heard a strange whistling noise, with a murmur in it, high up overhead in the night. ‘It is the birds going south,’ I said to myself, for you know that great flocks fly by night when the cold begins to set in; but the sound grew louder and more distinct, and at last I could hear the sound as of words gabbled in a foreign tongue; and I knew they were no birds, though maybe they had wings like them. But I knew that a Christened soul in grace has nought to fear from hell; so I crossed myself and said my beads, and kept my eyes on the ground, and presently I saw my lights burning in the house, and heard the roar of the stream, and the gabbling above me ceased, as the sound of the running water began. But that night I awoke again and again; and the night seemed hot and close each time, as if a storm was near, but there was no thunder. Each time I heard the roar of the stream below the house, and no more. At last, towards the morning, I set my window wide that looks towards the stream, and leaned out; and there beneath me, crowded against the wall of the house, as I could see in the growing light, was a great flock of sheep, with all their heads together towards the house, as close as a score of dogs could pack them, and they were all still as death, and their backs were dripping wet; for they had come down the hills and swum the stream, in order to be near a Christened man and away from what was abroad that night.

“My shepherds told me the same that day, that everywhere the sheep had come down to the houses, as if terrified near to death; and at Keswick, whither I went the next market-day, they told me the same tale, and that two men had each found a sheep that could not travel; one had a broken leg, and the other had been cast; but neither had another mark or wound or any disease upon him, but that both were lying dead upon Skiddaw; and the look in the dead eyes, they said, was fit to make a man forget his manhood.”

Anthony found the old man the most interesting companion possible, and he persuaded him to accompany him on several of the expeditions that he had to make to the hamlets and outlying cottages round, in his spiritual ministrations; and both he and Isabel were sincerely sorry when two Sundays had passed away, and they had to begin to move south again in their journeyings.

And so the autumn passed and winter began, and Anthony was slowly moving down again, supplying the place of priests who had fallen sick or had died, visiting many almost inaccessible hamlets, and everywhere encouraging the waverers and seeking the wanderers, and rejoicing over the courageous, and bringing opportunities of grace to many who longed for them. He met many other well-known priests from time to time, and took counsel with them, but did not have time to become very intimate with any of them, so great were the demands upon his services. In this manner he met John Colleton, the canonist, who had returned from his banishment in ‘87, but found him a little dull and melancholy, though his devotion was beyond praise. He met, too, the Jesuit Fathers Edward Oldcorne and Richard Holtby, the former of whom had lately come from Hindlip.

He spent Christmas near Cartmel-in-Furness, and after the new year had opened, crossed the Ken once more near Beetham, and began to return slowly down the coast. Everywhere he was deeply touched by the devotion of the people, who, in spite of long months without a priest, had yet clung to the observance of their religion so far as was possible, and now welcomed him like an angel of God; and he had the great happiness too of reconciling some who, yielding to loneliness and pressure, had conformed to the Establishment. In these latter cases he was almost startled by the depth of Catholic convictions that had survived.

“I never believed it, father,” said a young squire to him, near Garstang. “I knew that it was but a human invention, and not the Gospel that my fathers held, and that Christ our Saviour brought on earth; but I lost heart, for that no priest came near us, and I had not had the sacraments for nearly two years; and I thought that it were better to have some religion than none at all, so at last I went to church. But there is no need to talk to me, father, now I have made my confession, for I know with my whole soul that the Catholic Religion is the true one—and I have known it all the while, and I thank God and His Blessed Mother, and you, father, too, for helping me to say so again, and to come back to grace.”

At last, at the beginning of March, Anthony and Isabel found themselves back again at Speke Hall, warmly welcomed by Mr. Norreys.

“You have done a good work for the Church, Mr. Capell,” said his host, “and God will reward you and thank you for it Himself, for we cannot.”

“And I thank God,” said Anthony, “for the encouragement to faith that the sight of the faithful North has given to me; and pray Him that I may carry something of her spirit back with me to the south.”

There were letters waiting for him at Speke Hall, one from Mr. Buxton, urging them to come back, at least for the present, to Stanfield Place, so soon as the winter work in the north was over; and another from the Rector of the College at Douai to the same effect. There was also one more, written from a little parish in Kent, from a Catholic lady who was altogether a stranger to him, but who plainly knew all about him, entreating him to call at her house when he was in the south again; her husband, she said, had met him once at Stanfield and had been strongly attracted by him to the Catholic Church, and she believed that if Anthony would but pay them a visit her husband’s conversion would be brought about. Anthony could not remember the man’s name, but Isabel thought that she did remember some such person at a small private conference that Anthony had given in Mr. Buxton’s house, for the benefit of Catholics and those who were being drawn towards the Religion.

The lady, too, gave him instructions as to how he should come from London to her house, recommending him to cross the Thames at a certain spot that she described near Greenhithe, and to come on southwards along a route that she marked for him, to the parish of Stanstead, where she lived. This, then, was soon arranged, and after letters had been sent off announcing Anthony’s movements, he left Speke Hall with Isabel, about a fortnight later.

CHAPTER VIII

IN STANSTEAD WOODS

On the first day of June, Anthony and Isabel, with their three armed servants and the French maid behind them, were riding down through Thurrock to the north bank of the Thames opposite Greenhithe. As they went Anthony pulled out and studied the letter and the little map that Mrs. Kirke had sent to guide them.

“On the right-hand side,” she wrote, “when you come to the ferry, stands a little inn, the ‘Sloop,’ among trees, with a yard behind it. Mr. Bender, the host, is one of us; and he will get your horses on board, and do all things to forward you without attracting attention. Give him some sign that he may know you for a Catholic, and when you are alone with him tell him where you are bound.”

There were one or two houses standing near the bank, as they rode down the lane that led to the river, but they had little difficulty in identifying the “Sloop,” and presently they rode into the yard, and, leaving their horses with the servants, stepped round into the little smoky front room of the inn.

A man, dressed somewhat like a sailor, was sitting behind a table, who looked up with a dull kind of expectancy and whom Anthony took as the host; and, in order to identify him and show who he himself was, he took up a little cake of bread that was lying on a platter on the table, and broke it as if he would eat. This was one of Father Persons’ devices, and was used among Catholics to signify their religion when they were with strangers, since it was an action that could rouse no suspicion among others. The man looked in an unintelligent way at Anthony, who turned away and rapped upon the door, and as a large heavily-built man came out, broke it again, and put a piece into his mouth. The man lifted his eyebrows slightly, and just smiled, and Anthony knew he had found his friend.

“Come this way, sir,” he said, “and your good lady, too.”

They followed him into the inner room of the house, a kind of little kitchen, with a fire burning and a pot over it, and one or two barrels of drink against the wall. A woman was stirring the pot, for it was near dinner-time, and turned round as the strangers came in. It was plainly an inn that was of the poorest kind, and that was used almost entirely by watermen or by travellers who were on their way to cross the ferry.

“The less said the better,” said the man, when he had shut the door. “How can I serve you, sir?”

“We wish to take our horses and ourselves across to Greenhithe,” said Anthony, “and Mrs. Kirke, to whom we are going, bade us make ourselves known to you.”

The man nodded and smiled.

“Yes, sir, that can be managed directly. The ferry is at the other bank now, sir; and I will call it across. Shall we say in half an hour, sir; and, meanwhile, will you and your lady take something?”

Anthony accepted gladly, as the time was getting on, and ordered dinner for the servants too, in the outer room. As the landlord was going to the door, he stopped him.

“Who is that man in the other room?” he asked.

The landlord gave a glance at the door, and came back towards Anthony.

“To tell the truth, sir, I do not know. He is a sailor by appearance, and he knows the talk; but none of the watermen know him; and he seems to do nothing. However, sir, there’s no harm in him that I can see.”

Anthony told him that he had broken the bread before him, thinking he was the landlord. The real landlord smiled broadly.

“Thank God, I am somewhat more of a man than that,” for the sailor was lean and sun-dried. Then once more Mr. Bender went to the door to call the servants in.

“Why, the man’s gone,” he said, and disappeared. Then they heard his voice again. “But he’s left his groat behind him for his drink, so all’s well”; and presently his voice was heard singing as he got the table ready for the servants.

In a little more than half an hour the party and the horses were safely on the broad bargelike ferry, and Mr. Bender was bowing on the bank and wishing them a prosperous journey, as they began to move out on to the wide river towards the chalk cliffs and red roofs of Greenhithe that nestled among the mass of trees on the opposite bank. In less than ten minutes they were at the pier, and after a little struggle to get the horses to land, they were mounted and riding up the straight little street that led up to the higher ground. Just before they turned the corner they heard far away across the river the horn blown to summon the ferry-boat once more.

There were two routes from Greenhithe to Stanstead, the one to the right through Longfield and Ash, the other to the left through Southfleet and Nursted. There was very little to choose between them as regards distance, and Mrs. Kirke had drawn a careful sketch-map with a few notes as to the characteristics of each route. There were besides, particularly through the thick woods about Stanstead itself, innumerable cross-paths intersecting one another in all directions. The travellers had decided at the inn to take the road through Longfield; since, in spite of other disadvantages, it was the less frequented of the two, and they were anxious above all things to avoid attention. Their horses were tired; and as they had plenty of time before them they proposed to go at a foot’s-pace all the way, and to take between two and three hours to cover the nine or ten miles between Greenhithe and Stanstead.

It was a hot afternoon as they passed through Fawkham, and it was delightful to pass from the white road in under the thick arching trees just beyond the village. There everything was cool shadow, the insects sang in the air about them, an early rabbit or two cantered across the road and disappeared into the thick undergrowth; once the song of the birds about them suddenly ceased, and through an opening in the green rustling vault overhead they saw a cruel shape with motionless wings glide steadily across.

They did not talk much, but let the reins lie loose; and enjoyed the cool shadow and the green lights and the fragrant mellow scents of the woods about them; while their horses slouched along on the turf, switching their tails and even stopping sometimes for a second in a kind of desperate greediness to snatch a green juicy mouthful at the side.

Isabel was thinking of Stanfield, and wondering how the situation would adjust itself; Mary Corbet would be there, she knew, to meet them; and it was a comfort to think she could consult her; but what, she asked herself, would be her relations with the master of the house?

Suddenly Anthony’s horse stepped off the turf on the opposite side of the road and began to come towards her, and she moved her beast a little to let him come on the turf beside her.

“Isabel,” said Anthony, “tell me if you hear anything.”

She looked at him, suddenly startled.

“No, no,” he said, “there is nothing to fear; it is probably my fancy; but listen and tell me.”

She listened intently. There was the creaking of her own saddle, the soft footfalls of the horses, the hum of the summer woods, and the sound of the servants’ horses behind.

“No,” she said, “there is nothing beyond——”

“There!” he said suddenly; “now do you hear it?”

Then she heard plainly the sound either of a man running, or of a horse walking, somewhere behind them.

“Yes,” she said, “I hear something; but what of it?”

“It is the third time I have heard it,” he said: “once in the woods behind Longfield, and once just before the little village with the steepled church.”

The sound had ceased again.

“It is some one who has come nearly all the way from Greenhithe behind us. Perhaps they are not following—but again——”

“They?” she said; “there is only one.”

“There are three,” he answered; “at least; the other two are on the turf at the side—but just before the village I heard all three of them—or rather certainly more than two—when they were between those two walls where there was no turf.”

Isabel was staring at him with great frightened eyes. He smiled back at her tranquilly.

“Ah, Isabel!” he said, “there is nothing really to fear, in any case.”

“What shall you do?” she asked, making a great effort to control herself.

“I think we must find out first of all whether they are after us. We must certainly not ride straight to the Manor Lodge if it is so.”

Then he explained his plan.

“See here,” he said, holding the map before her as he rode, “we shall come to Fawkham Green in five minutes. Then our proper road leads straight on to Ash, but we will take the right instead, towards Eynsford. Meanwhile, I will leave Robert here, hidden by the side of the road, to see who these men are, and what they look like; and we will ride on slowly. When they have passed, he will come out and take the road we should have taken, and he then will turn off to the right too before he reaches Ash; and by trotting he will easily come up with us at this corner,” and he pointed to it on the map—”and so he will tell us what kind of men they are; and they will never know that they have been spied upon; for, by this plan, he will not have to pass them. Is that a good plot?” and he smiled at her.

Isabel assented, feeling dazed and overwhelmed. She could hardly bring her thoughts to a focus, for the fears that had hovered about her ever since they had left Lancashire and come down to the treacherous south, had now darted upon her, tearing her heart with terror and blinding her eyes, and bewildering her with the beating of their wings.

Anthony quietly called up Robert, and explained the plan. He was a lad of a Catholic family at Great Keynes, perfectly fearless and perfectly devoted to the Church and to the priest he served. He nodded his head briskly with approval as the plan was explained.

“Of course it may all be nothing,” ended Anthony, “and then you will think me a poor fool?”

The lad grinned cheerfully.

“No, sir,” he said.

All this while they had been riding slowly on together, and now the wood showed signs of coming to an end; so Anthony told the groom to ride fifty yards into the undergrowth at once, to bandage his horse’s eyes, and to tie him to a tree; and then to creep back himself near the road, so as to see without being seen. The men who seemed to be following were at least half a mile behind, so he would have plenty of time.

Then they all rode on together again, leaving Robert to find his way into the wood. As they went, Isabel began to question her brother, and Anthony gave her his views.

“They have not come up with us, because they know we are four men to three—if, as I think, they are not more than three—that is one reason; and another is that they love to track us home before they take us; and thus take our hosts too as priests’ harbourers. Now plainly these men do not know where we are bound, or they would not follow us so closely. Best of all, too, they love to catch us at mass for then they have no trouble in proving their case. I think then that they will not try to take us till we reach the Manor Lodge; and we must do our best to shake them off before that. Now the plot I have thought of is this, that—should it prove as I think it will—we should ride slower than ever, as if our horses were weary, down the road along which Robert will have come after he has joined us, and turn down as if to go to Kingsdown, and when we have gone half a mile, and are well round that sharp corner, double back to it, and hide all in the wood at the side. They will follow our tracks, and there are no houses at which they can ask, and there seem no travellers either on these by-roads, and when they have passed us we double back at the gallop, and down the next turning, which will bring us in a couple of miles to Stanstead. There is a maze of roads thereabouts, and it will be hard if we do not shake them off; for there is not a house, marked upon the map, at which they can ask after us.”

Isabel did her utmost to understand, but the horror of the pursuit had overwhelmed her. The quiet woods into which they had passed again after leaving Fawkham Green now seemed full of menace; the rough road, with the deep powdery ruts and the grass and fir-needles at the side, no longer seemed a pleasant path leading home, but a treacherous device to lead them deeper into danger. The creatures round them, the rabbits, the pigeons that flapped suddenly out of all the tall trees, the tits that fluttered on and chirped and fluttered again, all seemed united against Anthony in some dreadful league. Anthony himself felt all his powers of observation and device quickened and established. He had lived so long in the expectation of a time like this, and had rehearsed and mastered the emotions of terror and suspense so often, that he was ready to meet them; and gradually his entire self-control and the unmoved tones of his voice and his serene alert face prevailed upon Isabel; and by the time that they slowly turned the last curve and saw Robert on his black horse waiting for them at the corner, her sense of terror and bewilderment had passed, her heart had ceased that sick thumping, and she, too, was tranquil and capable.

Robert wheeled his horse and rode beside Anthony round the sharp corner to the left up the road along which he had trotted just now.

“There are three of them, sir,” he said in an even, businesslike voice; “one of them, sir, on a brown mare, but I couldn’t see aught of him, sir; he was on the far side of the track; the second is like a groom on a grey horse, and the third is dressed like a sailor, sir, on a brown horse.”

“A sailor?” said Anthony; “a lean man, and sunburnt, with a whistle?”

“I did not see the whistle, sir; but he is as you say.”

This made it certain that it was the man they had seen in the inn opposite Greenhithe; and also practically certain that he was a spy; for nothing that Anthony had done could have roused his suspicions except the breaking of the bread; and that would only be known to one who was deep in the counsels of the Catholics. All this made the pursuit the more formidable.

So Anthony meditated; and presently, calling up the servants behind, explained the situation and his plan. The French maid showed signs of hysteria and Isabel had to take her aside and quiet her, while the men consulted. Then it was arranged, and the servants presently dropped behind again a few yards, though the maid still rode with Isabel. Then they came to the road on the right that would have led them to Kingsdown, and down this they turned. As they went, Anthony kept a good look-out for a place to turn aside; and a hundred yards from the turning saw what he wanted. On the left-hand side a little path led into the wood; it was overgrown with brambles, and looked as if it were now disused. Anthony gave the word and turned his horse down the entrance, and was followed in single file by the others. There were thick trees about them on every side, and, what was far more important, the road they had left at this point ran higher than usual, and was hard and dry; so the horses’ hoofs as they turned off left no mark that would be noticed.

After riding thirty or forty yards, Anthony stopped, turned his horse again, and forced him through the hazels with some difficulty, and the others again followed in silence through the passage he had made. Presently Anthony stopped; the branches that had swished their faces as they rode through now seemed a little higher; and it was possible to sit here on horseback without any great discomfort.

“I must see them myself,” he whispered to Isabel; and slipped off his horse, giving the bridle to Robert.

“Oh! mon Dieu!” moaned the maid; “mon Dieu! Ne partez pas!”

Anthony looked at her severely.

“You must be quiet and brave,” he said sternly. “You are a Catholic too; pray, instead of crying.”

Then Isabel saw him slip noiselessly towards the road, which was some fifty yards away, through the thick growth.

It was now a breathless afternoon. High overhead the sun blazed in a cloudless sky, but down here all was cool, green shadow. There was not a sound to be heard from the woods, beyond the mellow hum of the flies; Anthony’s faint rustlings had ceased; now and then a saddle creaked, or a horse blew out his nostrils or tossed his head. One of the men wound his handkerchief silently round a piece of his horse’s head-harness that jingled a little. The maid drew a soft sobbing breath now and then, but she dared not speak after the priest’s rebuke.

Then suddenly there came another sound to Isabel’s ears; she could not distinguish at first what it was, but it grew nearer, and presently resolved itself into the fumbling noise of several horses’ feet walking together, twice or three times a stirrup chinked, once she heard a muffled cough; but no word was spoken. Nearer and nearer it came, until she could not believe that it was not within five yards of her. Her heart began again that sick thumping; a fly that she had brushed away again and again now crawled unheeded over her face, and even on her white parted lips; but a sob of fear from the maid recalled her, and she turned a sharp look of warning on her. Then the fumbling noise began to die away: the men were passing. There was something in their silence that was more terrible than all else; it reminded her of hounds running on a hot scent.

Then at last there was silence; then gentle rustlings again over last year’s leaves; and Anthony came back through the hazels. He nodded at her sharply.

“Now, quickly,” he said, and took his horse by the bridle and began to lead him out again the way they had come. At the entrance he looked out first; the road was empty and silent. Then he led his horse clear, and mounted as the others came out one by one in single file.

“Now follow close; and watch my hand,” he said; and he put his horse to a quick walk on the soft wayside turf. As the distance widened between them and the men who were now riding away from them, the walk became a trot, and then quickly a canter, as the danger of the sound being carried to their pursuers decreased.

It seemed to Isabel like some breathless dream as she followed Anthony’s back, watching the motions of his hand as he signed in which direction he was going to turn next. What was happening, she half wondered to herself, that she should be riding like this on a spent horse, as if in some dreadful game, turning abruptly down lanes and rides, out across the high road, and down again another turn, with the breathing and creaking and jingling of others behind her? Years ago the two had played Follow-my-leader on horseback in the woods above Great Keynes. She remembered this now; and a flood of memories poured across her mind and diluted the bitterness of this shocking reality. Dear God, what a game!

Anthony steered with skill and decision. He had been studying the map with great attention, and even now carried it loose in his hand and glanced at it from time to time. Above all else he wished to avoid passing a house, for fear that the searchers might afterwards inquire at it; and he succeeded perfectly in this, though once or twice he was obliged to retrace his steps. There was little danger, he knew now, of the noise of the horses’ feet being any guide to those who were searching, for the high table-land on which they rode was a labyrinth of lanes and rides, and the trees too served to echo and confuse the noise they could not altogether avoid making. Twice they passed travellers, one a farmer on an old grey horse, who stared at this strange hurrying party; and once a pedlar, laden with his pack, who trudged past, head down.

Isabel’s horse was beginning to strain and pant, and she herself to grow giddy with heat and weariness, when she saw through the trees an old farmhouse with latticed windows and a great external chimney, standing in a square of cultivated ground; and in a moment more the path they were following turned a corner, and the party drew up at the back of the house.

At the noise of the horses’ footsteps a door at the back had opened, and a woman’s face looked out and drew back again; and presently from the front Mrs. Kirke came quickly round. She was tall and slender and middle-aged, with a somewhat anxious face; but a look of great relief came over it as she saw Anthony.

“Thank God you are come,” she said; “I feared something had happened.”

Anthony explained the circumstances in a few words.

“I will ride on gladly, madam, if you think right; but I will ask you in any case to take my sister in.”

“Why, how can you say that?” she said; “I am a Catholic. Come in, father. But I fear there is but poor accommodation for the servants.”

“And the horses?” asked Anthony.

“The barn at the back is got ready for them,” she said; “perhaps it would be well to take them there at once.” She called a woman, and sent her to show the men where to stable the horses, while Anthony and Isabel and the maid dismounted and came in with her to the house.

There, they talked over the situation and what was best to be done. Her husband had ridden over to Wrotham, and she expected him back for supper; nothing then could be finally settled till he came. In the meantime the Manor Lodge was probably the safest place in all the woods, Mrs. Kirke declared; the nearest house was half a mile away, and that was the Rectory; and the Rector himself was a personal friend and favourable to Catholics. The Manor Lodge, too, stood well off the road to Wrotham, and not five strangers appeared there in the year. Fifty men might hunt the woods for a month and not find it; in fact, Mr. Kirke had taken the house on account of its privacy, for he was weary, his wife said, of paying her fines for recusancy; and still more unwilling to pay his own, when that happy necessity should arrive; for he had now practically made up his mind to be a Catholic, and only needed a little instruction before being received.

“He is a good man, father,” she said to Anthony, “and will make a good Catholic.”

Then she explained about the accommodation. Isabel and the maid would have to sleep together in the spare room, and Anthony would have the little dressing-room opening out of it; and the men, she feared, would have to shake down as well as they could in the loft over the stable in the barn.

At seven o’clock Mr. Kirke arrived; and when the situation had been explained to him, he acquiesced in the plan. He seemed confident that there was but little danger; and he and Anthony were soon deep in theological talk.

Anthony found him excellently instructed already; he had, in fact, even prepared for his confession; his wife had taught him well; and it was the prospect of this one good opportunity of being reconciled to the Church that had precipitated matters and decided him to take the step. He was a delightful companion, too, intelligent, courageous, humorous and modest, and Anthony thought his own labour and danger well repaid when, a little after midnight, he heard his confession and received him into the Church. It was impossible for Mr. Kirke to receive communion, as he had wished, for there were wanting some of the necessaries for saying mass; so he promised to ride across to Stanfield in a week or so, stay the night and communicate in the morning.

Then early the next morning a council was held as to the best way for the party to leave for Stanfield. The men were called up, and their opinions asked; and gradually step by step a plan was evolved.

The first requirement was that, if possible, the party should not be recognisable; the second that they should keep together for mutual protection; for to separate would very possibly mean the apprehension of some one of them; the third was that they should avoid so far as was possible villages and houses and frequented roads.

Then the first practical suggestion was made by Isabel that the maid should be left behind, and that Mr. Kirke should bring her on with him to Stanfield when he came a week later. This he eagerly accepted, and further offered to keep all the luggage they could spare, take charge of the men’s liveries, and lend them old garments and hats of his own—to one a cloak, and to another a doublet. In this way, he said, it would appear to be a pleasure party rather than one of travellers, and, should they be followed, this would serve to cover their traces. The travelling by unfrequented roads was more difficult; for that in itself might attract attention should they actually meet any one.

Anthony, who had been thinking in silence a moment or two, now broke in.

“Have you any hawks, Mr. Kirke?” he asked.

“Only one old peregrine,” he said, “past sport.”

“She will do,” said Anthony; “and can you borrow another?”

“There is a merlin at the Rectory,” said Mr. Kirke.

Then Anthony explained his plan, that they should pose as a hawking-party. Isabel and Robert should each carry a hawk, while he himself would carry on his wrist an empty leash and hood as if a hawk had escaped; that they should then all ride together over the open country, avoiding every road, and that, if they should see any one on the way, they should inquire whether he had seen an escaped falcon or heard the tinkle of the bells; and this would enable them to ask the way, should it be necessary, without arousing suspicion.

This plan was accepted, and the maid was informed to her great relief that she might remain behind for a week or so, and then return with Mr. Kirke after the searchers had left the woods.

It was a twenty-mile ride to Stanfield; and it was thought safer on the whole not to remain any longer where they were, as it was impossible to know whether a shrewd man might not, with the help of a little luck, stumble upon the house; so, when dinner was over, and the servants had changed into Mr. Kirke’s old suits, and the merlin had been borrowed from the Rectory for a week’s hawking, the horses were brought round and the party mounted.

Mr. Kirke and Anthony had spent a long morning together discussing the route, and it had been decided that it would be best to keep along the high ridge due west until they were a little beyond Kemsing, which they would be able to see below them in the valley; and then to strike across between that village and Otford, and keeping almost due south ride up through Knole Park; then straight down on the other side into the Weald, and so past Tonbridge home.

Mr. Kirke himself insisted on accompanying them on his cob until he had seen them clear of the woods on the high ground. Both he and his wife were full of gratitude to Anthony for the risk and trouble he had undergone, and did their utmost to provide them with all that was necessary for their disguise. At last, about two o’clock, the five men and Isabel rode out of the little yard at the back of the Manor Lodge and plunged into the woods again.

The afternoon hush rested on the country as they followed Mr. Kirke along a narrow seldom-used path that led almost straight to the point where it was decided that they should strike south. In half a dozen places it cut across lanes, and once across the great high road from Farningham to Wrotham. As they drew near this, Mr. Kirke, who was riding in front, checked them.

“I will go first,” he said, “and see if there is danger.”

In a minute he returned.

“There is a man about a hundred yards up the road asleep on a bank; and there is a cart coming up from Wrotham: that is all I can see. Perhaps we had better wait till the cart is gone.”

“And what is the man like?” asked Anthony.

“He is a beggar, I should say; but has his hat over his eyes.”

They waited till the cart had passed. Anthony dismounted and went to the entrance of the path and peered out at the man; he was lying, as Mr. Kirke had said, with his hat over his eyes, perfectly still. Anthony examined him a minute or two; he was in tattered clothes, and a great stick and a bundle lay beside him.

“It is a vagabond,” he said, “we can go on.”

The whole party crossed the road, pushing on towards the edge of the high downs over Kemsing; and presently came to the Ightam road where it began to run steeply down hill; here, too, Mr. Kirke looked this way and that, but no one was in sight, and then the whole party crossed; they kept inside the edge of the wood all the way along the downs for another mile or so, with the rich sunlit valley seen in glimpses through the trees here and there, and the Pilgrim’s Way lying like a white ribbon a couple of hundred feet below them, until at last Kemsing Church, with St. Edith’s Chantry at the side, lay below and behind them, and they came out on to the edge of a great scoop in the hill, like a theatre, and the blue woods and hills of Surrey showed opposite beyond Otford and Brasted.

Here they stopped, a little back from the edge, and Mr. Kirke gave them their last instructions, pointing out Seal across the valley, which they must leave on their left, skirting the meadows to the west of the church, and passing up towards Knole beyond.

“Let the sun be a little on your right,” he said, “all the way; and you will strike the country above Tonbridge.”

Then they said good-bye to one another; Mr. Kirke kissed the priest’s hand in gratitude for what he had done for him, and then turned back along the edge of the downs, riding this time outside the woods, while the party led their horses carefully down the steep slope, across the Pilgrim’s Way, and then struck straight out over the meadows to Seal.

Their plan seemed supremely successful; they met a few countrymen and lads at their work, who looked a little astonished at first at this great party riding across country, but more satisfied when Anthony had inquired of them whether they had seen a falcon or heard his bells. No, they had not, they said; and went on with their curiosity satisfied. Once, as they were passing down through a wood on to the Weald, Isabel, who had turned in her saddle, and was looking back, gave a low cry of alarm.

“Ah! the man, the man!” she said.

The others turned quickly, but there was nothing to be seen but the long straight ride stretching up to against the sky-line three or four hundred yards behind them. Isabel said she thought she saw a rider pass across this little opening at the end, framed in leaves; but there were stags everywhere in the woods here, and it would have been easy to mistake one for the other at that distance, and with such a momentary glance.

Once again, nearer Tonbridge, they had a fright. They had followed up a grass ride into a copse, thinking it would bring them out somewhere, but it led only to the brink of a deep little stream, where the plank bridge had been removed, so they were obliged to retrace their steps. As they re-emerged into the field from the copse, a large heavily-built man on a brown mare almost rode into them. He was out of breath, and his horse seemed distressed. Anthony, as usual, immediately asked if he had seen or heard anything of a falcon.

“No, indeed, gentlemen,” he said, “and have you seen aught of a bitch who bolted after a hare some half mile back. A greyhound I should be loath to lose.”

They had not, and said so; and the man, still panting and mopping his head, thanked them, and asked whether he could be of any service in directing them, if they were strange to the country; but they thought it better not to give him any hint of where they were going, so he rode off presently up the slope across their route and disappeared, whistling for his dog.

And so at last, about four o’clock in the afternoon, they saw the church spire of Stanfield above them on the hill, and knew that they were near the end of their troubles. Another hundred yards, and there were the roofs of the old house, and the great iron gates, and the vanes of the garden-house seen over the clipped limes; and then Mary Corbet and Mr. Buxton hurrying in from the garden, as they came through the low oak door, into the dear tapestried hall.

CHAPTER IX

THE ALARM

A very happy party sat down to supper that evening in Stanfield Place.

Anthony had taken Mr. Buxton aside privately when the first greetings were over, and told him all that happened: the alarm at Stanstead; his device, and the entire peace they had enjoyed ever since.

“Isabel,” he ended, “certainly thought she saw a man behind us once; but we were among the deer, and it was dusky in the woods; and, for myself, I think it was but a stag. But, if you think there is danger anywhere, I will gladly ride on.”

Mr. Buxton clapped him on the shoulder.

“My dear friend,” he said, “take care you do not offend me. I am a slow fellow, as you know; but even my coarse hide is pricked sometimes. Do not suggest again that I could permit any priest—and much less my own dear friend—to leave me when there was danger. But there is none in this case—you have shaken the rogues off, I make no doubt; and you will just stay here for the rest of the summer at the very least.”

Anthony said that he agreed with him as to the complete baffling of the pursuers, but added that Isabel was still a little shaken, and would Mr. Buxton say a word to her.

“Why, I will take her round the hiding-holes myself after supper, and show her how strong and safe we are. We will all go round.”

In the withdrawing-room he said a word or two of reassurance to her before the others were down.

“Anthony has told me everything, Mistress Isabel; and I warrant that the knaves are cursing their stars still on Stanstead hills, twenty miles from here. You are as safe here as in Greenwich palace. But after supper, to satisfy you, we will look to our defences. But, believe me, there is nothing to fear.”

He spoke with such confidence and cheerfulness that Isabel felt her fears melting, and before supper was over she was ashamed of them, and said so.

“Nay, nay,” said Mr. Buxton, “you shall not escape. You shall see every one of them for yourself. Mistress Corbet, do you not think that just?”

“You need a little more honest worldliness, Isabel,” said Mary. “I do not hesitate to say that I believe God saves the priests that have the best hiding-holes. Now that is not profane, so do not look at me like that.”

“It is the plainest sense,” said Anthony, smiling at them both.

They went the round of them all with candles, and Anthony refreshed his memory; they visited the little one in the chapel first, then the cupboard and portrait-door at the top of the corridor, the chamber over the fireplace in the hall, and lastly, in the wooden cellar-steps they lifted the edge of the fifth stair from the bottom, so that its front and the top of the stair below it turned on a hinge and dropped open, leaving a black space behind: this was the entrance to the passage that led beneath the garden to the garden-house on the far side of the avenue.

Mistress Corbet wrinkled her nose at the damp earthy smell that breathed out of the dark.

“I am glad I am not a priest,” she said. “And I would sooner be buried dead than alive. And there is a rat there that sorely needs burying.”

“My dear lady!” cried the contriver of the passage indignantly, “her Grace might sleep there herself and take no harm. There is not even the whisker of a rat.”

“It is not the whisker that I mind,” said Mary, “it is the rest of him.”

Mr. Buxton immediately set his taper down and climbed in.

“You shall see,” he said, “and I in my best satin too!”

He was inside the stairs now and lying on his back on the smooth board that backed them. He sidled himself slowly along towards the wall.

“Press the fourth brick of the fourth row,” he said.

“You remember, Father Anthony?”

He had reached now what seemed to be the brick wall against which the ends of the stairs rested; and that closed that end of the cellars altogether. Anthony leaned in with a candle, and saw how that part of the wall against his friend’s right side slowly turned into the dark as the fourth brick was pressed, and a little brick-lined passage appeared beyond. Mr. Buxton edged himself sideways into the passage, and then stood nearly upright. It was an excellent contrivance. Even if the searchers should find the chamber beneath the stairs, which was unlikely, they would never suspect that it was only a blind to a passage beyond. The door into the passage consisted of a strong oaken door disguised on the outside by a facing of brick-slabs; all the hinges were within.

“As sweet as a flower,” said the architect, looking about him. His voice rang muffled and hollow.

“Then the friends have removed the corpse,” said Mary, putting her head in, “while you were opening the door. There! come out; you will take cold. I believe you.”

“Are you satisfied?” said Mr. Buxton to Isabel, as they went upstairs again.

“What are your outer defences?” asked Mary, before Isabel could answer.

“You shall see the plan in the hall,” said Mr. Buxton.

He took down the frame that held the plan of the house, and showed them the outer doors. There was first the low oak front door on the north, opening on to the little court; this was immensely strong and would stand battering. Then on the same side farther east, within the stable-court, there was the servants’ door, protected by chains, and an oak bolt that ran across. On the extreme east end of the house there was a door opening into the garden from the withdrawing-room, the least strong of all; there was another on the south side, opposite the front door—that gave on to the garden; and lastly there was an entrance into the priests’ end of the house, at the extreme west, from the little walled garden where Anthony had meditated years ago. This walled garden had a very strong door of its own opening on to the lane between the church and the house.

“But there are only three ways out, really,” said Mr. Buxton, “for the garden walls are high and strong. There is the way of the walled garden; the iron-gates across the drive; and through the stable-yard on to the field-path to East Maskells. All the other gates are kept barred; and indeed I scarcely know where the keys are.”

“I am bewildered,” said Mary.

“Shall we go round?” he asked.

“To-morrow,” said Mary; “I am tired to-night, and so is this poor child. Come, we will go to bed.”

Anthony soon went too. Both he and Isabel were tired with the journey and the strain of anxiety, and it was a keen joy to him to be back again in his own dear room, with the tapestry of St. Thomas of Aquin and St. Clare opposite the bed, and the wide curtained bow-window which looked out on the little walled garden.

Mr. Buxton was left alone in the great hall below with the two tapers burning, and the starlight with all the suffused glow of a summer night making the arms glimmer in the tall windows that looked south. Lower, the windows were open, and the mellow scents of the June roses, and of the sweet-satyrian and lavender poured in; the night was very still, but the faintest breath came from time to time across the meadows and rustled in the stiff leaves with the noise of a stealthy movement.

“I will look round,” said Mr. Buxton to himself.

He stepped out immediately into the garden by the hall door, and turned to the east, passing along the lighted windows. His step sounded on the tiles, and a face looked out swiftly from Isabel’s room overhead; but his figure was plain in the light from the windows as he came out round the corner; and the face drew back. He crossed the east end of the house, and went through a little door into the stable-yard, locking it after him. In the kennels in the corner came a movement, and a Danish hound came out silently into the cage before her house, and stood up, like a slender grey ghost, paws high up in the bars, and whimpered softly to her lord. He quieted her, and went to the door in the yard that opened on to the field-path to East Maskells, unbarred it and stepped through. There was a dry ditch on his left, where nettles quivered in the stirring air; and a heavy clump of bushes rose beyond, dark and impenetrable. Mr. Buxton stared straight at these a moment or two, and then out towards East Maskells. There lay his own meadows, and the cattle and horses secure and sleeping. Then he stepped back again; barred the door and walked up through the stable-yard into the front court. There the great iron gates rose before him, diaphanous-looking and flimsy in the starlight. He went up to them and shook them; and a loose shield jangled fiercely overhead. Then he peered through, holding the bars, and saw the familiar patch of grass beyond the gravel sweep, and the dark cottages over the way. Then he made his way back to the front door, unlocked it with his private key, passed through the hall, through a parlour or two into the lower floor of the priests’ quarters; unlocked softly the little door into the walled garden, and went out on tip-toe once more. Even as he went, Anthony’s light overhead went out. Mr. Buxton went to the garden door, unfastened it, and stepped out into the road. Above him on his left rose up the chancel of the parish church, the roofs crowded behind; and immediately in front was the high-raised churchyard, with the tall irregular wall and the trees above all, blotting out the stars.

Then he came back the same way, fastening the doors as he passed, and reached the hall, where the tapers still burned. He blew out one and took the other.

“I suppose I am a fool,” he said; “the lad is as safe as in his mother’s arms.” And he went upstairs to bed.

Mary Corbet rose late next morning, and when she came down at last found the others in the garden. She joined them as they walked in the little avenue.

“Have not the priest-hunters arrived?” she asked. “What are they about? And you, dear Isabel, how did you sleep?”

Isabel looked a little heavy-eyed. “I did not sleep well,” she said.

“I fear I disturbed her,” said Mr. Buxton. “She heard me as I went round the house.”

“Why did you go round the house?” asked Anthony.

“I often do,” he said shortly.

“And there was no one?” asked Mary.

“There was no one.”

“And what would you have done if there had been?”

“Yes,” said Anthony, “what would you have done to warn us all?”

Mr. Buxton considered.

“I should have rung the alarm, I think,” he said.

“But I did not know you had one,” said Mary.

Mr. Buxton pointed to a turret peeping between two high gables, above his own room.

“And what does it sound like?”

“It is deep, and has a dash of sourness or shrillness in it. I cannot describe it. Above all, it is marvellous loud.”

“Then, if we hear it, we shall know the priest-hunters are on us?” asked Mary. Mr. Buxton bowed.

“Or that the house is afire,” he said, “or that the French or Spanish are landed.”

To tell the truth, he was just slightly uneasy. Isabel had been far more silent than he had ever known her, and her nerves were plainly at an acute tension; she started violently even now, when a servant came out between two yew-hedges to call Mr. Buxton in. Her alarm had affected him, and besides, he knew something of the extraordinary skill and patience of Walsingham’s agents, and even the story of the ferry had startled him. Could it really be, he had wondered as he tossed to and fro in the hot night, that this innocent priest had thrown off his pursuers so completely as had appeared? In the morning he had sent down a servant to the inn to inquire whether anything had been seen or heard of a disquieting nature; now the servant had come to tell him, as he had ordered, privately. He went with the man in through the hall-door, leaving the others to walk in the avenue, and then faced him.

“Well?” he said sharply.

“No, sir, there is nothing. There is a party there travelling on to Brighthelmstone this afternoon, and four drovers who came in last night, sir; and two gentlemen travelling across country; but they left early this morning.”

“They left, you say?”

“They left at eight o’clock, sir.”

Mr. Buxton’s attention was attracted to these two gentlemen.

“Go and find out where they came from,” he said, “and let me know after dinner.”

The man bowed and left the room, and almost immediately the dinner-bell rang.

Mary was frankly happy; she loved to be down here in this superb weather with her friends; she enjoyed this beautiful house with its furniture and pictures, and even took a certain pleasure in the hiding-holes themselves; although in this case she was satisfied they would not be needed. She had heard the tale of the Stanstead woods, and had no shadow of doubt but that the searchers, if, indeed, they were searchers at all, were baffled. So at dinner she talked exactly as usual; and the cloud of slight discomfort that still hung over Isabel grew lighter and lighter as she listened. The windows of the hall were flung wide, and the warm summer air poured from the garden into the cool room with its polished floor, and table decked with roses in silver bowls, with its grave tapestries stirring on the walls behind the grim visors and pikes that hung against them.

The talk turned on music.

“Ah! I would I had my lute,” sighed Mary, “but my woman forgot to bring it. What a garden to sing in, in the shade of the yews, with the garden-house behind to make the voice sound better than it is!”

Mr. Buxton made a complimentary murmur.

“Thank you,” she said, “Master Anthony, you are wool-gathering.”

“Indeed not,” he said, “but I was thinking where I had seen a lute. Ah! it is in the little west parlour.”

“A lute!” cried Mary. “Ah! but I have no music; and I have not the courage to sing the only song I know, over and over again.”

“But there is music too,” said Anthony.

Mary clapped her hands.

“When dinner is over,” she said, “you and I will go to find it.”

Dinner was over at last, and the four rose.

“Come,” said Mary; while Isabel turned into the garden and Mr. Buxton went to his room. “We will be with you presently,” she cried after Isabel.

Then the two went together to the little west parlour, oak-panelled, with a wide fireplace with the logs in their places, and the latticed windows with their bottle-end glass, looking upon the walled garden. Anthony stood on a chair and opened the top window, letting a flood of summer noises into the room.

They found the lute music, written over its six lines with the queer F’s and double F’s and numerals—all Hebrew to Anthony, but bursting and blossoming with delicate melodies to Mary’s eyes. Then she took up the lute, and tuned it on her knee, still sitting in a deep lounging-chair, with her buckled feet before her; while Anthony sat opposite and watched her supple flashing fingers busy among the strings, and her grave abstracted look as she listened critically. Then she sounded the strings in little rippling chords.

“Ah! it is a sweet old lute,” she said. “Put the music before me.”

Anthony propped it on a chair.

“Is that the right side up?” he asked.

Mary smiled and nodded, still looking at the music.

“Now then,” she said, and began the prelude.

Anthony threw himself back in his chair as the delicate tinkling began to pour out and overscore the soft cooing of a pigeon on the roofs somewhere and the murmur of bees through the open window. It was an old precise little love-song from Italy, with a long prelude, suggesting by its tender minor chords true and restrained love, not passionate but tender, not despairing but melancholy; it was a love that had for its symbols not the rose and the lily, but the lavender and thyme—acrid in its sweetness. The prelude had climbed up by melodious steps to the keynote, and was now rippling down again after its aspirations.

Mary stirred herself.

Ah! now the voice would come in the last chord——when all the music was first drowned and then ceased, as with crash after crash a great bell, sonorous and piercing, began to sound from overhead.

CHAPTER X

THE PASSAGE TO THE GARDEN-HOUSE

The two looked at one another with parted lips, but without a word. Then both rose simultaneously. Then the bell jangled and ceased; and a crowd of other noises began; there were shouts, tramplings of hoofs in the court; shrill voices came over the wall; then a scream or two. Mary sprang to the door and opened it, and stood there listening.

Then from the interior of the house came an indescribable din, tramplings of feet and shouts of anger; then violent blows on woodwork. It came nearer in a moment of time, as a tide comes in over flat sands, remorselessly swift. Then Mary with one movement was inside again, and had locked the door and drawn the bolt.

“Up there,” she said, “it is the only way—they are outside,” and she pointed to the chimney.

Anthony began to remonstrate. It was intolerable, he felt, to climb up the chimney like a hunted cat, and he began a word or two. But Mary seized his arm.

“You must not be caught,” she said, “there are others”; and there came a confused battering and trampling outside. She pushed him towards the chimney. Then decision came to him, and he bent his head and stepped upon the logs laid upon the ashes, crushing them down.

“Ah! go,” said Mary’s voice behind him, as the door began to bulge and creak. There was plainly a tremendous struggle in the little passage outside.

Anthony threw his hands up and felt a high ledge in the darkness, gripped it with his hands and made a huge effort combined of a tug and a spring; his feet rapped sharply for a moment or two on the iron fire-plate; and then his knee reached the ledge and he was up. He straightened himself on the ledge, stood upright and looked down; two white hands with rings on them were lifting the logs and drawing them out from the ashes, shaking them and replacing them by others from the wood-basket; and all deliberately, as if laying a fire. Then her voice came up to him, hushed but distinct.

“Go up quickly. I will feign to be burning papers; there will be smoke, but no sparks. It is green wood.”

Anthony again felt above him, and found two iron half-rings in the chimney, one above the other; he was in semi-darkness here, but far above there was a patch of pale smoky light; and all the chimney seemed full of a murmurous sound. He tugged at the rings and found them secure, and drew himself up steadily by the higher one, until his knee struck the lower; then with a great effort he got his knee upon it, then his left foot, and again straightened himself. Then, as he felt in the darkness once more, he found a system of rings, one above the other, up the side of the chimney, by which it was not hard to climb. As he went up he began to perceive a sharp acrid smell, his eyes smarted and he closed them, but his throat burned; he climbed fiercely; and then suddenly saw immediately below him another hearth; he was looking over the fireplate of some other room. In a moment more he thrust his head over, and drew a long breath of clear air; then he listened intently. From below still came a murmur of confusion; but in this room all was quiet. He began to think frantically. He could not remain in the chimney, it was hopeless; they would soon light fires, he knew, in all the chimneys, and bring him down. What room was this? He was bewildered and could not remember. But at least he would climb into it and try to escape. In a moment more he had lifted himself over the fireplate and dropped safely on to the hearth of his own bedroom.

The fresh air and the familiarity of the room, as he looked round, swept the confusion out of his brain like a breeze. The thundering and shouting continued below. Then he went on tip-toe to the door and opened it. Round to the right was the head of the stairs which led straight into the little passage where the struggle was going on. He could hear Robert’s voice in the din; plainly there was no way down the stairs. To the left was the passage that ended in a window, with the chapel door at the left and the false shelves on the right. He hesitated a moment between the two hiding-places, and then decided for the cupboard; there was a clean doublet there; his own was one black smear of soot, and as he thought of it, he drew off his sooty shoes. His hose were fortunately dark. He stepped straight out of the door, leaving it just ajar. Even as he left it there was a thunder of footsteps on the stairs, and he was at the shelves in a moment, catching a glimpse through the window on his left of the front court crowded with men and horses. He had opened and shut the secret door three or four times the evening before, and his hands closed almost instinctively on the two springs that must be worked simultaneously. He made the necessary movement, and the shelves with the wall behind it softly slid open and he sprang in. But as he closed it he heard one of the two books drop, and an exclamation from the passage he had just left; then quick steps from the head of the stairs; the steps clattered past the door and into the chapel opposite and stopped.

Anthony felt about him in the darkness, found the doublet and lifted it off the nail; slipped off his own, tearing his ruff as he did so; and then quickly put on the other. He had no shoes; but that would not be so noticeable. He had not seriously thought of the possibility of escaping through the portrait-door, as he felt sure the house would be overrun by now; but he put his eyes to the pinholes and looked out; and to his astonishment saw that the gallery was empty. There it lay, with its Flemish furniture on the right and its row of windows on the left, and all as tranquil as if there were no fierce tragedy of terror and wrath raging below. Again decision came to him; by a process of thought so swift that it was an intuition, he remembered that the fall of the book outside would concentrate attention on that corner; it could not be long before the shelves were broken in, and if he did not escape now there would be no possibility later. Then he unslid the inside bolt, and the portrait swung open; he closed it behind, and sped on silent shoeless feet down the polished floor of the gallery.

Of course the great staircase was hopeless. The hall would be seething with men. But there was just a chance through the servants’ quarters. He dashed past the head of the stairs, catching a glimpse of heads and sparkles of steel over the banisters, and through the half-opened door at the end, finding himself in the men’s corridor that was a continuation of the gallery he had left. On his left rose the head of the back-stairs, that led first with a double flight to the offices, the pantry, the buttery and the kitchen, and than, lower still, a single third flight down to the cellar.

He looked down the stairs; at the bottom of the first double flight were a couple of maids, screaming and white-faced, leaning and pressing against the door, immediately below the one he had just come through himself. The door was plainly barred as well, for it was now thudding and cracking with blows that were being showered upon it from the other side. The maids, it seemed to him, in a panic had locked the door; but that panic might be his salvation. He dashed down the stairs; the maids screamed louder than ever when they saw this man, whom they did not recognise, with blackened face and hands come in noiseless leaps down towards them; but Anthony put his finger on his lips as he flew past them; then he dashed open the little door that shut off the cellar-flight, closed it behind him, and was immediately in the dark.

Then he groped his way down, feeling the rough brick wall as he went, till he reached the floor of the cellar. The air was cool and damp here, and it refreshed him, for he was pouring with sweat. The noise, too, and confusion which, during his flight, had been reverberating through the house with a formidable din, now only reached him as a far-away murmur.

As he counted the four steps up, and then lifted the overhanging edge, there came upon him irresistibly the contrast between the serene party here last night, with their tapers and their delicate dresses and Mary’s cool clear-clipped voice—and his own soot-stained person, his desperate energy and his quick panting and heart-beating. Then the steps dropped and he slid in; lifted them again as he lay on his back, and heard the spring catch as they closed. Then he was in silence, too, and comparative safety. But he dared not rest yet, and edged himself along as he had seen Mr. Buxton do last night. Which brick was it? “The fourth of the fourth,” he murmured, and counted, and pressed it. Again the door pushed back, and with a little struggle he was first on his knees, and then on his feet. Then he swung the door to again behind him.

Then for the first time he rested; he leaned against the brick-lined side of the tunnel and passed his blackened hands over his face. Five minutes ago—yes—certainly not five minutes ago he was lounging in the west parlour, at the other end of the house, while Mary played the prelude to an Italian love-song.—What was she doing now? God bless her for her quick courage!—And Isabel and Buxton—where were they all? How deadly sick and tired he felt!—Again he passed his hands over his face in the pitch darkness.—Well, he must push on.

He turned and began to grope patiently through the blackness—step by step—feeling the roughness of the bricks beneath with his shoeless feet before he set them down; once or twice he stepped into a little icy pool, which had collected through some crack in the vaulting overhead; once, too, he slipped on a lump of something wet and shapeless; and thought even then of Mary’s suspicions the night before. He pushed on, shivering now with cold and excitement, through what seemed the interminable tunnel, until at last his outstretched hands touched wood before him. He had not seen this end of the passage for nearly two years, and he wondered if he could remember the method of opening, and gave a gulp of horror at the thought that he might not. But there had been no reason to make a secret of the inside of the door, and he presently found a button and drew it; it creaked rustily, but gave, and the door with another pull opened inwards, and there was a faint glimmer of light. Then he remembered that the entrances to the tunnel at either end were exactly on the same system; and putting out his hands felt the slope of the underside of the staircase, cutting diagonally across the opening of the passage. He slid himself on to the boarding sideways, and drew the brickwork towards him till the spring snapped, and lay there to consider before he went farther.

First he ran over in his mind the construction of the garden-house.

The basement in which he was lying corresponded to the cellar under the house from which he had come, and ran the whole length of the building, about forty feet by twenty. It was a large empty chamber, where nothing of any value was kept. He remembered last time he was here seeing a heap of tiles in one corner, with a pile of disused poles; pieces of rope, and old iron in another. The stairs led up through an ordinary trap-door into what was the ground-floor of the house. This, too, was one immense room, with four latticed windows looking on to the garden, and one with opaque glass on to the lane at the back; and a great door, generally kept locked, for rather more valuable things were kept here, such as the garden-roller, flower-pots, and the targets for archery. Then a light staircase led straight up from this room to the next floor, which was divided into two, both of which, so far as Anthony remembered, were empty. Mr. Buxton had thought of letting his gardeners sleep there when he had at first built this immense useless summer-house; but he had ultimately built a little gardener’s cottage adjoining it. The two fantastic towers that flanked the building held nothing but staircases, which could be entered by either of the two floors, and which ascended to tiny rooms with windows on all four sides.

When Anthony had run over these details as he lay on his back, he pushed up the stair over his face and let the front of it with the step of the next swing inwards; the light was stronger now, and poured in, though still dim, through three half-moon windows, glazed and wired, that just rose above the level of the ground outside. Then he extricated himself, closed the steps behind him, and went up the stairs.

The trap-door at the top was a little stiff, but he soon raised it, and in a moment more was standing in the ground-floor room of the garden-house. All round him was much as he remembered it; he first went to the door and found it securely fastened, as it often was for days together; he glanced at the windows to assure himself that they were bottle-glass too, and then went to them to look out. He was fortunate enough to find the corner of one pane broken away; he put his eye to this, and there lay a little lawn, with a yew-hedge beyond blotting out all of the great house opposite except the chimneys,—the house which even across the whole space of garden hummed like a hive. On the lawn was a chair, and an orange-bound book lay face down on the grass beside it. Anthony stared at it; it was the book that he had seen in Isabel’s hand not half an hour ago, as she had gone out into the garden from the hall to wait until he and Mary joined her with the lute.

And at that the priest knelt down before the window, covered his face with his hands, and began to stammer and cry to God: “O God! God! God!” he said.

When Mary Corbet had seen Anthony’s feet disappear, she already had the outline of a plan in her mind. To light a fire and pretend to be burning important papers would serve as an excuse for keeping the door fast; it would also suggest at least that no one was in the chimney. The ordinary wood, however, sent up sparks; but she had noticed before a little green wood in the basket, and knew that this did not do so to the same extent; so she pulled out the dry wood that Anthony had trodden into the ashes and substituted the other. Then she had looked round for paper;—the lute music, that was all. Meantime the door was giving; the noise outside was terrible; and it was evident that one or two of the servants were obstructing the passage of the pursuivants.

When at last the door flew in, there was a fire cracking furiously on the hearth, and a magnificently dressed lady kneeling before it, crushing paper into the flames. Half a dozen men now streamed in and more began to follow, and stood irresolute for a moment, staring at her. From the resistance they had met with they had been certain that the priest was here, and this sight perplexed them. A big ruddy man, however, who led them, sprang across the room, seized Mary Corbet by the shoulders and whisked her away against the wall, and then dashed the half-burnt paper out of the grate and began to beat out the flames.

Mary struggled violently for a moment; but the others were upon her and held her, and she presently stood quiet. Then she began upon them.

“You insolent hounds!” she cried, “do you know who I am?” Her cheeks were scarlet and her eyes blazing; she seemed in a superb fury.

“Burning treasonable papers,” growled the big man from his knees on the hearth, “that is enough for me.”

“Who are you, sir, that dare to speak to me like that?”

The man got up; the flames were out now, and he slipped the papers into a pocket. Mary went on immediately.

“If I may not burn my own lute music, or keep my door locked, without a riotous mob of knaves breaking upon me—— Ah! how dare you?” and she stamped furiously.

The pursuivant came up close to her, insolently.

“See here, my lady——” he began.

The men had fallen back from her a little now that the papers were safe, and she lifted her ringed hand and struck his ruddy face with all her might. There was a moment of confusion and laughter as he recoiled.

“Now will you remember that her Grace’s ladies are not to be trifled with?”

There was a murmur from the crowded room, and a voice near the door cried:

“She says truth, Mr. Nichol. It is Mistress Corbet.”

Nichol had recovered himself, but was furiously angry.

“Very good, madam, but I have these papers now,” he said, “they can still be read.”

“You blind idiot,” hissed Mary, “do you not know lute music when you see it?”

“I know that ladies do not burn lute music with locked doors,” observed Nichol bitterly.

“The more fool you!” screamed Mary, “when you have caught one at it.”

“That will be seen,” sneered Mr. Nichol.

“Not by a damned blind scarlet-faced porpoise!” screamed Mary, apparently more in a passion than ever, and a burst of laughter came from the men.

This was too much for Mr. Nichol. This coarse abuse stung him cruelly.

“God’s blood,” he bellowed at the room; “take this vixen out and search the place.” And a torrent of oaths drove the crowd about the door out into the passage again.

A couple of men took Mary by the fierce ringed hands of hers that still twitched and clenched, and led her out; she spat insults over her shoulders as she went. But she had held him in talk as she intended.

“Now then,” roared Nichol again, “search, you dogs!”

He himself went outside too, and seeing the stairs stamped up them. He was just in time to see the Tacitus settle down with crumpled pages; stopped for a moment, bewildered, for it lay in the middle of the passage; and then rushed at the open door on the left, dashed it open, and found a little empty room, with a chair or two, and a table—but no sign of the priest. It was like magic.

Then out he came once more, and went into Anthony’s own room. The great bed was on his right, the window opposite, the fireplace to the left, and in the middle lay two sooty shoes. Instinctively he bent and touched them, and found them warm; then he sprang to the door, still keeping his face to the room, and shouted for help.

“He is here, he is here!” he cried. And a thunder of footsteps on the stairs answered him.

Meanwhile the men that held Mary followed the others along the passage, but while the leaders went on and round into the lower corridor, the two men-at-arms with their prisoner turned aside into the parlour that served as an ante-chamber to the hall beyond, where they released her. Here, though it was empty of people, all was in confusion; the table had been overturned in the struggle that had raged along here between Lackington’s men, who had entered from the front door, and the servants of the house, who had rushed in from their quarters at the first alarm and intercepted them. One chair lay on its side, with its splintered carved arm beside it. As Mary stood a moment looking about her, the door from the hall that had been closed, again opened, and Isabel came through; and a man’s voice said:

“You must wait here, madam”; then the door closed behind her.

“Isabel,” said Mary.

The two looked at one another a moment, but before either spoke again the door again half-opened, and a voice began to speak, as if its owner still held the handle.

“Very well, Lackington, keep him in his room. I will go through here to Nichol.”

Isabel had drawn a sharp breath as the voice began, and as the door opened wider she turned and faced it. Then Hubert came in, and recoiled on the threshold. There fell a complete silence in the room.

“Hubert,” said Isabel after a moment, “what are you doing here?”

Hubert shut the door abruptly and leaned against it, staring at her; his face had gone white under the tan. Isabel still looked at him steadily, and her eyes were eloquent. Then she spoke again, and something in her voice quickened the beating of Mary’s heart as she listened.

“Hubert, have you forgotten us?”

Still Hubert stared; then he stood upright. The two men-at-arms were watching in astonishment.

“I will see to the ladies,” he said abruptly, and waved his hand. They still hesitated a moment.

“Go,” he said again sharply, and pointed to the door. He was a magistrate, and responsible; and they turned and went.

Then Hubert looked at Isabel again.

“Isabel,” he said, “if I had known——”

“Stay,” she interrupted, “there is no time for explanations except mine. Anthony is in the house; I do not know where. You must save him.”

There was no entreaty or anxiety in her voice; nothing but a supreme dignity and an assurance that she would be obeyed.

“But——” he began. The door was opened from the hall, and a little party of searchers appeared, but halted when the magistrate turned round.

“Come with me,” he said to the two women, “you must have a room kept for you upstairs,” and he held back the door for them to pass.

Isabel put out her hand to Mary, and the two went out together into the hall past the men, who stood back to let them through, and Hubert followed. They turned to the left to the stairs, looking as they went upon the wild confusion. Above them rose the carved ceiling, and in the centre of the floor, untouched, by a strange chance, stood the dinner-table, still laid with silver and fruit and flowers. But all else was in disarray. The leather screen that had stood by the door into the entrance hall had been overthrown, and had carried with it a tall flowering plant that now lay trampled and broken before the hearth. A couple of chairs lay on their backs between the windows; the rug under the window was huddled in a heap, and all over the polished boards were scratches and dents; a broken sword-hilt lay on the floor with a feathered cap beside it. There were half a dozen men guarding the four doors; but the rest were gone; and from overhead came tramplings and shouts as the hunt swept to and fro in the upper floors.

At the top of the stairs was Mary’s room; the two ladies, who had gone silently upstairs with Hubert behind them, stopped at the door of it.

“Here, if you please,” said Mary.

Before Hubert could answer, Lackington came down the passage, hurrying with a drawn sword, and his hat on his head. Isabel did not recognise him as he stopped and tapped Hubert on the arm familiarly.

“The prisoners must not be together,” he said.

Hubert drew back his arm and looked the man in the face.

“They are not prisoners; and they shall be together. Take off your hat, sir.”

Then, as Lackington drew back astonished, he opened the door.

“You shall not be disturbed here,” he said, and the two went in, and the door closed behind them. There was a murmur of voices outside the door, and they heard a name called once or twice, and the sound of footsteps. Then came a tap, and Hubert stepped in quietly and closed the door.

“I have placed my own man outside,” he said, “and none shall trouble you—and—Mistress Isabel—I will do my best.” Then he bowed and went out.

The long miserable afternoon began. They watched through the windows the sentries going up and down the broad paths between the glowing flower-beds; and out, over the high iron fence that separated the garden from the meadows, the crowd of villagers and children watching.

But the real terror for them both lay in the sounds that came from the interior of the house. There was a continual tramp of the sentries placed in every corridor and lobby, and of the messengers that went to and fro. Then from room after room came the sounds of blows, the rending of woodwork, and once or twice the crash of glass, as the searchers went about their work; and at every shout the women shuddered or drew their breath sharply, for any one of the noises might be the sign of Anthony’s arrest.

The two had soon talked out every theory in low voices, but they both agreed that he was still in the house somewhere, and on the upper floor. It was impossible, they thought, for him to have made his way down. There were four possibilities, therefore: either he might still be in the chimney—in that case it was no use hoping; or he was in the chapel-hole; or in that behind the portrait; or in one last one, in the room next to their own. The searchers had been there early in the afternoon, but perhaps had not found it; its entrance was behind the window shutter, and was contrived in the thickness of the wall. So they talked, these two, and conjectured and prayed, as the evening drew on; and the sun began to sink behind the church, and the garden to lie in cool shadow.

About eight there was a tap at the door, and Hubert came in with a tray of food in his hands, which he set down.

“All is in confusion,” he said, “but this is the best I can do.”—He broke off.

“Mistress Isabel,” he said, coming nearer to the two as they sat together in the window-seat, “I can do little; they have found three hiding-holes; but so far he has escaped. I do what I can to draw them off, but they are too clever and zealous. If you can tell me more, perhaps I can do more.”

The two were looking at him with startled eyes.

“Three?” Mary said.

“Yes, three—and indeed——” He stopped as Isabel got up and came towards him.

“Hubert,” she said resolutely, “I must tell you. He must be still in the chimney of the little west parlour. Do what you can.”

“The west parlour!” he said. “That was where Mistress Corbet was burning the papers?”

“Yes,” said Mary.

“He is not there,” said Hubert; “we have sent a boy up and down it already.”

“Ah! dear God!” said Mary from the window-seat, “then he has escaped.”

Isabel looked from one to the other and shook her head.

“It cannot be,” she said. “The guards were all round the house before the alarm rang.”

Hubert nodded, and Mary’s face fell.

“Then is there no way out?” he asked.

Mary sprang up with shining eyes.

“He has done it,” she said, and threw her arms round Isabel and kissed her.

“Well,” said Hubert, “what can I do?”

“You must leave us,” said Isabel; “come back later.”

“Then when we have searched the garden-house—why, what is it?”

A look of such anguish had come into their faces that he stopped amazed.

“The garden-house!” cried Mary; “no, no, no!”

“No, no, Hubert, Hubert!” cried Isabel, “you must not go there.”

“Why,” he said, “it was I that proposed it; to draw them from the house.”

There came from beneath the windows a sudden tramp of footsteps, and then Nichol’s voice, distinctly heard through the open panes.

“We cannot wait for him. Come, men.”

“They are going without me,” said Hubert; and turned and ran through the door.

CHAPTER XI

THE GARDEN-HOUSE

During that long afternoon the master of the house had sat in his own room, before his table, hearing the ceaseless footsteps and the voices overhead, and the ring of feet on the tiles outside his window, knowing that his friend and priest was somewhere in the house, crouching in some dark little space, listening to the same footsteps and voices as they came and went by his hiding-place, and that he himself was absolutely powerless to help.

He had been overpowered in the first rush as he pealed on the alarm-bell, to which he had rushed when the groom burst in from the stable-yard crying that the outer court was full of men. Lackington had then sent him under guard to his own room, where he had been locked in with an armed constable to prevent any possibility of escape. In the struggle he had received a blow on the head which had completely dazed him; all his resource left him; and he had no desire even to move from his chair.

Now he sat, with his head on his breast, and his mind going the ceaseless round of all the possible places where Anthony might be. Little scenes, too, of startling vividness moved before him, as he sat there with half-closed eyes—scenes of the imagined arrest—the scuffle as the portrait was torn away and Anthony burst out in one last desperate attempt to escape. He saw him under every kind of circumstance—dashing up stairs and being met at the top by a man with a pike—running and crouching through the withdrawing-room itself next door—gliding with burning eyes past the yew-hedges in a rush for the iron gates, only to find them barred—on horseback with his hands bound and a despairing uplifted face with pike-heads about him.—So his friend dreamed miserably on, open-eyed, but between waking and the sleep of exhaustion, until the crowning vision flashed momentarily before his eyes of the scaffold and the cauldron with the fire burning and the low gallows over the heads of the crowd, and the butcher’s block and knife; and then he moaned and sat up and stared about him, and the young pursuivant looked at him half-apprehensively.

Towards evening the house grew quieter; once, about six o’clock, there were voices outside, the door from the hall was unlocked, and a heavily-built, ruddy man came in with two pikemen, locking the door behind him. They paid no attention to the prisoner, and he watched them mechanically as they went round the room, running their eyes up and down the panelling, and tapping here and there.

“The room has been searched, sir, already,” said the young constable to the ruddy-faced man, who glanced at him and nodded, and then continued the scrutiny. They reached the fireplace and the officer reached up and tapped the wood over the mantelpiece half-a-dozen times.

“Here,” he called, pointing to a spot.

A pikeman came up, placed the end of his pike into the oak, and leaned suddenly and heavily upon it: the steel crashed in an inch, and stopped as it met the stonework behind. The officer made a motion, the pike was withdrawn, and he stood on tip-toe and put his finger into the splintered panel. Then he was satisfied and they passed on, still tapping the walls, and went out of the other door, locking it again behind them.

An hour later there were voices and steps again, and a door was unlocked and opened, and Mr. Graves, the Tonbridge magistrate stepped in alone. He was a pale scholarly-looking man with large eyes, and a weak mouth only partly covered by his beard.

“You can go,” he said nervously to the constable, “but remain outside.” The young man saluted him and passed out.

The magistrate looked quickly and sideways at Mr. Buxton as he sat and looked at him.

“I am come to tell you,” he said, “that we cannot find the priest.” He hesitated and stopped. “We have found several hiding-holes,” he went on, “and they are all empty. I—I hope there is no mistake.”

A little thrill ran through the man who sat in the chair; the lethargy began to clear from his brain, like a morning mist when a breeze rises; he sat a little more upright and gripped the arms of his chair; he said nothing yet, but he felt power and resource flowing back to his brain, and the pulse in his temples quieted. Why, if the lad had not been taken yet, he must surely be out of the house.

“I trust there is no mistake,” said the magistrate again nervously.

“You may well trust so,” said the other; “it will be a grievous thing for you, sir, otherwise.”

“Indeed, Mr. Buxton, I think you know I am no bigot. I was sent for by Mr. Lackington last night. I could not refuse. It was not my wish——”

“Yet you have issued your warrant, and are here in person to execute it. May I inquire how many of my cupboards you have broken into? And I hope your men are satisfied with my plate.”

“Indeed, sir,” said the magistrate, “there has been nothing of that kind. And as for the cupboards, there were but three——”

Three!—then the lad is out of the house, thought the other. But where?

“And I trust you have not spared to break down my servants’ rooms, and the stables as well as pierce all my panelling.”

“There was no need to search the stables, Mr. Buxton; our men were round the house before we entered. They have been watching the entrances since eight o’clock last night.”

Mr. Buxton felt bewildered. His instinct had been right, then, the night before.

“The party was followed from near Wrotham,” went on the magistrate. “The priest was with them then; and, we suppose, entered the house.”

“You suppose!” snapped the other. “What the devil do you mean by supposing? You have looked everywhere and cannot find him?”

The magistrate shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly, as he stood and stared at the angry man.

“And the roofs?” added Mr. Buxton sneeringly.

“They have been thoroughly searched.”

Then there is but one possible theory, he reflected. The lad is in the garden-house. And what if they search that?

“Then may I ask what you propose to destroy next, Mr. Graves?”

He saw that this tone was having its effect on the magistrate, who was but a half-hearted persecutor, with but feeble convictions and will, as he knew of old.

“I—I entreat you not to speak to me like that, sir,” he said. “I have but done my duty.”

Then the other rose from his chair, and his eyes were stern and bright again and his lips tight.

“Your duty, sir, seems a strange matter, when it leads you to break into a friend’s house, assault him and his servants and his guests, and destroy his furniture, in search of a supposed priest whom you have never even seen. Now, sir, if this matter comes to her Grace’s ears, I will not answer for the consequences; for you know Mistress Corbet, her lady-in-waiting, is one of my guests.—And, speaking of that, where are my guests?”

“The two ladies, Mr. Buxton, are safe and sound upstairs, I assure you.”

The magistrate’s voice was trembling.

“Well, sir, I have one condition to offer you. Either you and your men withdraw within half an hour from my house and grounds, and leave me and my two guests to ourselves, or else I lay the whole matter, through Mistress Corbet, before her Grace.” Mr. Buxton beat his hand once on the table as he ended, and looked with a contemptuous inquiry at the magistrate.

But the worm writhed up at the heel.

“How can you talk like this, sir,” he burst out, “as if you had but two guests?”

“Two guests? I do not understand you. How should there be more?”

“Then for whom are the four places laid at table?” he answered indignantly.

Mr. Buxton felt a sudden desperate sinking, and he could not answer for a moment. The magistrate passed his shaking hand over his mouth and beard once or twice; but the thrust had gone home, and there was no parry or riposte. He followed it up.

“Now, sir, be reasonable. I came in here to make terms. We know the priest has been here. It is certain beyond all question. All that is uncertain is whether he is here now or escaped. We have searched thoroughly; we must search again to-morrow; but in the meanwhile, while you yourself must be under restraint, your guests shall have what liberty they wish; and you yourself shall have all reasonable comfort and ease. So—so, if we do not find the priest, I trust that you and—and—Mistress Corbet will agree to overlook any rashness on my part—and—and let her Grace remain in ignorance.”

Mr. Buxton had been thinking furiously during this little speech. He saw the mistake he had made in taking the high line, and his wretched forgetfulness of the fourth place at table. He must make terms, though it tasted bitter.

“Well, Mr. Graves,” he said, “I have no wish to be hard upon you. All I ask is to be out of the house when the search is made, and that the ladies shall come and go as they please.”

The magistrate leapt at the lure like a trout.

“Yes, yes, Mr. Buxton, it shall be as you say. And to what house will you retire?”

Mr. Buxton appeared to reflect; he tapped on the table with a meditative finger and looked at the ceiling.

“It must not be too far away,” he said slowly, “and—and the Rector would scarce like to receive me. Perhaps in—or——Why not my summer-house?” he added suddenly.

Mr. Graves’ face was irradiated with smiles.

“Thank you, Mr. Buxton, certainly, it shall be as you say. And where is the summer-house?”

“It is across the garden,” said the other carelessly. “I wonder you have not searched it in your zeal.”

“Shall I send a man to prepare it?” asked the magistrate eagerly. “Will you go there to-night?”

“Well, shall we go across there together now? I give you my parole,” he added, smiling, and standing up.

“Indeed,—as you wish. I cannot tell you, sir, how grateful I am. You have made my duty almost a pleasure, sir.”

They went out together into the hall, Mr. Buxton carrying the key of the garden-house that he had taken from the drawer of his table; he glanced ruefully at the wrecked furniture and floor, and his eyes twinkled for a moment as they rested on the four places at table still undisturbed, and then met the magistrate’s sidelong look. The men were still at the doors, resting now on chairs or leaning against the wall, with their weapons beside them; it was weary work this mounting sentry and losing the hunt, and their faces showed it. The two passed out together into the garden, and began to walk up the path that led straight across the avenue to where the high vanes of the garden-house stood up grotesque and towering against the evening sky, above the black yew-hedges.

All the while they went Mr. Buxton was thinking out his plan. It was still incoherent; but, at any rate, it was a step gained to be able to communicate with Anthony again; and at least the poor lad should have some supper. And then he smiled to himself with relief as he saw what an improvement there had been in the situation as it had appeared to him an hour ago. Why, they would search the house again next day; find no one, and retire apologising. His occupancy of the garden-house with the magistrate’s full consent would surely secure it from search; and he was not so well satisfied with the disguised entrance to the passage at this end as with that in the cellar.

They reached the door at last. There were three steps going up to it, and Mr. Buxton went up them, making a good deal of noise as he did so, to ensure Anthony’s hearing him should he be above ground. Then, as if with great difficulty, he unlocked the door, rattling it, and clicking sharply with his tongue at its stiffness.

“You see, Mr. Graves.” he said, rather loud, as he opened the door a little, “my prison will not be a narrow one.” He threw the door open, gave a glance round, and was satisfied. The targets leaned against one wall, and two rows of flower-pots stood in the corner near where the window opened into the lane, but there was no sign of occupation. Mr. Buxton went across, threw the window open and looked out. There was a steel cap three or four feet below, and a pike-head; and at the sound of the latch a bearded face looked up.

“I see you have a sentry there,” said Mr. Buxton carelessly.

“Ah! that is one of Mr. Maxwell’s men.”

“Mr. Maxwell’s!” said the other, startled. “Is he in this affair too?”

“Yes; have you not heard? He came from Great Keynes this morning. Mr. Lackington sent for him.”

Mr. Buxton’s face grew dark.

“Ah yes, I see—a pretty revenge.”

The magistrate was on the point of asking an explanation, for he felt on the best of terms again now with his prisoner, when there were footsteps outside and voices; and there stood four constables, with Nichol, Hubert Maxwell and Lackington in furious debate coming up the path behind.

They looked up suddenly, and saw the door open and the magistrate and his prisoner standing in the opening. The four constables stood waiting for further orders while their three chiefs came up.

“Now, now, now!” said Mr. Graves peevishly, “what is all this?”

“We have come to search this house, sir,” said Nichol cheerfully.

“See here, sir,” said Hubert, “have you given orders for this?”

“Enough, enough,” said Lackington coolly. “Search, men.”

The pursuivants advanced to the steps. Then Mr. Buxton turned fiercely on them all.

“See here!” he cried, and his voice rang out across the garden. “You bring me here, Mr. Graves, promising me a little peace and quietness, after your violent and unwarranted attack upon my house to-day. I have been patient and submissive to all suggestions; I leave my entire house at your disposal; I promise to lay no complaints before her Grace, so long as you will let me retire here till it is over—and now your men persecute me even here. Have you no mind of your own, sir?” he shouted.

“Really, sir——” began Hubert.

“And as for you, Mr. Maxwell,” went on the other fiercely, “are you not content with your triumph so far? Cannot you leave me one corner to myself, or would your revenge be not full enough for you, then?”

“You mistake me, sir,” said Hubert, making a violent effort to control himself; “I am on your side in this matter.”

“That is what I am beginning to think,” said Lackington insolently.

“You think!” roared Mr. Buxton; “and who the devil are you?”

“See here, gentlemen,” said Mr. Nichol, “what is the dispute? Here is an empty house, Mr. Buxton tells us; and Mr. Maxwell tells us the same. Well, then, let these honest fellows run through the empty house; it will not take ten minutes, and Mr. Buxton and his friend can take the air meanwhile. A-God’s name, let us not dispute over a trifle.”

“Then, a-God’s name, let me go to my own house,” bellowed Mr. Buxton, “and these gentlemen can have the empty house to disport themselves in till doomsday—or till her Grace looks into the matter”; and he made a motion to run down the steps, but his heart sank. Mr. Graves put out a deprecating hand and touched his arm; and Mr. Buxton very readily turned at once with a choleric face!

“No, no, no!” cried the magistrate. “These gentlemen are here on my warrant, and they shall not search the place. Mr. Buxton, I entreat you not to be hasty. Come back, sir.”

Mr. Buxton briskly reascended.

“Well, then, Mr. Graves, I entreat you to give your orders, and let your will be known. I am getting hungry for my supper, too, sir. It is already an hour past my time.”

“Sup in the house, sir,” said Mr. Nichol smoothly, “and we shall have done by then.”

Then Hubert blazed up; he took a step forward.

“Now, you fellow,” he said to Nichol, “hold your damned tongue. Mr. Graves and I are the magistrates here, and we say that this gentleman shall sup and sleep here in peace, so you may take your pursuivants elsewhere.”

Lackington looked up with a smile.

“No, Mr. Maxwell, I cannot do that. These men are under my orders, and I shall leave two of them here and send another to keep your fellow company at the back, We will not disturb Mr. Buxton further to-night; but to-morrow we shall see.”

Mr. Buxton paid no sort of further attention to him, but turned to the magistrates.

“Well, gentlemen, what is your decision?”

“You shall sleep here in peace, sir,” said Mr. Graves resolutely. “I can promise nothing for to-morrow.”

“Then will you kindly allow one of my men to bring me supper and a couch of some kind, and I shall be obliged if the ladies may sup with me.”

“That they shall,” assented Mr. Graves. “Mr. Maxwell, will you escort them here?”

Hubert, who was turning away, nodded and disappeared round the yew-hedge. Lackington, who had been talking in an undertone to the pursuivants, now went up another alley with one of them and Mr. Nichol, and disappeared too in the gathering gloom of the garden. The other two pursuivants separated and each moved a few steps off and remained just out of sight. Plainly they were to remain on guard. Mr. Buxton and the magistrate sat down on a couple of garden-chairs.

“That is an obstinate fellow, sir,” said Mr. Graves.

“They are certainly both of them very offensive fellows, sir. I was astonished at your indulgence towards them.”

The magistrate was charmed by this view of the case, and remained talking with Mr. Buxton until footsteps again were heard, and the two ladies appeared, with Hubert with them, and a couple of men carrying each a tray and the other necessaries he had asked for.

Mr. Buxton and the magistrate rose to meet the ladies and bowed.

“I cannot tell you,” began their host elaborately, “what distress all this affair has given me. I trust you will forgive any inconvenience you may have suffered.”

Both Isabel and Mary looked white and strained, but they responded gallantly; and as the table was being prepared the four talked almost as if there were no bitter suspense at three of their hearts at least. Mr. Graves was nervous and uneasy, but did his utmost to propitiate Mary. At last he was on the point of withdrawing, when Mr. Buxton entreated him to sup with them.

“I must not,” he said; “I am responsible for your property, Mr. Buxton.”

“Then I understand that these ladies may come and go as they please?” he asked carelessly.

“Certainly, sir.”

“Then may I ask too the favour that you will place one of your own men at the door who can conduct them to the house when they wish to go, and who can remain and protect me too from any disturbance from either of the two officious persons who were here just now?”

Mr. Graves, delighted at this restored confidence, promised to do so, and took an elaborate leave; and the three sat down to supper; the door was left open, and they could see through it the garden, over which veil after veil of darkness was beginning to fall. The servants had lighted two tapers, and the inside of the great room with its queer furniture of targets and flower-pots was plainly visible to any walking outside. Once or twice the figure of a man crossed the strip of light that lay across the gravel.

It was a strange supper. They said innocent things to one another in a tone loud enough for any to hear who cared to be listening, about the annoyance of it all, the useless damage that had been done, the warmth of the summer night, and the like, and spoke in low soundless sentences of what was in all their hearts.

“That red-faced fellow,” said Mary, “would be the better of some manners. (He is in the passage below, I suppose.)”

“It is scarce an ennobling life—that of a manhunter,” said Mr. Buxton. (“Yes. I am sure of it.”)

“They have broken your little cupboard, I fear.” said Mary again. (“Tell me your plan, if you have one.”)

And so step by step a plan was built up. It had been maturing in Mr. Buxton’s mind gradually after he had learnt the ladies might sup with him; and little by little he conveyed it to them. He managed to write down the outline of it as he sat at table, and then passed it to each to read, and commented on it and answered their questions about it, all in the same noiseless undertone, with his lips indeed scarcely moving. There were many additions and alterations made in it as the two ladies worked upon it too, but by the time supper was over it was tolerably complete. It seemed, indeed, almost desperate, but the case was desperate. It was certain that the garden-house would be searched next day; Lackington’s suspicions were plainly roused, and it was too much to hope that searchers who had found three hiding-places in one afternoon would fail to find a fourth. It appeared then that it was this plan or none.

They supped slowly, in order to give time to think out and work out the scheme, and to foresee any difficulties beyond those they had already counted on; and it was fully half-past nine before the two ladies rose. Their host went with them to the door, called up Mr. Graves’ man, and watched them pass down the path out of sight. He stood a minute or two longer looking across towards the house at the dusky shapes in the garden and the strip of gravel, grass, and yew that was illuminated from his open door. Then he spoke to the men that he knew were just out of sight.

“I am going to bed presently. Kindly do not disturb me.” There was no answer; and he closed the two high doors and bolted them securely.

He dared not yet do what he wished, for fear of arousing suspicion, so he went to the other window and looked out into the lane. He could just make out the glimmer of steel on the opposite bank.

“Good-night, my man,” he called out cheerfully.

Again there was no answer. There was something sinister in these watching presences that would not speak, and his heart sank a little as he put-to the window without closing it. He went next to the pile of rugs and pillows that his men had brought across, and arranged them in the corner, just clear of the trap-door. Then he knelt and said his evening prayers, and here at least was no acting. Then he rose again and took off his doublet and ruff and shoes so that he was dressed only in a shirt, trunks and hose. Then he went across to the supper-table, where the tapers still burned, and blew them out, leaving the room in complete darkness. Then he went back to his bed, and sat and listened.

Up to this point he had been aware that probably at least one pair of eyes had been watching him; for, although the windows were of bottle-end glass, yet it was exceedingly likely that there would be some clear glass in them; and, with the tapers burning inside, his movements would all have been visible to either of Lackington’s men who cared to put his eye to the window. But now he was invisible. Yet, as he thought of it, he slipped on his doublet again to hide the possible glimmer of his white shirt. There was the silence of the summer night about him—the silence only emphasised by its faint sounds. The house was quiet across the garden, though once or twice he thought he heard a horse stamp. Once there came a little stifled cough from outside his window; there was the silky rustle of the faint breeze in the trees outside; and now and again came the snoring of a young owl in the ivy somewhere overhead.

He counted five hundred deliberately, to compel himself to wait; and meanwhile his sub-conscious self laboured at the scheme. Then he glanced this way and that with wide eyes; his ears sang with intentness of listening. Then, very softly he shifted his position, and found with his fingers the ring that lifted the trap-door above the stairs.

There was no concealment about this, and without any difficulty he lifted the door with his right hand and leaned it against the wall; then he looked round again and listened. From below came up the damp earthy breath of the basement, and he heard a rat scamper suddenly to shelter. Then he lifted his feet from the rugs and dropped them noiselessly on the stairs, and supporting himself by his hands on the floor went down a step or two. Then a stair creaked under his weight; and he stopped in an agony, hearing only the mad throbbing in his own ears. But all was silent outside. And so step by step he descended into the cool darkness. He hesitated as to whether he should close the trap-door or not, there was a risk either way; but he decided to do so, as he would be obliged to make some noise in opening the secret doors and communicating with Anthony. At last his feet touched the earth floor, and he turned as he sat and counted the steps—the fourth, the fifth, and tapped upon it. There was no answer; he put his lips to it and whispered sharply:

“Anthony, Anthony, dear lad.”

Still there was no answer. Then he lifted the lid, and managed to hold the woodwork below, as he knelt on the third step, so that it descended noiselessly. He put out his other hand and felt the boards. Anthony had retired into the passage then, he told himself, as he found the space empty. He climbed into the hole, pushed himself along and counted the bricks—the fourth of the fourth—pressed it, and pushed at the door; and it was fast.

For the first time a horrible spasm of terror seized him. Had he forgotten? or was it all a mistake, and Anthony not there? He turned in his place, put his shoulders against the door and his feet against the woodwork of the stairs, and pushed steadily; there were one or two loud creaks, and the door began to yield. Then he knew Anthony was there; a rush of relief came into his heart—and he turned and whispered again.

“Anthony, dear lad, Anthony, open quickly; it is I.”

The brickwork slid back and a hand touched his face out of the pitch darkness of the tunnel.

“Who is it? Is it you?” came a whisper.

“It is I, yes. Thank God you are here. I feared——”

“How could I tell?” came the whisper again. “But what is the news? Are you escaped?”

“No, I am a prisoner, and on parole. But there is no time for that. You must escape—we have a plan—but there is not much time.”

“Why should I not remain here?”

“They will search to-morrow—and—and this end of the tunnel is not so well concealed as the other. They would find you. They suspect you are here, and there are guards round this place.”

There was a movement in the dark.

“Then why think——” began the whisper.

“No, no, we have a plan. Mary and Isabel approve. Listen carefully. There is but one guard at the back here, in the lane. Mary has leave to come and go now as she pleases—they are afraid of her; she will leave the house in a few minutes now to ride to East Maskells, with two grooms and a maid behind one of them. She will ride her own horse. When she has passed the inn she will bid the groom who has the maid to wait for her, while she rides down the lane with the other, Robert, to speak to me through the window. The pursuivant, we suppose, will not forbid that, as he knows they have supped with me just now. As we talk, Robert will watch his chance and spring on the pursuivant. As soon as the struggle begins you will drop from the window; it is but eight feet; and help him to secure the man and gag him. However much din they make the others cannot reach the man in time to help, for they will have to come round from the house, and you will have mounted Robert’s horse; and you and Mary together will gallop down the lane into the road, and then where you will. We advise East Maskells. I do not suppose there will be any pursuit. They will have no horses ready. Do you understand it?”

There was silence a moment; Mr. Buxton could hear Anthony breathing in the darkness.

“I do not like it,” came the whisper at last; “it seems desperate. A hundred things may happen. And what of Isabel and you?”

“Dear friend; I know it is desperate, but not so desperate as your remaining here would be for us all.”

Again there was silence.

“What of Robert? How will he escape?”

“If you escape they will have nothing against Robert; for they can prove nothing as to your priesthood. But if they catch you here—and they certainly will, if you remain here—they will probably hang him, for he fought for you gallantly in the house. And he too will have time to run. He can run through the door into the meadows. But they will not care for him if they know you are off.”

Again silence.

“Well?” whispered Mr. Buxton.

“Do you wish it?”

“I think it is the only hope.”

“Then I will do it.”

“Thank God! And now you must come up with me. Put off your shoes.”

“I have none.”

“Then follow, and do not make a sound.”

Very cautiously Mr. Buxton extricated himself; for he had been lying on his side while he whispered to Anthony; and presently was crouched on the stairs above, as he heard the stirrings of his friend in the dark below him. There came the click of the brickwork door; then slow shufflings; once a thump on the hollow boards that made his heart leap; then after what seemed an interminable while, came the sound of latching the fifth stair into its place; and he felt his foot grasped. Then he turned and ascended slowly on hands and knees, feeling now and again for the trap-door over him—touched it—raised it, and crawled out on to the rugs. The room seemed to him comparatively light after the heavy darkness of the basement, and passage below, and he could make out the supper-table and the outline of the targets on the opposite wall. Then he saw a head follow him; then shoulders and body; and Anthony crept out and sat on the rugs beside him. Their hands met in a trembling grip.

“Supper, dear lad?” whispered Mr. Buxton, with his mouth to the other’s ear.

“Yes, I am hungry,” came the faintest whisper back.

Mr. Buxton rose and went on tip-toe to the table, took off some food and a glass of wine that he had left purposely filled and came back with them.

There the two friends sat; Mr. Buxton could just hear the movement of Anthony’s mouth as he ate. The four windows glimmered palely before them, and once or twice the tall doors rattled faintly as the breeze stirred them.

Then suddenly came a sound that made Anthony’s hand pause on the way to his mouth; Mr. Buxton drew a sharp breath; it was the noise of three or four horses on the road beyond the church. Then they both stood up without a word, and Mr. Buxton went noiselessly across to the window that looked on to the lane and remained there, listening. The horses were now passing down the street, and the noise of their hoofs grew fainter behind the houses.

Anthony saw his friend in the twilight beckon, and he went across and stood by him. Suddenly the hoofs sounded loud and near; and they heard the pursuivant below stand up from the bank opposite. Then Mary’s voice came distinct and cheerful.

“How dark it is!”

The horses were coming down the lane.

CHAPTER XII

THE NIGHT-RIDE

The sound of hoofs came nearer; Anthony’s heart, as he crouched below the window, ready to spring up and over when the signal was given, beat in sick thumpings at the base of his throat, but with a fierce excitement and no fear. His hands clenched and unclenched. Mr. Buxton stood back a little, waiting; he must feign to be asleep at first.

Then came suddenly a sharp challenge from the sentry.

“It is Mistress Corbet,” came Mary’s cool high tones, “and I desire to speak with Mr. Buxton.”

The man hesitated.

“You cannot,” he said.

“Cannot!” she cried; “why, fellow, do you know who I am? And I have just supped with him.”

There came a sudden sound from the other side of the summer-house, and both men in the room knew that the guards in the garden were listening.

“I am sorry, madam, but I have no orders.”

“Then do not presume, you hound,” came Mary’s voice again, with a ring of anger. “Ho, there, Mr. Buxton, come to the window.”

“Be ready,” he whispered to Anthony.

“Stand back, madam,” said the pursuivant, “or I shall call for help.”

Then Mr. Buxton threw back the window.

“Who is there?” he asked coolly. (“Stand up Anthony.”)

“It is I, Mr. Buxton, but this insolent dog——”

“Stand back, madam, I say,” cried the voice of the guard. Then from the garden behind came running footsteps and voices; and a red light shone through the windows behind.

“Now,” whispered the voice over Anthony’s head sharply.

There came a loud shout from the guard, “Help there, help!”

Anthony put his hands on to the sill and lifted himself easily. The groom had slipped from his horse while Mary held the bridle, and was advancing at the guard, and there was something in his hand. The sentry, who was standing immediately under the window, now dropped his pike point forward; and as a furious rattling began at the doors on the garden side, Anthony dropped, and came down astride of the man’s neck, who crashed to the ground. Then the groom was on him too.

“Leave him to me, sir. Mount.”

The groom’s hands were busy with something about the struggling man’s neck: the shouts choked and ceased.

“You will strangle the man,” said Anthony sharply.

“Nonsense,” said Mary; “mount, mount. They are coming.”

Anthony ran to the horse, that was beginning to scurry and plunge; threw himself across the saddle and caught the reins.

“Up?” said Mary.

“Up”; and he slung his right leg over the flank and sat up, as Mary released the bridle, and dashed off, scattering gravel.

From the direction of the church came cries and the quick rattle of a galloping horse. Anthony dashed his shoeless heels into the horse’s sides and leaned forward, and in a moment more was flying down the lane after Mary. From in front came a shout of warning, with one or two screams, and then Anthony turned the corner, checking his horse slightly at the angle, saw a torch somewhere to his right, a group of scared faces, a groom and woman clinging to him on a plunging horse, and the white road; and then found himself with loose reins, and flying stirrups, thundering down the village street, with Mary on her horse not two lengths in front. The roar of the hoofs behind, and of the little shouting crowd, with the screaming woman on the horse, died behind him as the wind began to boom in his ears. Mary was looking round now, and slightly checking her horse as they neared the bottom of the long village street. In half a dozen strides Anthony came up on her right. Then the pool gleamed before them just beyond the fork of the road.

“Left!” screamed Mary through the roar of the racing air, and turned her horse off up the road that led round in a wide sweep of two miles to East Maskells and the woods beyond, and Anthony followed. He had settled down in the saddle now, and had brought his maddened horse under control; his feet were in the stirrups, but there was no lessening of the speed. They had left the last house now, and on either side the black bushes and heatherland streamed past, with the sudden gleam of water here and there under the starlight that showed the ditches and holes with which the ground on either side of the road was honeycombed.

Then Mary turned her head again, and the words came detached and sharp.

“They are after us—could not help—horses saddled.”

Anthony turned his head to release one ear from the roar of the air, and heard the thundering rattle of hoofs in the distance, but even as he listened it grew fainter.

“We are gaining!” he shouted.

Mary nodded, and her teeth gleamed white in a smile.

“Ours are fresh,” she screamed.

Then there was silence between them again; they had reached a little hill and eased their horses up it; a heavy fringe of trees crowned it on their right, black against the stars, and a gleam of light showed the presence of a house among them. Farther and farther behind them sounded the hoofs; then they were swaying and rocking again down the slope that led to the long flat piece of road that ended in the slope up to East Maskells. It was softer going now and darker too, as there were trees overhead; pollared willows streamed past them as they went; and twice there was a snort and a hollow thunder of hoofs as a young sleeping horse awoke and raced them a few yards in the meadows at the side. Once Anthony’s horse shied at a white post, and drew in front a yard or two; and he heard for a moment under the rattle the cool gush of the stream that flowed beneath the road and the scream of a water-fowl as she burst from the reeds.

A great exultation began to fill Anthony’s heart. What a ride this was, in the glorious summer night—reckless and intoxicating! What a contrast, this sweet night air streaming past him, this dear world of living things, his throbbing horse beneath him, the birds and beasts round him, and this gallant girl swaying and rejoicing too beside him! What a contrast was all this to that terrible afternoon, only a few hours away—of suspense and skulking like a rat in a sewer; in a dark, close passage underground breathing death and silence round him! An escape with the fresh air in the face and the glorious galloping music of hoofs is another matter to an escape contrived by holding the breath and fearing to move in a mean hiding-hole. And as all this flooded in upon him, incoherently but overpoweringly, he turned and laughed loud with joy.

They had nearly come to an end of the flat by now. In front of them rose the high black mass of trees where safety lay; somewhere to the right, not a quarter of a mile in front, just off the road, lay East Maskells. They would draw rein, he reflected, when they reached the outer gates, and listen; and if all was quiet behind them, Mary at least should ask for shelter. For himself, perhaps it would be safer to ride on into the woods for the present. He began to move his head as he rode to see if there were any light in the house before him; it seemed dark; but perhaps he could not see the house from here. Gradually his horse slackened a little, as the rise in the ground began, and he tossed the reins once or twice.

Then there was a sharp hiss and blow behind him; his horse snorted and leapt forward, almost unseating him, and then, still snorting with head raised and jerking, dashed at the slope. There was a cry and a loud report; he tugged at the reins, but the horse was beside himself, and he rode fifty yards before he could stop him. Even as he wrenched him into submission another horse with head up and flying stirrup and reins thundered past him and disappeared into the woods beyond the house.

Then, trembling so that he could hardly hold the reins, he urged his horse back again at a stumbling trot towards what he knew lay at the foot of the slope, and to meet the tumult that grew in nearness and intensity up the road along which he had just galloped.

There was a dark group on the pale road in front of him, twenty yards this side of the field-path that led from Stanfield Place; he took his feet from the stirrups as he got near, and in a moment more threw his right leg forward over the saddle and slipped to the ground.

He said no word but pushed away the two men, and knelt by Mary, taking her head on his knee. The men rose and stood looking down at them.

“Mary,” he said, “can you hear me?”

He bent close over the white face; her hand rose to her breast, and came away dark. She was shot through the body. Then she pushed him sharply.

“Go,” she whispered, “go.”

“Mary,” he said again, “make your confession—quickly. Stand back, you men.”

They obeyed him; and he bent his ear towards the mouth he could so dimly see. There was a sob or two—a long moaning breath—and then the murmur of words, very faint and broken by gulps for breath. He noticed nothing of the hoofs that dashed up the road and stopped abruptly, and of the murmur of voices that grew round him; he only heard the gasping whisper, the words that rose one by one, with pauses and sighs, into his ear....

“Is that all?” he said, and a silence fell on all who stood round, now a complete circle about the priest and the penitent. The pale face moved slightly in assent; he could see the lips were open, and the breath was coming short and agonised.

“... In nomine Patris—his hand rose above her and moved cross-ways in the air—et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

Then he bent low again and looked; the bosom was still rising and falling, the shut eyes lifted once and looked at him. Then the lids fell again.

“Benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti, descendat super te et maneat semper. Amen.”

Then there fell a silence. A horse blew out its nostrils somewhere behind and stamped; then a man’s voice cried brutally:

“Now then, is that popish mummery done yet?”

There was a murmur and stir in the group. But Anthony had risen.

“That is all,” he said.

CHAPTER XIII

IN PRISON

Anthony found several friends in the Clink prison in Southwark, whither he was brought up from Stanfield Place after his arrest.

Life there was very strange, a combination of suffering and extraordinary relaxation. He had a tiny cell, nine feet by five, with one little window high up, and for the first month of his imprisonment wore irons; at the same time his gaoler was so much open to bribery that he always found his door open on Sunday morning, and was able to shuffle upstairs and say mass in the cell of Ralph Emerson, once the companion of Campion, and a lay-brother of the Society of Jesus. There he met a large number of Catholics—some of whom he had come across in his travels—and he even ministered the sacraments to others who managed to come in from the outside. His chief sorrow was that his friend and host had been taken to the Counter in Wood Street.

It was a month before he heard all that had happened on the night of his arrest, and on the previous days: he had been separated at once from his friends; and although he had heard his guards talking both in the hall where he had been kept the rest of the night, and during the long hot ride to London the next day, yet at first he was so bewildered by Mary’s death that what they said made little impression on him. But after he had been examined both by magistrates and the Commissioners, and very little evidence was forthcoming, his irons were struck off and he was allowed much more liberty than before; and at last, to his great joy, Isabel was admitted to see him. She herself had come straight up to the Marretts’ house, both of whom still lived on in Wharf Street, though old and infirm; and day by day she attempted to get access to her brother; until at last, by dint of bribery, she was successful.

Then she told him the whole story.

“When we left the garden-house,” she said, “we went straight back, and Mary found Mr. Graves in the parlour off the hall. Oh, Anthony, how she ordered him about! And how frightened he was of her! The end was that he sent a message to the stables for her horses to be got ready, as she said. I went up with her to help her to make ready, and we kissed one another up there, for, you know, we dared not make as if we said good-bye downstairs. Then we came down for her to mount; and then we saw what we had not known before, that all the stable-yard was filled with the men’s horses saddled and bridled. However, we said nothing, except that Mary asked a man what—what the devil he was looking at, when he stared up at her as she stood on the block drawing on her gloves before she mounted. There were one or two torches burning in cressets, and I saw her so plainly turn the corner down towards the church.

“Then I went upstairs again, but I could not go to my room, but stood at the gallery window outside looking down at the court, for I knew that if there was any danger it would come from there.

“Then presently I heard a noise, and a shouting, and a man ran in through the gates to the stable-yard; and, almost directly it seemed, three or four rode out, at full gallop across the court and down by the church. The window was open and I could hear the noise down towards the village. Then more and more came pouring out, and all turned the corner and galloped; all but one, whose horse slipped and came down with a crash. Oh, Anthony! how I prayed!

“Then I saw Mr. Lackington”—Isabel stopped a moment at the name, and then went on again—”and he was on horseback too in the court; but he was shouting to two or three more who were just mounting. ‘Across the field—across the field—-cut them off!’ I could hear it so plainly; and I saw the stable-gate was open, and they went through, and I could hear them galloping on the grass. And then I knew what was happening; and I went back to my room and shut the door.”

Isabel stopped again; and Anthony took her hand softly in his own and stroked it. Then she went on.

“Well, I saw them bring you back, from the gallery window—and ran to the top of the stairs and saw you go through into the hall where the magistrates were waiting, and the door was shut; and then I went back to my place at the window—and then presently they brought in Mary. I reached the bottom of the stairs just as they set her down. And I told them to bring her upstairs; and they did, and laid her on the bed where we had sat together all the afternoon.... And I would let no one in: I did it all myself; and then I set the tapers round her, and put the crucifix that was round my neck into her fingers, which I had laid on her breast ... and there she lay on the great bed ... and her face was like a child’s, fast asleep—smiling: and then I kissed her again, and whispered, ‘Thank you, Mary’; for, though I did not know all, I knew enough, and that it was for you.”

Anthony had thrown his arms on the table and his face was buried in them. Isabel put out her hand and stroked his curly head gently as she went on, and told him in the same quiet voice of how Mary had tried to save him by lashing his horse, as she caught sight of the man waiting at the entrance of the field-path, and riding in between him and Anthony. The man had declared in his panic of fear before the magistrates that he had never dreamt of doing Mistress Corbet an injury, but that she had ridden across just as he drew the trigger to shoot the priest’s horse and stop him that way.

When Isabel had finished Anthony still lay with his head on his arms.

“Why, Anthony, my darling,” she said, “what could be more perfect? How proud I am of you both!”

She told him, too, how they had been tracked to Stanfield—Lackington had let it out in his exultation.

The sailor at Greenhithe was one of his agents—an apostate, like his master. He had recognised that the party consisted of Catholics by Anthony’s breaking of the bread. He had been placed there to watch the ferry; and had sent messages at once to Nichol and Lackington. Then the party had been followed, but had been lost sight of, thanks to Anthony’s ruse. Nichol had then flung out a cordon along the principal roads that bounded Stanstead Woods on the south; and Lackington, when he arrived a few hours later, had kept them there all night. The cordon consisted of idlers and children picked up at Wrotham; and the tramp who feigned to be asleep had been one of them. When they had passed, he had given the signal to his nearest neighbour, and had followed them up. Nichol was soon at the place, and after them; and had followed to Stanfield with Lackington behind. Then watchers had been set round the house; the magistrates communicated with; and as soon as Hubert and Mr. Graves had arrived the assault had been made. Hubert had not been told who the priest was; but he had leapt at an opportunity to harass Mr. Buxton: he had been given to understand that Anthony and Isabel were still in the north.

“He did not know; indeed he did not,” cried Isabel piteously.

At another time, when she had gained admittance to him, she gave him messages from the Marretts, who had kept a great affection for the lad, who had told them tales of College that Christmas time; and she told him too of the coming of an old friend to see her there.

“It was poor Mr. Dent,” she said; “he looks so old now. His wife died three years ago; you know he has a city-living and does chaplain’s work at the Tower sometimes; and he is coming to see you, Anthony, and talk to you.”

Three or four days later he came.

Anthony was greatly touched at his kindness in coming. He looked considerably older than his age; his hair had grown thin and grey about his temples, and the sharp birdlike outline of his face and features seemed blurred and indeterminate. His creed too, and his whole manner of looking at things of faith, seemed to have undergone a similar process. The two had a long talk.

“I am not going to argue with you, Mr. Norris,” he said, “though I still think your religion wrong. But I have learnt this at least, that the greatest of all is charity, and if we love the same God, and His Blessed Son, and one another, I think that is best of all. I have learnt that from my wife—my dear wife,” he added softly. “I used to hold much with doctrine at one time, and loved to chop arguments; but our Saviour did not, and so I will not.”

Anthony was delighted that he took this line, for he knew there are some minds that apparently cannot be loyal to both charity and truth at the same time, and Mr. Dent’s seemed to be one of them; so the two talked of old times at Great Keynes, and of the folks there, and at last of Hubert.

“I saw him in the City last week,” said Mr. Dent, “and he is a changed man. He looks ten years older than this time last year; I scarcely know what has come to him. I know he has thrown up his magistracy, and the Lindfield parson tells me that the talk is that Mr. Maxwell is going on another voyage, and leaving his wife and children behind him again.”

Anthony told him gently of Hubert’s share in the events at Stanfield, adding what real and earnest attempts he had made to repair the injury he had done as soon as he had learnt that it was his friend that was in hiding.

“There was no treachery against me, Mr. Dent, you see,” he added.

Mr. Dent pecked a little in the air with pursed lips and eyes fixed on the ground; and a vision of the pulpit at Great Keynes moved before Anthony’s eyes.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he said; “I understand—I quite understand.”

Before Mr. Dent took his leave he unburdened himself of what he had really come to say.

“Master Anthony,” he said, standing up and fingering his hat round and round, “I said I talked no doctrine now; but I must unsay that; and—you will not think me impertinent if I ask you something?”

“My dear Mr. Dent——” began the other, standing and smiling too.

“Thank you, thank you—I felt sure—then it is this: I do not know much about the Popish religion, though I used to once, and I may be very mistaken; but I would like you to satisfy me before I go on one point”; and he fixed his anxious peering eyes on Anthony’s face. “Can you say, Master Anthony, from a full heart, that you fix all your hope and confidence for salvation in Christ’s merits alone?”

Anthony smiled frankly in his face.

“Indeed, in none other,” he said, “and from a full heart.”

“Ah well,” and the birdlike face began to beam and twitch, “and—and there is nothing of confidence in yourself and your works—and—and there is no talk of Holy Mary in the matter?”

Anthony smiled again. He wished to avoid useless controversy.

“Briefly,” he said, “my belief is that I am a very great sinner, that I deserve eternal hell; but I humbly place all my trust in the Precious Blood of my Saviour, and in that alone. Does that satisfy you?”

Mr. Dent’s face was breaking into smiles, and at the end he took the priest’s face in his hands and kissed him gently twice on the cheeks.

“Then, my dear boy, I fear nothing for you. May that salvation you hope for be yours.” And then without a word he was gone.

Anthony’s conscience reproached him a little that he had said nothing of the Church to the minister; but Mr. Dent had been so peremptory about doctrine that it was hard for the younger man to say what he would have wished. He told him, however, plainly on his next visit that he held whole-heartedly too that the Catholic Church was the treasury of Grace that Christ had instituted, and added a little speech about his longing to see his old friend a Catholic too; but Mr. Dent shook his head. The corners of his eyes wrinkled a little, and a shade of his old fretfulness passed over his face.

“Nay, if you talk like that,” he said, “I must be gone. I am no theologian. You must let me alone.”

He gave him news this time of Mr. Buxton.

“He is in the Counter, as you know,” he said, “and is a very bright and cheerful person, it seems to me. Mistress Isabel asked me to see him and give her news of him, for she cannot get admittance. He is in a cell, little and nasty; but he said to me that a Protestant prison was a Papist’s pleasaunce—in fact he said it twice. And he asked very eagerly after you and Mistress Isabel. He tried, too, to inveigle me into talk of Peter his prerogative, but I would not have it. It was Lammas Day when I saw him, and he spoke much of it.”

Anthony asked whether there was anything said of what punishment Mr. Buxton would suffer.

“Well,” said Mr. Dent, “the Lieutenant of the Tower told me that her Grace was so sad at the death of Mistress Corbet that she was determined that no more blood should be shed than was obliged over this matter; and that Mr. Buxton, he thought, would be but deprived of his estates and banished; but I know not how that may be. But we shall soon know.”

These weeks of waiting were full of consolation and refreshment to Anthony: the nervous stress of the life of the seminary priest in England, full of apprehension and suspense, crowned, as it had been in his case, by the fierce excitement of the last days of his liberty—all this had strained and distracted his soul, and the peace of the prison life, with the certainty that no efforts of his own could help him now, quieted and strengthened him for the ordeal he foresaw. At this time, too, he used to spend two or three hours a day in meditation, and found the greatest benefit in following the tranquil method of prayer prescribed by Louis de Blois, with whose writings he had made acquaintance at Douai. Each morning, too, he said a “dry mass,” and during the whole of his imprisonment at the Clink managed to make his confession at least once a week, and besides his communion at mass on Sundays, communicated occasionally from the Reserved Sacrament, which he was able to keep in a neighbouring cell, unknown to his gaoler.

And so the days went by, as orderly as in a Religious House; he rose at a fixed hour, observed the greatest exactness in his devotions, and did his utmost to prevent any visitors being admitted to see him, or any from another cell coming into his own, until he had finished his first meditation and said his office. And there began to fall upon him a kind of mellow peace that rose at times of communion and prayer to a point so ravishing, that he began to understand that it would not be a light cross for which such preparatory graces were necessary.

Towards the middle of September he received intelligence that evidence had been gathering against him, and that one or two were come from Lancashire under guard; and that he would be brought before the Commissioners again immediately.

Within two days this came about. He was sent for across the water to the Tower, and after waiting an hour or two with his gaoler downstairs in the basement of the White Tower, was taken up into the great Hall where the Council sat. There was a table at the farther end where they were sitting, and as Anthony looked round he saw through openings all round in the inner wall the little passage where the sentries walked, and heard their footfalls.

The preliminaries of identification and the like had been disposed of at previous examinations before Mr. Young—a name full of sinister suggestiveness to the Catholics; and so, after he had been given a seat at a little distance from the table behind which the Commissioners sat, he was questioned minutely as to his journey in the North of England.

“What were you there for, Mr. Norris?” inquired the Secretary of the Council.

“I went to see friends, and to do my business.”

“Then that resolves itself into two heads: One, Who are your friends. Two, What was your business?”

Now it had been established beyond a doubt at previous examinations that he was a priest; a student of Douai who had apostatised had positively identified him; so Anthony answered boldly:

“My friends were Catholics; and my business was the reconciling of souls to their Creator.”

“And to the Pope of Rome,” put in Wade.

“Who is Christ’s Vicar,” continued Anthony.

“And a pestilent knave,” concluded a fiery-faced man whom Anthony did not know.

But the Commissioners wanted more than that; it was true that Anthony was already convicted of high treason in having been ordained beyond the seas and in exercising his priestly functions in England; but the exacting of the penalty for religion alone was apt to raise popular resentment; and it was far preferable in the eyes of the authorities to entangle a priest in the political net before killing him. So they passed over for the present his priestly functions and first demanded a list of all the places where he had stayed in the north.

“You ask what is impossible,” said Anthony, with his eyes on the ground and his heart beating sharply, for he knew that now peril was near.

“Well,” said Wade, “let us put it another way. We know that you were at Speke Hall, Blainscow, and other places. I have a list here,” and he tapped the table, “but we want your name to it.”

“Let me see the paper,” said Anthony.

“Nay, nay, tell us first.”

“I cannot sign the paper except I see it,” said Anthony, smiling.

“Give it him,” said a voice from the end of the table.

“Here then,” said Wade unwillingly.

Anthony got up and took the paper from him, and saw one or two places named where he had not been, and saw that it had been drawn up at any rate partly on guesswork.

He put the paper down and went back to his chair and sat down.

“It is not true,” he said, looking steadily at the Secretary; “I cannot sign it.”

“Do you deny that you have been to any of these places?” inquired Wade indignantly.

“The paper is not true,” said Anthony again.

“Well, then, show us what is not true upon it.”

“I cannot.”

“We will find means to persuade you,” said the Secretary.

“If God permits,” said Anthony.

Wade glanced round inquiringly and shrugged his shoulders; one or two shook their heads.

“Well, then, we will turn to another point. There are known to have been certain Jesuit priests in Lancashire in November of last year—do you deny that, sir?”

“You ask too much,” said Anthony, smiling again; “they may have been there for aught I know, for I certainly did not see them elsewhere at the time you mention.”

Wade frowned, but the one at the end laughed loud.

“He has you there, Wade,” he said.

“This is foolery,” said the Secretary. “Well, these two, Father Edward Oldcorne and Father Holtby were in Lancashire in November; and you, Mr. Norris, spoke with them then. We wish to know where they are now, and you must tell us.”

“You have yet to prove that I spoke with them,” said Anthony, for the trap was too transparent.

“But we know that.”

“That may or may not be; but it is for you to prove it.”

“Nay, for you to tell us.”

“For you to prove it.”

Wade lost his temper.

“Well, then,” he cried, “take this paper and see which of us is in the right.”

Anthony rose again, wondering what the paper could be, and came towards the table. He saw it bore a name at the end, and as he advanced saw that it had an official appearance. Wade still held it; but Anthony took it in his hand too to steady it, and began to read; but as he read a mist rose before his eyes, and the paper shook violently. It was a warrant to put him to the torture.

Wade laughed a little.

“Why, see, Mr. Norris, how you tremble at the warrant; what will it be when you——”

But a voice murmured “Shame!” and he stopped and stared.

Anthony passed his hand over his eyes and went back to his chair and sat down; he saw his knees trembling as he sat, and hated himself for it; but he cried bravely:

“The flesh is weak, but, please God, the spirit is willing.”

“Well, then,” said Wade again, “must we execute this warrant, or will you tell us what we would know?”

“You must do what God permits,” said Anthony.

Wade sat down, throwing the warrant on the table, and began to talk in a low voice to those who sat next him. Anthony fixed his eyes on the ground, and did his utmost to keep his thoughts steady.

Now he realised where he was, and what it all meant. The little door to the left, behind him, that he had noticed as he came in, was the door of which he had heard other Catholics speak, that led down to the great crypt, where so many before him had screamed and fainted and called on God, from the rack that stood at the foot of the stairs, or from the pillar with the fixed ring at its summit.

He had faced all this in his mind again and again, but it was a different thing to have the horror within arm’s length; old phrases he had heard of the torture rang in his mind—a boast of Norton’s, the rackmaster, who had racked Brian, and which had been repeated from mouth to mouth—that he had “made Brian a foot longer than God made him”; words of James Maxwell’s that he had let drop at Douai; the remembrance of his limp; and of Campion’s powerlessness to raise his hand when called upon to swear—all these things crowded on him now; and there seemed to rest on him a crushing swarm of fearful images and words. He made a great effort, and closed his eyes, and repeated the holy name of Jesus over and over again; but the struggle was still fierce when Wade’s voice, harsh and dry, broke in and scattered the confusion of mind that bewildered him.

“Take the prisoner to a cell; he is not to go back to the Clink.”

Anthony felt a hand on his arm, and the gaoler was looking at him with compassion.

“Come, sir,” he said.

Anthony rose feeling heavy and exhausted; but remembered to bow to the Commissioners, one or two of whom returned it. Then he followed the gaoler out into the ante-room, who handed him over to one of the Tower officials.

“I must leave you here, sir,” he said; “but keep a good heart; it will not be for to-day.”

When Anthony got to his new cell, which was in the Salt Tower, he was bitterly angry and disappointed with himself. Why, he had turned white and sick like a child, not at the pain of the rack, not even at the sight of it, but at the mere warrant! He threw himself on his knees, and bowed down till his head beat against the boards.

“O Lord Jesus,” he prayed, “give me of Thy Manhood.”

He found that this prison was more rigorous than the Clink; no liberty to leave the cell could possibly be obtained, and no furniture was provided. The gaoler, when he had brought up his dinner, asked whether he could send any message for him for a bed. Anthony gave Isabel’s address, knowing that the authorities were already aware that she was a Catholic, and indeed she had given bail to come up for trial if called upon, and that his information could injure neither her nor the Marretts, who were sound Church of England people; and in the afternoon a mattress and some clothes arrived for him.

Anthony noticed at dinner that the knife provided was of a very inconvenient shape, having a round blunt point, and being sharp only at a lower part of the blade; and when the keeper came up with his supper he asked him to bring him another kind. The man looked at him with a queer expression.

“What is the matter?” asked Anthony; “cannot you oblige me?”

The man shook his head.

“They are the knives that are always given to prisoners under warrant for torture.”

Anthony did not understand him, and looked at him, puzzled.

“For fear they should do themselves an injury,” added the gaoler.

Then the same shudder ran over his body again.

“You mean—you mean....” he began. The gaoler nodded, still looking at him oddly, and went out; and Anthony sat, with his supper untasted, staring before him.

By a kind of violent reaction he had a long happy dream that night. The fierce emotions of that day had swept over his imagination and scoured it as with fire, and now the underlying peace rose up and flooded it with sweetness.

He thought he was in the north again, high up on a moor, walking with one who was quite familiar to him, but whose person he could not remember when he woke; he did not even know whether it was man or woman. It was a perfect autumn day, he thought, like one of those he had spent there last year; the heather and the gorse were in flower, and the air was redolent from their blossoms; he commented on this to the person at his side, who told him it was always so there. Mile after mile the moor rose and dipped, and, although Skiddaw was on his right, purple and grey, yet to his left there was a long curved horizon of sparkling blue sea. It was a cloudless day overhead, and the air seemed kindling and fresh round him as it blew across the stretches of heather from the western sea. He himself felt full of an extraordinary vitality, and the mere movement of his limbs gave him joy as he went swiftly and easily forward over the heather. There was the sound of the wind in his ears, and again and again there came the gush of water from somewhere out of sight—as he had heard it in the church by Skiddaw. There was no house or building of any kind within sight, and he felt a great relief in these miles of heath and the sense of holiday that they gave him. But all the joy round him and in his heart found their point for him in the person that went with him; this presence was their centre, as a diamond in a gold ring, or as a throned figure in a Court circle. All else existed for the sake of this person;—the heather blossomed and the gorse incensed the air, and the sea sparkled, and the sky was blue, and the air kindled, and his own heart warmed and throbbed, for that only. When he tried to see who it was, there was nothing to see; the presence existed there as a centre in a sphere, immeasurable and indiscernible; sometimes he thought it was Mary, sometimes he thought it Henry Buxton, sometimes Isabel—once even he assured himself it was Mistress Margaret, and once James Maxwell—and with the very act of identification came indecision again. This uncertainty waxed into a torment, and yet a sweet torment, as of a lover who watches his mistress’ shuttered house; and this torment swelled yet higher and deeper until it was so great that it had absorbed the whole radiant fragrant circle of the hills where he walked; and then came the blinding knowledge that the Presence was all these persons so dear to him, and far more; that every tenderness and grace that he had loved in them—Mary’s gallantry and Isabel’s serene silence and his friend’s fellowship, and the rest—floated in the translucent depths of it, stained and irradiated by it, as motes in a sunbeam.

And then he woke, and it was through tears of pure joy that he saw the rafters overhead, and the great barred door, and the discoloured wall above his bed.

When his gaoler brought him dinner that day it was half an hour earlier than usual; and when Anthony asked him the reason he said that he did not know, but that the orders had run so; but that Mr. Norris might take heart; it was not for the torture, for Mr. Topcliffe, who superintended it, had told the keeper of the rack-house that nothing would be wanted that day.

He had hardly finished dinner when the gaoler came up again and said that the Lieutenant was waiting for him below, and that he must bring his hat and cloak.

Since his arrest he had worn his priest’s habit every day, so he now threw the cloak over his arm and took his hat, and followed the gaoler down.

In passing through the court he went by a group of men that were talking together, and he noticed very especially a tall old man with a grey head, in a Court suit with a sword, and very lean about the throat, who looked at him hard as he passed. As he reached the archway where the Lieutenant was waiting, he turned again and saw the sunken eyes of the old man still looking after him; when he turned to the gaoler he saw the same odd look in his face that he had noticed before.

“Why do you look like that?” he asked. “Who is that old man?”

“That is Mr. Topcliffe,” said the keeper.

The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Richard Barkley, saluted him kindly at the gate, and begged him to follow him; the keeper still came after and another stepped out and joined them, and the group of four together passed out through the Lion’s Tower and across the moat to a little doorway where a closed carriage was waiting. The Lieutenant and Anthony stepped inside; the two keepers mounted outside; and the carriage set off.

Then the Lieutenant turned to the priest.

“Do you know where you are going, Mr. Norris?”

“No, sir.”

“You are going to Whitehall to see the Queen’s Grace.”

CHAPTER XIV

AN OPEN DOOR

When the carriage reached the palace they were told that the Queen was not yet come from Greenwich; and they were shown into a little ante-room next the gallery where the interview was to take place. The Queen, the Lieutenant told Anthony, was to come up that afternoon passing through London, and that she had desired to see him on her way through to Nonsuch; he could not tell him why he was sent for, though he conjectured it was because of Mistress Corbet’s death, and that her Grace wished to know the details.

“However,” said the Lieutenant, “you now have your opportunity to speak for yourself, and I think you a very fortunate man, Mr. Norris. Few have had such a privilege, though I remember that Mr. Campion had it too, though he made poor use of it.”

Anthony said nothing. His mind was throbbing with memories and associations. The air of state and luxury in the corridors through which he had just come, the discreet guarded doors, the servants in the royal liveries standing here and there, the sense of expectancy that mingled with the solemn hush of the palace—all served to bring up the figure of Mary Corbet, whom he had seen so often in these circumstances; and the thought of her made the peril in which he stood and the hope of escape from it seem very secondary matters. He walked to the window presently and looked out upon the little court below, one of the innumerable yards of that vast palace, and stood staring down on the hound that was chained there near one of the entrances, and that yawned and blinked in the autumn sunshine.

Even as he looked the dog paused in the middle of his stretch and stood expectant with his ears cocked, a servant dashed bareheaded down a couple of steps and out through the low archway; and simultaneously Anthony heard once more the sweet shrill trumpets that told of the Queen’s approach; then there came the roll of drums and the thunder of horses’ feet and the noise of wheels; the trumpets sang out again nearer, and the rumbling waxed louder as the Queen’s cavalcade, out of sight, passed the entrance of the archway down upon which Anthony looked; and then stilled, and the palace itself began to hum and stir; a door or two banged in the distance, feet ran past the door of the ante-room, and the strain of the trumpets sounded once in the house itself. Then all grew quiet once more, and Anthony turned from the window and sat down again by the Lieutenant.

There was silence for a few minutes. The Lieutenant stroked his beard gently and said a word or two under his breath now and again to Anthony; once or twice there came the swift rustle of a dress outside as a lady hurried past; then the sound of a door opening and shutting; then more silence; then the sound of low talking, and at last the sound of footsteps going slowly up and down the gallery which adjoined the ante-room.

Still the minutes passed, but no summons came. Anthony rose and went to the window again, for, in spite of himself, this waiting told upon him. The dog had gone back to his kennel and was lying with his nose just outside the opening. Anthony wondered vacantly to himself what door it was that he was guarding, and who lived in the rooms that looked out beside it. Then suddenly the door from the gallery opened and a page appeared.

“The Queen’s Grace will see Mr. Norris alone.”

Anthony went towards him, and the page opened the door wide for him to go through, and then closed it noiselessly behind him, and Anthony was in the presence.

It was with a sudden bewilderment that he recognised he was in the same gallery as that in which he had talked and sat with Mary Corbet. There were the long tapestries hanging opposite him, with the tall three windows dividing them, and the suits of steel armour that he remembered. He even recalled the pattern of the carpet across which Mary Corbet had come forward to meet him, and that still lay before the tall window at the end that looked on to the Tilt-yard. The sun was passing round to the west now, and shone again across the golden haze of the yard through this great window, with the fragments of stained glass at the top. The memory leapt into life even as he stepped out and stood for a moment, dazed in the sunshine, at the door that opened from the ante-room.

But the figure that turned from the window and faced him was not like Mary’s. It was the figure of an old woman, who looked tall with her towering head-dress and nodding plume; she was dressed in a great dark red mantle thrown back on her shoulders, and beneath it was a pale yellow dress sown all over with queer devices; on the puffed sleeve of the arm that held the stick was embroidered a great curling snake that shone with gold thread and jewels in the sunlight, and powdered over the skirt were representations of human eyes and other devices, embroidered with dark thread that showed up plainly on the pale ground. So much he saw down one side of the figure on which the light shone; the rest was to his dazzled eyes in dark shadow. He went down on his knees at once before this tremendous figure, seeing the buckled feet that twinkled below the skirt cut short in front, and remained there.

There was complete silence for a moment, while he felt the Queen looking at him, and then the voice he remembered, only older and harsher, now said:

“What is all this, Mr. Norris?”

Anthony looked for a moment and saw the Queen’s eyes fixed on him; but he said nothing, and looked down again.

“Stand up,” said the Queen, not unkindly, “and walk with me.”

Anthony stood up at once, and heard the stiff rustle of her dress and the tap of her heels and stick on the polished boards as she came towards him. Then he turned with her down the long gallery.

Until this moment, ever since he had heard that he was to see the Queen, he had felt nervous and miserable; but now this had left him, and he felt at his ease. To be received in this way, in privacy, and to accompany her up and down the gallery as she took her afternoon exercise was less embarrassing than the formal interview he had expected. The two walked the whole length of the gallery without a word, and it was not until they turned and faced the end that looked on to the Tilt-yard that the Queen spoke; and her voice was almost tender.

“I understand that you were with Minnie Corbet when she died,” she said.

“She died for me, your Grace,” said Anthony.

The Queen looked at him sharply.

“Tell me the tale,” she said.

And Anthony told her the whole story of the escape and the ride; speaking too for his friend, Mr. Buxton, and of Mary’s affection for him.

“Your Grace,” he ended, “it sounds a poor tale of a man that a woman should die for him so; but I can say with truth that with God’s grace I would have died a hundred deaths to save her.”

The Queen was silent for a good while when the story was over, and Anthony thought that perhaps she could not speak; but he dared not look at her.

Then she spoke very harshly:

“And you, Mr. Norris, why did you not escape?”

“Your Grace would not have done so.”

“When I saw that she was dying, I would.”

“Not if you had been a priest, your Grace.”

“What is that?” asked the Queen, suddenly facing him.

“I am a priest, madam, and she was a Catholic, and my duty was beside her.”

“Eh?”

“I shrived her, your Grace, before she died.”

“Why! they did not tell me that.”

Anthony was silent.

They walked on a few steps, and the Queen stood silent too, looking down upon the Tilt-yard. Then she turned abruptly, and Anthony turned with her, and they began to go up and down again.

“It was gallant of you both,” she said shortly. “I love that my people should be of that sort.” Then she paused. “Tell me,” she went on, “did Mary love me?”

Anthony was silent for a moment.

“The truth, Mr. Norris,” she said.

“Mistress Corbet was loyalty itself,” he answered.

“Nay, nay, nay, not loyalty but love I asked you of. How did she speak of me?”

“Well, your Grace, Mistress Corbet had a shrewd wit, and she used it freely on friend and foe, but her very sharpness on your Grace, sometimes, showed her love; for she hated to think you otherwise than what she deemed the best.”

The Queen stopped full in her walk.

“That is very pleasantly put,” she said; “I told Minnie you were a courtier.”

Again the two walked on.

“Then she used her tongue on me?”

“Your Grace, I have never met one on whom she did not: but her heart was true.”

“I know that, I know that, Mr. Norris. Tell me something she said.”

Anthony racked his brains for something not too severe.

“Mistress Corbet once said that the Queen’s most disobedient subject was herself.”

“Eh?” said Elizabeth, stopping in her walk.

“‘Because,’ said Mistress Corbet, ‘she can never command herself,’” finished Anthony.

The Queen looked at Anthony, puzzled a moment; and then chuckled loudly in her throat.

“The impertinent minx!” she said, “that was when I had clouted her, no doubt.”

Again they walked up and down in silence a little while. Anthony began to wonder whether this was all for which the Queen had sent for him. He was astonished at his own self-possession; all the trembling awe with which he had faced the Queen at Greenwich was gone; he had forgotten for the moment even his own peril; and he felt instead even something of pity for this passionate old woman, who had aged so quickly, whose favourites one by one were dropping off, or at the best giving her only an exaggerated and ridiculous devotion, at the absurdity of which all the world laughed. Here was this old creature at his side, surrounded by flatterers and adventurers, advancing through the world in splendid and jewelled raiment, with trumpets blowing before her, and poets singing her praises, and crowds applauding in the streets, and sneering in their own houses at the withered old virgin-Queen who still thought herself a Diana—and all the while this triumphal progress was at the expense of God’s Church, her car rolled over the bodies of His servants, and her shrunken, gemmed fingers were red in their blood;—so she advanced, thought Anthony, day by day towards the black truth and the eternal loneliness of the darkness that lies outside the realm where Christ only is King.

Elizabeth broke in suddenly on his thoughts.

“Now,” she said, “and what of you, Mr. Norris?”

“I am your Grace’s servant,” he said.

“I am not so sure of that,” said Elizabeth. “If you are my servant, why are you a priest, contrary to my laws?”

“Because I am Christ’s servant too, your Grace.”

“But Christ’s apostle said, ‘Obey them that have the rule over you.’”

“In indifferent matters, madam.”

The Queen frowned and made a little angry sound.

“I cannot understand you Papists,” said the Queen. “What a-God’s name do you want? You have liberty of thought and faith; I desire to inquire into no man’s private opinions. You may worship Ashtaroth if it please you, in your own hearts; and God looks to the heart, and not to the outer man. There is a Church with bishops like your own, and ministers; there are the old churches to worship in—nay, you may find the old ornaments still in use. We have sacraments as you have; you may seek shrift if you will; nay, in some manner we have the mass—though we do not call it so—but we follow Christ’s ordinance in the matter, and you can do no more. We have the Word of God as you have, and we use the same creeds. What more can the rankest Papist ask? Tell me that, Mr. Norris; for I am a-weary of your folk.”

The Queen turned and faced him again a moment, and her eyes were peevish and resentful.

Presently she went on again.

“Mr. Campion told me it was the oath that troubled him. He could not take it, he said. I told the fool that I was not Head of the Church as Christ was, but only the supreme governor, as the Act declares, in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things:—I forget how it runs,—but I showed it him, and asked him whether it were not true; and I asked him too how it was that Margaret Roper could take the oath, and so many thousands of persons as full Christian as himself—and he could not answer me.”

The Queen was silent again. Then once more she went on indignantly:

“It is yourselves that have brought all this trouble on your heads. See what the Papists have done against me; they have excommunicated me, deposed me—though in spite of it I still sit on the throne; they have sent an Armada against me; they have plotted against me, I know not how many times; and then, when I defend myself and hang a few of the wolves, lo! they are Christ’s flock at once for whom he shed His precious blood, and His persecuted lambs, and I am Jezebel straightway and Athaliah and Beelzebub’s wife—and I know not what.”

The Queen stopped, out of breath, and looked fiercely at Anthony, who said nothing.

“Tell me how you answer that, Mr. Norris?” said the Queen.

“I dare not deal with such great matters,” said Anthony, “for your Grace knows well that I am but a poor priest that knows nought of state-craft; but I would like to ask your Highness two questions only. The first is: whether your Grace had aught to complain of in the conduct of your Catholic subjects when the Armada was here; and the second, whether there hath been one actual attempt upon your Grace’s life by private persons?”

“That is not to the purpose,” said the Queen peevishly.

“It was Catholics who fought against me in the Armada, and it was Catholics who plotted against me at Court.”

“Then there is a difference in Catholics, your Grace,” said Anthony.

“Ah! I see what you would be at.”

“Yes, your Highness; I would rather say, Although they be Catholics they do these things.”

There was silence again, which Anthony did not dare to break; and the two walked up the whole length of the gallery without speaking.

“Well, well,” said Elizabeth at last, “but this was not why I sent for you. We will speak of yourself now, Mr. Norris. I hope you are not an obstinate fellow. Eh?”

Anthony said nothing, and the Queen went on.

“Now, as I have told you, I judge no man’s private opinions. You may believe what you will. Remember that. You may believe what you will; nay, you may practise your religion so long as it is private and unknown to me.”

Anthony began to wonder what was coming; but he still said nothing as the Queen paused. She stood a moment looking down into the empty Tilt-yard again, and then turned and sat suddenly in a chair that stood beside the window, and put up a jewelled hand to shield her face, with her elbow on the arm, while Anthony stood before her.

“I remember you, Mr. Norris, very well at Greenwich; you spoke up sharply enough, and you looked me in the eyes now and then as I like a man to do; and then Minnie loved you, too. I wish to show you kindness for her sake.”

Anthony’s heart began to fail him, for he guessed now what was coming and the bitter struggle that lay before him.

“Now, I know well that the Commissioners have had you before them; they are tiresome busybodies. Walsingham started all that and set them a-spying and a-defending of my person and the rest of it; but they are loyal folk, and I suppose they asked you where you had been and with whom you had stayed, and so on?”

“They did, your Grace.”

“And you would not tell them, I suppose?”

“I could not, madam; it would have been against justice and charity to do so.”

“Well, well, there is no need now, for I mean to take you out of their hands.”

A great leap of hope made itself felt in Anthony’s heart; he did not know how heavy the apprehension lay on him till this light shone through.

“They will be wrath with me, I know, and will tell me that they cannot defend me if I will not help them; but, when all is said, I am Queen. Now I do not ask you to be a minister of my Church, for that, I think, you would never be; but I think you would like to be near me—is it not so? And I wish you to have some post about the Court; I must see what it is to be.”

Anthony’s heart began to sink again as he watched the Queen’s face as she sat tapping a foot softly and looking on the floor as she talked. Those lines of self-will about the eyes and mouth surely meant something.

Then she looked up, still with her cheek on her right hand.

“You do not thank me, Mr. Norris.”

Anthony made a great effort; but he heard his own voice quiver a little.

“I thank your Grace for your kindly intentions toward me, with all my heart.”

The Queen seemed satisfied, and looked down again.

“As to the oath, I will not ask you to take it formally, if you will give me an assurance of your loyalty.”

“That, your Grace, I give most gladly.”

His heart was beating again in great irregular thumps in his throat; he had the sensation of swaying to and fro on the edge of a precipice, now towards safety and now towards death; it was the cruellest pain he had suffered yet. But how was it possible to have some post at Court without relinquishing the exercise of his priesthood? He must think it out; what did the Queen mean?

“And, of course, you will not be able to say mass again; but I shall not hinder your hearing it at the Ambassador’s whenever you please.”

Ah! it had come; his heart gave a leap and seemed to cease.

“Your Grace must forgive me, but I cannot consent.”

There was a dead silence; when Anthony looked up, she was staring at him with the frankest astonishment.

“Did you think, Mr. Norris, you could be at Court and say mass too whenever you wished?” Her voice rang harsh and shrill; her anger was rising.

“I was not sure what your Grace intended for me.”

“The fellow is mad,” she said, still staring at him. “Oh! take care, take care!”

“Your Grace knows I intend no insolence.”

“You mean to say, Mr. Norris, that you will not take a pardon and a post at Court on those terms?”

Anthony bowed; he could not trust himself to speak, so bitter was the reaction.

“But, see man, you fool; if you die as a traitor you will never say mass again either.”

“But that will not be with my consent, your Grace.”

“And you refuse the pardon?”

“On those terms, your Grace, I must.”

“Well——” and she was silent a moment, “you are a fool, sir.”

Anthony bowed again.

“But I like courage.—Well, then, you will not be my servant?”

“I have ever been that, your Grace; and ever will be.”

“Well, well,—but not at Court?”

“Ah! your Grace knows I cannot,” cried Anthony, and his voice rang sorrowfully.

Again there was silence.

“You must have your way, sir, for poor Minnie’s sake; but it passes my understanding what you mean by it. And let me tell you that not many have their way with me, rather than mine.”

Again hope leapt up in his heart. The Queen then was not so ungracious.

He looked up and smiled—and down again.

“Why, the man’s lips are all a-quiver. What ails him?”

“It is your Grace’s kindness.”

“I must say I marvel at it myself,” observed Elizabeth. “You near angered me just now; take care you do not so quite.”

“I would not willingly, as your Grace knows.”

“Then we will end this matter. You give me your assurance of loyalty to my person.”

“With all my heart, madam,” said Anthony eagerly.

“Then you must get to France within the week. The other too—Buxton—he loses his estate, but has his life. I am doing much for Minnie’s sake.”

“How can I thank your Grace?”

“And I will cause Sir Richard to give it out that you have taken the oath. Call him in.”

There was a quick gasp from the priest; and then he cried with agony in his voice:

“I cannot, your Grace, I cannot.”

“Cannot call Sir Richard! Why, you are mad, sir!”

“Cannot consent; I have taken no oath.”

“I know you have not. I do not ask it.”

Elizabeth’s voice came short and harsh; her patience was vanishing, and Anthony knew it and looked at her. She had dropped her hand, and it was clenching and unclenching on her knee. Her stick slipped on the polished boards and fell; but she paid it no attention. She was looking straight at the priest; her high eyebrows were coming down; her mouth was beginning to mumble a little; he could see in the clear sunlight that fell on her sideways through the tall window a thousand little wrinkles, and all seemed alive; the lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth deepened as he watched.

“What a-Christ’s name do you want, sir?”

It was like the first mutter of a storm on the horizon; but Anthony knew it must break. He did not answer.

“Tell me, sir; what is it now?”

Anthony drew a long breath and braced his will, but even as he spoke he knew he was pronouncing his own sentence.

“I cannot consent to leave the country and let it be given out that I had taken the oath, your Grace. It would be an apostasy from my faith.”

Elizabeth sprang to her feet without her stick, took one step forward, and gave Anthony a fierce blow on the cheek with her ringed hand. He recoiled a step at the shock of it, and stood waiting with his eyes on the ground. Then the Queen’s anger poured out in words. Her eyes burned with passion out of an ivory-coloured face, and her voice rang high and harsh, and her hands continually clenched and unclenched as she screamed at him.

“God’s Body! you are the ungratefullest hound that ever drew breath. I send for you to my presence, and talk and walk with you like a friend. I offer you a pardon and you fling it in my face. I offer you a post at Court and you mock it; you flaunt you in your treasonable livery in my very face, and laugh at my clemency. You think I am no Queen, but a weak woman whom you can turn and rule at your will. God’s Son! I will show you which is sovereign. Call Sir Richard in, sir; I will have him in this instant. Sir Richard, Sir Richard!” she screamed, stamping with fury.

The door into the ante-room behind opened, and Sir Richard Barkley appeared, with a face full of apprehension. He knelt at once.

“Stand up, Sir Richard,” she cried, “and look at this man. You know him, do you not? and I know him now, the insolent dog! But his own mother shall not in a week. Look at him shaking there, the knave; he will shake more before I have done with him. Take him back with you, Sir Richard, and let them have their will of him. His damned pride and insolence shall be broken. S’ Body, I have never been so treated! Take him out, Sir Richard, take him out, I tell you!”

CHAPTER XV

THE ROLLING OF THE STONE

It was a week later, and a little before dawn, that Isabel was kneeling by Anthony’s bed in his room in the Tower. The Lieutenant had sent for her to his lodging the evening before, and she had spent the whole night with her brother. He had been racked four times in one week, and was dying.

The city and the prison were very quiet now; the carts had not yet begun to roll over the cobble-stones and the last night-wanderers had gone home. He lay, on the mattress that she had sent in to him, in the corner of his cell under the window, on his back and very still, covered from chin to feet with her own fur-lined cloak that she had thrown over him; his head was on a low pillow, for he could not bear to lie high; his feet made a little mound under the coverlet, and his arms lay straight at his side; but all that could be seen of him was his face, pinched and white now with hollows in his cheeks and dark patches and lines beneath his closed eyes, and his soft pointed brown beard that just rested on the fur edging of Isabel’s cloak; his lips were drawn tight, but slightly parted, showing the rim of his white teeth, as if he snarled with pain.

The only furniture in the room was a single table and chair; the table was drawn up not far from the bed, and a book or two, with a flask of cordial and some fragments of food on a plate lay upon it; his cloak and doublet and ruff lay across the chair and his shoes below it, and a little linen lay in a pile in another corner; but the clothes in which he had been tortured the evening before, his shirt and hose, could not be taken off him and he lay in them still. They had been so soaked with sweat, that Isabel had found him shivering, and laid her cloak over him, and now he lay quiet and warm.

Earlier in the night she had been reading to him, and a taper still burned in a candlestick on the table; but for the last two hours he had lain either in a sleep or a swoon, and she had laid the book down and was watching him.

He was so motionless that he would have seemed dead except for the steady rise and fall of a fold in the mantle, and for a sudden muscular twitch every few minutes. Isabel herself was scarcely less motionless; her face was clear and pale as it always was, but perfectly serene, and even her lips did not quiver. She was kneeling and leaning back now, and her hands were clasped in her lap. There was a proud content in her face; her dear brother had not uttered one name on the rack except those of the Saviour and of the Blessed Mother. So the Lieutenant had told her.

Suddenly his eyes opened and there was nothing but peace in them; and his lips moved. Isabel leaned forward on her hands and bent her ear to his mouth till his breath was warm on it, and she could hear the whisper....

Then she opened the book that lay face down on the table and began to read on, from the point at which she had laid it down two hours before.

“‘Erat autem hora tertia: et crucifixerunt eum. And it was the third hour and they crucified him ... And with him they crucify two thieves, the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.’”

Her voice was slow and steady as she read the unfamiliar Latin, still kneeling, with the book a little raised to catch the candlelight, and her grave tranquil eyes bent upon it. Only once did her voice falter, and then she commanded it again immediately; and that, as she read “Erant autem et mulieres de longe aspicientes.” “There were also women looking on afar off.”

And so the tale crept on, minute by minute, and the priest lay with closed eyes to hear it; until the mocking was complete, and the darkness of the sixth hour had come and gone, and the Saviour had cried aloud on His Father, and given up the ghost; and the centurion that stood by had borne witness. And the great Criminal slept in the garden, in the sepulchre “wherein was never man yet laid.”

There was a listening silence as the voice ceased without another falter. Isabel laid the book down and looked at him again; and his eyes opened languidly.

He had not yet said more than single words, and even now his voice was so faint that she had to put her ear close to his mouth. It seemed to her that his soul had gone into some inner secret chamber of profound peace, so deep that it was a long and difficult task to send a thought to the surface through his lips.

She could just hear him, and she answered clearly and slowly as to a dazed child, pausing between every word.

“I cannot get a priest; it is not allowed.”

Still his eyes bent on her; what was it he said? what was it?...

Then she heard, and began to repeat short acts of contrition clearly and distinctly, pausing between the phrases, in English, and his eyes closed as she began:

“O my Jesus—I am heartily sorry—that I have—crucified thee—by my sins—Wash my soul—in Thy Precious Blood. O my God—I am sorry—that I have—displeased Thee—because thou art All-good. I hate all the sins—that I have done—against Thy Divine Majesty.”

And so phrase after phrase she went on, giving him time to hear and to make an inner assent of the will; and repeating also other short vocal prayers that she knew by heart. And so the delicate skein of prayer rose from the altar where this morning sacrifice lay before God, waiting the consummation of His acceptance.

Presently she ended, and he lay again with closed eyes and mute face. Then again they opened, and she bent down to listen....

“It will all be well with me,” she answered, raising her head again. “Mistress Margaret has written from Brussels. I shall go there for a while.... Yes, Mr. Buxton will take me; next week: he goes to Normandy, to his estate.”

Again his lips moved and she listened....

A faint flush came over her face. She shook her head.

“I do not know; I think not. I hope to enter Religion.... No, I have not yet determined.... The Dower House?... Yes, I will sell it.... Yes, to Hubert, if he wishes it.”

Every word he whispered was such an effort that she had to pause again and again before he could make her understand; and often she judged more by the movement of his lips than by any sound that came from him. Now and then too she lifted her handkerchief, soaked in a strong violet scent, and passed it over his forehead and lips. She motioned with the flask of cordial once or twice, but his eyes closed for a negative.

As she knelt and watched him, her thoughts circled continually in little flights; to the walled garden of the Dower House in sunshine, and Anthony running across it in his brown suit, with the wallflowers behind him against the old red bricks and ivy, and the tall chestnut rising behind; to the wind-swept hills, with the thistles and the golden-rod, and the hazel thickets, and Anthony on his pony, sunburnt and voluble, hawk on wrist, with a light in his eyes; to the warm panelled hall in winter, with the tapers on the round table, and Anthony flat on his face, with his feet in the air before the hearth, that glowed and roared up the wide chimney behind, and his chin on his hands, and a book open before him; or, farther back even still, to Anthony’s little room at the top of the house, his clothes on a chair, and the boy himself sitting up in bed with his arms round his knees as she came in to wish him good-night and talk to him a minute or two. And every time the circling thought came home and settled again on the sight of that still straight figure lying on the mattress, against the discoloured bricks, with the light of the taper glimmering on his thin face and brown hair and beard; and every time her heart consented that this was the best of all.

A bird chirped suddenly from some hole in the Tower, once, and then three or four times; she glanced up at the window and the light of dawn was beginning. Then, as the minutes went by, the city began to stir itself from sleep. There came a hollow whine from the Lion-gate fifty yards away; up from the river came the shout of a waterman; two or three times a late cock crew; and still the light crept on and broadened. But Anthony still lay with his eyes closed.

At last over the cobbles outside a cart rattled, turned a corner and was silent. Anthony had opened his eyes now and was looking at her again; and again she bent down to listen; ... and then opened and read again.

“‘Et cum transisset sabbatum Maria Magdalene et Maria Jacobi et Salome emerunt aromata, ut venientes ungerent Jesum.’

“‘And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome, had bought sweet spices that they might come and anoint him.’”

A slight sound made her look up. Anthony’s eyes were kindling and his lips moved; she bent again and listened.... What was it he said?...

Yes, it was so, and she smiled and nodded at him: she was reading the Gospel for Easter Day, the Gospel of the first mass that they had heard together on that spring morning at Great Keynes, when their Lord had led them so far round by separate paths to meet one another at His altar. And now they were met again here. She read on:

“‘Et valde mane una sabbatorum, veniunt ad monumentum, orto jam sole.’

“‘Very early they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun; and they said among themselves, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away, for it was very great.’...

“‘... magnus valde,’” read Isabel; and looked up again;—and then closed the book. There was no need to read more.

She walked across the court half an hour later, just as the sun came up; and passed out through the Lieutenant’s lodging, and out by the narrow bridge on to the Tower wharf.

To the left and behind her, as she looked eastwards down the river, lay the heavy masses of the prison she had left, and the high walls and turrets were gilded with glory. The broad river itself was one rolling glory too; the tide was coming in swift and strong and a barge or two moved upwards, only half seen in the bewildering path of the sun. The air was cool and keen, and a breeze from the water stirred Isabel’s hair as she stood looking, with the light on her face. It was a cloudless October morning overhead. Even as she stood a flock of pigeons streamed across from the south side, swift-flying and bathed in light; and her eyes followed them a moment or two.

As she stood there silent, a step came up the wharf from the direction of St. Katharine’s street, and a man came walking quickly towards her. He did not see who she was until he was close, and then he started and took off his hat; it was Lackington on his way to some business at the Tower; but she did not seem to see him. She turned almost immediately and began to walk westwards, and the glory in her eyes was supreme. And as she went the day deepened above her.

COME RACK!

COME ROPE!

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

AUTHOR OF "BY WHAT AUTHORITY?" "THE KING'S ACHIEVEMENT," "LORD OF THE WORLD," ETC.

NEW YORK

P.J. KENEDY & SONS

CONTENTS

COME RACK! COME ROPE!

PREFACE

PART I

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

CHAPTER VI

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER VII

I

II

III

CHAPTER VIII

I

II

III

CHAPTER IX

I

II

III

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

II

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER VI

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER VII

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER VIII

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER IX

I

II

III

CHAPTER X

I

II

III

IV

PART III

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER III

I

II

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

CHAPTER VI

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER VII

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

CHAPTER VIII

I

II

III

PART IV

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

CHAPTER II

I

II

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER VI

I

II

CHAPTER VII

I

II

III

CHAPTER VIII

I

II

CHAPTER IX

I

III

VI

THE END

COME RACK! COME ROPE!

PREFACE

Very nearly the whole of this book is sober historical fact; and by far the greater number of the personages named in it once lived and acted in the manner in which I have presented them. My hero and my heroine are fictitious; so also are the parents of my heroine, the father of my hero, one lawyer, one woman, two servants, a farmer and his wife, the landlord of an inn, and a few other entirely negligible characters. But the family of the FitzHerberts passed precisely through the fortunes which I have described; they had their confessors and their one traitor (as I have said). Mr. Anthony Babington plotted, and fell, in the manner that is related; Mary languished in Chartley under Sir Amyas Paulet; was assisted by Mr. Bourgoign; was betrayed by her secretary and Mr. Gifford, and died at Fotheringay; Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Simpson received their vocations, passed through their adventures; were captured at Padley, and died in Derby. Father Campion (from whose speech after torture the title of the book is taken) suffered on the rack and was executed at Tyburn. Mr. Topcliffe tormented the Catholics that fell into his hands; plotted with Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert, and bargained for Padley (which he subsequently lost again) on the terms here drawn out. My Lord Shrewsbury rode about Derbyshire, directed the search for recusants and presided at their deaths; priests of all kinds came and went in disguise; Mr. Owen went about constructing hiding-holes; Mr. Bassett lived defiantly at Langleys, and dabbled a little (I am afraid) in occultism; Mr. Fenton was often to be found in Hathersage—all these things took place as nearly as I have had the power of relating them. Two localities only, I think, are disguised under their names—Booth’s Edge and Matstead. Padley, or rather the chapel in which the last mass was said under the circumstances described in this book, remains, to this day, close to Grindleford Station. A Catholic pilgrimage is made there every year; and I have myself once had the honour of preaching on such an occasion, leaning against the wall of the old hall that is immediately beneath the chapel where Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam said their last masses, and were captured. If the book is too sensational, it is no more sensational than life itself was to Derbyshire folk between 1579 and 1588.

It remains only, first, to express my extreme indebtedness to Dom Bede Camm’s erudite book—”Forgotten Shrines”—from which I have taken immense quantities of information, and to a pile of some twenty to thirty other books that are before me as I write these words; and, secondly, to ask forgiveness from the distinguished family that takes its name from the FitzHerberts and is descended from them directly; and to assure its members that old Sir Thomas, Mr. John, Mr. Anthony, and all the rest, down to the present day, outweigh a thousand times over (to the minds of all decent people) the stigma of Mr. Thomas’ name. Even the apostles numbered one Judas!

ROBERT HUGH BENSON.

Feast of the Blessed Thomas More, 1912. Hare Street House, Buntingford.

PART I

CHAPTER I

I

There should be no sight more happy than a young man riding to meet his love. His eyes should shine, his lips should sing; he should slap his mare upon her shoulder and call her his darling. The puddles upon his way should be turned to pure gold, and the stream that runs beside him should chatter her name.

Yet, as Robin rode to Marjorie none of these things were done. It was a still day of frost; the sky was arched above him, across the high hills, like that terrible crystal which is the vault above which sits God—hard blue from horizon to horizon; the fringe of feathery birches stood like filigree-work above him on his left; on his right ran the Derwent, sucking softly among his sedges; on this side and that lay the flat bottom through which he went—meadowland broken by rushes; his mare Cecily stepped along, now cracking the thin ice of the little pools with her dainty feet, now going gently over peaty ground, blowing thin clouds from her red nostrils, yet unencouraged by word or caress from her rider; who sat, heavy and all but slouching, staring with his blue eyes under puckered eyelids, as if he went to an appointment which he would not keep.

Yet he was a very pleasant lad to look upon, smooth-faced and gallant, mounted and dressed in a manner that should give any lad joy. He wore great gauntlets on his hands; he was in his habit of green; he had his steel-buckled leather belt upon him beneath his cloak and a pair of daggers in it, with his long-sword looped up; he had his felt hat on his head, buckled again, and decked with half a pheasant’s tail; he had his long boots of undressed leather, that rose above his knees; and on his left wrist sat his grim falcon Agnes, hooded and belled, not because he rode after game, but from mere custom, and to give her the air.

He was meeting his first man’s trouble.

Last year he had said good-bye to Derby Grammar School—of old my lord Bishop Durdant’s foundation—situated in St. Peter’s churchyard. Here he had done the right and usual things; he had learned his grammar; he had fought; he had been chastised; he had robed the effigy of his pious founder in a patched doublet with a saucepan on his head (but that had been done before he had learned veneration)—and so had gone home again to Matstead, proficient in Latin, English, history, writing, good manners and chess, to live with his father, to hunt, to hear mass when a priest was within reasonable distance, to indite painful letters now and then on matters of the estate, and to learn how to bear himself generally as should one of Master’s rank—the son of a gentleman who bore arms, and his father’s father before him. He dined at twelve, he supped at six, he said his prayers, and blessed himself when no strangers were by. He was something of a herbalist, as a sheer hobby of his own; he went to feed his falcons in the morning, he rode with them after dinner (from last August he had found himself riding north more often than south, since Marjorie lived in that quarter); and now all had been crowned last Christmas Eve, when in the enclosed garden at her house he had kissed her two hands suddenly, and made her a little speech he had learned by heart; after which he kissed her on the lips as a man should, in the honest noon sunlight.

All this was as it should be. There were no doubts or disasters anywhere. Marjorie was an only daughter as he an only son. Her father, it is true, was but a Derby lawyer, but he and his wife had a good little estate above the Hathersage valley, and a stone house in it. As for religion, that was all well too. Master Manners was as good a Catholic as Master Audrey himself; and the families met at mass perhaps as much as four or five times in the year, either at Padley, where Sir Thomas’ chapel still had priests coming and going; sometimes at Dethick in the Babingtons’ barn; sometimes as far north as Harewood.

And now a man’s trouble was come upon the boy. The cause of it was as follows.

Robin Audrey was no more religious than a boy of seventeen should be. Yet he had had as few doubts about the matter as if he had been a monk. His mother had taught him well, up to the time of her death ten years ago; and he had learned from her, as well as from his father when that professor spoke of it at all, that there were two kinds of religion in the world, the true and the false—that is to say, the Catholic religion and the other one. Certainly there were shades of differences in the other one; the Turk did not believe precisely as the ancient Roman, nor yet as the modern Protestant—yet these distinctions were subtle and negligible; they were all swallowed up in an unity of falsehood. Next he had learned that the Catholic religion was at present blown upon by many persons in high position; that pains and penalties lay upon all who adhered to it. Sir Thomas FitzHerbert, for instance, lay now in the Fleet in London on that very account. His own father, too, three or four times in the year, was under necessity of paying over heavy sums for the privilege of not attending Protestant worship; and, indeed, had been forced last year to sell a piece of land over on Lees Moor for this very purpose. Priests came and went at their peril…. He himself had fought two or three battles over the affair in St. Peter’s churchyard, until he had learned to hold his tongue. But all this was just part of the game. It seemed to him as inevitable and eternal as the changes of the weather. Matstead Church, he knew, had once been Catholic; but how long ago he did not care to inquire. He only knew that for awhile there had been some doubt on the matter; and that before Mr. Barton’s time, who was now minister there, there had been a proper priest in the place, who had read English prayers there and a sort of a mass, which he had attended as a little boy. Then this had ceased; the priest had gone and Mr. Barton come, and since that time he had never been to church there, but had heard the real mass wherever he could with a certain secrecy. And there might be further perils in future, as there might be thunderstorms or floods. There was still the memory of the descent of the Commissioners a year or two after his birth; he had been brought up on the stories of riding and counter-riding, and the hiding away of altar-plate and beads and vestments. But all this was in his bones and blood; it was as natural that professors of the false religion should seek to injure and distress professors of the true, as that the foxes should attack the poultry-yard. One took one’s precautions, one hoped for the best; and one was quite sure that one day the happy ancient times his mother had told him of would come back, and Christ’s cause be vindicated.

And now the foundations of the earth were moved and heaven reeled above him; for his father, after a month or two of brooding, had announced, on St. Stephen’s Day, that he could tolerate it no longer; that God’s demands were unreasonable; that, after all, the Protestant religion was the religion of her Grace, that men must learn to move with the times, and that he had paid his last fine. At Easter, he observed, he would take the bread and wine in Matstead Church, and Robin would take them too.

II

The sun stood half-way towards his setting as Robin rode up from the valley, past Padley, over the steep ascent that led towards Booth’s Edge. The boy was brighter a little as he came up; he had counted above eighty snipe within the last mile and a half, and he was coming near to Marjorie. About him, rising higher as he rose, stood the great low-backed hills. Cecily stepped out more sharply, snuffing delicately, for she knew her way well enough by now, and looked for a feed; and the boy’s perplexities stood off from him a little. Matters must surely be better so soon as Marjorie’s clear eyes looked upon them.

Then the roofs of Padley disappeared behind him, and he saw the smoke going up from the little timbered Hall, standing back against its bare wind-blown trees.

A great clatter and din of barking broke out as the mare’s hoofs sounded on the half-paved space before the great door; and then, in the pause, a gaggling of geese, solemn and earnest, from out of sight. Jacob led the outcry, a great mastiff, chained by the entrance, of the breed of which three are set to meet a bear and four a lion. Then two harriers whipped round the corner, and a terrier’s head showed itself over the wall of the herb-garden on the left, as a man, bareheaded, in his shirt and breeches, ran out suddenly with a thonged whip, in time to meet a pair of spaniels in full career. Robin sat his horse silently till peace was restored, his right leg flung across the pommel, untwisting Agnes’ leash from his fist. Then he asked for Mistress Marjorie, and dropped to the ground, leaving his mare and falcon in the man’s hands, with an air.

He flicked his fingers to growling Jacob as he went past to the side entrance on the east, stepped in through the little door that was beside the great one, and passed on as he had been bidden into the little court, turned to the left, went up an outside staircase, and so down a little passage to the ladies’ parlour, where he knocked upon the door. The voice he knew called to him from within; and he went in, smiling to himself. Then he took the girl who awaited him there in both his arms, and kissed her twice—first her hands and then her lips, for respect should come first and ardour second.

“My love,” said Robin, and threw off his hat with the pheasant’s tail, for coolness’ sake.

It was a sweet room this which he already knew by heart; for it was here that he had sat with Marjorie and her mother, silent and confused, evening after evening, last autumn; it was here, too, that she had led him last Christmas Eve, scarcely ten days ago, after he had kissed her in the enclosed garden. But the low frosty sunlight lay in it now, upon the blue painted wainscot that rose half up the walls, the tall presses where the linen lay, the pieces of stuff, embroidered with pale lutes and wreaths that Mistress Manners had bought in Derby, hanging now over the plaster spaces. There was a chimney, too, newly built, that was thought a great luxury; and in it burned an armful of logs, for the girl was setting out new linen for the household, and the scents of lavender and burning wood disputed the air between them.

“I thought it would be you,” she said, “when I heard the dogs.”

She piled the last rolls of linen in an ordered heap, and came to sit beside him. Robin took one hand in his and sat silent.

She was of an age with him, perhaps a month the younger; and, as it ought to be, was his very contrary in all respects. Where he was fair, she was pale and dark; his eyes were blue, hers black; he was lusty and showed promise of broadness, she was slender.

“And what news do you bring with you now?” she said presently.

He evaded this.

“Mistress Manners?” he asked.

“Mother has a megrim,” she said; “she is in her chamber.” And she smiled at him again. For these two, as is the custom of young persons who love one another, had said not a word on either side—neither he to his father nor she to her parents. They believed, as young persons do, that parents who bring children into the world, hold it as a chief danger that these children should follow their example, and themselves be married. Besides, there is something delicious in secrecy.

“Then I will kiss you again,” he said, “while there is opportunity.”

Making love is a very good way to pass the time, above all when that same time presses and other disconcerting things should be spoken of instead; and this device Robin now learned. He spoke of a hundred things that were of no importance: of the dress that she wore—russet, as it should be, for country girls, with the loose sleeves folded back above her elbows that she might handle the linen; her apron of coarse linen, her steel-buckled shoes. He told her that he loved her better in that than in her costume of state—the ruff, the fardingale, the brocaded petticoat, and all the rest—in which he had seen her once last summer at Babington House. He talked then, when she would hear no more of that, of Tuesday seven-night, when they would meet for hawking in the lower chase of the Padley estates; and proceeded then to speak of Agnes, whom he had left on the fist of the man who had taken his mare, of her increasing infirmities and her crimes of crabbing; and all the while he held her left hand in both of his, and fitted her fingers between his, and kissed them again when he had no more to say on any one point; and wondered why he could not speak of the matter on which he had come, and how he should tell her. And then at last she drew it from him.

“And now, my Robin,” she said, “tell me what you have in your mind. You have talked of this and that and Agnes and Jock, and Padley chase, and you have not once looked me in the eyes since you first came in.”

Now it was not shame that had held him from telling her, but rather a kind of bewilderment. The affair might hold shame, indeed, or anger, or sorrow, or complacence, but he did not know; and he wished, as young men of decent birth should wish, to present the proper emotion on its right occasion. He had pondered on the matter continually since his father had spoken to him on Saint Stephen’s night; and at one time it seemed that his father was acting the part of a traitor and at another of a philosopher. If it were indeed true, after all, that all men were turning Protestant, and that there was not so much difference between the two religions, then it would be the act of a wise man to turn Protestant too, if only for a while. And on the other hand his pride of birth and his education by his mother and his practice ever since drew him hard the other way. He was in a strait between the two. He did not know what to think, and he feared what Marjorie might think.

It was this, then, that had held him silent. He feared what Marjorie might think, for that was the very thing that he thought that he thought too, and he foresaw a hundred inconveniences and troubles if it were so.

“How did you know I had anything in my mind?” he asked. “Is it not enough reason for my coming that you should be here?”

She laughed softly, with a pleasant scornfulness.

“I read you like a printed book,” she said. “What else are women’s wits given them for?”

He fell to stroking her hand again at that, but she drew it away.

“Not until you have told me,” she said.

So then he told her.

It was a long tale, for it began as far ago as last August, when his father had come back from giving evidence before the justices at Derby on a matter of witchcraft, and had been questioned again about his religion. It was then that Robin had seen moodiness succeed to anger, and long silence to moodiness. He told the tale with a true lover’s art, for he watched her face and trained his tone and his manner as he saw her thoughts come and go in her eyes and lips, like gusts of wind across standing corn; and at last he told her outright what his father had said to him on St. Stephen’s night, and how he himself had kept silence.

Marjorie’s face was as white as a moth’s wing when he was finishing, and her eyes like sunset pools; but she flamed up bright and rosy as he finished.

“You kept silence!” she cried.

“I did not wish to anger him, my dear; he is my father,” he said gently.

The colour died out of her face again and she nodded once or twice, and a great pensiveness came down on her. He took her hand again softly, and she did not resist.

“The only doubt,” she said presently, as if she talked to herself, “is whether you had best be gone at Easter, or stay and face it out.”

“Yes,” said Robin, with his dismay come fully to the birth.

Then she turned on him, full of a sudden tenderness and compassion.

“Oh! my Robin,” she cried, “and I have not said a word about you and your own misery. I was thinking but of Christ’s honour. You must forgive me…. What must it be for you!… That it should be your father! You are sure that he means it?”

“My father does not speak until he means it. He is always like that. He asks counsel from no one. He thinks and he thinks, and then he speaks; and it is finished.”

She fell then to thinking again, her sweet lips compressed together, and her eyes frightened and wondering, searching round the hanging above the chimney-breast. (It presented Icarus in the chariot of the sun; and it was said in Derby that it had come from my lord Abbot’s lodging at Bolton.)

Meantime Robin thought too. He was as wax in the hands of this girl, and knew it, and loved that it should be so. Yet he could not help his dismay while he waited for her seal to come down on him and stamp him to her model. For he foresaw more clearly than ever now the hundred inconveniences that must follow, now that it was evident that to Marjorie’s mind (and therefore to God Almighty’s) there must be no tampering with the old religion. He had known that it must be so; yet he had thought, on the way here, of a dozen families he knew who, in his own memory, had changed from allegiance to the Pope of Rome to that of her Grace, without seeming one penny the worse. There were the Martins, down there in Derby; the Squire and his lady of Ashenden Hall; the Conways of Matlock; and the rest—these had all changed; and though he did not respect them for it, yet the truth was that they were not yet stricken by thunderbolts or eaten by the plague. He had wondered whether there were not a way to do as they had done, yet without the disgrace of it…. However, this was plainly not to be so with him. He must put up with the inconveniences as well as he could, and he just waited to hear from Marjorie how this must be done.

She turned to him again at last. Twice her lips opened to speak, and twice she closed them again. Robin continued to stroke her hand and wait for judgment. The third time she spoke.

“I think you must go away,” she said, “for Easter. Tell your father that you cannot change your religion simply because he tells you so. I do not see what else is to be done. He will think, perhaps, that if you have a little time to think you will come over to him. Well, that is not so, but it may make it easier for him to believe it for a while…. You must go somewhere where there is a priest…. Where can you go?”

Robin considered.

“I could go to Dethick,” he said.

“That is not far enough away, I think.”

“I could come here,” he suggested artfully.

A smile lit in her eyes, shone in her mouth, and passed again into seriousness.

“That is scarcely a mile further,” she said. “We must think…. Will he be very angry, Robin?”

Robin smiled grimly.

“I have never withstood him in a great affair,” he said. “He is angry enough over little things.”

“Poor Robin!”

“Oh! he is not unjust to me. He is a good father to me.”

“That makes it all the sadder,” she said.

“And there is no other way?” he asked presently.

She glanced at him.

“Unless you would withstand him to the face. Would you do that, Robin?”

“I will do anything you tell me,” he said simply.

“You darling!… Well, Robin, listen to me. It is very plain that sooner or later you will have to withstand him. You cannot go away every time there is communion at Matstead, or, indeed, every Sunday. Your father would have to pay the fines for you, I have no doubt, unless you went away altogether. But I think you had better go away for this time. He will almost expect it, I think. At first he will think that you will yield to him; and then, little by little (unless God’s grace brings himself back to the Faith), he will learn to understand that you will not. But it will be easier for him that way; and he will have time to think what to do with you, too…. Robin, what would you do if you went away?”

Robin considered again.

“I can read and write,” he said. “I am a Latinist: I can train falcons and hounds and break horses. I do not know if there is anything else that I can do.”

“You darling!” she said again.

These two, as will have been seen, were as simple as children, and as serious. Children are not gay and light-hearted, except now and then (just as men and women are not serious except now and then). They are grave and considering: all that they lack is experience. These two, then, were real children; they were grave and serious because a great thing had disclosed itself to them in which two or three large principles were present, and no more. There was that love of one another, whose consummation seemed imperilled, for how could these two ever wed if Robin were to quarrel with his father? There was the Religion which was in their bones and blood—the Religion for which already they had suffered and their fathers before them. There was the honour and loyalty which this new and more personal suffering demanded now louder than ever; and in Marjorie at least, as will be seen more plainly later, there was a strong love of Jesus Christ and His Mother, whom she knew, from her hidden crucifix and her beads, and her Jesus Psalter—which she used every day—as well as in her own soul—to be wandering together once more among the hills of Derbyshire, sheltering, at peril of Their lives, in stables and barns and little secret chambers, because there was no room for Them in Their own places. It was this last consideration, as Robin had begun to guess, that stood strongest in the girl; it was this, too, as again he had begun to guess, that made her all that she was to him, that gave her that strange serious air of innocency and sweetness, and drew from him a love that was nine-tenths reverence and adoration. (He always kissed her hands first, it will be remembered, before her lips.)

So then they sat and considered and talked. They did not speak much of her Grace, nor of her Grace’s religion, nor of her counsellors and affairs of state: these things were but toys and vanities compared with matters of love and faith; neither did they speak much of the Commissioners that had been to Derbyshire once and would come again, or of the alarms and the dangers and the priest hunters, since those things did not at present touch them very closely. It was rather of Robin’s father, and whether and when the maid should tell her parents, and how this new trouble would conflict with their love. They spoke, that is to say, of their own business and of God’s; and of nothing else. The frosty sunshine crept down the painted wainscot and lay at last at their feet, reddening to rosiness….

III

Robin rode away at last with a very clear idea of what he was to do in the immediate present, and with no idea at all of what was to be done later. Marjorie had given him three things—advice; a pair of beads that had been the property of Mr. Cuthbert Maine, seminary priest, recently executed in Cornwall for his religion; and a kiss—the first deliberate, free-will kiss she had ever given him. The first he was to keep, the second he was to return, the third he was to remember; and these three things, or, rather, his consideration of them, worked upon him as he went. Her advice, besides that which has been described, was, principally, to say his Jesus Psalter more punctually, to hear mass whenever that were possible, to trust in God, and to be patient and submissive with his father in all things that did not touch divine love and faith. The pair of beads that were once Mr. Maine’s, he was to keep upon him always, day and night, and to use them for his devotions. The kiss—well, he was to remember this, and to return it to her upon their next meeting.

A great star came out as he drew near home. His path took him not through the village, but behind it, near enough for him to hear the barkings of the dogs and to smell upon the frosty air the scent of the wood fires. The house was a great one for these parts. There was a small gate-house before it, built by his father for dignity, with a lodge on either side and an arch in the middle, and beyond this lay the short road, straight and broad, that went up to the court of the house. This court was, on three sides of it, buildings; the hall and the buttery and the living-rooms in the midst, with the stables and falconry on the left, and the servants’ lodgings on the right; the fourth side, that which lay opposite to the little gate-house, was a wall, with a great double gate in it, hung on stone posts that had, each of them, a great stone dog that held a blank shield. All this later part, the wall with the gate, the stables and the servants’ lodgings, as well as the gatehouse without, had been built by the lad’s father twenty years ago, to bring home his wife to; for, until that time, the house had been but a little place, though built of stone, and solid and good enough. The house stood half-way up the rise of the hill, above the village, with woods about it and behind it; and it was above these woods behind that the great star came out like a diamond in enamel-work; and Robin looked at it, and fell to thinking of Marjorie again, putting all other thoughts away. Then, as he rode through into the court on to the cobbled stones, a man ran out from the stable to take his mare from him.

“Master Babington is here,” he said. “He came half an hour ago.”

“He is in the hall?”

“Yes, sir; they are at supper.”

The hall at Matstead was such as that of most esquires of means. Its daïs was to the south end, and the buttery entrance and the screens to the north, through which came the servers with the meat. In the midst of the floor stood the reredos with the fire against it, and a round vent overhead in the roof through which went the smoke and came the rain. The tables stood down the hall, one on either side, with the master’s table at the daïs end set cross-ways. It was not a great hall, though that was its name; it ran perhaps forty feet by twenty. It was lighted, not only by the fire that burned there through the winter day and night, but by eight torches in cressets that hung against the walls and sadly smoked them; and the master’s table was lighted by six candles, of latten on common days and of silver upon festivals.

There were but two at the master’s table this evening, Mr. Audrey himself, a smallish, high-shouldered man, ruddy-faced, with bright blue eyes like his son’s, and no hair upon his face (for this was the way of old men then, in the country, at least); and Mr. Anthony Babington, a young man scarcely a year older than Robin himself, of a brown complexion and a high look in his face, but a little pale, too, with study, for he was learned beyond his years and read all the books that he could lay hand to. It was said even that his own verses, and a prose-lament he had written upon the Death of a Hound, were read with pleasure in London by the lords and gentlemen. It was as long ago as ‘71, that his verses had first become known, when he was still serving in the school of good manners as page in my Lord Shrewsbury’s household. They were considered remarkable for so young a boy. So it was to this company that Robin came, walking up between the tables after he had washed his hands at the lavatory that stood by the screens.

“You are late, lad,” said his father.

“I was over to Padley, sir…. Good-day, Anthony.”

Then silence fell again, for it was the custom in good houses to keep silence, or very nearly, at dinner and supper. At times music would play, if there was music to be had; or a scholar would read from a book for awhile at the beginning, from the holy gospels in devout households, or from some other grave book. But if there were neither music nor reading, all would hold their tongues.

Robin was hungry from his riding and the keen air; and he ate well. First he stayed his appetite a little with a hunch of cheat-bread, and a glass of pomage, while the servant was bringing him his entry of eggs cooked with parsley. Then he ate this; and next came half a wild-duck cooked with sage and sweet potatoes; and last of all a florentine which he ate with a cup of Canarian. He ate heartily and quickly, while the two waited for him and nibbled at marchpane. Then, when the doors were flung open and the troop of servants came in to their supper, Mr. Audrey blessed himself, and for them, too; and they went out by a door behind into the wainscoted parlour, where the new stove from London stood, and where the conserves and muscadel awaited them. For this, or like it, had been the procedure in Matstead hall ever since Robin could remember, when first he had come from the women to eat his food with the men.

“And how were all at Booth’s Edge?” asked Mr. Audrey, when all had pulled off their boots in country fashion, and were sitting each with his glass beside him. (Through the door behind came the clamour of the farm-men and the keepers of the chase and the servants, over their food.)

“I saw Marjorie only, sir,” said the boy. “Mr. Manners was in Derby, and

Mrs. Manners had a megrim.”

“Mrs. Manners is ageing swifter than her husband,” observed Anthony.

There seemed a constraint upon the company this evening. Robin spoke of his ride, of things which he had seen upon it, of a wood that should be thinned next year; and Anthony made a quip or two such as he was accustomed to make; but the master sat silent for the most part, speaking to the lads once or twice for civility’s sake, but no more. And presently silences began to fall, that were very unusual things in Mr. Anthony’s company, for he had a quick and a gay wit, and talked enough for five. Robin knew very well what was the matter; it was what lay upon his own heart as heavy as lead; but he was sorry that the signs of it should be so evident, and wondered what he should say to his friend Anthony when the time came for telling; since Anthony was as ardent for the old Faith as any in the land. It was a bitter time, this, for the old families that served God as their fathers had, and desired to serve their prince too; for, now and again, the rumour would go abroad that another house had fallen, and another name gone from the old roll. And what would Anthony Babington say, thought the lad, when he heard that Mr. Audrey, who had been so hot and persevered so long, must be added to these?

And then, on a sudden, Anthony himself opened on a matter that was at least cognate.

“I was hearing to-day from Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert that his uncle would be let out again of the Fleet soon to collect his fines.”

He spoke bitterly; and, indeed, there was reason; for not only were the recusants (as the Catholics were named) put in prison for their faith, but fined for it as well, and let out of prison to raise money for this, by selling their farms or estates.

“He will go to Norbury?” asked Robin.

“He will come to Padley, too, it is thought. Her Grace must have her money for her ships and her men, and for her pursuivants to catch us all with; and it is we that must pay. Shall you sell again this year, sir?”

Mr. Audrey shook his head, pursing up his lips and staring upon the fire.

“I can sell no more,” he said.

Then an agony seized upon Robin lest his father should say all that was in his mind. He knew it must be said; yet he feared its saying, and with a quick wit he spoke of that which he knew would divert his friend.

“And the Queen of the Scots,” he said. “Have you heard more of her?”

Now Anthony Babington was one of those spirits that live largely within themselves, and therefore see that which is without through a haze or mist of their own moods. He read much in the poets; you would say that Vergil and Ovid, as well as the poets of his own day, were his friends; he lived within, surrounded by his own images, and therefore he loved and hated with ten times the ardour of a common man. He was furious for the Old Faith, furious against the new; he dreamed of wars and gallantry and splendour; you could see it even in his dress, in his furred doublet, the embroideries at his throat, his silver-hilted rapier, as well as in his port and countenance: and the burning heart of all his images, the mirror on earth of Mary in heaven, the emblem of his piety, the mistress of his dreams—she who embodied for him what the courtiers in London protested that Elizabeth embodied for them—the pearl of great price, the one among ten thousand—this, for him, was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, now prisoner in her cousin’s hands, going to and fro from house to house, with a guard about her, yet with all the seeming of liberty and none of its reality….

The rough bitterness died out of the boy’s face, and a look came upon it as of one who sees a vision.

“Queen Mary?” he said, as if he pronounced the name of the Mother of

God. “Yes; I have heard of her…. She is in Norfolk, I think.”

Then he let flow out of him the stream that always ran in his heart like sorrowful music ever since the day when first, as a page, in my Lord Shrewsbury’s house in Sheffield, he had set eyes on that queen of sorrows. Then, again, upon the occasion of his journey to Paris, he had met with Mr. Morgan, her servant, and the Bishop of Glasgow, her friend, whose talk had excited and inspired him. He had learned from them something more of her glories and beauties, and remembering what he had seen of her, adored her the more. He leaned back now, shading his eyes from the candles upon the table, and began to sing his love and his queen. He told of new insults that had been put upon her, new deprivations of what was left to her of liberty; he did not speak now of Elizabeth by name, since a fountain, even of talk, should not give out at once sweet water and bitter; but he spoke of the day when Mary should come herself to the throne of England, and take that which was already hers; when the night should roll away, and the morning-star arise; and the Faith should come again like the flowing tide, and all things be again as they had been from the beginning. It was rank treason that he talked, such as would have brought him to Tyburn if it had been spoken in London in indiscreet company; it was that treason which her Grace herself had made possible by her faithlessness to God and man; such treason as God Himself must have mercy upon, since He reads all hearts and their intentions. The others kept silence.

At the end he stood up. Then he stooped for his boots.

“I must be riding, sir,” he said.

Mr. Audrey raised his hand to the latten bell that stood beside him on the table.

“I will take Anthony to his horse,” said Robin suddenly, for a thought had come to him.

“Then good-night, sir,” said Anthony, as he drew on his second boot and stood up.

The sky was all ablaze with stars now as they came out into the court. On their right shone the high windows of the little hall where peace now reigned, except for the clatter of the boys who took away the dishes; and the night was very still about them in the grip of the frost, for the village went early to bed, and even the dogs were asleep.

Robin said nothing as they went over the paving, for his determination was not yet ripe, and Anthony was still aglow with his own talk. Then, as the servant who waited for his master, with the horses, showed himself in the stable-arch with a lantern, Robin’s mind was made up.

“I have something to tell you,” he said softly. “Tell your man to wait.”

“Eh?”

“Tell your man to wait with the horses.”

His heart beat hot and thick in his throat as he led the way through the screens and out beyond the hall and down the steps again into the pleasaunce. Anthony took him by the sleeve once or twice, but he said nothing, and went on across the grass, and out through the open iron gate that gave upon the woods. He dared not say what he had to say within the precincts of the house, for fear he should be overheard and the shame known before its time. Then, when they had gone a little way into the wood, into the dark out of the starlight, Robin turned; and, as he turned, saw the windows of the hall go black as the boys extinguished the torches.

“Well?” whispered Anthony sharply (for a fool could see that the news was to be weighty, and Anthony was no fool).

It was wonderful how Robin’s thoughts had fixed themselves since his talk with Mistress Marjorie. He had gone to Padley, doubting of what he should say, doubting what she would tell him, asking himself even whether compliance might not be the just as well as the prudent way. Yet now black shame had come on him—the black shame that any who was a Catholic should turn from his faith; blacker, that he should so turn without even a touch of the rack or the threat of it; blackest of all, that it should be his own father who should do this. It was partly food and wine that had strengthened him, partly Anthony’s talk just now; but the frame and substance of it all was Marjorie and her manner of speaking, and her faith in him and in God.

He stood still, silent, breathing so heavily that Anthony heard him.

“Tell me, Rob; tell me quickly.”

Robin drew a long breath.

“You saw that my father was silent?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Stay…. Will you swear to me by the mass that you will tell no one what you will hear from me till you hear it from others?”

“I will swear it,” whispered Anthony in the darkness.

Again Robin sighed in a long, shuddering breath. Anthony could hear him tremble with cold and pain.

“Well,” he said, “my father will leave the Church next Easter. He is tired of paying fines, he says. And he has bidden me to come with him to Matstead Church.”

There was dead silence.

“I went to tell Marjorie to-day,” whispered Robin. “She has promised to be my wife some day; so I told her, but no one else. She has bidden me to leave Matstead for Easter, and pray to God to show me what to do afterwards. Can you help me, Anthony?”

He was seized suddenly by the arms.

“Robin…. No … no! It is not possible!”

“It is certain. I have never known my father to turn from his word.”

From far away in the wild woods came a cry as the two stood there. It might be a wolf or fox, if any were there, or some strange night-bird, or a woman in pain. It rose, it seemed, to a scream, melancholy and dreadful, and then died again. The two heard it, but said nothing, one to the other. No doubt it was some beast in a snare or a-hunting, but it chimed in with the desolation of their hearts so as to seem but a part of it. So the two stood in silence. The house was quiet now, and most of those within it upon their beds. Only, as the two knew, there still sat in silence within the little wainscoted parlour, with his head on his hand and a glass of muscadel beside him—he of whom they thought—the father of one and the friend and host of the other…. It was not until this instant in the dark and to the quiet, with the other lad’s hands still gripped on to his arms, that this boy understood the utter shame and the black misery of that which he had said, and the other heard.

CHAPTER II

I

There were excuses in plenty for Robin to ride abroad, to the north towards Hathersage or to the south towards Dethick, as the whim took him; for he was learning to manage the estate that should be his one day. At one time it was to quiet a yeoman whose domain had been ridden over and his sown fields destroyed; at another, to dispute with a miller who claimed for injury through floods for which he held his lord responsible; at a third, to see to the woodland or the fences broken by the deer. He came and went then as he willed; and on the second day, after Anthony’s visit, set out before dinner to meet him, that they might speak at length of what lay now upon both their hearts.

To his father he had said no more, nor he to him. His father sat quiet in the parlour, or was in his own chamber when Robin was at home; but the lad understood very well that there was no thought of yielding. And there were a dozen things on which he himself must come to a decision. There was the first, the question as to where he was to go for Easter, and how he was to tell his father; what to do if his father forbade him outright; whether or no the priests of the district should be told; what to do with the chapel furniture that was kept in a secret place in a loft at Matstead. Above all, there hung over him the thought of what would come after, if his father held to his decision and would allow him neither to keep his religion at home nor go elsewhere.

On the second day, therefore, he rode out (the frost still holding, though the sun was clear and warm), and turned southwards through the village for the Dethick road, towards the place in which he had appointed to meet Anthony. At the entrance to the village he passed the minister, Mr. Barton, coming out of his house, that had been the priest’s lodging, a middle-aged man, made a minister under the new Prayer-Book, and therefore, no priest as were some of the ministers about, who had been made priests under Mary. He was a solid man, of no great wit or learning, but there was not an ounce of harm in him. (They were fortunate, indeed, to have such a minister; since many parishes had but laymen to read the services; and in one, not twenty miles away, the squire’s falconer held the living.) Mr. Barton was in his sad-coloured cloak and round cap, and saluted Robin heartily in his loud, bellowing voice.

“Riding abroad again,” he cried, “on some secret errand!”

“I will give your respects to Mr. Babington,” said Robin, smiling heavily. “I am to meet him about a matter of a tithe too!”

“Ah! you Papists would starve us altogether if you could,” roared the minister, who wished no better than to be at peace with his neighbours, and was all for liberty.

“You will get your tithe safe enough—one of you, at least,” said Robin.

“It is but a matter as to who shall pay it.”

He waved good-day to the minister and set his horse to the Dethick track.

There was no going fast to-day along this country road. The frosts and the thaws had made of it a very way of sorrows. Here in the harder parts was a tumble of ridges and holes, with edges as hard as steel; here in the softer, the faggots laid to build it up were broken or rotted through, making it no better than a trap for horses’ feet; and it was a full hour before Robin finished his four miles and turned up through the winter woodland to the yeoman’s farm where he was to meet Anthony. It was true, as he had said to Mr. Barton, that they were to speak of a matter of tithe—this was to be their excuse if his father questioned him—for there was a doubt as to in which parish stood this farm, for the yeoman tilled three meadows that were in the Babington estate and two in Matstead.

As he came up the broken ground on to the crest of the hill, he saw Anthony come out of the yard-gate and the yeoman with him. Then Anthony mounted his horse and rode down towards him, bidding the man stay, over his shoulder.

“It is all plain enough,” shouted Anthony loud enough for the man to hear. “It is Dethick that must pay. You need not come up, Robin; we must do the paying.”

Robin checked his mare and waited till the other came near enough to speak.

“Young Thomas FitzHerbert is within. He is riding round his new estates,” said the other beneath his breath. “I thought I would come out and tell you; and I do not know where we can talk or dine. I met him on the road, and he would come with me. He is eating his dinner there.”

“But I must eat my dinner too,” said Robin, in dismay.

“Will you tell him of what you have told me? He is safe and discreet, I think.”

“Why, yes, if you think so,” said Robin. “I do not know him very well.”

“Oh! he is safe enough, and he has learned not to talk. Besides, all the country will know it by Easter.”

So they turned their horses back again and rode up to the farm.

It was a great day for a yeoman when three gentlemen should take their dinners in his house; and the place was in a respectful uproar. From the kitchen vent went up a pillar of smoke, and through its door, in and out continually, fled maids with dishes. The yeoman himself, John Merton, a dried-looking, lean man, stood cap in hand to meet the gentlemen; and his wife, crimson-faced from the fire, peeped and smiled from the open door of the living-room that gave immediately upon the yard. For these gentlemen were from three of the principal estates here about. The Babingtons had their country house at Dethick and their town house in Derby; the Audreys owned a matter of fifteen hundred acres at least all about Matstead; and the FitzHerberts, it was said, scarcely knew themselves all that they owned, or rather all that had been theirs until the Queen’s Grace had begun to strip them of it little by little on account of their faith. The two Padleys, at least, were theirs, besides their principal house at Norbury; and now that Sir Thomas was in the Fleet Prison for his religion, young Mr. Thomas, his heir, was of more account than ever.

He was at his dinner when the two came in, and he rose and saluted them. He was a smallish kind of man, with a little brown beard, and his short hair, when he lifted his flapped cap to them, showed upright on his head; he smiled pleasantly enough, and made space for them to sit down, one at each side.

“We shall do very well now, Mrs. Merton,” he said, “if you will bring in that goose once more for these gentlemen.”

Then he made excuses for beginning his dinner before them: he was on his way home and must be off again presently.

It was a well-furnished table for a yeoman’s house. There was a linen napkin for each guest, one corner of which he tucked into his throat, while the other corner lay beneath his wooden plate. The twelve silver spoons were laid out on the smooth elm-table, and a silver salt stood before Mr. Thomas. There was, of course, an abundance to eat and drink, even though no more than two had been expected; and John Merton himself stood hatless on the further side of the table and took the dishes from the bare-armed maids to place them before the gentlemen. There was a jack of metheglin for each to drink, and a huge loaf of miscelin (or bread made of mingled corn) stood in the midst and beyond the salt.

They talked of this and of that and of the other, freely and easily—of Mr. Thomas’ marriage with Mistress Westley that was to take place presently; of the new entailment of the estates made upon him by his uncle. John Merton inquired, as was right, after Sir Thomas, and openly shook his head when he heard of his sufferings (for he and his wife were as good Catholics as any in the country); and when the room was empty for a moment of the maids, spoke of a priest who, he had been told, would say mass in Tansley next day (for it was in this way, for the most part, that such news was carried from mouth to mouth). Then, when the maids came in again, the battle of the tithe was fought once more, and Mr. Thomas pronounced sentence for the second time.

They blessed themselves, all four of them, openly at the end, and went out at last to their horses.

“Will you ride with us, sir?” asked Anthony; “we can go your way. Robin here has something to say to you.”

“I shall be happy if you will give me your company for a little. I must be at Padley before dark, if I can, and must visit a couple of houses on the way.”

He called out to his two servants, who ran out from the kitchen wiping their mouths, telling them to follow at once, and the three rode off down the hill.

Then Robin told him.

He was silent for a while after he had put a question or two, biting his lower lip a little, and putting his little beard into his mouth. Then he burst out.

“And I dare not ask you to come to me for Easter,” he said. “God only knows where I shall be at Easter. I shall be married, too, by then. My father is in London now and may send for me. My uncle is in the Fleet. I am here now only to see what money I can raise for the fines and for the solace of my uncle. I cannot ask you, Mr. Audrey, though God knows that I would do anything that I could. Have you nowhere to go? Will your father hold to what he says?”

Robin told him yes; and he added that there were four or five places he could go to. He was not asking for help or harbourage, but advice only.

“And even of that I have none,” cried Mr. Thomas. “I need all that I can get myself. I am distracted, Mr. Babington, with all these troubles.”

Robin asked him whether the priests who came and went should be told of the blow that impended; for at those times every apostasy was of importance to priests who had to run here and there for shelter.

“I will tell one or two of the more discreet ones myself,” said Mr. Thomas, “if you will give me leave. I would that they were all discreet, but they are not. We will name no names, if you please; but some of them are unreasonable altogether and think nothing of bringing us all into peril.”

He began to bite his beard again.

“Do you think the Commissioners will visit us again?” asked Anthony.

“Mr. Fenton was telling me—”

“It is Mr. Fenton and the like that will bring them down on us if any will,” burst out Mr. FitzHerbert peevishly. “I am as good a Catholic, I hope, as any in the world; but we can surely live without the sacraments for a month or two sometimes! But it is this perpetual coming and going of priests that enrages her Grace and her counsellors. I do not believe her Grace has any great enmity against us; but she soon will, if men like Mr. Fenton and Mr. Bassett are for ever harbouring priests and encouraging them. It is the same in London, I hear; it is the same in Lancashire; it is the same everywhere. And all the world knows it, and thinks that we do contemn her Grace by such boldness. All the mischief came in with that old Bull, Regnans in Excelsis, in ‘69, and—”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” came in a quiet voice from beyond him; and

Robin, looking across, saw Anthony with a face as if frozen.

“Pooh! pooh!” burst out Mr. Thomas, with an uneasy air. “The Holy Father, I take it, may make mistakes, as I understand it, in such matters, as well as any man. Why, a dozen priests have said to me they thought it inopportune; and—”

“I do not permit,” said Anthony with an air of dignity beyond his years, “that any man should speak so in my company.”

“Well, well; you are too hot altogether, Mr. Babington. I admire such zeal indeed, as I do in the saints; but we are not bound to imitate all that we admire. Say no more, sir; and I will say no more either.”

They rode in silence.

It was, indeed, one of those matters that were in dispute at that time amongst the Catholics. The Pope was not swift enough for some, and too swift for others. He had thundered too soon, said one party, if, indeed, it was right to thunder at all, and not to wait in patience till the Queen’s Grace should repent herself; and he had thundered not soon enough, said the other. Whence it may at least be argued that he had been exactly opportune. Yet it could not be denied that since the day when he had declared Elizabeth cut off from the unity of the Church and her subjects absolved from their allegiance—though never, as some pretended then and have pretended ever since, that a private person might kill her and do no wrong—ever since that day her bitterness had increased yearly against her Catholic people, who desired no better than to serve both her and their God, if she would but permit that to be possible.

II

It would be an hour later that they bid good-bye to Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert, high among the hills to the east of the Derwent river; and when they had seen him ride off towards Wingerworth, rode yet a few furlongs together to speak of what had been said.

“He can do nothing, then,” said Robin; “not even to give good counsel.”

“I have never heard him speak so before,” cried Anthony; “he must be near mad, I think. It must be his marriage, I suppose.”

“He is full of his own troubles; that is plain enough, without seeking others. Well, I must bear mine as best I can.”

They were just parting—Anthony to ride back to Dethick, and Robin over the moors to Matstead, when over a rise in the ground they saw the heads of three horsemen approaching. It was a wild country that they were in; there were no houses in sight; and in such circumstances it was but prudent to remain together until the character of the travellers should be plain; so the two, after a word, rode gently forward, hearing the voices of the three talking to one another, in the still air, though without catching a word. For, as they came nearer the voices ceased, as if the talkers feared to be overheard.

They were well mounted, these three, on horses known as Scottish nags, square-built, sturdy beasts, that could cover forty miles in the day. They were splashed, too, not the horses only, but the riders, also, as if they had ridden far, through streams or boggy ground. The men were dressed soberly and well, like poor gentlemen or prosperous yeomen; all three were bearded, and all carried arms as could be seen from the flash of the sun on their hilts. It was plain, too, that they were not rogues or cutters, since each carried his valise on his saddle, as well as from their appearance. Our gentlemen, then, after passing them with a salute and a good-day, were once more about to say good-bye one to the other, and appoint a time and place to meet again for the hunting of which Robin had spoken to Marjorie, and, indeed, had drawn rein—when one of the three strangers was seen to turn his horse and come riding back after them, while his friends waited.

The two lads wheeled about to meet him, as was but prudent; but while he was yet twenty yards away he lifted his hat. He seemed about thirty years old; he had a pleasant, ruddy face.

“Mr. Babington, I think, sir,” he said.

“That is my name,” said Anthony.

“I have heard mass in your house, sir,” said the stranger. “My name is

Garlick.”

“Why, yes, sir, I remember—from Tideswell. How do you do, Mr. Garlick?

This is Mr. Audrey, of Matstead.”

They saluted one another gravely.

“Mr. Audrey is a Catholic, too, I think?”

Robin answered that he was.

“Then I have news for you, gentlemen. A priest, Mr. Simpson, is with us; and will say mass at Tansley next Sunday. You would like to speak with his reverence?”

“It will give us great pleasure, sir,” said Anthony, touching his horse with his heel.

“I am bringing Mr. Simpson on his way. He is just fresh from Rheims. And Mr. Ludlam is to carry him further on Monday,” continued Mr. Garlick as they went forward.

“Mr. Ludlam?”

“He is a native of Radbourne, and has but just finished at Oxford….

Forgive me, sir; I will but just ride forward and tell them.”

The two lads drew rein, seeing that he wished first to tell the others who they were, before bringing them up; and a strange little thing fell as Mr. Garlick joined the two. For it happened that by now the sun was at his setting; going down in a glory of crimson over the edge of the high moor; and that the three riders were directly in his path from where the two lads waited. Robin, therefore, looking at them, saw the three all together on their horses with the circle of the sun about them, and a great flood of blood-coloured light on every side; the priest was in the midst of the three, and the two men leaning towards him seemed to be speaking and as if encouraging him strongly. For an instant, so strange was the light, so immense the shadows on this side spread over the tumbled ground up to the lads themselves, so vast the great vault of illuminated sky, that it seemed to Robin as if he saw a vision…. Then the strangeness passed, as Mr. Garlick turned away again to beckon to them; and the boy thought no more of it at that time.

They uncovered as they rode towards the priest, and bowed low to him as he lifted his hand with a few words of Latin; and the next instant they were in talk.

Mr. Simpson, like his friends, was a youngish man at this time, with a kind face and great, innocent eyes that seemed to wonder and question. Mr. Ludlam, too, was under thirty years old, plainly not of gentleman’s birth, though he was courteous and well-mannered. It seemed a great matter to these three to have fallen in with young Mr. Babington, whose family was so well-known, and whose own fame as a scholar, as well as an ardent Catholic, was all over the county.

Robin said little; he was overshadowed by his friend; but he listened and watched as the four spoke together, and learned that Mr. Simpson had been made priest scarcely a month before, and was come from Yorkshire, which was his own county, to minister in the district of the Peak at least for awhile. He heard, too, news from Douay, and that the college, it was thought, might move from there to another place under the protection of the family of De Guise, since her Grace was very hot against Douay, whence so many of her troubles proceeded, and was doing her best to persuade the Governor of the Netherlands to suppress it. However, said Mr. Simpson, it was not yet done.

Anthony, too, in his turn gave the news of the county; he spoke of Mr. Fenton, of the FitzHerberts and others that were safe and discreet persons; but he said nothing at that time of Mr. Audrey of Matstead, at which Robin was glad, since his shame deepened on him every hour, and all the more now that he had met with those three men who rode so gallantly through the country in peril of liberty or life itself. Nor did he say anything of the FitzHerberts except that they might be relied upon.

“We must be riding,” said Garlick at last; “these moors are strange to me; and it will be dark in half an hour.”

“Will you allow me to be your guide, sir?” asked Anthony of the priest. “It is all in my road, and you will not be troubled with questions or answers if you are in my company.”

“But what of your friend, sir?”

“Oh! Robin knows the country as he knows the flat of his hand. We were about to separate as we met you.”

“Then we will thankfully accept your guidance, sir,” said the priest gravely.

An impulse seized upon Robin as he was about to say good-day, though he was ashamed of it five minutes later as a modest lad would be. Yet he followed it now; he leapt off his horse and, holding Cecily’s rein in his arm, kneeled on the stones with both knees.

“Your blessing, sir,” he said to the priest. And Anthony eyed him with astonishment.

III

Robin was moved, as he rode home over the high moors, and down at last upon the woods of Matstead, in a manner that was new to him, and that he could not altogether understand. He had met travelling priests before; indeed, all the priests whose masses he had ever heard, or from whom he had received the sacraments, were travelling priests who went in peril; and yet this young man, upon whose consecrated hands the oil was scarcely yet dry, moved and drew his heart in a manner that he had never yet known. It was perhaps something in the priest’s face that had so affected him; for there was a look in it of a kind of surprised timidity and gentleness, as if he wondered at himself for being so foolhardy, and as if he appealed with that same wonder and surprise to all who looked on him. His voice, too, was gentle, as if tamed for the seminary and the altar; and his whole air and manner wholly unlike that of some of the priests whom Robin knew—loud-voiced, confident, burly men whom you would have sworn to be country gentlemen or yeomen living on their estates or farms and fearing to look no man in the face. It was this latter kind, thought Robin, that was best suited to such a life—to riding all day through north-country storms, to lodging hardily where they best could, to living such a desperate enterprise as a priest’s life then was, with prices upon their heads and spies everywhere. It was not a life for quiet persons like Mr. Simpson, who, surely, would be better at his books in some college abroad, offering the Holy Sacrifice in peace and security, and praying for adventurers more hardy than himself. Yet here was Mr. Simpson just set out upon such an adventure, of his own free-will and choice, with no compulsion save that of God’s grace.

There was yet more than an hour before supper-time when he rode into the court at last; and Dick Sampson, his own groom, came to take his horse from him.

“The master’s not been from home to-day, sir,” said Dick when Robin asked of his father.

“Not been from home?”

“No, sir—not out of the house, except that he was walking in the pleasaunce half an hour ago.”

Robin ran up the steps and through the screens to see if his father was still there; but the little walled garden, so far as he could see it in the light from the hall windows, was empty; and, indeed, it would be strange for any man to walk in such a place at such an hour. He wondered, too, to hear that his father had not been from home; for on all days, except he were ill, he would be about the estate, here and there. As he came back to the screens he heard a step going up and down in the hall, and on looking in met his father face to face. The old man had his hat on his head, but no cloak on his shoulders, though even with the fire the place was cold. It was plain that he had been walking up and down to warm himself. Robin could not make out his face very well, as he stood with his back to a torch.

“Where have you been, my lad?”

“I went to meet Anthony at one of the Dethick farms, sir—John

Merton’s.”

“You met no one else?”

“Yes, sir; Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert was there and dined with us. He rode with us, too, a little way.” And then as he was on the point of speaking of the priest, he stopped himself; and in an instant knew that never again must he speak of a priest to his father; his father had already lost his right to that. His father looked at him a moment, standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Have you heard anything of a priest that is newly come to these parts—or coming?”

“Yes, sir. I hear mass is to be said … in the district on Sunday.”

“Where is mass to be said?”

Robin drew along breath, lifted his eyes to his father’s and then dropped them again.

“Did you hear me, sir? Where is mass to be said?”

Again Robin lifted and again dropped his eyes.

“What is the priest’s name?”

Again there was dead silence. For a son, in those days, so to behave towards his father, was an act of very defiance. Yet the father said nothing. There the two remained; Robin with his eyes on the ground, expecting a storm of words or a blow in the face. Yet he knew he could do no otherwise; the moment had come at last and he must act as he would be obliged always to act hereafter.

Matters had matured swiftly in the boy’s mind, all unconsciously to himself. Perhaps it was the timid air of the priest he had met an hour ago that consummated the process. At least it was so consummated.

Then his father turned suddenly on his heel; and the son went out trembling.

CHAPTER III

I

“I will speak to you to-night, sir, after supper,” said his father sharply a second day later, when Robin, meeting his father setting out before dinner, had asked him to give him an hour’s talk.

Robin’s mind had worked fiercely and intently since the encounter in the hall. His father had sat silent both at supper and afterwards, and the next day was the same; the old man spoke no more than was necessary, shortly and abruptly, scarcely looking his son once in the face, and the rest of the day they had not met. It was plain to the boy that something must follow his defiance, and he had prepared all his fortitude to meet it. Yet the second night had passed and no word had been spoken, and by the second morning Robin could bear it no longer; he must know what was in his father’s mind. And now the appointment was made, and he would soon know all. His father was absent from dinner and the boy dined alone. He learned from Dick Sampson that his father had ridden southwards.

It was not until Robin had sat down nearly half an hour later than supper-time that the old man came in. The frost was gone; deep mud had succeeded, and the rider was splashed above his thighs. He stayed at the fire for his boots to be drawn off and to put on his soft-leather shoes, while Robin stood up dutifully to await him. Then he came forward, took his seat without a word, and called for supper. In ominous silence the meal proceeded, and with the same thunderous air, when it was over, his father said grace and made his way, followed by his son, into the parlour behind. He made no motion at first to pour out his wine; then he helped himself twice and left the jug for Robin.

Then suddenly he began without moving his head.

“I wish to know your intentions,” he said, with irony so serious that it seemed gravity. “I cannot flog you or put you to school again, and I must know how we stand to one another.”

Robin was silent. He had looked at his father once or twice, but now sat downcast and humble in his place. With his left hand he fumbled, out of sight, Mr. Maine’s pair of beads. His father, for his part, sat with his feet stretched to the fire, his head propped on his hand, not doing enough courtesy to his son even to look at him.

“Do you hear me, sir?”

“Yes, sir. But I do not know what to say.”

“I wish to know your intentions. Do you mean to thwart and disobey me in all matters, or in only those that have to do with religion?”

“I do not wish to thwart or disobey you, sir, in any matters except where my conscience is touched.” (The substance of this answer had been previously rehearsed, and the latter part of it even verbally.)

“Be good enough to tell me what you mean by that.”

Robin licked his lips carefully and sat up a little in his chair.

“You told me, sir, that it was your intention to leave the Church. Then how can I tell you of what priests are here, or where mass is to be said? You would not have done so to one who was not a Catholic, six months ago.”

The man sneered visibly.

“There is no need,” he said. “It is Mr. Simpson who is to say mass to-morrow, and it is at Tansley that it will be said, at six o’clock in the morning. If I choose to tell the justices, you cannot prevent it.” (He turned round in a flare of anger.) “Do you think I shall tell the justices?”

Robin said nothing.

“Do you think I shall tell the justices?” roared the old man insistently.

“No, sir. Now I do not.”

The other growled gently and sank back.

“But if you think that I will permit my son to flout and to my face in my own hall, and not to trust his own father—why, you are immeasurably mistaken, sir. So I ask you again how far you intend to thwart and disobey me.”

A kind of despair surged up in the boy’s heart—despair at the fruitlessness of this ironical and furious sort of talk; and with the despair came boldness.

“Father, will you let me speak outright, without thinking that I mean to insult you? I do not; I swear I do not. Will you let me speak, sir?”

His father growled again a sort of acquiescence, and Robin gathered his forces. He had prepared a kind of defence that seemed to him reasonable, and he knew that his father was at least just. They had been friends, these two, always, in an underground sort of way, which was all that the relations of father and son in such days allowed. The old man was curt, obstinate, and even boisterous in his anger; but there was a kindliness beneath that the boy always perceived—a kindliness which permitted the son an exceptional freedom of speech, which he used always in the last resort and which he knew his father loved to hear him use. This, then, was plainly a legitimate occasion for it, and he had prepared himself to make the most of it. He began formally:

“Sir,” he said, “you have brought me up in the Old Faith, sent me to mass, and to the priest to learn my duty, and I have obeyed you always. You have taught me that a man’s duty to God must come before all else—as our Saviour Himself said, too. And now you turn on me, and bid me forget all that, and come to church with you…. It is not for me to say anything to my father about his own conscience; I must leave that alone. But I am bound to speak of mine when occasion rises, and this is one of them…. I should be dishonouring and insulting you, sir, if I did not believe you when you said you would turn Protestant; and a man who says he will turn Protestant has done so already. It was for this reason, then, and no other, that I did not answer you the other day; not because I wish to be disobedient to you, but because I must be obedient to God. I did not lie to you, as I might have done, and say that I did not know who the priest was nor where mass was to be said. But I would not answer, because it is not right or discreet for a Catholic to speak of these things to those who are not Catholics—”

“How dare you say I am not a Catholic, sir!”

“A Catholic, sir, to my mind,” said Robin steadily, “is one who holds to the Catholic Church and to no other. I mean nothing offensive, sir; I mean what I said I meant, and no more. It is not for me to condemn—”

“I should think not!” snorted the old man.

“Well, sir, that is my reason. And further—”

He stopped, doubtful.

“Well, sir—what further?”

“Well, I cannot come to the church with you at Easter.”

His father wheeled round savagely in his chair.

“Father, hear me out, and then say what you will…. I say I cannot come with you to church at Easter, because I am a Catholic. But I do not wish to trouble or disobey you openly. I will go away from home for that time. Good Mr. Barton will cause no trouble; he wants nothing but peace. Father, you are not just to me. You have taught me too much, or you have not given me time enough—”

Again he broke off, knowing that he had said what he did not mean, but the old man was on him like a hawk.

“Not time enough, you say? Well, then—”

“No, sir; I did not mean that,” wailed Robin suddenly. “I do not mean that I should change if I had a hundred years; I am sure I shall not. But—”

“You said, ‘Not time enough,’” said the other meditatively. “Perhaps if

I give you time—”

“Father, I beg of you to forget what I said; I did not mean to say it.

It is not true. But Marjorie said—”

“Marjorie! What has Marjorie to do with it?”

Robin found himself suddenly in deep waters. He had plunged and found that he could not swim. This was the second mistake he had made in saying what he did not mean…. Again the courage of despair came to him, and he struck out further.

“I must tell you of that too, sir,” he said. “Mistress Marjorie and I—”

He stopped, overwhelmed with shame. His father turned full round and stared at him.

“Go on, sir.”

Robin seized his glass and emptied it.

“Well, sir. Mistress Marjorie and I love one another. We are but boy and girl, sir; we know that—”

Then his father laughed. It was laughter that was at once hearty and bitter; and, with it, came the closing of the open door in the boy’s heart. As there came out, after it, sentence after sentence of scorn and contempt, the bolts, so to say, were shot and the key turned. It might all have been otherwise if the elder man had been kind, or if he had been sad or disappointed, or even if he had been merely angry; but the soreness and misery in the old man’s heart—misery at his own acts and words, and at the outrage he was doing to his own conscience—turned his judgment bitter, and with that bitterness his son’s heart shut tight against him.

“But boy and girl!” sneered the man. “A couple of blind puppies, I would say rather—you with your falcons and mare and your other toys, and the down on your chin, and your conscience; and she with her white face and her mother and her linen-parlour and her beads”—(his charity prevailed so far as to hinder him from more outspoken contempt)—”And you two babes have been prattling of conscience and prayers together—I make no doubt, and thinking yourselves Cecilies and Laurences and all the holy martyrs—and all this without a by-your-leave, I dare wager, from parent or father, and thinking yourselves man and wife; and you fondling her, and she too modest to be fondled, and—”

The plain truth struck him with sudden splendour, at least sufficiently strong to furnish him with a question.

“And have you told Mistress Marjorie about your sad rogue of a father?”

Robin, white with anger, held his lips grimly together and the wrath blazed in an instant up from the scornful old heart, whose very love was turned to gall.

“Tell me, sir—I will have it!” he cried.

Robin looked at him with such hard fury in his eyes that for a moment the man winced. Then he recovered himself, and again his anger rose to the brim.

“You need not look at me like that, you hound. Tell me, I say!”

“I will not!” shouted Robin, springing to his feet.

The old man was up too by now, with all the anger of his son hardened by his dignity.

“You will not?”

“No.”

For a moment the fate of them both still hung in the balance. If, even at this instant, the father had remembered his love rather than his dignity, had thought of the past and its happy years, rather than of the blinding, swollen present; or, on the other side, if the son had but submitted if only for an hour, and obeyed in order that he might rule later—the whole course might have run aright, and no hearts have been broken and no blood shed. But neither would yield. There was the fierce northern obstinacy in them both; the gentle birth sharpened its edge; the defiant refusal of the son, the wounding contempt of the father not for his son only, but for his son’s love—these things inflamed the hearts of both to madness. The father seized his ultimate right, and struck his son across the face.

Then the son answered by his only weapon.

For a sensible pause he stood there, his fresh face paled to chalkiness, except where the print of five fingers slowly reddened. Then he made a courteous little gesture, as if to invite his father to sit down; and as the other did so, slowly and shaking all over, struck at him by careful and calculated words, delivered with a stilted and pompous air:

“You have beaten me, sir; so, of course, I obey. Yes, I told Mistress Marjorie Manners that my father no longer counted himself a Catholic, and would publicly turn Protestant at Easter, so as to please her Grace and be in favour with the Court and with the county justices. And I have told Mr. Babington so as well, and also Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert. It will spare you the pain, sir, of making any public announcement on the matter. It is always a son’s duty to spare his father pain.”

Then he bowed, wheeled, and went out of the room.

II

Two hours later Robin was still lying completely dressed on his bed in the dark.

It was a plain little chamber where he lay, fireless, yet not too cold, since it was wainscoted from floor to ceiling, and looked out eastwards upon the pleasaunce, with rooms on either side of it. A couple of presses sunk in the walls held his clothes and boots; a rush-bottomed chair stood by the bed; and the bed itself, laid immediately on the ground, was such as was used in most good houses by all except the master and mistress, or any sick members of the family—a straw mattress and a wooden pillow. His bows and arrows, with a pair of dags or pistols, hung on a rack against the wall at the foot of his bed, and a little brass cross engraved with a figure of the Crucified hung over it. It was such a chamber as any son of a house might have, who was a gentleman and not luxurious.

A hundred thoughts had gone through his mind since he had flung himself down here shaking with passion; and these had begun already to repeat themselves, like a turning wheel, in his head. Marjorie; his love for her; his despair of that love; his father; all that they had been, one to the other, in the past; the little, or worse than little, that they would be, one to the other, in the future; the priest’s face as he had seen it three days ago; what would be done at Easter, what later—all these things, coloured and embittered now by his own sorrow for his words to his father, and the knowledge that he had shamed himself when he should have suffered in silence—these things turned continually in his head, and he was too young and too simple to extricate one from the other all at once.

Things had come about in a manner which yesterday he would not have thought possible. He had never before spoken so to one to whom he owed reverence; neither had this one ever treated him so. His father had stood always to him for uprightness and justice; he had no more questioned these virtues in his father than in God. Words or acts of either might be strange or incomprehensible, yet the virtues themselves remained always beyond a doubt; and now, with the opening of the door which his father’s first decision had accomplished, a crowd of questions and judgments had rushed in, and a pillar of earth and heaven was shaken at last…. It is a dreadful day when for the first time to a young man or maiden, any shadow of God, however unworthy, begins to tremble.

He understood presently, however, what an elder man, or a less childish, would have understood at once—that these things must be dealt with one by one, and that that which lay nearest to his hand was his own fault. Even then he fought with his conscience; he told himself that no lad of spirit could tolerate such insults against his love, to say nothing of the injustice against himself that had gone before; but, being honest, he presently inquired of what spirit such a lad would be—not of that spirit which Marjorie would approve, nor the gentle-eyed priest he had spoken with….

Well, the event was certain with such as Robin, and he was presently standing at the door of his room, his boots drawn off and laid aside, listening, with a heart beating in his ears to hinder him, for any sound from beneath. He did not know whether his father were abed or not. If not, he must ask his pardon at once.

He went downstairs at last, softly, to the parlour, and peeped in. All was dark, except for the glimmer from the stove, and his heart felt lightened. Then, as he was cold with his long vigil outside his bed, he stirred the embers into a blaze and stood warming himself.

How strange and passionless, he thought, looked this room, after the tempest that had raged in it just now. The two glasses stood there—his own not quite empty—and the jug between them. His father’s chair was drawn to the table, as if he were still sitting in it; his own was flung back as he had pushed it from him in his passion. There was an old print over the stove at which he looked presently—it had been his mother’s, and he remembered it as long as his life had been—it was of Christ carrying His cross.

His shame began to increase on him. How wickedly he had answered, with every word a wound! He knew that the most poisonous of them all were false; he had known it even while he spoke them; it was not to curry favour with her Grace that his father had lapsed; it was that his temper was tried beyond bearing by those continual fines and rebuffs; the old man’s patience was gone—that was all. And he, his son, had not said one word of comfort or strength; he had thought of himself and his own wrongs, and being reviled he had reviled again….

There stood against the wall between the windows a table and an oaken desk that held the estate-bills and books; and beside the desk were laid clean sheets of paper, an ink-pot, a pounce-box, and three or four feather pens. It was here that he wrote, being newly from school, at his father’s dictation, or his father sometimes wrote himself, with pain and labour, the few notices or letters that were necessary. So he went to this and sat down at it; he pondered a little; then he wrote a single line of abject regret.

“I ask your pardon and God’s, sir, for the wicked words I said before I left the parlour. R.” He folded this and addressed it with the proper superscription; and left it lying there.

III

It was a strange ride that he had back from Tansley next morning after mass.

Dick Sampson had met him with the horses in the stable-court at Matstead a little after four o’clock in the morning; and together they had ridden through the pitch darkness, each carrying a lantern fastened to his stirrup. So complete was the darkness, however, and so small and confined the circle of light cast by the tossing light, that, for all they saw, they might have been riding round and round in a garden. Now trees showed grim and towering for an instant, then gone again; now their eyes were upon the track, the pools, the rugged ground, the soaked meadow-grass; half a dozen times the river glimmered on their right, turbid and forbidding. Once there shone in the circle of light the eyes of some beast—pig or stag; seen and vanished again.

But the return journey was another matter; for they needed no lanterns, and the dawn rose steadily overhead, showing all that they passed in ghostly fashion, up to final solidity.

It resembled, in fact, the dawn of Faith in a soul.

First from the darkness outlines only emerged, vast and sinister, of such an appearance that it was impossible to tell their proportions or distances. The skyline a mile away, beyond the Derwent, might have been the edge of a bank a couple of yards off; the glimmering pool on the lower meadow path might be the lighted window of a house across the valley. There succeeded to outlines a kind of shaded tint, all worked in gray like a print, clear enough to distinguish tree from boulder and sky from water, yet not clear enough to show the texture of anything. The third stage was that in which colours began to appear, yet flat and dismal, holding, it seemed, no light, yet reflecting it; and all in an extraordinary cold clearness. Nature seemed herself, yet struck to dumbness. No breeze stirred the twigs overhead or the undergrowth through which they rode. Once, as the two, riding a little apart, turned suddenly together, up a ravine into thicker woods, they came upon a herd of deer, who stared on them without any movement that the eye could see. Here a stag stood with two hinds beside him; behind, Robin saw the backs and heads of others that lay still. Only the beasts kept their eyes upon them, as they went, watching, as if it were a picture only that went by. So, by little and little, the breeze stirred like a waking man; cocks crew from over the hills one to the other; dogs barked far away, till the face of the world was itself again, and the smoke from Matstead rose above the trees in front.

Robin had ridden in the dawn an hundred times before; yet never before had he so perceived that strange deliberateness and sleep of the world; and he had ridden, too, perhaps twenty times at such an hour, with his father beside him, after mass on some such occasion. Yet it seemed to him this time that it was the mass which he had seen, and his own solitariness, that had illuminated his eyes. It was dreadful to him—and yet it threw him more than ever on himself and God—that his father would ride with him so no more. Henceforward he would go alone, or with a servant only; he would, alone, go up to the door of house or barn and rap four times with his riding-whip; alone he would pass upstairs through the darkened house to the shrouded room, garret or bed-chamber, where the group was assembled, all in silence; where presently a dark figure would rise and light the pair of candles, and then, himself a ghost, vest there by their light, throwing huge shadows on wainscot and ceiling as his arms went this way and that; and then, alone of all that were of blood-relationship to him, he would witness the Holy Sacrifice….

How long that would be so, he did not know. Something surely must happen that would prevent it. Or, at least, some day, he would ride so with Marjorie, whom he had seen this morning across the dusky candle-lit gloom, praying in a corner; or, maybe, with her would entertain the priest, and open the door to the worshippers who streamed in, like bees to a flower-garden, from farm and manor and village. He could not for ever ride alone from Matstead and meet his father’s silence.

One thing more, too, had moved him this morning; and that, the sight of the young priest at the altar whom he had met on the moor. Here, more than ever, was the gentle priestliness and innocency apparent. He stood there in his red vestments; he moved this way and that; he made his gestures; he spoke in undertones, lit only by the pair of wax-candles, more Levitical than ever in such a guise, yet more unsuited than ever to such exterior circumstances. Surely this man should say mass for ever; yet surely never again ride over the moors to do it, amidst enemies. He was of the strong castle and the chamber, not of the tent and the battle…. And yet it was of such soldiers as these, as well as of the sturdy and the strong, that Christ’s army was made.

It was in broad daylight, though under a weeping sky, that Robin rode into the court at Matstead. He shook the rain from his cloak within the screens, and stamped to get the mud away; and, as he lifted his hat to shake it, his father came in from the pleasaunce.

Robin glanced up at him, swift and shy, half smiling, expecting a word or a look. His father must surely have read his little letter by now, and forgiven him. But the smile died away again, as he met the old man’s eyes; they were as hard as steel; his clean-shaven lips were set like a trap, and, though he looked at his son, it seemed that he did not see him. He passed through the screens and went down the steps into the court.

The boy’s heart began to beat so as near to sicken him after his long fast and his ride. He told himself that his father could not have been into the parlour yet, though he knew, even while he thought it, that this was false comfort. He stood there an instant, waiting; hoping that even now his father would call to him; but the strong figure passed resolutely on out of sight.

Then the boy went into the hall, and swiftly through it. There on the desk in the window lay the pen he had flung down last night, but no more; the letter was gone; and, as he turned away, he saw lying among the wood-ashes of the cold stove a little crumpled ball. He stooped and drew it out. It was his letter, tossed there after the reading; his father had not taken the pains to keep it safe, nor even to destroy it.

CHAPTER IV

I

The company was already assembled both within and without Padley, when Robin rode up from the riverside, on a fine, windy morning, for the sport of the day. Perhaps a dozen horses stood tethered at the entrance to the little court, with a man or two to look after them, for the greater part of their riders were already within; and a continual coming and going of lads with dogs; falconers each with his cadge, or three-sided frame on which sat the hawks; a barking of hounds, a screaming of birds, a clatter of voices and footsteps in the court—all this showed that the boy was none too early. A man stepped forward to take his mare and his hawks; and Robin slipped from his saddle and went in.

Padley Hall was just such a house as would serve a wealthy gentleman who desired a small country estate with sufficient dignity and not too many responsibilities. It stood upon the side of the hill, well set-up above the damps of the valley, yet protected from the north-easterly winds by the higher slopes, on the tops of which lay Burbage Moor, where the hawking was to be held. On the south, over the valley, stood out the modest hall and buttery (as, indeed, they stand to this day), with a door between them, well buttressed in two places upon the falling ground, in one by a chimney, in the other by a slope of masonry; and behind these buildings stood the rest of the court, the stables, the wash-house, the bake-house and such like, below; and, above, the sleeping rooms for the family and the servants. On the first floor, above the buttery and the hall, were situated the ladies’ parlour and chapel; for this, at least, Padley had, however little its dignity in other matters, that it retained its chapel served in these sorrowful days not, as once, by a chaplain, but by whatever travelling priest might be there.

Robin entered through the great gate on the east side—a dark entrance kept by a porter who saluted him—and rode through into the court; and here, indeed, was the company; for out of the windows of the low hall on his left came a babble of tongues, while two or three gentlemen with pots in their hands saluted him from the passage door, telling him that Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert was within. Mr. Fenton was one of these, come over from North Lees, where he had his manor, a brisk, middle-aged man, dressed soberly and well, with a pointed beard and pleasant, dancing eyes.

“And Mr. John, too, came last night,” he said; “but he will not hawk with us. He is ridden from London on private matters.”

It was an exceedingly gay sight on which Robin looked as he turned into the hall. It was a low room, ceiled in oak and wainscoted half-way up, a trifle dark, since it was lighted only by one or two little windows on either side, yet warm and hospitable looking; with a great fire burning in a chimney on the south side, and perhaps a dozen and a half persons sitting over their food and drink, since they were dining early to-day to have the longer time for sport.

A voice hailed him as he came in; and he went up to pay his respects to Mr. John FitzHerbert, a tall man, well past middle-age, who sat with his hat on his head, at the centre of the high table, with the arms of Eyre and FitzHerbert beneath the canopy, all emblazoned, to do the honours of the day.

“You are late, sir, you are late!” he cried out genially. “We are just done.”

Robin saluted him. He liked this man, though he did not know him very well; for he was continually about the country, now in London, now at Norbury, now at Swinnerton, always occupied with these endless matters of fines and recusancy.

Robin saluted him then, and said a word or two; bowed to Mr. Thomas, his son, who came up to speak with him; and then looked for Marjorie. She sat there, at the corner of the table, with Mrs. Fenton at one side, and an empty seat on the other. Robin immediately sat down in it, to eat his dinner, beginning with the “gross foods,” according to the English custom. There was a piece of Christmas brawn to-day, from a pig fattened on oats and peas, and hardened by being lodged (while he lived) on a boarded floor; all this was told Robin across the table with particularity, while he ate it, and drank, according to etiquette, a cup of bastard. He attended to all this zealously, while never for an instant was he unaware of the girl.

They tricked their elders very well, these two innocent ones. You would have sworn that Robin looked for another place and could not see one, you would have sworn that they were shy of one another, and spoke scarcely a dozen sentences. Yet they did very well each in the company of the other; and Robin, indeed, before he had finished his partridge, had conveyed to her that there was news that he had, and must give to her before the day was out. She looked at him with enough dismay in her face for him at least to read it; for she knew by his manner that it would not be happy news.

So, too, when the fruit was done and dinner was over (for they had no opportunity to speak at any length), again you would have sworn that the last idea in his mind, as in hers, was that he should be the one to help her to her saddle. Yet he did so; and he fetched her hawk for her, and settled her reins in her hand; and presently he on one side of her, with Mr. Fenton on the other side, were riding up through Padley chase; and the talk and the laughter went up too.

II

Up on the high moors, in the frank-chase, here indeed was a day to make sad hearts rejoice. The air was soft, as if spring were come before his time; and in the great wind that blew continually from the south-west, bearing the high clouds swiftly against the blue, ruffling the stiff heather-twigs and bilberry beneath—here was wine enough for any mourners. Before them, as they went—two riding before, with falconers on either side a little behind and the lads with the dogs beside them, and the rest in a silent line some twenty yards to the rear—stretched the wide, flat moor like a tumbled table-cloth, broken here and there by groups of wind-tossed beech and oak, backed by the tall limestone crags like pillar-capitals of an upper world; with here and there a little shallow quarry whence marble had been taken for Derby. But more lovely than all were the valleys, seen from here, as great troughs up whose sides trooped the leafless trees—lit by the streams that threw back the sunlit sky from their bosoms; with here a mist of smoke blown all about from a village out of sight, here the shadow of a travelling cloud that fled as swift as the wind that drove it, extinguishing the flash of water only to release it again, darkening a sweep of land only to make the sunlight that followed it the more sweet.

Yet the two saw little of this, dear and familiar as they found it; since, first they rode together, and next, as it should be with young hearts, the sport presently began and drove all else away.

The sport was done in this way:

The two that rode in front selected each from the cadge one of his own falcons (it was peregrines that were used at the beginning of the day, since they were first after partridges), and so rode, carrying his falcon on his wrist, hooded, belled, and in the leash, ready to cast off. Immediately before them went a lad with a couple of dogs to nose the game—these also in a leash until they stiffened. Then the lad released them and stepped softly back, while the riders moved on at a foot’s-pace, and the spaniels behind rose on their hind legs, choked by the chain, whimpering, fifty yards in the rear. Slowly the dogs advanced, each a frozen model of craft and blood-lust, till an instant afterwards, with a whir and a chattering like a broken clock, the covey whirled from the thick growth underfoot, and flashed away northwards; and, a moment later, up went the peregrines behind them. Then, indeed, it was sauve qui peut, for the ground was full of holes here and there, though there were grass-stretches as well on which all rode with loose rein, the two whose falcons were sprung always in front, according to custom, and the rest in a medley behind. Away then went the birds, pursued and pursuers, till, like a falling star the falcon stooped, and then, maybe, the other a moment later, down upon the quarry; and a minute later there was the falcon back again shivering with pride and ecstasy, or all ruffle-feathered with shame, back on his master’s wrist, and another torn partridge, or maybe two, in the bottom of the lad’s bag; and arguments went full pelt, and cries, and sometimes sharp words, and faults were found, and praise was given, and so, on for another pair.

It was but natural that Robin and Marjorie should compete one against the other, for they were riding together and talked together. So presently Mr. Thomas called to them, and beckoned them to their places. Robin set aside Agnes on to the cadge and chose Magdalen, and Marjorie chose Sharpie. The array was set, and all moved forward.

It was a short chase and a merry one. Two birds rose from the heather and flew screaming, skimming low, as from behind them moved on the shadows of death, still as clouds, with great noiseless sweeps of sickle-shaped wings. Behind came the gallopers; Marjorie on her black horse, Robin on Cecily, seeming to compete, yet each content if either won, each, maybe—or at least Marjorie—desiring that the other should win. And the wind screamed past them as they went.

Then came the stoops—together as if fastened by one string—faultless and exquisite; and, as the two rode up and drew rein, there, side by side on the windy turf, two fierce statues of destiny—cruel-eyed, blood-stained on the beaks, resolute and suspicious—eyed them motionless, the claws sunk deeply through back and head—awaiting recapture.

Marjorie turned swiftly to the boy as he leaped off.

“In the chapel,” she said, “at Padley.”

Robin stared at her. Then he understood and nodded his head, as Mr. Thomas rode up, his beard all blown about by the wind, breathless but congratulatory.

III

It fell on Robin’s mind with a certain heaviness and reproach that it should have been she who should have carried in her head all day the unknown news that he was to give her and he who should have forgotten it. He understood then a little better of all that he must be to her, since, as he turned to her (his head full of hawks, and the glory of the shouting wind, and every thought of Faith and father clean blown away), it was to her mind that the under-thought had leapt, that here was their first, and perhaps their last, chance of speaking in private.

It was indeed their last chance, for the sun already stood over Chapel-le-Frith far away to the south-west; and they must begin their circle to return, in which the ladies should fly their merlins after larks, and there was no hope henceforth for Robin. Henceforth she rode with Mrs. Fenton and two or three more, while the gentlemen who loved sport more than courtesy, turned to the left over the broken ground to work back once more after partridges. And Robin dared no more ride with his love, for fear that his company all day with her should be marked.

It was within an hour of sunset that Robin, riding ahead, having lost a hawk and his hat, having fallen into a bog-hole, being one mask of mud from head to foot, slid from his horse into Dick’s hands and demanded if the ladies were back.

“Yes, sir; they are back half an hour ago. They are in the parlour.”

Robin knew better. “I shall be riding in ten minutes,” he said; “give the mare a mouthful.”

He limped across the court, and looking behind him to see if any saw, and finding the court at that instant empty, ran up, as well as he could, the stone staircase that rose from the outside to the chapel door. It was unlatched. He pushed it open and went in.

It was a brave thing that the FitzHerberts did in keeping such a place at all, since the greatest Protestant fool in the valley knew what the little chamber was that had the angels carved on the beam-ends, and the piscina in the south wall. Windows looked out every way; through those on the south could be seen now the darkening valley and the sunlit hills, and, yet more necessary, the road by which any travellers from the valley must surely come. Within, too, scarcely any pains were taken to disguise the place. It was wainscoted from roof to floor—veiled, floored and walled in oak. A great chest stood beneath the little east window of two lights, that cried “Altar” if any chest ever did so. A great press stood against the wooden screen that shut the room from the ladies’ parlour next door; filled in three shelves with innocent linen, for this was the only disguise that the place stooped to put on. You could not swear that mass was said there, but you could swear that it was a place in which mass would very suitably be said. A couple of benches were against the press, and three or four chairs stood about the floor.

Robin saw her against the light as soon as he came in. She was still in her blue riding-dress, with the hood on her shoulders, and held her whip in her hand; but he could see no more of her head than the paleness of her face and the gleam on her black hair.

“Well, then?” she whispered sharply; and then: “Why, what a state you are in!”

“It’s nothing,” said Robin. “I rolled in a bog-hole.”

She looked at him anxiously.

“You are not hurt?… Sit down at least.”

He sat down stiffly, and she beside him, still watching to see if he were the worse for his falling. He took her hand in his.

“I am not fit to touch you,” he said.

“Tell me the news; tell me quickly.”

So he told her; of the wrangle in the parlour and what had passed between his father and him; of his own bitterness; and his letter, and the way in which the old man had taken it.

“He has not spoken to me since,” he said, “except in public before the servants. Both nights after supper he has sat silent and I beside him.”

“And you have not spoken to him?” she asked quickly.

“I said something to him after supper on Sunday, and he made no answer.

He has done all his writing himself. I think it is for him to speak now.

I should only anger him more if I tried it again.”

She sighed suddenly and swiftly, but said nothing. Her hand lay passive in his, but her face was turned now to the bright southerly window, and he could see her puzzled eyes and her down-turned, serious mouth. She was thinking with all her wits, and, plainly, could come to no conclusion.

She turned to him again.

“And you told him plainly that you and I … that you and I—”

“That you and I loved one another? I told him plainly. And it was his contempt that angered me.”

She sighed again.

It was a troublesome situation in which these two children found themselves. Here was the father of one of them that knew, yet not the parents of the other, who should know first of all. Neither was there any promise of secrecy and no hope of obtaining it. If she should not tell her parents, then if the old man told them, deception would be charged against her; and if she should tell them, perhaps he would not have done so, and so all be brought to light too soon and without cause. And besides all this there were the other matters, heavy enough before, yet far more heavy now—matters of their hopes for the future, the complications with regard to the Religion, what Robin should do, what he should not do.

So they sat there silent, she thinking and he waiting upon her thought.

She sighed again and turned to him her troubled eyes.

“My Robin,” she said, “I have been thinking so much about you, and I have feared sometimes—”

She stopped herself, and he looked for her to finish. She drew her hand away and stood up.

“Oh! it is miserable!” she cried. “And all might have been so happy.”

The tears suddenly filled her eyes so that they shone like flowers in dew.

He stood up, too, and put his muddy arm about her shoulders. (She felt so slight and slender.)

“It will be happy,” he said. “What have you been fearing?”

She shook her head and the tears ran down.

“I cannot tell you yet…. Robin, what a holy man that travelling priest must be, who said mass on Sunday.”

The lad was bewildered at her swift changes of thought, for he did not yet see the chain on which they hung. He strove to follow her.

“It seemed so to me too,” he said. “I think I have never seen—”

“It seemed so to you too,” she cried. “Why, what do you know of him?”

He was amazed at her vehemence. She had drawn herself clear of his arm and was looking at him full in the face.

“I met him on the moor,” he said. “I had some talk with him. I got his blessing.”

“You got his blessing! Why, so did I, after the mass, when you were gone.”

“Then that should join us more closely than ever,” he said.

“In Heaven, perhaps, but on earth—” She checked herself again. “Tell me what you thought of him, Robin.”

“I thought it was strange that such a man as that should live such a rough life. If he were in the seminary now, safe at Douay—”

She seemed a shade paler, but her eyes did not flicker.

“Yes,” she said. “And you thought—?”

“I thought that it was not that kind of man who should fare so hardly. If it were a man like John Merton, who is accustomed to such things, or a man like me—”

Again he stopped; he did not know why. But it was as if she had cried out, though she neither spoke nor moved.

“You thought that, did you, Robin?” she said presently, never moving her eyes from his face. “I thought so, too.”

“But I do not know why we are talking about Mr. Simpson,” said the lad.

“There are other affairs more pressing.”

“I am not sure,” said she.

“Marjorie, my love, what are you thinking about?”

She had turned her eyes and was looking out through the little window. Outside the red sunlight still lay on the crags and slopes beyond the deep valley beneath them, and her face was bright in the reflected brightness. Yet he thought he had never seen her look so serious. She turned her eyes back to him as he spoke.

“I am thinking of a great many things,” she said. “I am thinking of the

Faith and of sorrow and of love.”

“My love, what do you mean?”

Suddenly she made a swift movement towards him and took him by the lapels. He could see her face close beneath his, yet it was in shadow again, and he could make out of it no more than the shadows of mouth and eyes.

“Robin,” she said, “I cannot tell you unless God tells you Himself. I am told that I am too scrupulous sometimes…. I do not know what I think, nor what is right, nor what are fancies…. But … but I know that I love you with all my heart … and … and that I cannot bear—”

Then her face was on his breast in a passion of weeping, and his arms were round her, and his lips on her hair.

IV

Dick found his master a poor travelling companion as they rode home. He made a few respectful remarks as to the sport of the day, but he was answered by a wandering eye and a complete lack of enthusiasm. Mr. Robin rode loosely and heavily. Three or four times his mare stumbled (and no wonder, after all that she had gone through), and he jerked her savagely.

Then Dick tried another tack and began to speak of the company, but with no greater success. He discoursed on the riding of Mrs. Fenton, and the peregrine of Mr. Thomas, who had distinguished herself that day, and he was met by a lack-lustre eye once more.

Finally he began to speak of the religious gossip of the countryside—how it was said that another priest, a Mr. Nelson, had been taken, in London, as Mr. Maine had been in Cornwall; that, it was said again, priests would have to look to their lives in future, and not only to their liberty; how the priest, Mr. Simpson, was said to be a native of Yorkshire, and how he was ridden northwards again, still with Mr. Ludlam. And here he met with a little more encouragement. Mr. Robin asked where was Mr. Simpson gone to, and Dick told him he did not know, but that he would be back again by Easter, it was thought, or, if not, another priest would be in the district. Then he began to gossip of Mr. Ludlam; how a man had told him that his cousin’s wife thought that Mr. Ludlam was to go abroad to be made priest himself, and that perhaps Mr. Garlick would go too.

“That is the kind of priest we want, sir,” said Dick.

“Eh?”

“That is the kind of priest we want, sir,” repeated Dick solemnly. “We should do better with natives than foreigners. We want priests who know the county and the ways of the people—and men too, I think, sir, who can ride and know something of sport, and can talk of it. I told Mr. Simpson, sir, of the sport we were to have to-day, and he seemed to care nothing about it!”

Robin sighed aloud.

“I suppose so,” he said.

“Mr. John looked well, sir,” pursued Dick, and proceeded to speak at length of the FitzHerbert troubles, and the iniquities of the Queen’s Grace. He was such a man as was to be found throughout all England everywhere at this time—a man whose religion was a part of his politics, and none the less genuine for that. He was a shrewd man in his way, with the simplicity which belongs to such shrewdness; he disliked the new ways which he experienced chiefly in the towns, and put them down, not wholly without justice, to the change of which religion formed an integral part; he hated the beggars and would gladly have gone to see one flogged; and he disliked the ministers and their sermons and their “prophesyings” with all the healthy ardour of prejudice. Once in the year did Dick approach the sacraments, and a great business he made of it, being unusually morose before them and almost indecently boisterous after them. He was feudal to the very heart of him; and it was his feudality that made him faithful to his religion as well as to his masters, for either of which he would resolutely have died. And what in the world he would do when he discovered, at Easter, that the objects of his fidelity were to take opposite courses, Robin could not conceive.

As they rode in at last, Robin, who had fallen silent again after Dick’s last piece of respectful vehemence, suddenly beat his own leg with his whip and uttered an inaudible word. It seemed to Dick that the young master had perceived clearly that which plainly had been worrying him all the way home, and that he did not like it.

CHAPTER V

I

Mr. Manners sat in his parlour ten days after the beginning of Lent, full of his Sunday dinner and of perplexing thoughts all at once. He had eaten well and heartily after his week of spare diet, and then, while in high humour with all the world, first his wife and then his daughter had laid before him such revelations that all the pleasure of digestion was gone. It was but three minutes ago that Marjorie had fled from him in a torrent of tears, for which he could not see himself responsible, since he had done nothing but make the exclamations and comments that should be expected of a father in such a case.

The following were the points for his reflection—to begin with those that touched him less closely.

First that his friend Mr. Audrey, whom he had always looked upon with reverence and a kind of terror because of his hotness in matters of politics and religion, had capitulated to the enemy and was to go to church at Easter. Mr. Manners himself had something of timidity in his nature: he was conservative certainly, and practised, when he could without bringing himself into open trouble, the old religion in which he had been brought up. He, like the younger generation, had been educated at Derby Grammar School, and in his youth had sat with his parents in the nave of the old Cluniac church of St. James to hear mass. He had then entered his father’s office in Derby, about the time that the Religious Houses had fallen, and had transferred the scene of his worship to St. Peter’s. At Queen Mary’s accession, he had stood, with mild but genuine enthusiasm, in his lawyer’s gown, in the train of the sheriff who proclaimed her in Derby market-place; and stood in the crowd, with corresponding dismay, six years later to shout for Queen Elizabeth. Since that date, for the first eleven years he had gone, as did other Catholics, to his parish church secretly, thankful that there was no doubt as to the priesthood of his parson, to hear the English prayers; and then, to do him justice, though he heard with something resembling consternation the decision from Rome that compromise must cease and that, henceforth, all true Catholics must withdraw themselves from the national worship, he had obeyed without even a serious moment of consideration. He had always feared that it might be so, understanding that delay in the decision was only caused by the hope that even now the breach might not be final or complete; and so was better prepared for the blow when it came. Since that time he had heard mass when he could, and occasionally even harboured priests, urged thereto by his wife and daughter; and, for the rest, still went into Derby for three or four days a week to carry on his lawyer’s business, with Mr. Biddell his partner, and had the reputation of a sound and careful man without bigotry or passion.

It was, then, a shock to his love of peace and serenity, to hear that yet another Catholic house had fallen, and that Mr. Audrey, one of his clients, could no longer be reckoned as one of his co-religionists.

The next point for his reflection was that Robin was refusing to follow his father’s example; the third, that somebody must harbour the boy over Easter, and that, in his daughter’s violently expressed opinion, and with his wife’s consent, he, Thomas Manners, was the proper person to do it. Last, that it was plain that there was something between his daughter and this boy, though what that was he had been unable to understand. Marjorie had flown suddenly from the room just as he was beginning to put his questions.

It is no wonder, then, that his peace of mind was gone. Not only were large principles once more threatened—considerations of religion and loyalty, but also those small and intimate principles which, so far more than great ones, agitate the mind of the individual. He did not wish to lose a client; yet neither did he wish to be unfriendly to a young confessor for the faith. Still less did he wish to lose his daughter, above all to a young man whose prospects seemed to be vanishing. He wondered whether it would be prudent to consult Mr. Biddell on the point….

He was a small and precise man in his body and face, as well as in his dress; his costume was, of course, of black; but he went so far as to wear black buckles, too, on his shoes, and a black hilt on his sword. His face was little and anxious; his eyebrows were perpetually arched, as if in appeal, and he was accustomed, when in deep thought, to move his lips as if in a motion of tasting. So, then, he sat before his fire to-day after dinner, his elbow on the table where his few books lay, his feet crossed before him, his cup of drink untouched at his side; and meantime he tasted continually with his lips, as if better to appreciate the values and significances of the points for his consideration.

It would be about half an hour later that the door opened once more and

Marjorie came in again.

She was in her fine dress to-day—fine, that is, according to the exigencies of the time and place, though sober enough if for a town-house—in a good blue silk, rather dark, with a little ruff, with lace ruffles at her wrists, and a quilted petticoat, and silver buckles. For she was a gentleman’s daughter, quite clearly, and not a yeoman’s, and she must dress to her station. Her face was very pale and quite steady. She stood opposite her father.

“Father,” she said, “I am very sorry for having behaved like a goose. You were quite right to ask those questions, and I have come back to answer them.”

He had ceased tasting as she came in. He looked at her timidly and yet with an attempt at severity. He knew what was due from him as a father. But for the present he had forgotten what questions they were; his mind had been circling so wildly.

“You are right to come back,” he said, “you should not have left me so.”

“I am very sorry,” she said again.

“Well, then—you tell me that Mr. Robin has nowhere else to go.”

She flushed a little.

“He has ten places to go to. He has plenty of friends. But none have the right that we have. He is a neighbour; it was to me, first of all, that he told the trouble.”

Then he remembered.

“Sit down,” he said. “I must understand much better first. I do not understand why he came to you first. Why not, if he must come to this house at all—why not to me? I like the lad; he knows that well enough.”

He spoke with an admirable dignity, and began to feel more happy in consequence.

She had sat down as he told her, on the other side of the table; but he could not see her face.

“It would have been better if he had, perhaps,” she said. “But—”

“Yes? What ‘But’ is that?”

Then she faced him, and her eyes were swimming.

“Father, he told me first because he loves me, and because I love him.”

He sat up. This was speaking outright what she had only hinted at before. She must have been gathering her resolution to say this, while she had been gone. Perhaps she had been with her mother. In that case he must be cautious….

“You mean—”

“I mean just what I say. We love one another, and I am willing to be his wife if he desires it—and with your permission. But—”

He waited for her to go on.

“Another ‘But’!” he said presently, though with increasing mildness.

“I do not think he will desire it after a while. And … and I do not know what I wish. I am torn in two.”

“But you are willing?”

“I pray for it every night,” she cried piteously. “And every morning I pray that it may not be so.”

She was staring at him as if in agony, utterly unlike what he had looked for in her. He was completely bewildered.

“I do not understand one word—”

Then she threw herself at his knees and seized his hands; her face was all torn with pain.

“And I cannot explain one word…. Father, I am in misery. You must pray for me and have patience with me…. I must wait … I must wait and see what God wishes.”

“Now, now….”

“Father, you will trust me, will you not?”

“Listen to me. You must tell me thus. Do you love this boy?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And you have told him so? He asked you, I mean?”

“Yes.”

He put her hands firmly from his knee.

“Then you must marry him, if matters can be arranged. It is what I should wish. But I do not know—”

“Father, you do not understand—you do not understand. I tell you I am willing enough, if he wishes it … if he wishes it.”

Again she seized his hands and held them. And again bewilderment came down on him like a cloud.

“Father! you must trust me. I am willing to do everything that I ought.” (She was speaking firmly and confidently now.) “If he wishes to marry me, I will marry him. I love him dearly…. But you must say nothing to him, not one word. My mother agrees with this. She would have told you herself; but I said that I would—that I must be brave…. I must learn to be brave…. I can tell you no more.”

He lifted her hands and stood up.

“I see that I understand nothing that you say after all,” he said with a fine fatherly dignity. “I must talk with your mother.”

II

He found his wife half an hour later in the ladies’ parlour, which he entered with an air as of nothing to say. With the same air of disengagement he made sure that Marjorie was nowhere in the room, and presently sat down.

Mrs. Manners was well past her prime. She was over forty years old and looked over fifty, though she retained the air of distinction which Marjorie had derived from her; but her looks belied her, and she had not one tithe of the subtlety and keenness of her daughter. She was, in fact, more suited to be wife to her husband than mother to her daughter.

“You have come about the maid,” she said instantly, with disconcerting penetration and frankness. “Well, I know no more than you. She will tell me nothing but what she has told you. She has some fiddle-faddle in her head, as maids will, but she will have her way with us, I suppose.”

She drew her needle through the piece of embroidery which she permitted to herself for an hour on Sundays, knotted the thread and bit it off. Then she regarded her husband.

“I…. I will have no fiddle-faddle in such a matter,” he said courageously. “Maids did not rule their parents when I was a boy; they obeyed them or were beaten.”

His wife laughed shortly; and began to thread her needle again.

He began to explain. The match was in all respects suitable. Certainly there were difficulties, springing from the very startling events at Matstead, and it well might be that a man who would do as Mr. Audrey had done (or, rather, proposed to do) might show obstinacy in other directions too. Therefore there was no hurry; the two were still very young, and it certainly would be wiser to wait for any formal betrothal until Robin’s future disclosed itself. But no action of Mr. Audrey’s need delay the betrothal indefinitely; if need were, he, Mr. Manners, would make proper settlements. Marjorie was an only daughter; in fact, she was in some sort an heiress. The Manor would be sufficient for them both. As to any other difficulties—any of the maidenly fiddle-faddle of which his wife had spoken—this should not stand in the way for an instant.

His wife laughed again in the same exclamatory manner, when he had done and sat stroking his knees.

“Why, you understand nothing about it, Mr. Manners,” she said, “Did the maid not tell you she would marry him, if he wished it? She told me so.”

“Then what is the matter?” he asked.

“I know no more than you.”

“Does he not wish it?”

“She says so.”

“Then—”

“Yes, that is what I say. And yet that says nothing. There is something more.”

“Ask her.”

“I have asked her. She bids me wait, as she bids you. It is no good, Mr.

Manners. We must wait the maid’s time.”

He sat, breathing audibly through his nose.

These two were devoted to their daughter in a manner hardly to be described. She was the only one left to them; for the others, of whom two had been boys, had died in infancy or childhood; and, in the event, Marjorie had absorbed the love due to them all. She was a strain higher than themselves, thought her parents, and so pride in her was added to love. The mother had made incredible sacrifices, first to have her educated by a couple of old nuns who still survived in Derby, and then to bring her out suitably at Babington House last year. The father had cordially approved, and joined in the sacrifices, which included an expenditure which he would not have thought conceivable. The result was, of course, that Marjorie, under cover of a very real dutifulness, ruled both her parents completely; her mother acknowledged the dominion, at least, to herself and her husband; her father pretended that he did not; and on this occasion rose, perhaps, nearer to repudiating it than ever in his life. It seemed to him unbearable to be bidden by his daughter, though with the utmost courtesy and affection, to mind his own business.

So he sat and breathed audibly through his nose, and meditated rebellion.

“And is the lad to come here for Easter?” he asked at last.

“I suppose so.”

“And for how long?”

“So long as the maid appoints.”

He breathed louder than ever.

“And, Mr. Manners,” continued his wife emphatically, “no word must be said to him on the matter. The maid is very plain as to that…. Oh! we must let her have her way.”

“Where is she gone?”

She nodded with her head to the window. He went to it and looked out.

It was the little walled garden on which he looked, in which, if he had but known it, the lad whom he liked had kissed the maid whom he loved; and there walked the maid, at this moment with her back to him, going up the central path that was bordered with box. The February sun shone on her as she went, on her hooded head, her dark cloak and her blue dress beneath. He watched her go up, and drew back a little as she turned, so that she might not see him watching; and as she came down again he saw that she held a string of beads in her fingers and was making her devotions. She was a good girl…. That, at least, was a satisfaction.

Then he turned from the window again.

“Well?” said his wife.

“I suppose it must be as she says.”

III

It was an hour before sunset when Marjorie came out again into the walled garden that had become for her now a kind of sanctuary, and in her hand she carried a letter, sealed and inscribed. On the outside the following words were written:

“To Mr. Robin Audrey. At Matstead.

“Haste, haste, haste.”

Within, the sheet was covered from top to bottom with the neat convent-hand she had learnt from the nuns. The most of it does not concern us. It began with such words as you would expect from a maid to her lover; it continued to inform him that her parents were willing, and, indeed, desirous, that he should come to them for Easter, and that her father would write a formal letter later to invite him; it was to be written from Derby, (this conspirator informed the other), that it might cause less comment when Mr. Audrey saw it, and was to be expressed in terms that would satisfy him. Finally, it closed as it had begun, and was subscribed by his “loving friend, M. M.” One paragraph, however, is worth attention.

“I have told my father and mother, that we love one another, my Robin; and that you have asked me to marry you, and that I have consented should you wish to do so when the time comes. They have consented most willingly; and so Jesu have you in His keeping, and guide your mind aright.”

It was this paragraph that had cost her half of the hour occupied in writing; for it must be expressed just so and no otherwise; and its wording had cost her agony lest on the one side she should tell him too much, and, on the other, too little. And her agony was not yet over; for she had to face its sending, and the thought of all that it might cost her. She was to give it to one of the men who was to leave early for Derby next morning and was to deliver it at Matstead on the road; so she brought it out now to her sanctuary to spread it, like the old King of Israel, before the Lord….

There was a promise of frost in the air to-night. Underfoot the moisture of the path was beginning, not yet to stiffen, but rather to withdraw itself; and there was a cold clearness in the air. Over the wall beside the house, beyond the leafless trees which barred it like prison-bars, burned the sunset, deepening and glowing redder every instant. Yet she felt nothing of the cold, for a fire was within her as she went again up and down the path on which her father had watched her walk—a fire of which as yet she could not discern the fuel. The love of Robin was there—that she knew; and the love of Christ was there—so she thought; and yet where the divine and the human passion mingled, she could not tell; nor whether, indeed, for certain, it were the love of Christ at all, and not a vain imagination of her own as to how Christ, in this case, would be loved. Only she knew that across her love for Robin a shadow had fallen; she could scarcely tell when it had first come to her, and whence. Yet it had so come; it had deepened rapidly and strongly during the mass that Mr. Simpson had said, and, behold! in its very darkness there was light. And so it had continued till confusion had fallen on her which none but Robin could dissolve. It must be his word finally that must give her the answer to her doubts; and she must make it easy for him to give it. He must know, that is, that she loved him more passionately than ever, that her heart would break if she had not her desire; and yet that she would not hold him back if a love that was greater than hers could be for him or his for her, called him to another wedding than that of which either had yet spoken. A broken heart and God’s will done would be better than that God’s will should be avoided and her own satisfied.

It was this kind of considerations, therefore, that sent her swiftly to and fro, up and down the path under the darkening sky—if they can be called considerations which beat on the mind like a clamour of shouting; and, as she went, she strove to offer all to God: she entreated Him to do His will, yet not to break her heart; to break her heart, yet not Robin’s; to break both her heart and Robin’s, if that Will could not otherwise be served.

Her lips moved now and again as she went; but her eyes were downcast and her face untroubled….

As the bell in the court rang for supper she went to the door and looked through. The man was just saddling up in the stable-door opposite.

“Jack,” she called, “here is the letter. Take if safely.”

Then she went in to supper.

CHAPTER VI

I

It was a great day and a solemn when the squire of Matstead went to Protestant communion for the first time. It was Easter Day, too, but this was less in the consideration of the village. There was first the minister, Mr. Barton, in a condition of excited geniality from an early hour. He was observed soon after it was light, by an old man who was up betimes, hurrying up the village street in his minister’s cassock and gown, presumably on his way to see that all preparations were complete for the solemnity. His wife was seen to follow him a few minutes later.

By eight o’clock the inhabitants of the village were assembled at points of vantage; some openly at their doors; others at the windows; and groups from the more distant farms, decked suitably, stood at all corners; to be greeted presently by their minister hurrying back once more from the church to bring the communion vessels and the bread and wine. The four or five soldiers of the village—a couple of billmen and pikemen and a real gunner—stood apart in an official group, but did not salute him. He did not speak of that which was in the minds of all, but he waved a hand to this man, bid a happy Easter to another, and disappeared within his lodgings leaving a wake of excitement behind him.

By a quarter before nine the three bells had begun to jangle from the tower; and the crowd had increased largely, when Mr. Barton once more passed to the church in the spring sunshine, followed by the more devout who wished to pray, and the more timid who feared a disturbance. For sentiments were not wholly on the squire’s side. There was first a number of Catholics, openly confessed or at least secretly Catholic, though these were not in full force since most were gone to Padley before dawn; and there was next a certain sentiment abroad, even amongst those who conformed, in favour of tradition. That the squire of Matstead should be a Catholic was at least as fundamental an article of faith as that the minister should be a Protestant. There was little or no hot-gospel here; men still shook their heads sympathetically over the old days and the old faith, which indeed had ceased to be the faith of all scarcely twenty years ago; and it appeared to the most of them that the proper faith of the Quality, since they had before their eyes such families as the Babingtons, the Fentons, and the FitzHerberts, was that to which their own squire was about to say good-bye. It was known, too, publicly by now, that Mr. Robin was gone away for Easter, since he would not follow his father. So the crowd waited; the dogs sunned themselves; and the gunner sat on a wall.

The bells ceased at nine o’clock, and upon the moment, a group came round the churchyard wall, down from the field-path and the stile that led to the manor.

First, walking alone, came the squire, swiftly and steadily. His face was flushed a little, but set and determined. He was in his fine clothes, ruff and all; his rapier was looped at his side, and he carried a stick. Behind him came three or four farm servants; then a yeoman and his wife; and last, at a little distance, three or four onlookers.

There was dead silence as he came; the hum of talk died at the corners; the bells’ clamour had even now ceased. It seemed as if each man waited for his neighbour to speak. There was only the sound of the squire’s brisk footsteps on the few yards of cobbles that paved the walk up to the lych-gate. At the door of the church, seen beyond him, was a crowd of faces.

Then a man called something aloud from fifty yards away; but there was no voice to echo him. The folk just watched their lord go by, staring on him as on some strange sight, forgetting even to salute him. And so in silence he passed on.

II

Within, the church murmured with low talking. Already two-thirds of it was full, and all faces turned and re-turned to the door at every footstep or sound. As the bells ceased a sigh went up, as if a giant drew breath; then, once again, the murmuring began.

The church was as most were in those days. It was but a little place, yet it had had in old days great treasures of beauty. There had been, until some ten or twelve years ago, a carved screen that ran across the chancel arch, with the Rood upon it, and St. Mary and St. John on this side and that. The high-altar, it was remembered, had been of stone throughout, surrounded with curtains on the three sides, hanging between posts that had each a carven angel, all gilt. Now all was gone, excepting only the painted windows (since glass was costly). The chancel was as bare as a barn; beneath the whitewash, high over the place where the old canopy had hung, pale colours still glimmered through where, twelve years ago, Christ had sat crowning His Mother. The altar was gone; its holy slab served now as the pavement within the west door, where the superstitious took pains to step clear of it. The screen was gone; part lay beneath the tower; part had been burned; Christ’s Cross held up the roof of the shed where the minister kept his horse; the three figures had been carted off to Derby to help swell the Protestant bonfire. The projecting stoup to the right of the main door had been broken half off…. In place of these glories there stood now, in the body of the church, before the chancel-steps, a great table, such as the rubrics of the new Prayer-Book required, spread with a white cloth, upon which now rested two tall pewter flagons of wine, a flat pewter plate as great as a small dish, and two silver communion-cups—all new. And to one side of this, in a new wainscoted desk, waited worthy Mr. Barton for the coming of his squire—a happy man that day; his face beamed in the spring sunlight; he had on his silk gown, and he eyed, openly, the door through which his new patron was to come.

Then, without sound or warning, except for the footsteps on the paving-stones and the sudden darkening of the sunshine on the floor, there came the figure for which all looked. As he entered he lifted his hand to his head, but dropped it again; and passed on, sturdy, and (you would have said) honest and resolute too, to his seat behind the reading-desk. He was met by silence; he was escorted by silence; and in silence he sat down.

Then the waiting crowd surged in, poured this way and that, and flowed into the benches. And Mr. Barton’s voice was raised in holy exhortation.

“At what time soever a sinner doth repent him of his sin from the bottom of his heart, I will put all his wickedness out of remembrance, with the Lord.”

III

Those who could best observe (for the tale was handed on with the careful accuracy of those who cannot read or write) professed themselves amazed at the assured ease of the squire. No sound came from the seat half-hidden behind the reading-desk where he sat alone; and, during the prayers when he stood or kneeled, he moved as if he understood well enough what he was at. A great bound Prayer-Book, it was known, rested before him on the book-board, and he was observed to turn the pages more than once.

It was, indeed, a heavy task that Mr. Barton had to do. For first there was the morning prayer, with its psalms, its lessons and its prayers; next the Litany, and last the communion, in the course of which was delivered one of the homilies set forth by authority, especially designed for the support of those who were no preachers—preceded and followed by a psalm. But all was easy to-day to a man who had such cause for exultation; his voice boomed heartily out; his face radiated his pleasure; and he delivered his homily when the time came, with excellent emphasis and power—all from the reading-desk, except the communion.

Yet it is to be doubted whether the attention of those that heard him was where their pastor would have desired it to be; since even to these country-folk the drama of the whole was evident. There, seen full when he sat down, and in part when he kneeled and stood, was the man who hitherto had stood to them for the old order, the old faith, the old tradition—the man whose horse’s footsteps had been heard, times and again, before dawn, in the village street, bearing him to the mystery of the mass; through whose gate strangers had ridden, perhaps three or four times in the year, to find harbourage—strangers dressed indeed as plain gentlemen or yeomen, yet known, every one of them, to be under her Grace’s ban, and to ride in peril of liberty if not of life.

Yet here he sat—a man feared and even loved by some—the first of his line to yield to circumstance, and to make peace with his times. Not a man of all who looked on him believed him certainly to be that which his actions professed him to be; some doubted, especially those who themselves inclined to the old ways or secretly followed them; and the hearts of these grew sick as they watched.

But the crown and climax was yet to come.

The minister finished at last the homily—it was one which inveighed more than once against the popish superstitions; and he had chosen it for that reason, to clench the bargain, so to say—all in due order; for he was a careful man and observed his instructions, unlike some of his brethren who did as they pleased; and came back again to the long north side of the linen-covered table to finish the service.

He had no man to help him; so he was forced to do it all for himself; so he went forward gallantly, first reading a set of Scripture sentences while the officers collected first for the poor-box, and then, as it was one of the offering-days, collected again the dues for the curate. It was largely upon these, in such poor parishes as was this, that the minister depended and his wife.

Then he went on to pray for the whole estate of Christ’s Church militant here on earth, especially for God’s “servant, Elizabeth our Queen, that under her we may be godly and quietly governed”; then came the exhortation, urging any who might think himself to be “a blasphemer of God, an hinderer or slanderer of His Word … or to be in malice or envy,” to bewail his sins, and “not to come to this holy table, lest after the taking of that holy sacrament, the devil enter into him, as he entered into Judas, and fill him full of all iniquities.”

So forward with the rest. He read the Comfortable Words; the English equivalent for Sursum Corda with the Easter Preface; then another prayer; and finally rehearsed the story of the Institution of the Most Holy Sacrament, though without any blessing of the bread and wine, at least by any action, since none such was ordered in the new Prayer-Book. Then he immediately received the bread and wine himself, and stood up again, holding the silver plate in his hand for an instant, before proceeding to the squire’s seat to give him the communion. Meantime, so great was the expectation and interest that it was not until the minister had moved from the table that the first communicants began to come up to the two white-hung benches, left empty till now, next to the table.

Then those who still watched, and who spread the tale about afterwards, saw that the squire did not move from his seat to kneel down. He had put off his hat again after the homily, and had so sat ever since; and now that the minister came to him, still there he sat.

Now such a manner of receiving was not unknown; yet it was the sign of a Puritan; and, so far from the folk expecting such behaviour in their squire, they had looked rather for Popish gestures, knockings on the breast, signs of the cross.

For a moment the minister stood before the seat, as if doubtful what to do. He held the plate in his left hand and a fragment of bread in his fingers. Then, as he began the words he had to say, one thing at least the people saw, and that was that a great flush dyed the old man’s face, though he sat quiet. Then, as the minister held out the bread, the squire seemed to recover himself; he put out his fingers quickly, took the bread sharply and put it into his mouth; and so sat again, until the minister brought the cup; and this, too, he drank of quickly, and gave it back.

Then, as the communicants, one by one, took the bread and wine and went back to their seats, man after man glanced up at the squire.

But the squire sat there, motionless and upright, like a figure cut of stone.

IV

The court of the manor seemed deserted half an hour before dinner-time. There was a Sabbath stillness in the air to-day, sweetened, as it were, by the bubbling of bird-music in the pleasaunce behind the hall and the high woods beyond. On the strips of rough turf before the gate and within it bloomed the spring flowers, white and blue. A hound lay stretched in the sunshine on the hall steps; twitching his ears to keep off a persistent fly. You would have sworn that his was the only intelligence in the place. Yet at the sound of the iron latch of the gate and the squire’s footsteps on the stones, the place, so to say, became alive, though in a furtive and secret manner. Over the half door of the stable entrance on the left two faces appeared—one, which was Dick’s, sullen and angry, the other, that of a stable-boy, inquiring and frankly interested. This second vanished again as the squire came forward. A figure of a kitchen-boy, in a white apron, showed in the dark doorway that led to the kitchen and hall, and disappeared again instantly. From two or three upper windows faces peeped and remained fascinated. Only the old hound remained still, twitching his ears.

All this—though there was nothing to be seen but the familiar personage of the place, in his hat and cloak and sword, walking through his own court on his way to dinner, as he had walked a thousand times before. And yet so great was the significance of his coming to-day, that the very gate behind him was pushed open by sightseers, who had followed at a safe distance up the path from the church; half a dozen stood there staring, and behind them, at intervals, a score more, spread out in groups, all the way down to the porter’s lodge.

The most remarkable feature of all was the silence. Not a voice there spoke, even in a whisper. The maids at the windows above, Dick glowering over the half door, the little group which, far back in the kitchen entrance, peeped and rustled, the men at the gate behind, even the boys in the path—all these held their tongues for interest and a kind of fear. Drama was in the air—the tragedy of seeing the squire come back from church for the first time, bearing himself as he always did, resolute and sturdy, yet changed in his significance after a fashion of which none of these simple hearts had ever dreamed.

So, again in silence, he went up the court, knowing that eyes were upon him, yet showing no sign that he knew it; he went up the steps with the same assured air, and disappeared into the hall.

Then the spell broke up and the bustle began, for it was only half an hour to dinner and guests were coming. First Dick came out, slashing to the door behind him, and strode out to the gate. He was still in his boots, for he had ridden to Padley and back since early morning with a couple of the maids and the stable-boy. He went to the gate of the court, the group dissolving as he came, and shut it in their faces. A noise of talking came out of the kitchen windows and the clash of a saucepan: the maids’ heads vanished from the upper windows.

Even as Dick shut the gate he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs down by the porter’s lodge. The justices were coming—the two whose names he had heard with amazement last week, as the last corroboration of the incredible rumour of his master’s defection. For these were a couple of magistrates—harmless men, indeed, as regarded their hostility to the old Faith—yet Protestants who had sat more than once on the bench in Derby to hear cases of recusancy. Old Mrs. Marpleden had told him they were to come, and that provision must be made for their horses—Mrs. Marpleden, the ancient housekeeper of the manor, who had gone to school for a while with the Benedictine nuns of Derby in King Henry’s days. She had shaken her head and eyed him, and then had suffered three or four tears to fall down her old cheeks.

Well, they were coming, so Dick must open the gate again, and pull the bell for the servants; and this he did, and waited, hat in hand.

Up the little straight road they came, with a servant or two behind them—the two harmless gentlemen, chattering as they rode; and Dick loathed them in his heart.

“The squire is within?”

“Yes, sir.”

They dismounted, and Dick held their stirrups.

“He has been to church—eh?”

Dick made no answer. He feigned to be busy with one of the saddles.

The magistrate glanced at him sharply.

V

It was a strange dinner that day.

Outwardly, again, all was as usual—as it might have been on any other Sunday in spring. The three gentlemen sat at the high table, facing down the hall; and, since there was no reading, and since it was a festival, there was no lack of conversation. The servants came in as usual with the dishes—there was roast lamb to-day, according to old usage, among the rest; and three or four wines. A little fire burned against the reredos, for cheerfulness rather than warmth, and the spring sunshine flowed in through the clear-glass windows, bright and genial.

Yet the difference was profound. Certainly there was no talk, overheard at least by the servants, which might not have been on any Sunday for the last twenty years: the congratulations and good wishes, or whatever they were, must have been spoken between the three in the parlour before dinner; and they spoke now of harmless usual things—news of the countryside and tales from Derby; gossip of affairs of State; of her Grace, who, in a manner unthinkable, even by now dominated the imagination of England. None of these three had ever seen her; the squire had been to London but once in his life, his two guests never. Yet they talked of her, of her state-craft, of her romanticism; they told little tales, one to the other, as if she lived in the county town. All this, then, was harmless enough. Religion was not mentioned in the hearing of the servants, neither the old nor the new; they talked, all three of them, and the squire loudest of all, though with pauses of pregnant silence, of such things as children might have heard without dismay.

Yet to the servants who came and went, it was as if their master were another man altogether, and his hall some unknown place. There was no blessing of himself before meat; he said something, indeed, before he sat down, but it was unintelligible, and he made no movement with his hand. But it was deeper than this … and his men who had served him for ten or fifteen years looked on him as upon a stranger or a changeling.

CHAPTER VII

I

The same Easter Day at Padley was another matter altogether.

As early as five o’clock in the morning the house was astir: lights glimmered in upper rooms; footsteps passed along corridors and across the court; parties began to arrive. All was done without ostentation, yet without concealment, for Padley was a solitary place, and had no fear, at this time, of a sudden descent of the authorities. For form’s sake—scarcely for more—a man kept watch over the valley road, and signalled by the flashing of a lamp twice every party with which he was acquainted, and there were no others than these to signal. A second man waited by the gate into the court to admit them. They rode and walked in from all round—great gentlemen, such as the North Lees family, came with a small retinue; a few came alone; yeomen and farm servants, with their women-folk, from the Hathersage valley, came for the most part on foot. Altogether perhaps a hundred and twenty persons were within Padley Manor—and the gate secured—by six o’clock.

Meanwhile, within, the priest had been busy since half-past four with the hearing of confessions. He sat in the chapel beside the undecked altar, and they came to him one by one. The household and a few of the nearer neighbours had done their duty in this matter the day before, and a good number had already made their Easter duties earlier in Lent; so by six o’clock all was finished.

Then began the bustle.

A group of ladies, FitzHerberts and Fentons, entered, so soon as the priest gave the signal by tapping on the parlour wall, bearing all things necessary for the altar; and it was astonishing what fine things these were; so that by the time that the priest was ready to vest, the place was transformed. Stuffs and embroideries hung upon the wall about the altar, making it seem, indeed, a sanctuary; two tall silver candlesticks, used for no other purpose, stood upon the linen cloths, under which rested the slate altar-stone, taken, with the sacred vessels and the vestments, from one of the privy hiding-holes, with whose secret not a living being without the house, and not more than two or three within, was acquainted. It was rumored that half a dozen such places had been contrived within the precincts, two of which were great enough to hold two or three men at a pinch.

Soon after six o’clock, then, the altar was ready and the priest stood vested. He retired a pace from the altar, signed himself with the cross, and with Mr. John FitzHerbert and his son Thomas on either side of him, began the preparation….

It was a strange and an inspiriting sight that the young priest (for it was Mr. Simpson who was saying the mass) looked upon as he turned round after the gospel to make his little sermon. From end to end the tiny chapel was full, packed so that few could kneel and none sit down. The two doors were open, and here two faces peered in; and behind, rank after rank down the steps and along the little passage, the folk stood or knelt, out of sight of both priest and altar, and almost out of sound. The sanctuary was full of children—whose round-eyed, solemn faces looked up at him—children who knew little or nothing of what was passing, except that they were there to worship God, but who, for all that, received impressions and associations that could never thereafter wholly leave them. The chapel was still completely dark, for the faint light of dawn was excluded by the heavy hangings over the windows; and there was but the light of the two tapers to show the people to one another and the priest to them all.

It was an inspiriting sight to him then—and one which well rewarded him for his labours, since there was not a class from gentlemen to labourers who was not represented there. The FitzHerberts, the Babingtons, the Fentons—these, with their servants and guests, accounted for perhaps half of the folk. From the shadow by the door peeped out the faces of John Merton and his wife and son; beneath the window was the solemn face of Mr. Manners the lawyer, with his daughter beside him, Robin Audrey beside her, and Dick his servant behind him. Surely, thought the young priest, the Faith could not be in its final decay, with such a gathering as this.

His little sermon was plain enough for the most foolish there. He spoke of Christ’s Resurrection; of how death had no power to hold Him, nor pains nor prison to detain Him; and he spoke, too, of that mystical life of His which He yet lived in His body, which was the Church; of how Death, too, stretched forth his hands against Him there, and yet had no more force to hold Him than in His natural life lived on earth near sixteen hundred years ago; how a Resurrection awaited Him here in England as in Jerusalem, if His friends would be constant and courageous, not faithless, but believing.

“Even here,” he said, “in this upper chamber, where we are gathered for fear of the Jews, comes Jesus and stands in the midst, the doors being shut. Upon this altar He will be presently, the Lamb slain yet the Lamb victorious, to give us all that peace which the world can neither give nor take away.”

And he added a few words of exhortation and encouragement, bidding them fear nothing whatever might come upon them in the future; to hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, and so to attain the heavenly crown. He was not eloquent, for he was but a young man newly come from college, with no great gifts. Yet not a soul there looked upon him, on his innocent, wondering eyes and his quivering lips, but was moved by what he saw and heard.

The priest signed himself with the cross, and turned again to continue the mass.

II

“You tell me, then,” said the girl quietly, “that all is as it was with you? God has told you nothing?”

Robin was silent.

Mass had been done an hour or more, and for the most part the company was dispersed again, after refreshment spread in the hall, except for those who were to stay to dinner, and these two had slipped away at last to talk together in the woods; for the court was still filled with servants coming and going, and the parlours occupied. In one the ladies were still busy with the altar furniture; in the other the priest sat to talk in private with those who were come from a distance; and as for the hall—this, too, was in the hands of the servants, since not less than thirty gentle folk were to dine there that day.

Robin had come to Booth’s Edge at the beginning of Passion week, and had been there ever since. He had refrained, at Marjorie’s entreaty, from speaking of her to her parents; and they, too, ruled by their daughter, had held their tongues on the matter. Everything else, however, had been discussed—the effect of the squire’s apostasy, the alternatives that presented themselves to the boy, the future behaviour of him to his father—all these things had been spoken of; and even the priest called into council during the last two or three days. Yet not much had come of it. If the worst came to the worst, the lawyer had offered the boy a place in his office; Anthony Babington had proposed his coming to Dethick if his father turned him out; while Robin himself inclined to a third alternative—the begging of his father to give him a sum of money and be rid of him; after which he proposed, with youthful vagueness, to set off for London and see what he could do there.

Marjorie, however, had seemed strangely uninterested in such proposals. She had listened with patience, bowing her head in assent to each, beginning once or twice a word of criticism, and stopping herself before she had well begun. But she had looked at Robin with more than interest; and her mother had found her more than once on her knees in her own chamber, in tears. Yet she had said nothing, except that she would speak her mind after Easter, perhaps.

And now, it seemed, she was doing it.

“You have had no other thought?” she said again, “besides those of which you talked with my father?”

They were walking together through the woods, half a mile along the Hathersage valley. Beneath them the ground fell steeply away, above them it rose as steeply to the right. Underfoot the new life of spring was bourgeoning in mould and grass and undergrowth; for the heather did not come down so far as this; and the daffodils and celandine and wild hyacinth lay in carpets of yellow and blue, infinitely sweet, beneath the shadow of the trees and in the open sunshine. (It was at this time that the squire of Matstead was entering the church and hearing of the promises of the Lord to the sinner who forsook his sinful ways.)

“I have had other thoughts,” said the boy slowly, “but they are so wild and foolish that I have determined to think no more of them.”

“You are determined?”

He bowed his head.

“You are sure, then, that they are not from God?” asked the girl, torn between fear and hope. He was silent; and her heart sank again.

He looked, indeed, a bewildered boy, borne down by a weight that was too heavy for his years. He walked with his hands behind his back, his hatless head bowed, regarding his feet and the last year’s leaves on which he walked. A cuckoo across the valley called with the insistence of one who will be answered.

“My Robin,” said the girl, “the last thing I would have you do is to tell me what you would not…. Will you not speak to the priest about it?”

“I have spoken to the priest.”

“Yes?”

“He tells me he does not know what to think.”

“Would you do this thing—whatever it may be—if the priest told you it was God’s will?”

There was a pause; and then:

“I do not know,” said Robin, so low she could scarcely hear him.

She drew a deep breath to reassure herself.

“Listen!” she said. “I must say a little of what I think; but not all.

Our Lord must finish it to you, if it is according to His will.”

He glanced at her swiftly, and down again, like a frightened child. Yet even in that glance he could see that it was all that she could do to force herself to speak; and by that look he understood for the first time something of that which she was suffering.

“You know first,” she said, “that I am promised to you. I hold that promise as sacred as anything on earth can be.”

Her voice shook a little. The boy bowed his head again. She went on:

“But there are some things,” she said, “more sacred than anything on earth—those things that come from heaven. Now, I wish to say this—and then have done with it: that if such should be God’s will, I would not hold you for a day. We are Catholics, you and I…. Your father—”

Her voice broke; and she stopped; yet without leaving go of her hold upon herself. Only she could not speak for a moment.

Then a great fury seized on the boy. It was one of those angers that for a while poison the air and turn all things sour; yet without obscuring the mind—an anger in which the angry one strikes first at that which he loves most, because he loves it most, knowing, too, that the words he speaks are false. For this, for the present, was the breaking-point in the lad. He had suffered torments in his soul, ever since the hour in which he had ridden into the gate of his own home after his talk in the empty chapel; he had striven to put away from him that idea for which the girl’s words had broken an entrance into his heart. And now she would give him no peace; she continued to press on him from without that which already pained him within; so he turned on her.

“You wish to be rid of me!” he cried fiercely.

She looked at him with her lips parted, her eyes astonished, and her face gone white.

“What did you say?” she said.

His conscience pierced him like a sword. Yet he set his teeth.

“You wish to be rid of me. You are urging me to leave you. You talk to me of God’s will and God’s voice, and you have no pity on me at all. It is an excuse—a blind.”

He stood raging. The very fact that he knew every word to be false made his energy the greater; for he could not have said it otherwise.

“You think that!” she whispered.

There, then, they stood, eyeing one another. A stranger, coming suddenly upon them, would have said it was a lovers’ tiff, and have laughed at it. Yet it was a deeper matter than that.

Then there surged over the boy a wave of shame; and the truth prevailed. His fair face went scarlet; and his eyes filled with tears. He dropped on his knees in the leaves, seized her hand and kissed it.

“Oh! you must forgive me,” he said. “But … but I cannot do it!”

III

It was a great occasion in the hall that Easter Day. The three tables, which, according to custom, ran along the walls, were filled to-day with guests; and a second dinner was to follow, scarcely less splendid than the first, for their servants as well as for those of the household. The floor was spread with new rushes; jugs of March beer, a full month old, as it should be, were ranged down the tables; and by every plate lay a posy of flowers. From the passage outside came the sound of music.

The feast began with the reading of the Gospel; at the close, Mr. John struck with his hand upon the table as a signal for conversation; the doors opened; the servants came in, and a babble of talk broke out. At the high table the master of the house presided, with the priest on his right, Mrs. Manners and Marjorie beyond him; on his left, Mrs. Fenton and her lord. At the other two tables Mr. Thomas presided at one and Mr. Babington at the other.

The talk was, of course, within the bounds of discretion; though once and again sentences were spoken which would scarcely have pleased the minister of the parish. For they were difficult times in which they lived; and it is no wonder at all if bitterness mixed itself with charity. Here was Mr. John, for instance, come to Padley expressly for the selling of some meadows to meet his fines; here was his son Thomas, the heir now, not only to Padley, but to Norbury, whose lord, his uncle, lay in the Fleet Prison. Here was Mr. Fenton, who had suffered the like in the matter of fines more than once. Hardly one of the folk there but had paid a heavy price for his conscience; and all the worship that was permitted to them, and that by circumstance, and not by law, was such as they had engaged in that morning with shuttered windows and a sentinel for fear that, too, should be silenced.

They talked, then, guardedly of those things, since the servants were in and out continually, and though all professed the same faith as their masters, yet these were times that tried loyalty hard. Mr. John, indeed, gave news, of his brother Sir Thomas, and said how he did; and read a letter, too, from Italy, from his younger brother Nicholas, who was fled abroad after a year’s prison at Oxford; but the climax of the talk came when dinner was over, and the muscadel, with the mould-jellies, had been put upon the tables. It was at this moment that Mr. John nodded to his son, who went to the door, to see the servants out, and stood by it to see that none listened. Then his father struck his hands together for silence, and himself spoke.

“Mr. Simpson,” he said, “has something to say to us all. It is not a matter to be spoken of lightly, as you will understand presently…. Mr. Simpson.”

The priest looked up timidly, pulling out a paper from his pocket.

“You have heard of Mr. Nelson?” he said to the company. “Well, he was a priest; and I have news of his death. He was executed in London on the third of February for his religion. And another man, a Mr. Sherwood, was executed a few days afterwards.”

There was a rustle along the benches. Some there had heard of the fact, but no more; some had heard nothing of either the man or his death. Two or three faces turned a shade paler; and then the silence settled down again. For here was a matter that touched them all closely enough; since up to now scarcely a priest except Mr. Cuthbert Maine had suffered death for his religion; and even of him some of the more tolerant said that it was treason with which he was charged. They had heard, indeed, of a priest or two having been sent abroad into exile for his faith; but the most of them thought it a thing incredible that in England at this time a man should suffer death for it. Fines and imprisonment were one thing; to such they had become almost accustomed. But death was another matter altogether. And for a priest! Was it possible that the days of King Harry were coming back; and that every Catholic henceforth should go in peril of his life as well as of liberty?

The folks settled themselves then in their seats; one or two men drank off a glass of wine.

“I have heard from a good friend of mine in London,” went on the priest, looking at his paper, “one who followed every step of the trial; and was present at the death. They suffered at Tyburn…. However, I will tell you what he says. He is a countryman of mine, from Yorkshire; as was Mr. Nelson, too.

“‘Mr. Nelson was taken in London on the first of December last year. He was born at Shelton, and was about forty-three years old; he was the son of Sir Nicholas Nelson.’

“So much,” said the priest, looking up from his paper, “I knew myself. I saw him about four years ago just before he went to Douay, and he came back to England as a priest, a year and a half after. Mr. Sherwood was not a priest; he had been at Douay, too, but as a scholar only…. Well, we will speak of Mr. Nelson first. This is what my friend says.”

He spread the paper before him on the table; and Marjorie, looking past her mother, saw that his hands shook as he spread it.

“‘Mr. Nelson,’” began the priest, reading aloud with some difficulty, “‘was brought before my lords, and first had tendered to him the oath of the Queen’s supremacy. This he refused to take, saying that no lay prince could have pre-eminence over Christ’s Church; and, upon being pressed as to who then could have it, answered, Christ’s Vicar only, the successor of Peter. Further, he proceeded to say, under questioning, that since the religion of England at this time is schismatic and heretical, so also is the Queen’s Grace who is head of it.

“‘This, then, was what was wanted; and after a delay of a few weeks, the same questions being put to him, and his answers being the same, he was sentenced to death. He was very fortunate in his imprisonment. I had speech with him two or three times and was the means, by God’s blessing, of bringing another priest to him, to whom he confessed himself; and with whom he received the Body of Christ a day before he suffered.

“‘On the third of February, knowing nothing of his death being so near, he was brought up to a higher part of the prison, and there told he was to suffer that day. His kinsmen were admitted to him then, to bid him farewell; and afterwards two ministers came to turn him from his faith if they could; but they prevailed nothing.’”

There was a pause in the reading; but there was no movement among any that listened. Robin, watching from his place at the right-hand table, cold at heart, ran his eyes along the faces. The priest was as white as death, with the excitement, it seemed, of having to tell such a tale. His host beside him seemed downcast and quiet, but perfectly composed. Mrs. Manners had her eyes closed; Anthony Babington was frowning to himself with tight lips; Marjorie he could not see.

With a great effort the reader resumed:

“‘When he was laid on the hurdle he refused to ask pardon of the Queen’s Grace; for, said he, I have never yet offended her. I was beside him, and heard it. And he added, when those who stood near stormed at him, that it was better to be hanged than to burn in hell-fire.

“‘There was a great concourse of people at Tyburn, but kept back by the officers so that they could not come at him. When he was in the cart, first he commended his spirit into God’s Hands, saying In manus tuas, etc.; then he besought all Catholics that were present to pray for him; I saw a good many who signed themselves in the crowd; and then he said some prayers in Latin; with the psalms Miserere and De Profundis. And then he addressed himself to the people, telling them he died for his religion, which was the Catholic Roman one, and prayed, and desired them to pray, that God would bring all Englishmen into it. The crowd cried out at that, exclaiming against this Catholic Romish Faith; and so he said what he had to say, over again. Then, before the cart was drawn away from him to leave him to hang, he asked pardon of all them he had offended, and even of the Queen, if he had indeed offended her. Then one of the sheriffs called on the hangman to make an end; so Mr. Nelson prayed again in silence, and then begged all Catholics that were there once more to pray that, by the bitter passion of Christ, his soul might be received into everlasting joy. And they did so; for as the cart was drawn away a great number cried out, and I with them, Lord, receive his soul.

“‘He was cut down, according to sentence, before he was dead, and the butchery begun on him; and when it was near over, he moved a little in his pain, and said that he forgave the Queen and all that caused or consented to his death: and so he died.’”

The priest’s voice, which had shaken again and again, grew so tremulous as he ended that those that were at the end of the hall could scarcely hear him; and, as it ceased, a murmur ran along the seats.

Mr. FitzHerbert leaned over to the priest and whispered. The priest nodded, and the other held up his hand for silence.

“There is more yet,” he said.

Mr. Simpson, with a hand that still shook so violently that he could hardly hold his glass, lifted and drank off a cup of muscadel. Then he cleared his throat, sat up a little in his chair, and resumed:

“‘Next I went to see Mr. Sherwood, to talk to him in prison and to encourage him by telling him of the passion of the other and how bravely he bore it. Mr. Sherwood took it very well, and said that he was afraid of nothing, that he had reconciled his mind to it long ago, and had rehearsed it all two or three times, so that he would know what to say and how to bear himself.’”

Mr. FitzHerbert leaned over again to the priest at this point and whispered something. Mr. Simpson nodded, and raised his eyes.

“Mr. Sherwood,” he said, “was a scholar from Douay, but not a priest. He was lodging in the house of a Catholic lady, and had procured mass to be said there, and it was through her son that he was taken and charged with recusancy.”

Again ran a rustle through the benches. This executing of the laity for religion was a new thing in their experience. The priest lifted the paper again.

“‘I found that Mr. Sherwood had been racked many times in the Tower, during the six months he was in prison, to force him to tell, if they could, where he had heard mass and who had said it. But they could prevail nothing. Further, no visitor was admitted to him all this time, and I was the first and the last that he had; and that though Mr. Roper himself had tried to get at him for his relief; for he was confined underground and lay in chains and filth not to be described. I said what I could to him, but he said he needed nothing and was content, though his pain must have been very great all this while, what with the racking repeated over and over again and the place he lay in.

“‘I was present again when he suffered at Tyburn, but was too far away to hear anything that he said, and scarcely, indeed, could see him; but I learned afterwards that he died well and courageously, as a Catholic should, and made no outcry or complaint when the butchery was done on him.

“‘This, then, is the news I have to send you—sorrowful, indeed, yet joyful, too; for surely we may think that they who bore such pains for Christ’s sake with such constancy will intercede for us whom they leave behind. I am hoping myself to come North again before I go to Douay next year, and will see you then and tell you more.’”

The priest laid down the paper, trembling.

Mr. FitzHerbert looked up.

“It will give pleasure to the company,” he said, “to know that the writer of the letter is Mr. Ludlam, from Radbourne, in this county. As you have heard, he, too, hopes by God’s mercy to be made priest and to come back to England.”

CHAPTER VIII

I

In the following week Robin went home again.

The clear weather of Easter had broken, and racing clouds, thick as a pall, sped across the sky that had been so blue and so cheerful; a wind screamed all day, now high, now low, shattering the tender flowers of spring, ruffling the Derwent against its current, by which he rode, and dashing spatters of rain now and again on his back, tossing high and wide the branches under which he went, until the woods themselves became as a great melancholy organ, making sad music about him.

When a mind is fluent and uncertain there is no describing it. He thought he had come to a decision last week; he found that the decision was shattered as soon as made. He had talked to the priest; he had resisted Marjorie; and yet to neither of them had he put into formal words what it was that troubled him. He had asked questions about vocation, about the place that circumstance occupies in it, of the value of dispositions, fears, scruples, and resistance. He had, that is, fingered his wound, half uncovered it, and then covered it up again, tormented it, glanced at it and then glanced aside; yet the one thing he had not done was to probe it—not even to allow another to do so.

His mind, then, was fluent and distracted; it formed images before him, which dissolved as soon as formed; it whirled in little eddies; it threw up obscuring foam; it ran clear one instant, and the next broke itself in rapids. He could neither ease it, nor dam it altogether, and he did not know what to do.

As he rode through Froggatt, he saw a group of saddle-horses standing at the inn door, but thought nothing of it, till a man ran out of the door, still holding his pot, and saluted him, and he recognised him to be one of Mr. Babington’s men.

“My master is within, sir,” he said; “he bade me look out for you.”

Robin drew rein, and as he did so, Anthony, too, came out.

“Ah!” he said. “I heard you would be coming this way. Will you come in?

I have something to say to you.”

Robin slipped off, leaving his mare in the hands of Anthony’s man, since he himself was riding alone, with his valise strapped on behind.

It was a little room, very trim and well kept, on the first floor, to which his friend led him. Anthony shut the door carefully and came across to the settle by the window-seat.

“Well,” he said, “I have bad news for you, my friend. Will you forgive me? I have seen your father and had words with him.”

“Eh?”

“I said nothing to you before,” went on the other, sitting down beside him. “I knew you would not have it so, but I went to see for myself and to put a question or two. He is your father, but he has also been my friend. That gives me rights, you see!”

“Tell me,” said Robin heavily.

It appeared that Anthony, who was a precise as well as an ardent young man, had had scruples about trusting to hearsay. Certainly it was rumoured far and wide that the squire of Matstead had done as he had said he would do, and gone to church; but Mr. Anthony was one of those spirits who will always have things, as they say, from the fountain-head; partly from instincts of justice, partly, no doubt, for the pleasure of making direct observations to the principals concerned. This was what he had done in this case. He had ridden, without a word to any, up to Matstead, and had demanded to be led to the squire; and there and then, refusing to sit down till he was answered, had put his question. There had been a scene. The squire had referred to puppies who wanted drowning, to young sparks, and to such illustrative similes; and Anthony, in spite of his youthful years, had flared out about turncoats and lick-spittles. There had been a very pretty ending: the squire had shouted for his servants and Anthony for his, and the two parties had eyed one another, growling like dogs, until bloodshed seemed imminent. Then the visitor had himself solved the situation by stalking out of the house from which the squire was proposing to flog him, mounting his horse, and with a last compliment or two had ridden away. And here he was at Froggatt on his return journey, having eaten there that dinner which no longer would be spread for him at Matstead.

Robin sat silent till the tale was done, and at the end of it Anthony was striding about the room, aflame again with wrath, gesticulating and raging aloud.

Then Robin spoke, holding up his hand for moderation. “You will have the whole house here,” he said. “Well, you have cooked my goose for me.”

“Bah! that was cooked at Passiontide when you went to Booth’s Edge. Do you think he’ll ever have a Papist in his house again?”

“Did he say so?”

“No; but he said enough about his ‘young cub.’… Nonsense, man! Come home with me to Dethick. We’ll find occupation enough.”

“Did he say he would not have me home again?”

“No,” bawled Anthony. “I have told you he did not say so outright. But he said enough to show he’d have no rebels, as he called them, in his Protestant house! Dick’s to leave. Did you hear that?”

“Dick!”

“Why, certainly. There was a to-do on Sunday, and Dick spoke his mind.

He’ll come to me, he says, if you have no service for him.”

Robin set his teeth. It seemed as if the pelting blows would never cease.

“Come with me to Dethick!” said Anthony again. “I tell you—”

“Well?”

“There’ll be time enough to tell you when you come. But I promise you occupation enough.”

He paused, as if he would say more and dared not.

“You must tell me more,” said the lad slowly. “What kind of occupation?”

Then Anthony did a queer thing. He first glanced at the door, and then went to it quickly and threw it open. The little lobby was empty. He went out, leaned over the stair and called one of his men.

“Sit you there,” he said, with the glorious nonchalance of a Babington, “and let no man by till I tell you.”

He came back, closed the door, bolted it, and then came across and sat down by his friend.

“Do you think the rest of us are doing nothing?” he whispered. “Why, I tell you that a dozen of us in Derbyshire—” He broke off once more. “I may not tell you,” he said, “I must ask leave first.”

A light began to glimmer before Robin’s mind; the light broadened suddenly and intensely, and his whole soul leapt to meet it.

“Do you mean—?” And then he, too, broke off, well knowing enough, though not all of, what was meant.

It was quiet here within this room, in spite of the village street outside. It was dinner-time, and all were within doors or out at their affairs; and except for the stamp of a horse now and again, and the scream of the wind in the keyhole and between the windows, there was little to hear. And in the lad’s soul was a tempest.

He knew well enough now what his friend meant, though nothing of the details; and from the secrecy and excitement of the young man’s manner he understood what the character of his dealings would likely be, and towards those dealings his whole nature leaped as a fish to the water. Was it possible that this way lay the escape from his own torment of conscience? Yet he must put a question first, in honesty.

“Tell me this much,” he said in a low voice. “Do you mean that this … this affair will be against men’s lives … or … or such as even a priest might engage in?”

Then the light of fanaticism leaped to the eyes of his friend, and his face brightened wonderfully.

“Do they observe the courtesies and forms of law?” he snarled. “Did Nelson die by God’s law, or did Sherwood—those we know of? I will tell you this,” he said, “and no more unless you pledge yourself to us … that we count it as warfare—in Christ’s Name yes—but warfare for all that.”

There then lay the choice before this lad, and surely it was as hard a choice as ever a man had to make. On the one side lay such an excitement as he had never yet known—for Anthony was no merely mad fool—a path, too, that gave him hopes of Marjorie, that gave him an escape from home without any more ado, a task besides which he could tell himself honestly was, at least, for the cause that lay so near to Marjorie’s heart, and was beginning to lie near his own. And on the other there was open to him that against which he had fought now day after day, in misery—a life that had no single attraction to the natural man in him, a life that meant the loss of Marjorie for ever.

The colour died from his lips as he considered this. Surely all lay Anthony’s way: Anthony was a gentleman like himself; he would do nothing that was not worthy of one…. What he had said of warfare was surely sound logic. Were they not already at war? Had not the Queen declared it? And on the other side—nothing. Nothing. Except that a voice within him on that other side cried louder and louder—it seemed in despair: “This is the way; walk in it.”

“Come,” whispered Anthony again.

Robin stood up; he made as if to speak; then he silenced himself and began to walk to and fro in the little room. He could hear voices from the room beneath—Anthony’s men talking there no doubt. They might be his men, too, at the lifting of a finger—they and Dick. There were the horses waiting without; he heard the jingle of a bit as one tossed his head. Those were the horses that would go back to Dethick and Derby, and, may be, half over England.

He walked to and fro half a dozen times without speaking, and, if he had but guessed it, he might have been comforted to know that his manhood flowed in upon him, as a tide coming in over a flat beach. These instants added more years to him than as many months that had gone before. His boyhood was passing, since experience and conflict, whether it end in victory or defeat, give the years to a man far more than the passing of time. So in God’s sight Robin added many inches to the stature of his spirit in this little parlour of Froggatt.

Yet, though he conquered then, he did not know that he conquered. He still believed, as he turned at last and faced his friend, that his mind was yet to make up, and his whisper was harsh and broken.

“I do not know,” he whispered. “I must go home first.”

II

Dick was waiting by the porter’s lodge as the boy rode in, and walked up beside him with his brown hand on the horse’s shoulder. Robin could not say much, and, besides, his confidence must be tied.

“So you are going,” he said softly.

The man nodded.

“I met Mr. Babington…. You cannot do better, I think, than go to him.”

It was with a miserable heart that an hour or two later he came down to supper. His father was already at table, sitting grimly in his place; he made no sign of welcome or recognition as his son came in. During the meal itself this was of no great consequence, as silence was the custom; but the boy’s heart sank yet further as, still without a word to him, the squire rose from table at the end and went as usual through the parlour door. He hesitated a moment before following. Then he grasped his courage and went after.

All things were as usual there—the wine set out and the sweetmeats, and his father in his usual place, Yet still there was silence.

Robin began to meditate again, yet alert for a sign or a word. It was in this little room, he understood, that the dispute with Anthony had taken place a few hours before, and he looked round it, almost wondering that all seemed so peaceful. It was this room, too, that was associated with so much that was happy in his life—drawn-out hours after supper, when his father was in genial moods, or when company was there—company that would never come again—and laughter and gallant talk went round. There was the fire burning in the new stove—that which had so much excited him only a year or two ago, for it was then the first that he had ever seen: there was the table where he had written his little letter; there was “Christ carrying His Cross.”

“So you have sent your friend to insult me; now!”

Robin started. The voice was quiet enough, but full of a suppressed force.

“I have not, sir. I met Mr. Babington at Froggatt on his way back. He told me. I am very sorry for it.”

“And you talked with him at Padley, too, no doubt?”

“Yes, sir.”

His father suddenly wheeled round on him.

“Do you think I have no sense, then? Do you think I do not know what you and your friends speak of?”

Robin was silent.

He was astonished how little afraid he was. His heart beat loud enough in his ears; yet he felt none of that helplessness that had fallen on him before when his father was angry…. Certainly he had added to his stature in the parlour at Froggatt.

The old man poured out a glass of wine and drank it. His face was flushed high, and he was using more words than usual.

“Well, sir, there are other affairs we must speak of; and then no more of them. I wish to know your meaning for the time to come. There must be no more fooling this way and that. I shall pay no fines for you—mark that! If you must stand on your own feet, stand on them…. Now then!”

“Do you mean, am I coming to church with you, sir?”

“I mean, who is to pay your fines?… Miss Marjorie?”

Robin set his teeth at the sneer.

“I have not yet been fined, sir.”

“Now do you take me for a fool? D’you think they’ll let you off? I was speaking—”

The old man stopped.

“Yes, sir?”

The other wheeled his face on him.

“If you will have it,” he said, “I was speaking to my two good friends who dined here on Sunday. I was plain with them and they were plain with me. ‘I shall not pay for my brat of a son,’ I said. ‘Then he must pay for himself,’ said they, ‘unless we lay him by the heels.’ ‘Not in my house, I hope,’ I said; and they laughed at that. We were very merry together.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Good God! have I a fool for a son? I ask you again, Who is it to pay?”

“When will they demand it?”

“Why, they may demand it next week, if they will! You were not at church on Sunday!”

“I was not in Matstead,” said the lad.

“But—”

“And Mr. Barton will not, I think—”

The old man struck the table suddenly and violently.

“I have dropped words enough,” he cried. “Where’s the use of it? If you think they will let you alone, I tell you they will not. There are to be doings before Christmas, at latest; and what then?”

Then Robin drew his breath sharply between his teeth; and knew that one more step had been passed, that had separated him from that which he feared…. He had come just now, still hesitating. Still there had been passing through his mind hopes and ideas of what his father might do for him. He knew well enough that he would never pay the fines, amounting sometimes to as much as twenty pounds a month; but he had thought that perhaps his father would give him a sum of money and let him go to fend for himself; that he might help him even to a situation somewhere; and now hope had died so utterly that he did not even dare speak of it. And he had said “No” to Anthony; he said to himself at least that he had meant “No,” in spite of his hesitation. All doors seemed closing, save that which terrified him….

“I have thought in my mind—” he began; and stopped, for the terror of what was on his tongue grew suddenly upon him.

“Eh?”

Robin stood up.

“I must have time, sir,” he cried; “I must have time. Do not press me too much.”

His father’s eyes shone bright and wrathful. He beat on the table with his open hand; but the boy was too quick for him.

“I beg of you, sir, not to make me speak too soon. It may be that you would hate that I should speak more than my silence.”

His whole person was tense and magnetic; his face was paler than ever; and it seemed as if his father understood enough, at least, to make him hesitate. The two looked at one another; and it was the man’s eyes that tell first.

“You may have till Pentecost,” he said.

III

It would be at about an hour before dawn that Robin awoke for perhaps the third or fourth time that night; for the conflict still roared within his soul and would give him no peace. And, as he lay there, awake in an instant, staring up into the dark, once more weighing and balancing this and the other, swayed by enthusiasm at one moment, weighed down with melancholy the next—there came to him, distinct and clear through the still night, the sound of horses’ hoofs, perhaps of three or four beasts, walking together.

Now, whether it was the ferment of his own soul, or the work of some interior influence, or indeed, the very intimation of God Himself, Robin never knew (though he inclined later to the last of these); yet it remains as a fact that when he heard that sound, so fierce was his curiosity to know who it was that rode abroad in company at such an hour, he threw off the blankets that covered him, went to his window and threw it open. Further, when he had listened there a second or two, and had heard the sound cease and then break out again clearer and nearer, signifying that the party was riding through the village, his curiosity grew so intense, that he turned from the window, snatched up and put on a few clothes, groping for them as well as he could in the dimness, and was presently speeding, barefooted, downstairs, telling himself in one breath that he was a fool, and in the next that he must reach the churchyard wall before the horses did.

It was but a short run when he had come down into the court, by the little staircase that led from the men’s rooms; the ground was soaking with the rains of yesterday, but he cared nothing for that; and, as the riding party turned up the little ascent that led beneath the churchyard, Robin, on the other side of the wall, was keeping between the tombstones to see, and not be seen.

It was within an hour of dawn, at that time when the sky begins to glimmer with rifts above the two horizons, showing light enough at least to distinguish faces. It was such a light as that in which he had seen the deer looking at him motionless as he rode home with Dick. Yet the three who now rode up towards him were so muffled about the faces that he feared he would not know them. They were men, all three of them; and he could make out valises strapped to the saddle of each; but, what seemed strange, they did not speak as they came; and it appeared as if they wished to make no more noise than was necessary, since one of them, when his horse set his foot upon the cobblestones beside the lych-gate, pulled him sharply off them.

And then, just as they rounded the angle of the wall where the boy crouched peeping, the man that rode in the middle, sighed as if with relief, and pulled the cloak that was about him, so that the collar fell from his face, and at the same time turned to his companion on his right, and said something in a low voice.

But the boy heard not a word; for he found himself staring at the thin-faced young priest from whom he had received Holy Communion at Padley. It was but for an instant; for the man to whom the priest spoke answered in the same low voice, and the other pulled his cloak again round his mouth.

Yet the look was enough. The sight, once more, of this servant of God, setting out again upon his perilous travels—seen at such a moment, when the boy’s judgment hung in the balance (as he thought); this one single reminder of what a priest could do in these days of sorrow, and of what God called on him to do—the vision, for it was scarcely less, all things considered, of a life such as this—presented, so to say, in this single scene of a furtive and secret ride before the dawn, leaving Padley soon after midnight—this, falling on a soul that already leaned that way, finished that for which Marjorie had prayed, and against which the lad himself had fought so fiercely.

Half an hour later he stood by his father’s bed, looking down on him without fear.

“Father,” he said, as the old man stared up at him through sleep-ridden eyes, “I have come to give you my answer. It is that I must go to Rheims and be a priest.”

Then he turned again and went out of the room, without waiting.

CHAPTER IX

I

Mrs. Manners was still abed when her daughter came in to see her. She lay in the great chamber that gave upon the gallery above the hall whence, on either side, she could hear whether or no the maids were at their business—which was a comfort to her if a discomfort to them. And now that her lord was in Derby, she lay here all alone.

The first that she knew of her daughter’s coming was a light in her eyes; and the next was a face, as of a stranger, looking at her with great eyes, exalted by joy and pain. The light, held below, cast shadows upwards from chin and cheek, and the eyes shone in hollows. Then, as she sat up, she saw that it was her daughter, and that the maid held a paper in her hands; she was in her night-linen, and a wrap lay over her shoulders and shrouded her hair.

“He is to be a priest,” she whispered sharply. “Thank our Lord with me … and … and God have mercy on me!”

Then Marjorie was on her knees by the bedside, sobbing so that the curtains shook.

The mother got it all out of her presently—the tale of the girl’s heart torn two ways at once. On the one side there was her human love for the lad who had wooed her—as hot as fire, and as pure—and on the other that keen romance that had made her pray that he might be a priest. This second desire had come to her, as sharp as a voice that calls, when she had heard of the apostasy of his father; it had seemed to her the riposte that God made to the assault upon His honour. The father would no longer be His worshipper? Then let the son be His priest; and so the balance be restored. And so the maid had striven with the two loves that, for once, would not agree together (as did the man in the Gospels who wished to go and bury his father and afterwards to follow his Saviour); she had not dared to say a word to the lad of anything of this lest it should be her will and not God’s that should govern him, for she knew very well what a power she had over him; but she had prayed God, and begged Robin to pray too and to listen to His voice; and now she had her way, and her heart was broken with it, she said:

“And when I think,” she wailed across her mother’s knees, “of what it is to be a priest; and of the life that he will lead, and of the death that he may die!… And it is I … I … who will have sent him to it. Mother!…”

Mrs. Manners was bethinking herself of a cordial just then, and how she knew old Ann would be coming presently, and was listening with but half an ear.

“It’s not you, my dear,” she said, patting the head beneath her hands. (The wrap was fallen off, and the maid’s long hair was all over her shoulders.) “And now—”

“But our Lord will take care of him, will He not? And not suffer—”

Mrs. Manners fell to patting her head again.

“And who brought the message?” she asked.

Mrs. Manners was one of those experienced persons who are fully persuaded that youth is a disease that must be borne with patiently. Time, indeed, will cure it; yet until the cure is complete, elders must bear it as well as they can and not seem to pay too much attention to it. A rigorous and prudent diet; long hours of sleep, plenty of occupation—these are the remedies for the fever. So, while Marjorie first began to read the lad’s letter, and then, breaking down altogether, thrust it into her mother’s hand, Mrs. Manners was searching her memory as to whether any imprudence the day before, in food or behaviour, could be the cause of this crisis. Love between boys and girls was common enough; she herself twenty years ago had suffered from the sickness when young John had come wooing her; yet a love that could thrust from it that which it loved, was beyond her altogether. Either Marjorie loved the lad, or she did not, and if she loved him, why did she pray that he might be a priest? That was foolishness; since priesthood was a bar to marriage. She began to conclude that Marjorie did not love him; it had been but a romantic fancy; and she was encouraged by the thought.

“Madge,” she began, when she had read through the confused line or two, in the half-boyish, half-clerkly hand of Robin, scribbled and dispatched by the hands of Dick scarcely two hours ago. “Madge—”

She was about to say something sensible when the maid interrupted her again.

“And it is I who have brought it all on him!” she wailed. “If it had not been for me—”

Her mother laid a firm hand on her daughter’s mouth. It was not often that she felt the superior of the two; yet here was a time, plain enough, when maturity and experience must take the reins.

“Madge,” she said, “it is plain you do not love him; or you never—”

The maid started back, her eyes ablaze.

“Not love him! Why—”

“That you do not love him truly; or you would never have wished this for him…. Now listen to me!”

She raised an admonitory finger, complacent at last. But her speech was not to be made at that time; for her daughter swiftly rose to her feet, controlled at last by the shock of astonishment.

“Then I do not think you know what love is,” she said softly. “To love is to wish the other’s highest good, as I understand it.”

Mrs. Manners compressed her lips, as might a prophetess before a prediction. But her daughter was beforehand with her again.

“That is the love of a Christian, at least,” she said. Then she stooped, took the letter from her mother’s knees, and went out.

Mrs. Manners sat for a moment as her daughter left her. Then she understood that her hour of superiority was gone with Marjorie’s hour of weakness; and she emitted a short laugh as she took her place again behind the child she had borne.

II

It was a strange time that Marjorie had until two days later, when Robin came and told her all, and how it had fallen out. For now, it seemed, she walked on air; now in shoes of lead. When she was at her prayers (which was pretty often just now), and at other times, when the air lightened suddenly about her and the burdens of earth were lifted as if another hand were put to them—at those times which every interior soul experiences in a period of stress—why, then, all was glory, and she saw Robin as transfigured and herself beneath him all but adoring. Little visions came and went before her imagination. Robin riding, like some knight on an adventure, to do Christ’s work; Robin at the altar, in his vestments; Robin absolving penitents—all in a rosy light of faith and romance. She saw him even on the scaffold, undaunted and resolute, with God’s light on his face, and the crowd awed beneath him; she saw his soul entering heaven, with all the harps ringing to meet him, and eternity begun…. And then, at other times, when the heaviness came down on her, as clouds upon the Derbyshire hills, she understood nothing but that she had lost him; that he was not to be hers, but Another’s; that a loveless and empty life lay before her, and a womanhood that was without its fruition. And it was this latter mood that fell on her, swift and entire, when, looking out from her window a little before dinner-time, she saw suddenly his hat, and Cecily’s head, jerking up the steep path that led to the house.

She fell on her knees by her bedside.

“Jesu!” she cried. “Jesu! Give me strength to meet him.”

Mrs. Manners, too, hearing the horse’s footsteps on the pavement a minute later, and Marjorie’s steps going downstairs, also looked forth and saw him dismounting. She was a prudent woman, and did not stir a finger till she heard the bell ringing in the court for the dinner to be served. They would have time, so she thought, to arrange their attitudes.

And, indeed, she was right: for it was two quiet enough persons who met her as she came down into the hall: Robin flushed with riding, yet wholly under his own command—bright-eyed, and resolute and natural (indeed, it seemed to her that he was more of a man than she had thought him). And her daughter, too, was still and strong; a trifle paler than she should be, yet that was to be expected. At dinner, of course, nothing could be spoken of but the most ordinary affairs—in such speaking, that is, as there was. It was not till they had gone out into the walled garden and sat them down, all three of them, on the long garden-seat beside the rose-beds, that a word was said on these new matters. There was silence as they walked there, and silence as they sat down.

“Tell her, Robin,” said the maid.

It appeared that matters were not yet as wholly decided as Mrs. Manners had thought. Indeed, it seemed to her that they were not decided at all. Robin had written to Dr. Allen, and had found means to convey his letter to Mr. Simpson, who, in his turn, had undertaken to forward it at least as far as to London; and there it would await a messenger to Douay. It might be a month before it would reach Douay, and it might be three or four months, or even more, before an answer could come back. Next, the squire had taken a course of action which, plainly, had disconcerted the lad, though it had its conveniences too. For, instead of increasing the old man’s fury, the news his son had given him had had a contrary effect. He had seemed all shaken, said Robin; he had spoken to him quietly, holding in the anger that surely must be there, the boy thought, without difficulty. And the upshot of it was that no more had been said as to Robin’s leaving Matstead for the present—not one word even about the fines. It seemed almost as if the old man had been trying how far he could push his son, and had recoiled when he had learned the effect of his pushing.

“I think he is frightened,” said the lad gravely. “He had never thought that I could be a priest.”

Mrs. Manners considered this in silence.

“And it may be autumn before Dr. Allen’s letter comes back?” she asked presently.

Robin said that that was so.

“It may even be till winter,” he said. “The talk among the priests, Mr. Simpson tells me, is all about the removal from Douay. It may be made at any time, and who knows where they will go?”

Mrs. Manners glanced across at her daughter, who sat motionless, with her hands clasped. Then she was filled with the spirit of reasonableness and sense: all this tragic to-do about what might never happen seemed to her the height of folly.

“Nay, then,” she burst out, “then nothing may happen after all. Dr. Allen may say ‘No;’ the letter may never get to him. It may be that you will forget all this in a month or two.”

Robin turned his face slowly towards her, and she saw that she had spoken at random. Again, too, it struck her attention that his manner seemed a little changed. It was graver than that to which she was accustomed.

“I shall not forget it,” he said softly. “And Dr. Allen will get the letter. Or, if not he, someone else.”

There was silence again, but Mrs. Manners heard her daughter draw a long breath.

III

It was an hour later that Marjorie found herself able to say that which she knew must be said.

Robin had lingered on, talking of this and that, though he had said half a dozen times that he must be getting homewards; and at last, when he rose, Mistress Manners, who was still wholly misconceiving the situation, after the manner of sensible middle-aged folk, archly and tactfully took her leave and disappeared down towards the house, advancing some domestic reason for her departure.

Robin sighed, and turned to the girl, who still sat quiet. But as he turned she lifted her eyes to him swiftly.

“Good-bye, Mr. Robin,” she said.

He pulled himself up.

“You understand, do you not?” she said. “You are to be a priest. You must remember that always. You are a sort of student already.”

She could see him pale a little; his lips tightened. For a moment he said nothing; he was taken wholly aback.

“Then I am not to come here again?”

Marjorie stood up. She showed no sign of the fierce self-control she was using.

“Why, yes,” she said. “Come as you would come to any Catholic neighbours. But no more than that…. You are to be a priest.”

The spring air was full of softness and sweetness as they stood there. On the trees behind them and on the roses in front the budding leaves had burst into delicate green, and the copses on all sides sounded with the twittering of birds. The whole world, it seemed, was kindling with love and freshness. Yet these two had to stand here and be cold, one to the other…. He was to be a priest; that must not be forgotten, and they must meet no more on the old footing. That was gone. Already he stood among the Levites, at least in intention; and the Lord alone was to be the portion of his inheritance and his Cup.

It was a minute before either of them moved, and during that minute the maid felt her courage ebb from her like an outgoing tide, leaving a desolation behind. It was all that she could do not to cry out.

But when at last Robin made a movement and she had to look him in the face, what she saw there braced and strengthened her.

“You are right, Mistress Marjorie,” he said both gravely and kindly. “I will bid you good-day and be getting to my horse.”

He kissed her gently, as the manner was, and went down the path alone.

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

It was with a sudden leap of her heart that Marjorie, looking out of her window at the late autumn landscape, her mind still running on the sheet of paper that lay before her, saw a capped head, and then a horse’s crest, rise over the broken edge of land up which Robin had ridden so often two and three years ago. Then she saw who was the rider, and laid her pen down again.

It was two years since the lad had gone to Rheims, and it would be five years more, she knew (since he was not over quick at his books), before he would return a priest. She had letters from him: one would come now and again, a month or two sometimes after the date of writing. It was only in September that she had had the letter which he had written her on hearing of her father’s death, and Mr. Manners had died in June. She had written back to him then, a discreet and modest letter enough, telling him of how Mr. Simpson had read mass over the body before it was taken down to Derby for the burying; and telling him, too, of her mother’s rheumatics that kept her abed now three parts of the year. For the rest, the letters were dull enough reading to one who did not understand them: the news the lad had to give was of a kind that must be disguised, lest the letters should fall into other hands, since it concerned the coming and going of priests whose names must not appear. Yet, for all that, the letters were laid up in a press, and the heap grew slowly.

It was Mr. Anthony Babington who was come now to see her, and it was his third visit since the summer. But she knew well enough what he was come for, since his young wife, whom he had married last year, was no use to him in such matters: she had lately had a child, too, and lived quietly at Dethick with her women. His letters, too, would come at intervals, carried by a rider, or sometimes some farmer’s man on his way home from Derby, and these letters, too, held dull reading enough for such as were not in the secret. Yet the magistrates at Derby would have given a good sum if they could have intercepted and understood them.

It was in the upper parlour now that she received him. A fire was burning there, as it had burned so long ago, when Robin found her fresh from her linen, and Anthony sat down in the same place. She sat by the window, with the paper in her hands at which she had been writing when she first saw him.

He had news for her, of two kinds, and, like a man, gave her first that which she least wished to hear. (She had first showed him the paper.)

“That was the very matter I was come about,” he said. “You have only a few of the names, I see. Now the rest will be over before Christmas, and will all be in London together.”

“Can you not give me the names?” she said.

“I could give you the names, certainly. And I will do so before I leave; I have them here. But—Mistress Marjorie, could you not come to London with me? It would ease the case very much.”

“Why, I could not,” she said. “My mother—And what good would it serve?”

“This is how the matter stands,” said Anthony, crossing his legs. “We have a dozen priests coming all together—at least, they will not travel together, of course; but they will all reach London before Christmas, and there they will hold counsel as to who shall go to the districts. Eight of them, I have no doubt, will come to the north. There are as many priests in the south as are safe at the present time—or as are needed. Now if you were to come with me, mistress—with a serving-maid, and my sister would be with us—we could meet these priests, and speak with them, and make their acquaintance. That would remove a great deal of danger. We must not have that affair again which fell out last month.”

Marjorie nodded slowly. (It was wonderful how her gravity had grown on her these last two years.)

She knew well enough what he meant. It was the affair of the clerk who had come from Derby on a matter connected with her father’s will about the time she was looking for the arrival of a strange priest, and who had been so mistaken by her. Fortunately he had been a well-disposed man, with Catholic sympathies, or grave trouble might have followed. But this proposal of a visit to London seemed to her impossible. She had never been to London in her life; it appeared to her as might a voyage to the moon. Derby seemed oppressingly large and noisy and dangerous; and Derby, she understood, was scarcely more than a village compared to London.

“I could not do it,” she said presently. “I could not leave my mother.”

Anthony explained further.

It was evident that Booth’s Edge was becoming more and more a harbour for priests, owing largely to Mistress Marjorie’s courage and piety. It was well placed; it was remote; and it had so far avoided all suspicion. Padley certainly served for many, but Padley was nearer the main road; and besides, had fallen under the misfortune of losing its master for the very crime of recusancy. It seemed to be all important, therefore, that the ruling mistress of Booth’s Edge, since there was no master, should meet as many priests as possible, in order that she might both know and be known by them; and here was such an opportunity as would not easily occur again. Here were a dozen priests, all to be together at one time; and of these, at least two-thirds would be soon in the north. How convenient, therefore, it would be if their future hostess could but meet them, learn their plans, and perhaps aid them by her counsel.

But she shook her head resolutely.

“I cannot do it,” she said.

Anthony made a little gesture of resignation. But, indeed, he had scarcely hoped to persuade her. He knew it was a formidable thing to ask of a countrybred maid.

“Then we must do as well as we can,” he said. “In any case, I must go. There is a priest I have to meet in any case; he is returning as soon as he has bestowed the rest.”

“Yes?”

“His name is Ballard. He is known as Fortescue, and passes himself off as a captain. You would never know him for a priest.”

“He is returning, you say?”

A shade of embarrassment passed over the young man’s face, and Marjorie saw that there was something behind which she was not to know.

“Yes,” he said, “I have business with him. He is not to come over on the mission yet, but only to bring the others and see them safe—”

He broke off suddenly.

“Why, I was forgetting,” he cried. “Our Robin is coming too. I had a letter from him, and another for you.”

He searched in the breast of his coat, and did not see the sudden rigidity that fell on the girl. For a moment she sat perfectly still; her heart had leapt to her throat, it seemed, and was hammering there…. But by the time he had found the letter she was herself again.

“Here it is,” he said.

She took it; but made no movement to open it.

“But he is not to be a priest for five years yet?” she said quietly.

“No; but they send them sometimes as servants and such like, to make a party seem what it is not, as well as to learn how to avoid her Grace’s servants. He will go back with Mr. Ballard, I think, after three or four weeks. You have had letters from him, you told me?”

She nodded.

“Yes; but he said nothing of it, but only how much he longed to see

England again.”

“He could not. It has only just been arranged. He has asked to go.”

There was a silence for a moment. But Anthony did not understand what it meant. He had known nothing of the affair of his friend and this girl, and he looked upon them merely as a pair of acquaintances, above all, when he had heard of Robin’s determination to go to Rheims. Even the girl saw that he knew nothing, in spite of her embarrassment, and the thought that had come to her when she had heard of Robin’s coming to London grew on her every moment. But she thought she must gain time.

She stood up.

“You would like to see his letters?” she asked. “I will bring them.”

And she slipped out of the room.

II

Anthony Babington sat still, staring up at Icarus in the chariot of the

Sun, with something of a moody look on his face.

It was true that he was sincere and active enough in all that he did up here in the north for the priests of his faith; indeed, he risked both property and liberty on their behalf, and was willing to continue doing so as long as these were left to him. But it seemed to him sometimes that too much was done by spiritual ways and too little by temporal. Certainly the priesthood and the mass were instruments—and, indeed, the highest instruments in God’s hand; it was necessary to pray and receive the sacraments, and to run every risk in life for these purposes. Yet it appeared to him that the highest instruments were not always the best for such rough work.

It was now over two years ago since the thought had first come to him, and since that time he had spared no effort to shape a certain other weapon, which, he thought, would do the business straight and clean. Yet how difficult it had been to raise any feeling on the point. At first he had spoken almost freely to this or that Catholic whom he could trust; he had endeavoured to win even Robin; and yet, with hardly an exception, all had drawn back and bidden him be content with a spiritual warfare. One priest, indeed, had gone so far as to tell him that he was on dangerous ground … and the one and single man who up to the present had seemed on his side, was the very man, Mr. Ballard, then a layman, whom he had met by chance in London, and who had been the occasion of first suggesting any such idea. It was, in fact, for the sake of meeting Ballard again that he was going to London; and, he had almost thought from his friend’s last letter, it had seemed that it was for the sake of meeting him that Mr. Ballard was coming across once more.

So the young man sat, with that moody look on his face, until Marjorie came back, wondering what news he would have from Mr. Ballard, and whether the plan, at present only half conceived, was to go forward or be dropped. He was willing enough, as has been said, to work for priests, and he had been perfectly sincere in his begging Marjorie to come with him for that very purpose; but there was another work which he thought still more urgent…. However, that was not to be Marjorie’s affair…. It was work for men only.

“Here they are,” she said, holding out the packet.

He took them and thanked her.

“I may read them at my leisure? I may take them with me?”

She had not meant that, but there was no help for it now.

“Why, yes, if you wish,” she said. “Stay; let me show you which they are. You may not wish to take them all.”

The letters that the two looked over together in that wainscoted parlour at Booth’s Edge lie now in an iron case in a certain muniment-room. They are yellow now, and the ink is faded to a pale dusky red; and they must not be roughly unfolded lest they should crack at the creases. But they were fresh then, written on stout white paper, each occupying one side of a sheet that was then folded three or four times, sealed, and inscribed to “Mistress Marjorie Manners” in the middle, with the word “Haste” in the lower corner. The lines of writing run close together, and the flourishes on one line interweave now and again with the tails on the next.

The first was written within a week of Robin’s coming to Rheims, and told the tale of the sailing, the long rides that followed it, the pleasure the writer found at coming to a Catholic country, and something of his adventures upon his arrival with his little party. But names and places were scrupulously omitted. Dr. Allen was described as “my host”; and, in more than one instance, the name of a town was inscribed with a line drawn beneath it to indicate that this was a kind of alias.

The second letter gave some account of the life lived in Rheims—was a real boy’s letter—and this was more difficult to treat with discretion. It related that studies occupied a certain part of the day; that “prayers” were held at such and such times, and that the sports consisted chiefly of a game called “Cat.”

So with the eight or nine that followed. The third and fourth were bolder, and spoke of certain definitely Catholic practices—of prayers for the conversion of England, and of mass said on certain days for the same intention. It seemed as if the writer had grown confident in his place of security. But later, again, his caution returned to him, and he spoke in terms so veiled that even Marjorie could scarcely understand him. Yet, on the whole, the letters, if they had fallen into hostile hands, would have done no irreparable injury; they would only have indicated that a Catholic living abroad, in some unnamed university or college, was writing an account of his life to a Catholic named Mistress Marjorie Manners, living in England.

When the girl had finished her explaining, it was evident that there was no longer any need for Anthony to take them with him. He said so.

“Ah! but take them, if you will,” cried the girl.

“It would be better not. You have them safe here. And—”

Marjorie flushed. She felt that her ruse had been too plain.

“I would sooner you took them,” she said. “You can read them at your leisure.”

So he accepted, and slipped them into his breast with what seemed to the girl a lamentable carelessness. Then he stood up.

“I must go,” he said. “And I have never asked after Mistress Manners.”

“She is abed,” said the girl. “She has been there this past month now.”

She went with him to the door, for it was not until then that she was courageous enough to speak as she had determined.

“Mr. Babington,” she said suddenly.

He turned.

“I have been thinking while we talked,” she said. “You think my coming to London would be of real service?”

“I think so. It would be good for you to meet these priests before they—”

“Then I will come, if my mother gives me leave. When will you go?”

“We should be riding in not less than a week from now. But, mistress—”

“No, I have thought of it. I will come—if my mother gives me leave.”

He nodded briskly and brightly. He loved courage, and he understood that this decision of hers had required courage.

“Then my sister shall come for you, and—”

“No, Mr. Babington, there is no need. We shall start from Derby?”

“Why, yes.”

“Then my maid and I will ride down there and sleep at the inn, and be ready for you on the day that you appoint.”

When he was gone at last she went back again to the parlour, and sat without moving and without seeing. She was in an agony lest she had been unmaidenly in determining to go so soon as she heard that Robin was to be there.

CHAPTER II

I

Anthony lifted his whip and pointed.

“London,” he said.

Marjorie nodded; she was too tired to speak.

The journey had taken them some ten days, by easy stages; each night they had slept at an inn, except once, when they stayed with friends of the Babingtons and had heard mass. They had had the small and usual adventures: a horse had fallen lame; a baggage-horse had bolted; they had passed two or three hunting-parties; they had been stared at in villages and saluted, and stared at and not saluted. Rain had fallen; the clouds had cleared again; and the clouds had gathered once more and rain had again fallen. The sun, morning by morning, had stood on the left, and evening by evening gone down again on the right.

They were a small party for so long a journey—the three with four servants—two men and two maids: the men had ridden armed, as the custom was; one rode in front, then came the two ladies with Anthony; then the two maids, and behind them the second man. In towns and villages they closed up together lest they should be separated, and then spread out once more as the long, straight track lengthened before them. Anthony and the two men-servants carried each a case of dags or pistols at the saddle-bow, for fear of highwaymen. But none had troubled them.

A strange dreamlike mood had come down on Marjorie. At times it seemed to her in her fatigue as if she had done nothing all her life but ride; at times, as she sat rocking, she was living still at home, sitting in the parlour, watching her mother; the illusion was so clear and continuous that its departure, when her horse stumbled or a companion spoke, was as an awaking from a dream. At other times she looked about her; talked; asked questions.

She found Mistress Alice Babington a pleasant friend, some ten years older than herself, who knew London well, and had plenty to tell her. She was a fair woman, well built and active; very fond of her brother, whom she treated almost as a mother treats a son; but she seemed not to be in his confidence, and even not to wish to be; she thought more of his comfort than of his ideals. She was a Catholic, of course, but of the quiet, assured kind, and seemed unable to believe that anyone could seriously be anything else; she seemed completely confident that the present distress was a passing one, and that when politics had run their course, it would presently disappear. Marjorie found her as comfortable as a pillow, when she was low enough to rest on her….

Though Marjorie had nodded only when the spires of London shone up suddenly in the evening light, a sharp internal interest awakened in her. It was as astonishing as a miracle that the end should be in sight; the past ten days had made it seem to her as if all things which she desired must eternally recede…. She touched her horse unconsciously, and stared out between his ears, sitting upright and alert again.

It was not a great deal that met the eye, but it was so disposed as to suggest a great deal more. Far away to the right lay a faint haze, and in it appeared towers and spires, with gleams of sharp white here and there, where some tall building rose above the dark roofs. To the left again appeared similar signs of another town—the same haze, towers and spires—linked to the first. She knew what they were; she had heard half a dozen times already of the two towns that made London—running continuously in one long line, however, which grew thin by St. Mary’s Hospital and St. Martin’s, she was told—the two troops of houses and churches that had grown up about the two centres of Court and City, Westminster and the City itself. But it was none the less startling to see these with her proper eyes.

Presently, in spite of herself, as she saw the spire of St. Clement’s Dane, where she was told they must turn City-wards, she began to talk, and Anthony to answer.

II

Dark was beginning to fall and the lamps to be lighted as they rode in at last half an hour later, across the Fleet Ditch, through Ludgate and turned up towards Cheapside. They were to stay at an inn where Anthony was accustomed to lodge when he was not with friends—an inn, too, of which the landlord was in sympathy with the old ways, and where friends could come and go without suspicion. It was here, perhaps, that letters would be waiting for them from Rheims.

Marjorie had known Derby only among the greater towns, and neither this nor the towns where she had stayed, night by night, during the journey, had prepared her in the least for the amazing rush and splendour of the City itself. A fine, cold rain was falling, and this, she was told, had driven half the inhabitants within doors; but even so, it appeared to her that London was far beyond her imaginings. Beneath here, in the deep and narrow channel of houses up which they rode, narrowed yet further by the rows of stalls that were ranged along the pathways on either side, the lamps were kindling swiftly, in windows as well as in the street; here and there hung great flaring torches, and the vast eaves and walls overhead shone in the light of the fires where the rich gilding threw it back. Beyond them again, solemn and towering, leaned over the enormous roofs; and everywhere, it seemed to her fresh from the silence and solitude of the country, countless hundreds of moving faces were turned up to her, from doorways and windows, as well as from the groups that hurried along under the shelter of the walls; and the air was full of talking and laughter and footsteps. It meant nothing to her at present, except inextricable confusion: the gleam of arms as a patrol passed by; the important little group making its way with torches; the dogs that scuffled in the roadway; the party of apprentices singing together loudly, with linked arms, plunging up a side street; the hooded women chattering together with gestures beneath a low-hung roof; the calling, from side to side of the twisting street; the bargaining of the sellers at the stalls—all this, with the rattle of their own horses’ feet and the jingling of the bits, combined only to make a noisy and brilliant spectacle without sense or signification.

Mistress Alice glanced at her, smiling.

“You are tired,” she said; “we are nearly there. That is St. Paul’s on the right.”

Ah! that gave her peace….

They were turning off from the main street just as her friend spoke; but she had time to catch a glimpse of what appeared at first sight a mere gulf of darkness, and then, as they turned, resolved itself into a vast and solemn pile, grey-lined against black. Lights burned far across the wide churchyard, as well as in the windows of the high houses that crowned the wall, and figures moved against the glow, tiny as dolls…. Then she remembered again: how God had once been worshipped there indeed, in the great house built to His honour, but was no longer so worshipped. Or, if it were the same God, as some claimed, at least the character of Him was very differently conceived….

The “Red Bull” again increased her sense of rest; since all inns are alike. A curved archway opened on the narrow street; and beneath this they rode, to find themselves in a paved court, already lighted, surrounded by window-pierced walls, and high galleries to right and left. The stamping of horses from the further end; and, almost immediately, the appearance of a couple of hostlers, showed where the stables lay. Beside it she could see through the door of the brightly-lit bake-house.

She was terribly stiff, as she found when she limped up the three or four stairs that led up to the door of the living-part of the inn; and she was glad enough to sit down in a wide, low parlour with her friend as Mr. Babington went in search of the host. The room was lighted only by a fire leaping in the chimney; and she could make out little, except that pieces of stuff hung upon the walls, and a long row of metal vessels and plates were ranged in a rack between the windows.

“It is a quiet inn,” said Alice. Marjorie nodded again. She was too tired to speak; and almost immediately Anthony came back, with a tall, clean-shaven, middle-aged man, in an apron, following behind.

“It is all well,” he said. “We can have our rooms and the parlour complete. These are the ladies,” he added.

The landlord bowed a little, with a dignity beyond that of his dress.

“Supper shall be served immediately, madam,” he said, with a tactful impartiality towards them both.

They were indeed very pleasant rooms; and, as Anthony had described them to her, were situated towards the back of the long, low house, on the first floor, with a private staircase leading straight up from the yard to the parlour itself. The sleeping-rooms, too, opened upon the parlour; that which the two ladies were to occupy was furthest from the yard, for quietness’ sake; that in which Anthony and his man would sleep, upon the other side. The windows of all three looked straight out upon a little walled garden that appeared to be the property of some other house. The rooms were plainly furnished, but had a sort of dignity about them, especially in the carved woodwork about the doors and windows. There was a fireplace in the parlour, plainly a recent addition; and a maid rose from kindling the logs and turf, as the two ladies came back after washing and changing.

A table was already laid, lit by a couple of candles: it was laid with fine napery, and the cutlery was clean and solid. Marjorie looked round the room once more; and, as she sat down, Anthony came in, still in his mud-splashed dress, carrying three or four letters in his hands.

“News,” he said…. “I will be with you immediately,” and vanished into his room.

The sense of home was deepening on Marjorie every moment. This room in which she sat, might, with a little fancy, be thought to resemble the hall at Booth’s Edge. It was not so high, indeed; but the plain solidity of the walls and woodwork, the aspect of the supper-table, and the quiet, so refreshing after the noises of the day, and, above all, after the din of their mile-long ride through the City—these little things, together with the knowledge that the journey was done at last, and that her old friend Robin was, if not already come, at least soon to arrive—these little things helped to soothe and reassure her. She wondered how her mother found herself….

When Anthony came back, the supper was all laid out. He had given orders that no waiting was to be done; his own servants would do what was necessary. He had a bright and interested face, Marjorie thought; and the instant they were sat down, she knew the reason of it.

“We are just in time,” he said. “These letters have been lying here for me the last week. They will be here, they tell me, by to-morrow night. But that is not all—”

He glanced round the dusky room; then he laid down the knife with which he was carving; and spoke in a yet lower voice.

“Father Campion is in the house,” he said.

His sister started.

“In the house?… Do you mean—”

He nodded mysteriously, as he took up the knife again.

“He has been here three or four days. The rooms are full in the … in the usual place. And I have spoken with him; he is coming here after supper. He had already supped.”

Marjorie leaned back in her chair; but she said nothing. From beneath in the house came the sound of singing, from the tavern parlour where boys were performing madrigals.

It seemed to her incredible that she should presently be speaking with the man, whose name was already affecting England as perhaps no priest’s name had ever affected it. He had been in England, she knew, comparatively a short time; yet in that time, his name had run like fire from mouth to mouth. To the minds of Protestants there was something almost diabolical about the man; he was here, he was there, he was everywhere, and yet, when the search was up, he was nowhere. Tales were told of his eloquence that increased the impression that he made a thousand-fold; it was said that he could wile birds off their branches and the beasts from their lairs; and this eloquence, it was known, could be heard only by initiates, in far-off country houses, or in quiet, unsuspected places in the cities. He preached in some shrouded and locked room in London one day; and the next, thirty miles off, in a cow-shed to rustics. And his learning and his subtlety were equal to his eloquence: her Grace had heard him at Oxford years ago, before his conversion; and, it was said, would refuse him nothing, even now, if he would but be reasonable in his religion; even Canterbury, it was reported, might be his. And if he would not be reasonable—then, as was fully in accordance with what was known of her Grace, nothing was too bad for him.

Such feeling then, on the part of Protestants, found its fellow in that of the Catholics. He was their champion, as no other man could be. Had he not issued his famous “challenge” to any and all of the Protestant divines, to meet them in any argument on religion that they cared to select, in any place and at any time, if only his own safe-conduct were secure? And was it not notorious that none would meet him? He was, indeed, a fire, a smoke in the nostrils of his adversaries, a flame in the hearts of his friends. Everywhere he ranged, he and his comrade, Father Persons, sometimes in company, sometimes apart; and wherever they went the Faith blazed up anew from its dying embers, in the lives of rustic knave and squire.

And she was to see him!

“He is here for four or five days only,” went on Anthony presently, still in a low, cautious voice. “The hunt is very hot, they say. Not even the host knows who he is; or, at least, makes that he does not. He is under another name, of course; it is Mr. Edmonds, this time. He was in Essex, he tells me; but comes to the wolves’ den for safety. It is safer, he says, to sit secure in the midst of the trap, than to wander about its doors; for when the doors are opened he can run out again, if no one knows he is there….”

III

When supper was finished at last, and the maids had borne away the dishes, there came almost immediately a tap upon the door; and before any could answer, there walked in a man, smiling.

He was of middle-size, dressed in a dark, gentleman’s suit, carrying his feathered hat in his hand, with his sword. He appeared far younger than Marjorie had expected—scarcely more than thirty years old, of a dark and yet clear complexion, large-eyed, with a look of humour; his hair was long and brushed back; and a soft, pointed beard and moustache covered the lower part of his face. He moved briskly and assuredly, as one wholly at his ease.

“I am come to the right room?” he said. “That is as well.”

His voice, too, had a ring of gaiety in it; it was low, quite clear and very sympathetic; and his manners, as Marjorie observed, were those of a cultivated gentleman, without even a trace of the priest. She would not have been astonished if she had been told that the man was of the court, or some great personage of the country. There was no trace of furtive hurry or of alarm about him; he moved deftly and confidently; and when he sat down, after the proper greetings, crossed one leg over the other, so that he could nurse his foot. It seemed more incredible even than she had thought, that this was Father Campion!

“You have pleasant rooms here, and music to cheer you, too,” he said.

“I understand that you are often here, Mr. Babington.”

Anthony explained that he found them convenient and very secure.

“Roberts is a prudent landlord,” he said.

Father Campion nodded.

“He knows his own business, which is what few landlords do, in these degenerate days; and he knows nothing at all of his guests’. In that he is even more of an exception.”

His eyes twinkled delightfully at the ladies.

“And so,” he said, “God blesses him in those who use his house.”

They talked for a few minutes in this manner. Father Campion spoke of the high duty that lay on all country ladies to make themselves acquainted with the sights of the town; and spoke of three or four of these. Her Grace, of course, must be seen; that was the greatest sight of all. They must make an opportunity for that; and there would surely be no difficulty, since her Grace liked nothing better than to be looked at. And they must go up the river by water, if the weather allowed, from the Tower to Westminster; not from Westminster to the Tower, since that was the way that traitors came, and no good Catholic could, even in appearance, be a traitor. And, if they pleased, he would himself be their guide for a part of their adventures. He was to lie hid, he told them; and he knew no better way to do that than to flaunt as boldly as possible in the open ways.

“If I lay in my room,” said he, “with a bolt drawn, I would soon have some busy fellow knocking on the door to know what I did there. But if I could but dine with her Grace, or take an hour with Mr. Topcliffe, I should be secure for ever.”

Marjorie glanced shyly towards Alice, as if to ask a question. (She was listening, it seemed to her, with every nerve in her tired body.) The priest saw the glance.

“Mr. Topcliffe, madam? Well; let us say he is a dear friend of the Lieutenant of the Tower, and has, I think, lodgings there just now. And he is even a friend of Catholics, too—to such, at least, as desire a heavenly crown.”

“He is an informer and a tormentor!” broke in Anthony harshly.

“Well, sir; let us say that he is very loyal to the letter of the law; and that he presides over our Protestant bed of Procrustes.”

“The—” began Marjorie, emboldened by the kindness of the priest’s voice.

“The bed of Procrustes, madam, was a bed to which all who lay upon it had to be conformed. Those that were too long were made short; and those that were too short were made long. It is a pleasant classical name for the rack.”

Marjorie caught her breath. But Father Campion went on smoothly.

“We shall have a clear day to-morrow, I think,” he said. “If you are at liberty, sir, and these ladies are not too wearied—I have a little business in Westminster; and—”

“Why, yes,” said Anthony, “for to-morrow night we expect friends. From

Rheims, sir.”

The priest dropped his foot and leaned forward.

“From Rheims?” he said sharply.

The other nodded.

“Eight or ten at least will arrive. Not all are priests. One is a friend of our own from Derbyshire, who will not be made priest for five years yet.”

“I had not heard they were to come so soon,” said Father Campion. “And what a company of them!”

“There are a few of them who have been here before. Mr. Ballard is one of them.”

The priest was silent an instant.

“Mr. Ballard,” he said. “Ballard! Yes; he has been here before. He travels as Captain Fortescue, does he not? You are a friend of his?”

“Yes, sir.”

Father Campion made as if he would speak; but interrupted himself and was silent; and it seemed to Marjorie as if another mood was fallen on him. And presently they were talking again of London and its sights.

IV

In spite of her weariness, Marjorie could not sleep for an hour or two after she had gone to bed. It was an extraordinary experience to her to have fallen in, on the very night of her coming to London, with the one man whose name stood to her for all that was gallant in her faith. As she lay there, listening to the steady breathing of Alice, who knew no such tremors of romance, to the occasional stamp of a horse across the yard, and, once or twice, to voices and footsteps passing on some paved way between the houses, she rehearsed again and again to herself the tales she had heard of him.

Now and again she thought of Robin. She wondered whether he, too, one day (and not of necessity a far-distant day, since promotion came quickly in this war of faith), would occupy some post like that which this man held so gaily and so courageously; and for the first time, perhaps, she understood not in vision merely, but in sober thought, what the life of a priest in those days signified. Certainly she had met man after man before—she had entertained them often enough in her mother’s place, and had provided by her own wits for their security—men who went in peril of liberty and even of life; but here, within the walls of London, in this “wolves’ den” as Father Campion had called it, where men brushed against one another continually, and looked into a thousand faces a day, where patrols went noisily with lights and weapons, where the great Tower stood, where her Grace, the mistress of the wolves, had her dwelling—here, peril assumed another aspect, and pain and death another reality, from that which they presented on the wind-swept hills and the secret valleys of the country from which they came…. And it was with Father Campion himself, in his very flesh, that she had talked this evening—it was Father Campion who had given her that swift, kindly look of commendation, as Mr. Babington had spoken of her reason for coming to London, and of her hospitality to wandering priests—Father Campion, the Angel of the Church, was in England. And to-morrow Robin, too, would be here.

Then, as sleep began to come down on her tired and excited brain, and to form, as so often under such conditions, little visible images, even before the reason itself is lulled, there began to pass before her, first tiny and delicate pictures of what she had seen to-day—the low hills to the north of London, dull and dark below the heavy sky, but light immediately above the horizon as the sun sank down; the appearance of her horse’s ears—those ears and that tuft of wayward mane between them of which she had grown so weary; the lighted walls of the London streets; the monstrous shadows of the eaves; the flare of lights; the moving figures—these came first; and then faces—Father Campion’s, smiling, with white teeth and narrowed eyes, bright against the dark chimney-breast; Alice’s serene features, framed in flaxen hair; and then, as sleep had all but conquered her, the imagination sent up one last idea, and a face came into being before her, so formless yet so full, so sinister, so fierce and so distorted, that she drew a sudden breath and sat up, trembling….

… Why had they spoken to her of Topcliffe?…

CHAPTER III

I

It was a soft winter’s morning as the party came down the little slope towards the entrance-gate of the Tower next day. The rain last night had cleared the air, and the sun shone as through thin veils of haze, kindly and sweet. The river on the right was at high tide, and up from the water’s edge came the cries of the boatmen, pleasant and invigorating.

The sense of unreality was deeper than ever on Marjorie’s mind. One incredible thing after another, known to her only in the past by rumour and description, and imagined in a frame of glory, was taking shape before her eyes…. She was in London; she had slept in Cheapside; she had talked with Father Campion; he was with her now; this was the Tower of London that lay before her, a monstrous huddle of grey towers and battlemented walls along which passed the scarlet of a livery and the gleam of arms.

All the way that they had walked, her eyes had been about her everywhere—the eyes of a startled child, through which looked the soul of a woman. She had seen the folks go past like actors in a drama—London merchants, apprentices, a party of soldiers, a group on horseback: she had seen a congregation pour out of the doors of some church whose name she had asked and had forgotten again; the cobbled patches of street had been a marvel to her; the endless roofs, the white and black walls, the leaning windows, the galleries where heads moved; the vast wharfs; the crowding masts, resembling a stripped forest; the rolling-gaited sailors; and, above all, the steady murmur of voices and footsteps, never ceasing, beyond which the crowing of cocks and the barking of dogs sounded far off and apart—these things combined to make a kind of miracle that all at once delighted, oppressed and bewildered her.

Here and there some personage had been pointed out to her by the trim, merry gentleman who walked by her side with his sword swinging. (Anthony went with his sister just behind, as they threaded their way through the crowded streets, and the two men-servants followed.) She saw a couple of City dignitaries in their furs, with stavesmen to clear their road; a little troop of the Queen’s horse, blazing with colour, under the command of a young officer who might have come straight from Romance. But she was more absorbed—or, rather, she returned every instant to the man who walked beside her with such an air and talked so loudly and cheerfully. Certainly, it seemed to her, his disguise was perfect, and himself the best part of it. She compared him in her mind with a couple of ministers, splendid and awful in their gowns and ruffs, whom they had met turning into one of the churches just now, and smiled at the comparison; and yet perhaps these were preachers too, and eloquent in their own fashion.

And now, here was the Tower—the end of all things, so far as London was concerned. Beyond it she saw the wide rolling hills, the bright reaches of the river, and the sparkle of Placentia, far away.

“Her Grace is at Westminster these days,” exclaimed the priest; “she is moving to Hampton Court in a day or two; so I doubt not we shall be able to go in and see a little. We shall see, at least, the outside of the Paradise where so many holy ones have lived and died. There are three or four of them here now; but the most of them are in the Fleet or the Marshalsea.”

Marjorie glanced at him. She did not understand.

“I mean Catholic prisoners, mistress. There are several of them in ward here, but we had better speak no names.”

He wheeled suddenly as they came out into the open and moved to the left.

“There is Tower Hill, mistress; where my lord Cardinal Fisher died, and

Thomas More.”

Marjorie stopped short. But there was nothing great to see—only a rising ground, empty and bare, with a few trimmed trees; the ground was without grass; a few cobbled paths crossed this way and that.

“And here is the gateway,” he said, “whence they come out to glory…. And there on the right” (he swept his arm towards the river) “you may see, if you are fortunate, other criminals called pirates, hung there till they be covered by three tides.”

Still standing there, with Mr. Babington and his sister come up from behind, he began to relate the names of this tower and of that, in the great tumbled mass of buildings surmounted by the high keep. But Marjorie paid no great attention except with an effort: she was brooding rather on the amazing significance of all that she saw. It was under this gateway that the martyrs came; it was from those windows in that tower which the priest had named just now, that they had looked…. And this was Father Campion. She turned and watched him as he talked. He was dressed as he had been dressed last night, but with a small cloak thrown over his shoulders; he gesticulated freely and easily, pointing out this and that; now and again his eyes met hers, and there was nothing but a grave merriment in them…. Only once or twice his voice softened, as he spoke of those great ones that had shown Catholics how both to die and live.

“And now,” he said, “with your permission I will go and speak to the guard, and see if we may have entrance.”

It was almost with terror that she saw him go—a solitary man, with a price on his head, straight up to those whose business it was to catch him—armed men, as she could see—she could even see the quilted jacks they wore—who, it may be, had talked of him in the guard-room only last night. But his air was so assured and so magnificent that even she began to understand how complete such a disguise might be; and she watched him speaking with the officer with a touch even of his own humour in her heart. Indeed, there was some truth in the charge of Jesuitry, after all!

Then the figure turned and beckoned, and they went forward.

II

A certain horror, in spite of herself and her company, fell on her as she passed beneath the solid stone vaulting, passed along beneath the towering wall, turned up from the water-gate, and came out into the wide court round which the Lieutenant’s lodgings, the little church, and the enormous White Tower itself are grouped. There was a space, not enclosed in any way, but situated within a web of paths, not far from the church, that caught her attention. She stood looking at it.

“Yes, mistress,” said the priest behind her. “That is the place of execution for those who die within the Tower—those usually of royal blood. My Lady Salisbury died there, and my Lady Jane Grey, and others.”

He laid his hand gently on her arm.

“You must not look so grave,” he said, “you must gape more. You are a country-cousin, madam.”

And she smiled in spite of herself, as she met his eyes.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

They went together nearer to the church, and faced about.

“We can see better from here,” he said. Then he began.

First there was the Lieutenant’s lodging on the right. They must look well at that. Interviews had taken place there that had made history. (He mentioned a few names.) Then, further down on the right, beyond that corner round which they had come just now, was the famous water-gate, called “Traitors’ Gate,” through which passed those convicted of treason at Westminster, or, at least, those who were under grave suspicion. Such as these came, of course, by water, as prisoners on whose behalf a demonstration might perhaps be made if they came by land. So, at least, he understood was the reason of the custom.

“Her Grace herself once came that way,” he said with a twinkle. “Now she sends other folks in her stead.”

Then he pointed out more clearly the White Tower. It was there that the

Council sat on affairs of importance.

“And it is there—” began Anthony harshly.

The priest turned to him, suddenly grave, as if in reproof.

“Yes,” he said softly. “It is there that the passion of the martyrs begins.”

Marjorie turned sharply.

“You mean—”

“Well,” he said, “it is there that the Council sits to examine prisoners both before and after the Question. They are taken downstairs to the Question, and brought back again after it. It was there that—”

He broke off.

“Who is this?” he said.

The court had been empty while they talked except that on the far side, beneath the towering cliff of the keep, a sentry went to and fro. But now another man had come into view, walking up from the way they themselves had come; and it would appear from the direction he took that he would pass within twenty or thirty yards of them. He was a tall man, dressed in sad-coloured clothes, with a felt hat on his head and the usual sword by his side. He was plainly something of a personage, for he walked easily and confidently. He was still some distance off; but it was possible to make out that he was sallowish in complexion, wore a trimmed beard, and had something of a long throat.

Father Campion stared at him a moment, and, as he stared, Marjorie heard Mr. Babington utter a sudden exclamation. Then the priest, with one quick glance at him, murmured something which Marjorie could not hear, and walked briskly off to meet the stranger.

“Come,” said Anthony in a sharp, low voice, “we must see the church.”

“Who is it?” whispered Mistress Alice, with even her serene face a little troubled.

For the first moment, as they walked towards the entrance of the church,

Anthony said nothing. Then as they reached it, he said, in a tone quite

low and yet full of suppressed passion of some kind, a name that

Marjorie could not catch.

She turned before they went in, and looked again.

The priest was talking to the stranger, and was making gestures, as if asking for direction.

“Who is it, Mr. Babington?” she asked again as they went in. “I did not—”

“Topcliffe,” said Anthony.

III

The horror was still on the girl, as they went, an hour later, up the ebbing tide towards Westminster, in a boat rowed by a waterman and one of their own servants. About them was a scene, of which the very thought, a month ago, would have absorbed and fascinated her. They had scarcely passed through London Bridge finding themselves just in time before the fall of the water would have hindered their passage, leaving out of sight the grey sunlit heap of buildings from which they had come. All about them the river was gay with shipping. Wherries, like clumsy water-beetles, lurched along out of the current, or slipped out suddenly to make their way across from one stairs to another; a great barge, coming down-stream, grew larger every instant, its prow bright with gilding, and the throb of the twelve oars in the row-locks coming to them like the grunting of a beast. On either side of the broad stream rose the houses and the churches, those on this side visible down to their shining window-panes in the sunlight, and the very texture of their tiled roofs; those on the other a mere huddle of countless walls and gables, in the shadow; and between them showed the leafless trees, stretches of green meadow, across which moved tiny figures, and the brown flats of the marshes beyond, broken here and there by outlying villages a mile or two away. Behind them now towered the great buildings on London Bridge—the chapel, the houses, the old gateway on the south end, above which the impaled heads of traitors stood out against the bright sky. It was a tolerable crop just now, the priest had said, bitterly smiling. But, above all else, as the boat moved up, Marjorie kept her eyes fixed on far-off Westminster, on the grey towers and the white walls where Elizabeth reigned and Saint Edward slept; while within her mind, clear as a picture, she saw still the empty court, as she had seen it when the priest fetched them out again from the church—empty at last of the hateful presence which he had faced so confidently.

“It appeared to me best to speak with him openly,” said the priest quietly, as they had waited ten minutes later on the wharf outside the Tower, while the men ran to make ready their boat. “I do not know why, but I suppose I am one of those who better like their danger in front than behind. I knew him at once; I have had him pointed out to me two or three times before. So I looked him in the eyes, and asked him whether some ladies from the country might be permitted to see the White Tower, and to whom we had best apply. He told me that was not his affair, and looked me up and down as he said it. And then he went his way to … the White Tower, where I doubt not he had business.”

“He said no more?” asked Anthony.

“No, he said no more. But I shall know him again better next time, and he me.”

It seemed of evil omen to the girl that she should have had such an encounter on the day that Robin came back. Like all persons who dwell much in the country, a world that was neither that of the flesh nor yet of the spirit was that in which she largely moved—a world of strange laws, and auspices, and this answering to this and that to that. It is a state inconceivable to those who live in the noise and movement of town—who find town-life, that is, the life in which they are most at ease. For where men have made the earth that is trodden underfoot, and have largely veiled the heavens themselves, it is but natural that they should think that they have made everything, and that it is they who rule it.

As they drew nearer Westminster then, it was with Marjorie as it had been when they came to the Tower. The priest was busy pointing out this or that building—the Palace towers, the Hall, the Abbey behind, and St. Margaret’s Church, as well as the smaller buildings of the Court, and the little town that lay round about. But she listened as she listened to the noise that came from the streets clear across the water, attending to it, yet scarcely distinguishing one thing from another, and forgetting each as soon as she heard it. She was thinking all the while of Robin, and of the man whose face she had seen, of his beard and his long throat. Well, at least, Robin was not yet a priest….

The boat was already nearing the King’s Stairs at Westminster, when a new event happened that for a while distracted her.

The first they saw of it was the sight of a number of men and women running in a disorderly mob, calling out as they ran, along the river-bank in the direction from Charing Old Cross towards Palace Yard. They appeared excited, but not by fear; and it was plain that something was taking place of which they wished to have a sight. As the priest stood up in the boat in order to have a clearer sight of what lay above the bank, three or four trumpet-calls of a peculiar melody, rang out clear and distinct, echoed back by the walls round about, plainly audible above the rising noise of a crowd that, it seemed, must be gathering out of sight. The priest sat down again and his face was merry.

“You have come on a fortunate day, mistress,” he said to Marjorie. “First Topcliffe, and now her Grace; if we make haste we may see her pass by.”

“Her Grace?”

“She will be going to dinner in Whitehall, after having taken the air by the river. They will be passing the Abbey now. But she will not be in her supreme state; I am sorry for that.”

As they rowed in quickly over the last hundred yards that lay between them and the stairs, Marjorie listened to the priest as he described something of what the “supreme state” signified. He spoke of the long lines of carriages, filled with the ladies and the infirm, preceded by the pikemen, and the gentlemen pensioners carrying wands, and the knights followed by the heralds. Behind these, he said, came the officers of State immediately before the Queen’s carriage, and after her the guards of her person.

“But this will be but a tame affair,” he said. “I wish you could have seen a Progress, with the arches and the speeches and the declamations, and the heathen gods and goddesses that reign round our Eliza, when she will go to Ashridge or Havering. I have heard it said—”

And then the prow of the boat, turned deftly at the last instant, grated along the lowest stair, and the waterman was out to steady his craft.

IV

It was the very crown and summit of new sensation that Marjorie attained as she stood in an open gallery that looked on to the road from Westminster to Whitehall. Father Campion, speaking of a “good friend” of his that had his lodgings there, led them by a short turning or two, that avoided the crowd, straight to the door of what appeared to Marjorie a mere warren of rooms, stairs and passages. A grave little man, with a pen behind his ear, ran out upon their knocking at one of these doors, and led them straight through, smiling and talking, out into this very gallery where they now stood; and then vanished again.

The gallery was such as those which Marjorie had noted on the way to the Tower; a high-hung, airy place, running the length of the house, contrived on the level of the second floor, with the first floor roof beneath and overhanging attics above. It was supported on massive oak beams, and protected from the street by a low balustrade of a height to lean the elbows upon it. It was on this balustrade that Marjorie leaned, looking down into the street.

To the left the narrow roadway curved off out of sight in the direction of Palace Yard; on the right she could make out, a hundred yards away, some kind of a gateway, that strode across the street, and gave access, she supposed, to the Palace. Opposite, the windows were filled with faces, and an enthusiastic loyalist was leaning, red-faced and vociferous, calling to a friend in the crowd beneath, from a gallery corresponding to that from which the girl was looking.

Of the procession nothing was at present to be seen. They had caught a glimpse of colour somewhere to the east of the Abbey as they turned off opposite Westminster Hall; and already the cry of the trumpets and the increasing noise of a crowd out of sight, told the listeners that they would not have long to wait.

Beneath, the crowd was arranging itself with admirable discipline, dispersing in long lines two or three deep against the walls, so as to leave a good space, and laughing good-humouredly at a couple of officious persons in livery who had suddenly made their appearance. And then, as the country girl herself smiled down, an exclamation from Alice made her turn.

At first it was difficult to discern anything clearly in the stream whose head began to discharge itself round the curve from the left. A row of brightly-coloured uniforms, moving four abreast, came first, visible above the tossing heads of horses. Then followed a group of guards, whose steel caps passed suddenly into the sunlight that caught them from between the houses, and went again into shadow.

And then at last, she caught a glimpse of the carriage, followed by ladies on grey horses; and forgot all the rest.

This way and that she craned her head, gripping the oak post by which she leaned, unconscious of all except that she was to see her in whom England itself seemed to have been incarnated—the woman who, as perhaps no other earthly sovereign in the world at that time, or before her, had her people in a grasp that was not one of merely regal power. Even far away in Derbyshire—even in the little country manor from which the girl came, the aroma of that tremendous presence penetrated—of the woman whom men loved to hail as the Virgin Queen, even though they might question her virginity; the woman—”our Eliza,” as the priest had named her just now—who had made so shrewd an act of faith in her people that they had responded with an unreserved act of love. It was this woman, then, whom she was about to see; the sister of Mary and Edward, the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, who had received her kingdom Catholic, and by her own mere might had chosen to make it Protestant; the woman whose anointed hands were already red in the blood of God’s servants, yet hands which men fainted as they kissed….

Then on a sudden, as Elizabeth lifted her head this side and that, the girl saw her.

She was sitting in a low carriage, raised on cushions, alone. Four tall horses drew her at a slow trot: the wheels of the carriage were deep in mud, since she had driven for an hour over the deep December roads; but this added rather to the splendour within. But of this Marjorie remembered no more than an uncertain glimpse. The air was thick with cries; from window after window waved hands; and, more than all, the loyalty was real, and filled the air like brave music.

There, then, she sat, smiling.

She was dressed in some splendid stuff; jewels sparkled beneath her throat. Once a hand in an embroidered glove rose to wave an answer to the roar of salute; and, as the carriage came beneath, she raised her face.

It was a thin face, sharply pear-shaped, ending in a pointed chin; a tight mouth smiled at the corners; above her narrow eyes and high brows rose a high forehead, surmounted by strands of auburn hair drawn back tightly beneath the little head-dress. It was a strangely peaked face, very clear-skinned, and resembled in some manner a mask. But the look of it was as sharp as steel; like a slender rapier, fragile and thin, yet keen enough to run a man through. The power of it, in a word, was out of all measure with the slightness of the face…. Then the face dropped; and Marjorie watched the back of the head bending this way and that, till the nodding heads that followed hid it from sight.

Marjorie drew a deep breath and turned. The faces of her friends were as pale and intent as her own. Only the priest was as easy as ever.

“So that is our Eliza,” he said.

Then he did a strange thing.

He lifted his cap once more with grave seriousness. “God save her

Grace!” he said.

CHAPTER IV

I

Robin bowed to her very carefully, and stood upright again.

She had seen in an instant how changed he was, in that swift instant in which her eyes had singled him out from the little crowd of men that had come into the room with Anthony at their head. It was a change which she could scarcely have put into words, unless she had said that it was the conception of the Levite within his soul. He was dressed soberly and richly, with a sword at his side, in great riding-boots splashed to the knees with mud, with his cloak thrown back; and he carried his great brimmed hat in his hand. All this was as it might have been in Derby, though, perhaps, his dress was a shade more dignified than that in which she had ever seen him. But the change was in his face and bearing; he bore himself like a man, and a restrained man; and there was besides that subtle air which her woman’s eyes could see, but which even her woman’s wit could not properly describe.

She made room for him to sit beside her; and then Father Campion’s voice spoke:

“These are the gentlemen, then,” he said. “And two more are not yet come. Gentlemen—” he bowed. “And which is Captain Fortescue?”

A big man, distinguished from the rest by a slightly military air, and by a certain vividness of costume and a bristling feather in his hat, bowed back to him.

“We have met once before, Mr.—Mr. Edmonds,” he said. “At Valladolid.”

Father Campion smiled.

“Yes, sir; for five or ten minutes; and I was in the same room with your honour once at the Duke of Guise’s…. And now, sir, who are the rest of your company?”

The others were named one by one; and Marjorie eyed each of them carefully. It was her business to know them again if ever they should meet in the north; and for a few minutes the company moved here and there, bowing and saluting, and taking their seats. There were still a couple of men who were not yet come; but these two arrived a few minutes later; and it was not until she had said a word or two to them all, and Father Campion had named her and her good works, to them, that she found herself back again with Robin in a seat a little apart.

“You look very well,” she said, with an admirable composure.

His eyes twinkled.

“I am as weary as a man can be,” he said. “We have ridden since before dawn…. And you, and your good works?”

Marjorie explained, describing to him something of the system by which priests were safeguarded now in the north—the districts into which the county was divided, and the apportioning of the responsibilities among the faithful houses. It was her business, she said, to receive messages and to pass them on; she had entertained perhaps a dozen priests since the summer; perhaps she would entertain him, too, one day, she said.

The ordeal was far lighter than she had feared it would be. There was a strong undercurrent of excitement in her heart, flushing her cheeks and sparkling in her eyes; yet never for one moment was she even tempted to forget that he was now vowed to God. It seemed to her as if she talked with him in the spirit of that place where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. Those two years of quiet in the north, occupied, even more than she recognised, in the rearranging of her relations with the memory of this young man, had done their work. She still kindled at his presence; but it was at the presence of one who had undertaken an adventure that destroyed altogether her old relations with him…. She was enkindled even more by the sense of her own security; and, as she looked at him, by the sense of his security too. Robin was gone; here, instead, was young Mr. Audrey, seminary student, who even in a court of law could swear before God that he was not a priest, nor had been “ordained beyond the seas.”

So they sat and exchanged news. She told him of the rumours of his father that had come to her from time to time; he would be a magistrate yet, it was said, so hot was his loyalty. Even her Grace, it was reported, had vowed she wished she had a thousand such country gentlemen on whose faithfulness she could depend. And Robin gave her news of the seminary, of the hours of rising and sleeping, of the sports there; of the confessors for the faith who came and went; of Dr. Allen. He told her, too, of Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam; he often had talked with them of Derbyshire, he said. It was very peaceful and very stirring, too, to sit here in the lighted parlour, and hear and give the news; while the company, gathered round Anthony and Father Campion, talked in low voices, and Mistress Babington, placid, watched them and listened. He showed her, too, Mr. Maine’s beads which she had given him so long ago, hung in a little packet round his neck.

More than once, as they talked, Marjorie found herself looking at Mr. Ballard, or, as he was called here, Captain Fortescue. It was he who seemed the leader of the troop; and, indeed, as Robin told her in a whisper, that was what he was. He came and went frequently, he said; his manner and his carriage were reassuring to the suspicious; he appeared, perhaps, the last man in the world to be a priest. He was a big man, as has been said; and he had a frank assured way with him; he was leaning forward, even now, as she looked at him, and seemed laying down the law, though in what was almost a whisper. Father Campion was watching him, too, she noticed; and, what she had learned of Father Campion in the last few hours led her to wonder whether there was not something of doubtfulness in his opinion of him.

Father Campion suddenly shook his head sharply.

“I am not of that view at all,” he said. “I—”

And once more his voice sank so low as to be inaudible; as the rest leaned closer about him.

II

Mr. Anthony Babington seemed silent and even a little displeased when, half an hour later, the visitors were all gone downstairs to supper. Three or four of them were to sleep in the house; the rest, of whom Robin was one, had Captain Fortescue’s instructions as to where lodgings were prepared. But the whole company was tired out with the long ride from the coast, and would be seen no more that night.

Marjorie knew enough of the divisions of opinion among Catholics, and of Mr. Babington in particular, to have a general view as to why her companion was displeased; but more than that she did not know, nor what point in particular it was on which the argument had run. The one party—of Mr. Babington’s kind—held that Catholics were, morally, in a state of war. War had been declared upon them, without justification, by the secular authorities, and physical instruments, including pursuivants and the rack, were employed against them. Then why should not they, too, employ the same kind of instruments, if they could, in return? The second party held that a religious persecution could not be held to constitute a state of war; the Apostles Peter and Paul, for example, not only did not employ the arm of flesh against the Roman Empire, but actually repudiated it. And this party further held that even the Pope’s bull, relieving Elizabeth’s subjects from their allegiance, did so only in an interior sense—in such a manner that while they must still regard her personal and individual rights—such rights as any human being possessed—they were not bound to render interior loyalty to her as their Queen, and need not, for example (though they were not forbidden to do so), regard it as a duty to fight for her, in the event, let us say, of an armed invasion from Spain.

There, then, was the situation; and Mr. Anthony had, plainly, crossed swords this evening on the point.

“The Jesuit is too simple,” he said suddenly, as he strode about. “I think—” He broke off.

His sister smiled upon him placidly.

“You are too hot, Anthony,” she said.

The man turned sharply towards her.

“All the praying in the world,” he said, “has not saved us so far. It seems to me time—”

“Perhaps our Lord would not have us saved,” she said; “as you mean it.”

III

It was not until Christmas Eve that Marjorie went to St. Paul’s, for all that it was so close. But the days were taken up with the visitors; a hundred matters had to be arranged; for it was decided that before the New Year all were to be dispersed. Captain Fortescue and Robin were to leave again for the Continent on the day following Christmas Day itself.

Marjorie made acquaintance during these days with more than one meeting-place of the Catholics in London. One was a quiet little house near St. Bartholomew’s-the-Great, where a widow had three or four sets of lodgings, occupied frequently by priests and by other Catholics, who were best out of sight; and it was here that mass was to be said on Christmas Day. Another was in the Spanish Embassy; and here, to her joy, she looked openly upon a chapel of her faith, and from the gallery adored her Lord in the tabernacle. But even this was accomplished with an air of uneasiness in those round her; the Spanish priest who took them in walked quickly and interrupted them before they were done, and seemed glad to see the last of them. It was explained to Marjorie that the ambassador did not wish to give causeless offence to the Protestant court.

And now, on Christmas Eve, Robin, Anthony and the two ladies entered the Cathedral as dusk was falling—first passing through the burial-ground, over the wall of which leaned the rows of houses in whose windows lights were beginning to burn.

The very dimness of the air made the enormous heights of the great church more impressive. Before them stretched the long nave, over seven hundred feet from end to end; from floor to roof the eye travelled up the bunches of slender pillars to the dark ceiling, newly restored after the fire, a hundred and fifty feet. The tall windows on either side, and the clerestory lights above, glimmered faintly in the darkening light.

But to the Catholic eyes that looked on it the desolation was more apparent than the splendour. There were plenty of people here, indeed: groups moved up and down, talking, directing themselves more and more towards the exits, as the night was coming on and the church would be closed presently; in one aisle a man was talking aloud, as if lecturing, with a crowd of heads about him. In another a number of soberly dressed men were putting up their papers and ink on the little tables that stood in a row—this was Scriveners’ Corner, she was told; from a third half a dozen persons were dejectedly moving away—these were servants that had waited to be hired. But the soul of the place was gone. When they came out into the transepts, Anthony stopped them with a gesture, while a couple of porters, carrying boxes on their heads, pushed by, on their short cut through the cathedral.

“It was there,” he said, “that the altars stood.”

He pointed between the pillars on either side, and there, up little raised steps, lay the floors of the chapels. But within all was empty, except for a tomb or two, some tattered colours and the piscinæ still in place. Where the altars had stood there were blank spaces of wall; piled up in one such place were rows of wooden seats set there for want of room.

Opposite the entrance to the choir, where once overhead had hung the great Rood, the four stood and looked in, through a gap which the masons were mending in the high wall that had bricked off the chancel from the nave. On either side, as of old, still rose up the towering carven stalls; the splendid pavement still shone beneath, refracting back from its surface the glimmer of light from the stained windows above; but the head of the body was gone. Somewhere, beneath the deep shadowed altar screen, they could make out an erection that might have been an altar, only they knew that it was not. It was no longer the Stone of Sacrifice, whence the smoke of the mystical Calvary ascended day by day: it was the table, and no more, where bread and wine were eaten and drunk in memory of an event whose deathless energy had ceased, in this place, at least, to operate. Yet it was here, thought Marjorie, that only forty years ago, scarcely more than twenty years before she was born, on this very Night, the great church had hummed and vibrated with life. Round all the walls had sat priests, each in his place; and beside each kneeled a penitent, making ready for the joy of Bethlehem once again—wise and simple—Shepherds and Magi—yet all simple before the baffling and entrancing Mystery. There had been footsteps and voices there too—yet of men who were busy upon their Father’s affairs in their Father’s house, and not upon their own. They were going from altar to altar, speaking with their Friends at Court; and here, opposite where she stood and peeped in the empty cold darkness, there had burned lights before the Throne of Him Who had made Heaven and earth, and did His Father’s Will on earth as it was done in Heaven…. Forty years ago the life of this church was rising on this very night, with a hum as of an approaching multitude, from hour to hour, brightening and quickening as it came, up to the glory of the Midnight Mass, the crowded church, alight from end to end, the smell of bog and bay in the air, soon to be met and crowned by the savour of incense-smoke; and the world of spirit, too, quickened about them; and the angels (she thought) came down from Heaven, as men up from the City round about, to greet Him who is King of both angels and men.

And now, in this new England, the church, empty of the Divine Presence, was emptying, too, of its human visitors. She could hear great doors somewhere crash together, and the reverberation roll beneath the stone vaulting. It would empty soon, desolate and dark; and so it would be all night…. Why did not the very stones cry out?

Mistress Alice touched her on the arm.

“We must be going,” she said. “They are closing the church.”

IV

She had a long talk with Robin on Christmas night.

The day had passed, making strange impressions on her, which she could not understand. Partly it was the contrast between the homely associations of the Feast, begun, as it was for her, with the mass before dawn—the room at the top of the widow’s house was crowded all the while she was there—between these associations and the unfamiliarity of the place. She had felt curiously apart from all that she saw that day in the streets—the patrolling groups, the singers, the monstrous-headed mummers (of whom companies went about all day), two or three glimpses of important City festivities, the garlands that decorated many of the houses. It seemed to her as a shadow-show without sense or meaning, since the heart of Christmas was gone. Partly, too, no doubt, it was the memory of a former Christmas, three years ago, when she had begun to understand that Robin loved her. And he was with her again; yet all that he had stood for, to her, was gone, and another significance had taken its place. He was nearer to her heart, in one manner, though utterly removed, in another. It was as when a friend was dead: his familiar presence is gone; but now that one physical barrier is vanished, his presence is there, closer than ever, though in another fashion….

Robin had come in to sup. Captain Fortescue would fetch him about nine o’clock, and the two were to ride for the coast before dawn.

The four sat quiet after supper, speaking in subdued voices, of hopes for the future, when England should be besieged, indeed, by the spiritual forces that were gathering overseas; but they slipped gradually into talk of the past and of Derbyshire, and of rides they remembered. Then, after a while, Anthony was called away; Mistress Alice moved back to the table to see her needlework the better, and Robin and Marjorie sat together by the fire.

He told her again of the journey from Rheims, of the inns where they lodged, of the extraordinary care that was taken, even in that Catholic land, that no rumour of the nature of the party should slip out, lest some gossip precede them or even follow them to the coast of England. They carried themselves even there, he said, as ordinary gentlemen travelling together; two of them were supposed to be lawyers; he himself passed as Mr. Ballard’s servant. They heard mass when they could in the larger towns, but even then not all together.

The landing in England had been easier, he said, than he had thought, though he had learned afterwards that a helpful young man, who had offered to show him to an inn in Folkestone, and in whose presence Mr. Ballard had taken care to give him a good rating for dropping a bag—with loud oaths—was a well-known informer. However, no harm was done: Mr. Ballard’s admirable bearing, and his oaths in particular, had seemed to satisfy the young man, and he had troubled them no more.

Marjorie did not say much. She listened with a fierce attention, so much interested that she was scarcely aware of her own interest; she looked up, half betrayed into annoyance, when a placid laugh from Mistress Alice at the table showed that another was listening too.

She too, then, had to give her news, and to receive messages for the

Derbyshire folk whom Robin wished to greet; and it was not until

Mistress Alice slipped out of the room that she uttered a word of what

she had been hoping all day she might have an opportunity to say.

“Mr. Audrey,” she said (for she was careful to use this form of address), “I wish you to pray for me. I do not know what to do.”

He was silent.

“At present,” she said, gathering courage, “my duty is clear. I must be at home, for my mother’s sake, if for nothing else. And, as I told you, I think I shall be able to do something for priests. But if my mother died—”

“Yes?” he said, as she stopped again.

She glanced up at his serious, deep-eyed face, half in shadow and half in light, so familiar, and yet so utterly apart from the boy she had known.

“Well,” she said, “I think of you as a priest already, and I can speak to you freely…. Well, I am not sure whether I, too, shall not go overseas, to serve God better.”

“You mean—”

“Yes. A dozen or more are gone from Derbyshire, whose names I know. Some are gone to Bruges; two or three to Rome; two or three more to Spain. We women cannot do what priests can, but, at least, we can serve God in Religion.”

She looked at him again, expecting an answer. She saw him move his head, as if to answer. Then he smiled suddenly.

“Well, however you look at me, I am not a priest…. You had best speak to one—Father Campion or another.”

“But—”

“And I will pray for you,” he said with an air of finality.

Then Mistress Alice came back.

She never forgot, all her life long, the little scene that took place when Captain Fortescue came in with Mr. Babington, to fetch Robin away. Yet the whole of its vividness rose from its interior significance. Externally here was a quiet parlour; two ladies—for the girl afterwards seemed to see herself in the picture—stood by the fireplace; Mistress Alice still held her needlework gathered up in one hand, and her spools of thread and a pin-cushion lay on the polished table. And the two gentlemen—for Captain Fortescue would not sit down, and Robin had risen at his entrance—the two gentlemen stood by it. They were not in their boots, for they were not to ride till morning; they appeared two ordinary gentlemen, each hat-in-hand, and Robin had his cloak across his arm. Anthony Babington stood in the shadow by the door, and, beyond him, the girl could see the face of Dick, who had come up to say good-bye again to his old master.

That was all—four men and two ladies. None raised his voice, none made a gesture. The home party spoke of the journey, and of their hopes that all would go well; the travellers, or rather the leader (for Robin spoke not one word, good or bad), said that he was sure it would be so; there was not one-tenth of the difficulty in getting out of England as of getting into it. Then, again, he said that it was late; that he had still one or two matters to arrange; that they must be out of London as soon as the gates opened. And the scene ended.

Robin bowed to the two ladies, precisely and courteously; making no difference between them, and wheeled and went out, and she saw Dick’s face, too, vanish from the door, and heard the voices of the two on the stairs. Marjorie returned the salute of Mr. Ballard, longing to entreat him to take good care of the boy, yet knowing that she must not and could not.

Then he, too, was gone, with Anthony to see him downstairs; and Marjorie, without a word, went straight through to her room, fearing to trust her own voice, for she felt that her heart was gone with them. Yet, not for one moment did even her sensitive soul distrust any more the nature of the love that she bore to the lad.

But Mistress Alice sat down again to her sewing.

CHAPTER V

I

Marjorie was sitting in her mother’s room, while her mother slept. She had been reading aloud from a bundle of letters—news from Rheims; but little by little she had seen sleep come down on her mother’s face, and had let her voice trail away into silence. And so she sat quiet.

It seemed incredible that nearly a year had passed since her visit to London, and that Christmas was upon them again. Yet in this remote country place there was little to make time run slowly: the country-side wheeled gently through the courses of the year; the trees put on their green robes, changed them for russet and dropped them again; the dogs and the horses grew a little older, a beast died now and again, and others were born. The faces that she knew, servants and farmers, aged imperceptibly. Here and there a family moved away, and another into its place; an old man died and his son succeeded him, but the mother and sisters lived on in the house in patriarchal fashion. Priests came and went again unobserved; Marjorie went to the sacraments when she could, and said her prayers always. But letters came more frequently than ever to the little remote manor, carried now by some farm-servant, now left by strangers, now presented as credentials; and Booth’s Edge became known in that underworld of the north, which finds no record in history, as a safe place for folks in trouble for their faith. For one whole month in the summer there had been a visitor at the house—a cousin of old Mr. Manners, it was understood; and, except for the Catholics in the place, not a soul knew him for a priest, against whom the hue and cry still raged in York.

Derbyshire, indeed, had done well for the old Religion. Man after man went in these years southwards and was heard of no more, till there came back one day a gentleman riding alone, or with his servant; and it became known that one more Derbyshire man was come again to his own place to minister to God’s people. Mr. Ralph Sherwine was one of them; Mr. Christopher Buxton another; and Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick, it was rumoured, would not be long now…. And there had been a wonderful cessation of trouble, too. Not a priest had suffered since the two, the news of whose death she had heard two years ago.

Marjorie, then, sitting quiet over the fire that burned now all the winter in her mother’s room, was thinking over these things.

She had had more news from London from time to time, sent on to her chiefly by Mr. Babington, though none had come to her since the summer, and she had singled out in particular all that bore upon Father Campion. There was no doubt that the hunt was hotter every month; yet he seemed to bear a charmed life. Once he had escaped, she had heard, through the quick wit of a servant-maid, who had pushed him suddenly into a horse-pond, as the officers actually came in sight, so that he came out all mud and water-weed; and had been jeered at for a clumsy lover by the very men who were on his trail…. Marjorie smiled to herself as she nursed her knee over the fire, and remembered his gaiety and sharpness.

Robin, too, was never very far from her thoughts. In some manner she put the two together in her mind. She wondered whether they would ever travel together. It was her hope that her old friend might become another Campion himself some day.

A log rolled from its place in the fire, scattering sparks. She stooped to put it back, glancing first at the bed to see if her mother were disturbed; and, as she sat back again, she heard the blowing of a horse and a man’s voice, fierce and low, from beyond the windows, bidding the beast hold himself up.

She was accustomed now to such arrivals. They came and went like this, often without warning; it was her business to look at any credentials they bore with them, and then, if all were well, to do what she could-whether to set them on their way, or to give them shelter. A room was set aside now, in the further wing, and called openly and freely the “priest’s room,”—so great was their security.

She got up from her seat and went out quickly on tiptoe as she heard a door open and close beneath her in the house, running over in her mind any preparations that she would have to make if the rider were one that needed shelter.

As she looked down the staircase, she saw a maid there, who had run out from the buttery, talking to a man whom she thought she knew. Then he lifted his face, and she saw that she was right: and that it was Mr. Babington.

She came down, reassured and smiling; but her breath caught in her throat as she saw his face…. She told the maid to be off and get supper ready, but he jerked his head in refusal. She saw that he could hardly speak. Then she led him into the hall, taking down the lantern that hung in the passage, and placing it on the table. But her hand shook in spite of herself.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

He sat down heavily on a bench.

“It is all over,” he said. “The bloody murderers!… They were gibbeted three days ago.”

The girl drew a long, steady breath. All her heart cried “Robin.”

“Who are they, Mr. Babington?”

“Why, Campion and Sherwine and Brian. They were taken a month or two ago…. I had heard not a word of it, and … and it ended three days ago.”

“I … I do not understand.”

The man struck his hand heavily on the long table against which he leaned. He appeared one flame of fury; courtesy and gentleness were all gone from him.

“They were hanged for treason, I tell you…. Treason! … Campion!…

By God! we will give them treason if they will have it so!”

All seemed gone from Marjorie except the white, splashed face that stared at her, lighted up by the lantern beside him, glaring from the background of darkness. It was not Robin … not Robin … yet—

The shocking agony of her face broke through the man’s heart-broken fury, and he stood up quickly.

“Mistress Marjorie,” he said, “forgive me…. I am like a madman. I am on my way from Derby, where the news came to me this afternoon. I turned aside to tell you. They say the truce, as they call it, is at an end. I came to warn you. You must be careful. I am riding for London. My men are in the valley. Mistress Marjorie—”

She waved him aside. The blood was beginning again to beat swiftly and deafeningly in her ears, and the word came back.

“I … I was shocked,” she said; “… you must pardon me…. Is it certain?”

He tore out a bundle of papers from behind his cloak, detached one with shaking hands and thrust it before her.

She sat down and spread it on the table. But his voice broke in and interrupted her all the while.

“They were all three taken together, in the summer…. I … have been in France; my letters never reached me…. They were racked continually…. They died all together; praying for the Queen … at Tyburn…. Campion died the first….”

She pushed the paper from her; the close handwriting was no more to her than black marks on the paper. She passed her hands over her forehead and eyes.

“Mistress Marjorie, you look like death. See, I will leave the paper with you. It is from one of my friends who was there….”

The door was pushed open, and the servant came in, bearing a tray.

“Set it down,” said Marjorie, as coolly as if death and horror were as far from her as an hour ago.

She nodded sharply to the maid, who went out again; then she rose and spread the food within the man’s reach. He began to eat and drink, talking all the time.

As she sat and watched him and listened, remembering afterwards, as if mechanically, all that he said, she was contemplating something else. She seemed to see Campion, not as he had been three days ago, not as he was now … but as she had seen him in London—alert, brisk, quick. Even the tones of his voice were with her, and the swift merry look in his eyes…. Somewhere on the outskirts of her thought there hung other presences: the darkness, the blood, the smoking cauldron…. Oh! she would have to face these presently; she would go through this night, she knew, looking at all their terror. But just now let her remember him as he had been; let her keep off all other thoughts so long as she could….

II

When she had heard the horse’s footsteps scramble down the little steep ascent in the dark, and then pass into silence on the turf beyond, she closed the outer door, barred it once more, and then went back straight into the hall, where the lantern still burned among the plates. She dared not face her mother yet; she must learn how far she still held control of herself; for her mother must not hear the news: the apothecary from Derby who had ridden up to see her this week had been very emphatic. So the girl must be as usual. There must be no sign of discomposure. To-night, at least, she would keep her face in the shadow. But her voice? Could she control that too?

After she had sat motionless in the cold hall a minute or two, she tested herself.

“He is dead,” she said softly. “He is quite dead, and so are the others.

They—”

But she could not go on. Great shuddering seized on her; she shook from head to foot….

Later that night Mrs. Manners awoke. She tried to move her head, but the pain was shocking, and still half asleep, she moaned aloud.

Then the curtains moved softly, and she could see that a face was looking at her.

“Margy! Is that you?”

“Yes, mother.”

“Move my head; move my head. I cannot bear—”

She felt herself lifted gently and strongly. The struggle and the pain exhausted her for a minute, and she lay breathing deeply. Then the ease of the shifted position soothed her.

“I cannot see your face,” she said. “Where is the light?”

The face disappeared, and immediately, through the curtains, the mother saw the light. But still she could not see the girl’s face. She said so peevishly.

“It will weary your eyes. Lie still, mother, and go to sleep again.”

“What time is it?”

“I do not know.”

“Are you not in bed?”

“Not yet, mother.”

The sick woman moaned again once or twice, but thought no more of it.

And presently the deep sleep of sickness came down on her again.

They rose early in those days in England; and soon after six o’clock, as Janet had seen nothing of her young mistress, she opened the door of the sleeping-room and peeped in…. A minute later Marjorie’s mind rose up out of black gulfs of sleep, in which, since her falling asleep an hour or two ago, she had wandered, bearing an intolerable burden, which she could neither see nor let fall, to find the rosy-streaked face of Janet, all pinched with cold, peering into her own. She sat up, wide awake, yet with all her world still swaying about her, and stared into her maid’s eyes.

“What is it? What time is it?”

“It is after six, mistress. And the mistress seems uneasy. I—”

Marjorie sprang up and went to the bed.

III

On the evening of that day her mother died.

There was no priest within reach. A couple of men had ridden out early, dispatched by Marjorie within half an hour of her awaking—to Dethick, to Hathersage, and to every spot within twenty miles where a priest might be found, with orders not to return without one. But the long day had dragged out: and when dusk was falling, still neither had come back. The country was rain-soaked and all but impassable, she learned later, across valley after valley, where the streams had risen. And nowhere could news be gained that any priest was near; for, as a further difficulty, open inquiry was not always possible, in view of the news that had come to Booth’s Edge last night. The girl had understood that the embers were rising again to flame in the south; and who could tell but that a careless word might kindle the fire here, too. She had been urged by Anthony to hold herself more careful than ever, and she had been compelled to warn her messengers.

It was soon after dusk had fallen—the heavy dusk of a December day—that her mother had come back again to consciousness. She opened her eyes wearily, coming back, as Marjorie had herself that morning, from that strange realm of heavy and deathly sleep, to the pale phantom world called “life”; and agonising pain about the heart stabbed her wide awake.

“O Jesu!” she screamed.

Then she heard her daughter’s voice, very steady and plain, in her ear.

“There is no priest, mother dear. Listen to me.”

“I cannot! I cannot!… Jesu!”

Her eyes closed again for torment, and the sweat ran down her face. The slow poison that had weighted and soaked her limbs so gradually these many months past, was closing in at last upon her heart, and her pain was gathering to its last assault. The silent, humorous woman was changed into one twitching, uncontrolled incarnation of torture.

Then again the voice began:

“Jesu, Who didst die for love of me—upon the Cross—let me die—for love of Thee.”

“Christ!” moaned the woman more softly.

“Say it in your heart, after me. There is no priest. So God will accept your sorrow instead. Now then—”

Then the old words began—the old acts of sorrow and love and faith and hope, that mother and daughter had said together, night after night, for so many years. Over and over again they came, whispered clear and sharp by the voice in her ear; and she strove to follow them. Now and again the pain closed its sharp hands upon her heart so cruelly that all that on which she strove to fix her mind, fled from her like a mist, and she moaned or screamed, or was silent with her teeth clenched upon her lip.

“My God—I am very sorry—that I have offended Thee.”

“Why is there no priest?… Where is the priest?”

“Mother, dear, listen. I have sent for a priest … but none has come.

You remember now?… You remember that priests are forbidden now—”

“Where is the priest?”

“Mother, dear. Three priests were put to death only three days ago in

London—for … for being priests. Ask them to pray for you…. Say,

Edmund Campion pray for me. Perhaps … perhaps—”

The girl’s voice died away.

For, for a full minute, an extraordinary sensation rested on her. It began with a sudden shiver of the flesh, as sharp and tingling as water, dying away in long thrills amid her hair—that strange advertisement that tells the flesh that more than flesh is there, and that the world of spirit is not only present, but alive and energetic. Then, as it passed, the whole world, too, passed into silence. The curtains that shook just now hung rigid as sheets of steel; the woman in the bed lay suddenly still, then smiled with closed eyes. The pair of maids, kneeling out of sight beyond the bed, ceased to sob; and, while the seconds went by, as real as any knowledge can be in which the senses have no part, the certain knowledge deepened upon the girl who knelt, arrested in spite of herself, that a priestly presence was here indeed….

Very slowly, as if lifting great weights, she raised her eyes, knowing that there, across the tumbled bed, where the darkness of the room showed between the parted curtains, the Presence was poised. Yet there was nothing there to see—no tortured, smoke-stained, throttling face—ah! that could not be—but neither was there the merry, kindly face, with large cheerful eyes and tender mouth smiling; no hand held the curtains that the face might peer in. Neither then nor at any time in all her life did Marjorie believe that she saw him; yet neither then nor in all her life did she doubt he had been there while her mother died.

Again her mother smiled—and this time she opened her eyes to the full, and there was no dismay in them, nor fear, nor disappointment; and she looked a little to her left, where the parted curtains showed the darkness of the room….

Then Marjorie closed her eyes, and laid her head on the bed where her mother’s body sank back and down into the pillows. Then the girl slipped heavily to the floor, and the maids sprang up screaming.

IV

It was not till two hours later that Mr. Simpson arrived. He had been found at last at Hathersage, only a few miles away, as one of the men, on his return ride, had made one last inquiry before coming home; and there he ran into the priest himself in the middle of the street. The priest had taken the man’s horse and pushed on as well as he could through the dark, in the hopes he might yet be in time.

Marjorie came to him in the parlour downstairs. She nodded her head slowly and gravely.

“It is over,” she said; and sat down.

“And there was no priest?”

She said nothing.

She was in her house-dress, with the hood drawn over her head as it was a cold night. He was amazed at her look of self-control; he had thought to find her either collapsed or strainedly tragic: he had wondered as he came how he would speak to her, how he would soothe her, and he saw there was no need.

She told him presently of the sudden turn for the worse early that morning as she herself fell asleep by the bedside; and a little of what had passed during the day. Then she stopped short as she approached the end.

“Have you heard the news from London?” she said. “I mean, of our priests there?”

His young face grew troubled, and he knit his forehead.

“They are in ward,” he said; “I heard a week ago…. They will banish them from England—they dare not do more!”

“It is all finished,” she said quietly.

“What!”

“They were hanged at Tyburn three days ago—the three of them together.”

He drew a hissing breath, and felt the skin of his face tingle.

“You have heard that?”

“Mr. Babington came to tell me last night. He left a paper with me: I have not read it yet.”

He watched her as she drew it out and put it before him. The terror was on him, as once or twice before in his journeyings, or as when the news of Mr. Nelson’s death had reached him—a terror which shamed him to the heart, and which he loathed yet could not overcome. He still stared into her pale face. Then he took the paper and began to read it.

Presently he laid it down again. The sick terror was beginning to pass; or, rather, he was able to grip it; and he said a conventional word or two; he could do no more. There was no exultation in his heart; nothing but misery. And then, in despair, he left the subject.

“And you, mistress,” he said, “what will you do now? Have you no aunt or friend—”

“Mistress Alice Babington once said she would come and live with me—if … when I needed it. I shall write to her. I do not know what else to do.”

“And you will live here?”

“Why; more than ever!” she said, smiling suddenly. “I can work in earnest now.”

CHAPTER VI

I

It was on a bright evening in the summer that Marjorie, with her maid Janet, came riding down to Padley, and about the same time a young man came walking up the track that led from Derby. In fact, the young man saw the two against the skyline and wondered who they were. Further, there was a group of four or five walking on the terrace below the house, that saw both the approaching parties, and commented upon their coming.

To be precise, there were four persons in the group on the terrace, and a man-servant who hung near. The four were Mr. John FitzHerbert, his son Thomas, his son’s wife, and, in the midst, leaning on Mrs. FitzHerbert’s arm, was old Sir Thomas himself, and it was for his sake that the servant was within call, for he was still very sickly after his long imprisonment, in spite of his occasional releases.

Mr. John saw the visitors first.

“Why, here is the company all arrived together,” he said. “Now, if anything hung on that—” his son broke in, uneasily.

“You are sure of young Owen?” he said. “Our lives will all hang on him after this.”

His father clapped him gently on the shoulder.

“Now, now!” he said. “I know him well enough, from my lord. He hath made a dozen such places in this county alone.”

Mr. Thomas glanced swiftly at his uncle.

“And you have spoken with him, too, uncle?”

The old man turned his melancholy eyes on him.

“Yes; I have spoken with him,” he said.

Five minutes later Marjorie was dismounted, and was with him. She greeted old Sir Thomas with particular respect; she had talked with him a year ago when he was first released that he might raise his fines; and she knew well enough that his liberty was coming to an end. In fact, he was technically a prisoner even now; and had only been allowed to come for a week or two from Sir Walter Aston’s house before going back again to the Fleet.

“You are come in good time,” said Sir John, smiling.

“That is young Owen himself coming up the path.”

There was nothing particularly noticeable about the young man who a minute later was standing before them with his cap in his hand. He was plainly of the working class; and he had over his shoulder a bag of tools. He was dusty up to the knees with his long tramp. Mr. John gave him a word of welcome; and then the whole group went slowly together back to the house, with the two men following. Sir Thomas stumbled a little going up the two or three steps into the hall. Then they all sat down together; the servant put a big flagon and a horn tumbler beside the traveller, and went out, closing the doors.

“Now, my man,” said Mr. John. “Do you eat and drink while I do the talking. I understand you are a man of your hands, and that you have business elsewhere.”

“I must be in Lancashire by the end of the week, sir.”

“Very well, then. We have business enough for you, God knows! This is Mistress Manners, whom you may have heard of. And after you have looked at the places we have here—you understand me?—Mistress Manners wants you at her house at Booth’s Edge…. You have any papers?”

Owen leaned back and drew out a paper from his bag of tools.

“This is from Mr. Fenton, sir.”

Mr. John glanced at the address; then he turned it over and broke the seal. He stared for a moment at the open sheet.

“Why, it is blank!” he said.

Owen smiled. He was a grave-looking lad of eighteen or nineteen years old; and his face lighted up very pleasantly.

“I have had that trick played on me before, sir, in my travels. I understand that Catholic gentlemen do so sometimes to try the fidelity of the messenger.”

The other laughed out loud, throwing back his head.

“Why, that is a poor compliment!” he said. “You shall have a better one from us, I have no doubt.”

Mr. Thomas leaned over the table and took the paper. He examined it very carefully; then he handed it back. His father laughed again as he took it.

“You are very cautious, my son,” he said. “But it is wise enough…. Well, then,” he went on to the carpenter, “you are willing to do this work for us? And as for payment—”

“I ask only my food and lodging,” said the lad quietly; “and enough to carry me on to the next place.”

“Why—” began the other in a protest.

“No, sir; no more than that….” He paused an instant. “I hope to be admitted to the Society of Jesus this year or next.”

There was a pause of astonishment. And then old Sir Thomas’ deep voice broke in.

“You do very well, sir. I heartily congratulate you. And I would I were twenty years younger myself….”

II

After supper that night the entire party went upstairs to the chapel.

Young Hugh Owen even already was beginning to be known among Catholics, for his extraordinary skill in constructing hiding-holes. Up to the present not much more had been attempted than little secret recesses where the vessels of the altar and the vestments might be concealed. But the young carpenter had been ingenious enough in two or three houses to which he had been called, to enlarge these so considerably that even two or three men might be sheltered in them; and, now that it seemed as if the persecution of recusants was to break out again, the idea began to spread. Mr. John FitzHerbert while in London had heard of his skill, and had taken means to get at the young man, for his own house at Padley.

Owen was already at work when the party came upstairs. He had supped alone, and, with a servant to guide him, had made the round of the house, taking measurements in every possible place. He was seated on the floor as they came in; three or four panels lay on the ground beside him, and a heap of plaster and stones.

He looked up as they came in.

“This will take me all night, sir,” he said. “And the fire must be put out below.”

He explained his plan. The old hiding-place was but a poor affair; it consisted of a space large enough for only one man, and was contrived by a section of the wall having been removed, all but the outer row of stones made thin for the purpose; the entrance to it was through a tall sliding panel on the inside of the chapel. Its extreme weakness as a hiding-hole lay in the fact that anyone striking on the panel could not fail to hear how hollow it rang. This he proposed to do away with, unless, indeed, he left a small space for the altar vessels; and to construct instead a little chamber in the chimney of the hall that was built against this wall; he would contrive it so that an entrance was still from the chapel, as well as one that he would make over the hearth below; and that the smoke should be conducted round the little enclosed space, passing afterwards up the usual vent. The chamber would be large enough, he thought, for at least two men. He explained, too, his method of deadening the hollowness of the sound if the panel were knocked upon, by placing pads of felt on struts of wood that would be set against the panel-door.

“Why, that is very shrewd!” cried Mr. John. He looked round the faces for approval.

For an hour or so, the party sat and watched him at his work; and Marjorie listened to their talk. It was of that which filled the hearts of all Catholics at this time; of the gathering storm in England, of the priests that had been executed this very year—Mr. Paine at Chelmsford, in March; Mr. Forde, Mr. Shert and Mr. Johnson, at Tyburn in May, the first of the three having been taken with Father Campion at Lyford—deaths that were followed two days later by the execution of four more—one of whom, Mr. Filbie, had also been arrested at Lyford. And there were besides a great number more in prison—Mr. Cottam, it was known, had been taken at York, scarcely a week ago, and, it was said, would certainly suffer before long.

They talked in low voices; for the shadow was on all their hearts. It had been possible almost to this very year to hope that the misery would be a passing one; but the time for hope was gone. It remained only to bear what came, to multiply priests, and, if necessary, martyrs, and meantime to take such pains for protection as they could.

“He will be a clever pursuivant who finds this one out,” said Mr. John.

The carpenter looked up from his work.

“But a clever one will find it,” he said.

Mr. Thomas was heard to sigh.

III

It was on the afternoon of the following day that Marjorie rode up to her house with Janet beside her, and Hugh Owen walking by her horse.

He had finished his work at Padley an hour or two after dawn—for he worked at night when he could, and had then gone to rest. But he had been waiting for her when her horses were brought, and asked if he might walk with her; he had asked it simply and easily, saying that it might save his losing his way, and time was precious to him.

Marjorie felt very much interested by this lad, for he was no more than that. In appearance he was like any of his kind, with a countryman’s face, in a working-dress: she might have seen him by chance a hundred times and not known him again. But his manner was remarkable, so wholly simple and well-bred: he was courteous always, as suited his degree; but he had something of the same assurance that she had noticed so plainly in Father Campion. (He talked with a plain, Northern dialect.)

Presently she opened on that very point; for she could talk freely before Janet.

“Did you ever know Father Campion?” she asked.

“I have never spoken with him, mistress. I have heard him preach. It was that which put it in my heart to join the company.”

“You heard him preach?”

“Yes, mistress; three or four times in Essex and Hertfordshire. I heard him preach upon the young man who came to our Saviour.”

“Tell me,” she said, looking down at what she could see of his face.

“It was liker an angel than a man,” he said quietly. “I could not take my eyes off him from his first word to the last. And all were the same that were there.”

“Was he eloquent?”

“Aye; you might call it that. But I thought it to be the Spirit of God.”

“And it was then you made up your mind to join the Society?”

“There was no rest for me till I did. ‘And Christ also went away sorrowful,’ were his last words. And I could not bear to think that.”

Marjorie was silent through pure sympathy. This young man spoke a language she understood better than that which some of her friends used—Mr. Babington, for instance. It was the Person of Jesus Christ that was all her religion to her; it was for this that she was devout, that she went to mass and the sacraments when she could; it was this that made Mary dear to her. Was He not her son? And, above all, it was for this that she had sacrificed Robin: she could not bear that he should not serve Him as a priest, if he might. But the other talk that she had heard sometimes—of the place of religion in politics, and the justification of this or that course of public action—well, she knew that these things must be so; yet it was not the manner of her own most intimate thought, and the language of it was not hers.

The two went together so a few paces, without speaking. Then she had a sudden impulse.

“And do you ever think of what may come upon you?” she asked. “Do you ever think of the end?

“Aye,” he said.

“And what do you think the end will be?”

She saw him raise his eyes to her an instant.

“I think,” he said, “that I shall die for my faith some day.”

That same strange shiver that passed over her at her mother’s bedside, passed over her again, as if material things grew thin about her. There was a tone in his voice that made it absolutely clear to her that he was not speaking of a fancy, but of some certain knowledge that he had. Yet she dared not ask him, and she was a middle-aged woman before the news came to her of his death upon the rack.

IV

It was a sleepy-eyed young man that came into the kitchen early next morning, where the ladies and the maids were hard at work all together upon the business of baking. The baking was a considerable task each week, for there were not less than twenty mouths, all told, to feed in the hall day by day, including a widow or two that called each day for rations; and a great part, therefore, of a mistress’s time in such houses was taken up with such things.

Marjorie turned to him, with her arms floured to the elbow.

“Well?” she said, smiling.

“I have done, mistress. Will it please you to see it before I go and sleep?”

They had examined the house carefully last night, measuring and sounding in the deep and thin walls alike, for there was at present no convenience at all for a hunted man. Owen had obtained her consent to two or three alternative proposals, and she had then left him to himself. From her bed, that she had had prepared, with Alice Babington’s, in a loft—turning out for the night the farm-men who had usually slept there, she had heard more than once the sound of distant hammering from the main front of the house where her own room lay, that had been once her mother’s as well.

The possibilities in this little manor were small. To construct a passage, giving an exterior escape, as had been made in some houses, would have meant here a labour of weeks, and she had told the young man she would be content with a simple hiding-hole. Yet, although she did not expect great things, and knew, moreover, the kind of place that he would make, she was as excited as a child, in a grave sort of way, at what she would see.

He took her first into the parlour, where years ago Robin had talked with her in the wintry sunshine. The open chimney was on the right as they entered, and though she knew that somewhere on that same side would be one of the two entrances that had been arranged, all the difference she could see was that a piece of the wall-hanging that had been between the window and the fire was gone, and that there hung in its place an old picture painted on a panel. She looked at this without speaking: the wall was wainscoted in oak, as it had always been, six feet up from the floor. Then an idea came to her: she tilted the picture on one side. But there was no more to be seen than a cracked panel, which, it seemed to her, had once been nearer the door. She rapped upon this, but it gave back the dull sound as of wood against stone.

She turned to the young man, smiling. He smiled back.

“Come into the bedroom, mistress.”

He led her in there, through the passage outside into which the two doors opened at the head of the outside stairs; but here, too, all that she could see was that a tall press that had once stood between the windows now stood against the wall immediately opposite to the painted panel on the other side of the wall. She opened the doors of the press, but it was as it had always been: there even hung there the three or four dresses that she had taken from it last night and laid on the bed.

She laughed outright, and, turning, saw Mistress Alice Babington beaming tranquilly from the door of the room.

“Come in, Alice,” she said, “and see this miracle.”

Then he began to explain it.

On this side was the entrance proper, and, as he said so, he stepped up into the press and closed the doors. They could hear him fumbling within, then the sound of wood sliding, and finally a muffled voice calling to them. Marjorie flung the doors open, and, save for the dresses, it was empty. She stared in for a moment, still hearing the movements of someone beyond, and at last the sound of a snap; and as she withdrew her head to exclaim to Alice, the young man walked into the room through the open door behind her.

Then he explained it in full.

The back of the press had been removed, and then replaced, in such a manner that it would slide out about eighteen inches towards the window, but only when the doors of the press were closed; when they were opened, they drew out simultaneously a slip of wood on either side that pulled the sliding door tight and immovable. Behind the back of the press, thus removed, a corresponding part of the wainscot slid in the same way, giving a narrow doorway into the cell which he had excavated between the double beams of the thick wall. Next, when the person that had taken refuge was inside, with the two sliding doors closed behind him, it was possible for him, by an extremely simple device, to turn a wooden button and thus release a little wooden machinery which controlled a further opening into the parlour, and which, at the same time, was braced against the hollow panelling and one of the higher beams in such a manner as to give it, when knocked upon, the dullness of sound the girl had noticed just now. But this door could only be opened from within. Neither a fugitive nor a pursuer could make any entrance from the parlour side, unless the wainscoting itself were torn off. Lastly, the crack in the woodwork, corresponding with two minute holes bored in the painted panel, afforded, when the picture was hung exactly straight, a view of the parlour that commanded nearly all the room.

“I do not pretend that it is a fortress,” said the young man, smiling gravely. “But it may serve to keep out a country constable. And, indeed, it is the best I can contrive in this house.”

CHAPTER VII

I

Marjorie found it curious, even to herself, how the press that faced the foot of the two beds where she and Alice slept side by side, became associated in her mind with the thought of Robin; and she began to perceive that it was largely with the thought of him in her intention that the idea had first presented itself of having the cell constructed at all. It was not that in her deliberate mind she conceived that he would be hunted, that he would fly here, that she would save him; but rather in that strange realm of consciousness which is called sometimes the Imagination, and sometimes by other names—that inner shadow-show on which move figures cast by the two worlds—she perceived him in this place….

It was in the following winter that she was reminded of him by other means than those of his letters.

The summer and autumn had passed tranquilly enough, so far as this outlying corner of England was concerned. News filtered through of the stirring world outside, and especially was there conveyed to her, through Alice for the most part, news that concerned the fortunes of Catholics. Politics, except in this connection, meant little enough to such as her. She heard, indeed, from time to time vague rumours of fighting, and of foreign Powers; and thought now and again of Spain, as of a country that might yet be, in God’s hand, an instrument for the restoring of God’s cause in England; she had heard, too, in this year, of one more rumour of the Queen’s marriage with the Duke d’Alençon, and then of its final rupture. But these matters were aloof from her; rather she pondered such things as the execution of two more priests at York in August, Mr. Lacy and Mr. Kirkman, and of a third, Mr. Thompson, in November at the same place. It was on such affairs as these that she pondered as she went about her household business, or sat in the chamber upstairs with Mistress Alice; and it was of these things that she talked with the few priests that came and went from time to time in their circuits about Derbyshire. It was a life of quietness and monotony inconceivable by those who live in towns. Its sole incident lay in that life which is called Interior….

It was soon after the New Year that she met the squire of Matstead face to face.

She and Alice, with Janet and a man riding behind, were on their way back from Derby, where they had gone for their monthly shopping. They had slept at Dethick, and had had news there of Mr. Anthony, who was again in the south on one of his mysterious missions, and started again soon after dawn next day to reach home, if they could, for dinner.

She knew Alice now for what she was—a woman of astounding dullness, of sterling character, and of a complete inability to understand any shades or tones of character or thought that were not her own, and yet a friend in a thousand, of an immovable stability and loyalty, one of no words at all, who dwelt in the midst of a steady kind of light which knew no dawn nor sunset. The girl entertained herself sometimes with conceiving of her friend confronted with the rack, let us say, or the gallows; and perceived that she knew with exactness what her behaviour would be: She would do all that was required of her with out speeches or protest; she would place herself in the required positions, with a faint smile, unwavering; she would suffer or die with the same tranquil steadiness as that in which she lived; and, best of all, she would not be aware, even for an instant, that anything in her behaviour was in the least admirable or exceptional. She resembled, to Marjorie’s mind, that for which a strong and well-built arm-chair stands in relation to the body: it is the same always, supporting and sustaining always, and cannot even be imagined as anything else.

It was a brilliant frosty day, as they rode over the rutted track between hedges that served for a road, that ran, for the most part, a field or two away from the black waters of the Derwent. The birches stood about them like frozen feathers; the vast chestnuts towered overhead, motionless in the motionless air. As they came towards Matstead, and, at last, rode up the street, naturally enough Marjorie again began to think of Robin. As they came near where the track turned the corner beneath the churchyard wall, where once Robin had watched, himself unseen, the three riders go by, she had to attend to her horse, who slipped once or twice on the paved causeway. Then as she lifted her head again, she saw, not three yards from her, and on a level with her own face, the face of the squire looking at her from over the wall.

She had not seen him, except once in Derby, a year or two before, and that at a distance, since Robin had left England; and at the sight she started so violently, in some manner jerking the reins that she held, that her horse, tired with the long ride of the day before, slipped once again, and came down all asprawl on the stones, fortunately throwing her clear of his struggling feet. She was up in a moment, but again sank down, aware that her foot was in some way bruised or twisted.

There was a clatter of hoofs behind her as the servants rode up; a child or two ran up the street, and when, at last, on Janet’s arm, she rose again to her feet, it was to see the squire staring at her, with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Bring the ladies up to the house,” he said abruptly to the man; and then, taking the rein of the girl’s horse that had struggled up again, he led the way, without another word, without even turning his head, round to the way that ran up to his gates.

II

It was not with any want of emotion that Marjorie found herself presently meekly seated upon Alice’s horse, and riding up at a foot’s-pace beneath the gatehouse of the Hall. Rather it was the balance of emotions that made her so meek and so obedient to her friend’s tranquil assumption that she must come in as the squire said. She was aware of a strong resentment to his brusque order, as well as to the thought that it was to the house of an apostate that she was going; yet there was a no less strong emotion within her that he had a sort of right to command her. These feelings, working upon her, dazed as she was by the sudden sharpness of her fall, and the pain in her foot, combined to drive her along in a kind of resignation in the wake of the squire.

Still confused, yet with a rapid series of these same emotions running before her mind, she limped up the steps, supported by Alice and her maid, and sat down on a bench at the end of the hall. The squire, who had shouted an order or two to a peeping domestic, as he passed up the court, came to her immediately with a cup in his hand.

“You must drink this at once, mistress.”

She took it at once, drank and set it down, aware of the keen, angry-looking face that watched her.

“You will dine here, too, mistress—” he began, still with a sharp kindness…. And then, on a sudden, all grew dark about her; there was a roaring in her ears, and she fainted.

She came out of her swoon again, after a while, with that strange and innocent clearness that usually follows such a thing, to find Alice beside her, a tapestried wall behind Alice, and the sound of a crackling fire in her ears. Then she perceived that she was in a small room, lying on her back along a bench, and that someone was bathing her foot.

“I … I will not stay here—” she began. But two hands held her firmly down, and Alice’s reassuring face was looking into her own.

When her mind ran clearly again, she sat up with a sudden movement, drawing her foot away from Janet’s ministrations.

“I do very well,” she said, after looking at her foot, and then putting it to the ground amid a duet of protestations. (She had looked round the room to satisfy herself that no one else was there, and had seen that it must be the parlour that she was in. A newly-lighted fire burned on the hearth, and the two doors were closed.)

Then Alice explained.

It was impossible, she said, to ride on at once; the horse even now was being bathed in the stable, as his mistress in the parlour. The squire had been most considerate; he had helped to carry her in here just now, had lighted the fire with his own hands, and had stated that dinner would be sent in here in an hour for the three women. He had offered to send one of his own men on to Booth’s Edge with the news, if Mistress Marjorie found herself unable to ride on after dinner.

“But … but it is Mr. Audrey!” exclaimed Marjorie.

“Yes, my dear,” said Alice. “I know it is. But that does not mend your foot,” she said, with unusual curtness. And Marjorie saw that she still looked at her anxiously.

The three women dined together, of course, in an hour’s time. There was no escape from the pressure of circumstance. It was unfortunate that such an accident should have fallen out here, in the one place in all the world where it should not; but the fact was a fact. Meanwhile, it was not only resentment that Marjorie felt: it was a strange sort of terror as well—a terror of sitting in the house of an apostate—of one who had freely and deliberately renounced that faith for which she herself lived so completely; and that it was the father of one whom she knew as she knew Robin—with whose fate, indeed, her own had been so intimately entwined—this combined to increase that indefinable fear that rested on her as she stared round the walls, and sat over the food and drink that this man provided.

The climax came as they were finishing dinner: for the door from the hall opened abruptly, and the squire came in. He bowed to the ladies, as the manner was, straightening his trim, tight figure again defiantly; asked a civil question or two; directed a servant behind him to bring the horses to the parlour door in half an hour’s time; and then snapped out the sentence which he was, plainly, impatient to speak.

“Mistress Manners,” he said, “I wish to have a word with you privately.”

Marjorie, trembling at his presence, turned a wavering face to her friend; and Alice, before the other could speak, rose up, and went out, with Janet following.

“Janet—” cried the girl.

“If you please,” said the old man, with such a decisive air that she hesitated. Then she nodded at her maid; and a moment later the door closed.

III

“I have two matters to speak of,” said the squire abruptly, sitting down in the chair that Alice had left; “the first concerns you closely; and the other less closely.”

She looked at him, summoning all her power to appear at her ease.

He seemed far older than when she had last spoken with him, perhaps five years ago; and had grown a little pointed beard; his hair, too, seemed thinner—such of it as she could see beneath the house-cap that he wore; his face, especially about his blue, angry-looking eyes, was covered with fine wrinkles, and his hands were clearly the hands of an old man, at once delicate and sinewy. He was in a dark suit, still with his cloak upon him; and in low boots. He sat still as upright as ever, turned a little in his chair, so as to clasp its back with one strong hand.

“Yes, sir?” she said.

“I will begin with the second first. It is of my son Robin: I wish to know what news you have of him. He hath not written to me this six months back. And I hear that letters sometimes come to you from him.”

Marjorie hesitated.

“He is very well, so far as I know,” she said.

“And when is he to be made priest?” he demanded sharply.

Marjorie drew a breath to give herself time; she knew that she must not answer this; and did not know how to say so with civility.

“If he has not told you himself, sir,” she said, “I cannot.”

The old man’s face twitched; but he kept his manners. “I understand you, mistress….” But then his wrath overcame him. “But he must understand he will have no mercy from me, if he comes my way. I am a magistrate, now, mistress, and—”

A thought like an inspiration came to the girl; and she interrupted; for she longed to penetrate this man’s armour.

“Perhaps that was why he did not tell you when he was to be made priest,” she said.

The other seemed taken aback.

“Why, but—”

“He did not wish to think that his father would be untrue to his new commission,” she said, trembling at her boldness and yet exultant too; and taking no pains to keep the irony out of her voice.

Again that fierce twitch of the features went over the other’s face; and he stared straight at her with narrowed eyes. Then a change again came over him; and he laughed, like barking, yet not all unkindly.

“You are very shrewd, mistress. But I wonder what you will think of me when I tell you the second matter, since you will tell me no more of the first.”

He shifted his position in his chair, this time clasping both his hands together over the back.

“Well; it is this in a word,” he said: “It is that you had best look to yourself, mistress. My lord Shrewsbury even knows of it.”

“Of what, if you please?” asked the girl, hoping she had not turned white.

“Why, of the priests that come and go hereabouts! It is all known; and her Grace hath sent a message from the Council—”

“What has this to do with me?”

He laughed again.

“Well; let us take your neighbours at Padley. They will be in trouble if they do not look to their goings. Mr. FitzHerbert—”

But again she interrupted him. She was determined to know how much he knew. She had thought that she had been discreet enough, and that no news had leaked out of her own entertaining of priests; it was chiefly that discretion might be preserved that she had set her hands to the work at all. With Padley so near it was thought that less suspicion would be aroused. Her name had never yet come before the authorities, so far as she knew.

“But what has all this to do with me, sir?” she asked sharply. “It is true that I do not go to church, and that I pay my fines when they are demanded: Are there new laws, then, against the old faith?”

She spoke with something of real bitterness. It was genuine enough; her only art lay in her not concealing it; for she was determined to press her question home. And, in his shrewd, compelling face, she read her answer even before his words gave it.

“Well, mistress; it was not of you that I meant to speak—so much as of your friends. They are your friends, not mine. And as your friends, I thought it to be a kindly action to send them an advertisement. If they are not careful, there will be trouble.”

“At Padley?”

“At Padley, or elsewhere. It is the persons that fall under the law, not places!”

“But, sir, you are a magistrate; and—”

He sprang up, his face aflame with real wrath.

“Yes, mistress; I am a magistrate: the commission hath come at last, after six months’ waiting. But I was friend to the FitzHerberts before ever I was a magistrate, and—”

Then she understood; and her heart went out to him. She, too, stood up, catching at the table with a hiss of pain as she threw her weight on the bruised foot. He made a movement towards her; but she waved him aside.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Audrey, with all my heart. I had thought that you meant harm, perhaps, to my friends and me. But now I see—”

“Not a word more! not a word more!” he cried harshly, with a desperate kind of gesture. “I shall do my duty none the less when the time comes—”

“Sir!” she cried out suddenly. “For God’s sake do not speak of duty—there is another duty greater than that. Mr. Audrey—”

He wheeled away from her, with a movement she could not interpret. It might be uncontrolled anger or misery, equally. And her heart went out to him in one great flood.

“Mr. Audrey. It is not too late. Your son Robin—”

Then he wheeled again; and his face was distorted with emotion.

“Yes, my son Robin! my son Robin!… How dare you speak of him to me?…

Yes; that is it—my son Robin—my son Robin!”

He dropped into the chair again, and his face fell upon his clasped hands.

IV

She scarcely knew how circumstances had arranged themselves up to the time when she found herself riding away again with Alice, while a man of Mr. Audrey’s led her horse. They could not talk freely till he left them at the place where the stony road turned to a soft track, and it was safe going once more. Then Alice told her own side of it.

“Yes, my dear; I heard him call out. I was walking in the hall with Janet to keep ourselves warm. But when I ran in he was sitting down, and you were standing. What was the matter?”

“Alice,” said the girl earnestly, “I wish you had not come in. He is very heart-broken, I think. He would have told me more, I think. It is about his son.”

“His son! Why, he—”

“Yes; I know that. And he would not see him if he came back. He has had his magistrate’s commission; and he will be true to it. But he is heart-broken for all that. He has not really lost the Faith, I think.”

“Why, my dear; that is foolish. He is very hot in Derby, I hear, against the Papists. There was a poor woman who could not pay her fines; and—”

Marjorie waved it aside.

“Yes; he would be very hot; but for all that, there is his son Robin you know—and his memories. And Robin has not written to him for six months. That would be about the time when he told him he was to be a magistrate.”

Then Marjorie told her of the whole that had passed, and of his mention of the FitzHerberts.

“And what he meant by that,” she said, “I do not know; but I will tell them.”

She was pondering deeply all the way as she rode home. Mistress Alice was one of those folks who so long as they are answered in words are content; and Marjorie so answered her. And all the while she thought upon Robin, and his passionate old father, and attempted to understand the emotions that fought in the heart that had so disclosed itself to her—its aged obstinacy, its loyalty and its confused honourableness. She knew very well that he would do what he conceived to be his duty with all the more zeal if it were an unpleasant duty; and she thanked God that it was not for a good while yet that the lad would come home a priest.

CHAPTER VIII

I

The warning which she had had with regard to her friends, and which she wrote on to them at once, received its fulfilment within a very few weeks. Mr. John, who was on the eve of departure for London again to serve his brother there, who was back again in the Fleet by now, wrote that he knew very well that they were all under suspicion, that he had sent on to his son the message she had given, but that he hoped they would yet weather the storm.

“And as to yourself, Mistress Marjorie,” he wrote, “this makes it all the more necessary that Booth’s Edge should not be suspected; for what will our men do if Padley be closed to them? You have heard of our friend Mr. Garlick’s capture? But that was no fault of yours. The man was warned. I hear that they will send him into banishment, only, this time.”

The news came to her as she sat in the garden over her needlework on a hot evening in June. There it was as cool as anywhere in the countryside. She sat at the top of the garden, where her mother and she had sat with Robin so long before; the breeze that came over the moor bore with it the scent of the heather; and the bees were busy in the garden flowers about her.

It was first the gallop of a horse that she heard; and even at that sound she laid down her work and stood up. But the house below her blocked the most of her view; and she sat down again when she heard the dull rattle of the hoofs die away again. When she next looked up a man was running towards her from the bottom of the garden, and Janet was peeping behind him from the gate into the court. As she again stood up, she saw that it was Dick Sampson.

He was so out of breath, first with his ride and next with his run up the steep path, that for a moment or two he could not speak. He was dusty, too, from foot to knee; his cap was awry and his collar unbuttoned.

“It is Mr. Thomas, mistress,” he gasped presently. “I was in Derby and saw him being taken to the gaol…. I could not get speech with him…. I rode straight up to Padley, and found none there but the servants, and them knowing nothing of the matter. And so I rode on here, mistress.”

He was plainly all aghast at the blow. Hitherto it had been enough that Sir Thomas was in ward for his religion; and to this they had become accustomed. But that the heir should be taken, too, and that without a hint of what was to happen, was wholly unexpected. She made him sit down, and presently drew from him the whole tale.

Mr. Anthony Babington, his master, was away to London again, leaving the house in Derby in the hands of the servants. He then—Dick Sampson—was riding out early to take a horse to be shoed, and had come back through the town-square, when he saw the group ride up to the gaol door near the Friar Gate. He, too, had ridden up to ask what was forward, and had been just in time to see Mr. Thomas taken in. He had caught his eye, but had feigned not to know him. Then the man had attempted to get at what had happened from one of the fellows at the door, but could get no more from him than that the prisoner was a known and confessed recusant, and had been laid by the heels according to orders, it was believed, sent down by the Council. Then, Dick had ridden slowly away till he had turned the corner, and then, hot foot for Padley.

“And I heard the fellow say to one of his company that an informer was coming down from London on purpose to deal with Mr. Thomas.”

Marjorie felt a sudden pang; for she had never forgotten the one she had set eyes on in the Tower.

“His name?” she said breathlessly. “Did you hear his name?”

“It was Topcliffe, mistress,” said Dick indifferently. “The other called it out.”

Marjorie sat silent. Not only had the blow fallen more swiftly than she would have thought possible, but it was coupled with a second of which she had never dreamed. That it was this man, above all others, that should have come; this man, who stood to her mind, by a mere chance, for all that was most dreadful in the sinister forces arrayed against her—this brought misery down on her indeed. For, besides her own personal reasons for terror, there was, besides, the knowledge that the bringing of such a man at all from London on such business meant that the movement beginning here in her own county was not a mere caprice.

She sat silent then—seeing once more before her the wide court of the Tower, the great keep opposite, and in the midst that thin figure moving to his hateful business…. And she knew now, in this instant, as never before, that the chief reason for her terror was that she had coupled in her mind her own friend Robin with the thought of this man, as if by some inner knowledge that their lives must cross some day—a knowledge which she could neither justify nor silence. Thank God, at least, that Robin was still safe in Rheims!

II

She sent him off after a couple of hours’ rest, during which once more he had told his story to Mistress Alice, with a letter to Mr. Thomas’s wife, who, no doubt, would have followed her lord to Derby. She had gone apart with Alice, while Dick ate and drank, to talk the affair out, and had told her of Topcliffe’s presence, at which news even the placid face of her friend looked troubled; but they had said nothing more on the point, and had decided that a letter should be written in Mistress Babington’s name, offering Mrs. FitzHerbert the hospitality of Babington House, and any other services she might wish. Further, they had decided that the best thing to do was to go themselves to Derby next day, in order to be at hand; since Mr. John was in London, and the sooner Mrs. Thomas had friends with her, the better.

“They may keep him in ward a long time,” said Mistress Alice, “before they bring him into open court—to try his courage. That is the way they do. The charge, no doubt, will be that he has harboured and assisted priests.”

It seemed to Marjorie, as she lay awake that night, staring through the summer dusk at the tall press which hid so much beside her dresses, that the course on which her life moved was coming near to the rapids. Ever since she had first put her hand to the work, ever since, even, she had first offered her lover to God and let him go from her, it appeared as if God had taken her at her word, and accepted in an instant that which she offered so tremblingly. Her sight of London—the great buildings, the crowds, the visible forces of the Crown, the company of gallant gentlemen who were priests beneath their ruffs and feathers, the Tower, her glimpse of Topcliffe—these things had shown her the dreadful reality that lay behind this gentle scheming up in Derbyshire. Again, there was Mr. Babington; here, too, she had perceived a mystery which she could not understand: something moved behind the surface of which not even Mr. Babington’s sister knew anything, except that, indeed, it was there. Again, there was the death of Father Campion—the very man whom she had taken as a symbol of the Faith for which she fought with her woman’s wits; there was the news that came so suddenly and terribly now and again, of one more priest gone to his death…. It was like the slow rising of a storm: the air darkens; a stillness falls on the countryside; the chirp of the birds seems as a plaintive word of fear; then the thunder begins—a low murmur far across the horizons; then a whisk of light, seen and gone again, and another murmur after it. And so it gathers, dusk on dusk, stillness on stillness, murmur on murmur, deepening and thickening; yet still no rain, but a drop or two that falls and ceases again. And from the very delay it is all the more dreadful; for the storm itself must break some time, and the artillery war in the heavens, and the rain rush down, and flash follow flash, and peal peal, and the climax come.

So, then, it was with her. There was no drawing back now, even had she wished it. And she wished it indeed, though she did not will it; she knew that she must stand in her place, now more than ever, when the blow had fallen so near. Now more than ever must she be discreet and resolute, since Padley itself was fallen, in effect, if not in fact; and Booth’s Edge, in this valley at least, was the one hope of hunted men. She must stand, then, in her place; she must plot and conspire and scheme; she must govern her face and her manner more perfectly than ever, for the sake of that tremendous Cause.

As she lay there, listening to her friend’s breathing in the darkness, staring now at the doors of the press, now at the baggage that lay heaped ready for the early start, these and a thousand other thoughts passed before her. It was a long plot that had ended in this: it must have reached its maturity weeks ago; the decision to strike must have been reached before even Squire Audrey had given her the warning—for it was only by chance that she had met him and he had told her…. And he, too, Robin’s father, would be in the midst of it all; he, too, that was a Catholic by baptism, must sit with the other magistrates and threaten and cajole as the manner was; and quiet Derby would be all astir; and the Bassetts would be there, and Mr. Fenton, to see how their friend fared in the dock; and the crowds would gather to see the prisoner brought out, and the hunt would be up. And she herself, she, too, must be there with the tearful little wife, who could do so little….

Thank God Robin was safe in Rheims!…

III

Derby was, indeed, astir as they rode in, with the servants and the baggage following behind, on the late afternoon of the next day. They had ridden by easy stages, halting at Dethick for dinner, where the Babingtons’ house already hummed with dismay at the news that had come from Derby last night. Mr. Anthony was away, and all seemed distracted.

They rode in by the North road, seeing for the last mile or two of their ride the towering spire of All Saints’ Church high above the smoke of the houses; they passed the old bridge half a mile from the market-place, near the ancient camp; and even here overheard a sentence or two from a couple of fellows that were leaning on the parapet, that told them what was the talk of the town. It was plain that others besides the Catholics understood the taking of Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert to be a very significant matter.

Babington House stood on the further side of the market-place from that on which they entered, and Alice was for going there through side streets.

“They will take notice if we go straight through,” she said. “It is cheese-market to-day.”

“They will take notice in any case,” said Marjorie. “It will be over the town to-morrow that Mistress Babington is here, and it is best, therefore, to come openly, as if without fear.”

And she turned to beckon the servants to draw up closer behind.

The square was indeed crowded as they came in. From all the country round, and especially from Dovedale, the farmers came in on this day, or sent their wives, for the selling of cheeses; and the small oblong of the market—the smaller from its great Conduit and Cross—was full with rows of stalls and carts, with four lanes only left along the edges by which the traffic might pass; and even here the streams of passengers forced the horses to go in single file. Groups of men—farmers’ servants who had driven in the carts, or walked with the pack-beasts—to whom this day was a kind of feast, stood along the edges of the booths eyeing all who went by. The inns, too, were doing a roaring trade, and it was from one of these that the only offensive comment was made.

Mistress Babington rode first, as suited her dignity, preceded by one of the Dethick men whom they had taken up on their way, and who had pushed forward when they came into the town to clear the road; and Mistress Manners rode after her. The men stood aside as the cavalcade began to go between the booths, and the most of them saluted Mistress Babington. But as they were almost out of the market they came abreast one of the inns from whose wide-open doors came a roar of voices from those that were drinking within, and a group that was gathered on the step stopped talking as the party came up. Marjorie glanced at them, and noticed there was an air about two or three of the men that was plainly town-bred; there was a certain difference in the cut of their clothes and the way they wore them. Then she saw two or three whispering together, and the next moment came a brutal shout. She could not catch the sentence, but she heard the word “Papist” with an adjective, and caught the unmistakable bullying tone of the man. The next instant there broke out a confusion: a man dashed up the step from the crowd beneath, and she caught a glimpse of Dick Sampson’s furious face. Then the group bore back, fighting, into the inn door; the Dethick servant leapt off his horse, leaving it in some fellow’s hands, and vanished up the step; there was a rush of the crowd after him, and then the way was clear in front, over the little bridge that spanned Bramble brook.

When she drew level with Alice, she saw her friend’s face, pale and agitated.

“It is the first time I have ever been cried at,” she said. “Come; we are nearly home. There is St. Peter’s spire.”

“Shall we not—?” began Marjorie.

“No, no” (and the pale face tightened suddenly). “My fellows will give them a lesson. The crowd is on our side as yet.”

IV

As they rode in under the archway that led in beside the great doors of Babington House, three or four grooms ran forward at once. It was plain that their coming was looked far with some eagerness.

Alice’s manner seemed curiously different from that of the quiet woman who had sat so patiently beside Marjorie in the manor among the hills: a certain air of authority and dignity sat on her now that she was back in her own place.

“Is Mrs. FitzHerbert here?” she asked from the groom who helped her to the ground.

“Yes, mistress; she came from the inn this morning, and—”

“Well?”

“She is in a great taking, mistress. She would eat nothing, they said.”

Alice nodded.

“You had best be off to the inn,” she said, with a jerk of her head. “A

London fellow insulted us just now, and Sampson and Mallow—”

She said no more. The man who held her horse slipped the reins into the hands of the younger groom who stood by him, and was away and out of the court in an instant. Marjorie smiled a little, astonished at her own sense of exultation. The blows were not to be all one side, she perceived. Then she followed Alice into the house.

As they came through into the hall by the side-door that led through from the court where they had dismounted, a figure was plainly visible in the dusky light, going to and fro at the further end, with a quick, nervous movement. The figure stopped as they advanced, and then darted forward, crying out piteously:

“Ah! you have come, thank God! thank God! They will not let me see him.”

“Hush! hush!” said Alice, as she caught her in her arms.

“Mr. Bassett has been here,” moaned the figure, “and he says it is Topcliffe himself who has come down on the matter…. He says he is the greatest devil of them all; and Thomas—”

Then she burst out crying again.

It was an hour before they could get the full tale out of her. They took her upstairs and made her sit down, for already a couple of faces peeped from the buttery, and the servants would have gathered in another five minutes; and together they forced her to eat and drink something, for she had not tasted food since her arrival at the inn yesterday; and so, little by little, they drew the story out.

Mr. Thomas and his wife were actually on their way from Norbury when the arrest had been made. Mr. Thomas had intended to pass a couple of nights in Derby on various matters of the estates; and although, his wife said, he had been somewhat silent and quiet since the warning had come to him from Mr. Audrey, even he had thought it no danger to ride through Derby on his way to Padley. He had sent a servant ahead to order rooms at the inn for those two nights, and it was through that, it appeared, that the news of his coming had reached the ears of the authorities. However that was, and whether the stroke had been actually determined upon long before, or had been suddenly decided upon at the news of his coming, it fell out that, as the husband and wife were actually within sight of Derby, on turning a corner they had found themselves surrounded by men on horses, plainly gathered there for the purpose, with a magistrate in the midst. Their names had been demanded, and, upon Mr. Thomas’ hesitation, they had been told that their names were well known, and a warrant was produced, on a charge of recusancy and of aiding her Grace’s enemies, drawn out against Thomas FitzHerbert, and he had been placed under arrest. Further, Mrs. FitzHerbert had been told she must not enter the town with the party, but must go either before them or after them, which she pleased. She had chosen to go first, and had been at the windows of the inn in time to see her husband go by. There had been no confusion, she said; the townsfolk appeared to know nothing of what was happening until Mr. Thomas was safely lodged in the ward.

Then she burst out crying again, lamenting the horrible state of the prison, as it had been described to her, and demanding to know where God’s justice was in allowing His faithful servants to be so tormented and harried….

Marjorie watched her closely. She had met her once at Babington House, when she was still Elizabeth Westley, but had thought little or nothing of her since. She was a pale little creature, fair-haired and timorous, and had now a hunted look of misery in her eyes that was very piteous to see. It was plain they had done right in coming: this woman would be of little service to her husband.

Then when Alice had said a word or two, Marjorie began her questions.

“Tell me,” she said gently, “had you no warning of this?”

The girl shook her head.

“Not beyond that which came from yourself,” she said; “and we never thought—”

“Hath Mr. Thomas had any priests with him lately?”

“We have not had one at Norbury for the last six months, whilst we were there, at least. My husband said it was better not, and that there was a plenty of places for them to go to.”

“And you have not heard mass during that time?”

The girl looked at her with tear-stained eyes.

“No,” she said. “But why do you ask that? My husband says—”

“And when was the first you heard of Topcliffe? And what have you heard of him?”

The other’s face fell into lines of misery.

“I have heard he is the greatest devil her Grace uses. He hath authority to question priests and others in his own house. He hath a rack there that he boasts makes all others as Christmas toys. My husband—”

Marjorie patted her arm gently.

“There! there!” she said kindly. “Your husband is not in Topcliffe’s house. There will be no question of that. He is here in his own county, and—”

“But that will not save him!” cried the girl. “Why—”

“Tell me” interrupted Marjorie, “was Topcliffe with the men that took

Mr. Thomas?”

The other shook her head.

“No; I heard he was not. He was come from London yesterday morning. That was the first I heard of him.”

Then Alice began again to soothe her gently, to tell her that her husband was in no great danger as yet, that he was well known for his loyalty, and to do her best to answer the girl’s pitiful questions. And Marjorie sat back and considered.

Marjorie had a remarkable knowledge of the methods of the Government, gathered from the almost endless stories she had heard from travelling priests and others; it was her business, too, to know them. Two or three things, therefore, if the girl’s account was correct, were plain. First, that this was a concerted plan, and not a mere chance arrest. Mr. Audrey’s message to her showed so much, and the circumstances of Topcliffe’s arrival confirmed it. Next, it must be more than a simple blow struck at one man, Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert: Topcliffe would not have come down from London at all unless it were a larger quarry than Mr. Thomas that was aimed at. Thirdly, and in conclusion, it would not be easy therefore to get Mr. Thomas released again. There remained a number of questions which she had as yet no means of answering. Was it because Mr. Thomas was heir to the enormous FitzHerbert estates in this county and elsewhere, that he was struck at? Or was it the beginning, merely, of a general assault on Derbyshire, such as had taken place before she was born? Or was it that Mr. Thomas’ apparent coolness towards the Faith (for that was evident by his not having heard mass for so long, and by his refusal to entertain priests just at present)—was it that lack of zeal on his part, which would, of course, be known to the army of informers scattered now throughout England, which had marked him out as the bird to be flown at? It would be, indeed, a blow to the Catholic gentry of the county, if any of the FitzHerberts should fall!

She stood up presently, grave with her thoughts. Mistress Alice glanced up.

“I am going out for a little,” said Marjorie.

“But—”

“May two of your men follow me at a little distance? But I shall be safe enough. I am going to a friend’s house.”

Marjorie knew Derby well enough from the old days when she rode in sometimes with her father and slept at Mr. Biddell’s; and, above all, she knew all that Derby had once been. In one place, outside the town, was St. Mary-in-Pratis, where the Benedictine nuns had lived; St. Leonard’s had had a hospital for lepers; St. Helen’s had had the Augustinian hospital for poor brothers and sisters; St. Alkmund’s had held a relic of its patron saint; all this she knew by heart; and it was bitter now to be here on such business. But she went briskly out from the hall; and ten minutes later she was knocking at the door of a little attorney, the old partner of her father’s, whose house faced the Guildhall across the little market-square. It was opened by an old woman who smiled at the sight of her.

“Eh! come in, mistress. The master saw you ride into town. He is in the upstairs parlour, with Mr. Bassett.”

The girl nodded to her bodyguard, and followed the old woman in. She bowed as she passed the lawyer’s confidential clerk and servant, Mr. George Beaton, in the passage—a big man, with whom she had had communications more than once on Popish affairs.

Mr. John Biddell, like Marjorie’s own father and his partner, was one of those quiet folks who live through storms without attracting attention from the elements, yet without the sacrifice of principle. He was a Catholic, and never pretended to be anything else; but he was so little and so harmless that no man ever troubled him. He pleaded before the magistrates unobtrusively and deftly; and would have appeared before her Grace herself or the Lord of Hell with the same timid and respectful air, in his iron-rimmed spectacles, his speckless dark suit, and his little black cap drawn down to his ears. He had communicated with Marjorie again and again in the last two or three years on the subject of wandering priests, calling them “gentlemen,” with the greatest care, and allowing no indiscreet word ever to appear in his letters, He remembered King Harry, whom he had seen once in a visit of his to London; he had assisted the legal authorities considerably in the restoration under Queen Mary; and he had soundlessly acquiesced in the changes again under Elizabeth—so far, at least, as mere law was concerned.

Mr. William Bassett was a very different man. First he was the brother-in-law of Sir Thomas FitzHerbert himself; and was entirely of the proper spirit to mate with that fearless family. He had considerable estates, both at Langley and Blore, in both of which places he cheerfully evaded the new laws, maintaining and helping priests in all directions; a man, in fact, of an ardent and boisterous faith which he extended (so the report ran) even to magic and astrology; a man of means, too, in spite of his frequent fines for recusancy, and aged about fifty years old at this time, with a high colour in his face and bright, merry eyes. Marjorie had spoken with him once or twice only.

These two men, then, first turned round in their chairs, and then stood up to salute Marjorie, as she came into the upstairs parlour. It was a somewhat dark room, panelled where there was space for it between the books, and with two windows looking out on to the square.

“I thought we should see you soon,” said the attorney. “We saw you come, mistress; and the fellows that cried out on you.”

“They had their deserts,” said Marjorie, smiling.

Mr. Bassett laughed aloud.

“Indeed they did,” he said in his deep, pleasant voice. “There were two of them with bloody noses before all was done…. You have come for the news, I suppose, mistress?”

He eyed her genially and approvingly. He had heard a great deal of this young lady in the last three or four years; and wished there were more of her kind.

“That is what I have come for,” said Marjorie. “We have Mrs. Thomas over at Babington House.”

“She’ll be of no great service to her husband,” said the other. “She cries and laments too much. Now—”

He stopped himself from paying his compliments. It seemed to him that this woman, with her fearless, resolute face, would do very well without them.

Then he set himself to relate the tale.

It seemed that little Mrs. Thomas had given a true enough report. It was true that Topcliffe had arrived from London on the morning of the arrest; and Mistress Manners was perfectly right in her opinion that this signified a good deal. But, it seemed to Mr. Bassett, the Council had made a great mistake in striking at the FitzHerberts. The quarry was too strong, he said, for such birds as the Government used—too strong and too many. For, first, no FitzHerbert had ever yet yielded in his allegiance either to the Church or to the Queen’s Grace; and it was not likely that Mr. Thomas would begin: and, next, if one yielded (suadente diabolo, and Deus avertat!) a dozen more would spring up. But the position was serious for all that, said Mr. Bassett (and Mr. Biddell nodded assent), for who would deal with the estates and make suitable arrangements if the heir, who already largely controlled them, were laid by the heels? But that the largeness of the undertaking was recognised by the Council, was plain enough, in that no less a man than Topcliffe (Mr. Bassett spat on the floor as he named him), Topcliffe, “the devil possessed by worse devils,” was sent down to take charge of the matter.

Marjorie listened carefully.

“You have no fear for yourself, sir?” she asked presently, as the man sat back in his chair.

Mr. Bassett smiled broadly, showing his strong white teeth between the iron-grey hair that fringed his lips.

“No; I have no fear,” he said. “I have a score of my men quartered in the town.”

“And the trial? When will that—”

“The trial! Why, I shall praise God if the trial falls this year. They will harry him before magistrates, no doubt; and they will squeeze him in private. But the trial!… Why, they have not a word of treason against him; and that is what they are after, no doubt.”

“Treason?”

“Why, surely. That is what they seek to fasten upon us all. It would not sound well that Christian should shed Christian’s blood for Christianity; but that her Grace should sorrowfully arraign her subjects whom she loves and cossets so much, for treason—Why, that is as sound a cause as any in the law-books!”

He smiled in a manner that was almost a snarl, and his eyes grew narrow with ironic merriment.

“And Mr. Thomas—” began Marjorie hesitatingly.

He whisked his glance on her like lightning.

“Mr. Thomas will laugh at them all,” he cried. “He is as staunch as any of his blood. I know he has been careful of late; but, then, you must remember how all the estates hang on him. But when he has his back to the wall—or on the rack for that matter—he will be as stiff as iron. They will have their work to bend him by a hair’s breadth.”

Marjorie drew a breath of relief. She did not question Mr. Bassett’s judgment. But she had had an uneasy discomfort in her heart till he had spoken so plainly.

“Well, sir,” she said, “that is what I chiefly came for. I wished to know if I could do aught for Mr. Thomas or his wife; and—”

“You can do a great deal for his wife,” said he. “You can keep her quiet and comfort her. She needs it, poor soul! I have told her for her comfort that we shall have Thomas out again in a month—God forgive me for the lie!”

Marjorie stood up; and the men rose with her.

“Why, what is that?” she said; and went swiftly to the window; for the noise of the crying of the cheeses and the murmur of voices had ceased all on a sudden.

Straight opposite the window where she stood was the tiled flight of stairs that ran up from the market-place to the first floor of the Guildhall, a great building where the business of the town was largely done, and where the magistrates sat when there was need; and a lane that was clear of booths and carts had been left leading from that door straight across the square, so that she could see the two little brobonets—or iron guns—that guarded the door on either side. It was up this lane that she looked, and down it that there advanced a little procession, the very sight of which, it seemed, had stricken the square to silence. Already the crowd was dividing from end to end, ranging itself on either side—farmers’ men shambled out of the way and turned to see; women clambered on the carts holding up their children to see, and from across the square came country-folk running, that they too might see. The steps of the Cross were already crowded with sightseers.

Yet, to outward sight, the little procession was ordinary enough. First came three or four of the town-guard in livery, carrying their staves; then half a dozen sturdy fellows; then a couple of dignified gentlemen—one of them she knew: Mr. Roger Columbell, magistrate of the town—and then, walking all alone, the figure of a man, tall and thin, a little rustily, but very cleanly dressed in a dark suit, who carried his head stooping forward as if he were looking on the ground for something, or as if he deprecated so much notice.

Marjorie saw no more than this clearly. She did not notice the group of men that followed in case protection were needed for the agent of the Council, nor the crowd that swirled behind. For, as the solitary figure came beneath the windows she recognised the man whom she had seen once in the Tower of London.

“God smite the man!” growled a voice in her ear. “That is Topcliffe, going to the prison, I daresay.”

And as Marjorie turned her pale face back, she saw the face of kindly

Mr. Bassett, suffused and convulsed with fury.

CHAPTER IX

I

“Marjorie! Marjorie! Wake up! the order hath come. It is for to-night.”

Very slowly Marjorie rose out of the glimmering depths of sleep into which she had fallen on the hot August afternoon, sunk down upon the arm of the great chair that stood by the parlour window, and saw Mrs. Thomas radiant before her, waving a scrap of paper in her hand.

Nearly two months were passed; and as yet no opportunity had been given to the prisoner’s wife to visit him, and during that time it had been impossible to go back into the hills and leave the girl alone. The heat of the summer had been stifling, down here in the valley; a huge plague of grasshoppers had ravaged all England; and there were times when even in the grass-country outside Derby, their chirping had become intolerable. The heat, and the necessary seclusion, and the anxiety had told cruelly upon the country girl; Marjorie’s face had perceptibly thinned; her eyes had shadows above and beneath; yet she knew she must not go; since the young wife had attached herself to her altogether, finding Alice (she said) too dull for her spirits. Mr. Bassett was gone again. There was no word of a trial; although there had been a hearing or two before the magistrates; and it was known that Topcliffe continually visited the prison.

One piece of news only had there been to comfort her during this time, and that, that Mr. John’s prediction had been fulfilled with regard to the captured priest, Mr. Garlick, who, back from Rheims only a few months, had been deported from England, since it was his first offence, But he would soon be over again, no doubt, and next time with death as the stake in the game.

Marjorie drew a long breath, and passed her hands over her forehead.

“The order?” she said. “What order?”

The girl explained, torrentially. A man had come just now from the Guildhall; he had asked for Mrs. FitzHerbert; she had gone down into the hall to see him; and all the rest of the useless details. But the effect was that leave had been given at last to visit the prisoner—for two persons, of which Mrs. FitzHerbert must be one; and that they must present the order to the gaoler before seven o’clock, when they would be admitted. She looked—such was the constitution of her mind—as happy as if it were an order for his release. Marjorie drove away the last shreds of sleep; and kissed her.

“That is very good news,” she said. “Now we will begin to do something.”

The sun had sunk so far, when they set out at last, as to throw the whole of the square into golden shade; and, in the narrow, overhung Friar’s Gate, where the windows of the upper stories were so near that a man might shake hands with his friend on the other side, the twilight had already begun. They had determined to walk, in order less to attract attention, in spite of the filth through which they knew they must pass, along the couple of hundred yards that separated them from the prison. For every housewife emptied her slops out of doors, and swept her house (when she did so at all) into the same place: now and again the heaps would be pushed together and removed, but for the most part they lay there, bones and rags and rotten fruit,—dusty in one spot, so that all blew about—dampened in others where a pail or two had been poured forth. The heat, too, was stifling, cast out again towards evening from the roofs and walls that had drunk it in all day from the burning skies.

As they stood before the door at last and waited, after beating the great iron knocker on the iron plate, a kind of despair came down on Marjorie. They had advanced just so far in two months as to be allowed to speak with the prisoner; and, from her talkings with Mr. Biddell, had understood how little that was. Indeed, he had hinted to her plainly enough that even in this it might be that they were no more than pawns in the enemy’s hand; and that, under a show of mercy, it was often allowed for a prisoner’s friends to have free access to him in order to shake his resolution. If there was any cause for congratulation then, it lay solely in the thought that other means had so far failed. One thing at least they knew, for their comfort, that there had been no talk of torture….

It was a full couple of minutes before the door opened to show them a thin, brown-faced man, with his sleeves rolled up, dressed over his shirt and hose in a kind of leathern apron. He nodded as he saw the ladies, with an air of respect, however, and stood aside to let them come in. Then, with the same civility, he asked for the order, and read it, holding it up to the light that came through the little barred window over the door.

It was an unspeakably dreary little entrance passage in which they stood, wainscoted solidly from floor to ceiling with wood that looked damp and black from age; the ceiling itself was indistinguishable in the twilight; the floor seemed composed of packed earth, three or four doors showed in the woodwork; that opposite to the one by which they had entered stood slightly ajar, and a smoky light shone from beyond it. The air was heavy and hot and damp, and smelled of mildew.

The man gave the order back when he had read it, made a little gesture that resembled a bow, and led the way straight forward.

They found themselves, when they had passed through the half-open door, in another passage running at right-angles to the entrance, with windows, heavily barred, so as to exclude all but the faintest twilight, even though the sun was not yet set; there appeared to be foliage of some kind, too, pressing against them from outside, as if a little central yard lay there; and the light, by which alone they could see their way along the uneven earth floor, came from a flambeau which hung by the door, evidently put there just now by the man who had opened to them; he led them down this passage to the left, down a couple of steps; unlocked another door of enormous weight and thickness and closed this behind them. They found themselves in complete darkness.

“I’ll be with you in a moment, mistress,” said his voice; and they heard his steps go on into the dark and cease.

Marjorie stood passive; she could feel the girl’s hands clasp her arm, and could hear her breath come like sobs. But before she could speak, a light shone somewhere on the roof; and almost immediately the man came back carrying another flambeau. He called to them civilly; they followed. Marjorie once trod on some soft, damp thing that crackled beneath her foot. They groped round one more corner; waited, while they heard a key turning in a lock. Then the man stood aside, and they went past into the room. A figure was standing there; but for the first moment they could see no more. Great shadows fled this way and that as the gaoler hung up the flambeau. Then the door closed again behind them; and Elizabeth flung herself into her husband’s arms.

II

When Marjorie could see him, as at last he put his wife into the single chair that stood in the cell and gave her the stool, himself sitting upon the table, she was shocked by the change in his face. It was true that she had only the wavering light of the flambeau to see him by (for the single barred window was no more than a pale glimmer on the wall), yet even that shadowy illumination could not account for his paleness and his fallen face. He was dressed miserably, too; his clothes were disordered and rusty-looking; and his features looked out, at once pinched and elongated. He blinked a little from time to time; his lips twitched beneath his ill-cut moustache and beard; and little spasms passed, as he talked, across his whole face. It was pitiful to see him; and yet more pitiful to hear him talk; for he assumed a kind of courtesy, mixed with bitterness. Now and again he fell silent, glancing with a swift and furtive movement of his eyes from one to the other of his visitors and back again. He attempted to apologise for the miserableness of the surroundings in which he received them—saying that her Grace his hostess could not be everywhere at once; and that her guests must do the best that they could. And all this was mixed with sudden wails from his wife, sudden graspings of his hands by hers. It all seemed to the quiet girl, who sat ill-at-ease on the little three-legged stool, that this was not the way to meet adversity. Then she drove down her criticism; and told herself that she ought rather to admire one of Christ’s confessors.

“And you bring me no hope, then, Mistress Manners?” he said presently (for she had told him that there was no talk yet of any formal trial)—”no hope that I may meet my accusers face to face? I had thought perhaps—”

He lifted his eyes swiftly to hers, and dropped them again.

She shook her head.

“And yet that is all that I ask now—only to meet my accusers. They can prove nothing against me—except, indeed, my recusancy; and that they have known this long time back. They can prove nothing as to the harbouring of any priests—not within the last year, at any rate, for I have not done so. It seemed to me—”

He stopped again, and passed his shaking hand over his mouth, eyeing the two women with momentary glances, and then looking down once more.

“Yes?” said Marjorie.

He slipped off from the table, and began to move about restlessly.

“I have done nothing—nothing at all,” he said. “Indeed, I thought—”

And once more he was silent.

He began to talk presently of the Derbyshire hills of Padley and of Norbury. He asked his wife of news from home, and she gave it him, interrupting herself with laments. Yet all the while his eyes strayed to Marjorie as if there was something he would ask of her, but could not. He seemed completely unnerved, and for the first time in her life the girl began to understand something of what gaol-life must signify. She had heard of death and the painful Question; and she had perceived something of the heroism that was needed to meet them; yet she had never before imagined what that life of confinement might be, until she had watched this man, whom she had known in the world as a curt and almost masterful gentleman, careful of his dress, particular of the deference that was due to him, now become this worn prisoner, careless of his appearance, who stroked his mouth continually, once or twice gnawing his nails, who paced about in this abominable hole, where a tumbled heap of straw and blankets represented a bed, and a rickety table with a chair and a stool his sole furniture. It seemed as if a husk had been stripped from him, and a shrinking creature had come out of it which at present she could not recognise.

Then he suddenly wheeled on her, and for the first time some kind of forcefulness appeared in his manner.

“And my Uncle Bassett?” he cried abruptly. “What is he doing all this while?”

Marjorie said that Mr. Bassett had been most active on his behalf with the lawyers, but, for the present, was gone back again to his estates. Mr. Thomas snorted impatiently.

“Yes, he is gone back again,” he cried, “and he leaves me to rot here!

He thinks that I can bear it for ever, it seems!”

“Mr. Bassett has done his utmost, sir,” said Marjorie. “He exposed himself here daily.”

“Yes, with twenty fellows to guard him, I suppose. I know my Uncle

Bassett’s ways…. Tell me, if you please, how matters stand.”

Marjorie explained again. There was nothing in the world to be done until the order came for his trial—or, rather, everything had been done already. His lawyers were to rely exactly on the defence that had been spoken of just now; it was to be shown that the prisoner had harboured no priests; and the witnesses had already been spoken with—men from Norbury and Padley, who would swear that to their certain knowledge no priest had been received by Mr. FitzHerbert at least during the previous year or eighteen months. There was, therefore, no kind of reason why Mr. Bassett or Mr. John FitzHerbert should remain any longer in Derby. Mr. John had been there, but had gone again, under advice from the lawyers; but he was in constant communication with Mr. Biddell, who had all the papers ready and the names of the witnesses, and had made more than one application already for the trial to come on.

“And why has neither my father nor my Uncle Bassett come to see me?” snapped the man.

“They have tried again and again, sir,” said Marjorie. “But permission was refused. They will no doubt try again, now that Mrs. FitzHerbert has been admitted.”

He paced up and down again for a few steps without speaking. Then again he turned on her, and she could see his face working uncontrolledly.

“And they will enjoy the estates, they think, while I rot here!”

“Oh, my Thomas!” moaned his wife, reaching out to him. But he paid no attention to her.

“While I rot here!” he cried again. “But I will not! I tell you I will not!”

“Yes, sir?” said Marjorie gently, suddenly aware that her heart had begun to beat swiftly.

He glanced at her, and his face changed a little.

“I will not,” he murmured. “I must break out of my prison. Only their accursed—”

Again he interrupted himself, biting sharply on his lip.

For an instant the girl had thought that all her old distrust of him was justified, and that he contemplated in some way the making of terms that would be disgraceful to a Catholic. But what terms could these be? He was a FitzHerbert; there was no evading his own blood; and he was the victim chosen by the Council to answer for the rest. Nothing, then, except the denial of his faith—a formal and deliberate apostasy—could serve him; and to think that of the nephew of old Sir Thomas, and the son of John, was inconceivable. There seemed no way out; the torment of this prison must be borne. She only wished he could have borne it more manfully.

It seemed, as she watched him, that some other train of thought had fastened upon him. His wife had begun again her lamentations, bewailing his cell and his clothes, and his loss of liberty, asking him whether he were not ill, whether he had food enough to eat; and he hardly answered her or glanced at her, except once when he remembered to tell her that a good gift to the gaoler would mean a little better food, and perhaps more light for himself. And then he resumed his pacing; and, three or four times as he turned, the girl caught his eyes fixed on hers for one instant. She wondered what was in his mind to say.

Even as she wondered there came a single loud rap upon the door, and then she heard the key turning. He wheeled round, and seemed to come to a determination.

“My dearest,” he said to his wife, “here is the gaoler come to turn you out again. I will ask him—” He broke off as the man stepped in.

“Mr. Gaoler,” he said, “my wife would speak alone with you a moment.” (He nodded and winked at his wife, as if to tell her that this was the time to give him the money.)

“Will you leave Mistress Manners here for a minute or two while my wife speaks with you in the passage?”

Then Marjorie understood that she had been right.

The man who held the keys nodded without speaking.

“Then, my dearest wife,” said Thomas, embracing her all of a sudden, and simultaneously drawing her towards the door, “we will leave you to speak with the man. He will come back for Mistress Manners directly.”

“Oh! my Thomas!” wailed the girl, clinging to him.

“There, there, my dearest. And you will come and see me again as soon as you can get the order.”

The instant the door was closed he came up to Marjorie and his face looked ghastly.

“Mistress Manners,” he said, “I dare not speak to my wife. But … but, for Jesu’s sake, get me out of here. I … I cannot bear it…. Topcliffe comes to see me every day…. He … he speaks to me continually of—O Christ! Christ! I cannot bear it!”

He dropped suddenly on to his knees by the table and hid his face.

III

At Babington House Marjorie slept, as was often the custom, in the same room with her maid—a large, low room, hung all round with painted cloths above the low wainscoting.

On the night after the visit to the prison, Janet noticed that her mistress was restless; and that while she would say nothing of what was troubling her, and only bade her go to bed and to sleep, she herself would not go to bed. At last, in sheer weariness, the maid slept.

She awakened later, at what time she did not know, and, in her uneasiness, sat up and looked about her; and there, still before the crucifix, where she had seen her before she slept, kneeled her mistress. She cried out in a loud whisper:

“Come to bed, mistress; come to bed.”

And, at the word, Marjorie started; then she rose, turned, and in the twilight of the summer night began to prepare herself for bed, without speaking. Far away across the roofs of Derby came the crowing of a cock to greet the dawn.

CHAPTER X

I

It was a fortnight later that there came suddenly to Babington House old

Mr. Biddell himself. Up to the present he had been careful not to do so.

He appeared in the great hall an hour before dinner-time, as the tables

were being set, and sent a servant for Mistress Manners.

“Hark you!” he said; “you need not rouse the whole house. It is with

Mistress Manners alone that my business lies.”

He broke off, as Mrs. FitzHerbert looked over the gallery.

“Mr. Biddell!” she cried.

He shook his head, but he seemed to speak with some difficulty.

“It is just a rumour,” he said, “such as there hath been before. I beg you—”

“That … there will be no trial at all?”

“It is just a rumour,” he repeated. “I did not even come to trouble you with it. It is with Mistress Manners that—”

“I am coming down,” cried Mrs. Thomas, and vanished from the gallery.

Mr. Biddell acted with decision. He whisked out again into the passage from the court, and there ran straight into Marjorie, who was coming in from the little enclosed garden at the back of the house.

“Quick!” he said. “Quick! Mrs. Thomas is coming, and I do not wish—”

She led the way without a word back into the court, along a few steps, and up again to the house into a little back parlour that the steward used when the house was full. It was unoccupied now, and looked out into the garden whence she was just come. She locked the door when he had entered, and came and sat down out of sight of any that might be passing.

“Sit here,” she said; and then: “Well?” she asked.

He looked at her gravely and sadly, shaking his head once or twice. Then he drew out a paper or two from a little lawyer’s valise that he carried, and, as he did so, heard a hand try the door outside.

“That is Mrs. Thomas,” whispered the girl. “She will not find us.”

He waited till the steps moved away again. Then he began. He looked anxious and dejected.

“I fear it is precisely as you thought,” he said. “I have followed up every rumour in the place. And the first thing that is certain is that Topcliffe leaves Derby in two days from now. I had it as positive information that his men have orders to prepare for it. The second thing is that Topcliffe is greatly elated; and the third is that Mr. FitzHerbert will be released as soon as Topcliffe is gone.”

“You are sure this time, sir?”

He assented by a movement of his head.

“I dared not tell Mrs. Thomas just now. She would give me no peace. I said it was but a rumour, and so it is; but it is a rumour that hath truth behind it. He hath been moved, too, these three days back, to another cell, and hath every comfort.”

He shook his head again.

“But he hath made no promise—” began Marjorie breathlessly.

“It is exactly that which I am most afraid of,” said the lawyer. “If he had yielded, and, consented to go to church, it would have been in every man’s mouth by now. But he hath not, and I should fear it less if he had. That’s the very worst part of my news.”

“I do not understand—”

Mr. Biddell tapped his papers on the table.

“If he were an open and confessed enemy, I should fear it less,” he repeated. “It is not that. But he must have given some promise to Topcliffe that pleases the fellow more. And what can that be but that—”

Marjorie turned yet whiter. She sighed once as if to steady herself. She could not speak, but she nodded.

“Yes, Mistress Manners,” said the old man. “I make no doubt at all that he hath promised to assist him against them all—against Mr. John his father, it may be, or Mr. Bassett, or God knows whom! And yet still feigning to be true! And that is not all.”

She looked at him. She could not conceive worse than this, if indeed it were true.

“And do you think,” he continued, “that Mr. Topcliffe will do all this for love, or rather, for mere malice? I have heard more of the fellow since he hath been in Derby than in all my life before; and, I tell you, he is for feathering his own nest if he can.” He stopped.

“Mistress, did you know that he had been out to Padley three or four times since he came to Derby?… Well, I tell you now that he has. Mr. John was away, praise God; but the fellow went all round the place and greatly admired it.”

“He went out to see what he could find?” asked the girl, still whispering.

The other shook his head.

“No, mistress; he searched nothing. I had it all from one of his fellows, through one of mine. He searched nothing; he sat a great while in the garden, and ate some of the fruit; he went through the hall and the rooms, and admired all that was to be seen there. He went up into the chapel-room, too, though there was nothing there to tell him what it was; and he talked a great while to one of the men about the farms, and the grazing, and such-like, but he meddled with nothing.” (The old man’s face suddenly wrinkled into fury.) “The devil went through it all like that, and admired it; and he came out to it again two or three times and did the like.”

He stopped to examine the notes he had made, and Marjorie sat still, staring on him.

It was worse than anything she could have conceived possible. That a FitzHerbert should apostatise was incredible enough; but that one should sell his family—It was impossible.

“Mr. Biddell,” she whispered piteously, “it cannot be. It is some—”

He shook his head suddenly and fiercely.

“Mistress Manners, it is as plain as daylight to me. Do you think I could believe it without proof? I tell you I have lain awake all last night, fitting matters one into the other. I did not hear about Padley till last night, and it gave me all that I needed. I tell you Topcliffe hath cast his foul eyes on Padley and coveted it; and he hath demanded it as a price for Mr. Thomas’ liberty. I do not know what else he hath promised, but I will stake my fortune that Padley is part of it. That is why he is so elated. He hath been here nearly this three months back; he hath visited Mr. FitzHerbert nigh every day; he hath cajoled him, he hath threatened him; he hath worn out his spirit by the gaol and the stinking food and the loneliness; and he hath prevailed, as he hath prevailed with many another. And the end of it all is that Mr. FitzHerbert hath yielded—yet not openly. Maybe that is part of the bargain upon the other side, that he should keep his name before the world. And on this side he hath promised Padley, if that he may but keep the rest of the estates, and have his liberty. I tell you that alone cuts all the knots of this tangle…. Can you cut them in any other manner?”

There was a long silence. From the direction of the kitchen came the sound of cheerful voices, and the clatter of lids, and from the walled garden outside the chatter of birds….

At last the girl spoke.

“I cannot believe it without evidence,” she said. “It may be so. God knows! But I do not…. Mr. Biddell?”

“Well, mistress?”

The lawyer’s head was sunk on his breast; he spoke listlessly.

“He will have given some writing to Mr. Topcliffe, will he not? if this be true. Mr. Topcliffe is not the man—”

The old man lifted his head sharply; then he nodded.

“That is the shrewd truth, mistress. Mr. Topcliffe will not trust to another’s honour; he hath none of his own!”

“Well,” said Marjorie, “if all this be true, Mr. Topcliffe will already have that writing in his possession.”

She paused.

“Eh?” said the lawyer.

They looked at one another again in silence. It would have seemed to another that the two minds talked swiftly and wordlessly together, the trained thought of the lawyer and the quick wit of the woman; for when the man spoke again, it was as if they had spoken at length.

“But we must not destroy the paper,” he said, “or the fat will be in the fire. We must not let Mr. FitzHerbert know that he is found out.”

“No,” said the girl. “But to get a view of it…. And a copy of it, to send to his family.”

Again the two looked each at the other in silence—as if they were equals—the old man and the girl.

II

It was the last night before the Londoners were to return.

They had lived royally these last three months. The agent of the Council had had a couple of the best rooms in the inn that looked on to the market-square, where he entertained his friends, and now and then a magistrate or two. Even Mr. Audrey, of Matstead, had come to him once there, with another, but had refused to stay to supper, and had ridden away again alone.

Downstairs, too, his men had fared very well indeed. They knew how to make themselves respected, for they carried arms always now, since the unfortunate affair a day after the arrival, when two of them had been gravely battered about by two rustic servants, who, they learned, were members of a Popish household in the town. But all the provincial fellows were not like this. There was a big man, half clerk and half man-servant to a poor little lawyer, who lived across the square—a man of no wit indeed, but, at any rate, one of means and of generosity, too, as they had lately found out—means and generosity, they understood, that were made possible by the unknowing assistance of his master. In a word it was believed among Mr. Topcliffe’s men that all the refreshment which they had lately enjoyed, beyond that provided by their master, was at old Mr. Biddell’s expense, though he did not know it, and that George Beaton, fool though he was, was a cleverer man than his employer. Lately, too, they had come to learn, that although George Beaton was half clerk, half man-servant, to a Papist, he was yet at heart as stout a Protestant as themselves, though he dared not declare it for fear of losing his place.

On this last night they made very merry indeed, and once or twice the landlord pushed his head through the doorway. The baggage was packed, and all was in readiness for a start soon after dawn.

There came a time when George Beaton said that he was stifling with the heat; and, indeed, in this low-ceilinged room after supper, with the little windows looking on to the court, the heat was surprising. The men sat in their shirts and trunks. So that it was as natural as possible that George should rise from his place and sit down again close to the door where the cool air from the passage came in; and from there, once more, he led the talk, in his character of rustic and open-handed boor; he even beat the sullen man who was next him genially over the head to make him give more room, and then he proposed a toast to Mr. Topcliffe.

It was about half an hour later, when George was becoming a little anxious, that he drew out at last a statement that Mr. Topcliffe had a great valise upstairs, full of papers that had to do with his law business. (He had tried for this piece of information last night and the night before, but had failed to obtain it.) Ten minutes later again, then, when the talk had moved to affairs of the journey, and the valise had been forgotten, it was an entirely unsuspicious circumstance that George and the man that sat next him should slip out to take the air in the stable-court. The Londoner was so fuddled with drink as to think that he had gone out at his own deliberate wish; and there, in the fresh air, the inevitable result followed; his head swam, and he leaned on big George for support. And here, by the one stroke of luck that visited poor George this evening, it fell that he was just in time to see Mr. Topcliffe himself pass the archway in the direction of Friar’s Gate, in company with a magistrate, who had supped with him upstairs.

Up to this point George had moved blindly, step by step. He had had his instructions from his master, yet all that he had been able to determine was the general plan to find out where the papers were kept, to remain in the inn till the last possible moment, and to watch for any chance that might open to him. Truly, he had no more than that, except, indeed, a vague idea that it might be necessary to bribe one of the men to rob his master. Yet there was everything against this, and it was, indeed, a last resort. It seemed now, however, that another way was open. It was exceedingly probable that Mr. Topcliffe was off for his last visit to the prisoner, and, since a magistrate was with him, it was exceedingly improbable that he would take the paper with him. It was not the kind of paper—if, indeed, it existed at all—that more persons would be allowed to see than were parties to the very discreditable affair.

And now George spoke earnestly and convincingly. He desired to see the baggage of so great a man as Mr. Topcliffe; he had heard so much of him. His friend was a good fellow who trusted him (here George embraced him warmly). Surely such a little thing would be allowed as for him, George, to step in and view Mr. Topcliffe’s baggage, while the faithful servant kept watch in the passage! Perhaps another glass of ale—

III

“Yes, sir,” said George an hour later, still a little flushed with the amount of drink he had been forced to consume. “I had some trouble to get it. But I think this is what your honour wanted.”

He began to search in his deep breast-pocket.

“Tell me,” said Mr. Biddell.

“I got the fellow to watch in the passage, sir; him that I had made drunk, while I was inside. There were great bundles of papers in the valise…. No, sir, it was strapped up only…. The most of the papers were docketed very legally, sir; so I did not have to search long. There were three or four papers in a little packet by themselves; besides a great packet that was endorsed with Mr. FitzHerbert’s name, as well as Mr. Topcliffe’s and my lord Shrewsbury’s; and I think I should not have had time to look that through. But, by God’s mercy, it was one of the three or four by themselves.”

He had the paper in his hand by now. The lawyer made a movement to take it. Then he restrained himself.

“Tell me, first,” he said.

“Well, sir,” said George, with a pardonable satisfaction in spinning the matter out, “one was all covered with notes, and was headed ‘Padley.’ I read that through, sir. It had to do with the buildings and the acres, and so forth. The second paper I could make nothing out of; it was in cypher, I think. The third paper was the same; and the fourth, sir, was that which I have here.”

The lawyer started.

“But I told you—”

“Yes, sir; I should have said that this is the copy—or, at least, an abstract. I made the abstract by the window, sir, crouching down so that none should see me. Then I put all back as before, and came out again; the fellow was fast asleep against the door.”

“And Topcliffe—”

“Mr. Topcliffe, sir, returned half an hour afterwards in company again with Mr. Hamilton. I waited a few minutes to see that all was well, and then I came to you, sir.”

There was silence in the little room for a moment. It was the small back office of Mr. Biddell, where he did his more intimate business, looking out on to a paved court. The town was for the most part asleep, and hardly a sound came through the closed windows.

Then the lawyer turned and put out his hand for the paper without a word. He nodded to George, who went out, bidding him good-night.

Ten minutes later Mr. Biddell walked quietly through the passengers’ gate by the side of the great doors that led to the court beside Babington House, closing it behind him. He knew that it would be left unbarred till eleven o’clock that night. He passed on through the court, past the house door, to the steward’s office, where through heavy curtains a light glimmered. As he put his hand on the door it opened, and Marjorie was there. He said nothing, nor did she. Her face was pale and steady, and there was a question in her eyes. For answer he put the paper into her hands, and sat down while she read it. The stillness was as deep here as in the office he had just left.

IV

It was a minute or two before either spoke. The girl read the paper twice through, holding it close to the little hand-lamp that stood on the table.

“You see, mistress,” he said, “it is as bad as it can be.”

She handed back the paper to him; he slid out his spectacles, put them on, and held the writing to the light.

“Here are the points, you see …” he went on. “I have annotated them in the margin. First, that Thomas FitzHerbert be released from Derby gaol within three days from the leaving of Topcliffe for London, and that he be no more troubled, neither in fines nor imprisonment; next, that he have secured to him, so far as the laws shall permit, all his inheritance from Sir Thomas, from his father, and from any other bequests whether of his blood-relations or no; thirdly, that Topcliffe do ‘persecute to the death’”—(the lawyer paused, cast a glance at the downcast face of the girl) “‘—do persecute to the death’ his uncle Sir Thomas, his father John, and William Bassett his kinsman; and, in return for all this, Thomas FitzHerbert shall become her Grace’s sworn servant—that is, Mistress Manners, her Grace’s spy, pursuivant, informer and what-not—and that he shall grant and secure to Richard Topcliffe, Esquire, and to his heirs for ever, ‘the manors of Over Padley and Nether Padley, on the Derwent, with six messuages, two cottages, ten gardens, ten orchards, a thousand acres of land, five hundred acres of meadow-land, six hundred acres of pasture, three hundred acres of wood, a thousand acres of furze and heath, in Padley, Grindleford and Lyham, in the parish of Hathersage, in consideration of eight hundred marks of silver, to be paid to Thomas FitzHerbert, Esquire, etc.’”

The lawyer put the paper down, and pushed his spectacles on to his forehead.

“That is a legal instrument?” asked the girl quietly, still with downcast eyes.

“It is not yet fully completed, but it is signed and witnessed. It can become a legal instrument by Topcliffe’s act; and it would pass muster—”

“It is signed by Mr. Thomas?”

He nodded.

She was silent again. He began to tell her of how he had obtained it, and of George’s subtlety and good fortune; but she seemed to pay no attention. She sat perfectly still. When he had ended, she spoke again.

“A sworn servant of her Grace—” she began.

“Topcliffe is a sworn servant of her Grace,” he said bitterly; “you may judge by that what Thomas FitzHerbert hath become.”

“We shall have his hand, too, against us all, then?”

“Yes, mistress; and, what is worse, this paper I take it—” (he tapped it) “this paper is to be a secret for the present. Mr. Thomas will still feign himself to be a Catholic, with Catholics, until he comes into all his inheritances. And, meantime, he will supply information to his new masters.”

“Why cannot we expose him?”

“Where is the proof? He will deny it.”

She paused.

“We can at least tell his family. You will draw up the informations?”

“I will do so.”

“And send them to Sir Thomas and Mr. Bassett?”

“I will do so.”

“That may perhaps prevent his inheritance coming to him as quickly as he thinks.”

The lawyer’s eyes gleamed.

“And what of Mrs. Thomas, mistress?”

Marjorie lifted her eyes.

“I do not think a great deal of Mrs. Thomas,” she said. “She is honest,

I think; but she could not be trusted with a secret. But I will tell

Mistress Babington, and I will warn what priests I can.”

“And if it leaks out?”

“It must leak out.”

“And yourself? Can you meet Mr. Thomas again just now? He will be out in three days.”

Marjorie drew a long breath.

“No, sir; I cannot meet him. I should betray what I felt. I shall make excuses to Mrs. Thomas, and go home to-morrow.”

PART III

CHAPTER I

I

The “Red Bull” in Cheapside was all alight; a party had arrived there from the coast not an hour ago, and the rooms that had been bespoken by courier occupied the greater part of the second floor; the rest of the house was already filled by another large company, spoken for by Mr. Babington, although he himself was not one of them. And it seemed to the shrewd landlord that these two parties were not wholly unknown to one another, although, as a discreet man, he said nothing.

The latest arrived party was plainly come from the coast. They had arrived a little after sunset on this stormy August day, splashed to the shoulders by the summer-mud, and drenched to the skin by the heavy thunder-showers. Their baggage had a battered and sea-going air about it, and the landlord thought he would not be far away if he conjectured Rheims as their starting-point; there were three gentlemen in the party, and four servants apparently; but he knew better than to ask questions or to overhear what seemed rather over-familiar conversation between the men and their masters. There was only one, however, whom he remembered to have lodged before, over five years ago. The name of this one was Mr. Alban. But all this was not his business. His duty was to be hearty and deferential and entirely stupid; and certainly this course of behaviour brought him a quantity of guests.

Mr. Alban, about half-past nine o’clock, had finished unstrapping his luggage. It was of the most innocent description, and contained nothing that all the world might not see. He had made arrangements that articles of another kind should come over from Rheims under the care of one of the “servants,” whose baggage would be less suspected. The distribution would take place in a day or two. These articles comprised five sets of altar vessels, five sets of mass-vestments, made of a stuff woven of all the liturgical colours together, a dozen books, a box of medals, another of Agnus Deis—little wax medallions stamped with the figure of a Lamb supporting a banner—a bunch of beads, and a heavy little square package of very thin altar-stones.

As he laid out the suit of clothes that he proposed to wear next day, there was a rapping on his door.

“Mr. Babington is come—sir.” (The last word was added as an obvious afterthought, in case of listeners.)

Robin sprang up; the door was opened by his “servant,” and Anthony came in, smiling.

Mr. Anthony Babington had broadened and aged considerably during the last five years. He was still youthful-looking, but he was plainly a man and no longer a boy. And he presently said as much for his friend.

“You are a man, Robin,” he said.—”Why, it slipped my mind!”

He knelt down promptly on the strip of carpet and kissed the palms of the hands held out to him, as is the custom to do with newly-ordained priests, and Robin murmured a blessing.

Then the two sat down again.

“And now for the news,” said Robin.

Anthony’s face grew grave.

“Yours first,” he said.

So Robin told him. He had been ordained priest a month ago, at Châlons-sur-Marne…. The college was as full as it could hold…. They had had an unadventurous journey.

Anthony put a question or two, and was answered.

“And now,” said Robin, “what of Derbyshire; and of the country; and of my father? And is it true that Ballard is taken?”

Anthony threw an arm over the back of his chair, and tried to seem at his ease.

“Well,” he said, “Derbyshire is as it ever was. You heard of Thomas

FitzHerbert’s defection?”

“Mistress Manners wrote to me of it, more than two years ago.”

“Well, he does what he can: he comes and goes with his wife or without her. But he comes no more to Padley. And he scarcely makes a feint even before strangers of being a Catholic, though he has not declared himself, nor gone to church, at any rate in his own county. Here in London I have seen him more than once in Topcliffe’s company. But I think that every Catholic in the country knows of it by now. That is Mistress Manners’ doing. My sister says there has never been a woman like her.”

Robin’s eyes twinkled.

“I always said so,” he said. “But none would believe me. She has the wit and courage of twenty men. What has she been doing?”

“What has she not done?” cried Anthony. “She keeps herself for the most part in her house; and my sister spends a great deal of time with her; but her men, who would die for her, I think, go everywhere; and half the hog-herds and shepherds of the Peak are her sworn men. I have given your Dick to her; he was mad to do what he could in that cause. So her men go this way and that bearing her letters or her messages to priests who are on their way through the county; and she gets news—God knows how!—of what is a-stirring against us. She has saved Mr. Ludlam twice, and Mr. Garlick once, as well as Mr. Simpson once, by getting the news to them of the pursuivants’ coming, and having them away into the Peak. And yet with all this, she has never been laid by the heels.”

“Have they been after her, then?” asked Robin eagerly.

“They have had a spy in her house twice to my knowledge, but never openly; and never a shred of a priest’s gown to be seen, though mass had been said there that day. But they have never searched it by force. And I think they do not truly suspect her at all.”

“Did I not say so?” cried Robin. “And what of my father? He wrote to me that he was to be made magistrate; and I have never written to him since.”

“He hath been made magistrate,” said Anthony drily; “and he sits on the bench with the rest of them.”

“Then he is all of the same mind?”

“I know nothing of his mind. I have never spoken with him this six years back. I know his acts only. His name was in the ‘Bond of Association,’ too!”

“I have heard of that.”

“Why, it is two years old now. Half the gentry of England have joined it,” said Anthony bitterly. “It is to persecute to the death any pretender to the Crown other than our Eliza.”

There was a pause. Robin understood the bitterness.

“And what of Mr. Ballard?” asked Robin.

“Yes; he is taken,” said Anthony slowly, watching him. “He was taken a week ago.”

“Will they banish him, then?”

“I think they will banish him.”

“Why, yes—it is the first time he hath been taken. And there is nothing great against him?”

“I think there is not,” said Anthony, still with that strange deliberateness.

“Why do you look at me like that?”

Anthony stood up without answering. Then he began to pace about. As he passed the door he looked to the bolt carefully. Then he turned again to his friend.

“Robin,” he said, “would you sooner know a truth that will make you unhappy, or be ignorant of it?”

“Does it concern myself or my business?” asked Robin promptly.

“It concerns you and every priest and every Catholic in England. It is what I have hinted to you before.”

“Then I will hear it.”

“It is as if I told it in confession?”

Robin paused.

“You may make it so,” he said, “if you choose.”

Anthony looked at him an instant. “Well,” he said, “I will not make a confession, because there is no use in that now—but—Well, listen!” he said, and sat down.

II

When he ceased, Robin lifted his head. He was as white as a sheet.

“You have been refused absolution before for this?”

“I was refused absolution by two priests; but I was granted it by a third.”

“Let me see that I have the tale right.

“Yourself, with a number of others, have bound yourselves by an oath to kill her Grace, and to set Mary on the throne. This has taken shape now since the beginning of the summer. You yourself are now living in Mr. Walsingham’s house, in Seething Lane, under the patronage of her Grace, and you show yourself freely at court. You have proceeded so far, under fear of Mr. Ballard’s arrest, as to provide one of your company with clothes and necessaries that can enable him to go to court; and it was your intention, as well as his, that he should take opportunity to kill her Grace. But to-day only you have become persuaded that the old design was the better; and you wish first to arrange matters with the Queen of the Scots, so that when all is ready, you may be the more sure of a rising when that her Grace is killed, and that the Duke of Parma may be in readiness to bring an army into England. It is still your intention to kill her Grace?”

“By God! it is!” said Anthony, between clenched teeth.

“Then I could not absolve you, even if you came to confession. You may be absolved from your allegiance, as we all are; but you are not absolved from charity and justice towards Elizabeth as a woman. I have consulted theologians on the very point; and—”

Then Anthony sprang up.

“See here, Robin; we must talk this out.” He flicked his fingers sharply. “See—we will talk of it as two friends.”

“You had better take back those words,” said the priest gravely.

“Why?”

“It would be my duty to lay an information! I understood you spoke to me as to a priest, though not in confession.”

“You would!” blazed the other.

“I should do so in conscience,” said the priest. “But you have not yet told me as a friend, and—”

“You mean—”

“I mean that so long as you choose to speak to me of it, now and here, it remains that I choose to regard it as sub sigillo in effect. But you must not come to me to-morrow, as if I knew it all in a plain way. I do not. I know it as a priest only.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Anthony stood up.

“I understand,” he said. “But you would refuse me absolution in any case?”

“I could not give you absolution so long as you intended to kill her

Grace.”

Anthony made an impatient gesture.

“See here,” he said. “Let me tell you the whole matter from the beginning. Now listen.”

He settled himself again in his chair, and began.

“Robin,” he said, “you remember when I spoke to you in the inn on the way to Matstead; it must be seven or eight years gone now? Well, that was when the beginning was. There was no design then, such as we have to-day; but the general purpose was there. I had spoken with man after man; I had been to France, and seen Mr. Morgan there, Queen Mary’s man, and my lord of Glasgow; and all that I spoke with seemed of one mind—except my lord of Glasgow, who did not say much to me on the matter. But all at least were agreed that there would be no peace in England so long as Elizabeth sat on the throne.

“Well: it was after that that I fell in with Ballard, who was over here on some other affair; and I found him a man of the same mind as myself; he was all agog for Mary, and seemed afraid of nothing. Well; nothing was done for a great while. He wrote to me from France; I wrote back to him again, telling him the names of some of my friends. I went to see him in France two or three times; and I saw him here, when you yourself came over with him. But we did not know whom to trust. Neither had we any special design. Her Grace of the Scots went hither and thither under strong guards; and what I had done for her before—”

Robin looked up. He was still quite pale and quite quiet.

“What was that?” he said.

Anthony again made his impatient gesture. He was fiercely excited; but kept himself under tolerable control.

“Why, I have been her agent for a great while back, getting her letters through to her, and such like. But last year, when that damned Sir Amyas Paulet became her gaoler, I could do nothing. Two or three times my messenger was stopped, and the letters taken from him. Well; after that time I could do no more. There her Grace was, back again at Tutbury, and none could get near her. She might no more give alms, even, to the poor; and all her letters must go through Walsingham’s hands. And then God helped us: she was taken last autumn to Chartley, near by which is the house of the Giffords; and since that time we have been almost merry. Do you know Gilbert Gifford?”

“He hath been with the Jesuits, hath he not?”

“That is the man. Well, Mr. Gilbert Gifford hath been God’s angel to us.

A quiet, still kind of a man—you have seen him?”

“I have spoken with him at Rheims,” said Robin. “I know nothing of him.”

“Well; he contrived the plan. He hath devised a beer-barrel that hath the beer all roundabout, so that when they push their rods in, there seems all beer within. But in the heart of the beer there is secured a little iron case; and within the iron case there is space for papers. Well, this barrel goes to and fro to Chartley and to a brewer that is a good Catholic; and within the case there are the letters. And in this way, all has been prepared—”

Robin looked up again. He remained quiet through all the story; and lifted no more than his eyes. His fingers played continually with a button on his doublet.

“You mean that Queen Mary hath consented to this?”

“Why, yes!”

“To her sister’s death?”

“Why, yes!”

“I do not believe it,” said the priest quietly. “On whose word does that stand?”

“Why, on her own! Whose else’s?” snapped Anthony.

“You mean, you have it in her own hand, signed by her name?”

“It is in Gifford’s hand! Is not that enough? And there is her seal to it. It is in cypher, of course. What would you have?”

“Where is she now?” asked Robin, paying no attention to the question.

“She hath just now been moved again to Tixall.”

“For what?”

“I do not know. What has that to do with the matter? She will be back soon again. I tell you all is arranged.”

“Tell me the rest of the story,” said the priest.

“There is not much more. So it stands at present. I tell you her Grace hath been tossed to and fro like a ball at play. She was at Chatsworth, as you know; she has been shut up in Chartley like a criminal; she was at Babington House even. God! if I had but known it in time!”

“In Babington House! Why, when was that?”

“Last year, early—with Sir Ralph Sadler, who was her gaoler then!” cried Anthony bitterly; “but for a night only…. I have sold the house.”

“Sold it!”

“I do not keep prisons,” snapped Anthony. “I will have none of it!”

“Well?”

“Well,” resumed the other man quietly. “I must say that when Ballard was taken—”

“When was that?”

“Last week only. Well, when he was taken I thought perhaps all was known. But I find Mr. Walsingham’s conversation very comforting, though little he knows it, poor man! He knows that I am a Catholic; and he was lamenting to me only three days ago of the zeal of these informers. He said he could not save Ballard, so hot was the pursuit after him; that he would lose favour with her Grace if he did.”

“What comfort is there in that?”

“Why; it shows plain enough that nothing is known of the true facts. If they were after him for this design of ours do you think that Walsingham would speak like that? He would clap us all in ward—long ago.”

The young priest was silent. His head still whirled with the tale, and his heart was sick at the misery of it all. This was scarcely the home-coming he had looked for! He turned abruptly to the other.

“Anthony, lad,” he said, “I beseech you to give it up.”

Anthony smiled at him frankly. His excitement was sunk down again.

“You were always a little soft,” he said. “I remember you would have nought to do with us before. Why, we are at war, I tell you; and it is not we who declared it! They have made war on us now for the last twenty years and more. What of all the Catholics—priests and others—who have died on the gibbet, or rotted in prison? If her Grace makes war upon us, why should we not make war upon her Grace? Tell me that, then!”

“Anthony, I beseech you to give it up. I hate the whole matter, and fear it, too.”

“Fear it? Why, I tell you, we hold them so.” (He stretched out his lean, young hand, and clenched the long fingers slowly together.) “We have them by the throat. You will be glad enough to profit by it, when Mary reigns. What is there to fear?”

“I do not know; I am uneasy. But that is not to the purpose. I tell you it is forbidden by God’s—”

“Uneasy! Fear it! Why, tell me what there is to fear? What hole can you find anywhere?”

“I do not know. I hardly know the tale yet. But it seems to me there might be a hundred.”

“Tell me one of them, then.”

Anthony threw himself back with an indulgent smile on his face.

“Why, if you will have it,” said Robin, roused by the contempt, “there is one great hole in this. All hangs upon Gifford’s word, as it seems to me. You have not spoken with Mary; you have not even her own hand on it.”

“Bah! Why, her Grace of the Scots cannot write in cypher, do you think?”

“I do not know how that may be. It may be so. But I say that all hangs upon Gifford.”

“And you think Gifford can be a liar and a knave!” sneered Anthony.

“I have not one word against him,” said the priest. “But neither had I against Thomas FitzHerbert; and you know what has befallen—”

Anthony snorted with disdain.

“Put your finger through another hole,” he said.

“Well—I like not the comfort that Mr. Secretary Walsingham has given you. You told me a while ago that Ballard was on the eve of going to France. Now Walsingham is no fool. I would to God he were! He has laid enough of our men by the heels already.”

“By God!” cried Anthony, roused again. “I would not willingly call you a fool either, my man! But do you not understand that Walsingham believes me as loyal as himself? Here have I been at court for the last year, bowing before her Grace, and never a word said to me on my religion. And here is Walsingham has bidden me to lodge in his house, in the midst of all his spider’s webs. Do you think he would do that if—”

“I think he might have done so,” said Robin slowly.

Anthony sprang to his feet.

“My Robin,” he said, “you were right enough when you said you would not join with us. You were not made for this work. You would see an enemy in your own father—”

He stopped confounded.

Robin smiled drearily.

“I have seen one in him,” he said.

Anthony clapped him on the shoulder, not unkindly.

“Forgive me, my Robin. I did not think what I said. Well; we will leave it at that. And you would not give me absolution?”

The priest shook his head.

“Then give me your blessing,” said Anthony, dropping on his knees. “And so we will close up the quasi-sigillum confessionis.”

III

It was a heavy-hearted priest that presently, downstairs, stood with Anthony in one of the guest-rooms, and was made known to half a dozen strangers. Every word that he had heard upstairs must be as if it had never been spoken, from the instant at which Anthony had first sat down to the instant in which he had kneeled down to receive his blessing. So much he knew from his studies at Rheims. He must be to each man that he met, that which he would have been to him an hour ago. Yet, though as a man he must know nothing, his priest’s heart was heavy in his breast. It was a strange home-coming—to pass from the ordered piety of the college: to the whirl of politics and plots in which good and evil span round together—honest and fiery zeal for God’s cause, mingled with what he was persuaded was crime and abomination. He had thought that a priest’s life would be a simple thing, but it seemed otherwise now.

He spoke with those half-dozen men—those who knew him well enough for a priest; and presently, when some of his own party came, drew aside again with Anthony, who began to tell him in a low voice of the personages there.

“These are all my private friends,” he said, “and some of them be men of substance in their own place. There is Mr. Charnoc, of Lancashire, he with the gilt sword. He is of the Court of her Grace, and comes and goes as he pleases. He is lodged in Whitehall, and comes here but to see his friends. And there is Mr. Savage, in the new clothes, with his beard cut short. He is a very honest fellow, but of a small substance, though of good family enough.”

“Her Grace has some of her ladies, too, that are Catholics, has she not?” asked Robin.

“There are two or three at least, and no trouble made. They hear mass when they can at the Embassies. Mendoza is a very good friend of ours.”

Mr. Charnoc came up presently to the two. He was a cheerful-looking man, of northern descent, very particular in his clothes, with large gold ear-rings; he wore a short, pointed beard above his stiff ruff, and his eyes were bright and fanatical.

“You are from Rheims, I understand, Mr. Alban.”

He sat down with something of an air next to Robin.

“And your county—?” he asked.

“I am from Derbyshire, sir,” said Robin.

“From Derbyshire. Then you will have heard of Mistress Marjorie Manners, no doubt.”

“She is an old friend of mine,” said Robin, smiling. (The man had a great personal charm about him.)

“You are very happy in your friends, then,” said the other. “I have never spoken with her myself; but I hear of her continually as assisting our people—sending them now up into the Peak country, now into the towns, as the case may be—and never a mistake.”

It was delightful to Robin to hear her praised, and he talked of her keenly and volubly. Exactly that had happened which five years ago he would have thought impossible; for every trace of his old feeling towards her was gone, leaving behind, and that only in the very deepest intimacies of his thought, a sweet and pleasant romance, like the glow in the sky when the sun is gone down. Little by little that had come about which, in Marjorie, had transformed her when she first sent him to Rheims. It was not that reaction had followed; there was no contempt, either of her or of himself, for what he had once thought of her; but another great passion had risen above it—a passion of which the human lover cannot even guess, kindled for one that is greater than man; a passion fed, trained and pruned by those six years of studious peace at Rheims, directed by experts in humanity. There he had seen what Love could do when it could rise higher than its human channels; he had seen young men, scarcely older than himself, set out for England, as for their bridals, exultant and on fire; and back to Rheims had come again the news of their martyrdom: this one died, crying to Jesu as a home-coming child cries to his mother at the garden-gate; this one had said nothing upon the scaffold, but his face (they said who brought the news) had been as the face of Stephen at his stoning; and others had come back themselves, banished, with pain of death on their returning, yet back once more these had gone. And, last, more than once, there had crept back to Rheims, borne on a litter all the way from the coast, the phantom of a man who a year or two ago had played “cat” and shouted at the play—now a bent man, grey-haired, with great scars on wrists and ankles…. Te Deums had been sung in the college chapel when the news of the deaths had come: there were no requiems for such as these; and the place of the martyr in the refectory was decked with flowers…. Robin had seen these things, and wondered whether his place, too, would some day be so decked.

For Marjorie, then, he felt nothing but a happy friendliness, and a real delight when he thought of seeing her again. It was glorious, he thought, that she had done so much; that her name was in all men’s mouths. And he had thought, when he had first gone to Rheims, that he would do all and she nothing! He had written to her then, freely and happily. He had told her that she must give him shelter some day, as she was doing for so many.

Meanwhile it was pleasant to hear her praises.

“‘Eve would be Eve,’” quoted Mr. Charnoc presently, in speaking of pious women’s obstinacy, “‘though Adam would say Nay.’”

Then, at last, when Mr. Charnoc said that he must be leaving for his own lodgings, and stood up; once more upon Robin’s heart there fell the horrible memory of all that he had heard upstairs.

CHAPTER II

I

It was strange to Robin to walk about the City, and to view all that he saw from his new interior position. The last time that he had been in his own country on that short visit with “Captain Fortescue,” he had been innocent in the eyes of the law, or, at least, no more guilty than any one of the hundreds of young men who, in spite of the regulations, were sent abroad to finish their education amid Catholic surroundings. Now, however, his very presence was an offence: he had broken every law framed expressly against such cases as his; he had studied abroad, he had been “ordained beyond the seas”; he had read his mass in his own bedchamber; he had, practically, received a confession; and it was his fixed and firm intention to “reconcile” as many of “her Grace’s subjects” as possible to the “Roman See.” And, to tell the truth, he found pleasure in the sheer adventure of it, as would every young man of spirit; and he wore his fine clothes, clinked his sword, and cocked his secular hat with delight.

The burden of what he had heard still was heavy on him. It was true that in a manner inconceivable to any but a priest it lay apart altogether from his common consciousness: he had talked freely enough to Mr. Charnoc and the rest; he could not, even by a momentary lapse, allow what he knew to colour even the thoughts by which he dealt with men in ordinary life; for though it was true that no confession had been made, yet it was in virtue of his priesthood that he had been told so much. Yet there were moments when he walked alone, with nothing else to distract him, when the cloud came down again; and there were moments, too, in spite of himself, when his heart beat with another emotion, when he pictured what might not be five years hence, if Elizabeth were taken out of the way and Mary reigned in her stead. He knew from his father how swiftly and enthusiastically the old Faith had come back with Mary Tudor after the winter of Edward’s reign. And if, as some estimated, a third of England were still convincedly Catholic, and perhaps not more than one twentieth convincedly Protestant, might not Mary Stuart, with her charm, accomplish more even than Mary Tudor with her lack of it?

He saw many fine sights during the three or four days after his coming to London; for he had to wait there at least that time, until a party that was expected from the north should arrive with news of where he was to go. These were the instructions he had had from Rheims. So he walked freely abroad during these days to see the sights; and even ventured to pay a visit to Fathers Garnett and Southwell, two Jesuits that arrived a month ago, and were for the present lodging in my Lord Vaux’s house in Hackney.

He was astonished at Father Southwell’s youthfulness.

This priest had landed but a short while before, and, for the present, was remaining quietly in the edge of London with the older man; for himself was scarcely twenty-five years old, and looked twenty at the most. He was very quiet and sedate, with a face of almost feminine delicacy, and passed a good deal of his leisure, as the old lord told Robin, in writing verses. He appeared a strangely fine instrument for such heavy work as was a priest’s.

On another day Robin saw the Archbishop land at Westminster Stairs.

It was a brilliant day of sunshine as he came up the river-bank, and a little crowd of folks at the head of the stairs drew his attention. Then he heard, out of sight, the throb of oars grow louder; then a cry of command; and, as he reached the head of the stairs and looked over, the Archbishop, with a cloak thrown over his rochet, was just stepping out of the huge gilded barge, whose blue-and-silver liveried oarsmen steadied the vessel, or stood at the salute. It was a gay and dignified spectacle as he perceived, in spite of his intense antipathy to the sight of a man who, to him, was no better than an usurper and a deceiver of the people. Dr. Whitgift, too, was no friend to Catholics: he had, for instance, deliberately defended the use of the rack against them and others, unashamed; and in one particular instance, at least, as Bishop of Worcester, had directed its exercise in the county of Denbigh. These things were perfectly known, of course, even beyond the seas, to the priests who were to go on the English mission, in surprising detail. Robin knew even that this man was wholly ignorant of Greek; he looked at him carefully as he came up the stairs, and was surprised at the kindly face of him, thin-lipped, however, though with pleasant, searching eyes. His coach was waiting outside Old Palace Yard, and Robin, following with the rest of the little crowd, saluted him respectfully as he climbed into it, followed by a couple of chaplains.

As he walked on, he glanced back across the river at Lambeth. There it lay, then, the home of Warham and Pole and Morton, with the water lapping its towers. It had once stood for the spiritual State of God in England, facing its partner—(and sometimes its rival)—Westminster and Whitehall; now it was a department of the civil State merely. It was occupied by men such as Dr. Grindal, sequestrated and deprived of even his spiritual functions by the woman who now grasped all the reins of the Commonwealth; and now again by the man whom he had just seen, placed there by the same woman to carry out her will more obediently against all who denied her supremacy in matters spiritual as well as temporal, whether Papists or Independents.

The priest was astonished, as he reached the precincts of Whitehall, to observe the number of guards that were everywhere visible. He had been warned at Rheims not to bring himself into too much notice, no more than markedly to avoid it; so he did not attempt to penetrate even the outer courts or passages. Yet it seemed to him that an air of watchfulness was everywhere. At the gate towards which he looked at least half a dozen men were on formal guard, their uniforms and weapons sparkling brilliantly in the sunshine; and besides these, within the open doors he caught sight of a couple of officers. As he stood there, a man came out of one of the houses near the gate, and turned towards it: he was immediately challenged, and presently passed on within, where one of the officers came forward to speak to him. Then Robin thought he had stood looking long enough, and moved away.

He came back to the City across the fields, half a mile away from the river, and, indeed, it was a glorious sight he had before him. Here, about him, was open ground on either side of the road on which he walked; and there, in front, rose up on the slope of the hill the long line of great old houses, beyond the stream that ran down into the Thames—old Religious Houses for the most part, now disguised and pulled about beyond recognition, ranging right and left from the Ludgate itself: behind these rose again towers and roofs, and high above all the tall spire of the Cathedral, as if to gather all into one, culminant aspiration…. The light from the west lay on every surface that looked to his left, golden and rosy; elsewhere lay blue and dusky shadows.

II

“There is a letter for you, air,” said the landlord, who had an uneasy look on his face, as the priest came through the entrance of the inn.

Robin took it. Its superscription ran shortly: “To Mr. Alban, at the Red

Bull Inn in Cheapside. Haste. Haste. Haste.”

He turned it over; it was sealed plainly on the back without arms or any device; it was a thick package, and appeared as if it might hold an enclosure or two.

Robin had learned caution in a good school, and what is yet more vital in true caution, an appearance of carelessness. He weighed the packet easily in his hand, as if it were of no value, though he knew it might contain very questionable stuff from one of his friends, and glanced at a quantity of baggage that lay heaped beside the wall.

“What is all this?” he said. “Another party arrived?”

“No, sir; the party is leaving. Rather, it is left already; and the gentlemen bade me have the baggage ready here. They would send for it later, they told me.”

This was unusually voluble from this man. Robin looked at him quickly, and away again.

“What party?” he said.

“The gentlemen you were with this two nights past, sir,” said the landlord keenly.

Robin was aware of a feeling as if a finger had been laid on his heart; but not a muscle of his face moved.

“Indeed!” he said. “They told me nothing of it.”

Then he moved on easily, feeling the landlord’s eyes in every inch of his back, and went leisurely upstairs.

He reached his room, bolted the door softly behind him, and sat down. His heart was going now like a hammer. Then he opened the packet; an enclosure fell out of it, also sealed, but without direction of any kind. Then he saw that the sheet in which the packet had come was itself covered with writing, rather large and sprawling, as if written in haste. He put the packet aside, and then lifted the paper to read it.

When he had finished, he sat quite still. The room looked to him misty and unreal; the paper crackled in his shaking fingers, and a drop of sweat ran suddenly into the corner of his dry lips. Then he read the paper again. It ran as follows:

“It is all found out, we think. I find myself watched at every point, and I can get no speech with B. I cannot go forth from the house without a fellow to follow me, and two of my friends have found the same. Mr. G., too, hath been with Mr. W. this three hours back. By chance I saw him come in, and he has not yet left again. Mr. Ch. is watching for me while I write this, and will see that this letter is bestowed on a trusty man who will bring it to your inn, and, with it, another letter to bid our party save themselves while they can. I do not know how we shall fare, but we shall meet at a point that is fixed, and after that evade or die together. You were right, you see. Mr. G. has acted the traitor throughout, with Mr. W.’s connivance and assistance. I beg of you, then, to carry this letter, which I send in this, to Her for whom we have forfeited our lives, or, at least, our country; or, if you cannot take it with safety, master the contents of it by note and deliver it to her with your own mouth. She has been taken back to C. again, whither you must go, and all her effects searched.”

There was no signature, but there followed a dash of the pen, and then a scrawled “A.B.,” as if an interruption had come, or as if the man who was with the writer would wait no longer.

A third time Robin read it through. It was terribly easy of interpretation. “B.” was Ballard; “G.” was Gifford; “W.” was Walsingham; “Ch.” was Charnoc; “Her” was Mary Stuart; “C.” was Chartley. It fitted and made sense like a child’s puzzle. And, if the faintest doubt could remain in the most incredulous mind as to the horrible reality of it all, there was the piled luggage downstairs, that would never be “sent for” (and never, indeed, needed again by its owners in this world).

Then he took up the second sealed packet, and held it unbroken, while his mind flew like a bird, and in less than a minute he decided, and opened it.

It was a piteous letter, signed again merely “A.B.,” and might have been written by any broken-hearted reverent lover to his beloved. It spoke an eternal good-bye; the writer said that he would lay down his life gladly again in such a cause if it were called for, and would lay down a thousand if he had them; he entreated her to look to herself, for that no doubt every attempt would now be made to entrap her; and it warned her to put no longer any confidence in a “detestable knave, G.G.” Finally, he begged that “Jesu would have her in His holy keeping,” and that if matters fell out as he thought they would, she would pray for his soul, and the souls of all that had been with him in the enterprise.

He read it through three or four times; every line and letter burned itself into his brain. Then he tore it across and across; then he tore the letter addressed to himself in the same manner; then he went through all the fragments, piece by piece, tearing each into smaller fragments, till there remained in his hands just a bunch of tiny scraps, smaller than snowflakes, and these he scattered out of the window.

Then he went to his door, unbolted it, and walked downstairs to find the landlord.

III

It was not until ten days later, soon after dawn, that Robin set out on his melancholy errand. He rode out northward as soon as the gates were opened, with young “Mr. Arnold,” a priest ordained with him in Rheims, and one of his party, disguised as a servant, following him on a pack-horse with the luggage. It was a misty morning, white and cheerless, with the early fog that had drifted up from the river. Last night the news had come in that Anthony and at least one other had been taken near Harrow, in disguise, and the streets had been full of riotous rejoicing over the capture.

He had thought it more prudent to wait till after receiving the news, which he so much dreaded, lest haste should bring suspicion on himself, and the message that he carried; since for him, too, to disappear at once would have meant an almost inevitable association of him with the party of plotters; but it had been a hard time to pass through. Early in the morning, after Anthony’s flight, he had awakened to hear a rapping upon the inn door, and, peeping from his window, had seen a couple of plainly dressed men waiting for admittance; but after that he had seen no more of them. He had deliberately refrained from speaking with the landlord, except to remark again upon the luggage of which he caught a sight, piled no longer in the entrance, but in the little room that the man himself used. The landlord had said shortly that it had not yet been sent for. And the greater part of the day—after he had told the companions that had come with him from Rheims that he had had a letter, which seemed to show that the party with whom they had made friends had disappeared, and were probably under suspicion, and had made the necessary arrangements for his own departure with young Mr. Arnold—he spent in walking abroad as usual. The days that followed had been bitter and heavy. He had liked neither to stop within doors nor to go abroad, since the one course might arouse inquiry and the second lead to his identification. He had gone to my Lord Vaux’s house again and again, with his friend and without him; he had learned of the details of Anthony’s capture, though he had not dared even to attempt to get speech with him; and, further, that unless the rest of the men were caught, it would not be easy to prove anything against him. One thing, therefore, he prayed for with all his heart—that the rest might yet escape. He told his party something of the course of events, but not too much. On the Sunday that intervened he went to hear mass in Fetter Lane, where numbers of Catholics resorted; and there, piece by piece, learned more of the plot than even Anthony had told him.

Mr. Arnold was a Lancashire man and a young convert of Oxford—one of that steady small stream that poured over to the Continent—a sufficiently well-born and intelligent man to enjoy acting as a servant, which he did with considerable skill. It was common enough for gentlemen to ride side by side with their servants when they had left the town; and by the time that the two were clear of the few scattered houses outside the City gates, Mr. Arnold urged on his horse; and they rode together. Robin was in somewhat of a difficulty as to how far he was justified in speaking of what he knew. It was true that he was not at liberty to use what Anthony had originally told him; but the letter and the commission which he had received certainly liberated his conscience to some degree, since it told him plainly enough that there was a plot on behalf of Mary, that certain persons, one or two of whom he knew for himself, were involved in it, that they were under suspicion, and that they had fled. Ordinary discretion, however, was enough to make him hold his tongue, beyond saying, as he had said already to the rest of them, that he was the bearer of a message from Mr. Babington, now in prison, to Mary Stuart. Mr. Arnold had been advertised that he might take up his duties in Lancashire as soon as he liked; but, because of his inexperience and youth, it had been decided that he had better ride with “Mr. Alban” so far as Chartley at least, and thence, if all were well, go on to Lancaster itself, where his family was known, and whither he could return, for the present, without suspicion.

The roads, such as they were, were in a terrible state still with the heavy rain of a few days ago, and the further showers that had fallen in the night. They made very poor progress, and by dinner-time were not yet in sight of Watford. But they pushed on, coming at last about one o’clock to that little town, all gathered together in the trench of the low hills. There was a modest inn in the main street, with a little garden behind it; and while Mr. Arnold took the horses off for watering, Robin went through to the garden, sat down, and ordered food to be served for himself and his man together. The day was warmer, and the sun came out as they sat over their meal. When they had done, Robin sent his friend off again for the horses. They must not delay longer than was necessary, if they wished to sleep at Leighton, and give the horses their proper rest.

When he was left alone, he fell a-thinking once more; and, what with the morning’s ride and the air and the sunshine, and the sense of liberty, he was inclined to be more cheerful. Surely England was large enough to hide the rest of the plotters for a time, until they could get out of it. Anthony was taken, indeed, yet, without the rest, he might very well escape conviction. Robin had not been challenged in any way; the gatekeepers had looked at him, indeed, as he came out of the City; but so they always did, and the landlady here had run her eyes over him; but that was the way of landladies who wished to know how much should be charged to travellers. And if he had come out so easily, why should not his friends? All turned now, to his mind, on whether the rest of the conspirators could evade the pursuivants or not.

He stood up presently to stretch his legs before mounting again, and as he stood up he heard running footsteps somewhere beyond the house: they died away; but then came the sound of another runner, and of another, and he heard voices calling. Then a window was flung up beyond the house; steps came rattling down the stairs within and passed out into the street. It was probably a bull that had escaped, or a mad dog, he thought, or some rustic excitement of that kind, and he thought he would go and see it for himself; so he passed out through the house, just in time to meet Mr. Arnold coming round with the horses.

“What was the noise about?” he asked.

The other looked at him.

“I heard none, sir,” he said. “I was in the stable.”

Robin looked up and down the street. It seemed as empty as it should be on a summer’s day; two or three women were at the doors of their houses, and an old dog was asleep in the sun. There was no sign of any disturbance.

“Where is the woman of the house?” asked Robin.

“I do not know, sir.”

They could not go without paying; but Robin marvelled at the simplicity of these folks, to leave a couple of guests free to ride away; he went within again and called out, but there was no one to be seen.

“This is laughable,” he said, coming out again. “Shall we leave a mark behind us and be off?”

“Are they all gone, sir?” asked the other, staring at him.

“I heard some running and calling out just now,” said Robin. “I suppose a message must have been brought to the house.”

Then, as he stood still, hesitating, a noise of voices arose suddenly round the corner of the street, and a group of men with pitchforks ran out from a gateway on the other side, fifty yards away, crossed the road, and disappeared again. Behind them ran a woman or two, a barking dog, and a string of children. But Robin thought he had caught a glimpse of some kind of officer’s uniform at the head of the running men, and his heart stood still.

IV

Neither of the two spoke for a moment.

“Wait here with the horses,” said Robin. “I must see what all this is about.”

Mr. Arnold was scarcely more than a boy still, and he had all the desire of a boy, if he saw an excited crowd, to join himself to it. But he was being a servant just now, and must do what he was told. So he waited patiently with the two horses that tossed their jingling heads and stamped and attempted to kick flies off impossibly remote parts of their bodies. Certainly, the excitement was growing. After he had seen his friend walk quickly down the road and turn off where the group of rustically-armed men had disappeared in the direction where newly-made haystacks shaded their gables beyond the roofs of the houses, several other figures appeared through the opposite gateway in hot pursuit. One was certainly a guard of some kind, a stout, important-looking fellow, who ran and wheezed as he ran loud enough to be heard at the inn door. The women standing before the houses, too, presently were after the rest—all except one old dame, who put her head forth, and peered this way and that with a vindictive anger at having been left all alone. More yet showed themselves—children dragging puppies after them, an old man with a large rusty sword, a couple of lads each with a pike—these appeared, like figures in a pantomime play, whisking into sight from between the houses, and all disappearing again immediately.

And then, all on a sudden, a great clamour of voices began, all shouting together, as if some quarry had been sighted: it grew louder, sharp cries of command rang above the roar. Then there burst out of the side, where all had gone in, a ball of children, which exploded into fragments and faced about, still with a couple of puppies that barked shrilly; and then, walking very fast and upright, came Mr. Robin Audrey, white-faced and stern, straight up to where the lad waited with the horses.

Robin jerked his head.

“Quick!” he said. “We must be off, or we shall be here all night.” He gathered up his reins for mounting.

“What is it, sir?” asked the other, unable to be silent.

“They have caught some fellows,” he said.

“And the inn-account, sir?”

Robin pulled out a couple of coins from his pouch.

“Put that on the table within,” he said. “We can wait no longer. Give me your reins!”

His manner was so dreadful that the young man dared ask no more. He ran in, laid the coins down (they were more than double what could have been asked for their entertainment), came out again, and mounted his own horse that his friend held. As they rode down the street, he could not refrain from looking back, as a great roar of voices broke out again; but he could see no more than a crowd of men, with the pitchforks moving like spears on the outskirt, as if they guarded prisoners within, come out between the houses and turn up towards the inn they themselves had just left.

As they came clear of the village and out again upon the open road,

Robin turned to him, and his face was still pale and stern.

“Mr. Arnold,” he said, “those were the last of my friends that I told you of. Now they have them all, and there is no longer any hope. They found them behind the haystacks next to the garden where we dined. They must have been there all night.”

CHAPTER III

I

It was in the evening of the fourth day after their start that, riding up alongside of the Blythe, they struck out to the northwest, away from the trees, and saw the woods of Chartley not half a mile away. Robin sighed with relief, though, as a fact, his adventure was scarcely more than begun, since he had yet to learn how he could get speech with the Queen; but, at least, he was within sight of her, and of his own country as well. Far away, eastwards, beyond the hills, not twenty miles off, lay Derby.

It had been a melancholy ride, in spite of the air of freedom through which they rode, since news had come to them, in more than one place, of the fortunes of the Babington party. A courier, riding fast, had passed them as they sighted Buckingham; and by the time they came in, he was gone again, on Government business (it was said), and the little town hummed with rumours, out of which emerged, at any rate, the certainty that the whole company had been captured. At Coventry, again, the tidings had travelled faster than themselves; for here it was reported that Mr. Babington and Mr. Charnoc had been racked; and in Lichfield, last of all, the tale was complete, and (as they learned later) tolerably accurate too.

It was from a clerk in the inn there that the story came, who declared that there was no secrecy about the matter any longer, and that he himself had seen the tale in writing. It ran as follows:

The entire plot had been known from the beginning, Gilbert Gifford had been an emissary of Walsingham’s throughout; and every letter that passed to and from the various personages had passed through the Secretary’s hands and been deciphered in his house. There never had been one instant in which Mr. Walsingham had been at fault, or in the dark: he had gone so far, it was reported, as to insert in one of the letters that was to go to Mr. Babington a request for the names of all the conspirators, and in return there had come from him, not only a list of the names, but a pictured group of them, with Mr. Babington himself in the midst. This picture had actually been shown to her Grace in order that she might guard herself against private assassination, since two or three of the group were in her own household.

“It is like to go hard with the Scots Queen!” said the clerk bitterly.

“She has gone too far this time.”

Robin said nothing to commit himself, for he did not know on which side the man ranged himself; but he drew him aside after dinner, and asked whether it might be possible to get a sight of the Queen.

“I am riding to Derby,” he said, “with my man. But if to turn aside at Chartley would give us a chance of seeing her, I would do so. A queen in captivity is worth seeing. And I can see you are a man of influence.”

The clerk looked at him shrewdly; he was a man plainly in love with his own importance, and the priest’s last words were balm to him.

“It might be done,” he said. “I do not know.”

Robin saw the impression he had made, and that the butter could not be too thick.

“I am sure you could do it for me,” he said, “if any man could. But I understand that a man of your position may be unwilling—”

The clerk solemnly laid a hand on the priest’s arm.

“Well, I will tell you this,” he said. “Get speech with Mr. Bourgoign, her apothecary. He alone has access to her now, besides her own women. It might be he could put you in some private place to see her go by.”

This was not much use, thought Robin; but, at least, it gave him something to begin at: so he thanked the clerk solemnly and reverentially, and was rewarded by another discreet pat on the arm.

The sight of the Chartley woods, tall and splendid in the light of the setting sun, and already tinged here and there with the first marks of autumn, brought his indecision to a point; and he realized that he had no plan. He had heard that Mary occasionally rode abroad, and he hoped perhaps to get speech with her that way; but what he had heard from the clerk and others showed him that this small degree of liberty was now denied to the Queen. In some way or another he must get news of Mr. Bourgoign. Beyond that he knew nothing.

The great gates of Chartley were closed as the two came up to them. There was a lodge beside them, and a sentry stood there. A bell was ringing from the great house within the woods, no doubt for supper-time, but there was no other human being besides the sentry to be seen. So Robin did not even check his weary horse; but turned only, with a deliberately curious air, as he went past and rode straight on. Then, as he rounded a corner he saw smoke going up from houses, it seemed, outside the park.

“What is that?” asked Arnold suddenly. “Do you hear—?”

A sound of a galloping horse grew louder behind them, and a moment afterwards the sound of another. The two priests were still in view of the sentry; and knowing that Chartley was guarded now as if it had all the treasures of the earth within, Robin reflected that to show too little interest might arouse as sharp suspicion as too much. So he wheeled his horse round and stopped to look.

They heard the challenge of the sentry within, and then the unbarring of the gates. An instant later a courier dashed out and wheeled to the right, while at the same time the second galloper came to view—another courier on a jaded horse; and the two passed—the one plainly riding to London, the second arriving from it. The gates were yet open; but the second was challenged once more before he was allowed to pass and his hoofs sounded on the road that led to the house. Then the gates clashed together again.

Robin turned his horse’s head once more towards the houses, conscious more than ever how near he was to the nerves of England’s life, and what tragic ties they were between the two royal cousins, that demanded such a furious and frequent exchange of messages.

“We must do our best here,” he said, nodding towards the little hamlet.

II

It was plainly a newly-grown little group of houses that bordered the side of the road away from the enclosed park—sprung up as a kind of overflow lodging for the dependants necessary to such a suddenly increased household; for the houses were no more than wooden dwellings, ill-roofed and ill-built, with the sap scarcely yet finished oozing from the ends of the beams and the planks. Smoke was issuing, in most cases, from rough holes cut in the roofs, and in the last rays of sunshine two or three men were sitting on stools set out before the houses.

Robin checked his horse before a man whose face seemed kindly, and who saluted courteously the fine gentleman who looked about with such an air.

“My horse is dead-spent,” he said curtly. “Is there an inn here where my man and I can find lodging?”

The man shook his head, looking at the horse compassionately. He had the air of a groom about him.

“I fear not, sir, not within five miles; at least, not with a room to spare.”

“This is Chartley, is it not?” asked the priest, noticing that the next man, too, was listening.

“Aye, sir.”

“Can you tell me if my friend Mr. Bourgoign lodges in the house, or without the gates?”

“Mr. Bourgoign, sir? A friend of yours?”

“I hope so,” said Robin, smiling, and keeping at least within the letter of truth.

The man mused a moment.

“It is possible he might help you, sir. He lodges in the house; but he comes sometimes to see a woman that is sick here.”

Robin demanded where she lived.

“At the last house, sir—a little beyond the rest. She is one of her Grace’s kitchen-women. They moved her out here, thinking it might be the fever she had.”

This was plainly a communicative fellow; but the priest thought it wiser not to take too much interest. He tossed the man a coin and rode on.

The last house was a little better built than the others, and stood further back from the road. Robin dismounted here, and, with a nod to Mr. Arnold, who was keeping his countenance admirably, walked up to the door and knocked on it. It was opened instantly, as if he were expected, but the woman’s face fell when she saw him.

“Is Mr. Bourgoign within?” asked the priest.

The woman glanced over him before answering, and then out to where the horses waited.

“No, sir,” she said at last. “We were looking for him just now….”

(She broke off.) “He is coming now,” she said.

Robin turned, and there, walking down the road, was an old man, leaning on a stick, richly and soberly dressed in black, wearing a black beaver hat on his head. A man-servant followed him at a little distance.

The priest saw that here was an opportunity ready-made; but there was one more point on which he must satisfy himself first, and what seemed to him an inspiration came to his mind.

“He looks like a minister,” he said carelessly.

A curious veiled look came over the woman’s face. Robin made a bold venture. He smiled full in her face.

“You need not fear,” he said. “I quarrel with no man’s religion;” and, at the look in her face at this, he added: “You are a Catholic, I suppose? Well, I am one too. And so, I suppose, is Mr. Bourgoign.”

The woman smiled tremulously, and the fear left her eyes.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “All the friends of her Grace are Catholics, I think.”

He nodded to her again genially. Then, turning, he went to meet the apothecary, who was now not thirty yards away.

It was a pathetic old figure that was hobbling towards him. He seemed a man of near seventy years old, with a close-cropped beard and spectacles on his nose, and he carried himself heavily and ploddingly. Robin argued to himself that it must be a kindly man who would come out at this hour—perhaps the one hour he had to himself—to visit a poor dependant. Yet all this was sheer conjecture; and, as the old man came near, he saw there was something besides kindliness in the eyes that met his own.

He saluted boldly and deferentially.

“Mr. Bourgoign,” he said in a low voice, “I must speak five minutes with you. And I ask you to make as if you were my friend.”

The old man stiffened like a watch-dog. It was plain that he was on his guard.

“I do not know you, sir.”

“I entreat you to do as I ask. I am a priest, sir. I entreat you to take my hand as if we were friends.”

A look of surprise went over the physician’s face.

“You can send me packing in ten minutes,” went on Robin rapidly, at the same time holding out his hand. “And we will talk here in the road, if you will.”

There was still a moment’s hesitation. Then he took the priest’s hand.

“I am come straight from London,” went on Robin, still speaking clearly, yet with his lips scarcely moving. “A fortnight ago I talked with Mr. Babington.”

The old man drew his arm close within his own.

“You have said enough, or too much, at present, sir. You shall walk with me a hundred yards up this road, and justify what you have said.”

“We have had a weary ride of it, Mr. Bourgoign…. I am on the road to Derby,” went on Robin, talking loudly enough now to be overheard, as he hoped, by any listeners. “And my horse is spent…. I will tell you my business,” he added in a lower tone, “as soon as you bid me.”

Fifty yards up the road the old man pressed his arm again.

“You can tell me now, sir,” he said. “But we will walk, if you please, while you do so.”

“First,” said Robin, after a moment’s consideration as to his best beginning, “I will tell you the name I go by. It is Mr. Alban. I am a newly-made priest, as I told you just now; I came from Rheims scarcely a fortnight ago. I am from Derbyshire; and I will tell you my proper name at the end, if you wish it.”

“Repeat the blessing of the deacon by the priest at mass,” murmured Mr. Bourgoign to the amazement of the other, without the change of an inflection in his voice or a movement of his hand.

“Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis—” began the priest.

“That is enough, sir, for the present. Well?”

“Next,” said Robin, hardly yet recovered from the extraordinary promptness of the challenge—”Next, I was speaking with Mr. Babington a fortnight ago.”

“In what place?”

“In the inn called the ‘Red Bull,’ in Cheapside.”

“Good. I have lodged there myself,” said the other. “And you are one—”

“No, sir,” said Robin, “I do not deny that I spoke with them all—with

Mr. Charnoc and—”

“That is enough of those names, sir,” said the other, with a small and fearful lift of his white eyebrows, as if he dreaded the very trees that nearly met overhead in this place. “And what is your business?”

“I have satisfied you, then—” began Robin.

“Not at all, sir. You have answered sufficiently so far; that is all. I wish to know your business.”

“The night following the day on which the men fled, of whom I have just spoken, I had a letter from—from their leader. He told me that all was lost, and he gave me a letter to her Grace here—”

He felt the thin old sinews under his hand contract suddenly, and paused.

“Go on, sir,” whispered the old voice.

“A letter to her Grace, sir. I was to use my discretion whether I carried it with me, or learned it by rote. I have other interests at stake besides this, and I used my discretion, and destroyed the letter.”

“But you have some writing, no doubt—”

“I have none,” said Robin. “I have my word only.”

There was a pause.

“Was the message private?”

“Private only to her Grace’s enemies. I will tell you the substance of it now, if you will.”

The old man, without answering, steered his companion nearer to the wall; then he relinquished the supporting arm, and leaned himself against the stones, fixing his eyes full upon the priest, and searching, as it seemed, every feature of his face and every detail of his dress.

“Was the message important, sir?”

“Important only to those who value love and fidelity.”

“I could deliver it myself, then?”

“Certainly, sir. If you will give me your word to deliver it to her Grace, as I deliver it to you, and to none else, I will ride on and trouble you no more.”

“That is enough,” said the physician decidedly. “I am completely satisfied, Mr. Alban. All that remains is to consider how I can get you to her Grace.”

“But if you yourself will deliver—” began Robin.

An extraordinary spasm passed over the other’s face, that might denote any fierce emotion, either of anger or grief.

“Do you think it is that?” he hissed. “Why, man, where is your priesthood? Do you think the poor dame within would not give her soul for a priest?… Why, I have prayed God night and day to send us a priest. She is half mad with sorrow; and who knows whether ever again in this world—”

He broke off, his face all distorted with pain; and Robin felt a strange thrill of glory at the thought that he bore with him, in virtue of his priesthood only, so much consolation. He faced for the first time that tremendous call of which he had heard so much in Rheims—that desolate cry of souls that longed and longed in vain for those gifts which a priest of Christ could alone bestow….

“… The question is,” the old man was saying more quietly, “how to get you in to her Grace. Why, Sir Amyas opens her letters even, and reseals them again! He thinks me a fool, and that I do not know what he does…. Do you know aught of medicine?” he asked abruptly.

“I know only what country folks know of herbs.”

“And their names—their Latin names, man?” pursued the other, leaning forward.

Robin half smiled.

“Now you speak of it,” he said, “I have learned a good many, as a pastime, when I was a boy. I was something of a herbalist, even. But I have forgotten—”

“Bah! that would be enough for Sir Amyas—”

He turned and spat venomously at the name.

“Sir Amyas knows nothing save his own vile trade. He is a lout—no more. He is as grim as a goose, always. And you have a town air about you,” he went on, running his eyes critically over the young man’s dress. “Those are French clothes?”

“They were bought in France.”

The two stood silent. Robin’s excitement beat in all his veins, in spite of his weariness. He had come to bear a human message only to a bereaved Queen; and it seemed as if his work were to be rather the bearing of a Divine message to a lonely soul. He watched the old man’s face eagerly. It was sunk in thought…. Then Mr. Bourgoign took him abruptly by the arm.

“Give me your arm again,” he said. “I am an old man. We must be going back again. It seems as if God heard our prayers after all. I will see you disposed for to-night—you and your man and the horses, and I will send for you myself in the morning. Could you say mass, think you? if I found you a secure place—and bring Our Lord’s Body with you in the morning?”

He checked the young man, to hear his answer.

“Why, yes,” said Robin. “I have all things that are needed.”

“Then you shall say mass in any case … and reserve our Lord’s Body in a pyx…. Now listen to me. If my plan falls as I hope, you must be a physician to-morrow, and have practised your trade in Paris. You have been in Paris?”

“No, sir.”

“Bah!… Well, no more has Sir Amyas!… You have practised your trade in Paris, and God has given you great skill in the matter of herbs. And, upon hearing that I was in Chartley, you inquired for your old friend, whose acquaintance you had made in Paris, five years ago. And I, upon hearing you were come, secured your willingness to see my patient, if you would but consent. Your reputation has reached me even here; you have attended His Majesty in Paris on three occasions; you restored Mademoiselle Élise, of the family of Guise, from the very point of death. You are but a young man still; yet—Bah! It is arranged. You understand? Now come with me.”

CHAPTER IV

I

In spite of his plans and his hopes and his dreams, it was with an amazement beyond all telling, that Mr. Robert Alban found himself, at nine o’clock next morning, conducted by two men through the hall at Chartley to the little parlour where he was to await Sir Amyas Paulet and the Queen’s apothecary.

Matters had been arranged last night with that promptness which alone could make the tale possible. He had walked back with the old man in full view of the little hamlet, to all appearances, the best of old friends; and after providing for a room in the sick woman’s house for Robin himself, another in another house for Mr. Arnold, and stabling for the horses in a shed where occasionally the spent horses of the couriers were housed when Chartley stables were overflowing—after all this had been arranged by Mr. Bourgoign in person, the two walked on to the great gates of the park, where they took an affectionate farewell within hearing of the sentry, the apothecary promising to see Sir Amyas that night and to communicate with his friend in the morning. Robin had learned previously how strict was the watch set about the Queen’s person, particularly since the news of the Babington plot had first reached the authorities, and of the extraordinary difficulty to the approach of any stranger to her presence. Nau and Curle, her two secretaries, had been arrested and perhaps racked a week or ten days before; all the Queen’s papers had been taken from her, and even her jewellery and pictures sent off to Elizabeth; and the only persons ordinarily allowed to speak with her, besides her gaoler, were two of her women, and Mr. Bourgoign himself.

That morning then, before six o’clock, Robin had said mass in the sick woman’s room and given her communion, with her companion, who answered his mass, as it was thought more prudent that the other priest should not even be present; and, at the close of the mass he had reserved in a little pyx, hidden beneath his clothes, a consecrated particle. Mr. Bourgoign had said that he would see to it that the Queen should be fasting up to ten o’clock that day.

And now the last miracle had been accomplished. A servant had come down late the night before, with a discreet letter from the apothecary, saying that Sir Amyas had consented to receive and examine for himself the travelling physician from Paris; and here now went Robin, striving to remember the old Latin names he had learned as a boy, and to carry a medical air with him.

The parlour in which he found himself was furnished severely and even rather sparely, owing, perhaps, he thought, to the temporary nature of the household. It was the custom in great houses to carry with the family, from house to house, all luxuries such as extra hangings or painted pictures or carpets, as well as even such things as cooking utensils; and in the Queen’s sudden removal back again from Tixall, many matters must have been neglected. The oak wainscoting was completely bare; and over the upper parts of the walls in many places the stones showed through between the ill-fitting tapestries. A sheaf of pikes stood in one corner; an oil portrait of an unknown worthy in the dress of fifty years ago hung over one of the doors; a large round oak table, with ink-horn and pounce-box, stood in the centre of the room with stools beside it: there was no hearth or chimney visible; and there was no tapestry upon the floor: a skin only lay between the windows. The priest sat down and waited.

He had enough to occupy his mind; for not only had he the thought of the character he was to sustain presently under the scrutiny of a suspicious man; but he had the prospect, as he hoped, of coming into the presence of the most-talked-of woman in Europe, and of ministering to her as a priest alone could do, in her sorest need. His hand went to his breast as he considered it, and remembered What he bore … and he felt the tiny flat circular case press upon his heart….

For his imagination was all aflame at the thought of Mary. Not only had he been kindled again and again in the old days by poor Anthony’s talk, until the woman seemed to him half-deified already; but man after man had repeated the same tale, that she was, in truth, that which her lean cousin of England desired to be thought—a very paragon of women, innocent, holy, undefiled, yet of charm to drive men to their knees before her presence. It was said that she was as one of those strange moths which, confined behind glass, will draw their mates out of the darkness to beat themselves to death against her prison; she was exquisite, they said, in her pale beauty, and yet more exquisite in her pain; she exuded a faint and intoxicating perfume of womanliness, like a crushed herb. Yet she was to be worshipped, rather than loved—a sacrament to be approached kneeling, an incarnate breath of heaven, the more lovely from the vileness into which her life had been cast and the slanders that were about her name…. More marvellous than all was that those who knew her best and longest loved her most; her servants wept or groaned themselves into fevers if they were excluded from her too long; of her as of the Wisdom of old might it be said that, “They who ate her hungered yet, and they who drank her thirsted yet.”… It was to this miracle of humanity, then, that this priest was to come….

He sat up suddenly, once more pressing his hand to his breast, where his

Treasure lay hidden, as he heard steps crossing the paved hall outside.

Then he rose to his feet and bowed as a tall man came swiftly in,

followed by the apothecary.

II

It was a lean, harsh-faced man that he saw, long-moustached and melancholy-eyed—”grim as a goose,” as the physician had said—wearing, even in this guarded household, a half-breast and cap of steel. A long sword jingled beside him on the stone floor and clashed with his spurred boots. He appeared the last man in the world to be the companion of a sorrowing Queen; and it was precisely for this reason that he had been chosen to replace the courtly lord Shrewsbury and the gentle Sir Ralph Sadler. (Her Grace of England said that she had had enough of nurses for gaolers.) His voice, too, resembled the bitter clash of a key in a lock.

“Well, sir,” he said abruptly, “Mr. Bourgoign tells me you are a friend of his.”

“I have that honour, sir.”

“You met in Paris, eh?… And you profess a knowledge of herbs beyond the ordinary?”

“Mr. Bourgoign is good enough to say so.”

“And you are after her Grace of Scotland, as they call her, like all the rest of them, eh?”

“I shall be happy to put what art I possess at her Grace of Scotland’s service.”

“Traitors say as much as that, sir.”

“In the cause of treachery, no doubt, sir.”

Sir Amyas barked a kind of laugh.

“Vous avez raisong,” he said with a deplorable accent. “As her Grace would say. And you come purely by chance to Chartley, no doubt!”

The sneer was unmistakable. Robin met it full.

“Not for one moment, sir. I was on my way to Derby. I could have saved a few miles if I had struck north long ago. But Chartley is interesting in these days.”

(He saw Mr. Bourgoign’s eyes gleam with satisfaction.)

“That is honest at least, sir. And why is Chartley interesting?”

“Because her Grace is here,” answered Robin with sublime simplicity.

Sir Amyas barked again. It seemed he liked this way of talk. For a moment or two his eyes searched Robin—hard, narrow eyes like a dog’s; he looked him up and down.

“Where are your drugs, sir?”

Robin smiled.

“A herbalist does not need to carry drugs,” he said. “They grow in every hedgerow if a man has eyes to see what God has given him.”

“That is true enough. I would we had more talk about God His Majesty in this household, and less of Popish trinkets and fiddle-faddle…. Well, sir; do you think you can cure her ladyship?”

“I have no opinion on the point at all, sir. I do not know what is the matter with her—beyond what Mr. Bourgoign has told me,” he added hastily, remembering the supposed situation.

The soldier paid no attention. Like all slow-witted men, he was following up an irrelevant train of thought from his own last sentence but one.

“Fiddle-faddle!” he said again. “I am sick of her megrims and her vapours and her humours. Has she not blood and bones like the rest of us? And yet she cannot take her food nor her drink, nor sleep like an honest woman. And I do not wonder at it; for that is what she is not. They will say she is poisoned, I dare say…. Well, sir; I suppose you had best see her; but in my presence, remember, sir; in my presence.”

Robin’s spirits sank like a stone…. Moreover, he would be instantly detected as a knave (though that honestly seemed a lesser matter to him), if he attempted to talk medically in Sir Amyas’ presence; unless that warrior was truly as great a clod as he seemed. He determined to risk it. He bowed.

“I can at least try my poor skill, sir,” he said.

Sir Amyas instantly turned, with a jerk of his head to beckon them, and clanked out again into the hall. There was not a moment’s opportunity for the two conspirators to exchange even a word; for there, in the hall, stood the two men who had brought Robin in, to keep guard; and as the party passed through to the foot of the great staircase, he saw on each landing that was in sight another sentry, and, at a door at the end of the overhead gallery, against which hung a heavy velvet curtain, stood the last, a stern figure to keep guard on the rooms of a Queen, with his body-armour complete, a steel hat on his head and a pike in his hand.

It was to this door that Sir Amyas went, acknowledging with a lift of the finger the salute of his men. (It was plain that this place was under strict military discipline.) With the two, the real and the false physician following him, he pulled aside the curtain and rapped imperiously on the door. It was opened after a moment’s delay by a frightened-faced woman.

“Her Grace?” demanded the officer sharply. “Is she still abed?”

“Her Grace is risen, sir,” said the woman tremulously; “she is in the inner room.”

Sir Amyas strode straight on, pulled aside a second curtain hanging over the further door, rapped upon that, too, and without even waiting for an answer this time, beyond the shrill barking of dogs within, opened it and passed in. Mr. Bourgoign followed; and Robin came last. The door closed softly behind him.

III

The room was furnished with more decency than any he had seen in this harsh house; for, although at the time he thought that he had no eyes for anything but one figure which it contained, he found himself afterwards able to give a very tolerable account of its general appearance. The walls were hung throughout with a dark-blue velvet hanging, stamped with silver fleur-de-lys. There were tapestries on the floor, between which gleamed the polished oak boards, perfectly kept, by the labours (no doubt) of her Grace’s two women (since such things would be mere “fiddle-faddle” to the honest soldier); a graceful French table ran down the centre of the room, very delicately carved, and beneath it two baskets from which looked out the indignant heads of a couple of little spaniels; upon it, at the nearer end, were three or four cages of turtle-doves, melancholy-looking in this half-lit room; old, sun-bleached curtains of the same material as that which hung on the walls, shrouded the two windows on the right, letting but a half light into the room: there was a further door, also curtained, diagonally opposite that by which the party had entered; and in the centre of the same wall a tall blue canopy, fringed with silver, rose to the ceiling. Beneath it, on a daïs of a single step, stood a velvet chair, with gilded arms, and worked with the royal shield in the embroidery of the back—with a crowned lion sejant, guardant, for the crest above the crown. Half a dozen more chairs were ranged about the table; and, on a couch, with her feet swathed in draperies, with a woman standing over her behind, as if she had just risen up from speaking in her ear, lay the Queen of the Scots. A tall silver and ebony crucifix, with a couple of velvet-bound, silver-clasped little books, stood on the table within reach of her hand, and a folded handkerchief beside them.

Mary was past her prime long ago; she was worn with sorrow and slanders and miseries; yet she appeared to the priest’s eyes, even then, like a figure of a dream. It was partly, no doubt, the faintness of the light that came in through the half-shrouded windows that obliterated the lines and fallen patches that her face was beginning to bear; and she lay, too, with her back even to such light as there was. Yet for all that, and even if he had not known who she was, Robin could not have taken his eyes from her face. She lay there like a fallen flower, pale as a lily, beaten down at last by the waves and storms that had gone over her; and she was more beautiful in her downfall and disgrace, a thousand times, than when she had come first to Holyrood, or danced in the Courts of France.

Now it is not in the features one by one that beauty lies but rather in the coincidence of them all. Her face was almost waxen now, blue shadowed beneath the two waves of pale hair; she had a small mouth, a delicate nose, and large, searching hazel eyes. Her head-dress was of white, with silver pins in it; a light white shawl was clasped cross-wise over her shoulders; and she wore a loose brocaded dressing-gown beneath it. Her hands, clasped as if in prayer, emerged out of deep lace-fringed sleeves, and were covered with rings. But it was the air of almost superhuman delicacy that breathed from her most forcibly; and, when she spoke, a ring of assured decision revealed her quiet consciousness of royalty. It was an extraordinary mingling of fragility and power, of which this feminine and royal room was the proper frame.

Sir Amyas knelt perfunctorily, as if impatient of it; and rose up again at once without waiting for the signal. Mary lifted her fingers a little as a sign to the other two.

“I have brought the French doctor, madam,” said the soldier abruptly.

“But he must see your Grace in my presence.”

“Then you might as well have spared him, and yourself, the pains, sir,” came the quiet, dignified voice. “I do not choose to be examined in your presence.”

Robin lifted his eyes to her face; but although he thought he caught an under air of intense desire towards him and That which he bore, there was no faltering in the tone of her voice. It was, as some man said, as “soft as running water heard by night.”

“This is absurd, madam. I am responsible for your Grace’s security and good health. But there are lengths—”

“You have spoken the very word,” said the Queen. “There are lengths to which none of us should go, even to preserve our health.”

“I tell you, madam—”

“There is no more to be said, sir,” said the Queen, closing her eyes again.

“But what do I know of this fellow? How can I tell he is what he professes to be?” barked Sir Amyas.

“Then you should never have admitted him at all,” said the Queen, opening her eyes again. “And I will do the best that I can—”

“But, madam, your health is my care; and Mr. Bourgoign here tells me—”

“The subject does not interest me,” murmured the Queen, apparently half asleep.

“But I will retire to the corner and turn my back, if that is necessary,” growled the soldier.

There was no answer. She lay with closed eyes, and her woman began again to fan her gently.

Robin began to understand the situation a little better. It was plain that Sir Amyas was a great deal more anxious for the Queen’s health than he pretended to be, or he would never have tolerated such objections. The Queen, too, must know of this, or she would not have ventured, with so much at stake, to treat him with such maddening rebuffs. There had been rumours (verified later) that Elizabeth had actually caused it to be suggested to Sir Amyas that he should poison his prisoner decently and privately, and thereby save a great deal of trouble and scandal; and that Sir Amyas had refused with indignation. Perhaps, if all this were true, thought Robin, the officer was especially careful on this very account that the Queen’s health should be above suspicion. He remembered that Sir Amyas had referred just now to a suspicion of poison…. He determined on the bold line.

“Her Grace has spoken, sir,” he said modestly. “And I think I should have a word to say. It is plain to me, by looking at her Grace, that her health is very far from what it should be—” (he paused significantly)—”I should have to make a thorough examination, if I prescribed at all; and, even should her Grace consent to this being done publicly, for my part I would not consent. I should be happy to have her women here, but—”

Sir Amyas turned on him wrathfully.

“Why, sir, you said downstairs—”

“I had not then seen her Grace. But there is no more to be said—” He kneeled again as if to take his leave, stood up, and began to retire to the door. Mr. Bourgoign stood helpless.

Then Sir Amyas yielded.

“You shall have fifteen minutes, sir. No more,” he cried harshly. “And I shall remain in the next room.”

He made a perfunctory salute and strode out.

The Queen opened her eyes, waited for one tense instant till the door closed; then she slipped swiftly off the couch.

“The door!” she whispered.

The woman was across the room in an instant, on tip-toe, and drew the single slender bolt. The Queen made a sharp gesture; the woman fled back again on one side, and out through the further door, and the old man hobbled after her. It was as if every detail had been rehearsed. The door closed noiselessly.

Then the Queen rose up, as Robin, understanding, began to fumble with his breast. And, as he drew out the pyx, and placed it on the handkerchief (in reality a corporal), apparently so carelessly laid by the crucifix, Mary sank down in adoration of her Lord.

“Now, mon père,” she whispered, still kneeling, but lifting her star-bright eyes. And the priest went across to the couch where the Queen had lain, and sat down on it.

“In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti—” began Mary.

IV

When the confession was finished, Robin went across, at the Queen’s order, and tapped with his finger-nail upon the door, while she herself remained on her knees. The door opened instantly, and the two came in, the woman first, bearing two lighted tapers. She set these down one on either side of the crucifix, and herself knelt with the old physician.

… Then Robin gave holy communion to the Queen of the Scots….

V

She was back again on her couch now, once more as drowsy-looking as ever. The candlesticks were gone again; the handkerchief still in its place, and the woman back again behind the couch. The two men kneeled close beside her, near enough to hear every whisper.

“Listen, gentlemen,” she said softly, “I cannot tell you what you have done for my soul to-day—both of you, since I could never have had the priest without my friend…. I cannot reward you, but our Lord will do so abundantly…. Listen, I know that I am going to my death, and I thank God that I have made my peace with Him. I do not know if they will allow me to see a priest again. But I wish to say this to both of you—as I said just now in my confession, to you, mon père—that I am wholly and utterly guiltless of the plot laid to my charge; that I had neither part nor wish nor consent in it. I desired only to escape from my captivity…. I would have made war, if I could, yes, but as for accomplishing or assisting in her Grace’s death, the thought was never near me. Those whom I thought my friends have entrapped me, and have given colour to the tale. I pray our Saviour to forgive them as I do; and with that Saviour now in my breast I tell you—and you may tell all the world if you will—that I am guiltless of what they impute to me. I shall die for my Religion, and nothing but that. And I thank you again, mon père, et vous, mon ami, que vous avez….”

Her voice died away in inaudible French, and her eyes closed.

Robin’s eyes were raining tears, but he leaned forward and kissed her hand as it lay on the edge of the couch. He felt himself touched on the shoulder, and he stood up. The old man’s eyes, too, were brimming with tears.

“I must let Sir Amyas in,” he whispered. “You must be ready.”

“What shall I say?”

“Say that you will prescribe privately, to me: and that her Grace’s health is indeed delicate, but not gravely impaired…. You understand?”

Robin nodded, passing his sleeve over his eyes. The woman touched the

Queen’s shoulder to rouse her, and Mr. Bourgoign opened the door.

VI

“And now, sir,” said Mr. Bourgoign, as the two passed out from the house half an hour later, “I have one more word to say to you. Listen carefully, if you please, for there is not much time.”

He glanced behind him, but the tall figure was gone from the door; there remained only the two pikemen that kept ward over the great house on the steps.

“Come this way,” said the physician, and led the priest through into the little walled garden on the south. “He will think we are finishing our consultation.”

“I cannot tell you,” he said presently, “all that I think of your courage and your wit. You made a told stroke when you told him you would begone again, unless you could see her Grace alone, and again when you said you had come to Chartley because she was here. And you may go again now, knowing you have comforted a woman in her greatest need. They sent her chaplain from her when she left here for Tixall in July, and she has not had him again yet. She is watched at every point. They have taken all her papers from her, and have seduced M. Nau, I fear. Did you hear anything of him in town?”

“No,” said the priest. “I know nothing of him.”

“He is a Frenchman, and hath been with her Grace more than ten years. He hath written her letters for her, and been privy to all her counsels. And I fear he hath been seduced from her at last. It was said that Mr. Walsingham was to take him into his house…. Well, but we have not time for this. What I have to ask you is whether you could come again to us?”

He peered at the priest almost timorously. Robin was startled.

“Come again?” he said. “Why—”

“You see you have already won to her presence, and Sir Amyas is committed to it that you are a safe man. I shall tell her Grace, too, that she must eat and drink well, and get better, if she would see you again, for that will establish you in Sir Amyas’ eyes.”

“But will she not have a priest?”

“I know nothing, Mr. Alban. They even shut me up here when they took her to Tixall; and even now none but myself and her two women have access to her. I do not know even if her Grace will be left here. There has been talk among the men of going to Fotheringay. I know nothing, from day to day. It is a … a cauchemar. But they will certainly do what they can to shake her. It grows more rigorous every day. And I thought, that if you would tell me whether a message could reach you, and if her chaplain is not allowed to see her again, you might be able to come again. I would tell Sir Amyas how much good you had done to her last time, with your herbs; and, it might be, you could see her again in a month or two perhaps—or later.”

Robin was silent.

The greatness of the affair terrified him; yet its melancholy drew him. He had seen her on whom all England bent its thoughts at this time, who was a crowned Queen, with broad lands and wealth, who called Elizabeth “sister”; yet who was more of a prisoner than any in the Fleet or Westminster Gatehouse, since those at least could have their friends to come to them. Her hidden fires, too, had warmed him—that passion for God that had burst from her when her gaoler left her, and she had flung herself on her knees before her hidden Saviour. It may be he had doubted her before (he did not know); but there was no more doubt in him after her protestation of her innocence. He began to see now that she stood for more than her kingdom or her son or the plots attributed to her, that she was more than a mere great woman, for whose sake men could both live and die; he began to see in her that which poor Anthony had seen—a champion for the Faith of them all, an incarnate suffering symbol, in flesh and blood, of that Religion for which he, too, was in peril—that Religion, which, in spite of all clamour to the contrary, was the real storm-centre of England’s life.

He turned then to the old man with a suddenly flushed face.

“A message will always reach me at Mistress Manners’ house, at Booth’s Edge, near Hathersage, in Derbyshire. And I will come from there, or from the world’s end, to serve her Grace.”

CHAPTER V

I

“First give me your blessing, Mr. Alban,” said Marjorie, kneeling down before him in the hall in front of them all. She was as pale as a ghost, but her eyes shone like stars.

It was a couple of months after his leaving Chartley before he came at last to Booth’s Edge. First he had had to bestow Mr. Arnold in Lancashire, for suspicion was abroad; and it was a letter from Marjorie herself, reaching him in Derby, at Mr. Biddell’s house, that had told him of it, and bidden him go on with his friend. The town had never been the same since Topcliffe’s visit; and now that Babington House was no longer in safe Catholic hands, a great protection was gone. He had better go on, she said, as if he were what he professed to be—a gentleman travelling with his servant. A rumour had come to her ears that the talk in the town was of the expected arrival of a new priest to take Mr. Garlick’s place for the present, and every stranger was scrutinised. So he had taken her advice; he had left Derby again immediately, and had slowly travelled north; then, coming round about from the north, after leaving his friend, saying mass here and there where he could, crossing into Yorkshire even as far west as Wakefield, he had come at last, through this wet November day, along the Derwent valley and up to Booth’s Edge, where he arrived after sunset, to find the hall filled with folks to greet him.

He was smiling himself, though his eyes were full of tears, by the time that he had done giving his blessings. Mr. John FitzHerbert was come up from Padley, where he lived now for short times together, greyer than ever, but with the same resolute face. Mistress Alice Babington was there, still serene looking, but with a new sorrow in her eyes; and, clinging to her, a thin, pale girl all in black, who only two months before had lost both daughter and husband; for the child had died scarcely a week or two before her father, Anthony Babington, had died miserably on the gallows near St. Giles’ Fields, where he had so often met his friends after dark. It was a ghastly tale, told in fragments to Robin here and there during his journeyings by men in taverns, before whom he must keep a brave face. And a few farmers were there, old Mr. Merton among them, come in to welcome the son of the Squire of Matstead, returned under a feigned name, unknown even to his father, and there, too, was honest Dick Sampson, come up from Dethick to see his old master. So here, in the hall he knew so well, himself splashed with red marl from ankle to shoulder, still cloaked and spurred, one by one these knelt before him, beginning with Marjorie herself, and ending with the youngest farm-boy, who breathed heavily as he knelt down and got up round-eyed and staring.

“And his Reverence will hear confessions,” proclaimed Marjorie to the multitude, “at eight o’clock to-night; and he will say mass and give holy communion at six o’clock to-morrow morning.”

II

He had to hear that night, after supper, and before he went to keep his engagement in the chapel-room, the entire news of the county; and, in his turn, to tell his own adventures. The company sat together before the great hall-fire, to take the dessert, since there would have been no room in the parlour for all who wished to hear. (He heard the tale of Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert, traitor, apostate and sworn man of her Grace, later, when he had come down again from the chapel-room, and the servants had gone.) But now it was of less tragic matters, and more triumphant, that they talked: he told of his adventures since he had landed in August; of his riding in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and of the fervour that he met with there (in one place, he said, he had reconciled the old minister of the parish, that had been made priest under Mary thirty years ago, and now lay dying); but he said nothing at that time of what he had seen of her Grace of Scotland, and Chartley: and the rest, on the other hand, talked of what had passed in Derby, of all that Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick had done; of the arrest and banishment of the latter, and his immediate return; of the hanging of Mr. Francis Ingolby, in York, which had made a great stir in the north that summer, since he was the son of Sir Francis, of Ripley Castle; as well as of the deaths of many others—Mr. Finglow in August; Mr. Sandys, in the same month, in Gloucester; and of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Adams and Mr. Dibdale, all together at Tyburn, the news of which had but just come to Derbyshire; and of Mistress Clitheroe, that had been pressed to death in York, for the very crime which Mistress Marjorie Manners was perpetrating at this moment, namely, the assistance and harbourage of priests; or, rather, for refusing to plead when she had been arrested for that crime, lest she should bring them into trouble.

And then at last they began to speak of Mary in Fotheringay and at that a maid came in to say that it was eight o’clock, and would his Reverence come up, as a few had to travel home that night and to come again next day….

It was after nine o’clock before he came downstairs again, to find the gentlefolk alone in the little parlour that opened from the hall. It gave him a strange thrill of pleasure to see them there in the firelight; the four of them only—Mr. John in the midst, with the three ladies; and an empty chair waiting for the priest. He would hear their confessions presently when the servants were gone to bed. A great mug of warm ale stood by his place, to comfort him after his long ride and his spiritual labours.

Mr. John told him first the news of his own son, as was his duty to do; and he told it without bitterness, in a level voice, leaning his cheek on his hand.

It appeared that Mr. Thomas still passed for a Catholic among the simpler folk; but with none else. All the great houses round about had the truth as an open secret; and their doors were closed to him; neither had any priest been near him, since the day when Mr. Simpson met him alone on the moors and spoke to him of his soul. Even then Mr. Thomas had blustered and declared that there was no truth in the tale; and had so ridden away at last, saying that such pestering was enough to make a man lose his religion altogether.

“As for me,” said Mr. John, “he has not been near me, nor I near him. He lives at Norbury for the most part. My brother is attempting to set aside the disposition he had made in his favour; but they say that it will be made to stand; and that my son will get it all yet. But he has not troubled us at Padley; nor will he, I think.”

“He is at Norbury, you say, sir?”

“Yes; but he goes here and there continually. He has been to London to lay informations, I have no doubt, for I know that he hath been seen there in Topcliffe’s company…. It seems that we are to be in the thick of the conflict. We have had above a dozen priests in this county alone arraigned for treason, and the most of them executed.”

His voice had gone lower, and trembled once or twice as he talked. It was plain that he could not bear to speak much more against the son that had turned against him and his Faith, for the sake of his own liberty and the estates he had hoped to have. Robin made haste to turn the talk.

“And my father, sir?”

Mr. John looked at him tenderly.

“You must ask Mistress Marjorie of him,” he said. “I have not seen him these three years.”

Robin turned to the girl.

“I have had no more news of him since what I wrote to you,” she said quietly. “After I had spoken with him, and he had given me the warning, he held himself aloof.”

“Hath he been at any of the trials at Derby?”

She bowed her head.

“He was at the trial of Mr. Garlick,” she said; “last year; and was one of those who spoke for his banishment.”

And then, on a sudden, Mistress Alice moved in her corner, where she sat with the widow of her brother.

“And what of her Grace?” she said. “Is it true what Dick told us before supper, that Parliament hath sentenced her?”

Robin shook his head.

“I hear so much gossip,” he said, “in the taverns, that I believe nothing. I had not heard that. Tell me what it was.”

He was in a torment of mind as to what he should say of his own adventure at Chartley. On the one side it was plain that no rumour of the tale must get abroad or he would never be able to come to her again; on the other side, no word had come from Mr. Bourgoign, though two months had passed. He knew, indeed, what all the world knew by now, that a trial had been held by over forty lords in Fotheringay Castle, whither the Queen had been moved at the end of September, and that reports had been sent of it to London. But for the rest he knew no more than the others. Tales ran about the country on every side. One man would say that he had it from London direct that Parliament had sentenced her; another that the Queen of England had given her consent too; a third, that Parliament had not dared to touch the matter at all; a fourth, that Elizabeth had pardoned her. But, for Robin, his hesitation largely lay in his knowledge that it was on the Babington plot that all would turn, and that this would have been the chief charge against her; and here, but a yard away from him, in the gloom of the chimney-breast sat Anthony’s wife and sister. How could he say that this was so, and yet that he believed her wholly innocent of a crime which he detested? He had dreaded this talk the instant that he had seen them in the hall and heard their names.

But Mistress Alice would not be put off. She repeated what she had said. Dick had come up from Dethick only that afternoon, and was now gone again, so that he could not be questioned; but he had told his mistress plainly that the story in Derby, brought in by couriers, was that Parliament had consented and had passed sentence on her Grace; that her Grace herself had received the news only the day before; but that the warrant was not signed.

“And on what charge?” asked Robin desperately. Mistress Alice’s voice rang out proudly; but he saw her press the girl closer as she spoke.

“That she was privy to the plot which my … my brother had a hand in.”

Then Robin drew a breath and decided.

“It may be so,” he said. “But I do not believe she was privy to it. I spoke with her Grace at Chartley—”

There was a swift movement in the half circle.

“I spoke with her Grace at Chartley,” he said. “I went to her under guise of a herbalist: I heard her confession and gave her communion; and she declared publicly, before two witnesses, after she had had communion, that she was guiltless.”

Robin was no story-teller; but for half an hour he was forced to become one, until his hearers were satisfied. Even here, in the distant hills, Mary’s name was a key to a treasure-house of mysteries. It was through this country, too, that she had passed again and again. It was at old Chatsworth—the square house with the huge Italian and Dutch gardens, that a Cavendish had bought thirty years ago from the Agards—that she had passed part of her captivity; it was in Derby that she had halted for a night last year; it was near Burton that she had slept two months ago on her road to Fotheringay; and to hear now of her, from one who had spoken to her that very autumn, was as a revelation. So Robin told it as well as he could.

“And it may be,” he said, “that I shall have to go again. Mr. Bourgoign said that he would send to me if he could. But I have heard no word from him.” (He glanced round the watching faces.) “And I need not say that I shall hear no word at all, if the tale I have told you leak out.”

“Perhaps she hath a chaplain again,” said Mr. John, after pause.

“I do not think so,” said the priest. “If she had none at Chartley, she would all the less have one at Fotheringay.”

“And it may be you will be sent for again?” asked Marjorie’s voice gently from the darkness.

“It may be so,” said the priest.

“The letter is to be sent here?” she asked.

“I told Mr. Bourgoign so.”

“Does any other know you are here?”

“No, Mistress Marjorie.”

There was a pause.

“It is growing late,” said Mr. John. “Will your Reverence go upstairs with me; and these ladies will come after, I think.”

III

If it had been a great day for Robin that he should come back to his own country after six years, and be received in this house of strange memories; that he should sit upstairs as a priest, and hear confessions in that very parlour where nearly seven years ago he had sat with Marjorie as her accepted lover—if all this had been charged, to him, with emotions and memories which, however he had outgrown them, yet echoed somewhere wonderfully in his mind; it was no less a kind of climax and consummation to the girl whose house this was, and who had waited so long to receive back a lover who came now in so different a guise.

But it must be made plain that to neither of them was there a thought or a memory that ought not to be. To those who hold that men are no better, except for their brains, than other animals; that they are but, after all, bundles of sense from which all love and aspiration take their rise—to such the thing will seem simply false. They will say that it was not so; that all that strange yearning that Marjorie had to see the man back again; that the excitement that beat in Robin’s heart as he had ridden up the well-remembered slope, all in the dark, and had seen the lighted windows at the top; that these were but the old loves in the disguise of piety. But to those who understand what priesthood is, for him that receives it, and for the soul that reverences it, the thing is a truism. For the priest was one who loved Christ more than all the world; and the woman one who loved priesthood more than herself.

Yet her memories of him that remained in her had, of course, a place in her heart; and, though she knelt before him presently in the little parlour where once he had kneeled before her, as simply as a child before her father, and told her sins, and received Christ’s pardon, and went away to make room for the next—though all this was without a reproach in her eyes; yet, as she went she knew that she must face a fresh struggle, and a temptation that would not have been one-tenth so fierce if it had been some other priest that was in peril. That peril was Fotheringay, where (as she knew well enough) every strange face would be scrutinized as perhaps nowhere else in all England; and that temptation lay in the knowledge that when that letter should come (as she knew in her heart it would come), it would be through her hands that it would pass—if it passed indeed.

While the others went to the priest one by one, Marjorie kneeled in her room, fighting with a devil that was not yet come to her, as is the way with sensitive consciences.

CHAPTER VI

I

The suspense at Fotheringay grew deeper with every day that passed.

Christmas was come and gone, and no sign was made from London, so far, at least, as the little town was concerned. There came almost daily from the castle new tales of slights put upon the Queen, and now and again of new favours granted to her. Her chaplain, withdrawn for a while, had been admitted to her again a week before Christmas; a crowd had collected to see the Popish priest ride in, and had remarked on his timorous air; and about the same time a courier had been watched as he rode off to London, bearing, it was rumoured, one last appeal from one Queen to the other. On the other hand, it was known that Mary no longer had her daïs in her chamber, and that the billiard-table, which she never used, had been taken away again.

But all this had happened before Christmas, and now a month had gone by, and although this or that tale of discourtesy from gaoler to prisoner leaked out through the servants; though it was known that the crucifix which Mary had hung up in the place where her daïs had stood remained undisturbed—though this argument or the other could be advanced in turn by men sitting over their wine in the taverns, that the Queen’s cause was rising or falling, nothing was truly known the one way or the other. It had been proclaimed, by trumpet, in every town in England, that sentence of death was passed; yet this was two or three months ago, and the knowledge that the warrant had not yet been signed seemed an argument to some that now it never would be.

A group was waiting (as a group usually did wait) at the village entrance to the new bridge lately built by her Grace of England, towards sunset on an evening late in January. This situation commanded, so far as was possible, every point of interest. It was the beginning of the London road, up which so many couriers had passed; it was over this bridge that her Grace of Scotland herself had come from her cross-country journey from Chartley. On the left, looking northwards, rose the great old collegiate church, with its graceful lantern tower, above the low thatched stone houses of the village; on the right, adjoining the village beyond the big inn, rose the huge keep of the castle and its walls, within its double moats, ranged in form of a fetterlock of which the river itself was its straight side. Beyond, the low rolling hills and meadows met the chilly January sky.

For four months now the village had been transformed into a kind of camp. The castle itself was crammed to bursting. The row of little windows beside the hall on the first floor, visible only from the road that led past the inn parallel to the river, marked the lodgings of the Queen, where, with the hall also for her use, she lived continually; the rest of the castle was full of men-at-arms, officers, great lords who came and went—these, with the castellan’s rooms and those of his people, Sir Amyas’ lodgings, and the space occupied by Mary’s own servants—all these filled the castle entirely. For the rest—the garrison not on duty, the grooms, the couriers, the lesser servants, the suites of the visitors, and even many of the visitors themselves—these filled the two inns of the little town completely, and overflowed everywhere into the houses of the people. It was a vision of a garrison in war-time that the countryfolk gaped at continually; the street sparkled all day with liveries and arms; archers went to and fro; the trample of horses, the sharp military orders at the changings of guard outside and within the towered gateway that commanded the entrance over the moats, the songs of men over their wine in the tavern-parlours— these things had become matters of common observation, and fired many a young farm-man with a zeal for arms.

The Queen herself was a mystery.

They had seen, for a moment, as she drove in after dark last September, a coach (in which, it was said, she had sat with her back to the horses) surrounded by guards; patient watchers had, perhaps, half a dozen times altogether caught a glimpse of a woman’s face, at a window that was supposed to be hers, look out for an instant over the wall that skirted the moat. But that was all. They heard the trumpets’ cry within the castle; and even learned to distinguish something of what each signified—the call for the changing of guards, the announcement of dinner and supper; the warning to the gatekeepers that persons were to pass out. But of her, round whom all this centred, of the prison-queen of this hive of angry bees, they knew less than of her Grace of England whom once they had seen ride in through these very gates. Tales, of course, were abundant—gossip from servant to servant, filtering down at last, distorted or attenuated, to the rustics who watched and exclaimed; but there was not a soldier who kept her, not a cook who served her, of whom they did not know more than of herself. There were even parties in the village; or, rather, there was a silent group who did not join in the universal disapproval, but these were queer and fantastic persons, who still held to the old ways and would not go to church with the rest.

A little more material had been supplied for conversation by the events of to-day. It had positively been reported, by a fellow who had been to see about a room for himself in the village, that he had been turned out of the castle to make space for her Grace’s chaplain. This was puzzling. Had not the Popish priest already been in the castle five or six weeks? Then why should he now require another chamber?

The argument waxed hot by the bridge. One said that it was another priest that was come in disguise; another, that once a Popish priest got a foothold in a place he was never content till he got the whole for himself; a third, that the fellow had simply lied, and that he was turned out because he had been caught by Sir Amyas making love to one of the maids. Each was positive of his own thesis, and argued for it by the process of re-assertion that it was so, and that his opponents were fools. They spat into the water; one got out a tobacco pipe that a soldier had given him and made a great show of filling it, though he had no flint to light it with; another proclaimed that for two figs he would go and inquire at the gateway itself….

To this barren war of the schools came a fact at last, and its bearer was a gorgeous figure of a man-at-arms (who, later, got into trouble by talking too much), who came swaggering down the road from the New Inn, blowing smoke into the air, with his hat on one side, and his breast-piece loose; and declared in that strange clipped London-English of his that he had been on guard at the door of Sir Amyas’ room, and had heard him tell Melville the steward and De Préau the priest that they must no longer have access to her Grace, but must move their lodgings elsewhere within the castle.

This, then, had to be discussed once more from the beginning. One said that this was an evident sign that the end was to come and that Madam was to die; another that, on the contrary, it was plain that this was not so, but that rather she was to be compelled by greater strictness to acknowledge her guilt; a third, that it was none of these things, but rather that Madam was turning Protestant at last in order to save her life, and had devised this manner of ridding herself of the priest. And the soldier damned them all round as block-fools, who knew nothing and talked all the more for it.

The dark was beginning to fall before the group broke up, and none of them took much notice of a young man on a fresh horse, who rode quietly out of the yard of the New Inn as the saunterers came up. One of them, three minutes later, however, heard suddenly from across the bridge the sound of a horse breaking into a gallop and presently dying away westwards beyond Perry Lane.

II

Within the castle that evening nothing happened that was of any note to its more careless occupants. All was as usual.

The guard at the towers that controlled the drawbridge across the outer moat was changed at four o’clock; six men came out, under an officer, from the inner court; the words were exchanged, and the six that went off duty marched into the armoury to lay by their pikes and presently dispersed, four to their rooms in the east side of the quadrangle, two to their quarters in the village. From the kitchen came the clash of dishes. Sir Amyas came out from the direction of the keep, where he had been conferring with Mr. FitzWilliam, the castellan, and passed across to his lodging on the south. A butcher hurried in, under escort of a couple of men from the gate, with a covered basket and disappeared into the kitchen entry. All these things were observed idly by the dozen guards who stood two at each of the five doors that gave upon the courtyard. Presently, too, hardly ten minutes after the guard was changed, three figures came out at the staircase foot where Sir Amyas had just gone in, and stood there apparently talking in low voices. Then one of them, Mr. Melville, the Queen’s steward, came across the court with Mr. Bourgoign towards the outer entrance, passed under it, and presently Mr. Bourgoign came back and wheeled sharply in to the right by the entry that led up to the Queen’s lodging. Meanwhile the third figure, whom one of the men had thought to be M. de Préau, had gone back again towards Mr. Melville’s rooms.

That was all that was to be seen, until half an hour later, a few minutes before the drawbridge was raised for the night, the steward came back, crossed the court once more and vanished into the entry opposite.

It was about this time that the young man had ridden out from the New

Inn.

Then the sun went down; the flambeaux were lighted beneath the two great entrances—in the towered archway across the moat, and the smaller vaulted archway within, as well as one more flambeau stuck into the iron ring by each of the four more court-doors, and lights began to burn in the windows round about. The man at Sir Amyas’ staircase looked across the court and idly wondered what was passing in the rooms opposite on the first floor where the Queen was lodged. He had heard that the priest had been forced to change his room, and was to sleep in Mr. Melville’s for the present; so her Grace would have to get on without him as well as she could. There would be no Popish mass to-morrow, then, in the oratory that he had heard was made upstairs…. He marvelled at the superstition that made this a burden….

At a quarter before six a trumpet blew, and presently the tall windows of the hall across the court from him began to kindle. That was for her Grace’s supper to be served. At five minutes to six another trumpet sounded, and M. Landet, the Queen’s butler, hurried out with his white rod to take his place for the entrance of the dishes. Finally, through the ground-floor window at the foot of the Queen’s stair, the man caught a glimpse of moving figures passing towards the hall. That would be her Grace going in state to her supper with her women; but, for the first time, without either priest to say grace or steward to escort her. He saw, too, the couple of guards under the inner archway come to the salute as the little procession came for an instant within their view; and Mr. Newrins, the butler of the castle, stop suddenly and pull off his cap as he was hurrying in to be in time for the supper of the gentlemen that was served in the keep half an hour after the Queen’s.

Meanwhile, ten miles away, along the Uppingham and Leicester track, rode a young man through the dark.

III

Sunday, too, passed as usual.

At half-past eight the bells of the church pealed out for the morning service, and the village street was thronged with worshippers and a few soldiers. At nine o’clock they ceased, and the street was empty. At eleven o’clock the trumpets sounded to announce change of guard, and to tell the kitchen folk that dishing-time was come. Half an hour later once more the little procession glinted a moment through the ground-floor window of the Queen’s stair as her Grace went to dinner. (She was not very well, the cooks had reported, and had eaten but little last night.) At twelve o’clock she came out again and went upstairs; and at the same time, in Leicester, a young man, splashed from head to foot, slipped off a draggled and exhausted horse and went into an inn, ordering a fresh horse to be ready for him at three o’clock.

And so once more the sun went down, and the little rituals were performed, and the guards were changed, and M. Landet, for the last time in his life (though he did not know it), came out from the kitchen with his white rod to bear it before the dishes of a Queen; and Sir Amyas walked in from the orchard and was saluted, and Mr. FitzWilliam went his rounds, and the drawbridge was raised. And, at the time that the drawbridge was raised, a young man on a horse was wondering when he should see the lights of Burton….

IV

The first that Mistress Manners knew of his coming in the early hours of Monday morning, was when she was awakened by Janet in the pitch darkness shaking her shoulder.

“It is a young man,” she said, “on foot. His horse fell five miles off.

He is come with a letter from Derby.”

Sleep fell from Marjorie like a cloak. This kind of thing had happened to her before. Now and then such a letter would come from a priest who lacked money or desired a guide or information. She sprang out of bed and began to put on her outer dress and her hooded cloak, as the night was cold.

“Bring him into the hall,” she said. “Get beer and some food, and blow the fire up.”

Janet vanished.

When the mistress came down five minutes later, all had been done as she had ordered. The turf and wood fire leaped in the chimney; a young man, still with his hat on his head and drawn down a little over his face, was sitting over the hearth, steaming like a kettle, eating voraciously. Janet was waiting discreetly by the doors. Marjorie nodded to her, and she went out; she had learned that her mistress’s secrets were not always her own as well.

“I am Mistress Manners,” she said. “You have a letter for me?”

The young man stood up.

“I know you well enough, mistress,” he said. “I am John Merton’s son.”

Marjorie’s heart leaped with relief. In spite of her determination that this must be a letter from a priest, there had still thrust itself before her mind the possibility that it might be that other letter whose coming she had feared. She had told herself fiercely as she came downstairs just now, that it could not be. No news was come from Fotheringay all the winter; it was common knowledge that her Grace had a priest of her own. And now that this was John Merton’s son—

She smiled.

“Give me the letter,” she said. “I should have known you, too, if it were not for the dark.”

“Well, mistress,” he said, “the letter was to be delivered to you, Mr.

Melville said; but—”

“Who?”

“Mr. Melville, mistress: her Grace’s steward at Fotheringay.”

He talked on a moment or two, beginning to say that Mr. Melville himself had come out to the inn, that he, as Melville’s own servant, had been lodging there, and had been bidden to hold himself in readiness, since he knew Derbyshire…. But she was not listening. She only knew that that had fallen which she feared.

“Give me the letter,” she said again.

He sat down, excusing himself, and fumbled with his boot; and by the time that he held it out to her, she was in the thick of the conflict. She knew well enough what it meant—that there was no peril in all England like that to which this letter called her friend, there, waiting for him in Fotheringay where every strange face was suspected, where a Popish priest was as a sheep in a den of wolves, where there would be no mercy at all if he were discovered; and where, if he were to be of use at all, he must adventure himself in the very spot where he would be most suspected, on a task that would be thought the last word in treason and disobedience. And, worst of all, this priest had lodged in the tavern where the conspirators had lodged; he had talked with them the night before their flight, and now, here he was, striving to get access to her for whom all had been designed. Was there a soul in England that could doubt his complicity?… And it was to her own house here in Derbyshire that he had come for shelter; it was here that he had said mass yesterday; and it must be from this house that he must ride, on one of her horses; and it must be her hand that gave him the summons. Last of all, it was she, Marjorie Manners, that had sent him to this life, six years ago.

Then, as she took the letter, the shrewd woman in her spoke. It was irresistible, and she seemed to listen to voice that was not hers.

“Does any here know that you are come?”

“No, mistress.”

“If I bade you, and said that I had reasons for it, you would ride away again alone, without a word to any?”

“Why, yes, mistress!”

(Oh! the plan was irresistible and complete. She would send this messenger away again on one of her own horses as far as Derby; he could leave the horse there, and she would send a man for it to-morrow. He would go back to Fotheringay and would wait, he and those that had sent him. And the priest they expected would not come. He, too, himself, had ceased to expect any word from Mr. Bourgoign; he had said a month ago that surely none would come now. He had been away from Booth’s Edge, in fact, for nearly a month, and had scarcely even asked on his return last Saturday to Padley, whether any message had come. Why, it was complete—complete and irresistible! She would burn the letter here in this hall-fire when the man was gone again; and say to Janet that the letter had been from a travelling priest that was in trouble, and that she had sent the answer. And Robin would presently cease to look for news, and the end would come, and there would be no more trouble.)

“Do you know what is in the letter?” she whispered sharply. (“Sit down again and go on eating.”)

He obeyed her.

“Yes, mistress,” he said. “The priest was taken from her on Saturday.

Mr. Bourgoign had arranged all in readiness for that.”

“You said Mr. Melville.”

“Mr. Melville is a Protestant, mistress; but he is very well devoted to her Grace, and has done as Mr. Bourgoign wished.”

“Why must her Grace have a priest at once? Surely for a few days—”

He glanced up at her, and she, conscious of her own falseness, thought he looked astonished.

“I mean that they will surely give her her priest back, again presently; and”—(her voice faltered)—”and Mr. Alban is spent with his travelling.”

“They mean to kill her, mistress. There is no doubt of it amongst those of us that are Catholics. And it is that she may have a priest before she dies, that—”

He paused.

“Yes?” she said.

“Her Grace had a fit of crying, it is said, when her priest was taken from her. Mr. Melville was crying himself, even though—”

He stopped, himself plainly affected.

Then, in a great surge, her own heart rose up, and she understood what she was doing. As in a vision, she saw her own mother crying out for the priest that never came; and she understood that horror of darkness that falls on one who, knowing what the priest can do, knowing the infinite consolations which Christ gives, is deprived, when physical death approaches, of that tremendous strength and comfort. Indeed, she recognised to the full that when a priest cannot be had, God will save and forgive without him; yet what would be the heartlessness, to say nothing of the guilt, of one that would keep him away? For what, except that this strength and comfort might be at the service of Christ’s flock, had her own life been spent? It was expressly for this that she had lived on in England when peace and the cloister might be hers elsewhere; and now that her own life was touched, should she fail?… The blindness passed like a dream, and her soul rose up again on a wave of pain and exaltation….

“Wait,” she said. “I will go and awaken him, and bid him come down.”

V

An hour later, as the first streaks of dawn slit the sky to the eastwards over the moors, she stood with Janet and Mistress Alice and Robin by the hall fire.

She had said not a word to any of the struggle she had passed through. She had gone upstairs resolutely and knocked on his door till he had answered, and then whispered, “The letter is come…. I will have food ready”; slipping the letter beneath the door.

Then she had sent Janet to awaken a couple of men that slept over the stables; and bid them saddle two horses at once; and herself had gone to the buttery to make ready a meal. Then Mistress Alice had awakened and come downstairs, and the three women had waited on the priest, as, in boots and cloak, he had taken some food.

Then, as the sound of the horses’ feet coming round from the stables at the back had reached them, she had determined to tell Robin before he went of how she had played the coward.

She went out with him to the entry between the hall and the buttery, holding the others back with a glance.

“I near destroyed the letter,” she said simply, with downcast eyes, “and sent the man away again. I was afraid of what might fall at Fotheringay…. May Christ protect you!”

She said no more than that, but turned and called the others before he could speak.

As he gathered up the reins a moment later, before mounting, the three women kneeled down in the lighted entry and the two farm-men by the horses’ heads, and the priest gave them his blessing.

CHAPTER VII

I

It was not until after dawn on Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of January, as the bells were ringing in the parish church for the Conversion of St. Paul, that the two draggled travellers rode in over the bridge of Fotheringay, seeing the castle-keep rise grim and grey out of the river-mists on the right; and, passing on, dismounted in the yard of the New Inn. They had had one or two small misadventures by the way, and young Merton, through sheer sleepiness, had so reeled in his saddle on the afternoon of Monday, that the priest had insisted that they should both have at least one good night’s rest. But they had ridden all Tuesday night without drawing rein, and Robin, going up to the room that he was to share with the young man, fell upon the bed, and asleep, all in one act.

He was awakened by the trumpets sounding for dinner in the castle-yard, and sat up to find young John looking at him. The news that he brought drove the last shreds of sleep from his brain.

“I have seen Mr. Melville, my master, sir. He bids me say it is useless for Mr. Bourgoign, or anyone else, to attempt anything with Sir Amyas for the present. Mr. Melville hath spoken to Sir Amyas as to his separation from her Grace, and could get no reason for it. But the same day—it was of Monday—her Grace’s butler was forbidden any more to carry the white rod before her dishes. This is as much as to signify, Mr. Melville says, that her Grace’s royalty shall no longer protect her. It is their intention, he says, to degrade her first, before they execute her. And we may look for the warrant any day, my master says.”

The young man stared at him mournfully.

“And M. de Préau?”

“M. de Préau goes about as a ghost. He will come and speak with your Reverence before the day is out. Meanwhile, Mr. Melville says you may walk abroad freely. Sir Amyas never goes forth of the castle now, and none will notice. But they might take notice, Mr. Melville says, if you were to lie all day in your chamber.”

It was after dinner, as Robin rose from the table in a parlour, where he had dined with two or three lawyers and an officer of Mr. FitzWilliam, that John Merton came to him and told him that a gentleman was waiting. He went upstairs and found the priest, a little timorous-looking man, dressed like a minister, pacing quickly to and fro in the tiny room at the top of the house where John and he were to sleep. The Frenchman seized his two hands and began to pour out in an agitated whisper a torrent of French and English. Robin disengaged himself.

“You must sit down, M. de Préau,” he said, “and speak slowly, or I shall not understand one word. Tell me precisely what I must do. I am here to obey orders—no more. I have no design in my head at all. I will do what Mr. Bourgoign and yourself decide.”

It was pathetic to watch the little priest. He interrupted himself by a thousand apostrophes; he lifted hands and eyes to the ceiling repeatedly; he named his poor mistress saint and martyr; he cried out against the barbarian land in which he found himself, and the bloodthirsty tigers with whom, like a second Daniel, he himself had to consort; he expatiated on the horrible risk that he ran in venturing forth from the castle on such an errand, saying that Sir Amyas would wring his neck like a hen’s, if he so much as suspected the nature of his business. He denounced, with feeble venom, the wickedness of these murderers, who would not only slay his mistress’s body, but her soul as well, if they could, by depriving her of a priest. Incidentally, however, he disclosed that at present there was no plan at all for Robin’s admission. Mr. Bourgoign had sent for him, hoping that he might be able to reintroduce him once more on the same pretext as at Chartley; but the incident of Monday, when the white rod had been forbidden, and the conversation of Sir Amyas to Mr. Melville had made it evident that an attempt at present would be worse than useless.

“You must yourself choose!” he cried, with an abominable accent. “If you will imperil your life by remaining, our Lord will no doubt reward you in eternity; but, if not, and you flee, not a man will blame you—least of all myself, who would, no doubt, flee too, if I but dared.”

This was frank and humble, at any rate. Robin smiled.

“I will remain,” he said.

The Frenchman seized his hands and kissed them.

“You are a hero and a martyr, monsieur! We will perish together, therefore.”

II

After the Frenchman’s departure, and an hour’s sleep in that profundity of unconsciousness that follows prolonged effort, Robin put on his sword and hat and cloak, having dressed himself with care, and went slowly out of the inn to inspect the battlefield. He carried himself deliberately, with a kind of assured insolence, as if he had supreme rights in this place, and were one of that crowd of persons—great lords, lawyers, agents of the court—to whom for the last few months Fotheringay had become accustomed. He turned first to the right towards the castle, and presently was passing down its long length.

It looked, indeed, a royal prison. A low wall on his right protected the road from the huge outer moat that ran, in the shape of a fetterlock, completely round all the buildings; and beyond it, springing immediately from the edge of the water, rose the massive outer wall, pierced here and there with windows. He thought that he could make out the tops of the hall windows in one place, beyond the skirting wall, the pinnacles of the chapel in another, and a row of further windows that might be lodgings in a third; but from without here nothing was certain, except the gigantic keep, that stood high to the west, and the strong towers that guarded the drawbridge; this, as he went by, was lowered to its place, and he could look across it into the archway, where four men stood on guard with their pikes. The inner doors, however, were closed beyond them, and he could see nothing of the inner moat that surrounded the court, nor the yard itself. Neither did he think it prudent to ask any questions, though he looked freely about him; since the part he must play for the present plainly was that of one who had a right here and knew what he did.

He came back to the inn an hour later, after a walk through the village and round the locked church: this was a splendid building, with flying buttresses and a high tower, with exterior carvings of saints and evangelists all in place. But it looked desolate to him, and he was the more dejected, as he seemed no nearer to the Queen than before, and with little chance of getting there. Meanwhile, there was but one thing to be done, and that the hardest of all—to wait. Perhaps in a few days he might get speech with Mr. Bourgoign; yet for the present than, too, as the priest had told him, was out of the question.

III

Five days were gone by, Sunday had come and gone, and yet there had been no news, except a letter conveyed to him by Merton, written by Mr. Bourgoign himself, telling him that he had news that Mr. Beale, the Clerk of the Council, was to arrive some time that week, and that this presaged the approach of the end. He would, therefore, do his utmost within the next few days to approach Sir Amyas and ask for the admission of the young herbalist who had done her Grace so much good at Chartley. He added that if any question were to be raised as to why he had been so long in the place, and why, indeed, he had come at all, he was to answer fearlessly that Mr. Bourgoign had sent for him.

On the Sunday night Robin could not sleep. Little by little the hideous suspense was acting upon him, and the knowledge that not a hundred yards away from him the wonderful woman whom he had seen at Chartley, the loving and humble Catholic, who had kneeled so ardently before her Lord, the Queen who had received from him the sacraments for which she thirsted—the knowledge that she was breaking her heart, so near, for the consolation which a priest only could give, and that he, a priest, was free to go through all England, except through that towered gateway past which he walked every day—this increased his misery and his longing.

The very day he had been through—the Sunday on which he could neither say nor even hear mass (for, because of the greatness of that which was at stake, he had thought it wiser to bring with him nothing that could arouse suspicion)—and the hearing of the bells from the church calling to Protestant prayers, and the sight of the crowds going and returning—this brought him lower than he had been since his first coming to England. He lay then in the darkness, turning from side to side, thinking of these things, listening to the breathing of the young man who lay on blankets at the foot of his bed.

About midnight he could lie there no longer. He got out of bed noiselessly, stepped across the other, went to the window-seat and sat down there, staring out, with eyes well accustomed to the darkness, towards the vast outline against the sky which he knew was the keep of the castle. No light burned there to relieve its brutality. It remained there, implacable as English justice, immovable as the heart of Elizabeth and the composure of the gaoler who kept it…. Then he drew out Mr. Maine’s rosary and began to recite the “Sorrowful Mysteries.”…

He supposed afterwards that he had begun to doze; but he started, wide-awake, at a sudden glare of light in his eyes, as if a beacon had flared for an instant somewhere within the castle enclosure. It was gone again, however; there remained the steady monstrous mass of building and the heavy sky. Then, as he watched, it came again, without warning and without sound—that same brilliant flare of light, against which the towers and walls stood out pitch-black. A third time it came, and all was dark once more.

In the morning, as he sat over his ale in the tavern below, he listened, without lifting his eyes, engrossed, it seemed, in a little book he was reading, to the excited talk of a group of soldiers. One of them, he said, had been on guard beneath the Queen’s windows last night, and between midnight and one o’clock had seen three times a brilliant light explode itself, like soundless gunpowder, immediately over the room where she slept. And this he asserted, over and over again.

IV

On the following Saturday John Merton came up into the room where the priest was sleeping after dinner and awakened him.

“If you will come at once with me, sir, you can have speech with Mr. Bourgoign. My master has sent me to tell you so; Mr. Bourgoign has leave to go out.”

Robin said nothing. It was the kind of opportunity that must not be imperilled by a single word that might be overheard. He threw on his great cloak, buckled his sword on, and followed with every nerve awake. They went up the street leading towards the church, and turned down a little passage-way between two of the larger houses; the young man pushed on a door in the wall; and Robin went through, to find himself in a little enclosed garden with Mr. Bourgoign gathering herbs from the border, not a yard from him. The physician said nothing; he glanced sharply up and pointed to a seat set under the shelter of the wall that hid the greater part of the garden from the house to which it belonged; and as Robin reached it, Mr. Bourgoign, still gathering his herbs, began to speak in an undertone.

“Do not speak except very softly, if you must,” he said. “The Queen is sick again; and I have leave to gather herbs for her in two or three gardens. It was refused to me at first and then granted afterwards. From that I look for the worst…. Beale will come to-morrow, I hear…. Paulet refused me leave the first time, I make no doubt, knowing that all was to end within a day or two: then he granted it me, for fear I should suspect his reason. (Can you hear me, sir?)”

Robin nodded. His heart thumped within him.

“Well, sir; I shall tell Sir Amyas to-morrow that my herbs do no good—that I do not know what to give her Grace. I have seen her Grace continually, but with a man in the room always…. Her Grace knows that you are here, and bids me thank you with all her heart…. I shall speak to Sir Amyas, and shall tell him that you are here: and that I sent for you, but did not dare to ask leave for you until now. If he refuses I shall know that all is finished, and that Beale has brought the warrant with him…. If he consents I shall think that it is put off for a little….”

He was very near to Robin now, still, with a critical air pushing the herbs this way and that, selecting one now and again.

“Have you anything to say to me, sir? Do not speak loud. The fellow that conducted me from the castle is drinking ale in the house behind. He did not know of this door on the side…. Have you anything to say?”

“Yes,” said Robin.

“What is it?”

“Two things. The first is that I think one of the fellows in the inn is doubtful of me. Merton tells me he has asked a great number of questions about me. What had I best do?”

“Who is he?”

“He is a servant of my lord Shrewsbury’s who is in the neighbourhood.”

The doctor was silent.

“Am I in danger?” asked the priest quietly. “Shall I endanger her

Grace?”

“You cannot endanger her Grace. She is near her end in any case. But for yourself—”

“Yes.”

“You are endangering yourself every instant by remaining,” said the doctor dryly.

“The second matter—” began Robin.

“But what of yourself—”

“Myself must be endangered,” said Robin softly. “The second matter is whether you cannot get me near her Grace in the event of her execution. I could at least give her absolution sub conditione.”

Mr. Bourgoign shot a glance at him which he could not interpret.

“Sir,” he said; “God will reward you…. As regards the second matter it will be exceedingly difficult. If it is to be in the open court, I may perhaps contrive it. If it is to be in the hall, none but known persons would be admitted…. Have you anything more, sir?”

“No.”

“Then you had best be gone again at once…. Her Grace prays for you…. She had a fit of weeping last night to know that a priest was here and she not able to have him…. Do you pray for her….”

V

Sunday morning dawned; the bells pealed out; the crowds went by the church and came back to dinner; and yet no word had come to the inn. Robin scarcely stirred out all that day for fear a summons should come and he miss it. He feigned a little illness and sat wrapped up in the corner window of the parlour upstairs, whence he could command both roads—that which led to the Castle, and that which led to the bridge over which Mr. Beale must come. He considered it prudent also to do this, because of the fellow of whom Merton had told him—a man that looked like a groom, and who was lent, he heard, with one or two others by his master to do service at the Castle.

Robin’s own plan had been distinct ever since M. de Préau had brought him the first message. He bore himself, as has been said, assuredly and confidently; and if he were questioned would simply have said that he had business connected with the Castle. This, asserted in a proper tone, would probably have its effect. There was so much mystery, involving such highly-placed personages from the Queen of England downwards, that discretion was safer than curiosity.

It was growing towards dark when Robin, after long and fruitless staring down the castle road, turned himself to the other. The parlour was empty at this hour except for himself.

He saw the group gathering as usual at the entrance to the bridge to watch the arrivals from London, who, if there were any, generally came about this time.

Then, as he looked, he saw two horsemen mount the further slope of the bridge, and come full into view.

Now there was nothing whatever about these two persons, in outward appearance, to explain the strange effect they had upon the priest. They could not possibly be the party for which he was watching. Mr. Beale would certainly come with a great company. They were, besides, plainly no more than serving-men: one wore some kind of a livery; the other, a strongly-built man who sat his horse awkwardly, was in new clothes that did not fit him. They rode ordinary hackneys; and each had luggage strapped behind his saddle. All this the priest saw as they came up the narrow street and halted before the inn door. They might, perhaps, be servants of Mr. Beale; yet that did not seem probable as there was no sign of a following party. The landlord came out on to the steps beneath; and after a word or two, they slipped off their horses wearily, and led them round into the court of the inn.

All this was usual enough; the priest had seen such arrivals a dozen times at this very door; yet he felt sick as he looked at them. There appeared to him something terrible and sinister about them. He had seen the face of the liveried servant; but not of the other: this one had carried his head low, with his great hat drawn down on his head. The priest wondered, too, what they carried in their trunks.

When he went down to supper in the great room of the inn, he could not forbear looking round for them. But only one was to be seen—the liveried servant who had done the talking.

Robin turned to his neighbour—a lawyer with whom he had spoken a few times.

“That is a new livery to me,” he said, nodding towards the stranger.

“That?” said the lawyer. “That? Why, that is the livery of Mr.

Walsingham. I have seen it in London.”

Towards the end of supper a stir broke out among the servants who sat at the lower end of the room near the windows that looked out upon the streets. Two or three sprung up from the tables and went to look out.

“What is that?” cried the lawyer.

“It is Mr. Beale going past, sir,” answered a voice.

Robin lifted his eyes with an effort and looked. Even as he did so there came a trampling of horses’ hoofs; and then, in the light that streamed from the windows, there appeared a company on horseback. They were too far away from where he sat, and the lights were too confusing, for him to see more than the general crowd that went by—perhaps from a dozen to twenty all told. But by them ran the heads of men who had waited at the bridge to see them go by; and a murmuring of voices came even through the closed windows. It was plain that others besides those who were close to her Grace, saw a sinister significance in Mr. Beale’s arrival.

VI

Robin had hardly reached his room after supper and a little dessert in the parlour, before Merton came in. He drew his hand out of his breast as he entered, and, with a strange look, gave the priest a folded letter. Robin took it without a word and read it through.

After a pause he said to the other:

“Who were those two men that came before supper? I saw them ride up.”

“There is only one, sir. He is one of Mr. Walsingham’s men.”

“There were two,” said the priest.

“I will inquire, sir,” said the young man, looking anxiously from the priest’s face to the note and back again.

Robin noticed it.

“It is bad news,” he said shortly. “I must say no more…. Will you inquire for me; and come and tell me at once.”

When the young man had gone Robin read the note again before destroying it.

“I spoke to Sir A. to-day. He will have none of it. He seemed highly suspicious when I spoke to him of you. If you value your safety more than her Grace’s possible comfort, you had best leave at once. In any case, use great caution.”

Then, in a swift, hurried hand there followed a post-script:

“Mr. B. is just now arrived, and is closeted with Sir A. All is over, I think.”

Ten minutes later Merton came back and found the priest still in the same attitude, sitting on the bed.

“They will have none of it, sir,” he said. “They say that one only came, in advance of Mr. Beale.”

He came a little closer, and Robin could see that he was excited.

“But you are right, sir, for all their lies. I saw supper plates and an empty flagon come down from the stair that leads to the little chamber above the kitchen.”

CHAPTER VIII

I

Overhead lay the heavy sky of night-clouds like a curved sheet of dark steel, glimmering far away to the left with gashes of pale light. In front towered the twin gateway, seeming in the gloom to lean forward to its fall. Lights shone here and there in the windows, vanished and appeared again, flashing themselves back from the invisible water beneath. About, behind and on either side, there swayed and murmured this huge crowd—invisible in the darkness—peasants, gentlemen, clerks, grooms—all on an equality at last, awed by a common tragedy into silence, except for words exchanged here and there in an undertone, or whispered and left unanswered, or sudden murmured prayers to a God who hid Himself indeed. Now and again, from beyond the veiling walls came the tramp of men; once, three or four brisk notes blown on a horn; once, the sudden rumble of a drum; and once, when the silence grew profound, three or four blows of iron on wood. But at that the murmur rose into a groan and drowned it again….

So the minutes passed…. Since soon after midnight the folks had been gathering here. Many had not slept all night, ever since the report had run like fire through the little town last evening, that the sentence had been delivered to the prisoner. From that time onwards the road that led down past the Castle had never been empty. It was now moving on to dawn, the late dawn of February; and every instant the scene grew more distinct. It was possible for those pushed against the wall, or against the chains of the bridge that had been let down an hour ago, to look down into the chilly water of the moat; to see not the silhouette only of the huge fortress, but the battlements of the wall, and now and again a steel cap and a pike-point pass beyond it as the sentry went to and fro. Noises within the Castle grew more frequent. The voice of an officer was heard half a dozen times; the rattle of pike-butts, the clash of steel. The melancholy bray of the horn-blower ran up a minor scale and down again; the dub-dub of a drum rang out, and was thrown back in throbs by the encircling walls. The galloping of horses was heard three or four times as a late-comer tore up the village street and was forced to halt far away on the outskirts of the crowd—some country squire, maybe, to whom the amazing news had come an hour ago. Still there was no movement of the great doors across the bridge. The men on guard there shifted their positions; nodded a word or two across to one another; changed their pikes from one hand to the other. It seemed as if day would come and find the affair no further advanced….

Then, without warning (for so do great climaxes always come), the doors wheeled back on their hinges, disclosing a line of pikemen drawn up under the vaulted entrance; a sharp command was uttered by an officer at their head, causing the two sentries to advance across the bridge; a great roaring howl rose from the surging crowd; and in an instant the whole lane was in confusion. Robin felt himself pushed this way and that; he struggled violently, driving his elbows right and left; was lifted for a moment clean from his feet by the pressure about him; slipped down again; gained a yard or two; lost them; gained three or four in a sudden swirl; and immediately found his feet on wood instead of earth; and himself racing desperately as a loose group of runners, across the bridge; and beneath the arch of the castle-gate.

II

When he was able to take breath again, and to substitute thought for blind instinct, he found himself tramping in a kind of stream of men into what appeared an impenetrably packed crowd. He was going between ropes, however, which formed a lane up which it was possible to move. This lane, after crossing half the court, wheeled suddenly to one side and doubled on itself, conducting the newcomers behind the crowd of privileged persons that had come into the castle overnight, or had been admitted three or four hours ago. These persons were all people of quality; many of them, out of a kind of sympathy for what was to happen, were in black. They stood there in rows, scarcely moving, scarcely speaking, some even bare-headed, filling up now, so far as the priest could see, the entire court, except in that quarter in which he presently found himself—the furthest corner away from where rose up the tall carved and traceried windows of the banqueting-hall. Yet, though no man spoke above an undertone, a steady low murmur filled the court from side to side, like the sound of a wagon rolling over a paved road.

He reached his place at last, actually against the wall of the soldiers’ lodgings, and found, presently, that a low row of projecting stones enabled him to raise himself a few inches, and see, at any rate, a little better than his neighbours. He had perceived one thing instantly—namely, that his dream of getting near enough to the Queen to give her absolution before her death was an impossible one. He had known since yesterday that the execution was to take place in the hall, and here was he, within the court certainly, yet as far as possible away from where he most desired to be.

The last two days had gone by in a horror that there is no describing. All the hours of them he had passed at his parlour window, waiting hopelessly for the summons which never came. John Merton had gone to the castle and come back, each time with more desolate news. There was not a possibility, he said, when the news was finally certified, of getting a place in the hall. Three hundred gentlemen had had those places already assigned; four or five hundred more, it was expected, would have space reserved for them in the courtyard. The only possibility was to be early at the gateway, since a limited number of these would probably be admitted an hour or so before the time fixed for the execution.

The priest had seen many sights from his parlour window during those two days.

On Monday he had seen, early in the morning, Mr. Beale ride out with his men to go to my lord Shrewsbury, who was in the neighbourhood, and had seen him return in time for dinner, with a number of strangers, among whom was an ecclesiastic. On inquiry, he found this to be Dr. Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, who had been appointed to attend Mary both in her lodgings and upon the scaffold. In the afternoon the street was not empty for half an hour. From all sides poured in horsemen; gentlemen riding in with their servants; yeomen and farmers come in from the countryside, that they might say hereafter that they had at least been in Fotheringay when a Queen suffered the death of the axe. So the dark had fallen, yet lights moved about continually, and horses’ hoofs never ceased to beat or the voices of men to talk. Until he fell asleep at last in his window-seat, he listened always to these things; watched the lights; prayed softly to himself; clenched his nails into his hands for indignation; and looked again. On the Tuesday morning came the sheriff, to dine at the castle with Sir Amyas—a great figure of a man, dignified and stalwart, riding in the midst of his men. After dinner came the Earl of Kent, and, last of all, my lord Shrewsbury himself—he who had been her Grace’s gaoler, until he proved too kind for Elizabeth’s taste—now appointed, with peculiar malice, to assist at her execution. He looked pale and dejected as he rode past beneath the window.

Yet all this time the supreme horror had been that the end was not absolutely certain. All in Fotheringay were as convinced as men could be, who had not seen the warrant nor heard it read, that Mr. Beale had brought it with him on Sunday night; the priest, above all, from his communications with Mr. Bourgoign, was morally certain that the terror was come at last…. It was not until the last night of Mary’s life on earth was beginning to close in that John Merton came up to the parlour, white and terrified, to tell him that he had been in his master’s room half an hour ago, and that Mr. Melville had come in to them, his face all slobbered with tears, and had told him that he had but just come from her Grace’s rooms, and had heard with his own ears the sentence read to her, and her gallant and noble answer…. He had bidden him to go straight off to the priest, with a message from Mr. Bourgoign and himself, to the effect that the execution was appointed for eight o’clock next morning; and that he was to be at the gate of the castle not later than three o’clock, if, by good fortune, he might be admitted when the gates were opened at seven.

III

And now that the priest was in his place, he began again to think over that answer of the Queen. The very words of it, indeed, he did not know for a month or two later, when Mr. Bourgoign wrote to him at length; but this, at least, he knew, that her Grace had said (and no man contradicted her at that time) that she would shed her blood to-morrow with all the happiness in the world, since it was for the cause of the Catholic and Roman Church that she died. It was not for any plot that she was to die: she professed again, kissing her Bible as she did so, that she was utterly guiltless of any plot against her sister. She died because she was of that Faith in which she had been born, and which Elizabeth had repudiated. As for death, she did not fear it; she had looked for it during all the eighteen years of her imprisonment.

It was at a martyrdom, then, that he was to assist…. He had known that, without a doubt, ever since the day that Mary had declared her innocence at Chartley. There had been no possibility of thinking otherwise; and, as he reflected on this, he remembered that he, too, was guilty of the same crime;… and he wondered whether he, too, would die as manfully, if the need for it ever came.

Then, in an instant, he was called back, by the sudden crash of horns and drums playing all together. He saw again the ranks of heads before him: the great arched windows of the hall on the other side of the court, the grim dominating keep, and the merciless February morning sky over all.

It was impossible to tell what was going on.

On all sides of him men jostled and murmured aloud. One said, “She is coming down”; another, “It is all over”; another, “They have awakened her.” “What is it? what is it?” whispered Robin to the air, watching waves of movement pass over the serried heads before him. The lights were still burning here and there in the windows, and the tall panes of the hall were all aglow, as if a great fire burned within. Overhead the sky had turned to daylight at last, but they were grey clouds that filled the heavens so far as he could see. Meanwhile, the horns brayed in unison, a rough melody like the notes of bugles, and the drums beat out the time.

Again there was a long pause—in which the lapse of time was incalculable. Time had no meaning here: men waited from incident to incident only—the moving of a line of steel caps, a pause in the music, a head thrust out from a closed window and drawn back again…. Again the music broke out, and this time it was an air that they played—a lilting melancholy melody, that the priest recognised, yet could not identify. Men laughed subduedly near him; he saw a face wrinkled with bitter mirth turned back, and he heard what was said. It was “Jumping Joan” that was being played—the march consecrated to the burning of witches. He had heard it long ago, as a boy….

Then the rumour ran through the crowd, and spent itself at last in the corner where the priest stood trembling with wrath and pity.

“She is in the hall.”

It was impossible to know whether this were true, or whether she had not been there half an hour already. The horror was that all might be over, or not yet begun, or in the very act of doing. He had thought that there would be some pause or warning—that a signal would be given, perhaps, that all might bare their heads or pray, at this violent passing of a Queen. But there was none. The heads surged and quieted; murmurs burst out and died again; and all the while the hateful, insolent melody rose and fell; the horns bellowed; the drums crashed. It sounded like some shocking dance-measure; a riot of desperate spirits moved in it, trampling up and down, as if in one last fling of devilish gaiety….

Then suddenly the heads grew still; a wave of motionlessness passed over them, as if some strange sympathy were communicated from within those tall windows. The moments passed and passed. It was impossible to hear those murmurs, through the blare of the instruments; there was one sound only that could penetrate them; and this, rising from what seemed at first the wailing of a child, grew and grew into the shrill cries of a dog in agony. At the noise once more a roar of low questioning surged up and fell. Simultaneously the music came to an abrupt close; and, as if at a signal, there sounded a great roar of voices, all shouting together within the hall. It rose yet louder, broke out of doors, and was taken up by those outside. The court was now one sea of tossing heads and open mouths shouting—as if in exultation or in anger. Robin fought for his place on the projecting stones, clung to the rough wall, gripped a window-bar and drew himself yet higher.

Then, as he clenched himself tight and stared out again towards the tall windows that shone in bloody flakes of fire from the roaring logs within; a sudden and profound silence fell once more before being shattered again by a thousand roaring throats….

For there, in full view beyond the clear glass stood a tall, black figure, masked to the mouth, who held in his out-stretched hands a wide silver dish, in which lay something white and round and slashed with crimson….

PART IV

CHAPTER I

I

“There is no more to be said, then,” said Marjorie, and leaned back, with a white, exhausted face. “We can do no more.”

It was a little council of Papists that was gathered—a year after the Queen’s death at Fotheringay—in Mistress Manners’ parlour. Mr. John FitzHerbert was there; he had ridden up an hour before with heavy news from Padley and its messenger. Mistress Alice was there, quiet as ever, yet paler and thinner than in former years (Mistress Babington herself had gone back to her family last year). And, last, Robin himself was there, having himself borne the news from Derby.

He had had an eventful year, yet never yet had he come within reach of the pursuivant. But he had largely effected this by the particular care which he had observed with regard to Matstead, and his silence as to his own identity. Extraordinary care, too, was observed by his friends, who had learned by now to call him even in private by his alias; and it appeared certain that beyond a dozen or two of discreet persons it was utterly unsuspected that the stately bearded young gentleman named Mr. Robert Alban—the “man of God,” as, like other priests, he was commonly called amongst the Catholics—had any connection whatever with the hawking, hunting, and hard-riding lover of Mistress Manners. It was known, indeed, that Mr. Robin had gone abroad years ago to be made priest; but those who thought of him at all, or, at least as returned, believed him sent to some other part of England, for the sake of his father, and it was partly because of the very fact that his father was so hot against the Papists that it had been thought safe at Rheims to send him to Derbyshire, since this would be the very last place in which he would be looked for.

He had avoided Matstead then—riding through it once only by night, with strange emotions—and had spent most of his time in the south of Derbyshire, crossing more than once over into Stafford and Chester, and returning to Padley or to Booth’s Edge once in every three or four months. He had learned a hundred lessons in these wanderings of his.

The news that he had now brought with him was of the worst. He had heard from Catholics in Derby that Mr. Simpson, returned again after his banishment, recaptured a month or two ago, and awaiting trial at the Lent Assizes, was beginning to falter. Death was a certainty for him this time, and it appeared that he had seemed very timorous before two or three friends who had visited him in gaol, declaring that he had done all that a man could do, that he was being worn out by suffering and privation, and that there was some limit, after all, to what God Almighty should demand.

Marjorie had cried out just now, driven beyond herself at the thought of what all this must mean for the Catholics of the countryside, many of whom already had fallen away during the last year or two beneath the pitiless storm of fines, suspicions, and threats—had cried out that it was impossible that such a man as Mr. Simpson could fall; that the ruin it would bring upon the Faith must be proportionate to the influence he already had won throughout the country by his years of labour; entreating, finally, when the trustworthiness of the report had been forced upon her at last, that she herself might be allowed to go and see him and speak with him in prison.

This, however, had been strongly refused by her counsellors just now. They had declared that her help was invaluable; that the amazing manner in which her little retired house on the moors had so far evaded grave suspicion rendered it one of the greatest safeguards that the hunted Catholics possessed; that the work she was doing by her organization of messengers and letters must not be risked, even for the sake of a matter like this….

She had given in at last. But her spirit seemed broken altogether.

II

“There is one more matter,” said Robin presently, uncrossing one splashed leg from over the other. “I had not thought to speak of it; but I think it best now to do so. It concerns myself a little; and, therefore, if I may flatter myself, it concerns my friends, too.”

He smiled genially upon the company; for if there was one thing more than another he had learned in his travels, it was that the tragic air never yet helped any man.

Marjorie lifted her eyes a moment.

“Mistress Manners,” he said, “you remember my speaking to you after Fotheringay, of a fellow of my lord Shrewsbury’s who honoured me with his suspicions?”

She nodded.

“I have never set eyes on him from that day to this—to this,” he added. “And this morning in the open street in Derby whom should I meet with but young Merton and his father. (Her Grace’s servants have suffered horribly since last year. But that is a tale for another day.) Well: I stopped to speak with these two. The young man hath left Mr. Melville’s service a while back, it seems; and is to try his fortune in France. Well; we were speaking of this and that, when who should come by but a party of men and my lord Shrewsbury in the midst, riding with Mr. Roger Columbell; and immediately behind them my friend of the ‘New Inn’ of Fotheringay. It was all the ill-fortune in the world that it should be at such moment; if he had seen me alone he would have thought no more of me; but seeing me with young Jack Merton, he looked from one to the other. And I will stake my hat he knew me again.”

Marjorie was looking full at him now.

“What was my lord Shrewsbury doing in Derby with Mr. Columbell?” mused

Mr. John, biting his moustaches.

“It was the very question I put to myself,” said Robin. “And I took the liberty of seeing where they went. They went to Mr. Columbell’s own house, and indoors of it. The serving-men held the horses at the door. I watched them awhile from Mr. Biddell’s window; but they were still there when I came away at last.”

“What hour was that?” asked the old man.

“That would be after dinner-time. I had dined early; and I met them afterwards. My lord would surely be dining with Mr. Columbell. But that is no answer to my question. It rather pierces down to the further point, Why was my lord Shrewsbury dining with Mr. Columbell? Shrewsbury is a great lord; Mr. Columbell is a little magistrate. My lord hath his own house in the country, and there be good inns in Derby.”

He stopped short.

“What is the matter, Mistress Manners?” he asked.

“What of yourself?” she said sharply; “you were speaking of yourself.”

Robin laughed.

“I had forgotten myself for once!… Why, yes; I intended to ask the company what I had best do. What with this news of Mr. Simpson, and the report Mistress Manners gives us of the country-folk, a poor priest must look to himself in these days; and not for his own sake only. Now, my lord Shrewsbury’s man knows nothing of me except that I had strange business at Fotheringay a year ago. But to have had strange business at Fotheringay a year ago is a suspicious circumstance; and—”

“Mr. Alban,” broke in the old man, “you had best do nothing at all. You were not followed from Derby; you are as safe in Padley or here as you could be anywhere in England. All that you had best do is to remain here a week or two and not go down to Derby again for the present. I think that showing of yourself openly in towns hath its dangers as well as its safeguards.”

Mr. John glanced round. Marjorie bowed her head in assent.

“I will do precisely as you say,” said Robin easily. “And now for the news of her Grace’s servants.”

He had already again and again told the tale of Fotheringay so far as he had seen it in this very parlour. At first he had hardly found himself able to speak of it without tears. He had described the scene he had looked upon when, in the rush that had been made towards the hall after Mary’s head had been shown at the window, he had found a place, and had been forced along, partly with his will and partly against it, right through the great doors into the very place where the Queen had suffered; and he had told the story so well that his listeners had seemed to see it for themselves—the great hall hung with black throughout; the raised scaffold at the further end beside the fire that blazed on the wide hearth; the Queen’s servants being led away half-swooning as he came in; the dress of velvet, the straw and the bloody sawdust, the beads and all the other pitiful relics being heaped upon the fire as he stood there in the struggling mob; and, above all, the fallen body, in its short skirt and bodice lying there where it fell beside the low, black block. He had told all this as he had seen it for himself, until the sheriff’s men drove them all forth again into the court; and he had told, too, of all that he had heard afterwards, that had happened until my lord Shrewsbury’s son had ridden out at a gallop to take the news to court, and the imprisoned watchers had been allowed to leave the Castle; how the little dog, that he had heard wailing, had leapt out as the head fell at the third stroke, so that he was all bathed in his mistress’ blood—one of the very spaniels, no doubt, which he himself had seen at Chartley; how the dog was taken away and washed and given afterwards into Mr. Melville’s charge; how the body and the head had been taken upstairs, had been roughly embalmed, and laid in a locked chamber; how her servants had been found peeping through the keyhole and praying aloud there, till Sir Amyas had had the hole stopped up. He had told them, too, of the events that followed; of the mass M. de Préau had been permitted to say in the Queen’s oratory on the morning after; and of the oath that he had been forced to take that he would not say it again; of the destruction of the oratory and the confiscation of the altar furniture and vestments.

All this he had told, little by little; and of the Queen’s noble bearing upon the scaffold, her utter fearlessness, her protestations that she died for her religion and for that only, and of the pesterings of Dr. Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, who had at last given over in despair, and prayed instead. The rest they knew for themselves—of the miserable falseness of Elizabeth, who feigned, after having signed the warrant and sent it, that it was Mr. Davison’s fault for doing as she told him; and of her accusations (accusations that deceived no man) against those who had served her; of the fires made in the streets of all great towns as a mark of official rejoicing over Mary’s death; and of the pitiful restitution made by the great funeral in Peterborough, six months after, and the royal escutcheons and the tapers and the hearse, and all the rest of the lying pretences by which the murderess sought to absolve her victim from the crime of being murdered. Well; it was all over….

And now he told them of what he had heard to-day from young Merton in Derby; of how Nau, Mary’s French secretary—the one who had served her for eleven years and had been loaded by her kindness—had been rewarded also by Elizabeth, and that the nature of his services was unmistakable; while all the rest of them, who had refused utterly to take any part in the insolent mourning at Peterborough, either in the Cathedral or at the banquet, had fallen under her Grace’s displeasure, so that some of them, even now, were scarcely out of ward, Mr. Bourgoign alone excepted, since he was allowed to take the news of the death to their Graces of France, and had, most wisely, remained there ever since.

So the party sat round the fire in the same little parlour where they had sat so often before, with the lutes and wreaths embroidered on the hangings and Icarus in the chariot of the sun; and Robin, after telling his tale, answered question after question, till silence fell, and all sat motionless, thinking of the woman who, while dead, yet spoke.

Then Mr. John stood up, clapped the priest on the back, and said that they two must be off to Padley for the night.

III

They had all risen to their feet when a knocking came on the door, and

Janet looked in. She seemed a little perturbed.

“If you please, sir,” she said to Mr. John, “one of your men is come up from Padley; and wishes to speak to you alone.”

Mr. John gave a quick glance at the others.

“If you will allow me,” he said, “I will go down and speak with him in the hall.”

The rest sat down again. It was the kind of interruption that might be wholly innocent; yet, coming when it did, it affected them a little. There seemed to be nothing but bad news everywhere.

The minutes passed, yet no one returned. Once Marjorie went to the door and listened, but there was only the faint wail of the winter wind up the stairs to be heard. Then, five minutes later, there were steps and Mr. John came in. His face looked a little stern, but he smiled with his mouth.

“We poor Papists are in trouble again,” he said. “Mistress Manners, you must let us stay here all night, if you will; and we will be off early in the morning. There is a party coming to us from Derby—to-morrow or next day: it is not known which.”

“Why, yes! And what party?” said Marjorie, quietly enough, though she must have guessed its character. The smile left his mouth.

“It is my son that is behind it,” he said. “I had wondered we had not had news of him! There is to be a general search for seminarists in the High Peak” (he glanced at Robin), “by order of my lord Shrewsbury. Your namesake, mistress, Mr. John Manners, and our friend Mr. Columbell, are commissioned to search; and Mr. Fenton and myself are singled out to be apprehended immediately. Thomas knows that I am at Padley, and that Mr. Eyre will come in there for Candlemas, the day after to-morrow; in that I recognize my son’s knowledge. Well, I will dispatch my man who brought the news to Mr. Eyre to bid him to avoid the place; and we two, Mr. Alban and myself, will make our way across the border into Stafford.”

“There are none others coming to Padley to-morrow?” asked Marjorie.

“None that I know of. They will come in sometimes without warning; but I cannot help that. Mr. Fenton will be at Tansley: he told me so.”

“How did the news come?” asked Robin.

“It seems that the preacher Walton, in Derby, hath been warned that we shall be delivered to him two days hence. It was his servant that told one of mine. I fear he will be a-preparing his sermons to us, all for nothing.”

He smiled bitterly again. Robin could see the misery in this man’s heart at the thought that it was his own son who had contrived this. Mr. Thomas had been quiet for many months, no doubt in order to strike the more surely in his new function as “sworn man” of her Grace. Yet he would seem to have failed.

“We shall not get our candles then, this year either,” smiled Mr.

Thomas. “Lanterns are all that we shall have.”

There was not much time to be lost. Luggage had to be packed, since it would not be safe for the three to return until at least two or three weeks had passed; and Marjorie, besides, had to prepare a list of places and names that must be dealt with on their way—places where word must be left that the hunt was up again, and names of particular persons that were to be warned. Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam were in the county, and these must be specially informed, since they were known, and Mr. Garlick in particular had already suffered banishment and returned again, so that there would be no hope for him if he were once more captured.

The four sat late that night; and Robin wondered more than ever, not only at the self-command of the girl, but at her extraordinary knowledge of Catholic affairs in the county. She calculated, almost without mistake, as was afterwards shown, not only which priests were in Derbyshire, but within a very few miles of where they would be and at what time: she showed, half-smiling, a kind of chart which she had drawn up, of the movements of the persons concerned, explaining the plan by which each priest (if he desired) might go on his own circuit where he would be most needed. She lamented, however, the fewness of the priests, and attributed to this the growing laxity of many families—living, it might be, in upland farms or in inaccessible places, where they could but very seldom have the visits of the priest and the strength of the sacraments.

Before midnight, therefore, the two travellers had complete directions for their journey, as well as papers to help their memories, as to where the news was to be left. And at last Mr. John stood up and stretched himself.

“We must go to bed,” he said. “We must be booted by five.”

Marjorie nodded to Alice, who stood up, saying she would show him where his bed had been prepared.

Robin lingered for a moment to finish his last notes.

“Mr. Alban,” said Marjorie suddenly, without lifting her eyes from the paper on which she wrote.

“Yes?”

“You will take care to-morrow, will you not?” she said. “Mr. John is a little hot-headed. You must keep him to his route?”

“I will do my best,” said Robin, smiling.

She lifted her clear eyes to his without tremor or shame.

“My heart would be broken altogether if aught happened to you. I look to you as our Lord’s chief soldier in this county.”

“But—”

“That is so,” she said. “I do not know any man who has been made perfect in so short a time. You hold us all in your hands.”

CHAPTER II

I

It was in Mr. Bassett’s house at Langley that the news of the attack on Padley reached the two travellers a month later, and it bore news in it that they little expected.

For it seemed that, entirely unexpectedly, there had arrived at Padley the following night no less than three of the FitzHerbert family, Mr. Anthony the seventh son, with two of his sisters, as well as Thomas FitzHerbert’s wife, who rode with them, whether as a spy or not was never known. Further, Mr. Fenton himself, hearing of their coming, had ridden up from Tansley, and missed the messenger that Marjorie had sent out. They had not arrived till late, missing again, by a series of mischances, the scouts Marjorie had posted; and, on discovering their danger, had further discovered the house to be already watched. They judged it better, therefore, as Marjorie said in her letter, to feign unconsciousness of any charge against them, since there was no priest in the house who could incriminate them.

All this the travellers learned for the first time at Langley.

They had gone through into Staffordshire, as had been arranged, and there had moved about from house to house of Catholic friends without any trouble. It was when at last they thought it safe to be moving homewards, and had arrived at Langley, that they found Marjorie’s letter awaiting them. It was addressed to Mr. John FitzHerbert and was brought by Robin’s old servant, Dick Sampson.

“The assault was made,” wrote Marjorie, “according to the arrangement. Mr. Columbell himself came with a score of men and surrounded the house very early, having set watchers all in place the evening before: they had made certain they should catch the master and at least a priest or two. But I have very heavy news, for all that; for there had come to the house after dark Mr. Anthony FitzHerbert, with two of his sisters, Mrs. Thomas FitzHerbert and Mr. Fenton himself, and they have carried the two gentlemen to the Derby gaol. I have had no word from Mr. Anthony, but I hear that he said that he was glad that his father was not taken, and that his own taking he puts down to his brother’s account, as yourself, sir, also did. The men did no great harm in Padley beyond breaking a panel or two: they were too careful, I suppose, of what they think will be Mr. Topcliffe’s property some day! And they found none of the hiding-holes, which is good news. The rest of the party they let go free again for the present.

“I have another piece of bad news, too—which is no more than what we had looked for: that Mr. Simpson at the Assizes was condemned to death, but has promised to go to church, so that his life is spared if he will do so. He is still in the gaol, however, where I pray God that Mr. Anthony may meet with him and bring him to a better mind; so that he hath not yet denied our Lord, even though he hath promised to do so.

“May God comfort and console you, Mr. FitzHerbert, for this news of Mr.

Anthony that I send.”

The letter ended with messages to the party, with instructions for their way of return if they should come within the next week; and with the explanation, given above, of the series of misfortunes by which any came to be at Padley that night, and how it was that they did not attempt to break out again.

The capture of Mr. Anthony was, indeed, one more blow to his father; but Robin was astonished how cheerfully he bore it; and said as much when they two were alone in the garden.

The grey old man smiled, while his eyelids twitched a little.

“They say that when a man is whipped he feels no more after awhile. The former blows prepare him and dull his nerves for the later, which, I take it, is part of God’s mercy. Well, Mr. Alban, my father hath been in prison a great while now; my son Thomas is a traitor, and a sworn man of her Grace; I myself have been fined and persecuted till I have had to sell land to pay the fines with. I have seen family after family fall from their faith and deny it. So I take it that I feel the joy that I have a son who is ready to suffer for it, more than the pain I have in thinking on his sufferings. The one may perhaps atone for the sins of the other, and yet help him to repentance.”

Life here at Langley was more encouraging than the furtive existence necessary in the north of Derbyshire.

Mr. Bassett had a confident way with him that was like wine to fainting hearts, and he had every reason to be confident; since up to the present, beyond being forced to pay the usual fines for recusancy, he had scarcely been troubled at all; and lived in considerable prosperity, having even been sheriff of Stafford in virtue of his other estates at Blore. His house at Langley was a great one, standing in a park, and showing no signs of poverty; his servants were largely Catholic; he entertained priests and refugees of all kinds freely, although discreetly; and he laughed at the notion that the persecution could be of long endurance.

The very first night the travellers had come he had spoken with considerable freedom after supper.

“Look more hearty!” he cried. “The Spanish fleet will be here before summer to relieve us of all troubles, as of all heretics, too. Her Grace will have to turn her coat once more, I think, when that comes to pass.”

Mr. John glanced at him doubtfully.

“First,” he said, “no man knows whether it will come. And, next, I for one am not sure if I even wish for it.”

Mr. Bassett laughed loudly.

“You will dance for joy!” he said. “And why do you not know whether you wish it to come?”

“I have no taste to be a Spanish subject.”

“Why, nor have I! But the King of Spain will but sail away again when he hath made terms against the privateers, whether they be those that ply on the high seas against men’s bodies, or here in England against their souls. There will be no subjection of England beyond that.”

Mr. John was silent.

“Why, I heard from Sir Thomas but a week ago, to ask for a little money to pay his fines with. He said that repayment should follow so soon as the fleet should come. Those were his very words.”

“You sent the money, then?”

“Why, yes; I made shift that a servant should throw down a bag with ten pounds in it, into a bush, and that Brittlebank—your brother’s man—should see him do it! And lo! when we looked again, the bag was gone!”

He laughed again with open mouth. Certainly he was an inspiriting man with a loud bark of his own; but Robin imagined that he would not bite too cruelly for all that. But he saw another side of him presently.

“What was that matter of Mr. Sutton, the priest who was executed in

Stafford last year?” asked Mr. John suddenly.

The face of the other changed as abruptly. His eyes became pin-points under his grey eyebrows and his mouth tightened.

“What of him?” he said.

“It was reported that you might have stayed the execution, and would not. I did not believe a word of it.”

“It is true,” said Mr. Bassett sharply—”at least a portion of it.”

“True?”

“Listen,” cried the other suddenly, “and tell me what you would have done. Mr. Sutton was taken, and was banished, and came back again, as any worthy priest would do. Then he was taken again, and condemned. I did my utmost to save him, but I could not. Then, as I would never have any part in the death of a priest for his religion, another was appointed to carry the execution through. Three days before news was brought to me by a private hand that Mr. Sutton had promised to give the names of priests whom he knew, and of houses where he had said mass, and I know not what else; and it was said to me that I might on this account stay the execution until he had told all that he could. Now I knew that I could not save his life altogether; that was forfeited and there could be no forgiveness. All that I might do was to respite him for a little—and for what? That he might damn his own soul eternally and bring a great number of good men into trouble and peril of death for themselves. I sent the messenger away again, and said that I would listen to no such tales. And Mr. Sutton died like a good priest three days after, repenting, I doubt not, bitterly, of the weakness into which he had fallen. Now, sir, what would you have done in my place?”

He wagged his face fiercely from side to side.

Mr. John put his hand over his eyes and nodded without speaking. Robin sat silent: it was not only for priests, it seemed, that life presented a tangle.

II

The evening before the two left for the north again, Mr. Bassett took them both into his own study. It was a little room opening out of his bedroom, and was more full of books than Robin had ever seen, except in the library at Rheims, in any room in the world. A shelf ran round the room, high on the wall, and was piled with manuscripts to the ceiling. Beneath, the book-shelves that ran nearly round the room were packed with volumes, and a number more lay on the table and even in the corners.

“This is my own privy chamber,” said Mr. Bassett to the priest. “My other friends have seen it many a time, but I thought I would show it to your Reverence, too.”

Robin looked round him in wonder: he had no idea that his host was a man of such learning.

“All the books are ranged in their proper places,” went on the other. “I could put my finger on any of them blind-fold. But this is the shelf I wished you to see.”

He took him to one that was behind the door, holding up the candle that he might see. The shelf had a box or two on it, besides books, and these he opened and set on the table. Robin looked in, as he was told, but could understand nothing that he saw: in one was a round ball of crystal on a little gold stand, wrapped round in velvet; in another some kind of a machine with wheels; in a third, some dried substances, as of herbs, tied together with silk. He inspected them gravely, but was not invited to touch them. Then his host touched him on the breast with one finger, and recoiled, smiling.

“This is my magic,” he said. “John here does not like it; neither did poor Mr. Fenton when he was here; but I hold there is no harm in such things if one does but observe caution.”

“What do you do with them, sir?” inquired the priest curiously, for he was not sure whether the man was serious.

“Well, sir, I hold that God has written His will in the stars, and in the burning of herbs, and in the shining of the sun, and such things. There is no black magic here. But, just as we read in the sky at morning, if it be red or yellow, whether it will be foul or fair, so I hold that God has written other secrets of His in other things; and that by observing them and judging rightly we may guess what He has in store. I knew that a prince was to die last year before ever it happened. I knew that a fleet of ships will come to England this year, before ever an anchor is weighed. And I would have you notice that here are Mr. FitzHerbert and your Reverence, too, fleeing for your lives; and here sit I safe at home; and all, as I hold, because I have been able to observe by my magic what is to come to pass.”

“But that strikes at the doctrine of free-will,” cried the priest.

“No, sir; I think it does not. God’s foreknowledge doth not hinder the use of our free-will (which is a mystery, no doubt, yet none the less true). Then why should God’s foreknowledge any more hinder our free-will, when He chooses to communicate it to us?”

Robin was silent. He knew little or nothing of these things, except from his theological reading. Yet he felt uneasy. The other said nothing.

“And the stars, too?” he asked.

“I hold,” said Mr. Bassett, “that the stars have certain influences and powers upon those that are born under their signs. I do not hold that we are so ruled by these that we have no action of our own, any more than we are compelled to be wet through by rain or scorched by the sun: we may always come into a house or shelter beneath a tree, and thus escape them. So, too, I hold, with the stars. There is an old saying, sir: ‘The fool is ruled by his stars; the wise man rules them.’ That is, in a nutshell, my faith in the matter. I have told Mr. Fenton’s fortune here, and Mr. FitzHerbert’s, only they will never listen to me.”

Robin looked round the room. It was dark outside long ago; they had supped at sunset, and sat for half an hour over their banquet of sweetmeats and wine before coming upstairs. And the room, too, was as dark as night, except where far off in the west, beyond the tall trees of the park, a few red streaks lingered. He felt oppressed and miserable. The place seemed to him sinister. He hated these fumblings at locks that were surely meant to remain closed. Yet he did not know what to say. Mr. John had wandered off to one of the windows and was humming uneasily to himself.

Then, suddenly, an intense curiosity overcame him.

His life was a strange and perilous one; he carried it in his hand every day. In the morning he could not be sure but that he would be fleeing before evening. As he fell asleep, he could not be sure that he would not be awakened to a new dream. He had long ago conquered those moods of terror which, in spite of his courage, had come down on him sometimes, in some lonely farm, perhaps, where flight would be impossible—or, in what was far more dangerous, in some crowded inn where every movement was known—these had passed, he thought, never to come back.

But in that little book-lined room, with these curious things in boxes on the table, and his merry host peering at him gravely, and the still evening outside; with the knowledge that to-morrow he was to ride back to his own country, whence he had fled for fear of his life, six weeks ago; leaving the security of this ex-sheriff’s house for the perils of the Peak and all that suspected region from which even now, probably, the pursuit had not altogether died away—here a sudden intense desire to know what the future might hold overcame him.

“Tell me, sir,” he said. “You have told Mr. FitzHerbert’s fortune, you say, as well as others. Have you told mine since I have been here?”

There was a moment’s silence. Mr. John was silent, with his back turned.

Robin looked up at his host, wondering why he did not answer. Then Mr.

Bassett took up the candle.

“Come,” he said; “we have been here long enough.”

CHAPTER III

I

“There will be a company of us to-night,” said Mr. John to the two priests, as he helped them to dismount. “Mr. Alban has sent his man forward from Derby to say that he will be here before night.”

“Mr. Ludlam and I are together for once,” said Mr. Garlick. “We must separate again to-morrow, he is for the north again, he tells me. There has been no more trouble?”

“Not a word of it. They were beaten last time and will not try again, I think, for the present. You heard of the attempt at Candlemas, then?”

It had been a quiet time enough ever since Lent, throughout the whole county; and it seemed as if the heat of the assault had cooled for want of success. Plainly a great deal had been staked upon the attack on Padley, which, for its remoteness from towns, was known to be a meeting-place where priests could always find harbourage. And, indeed, it was time that the Catholics should have a little breathing space. Things had been very bad with them—the arrest of Mr. Simpson, and, still more, his weakness (though he had not as yet actually fulfilled his promise of going to church, and was still detained in gaol); the growing lukewarmness of families that seldom saw a priest; the blows struck at the FitzHerbert family; and, above all, the defection of Mr. Thomas—all these things had brought the hearts of the faithful very low. Mr. John himself had had an untroubled time since his return a little before Easter; but he had taken the precaution not to remain too long at Padley at one time; he had visited his other estates at Swynnerton and elsewhere, and had even been back again at Langley. But there had been no hint of any pursuit. Padley had remained untouched; the men went about their farm business; the housekeeper peered from her windows, without a glimpse of armed men such as had terrified the household on Candlemas day.

It was only last night, indeed, that the master had returned, in time to meet the two priests who had asked for shelter for a day or two. They had stayed here before continually, as well as at Booth’s Edge, during their travels, both in the master’s absence and when he was at home. There were a couple of rooms kept vacant always for “men of God”; and all priests who came were instructed, of course (in case of necessity), as to the hiding-holes that Mr. Owen had contrived a few years before. Never, however, had there been any use made of them.

It was a hot July afternoon when the two priests were met to-day by Mr. John outside the arched gate that ran between the hall and the buttery. They had already dined at a farm a few miles down the valley, but they were taken round the house at once to the walled garden, where drink and food were set out. Here their dusty boots were pulled off; they laid aside their hats, and were presently at their ease again.

They were plain men, these two; though Mr. Garlick had been educated at Oxford, and, before his going to Rheims, had been schoolmaster at Tideswell. In appearance he was a breezy sunburnt man, with very little of the clerk about him, and devoted to outdoor sports (which was something of a disguise to him since he could talk hawking and riding in mixed company with a real knowledge of the facts). He spoke in a loud voice with a strong Derbyshire accent, which he had never lost and now deliberately used. Mr. Ludlam looked far more of the priest: he was a clean-shaven man, of middle-age, with hair turning to grey on his temples, and with a very pleasant disarming smile; he spoke very little, but listened with an interested and attentive air. Both were, of course, dressed in the usual riding costume of gentlemen, and used good horses.

It was exceedingly good to sit here, with the breeze from over the moors coming down on them, with cool drink before them, and the prospect of a secure day, at any rate, in this stronghold. Their host, too, was contented and serene, and said so, frankly.

“I am more at peace, gentlemen,” he said, “than I have been for the past five years. My son is in gaol yet; and I am proud that he should be there, since my eldest son—” (he broke off a moment). “And I think the worst of the storm is over. Her Grace is busying herself with other matters.”

“You mean the Spanish fleet, sir?” said Mr. Garlick.

He nodded.

“It is not that I look for final deliverance from Spain,” he said. “I have no wish to be aught but an Englishman, as I said to Mr. Bassett a while ago. But I think the fleet will distract her Grace for a while; and it may very well mean that we have better treatment hereafter.”

“What news is there, sir?”

“I hear that the Londoners buzz continually with false alarms. It was thought that the fleet might arrive on any day; but I understand that the fishing-boats say that nothing as yet been seen. By the end of the month, I daresay, we shall have news.”

So they talked pleasantly in the shade till the shadows began to lengthen. They were far enough here from the sea-coast to feel somewhat detached from the excitement that was beginning to seethe in the south. At Plymouth, it was said, all had been in readiness for a month or two past; at Tilbury, my lord Leicester was steadily gathering troops. But here, inland, it was more of an academic question. The little happenings in Derby; the changes of weather in the farms; the deaths of old people from the summer heats—these things were far more vital and significant than the distant thunders of Spain. A beacon or two had been piled on the hills, by order of the authorities, to pass on the news when it should come; a few lads had disappeared from the countryside to drill in Derby marketplace; but except for these things, all was very much as it had been from the beginning. The expected catastrophe meant little more to such folk than the coming of the Judgment Day—certain, but infinitely remote from the grasp of the imagination.

The three were talking of Robin as they came down towards the house for supper, and, as they turned the corner, he himself was at that moment dismounting.

He looked surprisingly cool and well-trimmed, considering his ride up the hot valley. He had taken his journey easily, he said, as he had had a long day yesterday.

“And I made a round to pay a visit to Mistress Manners,” he said. “I found her a-bed when I got there; and Mrs. Alice says she will not be at mass to-morrow. She stood too long in the sun yesterday, at the carrying of the hay; it is no more than that.”

“Mistress Manners is a marvel to me,” said Garlick, as they went towards the house. “Neither wife nor nun. And she rules her house like a man; and she knows if a priest lift his little finger in Derby. She sent me my whole itinerary for this last circuit of mine; and every point fell out as she said.”

Robin thought that he had seldom had so pleasant a supper as on that night. The windows of the low hall where he had dined so often as a boy, were flung wide to catch the scented evening air. The sun was round to the west and threw long, golden rays, that were all lovely light and no heat, slantways on the paved floor and the polished tables and the bright pewter. Down at the lower end sat the servants, brown men, burned by the sun; lean as panthers, scarcely speaking, ravenous after their long day in the hayfields; and up here three companions with whom he was wholly at his ease. The evening was as still as night, except for the faint peaceful country sounds that came up from the valley below—the song of a lad riding home; the barking of a dog; the bleat of sheep—all minute and delicate, as unperceived, yet as effective, as a rich fabric on which a design is woven. It seemed to him as he listened to the talk—the brisk, shrewd remarks of Mr. Garlick; the courteous and rather melancholy answers of his host; as he watched the second priest’s eyes looking gently and pleasantly about him; as he ate the plain, good food and drank the country drink, that, in spite of all, his lot was cast in very sweet places. There was not a hint here of disturbance, or of men’s passions, or of ugly strife: there was no clatter, as in the streets of Derby, or pressure of humanity, or wearying politics of the market-place. He found himself in one of those moods that visit all men sometimes, when the world appears, after all, a homely and a genial place; when the simplest things are the best; when no excitement or ambition or furious zeal can compare with the gentle happiness of a tired body that is in the act of refreshment, or of a driven mind that is finding its relaxation. At least, he said to himself, he would enjoy this night and the next day and the night after, with all his heart.

The four found themselves so much at ease here, that the dessert was brought in to them where they sat; and it was then that the first unhappy word was spoken.

“Mr. Simpson!” said Garlick suddenly. “Is there any more news of him?”

Mr. John shook his head.

“He hath not yet been to church, thank God!” he said. “So much I know for certain. But he hath promised to go.”

“Why is he not yet gone? He promised a great while ago.”

“I hear he hath been sick. Derby gaol is a pestiferous place. They are waiting, I suppose, till he is well enough to go publicly, that all the world may be advertised of it!”

Mr. Garlick gave a bursting sigh.

“I cannot understand it at all,” he said. “There has never been so zealous a priest. I have ridden with him again and again before I was a priest. He was always quiet; but I took him to be one of those stout-hearted souls that need never brag. Why, it was here that we heard him tell of Mr. Nelson’s death!”

Mr. John threw out his hands.

“These prisons are devilish,” he said; “they wear a man out as the rack can never do. Why, see my son!” he cried. “Oh! I can speak of him if I am but moved enough! It was that same Derby gaol that wore him out too! It is the darkness, and the ill food, and the stenches and the misery. A man’s heart fails him there, who could face a thousand deaths in the sunlight. Man after man hath fallen there—both in Derby, and in London and in all the prisons. It is their heart that goes—all the courage runs from them like water, with their health. If it were the rack and the rope only, England would be Catholic, yet, I think.”

The old man’s face blazed with indignation; it was not often that he so spoke out his mind. It was very easy to see that he had thought continually of his son’s fall.

“Mistress Manners hath told me the very same thing,” said Robin. “She visited Mr. Thomas in gaol once at least. She said that her heart failed her altogether there.”

Mr. Ludlam smiled.

“I suppose it is so,” he said gently, “since you say so. But I think it would not be so with me. The rack and the rope, rather, are what would shake me to the roots, unless God His Grace prevailed more than it ever yet hath with see.”

He smiled again.

Robin shook his head sharply.

“As for me—!” he said grimly, with tight lips.

It was a lovely night of stars as the four stepped out of the archway before going upstairs to the parlour. Behind them stood the square and solid house, resembling a very fortress. The lights that had been brought in still shone through the windows, and a hundred night insects leapt and poised in the brightness.

And before them lay the deep valley—silent now except for the trickle of the stream; dark (since the moon was not yet risen), except for one light that burned far away in some farm-house on the other side; and this light went out, like a closing eye, even as they looked. But overhead, where God dwelt, all heaven was alive. The huge arch resting, as it appeared, on the monstrous bases of the moors and hills standing round this place, like the mountains about Jerusalem, was one shimmering vault of glory, as if it was there that the home of life had its place, and this earth beneath but a bedroom for mortals, or for those that were too weary to aspire or climb. The suggestion was enormously powerful. Here was this mortal earth that needed rest so cruelly—that must have darkness to refresh its tired eyes, coolness to recuperate its passion, and silence, if ever its ears were to hear again. But there was radiance unending. All day a dome of rigid blue; all night a span of glittering lights—the very home of a glory that knows no waste and that therefore needs no reviving: it was to that only, therefore, that a life must be chained which would not falter or fail in the unending tides and changes of the world….

A soft breeze sprang up among the tops of the chestnuts; and the sound was as of the going of a great company that whispered for silence.

II

It was within an hour of dawn that the first mass was said next morning by Mr. Robert Alban.

The chapel was decked out as they seldom dared to deck it in those days; but the failure of the last attempt on this place, and the peace that had followed, made them bold.

The carved chest of newly-cut oak was in its place, with a rich carpet of silk spread on its face; and, on the top, the three linen cloths as prescribed by the Ritual. Two silver candlesticks, that stood usually on the high shelf over the hall-fire, and a silver crucifix of Flemish work, taken from the hiding-place, were in a row on the back, with red and white flowers, between. Beneath the linen cloths a tiny flat elevation showed where the altar stone lay. The rest of the chapel, in its usual hangings, had only sweet herbs on the floor; with two or three long seats carried up from the hall below. An extraordinary sweetness and peace seemed in the place both to the senses and the soul of the young priest as he went up to the altar to vest. Confessions had been heard last night; and, as he turned, in the absolute stillness of the morning, and saw, beneath those carved angels that still to-day lean from the beams of the roof, the whole little space already filled with farm-lads, many of whom were to approach the altar presently, and the grey head of their master kneeling on the floor to answer the mass, it appeared to him as if the promise of last night were reversed, and that it was, after all, earth rather than heaven that proclaimed the peace and the glory of God….

Robin served the second mass himself, said by Mr. Garlick, and made his thanksgiving as well as he could meanwhile; but he found what appeared to him at the time many distractions, in watching the tanned face and hands of the man who was so utterly a countryman for nine-tenths of his life, and so utterly a priest for the rest. His very sturdiness and breeziness made his reverence the more evident and pathetic: he read the mass rapidly, in a low voice, harshened by shouting in the open air over his sports, made his gestures abruptly, and yet did the whole with an extraordinary attention. After the communion, when he turned for the wine and water, his face, as so often with rude folk in a great emotion, browned as it was with wind and sun, seemed lighted from within; he seemed etherealized, yet with his virility all alive in him. A phrase, wholly inapplicable in its first sense, came irresistibly to the younger priest’s mind as he waited on him. “When the strong man, armed, keepeth his house, his goods are in peace.”

Robin heard the third mass, said by Mr. Ludlam, from a corner near the door; and this one, too, was a fresh experience. The former priest had resembled a strong man subdued by grace; the second, a weak man ennobled by it. Mr. Ludlam was a delicate soul, smiling often, as has been said, and speaking little—”a mild man,” said the countryfolk. Yet, at the altar there was no weakness in him; he was as a keen, sharp blade, fitted as a heavy knife cannot be, for fine and peculiar work. His father had been a yeoman, as had the other’s; yet there must have been some unusual strain of blood in him, so deft and gentle he was—more at his ease here at God’s Table than at the table of any man…. So he, too, finished his mass, and began to unvest….

Then, with a noise as brutal as a blasphemy, there came a thunder of footsteps on the stairs; and a man burst into the room, with glaring eyes and rough gestures.

“There is a company of men coming up from the valley,” he cried; “and another over the moor…. And it is my lord Shrewsbury’s livery.”

III

In an instant all was in confusion; and the peace had fled. Mr. John was gone; and his voice could be heard on the open stairs outside speaking rapidly in sharp, low whispers to the men gathered beneath; and, meanwhile, three or four servants, two men and a couple of maids, previously drilled in their duties, were at the altar, on which Mr. Ludlam had but that moment laid down his amice. The three priests stood together waiting, fearing to hinder or to add to the bustle. A low wailing rose from outside the door; and Robin looked from it to see if there were anything he could do. But it was only a little country servant crouching on the tiny landing that united the two sets of stairs from the court, with her apron over her head: she must have been in the partitioned west end of the chapel to hear the mass. He said a word to her; and the next instant was pushed aside, as a man tore by bearing a great bundle of stuffs—vestments and the altar cloths. When he turned again, the chapel was become a common room once more: the chest stood bare, with a great bowl of flowers on it; the candlesticks were gone; and the maid was sweeping up the herbs.

“Come, gentlemen,” said a sharp voice at the door, “there is no time to lose.”

He went out with the two others behind, and followed Mr. John downstairs. Already the party of servants was dispersed to their stations; two or three to keep the doors, no doubt, and the rest back to kitchen work and the like, to give the impression that all was as usual.

The four went straight down into the hall, to find it empty, except for one man who stood by the fire-place. But a surprising change had taken place here. Instead of the solemn panelling, with the carved shield that covered the wall over the hearth, there was a great doorway opened, through which showed, not the bricks of the chimney-breast, but a black space large enough to admit a man.

“See here,” said Mr. John, “there is room for two here, but no more. There is room for a third in another little chamber upstairs that is nearly joined on to this: but it is not so good. Now, gentlemen—”

“This is the safer of the two?” asked Robin abruptly.

“I think it to be so. Make haste, gentlemen.”

Robin wheeled on the others. He said that there was no time to argue in.

“See!” he said. “I have not yet been taken at all. Mr. Garlick hath been taken; and Mr. Ludlam hath had a warning. There is no question that you must be here.”

“I utterly refuse—” began Garlick.

Robin went to the door in three strides; and was out of it. He closed the door behind him and ran upstairs. As he reached the head his eye caught a glint of sunlight on some metal far up on the moor beyond the belt of trees. He did not turn his head again; he went straight in and waited.

Presently he heard steps coming up, and Mr. John appeared smiling and out of breath.

“I have them in,” he said, “by promising that there was no great difference after all; and that there was no time. Now, sir—” And he went towards the wall at which, long ago, Mr. Owen had worked so hard.

“And yourself, sir?” asked Robin, as once more an innocent piece of panelling moved outwards under Mr. John’s hand.

“I’ll see to that; but not until you are in—”

“But—”

The old man’s face blazed suddenly up.

“Obey me, if you please. I am the master here. I tell you I have a very good place.”

There was no more to be said. Robin advanced to the opening, and sat down to slide himself in. It was a little door about two feet square, with a hole beneath it.

“Drop gently, Mr. Alban,” whispered the voice in his ear. “The altar vessels are at the bottom, with the crucifix, on some soft stuff…. That is it. Slide in and let yourself slip. There is some food and drink there, too.”

Robin did so. The floor of the little chamber was about five feet down, and he could feel woodwork on all three sides of him.

“When the door is closed,” said the voice from the daylight, “push a pair of bolts on right and left till they go home. Tap upon the shutter when it is done.”

The light vanished, and Robin was aware of a faint smell of smoke. Then he remembered that he had noticed a newly lit fire on the hearth of the hall…. He found the bolts, pushed them, and tapped lightly three times. He heard a hand push on the shutter to see that all was secure, and then footsteps go away over the floor on a level with his chin.

Then he remembered that he must be in the same chamber with his two fellow-priests, separated from them by the flooring on which he stood. He rapped gently with his foot twice. Two soft taps came back. Silence followed.

IV

Time, as once before in his experience, seemed wholly banished from this place. There were moments of reflection when he appeared to himself as having but just entered; there were other moments when he might have been here for an eternity that had no divisions to mark it. He was in complete and utter darkness. There was not a crack anywhere in the woodwork (so perfect had been the young carpenter’s handiwork) by which even a glimmer of light could enter. A while ago he had been in the early morning sunlight; now he might be in the grave.

For a while his emotions and his thoughts raced one another, tumbling in inextricable confusion; and they were all emotions and thoughts of the present: intense little visions of the men closing round the house, cutting off escape from the valley on the one side and from the wild upland country on the other; questions as to where Mr. John would hide himself; minute sensible impressions of the smoky flavour of the air, the unplaned woodwork, the soft stuffs beneath his feet. Then they began to extend themselves wider, all with that rapid unjarring swiftness: he foresaw the bursting in of his stronghold; the footsteps within three inches of his head; the crash as the board was kicked in: then the capture; the ride to Derby, bound on a horse; the gaol; the questioning; the faces of my lord Shrewsbury and the magistrates … and the end….

There were moments when the sweat ran down his face, when he bit his lips in agony, and nearly moaned aloud. There were others in which he abandoned himself to Christ crucified; placed himself in Everlasting Hands that were mighty enough to pluck him not only out of this snare, but from the very hands that would hold him so soon; Hands that could lift him from the rack and scaffold and set him a free man among his hills again: yet that had not done so with a score of others whom he knew. He thought of these, and of the girl who had done so much to save them all, who was now saved herself by sickness, a mile or two away, from these hideous straits. Then he dragged out Mr. Maine’s beads and began to recite the “Mysteries.”…

There broke in suddenly the first exterior sign that the hunters were on them—a muffled hammering far beneath his feet. There were pauses; then voices carried up from the archway nearly beneath through the hollowed walls; then hammering again; but all was heard as through wool.

As the first noise broke out his mind rearranged itself and seemed to have two consciousnesses. In the foreground he followed, intently and eagerly, every movement below; in the background, there still moved before him the pageant of deeper thoughts and more remote—of prayer and wonder and fear and expectation; and from that onwards it continued so with him. Even while he followed the sounds, he understood why my lord Shrewsbury had made this assault so suddenly, after months of peace…. He perceived the hand of Thomas FitzHerbert, too, in the precision with which the attack had been made, and the certain information he must have given that priests would be in Padley that morning.

There were noises that he could not interpret—vague tramplings from a direction which he could not tell; voices that shouted; the sound of metal on stone.

He did interpret rightly, however, the sudden tumult as the gate was unbarred at last, and the shrill screaming of a woman as the company poured through into the house; the clamour of voices from beneath as the hall below was filled with men; the battering that began almost immediately; and, finally, the rush of shod feet up the outside staircases, one of which led straight into the chapel itself. Then, indeed, his heart seemed to spring upwards into his throat, and to beat there, as loud as knocking, so loud that it appeared to him that all the house must hear it.

Yet it was still some minutes before the climax came to him. He was still standing there, listening to voices talking, it seemed, almost in his ears, yet whose words he could not hear; the vibration of feet that shook the solid joist against which he had leaned his head, with closed eyes; the brush of a cloak once, like a whisper, against the very panel that shut him in. He could attend to nothing else; the rest of the drama was as nothing to him: he had his business in hand—to keep away from himself, by the very intentness of his will and determination, the feet that passed so close.

The climax came in a sudden thump of a pike foot within a yard of his head, so imminent, that for an instant he thought it was at his own panel. There followed a splintering sound of a pike-head in the same place. He understood. They were sounding on the woodwork and piercing all that rang hollow…. His turn, then, would come immediately.

Talking voices followed the crash; then silence; then the vibration of feet once more. The strain grew unbearable; his fingers twisted tight in his rosary, lifted themselves once or twice from the floor edge on which they were gripped, to tear back the bolts and declare himself. It seemed to him in those instants a thousand times better to come out of his own will, rather than to be poked and dragged from his hole like a badger. In the very midst of such imaginings there came a thumping blow within three inches of his face, and then silence. He leaned back desperately to avoid the pike-thrust that must follow, with his eyes screwed tight and his lips mumbling. He waited;… and then, as he waited, he drew an irrepressible hissing breath of terror, for beneath the soft padding under his feet he could feel movements; blow follow blow, from the same direction, and last a great clamour of voices all shouting together.

Feet ran across the floor on which his hands were gripped again, and down the stairs. He perceived two things: the chapel was empty again, and the priests below had been found.

V

He could follow every step of the drama after that, for he appeared to himself now as a mere witness, without personal part in it.

First, there were voices below him, so clear and close that he could distinguish the intonation, and who it was that spoke, though the words were inaudible.

It was Mr. Garlick who first spoke—a sentence of a dozen words, it might be, consenting, no doubt, to come out without being dragged; congratulating, perhaps (as the manner was), the searchers on their success. A murmur of answer came back, and then one sharp, peevish voice by itself. Again Mr. Garlick spoke, and there followed the shuffling of movements for a long while; and then, so far as the little chamber was concerned, empty silence. But from the hall rose up a steady murmur of talk once more….

Again Robin’s heart leaped in him, for there came the rattle of a pike-end immediately below his feet. They were searching the little chamber beneath, from the level of the hall, to see if it were empty. The pike was presently withdrawn.

For a long while the talking went on. So far as the rest of the house was concerned, the hidden man could tell nothing, or whether Mr. John were taken, or whether the search were given up. He could not even fix his mind on the point; he was constructing for himself, furiously and intently, the scene he imagined in the hall below; he thought he saw the two priests barred in behind the high table; my lord Shrewsbury in the one great chair in the midst of the room; Mr. Columbell, perhaps, or Mr. John Manners talking in his ear; the men on guard over the, priests and beside the door; and another, maybe, standing by the hearth.

He was so intent on this that he thought of little else; though still, on a strange background of another consciousness, moved scenes and ideas such as he had had at the beginning. And he was torn from this contemplation with the suddenness of a blow, by a voice speaking, it seemed, within a foot of his head.

“Well, we have those rats, at any rate.”

(He perceived instantly what had happened. The men were back again in the chapel, and he had not heard them come. He supposed that he could hear the words now, because of the breaking of the panel next to his own.)

“Ralph said he was sure of the other one, too,” said a second voice.

“Which was that one?”

“The fellow that was at Fotheringay.”

(Robin clenched his teeth like iron.)

“Well, he is not here.”

There was silence.

“I have sounded that side,” said the first voice sharply.

“Well, but—”

“I tell you I have sounded it. There is no time to be lost. My lord—”

“Hark!” said the second voice. “There is my lord’s man—”

There followed a movement of feet towards the door, as it seemed to the priest.

He could hear the first man grumbling to himself, and beating listlessly on the walls somewhere. Then a voice called something unintelligible from the direction of the stairs; the beating ceased, and footsteps went across the floor again into silence.

VI

He was dazed and blinded by the light when, after infinite hours, he drew the bolts and slid the panel open.

He had lost all idea of time utterly: he did not know whether he should find that night had come, or that the next day had dawned. He had waited there, period after period; he marked one of them by eating food that had no taste and drinking liquid that stung his throat but did not affect his palate; he had marked another by saying compline to himself in a whisper.

During the earlier part of those periods he had followed—he thought with success—the dreadful drama that was acted in the house. Someone had made a formal inspection of all the chambers—a man who said little and moved heavily with something of a limp (he had thought this to be my lord Shrewsbury himself, who suffered from the gout): this man had walked slowly through the chapel and out again.

At a later period he had heard the horses being brought round the house; heard plainly the jingle of the bits and a sneeze or two. This had been followed by long interminable talking, muffled and indistinguishable, that came up to him from some unknown direction. Voices changed curiously in loudness and articulation as the speakers moved about.

At a later period a loud trampling had begun again, plainly from the hall: he had interpreted this to mean that the prisoners were being removed out of doors; and he had been confirmed in this by hearing immediately afterwards again the stamping of horses and the creaking of leather.

Again there had been a pause, broken suddenly by loud women’s wailing. And at last the noise of horses moving off; the noise grew less; a man ran suddenly through the archway and out again, and, little by little, complete silence once more.

Yet he had not dared to move. It was the custom, he knew, sometimes to leave three or four men on guard for a day or two after such an assault, in the hope of starving out any hidden fugitives that might still be left. So he waited again—period after period; he dozed a little for weariness, propped against the narrow walls of his hidinghole; woke; felt again for food and found he had eaten it all … dozed again.

Then he had started up suddenly, for without any further warning there had come a tiny indeterminate tapping against his panel. He held his breath and listened. It came again. Then fearlessly he drew back the bolts, slid the panel open and shut his eyes, dazzled by the light.

He crawled out at last, spent and dusty. There was looking at him only the little red-eyed maid whom he had tried to comfort at some far-off hour in his life. Her face was all contorted with weeping, and she had a great smear of dust across it.

“What time is it?” he said.

“It … it is after two o’clock,” she whispered.

“They have all gone?”

She nodded, speechless.

“Whom have they taken?”

“Mr. FitzHerbert … the priests … the servants.”

“Mr. FitzHerbert? They found him, then?”

She stared at him with the dull incapacity to understand why he did not know all that she had seen.

“Where did they find him?” he repeated sharply.

“The master … he opened the door to them himself.”

Her face writhed itself again into grotesque lines, and she broke out into shrill wailing and weeping.

CHAPTER IV

I

Marjorie was still in bed when the news was brought her by her friend.

She did not move or speak when Mistress Alice said shortly that Mr.

FitzHerbert had been taken with ten of his servants and two priests.

“You understand, my dear…. They have ridden away to Derby, all of them together. But they may come back here suddenly.”

Marjorie nodded.

“Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam were in the chimney-hole of the hall,” whispered Mistress Alice, glancing fearfully behind her.

Marjorie lay back again on her pillows.

“And what of Mr. Alban?” she asked.

“Mr. Alban was upstairs. They missed him. He is coming here after dark, the maid says.”

An hour after supper-time the priest came quietly upstairs to the parlour. He showed no signs of his experience, except perhaps by a certain brightness in his eyes and an extreme self-repression of manner. Marjorie was up to meet him; and had in her hands a paper. She hardly spoke a single expression of relief at his safety. She was as quiet and business-like as ever.

“You must lie here to-night,” she said. “Janet hath your room ready. At one o’clock in the morning you must ride: here is a map of your journey. They may come back suddenly. At the place I have marked here with red there is a shepherd’s hut; you cannot miss it if you follow the track I have marked. There will be meat and drink there. At night the shepherd will come from the westwards; he is called David, and you may trust him. You must lie there two weeks at least.”

“I must have news of the other priests,” he said.

Marjorie bowed her head.

“I will send a letter to you by Dick Sampson at the end of two weeks. Until that I can promise nothing. They may have spies round the house by this time to-morrow, or even earlier. And I will send in that letter any news I can get from Derby.”

“How shall I find my way?” asked Robin.

“Until it is light you will be on ground that you know.” (She flushed slightly.) “Do you remember the hawking, that time after Christmas? It is all across that ground. When daylight comes you can follow this map.” (She named one or two landmarks, pointing to them on the map.) “You must have no lantern.”

They talked a few minutes longer as to the way he must go and the provision that would be ready for him. He must take no mass requisites with him. David had made that a condition. Then Robin suddenly changed the subject.

“Had my father any hand in this affair at Padley?”

“I am certain he had not.”

“They will execute Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam, will they not?”

She bowed her head in assent.

“The Summer Assizes open on the eighteenth,” she said. “There is no doubt as to how all will go.”

Robin rose.

“It is time I were in bed,” he said, “if I must ride at one.”

The two women knelt for his blessing.

At one o’clock Marjorie heard the horse brought round. She stepped softly to the window, knowing herself to be invisible, and peeped out.

All was as she had ordered. There was no light of any kind: she could make out but dimly in the summer darkness the two figures of horse and groom. As she looked, a third figure appeared beneath; but there was no word spoken that she could hear. This third figure mounted. She caught her breath as she heard the horse scurry a little with freshness, since every sound seemed full of peril. Then the mounted figure faded one way into the dark, and the groom another.

II

It was two weeks to the day that Robin received his letter.

He had never before been so long in utter solitude; for the visits of David did not break it; and, for other men, he saw none except a hog-herd or two in the distance once or twice. The shepherd came but once a day, carrying a great jug and a parcel of food, and set them down without the hut; he seemed to avoid even looking within; but merely took the empty jug of the day before and went away again. He was an old, bent man, with a face like a limestone cliff, grey and weather-beaten; he lived half the year up here in the wild Peak country, caring for a few sheep, and going down to the village not more than once or twice a week. There was a little spring welling up in a hollow not fifty yards away from the hut, which itself stood in a deep, natural rift among the high hills, so that men might search for it a lifetime and not come across it.

Robin’s daily round was very simple. He had leave to make a fire by day, but he must extinguish it at night lest its glow should be seen, so he began his morning by mixing a little oatmeal, and then preparing his dinner. About noon, so near as he could judge by the sun, he dined; sometimes off a partridge or rabbit; on Fridays off half a dozen tiny trout; and set aside part of the cold food for supper; he had one good loaf of nearly black bread every day, and the single jug of small beer.

The greater part of the day he spent within the hut, for safety’s sake, sleeping a little, and thinking a good deal. He had no books with him; even his breviary had been forbidden, since David, as a shrewd man, had made conditions, first that he should not have to speak with any refugee, second, that if the man were a priest he should have nothing about him that could prove him to be so. Mr. Maine’s beads, only, had been permitted, on condition that they were hidden always beneath a stone outside the hut.

After nightfall Robin went out to attend to his horse that was tethered in the next ravine, over a crag; to shift his peg and bring him a good armful of cut grass and a bucket of water. (The saddle and bridle were hidden beneath a couple of great stones that leaned together not far away.) After doing what was necessary for his horse, he went to draw water for himself; and then took his exercise, avoiding carefully, according to instructions, every possible skyline. And it was then, for the most part, that he did his clear thinking…. He tried to fancy himself in a fortnight’s retreat, such as he had had at Rheims before his reception of orders.

The evening of the twenty-fifth of July closed in stormy; and Robin, in an old cloak he had found placed in the but for his own use, made haste to attend to what was necessary, and hurried back as quickly as he could. He sat a while, listening to the thresh of the rain and the cry of the wind; for, up here in the high land the full storm broke on him. (The hut was wattled of osiers and clay, and kept out the wet tolerably well.)

He could see nothing from the door of his hut except the dim outline of the nearer crag thirty or forty yards off; and he went presently to bed.

He awoke suddenly, wide awake—as is easy for a man who is sleeping in continual expectation of an alarm—at the flash of light in his eyes. But he was at once reassured by Dick’s voice.

“I have come, sir; and I have brought the mistress’ letter.”

Robin sat up and took the packet. He saw now that the man carried a little lantern with a slide over it that allowed only a thin funnel of light to escape that could be shut off in an instant.

“All well, Dick? I did not hear you coming.”

“The storm’s too loud, sir.”

“All well?”

“Mistress Manners thinks you had best stay here a week longer, sir.”

“And … and the news?”

“It is all in the letter, sir.”

Robin looked for the inscription, but there was none. Then he broke the two seals, opened the paper and began to read. For the next five minutes there was no sound, except the thresh of the rain and the cry of the wind. The letter ran as follows:

III

“Three more have glorified God to-day by a good confession—Mr. Garlick, Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Simpson. That is the summary. The tale in detail hath been brought to me to-day by an eye-witness.

“The trial went as all thought it would. There was never the least question of it; for not only were the two priests taken with signs of their calling upon them, but both of them had been in the hands of the magistrates before. There was no shrinking nor fear showed of any kind. But the chief marvel was that these two priests met with Mr. Simpson in the gaol; they put them together in one room, I think, hoping that Mr. Simpson would prevail upon them to do as he had promised to do; but, by the grace of God, it was all the other way, and it was they who prevailed upon Mr. Simpson to confess himself again openly as a Catholic. This greatly enraged my lord Shrewsbury and the rest; so that there was less hope than ever of any respite, and sentence was passed upon them all together, Mr. Simpson showing, at the reading of it, as much courage as any. This was all done two days ago at the Assizes; and it was to-day that the sentence was carried out.

“They were all three drawn on hurdles together to the open space by St. Mary’s Bridge, where all was prepared, with gallows and cauldron and butchering block; and a great company went after them. I have not heard that they spoke much, on the way, except that a friend of Mr. Garlick’s cried out to him to remember that they had often shot off together on the moors; to which Mr. Garlick made answer merrily that it was true; but that ‘I am now to shoot off such a shot as I never shot in all my life.’ He was merry at the trial, too, I hear; and said that ‘he was not come to seduce men, but rather to induce them to the Catholic religion, that to this end he had come to the country, and for this that he would work so long as he lived.’ And this he did on the scaffold, speaking to the crowd about him of the salvation of their souls, and casting papers, which he had written in prison, in proof of the Catholic faith.

“Mr. Garlick went up the ladder first, kissing and embracing it as the instrument of his death, and to encourage Mr. Simpson, as it was thought, since some said he showed signs of timorousness again when he came to the place. But he showed none when his turn came, but rather exhibited the same courage as them both. Mr. Ludlam stood by smiling while all was done; and smiling still when his turn came. His last words were, ‘Venite benedicti Dei’; and this he said, seeming to see a vision of angels come to bear his soul away.

“They were cut down, all three of them, before they were dead; and the butchery done on them according to sentence; yet none of them cried out or made the least sound; and their heads and quarters were set up immediately afterwards on poles in divers places of Derby; some of them above the house that stands on the bridge and others on the bridge itself. But these, I hear, will not be there long.

“So these three have kept the faith and finished their course with joy. Laus Deo. Mr. John is in ward, for harbouring of the priests; but nothing hath been done to him yet.

“As for your reverence, I am of opinion that you had best wait another week where you are. There has been a man or two seen hereabouts whom none knew, as well as at Padley. It hath been certified, too, that Mr. Thomas was at the root of it all, that he gave the information that Mr. John and at least a priest or two would be at Padley at that time, though no man knows how he knew it, unless through servants’ talk; and since Mr. Thomas knows your reverence, it will be better to be hid for a little longer. So, if you will, in a week from now, I will send Dick once, again to tell you if all be well. I look for no letter back for this since you have nothing to write with in the hut, as I know; but Dick will tell me how you do; as well as anything you may choose to say to him.

“I ask your reverence’s blessing again. I do not forget your reverence in my poor prayers.”

And so it ended, without signature—for safety’s sake.

IV

Robin looked up when he had finished to where the faint outline of the servant could be seen behind the lantern, against the greater darkness of the wall.

“You know of all that has fallen at Derby?” he said, with some difficulty.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, pray God we may be willing, too, if He bids us to it.”

“Yes, sir.”…

“You had best lose no time if you are to be home before dawn. Say to Mistress Manners that I thank her for her letter; that I praise God for the graces she relates in it; and that I will do as she bids…. Dick.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is Mr. Audrey in any of this?”

“I do not know, sir…. I heard—” The man’s voice hesitated.

“What did you hear?”

“I heard that my lord Shrewsbury wondered at his absence from the trial; and … and that a message would be sent to Mr. Audrey to look to it to be more zealous on her Grace’s commission.”

“That was all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you had best be gone. There is no more to be said. Bring me what news you can when you come again. Good-night, Dick.”

“Good-night, sir…. God bless your reverence.”

An hour later, with the first coming of the dawn, the storm ceased. (It was that same storm, if he had only known it, that had blown upon the Spanish Fleet at sea and driven it towards destruction. But of this he knew nothing.) He had not slept since Dick had gone, but had lain on his back on the turfed and blanketed bed in the corner, his hands clasped behind his head, thinking, thinking and re-thinking all that he had read just now. He had known it must happen; but there seemed to him all the difference in the world between an event and its mere certainty…. The thing was done—out to every bitter detail of the loathsome, agonizing death—and it had been two of the men whom he had seen say mass after himself—the ruddy-faced, breezy countryman, yet anointed with the sealing oil, and the gentle, studious, smiling man who had been no less vigorous than his friend….

But there was one thing he had not known, and that, the recovery of the faint heart which they had inspirited. And then, in an instant he remembered how he had seen the three, years ago, against the sunset, as he rode with Anthony….

His mind was full of the strange memory as he came out at last, when the black darkness began to fade to grey, and the noise of the rain on the roof had ceased, and the wind had fallen.

It was a view of extraordinary solemnity that he looked on, as he stood leaning against the rough door-post. The night was still stronger than day; overhead was as black as ever, and stars shone in it through the dissolving clouds that were passing at last. But, immediately over the grim, serrated edge of the crag that faced him to the east, a faint and tender light was beginning to burn, so faint that, as yet it seemed an absence of black rather than as of a colour itself; and in the midst of it, like a crumb of diamond, shone a single dying star. This high land was as still now as a sheltered valley, a tuft of springy grass stood out on the crag as stiff as a thin plume; and the silence, as at Padley two weeks ago, was marked rather than broken by the tinkle of water from his spring fifty yards away. The air was cold and fresh and marvellously scented, after the rain, with the clean smell of strong turf and rushes. It was as different from the peace he had had at Padley as water is different from wine; yet it was Peace, too, a confident and expectant peace that precedes the battle, rather than the rest which follows it….

How was it he had seen the three men on the moor; as he turned with Anthony? They were against the crimson west, as against a glory, the two laymen on either side, the young priest in the middle…. They had seemed to bear him up and support him; the colour of the sky was as a stain of blood; and their shadows had stretched to his own feet….

And there came on him in that hour one of those vast experiences that can never be told, when a flood rises in earth and air that turns them all to wine, that wells up through tired limbs, and puzzled brain and beating heart, and soothes and enkindles, all in one; when it is not a mere vision of peace that draws the eyes up in an ecstasy of sight, but a bathing in it, and an envelopment in it, of every fibre of life; when the lungs draw deep breaths of it; and the heart beats in it, and the eyes are enlightened by it; when the things of earth become at once eternal and fixed and of infinite value, and at the same instant of less value than the dust that floats in space; when there no longer appears any distinction between the finite and the eternal, between time and infinity; when the soul for that moment at least finds that rest that is the magnet and the end of all human striving; and that comfort which wipes away all tears.

CHAPTER V

I

It was the sixth night after Dick Sampson had come back with news of Mr. Alban; and he had already received instructions as to how he was to go twenty-four hours later. He was to walk, as before, starting after dark, not carrying a letter this time, after all, in spite of the news that he might have taken with him; for the priest would be back before morning and could hear it all then at his ease.

Every possible cause of alarm had gone; and Marjorie, for the first time for three weeks, felt very nearly as content as a year ago. Not one more doubtful visitor had appeared anywhere; and now she thought herself mistaken even about those solitary figures she had suspected before. After all, they had only been a couple of men, whose faces her servants did not know, who had gone past on the track beneath the house; one mounted, and the other on foot.

There had been something of a reaction, too, in Derby. The deaths of the three priests had made an impression; there was no doubt of that. Mr. Biddell had written her a letter on the point, saying that the blood of those martyrs might well be the peace, if it might not be the seed, of the Church in the district. Men openly said in the taverns, he reported, that it was hard that any should die for religion merely; politics were one matter and religion another. Yet the deaths had dismayed the simple Catholics, too, for the present; and at Hathersage church, scarcely ten miles away, above two hundred came to the Protestant sermon preached before my lord Shrewsbury on the first Sunday after.

The news of the Armada, too, had distracted men’s minds wonderfully in another direction. News had come in already, she was informed, of an engagement or two in the English Channel, all in favour of its defenders. More than that was not known. But the beacons had blazed; and the market-place of Derby had echoed with the tramp of the train-bands; and it was not likely that at such a time the attention of the magistrates would be given to anything else.

So her plans were laid. Mr. Alban was to come here for three or four days; be provided with a complete change of clothes (all of which she had ready); shave off his beard; and then set out again for the border. He had best go to Staffordshire, she thought, for a month or two, before beginning once more in his own county.

She went to bed that night, happy enough, in spite of the cause, which she loved so much, seeming to fail everywhere. It was true that, under this last catastrophe, great numbers had succumbed; but she hoped that this would be but for a time. Let but a few more priests come from Rheims to join the company that had lost so heavily, and all would be well again. So she said to herself: she did not allow even in her own soul that the security of her friend and the thought that he would be with her in a day or two, had any great part in her satisfaction.

She awaked suddenly. At the moment she did not know what time it was or how long she had slept; but it was still dark and deathly still. Yet she could have sworn that she had heard her name called. The rushlight was burned out; but in the summer night she could still make out the outline of Mistress Alice’s bed. Yet all was still there, except for the gentle breathing: it could not have been she who had called out in her sleep, or she would surely show some signs of restlessness.

She sat up listening; but there was not a sound. She lay down again; and the strange fancy seized her that it had been her mother’s voice that she had heard…. It was in this room that her mother had died…. Again she sat up and looked round. All was quiet as before: the tall press at the foot of her bed glimmered here and there with lines and points of starlight.

Then, as again she began to lie down, there came the signal for which her heart was expectant, though her mind knew nothing of its coming. It was a clear rap, as of a pebble against the glass.

She was up and out of bed in a moment, and was peering out under the thick arch of the little window. And a figure stood there, bending, it seemed, for another pebble; in the very place where she had seen it, she thought, nearly three weeks ago, standing ready to mount a horse.

Then she was at Alice’s bedside.

“Alice,” she whispered. “Alice! Wake up…. There is someone come. You must come with me. I do not know—” Her voice faltered: she knew that she knew, and fear clutched her by the throat.

The porter was fast asleep, and did not move, as carrying a rushlight she went past the buttery with her friend behind her saying no word. The bolts were well oiled, and came back with scarcely a sound. Then as the door swung slowly back a figure slipped in.

“Yes,” he said, “it is I…. I think I am followed…. I have but come—”

“Come in quickly,” she said, and closed and bolted the door once more.

II

It was a horrible delight to sit, wrapped in her cloak with the hood over her head, listening to his story in the hall, and to know that it was to her house that he had come for safety. It was horrible to her that he needed it—so horrible that every shred of interior peace had left her; she was composed only in her speech, and it was a strange delight that he had come so simply. He sat there; she could see his outline and the pallor of his face under his hat, and his voice was perfectly resolute and quiet. This was his tale.

“Twice this afternoon,” he said, “I saw a man against the sky, opposite my hut. It was the same man both times; he was not a shepherd or a farmer’s man. The night before, when David came, he did not speak to me; but for the first time he put his head in at the hut-door when he brought the food and made gestures that I could not understand. I looked at him and shook my head, but he would say nothing, and I remembered the bond and said nothing myself. All that he would do was to shut his eyes and wave his hands. Then this last night he brought no food at all.

“I was uneasy at the sight of the man, too, in the afternoon. I think he thought that I was asleep; for when I saw him for the first time I was lying down and looking at the crag opposite. And I saw him raise himself on his hands against the sky, as if he had been lying flat on his face in the heather. I looked at him for a while, and then I flung my hand out of bed suddenly, and he was gone in a whisk. I went to the door after a time, stretching myself as if I were just awakened, and there was no sign of him.

“About an hour before sunset I was watching again; and I saw, on a sudden, a covey of birds rise suddenly about two hundred yards away to the north of the hut—that is, by the way that I should have to go down to the valleys again. They rose as if they were frightened. I kept my eyes on the place, and presently I saw a man’s hat moving very slowly. It was the movement of a man crawling on his hands, drawing his legs after him.

“Then I waited for David to come, but he did not come, and I determined then to make my way down here as well as I could after dark. If there were any fellows after me, I should have a better chance of escape than if I stayed in the hut, I thought, until they could fetch up the rest; and, if not, I could lose nothing by coming a day too soon.”

“But—” began the girl eagerly.

“Wait,” said Robin quietly. “That is not all. I made very poor way on foot (for I thought it better to come quietly than on a horse), and I went round about again and again in the precipitous ground so that, if there were any after me, they could not tell which way I meant to go. For about two hours I heard and saw nothing of any man, and I began to think I was a fool for all my pains. So I sat down a good while and rested, and even thought that I would go back again. But just as I was about to get up again I heard a stone fall a great way behind me: it was on some rocky ground about two hundred yards away. The night was quite still, and I could hear the stone very plainly…. It was I that crawled then, further down the hill, and it was then that I saw once more a man’s head move against the stars.

“I went straight on then, as quietly as I could. I made sure that it was but one that was after me, and that he would not try to take me by himself, and I saw no more of him till I came down near Padley—”

“Near Padley? Why—”

“I meant to go there first,” said the priest, “and lie, there till morning. But as I came down the hill I heard the steps of him again a great way off. So I turned sharp into a little broken ground that lies there, and hid myself among the rocks—”

Mistress Alice lifted her hand suddenly.

“Hark!” she whispered.

Then as the three sat motionless, there came, distinct and clear, from a little distance down the hill, the noise of two or three horses walking over stony ground.

III

For one deathly instant the two sat looking each into the other’s white face—since even the priest changed colour at the sound. (While they had talked the dawn had begun to glimmer, and the windows showed grey and ghostly on the thin morning mist.) Then they rose together. Marjorie was the first to speak.

“You must come upstairs at once,” she said. “All is ready there, as you know.”

The priest’s lips moved without speaking. Then he said suddenly:

“I had best be off the back way; that is, if it is what I think—”

“The house will be surrounded.”

“But you will have harboured me—”

Marjorie’s lips opened in a smile.

“I have done that in any case,” she said. She caught up the candle and blew it out, as she went towards the door.

“Come quickly,” she said.

At the door Janet met them. Her old face was all distraught with fear. She had that moment run downstairs again on hearing the noise. Marjorie silenced her by a gesture….

The young carpenter had done his work excellently, and Marjorie had taken care that there had been no neglect since the work had been done. Yet so short was the time since the hearing of the horses’ feet, that as the girl slipped out of the press again after drawing back the secret door, there came the loud knocking beneath, for which they had waited with such agony.

“Quick!” she said….

From within, as she waited, came the priest’s whisper. “Is this to be pushed—?”

“Yes; yes.”

There was the sound of sliding wood and a little snap. Then she closed the doors of the press again.

IV

Mr. Audrey outside grew indignant, and the more so since he was unhappy.

He had had the message from my lord Shrewsbury that a magistrate of her Grace should show more zeal; and, along with this, had come a private intimation that it was suspected that Mr. Audrey had at least once warned the recusants of an approaching attack. It would be as well, then, if he would manifest a little activity….

But it appeared to him the worst luck in the world that the hunt should lead him to Mistress Manners’ door.

It was late in the afternoon that the informer had made his appearance at Matstead, thirsty and dishevelled, with the news that a man thought to be a Popish priest was in hiding on the moors; that he was being kept under observation by another informer; and that it was to be suspected that he was the man who had been missed at Padley when my lord had taken Garlick and Ludlam. If it were the man, it would be the priest known by the name of Alban—the fellow whom my lord’s man had so much distrusted at Fotheringay, and whom he had seen again in Derby a while later. Next, if it were this man, he would almost certainly make for Padley if he were disturbed.

Mr. Audrey had bitten his nails a while as he listened to this, and then had suddenly consented. The plan suggested was simple enough. One little troop should ride to Padley, gathering reinforcements on the way, and another on foot should set out for the shepherd’s hut. Then, if the priest should be gone, this second party should come on towards Padley immediately and join forces with the riders.

All this had been done, and the mounted company, led by the magistrate himself, had come up from the valley in time to see the signalling from the heights (contrived by the showing of lights now and again), which indicated that the priest was moving in the direction that had been expected, and that one man at least was on his track. They had waited there, in the valley, till the intermittent signals had reached the level ground and ceased, and had then ridden up cautiously in time to meet the informer’s companion, and to learn that the fugitive had doubled suddenly back towards Booth’s Edge. There they had waited then, till the dawn was imminent, and, with it, there came the party on foot, as had been arranged; then, all together, numbering about twenty-five men, they had pushed on in the direction of Mistress Manners’ house.

As the house came into view, more than ever Mr. Audrey reproached his evil luck. Certainly there still were two or three chances to one that no priest would be taken at all; since, first, the man might not be a priest, and next, he might have passed the manor and plunged back again into the hills. But it was not very pleasant work, this rousing of a house inhabited by a woman for whom the magistrate had very far from unkindly feelings, and on such an errand…. So the informers marvelled at the venom with which Mr. Audrey occasionally whispered at them in the dark.

His heart sank as he caught a glimpse of a light first showing, and then suddenly extinguished, in the windows of the hall, but he was relieved to hear no comment on it from the men who walked by his horse; he even hoped that they had not seen it…. But he must do his duty, he said to himself.

He grew a little warm and impatient when no answer came to the knocking. He said such play-acting was absurd. Why did not the man come out courageously and deny that he was a priest? He would have a far better excuse for letting him go.

“Knock again,” he cried.

And again the thunder rang through the archway, and the summons in the

Queen’s name to open.

Then at last a light shone beneath the door. (It was brightening rapidly towards the dawn here in the open air, but within it would still be dark.) Then a voice grumbled within.

“Who is there?”

“Man,” bellowed the magistrate, “open the door and have done with it. I tell you I am a magistrate!”

There was silence. Then the voice came again.

“How do I know that you are?”

Mr. Audrey slipped off his horse, scrambled to the door, set his hands on his knees and his mouth to the keyhole.

“Open the door, you fool, in the Queen’s name…. I am Mr. Audrey, of

Matstead.”

Again came the pause. The magistrate was in the act of turning to bid his men beat the door in, when once more the voice came.

“I’ll tell the mistress, sir…. She’s a-bed.”

His discomfort grew on him as he waited, staring out at the fast yellowing sky. (Beneath him the slopes towards the valley and the far-off hills on the other side appeared like a pencil drawing, delicate, minute and colourless, or, at the most, faintly tinted in phantoms of their own colours. The sky, too, was grey with the night mists not yet dissolved.) It was an unneighbourly action, this of his, he thought. He must do his best to make it as little offensive as he could. He turned to his men.

“Now, men,” he said, glaring like a judge, “no violence here, unless I give the order. No breaking of aught in the house. The lady here is a friend of mine; and—”

The great bolts shot back suddenly; he turned as the door opened; and there, pale as milk, with eyes that seemed a-fire, Marjorie’s face was looking at him; she was wrapped in her long cloak and her hood was drawn over her head. The space behind was crowded with faces, unrecognizable in the shadow.

He saluted her.

“Mistress Manners,” he said, “I am sorry to incommode you in this way. But a couple of fellows tell me that a man hath come this way, whom they think to be a priest. I am a magistrate, mistress, and—”

He stopped, confounded by her face. It was not like her face at all—the face, rather, seemed as nothing; her whole soul was in her eyes, crying to him some message that he could not understand. It appeared impossible to him that this was a mere entreaty that he should leave one more priest at liberty; impossible that the mere shock and surprise should have changed her so…. He looked at her…. Then he began again:

“It is no will of mine, mistress, beyond my duty. But I hold her Grace’s commission—”

She swept back again, motioning him to enter. He was astonished at his own discomfort, but he followed, and his men pressed close after; and he noticed, even in that twilight, that a look of despair went over the girl’s face, sharp as pain, as she saw them.

“You have come to search my house, sir?” she asked. Her voice was as colourless as her features.

“My commission, mistress, compels me—”

Then he noticed that the doors into the hall had been pushed open, and that she was moving towards them. And he thought he understood.

“Stand back, men,” he barked, so fiercely that they recoiled. “This lady shall speak with me first.”

He passed up the hall after her. He was as unhappy as possible. He wondered what she could have to say to him; she must surely understand that no pleading could turn him; he must do his duty. Yet he would certainly do this with as little offence as he could.

“Mistress Manners—” he began.

Then she turned on him again. They were at the further end of the hall, and could speak low without being overheard.

“You must begone again,” she whispered. “Oh! you must begone again. You do not understand; you—”

Her eyes still burned with that terrible eloquence; it was as the face of one on the rack.

“Mistress, I cannot begone again. I must do my duty. But I promise you—”

She was close to him, staring into his face; he could feel the heat of her breath on his face.

“You must begone at once,” she whispered, still in that voice of agony. He saw her begin to sway on her feet and her eyes turn glassy. He caught her as she swayed.

“Here! you women!” he cried.

It was all that he could do to force himself out through the crowd of folks that looked on him. It was not that they barred his way. Rather they shrank from him; yet their eyes pulled and impeded him; it was by a separate effort that he put each foot before the other. Behind he could hear the long moan that she had given die into silence, and the chattering whispers of her women who held her. He reassured himself savagely; he would take care that no one was taken … she would thank him presently; he would but set guards at all the doors and make a cursory search; he would break a panel or two; no more. And that would save both his face and her own…. Yet he loathed even such work as this….

He turned abruptly as he came into the buttery passage.

“All the women in the hall,” he said sharply. “Jack, keep the door fast till we are done.”

V

He took particular pains to do as little damage as possible.

First he went through the out-houses, himself with a pike testing the haystacks, where he was sure that no man could be hidden. The beasts turned slow and ruminating eyes upon him as he went by their stalls.

As he passed, a little later, the inner door into the buttery passage, he could hear the beating of hands on the hall-door. He went on quickly to the kitchen, hating himself, yet determined to get all done quickly, and drove the kitchen-maid, who was crouching by the unlighted fire, out behind him, sending a man with her to bestow her in the hall. She wailed as she went by him, but it was unintelligible, and he was in no mood for listening.

“Take her in,” he said; “but let no one out, nor a message, till all is done.” (He thought that the kinder course.)

Then at last he went upstairs, still with his little bodyguard of four, of whom one was the man who had followed the fugitive down from the hills.

He began with the little rooms over the hall: a bedstead stood in one; in another was a table all piled with linen a third had its floor covered with early autumn fruit, ready for preserving. He struck on a panel or two as he went, for form’s sake.

As he came out again he turned savagely on the informer.

“It is damned nonsense,” he said; “the fellow’s not here at all. I told you he’d have gone back to the hills.”

The man looked up at him with a furtive kind of sneer in his face; he, too, was angry enough; the loss of the priest meant the loss of the heavy reward.

“We have not searched a room rightly yet, sir,” he snarled. “There are a hundred places—”

“Not searched! You villain! Why, what would you have?”

“It’s not the manner I’ve done it before, sir. A pike-thrust here, and a blow there—”

“I tell you I will not have the house injured! Mistress Manners—”

“Very good, sir. Your honour is the magistrate…. I am not.”

The old man’s temper boiled over. They were passing at that instant a half-open door, and within he could see a bare little parlour, with linen presses against the walls. It would not hide a cat.

“Do you search, then!” he cried. “Here, then, and I will watch you! But you shall pay for any wanton damage, I tell you.”

The man shrugged his shoulders.

“What is the use, then—” he began.

“Bah! search, then, as you will. I will pay.”

The noise from the hall had ceased altogether as the four men went into the parlour. It was a plain little room, with an open fireplace and a great settle beside it. There were hangings here and there. That over the hearth presented Icarus in the chariot of the sun. It seemed such a place as that in which two lovers might sit and talk together at sunset…. In one place hung a dark oil painting.

The old man went across to the window and stared out.

The sun was up by now, far away out of sight; and the whole sunlit valley lay stretched beneath beyond the slopes that led down to Padley. The loathing for his work rose up again and choked him—this desperate bullying of a few women; and all to no purpose. He stared out at the horses beneath, and at the couple of men gossiping together at their heads…. He determined to see Mistress Manners again alone presently, when she should be recovered, and have a word with her in private. She would forgive him, perhaps, when she saw him ride off empty-handed, as he most certainly meant to do.

He thought, too, of other things, this old man, as he stood, with his shoulders squared, resolute in his lack of attention to the mean work going on behind him…. He wondered whether God were angry or no. Whether this kind of duty were according to His will. Down there was Padley, where he had heard mass in the old days; Padley, where the two priests had been taken a few weeks ago. He wondered—

“If it please your honour we will break in this panel,” came the smooth, sneering voice that he loathed.

He turned sullenly.

They were opposite the old picture. Beneath it there showed a crack in the wainscoting…. He could scarcely refuse leave. Besides, the woodwork was flawed in any case—he would pay for a new panel himself.

“There is nothing there!” he said doubtfully.

“Oh, no, sir,” said the man with a peculiar look. “It is but to make a show—”

The old man’s brows came down angrily. Then he nodded; and, leaning against the window, watched them.

One of his own men came forward with a hammer and chisel. He placed the chisel at the edge of the cracked panel, where the informer directed, and struck a blow or two. There was the unmistakable dull sound of wood against stone—not an echo of resonance. The old man smiled grimly to himself. The man must be a fool if he thought there could be any hole there!… Well; he would let them do what they would here; and then forbid any further damage…. He wondered if the priest really were in the house or no.

The two men had their heads together now, eyeing the crack they had made…. Then the informer said something in a low voice that the old man could not hear; and the other, handing him the chisel and hammer, went out of the room, beckoning to one of the two others that stood waiting at the door.

“Well?” sneered the old man. “Have you caught your bird?

“Not yet, sir.”

He could hear the steps of the others in the next room; and then silence.

“What are they doing there?” he asked suddenly.

“Nothing, sir…. I just bade a man wait on that side.”

The man was once more inserting the chisel in the top of the wainscoting; then he presently began to drive it down with the hammer as if to detach it from the wall.

Suddenly he stopped; and at the same instant the old man heard some faint, muffled noise, as of footsteps moving either in the wall or beyond it.

“What is that?”

The man said nothing; he appeared to be listening.

“What is that?” demanded the other again, with a strange uneasiness at his heart. Was it possible, after all! Then the man dropped his chisel and hammer and darted out and vanished. A sudden noise of voices and tramplings broke out somewhere out of sight.

“God’s blood!” roared the old man in anger and dismay. “I believe they have the poor devil!”

He ran out, two steps down the passage and in again at the door of the next room. It was a bedroom, with two beds side by side: a great press with open doors stood between the hearth and the window; and, in the midst of the floor, five men struggled and swayed together. The fifth was a bearded young man, well dressed; but he could not see his face.

Then they had him tight; his hands were twisted behind his back; an arm was flung round his neck; and another man, crouching, had his legs embraced. He cried out once or twice…. The old man turned sick … a great rush of blood seemed to be hammering in his ears and dilating his eyes…. He ran forward, tearing at the arm that was choking the prisoner’s throat, and screaming he knew not what.

And it was then that he knew for certain that this was his son.

CHAPTER VI

I

Robin drew a long breath as the door closed behind him. Then he went forward to the table, and sat on it, swinging his feet, and looking carefully and curiously round the room, so far as the darkness would allow him; his eyes had had scarcely time yet to become accustomed to the change from the brilliant sunshine outside to the gloom of the prison. It was his first experience of prison, and, for the present, he was more interested than subdued by it.

It seemed to him that a lifetime had passed since the early morning, up in the hills, when he had attempted to escape by the bedroom, and had been seized as he came out of the press. Of course, he had fought; it was his right and his duty; and he had not known the utter uselessness of it, in that guarded house. He had known nothing of what was going forward. He had heard the entrance of the searchers below, and now and again their footsteps…. Then he had seen the wainscoting begin to gape before him, and had understood that his only chance was by the way he had entered. Then, as he had caught sight of his father, he had ceased his struggles.

He had not said one word to him. The shock was complete and unexpected. He had seen the old man stagger back and sink on the bed. Then he had been hurried from the room and downstairs. As the party came into the buttery entrance, there had been a great clamour; the man on guard at the hall doors had run forward; the doors had opened suddenly and Marjorie had come out, with a surge of faces behind her. But to her, too, he had said nothing; he had tried to smile; he was still faint and sick from the fight upstairs. But he had been pushed out into the air, where he saw the horses waiting, and round the corner of the house into an out-building, and there he had had time to recover.

It was strange how little religion had come to his aid during that hour of waiting; and, indeed, during the long and weary ride to Derby. He had tried to pray; but he had had no consolation, such as he supposed must surely come to all who suffered for Christ. It had been, instead, the tiny things that absorbed his attention; the bundle of hay in the corner; an ancient pitch-fork; the heads of his guards outside the little barred window; the sound of their voices talking. Later, when a man had come out from the house, and looked in at his door, telling him that they must start in ten minutes, and giving him a hunch of bread to eat, it had been the way the man’s eyebrows grew over his nose, and the creases of his felt hat, to which he gave his mind. Somewhere, far beneath in himself, he knew that there were other considerations and memories and movements, that were even fears and hopes and desires; but he could not come at these; he was as a man struggling to dive, held up on the surface by sheets of cork. He knew that his father was in that house; that it was his father who had been the means of taking him; that Marjorie was there—yet these facts were as tales read in a book. So, too, with his faith; his lips repeated words now and then; but God was as far from him and as inconceivably unreal, as is the thought of sunshine and a garden to a miner freezing painlessly in the dark….

In the same state he was led out again presently, and set on a horse. And while a man attached one foot to the other by a cord beneath the horse’s belly, he looked like a child at the arched doorway of the house; at a patch of lichen that was beginning to spread above the lintel; at the open window of the room above.

He vaguely desired to speak with Marjorie again; he even asked the man who was tying his feet whether he might do so; but he got no answer. A group of men watched him from the door, and he noticed that they were silent. He wondered if it were the tying of his feet in which they were so much absorbed.

Little by little, as they rode, this oppression began to lift. Half a dozen times he determined to speak with the man who rode beside him and held his horse by a leading rein; and each time he did not speak. Neither did any man speak to him. Another man rode behind; and a dozen or so went on foot. He could hear them talking together in low voices.

He was finally roused by his companion’s speaking. He had noticed the man look at him now and again strangely and not unkindly.

“Is it true that you are a son of Mr. Audrey, sir?”

He was on the point of saying “Yes,” when his mind seemed to come back to him as clear as an awakening from sleep. He understood that he must not identify himself if he could help it. He had been told at Rheims that silence was best in such matters.

“Mr. Audrey?” he said. “The magistrate?”

The man nodded. He did not seem an unkindly personage at all. Then he smiled.

“Well, well,” he said. “Less said—”

He broke off and began to whistle. Then he interrupted himself once more.

“He was still in his fit,” he said, “when we came away. Mistress Manners was with him.”

Intelligence was flowing back in Robin’s brain like a tide. It seemed to him that he perceived things with an extraordinary clearness and rapidity. He understood he must show no dismay or horror of any kind; he must carry himself easily and detachedly.

“In a fit, was he?”

The other nodded.

“I am arrested on his warrant, then? And on what charge?”

The man laughed outright.

“That’s too good,” he said. “Why, we, have a bundle of popery on the horse behind! It was all in the hiding-hole!”

“I am supposed to be a priest, then?” said Robin, with admirable disdain.

Again the man laughed.

“They will have some trouble in proving that,” said Robin viciously.

He learned presently whither they were going. He was right in thinking it to be Derby. There he was to be handed over to the gaoler. The trial would probably come on at the Michaelmas assizes, five or six weeks hence. He would have leave to communicate with a lawyer when he was once safely bestowed there; but whether or no his lawyer or any other visitors would be admitted to him was a matter for the magistrates.

They ate as they rode, and reached Derby in the afternoon.

At the very outskirts the peculiar nature of this cavalcade was observed; and by the time that they came within sight of the market-square a considerable mob was hustling along on all sides. There were a few cries raised. Robin could not distinguish the words, but it seemed to him as if some were raised for him as well as against him. He kept his head somewhat down; he thought it better to risk no complications that might arise should he be recognised.

As they drew nearer the market-place the progress became yet slower, for the crowd seemed suddenly and abnormally swelled. There was a great shouting of voices, too, in front, and the smell of burning came distinctly on the breeze. The man riding beside Robin turned his head and called out; and in answer one of the others riding behind pushed his horse up level with the other two, so that the prisoner had a guard on either side. A few steps further, and another order was issued, followed by the pressing up of the men that went on foot so as to form a complete square about the three riders.

Robin put a question, but the men gave him no answer. He could see that they were preoccupied and anxious. Then, as step by step they made their way forward and gained the corner of the market-place, he saw the reason of these precautions; for the whole square was one pack of heads, except where, somewhere in the midst, a great bonfire blazed in the sunlight. The noise, too, was deafening; drums were beating, horns blowing, men shouting aloud. From window after window leaned heads, and, as the party advanced yet further, they came suddenly in view of a scaffold hung with gay carpets and ribbons, on which a civil dignitary, in some official dress, was gesticulating.

It was useless to ask a question; not a word could have been heard unless it were shouted aloud; and presently the din redoubled, for out of sight, round some corner, guns were suddenly shot off one after another; and the cheering grew shrill and piercing in contrast.

As they came out at last, without attracting any great attention, into the more open space at the entrance of Friar’s Gate, Robin turned again and asked what the matter was. It was plainly not himself, as he had at first almost believed.

The man turned an exultant face to him.

“It’s the Spanish fleet!” he said. “There’s not a ship of it left, they say.”

When they halted at the gate of the prison there was another pause, while the cord that tied his feet was cut, and he was helped from his horse, as he was stiff and constrained from the long ride under such circumstances. He heard a roar of interest and abuse, and, perhaps, a little sympathy, from the part of the crowd that had followed, as the gate close behind him.

II

As his eyes became better accustomed to the dark, he began to see what kind of a place it was in which he found himself. It was a square little room on the ground-floor, with a single, heavily-barred window, against which the dirt had collected in such quantities as to exclude almost all light. The floor was beaten earth, damp and uneven; the walls were built of stones and timber, and were dripping with moisture; there was a table and a stool in the centre of the room, and a dark heap in the corner. He examined this presently, and found it to be rotting hay covered with some kind of rug. The whole place smelled hideously foul.

From far away outside came still the noise of cheering, heard as through wool, and the sharp reports of the cannon they were still firing. The Armada seemed very remote from him, here in ward. Its destruction affected him now hardly at all, except for the worse, since an anti-Catholic reaction might very well follow…. He set himself, with scarcely an effort, to contemplate more personal matters.

He was astonished that his purse had not been taken from him. He had been searched rapidly just now, in an outer passage, by a couple of men, one of whom he understood to be his gaoler; and a knife and a chain and his rosary had been taken from him. But the purse had been put back again…. He remembered presently that the possession of money made a considerable difference to a prisoner’s comfort; but he determined to do as little as he was obliged in this way. He might need the money more urgently by and by.

By the time that he had gone carefully round his prison-walls, even reaching up to the window and testing the bars, pushing as noiselessly as he could against the door, pacing the distances in every direction—he had, at the same time, once more arranged and rehearsed every piece of evidence that he possessed, and formed a number of resolutions.

He was perfectly clear by now that his father had been wholly ignorant of the identity of the man he was after. The horror in the gasping face that he had seen so close to his own, above the strangling arm, set that beyond a doubt; the news of the fit into which his father had fallen confirmed it.

Next, he had been right in believing himself watched in the shepherd’s hut, and followed down from it. This hiding of his in the hills, the discovery of him in the hiding-hole, together with the vestments—these two things were the heaviest pieces of testimony against him. More remote testimony might be brought forward from his earlier adventures—his presence at Fotheringay, his recognition by my lord’s man. But these were, in themselves, indifferent.

His resolutions were few and simple.

He would behave himself quietly in all ways: he would make no demand to see anyone; since he knew that whatever was possible would be done for him by Marjorie. He would deny nothing and assert very little if he were brought before the magistrates. Finally, he would say, if he could, a dry mass every day; and observe the hours of prayer so far as he could. He had no books with him of any kind. But he could pray God for fortitude.

Then he knelt down on the earth floor and said his first prayer in prison; the prayer that had rung so often in his mind since Mary herself had prayed it aloud on the scaffold; and Mr. Bourgoign had repeated it to him.

“As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended on the Cross; even so receive me into the arms of Thy mercy, and blot out all my sins with Thy most precious Blood.”

CHAPTER VII

I

There was a vast crowd in the market-place at Michaelmas to see the judges come—partly because there was always excitement at the visible majesty of the law; partly because the tale of one at least of the prisoners had roused interest. It was a dramatic tale: he was first a seminary priest and a Derbyshire man (many remembered him riding as a little lad beside his father); he was, next, a runaway to Rheims for religion’s sake, when his father conformed; third, he had been taken in the house of Mistress Manners, to whom, report said, he had once been betrothed; last, he had been taken by his father himself. All this furnished matter for a quantity of conversation in the taverns; and it was freely discussed by the sentimental whether or no, if the priest yielded and conformed, he would yet find Mistress Manners willing to wed him.

Signs of the Armada rejoicings still survived in the market-place as the judges rode in. Streamers hung in the sunshine, rather bedraggled after so long, from the roof and pillars of the Guildhall, and a great smoke-blackened patch between the conduit and the cross marked where the ox had been roasted. There was a deal of loyal cheering as the procession went by; for these splendid personages on horseback stood to the mob for the power that had repelled the enemies of England; and her Grace’s name was received with enthusiasm. Behind the judges and their escort came a cavalcade of riders—gentlemen, grooms, servants, and agents of all sorts. But not a Derby man noticed or recognised a thin gentleman who rode modestly in the midst, with a couple of personal servants on either side of him. It was not until the visitors had separated to the various houses and inns where they were to be lodged, and the mob was dispersing home again, that it began to be rumoured everywhere that Mr. Topcliffe was come again to Derby on a special mission.

II

The tidings came to Marjorie as she leaned back in her chair in Mr.

Biddell’s parlour and listened to the last shoutings.

She had been in town now three days.

Ever since the capture she had been under guard in her own house till three days ago. Four men had been billeted upon her, not, indeed, by the orders of Mr. Audrey, since Mr. Audrey was in no condition to control affairs any longer, but by the direction of Mr. Columbell, who had himself ridden out to take charge at Booth’s Edge, when the news of the arrest had come, with the prisoner himself, to the city. It was he, too, who had seen to the removal of Mr. Audrey a week later, when he had recovered from the weakness caused by the fit sufficiently to travel as far as Derby; for it was thought better that the magistrate who had effected the capture should be accessible to the examining magistrates. It was, of course, lamentable, said Mr. Columbell, that father and son should have been brought into such relations, and he would do all that he could to relieve Mr. Audrey from any painful task in which they could do without him. But her Grace’s business must be done, and he had had special messages from my lord Shrewsbury himself that the prisoner must be dealt with sternly. It was believed, wrote my lord, that Mr. Alban, as he called himself, had a good deal more against him than the mere fact of being a seminary priest: it was thought that he had been involved in the Babington plot, and had at least once had access to the Queen of the Scots since the fortunate failure of the conspiracy.

All this, then, Marjorie knew from Mr. Biddell, who seemed always to know everything; but it was not until the evening on which the judges arrived that she learned the last and extreme measures that would betaken to establish these suspicions. She had ridden openly to Derby so soon as the news came from there that for the present she might be set at liberty.

The lawyer came into the darkening room as the square outside began to grow quiet, and Marjorie opened her eyes to see who it was.

He said nothing at first, but sat down close beside her. He knew she must be told, but he hated the telling. He carried a little paper in his hand. He would begin with that little bit of good news first, he said to himself.

“Well, mistress,” he said, “I have the order at last. We are to see him to-night. It is ‘for Mr. Biddell and a friend.’”

She sat up, and a little vitality came back to her face; for a moment she almost looked as she had looked in the early summer.

“To-night?” she said. “And when—”

“He will not be brought before my lords for three or four days yet. There is a number of cases to come before his. It will give us those two or three days, at least, to prepare our case.”

He spoke heavily and dejectedly. Up to the present he had been utterly refused permission to see his client; and though he knew the outlines of the affair well enough, he knew very little of the thousand details on which the priest would ask his advice. It was a hopeless affair, it appeared to the lawyer, in any case. And now, with this last piece of tidings, he knew that there was, indeed, nothing to be said except words of encouragement.

He listened with the same heavy air to Mistress Manners as she said a word or two as to what must be spoken of to Robin. She was very quiet and collected, and talked to the point. But he said nothing.

“What is the matter, sir?” she said.

He lifted his eyes to hers. There was still enough light from the windows for him to see her eyes, and that there was a spark in them that had not been there just now. And it was for him to extinguish it…. He gripped his courage.

“I have had worse news than all,” he said.

Her lips moved, and a vibration went over her face. Her eyes blinked, as at a sudden light.

“Yes?”

He put his hand tenderly on her arm.

“You must be courageous,” he said. “It is the worst news that ever came to me. It concerns one who is come from London to-day, and rode in with my lords.”

She could not speak, but her great eyes entreated him to finish her misery.

“Yes,” he said, still pressing his hand on to her arm. “Yes; it is Mr.

Topcliffe who is come.”

He felt the soft muscles harden like steel…. There was no sound except the voices talking in the square and the noise of footsteps across the pavements. He could not look at her.

Then he heard her draw a long breath and breathe it out again, and her taut muscles relaxed.

“We … we are all in Christ’s hands,” she said…. “We must tell him.”

III

It appeared to the girl as if she were moving on a kind of set stage, with every movement and incident designed beforehand, in a play that was itself a kind of destiny—above all, when she went at last into Robin’s cell and saw him standing there, and found it to be that in which so long ago she had talked with Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert….

The great realities were closing round her, as irresistible as wheels and bars. There was scarcely a period in her life, scarcely a voluntary action of hers for good or evil, that did not furnish some part of this vast machine in whose grip both she and her friend were held so fast. No calculation on her part could have contrived so complete a climax; yet hardly a calculation that had not gone astray from that end to which she had designed it. It was as if some monstrous and ironical power had been beneath and about her all her life long, using those thoughts and actions that she had intended in one way to the development of another.

First, it was she that had first turned her friend’s mind to the life of a priest. Had she submitted to natural causes, she would have been his wife nine years ago; they would have been harassed no doubt and troubled, but no more. It was she again that had encouraged his return to Derbyshire. If it had not been for that, and for the efforts she had made to do what she thought good work for God, he might have been sent elsewhere. It was in her house that he had been taken, and in the very place she had designed for his safety. If she had but sent him on, as he wished, back to the hills again, he might never have been taken at all. These, and a score of other thoughts, had raced continually through her mind; she felt even as if she were responsible for the manner of his taking, and for the horror that it had been his father who had accomplished it; if she had said more, or less, in the hall of that dark morning; if she had not swooned; if she had said bravely: “It is your son, sir, who is here,” all might have been saved. And now it was Topcliffe who was come—(and she knew all that this signified)—the very man at whose mere bodily presence she had sickened in the court of the Tower. And, last, it was she who had to tell Robin of this.

So tremendous, however, had been the weight of these thoughts upon her, crowned and clinched (so to say) by finding that the priest was even in the same cell as that in which she had visited the traitor, that there was no room any more for bitterness. Even as she waited, with Mr. Biddell behind her, as the gaoler fumbled with the keys, she was aware that the last breath of resentment had been drawn…. It was, indeed, a monstrous Power that had so dealt with her…. It was none other than the Will of God, plain at last.

She knelt down for the priest’s blessing, without speaking, as the door closed, and Mr. Biddell knelt behind her. Then she rose and went forward to the stool and sat upon it.

He was hardly changed at all. He looked a little white and drawn in the wavering light of the flambeau; but his clothes were orderly and clean, and his eyes as bright and resolute as ever.

“It is a great happiness to see you,” he said, smiling, and then no more compliments.

“And what of my father?” he added instantly.

She told him. Mr. Audrey was in Derby, still sick from his fit. He was in Mr. Columbell’s house. She had not seen him.

“Robin,” she said (and she used the old name, utterly unknowing that she did so), “we must speak with Mr. Biddell presently about your case. But there is a word or two I have to say first. We can have two hours here, if you wish it.”

Robin put his hands behind him on to the table and jumped lightly, so that he sat on it, facing her.

“If you will not sit on the table, Mr. Biddell, I fear there is only that block of wood.”

He pointed to a, block of a tree set on end. It served him, laid flat, as a pillow. The lawyer went across to it.

“The judges, I hear, are come to-night,” said the priest.

She bowed.

“Yes; but your case will not be up for three or four days yet.”

“Why, then, I shall have time—”

She lifted her hand sharply a little to check him.

“You will not have much time,” she said, and paused again. A sharp contraction came and went in the muscles of her throat. It was as if a band gripped her there, relaxed, and gripped again. She put up her own hand desperately to tear at her collar.

“Why, but—” began the priest.

She could bear it no more. His resolute cheerfulness, his frank astonishment, were like knives to her. She gave one cry.

“Topcliffe is come … Topcliffe!…” she cried. Then she flung her arm across the table and dropped her face on it. No tears came from her eyes, but tearing sobs shook and tormented her.

It was quite quiet after she had spoken. Even in her anguish she knew that. The priest did not stir from where he sat a couple of feet away; only the swinging of his feet ceased. She drove down her convulsions; they rose again; she drove them down once more. Then the tears surged up, her whole being relaxed, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Marjorie,” said the grave voice, as steady as it had ever been, “Marjorie. This is what we looked for, is it not?… Topcliffe is come, is he? Well, let him come. He or another. It is for this that we have all looked since the beginning. Christ His Grace is strong enough, is it not? It hath been strong enough for many, at least; and He will not surely take it from me who need it so much….” (He spoke in pauses, but his voice never faltered.) “I have prayed for that grace ever since I have been here…. He hath given me great peace in this place…. I think He will give it me to the end…. You must pray, my … my child; you must not cry like that.”

(She lifted her agonized face for a moment, then she let it fall again.

It seemed as if he knew the very thoughts of her.)

“This all seems very perfect to me,” he went on. “It was yourself who first turned me to this life, and you knew surely what you did. I knew, at least, all the while, I think; and I have never ceased to thank God. And it was through your hands that the letter came to me to go to Fotheringay. And it was in your house that I was taken…. And it was Mr. Maine’s beads that they found on me when they searched me here—the pair of beads you gave me.”

Again she stared at him, blind and bewildered.

He went on steadily:

“And now it is you again who bring me the first news of my passion. It is yourself, first and last, under God, that have brought me all these graces and crosses. And I thank you with all my heart…. But you must pray for me to the end, and after it, too.”

CHAPTER VIII

I

“Water,” said a sharp voice, pricking through the enormous thickness of the bloodshot dark that had come down on him. There followed a sound of floods; then a sense of sudden coolness, and he opened his eyes once more, and became aware of unbearable pain in arms and feet. Again the whirling dark, striped with blood colour, fell on him like a blanket; again the sound of waters falling and the sense of coolness, and again he opened his eyes.

For a minute or two it was all that he could do to hold himself in consciousness. It appeared to him a necessity to do so. He could see a smoke-stained roof of beams and rafters, and on these he fixed his eyes, thinking that he could hold himself so, as by thin, wiry threads of sight, from falling again into the pit where all was black or blood-colour. The pain was appalling, but he thought he had gripped it at last, and could hold it so, like a wrestler.

As the pain began to resolve itself into throbs and stabs, from the continuous strain in which at first it had shown itself—a strain that was like a shrill horn blowing, or a blaze of bluish light—he began to see more, and to understand a little. There were four or five faces looking down on him: one was the face of a man he had seen somewhere in an inn … it was at Fotheringay; it was my lord Shrewsbury’s man. Another was a lean face; a black hat came and went behind it; the lips were drawn in a sort of smile, so that he could see the teeth…. Then he perceived next that he himself was lying in a kind of shallow trough of wood upon the floor. He could see his bare feet raised a little and tied with cords.

Then, one by one, these sights fitted themselves into one another and made sense. He remembered that he was in Derby gaol—not in his own cell; that the lean face was of a man called Topcliffe; that a physician was there as well as the others; that they had been questioning him on various points, and that some of these points he had answered, while others he had not, and must not. Some of them concerned her Grace of the Scots…. These he had answered. Then, again, association came back….

“As Thy arms, O Christ …” he whispered.

“Now then,” came the sharp voice in his ear, so close and harsh as to distress him. “These questions again…. Were there any other places besides at Padley and Booth’s Edge, in the parish of Hathersage, where you said mass?”

“… O Christ, were extended on the Cross—” began the tortured man dreamily. “Ah-h-h!”….

It was a scream, whispered rather than shrieked, that was torn from him by the sharpness of the agony. His body had lifted from the floor without will of his own, twisting a little; and what seemed as strings of fiery pain had shot upwards from his feet and downwards from his wrists as the roller was suddenly jerked again. He hung there perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, conscious only of the blinding pain—questions, questioners, roof and faces all gone and drowned again in a whirling tumult of darkness and red streaks. The sweat poured again suddenly from his whole body…. Then again he sank relaxed upon the floor, and the pulses beat in his head, and he thought that Marjorie and her mother and his own father were all looking at him….

He heard presently the same voice talking:

“—and answer the questions that are put to you…. Now then, we will begin the others, if it please you better…. In what month was it that you first became privy to the plot against her Grace?”

“Wait!” whispered the priest. “Wait, and I will answer that.” (He understood that there was a trap here. The question had been framed differently last time. But his mind was all a-whirl; and he feared he might answer wrongly if he could not collect himself. He still wondered why so many friends of his were in the room—even Father Campion….)

He drew a breath again presently, and tried to speak; but his voice broke like a shattered trumpet, and he could not command it…. He must whisper.

“It was in August, I think…. I think it was August, two years ago.”…

“August … you mean May or April.”

“No; it was August…. At least, all that I know of the plot was when … when—” (His thoughts became confused again; it was like strings of wool, he thought, twisted violently together; a strand snapped now and again. He made a violent effort and caught an end as it was slipping away.) “It was in August, I think; the day that Mr. Babington fled, that he wrote to me; and sent me—” (He paused: he became aware that here, too, lurked a trap if he were to say he had seen Mary; he would surely be asked what he had seen her for, and his priesthood might be so proved against him…. He could not remember whether that had been proved; and so … would Father Campion advise him perhaps whether….)

The voice jarred again; and startled him into a flash of coherence. He thought he saw a way out.

“Well?” snapped the voice. “Sent you?… Sent you whither?”

“Sent me to Chartley; where I saw her Grace … her Grace of the Scots; and … ‘As Thy arms, O Christ….’”

“Now then; now then—! So your saw her Grace? And what was that for?”

“I saw her Grace … and … and told her what Mr. Babington had told me.”

“What was that, then?”

“That … that he was her servant till death; and … and a thousand if he had them. And so, ‘As Thy arms, O—’”

“Water,” barked the voice.

Again came the rush as of cataracts; and a sensation of drowning. There followed an instant’s glow of life; and then the intolerable pain came back; and the heavy, red-streaked darkness….

II

He found himself, after some period, lying more easily. He could not move hand or foot. His body only appeared to live. From his shoulders to his thighs he was alive; the rest was nothing. But he opened his eyes and saw that his arms were laid by his side; and that he was no longer in the wooden trough. He wondered at his hands; he wondered even if they were his … they were of an unusual colour and bigness; and there was something like a tight-fitting bracelet round each wrist. Then he perceived that he was shirtless and hoseless; and that the bracelets were not bracelets, but rings of swollen flesh. But there was no longer any pain or even sensation in them; and he was aware that his mouth glowed as if he had drunk ardent spirits.

He was considering all this, slowly, like a child contemplating a new toy. Then there came something between him and the light; he saw a couple of faces eyeing him. Then the voice began again, at first confused and buzzing, then articulate; and he remembered.

“Now, then,” said the voice, “you have had but a taste of it….” (“A taste of it; a taste of it.” The phrase repeated itself like the catch of a song…. When he regained his attention, the sentence had moved on.)

“… these questions. I will put them to you again from the beginning. You will give your answer to each. And if my lord is not satisfied, we must try again.”

“My lord!” thought the priest. He rolled his eyes round a little further. (He dared not move his head; the sinews of his throat burned like red-hot steel cords at the thought of it.) And he saw a little table floating somewhere in the dark; a candle burned on it; and a melancholy face with dreamy eyes was brightly illuminated…. That was my lord Shrewsbury, he considered….

“… in what month that you first became privy to the plot against her Grace?”

(Sense was coming back to him again now. He remembered what he had said just now.)

“It was in August,” he whispered, “in August, I think; two years ago.

Mr. Babington wrote to me of it.”

“And you went to the Queen of the Scots, you say?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you there?”

“I gave the message.”

“What was that?”

“… That Mr. Babington was her servant always; that he regretted nothing, save that he had failed. He begged her to pray for his soul, and for all that had been with him in the enterprise.”

(It appeared to him that he was astonishingly voluble, all at once. He reflected that he must be careful.)

“And what did she say to that?”

“She declared herself guiltless of the plot … that she knew nothing of it; and that—”

“Now then; now then. You expect my lord to believe that?”

“I do not know…. But it was what was said.”

“And you profess that you knew nothing of the plot till then?”

“I knew nothing of it till then,” whispered the priest steadily. “But—”

(A face suddenly blotted out more of the light.)

“Yes?”

“Anthony—I mean Mr. Babington—had spoken to me a great while before—in … in some village inn…. I forget where. It was when I was a lad. He asked whether I would join in some enterprise. He did not say what it was…. But I thought it to be against the Queen of England…. And I would not.”…

He closed his eyes again. There had begun a slow heat of pain in ankles and wrists, not wholly unbearable, and a warmth began to spread in his body. A great shudder or two shook him. The voice said something he could not hear. Then a metal rim was pressed to his mouth; and a stream of something at once icy and fiery ran into his mouth and out at the corners. He swallowed once or twice; and his senses came back.

“You do not expect us to believe all that!” came the voice.

“It is the truth, for all that,” murmured the priest.

The next question came sudden as a shot fired:

“You were at Fotheringay?”

“Yes.”

“In what house?”

“I was in the inn—the ‘New Inn,’ I think it is.

“And you spoke with her Grace again?”

“No; I could not get at her. But—”

“Well?”

“I was in the court of the castle when her Grace was executed.”

There was a murmur of voices. He thought that someone had moved over to the table where my lord sat; but he could not move his eyes again, the labour was too great.

“Who was with you in the inn—as your friend, I mean?”

“A … a young man was with me. His name was Merton. He is in France, I think.”

“And he knew you to be a priest?” came the voice without an instant’s hesitation.

“Why—” Then he stopped short, just in time.

“Well?”

“How should he think that?” asked Robin.

There was a laugh somewhere. Then the voice went on, almost good-humouredly.

“Mr. Alban; what is the use of this fencing? You were taken in a hiding-hole with the very vestments at your feet. We know you to be a priest. We are not seeking to entrap you in that, for there is no need. But there are other matters altogether which we must have from you. You have been made priest beyond the seas, in Rheims—”

“I swear to you that I was not,” whispered Robin instantly and eagerly, thinking he saw a loophole.

“Well, then, at Châlons, or Douay: it matters not where. That is not our affair to-day. All that will be dealt with before my lords at the Assizes. But what we must have from you now is your answer to some other questions.”

“Assuming me to be a priest?”

“Mr. Alban, I will talk no more on that point. I tell you we know it.

But we must have answers on other points. I will come back to Merton

presently. These are the questions. I will read them through to you.

Then we will deal with them one by one.”

There was the rustle of a paper. An extraordinary desire for sleep came down on the priest; it was only by twitching his head a little, and causing himself acute shoots of pain in his neck that he could keep himself awake. He knew that he must not let his attention wander again. He remembered clearly how that Father Campion was dead, and that Marjorie could not have been here just now…. He must take great care not to become so much confused again.

“The first question,” read the voice slowly, “is, Whether you have said mass in other places beside Padley and the manor at Booth’s Edge. We know that you must have done so; but we must have the names of the places, and of the parties present, so far as you can remember them.

“The second question is, the names of all those other priests with whom you have spoken in England, since you came from Rheims; and the names of all other students, not yet priests, or scarcely, whom you knew at Rheims, and who are for England.

“The third question is, the names of all those whom you know to be friends of Mr. John FitzHerbert, Mr. Bassett and Mr. Fenton—not being priests; but Papists.

“These three questions will do as a beginning. When you have answered these, there is a number more. Now, sir.”

The last two words were rapped out sharply. Robin opened his eyes.

“As to the first two questions,” he whispered. “These assume that I am a priest myself. Yet that is what you, have to prove against me. The third question concerns … concerns my loyalty to my friends. But I will tell you—”

“Yes?” (The voice was sharp and eager.)

“I will tell you the names of two friends of each of those gentlemen you have named.”

A pen suddenly scratched on paper. He could not see who held it.

“Yes?” said the voice again.

“Well, sir. The names of two of the friends of Mr. FitzHerbert are, Mr.

Bassett and Mr. Fenton. The names—”

“Bah!” (The word sounded like the explosion of a gun.)

“You are playing with us—”

“The names,” murmured the priest slowly, “of two of Mr. Fenton’s friends are Mr. FitzHerbert and—”

A face, upside-down, thrust itself suddenly almost into his. He could feel the hot breath on his forehead.

“See here, Mr. Alban. You are fooling us. Do you think this is a Christmas game? I tell you it is not yet three o’clock. There are three hours more yet—”

A smooth, sad voice interrupted. (The reversed face vanished.)

“You have threatened the prisoner,” it said, “but you have not yet told him the alternative.”

“No, my lord…. Yes, my lord. Listen, Mr. Alban. My lord here says that if you will answer these questions he will use his influence on your behalf. Your life is forfeited, as you know very well. There is not a dog’s chance for you. Yet, if you will but answer these three questions—and no more—(No more, my lord?)—Yes; these three questions and no more, my lord will use his influence for you. He can promise nothing, he says, but that; but my lord’s influence—well, we need say no more on that point. If you refuse to answer, on the other hand, there are yet three hours more to-day; there is all to-morrow, and the next day. And, after that, your case will be before my lords at the Assizes. You have had but a taste of what we can do…. And then, sir, my lord does not wish to be harsh….”

There was a pause.

Robin was counting up the hours. It was three o’clock now. Then he had been on the rack, with intervals, since nine o’clock. That was six hours. There was but half that again for to-day. Then would come the night. He need not consider further than that…. But he must guard his tongue. It might speak, in spite—-

“Well, Mr. Alban?”

He opened his eyes.

“Well, sir?”

“Which is it to be?”

The priest smiled and closed his eyes again. If he could but fix his attention on the mere pain, he thought, and refuse utterly to consider the way of escape, he might be able to keep his unruly tongue in check.

“You will not, then?”

“No.”

The appalling pain ran through him again like fiery snakes of iron—from wrist to shoulders, from ankles to thighs, as the hands seized him and lifted him….

There was a moment or two of relief as he sank down once more into the trough of torture. He could feel that his feet were being handled, but it appeared as if nothing touched his flesh. He gave a great sighing moan as his arms were drawn back over his head; and the sweat poured again from all over his body.

Then, as the cords tightened:

“As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended …” he whispered.

CHAPTER IX

I

A great murmuring crowd filled every flat spot of ground and pavement and parapet. They stood even on the balustrade of St. Mary’s Bridge; there were fringes of them against the sky on the edges of roofs a quarter of a mile away. No flat surface was to be seen anywhere except on the broad reach of the river, and near the head of the bridge, in the circular space, ringed by steel caps and pike-points, where the gallows and ladder rose. Close beside them a column of black smoke rose heavily into the morning air, bellying away into the clear air. A continual steady low murmur of talking went up continually.

There had been no hanging within the memory of any that had roused such interest. Derbyshire men had been hung often enough; a criminal usually had a dozen friends at least in the crowd to whom he shouted from the ladder. Seminary priests had been executed often enough now to have destroyed the novelty of it for the mob; why, three had been done to death here little more than two months ago in this very place. They gave no sport, certainly; they died too quietly; and what peculiar interest there was in it lay in the contemplation of the fact that it was for religion that they died. Gentlemen, too, had been hanged here now and then—polished persons, dressed in their best, who took off their outer clothes carefully, and in one or two cases had handed them to a servant; gentlemen with whom the sheriff shook hands before the end, who eyed the mob imperturbably or affected even not to be aware of the presence of the vulgar. But this hanging was sublime.

First, he was a Derbyshire man, a seminary priest and a gentleman—three points. Yet this was no more than the groundwork of his surpassing interest. For, next, he had been racked beyond belief. It was for three days before his sentence that Mr. Topcliffe himself had dealt with him. (Yes, Mr. Topcliffe was the tall man that had his rooms in the market-place, and always went abroad with two servants…. He was to have Padley, too, it was said, as a reward for all his zeal.) Of course, young Mr. Audrey (for that was his real name—not Alban; that was a Popish alias such as they all used)—Mr. Audrey had not been on the rack for the whole of every day. But he had been in the rack-house eight or nine hours on the first day, four the second, and six or seven the third. And he had not answered one single question differently from the manner in which he had answered it before ever he had been on the rack at all. (There was a dim sense of pride with regard to this, in many Derbyshire minds. A Derbyshire man, it appeared, was more than a match for even a Londoner and a sworn servant of her Grace.) It was said that Mr. Audrey would have to be helped up the ladder, even though he had not been racked for a whole week since his sentence.

Next, the trial itself had been full of interest. A Papist priest was, of course, fair game. (Why, the Spanish Armada itself had been full of them, it was said, all come to subdue England…. Well, they had had their bellyful of salt water and English iron by now.) But this Papisher had hit back and given sport. He had flatly refused to be caught, though the questions were swift and subtle enough to catch any clerk. Certainly he had not denied that he was a priest; but he had said that that was what the Crown must prove: he was not there as a witness, he had said, but as a prisoner; he had even entreated them to respect their own legal dignities! But there had been a number of things against him, and even if none of these had been proved, still, the mere sum of them was enough; there could be no smoke without fire, said the proverb-quoters. It was alleged that he had been privy to the plot against the Queen (the plot of young Mr. Babington, who had sold his house down there a week or two only before his arrest); he had denied this, but he had allowed that he had spoken with her Grace immediately after the plot; and this was a highly suspicious circumstance: if he allowed so much as this, the rest might be safely presumed. Again, it was said that he had had part in attempts to free the Queen of the Scots, even from Fotheringay itself; and had been in the castle court, with a number of armed servants, at the very time of her execution. Again, if he allowed that he had been present, even though he denied the armed servants, the rest might be presumed. Finally, since he were a priest, and had seen her Grace at a time when there was no chaplain allowed to her, it was certain that he must have ministered their Popish superstitions to her, and this was neither denied nor affirmed: he had said to this that they had yet to prove him a priest at all. The very spectacle of the trial, too, had been remarkable; for, first, there was the extraordinary appearance of the prisoner, bent double like an old man, with the face of a dead one, though he could not be above thirty years old at the very most; and then there was the unusual number of magistrates present in court besides the judges, and my lord Shrewsbury himself, who had presided at the racking. It was one of my lord’s men, too, that had helped to identify the prisoner.

But the supreme interest lay in even more startling circumstances—in the history of Mistress Manners, who was present through the trial with Mr. Biddell the lawyer, and who had obtained at least two interviews with the prisoner, one before the torture and the other after sentence. It was in Mistress Manners’ house at Booth’s Edge that the priest had been taken; and it was freely rumoured that although Mr. Audrey had once been betrothed to her, yet that she had released and sent him herself to Rheims, and all to end like this. And yet she could bear to come and see him again; and, it was said, would be present somewhere in the crowd even at his death.

Finally, the tale of how the priest had been taken by his own father—old Mr. Audrey of Matstead—him that was now lying sick in Mr. Columbell’s house—this put the crown on all the rest. A hundred rumours flew this way and that: one said that the old man had known nothing of his son’s presence in the country, but had thought him to be still in foreign parts. Another, that he knew him to be in England, but not that he was in the county; a third, that he knew very well who it was in the house he went to search, and had searched it and taken him on purpose to set his own loyalty beyond question. Opinions differed as to the propriety of such an action….

So then the great crowd of heads—men from all the countryside, from farms and far-off cottages and the wild hills, mingling with the townsfolk—this crowd, broken up into levels and patches by river and houses and lanes, moved to and fro in the October sunshine, and sent up, with the column of smoke that eddied out from beneath the bubbling tar-cauldron by the gallows, a continual murmur of talking, like the sound of slow-moving wheels of great carts.

He felt dazed and blind, yet with a kind of lightness too as he came out of the gaol-gate into that packed mass of faces, held back by guards from the open space where the horse and the hurdle waited. A dozen persons or so were within the guards; he knew several of them by sight; two or three were magistrates; another was an officer; two were ministers with their Bibles.

It is hard to say whether he were afraid. Fear was there, indeed—he knew well enough that in his case, at any rate, the execution would be done as the law ordered; that he would be cut down before he had time to die, and that the butchery would be done on him while he would still be conscious of it. Death, too, was fearful, in any case…. Yet there were so many other things to occupy him—there was the exhilarating knowledge that he was to die for his faith and nothing else; for they had offered him his life if he would go to church; and they had proved nothing as to any complicity of his in any plot, and how could they, since there was none? There was the pain of his tormented body to occupy him; a pain that had passed from the acute localized agonies of snapped sinews and wrenched joints into one vast physical misery that soaked his whole body as in a flood; a pain that never ceased; of which he dreamed darkly, as a hungry man dreams of food which he cannot eat, to which he awoke again twenty times a night as to a companion nearer to him than the thoughts with which he attempted to distract himself. This pain, at least, would have an end presently. Again, there was an intermittent curiosity as to how and what would befall his flying soul when the butchery was done. “To sup in Heaven” was a phrase used by one of his predecessors on the threshold of death…. For what did that stand?… And at other times there had been no curiosity, but an acquiescence in old childish images. Heaven at such times appeared to him as a summer garden, with pavilions, and running water and the song of birds … a garden where he would lie at ease at last from his torn body and that feverish mind, which was all that his pain had left to him; where Mary went, gracious and motherly, with her virgins about her; where the Crucified Lamb of God would talk with him as a man talks with his friend, and allow him to lie at the Pierced Feet … where the glory of God rested like eternal sunlight on all that was there; on the River of Life, and the wood of the trees that are for the healing of all hurts.

And, last of all, there was a confused medley of more human thoughts that concerned persons other than himself. He could not remember all the persons clearly; their names and their faces came and went. Marjorie, his father, Mr. John FitzHerbert and Mr. Anthony, who had been allowed to come and see him; Dick Sampson, who had come in with Marjorie the second time and had kissed his hands. One thing at least he remembered clearly as he stood here, and that was how he had bidden Mistress Manners, even now, not to go overseas and become a nun, as she had wished; but rather to continue her work in Derbyshire, if she could.

So then he stood, bent double on two sticks, blinking and peering out at the faces, wondering whether it was a roar of anger or welcome or compassion that had broken out at his apparition, and smiling—smiling piteously, not of deliberation, but because the muscles of his mouth so moved, and he could not contract them again.

He understood presently that he was to lie down on the hurdle, with his head to the horses’ heels.

This was a great business, to be undertaken with care. He gave his two sticks to a man, and took his arm. Then he kneeled, clinging to the arm as a child to a swimmer’s in a rough sea, and sank gently down. But he could not straighten his legs, so they allowed him to lie half side-ways, and tied him so. It was amazingly uncomfortable, and, before he was settled, twice the sweat suddenly poured from his face as he found some new channel of pain in his body….

An order or two was issued in a loud, shouting voice; there was a great confusion and scuffling, and the crack of a whip. Then, with a jerk that tore his whole being, he was flicked from his place; the pain swelled and swelled till there seemed no more room for it in all God’s world; and he closed his eyes so as not to see the house-roofs and the faces and the sky whirl about in that mad jigging dance….

After that he knew very little of the journey. For the most part his eyes were tight closed; he sobbed aloud half a dozen times as the hurdle lifted and dropped over rough places in the road. Two or three times he opened his eyes to see what the sounds signified, especially a loud, bellowing voice almost in his ear that cried texts of Scripture at him.

“We have but one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus….”

“We then, being justified by faith…. For if by the works of the Law we are justified….”

He opened his eyes wide at that, and there was the face of one of the ministers bobbing against the sky, flushed and breathless, yet indomitable, bawling aloud as he trotted along to keep pace with the horse.

Then he closed his eyes again. He knew that he, too, could bandy texts if that were what was required. Perhaps, if he were a better man and more mortified, he might be able to do so as the martyrs sometimes had done. But he could not … he would have a word to say presently perhaps, if it were permitted; but not now. His pain occupied him; he had to deal with that and keep back, if he could, those sobs that were wrenched from him now and again. He had made but a poor beginning in his journey, he thought; he must die more decently than that.

The end came unexpectedly. Just when he thought he had gained his self-control again, so as to make no sound at any rate, the hurdle stopped. He clenched his teeth to meet the dreadful wrench with which it would move again; but it did not. Instead there was a man down by him, untying his bonds. He lay quite still when they were undone; he did not know which limb to move first, and he dreaded to move any.

“Now then,” said the voice, with a touch of compassion, he thought.

He set his teeth, gripped the arm and raised himself—first to his knees, then to his feet, where he stood swaying. An indescribable roar ascended steadily on all sides; but he could see little of the crowd as yet. He was standing in a cleared space, held by guards. A couple of dozen persons stood here; three or four on horseback; and one of these he thought to be my lord Shrewsbury, but he was not sure, since his head was against the glare of the sun. He turned a little, still holding to the man’s arm, and not knowing what to do, and saw a ladder behind him; he raised his eyes and saw that its head rested against the cross-beam of a single gallows, that a rope hung from this beam, and that a figure sitting astride of this cross-beam was busy with this rope. The shock of the sight cooled and nerved him; rather, it drew his attention all from himself…. He looked lower again, and behind the gallows was a column of heavy smoke going up, and in the midst of the smoke a cauldron hung on a tripod. Beside the cauldron was a great stump of wood, with a chopper and a knife lying upon it…. He drew one long steady breath, expelled it again, and turned back to my lord Shrewsbury. As he turned, he saw him make a sign, and felt himself grasped from behind.

III

He reached at last with his hands the rung of the ladder on which the executioner’s foot rested, hearing, as he went painfully up, the roar of voices wax to an incredible volume. It was impossible for any to speak so that he could hear, but he saw the hands above him in eloquent gesture, and understood that he was to turn round. He did so cautiously, grasping the man’s foot, and so rested, half sitting on a rung, and holding it as well as he could with his two hands. Then he felt a rope pass round his wrists, drawing them closer together…. As he turned, the roar of voices died to a murmur; the murmur died to silence, and he understood and remembered. It was now the time to speak…. He gathered for the last time all his forces together. With the sudden silence, clearness came back to his mind, and he remembered word for word the little speech he had rehearsed so often during the last week. He had learned it by heart, fearful lest God should give him no words if he trusted to the moment, lest God should not see fit to give him even that interior consolation which was denied to so many of the saints—yet without which he could not speak from the heart. He had been right, he knew now: there was no religious consolation; he felt none of that strange heart-shaking ecstasy that had transfigured other deaths like his; he had none of the ready wit that Campion had showed. He saw nothing but the clear October sky above him, cut by the roofs fringed with heads (a skein of birds passed slowly over it as he raised his eyes); and, beneath, that irreckonable pavement of heads, motionless now as a cornfield in a still evening, one glimpse of the river—the river, he remembered even at this instant, that came down from Hathersage and Padley and his old home. But there was no open vision, such as he had half hoped to see, no unimaginable glories looming slowly through the veils in which God hides Himself on earth, no radiant face smiling into his own—only this arena of watching human faces turned up to his, waiting for his last sermon…. He thought he saw faces that he knew, though he lost them again as his eyes swept on—Mr. Barton, the old minister of Matstead; Dick; Mr. Bassett…. Their faces looked terrified…. However, this was not his affair now.

As he was about to speak he felt hands about his neck, and then the touch of a rope passed across his face. For an indescribable instant a terror seized on him; he closed his eyes and set his teeth. The spasm passed, and so soon as the hands were withdrawn again, he began:

“Good people”—(at the sound of his voice, high and broken, the silence became absolute. A thin crowing of a cock from far off in the country came like a thread and ceased)—”Good people: I die here as a Catholic man, for my priesthood, which I now confess before all the world.” (A stir of heads and movements below distracted him. But he went on at once.) “There have been alleged against me crimes in which I had neither act nor part, against the life of her Grace and the peace of her dominions.”

“Pray for her Grace,” rang out a sharp voice below him.

“I will do so presently…. It is for that that I am said to die, in that I took part in plots of which I knew nothing till all was done. Yet I was offered my life, if I would but conform and go to church; so you see very well—”

A storm of confused voices interrupted him. He could distinguish no sentence, so he waited till they ceased again.

“So you see very well,” he cried, “for what it is that I die. It is for the Catholic faith—”

“Beat the drums! beat the drums!” cried a voice. There began a drumming; but a howl like a beast’s surged up from the whole crowd. When it died again the drum was silent. He glanced down at my lord Shrewsbury and saw him whispering with an officer. Then he continued:

“It is for the Catholic faith, then, that I die—that which was once the faith of all England—and which, I pray, may be one day its faith again. In that have I lived, and in that will I die. And I pray God, further, that all who hear me to-day may have grace to take it as I do—as the true Christian Religion (and none other)—revealed by our Saviour Christ.”

The crowd was wholly quiet again now. My lord had finished his whispering, and was looking up. But the priest had made his little sermon, and thought that he had best pray aloud before his strength failed him. His knees were already shaking violently under him, and the sweat was pouring again from his face, not so much from the effort of his speech as from the pain which that effort caused him. It seemed that there was not one nerve in his body that was not in pain.

“I ask all Catholics, then, that hear me to join with me in prayer…. First, for Christ’s Catholic Church throughout the world, for her peace and furtherance…. Next, for our England, for the conversion of all her children; and, above all, for her Grace, my Queen and yours, that God will bless and save her in this world, and her soul eternally in the next. For these and all other such matters I will beg all Catholics to join with me and to say the Our Father; and when I am in my agony to say yet another for my soul.”

“Our Father….”

From the whole packed space the prayer rose up, in great and heavy waves of sound. There were cries of mockery three or four times, but each was suddenly cut off…. The waves of sound rolled round and ceased, and the silence was profound. The priest opened his eyes; closed them again. Then with a loud voice he began to cry:

“O Christ, as Thine arms were extended—”

He stopped again, shaken even from that intense point of concentration to which he was forcing himself, by the amazing sound that met his ears. He had heard, at the close of the Our Father, a noise which he could not interpret: but no more had happened. But now the whole world seemed screaming and swaying: he heard the trample of horses beneath him—voices in loud expostulation.

He opened his eyes; the clamour died again at the same instant…. For a moment his eyes wandered over the heads and up to the sky, to see if some vision…. Then he looked down….

Against the ladder on which he stood, a man’s figure was writhing and embracing the rungs kneeling on the ground. He was strangely dressed, in some sort of a loose gown, in a tight silk night-cap, and his feet were bare. The man’s head was dropped, and the priest could not see his face. He looked beyond for some explanation, and there stood, all alone, a girl in a hooded cloak, who raised her great eyes to his. As he looked down again the man’s head had fallen back, and the face was staring up at him, so distorted with speechless entreaty, that even he, at first, did not recognize it….

Then he saw it to be his father, and understood enough, at least, to act as a priest for the last time.

He smiled a little, leaned his own head forward as from a cross, and spoke….

“Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti….”

VI

He only awoke once again, after the strangling and the darkness had passed. He could see nothing, nor hear, except a heavy murmuring noise, not unpleasant. But there was one last Pain not into which all others had passed, keen and cold like water, and it was about his heart.

“O Christ—” he whispered, and so died.

THE END

DAWN OF ALL

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE MAYFLOWER PRESS, PLYMOUTH. WILLIAM BRENDAN & SON, LTD.

CONTENTS

DAWN OF ALL

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

PART I

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER II

I

II

CHAPTER III

I

II

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER VI

I

II

CHAPTER VII

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER VIII

I

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

CHAPTER V

I

II

CHAPTER VI

I

II

III

PART III

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER IV

I

II

EPILOGUE

DAWN OF ALL

PREFACE

IN a former book, called Lord of the World, I attempted to sketch the kind of developments a hundred years hence which, I thought, might reasonably be expected if the present lines of what is called “modern thought” were only prolonged far enough; and I was informed repeatedly that the effect of the book was exceedingly depressing and discouraging to optimistic Christians. In the present book I am attempting—also in parable form—not in the least to withdraw anything that I said in the former, but to follow up the other lines instead, and to sketch—again in parable—the kind of developments, about sixty years hence which, I think, may reasonably be expected should the opposite process begin, and ancient thought (which has stood the test of centuries, and is, in a very remarkable manner, being “rediscovered” by persons even more modern than modernists) be prolonged instead. We are told occasionally by moralists that we live in very critical times, by which they mean that they are not sure whether their own side will win or not. In that sense no times can ever be critical to Catholics, since Catholics are never in any kind of doubt as to whether or no their side will win. But from another point of view every period is a critical period, since every period has within itself the conflict of two irreconcilable forces. It has been for the sake of tracing out the kind of effects that, it seemed to me, each side would experience in turn, should the other, at any rate for a while, become dominant, that I have written these two books.

Finally if I may be allowed, I should wish to draw attention to my endeavours to treat of the subject of “religious persecution,” since I strongly believe that in some such theory is to be found the explanation of such phenomena as those of Mary Tudor’s reign in England, and of the Spanish Inquisition. In practically every such case, I think, it was the State and not the Church which was responsible for so unhappy a policy; and that the policy was directed not against unorthodoxy, as such, but against an unorthodoxy which, under the circumstances of those days, was thought to threaten the civil stability of society in general, and which was punished as amounting to treasonable, rather than to heretical, opinions.

ROBERT HUGH BENSON.

ROME Lent 1911

PROLOGUE

Gradually memory and consciousness once more reasserted themselves, and he became aware that he was lying in bed. But this was a slow process of intense mental effort, and was as laboriously and logically built up of premises and deductions as were his theological theses learned twenty years before in his seminary. There was the sheet below his chin; there was a red coverlet (seen at first as a blood-coloured landscape of hills and valleys); there was a ceiling, overhead, at first as remote as the vault of heaven. Then, little by little, the confused roaring in his ears sank to a murmur. It had been just now as the sound of brazen hammers clanging in reverberating caves, the rolling of wheels, the tramp of countless myriads of men. But it had become now a soothing murmur, not unlike the coming in of a tide at the foot of high cliffs—just one gentle continuous note, overlaid with light, shrill sounds. This too required long argument and reasoning before any conclusion could be reached; but it was attained at last, and he became certain that he lay somewhere within sound of busy streets. Then rashly he leapt to the belief that he must be in his own lodgings in Bloomsbury; but another long slow stare upwards showed him that the white ceiling was too far away.

The effort of thought seemed too much for him; it gave him a sense of inexplicable discomfort. He determined to think no more, for fear that the noises should revert again to the crash of hammers in his hollow head. . . .

He was next conscious of a pressure on his lip, and a kind of shadow of a taste of something. But it was no more than a shadow: it was as if he were watching some one else drink and perceiving some one else to swallow. . . . Then with a rush the ceiling came back into view: he was aware that he was lying in bed under a red coverlet; that the room was large and airy about him; and that two persons, a doctor in white and a nurse, were watching him. He rested in that knowledge for a long time, watching memory reassert itself. Detail after detail sprang into view: farther and farther back into his experience, far down into the childhood he had forgotten. He remembered now who he was, his story, his friends, his life up to a certain blank day or set of days, between him and which there was nothing. Then he saw the faces again, and it occurred to him, with a flash as of illumination, to ask. So he began to ask; and he considered carefully each answer, turning it over and reflecting upon it with what seemed to him an amazing degree of concentration.

“. . . So I am in Westminster Hospital,” he considered. “That is extraordinarily interesting and affecting. I have often seen the outside of it. It is of discoloured brick. And I have been here . . . how long? how long, did they say? . . . Oh! that is a long time. Five days! And what in the world can have happened to my work? They will be looking out for me in the Museum. How can Dr. Waterman’s history get on without me? I must see about that at once. He’ll understand that it’s not my fault. . . .

“What’s that? I mustn’t trouble myself about that? But—Oh! Dr. Waterman has been here, has he? That’s very kind—very kind and thoughtful indeed. And I’m to take my time, am I? Very well. Please thank Dr. Waterman for his kindness and his thoughtfulness in enquiring. . . . And tell him I’ll be with him again in a day or two at any rate. . . . Oh! tell him that he’ll find the references to the thirteenth-century Popes in the black notebook—the thick one—on the right of the fire-place. They’re all verified. Thank you, thank you very much. . . . and . . . by the way . . . just tell him I’m not sure yet about the Piccolomini matter. . . . What’s that? I’m not to trouble myself? . . . But . . . Oh! very well. Thank you. . . . Thank you very much.”

There followed a long pause. He was thinking still very hard about the thirteenth-century Popes. It was really very tiresome that he could not explain to Dr. Waterman himself. He was certain that some of the pages in the thick black notebook were loose; and how terrible it would be if the book were taken out carelessly, and some of the pages fell into the fire. They easily might! And then there’d be all the work to do again. . . . And that would mean weeks and weeks. . . .

Then there came a grave, quiet voice of a woman speaking in his ear; but for a long time he could not understand. He wished it would let him alone. He wanted to think about the Popes. He tried nodding and murmuring a general sort of assent, as if he wished to go to sleep; but it was useless: the voice went on and on. And then suddenly he understood, and a kind of fury seized him.

How did they know he had once been a priest? Spying and badgering, as usual! . . . No: he did not want a priest sent for. He was not a priest any more; not even a Catholic. It was all lies—lies from the beginning to the end—all that they had taught him in the seminary. It was all lies! There! Was that plain enough? . . .

Ah! why would not the voice be quiet? . . . He was in great danger, was he? He would be unconscious again soon, would he? Well, he didn’t know what they meant by that; but what had it to do with him? No: he did not want a priest. Was that clear enough? . . . He was perfectly clear-headed; he knew what he was saying. . . . Yes; even if he were in great danger . . . even if he were practically certain to die. (That, by the way, was impossible; because he had to finish the notes for Dr. Waterman’s new History of the Popes; and it would take months.) Anyhow, he didn’t want a priest. He knew all about that: he had faced it all, and he wasn’t afraid. Science had knocked all that religious nonsense on the head. There wasn’t any religion. All religions were the same. There wasn’t any truth in any of them. Physical science had settled one half of the matter, and psychology the other half. It was all accounted for. So he didn’t want a priest anyhow. Damn priests! There! would they let him alone after that? . . .

And now as to the Piccolomini affair. It was certain that when

Aeneas was first raised to the Sacred College. . . .

Why . . . what was happening to the ceiling? How could he attend to Aeneas while the ceiling behaved like that? He had no idea that ceilings in the Westminster Hospital could go up like lifts. How very ingenious! It must be to give him more air. Certainly he wanted more air. . . . The walls too. . . . Ought not they also to revolve? They could change the whole air in the room in a moment. What an extraordinarily ingenious . . . Ah! and he wanted it. . . . He wanted more air. . . . Why don’t these doctors know their business better? . . . What was the good of catching hold of him like that? . . . He wanted air . . . more air . . . He must get to the window! . . . Air . . . air! . . .

PART I

CHAPTER I

I

The first objects of which he became aware were his own hands clasped on his lap before him, and the cloth cuffs from which they emerged; and it was these latter that puzzled him. So engrossed was he that at first he could not pay attention to the strange sounds in the air about him; for these cuffs, though black, were marked at their upper edges with a purpled line such as prelates wear. He mechanically turned the backs of his hands upwards; but there was no ring on his finger. Then he lifted his eyes and looked.

He was seated on some kind of raised chair beneath a canopy. A carpet ran down over a couple of steps beneath his feet, and beyond stood the backs of a company of ecclesiastics—secular priests in cotta, cassock, and biretta, with three or four bare-footed Franciscans and a couple of Benedictines. Ten yards away there rose a temporary pulpit with a back and a sounding-board beneath the open sky; and in it was the tall figure of a young friar, preaching, it seemed, with extraordinary fervour. Around the pulpit, beyond it, and on all sides to an immense distance, so far as he could see, stretched the heads of an incalculable multitude, dead silent, and beyond them again trees, green against a blue summer sky.

He looked on all this, but it meant nothing to him. It fitted on nowhere with his experience; he knew neither where he was, nor at what he was assisting, nor who these people were, nor who the friar was, nor who he was himself. He simply looked at his surroundings, then back at his hands and down his figure.

He gained no knowledge there, for he was dressed as he had never been dressed before. His caped cassock was black, with purple buttons and a purple cincture. He noticed that his shoes shone with gold buckles; he glanced at his breast, but no cross hung there. He took off his biretta, nervously, lest some one should notice, and perceived that it was black with a purple tassel. He was dressed then, it seemed, in the costume of a Domestic Prelate. He put on his biretta again.

Then he closed his eyes and tried to think; but he could remember nothing. There was, it seemed, no continuity anywhere. But it suddenly struck him that if he knew that he was a Domestic Prelate, and if he could recognize a Franciscan, he must have seen those phenomena before. Where? When?

Little pictures began to form before him as a result of his intense mental effort, but they were far away and minute, like figures seen through the wrong end of a telescope; and they afforded no explanation. But, as he bent his whole mind upon it, he remembered that he had been a priest—he had distinct memories of saying mass. But he could not remember where or when; he could not even remember his own name.

This last horror struck him alert again. He did not know who he was. He opened his eyes widely, terrified, and caught the eye of an old priest in cotta and cassock who was looking back at him over his shoulder. Something in the frightened face must have disturbed the old man, for he detached himself from the group and came up the two steps to his side.

“What is it, Monsignor?” he whispered.

“I am ill . . . I am ill . . . father,” he stammered.

The priest looked at him doubtfully for an instant.

“Can you . . . can you hold out for a little? The sermon must be nearly—-”

Then the other recovered. He understood that at whatever cost he must not attract attention. He nodded sharply.

“Yes, I can hold out, father; if he isn’t too long. But you must take me home afterwards.”

The priest still looked at him doubtfully.

“Go back to your place, father. I’m all right. Don’t attract attention. Only come to me afterwards.”

The priest went back, but he still glanced at him once or twice.

Then the man who did not know himself set his teeth and resolved to remember. The thing was too absurd. He said to himself he would begin by identifying where he was. If he knew so much as to his own position and the dresses of those priests, his memory could not be wholly gone.

In front of him and to the right there were trees, beyond the heads of the crowd. There was something vaguely familiar to him about the arrangement of these, but not enough to tell him anything. He craned forward and stared as far to the right as he could. There were more trees. Then to the left; and here, for the first time, he caught sight of buildings. But these seemed very odd buildings—neither houses nor arches—but something between the two. They were of the nature of an elaborate gateway.

And then in a flash he recognized where he was. He was sitting, under this canopy, just to the right as one enters through Hyde Park Corner; these trees were the trees of the Park; that open space in front was the beginning of Rotten Row; and Something Lane—Park Lane—(that was it!)—was behind him.

Impressions and questions crowded upon him quickly now—yet in none of them was there a hint as to how he got here, nor who he was, nor what in the world was going on. This friar! What was he doing, preaching in Hyde Park? It was ridiculous—ridiculous and very dangerous. It would cause trouble. . . .

He leaned forward to listen, as the friar with a wide gesture swept his hand round the horizon. “Brethren,” he cried, “Look round you! Fifty years ago this was a Protestant country, and the Church of God a sect among the sects. And to-day—to-day God is vindicated and the truth is known. Fifty years ago we were but a handful among the thousands that knew not God, and to-day we rule the world. ‘Son of man, can these dry bones live?’ So cried the voice of God to the prophet. And behold! they stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. If then He has done such things for us, what shall He not do for those for whom I speak? Yet He works through man. ‘How shall they hear without a preacher?’ Do you see to it then that there are not wanting labourers in that vineyard of which you have heard. Already the grapes hang ready to pluck, and it is but we that are wanting. . . . Send forth then labourers into My vineyard, cries the Lord of all.”

The words were ill-chosen and commonplace enough, and uttered in an accent indefinably strange to the bewildered listener, but the force of the man was tremendous, as he sent out his personality over the enormous crowd, on that high vibrant voice that controlled, it seemed, even those on the outskirts far up the roads on either side. Then with a swift sign of the cross, answered generally by those about the pulpit, he ended his sermon and disappeared down the steps, and a great murmur of talk began.

But what in the world was it all about, wondered the man under

the canopy. What was this vineyard? and why did he appeal to

English people in such words as these? Every one knew that the

Catholic Church was but a handful still in this country.

Certainly, progress had been made, but. . . .

He broke off his meditations as he saw the group of ecclesiastics coming towards him, and noticed that on all sides the crowd was beginning to disperse. He gripped the arms of the chair fiercely, trying to gain self-command. He must not make a fool of himself before all these people; he must be discreet and say as little as possible.

But there was no great need for caution at present. The old priest who had spoken to him before stepped a little in advance of the rest, and turning, said in a low sentence or two to the Benedictines; and the group stopped, though one or two still eyed, it seemed, with sympathy, the man who awaited him. Then the priest came up alone and put his hand on the arm of the chair.

“Come out this way,” he whispered. “There’s a path behind,

Monsignor, and I’ve sent orders for the car to be there.”

The man rose obediently (he could do nothing else), passed down the steps and behind the canopy. A couple of police stood there in an unfamiliar, but unmistakable uniform, and these drew themselves up and saluted. They went on down the little pathway and out through a side-gate. Here again the crowd was tremendous, but barriers kept them away, and the two passed on together across the pavement, saluted by half a dozen men who were pressed against the barriers—(it was here, for the first time, that the bewildered man noticed that the dresses seemed altogether unfamiliar)—and up to a car of a peculiar and unknown shape, that waited in the roadway, with a bare-headed servant, in some strange purple livery, holding the door open.

“After you, Monsignor,” said the old priest.

The other stepped in and sat down. The priest hesitated for an instant, and then leaned forward into the car.

“You have an appointment in Dean’s Yard, Monsignor, you remember.

It’s important, you know. Are you too ill?”

“I can’t. . . . I can’t. . . .” stammered the man.

“Well, at least, we can go round that way. I think we ought, you know. I can go in and see him for you, if you wish; and we can at any rate leave the papers.”

“Anything, anything. . . . Very well.”

The priest got in instantly; the door closed; and the next moment, through crowds, held back by the police, the great car, with no driver visible in front through the clear-glass windows, moved off southward.

II

It was a moment before either spoke. The old priest broke the silence. He was a gentle-faced old man, not unlike a very shrewd and wide-awake dormouse; and his white hair stood out in a mass beneath his biretta. But the words he used were unintelligible, though not altogether unfamiliar.

“I . . . I don’t understand, father,” stammered the man.

The priest looked at him sharply.

“I was saying,” he said slowly and distinctly, “I was saying that you looked very well, and I was asking you what was the matter.”

The other was silent a moment. How, to explain the thing! . . . Then he determined on making a clean breast of it. This old man looked kindly and discreet. “I . . . I think it’s a lapse of memory,” he said. “I’ve heard of such things. I . . . I don’t know where I am nor what I’m doing. Are you . . . are you sure you’re not making a mistake? Have I got any right——?”

The priest looked at him as if puzzled.

“I don’t quite understand, Monsignor. What can’t you remember?”

“I can’t remember anything,” wailed the man, suddenly broken down. “Nothing at all. Not who I am, nor where I’m going, or where I come from. . . . What am I? Who am I? Father, for God’s sake tell me.”

“Monsignor, be quiet, please. You mustn’t give way. Surely——”

“I tell you I can remember nothing. . . . It’s all gone. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what day it is, or what year it is, or anything——”

He felt a hand on his arm, and his eyes met a look of a very peculiar power and concentration. He sank back into his seat strangely quieted and soothed.

“Now, Monsignor, listen to me. You know who I am”—(he broke off). “I’m Father Jervis. I know about these things. I’ve been through the psychological schools. You’ll be all right presently, I hope. But you must be perfectly quiet——”

“Tell me who I am,” stammered the man.

“Listen then. You are Monsignor Masterman, secretary to the Cardinal.

You are going back to Westminster now, in your own car——”

“What’s been going on? What was all that crowd about?”

Still the eyes were on him, compelling and penetrating.

“You have been presiding at the usual midday Saturday sermon in

Hyde Park, on behalf of the Missions to the East. Do you remember

now? No! Well, it doesn’t matter in the least. That was Father

Anthony who was preaching. He was a little nervous, you noticed.

It was his first sermon in Hyde Park.”

“I saw he was a friar,” murmured the other.

“Oh! you recognized his habit then? There, you see; your memory’s not really gone. And . . . and what’s the answer to Dominus vobiscum?”

“Et cum spiritu tuo.”

The priest smiled, and the pressure on the man’s arm relaxed.

“That’s excellent. It’s only a partial obscurity. Why didn’t you understand me when I spoke to you in Latin then?”

“That was Latin? I thought so. But you spoke too fast; and I’m not accustomed to speak it.”

The old man looked at him with grave humour. “Not accustomed to speak it, Monsignor! Why——” (He broke off again.) “Look out of the window, please. Where are we?”

The other looked out. (He felt greatly elated and comforted. It was quite true; his memory was not altogether gone then. Surely he would soon be well again!) Out of the windows in front, but seeming to wheel swiftly to the left as the car whisked round to the right, was the Victoria Tower. He noticed that the hour pointed to five minutes before one.

“Those are the Houses of Parliament,” he said. “And what’s that tall pillar in the middle of Parliament Square?”

“That’s the image of the Immaculate Conception. But what did you call those buildings just now?”

“Houses of Parliament, aren’t they?” faltered the man, terrified that his brain was really going.

“Why do you call them that?”

“It is their name, isn’t it?”

“It used to be; but it isn’t the usual name now.”

“Good God! Father, am I mad? Tell me. What year is it?”

The eyes looked again into his.

“Monsignor, think. Think hard.”

“I don’t know. . . . I don’t know. . . . Oh, for God’s sake! . . .”

“Quietly then. . . . It’s the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three.”

“It can’t be; it can’t be,” gasped the other. “Why, I remember the beginning of the century.”

“Monsignor, attend to me, please. . . . That’s better. It’s the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three. You were born in the year—in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-two. You are just forty years old. You are secretary and chaplain to the Cardinal—Cardinal Bellairs. Before that you were Rector of St. Mary’s in the West. . . . Do you remember now?”

“I remember nothing.”

“You remember your ordination?”

“No. Once I remember saying Mass somewhere. I don’t know where.”

“Stay, we’re just there.” (The car wheeled in swiftly under an archway, whisked to the left, and drew up before the cloister door.) “Now, Monsignor, I’m going in to see the Prior myself and give him the papers. You have them?”

“I. . . I don’t know.”

The priest dived forward and extracted a small despatch-box from some unseen receptacle.

“Your keys, please, Monsignor.”

The other felt wildly about his person. He saw the steady eyes of the old priest upon him.

“You keep them in your left-hand breast pocket,” said the priest slowly and distinctly.

The man felt there, fetched out a bundle of thin, flat keys, and handed them over helplessly. While the priest turned them over, examining each, the other stared hopelessly out of the window, past the motionless servant in purple who waited with his hand on the car-door. Surely he knew this place. . . . Yes; it was Dean’s Yard. And this was the entrance to the cloister of the Abbey. But who was “the Prior,” and what was it all about?

He turned to the other, who by now was bending over the box and extracting a few papers laid neatly at the top.

“What are you doing, father? Who are you going to see?”

“I am going to take these papers of yours to the Prior—the Prior of Westminster. The Abbot isn’t here yet. Only a few of the monks have come.”

“Monks! Prior! . . . Father!”

The old man looked him in the eyes again.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “The Abbey was made over again to the Benedictines last year, but they haven’t yet formally taken possession. And these papers concern business connected with the whole affair—the relations of seculars and regulars. I’ll tell you afterwards. I must go in now, and you must just remain here quietly. Tell me again. What is your name? Who are you?”

“I. . . I am Monsignor Masterman. . . secretary to

Cardinal Bellairs.”

The priest smiled as he laid his hand on the door.

“Quite right,” he said. “Now please sit here quietly, Monsignor, till I come back.”

III

He sat in perfect silence, waiting, leaning back in his corner with closed eyes, compelling himself to keep his composure.

It was, at any rate, good luck that he had fallen in with such a friend as this—Father Jervis, was it not?—who knew all about him, and, obviously, could be trusted to be discreet. He must just attend to his instructions quietly then, and do what he was told. No doubt things would come back soon. But how very curious this all was about Hyde Park and Westminster. He could have sworn that England was a Protestant country, and the Church just a tiny fragment of its population. Why, it was only recently that Westminster Cathedral was built—was it not? But then this was the year seventy-three . . . and . . . and he could not remember in what year the Cathedral was built. Then again the horror and bewilderment seized him. He gripped his knees with his hands in an agony of consternation. He would go mad if he could not remember. Or at least——Ah! here was Father Jervis coming back again.

The two sat quite silent again for a moment, as the car moved off.

“Tell me,” said the priest suddenly, “don’t you remember faces, or people’s names?”

The other concentrated his mind fiercely for a moment or two.

“I remember some faces—yes,” he said. “And I remember some names. But I cannot remember which faces belong to which names. . . . I remember . . . I remember the name Archbishop Bourne; and . . . and a priest called Farquharson——”

“What have you been reading lately? . . . Ah! I forgot. Well; but can’t you remember the Cardinal . . . Cardinal Bellairs?”

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Nor what he looks like?”

“I haven’t a notion.”

The priest again was silent.

“Look here, Monsignor,” he said suddenly, “I’d better take you straight up to your rooms as soon as we arrive; and I’ll have a notice put up on your confessional that you are unable to attend there to-day. You’ll have the whole afternoon—after four at least—to yourself, and the rest of the evening. We needn’t tell a soul until we’re certain that it can’t be helped, not even the Cardinal. But I’m afraid you’ll have to preside at lunch to-day.”

“Eh?”

“Mr. Manners is coming, you know, to consult with the Cardinal; and I think if you weren’t there to entertain him——”

Monsignor nodded sharply, with compressed lips.

“I understand. But just tell me who Mr. Manners is?”

The priest answered without any sign of discomposure.

“He’s a member of the Government. He’s the great Political Economist. And he’s coming to consult with the Cardinal about certain measures that affect the Church. Do you remember now?”

The other shook his head. “No.”

“Well, just talk to him vaguely. I’ll sit opposite and take care that you don’t make any mistakes. Just talk to him generally. Talk about the sermon in Hyde Park, and the Abbey. He won’t expect you to talk politics publicly.”

“I’ll try.”

The car drew up as the conversation ended; and the man who had lost his memory glanced out. To his intense relief, he recognized where he was. It was the door of Archbishop’s House, in Ambrosden Avenue; and beyond he perceived the long northern side of the Cathedral.

“I know this,” he said.

“Of course you do, my dear Monsignor,” said the priest reassuringly. “Now follow me: bow to any one who salutes you; but don’t speak a word.”

They passed in together through the door, past a couple of liveried servants who held it open, up the staircase and beyond up the further flight. The old priest drew out a key and unlocked the door before them; and together they turned to the left up the corridor, and passed into a large, pleasant room looking out on to the street, with a further door communicating, it seemed, with a bedroom beyond. Fortunately they had met no one on the way.

“Here we are,” said Father Jervis cheerfully. “Now, Monsignor, do you know where you are?”

The other shook his head dolorously.

“Come, come; this is your own room. Look at your writing-table,

Monsignor; where you sit every day.”

The other looked at it eagerly and yet vaguely. A half-written letter, certainly in his own handwriting, lay there on the blotting-pad, but the name of his correspondent meant nothing to him; nor did the few words which he read. He looked round the room—at the bookcases, the curtains, the prie-Dieu . . . And again terror seized him.

“I know nothing, father . . . nothing at all. It’s all new! For

God’s sake! . . .”

“Quietly then, Monsignor. It’s all perfectly right. . . . Now I’m going to leave you for ten minutes, to arrange about the places at lunch. You’d better lock your door and admit no one. Just look round the rooms when I’m gone——Ah!”

Father Jervis broke off suddenly and darted at an arm-chair, where a book lay face downwards on the seat. He snatched up the book, glanced at the pages, looked at the title, and laughed aloud.

“I knew it,” he said; “I was certain of it. You’ve got hold of

Manners’ History, Look! you’re at the very page.”

He held it up for the other to see. Monsignor looked at it, still only half comprehending, and just noticing that the paper had a peculiar look, and saw that the running dates at the top of the pages contained the years 1904-1912. The priest shook the book in gentle triumph. A sheet of paper fell out of it, which he picked up and glanced at. Then he laughed again.

“See,” he said, “you’ve been making notes of the very period—no doubt in order to be able to talk to Manners. That’s the time he knows more about than any living soul. He calls it the ‘crest of the wave,’ you know. Everything dated from then, in his opinion.”

“I don’t understand a word——”

“See here, Monsignor,” interrupted the priest in mild glee, “here’s a subject to talk about at lunch. Just get Manners on to it, and you’ll have no trouble. He loves lecturing; and he talks just like a history-book. Tell him you’ve been reading his History and want a bird’s-eye view.”

Monsignor started.

“Why, yes,” he said, “and that’ll tell me the facts, too.”

“Excellent. Now, Monsignor, I must go. Just look round the rooms well, and get to know where things are kept. I’ll be back in ten minutes, and we’ll have a good talk before lunch as to all who’ll be there. It’ll all go perfectly smoothly, I promise you.”

IV

When the door closed Monsignor Masterman looked round him slowly and carefully. He had an idea that the mist must break sooner or later and that all would become familiar once again. It was perfectly plain, by now, to his mind, what had happened to him; and the fact that there were certain things which he recognized, such as the Cathedral, and Hyde Park, and a friar’s habit, and Archbishop’s House—all this helped him to keep his head. If he remembered so much, there seemed no intrinsic reason why he should not remember more.

But his inspection was disappointing. Not only was there not one article in the room which he knew, but he did not even understand the use of some of the things which he saw. There was a row of what looked like small black boxes fastened to the right-hand wall, about the height of a man’s head; and there was some kind of a machine, all wheels and handles, in the corner by the nearer window, which was completely mysterious to him.

He glanced through into the bedroom, and this was not much better. Certainly there was a bed; there was no mistake about that; and there seemed to be wardrobes sunk to the level of the walls on all sides; but although in this room he thought he recognized the use of everything which he saw, there was no single thing that wore a familiar aspect.

He came back to his writing-table and sat down before it in despair. But that did not reassure him. He took out one or two of the books that stood there in a row—directories and address-books they appeared chiefly to be—and found his name written in each, with here and there a note or a correction, all in his own handwriting. He took up the half-written letter again and glanced through it once more, but it brought no relief. He could not even conjecture how the interrupted sentence on the third page ought to end.

Again and again he tried to tear up from his inner consciousness something which he could remember, closing his eyes and sinking his head upon his hands, but nothing except fragments and glimpses of vision rose before him. It was now a face or a scene to which he could give no name; now a sentence or a thought that owned no context. There was no frame at all—no unified scheme in which these fragments found cohesion. It was like regarding the pieces of a shattered jar whose shape even could not be conjectured. . . .

Then a sudden thought struck him; he sprang up quickly and ran into his bedroom. A tall mirror, he remembered, hung between the windows. He ran straight up to this and stood staring at his own reflection. It was himself that he saw there—there was no doubt of that—every line and feature of that keen, pale, professorial-looking face was familiar, though it seemed to him that his hair was a little greyer than it ought to be.

CHAPTER II

I

“I shall be delighted, Monsignor,” said the thin, clever-faced statesman, in his high, dry voice; “I shall be delighted to sketch out what seem to me the principal points in the century’s development.”

A profound silence fell upon all the table.

Really, Monsignor Masterman thought to himself, as he settled down to listen, he had done very well so far. He had noticed the old priest opposite smiling more than once, contentedly, as their eyes met.

Father Jervis had come to him as he had promised, for half an hour’s good talk before lunch; and they had spent a very earnest thirty minutes together. First they had discussed with great care all the persons who would be present at lunch—not more than eight, besides themselves; the priest had given him a little plan of the table, showing where each would sit, and had described their personal appearance and recounted a salient fact or two about every one. These were all priests except Mr. Manners himself and his secretary. The rest of the time had been occupied in information being given to the man who had lost his memory, with regard to a few very ordinary subjects of conversation—the extraordinary fairness of the weather; a new opera produced with unparalleled success by a “well-known” composer of whom Monsignor had never heard; a recent Eucharistic congress in Tokio, from which the Cardinal had just returned; and the scheme for redecorating the interior of Archbishop’s House.

There had not been time for more; but these subjects, under the adroit handling of Father Jervis, had proved sufficient; and up to the preconcerted moment when Monsignor had uttered the sentence about his study of Mr. Manners’ History of Twentieth Century Development which had drawn from the author the words recorded above, all had gone perfectly smoothly.

There had been a few minor hitches; for example, the food and the manner of serving it and the proper method of consuming it had furnished a bad moment or two; and once Monsignor had been obliged to feign sudden deafness on being asked a question on a subject of which he knew nothing by a priest whose name he had forgotten, until Father Jervis slid in adroitly and saved him. Yet these were quite unnoticed, it appeared, and could easily be attributed to the habit of absent-mindedness for which, Monsignor Masterman was relieved to learn, he was almost notorious.

And now the crisis was past and Mr. Manners was launched. Monsignor glanced almost happily round the tall dining-room, from which the servants had already disappeared, and, with his glass in his hand, settled himself down to listen and remember.

“The crisis, to my mind, in the religious situation,” began the statesman, looking more professional than ever, with his closed eyes, thin, wrinkled face, and high forehead—”the real crisis is to be sought in the period from 1900 to 1920.

“This was the period, you remember, of tremendous social agitation. There was the widespread revolution of the Latin countries, beginning with France and Portugal, chiefly against Authority, and most of all against Monarchy (since Monarchy is the most vivid and the most concrete embodiment of authority); and in Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon countries against Capital and Aristocracy. It was in these years that Socialism came most near to dominating the civilized world; and, indeed, you will remember that for long after that date it did dominate civilization in certain places.

“Now the real trouble at the bottom of all this was the state in which Religion found itself. And you will find, gentlemen,” said the quasi-lecturer in parenthesis, glancing round the attentive faces, “that Religion always is and always has been at the root of every world-movement. In fact it must be so. The deepest instinct in man is his religion, that is, his attitude to eternal issues; and on that attitude must depend his relation to temporal things. This is so, largely, even in the case of the individual; it must therefore be infinitely more so in large bodies or nations; since every crowd is moved by principles that are the least common multiple of the principles of the units which compose it. Of course this is universally recognized now; but it was not always so. There was a time, particularly at this period of which I am now speaking, when men attempted to treat Religion as if it were one department of life, instead of being the whole foundation of every and all life. To treat it so is, of course, to proclaim oneself as fundamentally irreligious—and, indeed, very ignorant and uneducated.

“To resume, however:

“Religion at this period was at a very strange crisis. That it could possibly be treated in the way I have mentioned shows how very deeply irreligion had spread. There is no such thing, of course, really as Irreligion—except by a purely conventional use of the word: the ‘irreligious’ man is one who has made up his mind either that there is no future world, or that it is so remote, as regards effectivity, as to have no bearing upon this. And that is a religion—at least it is a dogmatic creed—as much as any other.

“The causes of this state of affairs I take to have been as follows:

“Religion up to the Reformation had been a matter of authority, as it is again now; but the enormous development of various sciences and the wide spread of popular ‘knowledge’ had, in the first flush, distracted attention from that which is now, in all civilized countries, simply an axiom of thought, viz., that a Revelation of God must be embodied in a living authority safeguarded by God. Further, at that time science and exact knowledge generally had not reached the point which they reached a little later—of corroborating in particular after particular, so far as they are capable of doing so, the Revelation of God known as Catholicism; and of knowing their limitations where they cannot. Many sciences, at this time, had gone no further than to establish certain facts which appeared, to the very imperfectly educated persons of that period, to challenge and even to refute certain facts or deductions of Revelation. Psychology, for example, strange as it now appears in our own day, actually seemed to afford other explanations of the Universe than that of Revelation. (We will discuss details presently.) Social Science, at that time, too, moved in the direction of Democracy and even Socialism. I know it appears monstrous, and indeed almost incredible, that men who really had some claim to be called educated seriously maintained that the most stable and the most reasonable method of government lay in the extension of the franchise—that is, in reversing the whole eternal and logical order of things, and permitting the inexpert to rule the expert, and the uneducated and the ill-informed to control by their votes—that is, by sheer weight of numbers—the educated and the well-informed. Yet such was the case. And the result was—since all these matters act and react—that the idea of authority from above in matters of religion was thought to be as ‘undemocratic’ as in matters of government and social life. Men had learnt, that is to say, something of the very real truth in the theory of the Least Common Multiple, and, as in psychology and many other sciences, had presumed that the little fragment of truth that they had perceived was the whole truth.”

Mr. Manners paused to draw breath. Obviously he was enjoying himself enormously. He was a born lecturer, and somehow the rather pompous sentences were strangely alive and strangely interesting. Above all, they fascinated and amazed the prelate at the head of the table, for they revealed to him an advance of thought, and an assurance in the position they described, that seemed wholly inexplicable. Such phrases as “all educated men,” “the well-informed,” and the rest—these were vaguely familiar to him, yet surely in a very different connection. He had at the back of his mind a kind of idea that these were the phrases that the irreligious or the agnostics applied to themselves; yet here was a man, obviously a student, and a statesman as he knew, calmly assuming (scarcely even giving himself the trouble to state) that all educated and well-informed persons were Catholic Christians!

He settled himself down to listen with renewed interest as Mr.

Manners began once more.

“Well,” he said, “to come more directly to our point; let us next consider what were those steps and processes by which Catholic truth once more became the religion of the civilized world, as it had been five centuries earlier.

“And first we must remark that, even at the very beginning of this century, popular thought—in England as elsewhere—had retraced its steps so far as to acknowledge that if Christianity were true—true, really and actually—the Catholic Church was the only possible embodiment of it. Not only did the shrewdest agnostic minds of the time acknowledge this—such men as Huxley in the previous century, Sir Leslie Stephen, Mallock, and scores of others—but even popular Christianity itself began to turn in that direction. Of course there were survivals and reactions, as we should expect. There was a small body of Christians in England called Anglicans, who attempted to hold another view; there was that short-lived movement called Modernism, that held yet a third position. But, for the rest, it was as I say.

“It was the Catholic Church or nothing. And just for a few years it seemed humanly possible that it might be nothing.

“And now for the causes of the revival.

“Briefly, I should say they were all included under one head—the correlation of sciences and their coincidence into one point. Let us take them one by one. We have only time to glance very superficially at each.

“First there was Psychology.

“Even at the end of the nineteenth century it was beginning to be perceived that there was an inexplicable force working behind mere matter. This force was given a number of names—the ‘subliminal consciousness,’ in man, and ‘Nature’ in the animal, vegetable, and even mineral creation; and it gave birth to a series of absurd superstitions such as that now wholly extinct sect of the ‘Christian Scientists,’ or the Mental Healers; and among the less educated of the Materialists, to Pantheism. But the force was acknowledged, and it was perceived to move along definite lines of law. Further, in the great outburst of Spiritualism it began gradually to be evident to the world that this force occasionally manifested itself in a personal, though always a malevolent manner. Now it must be remembered that even this marked an immense advance in the circles called scientific; since in the middle of the nineteenth century, even the phenomena so carefully recorded by the Church were denied. These were now no longer denied, since phenomena, at least closely resembling them, were matters of common occurrence under the eyes of the most sceptical. Of course, since the enquiries were made along purely ‘scientific’ lines—lines which in those days were nothing other than materialistic—an attempt was made to account for the phenomena by new anti-spiritual theories hastily put together to meet the emergency. But, little by little, an uneasy sense began to manifest itself that the Church had already been familiar with the phenomena for about two thousand years, and that a body, which had marked and recorded facts with greater accuracy than all the ‘scientists’ put together, at least had some claim to consideration with regard to her hypothesis concerning them. Further, it began to be seen (what is perfectly familiar to us all now) that Religion contributed an element which nothing else could contribute—that, for example, ‘Religious Suggestion,’ as it was called in the jargon of the time, could accomplish things that ordinary ‘Suggestion’ could not. Finally, the researches of psychologists into what was then called the phenomenon of ‘Alternating Personality’ prepared the way for a frank acceptance of the Catholic teaching concerning Possession and Exorcism—teaching which half a century before would have been laughed out of court by all who claimed the name of Scientist. Psychology then, up to this point, had rediscovered that a Force was working behind physical phenomena, itself not physical; that this Force occasionally exhibited characteristics of Personality; and finally that the despised Catholic Church had been more scientific than scientists in her observation of facts; and that this Force, dealt with along Christian lines, could accomplish what it was unable to accomplish along any other.

“The next advance lay along the lines of Comparative Religion.

“The study of Comparative Religion was practically a new science at the end of the nineteenth century, and like all new sciences, claimed at once, before it had constructed its own, to destroy the schemes of others. For instance, there were actually educated persons who advanced as an argument against Christianity the fact that many Christian dogmas and ceremonies were to be found in other religions. It is extremely difficult for us now, even in imagination, to sympathize with such a mentality as this; but it must be remembered that the science was very youthful, and had all the inexperience and the arrogance of youth. As time went on, however, this argument began to disappear, except in very elementary rationalistic manuals, as the fact became evident that while this or that particular religion had one or more identities with Christian doctrines, Christianity possessed them all; that Christianity, in short, had all the principal doctrines of all religions—or at least all doctrines that were of any strength to other religions, as well as several others necessary to weld these detached dogmas into a coherent whole; that, to use a simple metaphor, Christianity stood in the world like a light upon a hill, and that partial and imperfect reflections of this light were thrown back, with more or less clearness, from the various human systems of belief that surrounded it. And at last it became evident, even to the most unintelligent, that the only scientific explanation of this phenomenon lay in the theory that Christianity was indeed unique, and, at the very least, was the most perfect human system of faith—perfectly human, I mean, in that it embodied and answered adequately all the religious aspirations of the human race—the most perfect system of faith the world had ever seen.

“A third cause was to be found in the new philosophy of evidence that began to prevail soon after the dawn of the century.

“Up to that period, so-called Physical Science had so far tyrannized over men’s minds as to persuade them to accept her claim that evidence that could not be reduced to her terms was not, properly speaking, evidence at all. Men demanded that purely spiritual matters should be, as they said, ‘proved,’ by which they meant should be reduced to physical terms. Little by little, however, the preposterous nature of this claim was understood. People began to perceive that each order of life had evidence proper to itself—that there were such things, for instance, as moral proofs, artistic proofs, and philosophical proofs; and that these proofs were not interchangeable. To demand physical proof for every article of belief was as fantastic as to demand, let us say, a chemical proof of the beauty of a picture, or evidence in terms of light or sound for the moral character of a friend, or mathematical proof for the love of a mother for her child. This very elementary idea seems to have come like a thunderclap upon many who claimed the name of ‘thinkers’; for it entirely destroyed a whole artillery of arguments previously employed against Revealed Religion.

“For a time, Pragmatism came to the rescue from the philosophical camp; but the assault was but a very short one; since, tested by Pragmatic methods (that is, the testing of the truth of a religion by its appeal to human consciousness), if one fact stood out luminous and undisputed, it was that the Catholic Religion, with its eternal appeal in every century and to every type of temperament, was utterly supreme.

“Let us turn to another point——”

(Mr. Manners lifted the glass he had been twirling between his fingers, and drank it off with an appearance of great enjoyment. Then he smacked his lips once or twice and continued.)

“Let us turn to the realm of politics—even to the realm of trade.

“Socialism, in its purely economic aspect, was a well-meant attempt to abolish the law of competition—that is, the natural law of the Survival of the Fittest. It was an attempt, I say; and it ended, as we know, in disaster; for it established instead, so far as it was successful, the law of the Survival of the Majority, and tyrannized first over the minority and then over the individual.

“But it was a well-meant attempt; since its instinct was perfectly right, that competition is not the highest law of the Universe. And there were several other ideals in Socialism that were most commendable in theory: for example, the idea that the Society sanctifies and safeguards the individual, not the individual the Society; that obedience is a much-neglected virtue, and so forth.

“Then, suddenly almost, it seems to have dawned upon the world that all the ideals of Socialism (apart from its methods and its dogmas) had been the ideals of Christianity; and that the Church had, in her promulgation of the Law of Love, anticipated the Socialist’s discovery by about two thousand years. Further, that in the Religious Orders these ideals had been actually incarnate; and that by the doctrine of Vocation—that is by the freedom of the individual to submit himself to a superior—the rights of the individual were respected and the rights of the Society simultaneously vindicated.

“A very good example of all this is to be found in the

Poor-law system.

“You remember that before the Reformation, and in Catholic countries long after, there was no Poor-law system, because the Religious Houses looked after the sick and needy. Well, when the Religious Houses were destroyed in England the State had to do their work. You could not simply flog beggars out of existence, as Elizabeth tried to do. Then the inevitable happened, and it began to be a mark of disgrace to be helped by the State in a workhouse: people often preferred to starve. Then at the beginning of the twentieth century a well-meant attempt was made, in the Old-Age Pensions and George’s State Insurance Act, to remedy this and to help the poor in a manner that would not injure their self-respect. Of course that failed, too. It is incredible that statesmen did not see it must be so. Old-Age Pensions, too, and State-Insurance (so soon as it was socially digested), began to be considered a mark of disgrace—for the simple cause that it is not the receiving of money that is resented, but the motive for which the money is given and the position of the giver. The State can only give for economic reasons, however conscientious and individually charitable statesmen may be; while the Church gives for the Love of God, and the Love of God never yet destroyed any man’s self-respect. Well, you know the end. The Church came forward once more and, under certain conditions, offered to relieve the State of the entire burden. Two results followed—first, all grievances vanished; and secondly, the whole pauper population of England within ten years was Catholic in sympathies. And yet all this is only a reversion to medieval times—a reversion made absolutely necessary by the failure of every attempt to supplant Divine methods by human.

“Now look at it all in another way—the general situation, I mean.

“The Socialist saw plainly the rights of the Society; the Anarchist saw the rights of the Individual. How therefore were these to be reconciled? The Church stepped in at that crucial point and answered, By the Family—whether domestic or Religious. For in the Family you have both claims recognized: there is authority and yet there is liberty. For the union of the Family lies in Love; and Love is the only reconciliation of authority and liberty.

“Now, as I have put it—and as we all now see it—the argument is simplicity itself. But it took a long time to be recognized; and it was not until after the appalling events of the first twenty years of the century, and the discrediting of the absurd Socialistic attempt to preach the Law of Love by methods of Force, that civilization as a whole saw the point. Yet for all that it was beginning to mould popular opinion even as early as 1910.

“Turn now to a completely different plane. Turn to Art. This, too, drove men back to the Church.”

(Mr. Manners’ air was becoming now less professional and more vivid. He glanced quickly from face to face with a kind of sharp triumph; his long, thin hands waved a slight gesture now and again.)

“Art, you remember, in the end of the Victorian era had attempted to become realistic—had attempted, that is, the absurdly impossible; and photography exposed the absurdity, For no man can be truly a realist, since it is literally impossible to paint or to describe all that the eye sees. When photography became general, this began to be understood; since it was soon seen that the only photographer who could lay any claim to artistic work was the man who selected and altered and posed—arranged his subject, that is to say, in more or less symbolic form. Then people began to see again that Symbolism was the underlying spirit of Art—as they had known perfectly well, of course, in medieval days: that Art consisted in going beneath the material surfaces that reflected light, or the material events that happened, in painting and literature respectively, and, by a process of selection, of symbolizing (not photographically representing) the Ideas beneath the Things—the Substance beneath the Accidents—the Thought beneath the Expression—(you can call it what you like). Zola in literature, Strauss in music, the French school of painting—these reduced Realism ad absurdum. Thus once more the Catholic Church, in this as in everything else, was discovered to have possessed the secret all along. The Symbolic Reaction therefore began, and all our music, all our painting, and all our literature to-day are frankly and confessedly Symbolic—that is, Catholic. And this too, you see, pointed to the same lesson as Psychology, that beneath phenomena there was a Force which transcended phenomena; and that the Church had dealt with this Force, knowing It to be Personal, through all her history.

“Finally—and this was the crowning argument of all, that correlated all the rest—there was the growing scientific and popular perception of the Recuperative Power of the Church—that which our Divine Lord Himself called the Sign of the Prophet Jonas, or Resurrection.

“There were of course countless other lines of advance, in practically every science, and they all pointed in the same direction, and met, so to speak, from every quarter of the compass the end of the tunnel which the Church had been boring through all the heaped-up stupidities and ignorances of man. Psychology tunnelled, and presently heard the voices of the exorcists and the echoes of Lourdes through the darkness. Human religions tunnelled—Hinduism with its idea of a Divine Incarnation, Buddhism with its coarse apprehension of the Eternal Peace of a Beatific Vision, North American Religion with its guesses at Sacramentalism, Savage Religion with its caricature of a Bloody Sacrifice; all from various points; and presently heard through the tumult the historical dogma of the Incarnation of Christ, the dogma of Eternal Life, the Sacramental System and the Sacrifice of the Cross—all proclaimed in one coherent and perfectly philosophical Creed. Ideals of Social Reform met with the same experiences. The Socialist with his dream of a Divine Society, the Anarchist with his passionate nightmare of complete individual liberty, both ran up together, in the heart of the black darkness, against the vast outline of a Divine Family that was a fact and not a far-off ambition—a Family that fell in Eden and became a competitive State; a Holy Family that redeemed Nazareth and all the world; a Catholic Family in whom was neither Jew nor Greek, nor masters against men—in whom the doctrine of Vocation secured the rights and the dignities of the Society on one side and the Individual on the other. Finally Art, wandering hither and thither in the mazes of Realism, saw light ahead, and found in Catholic Art and Symbolism the secret of her life.

“This, then, was the result—that the Church was found to be eternally right in every plane. In plane after plane she had been condemned. Pilate—the Law of Separate Nations—had found her guilty of sedition; Herod—the miracle-monger at one instant and the sceptic at the next—the Scientist, in fact—had declared her guilty of fraud; Caiaphas had condemned her in the name of National Religion. Or, again, she had been thought the enemy of Art by the Greek-spirited; the enemy of Law by the Latins; the enemy of Religion by the Hebraic Pharisee. She had borne her title written in Greek and Latin and Hebrew. She had been crucified, and taunted as she hung there; she had seemed to die; and, to and behold! when the Third Day dawned she was alive again for evermore. From every single point she had been justified and vindicated. Men had thought to invent a new religion, a new art, a new social order, a new philosophy; they had burrowed and explored and digged in every direction; and, at the end, when they had worked out their theories and found, as they thought, the reward of their labours, they found themselves looking once more into the serene, smiling face of Catholicism. She was risen from the dead once more, and was seen to be the Daughter of God, with Power.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“There, gentlemen,” said Mr. Manners, dropping back again into the quiet professor, “that, I think, in a few words, is the outline for which Monsignor asked. I hope I have not detained you too long.”

II

“It is the most extraordinary story I have ever heard,” said Monsignor Masterman ten minutes later, as he threw himself down in his chair upstairs, with Father Jervis sitting opposite.

“Certainly he puts it very well,” said the old priest, smiling. “I think every one was interested. It’s not often that we can hear such a clear analysis of events. Of course Manners has it all at his fingers’ ends. It’s his special subject, and——”

“But the amazing thing to me,” interrupted the other, “is that this isn’t just a dream or a prophecy, but a relation of facts. . . . Do you mean to tell me that the whole world is Christian?”

The priest looked at him doubtfully.

“Monsignor, surely your memory isn’t——”

Monsignor made an impatient gesture.

“Father,” he said, “it’s exactly as I told you before lunch. I’ll promise to tell you if my memory comes back. At present I remember practically nothing at all, except instinctively. All I know is that this story we have heard simply astounds me. I had a sort of idea that Christianity was ebbing from the world; that most thinking men had given up all belief in it; and now I find it’s exactly the other way. Please treat me as if I had stepped straight out of the beginning of the century. Just tell me the facts as if for the first time. Is it really true that practically the whole world is Christian?”

The priest hesitated.

“You mean that, Monsignor?”

“Certainly.”

“Very well, then.” He paused again. “But it’s extraordinarily hard to know where to begin.”

“Begin anywhere. It’s all new to me.”

“Very good. Well, yes: roughly we may say that the world is Christian, in the same sort of way, at least, in which Europe was Christian, say in the twelfth century. There are survivals, of course, particularly in the East, where large districts still cling to their old superstitions; and there are even eminent men here and there who are not explicitly Catholics; but, as a whole, the world is Christian.”

“Do you mean Catholic?”

The priest stared a moment.

“Why, yes. What else—-?”

“All right; go on.”

“Well then, to begin with England. Catholicism is not yet established as the State Religion; but it’ll only be a question of time, and it may be said that all the laws are Christian.”

“Divorce?”

“Divorce was abolished thirty years ago, and fornication was made a felony ten years later,” said the priest quietly. “Benefit of clergy also was restored three years ago; and we have our own courts for heresy, with power to hand over convicted criminals to the secular arm.”

“What?”

“Certainly. It has been in force now for three years.”

“Then what do you mean by saying that the Church isn’t established?”

“I mean that no religious test is demanded of officers of state, and that bishops and abbots have no seat in Parliament. It was the enfranchisement of women that turned the tide once and for all.”

“Do you mean that all women have the vote?”

“They are under the same conditions as men. There’s a severe educational test now, of course. Not more than about one in seventy adults ever get the vote at all. But the result is that we’re governed by educated persons.”

“Stop. Is it a Monarchy?”

“Certainly. Edward IX—a young man—is on the throne.”

“Go on.”

“Christianity, then, holds the field. Of course there are infidels left, who write letters to the newspapers sometimes, and hold meetings, and so on. But they are practically negligible. As regards Church property, practically everything has finally been given back to us;—I mean in the way of buildings, and, very largely, revenues too. All the cathedrals are ours, and all parish churches built before the Reformation, as well as all other churches in parishes where there was not organized Protestant resistance.”

“I thought you said there were no Protestants.”

Father Jervis suddenly laughed aloud.

“Monsignor, are you really serious? Do you really mean you wish me to go on?”

“Good God, man! I’m not playing a game. . . . Go on, please. Tell me about the Protestants.”

“Well, of course there are some Protestants left. I think they’ve got four or five churches in London, and . . . and . . . yes, I’m sure of it, they’ve got some kind of bishop. But really I scarcely know. I shall have to look it up.”

“Well, go on.”

“Well, that’s the state of England. Practically everybody is a Catholic—from the King downwards. The last remains of Church property was only actually given back to us last year. That’s why the monks haven’t come back to Westminster yet.”

“What about the rest of the world?”

“Well, first Rome. Austria drove out the House of Savoy nearly twenty-five years ago; and the Holy Father——”

“What’s his name?”

“Gregory the Nineteenth. He’s a Frenchman. Well, the Holy Father is Temporal Ruler of the whole of Italy; but the Emperor of Austria administers it. Then France is, of course, a very small country.”

“Why small?”

“Well, you know the European War of 1914 . . .?” Monsignor interrupted by a large sigh.

“Good heavens!” he said. “How I shall have to read. I’m sorry.

Go on, please.”

“Well, France is a very small country, but intensely Catholic.

The Church is re-established there,——”

“Is it a monarchy too?”

“Certainly. The Orleans line came back after the war. Louis XXII is king. I was saying that the Church is re-established there, and is practically supreme. That is traceable entirely to Pius X’s policy.”

“Pius X! Why——”

“Yes, Monsignor?”

“I know all about that. But I thought Pius X simply ruined everything.”

“So they said at the time. His policy was to draw the lines tight and to make no concessions. He drove out every half-hearted Catholic by his regulations, and the result was a small but extraordinarily pure body. The result has been that the country was re-evangelized, and has become almost a land of saints. They say that our Lady——”

“Well, go on with the other countries.”

“Spain and Portugal are, of course, entirely Catholic, like France. The Monarchy was re-established in both of them in about 1935. But Germany—Germany’s the weak spot.”

“Well?”

“You see the Emperor isn’t a Christian yet; and Socialism lingers on there with extraordinary pertinacity. Practically Berlin is the Holy City of Freemasonry. It’s all organized from there—such as it is. And no one is quite comfortable about Germany. The Emperor Frederick is a perfectly sincere man, but really rather uneducated; he still holds on to some sort of materialism; and the result is——”

“I see.”

“But there are hopes of his conversion. He’s to be at Versailles next week; and that’s a good sign.”

“Well, what about America?”

“Oh! America’s chiefly English; and very like England.”

“You mean she isn’t republican?”

“Of course not. My dear Monsignor——”

“Please go on, as I asked you. Tell me when she ceased to be republican.”

“Why, I scarcely know,” murmured the priest. “It must have been about 1930, I suppose. I know there was a lot of trouble before that—civil wars and so forth. But at any rate that was the end. Japan got a good deal of the Far West; but the Eastern States came in with Canada and formed the American Colonies; and the South of course became Latinized, largely through ecclesiastical influence. Well, then America asked England——”

“Stop, please. I shall get bewildered. What about the religion?”

“Well, the Empire of Mexico——”

“Eh?”

“The Empire of Mexico.”

“Who’s Emperor?”

“The King of Spain, Monsignor,” said the priest patiently. “Well, that used to be called South America. It’s all the Empire of Mexico now, and belongs to Spain. That’s solidly Catholic, of course. And the American Colonies—old North America—that’s like England. It’s practically Catholic, of course; but there are a few infidels and Socialists.”

“Australia?”

“Australia’s entirely Irish, and Catholic.”

“And Ireland itself?”

“Oh! Ireland developed enormously as soon as she had gained independence, but emigration continued, and the Irish strength really lies abroad. Then an odd thing happened. Ireland continued to empty, obeying some social law we don’t even yet understand properly; and the Religious began to get possession of the country in an extraordinary way, until they owned all the large estates, and even most of the towns. You may say that Ireland is practically one Religious Enclosure now. Of course, she’s a part of the British Empire; but her real social life lies in her colonies. Australia succeeded in getting Home Rule from Ireland about twenty-five years ago.”

Monsignor pressed his hands to his head.

“It sounds like the wildest dream,” he said.

“Hadn’t I better—-?”

“No; go on. I only want an outline. What about the East?”

“Well, old superstitions still linger on in the East, especially in China. But the end is quite certain. It is simply a matter of time——”

“But . . . but I don’t understand. If the whole world is practically Christian, what is there left to do?”

The priest smiled.

“Ah! but you must remember Germany. There are great forces in Germany. It’s there that the danger lies. And you must remember too that there is no Universal Arbitrator yet. Nationalism is still pretty strong. There might easily be another big European war.”

“Then you hope——”

“Yes. We’re all working for the recognition of the Pope as Universal Arbitrator, as he was practically in Europe in the Middle Ages. Of course, as soon as the sovereigns acknowledge officially that they hold all their rights at the will of Rome, the thing will be done. But it’s not done yet, except——”

“Good God!”

“Look here, Monsignor, you’ve had enough,” said the priest, rising. “Though I must say you have followed it closely enough. Are you certain that it is quite new to you? Don’t you remember—-”

“It’s not only new; it’s inconceivable! I understand it perfectly; but——”

“Well, you’ve had enough. Now what about coming to see the Cardinal? I feel sure he’ll insist upon your taking a rest instantly. I feel rather guilty——”

“Stop. Tell me about languages. Why did you talk to me in

Latin this morning?”

“Ecclesiastics generally do. And so do the laity a good deal.

Europe is practically bi-lingual. Each country keeps up its

own tongue, and learns Latin as well. You must rub up your

Latin, Monsignor.”

“Wait a moment. What are you going to say to the Cardinal?”

“Well, hadn’t I better tell him the whole thing, just as it happened? Then you needn’t explain.”

The other pondered a moment.

“Thanks very much, father. . . . Stop. Do I talk English all right?”

“Perfectly.”

“But——Oh well. . . . And I . . . did I do all right at lunch?

Did any one suspect anything?”

“You did perfectly. You seemed a little absent-minded once or twice; but that was quite in keeping.”

The two smiled at one another pleasantly.

“Then I’ll be going,” said the priest. “Will you wait here till

I come for you?”

CHAPTER III

I

“Just be natural,” whispered Father Jervis a quarter of an hour later, as they passed through the big ante-room. “You needn’t explain a word. I’ve told him everything.”

He tapped; and a voice answered.

Sitting in a big arm-chair drawn up to the writing-table, the man who had lost his memory saw a tall, thin figure, in black with scarlet buttons, and a small scarlet skull-cap crowning his iron-grey hair. It was a little hard to make out the face at first, as the window was immediately beyond it; but he saw almost immediately that, although the face smiled at him reassuringly and welcomingly, it was entirely unfamiliar.

The Cardinal stood up as the two approached, pushing back his chair, and held out both his hands.

“My dear Monsignor,” he said, and grasped the other’s hands firmly and kindly.

“I . . . your Eminence . . .” stammered the man.

“Now, now; not one word till I’ve done. I’ve heard everything.

Come and sit down.”

He led him to a chair on the hearth-rug, placed him in it, and himself sat down in his own, facing him. The priest remained standing.

“Now, I’m going to begin with an order, on holy obedience,” smiled the Cardinal. “You and Father Jervis—if the doctor approves—are to start for a little European tour by the midnight volor.”

“The . . . ?”

“The volor,” said the Cardinal. “It’ll do you good. Father Jervis will undertake all responsibility, and you needn’t worry yourself at all. I shall telegraph to Versailles in my own name, and make one or two arrangements, and a couple of my servants will attend you. You will have nothing to do but get better. You can’t be spared. It’ll all come perfectly right, I have no manner of doubt. Father Jervis, just ask the doctor to step here.”

The Cardinal talked a minute or two longer, still with that soothing, peaceful air; and Monsignor, as he listened, watched the priest go up to a row of black boxes, resembling those in his own room, and take down a shutter from one of them. He then said a rapid sentence or two in a whisper, reclosed the shutter, and came back.

“If things don’t clear themselves, you will just have to learn your business over again, Monsignor,” went on the Cardinal, still smiling. “Father Jervis has told me how well you did at lunch; and Mr. Manners said nothing, except that you were a very good host and a very graceful listener. So you need not fear that any one will notice. So please put out of your mind any thought that any one else will take your place here. I shall expect you back in a month or two, and not a soul will be any the wiser. I shall just let it be known that you’re gone for a holiday. You have always worked hard enough, anyhow, to deserve one.”

At that moment, somewhere out of the air, from the direction of the boxes on the wall, a very deferential, quiet voice uttered a few words in Latin.

The Cardinal nodded. Father Jervis went to the door and opened it, and there came through a man in a black cloak, resembling a gown, followed by a servant carrying a bag. The bag was set down, the servant went out, and the doctor came forward to kiss the Cardinal’s ring.

“I want you just to examine Monsignor Masterman,” said the Cardinal. “And, doctor, please observe absolute silence afterwards. Just say that you have found him a little run down.”

Monsignor made a movement to stand up, but the Cardinal restrained him.

“Do you remember this gentleman?” he asked.

Monsignor stared blankly at the doctor.

“I have never seen him in my life,” he said.

The doctor smiled, simply and frankly.

“Well, well, Monsignor,” he said.

“It seems just a loss of memory,” went on the Cardinal. “Just tell the doctor how it happened.”

The invalid made an effort; he shut his eyes for an instant to recover himself; and then he related at length his first apparent consciousness in Hyde Park, and all that had followed. Father Jervis put a question from time to time, which he answered quite rationally; and at the close the doctor, who was sitting opposite, watching every movement of his face, leaned back, smiling.

“Well, Monsignor,” he said, “it seems to me that your memory is sufficiently good. Just put another question, father—a really difficult one—about something that has happened since noon.”

“Can you remember the points of Mr. Manners’ speech?” asked the priest doubtfully.

The other paused for a moment.

“Psychology, Comparative Religion, the Philosophy of

Evidence, Pragmatism, Art, Politics, and finally

Recuperation. These were the——”

“Now that’s astonishing!” said the priest. “I could only remember four myself.”

“When did you see the Cardinal last?” asked the doctor suddenly.

“I have never seen him before, to my knowledge,” faltered the sick man.

The Cardinal leaned forward and patted him gently on the knee.

“Never mind,” he said. “Then, doctor——”

“Would your Eminence put a question to him on some very important matter? Something that would have made a deep impression.”

The Cardinal considered.

“Well,” he said, “yes. Do you remember the message brought by special messenger from Windsor yesterday evening?”

Monsignor shook his head.

“That’ll do,” said the doctor. “Don’t attempt to force yourself.”

He rose from his chair, fetched his bag and opened it. Out of it he took an instrument rather resembling a small camera, but with a bundle of minute wires of some very pliable material, each ending in a tiny disc.

“Do you know what this is, Monsignor?” asked the doctor, busying himself with the wires.

“I have no idea.”

“Well, well. . . . Now, Monsignor, kindly loosen your waistcoat, so that I can get at your breast and back.”

“Is it a stethoscope?”

“Something like it,” smiled the doctor. “But how did you know that name? Never mind. Now then, please.”

He placed the camera affair on the corner of the table near the arm-chair; and then, very rapidly, began to affix the discs—it seemed by some process of air-exhaustion—all over the head, breast, and back of the amazed man. No sensation followed this at all, except the very faint feeling of skin-contraction at each point of contact.

“May I have that blind down, your Eminence? . . . Ah! that’s better. Now then.”

He bent closely over the square box on the table, and seemed to peer at something inside. The others kept silence.

“Well?” asked the Cardinal at last.

“Perfectly satisfactory, your Eminence. There is a very faint discoloration, but no more than is usual in a man of Monsignor’s temperament at any excitement. There is absolutely nothing wrong, and—Monsignor,” he continued, looking straight at the wire-bedecked invalid, “not the very faintest indication of anything even approaching insanity or imbecility.”

The man who had lost his memory drew a swift breath.

“May I see, doctor?” asked the Cardinal suavely.

“Certainly, your Eminence; and Monsignor can look himself, if he likes.”

When the other two had looked, the sick man himself was given the box.

“(Carefully with that wire, please.) There!” said the doctor.

“Look down there.”

In the centre of the box, shielded by a little plate of glass, there appeared a small semi-luminous globe. This globe seemed tinted with slightly wavering colours, in which a greyish blue predominated; but, almost like a pulse, there moved across it from time to time a very pale red tint, suffusing it, and then dying away again.

“What is it?” asked the man in the chair hoarsely, lifting his head.

“That, my dear Monsignor,” explained the doctor carefully, “is a reflection of your physical condition. It is an exceedingly simple, though of course very delicate instrument. The method was discovered—-”

“Is it anything to do with magnetism?”

“They used to call it that, I think. It’s got several names now. All mental disturbance has, of course, a physical side to it, and that is how we are able to record it physically. It was discovered by a monk, of course.”

“But . . . but it’s marvellous.”

“Everything is marvellous, Monsignor. Certainly this, however, caused a revolution. It became the symbol of the whole modern method of medicine.”

“What’s that?” The doctor laughed.

“That’s a large question,” he said.

“But . . .”

“Well, in a word, it’s the old system turned upside down. A century ago when a man was ill they began by doctoring his body. Now, when a man’s ill, they begin by doctoring his mind. You see the mind is much more the man than the body is, as Theology always taught us. Therefore by dealing with the mind——”

“But that’s Christian Science!”

The doctor looked bewildered.

“It was an old heresy, doctor,” put in the Cardinal, smiling, “that denied the reality of matter. No, Monsignor, we don’t deny the reality of matter. It’s perfectly real. Only, as the doctor says, we prefer to attack the real root of the disease, rather than its physical results. We still use drugs; but only to remove painful symptoms.”

“That . . . that sounds all right,” stammered the man, bewildered by the simplicity of it. “Then . . . then do you mean, your Eminence, that physical diseases are treated—-?”

“There are no physical diseases left,” put in the doctor. “Of course there are accidents and external physical injuries; but practically all the rest have disappeared. Very nearly all of them were carried by the blood, and, by dealing with this, the tissues are made immune. Our discoveries also in the region of innervation——”

“But . . . but . . . are there no diseases then?”

“Why, yes, Monsignor,” interrupted the Cardinal, with the patient air of one talking to a child, “there are hundreds of those; and they are very real indeed; but they are almost entirely mental—or psychical, as some call them. And there are specialists on all of these. Bad habits of thought, for example, always set up some kind of disease; and there are hospitals for these; and even isolation homes.”

“Forgive me, your Eminence,” put in the doctor, with a certain imperiousness, “but I think we ought not to talk to Monsignor too much on this subject. May I put a question or two?”

“I beg your pardon, doctor. Certainly. Put any question you wish.”

The doctor sat down again.

“Have you been in the habit of saying Mass every day, Monsignor?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” said the invalid.

“Yes, doctor,” put in Father Jervis.

“And confession once a week?”

“Twice a week,” said Father Jervis. “I am Monsignor’s confessor.”

“Very good,” said the doctor. “For the present, as far as I am concerned, I should recommend confession only once a fortnight as a general rule. Mass can be as before. Then Monsignor may say half of his office every day, or the rosary; but not both. And no other devotions of any kind, except the particular Examen. If Monsignor and Father Jervis both consent, I should like the Examen to be forwarded to a priest-doctor for a few weeks.”

An exclamation broke from the invalid.

“Well, Monsignor?”

“I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

The Cardinal leaned forward.

“Monsignor, listen to me. In these cases the doctor always gives his advice. You see even the sacraments have their mental side; and on this mental side the doctor speaks. But the whole decision rests entirely with the patient and his confessor; or they can call in an expert priest-doctor. Only a priest can possibly decide finally the relations between the grace of the sacraments and their reactionary effect upon the mind. A lay doctor only recommends. Are you satisfied?”

The man nodded. It seemed very simple, so stated.

“For the rest,” continued the doctor, with a certain stateliness of manner, “I order a complete change of scene. This must be for a fortnight at least, if not longer. If the priest-doctor’s report—to whom the Examen may be sent—is not satisfactory, it will have to be for longer. The patient must engage in no business that does not honestly interest him.”

“May he travel to-night?” asked the Cardinal.

“The sooner the better,” said the doctor, rising.

“What is the matter with me?” asked the invalid hoarsely.

“It is a small mental explosion, but it has not affected the mechanism of the brain. There is not, as I have said, a trace of insanity or of loss of balance. I cannot promise that the injury will be repaired; but defects that may follow from this can easily be remedied by study. It simply depends upon yourself, Monsignor, as to in how long you can be at your post again here. As soon as you have learned the threads of business, you will be able to apply yourself as before. I shall look for a report in a fortnight’s time at the latest. Good day, your Eminence.”

II

The clocks of London were all striking the single stroke of midnight as the two priests stood on the wind-sheltered platform of the volor, waiting for the start.

To Monsignor Masterman the scene was simply overwhelming. There was hardly a detail that was not new and unfamiliar. From where he stood on the upper deck, grasping the rail before him, his eyes looked out over a luminous city as lovely as fairyland. There were no chimneys, of course (these, he had just learnt, had altogether disappeared more than fifty years ago), but spires and towers and pinnacles rose before him like a dream, glowing against the dark sky, lit by the soft radiance of the streets beneath. To the right, not a hundred yards away, rose Saint Edward’s tower, mellowed now to clear orange by the lapse of three-quarters of a century; to the left a flight of buildings, of an architectural design which he did not understand, but which gave him a sense of extreme satisfaction; in front towered the masses of Buckingham Palace as he seemed always to have known it.

The platform of the flying ship on which he stood hung in dock at least three hundred feet high above the roads beneath. He had examined the whole vessel just now from stem to stern, and had found it vaguely familiar; he determined to examine it again presently. There was no gas-bag to sustain it—so much he had noticed—though he could not say whence he had the idea that gas-bags were usual. But it seemed to him as if the notion of airships did carry some faint association to his mind, although far less distinct than that of motor-cars and even trains. He had enquired of his companion an hour or two earlier as they had discussed their journey as to whether they would not go by train and steamer, and had received the answer that these were never used except for very short journeys.

Here, then, he stood and stared.

It was very quiet up here; but he listened with considerable curiosity to the strange humming sound that filled the air, rising and falling, as of a beehive. At first he thought it was the working of engines in the ship; but he presently perceived it to be the noise of the streets rising from below; and it was then that he saw for the first time that foot-passengers were almost entirely absent, and that practically the whole roadway, so far as he could make out from the high elevation at which he stood, was occupied by cars of all descriptions going this way and that. They sounded soft horns as they went, but they bore no lights, for the streets were as light as day with a radiance that seemed to fall from beneath the eaves of all the buildings that lined them. This effect of lighting had a curious result of making the city look as if it were seen through glass or water—a beautifully finished, clean picture, moving within itself like some precise and elaborate mechanism.

He turned round at a touch on his arm.

“You would like to see the start, perhaps,” said the old priest. “We are a little late to-night. The country mails have only just arrived. But we shall be off directly now. Come this way.”

The upper deck, as the two turned inwards, presented an extremely pleasant and reassuring picture. From stem to stern it ran clear, set out, however, with groups of tables and chairs clamped to the floor, at which sat a dozen parties or so, settling themselves down comfortably. There were no funnels, no bridge, no break at all to the delightful vista. The whole was lighted by the same device as were the streets, for round the upper edges of the transparent walls that held out the wind shone a steady, even glow from invisible lights.

In the very centre of the deck, however, was a low railing that protected the head of a staircase, and down this well the two looked.

“Shall I explain?” asked the old priest, smiling. “This is the latest model, you know. It has not been in use for more than a few months.”

The other nodded.

“Tell me everything, please.”

“Well, look right down there, below the second flight. The first flight leads to the second-class deck, and the flight below to the working parts of the ship. Now do you see that man’s head, straight in the middle, in the bright light?—yes, immediately under. Well, that’s the first engineer. He’s in a glass compartment, you see, and can look down passages in every direction. The gas arrangements are all in front of him, and the——”

“Stop, please. What power is it that drives the ship? Is it lighter than air, or what?”

“Well, you see the entire framework of the ship is hollow. Every single thing you see—even the chairs and tables—they’re all made of the metal aerolite (as it’s generally called). It’s almost as thin as paper, and it’s far stronger than any steel. Now it’s the framework of the ship that takes the place of the old balloon. It’s infinitely safer, too, for it’s divided by automatically closing stops into tens of thousands of compartments, so a leak here and there makes practically no difference. Well, when the ship’s at rest, as it is now, there’s simply air in all these tubes; but when it’s going to start, there is forced into these tubes, from the magazine below, the most volatile gas that has been discovered——”

“What’s it called?”

“I forget the real name. It’s generally called aeroline. Well, this is forced in, until the specific gravity of the whole affair, passengers and all, is as nearly as possible the same as the specific gravity of the air.”

“I see. Good Lord, how simple!”

“And the rest is done with planes and screws, driven by electricity. The tail of the boat is a recent development. (You’ll see it when we’re once started.) It’s exactly like the tail of a bird, and contracts and expands in every direction. Then besides that there are two wings, one on each side, and these can be used, if necessary, in case the screws go wrong, as propellers. But usually they are simply for balancing and gliding. You see, barring collisions, there’s hardly the possibility of an accident. If one set of things fails, there’s always something else to take its place. At the very worst, we can but be blown about a bit.”

“But it’s exactly like a bird, then.”

“Of course, Monsignor,” said the priest, with twinkling eyes, “it isn’t likely that we could improve upon Almighty God’s design. We’re very simple, you know. . . . Look, he’s signalling. We’re going to start. Come to the prow. We shall see better from there.”

The upper deck ended in a railing, below which protruded, from the level of the lower deck, the prow proper of the boat. Upon this prow, in a small compartment of which the roof, as well as the walls, was of hardened glass, stood the steersman amid his wheels. But the wheels were unlike anything that the bewildered man who looked down had ever dreamed of. First, they were not more than six inches in diameter; and next, they were arranged, like notes on a keyboard, with their edges towards him, with the whole set curved round him in a semicircle.

“Those to right and left,” explained the priest, “control the planes on either side; those in front, on the left, control the engines and the gas supply; and on the right, the tail of the boat. Watch him, and you’ll see. We’re just starting.”

As he spoke three bells sounded from below, followed, after a pause, by a fourth. The steersman straightened himself as the first rang out and glanced round him; and upon the fourth, bent himself suddenly over the key board, like a musician addressing himself to a piano.

For the first instant Monsignor was conscious of a slight swaying motion, which resolved itself presently into a faint sensation of constriction on his temples, but no more. Then this passed, and as he glanced away again from the steersman, who was erect once more, his look happened to fall over the edge of the boat. He grasped his friend convulsively.

“Look,” he said, “what’s happened?”

“Yes, we’re off,” said the priest sedately.

Beneath them, on either side, there now stretched itself an almost illimitable and amazingly beautiful bird’s-eye view of a lighted city, separated from them by what seemed an immeasurable gulf. From the enormous height up to which they had soared the city looked like a complicated flat map, of which the patches were dark and the dividing lines rivers of soft fire. This stretched practically to the horizon on all sides; the light toned down at the edges into a misty luminosity, but as the bewildered watcher stared in front of him, he saw how directly in their course there slid toward them two great patches of dark, divided by a luminous stream in the middle.

“What is it? What is it?” he stammered.

The priest seemed not to notice his agitation; he just passed his hand quietly into the trembling man’s elbow.

“Yes,” he said, “there are houses all the way to Brighton now, of course, and we go straight down the track. We shall take in passengers at Brighton, I think.”

There was a step behind them.

“Good evening, Monsignor,” said a voice. “It’s a lovely night.”

The prelate turned round, covered with confusion, and saw a man in uniform saluting him deferentially.

“Ah! captain,” slipped in the priest. “So we’re crossing with you, are we?”

“That’s it, father. The Michael line’s running this week.”

“It’s a wonderful thing to me——” began Monsignor, but a sharp pressure on his arm checked him—”how you keep the whole organization going,” he ended lamely.

The captain smiled.

“It’s pretty straightforward,” he said. “The Michael line runs the first week of every month; the Gabriel the second, and so on.”

“Then——”

“Yes,” put in Father Jervis. “Whose idea was it to dedicate the lines to the archangels? I forget.”

“Ah! that’s ancient history to me, father. . . . Excuse me, Monsignor; I think I hear my bell.” he wheeled, saluting again, and was off.

“Do you mean—-?” began Monsignor.

“Of course,” said Father Jervis, “everything runs on those lines now. You see we’re matter-of-fact, and it’s really rather obvious, when you think of it, to dedicate the volor lines to the angels. We’ve been becoming more and more obvious for the last fifty years. . . . By the way, Monsignor, you must take care not to give yourself away. You’d better not ask many questions except of me.”

Monsignor changed the subject.

“When shall we get to Paris?” he asked.

“We shall be a little late, I think, unless they make up time.

We’re due at three. I hope there won’t be any delay at Brighton.

Sometimes on windy nights——”

“I suppose the descending and the starting again takes some time.”

The priest laughed.

“We don’t descend at places en route,” he said. “The tender comes up to us. It’ll probably be in its place by now. We aren’t ten minutes away.”

The other compressed his lips and was silent.

Presently, far away to the southward beneath the soft starlit sky, the luminous road down which they travelled seemed to expand once more almost abruptly into another vast spread of lights. But as they approached this did not extend any farther, but lay cut off sharp by a long, curving line of almost complete darkness.

“Brighton . . . the sea . . . And there’s the tender waiting.”

At first the prelate could not make it out against the radiance below, but an instant later, as they rushed on, it loomed up, sudden and enormous, itself blazing with lights against the dark sea. It looked to him something like a floating stage, outlined with fire; and there were glimmering, perpendicular lines beneath it which he could not understand, running down to lose themselves in the misty glow three hundred feet beneath.

“How’s it done?” he asked.

“It’s a platform, charged of course with aeroline. It runs on lines straight up from the stage beneath, and keeps itself steady with screws. You’ll see it go down after we’ve left again. Come to the stern, we shall see better from there.”

By the time that they had reached the other end of the ship, the pace had rapidly diminished almost to motionlessness; and as soon as Monsignor could attend again, he perceived that there was sliding at a footpace past their starboard side the edge of the huge platform that he had seen just now half a mile away. For a moment or two it swayed up and down; there was a slight vibration; and then he heard voices and the trampling of footsteps.

“The bridges are fixed,” remarked the priest. “They’re on the lower deck, of course. Pretty prompt, aren’t they?”

The prelate stood, staring with all his eyes; now at the motionless platform that hung alongside, now at the gulf below with the fairy lights strewed like stars and nebulae at its bottom. It seemed impossible to realize that this station in the air was not the normal level, and the earth not a strange foreign body that attended on it. There came up on deck presently a dozen figures or so, carrying wraps, and talking. It was amazing to him that they could behave with such composure. Two were even quarrelling in subdued voices. . . .

It was hardly five minutes before the three bells rang again; and before the fourth sounded, suddenly he saw drop beneath, like a stone into a pit, the huge immovable platform that just now he had conceived of as solid as the earth from which it had risen. Down and down it went, swaying ever so slightly from side to side, diminishing as it went; but before the motion had ceased the fourth bell rang, and he clutched the rail to steady himself as the ship he was on soared again with a strange intoxicating motion. The next instant, as he glanced over the edge, he saw that they were far out over the blackness of the sea.

“I think we might go below for a bit,” said the priest in his ear.

There was no kind of difficulty in descending the stairs; there was practically no oscillation of any kind in this still and windless summer night, and the two came down easily and looked round the lower deck.

This was far more crowded with figures: there were padded seats fully occupied running round all the sides, beneath the enormous continuous windows. In the centre, sternwards, ran a narrow refreshment bar, where a score of men were standing to refresh themselves. Forward of the farther stairs (down the well of which they had seen the engineer’s head), by which they were standing, the deck was closed in, as with cabins.

“Like to see the oratory?” asked Father Jervis.

“The what?”

“Oratory. The long-journey boats, that have chaplains, carry the Blessed Sacrament, of course; but there is only a little oratory on these continental lines.”

Monsignor followed him, unable to speak, up the central passage running forwards; through a pair of heavy curtains; and there, to his amazed eyes, appeared a small altar, a hanging lamp, and an image of St. Michael.

“But it’s astounding!” whispered the prelate, watching a man and a woman at their prayers.

“It’s common sense, isn’t it?” smiled the priest. “Why, the custom began a hundred years ago.”

“No!”

“Indeed it did! I learnt it from one of the little guide-books they give one on these boats. A company called the Great Western had mosaic pictures of the patron saint of each boat in the saloon. And their locomotives, too, were called after saints’ names. It’s only plain common sense, if you come to think of it.”

“Are lines like this—and railways, and so on—owned by the State now? I suppose so.”

The other shook his head.

“That was tried under Socialism,” he said. “It was one of their smaller failures. You see, when competition ceases, effort ceases. Human nature is human nature, after all. The Socialists forgot that. No; we encourage private enterprise as much as possible, under State restrictions.”

They paused as they came out again.

“Care to lie down for a bit? We shan’t be in till three. The

Cardinal engaged a room for us.”

He indicated a small cabin that bore his own name on a card.

Monsignor paused.

“Yes, I will, I think. I’ve a lot to think about.”

But he could not sleep. The priest promised to awaken him in plenty of time, and he slipped off his buckled shoes and tried to compose his mind. But it was useless. His mind whirled with wonder.

Once he slipped to a sitting position, drew back the little curtain over the porthole, and stared out. There was little to be seen; but by the sight of a lake of soft light that slid past at some incalculable depth a dozen miles away, he perceived that they had left the sea far behind and were spinning over the land of France. He looked out long, revolving thoughts and conjectures, striving to find some glimmer of memory by which he might adjust these new experiences; but there was none. He was like a child, with the brain of a man, plunged into a new mode of existence, where everything seemed reversed, and yet astonishingly obvious; it was the very simplicity that baffled him. The Christian religion was true down (or up) even to the Archangels that stand before God and control the powers of the air. The priesthood was the priesthood; the Blessed Sacrament was the God-Man tabernacling with men. Then where was the cause for amazement that the world recognized these facts and acted upon them; that men should salute the priest of God as His representative and agent on earth; that air-ships (themselves constructed on the model of the sea-gull—hollow feathers and all) should carry the Blessed Sacrament on long journeys, that communicants might not be deprived of their Daily Bread, and even raise altars on board to the honour of those Powers under whose protection they placed themselves. It was curious, too, he reflected, that those who insist most upon the claims of Divinity insist also upon the claims of humanity. It seemed suggestive that it was the Catholics who were most aware of the competitive passions of men and reckoned with them, while the Socialists ignored them and failed.

So he sat—this poor man bewildered by simplicity and almost shocked by the obvious—listening with unheeding ears to the steady rush of air past the ship, voices talking naturally and easily, heard through the roof above his head, an occasional footstep, and once or twice a bell as the steersman communicated some message to one of his subordinates. Here he sat—John Masterman, Domestic Prelate to His Holiness Gregory XIX, Secretary to His Eminence Gabriel Cardinal Bellairs, and priest of the Holy Roman Church, trying to assimilate the fact that he was on an air-ship, bound to the court of the Catholic French King, and that practically the whole civilized world believed and acted on the belief which he, as a priest, naturally also held and was accustomed to teach.

A tap on his door roused him at last.

“It’s time to be moving, Monsignor,” said Father Jervis through the half-open door. “We’re in communication with St. Germains.”

CHAPTER IV

I

“Tell me a little about the costumes,” said Monsignor, as the two set out on foot from their lodgings in Versailles after breakfast next morning, to present their letters of introduction. “They seem to me rather fantastic, somehow.”

Their lodgings were situated in one of the great palaces on the vast road that runs straight from the gates of the royal palace itself into Paris. They had come straight on by car from St. Germains, had been received with immense respect by the proprietor, who, it appeared, had received very particular instructions from the English Cardinal; and had been conducted straight upstairs to a little suite of rooms, decorated in eighteenth-century fashion, and consisting of a couple of bedrooms for themselves, opening to a central sitting-room and oratory; the two men-servants they had brought with them were lodged immediately across the landing outside.

“Fantastic?” asked Father Jervis, smiling. “Don’t you think they’re attractive?”

“Oh yes; but——”

“Remember human nature, Monsignor. After all, it was only intense self-importance that used to make men say that they were independent of exterior beauty. It’s far more natural and simple to like beauty. Every child does, after all.”

“Yes, yes; I see that, I suppose. But I didn’t mean only that. I was on the point of asking you yesterday, again and again, but something marvellous distracted me each time,” said the prelate, smiling. “They’re extraordinarily picturesque, of course; but I can’t help thinking that they must all mean something.”

“Of course they do. And I never can imagine how people ever got on without the system. Why, even less than a hundred years ago, I understand that every one dressed, or tried to dress alike. How in the world could they tell who they were talking to?”

“I . . . I expect that was deliberate,” faltered the other. “You see, I think people used to be ashamed of their trades sometimes, and wanted to be thought gentlemen.”

Father Jervis shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I don’t understand it,” he said. “If a man was ashamed of his trade, why did he follow it?”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Monsignor animatedly, “that perhaps it’s the new teaching on Vocation that has made the difference. Once a man understands that his Vocation is the most honourable thing he can do, I suppose——There! who’s that man,” he interrupted suddenly, “in blue with the badge?”

A tremendous figure was crossing the road just in front of them. He wore a short, full blue cloak, with a silver badge on the left breast, a tight-fitting cap of the same colour repeating the same badge, and from beneath his cloak in front hung a tunic, with enormous legs in tight blue hose and shoes moving underneath.

“Ah! that’s a great man,” said the priest. “He’s a

Butcher, of course——”

“A butcher!”

“Yes; that’s obvious—it’s the blue, for one thing, and the cut, for another. Wait an instant. I shall see his badge directly.”

As the great man came past them he saluted deferentially. The priests bowed with equal deference, lifting their hands to their broad-leaved hats.

“Yes: he’s very high up,” said the priest quietly. “A member of the Council of the National Guild, at least.”

“Do you mean that man kills oxen?”

“Not now, of course; he’s worked his way up. He probably represents the Guild in the Assembly.”

“Do all the trades have guilds, and are they all represented in the Assembly?”

“Why, of course! How else could you be certain that the trade was treated fairly? If all the citizens voted as citizens, there’d simply be no fair representation at all. Look; there’s a goldsmith—he has probably been to the King; that’s a journeyman with him.”

An open car sped past them. Two men were seated in it; both in clothes of some really beautiful metallic colour; but the cap of one was plain, while the cap of the other blazed with some device.

“And the women? I can’t see any system among them.”

“Ah! but there is, though it’s harder to detect. They have much more liberty than the men; but, as a rule, each woman has a predominating colour, the colour of the head of her family, and all, of course, wear badges. There are sumptuary laws, I needn’t say.”

“I shouldn’t have guessed it!”

“Well, not as regards price or material, certainly—only size. There are certain absolute limits on both sides; and fashions have to manage between the two. You see it’s the same thing as in trades and professions, as I told you yesterday. We encourage the individual to be as individualistic as possible, and draw the limits very widely, beyond which he mustn’t go. But those limits are imperative. We try to develop both extremes at once—liberty and law. We had enough of the via media—the mediocrity of the average—under Socialism.”

“But do you mean to say that people submit to all this?”

“Submit! Why it’s perfectly obvious to every one that it’s simply human—besides being very convenient practically. Of course in Germany they still go in for what they call Liberty; and the result is simple chaos.”

“Do you mean to say there’s no envy or jealousy between the trades?”

“Not in the social sense, in the very least, though there’s tremendous competition. Why, every one under Royalty has to be a member of some trade. Of course only those who practise the trade wear the full costume; but even the dukes have to wear the badges. It’s perfectly simple, you know.”

“Tell me an English duke who’s a butcher,”

“Butcher? . . . I can’t think of one this minute. Southminster’s a baker, though.”

Monsignor was silent. But it certainly seemed simple.

They were passing up now between the sentry-guarded gates of the enormous and exquisite palace of Versailles; and, beyond the great expanse of gravel on which they had just set foot, rose up the myriad windows, pinnacles, and walls where the Kings of France lived again as they had lived two hundred years before. Far up, against the tender summer sky, flapped the Royal Standard; and the lilies of France, once more on their blue ground, indicated that the King was in residence. Even as they looked, however, the banner seemed to waver a little; and simultaneously a sudden ringing sound from a shadowed portico a couple of hundred yards away brought Father Jervis to a sudden stop.

“We’d better step aside,” he said. “We’re right in the way.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Some one’s coming out. . . . Look.”

From out of the shadow into the full sunlight with a flash of silver lightning whirled a body of cuirassiers, wheeled into line, and came on, reforming as they came, at a canter.

A couple of heralds rode in front; and a long trumpet-cry pealed out, was caught, echoed, and thrown back by the crowding walls of the palace.

Behind, as Father Jervis drew him to one side, Monsignor caught a glimpse of white horses and a gleam of gold. He glanced hastily back at the gates through which they had just come, and, as if sprung out of the ground, there was the crowd standing respectfully on either side of the avenue to see its Sovereign. (It was up this avenue to Paris, Monsignor reflected, that the women had come on their appalling march to the Queen who ruled them then.)

As he glanced back again the heralds were upon them, and the thunder of hoofs followed close behind. But beyond the line of galloping guards, in the midst, drawn by white horses, ran the great gilded coach with glass windows, and the crown of France atop.

Two men were seated in the coach, bowing mechanically as they came—one a small, young, vivacious-looking man with a pointed dark beard; the other a heavy, fair-haired, sanguine-featured, clean-shaven man. Both alike were in robes in which red and gold predominated; and both wore broad feathered hats, shaped like a priest’s.

Then the coach was gone through the tall gilded gates, and a cloud of dust, beaten up by the galloping hoofs on all sides, hid even the cuirassiers who closed the company. And as the two turned the banner sank on the tall pole.

“The King and the German Emperor,” observed Father Jervis, replacing his hat. “Now there’s the other side of the picture for you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Why, we treat our kings like kings,” smiled the other. “And, at the same time, we encourage our butchers to be really butchers and to glory in it. Law and liberty, you see. Absolute discipline and the cultivation of individualism. No republican stew-pot, you see, in which everything tastes alike.”

II

They had to wait a few minutes in an ante-room before presenting their letters, as the official was engaged, and Father Jervis occupied the time in running over again the names and histories of three or four important personages to whom they would perhaps have to speak. He had given an outline of these at breakfast.

There were three in particular about whom Monsignor must be informed.

First, the King; and Monsignor learned again thoroughly of the sensational reaction which, after the humiliation of France in the war of 1914—the logical result of a conflict between a republicanism worked out to mediocrity and a real and vivid monarchy—had placed this man’s father—the undoubted legitimate heir—upon the throne. He had died only two years ago, when the Dauphin, who had ascended the throne, was just eighteen years old. The present King was not yet married, but there were rumours of a love-match with a Spanish princess. He was a boyish king, it seemed, but he played his royal part with intense enjoyment and dignity, and had restored, to the delight of this essentially romantic and imaginative people, most of the glories of the eighteenth-century court, without its scandals. Certainly France was returning to its old chivalry, and thence to its old power.

Next there was the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Guinet, a very old ecclesiastic, very high in the counsels of the Church, who would almost certainly have been elected Pope at the last vacancy if it had not been for his age. He was an “intellectual,” it seemed, and, among other things, was one of the first physicists of Europe. He had been ordained comparatively late in life.

Thirdly there was the Archbishop’s secretary—Monsignor Allet—a rising man and an excellent diplomatist.

There were two or three more, but Father Jervis was content with scarcely more than recounting their names. The King’s brother, and the heir-presumptive, was something of a recluse and seldom appeared at court. Of the German Emperor, Monsignor had already learned, it seemed, sufficient.

In the middle of these instructions, the door suddenly opened, and an ecclesiastic hurried in with outstretched hands, and apologies in a torrent of Latin.

(“Monsignor Allet,” whispered Father Jervis, as he appeared.)

Monsignor Masterman stood bewildered. The dilemma had not occurred to him; but Father Jervis, it seemed, was prepared. He said a rapid sentence to the secretary, who turned, bowing, and immediately began in English without the trace of any accent.

“I perfectly understand—perfectly indeed. These doctors rule us with a rod of iron, don’t they? It’ll be arranged directly. We all talk English here; and I’ll say a word to His Eminence. The very same thing happened to himself a year or two back. He was forbidden to talk in French. It is astonishing, is it not? the subtlety of these doctors! And yet how natural. No two languages have the same mental reaction, after all. They’re perfectly right.”

Monsignor caught a glimmering of what he was at. But he thought he had better be cautious.

“I’m afraid I shall give a lot of trouble,” he murmured, looking doubtfully at this sparkling-eyed, blue-chinned young man, who spoke with such rapidity.

“Not in the least, I assure you.” He turned to the older priest.

“The Cardinal left here only half an hour ago. How unfortunate!

He came over to arrange the final details of the disputation.

You’ve heard of that?”

“Not a word.”

The young prelate beamed.

“Well, you’ll hear the finest wit in France! It’s for this afternoon.” (His face fell.) “But it’s Latin. Perhaps Monsignor ought not——”

“Ah! so long as he doesn’t talk—-!” (Father Jervis turned to his friend.) “I was telling Monsignor here that the doctor ordered you to engage in no business that did not interest you; and that Latin was rather a strain to you just now——”

This seemed adroit enough. But Monsignor was determined to miss no new experience.

“It will simply delight me,” he said. “And what is the subject?”

“Well,” said the Frenchman, “it’s for the benefit of the Emperor. Two of the Parisian theologians are disputing De Ecclesia. The thesis of the adversary, who opens, is that the Church is merely the representative of God on earth—a Society that must, of course, be obeyed; but that Infallibility is not necessary to her efficiency.”

Father Jervis’ eyes twinkled.

“Isn’t that a little too pointed? Why, that’s the Emperor’s one difficulty! I understand that he allows, politically speaking, the need for the Church, but denies her divinity.”

“I assure you,” said the French priest solemnly, “that the thesis is his own selection. You see, he’s sick of these Socialists. He understands perfectly that the one sanction of human authority must come from God, or from the people; and he’s entirely on God’s side! But he cannot see the infallibility, and therefore, as he’s a sincere man—-!” he ended with an eloquent shrug.

“Well,” said Father Jervis, “if the Cardinal’s not here——”

“Alas! He is back in Paris by now. But give me your letters! I’ll see that they are presented properly; and you shall receive a royal command for the disputation in plenty of time.”

They handed over their letters; they exchanged compliments once more; they were escorted as far as the door of the room by the prelate, across the next ante-chamber by an imposing man in black velvet with a chain, across the third by a cuirassier, and across the hall to the bottom of the steps by two tremendous footmen in the ancient royal livery.

Monsignor was silent for a few yards.

“Aren’t you afraid of an anti-clerical reaction?” he asked suddenly.

“How do you mean? I don’t understand.”

Then Monsignor launched out. He had accepted by now the theory that he had had a lapse of memory, and that so far as his intellect was concerned, he was practically a man of a century ago, owing to the history he had happened to be reading shortly before his collapse; and he talked therefore from that standpoint.

He produced, that is to say, with astonishing fluency all those arguments that were common in the mouths of the more serious anti-clericals of the beginning of the century—the increase of Religious Orders, the domineering tendency of all ecclesiastics in the enjoyment of temporal power, the impossibility of combating supernatural arguments, the hostility of the Church to education—down even to the celibacy of the clergy. He paused for breath as they turned out of the great gateway.

Father Jervis laughed aloud and patted him on the arm.

“My dear Monsignor, I can’t compete with you. You’re too eloquent. Of course, I remember from reading history that those things used to be said, and I suppose Socialists say them now. But, you know, no educated man ever dreams of such arguments; nor indeed do the uneducated! It’s the half-educated, as usual, who’s the enemy. He always is. The Wise Men and the shepherds both knelt in Bethlehem. It was the bourgeois who stood apart.”

“That’s no answer,” persisted the other.

“Well, let’s see,” said the priest good-humouredly. “We’ll begin with celibacy. Now it’s perfectly true that it’s thought almost a disgrace for a man not to have a large family. The average is certainly not less than ten in civilized nations. But for all that a priest is looked upon without any contempt at all. Why? Because he’s a spiritual father; because he begets spiritual children to God, and feeds and nourishes them. Of course to an atheist this is nonsense; and even to an agnostic it’s a very doubtful benefit. But, my dear Monsignor, you must remember that these hardly exist amongst us. The entire civilized world of to-day is as absolutely convinced of Heaven and Grace and the Church, and the havoc that Sin makes not only as regards the next world but in this—so absolutely convinced that he understands perfectly that a priest is far more productive of general good than a physical father possibly can be. It’s the priest who keeps the whole thing going. Don’t you see? And then, in a Catholic world, the instinct that the man who serves the altar should be without physical ties—well, that’s simply natural.”

“Go on. What about education?”

“My dear friend,” said Father Jervis. “The Church controls the whole of education, as she did, in fact, up to the very time when the State first took it away from her and then abused her for neglecting it. Practically all the scientists; all the specialists in medicine, chemistry, and mental health; nine-tenths of the musicians; three-quarters of the artists—practically all those are Religious. It’s only the active trades, which are incompatible with Religion, that are in the hands of the laity. It’s been found by experience that no really fine work can be done except by those who are familiar with divine things; because it’s only those who see things all round, who have, that is to say, a really comprehensive intuition. Take history. Unless you have a really close grasp of what Providence means—of not only the End, but the Means by which God works; unless you can see right through things to their Intention, how in the world can you interpret the past? Don’t you remember what Manners said about Realism? We don’t want misleading photographs of externals any more. We want Ideas. And how can you correlate Ideas, unless you have a real grasp of the Central Idea? It’s nonsense.”

“Go on with the other things.”

“There’s a lot more about education. There’s the graduated education we have now (entirely an ecclesiastical notion, by the way). We don’t try to teach everybody everything. We teach a certain foundation to every one—the Catechism, of course, two languages perfectly, the elements of physical science, and a great deal of history. (You can’t understand the Catechism without history, and vice-versa); but after that we specialize. Well, the world understands now——”

“That’s enough, thank you. Go on with the other things.”

Father Jervis laughed again.

“We’re nearly home. Let’s turn in here, and get into the gardens for a bit. . . . Well, I think you’ll find that the root of all your difficulties is that you seem not to be able to get into your head that the world is really and intelligently Christian. There are the Religious Orders you spoke of. Well, aren’t the active Religious Orders the very finest form of association ever invented? Aren’t they exactly what Socialists have always been crying for, with the blunders left out and the gaps filled in? As soon as the world understood finally that the active Religious Orders could beat all other forms of association at their own game—that they could teach and work more cheaply and effectively, and so on—well, the most foolish Political Economist had to confess that the Religious Orders made for the country’s welfare. And as for the Contemplative Orders——”

Father Jervis’ face grew grave and tender.

“Yes?”

“Why, they’re the princes of the world! They are models of the Crucified. So long as there is Sin in the world, so long must there be Penance. The instant Christianity was accepted, the Cross stood up dominant once more. . . . And then . . . then people understood. Why, they’re the Holy Ones of the universe—higher than angels; for they suffer. . . .”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Yes?” said Monsignor softly.

“My dear Monsignor, just force upon your mind the fact that the world is really and intelligently Christian. I think it’ll all be plain then. You seem to me, if I may say so, to be falling into the old-fashioned way of looking at ‘Clericalism,’ as it used to be called, as a kind of department of life, like Art or Law. No wonder men resented its intrusion when they conceived of it like that. Well, there is no ‘Clericalism’ now, and therefore there is no anti-Clericalism. There’s just religion—as a fact. Do you see? … Shall we sit down for a few minutes? Aren’t the gardens exquisite?”

III

Monsignor Masterman sat that night at his window, looking out at the stars and the night and the blotted glimmering gardens beneath; and it seemed to him as if the Dream deepened every day. Things grew more, not less marvellous, with his appreciation of the simplicity of it all.

From three to seven he had sat in one of the seats on the right of the royal dais, reserved for prelates, almost immediately opposite the double-pulpited platform, itself set in the midst of the long outer side of the great gallery of Versailles, through which access was to be had to the little old private rooms of Marie Antoinette, and had listened spell-bound to two of the greatest wits of France, respectively attacking and defending, with extraordinary subtlety and fire, the claim of the Church to Infallibility. The disputation had been conducted on scholastic lines, all verbal etiquette being carefully observed; again and again he had heard, first on one side a string of arguments adduced against the doctrine, then on the other a torrent of answers, with the old half-remembered words “Distinguo,” “Nego,” “Concedo”; and the reasoning on both sides had appeared to him astonishingly brilliant. And all this before two sovereigns: the one keen, vivacious, and appreciative; the other heavy, patient, considerate—two sovereigns, treated, as the elaborate etiquette of the whole affair showed plainly enough, as kings indeed—men who stood for authority, and the grades and the differentiation of functions, as emphatically as the old democratic hand-shaking statesmen, dressed like their own servants, stood for the other complementary principle of the equality of men. For alongside of all this tremendous pomp there was a very practical recognition of the “People”; since the whole disputation was conducted in the presence of a crowd drawn, it seemed, from almost every class, who pressed behind the barriers, murmured, laughed gleefully, and now and again broke out into low thunders of applause, as the Catholic champion drove logic home, or turned aside the infidel shaft.

The very thesis amazed the man, for the absolute necessity of an authoritative supra-national Church, with supernatural sanctions, seemed assumed as an axiom of thought, not merely by these Catholics, but by the entire world, Christian and un-Christian alike. More than once the phrase “It is conceded by all men” flashed out, and passed unrebuked, in support of this claim. The only point of dispute between reasoning beings seemed to be not as to whether or no the Church must be treated practically as infallible, but whether dogmatically and actually she were so!

As he sat here now at his window, Father Jervis’ words began to come back with new force. Was it indeed true that the only reason why he found these things strange was that he could not yet quite bring home to his imagination the fact that the world now was convincedly Christian as a whole? It began to appear so.

For somewhere in the back of his mind (why, he knew not) there lurked a sort of only half-perceived assumption that the Catholic religion was but one aspect of truth—one point of view from which, with sufficient though not absolute truth, facts could be discerned. He could not understand this; yet there it was. And he understood, at any rate intellectually, that if he could once realize that the dogmas of the Church were the dogmas of the universe; and not only that, but that the world convincedly realized it too;—why then, the fact that the civilization of to-day was actually moulded upon it would no longer bewilder him.

IV

It was on the following morning that he spoke with the King.

The two priests had said Mass in their oratory, and an hour later were walking in the park beneath the palace windows.

It was one more of that string of golden days, of which they had already enjoyed so many, and the splendour of that amazing landscape was complete.

They had passed below the enclosure known as the “King’s Garden,” and were going in the direction of the Trianon, which Monsignor had expressed a desire to see, and had just emerged into the immense central avenue which runs straight from the palace to the lake. Above them rose the forest trees, enormous now, yet tamed by Lenotre’s marvellous art, resembling a regiment of giants perfectly drilled; the grass was like carpets on all sides; the sky blazed like a blue jewel overhead; the noise of singing birds and falling water was in the air. But above all there towered on their right, beyond the almost endless terraces, the splendid palace of the kings of France, royal at last once more. And there, as symbol of the Restoration, there hung round the flagstaff as he had seen it yesterday the blue folds and the lilies of the monarchy.

It was no good trying to frame words as to what he felt. He had said all he could, and it was useless. Father Jervis seemed unable to understand the fierce enthusiasm of a man who now experienced all this, as it appeared, for the first time. He walked silently—exulting.

There seemed not many people abroad this morning. The two had presented an order, obtained through Monsignor Allet, at the gates below the Orange Gardens, and had learned from the sentry that until the afternoon this part of the park was closed to the public. Here and there, however, in the distance a single figure made its appearance, walking in the shade or hurrying on some errand.

The priests had just come out from the line of trees and had set foot in the avenue itself, when, twenty yards farther up, from the entrance to some other path parallel to their own, a group came out, and an instant later they heard themselves hailed and saw Monsignor Allet himself, in all his purple, hurrying towards them.

“You are the very men,” he cried, again stretching out his hands in a welcoming French gesture. “His Majesty was speaking of you not five minutes ago. He is here, in the garden. Shall I present you now?”

Father Jervis glanced at his friend.

“His Majesty is very kind——” he began.

“Not a word more! If you will follow me and wait an instant at the entrance, I will speak with His Majesty and bring you in.”

“I have not my ferraiuola—-” began Monsignor.

“The King will excuse travellers,” smiled the Frenchman.

The entrance to the “King’s Garden” on this side passes beneath an arch of yew, and here the two waited.

Somewhere beyond the green walls they could hear talking, and now and again a burst of laughter. Then the talking ceased, and they heard a single voice.

“In what language——” began Monsignor Masterman nervously.

“Oh! English, no doubt. You can’t talk French?”

Monsignor shook his head.

“Not a hundred words,” he said.

Again came the quick footstep, and the French priest appeared, still gay, but with a certain solemnity. “Come this way, gentlemen,” he said. “The King will see you.” (He glanced at the prelate.) “You won’t forget to kneel, Monsignor.”

To the English prelate the scene that he saw, on emerging at last into the open space in the middle, protected by the ancient yews—even though he should have been prepared for it by all that he had already seen—simply once more dazed and stupefied him.

The centre of the space was occupied by a round pond, perhaps thirty yards across, of absolutely still water, and in this mirror, shaded by the masses of foliage overhead, was reflected a picture that might have been taken straight from some painting two hundred years old. For, on the semicircle of marble seats that stood beyond the water, sat a company of figures dressed once more in all the bravery of real colour and splendour, as from days when men were not ashamed to use publicly and commonly these glittering gifts of God.

Monsignor hardly noticed the rest (there were perhaps twelve or fifteen all told, with half a dozen women amongst them); he looked only, as he came round the pond, at the central figure that advanced to meet him. Twice he had seen him yesterday—yet those occasions had been public. But to see the King now, at ease amongst his friends, yet still royally dressed in his brilliant blue suit and feathered hat, with his tall cane—to see the whole company, gay and brilliant, talking and laughing, taking their pleasure in the air before breakfast—the whole thing somehow brought home to him the reality of what appeared to him as a change, more than had all the pomps and glories of the day before. Splendour no longer seemed ceremonial, but natural.

Monsignor Allet was explaining something in rapid French in the King’s ear, and as the two came up, the face that listened smiled suddenly with intelligence.

“I give you welcome,” he said in excellent English. “Come, gentlemen” (he turned to the others, who had risen to their feet as he rose), “we must be getting homewards. Monsignor!” (and he beckoned to the two English priests to walk with him.)

That walk seemed like a dream.

They went leisurely upwards towards the palace, through yew alley after yew alley, French chattering sounding behind them as they went; and the King, still in fluent English, though with an accent that increased as he talked, questioned them courteously as to England, spoke of the disputation of yesterday, discussed frankly enough the situation in Germany, and listened with attention to the remarks of Father Jervis; for Monsignor Masterman was discreetly silent for the most part.

It was not until the great doors of the palace flew open at last, and the rows of liveried men showed within, that the King dismissed them. He turned on the steps and gave them his hand to kiss. Then he raised them from their knees with a courteous gesture.

“And you go to Rome, you say?”

“Almost immediately, sire. We shall be there for SS. Peter and Paul.”

“Present my homage at the feet of the Holy Father,” smiled the King. “You are fortunate indeed. I have not seen His Holiness for three months. Good day—gentlemen.”

The two passed again in silence down the terraces on their way to the Trianon.

“It is amazing,” burst out Monsignor suddenly. “And the people.

What of them? Is there no resentment?”

“Why should there be?” asked the other.

“But they are excluded from the palace and the park. It was not so a hundred years ago.”

“Do you think they are any the less happy?” asked Father Jervis. “My dear Monsignor, surely you know human nature better than that! They have lost the vulgarity of Versailles, and they have regained its royalty. Don’t you see that?”

“Well!”—Monsignor paused. “It’s simply medievalism back again, it seems to me.”

“Exactly!” said the other. “You have hit it at last. It is medievalism—that is to say, human nature with faith and reverence, and without cant.”

He paused again, and his eyes twinkled.

“You know honours and privileges are worth nothing if every one has them. If we all wore crowns, the kings would go bareheaded.”

CHAPTER V

I

He awoke suddenly, at some movement, and for an instant did not remember where he was.

For nearly a week they had stayed on at Versailles; and each day that had passed had done its share in making this fairyland seem more like a reality. But that strange subconscious self of his, for which even now there seemed no accounting, was still obstinate; it still assured him that the world ought not to be like this, that religion ought not to be so concrete and effective—that he would awake soon and find himself in some desolate state of affairs where Faith, hemmed in by enemies, still fought for very life against irresistible odds. It was at night and at morning that the mood came on him most forcibly; when instinct, free from facts, and ranging clear of the will’s dominion, asserted itself most strongly, and as he awoke this night it was on him again.

He looked round the dark little room with bewildered eyes; then he fumbled with a button, and all was flooded with light.

He was lying in a little spring-bed, set within two padded sides, like a berth in a steamship. And beside him was the closed bureau which he perceived to be washing arrangements in disguise; overhead protruded a broad shelf; on the wall, above a little couch, hung silk curtains over a window; and, as they swayed slightly with some movement he caught sight of glass beyond. On the door, at the foot of his bed, hung his cassock, and the purple cincture that lay across it recalled him to at least a part of the facts. The cabin was upholstered and painted in clean white, and an electric globe emerged from the ceiling.

He was next conscious of cold, and instinctively leaned forward to draw the quilt farther over his knees. Then, with a flash, he remembered, and, in spite of the cold, was out of bed in a moment, kneeling on the couch and peering out through the curtains.

At first he could see nothing at all. There was but an unfathomable gulf beyond the glass. He stood up on the couch, and drawing the curtains behind his head to shut out the light, he once more stared out. Then he began to see.

At first he could see nothing at all. There was but an unfathomable gulf beyond the glass. He stood up on the couch, and drawing the curtains behind his head to shut out the light, he once more stared out. Then he began to see.

Immediately opposite him glimmered a huge white outline—in the incalculable night it might be a hundred yards or a mile away. It was of irregular outline, for the star-strewn sky showed in patches and rifts above it. And this white mass curved away beneath, under the ship in which he travelled, till it met, at a point which he could but just discern, a blackness that rose to meet it.

Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he began to see that the huge whiteness was flitting past, steadily and leisurely, from right to left; that it was streaked with shadows or clefts; and that following it, as in a sliding procession, came another, like it, yet (it seemed) more distant.

All this time, too, the silence was profound. There was but a soft humming note somewhere in the air, and the faintest sense of vibration in the metal-work on which his hands were pressed. Once too he heard a footstep pass softly and rhythmically overhead, as if some watcher moved up and down the length of the upper deck.

The man dropped the curtains and sat back on his heels, trying to force into his imagination the facts that he now perceived and remembered.

They had left St. Germains last night, after dining at Versailles. They were now crossing the Alps. They would be in Rome for Mass and breakfast. . . . They were traversing at this moment, no doubt, only a thousand feet high, one of those passes up which (he thought he remembered from history) the old railway-trains had been accustomed to climb, yard by yard and spiral by spiral, a hundred years before . . .

In a minute or two he leaned forward and stared again, once more closing the curtains behind his head.

The sky seemed a little brighter, he thought, than when he had looked just now. Perhaps the moon was hiding somewhere. And certainly the sky was more in evidence. Far away to the left behind, passing even as he looked, moved those gigantic horns of white, as if the ship stood still and the earth turned beneath; and below now, sloping to the right, lay long lines of darkness, jutting here and there with a sudden crag against the blaze of stars. It was marvellous, he thought, how still all lay; there was a steady hiss, now heard for the first time, as the air tore past the glassy sides of the bird-shaped ship, as thin as the cry of a bat.

He shifted on his knees a little, and staring forwards, saw far ahead and at what seemed an incalculable distance something that baffled him entirely, for it changed its aspect every instant that he watched.

At first it was no more than a patch of luminosity; and he thought it to be, perhaps, a lighted town. But the character of it was changed as he formulated his thought and three brilliant spots like blue stars broke out on a sudden, and these three stars shifted their positions. He kept his eyes on these, marvelling; and, with something very like fear, saw that they were approaching upwards and onwards with the swiftness of thought.

Up and on they came. He shrank back a little, instinctively; and then, as he leaned forward once more, determined to understand, shrank back with a sharp indrawing of breath, as there whirled past, it appeared only a few yards away, a flare of brilliant blue lines, in the midst of which passed a phantom-like body in a mist and accompanied by a musical sound (it seemed) of extraordinary clarity and beauty, that rose from a deep organ-note to the shrill of a flute, and down again Into a bass and a silence. . . .

He smiled to himself as he climbed back into bed a minute or two later, when he had reconstructed the phenomena and interpreted them. It was but another volor, bound northwards, and it had probably passed at least half a mile away.

Well, he must sleep again if he could. They would be in

Rome by morning.

They had delayed their departure from Versailles to the last possible moment, since France was, after all, under the circumstances, one of the best places in the world for Monsignor to pick up again the threads of life. For one thing, it was near to England—English was spoken there amongst the educated almost as frequently as French; yet it was not England, and Monsignor’s plight would not cause him any great inconvenience. Further, France was at present the theatre of the world’s interest, since the Emperor was there, and on the Emperor’s future depended largely the destinies of Europe: his conversion, it was thought, might be the final death-blow to Socialism in his dominions.

Monsignor had employed his time well. Not only had he learned accurately the general state of the world, but morning by morning he had familiarized himself with his own work, and felt, by now, very nearly competent to finish his lessons in England. Cardinal Bellairs communicated with him almost every day, and professed himself delighted with the progress made. Finally he had talked Latin continually with Father Jervis in preparation for Rome, and would have passed muster, at least, in general conversation.

The two motored into the city from the volor-station outside, and everywhere as they went through the streets and crossed the Tiber on their way to the Leonine City, where they were to lodge, were evidences of the feast.

For the whole route from Vatican to Lateran, which they crossed more than once, was one continual triumphal way. Masts had been erected, swathed in the Papal colours and crowned with garlands; barriers ran from mast to mast, behind which already the crowds were beginning to gather, though it was hardly past six o’clock in the morning; and from every window hung carpets, banners, and tapestries. The motor was stopped at least half a dozen times; but the prelate’s insignia passed them through quickly; and it was just half-past six as they drew up before an old palace situated on the right in the road leading from the Tiber to the Vatican, and scarcely a quarter of a mile away from St. Peter’s.

Monsignor glanced up at the carved and painted arms above the doorway and smiled.

“I did not know you were bringing me here,” he said.

“You know it?”

“Why, it’s the old palace where the kings of England lodged, isn’t it?”

Father Jervis smiled.

“Your memory’s improving,” he said.

Then a magnificent servant came out, bowed profoundly, and opened the door of the car.

“By the way,” said Father Jervis as they went in, “I’d better go and enquire the details at the Vatican. You might give me your card. I’ll go at once, and then come back and join you at breakfast.”

It was a pleasant little suite of rooms, not unlike in arrangements to those of Versailles. The windows looked out on the central court, where a fountain played, and the rooms themselves were furnished in the usual Roman fashion—painted ceilings, stone floors, and a few damask hangings.

Monsignor turned to the servant who was superintending the two

Englishmen they had brought.

“I’ve not been in Rome for some time,” he said in Latin. “Tell me what this house is now?”

“Monsignor, it is the English palace. Monsignor is in the apartment of His Eminence Cardinal Bellairs.”

“The King himself stays here?”

“It is His Majesty’s palace,” said the man. “The Prince George arrived two days ago. His Highness is in the apartment below.”

Monsignor smiled. He understood now Father Jervis’ evasions as to where they were to stay in Rome. Plainly it was determined that he should have a front seat at all ceremonies.

Ten minutes later, as he came out of his bedroom, Father Jervis himself came in.

“You have your choice, Monsignor,” he said. “As a Domestic Prelate you have the right to walk in the procession (here is the permit), or as occupying rooms here we can, if you prefer, see the procession from the front windows.”

“Tell me what the programme is.”

“At nine the procession leaves St. Peter’s to go to the Lateran—at least they call it nine. There the Holy Father sings Mass, as bishop in his own cathedral. On the return of the procession, I suppose about midday, the Holy Father visits the tomb of St. Peter. Then this afternoon he is present at Vespers in St. Peter’s; and afterwards gives the blessing Urbi et Orbi from the window as usual.”

“What would you advise?”

“Well, I should advise your remaining here till mid-day. There’s no use in overdoing it. We can see everything admirably. Then we can go into St. Peter’s for the visit to the tomb, and come back here to dejeuner. After that we can arrange about the rest of the day.”

“Very good. Then let us have something to eat at once.”

“Who’s Prince George of England?” demanded Monsignor presently as they sat over coffee.

Father Jervis laughed.

“You’ve found that out, have you? Yes, he’s here, of course. Well, he’s the second son: he’s only a boy. He’s over here to represent the King. Every sovereign sends a prince of the blood-royal for to-day. Even the German Emperor.”

“Do you mean from Europe?”

“I mean from the whole world. You see the East is scarcely three days away by the fast volors; so even the Chinese——”

“Do you mean that China and Japan send representatives?”

“Certainly. Japan is Christian of course, anyhow; and China has at least one or two Christian princes of the blood.”

“By the way, what about Russia?”

“Well, what about it?”

“Is it Catholic?”

“My dear Monsignor, it’s been Catholic for thirty years.”

“Oh dear me! You must lend me some more histories. . . . What made it Catholic?”

“Common sense, I suppose. How they could have stood out for so long is the only thing that puzzles me.”

“But the Petrine claims——”

“Why, the Petrine claims were the very point. Facts were too strong. If you look back over history you can’t help seeing that the only Christian body that was ever able to resist Erastianism on the one side and endless division on the other has been the Church built on Peter. They began to see it nearly a hundred years ago in Russia and Greece. Then the Emperor of Russia was secretly reconciled in 1930; and ten or twelve years later his people followed him.”

“Then there’s no more dispute? What about the Filioque clause?”

“Why, when Peter is accepted, the rest follows.”

“Then you may say that the entire civilized world is represented in Rome to-day?”

“Certainly. You’ll see the princes in the procession.”

II

An hour later they took their places at the central window of the long sala on the third floor, looking out immediately upon the narrow street, which, opposite, fell back into a tiny square, and further up to the right, upon the enormous piazza of St. Peter’s and the basilica itself behind.

It was a real Roman day—not yet at its full heat, but intensely clear and bright; and Monsignor congratulated himself on having elected to remain as a spectator. The return journey from the Lateran about noon would be something of an ordeal.

The street and the piazza presented an astonishingly brilliant appearance. Beneath, the roadway was now one sheet of greenery—box, myrtle, and bay. The houses opposite, as well as within the little square, of which every window was packed with heads, were almost completely hidden under the tapestries, the carpets, the banners. Behind the barriers on either side of the garlanded masts was one mass of heads resembling a cobbled pavement. So much for sight. For sound, the air was filled with one steady low roar of voices; for down to where the street opened far away to the left into the space above the river, the same vista presented itself. The Campagna since twenty-four hours before had been emptying every living inhabitant into Rome; and there was not a town in Italy, and scarcely in Europe, whence special volors and trains had not carried the fervent to the Feast of the Apostles in Holy Rome. And, for scent, the air was sweet and fragrant with the aromatic herbs of the roadway, already bruised a little by the feet of the galloping horses of those that went up and down to guard the route or to carry messages.

It was a little hard to make out the arrangements of the vast circular piazza in front of St. Peter’s. The front of the basilica was hung, in usual Roman fashion, with gigantic garlands and red cloth; and the carpet of greenery lined with troops ran straight up the centre of the space, rippled over the steps, and ceased only beneath the towering portico of the church. But on either side of this, with spaces between, stood enormous groups of men and horses, marshalled, no doubt, in order to take their places at the proper moment in the procession.

At the right, immovable and tremendous, rose up the great palace of the Vatican itself, unadorned except where a glint of some colour showed itself at the Bronze Doors; and above all, like a benediction in stone, against the vivid blue of the sky, hung the dome of the basilica.

Monsignor Masterman made a long, keen survey of all this. Then he leaned back and sighed.

“What was the first year that the Pope came out of the

Vatican like this?”

“The year after the conquest of United Italy. It was Austria that——”

“I know all that. And you mean he never came out so long as the old state of affairs continued?”

“How could he? Don’t you see that the one thing, humanly speaking, absolutely necessary if the world was to have confidence in the Church, was that the Pope should be really supra-national? Of course, for many years he had to be an Italian—that’s obvious, since he was at the mercy of Italy, and the Romans would never have stood a foreigner; and that made it all the more essential that he should be cut clean off, in everything else, from Italian sympathies. He had to be two things simultaneously, so to speak—emphatically an Italian for the sake of Italy and indeed his own existence in Rome; and emphatically not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom. And can you suggest any other way of accomplishing this paradox? I can’t.”

Monsignor sighed again and began to meditate.

For somewhere at the back of his mind there ran an undercurrent of thought, or as of some one talking, to the effect that the Pope’s old method of remaining as a prisoner in the Vatican was a foolish and unhumble pose. (He supposed he must have read it all somewhere in history.) Surely even Catholics used to talk like that! They used to say how much more spiritual and Christian it would have been, had the Vicar of Christ acquiesced and been content to live as a simple Italian subject, neither claiming nor desiring a position such as Peter had never enjoyed. Why all this fuss, it used to be asked, about a Temporal Power on behalf of a “Kingdom that was not of this world”?

Yet, somehow, now as he looked back on it all, with his friend’s comment in his mind, he began to see, not how clever or diplomatic had been the old attitude, but how absolutely and obviously essential. It was possible indeed for Peter to be a subject of Nero in things pertaining to Caesar; but how could that be possible to Peter’s successor when the Kingdom of Christ which he ruled on earth had become a Supra-national Society to which the nations of the earth looked for guidance?

The phrase he had just heard ran in his mind.

“An Italian for the sake of Italy and his own existence in Rome.

Not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom.”

It seemed simple, somehow, just like that.

He was roused by a touch on his knee, and simultaneously was aware of a new sound from the piazza.

“Look,” said the old priest sharply. “They’re beginning to move.”

III

A curious seething movement had broken out in the piazza, resembling the stir of a troubled ant-hill, on either side of the broad green way down which the Pope would come; and already into the head of the street up which the priests looked figures were emerging. Simultaneously a crash of brazen music had filled the air. A movement of attention, exactly like the lift of a swell along the foot of a cliff, passed down the crowded street to the left and lost itself round the corner towards S. Angelo.

Then they began to come, swinging over from the piazza to the street as if from a pool into a narrow channel. Troops came first—company after company—each with a band leading. First the Austrian guard in white and gold on white chargers—passing from the flash and dazzle their uniforms threw back in the sunlight into the glow of the shadowed street. And then, by the time that the Austrians were passing below the window, came troop after troop down from the piazza in all the uniforms of the civilized world.

At first Father Jervis murmured a name or two; he even laid his hand upon his friend’s arm as the Life-guards of England came clashing by with their imperturbable faces above their silver splendour; but presently the amazing spectacle forming in the piazza, and, above all, on the steps of St. Peter’s, silenced them both. Monsignor Masterman gave scarcely a glance even to the monstrous figures of the Chinese imperial guard, who went by presently in black armour and vizarded helmets, like old Oriental gods. For in the piazza itself the procession of princes was forming; and the steps of the basilica already began to burn with purple and scarlet where the Cardinals and the Papal Court were making ready for the coming of the Lord of them all.

And then, at last, he came. . . .

Monsignor Masterman had begun to stare, almost with unintelligent eyes, at the thronged street, beneath, watching the great carriages come past, each surmounted by a crown with its proper supporters, each surrounded by a small guard drawn from the troops that had ridden by just now. He identified a few here and there; and his heart gave a strange leap as the Imperial Crown of England came in sight, held up by the Lion and the Unicorn, and beneath it, within the gilded coach, the face of a boy capped and robed in scarlet. And then he looked up again, startled by a silence broken only by the footsteps of the horses and the wheels over the matted roadway, and the murmur of talking.

The piazza was now one sea of white and purple, with emblems, gold and silver and jewelled, shining here and there; the green strip was gone; for the Papal procession was begun; and then, on the instant, as he looked, there was a new group standing beneath the giant columns of the portico, and the cry of the silver trumpets told to the thousands that waited that the Vicar of Christ had come out into this city that was again the City of God.

Very slowly he came down the steps, a tiny white and gemmed figure, yet perfectly visible on the high throne on which he was borne, his hand swaying as he came, and the huge fans moving behind him like protecting deities. Down and down he came, while the trumpets cried, and the waves of colour followed him, and then vanished for a time among the crowd beneath, as he reached the level ground.

Monsignor Masterman leaned back and closed his eyes. . . .

He was disturbed by another touch on his arm; and, looking up, perceived that his friend was attracting his attention almost mechanically, and without looking at him.

“Look,” murmured Father Jervis—”it’s the white jennet.”

Beneath, the street was now as wholly ecclesiastical as it had been military just before, except that the Papal zouaves marched in single file on either side of the procession. But within there was just one packed army, going eight abreast, of seminarians and clerics. These were just passing as the priest looked again, and close on their heels came the Court and the Cardinals; the latter an indescribable glory of scarlet, riding four abreast in broad hats and ample cloaks. But he gave scarcely more than a glance at these; for, full in sight for at least half a minute, advancing straight towards him down the roaring street, moved a canopy held by figures he could not clearly make out, and beneath it, detached and perfectly visible, on a white horse, a white figure, its shoulders just draped in scarlet and its head shadowed by a great scarlet hat, came slowly towards him.

IV

And so the day went by like a dream; and the man who still seemed to himself as one risen from the dead into a new and wholly bewildering world, watched and gathered impressions and assimilated them. Once or twice during the day he found himself at meals with Father Jervis; he asked questions now and then and scarcely heard the answers; he talked with ecclesiastics a little who came and went; but, for the most part almost unknown to himself, he worked interiorly, busy as a bee, building up, not so much facts as realizations, into the new and strange world-edifice that was gradually forming about him. He was present at the visit of the Pope to the tomb of the Apostle, and watched from a tribune, even then so concentrated on observation that he was hardly conscious of connected thought, as the vast doors rolled back and a vision as of such a celestial troop as was dreamed of by the old Italian painters came up out of the vivid sunlight into the cool darkness of the basilica, as the roofs gave back the roaring of the fervent thousands and the clear cry of the silver trumpets; watched as the army of ecclesiastics deployed this way and that, and the Father of Princes and Kings came on between his royal children to the gates of the Confession ringed by the golden lamps, and went down to kneel by the body of the first Fisherman-King.

And again at Vespers, from the same tribune, he heard the peal of the new great organs in the dome, and the psalm-melodies rocking from side to side between the massed choirs; he glanced now and again at the royal tribune opposite, where, each beneath a canopy, the rulers of the earth sat together to do honour to the Lord and His Anointed. And, above all, he watched, still with that steady set face that made Father Jervis look at him once or twice, the central figure of all, now on his throne, with his assistants beside him, now passing up to the altar to incense it, and finally passing out again on the sedia gestatoria to the palace where at last he ruled indeed.

Last of all, as the sun began to sink behind the monstrous dome, and Rome stood out like an Oriental city of dreams, and the purple lights came out on the low-lying hills, and the illuminations glowed from every window, and blazed beneath the feet and round the heads of the gigantic apostolic figures gathered round their Lord—there, watching again from his window, he saw, in a sudden hush over the heads of the countless crowds the tiny white figure standing above the tapestries with the Papal triple cross glinting beside him like a thread, and heard the thin voice, gnat-like and clear, declare the “help of the Lord who,” as the thunder of the square answered him, “hath made heaven and earth,” and then invoke upon the city and the world, before the tremendous Amen, the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

CHAPTER VI

I

It was a few minutes after they had finished their almost silent meal that evening, that Monsignor suddenly leaned forward from his chair in the great cool loggia and passed his hands over his eyes like a sleepy man. From the streets outside still came the murmur of innumerable footsteps and voices and snatches of music.

“Tired?” asked the other gently. (He had not spoken for some minutes, and remembering the long silence, had wondered if, after all, it had been wise to bring a man with such an experience behind him to such a rush and excitement as that through which they had passed to-day.)

Monsignor said nothing for an instant. He looked round the room, opened and closed his lips, and then, leaning back again, suddenly smiled. Then he took up the pipe he had laid aside just now and blew through it.

“No,” he said. “Exactly the opposite. I feel awake at last.”

“Eh?”

“It seems to have got into me at last. All this . . . all this very odd world. I have begun to see.”

“Please explain.”

Monsignor began to fill his pipe slowly.

“Well, Versailles, even, didn’t quite do it,” he said. “It seemed to me a kind of game—certainly a very pleasant one; but——” (He broke off.) “But what we’ve seen to-day seems somehow the real thing.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Well, I can see for myself now that all that you’ve told me is real—that the world’s really Christian, and so on. It was those Chinese guards, I think, which as much as anything——”

“Chinese? . . . I don’t remember them.”

The prelate smiled again.

“Well, I scarcely noticed them at the time, either. But I’ve been

thinking about them. And then all the rest of it . . . and the

Pope. . . . By the way, I couldn’t make out his face very well.

Is that a picture of him?”

He stood up suddenly and stepped across to where the portrait hung. There was nothing very startling about the picture. It showed just a very ordinary face with straight closed lips, of a man seated in an embossed chair, with the familiar white cap, cassock, and embroidered stole with spade-ends.

“He looks quite ordinary,” mused Monsignor aloud. “It’s . . . it’s like the face of a business man.”

“Oh yes, he’s ordinary. He’s an extremely good man and quite intelligent. He’s never had any very great crisis to face, you know. They say he’s a good financier. . . . You look disappointed.”

“I hadn’t expected him to look like that,” said the prelate, musing.

“Why not?”

“Well, he seems to have an extraordinary position in the world. I should have expected more of a——”

“More of a great man? Monsignor, don’t you think that the Average

Man makes the best ruler?”

“But that’s rank Democracy!”

“Not at all. Democracy doesn’t give the Average Man any real power at all. It swamps him among his fellows—that is to say, it kills his individuality; and his individuality is the one thing he has which is worth anything.”

Monsignor sat down again, sighing.

“Well, I think it’s got into me at last,” he repeated. “I mean, I think I really realize what the world’s like now. But I want to see a great deal more, you know.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, I don’t quite know. . . . You might call it the waterline between Faith and Science. I see the Faith side. I understand that the life of the world moves on Catholicism now; but I don’t quite realize yet how all that joins on to Science. In my day——” (he broke off) “I mean I had a kind of idea that there was a gap between Faith and Science—if not actual contradictions. How do they join on to one another? What’s the average scientific attitude towards religion? Do people on both sides just say that each must pursue its own line, even if they never meet?”

Father Jervis looked puzzled.

“I don’t quite understand. There’s no conflict between Faith and Science. A large proportion of the scientists are ecclesiastics.”

“But what’s the meeting-point? That’s what I don’t see.”

The priest shook his head, smiling.

“I simply don’t know what you mean, Monsignor. Give me an example.”

“Well . . . er . . . what about Faith-healing? The dispute used to be, I think, as to the explanation of certain cures. (Mr. Manners spoke of it, you know.) Psychologists used to say that the cures happened by suggestion; and Catholics used to say that they were supernatural. How have they become reconciled?”

Father Jervis considered a moment.

“I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it like that,” he said. “I think I should say—” (he hesitated) “I think I should say that everybody believes now that the power of God does everything; and that in some cases He works through suggestion, and in some through supernatural forces about which we don’t know very much. But I don’t think it matters much (does it?), if you believe in God.”

“That doesn’t explain what I mean.”

The door opened abruptly and a servant came in. He bowed.

“The Bishop of Sebaste enquires whether you are at home, Monsignor?”

Monsignor glanced at Father Jervis.

“He’s come out as chaplain to Prince George,” explained the priest in rapid Latin. “We’d better see him.”

“Very good. . . . Yes,” said Monsignor.

He turned to the priest again.

“Hadn’t you better tell him about me?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course not.”

Father Jervis got up and slipped quickly out of the room.

“I’m delighted to see you again, Monsignor,” began the Bishop, coming in, followed by Father Jervis three minutes later.

Monsignor straightened himself after the kissing of the ring.

“You’re very kind, my lord,” he said.

As the Bishop sat down, he examined him carefully, noticing that there was nothing noticeable about him. He seemed a characteristic prelate—large, genial, ruddy and smiling, with bright eyes and well-cut mouth. He was in his purple and ferraiuola, and carried himself briskly and cheerfully.

“I came to see if you were going to the reception to-night. If so, we might go together. But it’s rather late!”

“We haven’t heard about that.”

“Oh! it’s purely informal. The Holy Father probably won’t appear himself, except perhaps for a moment.”

“Oh! At the Vatican?”

“Yes. There will be an enormous crowd, of course. . . . The Prince has gone to bed, poor little chap! He’s done up altogether; and I thought of slipping over for a half-hour or so.”

Monsignor glanced at his friend.

“I think it would be an excellent thing,” observed the old priest.

“Well, there’s a carriage waiting,” said the Bishop, rising. “I think we’d better go, if we’re going. We shall be back within the hour.”

II

It was within ten minutes of the time that the three had arranged to meet again at the foot of the Scala Regia that Monsignor suddenly realized that he had lost himself.

He had wandered for half an hour, after making his salutations to the Master of the Apostolic Palace, who, in the Pope’s absence, was receiving the visitors; and, at first with Father Jervis and the Bishop, who had pointed out to him the notabilities, and presently drifting from them in the crowds, by himself, had gone up and down and in and out through endless corridors, courts, loggie, and great reception-rooms of the enormous place, watching the amazing crowds, and exchanging bows and nods with persons who bowed and nodded to him.

The whole system of the thing seemed new to him. He had imagined (he scarcely knew why) the Vatican to be a place of silence and solemn dignity and darkness, with a few sentries here and there, a few prelates, a cardinal or two—with occasionally a group of very particular visitors, or, on still rarer occasions, a troop of pilgrims being escorted to some sight or some audience.

Certainly it was not at all like this to-night.

First, the whole place was illuminated in nearly every window. Huge electric lights blazed behind screens in all the courts; bands of music were stationed at discreet intervals one from another; and through every section that he went, through corridors, reception-rooms, up and down stairways, seething in every court, streaming through every passage and thoroughfare, moved a multitude of persons—largely ecclesiastics, but also very largely otherwise (though there were no ladies present)—talking, questioning, laughing, wholly, it seemed, at their ease, and appearing to find nothing unusual in the entire affair. Here and there in some of the great rooms small courts seemed to be in process—a company of perhaps thirty or forty would be standing round two or three notabilities who sat. There was usually a cardinal here, sometimes two or three; and on three or four occasions he saw what he imagined must be royalty of some kind, seated with a cardinal, while the rest stood.

It was to him a very extraordinary spectacle, in spite of his further initiation that day into this new world, so utterly unfamiliar to him; and it seemed once more to drive home to his consciousness this strange state of affairs of which his friend had tried to persuade him, but which he yet found difficult wholly to take in. Certainly the world and the Church seemed on very cordial terms. . . .

But now he had lost himself altogether. He had wandered up a long corridor, thinking that it would lead him back to the Court of St. Damasus, whence he knew his way well enough; and he now paused, hesitating. For it seemed to him that every step he was taking led him farther from the lights and the din of voices and music.

He could see behind him, framed in a huge open doorway, as on an illuminated disc, a kaleidoscope of figures moving; and in front, as he stood, the corridor, although here the lights burned as brilliantly as elsewhere, seemed to lead away into comparative darkness. Yet he felt certain of his direction.

Then, as he stood, a door opened somewhere in front, and he thought he heard voices talking again. It reassured him, and he went on.

It was not until he found himself in a small lobby (comparatively small that is, for it was not less than forty feet square, and the painted coffered ceiling was twenty feet above his head), that he stopped again, completely bewildered. There was no longer any sound to guide him, for he had closed a couple of passage-doors behind him as he came; and he noticed that practically complete silence was on all sides; a single illuminated half-globe shone gently from the ceiling overhead.

He stood some time considering and listening to the silence, till he became aware that it was not silence. There was a very faint murmur of a voice behind one of the four doors that opened on this lobby; and beside the door there rested (he now noticed for the first time) the halberd of a Swiss, as if the soldier had just been called within. This decided him; he went to the door, laid his hand upon the handle, and immediately the murmur ceased. He pushed down the handle and opened the door.

For a moment as he stared within he could not understand: he had expected a passage—a guard-room—at least something secular. Yet it was some kind of a chapel or sacristy into which he was looking: he observed the outline of an altar with its crucifix; and two figures.

Then one of the figures—in the habit of a Franciscan, barefooted, with a purple stole across its shoulders—had sprung towards him, and half pushed, half waved him backwards again.

“What are you doing here? How dare you——I beg pardon,

Monsignor, but——”

“I beg pardon, father; I had lost my way. . . . I am a stranger.”

“Back—back that way, Monsignor,” stammered the friar. “The guard should have told you.”

The truth was dawning on the prelate little by little, helped by the flash of the other kneeling white figure he had seen within.

“Yes,” stammered the friar again. “The Holy Father. Back that way, Monsignor. Yes, yes—that door straight opposite.”

It was over; the two doors had closed almost simultaneously, behind the friar as he had gone back to his duty, and behind the priest who now stood again at the end of the long corridor down which he had come. He stood here now, strangely moved and affected.

He had seen nothing remarkable in itself—the Pope at confession. And yet in some manner, beyond the startling fact that he had groped his way, all unknowing, to the Pope’s private apartments, and at such a moment, the dramatic contrast between the glare and noise of the reception outside—itself the climax of a series of brilliant external splendours—and the silent half-lighted chapel where the Lord of All kneeled to confess his sins, caused a surprising disturbance in his soul.

Up to now he had been introduced step by step into a new set of experiences, Christian indeed, yet amazingly worldly in their aspect; he had begun to learn that religion could transform the outer world, and affect and use for its own purposes all the pomps and glories of outward existence; he had begun to realize that there was nothing alien to God—no line of division between the Creator and the creature; and now, in one instant, he had been brought face to face again with inner realities, and had seen, as it were, a glimpse of the secret core of all the splendour. The Pope attended by princes—the Pope on his knees before a barefooted friar. These were the two magnetic points between which blazed Religion.

He stood there, trembling a little, trying to steady his bewildered brain—even now, in spite of his years, not unlike the brain of a child. He passed his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. Then he began to move down the passage again, to find his friends.

CHAPTER VII

I

“What I can’t yet quite understand,” said Monsignor, “is that point I mentioned the other day about Faith and Science. I don’t see where one ends and the other begins. It seems to me that the controversy must be unending. The materialist says that since Nature does all things, even the most amazing things must be done by her—that we shall be able to explain them all some day, when Science has got a little farther. And the theologian says that some things are so evidently out of the reach of Nature that they must be done by a supernatural power. Well, where’s the point of reconciliation?”

Father Jervis was silent for a while.

The two were sitting on the upper deck of an air-ship towards evening, travelling straight towards the setting sun.

He had grown almost accustomed to such views by now; and yet the sight that had been unrolling itself gradually during the last half-hour had held him fascinated for minute after minute. They had taken ship in Rome after a day or two more of sight-seeing, and had moved up the peninsula by stages, changing boats soon after crossing the frontier, for one of the high-flying, more leisurely and more luxurious vessels on which the more wealthy classes travelled. They were due in Lourdes that evening; and, ever since the higher peaks of the Pyrenees had come into sight, had moved over a vision of bewildering beauty. To their left rose the mountains, forming, it seemed to them at the height at which they travelled, an enormous jagged and gigantic pile, hard-lined as steel, yet irradiated with long rays, patches, and pools of golden sunset-light alternated by amazing depths of the shadow whose tones ran from peacock to indigo. Then from the feet of the tumbled pile there ran out what appeared a loosely flung carpet vivid and yet a soft green, patched here and there with white towns, embroideries of woodland, lines of silver water. Yet this too was changing as they watched the shadows grow longer with almost visible movement. New and strange colours, varying about a fixed note of blue according to the nature of that with which the earth was covered, slowly came into being. Here, in front, now and again a patch of water glowed suddenly, three thousand feet beneath, as it met the shifting angle between the eye and the sun; and beyond, far out across the darkening plain, shone the remote line of the sea, itself ablaze with gold, and above and about in every quarter burned the enormous luminous dome of sky.

“I can’t put it all accurately,” said Father Jervis at last. “I mean I can’t tell you off-hand all the tests that are exactly applied to every case. But it’s something like this. . . .”

He paused.

“Yes, tell me,” said the other, still staring out at the softly rolling landscape.

“Well, first,” began the old priest slowly, “in the last fifty years we’ve classified almost exhaustively everything that nature can do. We know, for instance, for certain, that in certain kinds of temperaments body and mind are in far greater sympathy than in others; and that if, in such a temperament as this, the mind can be fully persuaded that such and such a thing is going to happen—a thing within the range of natural possibility, of course—it will happen, merely through the action of the mind upon the body.”

“Give me an instance.”

“Well” (he hesitated again) . . . “well, I’m not a physician, and cannot define accurately; but there are certain nervous diseases—hysterical simulation, nervous affections such as St. Vitus’ dance—as well, of course, as purely mental diseases, such as certain kinds of insanity—-”

“Oh, those,” said the other contemptuously.

“Wait a minute. These, I say, given the right temperament and receptiveness to suggestion, can be cured instantaneously.”

“Instantaneously?”

“Certainly—given those conditions. Then there are certain other diseases, very closely related to the nervous system, in which there have been changes of tissue, not only in the brain, but in the organs or the limbs. And these, too, can be cured by mere natural suggestion; but—and this is the point—not instantaneously. In cases of this kind, cured in this way, there is always needed a period, I won’t say as long as, but proportionate to, the period during which the disease had been developing and advancing. I forget the exact proportions now, but I think, so far as I remember, that at least two-thirds of the time is required for recovery by suggestion as was occupied by the growth of the disease. Take lupus. That certainly belongs to the class I’m speaking of. Well, lupus has been cured in mental laboratories, but never instantaneously or anything like instantaneously.”

“Go on, father.”

“Finally, there are those physical states that have practically nothing to do directly with the nervous system at all. Take a broken leg. Of course the cure of a broken leg is affected by the state of the nervous system, since it depends upon the amount of vital energy, the state of the blood, and so on. But there are distinct processes of change of tissue that are bound to take a certain fixed period. You may—as has been proved over and over again in the mental laboratories—hasten and direct the action of the nervous energy, so that a man under hypnotic suggestion will improve more rapidly than a man who is not. But no amount of suggestion can possibly effect a cure instantaneously. Tuberculosis is another such thing; certain diseases of the heart—-”

“I see. Go on.”

“Well, then, science has fixed certain periods in all these various matters which simply cannot be lessened beyond a certain point. And miracle does not begin—authorized miracle, I mean—unless these periods are markedly shortened. Mere mental cures, therefore, do not come under the range of authorized miracle at all—though, of course, in many cases where there has been little or no suggestion, or where the temperament is not receptive, practically speaking, the miraculous element is most probably present. In the second class—organic nervous diseases—no miracle is proclaimed unless the cure is instantaneous, or very nearly so. In the third class, again, no miracle is proclaimed unless the cure is either instantaneous, or the period of it very considerably shortened beyond all known examples of natural cure by suggestion.”

“And you mean to say that such cures are frequent?”

The old priest smiled.

“Why, of course. There is an accumulation of evidence from the past hundred years which——”

“Broken limbs?”

“Oh yes; there’s the case of Pierre de Rudder, at Oostacker, in the nineteenth century. That’s the first of the series—the first, I mean, that has been scientifically examined. It’s in all the old books.”

“What was the matter with him?”

“Leg broken below the knee for eight years.”

“And how long did the cure take?”

“Instantaneous.”

There was silence again.

Monsignor was staring out and downwards at the flitting meadow-land far below. A flock of white birds moved across the darkening grey, like flying specks seen in the eye, yet it seemed with extraordinary slowness and deliberation, so great was the distance at which they flew. He sighed.

“You can examine the records,” said the priest presently; “and, better than that, you can examine some of the cases for yourself, and the certificates. They follow still the old system which Dr. Boissarie began nearly a century ago.”

“What about Zola?” demanded Monsignor abruptly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Zola, the great French writer. I thought he had . . . had advanced some very sharp criticisms of Lourdes.”

“Er—when did he live?”

“Why, not long ago; nineteenth century, at the end.”

Father Jervis shook his head, smiling.

“I’ve never heard of him,” he said, “and I thought I knew Lourdes literature pretty well. I’ll enquire.”

“Look,” said the prelate suddenly; “what’s that place we’re coming to?”

He nodded forward with his head to where vast white lines and patches began to be visible on the lower slopes and at the foot of long spurs that had suddenly come into sight against the sunset.

“Why, that’s Lourdes.”

II

As the two priests came out next morning from the west doors of the tall church where they had said their masses, Monsignor stopped.

“Let me try to take it in a moment,” he said.

They were standing on the highest platform of the pile of three churches that had been raised over a hundred years ago, now in the very centre of the enormous city that had grown little by little around the sacred place. Beneath them, straight in front, approached from where they stood by two vast sweeps of balustraded steps, lay the Place, perhaps sixty feet beneath, of the shape of an elongated oval, bounded on this side and that by the old buildings where the doctors used to have their examination rooms, now used for a hundred minor purposes connected with the churches and the grotto. At the farther end of the Place, behind the old bronze statue of Mary, rose up the comparatively new Bureau de Constatations—a great hall (as the two had seen last night), communicating with countless consulting- and examination-rooms, where the army of State-paid doctors carried on their work. The whole of the open Place between these buildings crawled with humanity—not yet packed as it would be by evening—yet already sufficiently filled by the two ever-flowing streams—the one passing downwards to where the grotto lay out of sight on the left, the other passing up towards the lower entrance of the great hall. It resembled an amphitheatre, and the more so, since the roofs of the buildings on every side, as well as the slope up which the steps rose to the churches, adapted now as they were to accommodate at least three hundred thousand spectators, were already beginning to show groups and strings of onlookers who came up here to survey the city.

On the right, beyond the Place, lay the old town, sloping up now, up even to the medieval castle, which fifty years ago had stood in lonely detachment, but now was faced on hill-top after hill-top, at its own level, by the enormous nursing homes and hostels, which under the direction of the Religious Orders had gradually grown up about this shrine of healing, until now, up to a height of at least five hundred feet, the city of Mary stood on bastion after bastion of the lower slopes of the hills, like some huge auditorium of white stone, facing down towards the river and the Holy Place.

Finally, on the left, immediately to the left of the two priests who stood silently looking, fifty feet below, ran the sweep of the Gave, crossed by innumerable bridges which gave access to the crowding town beyond the water, where once had been nothing but meadowland and the beginning of the great southern plain of France.

There was an air of extraordinary peace and purity about this place, thought Monsignor. Whiteness was the predominating colour—whiteness beneath, and whiteness running up high on the right on to the hills—and above the amazing blue of the southern sky. It was high and glorious summer about them, with a breeze as intoxicating as wine and as fresh as water. From across the Place they could hear the quick flapping of the huge Mary banner that flew above the hall, for there were no wheels or motors here to crush out the acuteness of the ear. The transference of the sick from the hostels above the town was carried out by aeroplanes—great winged decks, with awnings above and at the sides, that slid down as if on invisible lines, to the entrance of the other side of the hall, whence after a daily examination by the doctors they were taken on by hand-litters to the grotto or the bathing-pools.

Monsignor heard a step behind him as he stood and looked, still pathetically bewildered by all that he saw, and still struggling, in spite of himself, with a new upbreak of scepticism; and turning, saw Father Jervis in the act of greeting a young monk in the Benedictine habit.

“I knew we should meet. I heard you were here,” the old man was exclaiming. “You remember Monsignor Masterman?”

They shook hands, and Monsignor was not disappointed in his friend’s tact.

“Father Adrian absolutely haunts Lourdes nowadays,” went on Father Jervis. “I wonder his superiors allow him. And how’s the book getting on?”

The monk smiled. He was an exceedingly pleasant person to look upon, with a thin, refined face and large, startlingly blue eyes. He shook his head as he smiled.

“I’m getting frightened,” he said. “I cannot see with the theologians in all points. Well, the least said, the soonest mended.”

Father Jervis’ face had fallen a little. There was distinct anxiety in his eyes.

“When will the book be out?” he asked quickly.

“I’m revising for the last time,” said the other shortly. “And you, Monsignor? . . . I had heard of your illness.”

“Oh, Monsignor’s nearly himself again. And will you take us into the Bureau?” asked the old priest.

The young monk nodded.

“I shall be there all day,” he said. “Ask for me at any time.”

“Monsignor wants to see for himself. He wants to see a case straight through. Is there anything——”

“Why, there’s the very thing,” interrupted the monk. (He fumbled in his pocket a moment.) “Yes, here’s the leaflet that was issued last night.” (He held out a printed piece of paper to Monsignor.) “Read that through.”

The prelate took it.

“What’s the case?” he asked.

“The leaflet will give you the details. It’s decay of the optic nerve—a Russian from St. Petersburg. Both eyes completely blind, the nerves destroyed, and he saw light yesterday for the first time. He’ll be down from the Russian hospice about eleven. We expect a cure to-day or to-morrow.”

“Well,” said Father Jervis, “we mustn’t detain you. Then, if we look in about eleven?”

The monk nodded and smiled as he moved off.

“Certainly,” he said. “At eleven then.”

Monsignor turned to his friend.

“Well?”

Father Jervis shook his head.

“It’s a sad business,” he said. “That’s Dom Adrian Bennett. He’s very daring. He’s had one warning from Rome; but he’s so extraordinarily clever that it’s very hard to silence him. He’s not exactly heretical; but he will work along lines that have already been decided.”

“Dear me! He seems very charming.”

“Certainly. He is most charming, and utterly sincere. He’s got the entree everywhere here. He is a first-rate scientist, by the way. But, Monsignor, I’d sooner not talk about him. Do you mind?”

“But what’s his subject? Tell me that.”

“It’s the miraculous element in religion,” said the priest shortly. “Come, we must go to our coffee.”

III

The hall was already crowded in every part as the two priests looked in at the lower end a few minutes before eleven o’clock. It was arranged more or less like a theatre, with a broad gangway running straight up from the doors at one end to the foot of the stage at the other. The stage itself, with a statue of Mary towering at the back, communicated with the examination-rooms behind the two doors, one on either side of the image.

“What’s going on?” whispered Monsignor, as he glanced up first on this side and that, at the array of heads that listened, and then at the two figures that occupied the stage.

“It’s a doctor lecturing on a cure. This goes on nearly all day.

We must get round to the back somehow.”

As they passed in at last from the outside through the private door through which the doctors and privileged persons had access behind the stage, they heard a storm of clapping and voices from the direction of the public hall on their right.

“That’s finished then. Follow me, Monsignor.”

They went through a passage or two, after their guide—a young man in uniform—seeing as they went, through half-open doors here and there, quite white rooms, glimpses of men in white, and once at least a litter being set down; and came at last into what looked like some kind of committee-room, lighted by tall windows on the left, with a wide horseshoe table behind which sat perhaps a dozen men, each wearing on his left breast the red and white cross which marked them as experts. Opposite the examiners, but half hidden from the two priests by the back of his tall chair, sat the figure of a man.

Their guide went up to the end of the table, and almost immediately they saw Father Adrian stand up and beckon to them.

“I’ve kept you two chairs,” he whispered when they came up. “And you’d better wear these crosses. They’ll admit you anywhere.” (He pointed to the two red and white badges that hung over the backs of their chairs.)

“Are we in time?”

“You’re a little late,” whispered the monk. Then he turned again towards the patient, a typical fair-haired, bearded Russian with closed eyes, who at that moment was answering some question put to him by the presiding doctor in the centre.

The monk turned again.

“Can you understand Russian?”

Monsignor shook his head.

“Well, I’ll tell you afterwards,” said the other.

It seemed very strange to be sitting here, in this quiet room, after the rush and push of the enormous crowds through which they had made their way this morning. The air of the room was exceedingly business-like, and not in the least even suggestive of religion, except in the matter of a single statue of Our Lady of Lourdes on a bracket on the wall above the President’s head. And these dozen men who sat here seemed quietly business-like too. They sat here, men of various ages and nationalities, all in the thin white doctor’s dress, with papers spread before them, and a few strange instruments scattered here and there, leaning forward or leaning back, but all intently listening to and watching the Russian, who, still with closed eyes, answered the short questions put to him continuously by the President. There seemed no religious excitement even in the air; the atmosphere was one, rather, of simple science.

There seemed something faintly familiar in all this to the man who had lost his memory. . . . Certainly he had known of Lourdes as soon as it was mentioned to him, and he seemed now to remember that some such claim to be perfectly scientific had always been made by the authorities of the place. But he had supposed, somehow, that the claim was a false one. . . .

The Russian suddenly rose.

“Well!” whispered Monsignor sharply as the doctors began to talk.

The monk smiled.

“He’s just said an interesting thing. The President asked him just now whether he had seen anything of the crowds as he came down this morning.”

“Yes?”

“He said that people looked like trees moving about. . . . Oh no! he didn’t know he was making a quotation. Look! he’s going down to the grotto. He’ll be back in half an hour to report.”

Monsignor leaned back in his chair.

“And you tell me that the optic nerves were destroyed?”

The monk looked at him in wide-eyed wonder.

“Certainly. He was examined on Tuesday, when he came.

To-day’s Friday.”

“And you believe he’ll be cured?”

“I shall be very much surprised if he’s not.”

There was a stir by the door as the Russian disappeared. A young, bright-eyed doctor looked in and nodded, and the next instant a brancardier appeared, followed by a litter.

“But how have you time to examine all these thousands of cases?” asked the prelate, watching the litter advance.

“Oh, not one in a hundred comes through to us here. Besides, this is only one of a dozen committee-rooms. It’s only the most sensational cases—where there’s real organic injury of a really serious kind—that ever come at all before the highest courts. Cases, I mean, where, if there’s a cure, the publication of the miracle follows as a matter of course. . . . What’s this case, I wonder?” he ended sharply, glancing down at the printed paper before him, and then up again at the litter that was being arranged.

Monsignor looked too at the paper that lay before him. Some thirty paragraphs, carefully numbered, dated, and signed, gave, as it seemed, a list of the cases to be examined.

“Number fourteen,” murmured the monk.

Number fourteen, it appeared, was a case of fractured spine—a young girl, aged sixteen; a German. The accident had happened four months before. The notes, signed by half a dozen names, described the complete paralysis below the waist, with a few other medical details.

Monsignor looked again at the girl on the other side of the table, guarded by the brancardiers and a couple of doctors, while the monk talked to him rapidly in Latin. He saw her closed eyes and colourless lips.

“This case has attracted a good deal of attention,” whispered the monk. “The Emperor’s said to be interested in it, through one of the ladies of the Court, whose servant the girl was. It’s interesting for two or three reasons. First, the fracture is complete, and it’s marvellous she hasn’t died. Then it’s been taken up as a kind of test case by a group of materialists in Berlin. They’ve taken it up, because the girl has declared again and again that she is perfectly certain she will be cured at Lourdes. She claims to have had a vision of Our Lady, who told her so. Her father’s a freethinker, by the way, and has only finally allowed her to come so that he can use her as an argument afterwards.”

“Who has examined her?” asked Monsignor sharply.

“She was examined last night on her arrival, and again this morning. Dr. Meurot, the President here” (he indicated with his head the doctor who sat three places off, who was putting his questions rapidly to the two attending physicians)—”Dr. Meurot examined her himself early this morning. This is just the formal process before she goes to the grotto. The fracture is complete. It’s between the eleventh and twelfth dorsal vertebrae.”

“And you think she’ll be cured?” The monk smiled.

“Who can tell?” he said. “We’ve only had one case before, and the papers on that are not quite in order, though it’s commonly believed to be genuine.”

“But it’s possible?”

“Oh, certainly. And her own conviction is absolute. It’ll be interesting.”

“You seem to take it pretty easily,” murmured the prelate.

“Oh, the facts are established a hundred times over—the facts, I mean, that cures take place here which are not even approached in mental laboratories. But—-”

He was interrupted by a sudden movement of the brancardiers.

“See, they’re removing her,” he said. “Now, what’ll you do, Monsignor? Will you go down to the grotto, or would you sooner watch a few more cases?”

“I think I’d sooner stay here,” said the other, “at least for an hour or two.”

IV

It was the hour of the evening procession and of the

Benediction of the Sick.

All day long the man who had lost his memory had gone to and fro with his companions, each wearing the little badge that gave them entrance everywhere; they had lunched with Dr. Meurot himself.

If Monsignor Masterman had been impressed by the social power of Catholicism at Versailles, and by its religious reality in Rome, he was ten thousand times more impressed by its scientific courage here in Lourdes. For here religion seemed to have stepped down into an arena hitherto (as he fancied) restricted to the play of physical forces. She had laid aside her oracular claims, her comparatively unsupported assertions of her own divinity; had flung off her robes of state and authority and was competing here on equal terms with the masters of natural law—more, she was accepted by them as their mistress. For there seemed nothing from which she shrank. She accepted all who came to her desiring her help; she made no arbitrary distinctions to cover her own incapacities. Her one practical desire was to heal the sick; her one theoretical interest to fix more and more precisely, little by little, the exact line at which nature ended and supernature began. And, if human evidence went for anything—if the volumes of radiophotography and sworn testimony went for anything, she had established a thousand times over during the preceding, half-century that under her aegis, and hers alone, healing and reconstituting forces were at work to which no merely natural mental science could furnish any parallels. All the old quarrels of a century ago seemed at an end. There was no longer any dispute as to the larger facts. All that now remained to be done by this huge organization of international experts was to define more and more closely and precisely where the line lay between the two worlds. All cures that could be even remotely paralleled in the mental laboratories were dismissed as not evidently supernatural; all those which could not be so paralleled were recorded, with the most minute detail, under the sworn testimonies of doctors who had examined the patients immediately before and immediately after the cure itself. In a series of libraries that abutted on to the Place, Monsignor Masterman, under the guidance of Dom Adrian Bennett, had spent a couple of hours this afternoon in examining the most striking of the records and photographs preserved there. He was amazed to find that even by the end of the nineteenth century cures had taken place for which the most modern scientists could find no natural explanation.

Ten minutes ago he had taken his place in the procession of the

Blessed Sacrament, with the monk’s last word still in his head.

“It is during the procession itself,” he had said, “that the work is done. We lay aside all deliberate knowledge as the Angelus rings, and give ourselves up to faith.”

And now the procession had started, and already, it seemed to him, he had begun to understand. It was as he himself emerged, a few paces in front of the Blessed Sacrament Itself, walking with the prelates, that that understanding reached its climax. He paused at the head of the steps, to wait for the canopy to come through, and his heart rose within him so mightily that it was all he could do not to cry out.

Beneath him, seen now from the opposite end from which he had looked this morning, lay the Place, under a wholly different appearance. The centre of the great oval was cleared, with the exception of a huge pulpit, surmounted by a circular sounding-board, that stood in the middle. But round this empty space rose, in tier after tier, masses of humanity beyond all reckoning, up and up, as on the sides of an enormous amphitheatre, as far as the highest roofs of the highest buildings that looked on to the space. Before him rose the pile of churches, and here too, on every platform roof and stair, swarmed the spectators. The doors of the three churches were flung wide, and far within, in the lighted interiors, lay the heads of countless crowds, as cobble-stones, seen in perspective. The whole Place was in shadow now, as the sun had just gone down, but the sky was still alight overhead, a vast tender-coloured vault, as sweet as a benediction. Here and there, in the illimitable blue, like crumbs of diamond dust, gleamed the first stars of evening.

And from this vast multitude, swayed by a white figure within the pulpit, articulate now as the listener emerged, rose up a song to Mary, as from one soft and gigantic voice, appealing to Her Presence who for over a century and a half, it seemed, had chosen to dwell here by virtue and influence, the Great Mother of the redeemed and the Consoler of the afflicted, whose Divine Son was even now on His way, as at Cana itself, to turn the water of sorrow into the wine of joy. . . . Then, as the canopy came out, at an imperious gesture from the tiny swaying figure in the pulpit, the music ceased; great trumpets sounded a phrase; there was a rustle and a movement as of a breaking wave as the crowds knelt; and the Pange Lingua rose up in solemn adoration. . . .

As he came down the steps, his eyes quick with tears, he saw for the first time the lines of the sick in the place to which he had been told to look. There they lay, some four thousand in number, placed side by side in two great circling rows round the whole arena, a fringe of pain to the exultant crowds, in litters laid so close together that they seemed but two great continuous beds, and between them the high flower-strewn platform along which Jesus of Nazareth should pass by. There they lay, all of them bathed to-day in the strange water that had sprung up a hundred and fifty years ago under the fingers of a peasant child, waiting for the sacramental advent of Him who had made both that water and those for whose healing it was designed.

And yet not all were cured—not perhaps one in ten of all who came in confidence. That surely was wonderful. . . . Was it then that that same Sovereign Power who had permitted the pain elected to retain His own sovereignty, and to show that the Lawgiver was fettered by no law? One thing at least was certain, if those records which the priest had examined this morning were to be believed, that no receptiveness of temperament, no subjective expectancy of cure, guaranteed that the cure would take place. Natures that had responded marvellously in the mental laboratories seemed ineffective here; natures that were inert and immovable under the influence of sympathetic science leapt up here to meet the call of some Voice whose very existence a hundred years ago had been in doubt.

The front of the long procession, Monsignor saw, had reached now the doors of the basilica, and would presently, after making the complete round, pour down into the arena to allow the Blessed Sacrament to move more quickly. It was an exquisite sight, even from here, as the prelate set foot on the platform and began to move to the left. The long lines of tapers, four deep, went like some great serpent, rippling with light, above the heads of the sick; and here and there in the slopes of the crowded spectators shone out other lights, steady as stars in the motionless half-lit evening air. Then, as he went, slowly, pace by pace, he remembered the sick and glanced down, as the music on a sudden ceased.

Ah! there they lay, those living crucifixes . . . . shrouded in white, their faces on either side turned inwards that they might see their Lord. . . . There lay a woman, her face shrivelled with some internal horror—some appalling disease which even the science of these days dared not handle, or at least had not; her large eyes staring with an almost terrible intensity, fixed, it seemed, in her head, yet waiting for the Vision that even now might make her whole. There a child tossed and moaned and turned away his head. There an old man crouched forward upon his litter, held up on either side by two men in the uniform of the brancardiers. . . . And so, in endless lines, they lay; from every nation under heaven: Chinese were there, he saw, and negroes; and the very air in which he walked seemed alight with pain and longing.

A great voice broke in suddenly on his musings; and, before he could fix his attention as to what it said, the words were taken up by the hundreds of thousands of throats—a short, fervent sentence that rent the air like a thunder-peal. Ah! he remembered now. These were the old French prayers, consecrated by a century of use; and as he passed on, slowly, step by step, watching now with a backward glance the blessing of the sick that had just begun—the sign of the cross made with the light golden monstrance by the bishop who carried it—now the agonized eyes of expectation that waited for their turn, he too began to hear, and to take up with his own voice those piteous cries for help.

“Jesu! heal our sick. . . . Jesu! grant that we may see—may hear—may walk. . . . Thou art the Resurrection and the Life. . . . Lord! I believe; help Thou mine unbelief.” Then with an overwhelming triumph: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Hosanna, Hosanna!” Then again, soft and rumbling: “O Mary, conceived without sin, hear us who have recourse to thee.”

The sense of a great circumambient Power grew upon him at each instant, sacramentalized, it seemed, by the solemn evening light, and evoked by this tense ardour of half a million souls, and focused behind him in one burning point. . . .

Ah! there was the first miracle! . . . A cry behind him, an eddy in the circle of the sick and the waiting attendants, a figure with shrouding linen fallen from breast and outstretched arms, and then a roar, mighty beyond reckoning, as the whole amphitheatre swayed and cried out in exultation. He saw as in a vision the rush of doctors to the place, and the gesticulating figures that held back the crowd behind the barrier. Then a great moan of relief; and a profound silence as the miracule kneeled again beside the litter which had borne him. Then again the canopy moved on; and the passionate voice cried, followed in an instant by the roar of response:

“Hosanna to the son of David.”

It was half-way round, at the foot of the church steps, that the German girl was laid; and as the prelates drew near Monsignor looked rapidly to this side and that to identify her.

Ah! there she lay, still with closed patient eyes and colourless face, in the outer circle facing inwards towards the pulpit. A doctor knelt on either side of her—one of them the young man who had announced her coming into the hall this morning, with a rosary between his fingers. It was known to the crowd generally, Monsignor had learnt, that her case was exceptional; but it had been kept from them as to where she would lie, for fear that the excitement might be too much concentrated.

He looked at her again, intently and carefully—at that waxen, fallen face, her helpless hands clasped across her breast with a string of beads interwoven within them; and even as he looked distrust once more surged within him, It was impossible, he told himself—in spite of what he had seen that day in spite of that score of leaping figures and the infectious roar that more than twenty times in that short journey had set his pulses a-beat. . . . He passed her, quickening his steps a little; then faced about and watched.

Slowly came the canopy. Its four bearers sweated visibly with the effort; and the face of the bishop who bore the monstrance was pale and streaked with moisture from the countless movements he had made. Behind him came row after row of downcast faces, men and women of every Religious Order on earth, and the tapers seen in perspective appeared as four almost continuous waving lines of soft light.

There had been a longer pause than usual since the last exulting cry of a sick man healed; and the silence between the cries from the pulpit grew continually more acute. And yet nothing happened.

The bishop was signing now outwards over a man who lay next the German, with his face altogether hidden in a white and loathsomely suggestive mask; but there was no stir in answer. The bishop turned inwards and signed over a woman, and again there was no movement.

“Thou art the Resurrection and the Life,” cried the voice from the pulpit.

“Thou art the Resurrection and the Life,” answered the amphitheatre, as the bishop turned again outwards.

Monsignor heard him sigh with the effort, and with the consciousness too, perhaps, of who it was that lay here; he lifted the monstrance; the eyes of the girl opened. As he signed to left and right she smiled. As he brought the monstrance back she unclasped her hands and sat up.

V

The three priests stood together that evening on the high roof of a Carmelite priory, on the other side of the river, half a mile away, yet opposite the grotto, as the German girl came down to make her thanksgiving.

From where they stood it was impossible to make out a single detail of that at which they looked. The priory stood on high ground, itself towering above the crowded roofs that lay between them and the river; and opposite rose up the masses of the hill at the foot of which was the sacred place itself.

It resembled to-night a picture all of fire. The churches on the left were outlined in light, up to the last high line of roof against the dark starlit sky; and upon the spaces in between lay the soft glow from the tens of thousands of torches that the crowds carried beneath. Above the grotto the precipitous face of the cliff showed black and sombre, except where the zigzag paths shone out in liquid wandering lines, where the folks stood packed together, unseeing, yet content to be present. In front, at the foot, over the lake of fire where the main body of worshippers stood, glowed softly the cavern where Mary’s feet had once rested, and where her power had lived now far beyond the memory of the oldest man present.

From this distance few sounds could be heard except the steady murmur of voices of those countless thousands. It was as the steady roll of far-off wheels or of the tide coming in over a rocky beach; and even the sudden roar of welcome and triumph that announced that the little procession had left the Place was soft and harmonious. There followed a long pause.

Then, on a sudden, trumpets rang out, clear as silver, sharpened and reverberated by the rocks from which they sounded, and like the voice of a dreaming giant, came the great words, articulate and distinct:—

“Magnificat anima mea Dominum.”

“And you, Monsignor,” asked Dom Adrian, as they stood half an hour later, still watching the lines of light writhe this way and that as the crowds went home, “you have asked Our Lady to give you back your memory?”

“I was at the grotto this afternoon,” he said. “It is not for me.”

“Then there will be something better instead,” smiled the young monk.

CHAPTER VIII

I

“So you go back to England to-morrow?” said Father Adrian, as they sat a night or two later in the guest-room of the French Benedictines, where the monk was staying.

“We start to-morrow night,” said the old priest. “Monsignor is infinitely better, and we must both get back to work. And you?”

“I stay here to finish the revising of my book,” said the monk quietly.

The man who had lost his memory had piled impression on impression during the last forty-eight hours. There was first the case of the German girl. She had been examined by the same doctors as those who had certified to her state half an hour before the cure, and the result had been telegraphed over the entire civilized world. The fracture was completely repaired; and although she was still weak from her long illness, she gained strength every hour. Then there was the case of the Russian. He too had received back his sight, although not instantaneously; it had come to him step by step. An hour ago he had been pronounced healed, and had passed the usual tests in the examination-rooms. But these cases, and others like them which the priests had investigated, were only a part of the total weight of impressions which Monsignor Masterman had received. He had seen here for himself a relation between Science and Faith—a co-operation between them, with the exigencies of each duly weighed and observed by them both—which set Nature and Supernature before him in a completely new light. As Mr. Manners had said at Westminster a week or two before, the two seemed to have met at last, each working from different quarters, on a platform on which they could work side by side. The facts were no longer denied by either party. Science allowed for the mysteries of Faith; Faith recognized the achievements of Science. Each granted that the other possessed a perfectly legitimate sphere of action in which the methods proper to that sphere were imperative and final. The scientist accepted the fact that Religion had a right to speak in matters that lay beyond scientific data; the theologian no longer denounced as fraudulent or disingenuous the claims of the scientist to exercise powers that were at last found to be natural. Neither needed to establish his own position by attacking that of his partner, and the two accordingly, without prejudice or passion, worked together to define yet further that ever-narrowing range of ground between the two worlds which up to the present remained unmapped. Suggestion, for example, acting upon the mutual relations of body and mind, was recognized by the theologian as a force sufficient to produce phenomena which in earlier days he had claimed as evidently supernatural. And, on the other side, the scientist no longer made wild acts of faith in nature, in attributing to her achievements which he could not for an instant parallel by any deliberate experiment. In a word, the scientist repeated, “I believe in God “; and the theologian, “I recognize Nature.”

Monsignor sat apart in silence, while the others talked.

He had thought in Rome that he had reached interior conviction; he understood now in Lourdes that his conviction had not gone so deep as he had fancied. He had learned in Versailles that the Church could reorganize society, in Rome that she could reconcile nations; he had seen finally in Lourdes that she could resolve philosophies.

And this very discovery made him the more timid. For he began to wonder whether there were not yet further discoveries which he would have to make—workings out and illustrations of the principles he had begun to perceive. How, for example, he began to ask himself, would the Church deal with those who did not recognize her claims—those solitary individuals or groups here and there who, he knew, still clung pathetically to the old dreams of the beginning of the century—to the phantom of independent thought and the intoxicating nightmare of democratic government? It was certain now that these things were dreams—that it was ludicrously absurd to imagine that a man could profitably detach himself from Revelation and the stream of tradition and development that flowed from it; that it was ridiculous to turn creation upside-down and to attempt to govern the educated few by the uneducated many. Yet people did occasionally hold impossible and absurd theories. . . . How, then, would these be treated by the Church when once her power had been finally consolidated? How was she to reconcile the gentleness of the Christian spirit with the dogmatism of the Christian claim? . . . He recalled one or two hints that Father Jervis had let drop, and he was conscious of a touch of fear.

He woke up to externals again at the sound of a sentence or two from the monk.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “What was that?”

“I was saying that the news from Germany is disquieting.”

“Why?”

“Oh! nothing definite. They expect trouble. They say that the Emperor is extraordinarily interested in this girl’s case, and that the Socialists of Berlin are watching him. Berlin is their last stronghold, you know.”

“By the way,” interrupted Father Jervis suddenly, “I’ve enquired about that man with the curious name—Zola. I find he had quite a vogue at one time. And now I come to think of it, I believe Manners mentioned him.”

“Zola?” mused the monk. “Yes, I’m nearly sure I’ve heard of him.

Wasn’t he an Elizabethan?”

“No, no. He died at the end of the last century. I find he did write a little romance about Lourdes. There was even a copy in the library here. I hadn’t time to look at it; but M. Meurot told me it was one of those odd little attacks on religion that were popular once. That’s all I could find out.”

Monsignor compressed his lips. Somewhere out of his abysmal memory there lurked a consciousness that Zola had once been of some importance; but he could add nothing to the discussion.

Dom Adrian stood up and stretched himself.

“It’s time for bed,” he said. “Look” (he nodded towards the window), “the devotions are just ending.”

From out of the luminous gulf beneath, beyond the tiers of roofs that lay, step-like, between this hostel and the river, rose up that undying song of Lourdes—that strange, haunting old melody of the story of Bernadette, that for a hundred and fifty years had been sung in this place—a ballad-like song, without grace of music or art, which yet has so wonderful an affinity with the old carols of Christendom, which yet is so unforgettable and so affecting. As the three stood side by side looking out of the window they saw the serpent of fire, that rope-coil of tapers that, stretching round the entire Place, humped over the flights of steps and the platforms set amongst the churches, writhes incessantly on itself. But, even as they watched, the serpent grew dim and patchy, and the lights began to go out, as group after group broke away homewards. They had wished their Mother good night, there in that great French town which has so wonderful an aroma of little Nazareth; they had sung their thanksgivings; they had offered their prayers. Now it was time to sleep under Her protection, who was the Mother both of God and man. . . .

“Well, good night,” said Monsignor. “We shall meet in London.”

“I hope so,” said the young monk gravely.

“I am afraid that young man will be in trouble,” said Father

Jervis softly, as they came down the steps. “His book, you know.”

“Eh?”

“Well, it’s best not to talk of it. We shall soon know. He’s as brave as a lion.”

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

Monsignor Masterman sat in his room at Westminster, busy at his correspondence.

A week had passed since his return, and he had made extraordinary progress. Even his face showed it. The piteous, bewildered look that he had worn, as he first realized little by little how completely out of touch he was with the world in which he had found himself after his lapse of memory, had wholly disappeared; and in its place was the keen, bright-eyed intelligence of a typical ecclesiastic. It was not that his memory had returned. Still, behind his sudden awakening in Hyde Park, all was a misty blank, from which faces and places and even phrases started out, for the most part unverifiable. Yet it seemed both to him and to those about him that he had an amazing facility in gathering up the broken threads. He had spent three or four days, after his return from Lourdes, closeted in private with Father Jervis or the Cardinal, and had found himself at last capable of readmitting his secretaries and of taking up his work again. The world in general had been informed of his nervous breakdown, so that on the few occasions when he seemed to suffer small lapses of memory no great surprise was felt.

He found, of course, a state of affairs that astonished him enormously. For example, he discovered that as the Cardinal’s secretary he was an extremely important person in the country. He had not yet ventured much on private interviews—these were for the present chiefly conducted by the Cardinal, with himself present; but his correspondence showed him that his good word was worth having, even by men who were foremost in the government of the day. There was, for instance, an immense amount of work to be done on the subject of the relations of Church and State; for the Church, it must be remembered, while not actually established, stood for the whole religious sentiment of the country, and must be consulted on every measure of importance. There was, further, the matter of the restoration of Church property not yet finally concluded in all its details, with endless adjustments and compensations still under discussion. This morning it was on the University question that he was chiefly engaged, and particularly the question as to the relative numbers of the lay and clerical Fellows on the old Catholic foundations.

A bell struck a single note; and one of his secretaries, sitting at the broad table near the window, lifted the receiver to his ear. Then he turned.

“His Eminence wishes to have a word with you, Monsignor, on two matters.”

Monsignor stood up.

“I’ll come now, if it’s convenient,” he said. “I have to be at

Westminster at twelve.”

The secretary spoke again through the telephone.

“His Eminence is ready,” he said.

The Cardinal looked up as the priest came in a minute later.

“Ah! good morning, Monsignor. Yes, sit down there. There are just two matters I want to have a word with you on. The first is as regards a heresy-trial of a priest.”

Monsignor bowed. It was his first experience of the kind, so far as he could remember; and he did not yet fully understand all that it meant.

“I wish you to select the judges. You’ll look up the procedure, if you forget? A Dominican must be on it, of course; so you must communicate with the Provincial. The other two must be seculars, as the accused is a Religious. He has elected to be tried in England.”

“Yes, your Eminence.”

“He has behaved very reasonably, and refuses to take advantage of the Ne invitus clause.”

“I forget at this moment,” began Monsignor, vaguely conscious that he had heard of this before.

“Oh! that gives him the right to suppress the book before publication. It’s part of the new legislation. He has sent the thesis of his book, privately printed, to Rome, and it has been condemned. He refuses to withdraw, as he is perfectly confident of his orthodoxy. I understand that the book is not yet completely finished, but he has his thesis clear enough. It is on the subject of the miraculous element in religion.”

“I beg your Eminence’s pardon, but is the author a Benedictine by any chance?”

The Cardinal smiled.

“Yes: I was coming to that. His name is Dom Adrian Bennett. He is—or rather ought to be—a Westminster monk, but his return has been deferred for the present.”

“I met him at Lourdes, your Eminence.”

“Ah! He is a very clever young man, and at the name time perfectly courageous. . . . Well, you’ll look up the procedure, if you’re not perfectly clear? And I should wish to have the names of the judges by tomorrow night. The Canon Theologian of the diocese may not be well enough to act. But you will make arrangements.”

“Yes, your Eminence.”

“The second matter is exceedingly important.” (The Cardinal began to play with the pen that lay on his desk.) “And no rumour of it must get out from this house. It may be made public at any moment, and I wish you to know beforehand in order that you may not be taken by surprise. Well, it is this. I have had information that the Emperor of Germany will be received into the Catholic Church to-night. I needn’t tell you what that means. He is quite fearless and quite conscientious; and there is not the slightest doubt that he will, sooner or later, make it impossible for the Socialists to congregate any longer in Berlin. That will mean either civil war in Germany—(I hear the Socialists have been in readiness for this for some time past)—or it will mean their dispersal everywhere. Europe, at any rate, will have to deal with them. However, that’s in the future. The important thing at the present is that we should be able to show our full strength when the time comes. There will be thanksgivings throughout England, of course, as soon as the news is published, and I wish you to be in readiness to make what arrangements are necessary. It was the Lourdes miracle, which you witnessed, that has finished the affair. As you know, the Emperor has been on the edge of this for months past.”

The Cardinal spoke quietly and diplomatically enough; but the other could see how deeply moved he was by this tremendous development. The Emperor’s position had been the one flaw in the Catholic organization of Europe—and indeed of the world. Now the last stone was laid, and the arch was complete. The single drawback was that no statesman or prophet could conjecture with certainty what the effect on the Socialists would be.

“And how are you, Monsignor?” asked the Cardinal suddenly, smiling at him.

“I am getting on very well, your Eminence!”

“I should like to say that, for myself, I am more than satisfied,” went on the other. “You seem to me to have regained all your old grip on things—and in some points to have more than regained it. I have written to Rome——” (he broke off).

“It’s the details that still trouble me, your Eminence. For instance, in this heresy-trial, I cannot remember the procedure, or the penalties, or anything else.”

“That’ll all come back,” smiled the Cardinal. “After all, the principles are the point. Well, I mustn’t detain you. You’re to be at Westminster at twelve.”

“Yes, your Eminence. We’ve nearly finished now. The monks are very well satisfied. But the main body of them do not come to Westminster until they formally re-enter. Cardinal Campello has written to say that he will be with us on the 20th for certain.”

“That is very good. . . . Then good morning, Monsignor.”

II

It was nearly midnight before Monsignor Masterman pushed away the book that lay before him and leaned back in his chair. He felt sick and dazed at what he had read.

First, he had studied with extreme care the constitution of the Heresy-Court, and had sent off a couple of hours ago the formal letters to the Dominican Provincial and two other priests whom he had selected. Then he had studied the procedure of the court, and the penalties assigned.

At first he could not believe what he read. He had turned more than once to the title-page of the great quarto, thinking that he must find it to be a reprint of some medieval work. But the title was unmistakable. The book was printed in Rome in the spring of the present year, and contained an English supplement, dealing with the actual relations of the Church laws with those of the country. There were minor penalties for minor offences; there was at every turn an escape for the accused. He might, even in the last event, escape all penalties by a formal renouncement of Christianity; but if not, if he persisted simultaneously in claiming a place in the Church of Christ and in holding to a theological opinion declared erroneous by the Court of Appeal ratified by the Pope, he was to be handed over to the secular arm; and by the laws of England—as well as of every other European country except Germany—the penalty inflicted by the secular arm was, in the instance of a tonsured clerk, death.

It was this that staggered the priest.

Somewhere within him there rose up a protest so overwhelmingly strong as to evade even an attempt at deliberate analysis—a protest that rested on the axiom that spiritual crimes deserved only spiritual punishment. This he could understand. He perceived clearly enough that no society can preserve its identity without limitations; that no association can cohere without definite rules that must be obeyed. He was sufficiently educated then to understand that a man who chooses to disregard the demands of a spiritual society, however arbitrary these demands may seem to be, can no longer claim the privileges of the body to which he has hitherto adhered. But that death—brutal physical death—could by any civilized society—still less any modern Christian society—be even an alternative penalty for heresy, shocked him beyond description.

A ray of hope had shone on him when he first read the facts. It might be, perhaps, that this was merely a formal sentence, as were the old penalties for high treason abandoned long before they were repealed. He turned to the index; and after a search leaned back again in despair. He had seen half a dozen cases quoted, within the last ten years, in England alone, in which the penalty had been inflicted.

It was half an hour before he stood up, with one determination at least formed in his mind—that he would consult no one. He had learnt in the last few weeks sufficient distrust of himself to refrain from formulating conclusions too soon, and he learnt enough of the world in which he found himself to understand that positions accepted as self-evident by society in general, which yet seemed impossible to himself, after all occasionally turned out to be at least not ridiculous.

But to think that it was the young monk with whom he had talked at Lourdes who was to be the centre of the process he himself had to prepare! . . . He understood now some of the hints that Dom Adrian Bennett had let fall.

III

A card was brought up to him a couple of evenings later as he sat at his desk; and as he turned it over Father Jervis himself hurried in.

“May I speak to you alone an instant?” he said; and glanced at the secretaries, who rose and went out without a word.

“You look unwell,” said the old priest keenly, as he sat down.

Monsignor waved a deprecatory hand.

“Well—I’m glad I caught you in time,” went on the other. “I saw the man come in; and wondered whether you knew about him.”

“Mr. Hardy?”

“Yes—James Hardy.”

“Well—I just know he’s not a Catholic; and something of a politician.”

“Well, he’s quite the shrewdest man the secularists have got. He’s a complete materialist. And I’ve not the slightest doubt he’s heard of your illness and has come to see whether he can fish anything out of you. He’s exceedingly plausible; and very dangerous. I don’t know what he’s come about, but you may be certain it’s something important. It may be to do with the Religious Houses; or the Bill for the re-establishment of the Church. But you may depend upon it, it’s something vital. I thought I’d better remind you who he is.”

The priest stood up.

“Thank you very much, father. Is there anything else? Have you any news for me?”

Father Jervis smiled.

“No, Monsignor. You know more than I do, now. . . . Well, I’ll tell Mr. Hardy you’ll see him. Number one parlour?”

“That’ll do very well. Thanks.”

It was growing towards dusk as Monsignor Masterman passed down the corridor a few minutes later; and he paused a moment to glance out upon the London street through the tall window at the end. Not that there was anything particular to be seen there; indeed the street, at the moment he looked, was entirely empty. But he looked up for an instant at the great electric news-sheet where the headlines were displayed, above the corner shop on the way to Victoria Street where the papers were sold. But there was no news. There was the usual announcement of the weather conditions, a reference to one or two land-cases, and a political statement.

Then he went on.

The parlour with the glass doors was lighted, and a man in a black lawyer’s dress stood up to greet him as he came in. He was rosy-faced and genial, clean shaven, above the middle-height, and his manner was very deferential and attractive.

The first minute or two was taken up by Mr. Hardy’s congratulations on the other’s appearance, and on his complete recovery. There was not a trace of anxiety or nervousness in his manner; and the priest almost insensibly found himself beginning to discount his friend’s warning. Then, quite suddenly, the other turned to business.

“Well, I suppose I must come to the point. What I want to ask is this, Monsignor. Can you tell me in confidence (I assure you I will be discreet) whether the ecclesiastical authorities here realize the rush of Socialists that is bound to come, so soon as the Emperor’s conversion is publicly announced.”

“I——” began the priest.

“One moment, please, Monsignor. I do not in the least want to force any confidences. But you know we infidels”—(he smiled charmingly and modestly)—”we infidels regard you as our best friends. The State seems to know nothing of mercy. But the Church is always reasonable. And we poor Socialists must live somewhere. So I wished——”

“But my dear sir,” began Monsignor. “I think you’re assuming too much. Has the Emperor shown any signs—-?”

Across the other’s face he suddenly saw pass a look of complete vacancy, as if he were no longer attending; and, simultaneously, he heard a sudden sound which he could not at first identify, through the open windows looking on to Ambrosden Avenue.

“What is that?” exclaimed the lawyer sharply; and stood up.

Again from the street there rose the roar of voices, cheering, followed by a sharp punctuating cry.

“Come this way,” said the priest. “We can see from the corridor.”

When they reached the window the whole aspect of the street had changed. Half-way from where they stood, to the end where the sheet placard was erected, was a gathering, surging mob, increasing as they looked. From the left, from behind the west end of the cathedral clock a continual stream poured in, met by two others, the one, down the avenue, of figures that ran and gesticulated, the other from the direction of Victoria Street. And from the whole arose gusts of cheering, marking the pauses in the speech of some tiny figure which, mounted beside the news-sheet, appeared to be delivering a speech.

Monsignor glanced at the news-sheet, and there, in gigantic letters, over the space where the weather had been discussed just now, was the announcement made public at the very instant when the leader of the English Socialists was attempting to discover the truth of the rumour that had reached him:—

THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY WAS RECEIVED INTO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THURSDAY EVENING.

And beneath it:

PROCLAMATION TO THE SOCIALISTS EXPECTED TO-NIGHT.

Monsignor read it, unconscious of all else except the astounding fact. Then he turned to speak, but found himself alone.

IV

London went soberly mad with enthusiasm that night, and Monsignor Masterman, standing on the cathedral roofs with half a dozen priests, watched what could be seen of the excitement for half an hour, before going downstairs for the Te Deum in the great church.

The cathedral was, indeed, largely, the centre round which the-enthusiasm concentrated itself. Two other whirlpools eddied in Parliament Square, and round St. Paul’s, where the Archbishop of London preached a sermon from the steps. Even these facts, although in a sense he knew they must be so, drove home into the priest’s mind the realization of how the Church was, once again, as five hundred years ago, the centre and not merely a department of the national life.

In every direction, as he leaned over Ambrosden Avenue, as he looked down Francis Street to right and left, everywhere nothing of the streets was visible under the steadily moving pavement of heads. Every space between the tall houses resembled the flow of an intricate stream, with its currents, its eddies, its back-waters, beneath the clear radiance of the artificial light. Here and there actors were seen gesticulating in dumb show, for all sounds were drowned in the steady subdued roar of voices. There was no delirium, no horse-play; the citizens were too well disciplined. Occasionally from this point or that a storm of cheering broke out as some great man was recognized.

About half-past nine mounted policemen began to make their appearance from Victoria Street, and an open way was gradually formed leading to a cleared space in front of the Cathedral. Ten minutes later cars began to follow, as the great folks began to arrive for the Te Deum, and almost simultaneously the bells broke out, led by the solemn crash of the great “St. Edward” from the campanile.

V

They read in the morning the full text of the proclamation to the Socialists.

As Monsignor Masterman carne up from breakfast, he felt his arm taken, and there was Father Jervis, his clever old face lit up by excitement. He too carried a morning paper under his arm.

“I want to have a talk with you about this,” he said, “Have you seen the Cardinal yet?”

“I’m to see him at ten. I feel perfectly helpless. I don’t understand in the least.”

“Have you read it through yet?”

“No, I glanced at it only. I wish you’d help me through, father.”

The old priest nodded.

“Well, we’ll read every word of it first,”

As they passed into the sitting-room, the prelate slipped forward the little door-plate that announced that he was within, but engaged. Then, without a word, they sat down, and there was dead silence for twenty minutes, broken only by the rustle of turning pages, and an occasional murmur of raised voices from the groups that still wandered round the Cathedral—pools of that vast river that had filled every channel last night. Father Jervis uttered a small exclamation once or twice.

Monsignor laid down the sheets at last and sighed.

“Finished, father?”

“Oh, yes! I’ve been re-reading. Now let us talk.”

Father Jervis turned back to the front page, settled the paper on his knee, and leaned back.

“The main point is this,” he said. “Repressive measures will be passed in Germany, as soon as the act can be got through. That will mean that Germany will be brought up into line with the rest of Europe, America, Australia, and half Asia, throughout her whole empire. That will mean again that our own repressive measures will really and truly be put into force. At present they are largely inoperative.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, we’ve got laws against things like blasphemy and heresy, and particularly the dissemination of heresy, and all the rest; but they’re practically never put into force except in very flagrant cases. For instance, Socialist and infidel speeches can be delivered freely in what are called private houses, which are really clubs. Well, that sort of thing cannot possibly go on. The infidels have complained of tyranny, of course—that’s part of the game. As a matter of fact they’ve been perfectly free, unless they gave actually public offence. They’ve distributed their pamphlets and done what they liked. Well, of course it was impossible to be really strict so long as Germany was lax. They could always meet in Berlin, and have their pamphlets printed there; and we could do nothing. But, you see, the whole situation’s changed with the Emperor’s conversion. He’s one of those heavy, consistent men—quite stupid, of course—who act their principles right out to the farthest detail. So long as he was agnostic he allowed almost anything to go on. And now he’s a Christian he’ll understand that that must stop. He’s responsible before God, you see, as the ruler——”

“But the people. What of the people?”

Father Jervis stared.

“The people? Why, they’re the ruled, aren’t they?”

“But—er—democracy——”

“Democracy? Why, no one believes in that, of course. How could they?”

“Go on, father.”

“But, Monsignor, you must get that clear. You must remember we’re really educated people, not half-educated.”

Monsignor twitched with irritation. He could not understand even yet.

“Father, do you mean that the people won’t resent this sudden change of front on the part of the Emperor? Certainly, if they’re really liberally-minded they’ll tolerate his following his own conscience. But how can they justify his suddenly dictating to them?”

The priest leaned forward a little. His old manner came back, and once more he spoke to Monsignor as to a child.

“Monsignor, listen carefully, please. I assure you you’re completely out of date. What the German people will say now is this: ‘Up to now the Emperor has been agnostic, and therefore he has not allowed any laws against heresy. Now he is a Catholic, and therefore he will cause laws to be passed against heresy.’”

“And they won’t resent that?” snapped the prelate, now thoroughly irritated.

Father Jervis lifted a pacific hand.

“My dear friend, the Germans—like all other educated nations—believe that their ruler is meant by God to rule them. And they also believe that Catholicism is the true religion. Very well, then. When a ruler is Catholic they obey him implicitly, because they know that he will be kept straight in all matters of right and wrong by the Pope, who is the Representative of God. In non-vital matters they will obey him because he is their ruler, and therefore they are bound in conscience to do so.”

“And when the ruler is not Catholic?”

“Again, in non-vital matters they will obey him. And in vital matters—supposing, that is, he passed a law against Christianity (which, of course, nowadays no man could certainly do)—then they would appeal to the Pope, and, if the law was enforced, disobey it and take the penalties.”

“Then the Pope is the real ruler—the final court of appeal?”

“Certainly. Who else should be? Isn’t he the Vicar of Christ?”

There was a pause.

“There,” said the priest more easily. “And now we really must get back to the point. I said just now that the conversion of the Emperor will mean a tightening up of repressive measures against the infidels everywhere. They won’t be allowed to congregate, or disseminate their views any longer.”

“Yes?”

“Well, the point is, what will happen? There must be an explosion or a safety-valve. And even if there is an explosion there must be a safety-valve afterwards, or there will be another explosion.”

“What you told me about America——”

“That was on the tip of my tongue,” said Father Jervis. “And I expect that’ll be the solution.”

“Let’s see,” said Monsignor reflectively, “you told me there were certain cities in America where infidels were tacitly allowed to have things their own way—I think you mentioned Boston?”

“I did.”

“And you think that that will be officially authorized now—I mean that there will be definite colonies where the infidels will be allowed complete liberty?”

“Under restrictions—yes.”

“What sort of restrictions?”

“Well, they won’t be allowed to have an army or an aery——”

“Eh?”

“An aery,” repeated Father Jervis—”an air-fleet, I mean. That wouldn’t do: they might make war.”

“I see.”

“I don’t see what better safety-valve could be suggested. They could work out their own ideas there as much as they liked. Of course, details would come later.”

“And the rest of the Proclamation?” asked the other, lifting the sheet.

“I think we’ve got at the essentials,” said the priest, glancing again at his own copy, “and at the immediate results. Of course, all his other measures don’t come into force till the Houses pass them. In fact, nothing of the Proclamation has force until that happens. I expect the Bill for the Establishment of Catholicism will take some time. We shall get ours through before that. They’ll pass a few small measures immediately, no doubt—as to the Court chaplains and so on.”

There was a pause.

“I really think we’ve got at the principles,” said the priest again, meditatively. “Are they clear to you?”

Monsignor rose.

“I think so,” he said. “I’m very much obliged, Father. I’m sorry I was stupid just now; but you know it’s extraordinarily bewildering to me. I still don’t seem to be able to grasp all you said about Democracy.”

The old priest smiled reassuringly.

“Well, you see, the universal franchise reduced Democracy ad absurdum fifty years ago. Even the uneducated saw that. And then there came the reaction to the old king-idea again.”

Monsignor shook his head.

“I don’t see how the people ever consented to give up the power when once they’d got it.”

“Why, in the same way that kings used to lose it in the old days—by revolution.”

“Revolution? Who revolted?”

“The many who were tyrannised over by the few. For that’s what democracy really means.”

Monsignor smiled at what he conceived to be a paradox.

“Well, I must go to the Cardinal,” he said. “It’s just on ten o’clock.”

CHAPTER II

I

It was three weeks later that the Benedictines took formal possession of Westminster Abbey, and simultaneously that Pontifical High Mass was sung in the University churches of Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham, to mark the inauguration of their new life.

Monsignor Masterman was appointed to attend upon the Cardinals in the Abbey; and as he awoke that morning, it seemed to him once more as if he were living in a dream of strange and intoxicating unreality. Everywhere in the house, as he passed along the corridors, as he gave and received last instructions before starting, there seemed the same tension of expectancy. Finally, as he went up to the Cardinals’ rooms to announce the start, he found the two prelates, both in their scarlet, sitting in silence, looking out over the crowded silent streets.

He bowed at the door without speaking, and then, turning, led the way.

As they came down to the door where the horsed State carriages were waiting, for a moment the wall and the avenue of faces, in front and to right and left, struck him almost with a sense of hostility. A murmur that was almost a roar greeted the gleam of scarlet as the Cardinals came out; then silence again, and a surge of down-bent heads as the two raised their hands in blessing.

Monsignor himself sat facing the Cardinals in the glass coach, as at a foot-pace the six white horses, with grooms and postillions, drew them slowly past the long length of the Cathedral, round to the right, and into Victoria Street. There he drew a long breath, for he had never seen or dreamed of such a sight as that which met him. From end to end of the side street, and in the direction of Old Victoria Station, across the roadway as well, from every window and from every roof, looked a silent sea of faces, that broke into sound and rippling motion as the last carriage came in sight. He had not realized till this moment the tremendous appeal to the imagination which this formal restoration of the old Abbey to the sons of its original founders and occupants made to the popular mind. Here again there had been working in his mind an undefined sense that the Church had her interests, and the nation hers. He had not understood that the two were identified once more; and identified, too, to a degree which had perhaps never before been reached. Even in medieval days there had been crises and even periods during which the secular power stood on one side and the sacred on another; as when Henry had faced St. Thomas, with the nation torn in factions behind the two champions. But the lesson, it seemed, had been learned at last; Caesar had learned that God was his ultimate sanction: and Church and nation, now perhaps for the first time, stood together as soul and body united in one personality.

If Victoria Street suggested such a thought as this, Parliament Square drove it home. As the coach drew up at the west door of the Abbey, and Monsignor stepped out with his robes about him, he heard, like a ground-bass to the ecstatic pealing of the bells overhead, the great roar of welcome roll out over the wide space, reverberate back from Westminster Hall and the Government Buildings opposite, and die down into heart-shaking silence again, as the vermilion flash was seen at the Abbey doors. The great space was filled in every foot with a crowd that was of one heart and soul in its welcome of this formal act of restitution.

Within, the monks waited, headed by their abbot, in a wide circle of some hundred persons, in the extreme end of the nave about the door. The proper formalities were carried out; and the seculars, led by the Cardinals, passed up the enormous church, between the tapestries that hung from every pillar, to the music of the Ecce Sacerdos magnus.

The old monuments were gone, of course—removed to St. Paul’s—and for the first time for nearly three hundred years it was possible to see the monastic character of the church as its builders had designed it. Over the screen hung now again the Great Rood with Mary and John; and the altars of the Holy Cross and St. Benedict stood on either side of the choir-gates.

And so they waited, the Cardinals in their thrones beside the high-altar, and the man who had lost his memory beside them; while the organ pealed out continuously overhead and endless footsteps went to and fro over the carpeted ways and the open stone spaces of the transepts. Once more upon this man, so bewildered by this new world in which he found himself, descended a flood of memories and half-perceived images. He looked up to the far-off vaulted roof and the lantern beneath the central tower; he looked down the long row of untenanted stalls; across the transepts, clean and white again now as at the beginning, filled from end to end across the floor with the white of surplices and the dusky colours of half the religious habits of the world; he caught here and there the gleam of candle-flames and gold and carving from the new altars, set back again, so far as might be, in their old stations; and again it seemed to him that he had lived in some world of the imagination, as if he saw things which kings and prophets had desired to see and had not seen unless in visions of faith and hope that never found fulfilment.

He whispered softly to himself sometimes; old forgotten names and scenes and fragments came back. It seemed to him as if in some other life he had once stood here—surely there in that transept—a stranger and an outcast—watching a liturgy which was strange to him, listening to music, lovely indeed to the ear, yet wholly foreign in this home of monks and prayer. Surely great statues had stood before them—statesmen in perukes who silently declaimed secular rhetoric in the house of God, swooning women, impossible pagan personifications of grief, medallions, heathen wreaths, and broken columns. Yet here as he looked there was nothing but the decent furniture of a monastic church—tall stalls, altars, images of the great ones of heaven, wide eloquent spaces that gave room to the soul to breathe. . . . He had dreamed the other perhaps; he had read histories; he had seen pictures. . . .

The organ broke off in full blast; and under the high roofs came pealing the cry of a trumpet. He awoke with a start; the Cardinals were already on their feet at a gesture from a master of ceremonies. Then he stepped into his place and went down with them to the choir-gates to meet the King. . . .

II

It was in the Jerusalem chamber when the King was gone, a couple of hours later, that the new abbot of Westminster came up to him. He was a small, rosy man with very clear, beautiful eyes.

“Can you speak to me for five minutes, Monsignor?” he said.

The other glanced across at the Cardinals.

“Certainly, father abbot.”

The two went out, down a little passage, and into a parlour. They sat down.

“It’s about Dom Adrian,” said the abbot abruptly.

Monsignor checked the sudden shock that ran through him. He knew he must show no emotion.

“It’s terribly on my conscience,” went on the other, with distress visibly growing as he spoke. “I feel I ought to have seen which way he was going. He was one of my novices, you know, before we were transferred. . . . He would have been here to-day if all had been well. He was to have been one of my monks. I suggested his name.”

Monsignor Masterman began to deprecate the self-accusation of the other.

“Yes, yes,” said the abbot sharply. “But the point is whether anything can be done. The trial begins on Monday, you see.”

“Will he submit?”

The abbot shook his head.

“I don’t think so. He’s extraordinarily determined. But I wanted to know if you could give me any hope on the other side. Could you do anything for him with the Cardinal, or at Rome?”

“I . . . I will speak to the Cardinal, certainly, if you wish.

But——”

“Yes, I know. But you know a great deal depends on the temper of the court. Facts depend for their interpretation upon the point of view.”

“But I understand that it’s definite heresy—that he denies that there is any distinction between the miracles of the Church and——”

The abbot interrupted.

“Yes, yes, Monsignor. But for all that there’s a great deal in the way these things are approached. You see there’s so much neutral ground on which the Church has defined nothing.”

“I am afraid, from what I’ve seen of the papers, that Dom Adrian will insist on a clear issue.”

“I’m afraid so: I’m afraid so. We’ll do our best here to persuade him to be reasonable. And I thought that if you would perhaps do your best on the other side—would tell the Cardinal, as from yourself, what you think of Dom Adrian.”

Monsignor nodded.

“If we could but postpone the trial for a while,” went on the abbot almost distractedly. “That poor boy! His face has been with me all to-day.”

For an instant Monsignor almost gave way. He felt himself on the point of breaking out into a burst of protest against the whole affair—of denouncing the horror and loathing that during these last days had steadily grown within him—a horror that so far he had succeeded in keeping to himself. Then once more he crushed it down, and stood up for fear his resolution should give way.

“I will do what I can, my lord,” he said coldly.

III

A great restlessness seized upon the man who had lost his memory that night.

He had thought after his return from abroad that things were well with him again—that he had learned the principles of this world that was so strange to him; and his busy days—all that had to be done and recovered, and his success in doing it—these things at once distracted and soothed him. And now once more he was back in his bewilderment.

One great principle it was which confused his whole outlook—the employment of force upon the side of Christianity. Here, on the large scale, was the forcible repression of the Socialists; on a small scale, the punishment of a heretic. What kind of religion was this that preached gentleness and practised violence? . . .

Between eleven and twelve o’clock he could bear it no longer. The house was quiet, and the lights for the most part gone out. He took his hat and thin cloak, throwing this round him so as to hide the purple at his throat, went softly down the corridors and stairs, and let himself out noiselessly into Ambrosden Avenue. He felt he must have air and space: he was beginning almost to hate this silent, well-ordered ecclesiastical house, where wheels ran so smoothly, so inexorably, and so effectively.

He came out presently into Victoria Street and turned westwards.

He did not notice much as he went. Only his most superficial faculties paid attention to the great quiet lighted thoroughfare, to the few figures that moved along, to the scattered sentinels of the City of Westminster police in their blue and silver, who here and there stood at the corners of the cross-streets, who saluted him as he went by; to the little lighted shrines that here and there hung at the angles. Certainly it was a Catholic city, he perceived in his bitterness, drilled and disciplined by its religion; there was no noise, no glare, no apparent evil. And the marvel was that the people seemed to love to have it so! He remembered questioning a friend or two soon after his return to England as to the revival of these Curfew laws, and the xtraordinary vigilance over morals; and the answer he had received to the effect that those things were taken now as a matter of course. One priest had told him that civilization in the modern sense would be inconceivable without them. How else could the few rule the many? . . .

He came down, across Parliament Square, to the river at last, walking swiftly and purposelessly. A high gateway, with a guard-room on either side, spanned the entrance to the wide bridge that sprang across to Southwark, and an officer stepped out as he approached, saluted, and waited.

He drove down his impatience with an effort, remembering the espionage (as he called it) practised after nightfall.

“I want to breathe and look at the river,” he said sharply.

The officer paused an instant.

“Very good, father,” he said.

Ah, this was better! . . . The bridge, empty from end to end, so far as he could see, ran straight over to the south side, where, once again, there rose up the guard-house. He turned sharply when he saw it, and leaned on the parapet looking eastwards.

The eternal river flowed beneath him, clean and steady and strong, between the high embankments. (He knew by now all about the lock-system that counteracted the ebb and flow of the tides.) Scarcely a hundred yards away curved out another bridge, and behind that another and another, down into the distance, all outlined in half-lights that shone like stars and flashed back like heaven itself from the smooth-running water beneath. An extraordinary silence lay over all—the silence of a sleeping city—though it was scarcely yet midnight, and though the city itself on either side of the river lay white and glowing in the lights that burned everywhere till dawn.

At first it quieted him—this vision of earthly peace, this perfection to which order and civilization had come; and then, as he regarded it, it enraged him. . . .

For was not this very vision an embodiment of the force that he hated? It was this very thing that oppressed and confined his spirit—this inexorable application of eternal principles to temporal affairs. Here was a city of living men, each an individual personality, of individual tastes, thoughts, and passions, each a world to himself and monarch of that world. Yet by some abominable trick, it seemed, these individuals were not merely in external matters forced to conform to the Society which they helped to compose, but interiorly too; they actually had been tyrannized over in their consciences and judgments, and loved their chains. If he had known that the fires of revolt lay there sleeping beneath this smooth exterior he would have hated it far less; but he had seen with his own eyes that it was not so. The crowds that had swarmed a while ago round the Cathedral, pouring in and filling it for the Te Deum of thanksgiving that one more country had been brought under the yoke; the sea of faces that had softly applauded and bowed beneath the blessing of those two Cardinals in scarlet; the enthusiasm, the more amazing in its silent orderliness, which had greeted the restoration of the old national Abbey to its Benedictine founders—even the very interviews he had had with quiet, deferential men, who, he understood, stood at the very head of the secular powers; the memory of the young King kissing the ring of the abbot at the steps into the choir—all these things proved plainly enough that by some supernatural alchemy the very minds of men had been transformed, that they were no longer free to rebel and resent and assert inalienable rights—in short, that a revolution had passed over the world such as history had never before known, that men no longer lived free and independent lives of their own, but had been persuaded to contribute all that made them men to the Society which they composed.

He perceived now clearly that it was this forced contribution that he hated—-this merging of the individual in the body, and the body one of principles that were at once precise and immutable. It was the extinction of Self.

Then, almost without perceiving the connection, he turned in his mind to Christianity as he conceived it to be—to his ideal figure of Christ; and in an instant he saw the contrast, and why it was that the moral instinct within him loathed and resented this modern Christian State.

For it was a gentle Figure that stood to him for Christ—God? yes, in some profound and mysterious way, but, for all earthly purposes of love and imitation, a meek and persuasive Man whose kingdom was not of this world, who repudiated violence and inculcated love; One who went through the world with simple tasks and soft words, who suffered without striking, who obeyed with no desire to rule.

And what had this tranquil, tolerant Figure in common with the strong discipline of this Church that bore His name—a Church that had waited so long, preaching His precepts, until she grew mighty and could afford to let them drop: this Church which, after centuries of blood and tears, at last had laid her hands upon the sceptre, and ruled the world with whom she had pleaded in vain so long; this Church who, after two thousand years of pain, had at last put her enemies under her feet—”repressed” the infidel and killed the heretic?

And so the interior conflict went on within this man, who found within him a Christianity with which the Christian world in which he lived had no share or part. He still stared out in the soft autumn night at the huge quiet city, his chin on his hands and his elbows on the parapet, half perceiving the parable at which he looked. Once it was this river beneath him that had made the city; now the city set the river within bars and ordered its goings. Once it was Christianity—the meek and gentle spirit of Christ—that had made civilization; now civilization had fettered Christianity in unbreakable chains. . . . Yet even as he resented and rebelled, he felt he dared not speak. There were great forces about him, forces he had experienced for himself—Science tamed at last, self-control, organization, and a Peace which he could not understand. Every man with whom he had to do seemed kind and tender; there was the patient old priest who taught him and bore with him as with a child, the fatherly cardinal, the quiet, serene ecclesiastics of the house in which he lived, the controlled crowds, the deferential great men with whom he talked. But it was their very strength, he saw, that made them tender; the appalling power of the machine, which even now he felt that he but half understood, was the very thing that made it run so smoothly. It had the horror of a perfectly controlled steel piston that moves as delicately as a feather fan.

For he saw how inexorable was that strength which controlled the world; how ruthless, in spite of smooth and compassionate words, towards those who resisted it. The Socialists were to be “repressed”; the heretic was to be tried for his life; and in all that wide world in which he lived it seemed that there was not one Christian who recoiled, not one breath of public opinion that could express itself.

And he—he who hated it—must take his part. A Fate utterly beyond his understanding had set him there as a wheel in that mighty machine; and he must revolve in his place motionlessly and unresistingly in whatever task was set before him. . . .

Once only, as he stared out at the great prosperous view, did his heart sicken and fail him. He dropped his face upon his hands, and cried to the only Christ whom he knew in silence. . . .

CHAPTER III

I

It was not until the afternoon of the third day, as the trial of Dom Adrian Bennett drew to its close, that the man who had lost his memory could no longer resist the horrible fascination of the affair, and presented himself at the door of the court-room. He had learned that morning that the end of the trial was in sight.

It was outside a block of buildings somewhere to the north of St. Paul’s Cathedral that the car set him down. He learned at the porter’s lodge the number of the court, and then passed in, following his directions, through a quadrangle that was all alight with scarlet creepers, where three or four ecclesiastics saluted him, up a staircase or two, and found himself at last at a tall door bearing the number he wanted. As he hesitated to knock, the door opened, and a janitor came out.

“Can I go in?” asked the priest. “I am from Archbishop’s House.”

“I can take you into the gallery at the back, Monsignor,” said the man. “The body of the court is full.”

“That will do.”

They went round a corner together and came to a door up three or four stairs. The janitor unlocked this and threw it back. Farther steps rose within the doorway, and Monsignor as he set foot on the first had a vivid impression that the court he was approaching was crowded with people. There was no sound at first, but an atmosphere of intense and expectant force.

It was a little curtained gallery in which the priest found himself, not unlike a box at a theatre, looking out upon the court from the corner immediately adjacent to the wall against which the raised seats of the judges were placed. He looked round the court, himself sitting a little back in a kind of shame, first identifying the actors in this dreadful drama. He was glad that the gallery had no other occupant than himself.

First there were the judges—three men sitting beneath a canopied roof, beneath which, over their heads, hung a large black and white crucifix. He knew them, all three. There was the Dominican in the centre—one of that Order which has had charge of heresy-courts since the beginning—a large-faced, kindly featured, rosy man, with a crown of white hair, leaning back now with closed eyes, listening, and obviously alert; on his right, farther from the spectator, sat the Canon-Theologian of Westminster, a small, brown-faced man with black eyes, looking considerably younger than his years; and on this side the third judge, pale and bald and colourless—a priest who held the degree of Doctor in Physical Science as well as in Theology—he at this instant was drumming gently with a large white hand on the edge of his desk.

Beneath the judges’ dais was the well of the court, very much, somehow, as Monsignor had expected (for this was his first experience in a Church court), with the clerks’ table immediately beneath the desks, and half a dozen ecclesiastics ranged at it. Some strange-looking instruments stood within reach of the presiding clerk, but he recognized these as the mechanical recorders, of which he had had some experience himself. They were of the nature of phonographs, and by an exceedingly ingenious and yet very simple system could be made to repeat aloud any part of the speeches or answers that had been uttered in the course of the trial. At either end of the clerks’ table rose up a structure like a witness-box, slightly below the level of the judges’ desks. Opposite the desks was the lightly railed dock for the prisoner. The rest of the court was seated for the public, and as the spectator saw, was completely filled, chiefly with ecclesiastics. Even the gangways were thronged with standing figures. And over all hung that air of intense expectancy and attention.

He glanced once more round the court, once more at the judges. Then he allowed himself to look full at the prisoner, whom he had not seen since his departure from Lourdes.

Dom Adrian was just as he remembered him, perhaps a shade paler from the fierce attention of the last three days, but he had the same serene, confident air; his eyes were bright and luminous, and his voice (for he was speaking at this moment) perfectly natural and controlled.

It was hard at first to pick up the thread of what he was saying. He had a sheet or two of paper before him, to which he referred as he spoke, and he seemed to be summing up, in a very allusive manner, some earlier speeches of his. Technical terms made their appearance from time to time, and decrees were quoted by their initial Latin words—decrees which conveyed nothing to the listener in the gallery. It was difficult too, at this distance, to understand the very swift Latin which he spoke in a conversational voice that was almost casual. His whole air was of one who is interested, but not overwhelmingly concerned, in the subject under debate.

He ended at last, and bowed.

Obviously they were not at a very critical part of the trial, thought Monsignor. He felt extraordinarily reassured. He had expected more of a scene.

The Dominican opened his eyes and took up a pen. He glanced at his companions, but they made no sign or movement.

“You have made it perfectly clear,” he said. “Nothing could be clearer. I see” (he turned slightly to right and left, and his fellow-judges nodded gently in acquiescence)—”I see no reason to modify what I said just now, and the judgment of the court must stand. Nothing can be clearer to my mind—and I must say that my assessors wholly concur, as you heard just now—nothing can be clearer than that you have contradicted in the most express terms the decrees in question, and that you have refused to modify or to withdraw any of the theses under dispute. Further, you have refused to avail yourself of any of the releases which are perfectly open to you by law. You declined all those openings which I indicated to you, and you appear determined to push the matter to extremes. I must tell you then plainly that I see nothing for it but the forwarding of our opinions to Rome, and I cannot hold out to you the smallest prospect that you will meet with a different judgment from the highest court.”

He paused a moment.

There was a profound silence in the court. As Monsignor Masterman glanced round, unable to understand what it was that caused this sense of tremendous tension, he noticed a head or two in that array of faces drop suddenly as if in overwhelming emotion. He looked at the prisoner; but there was no movement there. The young monk had put his papers neatly together, and was standing, upright and motionless, with his hands clasped upon them. The Dominican’s voice went on abruptly:

“Have you anything further to say before the court dissolves?”

“I should like to express my sense of the extreme fairness and considerateness of my judges,” said the monk, “and to say again, as at the beginning, that I commit my cause unreservedly into the hands of God.”

The three judges rose together; a door opened behind and they disappeared. Instantly a buzz of tongues began and the sound of shifting feet. As Monsignor glanced back again at the dock, amazed at the sudden change of scene, he saw the monk’s head disappearing down the staircase that led below from the dock. He still did not understand what had happened. He still thought that it was some minor stage of the process that was finished, probably on some technical point.

II

He still sat there wondering, thinking that he would let the corridors clear a little before he went out again, and asking himself what it was that had caused that obvious sensation during the judge’s last words. To all outward appearance, nothing could be less critical than what he had seen and heard. Plainly the trial was going against the prisoner, but there had been no decision, no sentence. The inquisitors and the prisoner had talked together almost like friends discussing a not very vital matter. And yet the sensation had been overwhelming. . . .

As he rose at last, still watching the emptying court, he heard a tap on the door, and before he could speak, the Abbot of Westminster rustled up the steps, in his habit and cross and gold chain. His face looked ominously strained and pale.

“I . . . I saw you from the court, Monsignor. For God’s sake . . . sit down again an instant. Let me speak with you.”

Monsignor said nothing. He could not even now understand.

“I must thank you for your kind offices, Monsignor. I know you did what you could. His Eminence sent for me after he had seen you. And . . . and I must ask you to help us again . . . at Rome.”

“Certainly—anything . . . . But——”

“I fear it’s hopeless,” went on the abbot, staring out into the empty court, where an usher was moving quickly about from table to table setting papers straight. “But any chance that there is must be taken. . . . Will you write for us, Monsignor? or better still, urge the Cardinal? There is no time to lose.”

“I don’t understand, my lord,” said the prelate abruptly, suddenly convinced that more had happened than he knew. “I was only here just at the end, and . . . . what is it I can do?”

The abbot looked at him.

“That was the end,” he said quietly. “Did you not hear the sentence?”

Monsignor shook his head. A kind of sickness seemed to rise from his heart and envelop him.

“I heard nothing,” he said. “I came in during Dom Adrian’s last speech.”

The abbot licked his dry lips; there was a wondering sort of apprehensiveness in his eyes.

“That was the last formality,” he said. “Sentence was given twenty minutes ago.”

“And——”

The abbot bowed his head, plucking nervously at his cross.

“It has to go to Rome to be ratified,” he said hurriedly. “There will be a week or two of delay. Dom Adrian refused any release. But . . . but he knows there is no hope.”

Monsignor Masterman leaned back and drew a long breath. He understood now. But he perceived he must give no sign. The abbot talked on rapidly; the other caught sentences and names here and there: he grasped that there was no real possibility of a reversal of the judgment, but that yet every effort must be made. But it was only with one part of his mind, and that the most superficial, that he attended to all this. Interiorly he was occupied wholly with facing the appalling horror that, with the last veil dropped at last, now looked him in the eyes.

He stood up at last, promising he would see the Cardinal that night; and then his resolve leapt to the birth.

“I should like to see Dom Adrian alone,” he said quietly; “and I had better see him at once. Can you arrange that?” The abbot stopped at the door of the gallery.

“Yes,” he said, “I think so. Will you wait here, Monsignor?”

III

Monsignor Masterman lifted his eyes as the door closed, and saw the young monk standing before him, beside the little table.

He had sat down again in the gallery while the abbot was gone, watching mechanically the ushers come into the court and remove the recording-boxes one by one; and meantime in his soul he watched also, rather than tried to arrange, the thoughts that fled past in ceaseless repetition. He could plan nothing, formulate nothing. He just perceived, as a man himself sentenced to death might perceive, that the Supreme Horror was a reality at last. The very ordinariness of the scene he had witnessed, the familiarity of some of the faces (he had sat next at dinner, not a week ago, the brown-faced Canon-Theologian), the conversational manner of the speakers, the complete absence of any dramatic solemnity—these things increased the terror and repugnance he felt. Were the preliminaries of Death for Heresy so simple as all that? Was the point of view that made it possible so utterly accepted by everyone as to allow the actual consummation to come about so quietly? . . .

The thing seemed impossible and dreamlike. He strove to hold himself quiet till he could understand. . . . But at the sight of the young monk, paled and tired-looking, yet perfectly serene, his self-control broke down. A spasm shook his face; he stretched out his hands blindly and helplessly, and some sound broke from his mouth.

He felt himself taken by the arm and led forward. Then he slipped into a chair, and dropped his face in his hands upon the table.

It was a few moments before he recovered and looked up.

“There, there, Monsignor,” said the monk. “. . . I didn’t expect this. There’s nothing to——”

“But . . . but——”

“It’s a shock to you, I see. . . . It’s very kind. . . . But I knew it all along. Surely you must have known——”

“I never dreamt of it. I never thought it conceivable. It’s abominable; it’s——”

“Monsignor, this isn’t kind to me,” rang out the young voice sternly; and the elder man recovered himself sharply. “Please talk to me quietly. Father Abbot tells me you will see the Cardinal.”

“I’ll do anything—anything in my power. Tell me what I can do.”

He had recovered himself, as under a douche of water, at the sharpness of the monk’s tone just now. He felt but one thing at this instant, that he would strain every force he had to hinder this crime. He remained motionless, conscious of that sensation of intense tightness of nerve and sinew in which an overpressed mind expresses itself.

The monk sat down, on the farther side of the table.

“That’s better, Monsignor,” he said, smiling. . . . “Well, there’s really not much to do. Insanity seems the only possible plea.”

He smiled again, brilliantly.

“Tell me the whole thing,” said the prelate suddenly and hoarsely. “Just the outline. I don’t understand; and I can do nothing unless I do.”

“You haven’t followed the case?”

Monsignor shook his head. The monk considered again.

“Well,” he said. “This is the outline; I’ll leave out technical details. I have written a book (which will never see the light now) and I sent an abstract of it to Rome, giving my main thesis. It’s on the miraculous element in Religion. I’m a Doctor in Physical Science, you know, as well as in Theology. Now there’s a certain class of cure (I won’t bother you with details, but a certain class of cure) that has always been claimed by theologians as evidently supernatural. And I’ll acknowledge at once that one or two of the decrees of the Council of 1960 certainly seem to support them. But my thesis is, first, that these cures are perfectly explicable by natural means, and secondly, that therefore these decrees must be interpreted in a sense not usually received by theologians, and that they do not cover the cases in dispute. I’m not a wilful heretic, and I accept absolutely therefore that these decrees, as emanating from an ecumenical council, are infallibly true. But I repudiate entirely—since I am forced to do so by scientific fact (or, we will say, by what I am persuaded is scientific fact)—the usual theological interpretation of the wording of the decrees. Well, my judges take the other view. They tell me that I am wrong in my second point, and therefore wrong also in my first. They tell me that the decrees do categorically cover the class of cure I have dealt with; that such cures have been pronounced by the Church therefore to be evidently supernatural; and that therefore I am heretical in both my points. On my side, I refuse to submit, maintaining that I am differing, not from the Catholic Church as she really is, (which would be heretical), but from the Catholic Church as interpreted by these theologians. I know it’s rash of me to set myself against a practically universal and received interpretation; but I feel myself bound in conscience to do so. Very well; that is the point we have now reached. I could not dream of separating myself from Catholic Unity, and therefore that way of escape is barred. There was nothing for it, then, but for my judges to pronounce sentence; and that they did, ten minutes before you came in. (I saw you come in, Monsignor.) I am sentenced, that is to say, as an obstinate heretic—as refusing to submit to the plain meaning of an ecumenical decree. There remains Rome. The whole trial must go there verbatim. Three things may happen. Either I am summoned to explain any statements that may seem obscure. (That certainly will not happen. I have been absolutely open and clear.) Or the sentence may be quashed or modified. And that I do not think will happen, since I have, as I know, all the theologians against me.”

There was a pause.

The prelate heard the words, and indeed followed their sense with his intellect; but it appeared to him as if this concise analysis had no more vital connection with the real facts than a doctor’s diagnosis with the misery of a mourner. He did not want analysis; he wanted reassurance. Then he braced himself up to meet the unfinished sentence. “Or——” he murmured.

“Or the sentence will be ratified,” said the monk quietly. And again there was silence. It was the monk again who broke it. “Where Father Abbot seems to think you can help me perhaps, Monsignor, is in persuading the Cardinal to write to Rome. I do not quite know what he can do for me; but I suppose the idea is that he may succeed in urging that the point is a disputed one, and that the case had better wait for further scientific as well as theological investigation.”

Monsignor flung out his hands suddenly. The strain had reached breaking-point.

“What’s the good!” he cried. “It’s the system—the whole system that’s so hateful . . . hateful and impossible.”

“What?”

“It’s the system,” he cried again. “From beginning to end it’s the system that’s wrong. I hate it more every day. It’s brutal, utterly brutal and unchristian.” He stared miserably at the young monk, astonished at the cold look in his eyes.

The monk looked at him questioningly—without a touch of answering sympathy, it seemed—merely with an academic interest.

“I don’t understand, Monsignor. What is it that you——”

“You don’t understand! You tell me you don’t understand! You who are suffering under it! Why——”

“You think I’m being unjustly treated? Is that it? Of course I too don’t think that——”

“No, no, no,” cried the elder man. “It’s not you in particular. I don’t know about that—I don’t understand. But it’s that any living being can live under such tyranny—such oppression of free thought and judgment! What becomes of science and discovery under a system like this? What becomes of freedom—of the right to think for oneself? Why——”

The young monk leaned a little over the table.

“Monsignor, you don’t know what you are saying. Tell me quietly what it is that’s troubling you. Quietly, if you please. I can’t bear much more strain.”

The man who had lost his memory mastered himself with an effort. His horror had surged up just now and overwhelmed him altogether, but the extraordinary quiet of the other man and his apparently frank inability to understand what was the matter brought him down again to reality. Subconsciously, too, he perceived that it would be a relief to himself to put his developing feeling into words to another.

“You wish me to say? Very well—-”

He hesitated again for words.

“You are sure you’d better? I know you’ve been ill. I don’t want to—-”

Monsignor waved it away with a little gesture.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m not ill now. I wish to God I were!”

“Quietly, please,” said the young man.

He swallowed in his throat and rearranged himself in his chair. He felt himself alone and abandoned, even where he had been certain of an emotional sympathy.

“I know I’m clean against public opinion in what I think. I’ve learnt that at last. I thought at first that it was the other way, as . . . as I think it must have been a hundred years ago. But I see now that all the world is against me—all except perhaps the people who are called infidels.”

“You mean the Socialists?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Well, it seems to me that the Church is . . .” (he hesitated, to pick his words) “is assuming an impossible attitude. Take your own case; though that’s only one: it’s the same everywhere. There are the sumptuary and domestic laws; there’s the ‘repression,’ as they call it, of the Socialists. But take your own case. You are perfectly satisfied that your conclusions are scientific, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a Christian and a Catholic. And yet, because these conclusions of yours are condemned—not answered, mind you, or refuted by other scientists—but just condemned—condemned by ecclesiastics as contrary to what they assume to be true—you . . . you care——”

He broke off, struggling again with fierce emotion. He felt a hand on his arm.

“Monsignor, you’re too excited. May I ask you some questions instead?”

Monsignor nodded.

“Well, don’t take my case only. Take the system, as you said just now. I really want to know…. You think that the Socialists ought not to be repressed—that every man ought to be free to utter his opinions, whatever they may be. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“However revolutionary they may be?”

Monsignor hesitated. He had considered this point before. He felt his answer was not wholly satisfactory. But the monk went on.

“Suppose these opinions were subversive of all law and order. Suppose there were men who preached murder and adultery—doctrines that meant the destruction of society. Would you allow these, too, to publish their opinions broadcast?”

“Of course, you must draw the line somewhere,” began

Monsignor. “Of course——”

“Where?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said that we must draw the line somewhere. I ask you where?”

“Well, that, of course, must be a matter of degree.”

“Surely it must be one of principle. . . . Can’t you give me any principle you would allow?”

The passion of just now seemed wholly gone. Monsignor had an uncomfortable sense that he had behaved like a child and that this young monk was on firmer ground than himself. But again he hesitated.

“Well, would you accept this principle?” asked Dom Adrian. “Would you say that every society has a right to suppress opinions which are directly subversive of the actual foundations on which itself stands? Let me give an instance. Suppose you had a country that was a republic, but that allowed that other forms of government might be equally good. (Suppose, for instance, that while all acquiesced more or less in the republic, yet that many of the citizens personally preferred a monarchy.) Well, I suppose you would say it was tyranny for the republic to punish the monarchists with death?”

“Certainly.”

“So should I. But if a few of the citizens repudiated all forms of government and preached Anarchy, well, I suppose you would allow that the government would have a perfect right to silence them?”

“I suppose so.”

“Of course,” said Dom Adrian quietly. “It was what you allowed just now. Society may, and must, protect itself.”

“What’s that got to do with it? These Socialists are not Anarchists. You’re not an atheist. And even if you were, what right would the Church have to put you to death?”

“Oh! that’s what you’re thinking, is it, Monsignor? But really, you know, Society must protect itself. The Church can’t interfere there. For it isn’t for a moment the Church that punishes with death. On the contrary, the Catholic authorities are practically unanimous against it.”

Monsignor made an impatient movement.

“I don’t understand in the least,” he said. “It seems to me——”

“Well, shall I give you my answer?”

Monsignor nodded.

The monk drew a breath and leaned back once more.

To the elder man the situation seemed even more unreal and impossible than at the beginning. He had come, full of fierce and emotional sympathy, to tell a condemned man how wholly his heart was on his side, to repudiate with all his power the abominable system that had made such things possible. And now, in five minutes, the scene had become one of almost scholastic disputation; and the heretic, it seemed—the condemned heretic—was defending the system that condemned him to a man who represented it as an official! He waited, almost resentfully.

“Monsignor,” said the young man, “forgive me for saying so; but it seems to me you haven’t thought this thing out—that you’re simply carried away by feeling. No doubt it’s your illness. . . . Well, let me put it as well as I can. . . .”

He paused again, compressing his lips. He was pale, and evidently holding himself hard in hand; but his eyes were bright and intelligent. Then he abruptly began again.

“What’s wrong with you, Monsignor,” he said, “is that you don’t realize—again, no doubt, owing to your loss of memory—that you don’t realize that the only foundation of society at the present day is Catholicism. You see we know now that Catholicism is true. It has reasserted itself finally. Every other scheme has been tried and has failed; and Catholicism, though it has never died, has once more been universally accepted. Even heathen countries accept it de facto as the scheme on which the life of the human race is built. Very well, then, the man who strikes at Catholicism strikes at society. If he had his way society would crumble down again. Then what can Catholic society do except defend itself, even by the death penalty? Remember, the Church does not kill. It never has; it never will. It is society that puts to death. And it is certainly true to say that theologians, as a whole, would undoubtedly abolish the death penalty to-morrow if they could. It’s an open secret that the Holy Father would do away with it to-morrow if he could.”

“Then why doesn’t he? Isn’t he supreme?” snapped the other bitterly.

“Indeed not. Countries rule themselves. He only has a veto if an actually unchristian law is passed. And this is not actually unchristian. It’s based on universal principles.”

“But——”

“Wait an instant. . . . Yes, the Church sanctions it in one sense. So did the Church approve of the death penalty in the case of murder—another sin against society. Well, Christian society a hundred years ago inflicted death for the murder of the body; Christian society to-day inflicts death for a far greater crime against herself—that is, murderous attacks against her own life-principle.”

“Then the old Protestants were right after all,” burst in Monsignor indignantly; “they said that Rome would persecute again if she could.”

“If she could?” said the monk questioningly.

“If she was strong enough.”

“No, no, no!” cried the other, beating his hand on the table in gentle impatience; “it would be hopelessly immoral for the Church to persecute simply because she was strong enough—simply because she had a majority. She never persecutes for mere opinions. She has never claimed her right to use force. But, as soon as a country is convincedly Catholic—as soon, that is to say, as her civilization rests upon Catholicism and nothing else, that country has a perfect right to protect herself by the death penalty against those who menace her very existence as a civilized community. And that is what heretics do; and that is what Socialists do. Whether the authorities are right or wrong in any given instance is quite another question. Innocent men have been hanged. Orthodox Catholics have suffered unjustly. Personally I believe that I myself am innocent; but I am quite clear that if I am a heretic” (he leaned forward again and spoke slowly), “if I am a heretic, I must be put to death by society.”

Monsignor was dumb with sheer amazement, and a consciousness that he had been baffled. He felt he had been intellectually tricked; and he felt it an additional outrage that he had been tricked by this young monk with whom he had come to sympathize.

“But the death penalty!” he cried. “Death! that is the horror. I understand a spiritual penalty for a spiritual crime—but a physical one. . . .”

Dom Adrian smiled a little wearily.

“My dear Monsignor,” he said, “I thought I had explained that it was for a crime against society. I am not put to death for my opinions; but because, holding those opinions, which are declared heretical, and refusing to submit to an authoritative decision, I am an enemy of the civil state which is upheld solely by the sanctions of Catholicism. Remember it is not the Church that puts me to death. That is not her affair. She is a spiritual society.”

“But death! death, anyhow!”

The man’s face grew grave and tender.

“Is that so dreadful,” he said, “to a convinced Catholic?”

Monsignor rose to his feet. It seemed to him that his whole moral sense was in danger. He made his last appeal.

“But Christ!” he cried; “Jesus Christ! Can you conceive that gentle Lord of ours tolerating all this for one instant! I cannot answer you now; though I am convinced there is an answer. But is it conceivable that He who said, ‘Resist not evil,’ that He who Himself was dumb before his murderers——”

Dom Adrian rose too. An extraordinary intensity came into his eyes, and his face grew paler still. He began in a low voice, but as he ended his voice rang aloud in the little room.

“It is you who are dishonouring our Lord,” he said. “Certainly He suffered, as we Catholics too can suffer, as you shall see one day—as you have seen a thousand times already, if you know anything of the past. But is that all that He is? . . . Is He just the Prince of Martyrs, the supreme Pain-bearer, the silent Lamb of God? Have you never heard of the wrath of the Lamb? of the eyes that are as a flame of fire? of the rod of iron with which He breaks in pieces the kings of the earth? . . . The Christ you appeal to is nothing. It is but the failure of a Man with the Divinity left out . . . the Prince of sentimentalists, and of that evil old religion that once dared to call itself Christianity. But the Christ we worship is more than that—the Eternal Word of God, the Rider on the White Horse, conquering and to conquer…. Monsignor, you forget of what Church you are a priest! It is the Church of Him who refused the kingdoms of this world from Satan, that He might win them for Him self. He has done so! Christ reigns! . . . Monsignor, that is what you have forgotten! Christ is no longer an opinion or a theory. He is a Fact. Christ reigns! He actually rules this world. And the world knows it.”

He paused for one second, shaking with his own passion. Then he flung out his hands.

“Wake up, Monsignor! Wake up! You are dreaming. Christ is the King of men again, now—not of just religiously minded devots. He rules, because He has a right to rule. . . . And the civil power stands for Him in secular matters, and the Church in spiritual. I am to be put to death! Well, I protest that I am innocent, but not that the crime charged against me does not deserve death. I protest, but I do not resent it. Do you think I fear death? . . Is that not in His hands too? . . . Christ reigns, and we all know it. And you must know it too!”

All sensation seemed to have ebbed from the man who listened. . . . He was conscious of a white ecstatic face with burning eyes looking at him. He could no longer actively resist or rebel. It was only by the utmost effort that he could still keep from yielding altogether. Some great pressure seemed to enfold and encircle him, threatening his very existence as an individual. So tremendous was the force with which the words were spoken, that for an instant it seemed as if he saw in mental vision that which they described—a Supreme Dominant Figure, wounded indeed, yet overmastering and compelling in His strength—no longer the Christ of gentleness and meekness, but a Christ who had taken His power at last and reigned, a Lamb that was a Lion, a Servant that was Lord of all; One that pleaded no longer, but commanded. . . .

And yet he clung still desperately and blindly to his old ideal. He pushed off from him this dominating Presence; his whole self and individuality would not yield to Him who demanded the sacrifice of both. He saw this Christ at last, and by a flash of intuition perceived that this was the key to this changed world he found so incomprehensible; and yet he would not have it—he would not have this Man to rule over him. . . .

He made one last effort; the vision passed and he stood up, feeling once more sensation come back, understanding that he had saved himself from an extinction more utter than that of death.

“Well,” he said quietly—so quietly that he almost deceived himself too,—”well, I will remember what you say, Dom Adrian, and I will do what I can with the Cardinal.”

CHAPTER IV

I

“I’m afraid it’s been a great shock,” said Father Jervis soothingly. “And I’m not surprised, after your illness. . . . Yes I quite see your point. Of course it must seem very strange. . . . Now what about coming over to Ireland for a week? The Cardinal will be delighted, I’m sure.”

The blow had fallen this morning—a fortnight after the trial had ended.

First, the answer had come back from Rome that the sentence was ratified—a sentence simply to the effect that the Church could no longer protect this tonsured and consecrated son of hers from the secular laws. But, as Monsignor knew privately, an urgent appeal had been made by Rome to remit the penalty in this instance, as in others. Then the formalities of handing over the monk to the secular authorities had taken place, in accordance with the Clergy Discipline Amendment Act of 1964—an Act by which the secular houses of Representatives had passed a code of penalties for clerks condemned by the ecclesiastical courts—clerks, that is to say, who had availed themselves of Benefit of Clergy and had submitted themselves to ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Under that Act Dom Adrian had been removed to a secular prison, his case had been re-examined and, in spite of the Pope’s appeal, the secular sentence passed. And this morning Monsignor had read that the sentence had been carried out. . . . He neither knew nor dared to ask in what form. It was enough that it was death.

There had been a scene with the startled secretaries. Fortunately Monsignor had been incoherent. One of them had remained with him while the other ran for Father Jervis. Then the two laymen had left the room, and the priests alone together.

Things were quieter now. Monsignor had recovered himself, and was sitting white and breathless with his friend beside him.

“Come to Ireland for a week,” said the old man again, watching him with those large, steady, bright eyes of his. “It is perfectly natural, under the circumstances, that the thing should be a shock. To us, of course——”

He broke off as Monsignor looked up with a strange white glare in his eyes.

“Well, well,” said the old man. “You must give yourself a chance. You’ve been working magnificently; I think perhaps a little too hard. And we don’t want another breakdown. . . . Then I take you’ll come to Ireland? We’ll spend a perfectly quiet week, and be back in time for the meeting of Parliament.”

Monsignor made a small movement of assent with his head. (He had had Ireland explained to him before.)

“Then I’ll leave you quietly here for a little. Call me up if you want me. I’ll tell the secretaries to work in the next room. I’ll see the Cardinal at once, and we’ll go by the five o’clock boat. I’ll arrange everything. You needn’t give it a thought.”

A curious process seemed to have been at work upon the mind of the man who had lost his memory, since his interview with the monk immediately after the trial. At first a kind of numbness had descended upon him. He had gone back to his business, his correspondence, his interviews, his daily consultation with the Cardinal, and had conducted all these things efficiently enough. Yet, underneath, the situation arranged itself steadily and irresistibly. It had become impressed upon him that, whether for good or evil, the world was as it was; that Christian civilization had taken the form which he perceived round him, and that to struggle against it was as futile, from a mental point of view, as to resent the physical laws of the universe. Nothing followed upon such resistance except intense discomfort to oneself. It might be insupportably unjust that one could not fly without wings, yet the fact remained. It might be intolerably unchristian that a tonsured clerk should be put to death for heresy, yet he was put to death, and not a soul, it seemed (not even the victim himself) resented it. Dom Adrian’s protest had been not against the execution of heretics, but against the statement that he was a heretic. But he had refused to submit to a decision which he acknowledged as authoritative, and found no fault therefore with the consequence of such refusal. The condemnation, he granted, was perfectly legal and therefore extrinsically lust; and it was the penalty he had to pay for an individualism which the responsible authorities of the State regarded as dangerous to the conditions on which society rested. And the rest was the business of the State, not of the Church.

The scheme then was beginning to grow clear to this man’s indignant eyes. Even the “repression” of the Socialists fitted in, logically and inexorably. And he began to understand a little more what Dom Adrian had meant. There stood indeed, imminent over the world (whether ideally or actually was another question) a tremendous Figure that was already even more Judge than Saviour—a Personality that already had the Power and reigned; one to whose feet all the world crept in silence, who spoke ordinarily and normally through His Vicar on earth, who was represented on this or that plane by that court or the other; one who was literally a King of kings; to whose model all must be conformed; to whose final judgment every creature might appeal if he would but face that death through which alone that appeal might be conveyed. Such was the scheme which this priest began to discern; and he saw how the explanation of all that bewildered him lay within it. Yet none the less he resented it; none the less he failed to recognize in it that Christianity he seemed once to have known, long ago. Outwardly he conformed and submitted. Inwardly he was a rebel.

He sat on silent for a few minutes when his friend had left him, gradually recovering balance. He knew his own peril well enough, but he was not yet certain enough of his own standpoint—and perhaps not courageous enough—to risk all by declaring it. He felt helpless and powerless—like a child in a new school—before the tremendous forces in whose presence he found himself. For the present, at least, he knew that he must obey. . . .

II

“You will be astonished at Ireland,” said Father Jervis a few hours later, as they sat together in the little lighted cabin on their way across England. “You know, of course, the general outlines?”

Monsignor roused himself.

“I know it’s the Contemplative Monastery of Europe,” he said.

“Just so. It’s also the mental hospital of Europe. You see it’s very favourably placed. None of the great lines of volors pass over it now. It’s entirely secluded from the world. Of course there are the secular business centres of the country, as they always were, in north and south—Dublin and Belfast; they’re like any other town, only rather quieter. But outside these you might say that the whole island is one monastic enclosure. I’ve brought a little book on it I thought you might like to look at.”

He handed a little volume out of his bag. (It was printed on the usual nickel-sheets, invented by Edison fifty years before.)

“And to-night?” asked Monsignor heavily.

“To-night we’re staying at Thurles. I made all arrangements this afternoon.”

“And our programme?”

Father Jervis smiled.

“That’ll depend on the guest-master,” he said, “We put ourselves entirely under his orders, as I told you. He’ll see us to-night or to-morrow morning; and the rest is in his hands.”

“What’s the system?” asked Monsignor suddenly and abruptly looking at him.

“The system?”

“Yes.”

Father Jervis considered.

“It’s hard to put it into words,” he said. “I suppose you might say that they used atmosphere and personality. They’re the strongest forces we know of—far stronger, of course, than argument. It’s very odd how they used to be neglected—-”

“Eh?”

“Yes; until quite recently there was hardly any deliberate use of them at all. Well, now we know that they effect more than any persuasion . . . or . . . or . . . diet. And of course enclosed Religious naturally become experts in interior self-command, and therefore can apply these things better than anyone else.”

He waved his hands vaguely and explanatorily.

“It’s impossible to put it into words,” he said. “The very essence of it is that it can’t be.”

Monsignor sighed and looked drearily out of the window.

As the hours of the day had gone by it had been this dreariness that had deepened on him, after the violent emotions of the morning. It was as if he already saw himself beaten down and crushed by those forces he had begun to recognize. And even this reminder that he was passing for a few days under a tyranny that was yet more severe failed to requicken any resentment. Inwardly the fire smouldered still red and angry; outwardly he was passive and obedient, and scarcely wished to be otherwise.

There was nothing of interest to be seen out of the window. The autumn evening was drawing in, and the far-off horizon of hills, with the rim of the sea already visible beyond it, was dark and lead-coloured under the darkening sky. He thought vaguely of Dom Adrian, in that melancholy and ineffective mood which evening suggests . . . he had been alive at this hour last night and now . . . Well, he had passed to the Secret which this world interpreted now so confidently. . . .

They halted above Dublin, and he watched, as weeks ago at Brighton, the lighted stage swing outside the windows. He noted a couple of white-frocked monks or friars, hooded in black, standing among the rest. Then he watched the stage drop out of sight, and the lights of Dublin spin eastwards and vanish. Then he turned listlessly to the book his friend had given him, and began to read.

As he stood himself on the platform at Thurles, bag in hand (they brought no servants to Ireland), it seemed to him that already there was a certain sense of quietness about him. He told himself it was probably the result of self-suggestion. But, for all that, it seemed curiously still. Beneath he saw great buildings, flattened under the height at which he stood—court after court, it appeared, each lighted invisibly and as clear as day. Yet no figures moved across them; and in the roadways that ran here and there was no crawling stream of ant-like beings such as he had seen elsewhere. Even the officials seemed to speak in undertones; and Father Jervis said no word at all. Then, as he felt the swift dropping movement beneath his feet, he saw the great lighted ship he had just left whirl off westwards, resembling a gigantic luminous moth, yet without bell or horn to announce its journey.

He followed his friend out through the doorway of the ground-platform to which the stage descended, and into the interior of a great white car that waited—still with a strange sense of irresponsibility and heaviness. He supposed that all was well—as well as could be in a world such as this. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. There were three or four others in the great car, he noticed; but all were silent.

He opened them again as the car stopped. But the priest beside him made no movement. He looked out and saw that the car was halted between two high walls and in front of a great arched gateway. Even as he looked the gates rolled back noiselessly and the car moved through. (The others had got out, he noticed.)

It seemed, as they sped on, as if they were going through the streets of some strange dead city. All through which they passed was perfectly visible in the white artificial light. Now they ran between high walls; now along the side of a vast courtyard; now a structure resembling the side of a cloister slid by them swiftly and steadily—gone again in an instant. It was not until afterwards that he realized that there had hardly been one window to be seen; and not one living being.

And then at last the car stopped, and a monk in brown opened the door of the car.

III

Monsignor woke next morning, already conscious of a certain sense of well-being, and looked round the little white room in which he lay, agreeably expectant.

Last night had helped to soothe him a little. He had supped with his friend in a small parlour downstairs, after having been warned not to speak, except in case of absolute necessity, to the lay-brother who waited on them; and after supper had had explained to him more at length what the object of the expedition really was. It was the custom, he heard, for persons suffering from overstrain or depression, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, to come across to Ireland to one of those Religious Houses with which the whole country was covered. The only thing demanded of these retreatants was that they should obey, absolutely and implicitly, the directions given to them during their stay, and that their stay should not be less than for three full days.

“We shall not meet after to-night,” said Father Jervis, smiling,

“I shall be under as strict orders as you.”

After they had parted for the night, the man who had lost his memory had studied the little book given to him, and had learned more or less the system under which Ireland lay. The whole island, he learned, was the absolute and inalienable possession, held under European guarantees, of the enclosed Religious Orders, with whose dominion no interference was allowed. All the business offices of the country and the ports of the enormous agricultural industries were concentrated in Dublin and Belfast; the rest of the island was cultivated, ruled, and cared for by the monks themselves. (He read drearily through the pages of statistics showing how once again, as in medieval days, under the labour of monks the land had blossomed out into material prosperity; and how this prosperity still increased, year by year, beyond all reckoning.) Of men, there were the Carthusians, the Carmelites, the Trappists, and certain sections of Benedictines; of women, there were the Carmelites, the Poor Clares, the Augustinian canonesses, and certain other Benedictines. Special arrangements between these regulated the division of the land and of the responsibilities; and the Central Council consisted of the Procurators and other representatives of the various bodies.

In return for the possession of the land, and for the protection guaranteed by the European governments, one, and one only demand was made—namely, that a certain accommodation should be offered—the amount determined by agreement year by year—both for these Retreat-houses in general, and for what were called “Hospitals-of-God” in particular. These hospitals were nothing else in reality than enormous establishments for the treatment of the mentally unbalanced; for it had been found by recent experience that the atmosphere supremely successful in such cases—especially those of certain well-marked types—was the atmosphere of the strongest and most intense religion. Statistics had shown without a doubt that, even apart from cases of actual possession (a phenomenon perfectly recognized now by all scientists), minds that were merely weak or subject to mental delusions recovered incalculably more quickly and surely in the atmosphere of a Religious House than in any other. These cases too were isolated with the greatest care, owing to the extraordinary discoveries recently made, and verified over and over again in the realm of “mental infection.”

So Monsignor had learned last night; and as he lay in his little white room this morning, waiting for the instructions that, he had been informed, would arrive before he need get up, it seemed that even to his own tortured brain some breath of relief had already come. The world seemed perfectly still. Once from far away he heard the note of a single deep-toned bell; but, for the rest, there was silence. There was no footstep in the house, no footstep outside. From where he lay he could see out through his low window into a tiny high-walled court, white like his own room, except where the level lawn ran to the foot of the wall and a row of tawny autumn flowers rose against it. Above the white carved parapet opposite ran skeins of delicate cloud against the soft blue sky. It was strange, he thought, to be conscious in this utter solitude and silence of an incomparable peace. . . .

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that the hooded lay brother had come in while he dozed, and had begun to set the room to rights. A door, white like the wall, which he had not noticed last night, stood open opposite his bed, and he caught sight of a tiny bathroom beyond. A little fire of wood was leaping in the white-tiled chimney; and before it stood a table. The window too was set open, and the pleasant autumn air streamed in.

Then the brother came up to the bedside, his face invisible under the peaked hood that hung over it. He uttered a sentence or two in Latin, bidding him get up and dress. He was not to say Mass this morning. “Father” would come in as soon as he had breakfasted and give him his instructions for the day. That was all.

Monsignor got out of bed and went into the bathroom, where his clothes were already arranged. When he came back a quarter of an hour later, he found a tray set out with simple food and milk on the table beside the fire. As he finished and said grace the door opened noiselessly, and a priest in the Carthusian habit came in, closing the door behind him.

IV

As the two faced one another for an instant, the Englishman perceived in a glance that this monk was one of the most impressive-looking men he had ever set eyes on. He was well over six feet in height, and, in his rough, clumsy white dress, he seemed enormously muscular and powerful. He carried himself loosely, with an air of strength, almost swinging in his gait. But it was his face that above all was remarkable. His hood lay back on his shoulders, and from its folds rose his strong throat and head, all as hairless as a statue’s; and as the priest glanced at him he saw that strange suggestion as of a bird’s head which some types convey. His nose was long, thin, and curved; his lips colourless and compressed; his cheeks modelled in folds and hollows over the bones beneath; and his eyes, of an extraordinary light grey, looked out under straight upper lids, as of an eagle.

So much for the physical side.

But, stranger than all this, was the unmistakable atmosphere that seemed to enter with him—an atmosphere that from one side produced a sense of great fear and helplessness, and on the other of a kind of security. In an instant Monsignor felt as a wounded child might feel in the presence of a surgeon. And, throughout the interview that followed, this sensation deepened incalculably.

The man said nothing—not even a word of greeting—as he came across the room. He just inclined his head a little, with a grave and business-like courtesy, and waved the other back into his chair. Then, still standing himself, he began to speak in a deep but quite quiet voice, and very slowly and distinctly.

“You understand, Monsignor, the terms on which you are here? Yes.

Very well. I do not wish you to say Mass until your last morning.

I have spoken to Father Jervis about you. . . .

“Meanwhile, for to-day you are at liberty to walk in the court outside as much as you wish, to read as you wish—in fact, to occupy yourself as you like in this room, the ambulatory downstairs, the roof overhead, and the garden. You are to write no letters, and to speak to no one. You will have your meals in the next room alone, where you will also find a few books. I wish you to get as quiet and controlled as you can. Tomorrow morning I will come in again at the same time and give you further directions. You will find a tribune opening out at the end of this corridor, looking into a chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. But I do not wish you to spend there more than one hour in the course of the day.”

The monk was silent again, and did not even raise his eyes. Monsignor said nothing. There was really nothing to say. He felt entirely powerless, and not even desirous to speak. He understood that to obey was simply inevitable, and that silence was what was wished.

“I do not wish you to rehearse at all what you intend to say to me to-morrow,” went on the monk suddenly. “You are here to show me yourself and your wounds, and there must be no false shame. You will say what you feel to-morrow; and I shall say what I think. I wish you a happy retreat.”

Then, again without a word, but with that same inclination of his head, he went swiftly across the room and was gone.

It was all completely unexpected, and Monsignor sat a few minutes, astonished, without moving. He had not uttered a syllable; and yet, in a sense, that seemed quite natural. He had seen the monk look at him keenly as he came in, and was aware that this had been an inspection by some new kind of expert. Probably the monk had heard the outlines of the case from Father Jervis, and had just looked in this morning, not only to give his instructions, but to ratify by some peculiar kind of intuition the account he had heard. Yet the ignominy of it all did not touch him in the least. He felt more than ever like a child in the hands of an expert, and, like a child, content to be so. Conventions and the mutual little flatteries of the world outside appeared meaningless here. . . .

He said some Office presently, and then set out to explore his ground.

The room he was in communicated with a lobby outside, from which a staircase descended to a little cloistered and glazed ambulatory opening on to the garden. Another staircase rose to a door obviously leading to the roof. Besides the bedroom door there were two others: the one which he entered first took him into a little sitting-room also looking on to the garden, and furnished simply with a table, an easy chair, and a few books; the other opened directly on to a tiny gallery looking out sideways upon a perfectly plain sanctuary, with a stone altar, a lamp, and a curtained tabernacle, which seemed to be a chapel of some church whose roof only was visible beyond a high closed screen. He knelt here a minute or two, then he passed back again to the lobby and ascended the staircase leading to the roof. He thought that from here he might form some idea as to the place in which he was.

The flat roof, tiled across, and guttered so as to allow the rainwater to escape, at first seemed closed in on all sides with walls over six feet high. Then he perceived that each wall was pierced with a tiny double window, so contrived that it was possible to see out easily and comfortably without being seen. He went straight to one of these and looked through.

As far as he could see stretched what looked like the roofs of a great town, for the most part flattish, but broken here and there, and especially towards the horizon, by tall buildings pierced with windows, and in three or four cases by church towers. Immediately beneath him lay a vast courtyard like that of a college, with a cluster of elms, ruddy with autumn colours, in the midst of the central lawn. There was no human being in sight on this side; the roofs, many of them parapeted like his own, stretched out into the distance, their ranks here and there broken by lines which appeared to indicate roadways running beneath. He saw a couple of cats on the grass below.

On all sides, as he went from window to window of the little roofless space, there was the same kind of prospect. In one direction he thought he recognized the way he must have come last night; and, looking more carefully, noticed that the town seemed to be less extended in that direction. Half a mile away the roofs ceased, standing up against a mass of foliage that blotted out all beyond. It was here that he caught sight of a man—a white figure that crossed a patch of road that curved into sight and out again.

It was extraordinarily still in this Religious town. Certainly there were a few sounds; a noise of far-off hammering came from somewhere and presently ceased. Once he heard a door close and footsteps on stone that faded into silence; once he heard the cry of a cat, three or four times repeated; and once, all together, from every direction at once, sounded bells, each striking one stroke.

He began to walk up and down after a while, marvelling, trying to reconstruct his ideas once more, and to take in the astonishing system and organization whose signs were so evident about him. Certainly it was thorough and efficient. There must be countless institutions—hospitals, retreat-houses, cloisters, besides all the offices and business centres necessary for carrying on this tremendous work; and yet practically no indication of any movement or bustle made itself apparent. So far as solitude was concerned, he might be imprisoned in a dead city. And all this deepened his impressions of peace and recuperation. The silence, through his knowledge, was alive to him. There must be, almost within sound of a shout, hundreds of living persons like himself, yet all intent, in some form or another, upon that same overwhelming silence in which facts could be received and relations readjusted.

Yet even this, as he reflected upon it, had certain elements of terror. Here again, under another disguise, was the force that he had feared in London—the force that had sent Dom Adrian noiselessly out of life, that proposed to deal with refractory instincts in human nature—such as manifested themselves in Socialism—as a householder might deal with a plague of mice, drastically and irresistibly; the force that moved the wheels and drove the soundless engines of that tremendous social-religious machine of which he too was a part. It was here too then; it was this that had closed him in here for three days in his tiny domicile in this great dumb city; it was this that held the whole under an invisible discipline; it was this that had looked at him out of the hawk’s-eyes, and spoken to him through the colourless lips of the monk who had given him his instructions this morning. . . .

Once more then his individuality began to reassert itself, and to attempt to cast off the spell even of this peace that promised relief. He became aware of an extraordinary loneliness of soul, an isolation in the deepest regions of his soul from all others. The rest of the world, it seemed, had an understanding about these matters. Father Jervis and the Carthusian no doubt had talked him over; they accepted as an established and self-evident philosophy this universal unity and authority; they regarded himself, who could not yet so accept it, as a spiritual, if not an actual mental invalid. . . . He had been brought here to be treated. . . . Well, he would hold his own.

And then another mood came on him—a temptation, as it seemed to him then, to fling personal responsibility overboard; to accept this tremendous claim of authority to control even the thoughts of the heart. Surely peace lay this way. To submit to this crowned and sceptred Christ; to reject for ever the other—this meant relief and sanity. . . .

He walked more and more quickly and abruptly up and down the little tiled space. He was conscious of a conflict all confused with dust and smoke. He began to hesitate as to which was the higher, even which was the tolerable course—to sink his individuality, to throw up his hands and drown, or to assert that individuality openly and defiantly, and to take the consequences.

V

He awoke the next morning after a troubled night, conscious instantly of a sense of crisis. In one way or another, it seemed, he would have to come to a decision. The monk would be with him in less than an hour.

He dressed as before and breakfasted. Then, as the monk did not come, he went out to the tribune to pray and to prepare himself.

Ten minutes later the door opened quietly, and the lay-brother who had attended on him bowed to him as he turned, in sign that he was to come.

The monk was standing by the fireplace as he came in; he bowed very slightly. Then the two sat down.

“Tell me why you have come here, Monsignor.”

The prelate moistened his lips. He was aware again of an emotion that was partly terror and partly confidence. And there was mixed with it, too, an extraordinary sense of simplicity. Conventionalities were useless here, he saw; he was expected to say what was in his heart, but at first he dared not.

“I . . . I was recommended to come,” he said. “My friends thought

I needed a little rest.”

The other nodded gently. He was no longer looking straight at him, the secular priest was relieved to see.

“Yes? And what form does it take?”

Still the patient hesitated. He began a sentence or two, and stopped again.

Then the monk lifted his great head and looked straight at him.

“Be quite simple, Monsignor,” he said, “you need fear nothing.

You are here to be helped, are you not? Then tell me plainly.”

Monsignor got up suddenly. It seemed to him that he must move about. He felt restless, as a man who has lived in twilight might feel upon coming out into sudden brilliant and healthful sunlight. He began to walk to and fro. The other said nothing, but the restless man felt that the eyes were watching and following every movement. He reflected that it was unfair to be stared at by eyes that were grey, outlined in black, and crossed by straight lids. Then he summoned his resolution.

“Father,” he said, “I am unhappy altogether.”

“Yes? (Sit down, please, Monsignor.)”

He sat down, and leaned his forehead on his hands.

“You are unhappy altogether,” repeated the monk. “And what form does that unhappiness take?”

Monsignor lifted his face.

“Father,” he said, “you know about me? You know about my history? . . . My memory?”

“Yes, I know all that. But it is not that which makes you unhappy?”

“No,” cried the priest suddenly and impulsively, “it is not that. I wish to God it were! I wish to God my memory would leave me again!”

“Quietly, please.”

But the other paid no attention.

“It is . . . it is the world I am living in—this brutal world…. Father, help me.”

The monk drew a breath and leaned back, and his movement had the effect of a call for silence. Neither spoke for a moment.

Then——

“Just tell me quite simply, from the beginning,” said the monk.

VI

It was nearly half an hour later that Monsignor ended, and leaned back, at once exhausted and excited. He had said it all—he had said even more than he had previously formulated to himself. Now and then, as he paused, the monk with a word or two, or a strangely compelling look, had soothed or encouraged him. And he had told the whole thing—the sense that there was no longer any escape from Christianity, that it had dominated the world, and that it was hateful and tyrannical in its very essence. He confessed that logic was against him, that a wholly Christian society must protect itself, that he saw no way of evading the consequences that he had witnessed; and yet that his entire moral sense revolted against the arguments of his head. It seemed to him, he said in effect, as if he were held in a grip which outraged his whole sentiment; as if the universe itself were in a conspiracy against him. For there was wanting, he said, exactly that which was most characteristic of Christianity, exactly that which made it divine—a heavenly patience and readiness to suffer. The cross had been dropped by the Church, he said, and shouldered by the world.

The monk sat silent a moment or two, as motionless as he had been at the beginning. Monsignor perceived by now, even through his fierce agitation, that this man never moved except for a purpose; he made no gestures when he spoke; he turned his head or lifted his eyes only when it was necessary. Then the monk’s voice began again, level and unemotional:

“A great deal of what you say, Monsignor, is merely the effect of a nervous strain. A nervous strain means that the emotional or the receptive faculties gain an undue influence over the reasonable intelligence. You admit that the logic is flawless, yet that fact does not reassure you, as it would if you were in a normal condition.”

“But——”

“Wait, please, till I have done. I know what you wish to say. It is that your sense of protest is not merely sentimental, but rather moral; is it not so?”

Monsignor nodded. It was precisely what he had wished to say.

“That is not true, however. It is true that your moral sense seems outraged, but the reason is that you have not yet all the data (the moral sense is a department of the reason, remember). Well, you admit the logic of society’s defending itself; but it seems to you that that which is, as you very properly said, the divine characteristic of Christianity—I mean, readiness to suffer rather than to inflict suffering—is absent from the world; that the cross, as you said again, has been dropped by the Church.

“Now, if you will reflect a moment, you will see that it is very natural that that should appear so, in a world that is overwhelmingly Christian. It is very natural that there should not be persecution of Christians, for example, since there is no one to persecute them; and therefore that you should see only the rights of the Church to rule, and not its divine prerogative of pain. But I suppose that if you saw the opposite, if you were to watch the other process, and see that the Church is still able to suffer, and to accept suffering, in a manner in which the world is never capable of suffering, I imagine you would be reassured.”

Monsignor drew a long breath.

“I thought so. . . . Well, does not the Contemplative Life reassure you? And are you aware that in Ireland alone there are four millions of persons wholly devoted to the Contemplative Life? And that, so great is the rush of vocations, the continent of Europe——”

“No,” cried the priest harshly. “Voluntary suffering is not the same thing. . . . I . . . I long to see Christians suffering at the hands of the world.”

“You mean that you are doubtful as to how they would bear it?”

“Yes.”

The monk smiled, slowly and brilliantly, and there was a look of such serene confidence in his face that the other was amazed.

“Well . . .” he paused again. “Well, I take it that we have laid our finger upon what it is that troubles you. You admit that the Christian States have a right to punish all who attack the very foundations of their stability——”

“No-I——”

“By your reason, I mean, Monsignor.”

“Yes,” said Monsignor slowly. “By my reason.”

“But that you are not satisfied that the Church can still suffer; that it seems to you she has lost that which is of her very essence. If you saw that, you would be content.”

“I suppose so,” said the other hesitatingly.

The monk rose abruptly.

“We have talked enough for to-day,” he said. “You will kindly spend the rest of the day as yesterday. Do not say Mass in the morning. I will be with you at the same time.”

VII

It was on the last morning of their stay at Thurles that Monsignor had an opportunity of seeing something of the real character of the place.

The lay monk came to him again, as he was finishing breakfast, and abruptly suggested it.

“I shall be very happy,” said Monsignor.

Certainly his stay had done him good in some indefinable manner which he could not altogether understand. Each morning he had talked; but there was no particular argument which he could recall that had convinced him. Indeed, the monk had told him more than once that bare intellectual argument could do nothing except clear the ground of actual fallacies. Certainly the points had been put to him clearly and logically. He perceived now that, so far as reason was concerned, Christian society could not do otherwise than silence those who attacked the very foundations of its existence; and he also understood that this was completely another matter from the charge that men had been accustomed to bring against the Church, that she “would persecute if she had the power.” For it was not the Church in any sense that used repression; it was the State that did so; and as Dom Adrian had pointed out, this was of the very essence of all civil government. But this was not new to him. Rather his stay in Thurles had, by quieting his nervous system, made it possible for him to elect to follow his reason rather than his feelings. His feelings were as before. Still in the bottom of his consciousness he felt that the Christ which he had known was other than the Christ who now reigned on earth. But now he had been enabled to make the decision over which he had previously hesitated; he had sufficiently recovered at least so far as to go back to his work and to do what seemed to be the duty to which his reason pointed, and in action at least to ignore his feelings. This much had been done. He did not yet understand by what means.

A car waited in the little court to which the two came down. The monk beckoned him to enter, and they moved off.

“This quarter of the monastery,” began the monk abruptly, “is entirely of the nature you have seen. It is composed of flats and apartments throughout, for the simple retreats, such as your own. Each Father who is employed in this kind of work has his round of visits to make each day.”

“How many monks are there altogether, Father, in Thurles?”

“About nine thousand.”

“. . I beg your pardon?”

“About nine thousand. Of these about six thousand live a purely Contemplative Life. No monk undertakes any work of this kind until he has been professed at least fifteen years. But the regulations are too intricate to explain just now.”

“Where are we going first——”

“Stay, Monsignor” (the monk interrupted him by a hand on his arm). “We are just entering the northern quarter. It is the serious cases that are dealt with here.”

“Serious?”

“Yes; where there is a complete breakdown of mental powers. That building there is the first of the block of the gravest cases of all—real mania.”

Monsignor leaned forward to look.

They were passing noiselessly along the side of a great square; but there was nothing to distinguish the building indicated from the rest. It just stood there, a tall pile of white stone; and the top of a campanile rose above it.

“You have worked there, Father?”

“I worked there for two years,” said the monk tranquilly. “It is distressing work at first. Would you care to look in?”

Monsignor shook his head.

“Yes, it is distressing work, but there are great consolations. Two out of every three cases at least are cured, and we have a certain number of vocations from the patients.”

“Vocations!”

“Certainly. Mania in the majority of cases is nothing else than possession. In fact some authorities are inclined to say that it is exceptional to find it otherwise. And in the other cases it is generally the force of an exceptionally strong will that has lost its balance, and is powerful enough to disregard all ordinary checks of reason and common sense and human emotion. Well, a character like that is capable of a good deal. Each case is, of course, completely isolated in this department as in all others. It is incredible to think that less than a hundred years ago such patients were herded together. The system now, of course, is to surround them with completely healthy conditions and completely self-restrained attendants. That gradually rebuilds the physical and nervous conditions, and exorcism is not administered until there is sufficient reserve force for the patient partly, at any rate, to cooperate.”

Monsignor was silent. Again he felt bewilderment at the amazing simplicity and common sense of it all.

“I am taking you,” said the monk presently, “to the central quarter—to the monastery proper. It is there that the main body of the monks live. The church is remarkable. It is the third largest monastic church in the world. . . . We are just entering the quarter now,” he added.

Monsignor leaned forward as the air darkened, and was in time to see the great gates swinging slowly together again as if to meet after the car had passed. It was still twilight as they sped on, and he perceived that they were passing, with that extreme and noiseless swiftness with which they had come, up some kind of tunnel lit by artificial light. Then again there was a rush of daylight and the car stopped.

“We must go on foot here,” said the monk, and opened the door.

The priest, still marvelling, stepped out after him, and followed through a postern door; and then, as he emerged, understood more or less the arrangement of the buildings.

He stood on the edge of an enormous courtyard, perhaps five hundred yards across. This was laid down with a lawn, crossed in every direction with paved paths. But that at which he chiefly stared was a church whose like he had never set eyes on before. It was the sanctuary end, obviously, that faced him; the farther end ran back into the high walls, pierced here and there by low doors, with which the court was surrounded. The church itself rose perhaps two hundred feet from floor to roof. It was straight from end to end, the line broken only by a tall, severe tower at the point where it joined the wall of the court; and running round it, jutting out in a continuous block, like a platform, was a low building, plainly containing chapels. The whole was of white stone, unrelieved by carving of any kind. Enormous narrow lancet windows showed above the line of chapels, springing perhaps forty feet from the ground, and rising to a line immediately below the roof. The whole gave an impression of astounding severity and equally astounding beauty. It had the kind of beauty of a perfectly bare mountain or of an iceberg. It was graceful and yet as strong as iron; it was cold, and yet obviously alive.

“Yes,” said the monk, as they went across the court, “It is impressive, is it not? It is the monastic church proper. It can hold, if necessary, ten thousand monks. But you will see when we look in.

“The court we are now in is surrounded by cloisters. There are just nine thousand cells; there are, perhaps, fifty unoccupied now. Each cell, as you know, is a little house in itself, with three or four rooms and a garden; so we need space. The cemeteries are beyond the cloisters. We bury, as you know, in the bare earth without a coffin.”

It was like the creation of a dream, thought the priest as he walked with his guide, listening to the quiet talk. He had seen some of these facts in the book that Father Jervis had lent him; but they had meant little to him. Now he began to understand, and once more a kind of inexplicable terror began to affect him.

But as, five minutes later, he stood in the high western gallery of the church, and saw that enormous place stretching beyond calculation to where thin clear glass sanctuary windows rose in a group, like sword-blades, above the white pavement before the altar; as he saw the ranks of stalls running up, tier above tier, and understood that, all told, they numbered ten thousand, one third of them on this side of the screen, in the lay brothers’ choir, and two thirds beyond; as he imagined what it must be to watch this congregation of elect souls stream in, each with his lantern in his hand, through the countless doors that ended each little narrow gangway that disappeared among the stalls; as he pictured the thunder of the unemotional Carthusian plain-song—as he saw all this with his bodily eyes standing silent beside the silent monk, and began little by little to take in what it all meant, and what this world must be in which such a condition of things was accepted—a world where Contemplatives at last were honoured as the kings of the earth, and themselves controlled and soothed the lives of whom the world had despaired; as his imagination ran out still farther, and he remembered that this was but one of innumerable houses of the kind—as he began to be aware of all this, and of what it signified as regards the civilization in which he found himself—his terror began to pass, and to give place to an awe, and to a kind of exaltation, such as neither Rome nor Lourdes nor London had been able even to suggest. . . .

VIII

“Well?” said Father Jervis, smiling, as the two met on the platform that evening, to wait for the English-bound air-ship.

Monsignor looked at him.

“I am glad I came,” he said. “No; it is not all well with me, even yet. But I will try again.”

The other nodded, still smiling.

“Who was the Father who looked after me?” added the prelate. “He said he had talked with you.”

“He is considered one of the best they have,” said the other “I asked for him specially. He hardly ever fails. You are impressed by him?”

“Oh yes . . . but he did nothing particular.”

“That is just it,” smiled the old priest. He added after a pause, as the bell rang—

“You feel ready for work again? You know what lies before you?”

Monsignor nodded slowly.

“You mean the Establishment of the Church? . . . Yes; I am ready.”

CHAPTER V

I

The scheme had been in the air for nearly two years, as Monsignor learned from his papers; and for the last month or two had come more to the front than ever. But he had not realized how close it was.

It was at the end of October that the Cardinal sent for him and revealed two more facts. The first was that it was the intention of His Majesty’s Government to appoint a Commission to consider once more the Establishment of Catholicism as the State religion of England; and the second was that secret negotiations had been proceeding now for the last eight months between China, Japan, the Persian Empire, and Russia, as to the formal recognition of the Pope as Arbitrator of the East.

“Both points,” said the Cardinal, “are absolutely sub sigillo until you hear of them from other sources. And I need not tell you, Monsignor, that they have the very strongest mutual effects.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Think it over,” said the Cardinal, and waved him pleasantly away.

From that time forward, as week followed week, the work became enormous. He was present at interviews of which he understood not more than one half of the allusions; yet with that extraordinary skill of which he was made aware by the compliments of the Cardinal and of his own friends, he showed never a sign of his ignorance. Papers constantly passed under his hands, disclosing to him the elaborate preparations that had already been made on the part of the State authorities; and questions on various points of discipline were continually submitted to him, at the bearing of which he could only guess.

It seemed to him remarkable that so much fuss should be made upon what was by now almost entirely a matter of form, since by the restoration of Catholic property, recognition of Church courts, and a hundred other details, as well as by the affection of the people, the Church already enjoyed supreme power.

He put this once, lightly, to Father Jervis.

“The public is affected by forms much more than by principles,” said that priest, smiling. “They have already accepted the principles; but even at the eleventh hour they might take fright at the forms.”

“Do you mean it is possible that a Bill, if it was brought forward, might not pass?”

“Certainly it’s possible. Otherwise, why haven’t we had a Commission appointed? The Socialists aren’t beaten yet. But it’s not likely; or the Bill wouldn’t be brought forward at all.”

The prelate said nothing.

II

It was not until a few days before Christmas that the

Cardinal was sent for.

At the beginning of the month the Commission had been appointed by an overwhelming majority in the House. The proposal had been brought forward suddenly by the Government, and with a speed and an employment of business-like methods that seemed very strange to the man who had lost his memory, and who still had hanging about him a curious atmosphere of earlier days, the Commission had despatched an immense amount of work within three weeks.

It was impossible to know how far negotiations had got; but even the Cardinal himself was taken by surprise when he received an invitation to attend the sitting of the Commission. He sent for Monsignor Masterman at once.

“You will attend me, Monsignor, please. I shall have to appear alone, but I should like you to be at hand.”

It was with very much confused emotions that Monsignor found himself, a day or two later, walking up and down a corridor in the House of Representatives. He had arrived with the Cardinal, had gone up the broad staircase behind him, and had followed him even into the committee-room. A long table faced him as he entered, and he noticed with an odd little thrill how every man sitting there, from the white-faced, white-haired man at the head, down to the clean-shaven, clever-looking young man nearest the door, had risen as the two ecclesiastics came in. The table, he noticed, was strewed with papers. An empty chair stood at the lower end of the table—a red chair, he saw, with gilded wood.

The Cardinal sat down. The rest sat down, all in silence. Monsignor placed the despatch-box in front of his chief, opened it, laid a few books in order, and went out. . . .

Even now, in spite of all the knowledge that he had, and the constant contemplation of the cold facts of the case, it seemed to him, as on a dozen occasions before since his lapse of memory, as if life were not so real as it seemed. Somewhere, down in the very fibre of him, was an assumption that England and Catholicism were irreconcilable things—that the domination of the one meant the suppression of the other. Certainly history was against him. For more than a thousand years Church and State in England had been partners. It was but for four hundred years—and those years of confusion and of the gradual elimination of the supernatural—that the two had been at cross-purposes. Was it not historically certain therefore that, should the Supernatural ever be reaccepted in all its force, a partnership should again spring up between a State that needed a Divine authority behind its own, and the sole Institution which was not afraid to stand out for the Supernatural with all its consequences? Theology was against him; for if there was anything that theology taught explicitly, it was that the soul was naturally Christian, and therefore imperfect without the full Christian Revelation.

And yet, as he walked, he was disturbed. The proposed Establishment of the Church by the State appeared to him uncharacteristic of both—of the Church, since he still tended to think that she must in her essence be at war with the world; of the State, since he still tended to think that that too, in its essence, must be at war with religion. In spite of what he had seen, he had not yet grasped with his imagination that which both experience and intellect justified as true—namely, that it is the function of the Church to guide the world, and the highest wisdom of the world to organize itself on a supernatural basis.

He walked up and down, saying nothing. At one end of the long corridor a couple of secretaries whispered together on a settee; at the other he saw passing and repassing hurrying figures that went about their business. Doors opened occasionally, and a man came out; once or twice he saluted an acquaintance. But all the while his attention remained fixed upon the door numbered XI, behind which this quietly significant affair proceeded. The whole place seemed a very temple of stillness. The thick carpet underfoot, the noiseless doors, the admirable system of the place—all contributed to create a great solemnity.

He tried to remind himself that he was present at the making of history, but it was useless. Again and again, as, with an effort, he forced the principles before his mind, his attention whirled off to a detail—to a contemplation of his chief taking his seat in the House of Lords, and to the fabric of the carpet on which he walked; to the silent whisper of one of the two conversational secretaries; to a wonder as to the form of prayer with which the first professedly Catholic Parliament in England for more than four hundred years would open.

Then he checked himself, reminded himself of certain old proverbs about cups and hares, reflected that Socialism was not beaten yet (in Father Jervis’s phrase), as recent events in Germany had shown. . . .

Once as he turned at the end of the corridor farthest from the secretaries, an interesting little incident happened. A door opened abruptly, and a man coming out quickly almost ran against him. Then the man took off his hat and smiled.

“I beg your pardon, Monsignor . . . I . . . I can guess your business here.”

Monsignor smiled too, a little guiltily. He recognized the

Socialist leader who had called on him a few months before.

“Yes: and I’m afraid you don’t approve,” he said.

Mr. Hardy made a little deprecatory gesture, still holding his hat in his hand.

“Oh! I’m a believer in majorities,” he said. “And there’s no doubt you have the majority. But——”

“Yes?”

“I hope you will be merciful. That is your Gospel, you know.”

“You think we have the majority?”

“Oh, certainly. The enfranchisement of women settled all that.

They are always clerical, you know.”

Monsignor felt the point prick him. He riposted gently.

“Well, you will have to take refuge in Germany,” he said.

The face of the other changed a little; his eyelids came down just a fraction.

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do, Monsignor—I—but I think there’s somebody wanting you.”

Monsignor turned. There was a hand beckoning him from behind a face, as if in agitation, from the entrance to door No. XI.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, and hurried off.

“I thought you’d like to be present at the end, Monsignor,” whispered the member who had beckoned him. “The Cardinal is just speaking.”

Committee room number XI seemed strangely quiet, as the prelate slipped in behind his friend and stood motionless. One voice was speaking; and, as he tried to catch the sense, he looked round the faces, that were all turned in his direction. He saw Mr. Manners on the extreme left.

Every man sat without moving, simply listening, it seemed, with an extraordinary attention; some leaning forward, some back, with the papers disregarded on the table. A couple of recording machines stood now in the centre. Then he began to catch the words. . . .

“I think, gentlemen,” said the voice from behind the high-backed chair, “that I need say no more. We have discussed at length, and I hope to your satisfaction, the particular points on which you desired information: and my answers have brought out, I think, the essence of all the conditions on which alone the Church can accept the terms proposed.

“I wish it to be brought before the House, perfectly clearly, that in her own province the Church must be supreme. She must have an entire and undisputed right over her own doctrine and discipline; for that is at the root of her only claim to be heard. In respect to any legislation which, in her opinion, touches the eternal principles of morality—in all such things, for example, as the marriage law—her supreme authority must be respected; as well as in all those other matters of the same nature upon which you have questioned me.

“But on the other side the Church recognizes, and always will recognize, the right of a free people to govern themselves; and, not only recognizes that right, but will support it with all the power at her command. I have acknowledged that in a few instances in history ecclesiastics have interfered unduly with what did not concern them—interfered, that is, not as citizens (for that is their right, in common with all other citizens)—but in the Name of Religion. Now that, gentlemen, is simply a thing of the past. If secular rulers have learned by experience, so have ecclesiastical rulers. . . . I have invited investigation into the history of the last hundred years; and I have answered those few charges that have been brought—I hope to your satisfaction.” (There was a murmur of applause.)

“In secular matters, therefore, the Church will be wholly on the side of liberty. Ecclesiastical authorities, for example, would be the first to welcome a repeal of legislation as regards heresy; but, on the other hand, we fully recognize the right of a secular State to protect itself, even by the death penalty, against those who threaten the existence of the sanctions on which a secular State takes its stand. We recognize her right, I say; but I do not mean by that that you will not find a majority of ecclesiastics who hold that it is, to put it mildly, a deplorable policy and very imperfectly Christian.

“However, I have said all this before, both in public and now again in answer to your questions; and I think that, at any rate so far as I am concerned, I shall not be to blame if the nation accepts the proposed change under a misapprehension.

“You see, gentlemen, the attempt that ended fifty years ago—the attempt that was called in its day Protestantism—to establish a religion which was to be secondary in any sense to the State, failed and failed lamentably, in spite of the noble lives that were spent in labouring for such a compromise. For it is the whole essence of a Supernatural Religion to be supreme in it own province—the very adjective asserts it; and any endeavour to compromise on this entirely vital point is in itself a denial of the principle, For a while this was not perceived. Men regarded the Christian Church—or rather, that which they took to be the Christian Church—merely, on its earthly side, as an organization comparable to a State. They did not seem to see that Religion must always have a wider basis than any secular body, since it deals with eternity as well as with time, while the State, professedly, treats only of temporal things. The consequence was either conflict, whenever supernatural elements clashed with natural; or else the subservience of Religion, and its consequent loss of prestige, as well as of its supernatural character. A National Church, therefore, is a contradiction in terms, since it asserts that that which is in its very nature larger than this world must yet be confined within the limits not only of this world, but even of a part of it. . . . Well, I need not labour that point. You grasped it, gentlemen, even before you were good enough to ask me to give evidence before this Commission. I felt it, however, only right that such conditions should be reiterated and recorded before matters went any farther.

“The Church, therefore, is perfectly content to remain as she has always remained in this country for the last four centuries—a free society governing the consciences of her children. Or she is content to take outwardly and officially that position which she has always, at least tacitly, claimed, and to reassume her civil dignity and her civil responsibilities. But she is not content to waive any of those Divine Rights with which her Founder endowed her, even in return for the greatest privileges; still less is she content to receive those privileges under false pretences. . . .”

Again the low murmur of applause broke out, and three or four men shifted their positions slightly.

Monsignor was conscious again, suddenly and vividly, of that double sense of unreality and of intense drama which he had felt so often before at critical moments. It seemed to him amazing, and yet more amazingly simple, that such claims should be put in such words under such circumstances. It was astounding that such things should be said, and yet more astounding that they needed to be said, for were they not, after all, the very elements of civil and religious relations? . . .

There was something too in the voice of the invisible speaker that thrilled his very heart. The tones were completely tranquil, there were no gestures, and the very face that spoke was unseen. Yet in the quiet fluency, the note of absolute assurance, there was a dominating appeal that was almost hypnotic in its effect. He had perceived this characteristic of the Cardinal often before; he had noticed it first on that occasion on which, for the first time in his knowledge, he had come into his presence, still staggered by the shock of his mental failure and recovery. But he had never appreciated the strength of the personality so clearly. The Cardinal was no orator in the ordinary sense; there was no thunder or pathos or drama in his manner. But his complete assurance and the long, gentle, incisive sentences, moving like rollers in a calm sea, were more affecting than any passion could be. . . . It seemed to him now the very incarnation of that spirit of the Church that at once attracted and repelled him—in its serenity, its gentleness, its reasonableness, and its irresistible force.

Then, on a slightly higher note, and with a perceptible increase of deliberation, the voice went on.

“I must add one word, gentlemen.

“I said just now that the Church was content to be as she has recently been in this country—content, that is, so long as she continues to enjoy the liberty with which England endows her.

“And perhaps, as her chief minister in this country, I ought to say no more. But, gentlemen, I am an Englishman as well as a Catholic, and I love England only less than I love the Church. I say frankly that I do love her less. No man who has any principles that can be called religious can say otherwise. I tell you plainly that should it come to be a choice between Caesar and God—between the King and the Pope—I should throw myself at once on the side of Christ and his Vicar. . . .”

(Monsignor drew a breath. It seemed to him that this was appallingly plain speaking. He expected a murmur of remonstrance. He glanced at the faces, but there was no movement or change, except that a young member suddenly smiled, as with pleasure.)

“But I love England,” went on the voice, “passionately and devotedly. And in spite of what I said just now I must add that, as an Englishman, there is but one more thing that I desire for my country, and that is that she may carry out that project on whose account you, gentlemen, have met to-day.”

(Again a murmur of applause rose, and sank again instantly.)

“You have kindly asked me to make this little speech, and I do not wish to turn it into a sermon, but I must conclude by saying that, splendid as is the history of England in many points, there is one black blot upon the page, and that, the act of hers by which she renounced Christ’s Vicar, by whom kings reign. You have done justice at last in returning to us those possessions which our forefathers dedicated to God’s service. But there remains one more thing to do, formally and deliberately, as one kingdom, to return to Him who is King of kings. I know it will come some day. As individuals, Englishmen have already returned to Him. But a corporate crime must be expiated by corporate reparation, and it is that reparation which has already waited too long. I am an old man, gentlemen. That, no doubt, is why I have been so verbose, but my one prayer for the last thirty years has been that that corporate reparation may be made within my own lifetime. . . .”

The voice suddenly trembled.

Then the watcher saw the chair pushed back, and the little scarlet cap, covering the white hair, rise above it. Simultaneously every man rose to his feet.

“That is all, gentlemen.”

There was a moment’s silence.

Then the applause broke out. It was not loud or noisy, as there were scarcely two dozen men in the room, yet it was astonishingly affecting, just the tapping of hands on the table and a murmur of voices.

The Cardinal silenced it by a gesture.

“One word, gentlemen. . . . I have said nothing of any opposition. Perhaps it would have been better if I had. But I will only say this, and it is something of a warning too. I do not believe that this Bill that is spoken of will necessarily mean peace. I am aware of the dangers that are threatening; perhaps I am even more aware of them than any other person present. And yet, for all that, I am not in favour of delay.”

He turned suddenly, and with his long smooth step was at the door almost before Monsignor had time to open it and step aside. There was no time for any other man to speak.

The car had hardly moved off from the door before Monsignor turned to his chief.

“Your Eminence,” he said, “what was that about danger? I did not understand.”

The thin face was a little pale with the exertions of the speech, as it turned to him in answer.

“I will tell you that,” he said, “as soon as the Bill becomes law.”

CHAPTER VI

I

It was an astounding scene in which Monsignor found himself, six weeks later—extraordinary from the extreme quietness of it, and the enormous importance of the issue for which they waited.

The Cardinal and he had gone down to Lord Southminster’s house on the coast of Kent for three or four days to wait for the final news, as it was wished to avoid the possibility of any dangerous excitement on the night of the division; and it was thought that the Cardinal’s absence might be of service in preventing any formidable demonstration at Westminster. He was to return to London, in the event of the Bill passing, on the following morning.

The situation was as follows:

A completely unexpected opposition had showed itself as soon as the Bill was announced. It was perfectly well known that this opposition was almost entirely artificial; but it was so well engineered that there was grave doubt whether it might not affect the voting in the Lower House. The Upper House, it was notorious, was practically unanimous in favour of the Bill; and there had been one or two unpleasant demonstrations outside the entrance to the Second Chamber.

The opposition was artificial—that is to say, its activities were managed after the manner of a stage-army, and the protesters were largely German; but the crowds were so great, and the genuineness of their opposition, such as it was, so obvious, that very clear signs of wavering had become apparent, even on the part of some of the more prominent Ministers of the Crown. Twice, also, during public appearances of the King, who was well known as a strong advocate of the Bill, there had been considerable disturbances amongst the crowds.

All this had come, of course, to the ears of the ecclesiastical authorities far more forcibly than the world outside suspected. There had been threatening letters; twice the Cardinal’s carriage had been mobbed; a dozen well-known priests had been molested in the public streets. There had been meetings and consultations of all kinds; there had even been a moment when it seemed as if the Cardinal and the Prime Minister stood almost alone in their complete resolution. . . . It was not that any really responsible persons contemplated the abandonment of the Bill; but a party had almost been formed for its postponement, in the hope that when once the opposition had been dissolved it would be difficult to reorganize it again. On the other hand, the resolutes stood for the assertion that just because things were really critical in Germany—(in the state of affairs that followed the Emperor’s conversion)—it was now the time for England to advance; that any hesitation shown now would be taken as a sign of weakness, and that the Socialists’ cause would be thereby enormously advanced.

Three or four results therefore were possible, from the determination of the Government to push the Bill forward and to present it for its second reading this evening. First, it might pass triumphantly, if the leaders could succeed in inspiring their followers with confidence. Secondly, it might be rejected, if the panic spread; for, under the new parliamentary system that had succeeded fifty years ago to the old Party Government, it was impossible to reckon accurately on how members would ultimately vote. Thirdly, it might pass with a narrow majority; and in this event, it was certain that a very long delay would follow before the Upper House would have an opportunity of handing it on for the Royal assent. Fourthly—well, almost anything else might happen, if the crowd, assembled in Parliament Square, and swelled every hour by new arrivals, showed itself predominantly hostile. . . .

Lord Southminster’s house needs no description. It is probably, even to-day, as well known as any place in England: there is no guide book which does not give at least three or four pages to the castle, as well as a few lines to the tiny historical seaside village beneath from which the marquisate derives its name. And it was in the little dining-room that adjoined the hall that the man who had lost his memory found himself on this evening with half a dozen other men and a couple of ladies.

It was a small octagonal room, designed in one of the towers that looked out over the sea; panelled in painted wood and furnished with extreme plainness. On one side a door opened upon the three little parlours that were used when the party was small; at the back a lobby led into the old hall itself; on the third side was the door used by the servants.

Lord Southminster himself was still a young man, who had not yet married. His grandfather had become a Catholic in the reign of Edward VII; and the whole house had reverted to the old religion under which it had been originally built, with the greatest ease and grace. The present owner was one of the rising politicians who were most determined to carry the Bill through; and he had already made for himself something of a reputation by his speeches in the Upper House. Monsignor had met him half a dozen times already, and thoroughly liked this fair-haired, clean-shaven young man who was such a devoted adherent of the Catholic cause.

A little silence had fallen after old Lady Southminster and her sister had gone out, and it had been curious to notice how little had been said during dinner of the event that was proceeding in London.

Half a dozen times already since they had sat down a silent man in the black gown of a secretary had slipped in with a printed slip of paper and laid it before the Marquis and then disappeared again, and it was astonishing how the conversation had ceased on the instant, as the paper was read and passed round.

These messages had not been altogether reassuring.

The first was timed at 8.13, London, and had been read before the clock chimed the quarter-past. It ran:

“MEMBERS ARE ARRIVING AFTER DINNER. HAZELTON MOBBED IN THE SQUARE.”

The second, ten minutes later, ran:

“FOUR TITANIC-LINE BOATS FROM GERMANY REPORTED IN SIGHT. CORDON OF POLICE-VOLORS COMPLETED.”

The third:

“MOB REPORTED DIRECTION OF HAMPSTEAD. THE PRIME MINISTER HAS BEGUN HIS SPEECH. HOUSE FULL.”

The fourth, fifth, and sixth contained abstracts from the speech, and added that it was becoming increasingly difficult to hear, owing to the noise from outside.

Twenty minutes had now elapsed and no further message had been received.

Monsignor looked up at the Victorian clock over the carved mantelpiece and glanced at his host. The young man’s eyes met his own.

“It’s twenty-five past nine,” said Lord Southminster.

The Cardinal looked up. He had not spoken for three or four minutes, but otherwise had shown no signs of discomposure.

“And the last message was just after nine?” he said.

The other nodded.

“What time is the division expected?”

“Not before midnight. Three guns will be fired, as I said, your Eminence, as soon as the division has taken place. We shall know before my secretary will have time to cross the hall.”

Again there was silence.

Outside the night was quiet. The village itself lay, spread out above the beach, a hundred feet below the windows, and the only sound was the steady lap and splash of the rollers upon the shingle. The place was completely protected by the Southminster estate from any encroachment of houses, and even the station itself lay half a mile away inland.

Monsignor looked again at the faces of those who sat with him. Opposite was Lord Southminster himself in the ordinary quiet evening dress of his class, his guild-badge worn, as the custom was, like a star on his left breast. His face showed nothing except an air of attention; there was no excitement in it, nor even suspense. On his right sat the Cardinal in his scarlet. He was smiling gravely to himself, and his lips moved slightly now and then. At this moment he was playing gently with a walnut-shell that lay on his plate. The three others showed more signs of excitement. Old General Hartington, who could remember being taken to London to see the festivities at the coronation of George V, was leaning back in his chair frowning. (He had been reminiscent this evening in a rather voluble manner, but had not uttered a word now for five minutes.) The chaplain had shifted round in his chair, watching the door, and the sixth man, a cousin of the host, who, Monsignor understood, held some responsible post in the Government volor service, was sitting just now with his head in his hands.

Still no one spoke.

The cousin pushed back his chair suddenly and went to the window.

“Well, Jack?” said the host.

“Nothing—just going to have a look at the weather.”

He stood there, having pulled back the curtain a little and unlatched the shutter, looking out through the glass.

Then Lord Southminster’s reserve broke down.

“If it’s not done to-night,” he said abruptly, “God only knows——Well, well.”

“It will be done to-night,” said the Cardinal, still without lifting his eyes.

“Certainly, your Eminence, if nothing interferes; but how can we be sure of that? I know the Government means business.”

“It’s half an hour since the last message,” observed the General.

Lord Southminster got up suddenly and went to the lobby-door. As he went the door into the parlours opened and his mother looked in.

“Any more news, my son?”

“No, mother. I was just going to ask.”

The old lady came forward as her son went out—a splendid old creature in her lace and jewels—active still and upright in spite of her years. She made a little gesture as the men offered to move, and went and leaned by the old-fashioned open fire-place, such as her husband had put in at the restoration throughout the house.

“Your Eminence, can you reassure us?” she said, smiling.

The Cardinal, too, smiled as he turned in his chair.

“I am confident the Bill will pass,” he said. “But I do not know yet what the price will be.”

“Your Eminence means in England? Or elsewhere?” asked the chaplain abruptly.

“In England and elsewhere, father.”

Old Lady Jane Morpeth appeared at this moment, and the two ladies sat down on the high oak settle that screened the fire from the window. They showed no signs of anxiety; but Monsignor perceived that their return at all to this room just now was significant. Simultaneously the young man came in again, closing the door behind him.

“Our enquiries are not answered,” he said sharply. “We are trying to get into touch with another office.”

No one spoke for a minute. Even to Monsignor, who still found it hard always to understand the communication-system of the time, it was obvious that something must have happened. He knew that Southminster Castle had been put into wireless touch with the great Marconi office in Parliament Square, and that a failure to be answered meant that something unexpected had happened. But it was entirely impossible to conjecture for certain what this something might be.

“That is serious?” remarked Lady Southminster, without moving a muscle.

“I suppose so,” said her son, and sat down again.

Then the man who was looking out of the window turned and came back into the room, latching the shutters and putting the curtains into place.

“Well, Jack?” asked the General.

“I have counted eight or nine volors,” he said; “usually there are only two at this time. I went to look for them.”

“Which way?”

“Three this way and five the other.”

Monsignor did not dare to ask for an interpretation. But he was aware that the air of tenseness in the room tightened up still further.

The General got up.

“Southminster,” he said, “I think I’ll take a stroll outside if I may. One might see something, you know.”

“Go up to the keep, if you like. There’s a covered path most of the way up. There’s a look-out there, you know. I had one set in case the wireless failed. At any rate, they may see the rockets farther along the coast.”

Monsignor too stood up. His restlessness increased every moment, although he scarcely knew why.

“May I come with you too?” he said. “Will your Eminence excuse me?”

II

The two said nothing as they went out through the dimly lighted hall. Overhead hung the old banners in the high wooden roof; a great fire blazed on the hearth; and under the musician’s gallery at the farther end they saw the bright little window behind which sat the secretary.

They stopped here and peered in.

He was seated with his back to them before an instrument not altogether unlike an old-fashioned organ. A long row of black keys was in front of him; and half a dozen stops protruded on either side. Before him, in the front, a glass panel protected some kind of white sheet; and as the priest looked in he could see a movement as of small bluish sparks playing upon this. He had long ago made up his mind not to attempt to understand modern machinery; and he had no kind of idea what all this meant, beyond a guess that the keys were for sending messages, and the white sheet for receiving them.

“Any news?” said the General suddenly.

The secretary did not move or answer. His hands were before him, hidden, and he appeared entirely absorbed.

It must have been a minute before he turned round, drawing out as he did so from before him a slip of paper like those he had already brought in.

“This is from Rye, sir,” he said shortly. “They too have lost communication with Parliament Square. That is all, sir. I must take this in at once.”

The two passed on, still without speaking; and it was not until they were going slowly up the long covered staircase that ran inside the skirting wall that connected the keep with the more modern part of the castle that Monsignor began——

“I’m very ignorant,” he said. “Can you tell me the possibilities?”

The General paused before answering.

“Well,” he said, “the worst possibility is a riot, engineered by the Socialists. If that is successful, it means a certain delay of at least several years; and, at the worst, it means that the Socialists will increase enormously throughout Europe. And then anything may happen.”

“But I thought that all real danger was past, and that the

Socialists were discredited.”

“Certainly, in one sense. In every country, that is to say, they are in a negligible minority. But if all these minorities are added together, they are not negligible at all. The Cabinet has produced this Bill suddenly, as of course you know, in order to prevent any large Continental demonstration, as this would certainly have a tremendous effect upon England. But it seems that they’ve been organizing for months. They must have known this was coming . . .”

“And if the Socialists fail?”

“Well, then they’ll make their last stand in Germany. But you know this better than I do, Monsignor?”

“I know a good deal here and there,” confessed the other; “but I find it hard sometimes to combine it all. I had an illness, you know——”

“Ah, yes; yes.”

They paused for breath in an embrasure in the wall, where a section of a half-tower supported the wall, itself running down on to the cliff side. A couple of windows gave a view of the sea, now a dark gulf under the cloudy sky, sprinkled with a few moving lights, here and there, of vessels going up or down the Channel.

“And suppose the Bill passes?” began the priest.

“If the Bill passes, we need fear nothing in England if it passes with a good majority. You know Government is an extraordinarily delicate machine nowadays; and if the Bill goes through really well, it’ll be an infallible sign that the country refuses to take alarm. And if it fails, or only narrowly passes—well, it’ll be the other way. The whole work will have to be done again, or at least begun——”

He faced round suddenly.

“Monsignor,” he said, “I wouldn’t say this to everyone. But I tell you we’re at a very critical moment. These Socialists are stronger than any one dreamed. Their organization is simply perfect. Do you know any of them?”

“I have met Hardy.”

“That’s a brilliant man, you know.”

They talked no more during the rest of the ascent, until they emerged at last on to the top of the round keep, where the old bonfires used to burn, and where the old iron cradle, used even now at coronations and great national events, still thrust up its skeleton silhouette against the pale sky. To the priest’s surprise the silhouette was largely filled in.

A figure came towards them, saluted, and stood waiting.

“Eh? Who’s this?” snapped the General.

“The look out, sir. We’ve orders to watch Rye.”

“Why?”

“The wireless is out of communication, sir. His lordship arranged a week ago that there should be supplementary rockets.”

“Where are the guns?” asked Monsignor, who was looking about him, at the empty leads, the battlemented parapet against the sky, and then back at the servant’s figure.

“Down below, father. They’re to be fired from here if three white rockets go up.”

While the two others still talked, the priest went to the side and looked over, again suddenly overwhelmed by the strangeness of the whole position. Once again there came on him the sense of irresponsible unreality. . . . He stared out, hardly seeing that on which he looked: the grey mass of the lower castle beneath with lighted windows, at the blankness beyond, again with the scattered lights—the nearer ones, within what seemed a stone’s throw, along the village street—the farther ones, infinitely remote, out upon the invisible sea. There again too, far off across the land, shone another cluster of lights, seen rather as a luminous patch, that marked Rye. There too, eyes were watching; there too it was felt that interests were at stake, so vast and so unknown, that heaven or hell might be within their limits. He looked inland, and there too was darkness, but darkness unrelieved. Near at hand, immediately below the bounding walls, rose up the dark swelling outlines that he knew to be the woods of the park, crowding up against the very castle walls themselves; and beyond, dimness after dimness, to meet the sky. . . .

It seemed to him incredible, as he looked, that things of such moment should be under way, somewhere beyond that sleeping country; and yet, as his eyes grew accustomed to the night, he could make out at last a faint glow in the sky to the north that marked the outskirts of that enormous city of which he was a citizen, where such matters even now were approaching a decision.

For it was only little by little that he had become aware that a real crisis was at hand. The Cardinal had told him the facts, indeed, in the dispassionate, tolerant manner that was characteristic of him; but the point of view necessary to take them in as a coherent whole, to see them, not as isolated events, but with the effect of the past upon them and their hidden implications and probabilities for the future—this needed that the observer should be of the temper and atmosphere of the time. For prophecy just now was little better than feeling at outlines in the dark. Facts could be discerned and apprehended by all—and the priest was well aware of his own capacities in this—but their interpretation was another matter altogether. . . . He felt helpless and puzzled. . . .

The General came towards him.

“Well,” he said, “anything to be seen?”

“Nothing.”

“We may as well make our way down again. There’s nothing to be gained by stopping here.”

As they made their way down again through the covered passage, the General once more began to talk about the crisis.

Monsignor had heard it all before; but he listened for all that. It seemed to him worth while to collect opinions; and this soldier’s very outspoken remarks cast a sort of sharp clarity upon the situation that the priest found useful. The establishment of the Church in England was being regarded on the Continent as a kind of test case; and even more by the Anglo-Saxon countries throughout the world. In itself it was not so vast a step forward as might be thought. It would make no very radical changes in actual affairs, since the Church already enjoyed enormous influence and complete liberty. But the point was that it was being taken as a kind of symbol by both sides; and this explained on the one hand the tactics of the Government in bringing it suddenly forward, and the extraordinary zeal with which the Socialists were demonstrating against it.

“The more I think of it,” said the General, “the more——”

Monsignor stepped suddenly aside into the embrasure at which they had halted on the way up.

“What’s the matter?”

“I thought I saw——”

The General uttered a sharp exclamation, pressing his head over the priest’s shoulder.

“That’s the second,” whispered the priest harshly.

Together they waited, staring out together through the tall, narrow window that looked towards Rye.

Then for the third time there rose against the far-off horizon, above that faint peak of luminosity that marked where Rye watched over her marshes, a thin line of white fire, slackening its pace as it rose.

Before it had burst in sparks, there roared out overhead a deafening voice of fire and thunder, shaking the air about them, bewildering the brain. Then another. Then another.

Beneath the two as they stood, shaking with the shock, silent and open-mouthed, staring at one another, in the courtyard a door banged; then another; and then a torrent of voices and footsteps as the servants and grooms poured out of the lower doors.

III

Two hours later the two ecclesiastics sat together, on either side of the large table in the Cardinal’s room. The Cardinal passed over the sheets one by one as he finished them. One set was being brought straight up here from the little office at the end of the hall. Another set, they knew, was simultaneously being read aloud by Lord Southminster in the hall below.

The guns had aroused even the most drowsy; and the whole population, village as well as castle, had poured into the courtyard to hear the news.

Monsignor sat and read sheet after sheet after his chief, hopelessly trying to notice and remember the principal points of the report. Everything was recorded there—the assembling of the crowds, the difficulty that the later members found in getting through into the House at all; the breakdown of the police arrangements; and the storming of the wireless station by an organized mob, many of whom had been later put under arrest.

Then there was the Prime Minister’s speech, recorded word by word in the machines, and translated later, by machinery instead of by human labour, into terms of dots and dashes, themselves transmitted again over miles of country, and retranslated again by mechanical devices into these actual printed sheets that the two were reading.

The speech was given in full, down to that tremendous scene when half the House, distracted at last by the cries that grew nearer and nearer, and the messengers that appeared and reappeared from outside, had risen to its feet. And then——

The Cardinal leaned back suddenly, with a swift indrawing of his breath that was almost the first sign of emotion that he had shown.

Monsignor looked up. The last two sheets were still under the ringed hand that lay upon the table.

“Well, it’s done,” said the Cardinal softly, almost as if talking to himself. “But it needed his last card.”

“Your Eminence?”

“The announcement as to the East,” went on the other, with the same air. “I thank God it came in time.”

“Your Eminence, I don’t understand.”

The Cardinal looked at him full.

“Why,” he said, “the Holy Father was accepted as Arbitrator of the

East by the united Powers this morning. The news was in the Prime

Ministers hands at six o’clock. But I’m sorry he had to use it; it

would have been stronger without. . . . Don’t you understand,

Monsignor? The House would have refused to vote otherwise.”

“But it’s finished—it’s finished, isn’t it, your Eminence?”

“Yes, yes, it’s finished. Or had we better say it’s begun. Now the last conflict begins. . . . Now, Monsignor, I’m afraid I must begin to dictate. Would you mind setting the phonographs?”

From the hall beneath rose a sudden confusion of cheering and stamping of feet.

PART III

CHAPTER I

I

“Monsignor,” said the Cardinal, “I am afraid I shall have to ask you to go, after all. It is extremely important that the Catholic authorities in England should be represented in this scheme. And I think, you will have to travel with the first batch. They leave Queenstown on the first of April.”

“Certainly. And when shall I be back, your Eminence?”

“You must judge for yourself. It will not be more than a month or six weeks at the outside, and I dare say a good deal less. It will depend on the temper of the settlers. The American civil authorities will have the final arrangements. But it is exceedingly important that the emigrants should have some one to speak for them; and as, of course, the Church will be believed to be really responsible, it will be as well that an ecclesiastic should be their friend. Identify yourself with them as far as possible. The civil authorities are sure to be inclined to be hard.”

“Very good, your Eminence.”

The scheme had come to birth very rapidly.

After the second reading of the Establishment Bill, it had been taken for granted, and rightly, that the rest was but a matter of time, and it was calculated that, considering the Government’s attitude, the Bill would receive the royal assent before the end of the summer. Immediately, therefore, the more peaceable Socialists had taken fright, and in every European country had made representations that now that their last refuges in Germany and England had been closed to them, some arrangement ought to be made by which they could enjoy complete civil and religious liberty elsewhere. The idea had been in the air, of course, for a considerable time. There had been complaints on all sides that public opinion was too strong, that Socialists, in spite of the protection given to them, suffered a good deal in informal ways owing to their opinions, and that some expedient would have to be found for their relief. Then America had come to the rescue, openly and formally, and had offered Massachusetts, which already had a large proportion of Socialists in its population, as a colony which would be tolerated as definitely socialistic. Christians would be warned that the new system would, if the Powers agreed, be on definitely non-Catholic lines, and that the immigration laws would be in future suspended with regard to Massachusetts. There were, of course, innumerable details still to be worked out, but by the end of February the understanding was established, and from every European country emigrant parties were arranged.

There was something almost attractive about the scheme to the popular mind. It had been talked of for years before—this arrangement by which the Socialists should have an opportunity of working out once more those old exploded democratic ideas to which they still clung so pathetically. Every child knew, of course, how fifty years before the experiment had been made in various places, and how appalling tyranny had been the result—tyranny, that is, over those who, in the Socialist communities, still held to Individualism. But what would happen, the world indulgently wondered, in a community where there were no Individualists? One of two things certainly would happen. Either the scheme would work and every democrat be satisfied, or the theory would be reduced to a practical absurdity, and the poison would be expelled for ever from the world’s system. Besides, if this asylum were once definitely secured and guaranteed by the assent of the Powers, the new heresy laws that were already coming to birth in Germany, that were already enforced with considerable vigour in the Latin countries, and were (it was known) being prepared and adapted for England—these could now go forward and be applied universally, without any fear of undue severity. It would, once and for all, get rid of those endless complaints as to Christian injustice in silencing the free expression of infidel and socialistic ideas, and offer them a refuge where such things could not only be discussed, but put to the test of practice.

Monsignor Masterman himself was still in a state of personal indecision, but he certainly welcomed this solution of some of his interior troubles, and he had warmly supported the scheme at every opportunity he had.

But it was strange how he could not yet, in spite of his efforts, get rid of that deep discomfort which had been, for a time, lulled by his visit to Ireland. There was still, deep down in his mind, a sense that the Christianity he saw round him, and which he himself helped to administer, was not the religion of its Founder. There was still an instinct which he could not eradicate, telling that the essence of the Christian attitude lay in readiness to suffer. And he only saw round him, so far as the public action of the Church was concerned, a triumphant Government. He could not conceal from himself a fear that the world and the Church had, somehow or other, changed places. . . .

However, this new scheme was, at any rate, an act both of justice and mercy, and he was very willing indeed—in fact he had actually proposed it more than once—to go himself with the first emigrants from England to Massachusetts.

II

In spite of all that he had seen in his journeys, he still found an extraordinary fascination in watching the scene at Queenstown, as the great Olympic-line volors, each carrying three hundred passengers, one by one made ready and left. He himself was to leave in the last of the four.

From the stage erected at the end of the long headland to the south of the town, he could see the harbour on his right, closed in by the city itself, rising up from the water’s edge to the huge cathedral, finished fifty years before; and on his left the open sea. It was a brilliant spring morning; the air, just charged with moisture and soaked by sunlight, was a radiant medium through which the city sparkled on one side and the long, low rollers shone on the other, discharging themselves against the foot of the rocks four hundred feet below where he stood. Sea-birds wheeled and screamed about him, tilting and sliding up the slopes of the fresh west wind; but he noticed that as the first volor detached itself and slid out over the sea, pausing for an instant to head round to the compass, as if by magic every bird was gone: he could see them far away, white dots skimming inland as if for protection.

These Transatlantic volors were incalculably in advance of any he had seen before. He turned, as the first moved out, its long upper and lower decks lined with watching, silent faces—of whom the great majority were those of men—and asked for a little information from the genial Irish canon who had come from the cathedral with him, to see him start.

“They are eight hundred feet long,” he said, “and limited to three hundred passengers. Of course there’s the crew and stewards besides. The crossing varies from thirty-six to forty-eight hours. . . . Yes, transhipments are sometimes made during the voyage; but it’s not usual. It involves a good deal of delay.”

Monsignor listened as the talk went on, gathering a few facts here and there—the topographical reasons why Queenstown was still retained, as in the days of the old steamships, for a principal port, in spite of the transformation of Ireland; the total weight of the boats when the gas was out of them; above all, the incredible speed that could be attained and kept up, with a good following wind. He learned also how, by the very rigid laws of air-way, enforced now by all nations under very heavy penalties, the danger of collisions was practically abolished; and so forth. The canon talked fluently and well; but the mass of new information was so great, and the interest of watching so intense, that the enquirer’s attention wandered a good deal.

He was watching the crowd of emigrants, two hundred feet below on the ground, seen through the spidery framework of the stage, railed off into a circle, surrounded by barriers that kept out the onlookers, and diminishing visibly as he watched, as the full platform flew up to the embarking stage just below where he stood and the empty platforms descended again. The murmur of talking came up to him like the buzz of a hive.

He understood that he was assisting at an historical event. For to-day practically marked, in England at any rate, the practical recognition of the two principles which up to now had been found, from their mutual irreconcilability, the cause of practically all the wars, all the revolutions, all the incessant human quarrels and conflicts, of which history was chiefly composed—their recognition and their adjustment. These two principles were the liberty of the individual and the demands of society. On one side, every man had a certain inherent right to demand freedom; on the other, the freedom of one individual was usually found to mean the servitude of another. The solution, he began to think, had arrived at last from the recognition that there were, after all, only two logical theories of government: the one, that power came from below, the other, that power came from above. The infidel, the Socialist, the materialist, the democrat, these maintained the one; the Catholic, the Monarchist, the Imperialist maintained the other. For the two, he perceived, rose ultimately from two final theories of the universe: the one was that of Monism—that all life was one, gradually realizing itself through growth and civilization; the other that of Creation—that a Transcendent God had made the world, and delegated His sovereign authority downwards through grade after grade.

So he meditated, remembering also that the former theory was rapidly disappearing from the world. These Socialist colonies were not to be eternal, after all: they were but temporary refuges for minds that were behind the age. Probably another century or two would see their disappearance.

The second and third boats started almost simultaneously, each suddenly sliding free from either side of the stage. There was a ringing of bells; one boat, he saw, shot ahead in a straight line, the other curved out southwards. He watched the second.

It resembled to his eyes a gigantic dragon-fly—a long gleaming body, ribbed and lined, blazing and winking in the spring sunlight, moving in a mist of whirling wings. From the angle at which he watched its curve, it seemed now to hang suspended, diminishing to the eye, now shooting suddenly ahead. . . . There it hung again, already a mile away, as if poised and considering, then with increasing speed it moved on and on, like a line of brilliant light; little metallic taps sounded across the water; it met the horizon, rose above it, darkened, again flashed suddenly. . . .

He turned to look for the other; but, so far as he could see, the huge blue arc was empty. He turned again; and the third too was gone.

A great ringing of bells sounded suddenly beneath him.

“You’ve got your luggage on board, Monsignor? . . . Well, you’d better be going on board yourself. She’ll start in five minutes.”

III

The arrival at Boston harbour was one more strange experience, and the more strange because the man who had lost his memory knew that he was coming into a civilization which, although utterly unknown to him by experience, yet had in his anticipation a curious sense of familiarity.

They had met with westerly gales, and although the movement of the ship seemed wholly unaffected (so perfect was the balancing system), yet the speed was comparatively low, and it was not until shortly before dawn on the second day that they came in sight of the American coast.

Monsignor woke early that morning, and after lying and listening for half an hour or so to the strange little sounds with which the air was full—the steady rush of wind like a long hush; the shivering of some tiny loose scale in one of the planes outside his window; a minute inexplicable tapping beneath the floor of his cabin—all those sounds so unidentifiable by the amateur, and yet so suggestive—he got up, dressed, and went across to the oratory, where he had said Mass on the previous morning, to say his prayers. When he had finished he came out again, went upstairs, and along to the end of the ship, whence from a protected angle he could look straight ahead. The lights were all on, as the sun was not yet up, and the upper deck, except for a patrolling officer, was entirely empty.

For a while he could make out little or nothing beyond the jutting prow beneath him, itself also illuminated, and various outlines and silhouettes of devices and rigging which even now he did not properly understand. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he began to see.

Beneath him flitted a corrugated leaden surface, flecked occasionally with white, which he knew to be water, eight hundred feet at least below, and once he caught a glimpse of a flattened-looking, fish-shaped object, which went again in an instant, lighted interiorly, which he guessed to be a coasting steamer. Before him nothing at first was visible except an enormous gulf of gloom, but presently, as the dawn came on behind, this gulf became tinged with a very faint rosy colour in its upper half, enabling him to distinguish sea from sky, and almost immediately afterwards the sea itself turned to a livid pale tinge under the glowing light.

The next thing that he noticed was that the edge of the sea against the sky began to look irregular and blotted, a little lumpy here and there, and as he looked this lumpiness grew and rose higher.

He turned as the step of the officer sounded close to him.

“That’s land, I suppose?” he said.

“Yes, father; we shall be in by half-past five. . . . Beg your pardon, father, are you staying long?”

Monsignor shook his head.

“That depends on a hundred things,” he said.

“Curious idea this colony; but I dare say it’s best.”

Monsignor smiled and said nothing.

Interiorly his heart had been sinking steadily during the journey. He had mixed freely with the emigrants, and had done his best to make friends; yet there was something not only in their attitude to him—for though they were respectful enough, they were absolutely impervious to any advances, seeming to regard him as independent but rather timid children might look upon a strange schoolmaster—but in their whole atmosphere and outlook that was a very depressing change from the curious, impassive, but alert and confident air to which he had grown accustomed among the priests and people with whom he mixed. The one thing that seemed to interest them was to discuss methods of government and the internal politics of their future life in Massachusetts. They asked a few questions about crops and soil; he even heard one group in animated conversation on the subject of schools, but the talk dropped as soon as he attempted to join in it. They all talked English too, he noticed.

Yet though the atmosphere seemed to him very ungenial, it appeared to him not altogether new; there appeared, somewhere in the back of his mind, to be even an element of sympathy. He felt almost like one who, having climbed out of a pit to the fresh air, looks back at others who not only live in the pit, but are content to live there.

For the world in which he had now consciously lived for the last twelve months was, in spite of the sharp rigidity and certitude and inexorable logic from which he shrank, undoubtedly a place of large horizons. In fact it seemed as if there were no horizons. On all sides there stretched out illimitable space, for eternity (with its corollaries) was fully as effective in it as was time. Those with whom he mixed, however little he might share their emotions, at any rate talked as if death was no more than an incident in life. Secretly he distrusted the reality of this confidence; but at least it appeared to be there. But with these folks all was different. These frankly made their plans for this world, and this world only. Good government, stability, good bodily health, the propagation and education of children, equality in possessions and opportunities—these were their ideas of good; and better government, greater stability, more perfect health, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and more uniform equality, their ideals.

So he pondered, over and over again, trying to understand why it was that he was at home with neither party. With his old friends he felt himself incapable of their certitudes and aspirations; with these new people, viewed for the first time en masse, he felt life resting on him like a stifling blanket. He told himself bitterly that he resembled the child’s Amphibian, which could not live on the land and died in the water.

He watched mechanically the vault of heaven broaden and brighten with the sunrise behind, and the waste beneath presently to show lines and patches and enclosures as they approached Boston harbour. And his heart sank as each mile was passed, and as presently against the clear sky there stood up the roofs and domes and chimneys of the socialistic Canaan.

IV

It was three or four days before he could again form any coherent picture to himself of what this new life would mean when once it was really under way.

He was lodged in the Government buildings, adapted a few years before from the old temple of the Christian Scientists; and each day in the rotunda he sat hour after hour with keen-faced Americans, and the few Europeans who had accompanied the emigration boats that now streamed in continually.

He flung himself into the dreary work, such as it was, with all his power; for though he had little responsibility, he was there as the accredited agent of the English ecclesiastical authorities, and his business was to show as much alacrity and sympathy as possible.

The city was, indeed, a scene of incredible confusion; and a very strong force of police was needed to prevent open friction between the belated and aggrieved Catholics for whom Boston would in future be impossible as a home, and who had not yet faced the need of migrating, and the new, very dogmatic inhabitants who already regarded the city as their own. All legal arrangements had, of course, been made before the first emigrants set foot on the continent; but the redistribution of the city, the sale of farms, the settling of interminable disputes between various nationalities—all these things, sifted although they were through agents and officials, yet came up to the central board in sufficient numbers to occupy the members for a full nine hours a day.

It was at the end of the fourth day that Monsignor went round the city in a car, partly to get some air, and partly to see for himself how things were settling down.

Of course, as he told himself afterwards, he scarcely had a fair opportunity of judging how a Socialist State would be when the machinery was in running order. Yet it seemed to him that, making all allowances for confusion and noise and choked streets and the rest, underneath it all was a spirit strangely and drearily unlike that to which he was becoming accustomed in Europe. The very faces of the people seemed different.

He stopped for a while in the quarter to which the English had been assigned—that which in old Boston had been, he learned, the Italian quarter. Here, in the little square where he halted, everything was surprisingly in order. The open space, paved with concrete, was unoccupied by any signs of moving in; the houses were trim and neat, new painted for the most part; and people seemed to be going about their business with an air of quiet orderliness. Certainly American arrangements, he thought, were marvellously efficient, enabling as they did some fifteen hundred persons to settle down into new houses within the space of four days. (He had learned something, while he sat on the central board, of the elaborate system of tickets and officials and enquiry offices by which such miraculous swiftness had been made possible.)

Here at least they were an orderly population, going in and out of the houses, visiting in one corner of the square the vast general store that had been provided beforehand, presenting their pledges, which, at any rate for the present, were to take the place of the European money that the emigrants had brought with them.

He halted the car here, and leaning forward, began to look round him carefully.

The first thing that struck him was a negative emotion—a sense that something external was lacking. He presently perceived what this was.

In European towns, one of the details to which he had become by now altogether accustomed was the presence, in every street or square at which he looked, of some emblem or statue or picture of a religious nature. Here there was nothing. The straight pavements ran round the square; the straight houses rose from them, straight-windowed and straight-doored. All was admirably sanitary and clean and wholesome. He could see through the windows of the house opposite which his car was drawn up the clean walls within, the decent furniture, and the rest. But there was absolutely nothing to give a hint of anything beyond bodily health and sanitation and decency. In London, or Lourdes, or Rome there would at least have been a reminder—to put it very mildly—of other possibilities than these: of a Heavenly Mother, a Suffering Man; a hint that solid animal health was not the only conceivable ideal. It was a tiny detail; he blamed himself for noticing it. He reminded himself that here, at any rate, was real liberty as he had conceived it.

He began to scrutinize the faces of the passers-by, sheltering himself behind his elbow that he might not be noticed—appearing as if he were waiting for some one. Women passed by, strong-faced and business-like; men came up and passed, talking in twos or threes. He even watched for some while a couple of children who sat gravely together on a doorstep. (That reminded him of the meeting of to-morrow, when certain educational matters had to be finally decided; he remembered the proposed curriculum, sketched out in some papers that he had to study this evening—an exceedingly sound and useful curriculum, calculated to make the pupils satisfactorily informed persons.)

Again and again he told himself that it was fancy that made him see in the faces of these people—people, it must be remembered, who were not commonplace, but rather enthusiasts for their cause, since they preferred exile to a life under the Christian system—that made him see a kind of blankness and heaviness corresponding to that which the aspect of their street presented. Many of the faces were intellectual, especially of the men—there was no doubt of that; and all were wholesome-looking and healthy, just as this little square was sensibly built and planned, and the houses soundly constructed.

Yet, as he looked at them en masse, and compared them with his general memories of the type of face that he saw in London streets, there was certainly a difference. He could conceive these people making speeches, recording votes, discussing matters of public interest with great gravity and consideration; he could conceive them distributing alms to the needy after careful and scientific enquiry, administering justice; he could imagine them even, with an effort, inflamed with political passion, denouncing, appealing. . . . But it appeared to him (to his imagination rather, as he angrily told himself) that he could not believe them capable of any absolutely reckless crime or reckless act of virtue. They could calculate, they could plan, they had almost mechanically perfect ideas of justice; they could even love and hate after their kind. But it was inconceivable that their passion, either for good or evil, could wholly carry them away. In one word, there was no light behind these faces, no indication of an incomprehensible Power greater than themselves, no ideal higher than that generated by the common sense of the multitude. In short, they seemed to him to have all the impassivity of the Christian atmosphere, with none of its hidden fire.

He gave the signal presently for the driver to move on, and himself leaned back in his seat with closed eyes. He felt terribly alone in a terrible world. Was the whole human race, then, utterly without heart? Had civilization reached such a pitch of perfection—one part through supernatural forces, and the other through human evolution—that there was no longer any room for a man with feelings and emotions and an individuality of his own? Yet he could no longer conceal from himself that the other was better than this—that it was better to be heartless through too vivid a grasp of eternal realities, than through an equally vivid grasp of earthly facts.

As he reached the door of the great buildings where he lodged, and climbed wearily out, the porter ran out, hat in hand, holding a little green paper.

“Monsignor,” he said, “this arrived an hour ago. We did not know where you were.”

He opened it there and then. It contained half a dozen words in code. He took it upstairs with him, strangely agitated, and there deciphered it. It bade him leave everything, come instantly to Rome, and join the Cardinal.

CHAPTER II

I

There was dead silence on the long staircase of the Vatican, leading up to the Cardinal Secretary’s rooms, as Monsignor toiled up within half an hour of his arrival at the stage outside the city. A car was in waiting for him there, had whirled him first to the old palace where he had stayed nine months ago with Father Jervis; and then, on finding that Cardinal Bellairs had been unexpectedly sent for to the Vatican, he had gone on there immediately, according to the instructions that had been left with the majordomo.

He knew all now; wireless messages had streamed in hour after hour during the flight across the Atlantic. At Naples, where the volor had first touched land, the papers already mentioned full and exhaustive accounts of the outbreak, with the latest reports; and by the time that he reached Rome he was as well informed of the real facts of the case as were any who were not in the inner circle of those who knew.

The Swiss guard presented his fantastic halberd, as he passed in panting after his climb; a man in scarlet livery took his hat and cloak; another preceded him through the first anteroom, where an ecclesiastic received him; and with this priest he passed on through the second and third rooms up to the door of the inner chamber. The priest pushed the door open for him and he went in alone; the door closed noiselessly behind him. The room was the same as that which he remembered, all gold and red damask, lighted from the roof, with the great brass-inlaid writing table at the farther end, and the broad settee against the right-hand wall, but it seemed to him in his apprehensiveness that the solemnity was greater and the hushed silence even deeper. Two figures sat side by side on the settee, each in the scarlet ferraiuola of ceremony. One, Cardinal Bellairs, looked up at him and nodded, even smiling a little; the other stood up and bowed slightly, before extending his hand to be kissed. This second figure was a great personality—Italian by birth, an extraordinary linguist, a very largely made man, both stout and tall, with a head of thick and perfectly white hair. He had been a “Papabile” at the last election; and, it was thought, was certain of the papacy some day, even though it was unusual that a Secretary of State should succeed. He had a large, well-cut face, rather yellowish in colour, with very bright, half-veiled black eyes.

Monsignor kissed the ring without genuflecting, as the custom was in the Vatican, and sat down on the chair indicated.

No one spoke for a moment.

“How much have you heard, Monsignor?” asked Cardinal

Bellairs abruptly.

“I have heard that the Socialists have seized Berlin and the Emperor; that the city is fortified; that there have been two massacres; and that the Emperor’s life is threatened unless the Powers grant all the terms asked within . . . within four days from now.”

“Have you heard of the death of Prince Otteone?”

“No, your Eminence.”

“Prince Otteone was executed last night,” said the Cardinal simply. “He begged to go as the representative of the Holy Father to treat for terms. They said they were not there to treat, but to grant terms. And they say that they will do the same for every envoy who does not bring a message of complete submission. That will be known everywhere by midday.”

Again there was silence. The Cardinal Secretary glanced from one face to the other, as if hesitating. Monsignor made no attempt to speak. He knew that was not his business.

“Can you guess why I have sent for you, Monsignor?”

“No, your Eminence.”

“I am leaving for Berlin myself to-night. The Holy Father kindly allows me to do so. I wish to leave some instructions about English affairs before I go.”

For a moment the priest’s mind was unable to take in all the significance of this. The Cardinal’s air was of one who announces that he is going into the country for a few days. There was not the faintest sign even of excitement in his manner or voice. Before the priest could speak the Cardinal went on.

“Your Eminence, I have told you what confidence I rest in Monsignor Masterman. He has all the affairs of the English Church in his hands. And I desire that, if possible, he should be appointed Vicar-Capitular in the event of my death.”

The Secretary of State bowed.

“I am sure——” he began.

“Your Eminence,” cried the priest suddenly, “it’s impossible . . . it’s impossible.”

The Englishman looked at him sharply.

“It is what I wish,” he said.

Monsignor collected himself with a violent effort. He could not, even afterwards, trace the exact process by which he had arrived so swiftly at his determination. He supposed it was partly the drama of the situation—the sense that big demands were in the air; partly nervous excitement; partly a certain distaste with life that was growing on him; but chiefly and foremost a passionate and devoted affection for his chief, which he had never till this instant suspected in himself. He only perceived, as clearly as in a vision, that this gallant old man must not be allowed to go alone, and that he—he who had criticized and rebelled against the brutality of the world—must go with him.

“Your Eminence,” he said, “it is impossible, because I must come with you to Berlin.”

The Cardinal smiled and lifted his hand, as if to an impetuous child.

“My dear fellow——”

Monsignor turned to the other. He felt cool and positive, as if a breeze had fanned away his excitement.

“You understand, your Eminence, do you not? It is impossible that the Cardinal should go alone. I am his secretary. I can arrange everything with . . . with the Rector of the English College here, if there is no one else. That is right, is it not, your Eminence?”

The Italian hesitated.

“Prince Otteone went alone——” he began.

“Exactly. And there were no witnesses. That must not happen again.”

There was an obvious answer, but no one made it. Cardinal

Bellairs stood up, lifting himself with his stick.

“It is very good of you,” he said quietly. “I understand why you make the offer. But it is impossible. Monsignor, will you talk with His Eminence a little? There are one or two things he wishes to tell you. I have to see the Holy Father, but I will be with you again soon.”

The priest stood up too.

“I must come with you to His Holiness,” he said. “I will abide by his decision.”

The other shook his head, again smiling almost indulgently.

Monsignor turned swiftly to the Italian.

“Your Eminence,” he said, “will you get this favour for me? I must see the Holy Father after Cardinal Bellairs has seen him, since I may not go with him.”

The English Cardinal turned with a little abrupt movement and stood looking at him. There was a silence.

“Well—come,” he said.

II

The contrast between these two great Princes of the Church and their Lord and Master struck Monsignor very strongly, in spite of his excitement, as he followed his chief into the Pope’s room, and saw an almost startlingly commonplace man, of middle size, rise up from the table at which he was writing.

He was a Frenchman, Monsignor knew, and not an exceptional Frenchman. There was nothing sensational or even impressive about his appearance, except his white dress and insignia; and even these, upon him, seemed somehow rather tame and ordinary. His voice, when he spoke presently, was of an ordinary kind of pitch and his speaking rather rapid; his eyes were a commonplace grey, his nose a little fleshy, and his mouth completely undistinguished. He was, in short, completely unlike the Pope of fiction and imagination; there was nothing of the Pontiff about him in his manner. He might have been a clean-shaven business man of average ability, who had chosen to dress himself up in a white cassock and to sit in an enormous room furnished in crimson damask and gold, with chandeliers, at a rather inconvenient writing-desk. Even at this dramatic moment Monsignor found himself wondering how in the world this man had risen to the highest office on earth. (He had been the son of a postmaster in Tours, the priest remembered.)

The Pope murmured an unintelligible greeting as the two, after kissing his ring, sat down beside the writing-table.

“So you have come to take your leave, your Eminence?” he began. “We should all be very grateful for your willingness to go. God will reward you.”

“Plainly it must be a Cardinal this time, Holy Father,” said the Englishman, smiling. “We have still four days. And one of my nationality has affinity with the Germans, and yet is not one of them, as I remarked to your Holiness last night. Besides, I am getting an old man.”

There was nothing whatever of the gallant poseur in his manner, whatever were the words. Monsignor perceived that somehow or another these persons stood in an attitude towards death that was beyond his comprehension altogether. They spoke of it lightly and genially.

“Eh well,” said the Pope, “it is decided so. You go to-night?”

“Yes, Holy Father, it is absolutely necessary for me to arrange my affairs first. I have chartered a private volor. One of my own servants has volunteered to drive it. But there is one more matter before I receive your Holiness’ instructions. This priest here, my secretary, Monsignor Masterman, wishes to come with me. I ask your Holiness to forbid that. I wish him to be Vicar-Capitular of my diocese, if possible, in the event of my death.”

The Pope glanced across at the priest.

“Why do you wish to go, Monsignor? Do you understand to what you are going?”

“Holy Father, I understand everything. I wish to go because it is not right that the Cardinal should go alone. Let there be a witness this time. The Rector of the English College here can receive all necessary instructions from His Eminence and myself.”

“And you, Eminence?”

“I do not wish him to go because there is no need why two should go, Holiness. One can carry the message as well as two.”

There was silence for a moment. The Pope began to play with a pen that lay before him. Then Monsignor burst out again.

“Holy Father, I beg of you to let me go. I am afraid of death; . . . that is one reason why I should go. I am crippled mentally; my memory left me a few months ago; it may leave me again, and this time helpless and useless. And it is possible that I may be of some service. Two are better than one.”

For a moment the Pope said nothing. He had glanced up curiously as the priest had said that he was “afraid of death.” Then he had looked down again, his lips twitching slightly.

“Eh well,” he said. “You shall go if you wish it.”

III

There was only a very small group of people collected to see the second envoy leave for Berlin. The hour and place of starting had been kept secret, on purpose to avoid a crowd; and beyond three or four from the English College, with half a dozen private friends of the Cardinal, a few servants, and perhaps a dozen passers-by who had collected below in curiosity at seeing a racing-volor attached to one of the disused flying stages on the hill behind the Vatican—no one else, in the crowds that swarmed now in the streets and squares of Rome, was even certain that an envoy was going, still less of his identity.

Monsignor found himself, ten minutes before the start, standing alone on the alighting-stage, while the Cardinal still talked below.

As he stood there, now looking out over the city, where beneath the still luminous sky the lights were already beginning to kindle, and where in one or two of the larger squares he could make out the great crowds moving to and fro—now staring at the long and polished sides of the racing boat that swayed light as a flower with the buoyancy of the inrushing gas—as he saw all these things with his outward eyes, he was trying to understand something of the new impulses and thoughts that surged through him. He could have given little or no account of the reasons why he was here; of his hopes or fears or expectations. He was as one who watches on a sheet shadow-figures whirl past confusedly, catching a glimpse here of a face or body, now of a fragmentary movement, that appeared to have some meaning—yet grasping nothing of the intention or plan of the whole. Or, even better, he was as one caught in a mill-race, tossed along and battered, yet feeling nothing acutely, curious indeed as to what the end would be, and why it had had a beginning, yet fundamentally unconcerned. The thing was so: there was no more to be said. He knew that it was necessary that he should be here, about to start for almost certain death, as that his soul should be inhabiting his body.

But even all these recent happenings had not as yet illuminated him in the slightest as to the real character of the world that he found so bewildering. He felt, vaguely, that he ought to have by now all the pieces of the puzzle, but he was still as far as ever from being able to fit them into a coherent whole. He just perceived this—and no more—that the extraordinary tranquillity of these Catholics in the presence of death was a real contribution to the problem—as much as the dull earthliness of the Socialist colony in America. It was not merely Dom Adrian in particular who had been willing to die without perturbation or protest; his judges and accusers seemed just as ready when their turn came. And he—he who had cried out at Christian brutality, who had judged the world’s system by his own and found it wanting—he feared death; although, so far his fear had not deterred him from facing it.

He took his place in the narrow cabin in the same mood, following the Cardinal in after the last good-byes had been said. It was a tiny place, fitted with a single padded seat on either side covered with linen and provided with pillows; a narrow table ran up the centre; and strong narrow windows looked directly from the sides of the boat. A stern platform, railed in and provided with sliding glass shutters, gave room to take a few steps of exercise; but the front of the boat was entirely occupied with the driver’s arrangements. It was a comparatively new type of boat, he learned from some one with whom he had talked just now, used solely for racing purposes; and its speed was such that they would find themselves in Berlin before morning.

The stern door was swung to by one who leaned from the stage. Still through the glass the Cardinal smiled out at his friends and waved his hand. Then a bell struck, a vibration ran through the boat, the stage outside lined with faces suddenly swayed and then fell into space.

The Cardinal laid his hand on the priest’s knee.

“Now let us have a talk,” he said.

IV

The air that breathed down from the Alps was beginning to cloud the windows of the cabin before they had finished talking.

The man who had lost his memory, under the tremendous stress of an emotion of which he was hardly directly conscious at all—the emotion generated by the knowledge that every whistling mile that fled past brought him nearer an almost certain death—had experienced a kind of sudden collapse of his defences such as he had never contemplated.

He had told everything straight out to this quiet, fatherly man—his terrors, his shrinking from the unfamiliar atmosphere of thought to which he had awakened, it seemed, a few months before, his sense that Christianity had lost its spirit, and, above all, the strange absence of any definite religious emotion in himself. He found this difficult to put into words; he had hardly realized it even to himself.

The Cardinal put one question.

“And yet you are facing death on the understanding that it is all true?”

“I suppose so.”

“Very well, then. That is faith. You need say no more. You have been to confession?”

“This afternoon.”

The old man was silent for a moment.

“As to the unreality, the feeling that the Church is heartless, I think that is natural. You had a violent mental shock in your illness. That means that your emotions are very sensitive, almost to the point of morbidness. Well, the heart of the Church is very deep, and you have not found it yet. That does not greatly matter. You must keep your will fixed. That is all that God asks. . . . I think it is true that the Church is hard, in a certain sense; or shall we call it a Divine strength? It is largely a matter of words. She has had that strength always. Once it nerved her to suffer; now it nerves her to rule. But I think you would find that she could suffer again.”

“Your Eminence!” cried the priest lamentably, “I am beginning to see that. . . . Yourself. . . . Prince Otteone. . . .”

The Cardinal lifted his hand.

“Of myself we need not speak. I am an old man, and I do not expect to suffer. Prince Otteone was another matter. He was a young man, full of life; and he knew to what he was going. Well, does not his case impress you? He went quite cheerfully, you know.”

The priest was silent.

“What are you thinking of, my son?”

The priest shivered a little.

“Tell me,” said the Cardinal again.

“It is the Holy Father,” burst out the other impulsively. “He was terrible: so unconcerned, so careless as to who lived or died. . . .”

He looked up in an agony, and saw a look almost of amusement in the old man’s eyes fixed on him.

“Yes, do not be afraid,” murmured the old man. “You think he was unconcerned? Well, ought he not to be? Is not that what we should expect of the Vicar of Christ?”

“Christ wept.”

“Yes, yes, and his Vicar too has wept. I have seen it. But Christ went to death without tears.”

“But . . . but this man is not going,” cried the priest. “He is sending others. If he went himself——”

He stopped suddenly; not at a sound, but at a kind of mental vibration from the other. Up here in these heights, under the pressure of these thoughts, every nerve and fibre seemed stretched to an amazing pitch of sensitiveness. It seemed to him as if he had never before lived at such a pitch.

But the other said nothing. Once his lips opened, but they closed again. The priest said nothing. He waited.

“I think no one would expect the Holy Father to go himself under such circumstances,” said the Cardinal gently and blandly. “Do you not think that it might be harder for him to remain?”

Monsignor felt a wave of disappointment. He had expected a revelation of some kind, or a vivid sentence that would make all plain.

The old man leaned forward again smiling.

“Do not be impatient and critical,” he said. “It is enough that you and I are going. That should occupy us. Come, let us look through these papers again.”

It was an hour later that they swept down into the French plains.

The glass cleared again as they reached the warmer levels, and

Monsignor became conscious of an overpowering weariness. He

yawned uncontrollably once or twice. His companion laughed.

“Lie down a little, Monsignor. You have had a hard day of it. I must have some sleep too. We must be as fresh as we can for our interview.”

Monsignor said nothing. He stepped across to the other couch, and slipped off his shoes, took off his cincture, and lay down without a word. Almost before he had finished wondering at the marvellous steadiness of this flying arrow of a ship, he had sunk down into complete unconsciousness.

V

He awoke with a start, coming up, as is common after the deep sleep of exhaustion, into a state in which, although the senses are awake, the intellect is still in a kind of paralysis of slumber. He threw his feet off the couch and sat up, staring about him.

The first thing which he noticed was that the cabin was full of a pale morning light, cold and cheerless, although the shaded lights still burned in the roof. Then he saw that the Cardinal was sitting at the farther end of the opposite couch, looking intently out; that one of the glass shutters was slid back, and that a cold, foggy air was visibly pouring in past the old man’s head. Then he saw the head of the driver through the glass panes in the door; his hand rested on the grip of some apparatus connected with the steering, he believed.

But beyond this there was nothing to be seen through the windows opposite, of which the curtains had been drawn back; he saw nothing but white driving mist. He tore back the curtains behind him, and there also was the mist. It was plain then that they were not at rest at any stage; and yet the slight humming vibration, of which he had been conscious before he fell asleep, and even during one or two moments of semi-wakefulness during the night, this had ceased. The car hung here, like a floating balloon, motionless, purposeless—far up out of sight of land, and an absolute silence hung round it.

He moved a little as these things began to arrange themselves in his mind, and at the movement the Cardinal turned round. He looked old and worn in this chilly light, and his unshaven chin sparkled like frost. But he spoke in his ordinary voice, without any sign of discomposure.

“So you are awake, Monsignor? I thought I would let you have your sleep out.”

“What has happened? Where are we?”

“We arrived half an hour ago. They signalled to us to remain where we were until they came up.”

“We have arrived!”

“Certainly. We passed the first Berlin signalling light nearly three-quarters of an hour ago. We slowed down after that, of course.”

The priest turned his head suddenly and made a movement with it downwards. The Cardinal leaned forward again and peered through the open shutter.

“I think they are coming up at last,” he said, drawing his head back. “Hush! Listen, Monsignor.”

The priest listened with all his might. At first he heard nothing except the faint whistle of the wind somewhere in the roof. Then he heard three or four metallic noises, as if from the depths of a bottomless hit, faint and minute; and then, quite distinctly, three strokes of a bell.

The Cardinal nodded.

“They are starting,” he said. “They have kept us long enough.”

He slipped along the seat to where his scarlet cincture and cap lay, and began to put these on.

Monsignor sprang across and lifted down the great Roman cloak from its peg.

“You had better get ready yourself,” said the Cardinal. “They will be here in a moment.”

As the priest slipped on his second shoe, a sound suddenly stopped him dead for an instant. It was the sound of voices talking somewhere beneath in the fog. Then he finished, and stood up, just as there slid cautiously upwards, like a whale coming up to breathe, past the window by which the Cardinal was now standing cloaked and hatted, first a shining roof, then a row of little ventilators, and finally a line of windows against which a dozen faces were pressed. He saw them begin to stir as the scarlet of the Cardinal met their eyes.

“We can sit down again,” said the old man, smiling. “The rest is a matter for the engineers.”

It seemed strange afterwards to the priest how little real or active terror he felt. He was conscious of a certain sickly sensation, and of a sourish taste on his lips, as he licked them from time to time; but scarcely more than this, except perhaps of a sudden shivering spasm that shook him once or twice as the fog-laden breeze poured in upon him.

He sat there watching through the windows in a kind of impassivity, as much as he could see of the method by which the racing-boat was attached by long, rigid rods to the steady floating raft that had risen from beneath. (He was even interested to observe that these rigid rods were of telescopic design, and were elongated from their own interiors. One of them pushed forward once to within a foot of the windows; then the tapering end seemed to fall apart into two hooked ends, singularly like a lean finger and thumb with roughened surfaces. This, in its turn, rose out of sight, and he heard it slide along the roof overhead, till it caught some projection and there clenched.)

So the process went on, slowly and deliberately. The driver still remained at his post, answering once or twice questions put to him from some invisible person outside. The Cardinal still sat, motionless and silent, on the opposite seat. Then, after perhaps ten minutes’ delay, a sensation of descending became perceptible.

His fear, such as it was, took a new form, as presently through the thinning fog he became aware that the earth was approaching. The first clear indication of this was the sound of a clock striking. He counted the strokes carefully, and immediately forgot what it was that he had counted. Then, as he watched with straining eyes for buildings or towers to make their appearance, the movement stopped; there was a faint jarring sensation, then the sound of trampling feet, then a heavy shock. He had forgotten that stages were used.

The Cardinal stood up.

“Come, Monsignor,” he said, and gave his hand to him.

So the two stood a moment longer. Then the footsteps sounded on the boat; a shadow fell across the glass of the stern-door. The door opened, letting in a rush of foggy air, and two men in uniform came swiftly inside.

“Your name and your business, gentlemen?” said the foremost shortly, in excellent English.

“I am come on behalf of the Holy Father,” said the Cardinal steadily. “My name is Cardinal Bellairs. This is my secretary, Monsignor Masterman. He is not an envoy.”

“Exactly,” said the man. “That is all in order. You were seen by our guard-boats. Will you step this way?”

A bridge had been thrown across from the raft to the racing-boat, and the latter was now attached to an immense stage whose sides ran down into the fog. The stage-platform was crowded with men, some in official uniform, some in blouses; but a way was kept clear for the visitors, and they passed across without any actual show of hostility or resentment. Monsignor noticed but one detail—that no salutation of any kind was given; and as they took their seats in the lift, with the two officials close beside them, he heard guttural conversation break out, and, he thought, one loud laugh. The doors were latched, and the lift dropped.

The speed was so great that it would have been impossible to see anything of the town into which they descended, even had the fog been absent. As it was, Monsignor saw nothing except the sudden darkening of the air round them. Then as the speed slackened he saw the side of some great building not twenty yards away. Then the lift stopped and the doors were opened.

A group of men stood there, with something of an expectant air in their stolid faces. All these were in uniform of some description; one stood a little in advance of the rest and held a paper in his hand.

“Cardinal Bellairs?” he said, also in English. “And

Monsignor Masterman?”

The Cardinal bowed.

“We had information from Rome last night. I understand you have a communication from the Powers?”

“From the Holy Father, whom the European Powers have appointed to represent them.”

“It is the same thing,” said the man brusquely. “The Council are waiting to receive you. Kindly follow me.”

The official who had brought them down stepped forward.

“I understand, sir, that this gentleman” (he indicated the priest) “is not an envoy.”

“Is that so?” asked the other.

“It is.”

“Very good. I only have authority to introduce the envoy. Monsignor Masterman will be good enough to follow the other gentleman. Your Eminence, will you come with me?”

VI

On looking back afterwards on the whole experience, that which stood out as most shocking in it all, to the priest’s mind, was the abominable speed with which the tragedy was accomplished. It was merciful, perhaps, that it was so, for even the half-hour or so which elapsed before the priest had any more news dragged itself to an intolerable length.

He walked up and down the little furnished room—some kind of parlour, he understood, attached to a government building seized by the revolutionaries, guarded, he knew, by a couple of men in the passage, whose voices he occasionally heard—in a sort of dull agony, far more torturing than positive objective fear.

He tried to comfort himself by retelling to himself the story of the last few days; reminding himself how, after the first outburst, when the police had been shot down by these new weapons of which he understood nothing, and the palace had been taken, and the city reduced to a state of defenceless terror—the revolutionaries had sternly repressed the second attempted massacre in a manner not unworthy of real civilization.

A great deal of the whole story was unintelligible to him. He just knew the outlines. First, it was obvious that the revolution had been planned in all its details months before. There had been, soon after the Emperor’s conversion, a great access of other converts, accompanied by a dispersal to other countries, notably America, of innumerable people of the lower classes who were known as Socialists. All this was looked upon by the authorities as natural, and as actually reassuring. There had been a few protests against the new proposals with regard to legislation; but not enough to rouse any suspicion that violence would be attempted. Finally, when the organized emigration was beginning, and even the most pessimistic politicians were beginning to regard the situation as saved, without the slightest warning the blow had been struck, obviously by the directions of an international council whose very existence had not been suspected.

As to the details of the revolution itself he was even more vague, for the understanding of it depended on an acquaintance with the internal arrangements of Berlin, by which a kind of interior citadel, not outwardly fortified in any way, yet held in its compass all those immense “power-stations” by which, in the present day, every town was defended. (He did not know exactly what these “power-stations” were, beyond the fact that they were the lineal successors of the old gun-forts, and controlled an immense number of mines both within the city and without it, as well as some kind of “electric ray,” which was the modern substitute for cannon.) Well, it was this “citadel,” including the Emperor’s palace, that had been suddenly seized by the revolutionaries, obviously by the aid of treachery. And the thing was done. It was impossible for the other Powers, or even for the German air-navy itself, to wipe the whole place out of existence, since it was known that the Emperor himself was in the hands of the rebels. (It was a bald story, as he had heard it; yet he reflected that great coups usually were extremely and unexpectedly simple.)

Finally, there were the terms demanded—terms which the Powers were unanimous in rejecting, since they included the formal disestablishment of the Church throughout Europe and the complete liberty of the Press, with guarantees that these should continue. The alternative to the acceptance of these terms was the execution of the Emperor and formal war declared upon Europe—a war which, of course, could have but one ending, but which, until that end came, would mean, under the new conditions of warfare, an almost unimaginable destruction of life and property, especially since (as was known) the Socialists repudiated all the international laws of warfare. The defiance was, of course, a ridiculous and a desperate one, but it was the defiance of a savage child who held all modern resources in his hands and knew how to use them. There was also possible, as some said, a rising all over the civilized world, should the movement meet with success.

So much, in brief, was what Monsignor Masterman knew. So much, indeed, was now public property all the world over, and it was not reassuring.

Certainly he feared death for himself; yet, as he paced up and down, he could honestly and sincerely tell himself that this was not foremost in his mind. Rather it was a sense of bewildered shock and horror that such things could have broken in upon that orderly, disciplined world with which he had become familiar. It was this horror that hung over him—its impression deepened by the bleak April morning, the nervous strain under which he suffered, the brusque discourtesy of the men who had received him, and the knowledge that scarcely thirty-six hours before an envoy who had come alone and peaceably had been done to death in this silent city. And the horror also centred for him now, as in a symbol, in the old Cardinal whom he was learning to love.

He framed, as men do when the imagination is stimulated to the highest pitch, a dozen possible events—each seen by him mentally, clear, in a picture. He constructed for himself the Cardinal’s return with news of a compromise, with an announcement at least of delay. (He knew a few of the proposals that were to be made by sanction of the Pope.) Or he saw him coming back, anxious and perturbed, with nothing decided. Or he imagined himself being sent for in haste. . . . And there were other pictures, more terrible; and against these he strove with all his will, telling himself that it was inconceivable that such things should be. Yet not one of his imaginings was as terrible as the event itself. . . .

It came swift and sudden, without the faintest sign or premonition.

As he turned in his endless pacings, down at the farther end of the room, his ears for the instant filled with the clatter of some cart outside the open, barred windows, a figure came swiftly into the room, without the sound of a footstep to warn him. Behind he could make out two faces waiting. . . .

It was the Cardinal who stood there, upright and serene as ever, with a look in his eyes that silenced the priest. He lifted his hand on which shone his great amethyst, and at the motion, scarcely knowing what he did, the priest was on his knees.

“Benedictio Dei omnipotentis Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti, descendat super te, et maneat semper.”

That was all; not a word more.

And as the priest sprang up with a choking cry, the slender figure was gone, and the door shut and locked.

CHAPTER III

I

All day long there had hung a strange silence over the city, unlike in its quality that ordinary comparative quiet of modern towns to which the man who had lost his memory had become by now accustomed. He knew well by now the gentle, almost soothing, hum of busy streets, as the traffic and the footsteps went over the noiseless pavements, and the air murmured with the clear subdued notes of the bells and the melodious horns of the swifter vehicles; all this had something of a reassuring quality, reminding the listener that he lived in a world of men, active and occupied indeed, but also civilized and self-controlled.

But the silence of this inner quarter of Berlin was completely different. Its profoundness was sinister and suggestive. Now and again came a rapid hooting note, growing louder and more insistent, as some car, bound on revolutionary work, tore up some street out of sight at forty miles an hour and away again into silence. Several times he heard voices in sharp talk pass beneath his window. Occasionally somewhere overhead in the great buildings sounded the whir of a lift, a footstep, the throwing up of a window. And to each sound he listened eagerly and intently, ignorant as to whether it might not mark the news of some fresh catastrophe, the tidings of some decision that would precipitate his world about him.

As to the progress of events he knew nothing at all.

Since that horrible instant when the door had closed in his face and the Cardinal had gone again as mysteriously as he had come—now three days ago—he had heard no hint that could tell him how things developed. He had not even dared to ask the taciturn servant in uniform who brought him food as to the fate of the old man. For he knew with a certainty as clear as if he had seen the dreadful thing done, that his friend and master was dead—dead, as the Revolutionary Committee had said he would be, if he came with any message other than that of submission. As to the manner of his death he dared not even conjecture. It would be swift, at least. . . .

Ten thousand thoughts, recurring and recurring, like pictures thrown on a wall, ran past his attention as the hours went by. He saw the gathering of armaments—the horizon tinged by the gathering war-vessels of the air—the advance, the sudden storm of battle, the gigantic destruction from these vast engines of power of which he had learned nothing but their ghastly potentialities. Or he saw the advance of this desperate garrison, dispersing this way and that for their war upon the world—silent vessels, moving in the clouds, to Rome, to London, to Paris and Versailles, each capable of obliterating a city. Or he saw, again, the submission of the world to the caprice of these desperate children who feared nothing—not even death itself—who crouched like an ape in a powder-magazine, lighted match in hand, careless as to whether or no themselves died so long as the world died with them.

He formulated nothing; concluded nothing; he rejected every conjecture which temporarily constructed itself in his almost passive mind. He did not even yet fully understand that the question he had asked of himself months before—the question that had tortured him so keenly—as to whether these Christians who ruled had not forgotten how to suffer—had been answered with dreadful distinctness. He just perceived that the young Roman prince had been gallant; that the old man had been more gallant still, since those to whom he came had already proved that they would keep their word. And now the third day was drawing to an end, and by midnight suspense would be over.

The fog still hung over the city; but towards sunset it lifted a little, and he raised his heavy head from his breast as he lay, half sitting, half lying, on the tumbled sofa and blankets on which he had slept, to see the red sunlight on the wall above him. It was a curious room to a man who had grown accustomed to modern ways; there was a faded carpet on the floor, paper on the walls, and the old-fashioned electric globes hung, each on its wire, from the whitewashed ceiling. He saw that it must be a survival, or perhaps a deliberate archaicism. . . .

The sunlight crept slowly up the wall. . . .

Then the door was unlocked from the outside, and he turned his head, to see James Hardy come smiling towards him.

II

“Good evening, Monsignor. I am ashamed that I have not paid you a visit before. But we have been very busy these days.”

He sat down without offering to shake hands.

The priest saw, with one of those sudden inexplicable intuitions more certain than any acquired knowledge, two things: first, that his having been left alone for three days had been by deliberation and not carelessness; and second, that this visit to him only a few hours before the time of truce expired was equally deliberate. His brain was too confused for him to draw any definite conclusion from these facts; but he made at least one provisional decision, as swift as lightning, that he must hold his tongue.

“You have had an anxious time, I am afraid,” went on the other.

“But so have we all. You must bear no malice, Monsignor.”

The priest said nothing. He looked between his half-closed eyelids at the heavy, clean-shaven, clever face of the man who sat opposite him, the strong, capable and rather humorous mouth, his close-cut hair turning a little grey by the ears, watching for any sign of discomposure. But there was none at all.

The man glanced up, caught his eye, and smiled a little.

“Well, I am afraid you’re not altogether pleased with us. But you must bear in mind, Monsignor, that you’ve driven—” (he corrected his phrase)—”you drove us into a corner. I regret the deaths of the two envoys as much as you yourself. But we were forced to keep our word. Obviously your party did not believe us, or they would have communicated by other means. Well, we had to prove our sincerity.” (He paused). “And we shall have to prove it again to-night, it seems.”

Again there was silence.

“I think you’re foolish to take this line, Monsignor,” went on the other briskly—”this not speaking to me, I mean. I’m quite willing to tell you all I know, if you care to ask me. I’ve not come to bully you or to triumph over you. And after all, you know, we might easily have treated you as an envoy, too. To be quite frank, it was I who pleaded for you. . . . Oh! not out of any tenderness; we have got past that. You Christians have taught us that. But I thought that so long as we kept our word we need not go beyond it. And it’s proved that I’m right. . . . Aren’t you curious to know why?”

The priest looked at him again.

“Well, we are going to send you back after midnight. You will have to witness the last scene, I am afraid, so that you can give a true account of it—the Emperor’s death, I mean.”

He paused again, waiting for an answer. Then he stood up, at last, it seemed, pricked into impatience.

“Kindly come with me, Monsignor,” he said abruptly. “I have to take you before the Council.”

III

It was a large hall, resembling a concert-room, into which the priest came at last, an hour later, under the escort of James Hardy and a couple of police, and he had plenty of time to observe it, as he stood waiting by the little door through which he stepped on to the back of the platform.

This platform stood at the upper end of the hall, and was set with a long semicircle of chairs and desks, as if for judges, and these were occupied by perhaps thirty persons, dressed, he saw, in dull colours, all alike. The dresses seemed curiously familiar; he supposed he must have seen them in pictures. Then he remembered a long while ago Father Jervis telling him that the Socialists resented the modern developments in matters of costume.

The President’s desk and seat were raised a little above the others, but from behind the priest could see nothing of him but his black gown and his rather long iron-grey hair; he seemed to be answering in rapid German some question that one of his colleagues had just put to him.

The rest of the hall was almost empty. A table stood at the foot of the platform, and here were three or four of the usual recording machines; a dozen men sat here too, some writing, some listening, leaning back in their chairs. In the middle, on the opposite side of the table, stood a structure resembling a witness-box, ascended by two steps, railed in on the three other sides. A man with a pointed grey beard was leaving the box as the priest came in. Standing about the hall also were perhaps twenty other persons apparently listening to the President or waiting their turn. There were tall doors at the end of the hall, closed and guarded by police, and in the middle of each of the long sides two other doors, also closed, communicating with other rooms and passages, in one of which the priest had waited just now until the Council could see him.

Except for the rapid, heavy voice of the President the hall was very quiet, and from the very silence and motionlessness of those present there exhaled a certain air of tenseness. It would have been impossible for any intelligent person not to notice it, and for the priest, with his nerves strung, as they now were, to an extreme pitch of sensitiveness and attention, the atmosphere was overwhelmingly significant. Of what it signified he had no idea, beyond the knowledge he already possessed—that the hours were running out, and that midnight would see a decisive event which, though it must mean ultimately the ruin of every person present, might, for all that, change the line of the world’s development. A protest so desperate as this could not but have a tremendous effect upon human sentiment. He had caught a glimpse an hour before, as he whirled through the streets, far up against the luminous slay westwards, of a string of floating specks, which he knew to be the guard-boats, strung out now, night and day, in a vast circle round the city. At midnight they would surely move. . . .

Dark had already fallen outside, but the hall was as light as day with the hidden electric burners above the cornices, and he could see not only the faces, but the very expressions that characterized them. One thing at least was common to them all—a silent, fierce excitement. . . .

It would be about ten minutes before the priest’s turn came to face the Council. It seemed that the member to whom the President was speaking was not satisfied, and question and answer, all in rapid, unintelligible German, went on without intermission. Once or twice there was a murmur of applause, and more than once the President beat his hand heavily and emphatically upon the desk before him to enforce his point. The priest guessed that the unanimity was not perhaps as perfect as the world had been given to believe. However, guessing was useless. The President leaned back at last, and Hardy stepped forward to his chair and whispered. The President nodded, and the next moment, at a sign from Hardy, the two police urged the priest forward by the arms across the platform, down the steps, and so round to the right up into the witness-box. Then the President, who had still been whispering behind his hand, turned abruptly in his chair and faced him.

Monsignor related afterwards what an extraordinary moment that had been. His nerves were already tight-stretched and his expectation was at the highest; but the face of this man who now looked at him (tremendous though he knew such a personality must be, which could conceive and drive through such a revolt as this),—the face of him was beyond all imagining.

In the fashion of the day it was clean-shaven, and the absence of hair, except where that of his head framed the face, increased the impressions of those lines and shadow. It was a priestly face, saw Monsignor, with all the power and searchingness of one who can deal with living souls; but the face of a fallen priest. In complexion it was sallow, but the sallowness of health, not of weakness; full-shaped, but without being fat; the lips were straight and thin, the nose sharp and jutting and well curved, and the black eyes blazed at him with immense power from beneath heavy brows. His hair was brushed straight back from the forehead, and fell rather long behind. The face resembled a carefully modelled mask, through the eyes of which alone the tremendous life was visible.

The priest met those eyes straight for an instant, then he lowered his own, knowing that he could not be wholly himself if he looked that man in the face.

He was surprised to hear words of English uttered. He looked up again, and there was Hardy speaking, from beside the President’s chair.

“Monsignor, you would not answer me just now. Now that I am speaking in the Council’s name, will you consent to do so?”

“I will answer what I think right to answer.”

There was a touch of amusement in Hardy’s voice as he went on.

“You need not be afraid, Monsignor. We do not extort answers by the rack. I only wished to know if you would be reasonable.”

The priest said nothing.

“Very good, then. . . . First we will tell you our intentions. At midnight, as you know, we keep our word, and the Emperor will have to go the way of the others. It is regrettable, but the Christians do not seem to understand even yet that we are in earnest. You will have to be present at that scene, I am sorry to say; but you can comfort yourself by ministering to your co-religionist. He has not had a priest admitted to him since his arrest.

“Immediately afterwards you will be set at liberty, and put on board the air-boat on which you travelled from Rome, with the same driver who brought you here, on one single condition. That condition is that you go straight to the Holy Father, tell him all that you have seen, and take with you one or two little objects.”

He paused and beckoned to some one behind. A man came forward with a little box which he laid on the table. Hardy opened it.

“This is the box you are to take. Yes; I see that you recognize them. They are the biretta, the skullcap, the cross, and the ring of the late Cardinal Bellairs. There are also in this box the ring and a medal belonging to the late Prince Otteone. . . . You will take these with you as pledges of what you say. . . . Will you consent to do this?”

The priest bowed. For the moment he was unable to speak.

“You will also tell the Holy Father,” went on the other, replacing, as he spoke, the things in the box, “what you have seen of our dispositions. You will say that you saw us entirely resolute and unafraid. We do not fear anybody, Monsignor—not anything at all; I think you understand that by now.

“You will have a letter, of course, to take with you. It will contain our final terms. Because—(and I assure you that you are the first of the outside world to hear this news)—because we have decided to extend our patience for one more week. We shall, during that week, in order to prove the genuineness of our intentions, make a raid upon a certain city and, we hope, destroy it. (Naturally, I shall not inform you where that city stands.) And if, at the end of that week, our former terms are not accepted, we shall carry out our promises to the full. You may also add,” he went on more deliberately, “that our party is represented in every capital of Europe, and that these may be expected to act in the same way as that in which we have acted, as soon as the week expires. We have no objection to telling you this: our plans are completely made, and no precautions on your side can hinder them. Is that clear, Monsignor?”

“Yes,” said the priest.

“You are satisfied that we mean what we say?”

“I suppose so.”

Hardy’s manner changed a little. Up to now he had been speaking coldly and sharply, except where once or twice a slightly ironical tone had come into his voice. Now he bent forward a little with his hands upon the table, and his tone became a trifle friendly.

“Now there are just one or two questions that the Council wish me to put to you.”

Monsignor glanced up at the circle of watching faces, and as he looked at the President, he could have sworn that a look of displeasure came over the man’s face.

“Well, our first question is this (I dare say you will not answer it; but if you will oblige us, we shall be grateful): Can you tell us whether, when you left Rome, the Holy Father, or the European Powers, showed any signs of yielding?”

The priest drew a breath.

“I am absolutely sure,” he said quietly, “that they had no idea of yielding, and that they never will.”

“Why did they send envoys then?”

“They were willing to make other concessions.”

“What were these concessions?”

Monsignor hesitated.

“I am not an envoy; I have no power to say.”

“Do you know what they were?”

“Yes.”

“Why will you not say? Is it not the wish of the Powers to come to terms?”

“It was their wish.”

“Do you mean that it is so no longer?”

“I cannot imagine it being their wish any longer.”

“Why?”

“Because you murdered the two envoys they sent,” said the priest, beginning suddenly to shake all over with uncontrollable nervous excitement.

“Have you any reason for saying that?”

“I know what I would do myself under such circumstances.”

“And that is——”

The priest straightened himself, and seized the rail before him to steady himself.

“I would wipe out of existence every soul that was concerned in those murders. I would have no more civilized dealings with savages.”

There was a sudden movement and murmur in the circle on the platform. From the intentness with which they had followed the questions and answers, Monsignor saw that they understood English well enough. One man sprang to his feet. But simultaneously the President was on his own, and with a gesture and a sharp word or two restored order.

“That is very deplorable violence,” said Hardy. “But it is most Christian.”

“I am beginning to think so myself,” said the priest.

“Well, well,” said the other, tapping the table irritably. “We must get on——”

A door behind him, communicating with the offices behind the hall, opened suddenly as he spoke these words, and he broke off. Monsignor followed the direction of his eyes, and saw a man enter who was plainly in a state of extreme excitement. He was across the platform in three or four quick steps, and laid a paper before the President, pushing by Hardy to do so. Then he stood back abruptly and waited. The President took up the paper deliberately and read it. Then he laid it down again, and a question too was asked smartly in the same rapid German, and answered as smartly.

Then he turned, and creasing the paper between his fingers as he spoke, uttered a sentence that brought every man to his feet.

IV

In the confusion that followed Monsignor stood for a while disregarded. The man who had brought the message, had, after one more sentence snapped at him over the President’s shoulder, vanished once more. For the rest—they were up now, forming into groups, talking excitedly, dissolving again, and re-forming. Only two remained quiet—Hardy and the President; the latter still in his chair, staring out moodily, with the Englishman whispering into his ear. Then Hardy too stood back and stared about him. One or two men came up, but he waved them aside. Then his eyes fell upon the priest, still waiting: he slipped away from the chair, came down the steps, and beckoned to him.

Monsignor was in a whirl; but he turned and came obediently out of his place into the corner by the steps. He noticed as he came that even those who guarded the lower doors were talking.

“There’s news,” whispered Hardy sharply. “Another envoy is coming. Who is it?”

The priest shook his head. “I have no idea.”

“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” said Hardy. “He passed the line of guard-boats five minutes ago. Monsignor——”

“Yes?”

“Just come behind here a moment. I want to have a word with you.”

As they crossed the platform he slipped off again to the

President’s chair, whispered a word to him, and returned.

“Come through here,” he whispered.

Together they passed through the door at the back, and so into one of the little rooms through which they had come together half an hour before. There he closed both doors carefully and came up to the priest.

“Monsignor,” he said, and hesitated.

The priest looked at him curiously. He began to see that a disclosure was coming.

“Monsignor, I have not been hard on you. . . . I came as soon as

I could. . . .”

“Well?”

“I . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen. The envoy’s coming at the last hour. The Council is in a very divided state of mind. You saw that?”

“Well?”

“They’re wavering. It’s no use denying it. They’d accept almost anything. It’s perfectly desperate. They see that now.”

He was fingering the priest’s sleeve by now, and his eyes were full of a pitiable anxiety.

“What do you wish me to do?”

“Well, they’ll say I was responsible—if the negotiations come to anything, I mean. They’ll say I urged them on. They’ll sacrifice me—me and the President. They’ll say they never would have gone to such lengths——What’s that noise?”

Monsignor jerked his head impatiently. He began to see light.

“Well,” went on the other nervously, “I want you to speak for me, if necessary—if necessary, you understand? You’re a Christian, Monsignor. . . You’ll stand by me.”

The priest waited before answering; as the situation took shape before his eyes, he began to understand more and more clearly; and yet——

A voice called out sharply beyond the door, and Hardy leapt to the handle, beckoning with his head; and as the priest obediently followed, he gave him one more look of entreaty and opened the door. The President stood there. The great man, more impressive than ever now, as his great height showed itself, ran his eyes slowly over the two.

“Come back to the hall,” he said, so slowly that even the priest understood it, and turned.

“The envoy’s coming,” whispered Hardy breathlessly, as he paused before following. “You’ll remember, Monsignor? . . .”

It was hardly a minute since they had left, and yet all confusion had vanished. Every man was back in his seat, with that same impassive and yet attentive air that they had worn when Monsignor first saw them. Yet, with his new knowledge, it seemed to him as if he could detect, beneath all that, something of the indecisiveness of which he had just learned. Certainly they were under admirable discipline; yet he began to see that even socialistic discipline had its limitations.

The President was already in the act of sitting down, Hardy was stepping up behind him, and the priest was still hesitating by the door, when down at the lower end of the hall there was a movement among those who guarded it, the great doors opened, and a figure walked straight in, without looking to right or left.

He came on and up; and as he came the hush fell deeper. It was impossible even to see his face; he was in a long travelling cloak that fell to his feet; a travelling cap covered his head; and about his throat and face was thrown a great white scarf, such as the air-travellers often use. He came on, still without looking to right or left, walking as if he had some kind of right to be there, straight up to the witness-box, ascended the steps, and stood there for an instant motionless.

Then he unwound his scarf, lifted his cap and dropped it beside him, threw back his cloak with a single movement, and stood there—a white figure from head to foot, white capped. . . . There was a great sigh from the men on the platform; two or three sprang to their feet, and sat down again as suddenly. Only the President did not move. Then there fell an absolute silence.

V

“Eh well,” said the Pope in delicate French; “I am arrived in time then.”

He looked round from side to side, smiling and peering—this little commonplace-looking Frenchman, who had in his hand at this period of the world’s history an incalculably greater power than any living being on earth had ever before wielded—Father of Princes and Kings, Arbiter of the East, Father as well as Sovereign Lord of considerably more than a thousand million souls. He stood there, utterly alone with a single servant waiting out there, half a mile away, at the flying-stage, in the presence of the Council who in the name of the malcontents of the human race had declared war on the world of which he was now all but absolute master. No European nation could pass a law which he had not the right to veto; not one monarch claimed to hold his crown except at the hands of this man. And the East—even the pagan East—had learned at last that the Vicar of Christ was the Friend of Peace and Progress.

And he stood here, smiling and peering at the faces.

“I come as my own envoy,” said the Pope presently, adjusting his collar. “‘The King said, “They will reverence My Son,”‘ so I am come as the Vicar of that Son. You have killed my two messengers, I hear. Why have you done that?”

There was no answer. From where the priest stood he could hear laboured breathing on all sides, but not a man moved or spoke.

“Eh well then, I have come to offer you a last opportunity of submitting peacefully. In less than an hour from now the armed truce expires. After that we shall be compelled to use force. We do not wish to use force; but society must now protect itself. I do not speak to you in the name of Christ; that name means nothing to you. So I speak in the name of society, which you profess to love. Submit, gentlemen, and let me be the bearer of the good news.”

He spoke still in that absolutely quiet and conversational tone in which he had begun. One hand rested lightly on the rail before him; the other gently fingered the great cross on his breast, naturally and easily, as the priest had seen him finger it once before in his own palace. It was unthinkable that such a weight in the world’s history rested on so slight a foundation. Yet for a few frozen moments no one else moved or spoke. It is probable that the scene they witnessed seemed to them unsubstantial and untrue.

Then, as the priest still stood, fascinated and overwhelmed, he noticed a movement in the great chair before him. Very slowly the President shifted his position, clasping his hands loosely before him and bending forward a little. Then a dialogue began, of which every word remained in the priest’s mind as if written there. It was in French throughout, the smooth delicacy of the Pope’s intonation contrasting strangely with the heavy German accent of the other.

“You come as an envoy, sir. Do you then accept our terms?”

“I accept no terms. I offer them.”

“And those?”

“Absolute and unconditional submission to myself.”

“You received our notice as to the treatment of such envoys?”

(There was a rustle in the hall, but the other paid no attention.)

“But certainly.”

“You come armed then—protected in some manner?”

The Pope smiled. He made a little opening gesture with his hands.

“I come as you see me; no more.”

“Your armies are behind you?”

“The European air-fleets start from every quarter at midnight.”

“With your consent?”

“But certainly.”

“You understand that this means immeasurable bloodshed?”

“But certainly.”

“You defend that?”

“My Master came bringing not peace, but a sword. But I am not here to teach theology.”

“But until midnight——”

“Until midnight I am in your hands.”

Again the silence fell, deeper than ever. Monsignor took his eyes off the Pope’s face for an instant to glance round what he could see of the circle. All were staring steadily, some half sunk down in their seats, others stretched forward, clasping the outer edges of the desks with strained hands, all staring at this quiet white figure who faced them. He looked again at that face. If there had been in it, not merely agitation or fear, but even unusual paleness, if there had been in those hands, one of which bore the great Papal ring, not merely trembling, but even a sign of constriction or tenseness, it might well have been, thought the priest afterwards, that the scene would have ended very differently. But the naturalness and ease of the pose were absolute. He stood there, the hands lightly laid one upon the other, his face palish certainly, but not colourless. There was even a slight flush in his cheeks from his quick walk up the long hall. It was a situation in which the weight of a hair would turn the scale. . . .

Then the President lifted his head slightly, and a tremor ran round the circle.

“I see no reason for delay,” he said heavily. “Our terms were clear. This man came with the full knowledge of them and the consequences of disregarding them——”

The Pope lifted his hand.

“One instant, Mr. President——”

“I see no reason——”

“Gentlemen——-”

A murmur of consent rolled round the thirty persons sitting there, so unmistakable that the man who up to now had ruled them all with a hint or gesture dropped his head again. Then the Pope went on.

“Gentlemen, I have really no more to say than that which I have said. But I beg of you to reconsider. You propose to kill me as you have killed my messengers. Well, I am at your disposal. I did not expect to live so long when I set out from Rome this morning. But, then, what will you gain? At midnight every civilized nation is in arms. And I will tell you what perhaps you do not know—that the East is supporting Europe. The Eastern fleets are actually on their way at this moment that I speak. You propose to reform Society. I will not argue as to those reforms; I say only that they are too late. I will not argue as to the truth of the Christian religion. I say only that the Christian religion is already ruling this world. You kill me? My successor will reign to-morrow. . . . You kill the Emperor; his son, now in Rome, at that moment begins to reign. Gentlemen, what do you gain? Merely this—that in days to come your names will be foul in all men’s mouths. . . . At this moment you have an opportunity to submit; in a few minutes it will be too late.”

He paused a moment.

Then, to the priest’s eyes, it seemed as if some subtle change passed over his face and figure. Up to now he had spoken, conversationally and quietly, as a man might speak to a company of friends. But, though he had not noticed it at the time, he remembered later how there had been gathering during his little speech a certain secret intensity and force like the kindling of a fire. In this pause it swept on and up, flushing his face with sudden colour, lifting his hands as on a rising tide, breaking out suddenly in his eyes like fire, and in his voice in passion. The rest saw it too; and in that tense atmosphere it laid hold of them as with a giant’s hand; it struck their tight-strung nerves; it broke down the last barriers on which their own fears had been at work.

“My children,” cried the White Father, no longer a Frenchman now, but a very Son of Man. “My children, do not break my heart! So long and hard the labour—two thousand years long—two thousand years since Christ died; and you to wreck and break the peace that comes at last; that peace into which through so great tribulations the people of God are entering at last. You say you know no God, and cannot love Him; but you know man—-poor wilful man—and would you fling him back once more into wrath and passion and lust for blood?—those lusts from which even now he might pass to peace if it were not for you. You say that Christ is hard—that His Church is cruel, and that man must have liberty? I too say that man must have liberty—he was made for it; but what liberty would that be which he has not learned to use?

“My children! have pity on men, and on me who strive to be their father. Never yet has Christ reigned on earth till now—Christ who Himself died, as I, His poor servant, am ready to die a thousand times, if men may but themselves learn to die to self and to live to Him. Have pity, then, on the world you love and hope to serve. Serve it indeed as best you can. Let us serve it together!”

There was an instant’s silence.

He stood there, his hands clasped in agony upon his cross. Then he flung his hands wide in sudden, silent appeal.

There was a crash of an overturned desk; the crying out of desperate voices all together, and as from the great tower overhead there beat out the first stroke of midnight, the priest, on his knees now, saw through eyes blind with tears, figures moving and falling and kneeling towards that central form that stood there, a white pillar of Royalty and sorrow, calling for the last time all the world unto him.

But the President sat still at his desk, motionless.

CHAPTER IV

I

The sight on which the watcher’s eyes rested, as he sat, hung here in motionlessness above Westminster, a hundred feet higher than the great St. Edward’s Tower itself, was one not only undreamed of, but even inconceivable to men of earlier days.

For it seemed as if some vast invisible air-way had been flung straight from the midst of London, down away to the south-west horizon, where it ran into the faint summer haze thirty miles away. So level was the line held by the waiting volors on either side—vast barges shining like silver, hung with the great state-cloths of modern days—that it appeared as if the eye itself were deceived, as if there were indeed a pavement of crystal, a river of glass, so clear as itself to be unseen, on whose surface floated this navy of a dream such as the world itself had never imagined.

Now and again, like a fly on water, there darted from one side to the other a tiny boat, in the blue and silver of the city guards, or dropped, ducked and vanished; now and again it wheeled, and came whirling up the line, vanishing at last in the long perspective. But, for the rest, the monsters waited motionless in the sunlight, their state-cloths, hung as from the old barges, from stem to stern, as motionless as themselves, except when now and again the summer breeze stirred from the south-west, lifting the lazy streamers, wafting softly the heavy embroideries, and stirring, even as the wind stirs the wheat, the glittering giants that waited to do their Lord honour.

Opposite the air-barge where the watcher sat, perhaps a hundred yards away, floated the royal boat, between a pair of warships, one blaze of scarlet, blue, and gold, flapping out the Royal Standard of England, and flashing the glass of the stern-cabin as the great creature rocked gently now and again in the breeze; and upon its deck rose up the canopy where the king and his consort sat together, and the line of scarlet guards visible behind. On the warships on either side the crew waited, the ship itself dressed as for a review, every man motionless at his post, with the crash of brass sounding from the lower decks. And so down the line the eye of the watcher went again and again, fascinated by the beauty and the glory, down past where the great ducal barges hung, each in order, past the officers of state, past the Parliament barges, down to where the boats, in numbers beyond all reckoning, faded away into the haze.

To those who looked across to where the man himself sat the sight must have been no less amazing. For he sat there, in his new dress of Cardinal’s scarlet, on the throne of ceremony beneath his canopy with his attendants about him, on a wide deck laid down with scarlet, its prow crowned by the silver cross—a silent watching figure, with a splendour of romance about him more suggestive even than the material glory that showed his newly won dignity.

There was not a soul there in those astounding crowds, whether among those who, hanging here between heaven and earth, awaited for the ceremonial reception, the coming of him who was Vicar of one and Lord of the other, or even among those incalculable multitudes beneath, who packed the streets, crowded the flat roofs and looked from every window. It was this man, they knew, this tiny red figure, sitting solitary and motionless, who scarcely three months before had stood before the revolutionary Council of Berlin, of his own will and choice—who had gone there and faced what seemed a certain death, for love of the old man whose body now lay beneath the high-altar of the tremendous cathedral beneath, and to whose office and honours he had succeeded, and for the sake of the message he had carried. It was this man, alone of the whole Christian world, who after looking into the face of death, not for himself only, but for one who was dearer to him and to that Christian world than life itself, had seen in one moment the last storm roll away from human history for ever; who had seen with his own eyes, Christ in His Vicar—Princeps gloriosus come at last—take the power and reign.

He too was conscious of all this, at least subconsciously, as he sat motionless, a figure carved in ivory, a man who had found peace at last. Here, in the contemplating brain, as with his eyes he looked over the vast city of London, enormous and exquisite beyond the dreams of either the reformers or the artists of a century ago, seen as through the crystal of the summer air, as he lifted his eyes now and again to the solemn barges opposite with all that that dignity meant; above all as he looked down that immeasurable line, that roadway of a god, along which presently at least the Vicar of a God should come—all this and a thousand memories more—memories of events such as few experience in a lifetime, crowded into twelve months—passed in endless defile, coherent and consistent at last under the pointing finger of Him who had directed and evolved them all.

First, then, he saw himself, a child in knowledge, beginning life at a point where many leave it off, plunged into a world that was wholly strange and bewildering, a world which, though Christian in name, seemed brutal in nature—brutal as the pagan empires were brutal, yet without the excuse of their ignorance and passion.

Yet his intellect had seemed unable to refute the conclusion of that march of events, that coherence of all ideals in a reasoned whole, that fulfilment of instincts, that play of forces, upon which, as upon a tide, Catholicism had floated to final victory in the history of mankind. Not one element had seemed wanting; and, as if to convince by sensible visions that brain which shrank from merely argued logic, one by one he had seen for himself as in a picture lesson, how at Versailles the social tangle of an individual kingdom had once more submitted to monarchy—that faulty mirror of the Divine government of the world; how at Rome the stability of rival kingdoms, had found itself once more in an arbiter whose kingdom was not of this world; how finally, at Lourdes, in the widest circle of all, the very science of the world itself had found itself not confronted or opposed, but welcomed and transcended, by a school of thinkers whose limitations lay only in the Infinite.

Once more then he had returned. Yet he had found that the head and the imagination are not all; that man has a heart as well; and that this has its demands no less inexorable that those of intellect. And it was this heart of his that had seemed outraged and silenced. For he had found in Christianity a synthesis of ideas—a coincidence of knowledge—which, while satisfying that head, emerged in a system to which his heart could be no party. He had learned that “Christian society must protect itself”; and he had seemed in this to find a denial of the essential Christian doctrine that success comes only by defeat, and triumph by the Cross. It had seemed to him that Christ had accepted the taunts at last, had come down from the Cross and won the homage only of those who did not understand Him. He had been quieted indeed for a time, under the power of men who, whatever the rest of the world might do, still thought that suffering was the better part. Yet he had been quieted; not convinced.

Then he had sought a glimpse of the reverse of the picture—of that which now seemed the sole alternative to that faith which he feared—a glimpse only; yet full of significance. For he had seen men to whom the better part of themselves seemed nothing; men who walked with downcast eyes, piling mud and stones together, and fancying the heap to be a very City of God.

Then, swift as grace itself, had come his answer.

He had seen men who had already all that the world could give, men who, he had thought, lusted only for power, go to an unknown and yet a certain death for the sake of a world over which he had thought they cared only to reign—and go with smiles and cheerfulness. And while he still hung in indecision, still hesitated as to whether this or that were the Kingdom of God—this shrinking dream of a world sufficient to itself, or this brightening vision—then the last light had come, and he had seen one to be victor by sheer self-abnegation, by contempt of his own life, by the all but divine power of an ordinary man walking in grace. There had been no rhetoric in that triumph, no promises, no intoxication of phrases, no overwhelming personality such as that which had faced him. There had been nothing but a little quiet personage with a father’s heart, who by his very fidelity to his human type, by the absolute simplicity of his presence had first climbed to the highest point that man could reach, and then by that same fidelity and simplicity, had cast himself down, and in the very hour that followed the unconditional surrender which his enemies had made, had granted them a measure of liberty such as they had never dreamed of. In the name of the Powers, whose super-lord and representative he was, he had abolished the death-penalty for opinions subversive of society or faith, substituting in its place deportation to the new American colonies; he had flung open certain positions in Catholic states hitherto tenable only on a profession of the Christian religion to all men alike; and he had guaranteed to the new colonies in America a freedom from external control and a place among civilized powers such as they had never expected or asked.

This then was the new type of man who had at last conquered the world. It was not a superman that had been waited for so long, not a demigod armed with powers of light; not man raising himself above his stature, building towers on earthly foundations that should reach to heaven; but just man, utterly true to himself and his instincts, walking humbly before his God; looking for a city that has no foundations, coming down to him out of heaven. It was supernature, not superman; grace and truth transfiguring nature; not nature wrenching itself vainly towards the stature of grace. It was man who could suffer, who could reign; since he only who knows his weakness, dares to be strong. . . . Vicisti Galilaee!

II

Slowly then he had come to see that, as had been told him long before, the kingdoms of this world were already passing into the hands of a higher dominion—and this was the significance of this microcosm of those kingdoms that now lay before his bodily eyes.

There, opposite to him, in the blaze of sunlight, stood the throne that for a thousand years had faced the throne of the Fisherman, now as a dependant, now as a rebel—stable and fixed at last in its allegiance. Here beneath him lay London, the finest city in the world, where, if ever anywhere, had been tried the experiment of a religion resting on the strength of a national isolation instead of an universal supernationalism;—it had been tried, and found wanting. Beneath him lay his own cathedral, already blazing within like a treasure-cave, ready for its consummation, without, tranquil and strong; behind him the ancient Abbey once again in the hands of its children; far away to the right, seeming strangely near in this lucid atmosphere, hung, like a bubble, the great dome below which, as he knew, stood the first basilican altar in London, newly consecrated as a sign of its papal dignities and privileges. And beyond that again London; and yet again London, a wonderful white city, gleaming at a thousand points with cross and spire and dome and pinnacle, patched with green in square and park and open space—London come back again at last to her ancient faith and her old prosperity.

But this was not all.

For he knew and his imagination circled out wider and wider that he might take it in—he knew that Europe itself at last dwelt again with one mind in her house. There beyond the channel—across which ten minutes ago, as the thunder of guns had told him, the Arbiter of the World had come at last with his train of kings behind him—there lay the huge continent, the great plains of France, the forests of Germany, the giant tumbled debris of Switzerland, the warm and radiant coasts, the ancient world-stage of Italy, passionate Spain which never yet had wholly lost her love. There all lay, at one at last, each her own, with her own liberties and customs and traditions, yet each in the service of her neighbour, since each and all alike lay beneath the Peace of God.

Still wider fled his thought. . . . He saw to the southwards and far away westwards across the seas, how now this country, now that, flew its flag and administered its laws, yet how those flags all together saluted the Crossed Keys; how those laws, however diverse, bowed all together before the Law of Liberty; and how there, farther yet, already the gates of the East had rolled back, and how there peered out across half the world the patient seeking faces of those old children of earth, awakened at last to destinies greater than their own—awakened, not as men had once feared, by the thunder of Christian guns, but by the call of the Shepherd to sheep that were not of His Fold. . . .

So there the vision lay before him—this man who had lost his memory and had found a greater gift instead.

An old priest in the white fur of a canon came gently up the deck from behind. . . .

“Your Eminence . . .” he said, “they have signalled up the line. . . . I thought, perhaps——”

The new Cardinal started as one from a dream.

“What is it, Father Jervis? . . .”

The old man looked at him closely; then he laid his hand on his arm.

“Your Eminence, the King is waiting. Do you not remember? Your

Eminence was to give the signal.”

Beneath, like huge voices speaking a single word all at once, roared the old guns from the Tower and Greenwich and the palaces.

The Cardinal shook his head.

“I . . . I forget,” he said; “I was thinking. . . . What am I to do?”

The old priest looked at him again earnestly, without speaking.

Then he leaned forward closer still.

“Will your Eminence authorize me to give the signals?”

“Yes, yes, Father . . . anything. What am I to do? Have I to say anything?”

His eyes had a look of dawning terror in them as he glanced from side to side. The priest once again laid his hand on the lace-covered wrist and held it there steadily.

“Nothing at all, your Eminence. You have simply to sit still. I will arrange everything.”

Still standing there, he turned slightly and made a sharp gesture behind the throne with his left hand. A bell sounded instantly. There was a moment’s silence. Then once again a bell; and a chorus answered it.

Very slowly the Cardinal lifted his head, and saw before him the Royal barge sway ever so slightly, conscious himself that through his own vessel a vibration was beginning to run as the huge engines beneath moved into action. Again roared the guns far down the river, and, as the bellow ceased, from a thousand steeples broke out the clamour of brazen tongues. . . .

He sat still; he knew at least that this he must do. . . . Surely this obscurity of brain would pass again in a moment. He was going to meet the Holy Father, was he not? . . . down there, down that road of light and air, along which now his great barge floated side by side with the King’s. That was it. He remembered again now as his memory flickered in glimpses. This was the great Progress round the world of the new Arbiter of the World, the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, come into his Kingdom at last.

He kept his eyes steadily before him, scarcely seeing the flash of the river as it swept beneath him and away, or on all sides the dipping flags, the monstrous gilded prows, the bravery of colour, down this broad road on which he went, scarcely conscious that, as he passed, the great barges wheeled behind him to follow to the meeting; scarcely hearing the tremendous music that, sweeping up from the crowded streets below, wafted up to him the adoration of a free people who had learned at last that the Law of Liberty was the Law of Love. . . .

Ah! there at last they came. . . .

Far down, rising every instant higher above the summer haze, outlined against a heaven of intensest blue, approached a cloud that sparkled as it came, that broke into a thousand points of colour—a long, flat cloud, seen at first as a steamer stretched across the sky, curving down behind, as it seemed, into the haze from which it came. On and up it came, growing every instant, widening and deepening, ever more and more clear in colour and form and depth.

It could be seen now of what elements it was made—a throng of tiny specks, moving like stately birds, which, even as the eye watched, seemed to spread their wings upon the breeze that followed; to expand their bulk, and to glow, as the distance lessened, into the separate colours of each. . . .

Then once again bellowed the guns, heard now like the voice of articulate thunder five miles behind, rolling up the river as if to welcome this fleet upon its way; and still he kept his eyes upon those who came so swiftly.

There in front moved the great guard-ships, monsters of polished steel, decked at prow and stern with the huge banners that stood out straight behind in the swiftness of their coming, but which, even as he looked, flapped and bellied to this side and that as the speed decreased. Then, wheeling outwards, disclosing as they wheeled the insignia that each bore, the eagles of Germany, the lilies of France and the rest, the guard of thirty giants fell once more into line, half a mile apart, as those that followed came on, and waited; beating the air with the shimmer of their netted wings.

Then ship after ship came up, each wheeling in its turn and waiting, building now up with the speed of thought a vast semicircle, expanding ever more and more swiftly, as the watcher looked—himself halted now, with the royal barge on his right and his train of boats behind. There each in its turn passed the air-navies of the Great Powers, come to bring their Lord with honour on his progress through the world—vast armaments of inconceivable war, enrolled at last in the service of the Prince of Peace.

Then when the movement was complete, and there lay there across the burning blue of the sky, five hundred feet in air, this vast curve of glittering splendour, ten miles from horn to horn, on came the great fleet that they had escorted.

There, then, the watcher saw two by two, first the barges of the Papal Orders, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre with its five-fold cross, and the Golden Spur, leading—huge medieval galleons, carved at prow and stem, each bearing its insignia; then came couple after couple bearing the Papal Court, followed closely by great barges, each with its canopy and throne, and the coat of the Cardinal whom each bore flying overhead.

And then a glorious sight.

For, moving alone in a solid phalanx, each vessel separated only by the space necessary for close manoeuvring, came the royal barges of Europe, ranked on either side by a line of guard-boats—France, Austria, and Germany, then Belgium and Holland, then the Scandinavian kingdoms, then a crowd of lesser States from the Balkan, Greece, and the Black Sea; then the black-eagled barge of Russia, and finally the great galleons of Spain and Italy: and on each sat a royal figure beneath a canopy of state. And last of all moved a huge vessel, in scarlet and white, with a banner of white and gold and cross-keys at the prow; scarcely seen at first through the crowding craft, with a squadron of guard-ships coming after.

There, then, the man who had lost his memory sat motionless, and watched it all—this astounding display of inner grace transformed into glory at last, that Royalty which since first the Fisherman took his seat in Holy Rome, had little by little, through reverse and success, forced its way outwards on the world—the leaven hid in the meal till all was leavened. . . . And it seemed to him as he looked, as if, through the splendour of the midday sun, the glitter of that sea of air-craft—through the pealing of the bells beneath and the shock of the guns and the shrill crying that filled the air—there moved other Presences, too, in yet a third medium than those of air and earth; as if diffused throughout this material plane was a world of more than matter and mind, more than of sense and perception—a world where all was reconciled and made at one—this clash of flesh and spirit—and that at last each answered to each, and spirit inspired flesh, and flesh expressed spirit. It seemed to him, for one blinding instant, as if at last he saw how distance was contained in a single point, colour in whiteness, and sound in silence, as at the very Word of Him who now at last had taken His power and reigned, whose Kingdom at last had come indeed, to whom in very truth All Power was given in heaven and earth. . . .

EPILOGUE

The white-skirted, clean-looking doctor came briskly and noiselessly into the little room that opened off Ward No. IV in the Westminster Hospital as the clock pointed to nine o’clock in the morning, and the nursing-sister stood up to receive him.

“Good morning, sister,” he said. “Any change?”

“He seemed a little disturbed about an hour ago by the bells,” she said. “But he hasn’t spoken at all.”

Together they stood and looked down on the unconscious man. He lay there motionless with closed eyes, his unshaven cheek resting on his hand, his face fallen into folds and hollows, colourless and sallow. The red coverlet drawn up over his shoulder helped to emphasize his deadly pallor.

“It’s a curious case,” said the doctor. “I’ve never seen coma in such a case last so long.”

He still stared at him a moment or two; then he laid the back of his hand gently against the dying man’s cheek, then again he consulted through his glasses the chart that hung over the head of the bed.

“Will he recover consciousness before the end, doctor?”

“It’s very likely; it’s impossible to say. Send for me if there’s any change.”

“I mayn’t send for a priest, doctor?” she said hesitatingly. “You know—-”

He shook his head sharply.

“No, no. He distinctly refused, you remember. It’s impossible, sister. . . . I’m very sorry.”

When he had gone, she sat down again, and drew out her beads furtively upon her lap.

It was a horrible position for her. She, a Catholic, knew now pretty well the history of this man—that he himself was a priest who had lost the faith, who had associated himself with an historian who was writing a history of the Popes from what he called an impartial standpoint, who had, as the doctor said, distinctly and resentfully refused the suggestion that another priest should be sent to help him to make his peace before he died. And, for her, as a convinced Catholic, the position had a terror that is simply inconceivable to those of a less positive faith.

She could do nothing more. . . . She said her beads.

There was a curious mixture of silence and sound here on this Easter Sunday in this bare, airy little ward, with the door closed, and the windows open only at the top. The room had a remote kind of atmosphere about it, obtained perhaps partly by the solidity of the walls, partly by the fact that it looked out on to a comparatively unfrequented lane, partly by the suggestiveness of a professional sick-room. The world was all about it; yet it seemed rather to this nurse, sitting alone at her prayers and duties, as if she had a window into the common world of life rather than that she actually was a part of it. Even the sounds that entered here had this remote tone about them; the footsteps and talking of strayed holiday-makers, occasional fragmentary peals of bells, the striking of the clock in the high Victoria Tower—all these noises came into the room delicately and suggestively rather than as interruptions, yet distinct and noticeable because of the absence of the usual rush of traffic across the great square outside.

The nurse dozed a little over her beads. (She had been on duty since the evening before, and would not be relieved for another hour yet.) And it seemed to her, as so often in that half-sleep, half-wakefulness, when the drowsy brain knows all necessary things and awakes alert again in an instant at any unusual movement or sound, as if these sounds began to take on them tones of other causes than those of themselves.

It seemed, for example, as if the steady murmur were the shouting of phantom crowds at an immeasurable distance, punctuated now again by the noise of distant guns, as, somewhere round a corner a vehicle passed over a crossing of cobble-stones; as if the bells of the churches rang with a deliberate purpose, to welcome or rejoice over some event . . . some entry of a king, she fancied, in a far-off city. Once even, so deep grew her drowsiness, she fancied herself looking down on some such city, herself up in the sunlight and air, floating on the cloudy vessel of her own sleep. . . .

“Pray for us sinners,” she murmured, “now and in the hour of our death.”

Then she awoke in earnest, and saw the eyes of the patient fixed intelligently upon her.

“Fetch a priest,” he said.

“Father,” said the dying man an hour later, “is that all?

Have you finished?”

“Yes, my dear father—thank God!” . . .

“Well; sit down a minute or two. I want to talk to you.”

The young priest, sent for nearly an hour ago in haste from the Cathedral, finished putting up again into his little leather case the tiny stocks of holy oil with which he had just anointed the dying man. He had heard his confession . . . he had returned again to fetch the Viaticum and the oils; and now all was done; and the old priest was reconciled and at peace. The young man was still a little tremulous; it was his first reconciliation of a dying apostate, and it seemed to him a marvellous thing that a man could come back after so long, and so simply—and an apostate priest at that! He had heard this man’s name before, and heard his story. . . .

But he was intensely anxious to know what it was that had wrought the miracle. The sister had told him that until this moment the patient had steadily refused even the suggestion to send for a priest. And then, when he had come, there had been no preliminaries. He had simply slipped on his stole as the sister went to the door, sat down by the bedside, heard the confession, and undertaken one or two little acts of restitution on his penitent’s behalf.

He sat down again now and waited.

The man in the bed lay with closed eyes, and an extraordinary peace rested over him. It was almost impossible to believe, so white were the reflections of these clean walls, so white the linen, that there was not a certain interior luminosity that shone over his features. His chin and lips and jaws were covered with a week’s stubble, his eyelids were sunk in the sockets, and the temples looked shrunken and hollow; yet there was a clearness of skin, not yet dusky with the shadow of death, that appeared almost supernatural to this young man who looked at him.

“The sign of the Prophet Jonas,” said the dying priest suddenly. . . . “Resurrection.”

“Yes?”

“That is what I have seen,” he said. . . “No; I know it was a dream. . . But it is possible; the Church has the power within her. It may happen some day; or it may not. But there is no reason why it should not.”

The other leant over him.

“My dear father——” he began. The older priest smiled.

“It is a long time since I heard that,” he said. . . . “What’s your name, father?”

“Jervis . . . Father Jervis. I come from the Cathedral.”

The eyes opened and looked at him curiously.

“Eh?”

“Father Jervis,” said the young priest again.

“Any relations?”

“Some nephews—children. That’s all of my name.”

“Ah well! Perhaps-” (He broke off). “Did they tell me your name, before I became unconscious?”

“It’s very likely. I’m the visiting chaplain here.”

“Ah well! Who knows—-? But that doesn’t matter. . . . Father, how long have I to live?”

The young priest leaned forward and laid his hand on the other’s arm.

“A few hours only, father,” he said gently. . . . “You are not afraid?”

“Afraid?”

His eyes closed, and he smiled naturally and easily.

“Well; listen. Lean closer. . . . No . . . call the sister in.

I want her to hear too.”

“Sister——”

She came forward, her eyes heavy with sleep, but they were bright too with an immense joy.

“Can you wait up a little longer, sister?” said Father Jervis.

“He wants us both to hear what he has to say.”

“Why, of course.”

She sat down on the other side of the bed.

Still the sounds from outside went on—the footsteps and the voices and the bells. They were beginning to ring for the Easter morning service in the Abbey; and still, within this room, was this air of silence and remoteness.

“Now, listen carefully,” said the dying man. . . .

LORD OF

THE WORLD

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

DEDICATION

CLAVI DOMUS DAVID

CONTENTS

LORD OF THE WORLD

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

BOOK I

THE ADVENT

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

CHAPTER V

I

II

BOOK II

THE ENCOUNTER

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER III

I

II

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

CHAPTER VI

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER VII

I

II

CHAPTER VIII

I

II

III

BOOK III

THE VICTORY

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

CHAPTER VI

I

II

III

THE END

LORD OF THE WORLD

PREFACE

I am perfectly aware that this is a terribly sensational book, and open to innumerable criticisms on that account, as well as on many others. But I did not know how else to express the principles I desired (and which I passionately believe to be true) except by producing their lines to a sensational point. I have tried, however, not to scream unduly loud, and to retain, so far as possible, reverence and consideration for the opinions of other people. Whether I have succeeded in that attempt is quite another matter.

Robert Hugh Benson.

CAMBRIDGE 1907.

PROLOGUE

“You must give me a moment,” said the old man, leaning back.

Percy resettled himself in his chair and waited, chin on hand.

It was a very silent room in which the three men sat, furnished with the extreme common sense of the period. It had neither window nor door; for it was now sixty years since the world, recognising that space is not confined to the surface of the globe, had begun to burrow in earnest. Old Mr. Templeton’s house stood some forty feet below the level of the Thames embankment, in what was considered a somewhat commodious position, for he had only a hundred yards to walk before he reached the station of the Second Central Motor-circle, and a quarter of a mile to the volor-station at Blackfriars. He was over ninety years old, however, and seldom left his house now. The room itself was lined throughout with the delicate green jade-enamel prescribed by the Board of Health, and was suffused with the artificial sunlight discovered by the great Reuter forty years before; it had the colour-tone of a spring wood, and was warmed and ventilated through the classical frieze grating to the exact temperature of 18 degrees Centigrade. Mr. Templeton was a plain man, content to live as his father had lived before him. The furniture, too, was a little old-fashioned in make and design, constructed however according to the prevailing system of soft asbestos enamel welded over iron, indestructible, pleasant to the touch, and resembling mahogany. A couple of book-cases well filled ran on either side of the bronze pedestal electric fire before which sat the three men; and in the further corners stood the hydraulic lifts that gave entrance, the one to the bedroom, the other to the corridor fifty feet up which opened on to the Embankment.

Father Percy Franklin, the elder of the two priests, was rather a remarkable-looking man, not more than thirty-five years old, but with hair that was white throughout; his grey eyes, under black eyebrows, were peculiarly bright and almost passionate; but his prominent nose and chin and the extreme decisiveness of his mouth reassured the observer as to his will. Strangers usually looked twice at him.

Father Francis, however, sitting in his upright chair on the other side of the hearth, brought down the average; for, though his brown eyes were pleasant and pathetic, there was no strength in his face; there was even a tendency to feminine melancholy in the corners of his mouth and the marked droop of his eyelids.

Mr. Templeton was just a very old man, with a strong face in folds, clean-shaven like the rest of the world, and was now lying back on his water-pillows with the quilt over his feet.

At last he spoke, glancing first at Percy, on his left.

“Well,” he said, “it is a great business to remember exactly; but this is how I put it to myself.”

“In England our party was first seriously alarmed at the Labour Parliament of 1917. That showed us how deeply Herveism had impregnated the whole social atmosphere. There had been Socialists before, but none like Gustave Herve in his old age—at least no one of the same power. He, perhaps you have read, taught absolute Materialism and Socialism developed to their logical issues. Patriotism, he said, was a relic of barbarism; and sensual enjoyment was the only certain good. Of course, every one laughed at him. It was said that without religion there could be no adequate motive among the masses for even the simplest social order. But he was right, it seemed. After the fall of the French Church at the beginning of the century and the massacres of 1914, the bourgeoisie settled down to organise itself; and that extraordinary movement began in earnest, pushed through by the middle classes, with no patriotism, no class distinctions, practically no army. Of course, Freemasonry directed it all. This spread to Germany, where the influence of Karl Marx had already—-”

“Yes, sir,” put in Percy smoothly, “but what of England, if you don’t mind—-”

“Ah, yes; England. Well, in 1917 the Labour party gathered up the reins, and Communism really began. That was long before I can remember, of course, but my father used to date it from then. The only wonder was that things did not go forward more quickly; but I suppose there was a good deal of Tory leaven left. Besides, centuries generally run slower than is expected, especially after beginning with an impulse. But the new order began then; and the Communists have never suffered a serious reverse since, except the little one in ‘25. Blenkin founded ‘The New People’ then; and the ‘Times’ dropped out; but it was not, strangely enough, till ‘35 that the House of Lords fell for the last time. The Established Church had gone finally in ‘29.”

“And the religious effect of that?” asked Percy swiftly, as the old man paused to cough slightly, lifting his inhaler. The priest was anxious to keep to the point.

“It was an effect itself,” said the other, “rather than a cause. You see, the Ritualists, as they used to call them, after a desperate attempt to get into the Labour swim, came into the Church after the Convocation of ‘19, when the Nicene Creed dropped out; and there was no real enthusiasm except among them. But so far as there was an effect from the final Disestablishment, I think it was that what was left of the State Church melted into the Free Church, and the Free Church was, after all, nothing more than a little sentiment. The Bible was completely given up as an authority after the renewed German attacks in the twenties; and the Divinity of our Lord, some think, had gone all but in name by the beginning of the century. The Kenotic theory had provided for that. Then there was that strange little movement among the Free Churchmen even earlier; when ministers who did no more than follow the swim—who were sensitive to draughts, so to speak—broke off from their old positions. It is curious to read in the history of the time how they were hailed as independent thinkers. It was just exactly what they were not…. Where was I? Oh, yes…. Well, that cleared the ground for us, and the Church made extraordinary progress for a while—extraordinary, that is, under the circumstances, because you must remember, things were very different from twenty, or even ten, years before. I mean that, roughly speaking, the severing of the sheep and the goats had begun. The religious people were practically all Catholics and Individualists; the irreligious people rejected the supernatural altogether, and were, to a man, Materialists and Communists. But we made progress because we had a few exceptional men—Delaney the philosopher, McArthur and Largent, the philanthropists, and so on. It really seemed as if Delaney and his disciples might carry everything before them. You remember his ‘Analogy’? Oh, yes, it is all in the text-books….

“Well, then, at the close of the Vatican Council, which had been called in the nineteenth century, and never dissolved, we lost a great number through the final definitions. The ‘Exodus of the Intellectuals’ the world called it—-”

“The Biblical decisions,” put in the younger priest.

“That partly; and the whole conflict that began with the rise of Modernism at the beginning of the century but much more the condemnation of Delaney, and of the New Transcendentalism generally, as it was then understood. He died outside the Church, you know. Then there was the condemnation of Sciotti’s book on Comparative Religion…. After that the Communists went on by strides, although by very slow ones. It seems extraordinary to you, I dare say, but you cannot imagine the excitement when the Necessary Trades Bill became law in ‘60. People thought that all enterprise would stop when so many professions were nationalised; but, you know, it didn’t. Certainly the nation was behind it.”

“What year was the Two-Thirds Majority Bill passed?” asked Percy.

“Oh! long before—within a year or two of the fall of the House of Lords. It was necessary, I think, or the Individualists would have gone raving mad…. Well, the Necessary Trades Bill was inevitable: people had begun to see that even so far back as the time when the railways were municipalised. For a while there was a burst of art; because all the Individualists who could went in for it (it was then that the Toller school was founded); but they soon drifted back into Government employment; after all, the six-per-cent limit for all individual enterprise was not much of a temptation; and Government paid well.”

Percy shook his head.

“Yes; but I cannot understand the present state of affairs. You said just now that things went slowly?”

“Yes,” said the old man, “but you must remember the Poor Laws. That established the Communists for ever. Certainly Braithwaite knew his business.”

The younger priest looked up inquiringly.

“The abolition of the old workhouse system,” said Mr. Templeton. “It is all ancient history to you, of course; but I remember as if it was yesterday. It was that which brought down what was still called the Monarchy and the Universities.”

“Ah,” said Percy. “I should like to hear you talk about that, sir.”

“Presently, father…. Well, this is what Braithwaite did. By the old system all paupers were treated alike, and resented it. By the new system there were the three grades that we have now, and the enfranchisement of the two higher grades. Only the absolutely worthless were assigned to the third grade, and treated more or less as criminals—of course after careful examination. Then there was the reorganisation of the Old Age Pensions. Well, don’t you see how strong that made the Communists? The Individualists—they were still called Tories when I was a boy—the Individualists have had no chance since. They are no more than a worn-out drag now. The whole of the working classes—and that meant ninety-nine of a hundred—were all against them.”

Percy looked up; but the other went on.

“Then there was the Prison Reform Bill under Macpherson, and the abolition of capital punishment; there was the final Education Act of ‘59, whereby dogmatic secularism was established; the practical abolition of inheritance under the reformation of the Death Duties—-”

“I forget what the old system was,” said Percy.

“Why, it seems incredible, but the old system was that all paid alike. First came the Heirloom Act, and then the change by which inherited wealth paid three times the duty of earned wealth, leading up to the acceptance of Karl Marx’s doctrines in ‘89—but the former came in ‘77…. Well, all these things kept England up to the level of the Continent; she had only been just in time to join in with the final scheme of Western Free Trade. That was the first effect, you remember, of the Socialists’ victory in Germany.”

“And how did we keep out of the Eastern War?” asked Percy anxiously.

“Oh! that’s a long story; but, in a word, America stopped us; so we lost India and Australia. I think that was the nearest to the downfall of the Communists since ‘25. But Braithwaite got out of it very cleverly by getting us the protectorate of South Africa once and for all. He was an old man then, too.”

Mr. Templeton stopped to cough again. Father Francis sighed and shifted in his chair.

“And America?” asked Percy.

“Ah! all that is very complicated. But she knew her strength and annexed

Canada the same year. That was when we were at our weakest.”

Percy stood up.

“Have you a Comparative Atlas, sir?” he asked.

The old man pointed to a shelf.

“There,” he said.

Percy looked at the sheets a minute or two in silence, spreading them on his knees.

“It is all much simpler, certainly,” he murmured, glancing first at the old complicated colouring of the beginning of the twentieth century, and then at the three great washes of the twenty-first.

He moved his finger along Asia. The words EASTERN EMPIRE ran across the pale yellow, from the Ural Mountains on the left to the Behring Straits on the right, curling round in giant letters through India, Australia, and New Zealand. He glanced at the red; it was considerably smaller, but still important enough, considering that it covered not only Europe proper, but all Russia up to the Ural Mountains, and Africa to the south. The blue-labelled AMERICAN REPUBLIC swept over the whole of that continent, and disappeared right round to the left of the Western Hemisphere in a shower of blue sparks on the white sea.

“Yes, it’s simpler,” said the old man drily.

Percy shut the book and set it by his chair.

“And what next, sir? What will happen?”

The old Tory statesman smiled.

“God knows,” he said. “If the Eastern Empire chooses to move, we can do nothing. I don’t know why they have not moved. I suppose it is because of religious differences.”

“Europe will not split?” asked the priest.

“No, no. We know our danger now. And America would certainly help us.

But, all the same, God help us—or you, I should rather say—if the

Empire does move! She knows her strength at last.”

There was silence for a moment or two. A faint vibration trembled through the deep-sunk room as some huge machine went past on the broad boulevard overhead.

“Prophesy, sir,” said Percy suddenly. “I mean about religion.”

Mr. Templeton inhaled another long breath from his instrument. Then again he took up his discourse.

“Briefly,” he said, “there are three forces—Catholicism, Humanitarianism, and the Eastern religions. About the third I cannot prophesy, though I think the Sufis will be victorious. Anything may happen; Esotericism is making enormous strides—and that means Pantheism; and the blending of the Chinese and Japanese dynasties throws out all our calculations. But in Europe and America, there is no doubt that the struggle lies between the other two. We can neglect everything else. And, I think, if you wish me to say what I think, that, humanly speaking, Catholicism will decrease rapidly now. It is perfectly true that Protestantism is dead. Men do recognise at last that a supernatural Religion involves an absolute authority, and that Private Judgment in matters of faith is nothing else than the beginning of disintegration. And it is also true that since the Catholic Church is the only institution that even claims supernatural authority, with all its merciless logic, she has again the allegiance of practically all Christians who have any supernatural belief left. There are a few faddists left, especially in America and here; but they are negligible. That is all very well; but, on the other hand, you must remember that Humanitarianism, contrary to all persons’ expectations, is becoming an actual religion itself, though anti-supernatural. It is Pantheism; it is developing a ritual under Freemasonry; it has a creed, ‘God is Man,’ and the rest. It has therefore a real food of a sort to offer to religious cravings; it idealises, and yet it makes no demand upon the spiritual faculties. Then, they have the use of all the churches except ours, and all the Cathedrals; and they are beginning at last to encourage sentiment. Then, they may display their symbols and we may not: I think that they will be established legally in another ten years at the latest.

“Now, we Catholics, remember, are losing; we have lost steadily for more than fifty years. I suppose that we have, nominally, about one-fortieth of America now—and that is the result of the Catholic movement of the early twenties. In France and Spain we are nowhere; in Germany we are less. We hold our position in the East, certainly; but even there we have not more than one in two hundred—so the statistics say—and we are scattered. In Italy? Well, we have Rome again to ourselves, but nothing else; here, we have Ireland altogether and perhaps one in sixty of England, Wales and Scotland; but we had one in forty seventy years ago. Then there is the enormous progress of psychology—all clean against us for at least a century. First, you see, there was Materialism, pure and simple that failed more or less—it was too crude—until psychology came to the rescue. Now psychology claims all the rest of the ground; and the supernatural sense seems accounted for. That’s the claim. No, father, we are losing; and we shall go on losing, and I think we must even be ready for a catastrophe at any moment.”

“But—-” began Percy.

“You think that weak for an old man on the edge of the grave. Well, it is what I think. I see no hope. In fact, it seems to me that even now something may come on us quickly. No; I see no hope until—-”

Percy looked up sharply.

“Until our Lord comes back,” said the old statesman.

Father Francis sighed once more, and there fell a silence.

“And the fall of the Universities?” said Percy at last.

“My dear father, it was exactly like the fall of the Monasteries under Henry VIII—the same results, the same arguments, the same incidents. They were the strongholds of Individualism, as the Monasteries were the strongholds of Papalism; and they were regarded with the same kind of awe and envy. Then the usual sort of remarks began about the amount of port wine drunk; and suddenly people said that they had done their work, that the inmates were mistaking means for ends; and there was a great deal more reason for saying it. After all, granted the supernatural, Religious Houses are an obvious consequence; but the object of secular education is presumably the production of something visible—either character or competence; and it became quite impossible to prove that the Universities produced either—which was worth having. The distinction between [Greek: ou] and [Greek: me] is not an end in itself; and the kind of person produced by its study was not one which appealed to England in the twentieth century. I am not sure that it appealed even to me much (and I was always a strong Individualist)—except by way of pathos—-”

“Yes?” said Percy.

“Oh, it was pathetic enough. The Science Schools of Cambridge and the Colonial Department of Oxford were the last hope; and then those went. The old dons crept about with their books, but nobody wanted them—they were too purely theoretical; some drifted into the poorhouses, first or second grade; some were taken care of by charitable clergymen; there was that attempt to concentrate in Dublin; but it failed, and people soon forgot them. The buildings, as you know, were used for all kinds of things. Oxford became an engineering establishment for a while, and Cambridge a kind of Government laboratory. I was at King’s College, you know. Of course it was all as horrible as it could be—though I am glad they kept the chapel open even as a museum. It was not nice to see the chantries filled with anatomical specimens. However, I don’t think it was much worse than keeping stoves and surplices in them.”

“What happened to you?”

“Oh! I was in Parliament very soon; and I had a little money of my own, too. But it was very hard on some of them; they had little pensions, at least all who were past work. And yet, I don’t know: I suppose it had to come. They were very little more than picturesque survivals, you know; and had not even the grace of a religious faith about them.”

Percy sighed again, looking at the humorously reminiscent face of the old man. Then he suddenly changed the subject again.

“What about this European parliament?” he said.

The old man started.

“Oh!… I think it will pass,” he said, “if a man can be found to push it. All this last century has been leading up to it, as you see. Patriotism has been dying fast; but it ought to have died, like slavery and so forth, under the influence of the Catholic Church. As it is, the work has been done without the Church; and the result is that the world is beginning to range itself against us: it is an organised antagonism— a kind of Catholic anti-Church. Democracy has done what the Divine Monarchy should have done. If the proposal passes I think we may expect something like persecution once more…. But, again, the Eastern invasion may save us, if it comes off…. I do not know….”

Percy sat still yet a moment; then he stood up suddenly.

“I must go, sir,” he said, relapsing into Esperanto. “It is past nineteen o’clock. Thank you so much. Are you coming, father?”

Father Francis stood up also, in the dark grey suit permitted to priests, and took up his hat.

“Well, father,” said the old man again, “come again some day, if I haven’t been too discursive. I suppose you have to write your letter yet?”

Percy nodded.

“I did half of it this morning,” he said, “but I felt I wanted another bird’s-eye view before I could understand properly: I am so grateful to you for giving it me. It is really a great labour, this daily letter to the Cardinal-Protector. I am thinking of resigning if I am allowed.”

“My dear father, don’t do that. If I may say so to your face, I think you have a very shrewd mind; and unless Rome has balanced information she can do nothing. I don’t suppose your colleagues are as careful as yourself.”

Percy smiled, lifting his dark eyebrows deprecatingly.

“Come, father,” he said.

The two priests parted at the steps of the corridor, and Percy stood for a minute or two staring out at the familiar autumn scene, trying to understand what it all meant. What he had heard downstairs seemed strangely to illuminate that vision of splendid prosperity that lay before him.

The air was as bright as day; artificial sunlight had carried all before it, and London now knew no difference between dark and light. He stood in a kind of glazed cloister, heavily floored with a preparation of rubber on which footsteps made no sound. Beneath him, at the foot of the stairs, poured an endless double line of persons severed by a partition, going to right and left, noiselessly, except for the murmur of Esperanto talking that sounded ceaselessly as they went. Through the clear, hardened glass of the public passage showed a broad sleek black roadway, ribbed from side to side, and puckered in the centre, significantly empty, but even as he stood there a note sounded far away from Old Westminster, like the hum of a giant hive, rising as it came, and an instant later a transparent thing shot past, flashing from every angle, and the note died to a hum again and a silence as the great Government motor from the south whirled eastwards with the mails. This was a privileged roadway; nothing but state-vehicles were allowed to use it, and those at a speed not exceeding one hundred miles an hour.

Other noises were subdued in this city of rubber; the passenger-circles were a hundred yards away, and the subterranean traffic lay too deep for anything but a vibration to make itself felt. It was to remove this vibration, and silence the hum of the ordinary vehicles, that the Government experts had been working for the last twenty years.

Once again before he moved there came a long cry from overhead, startlingly beautiful and piercing, and, as he lifted his eyes from the glimpse of the steady river which alone had refused to be transformed, he saw high above him against the heavy illuminated clouds, a long slender object, glowing with soft light, slide northwards and vanish on outstretched wings. That musical cry, he told himself, was the voice of one of the European line of volors announcing its arrival in the capital of Great Britain.

“Until our Lord comes back,” he thought to himself; and for an instant the old misery stabbed at his heart. How difficult it was to hold the eyes focussed on that far horizon when this world lay in the foreground so compelling in its splendour and its strength! Oh, he had argued with Father Francis an hour ago that size was not the same as greatness, and that an insistent external could not exclude a subtle internal; and he had believed what he had then said; but the doubt yet remained till he silenced it by a fierce effort, crying in his heart to the Poor Man of Nazareth to keep his heart as the heart of a little child.

Then he set his lips, wondering how long Father Francis would bear the pressure, and went down the steps.

BOOK I

THE ADVENT

CHAPTER I

I

Oliver Brand, the new member for Croydon (4), sat in his study, looking out of the window over the top of his typewriter.

His house stood facing northwards at the extreme end of a spur of the Surrey Hills, now cut and tunnelled out of all recognition; only to a Communist the view was an inspiriting one. Immediately below the wide windows the embanked ground fell away rapidly for perhaps a hundred feet, ending in a high wall, and beyond that the world and works of men were triumphant as far as eye could see. Two vast tracks like streaked race-courses, each not less than a quarter of a mile in width, and sunk twenty feet below the surface of the ground, swept up to a meeting a mile ahead at the huge junction. Of those, that on his left was the First Trunk road to Brighton, inscribed in capital letters in the Railroad Guide, that to the right the Second Trunk to the Tunbridge and Hastings district. Each was divided length-ways by a cement wall, on one side of which, on steel rails, ran the electric trams, and on the other lay the motor-track itself again divided into three, on which ran, first the Government coaches at a speed of one hundred and fifty miles an hour, second the private motors at not more than sixty, third the cheap Government line at thirty, with stations every five miles. This was further bordered by a road confined to pedestrians, cyclists and ordinary cars on which no vehicle was allowed to move at more than twelve miles an hour.

Beyond these great tracks lay an immense plain of house-roofs, with short towers here and there marking public buildings, from the Caterham district on the left to Croydon in front, all clear and bright in smokeless air; and far away to the west and north showed the low suburban hills against the April sky.

There was surprisingly little sound, considering the pressure of the population; and, with the exception of the buzz of the steel rails as a train fled north or south, and the occasional sweet chord of the great motors as they neared or left the junction, there was little to be heard in this study except a smooth, soothing murmur that filled the air like the murmur of bees in a garden.

Oliver loved every hint of human life—all busy sights and sounds—and was listening now, smiling faintly to himself as he stared out into the clear air. Then he set his lips, laid his fingers on the keys once more, and went on speech-constructing.

He was very fortunate in the situation of his house. It stood in an angle of one of those huge spider-webs with which the country was covered, and for his purposes was all that he could expect. It was close enough to London to be extremely cheap, for all wealthy persons had retired at least a hundred miles from the throbbing heart of England; and yet it was as quiet as he could wish. He was within ten minutes of Westminster on the one side, and twenty minutes of the sea on the other, and his constituency lay before him like a raised map. Further, since the great London termini were but ten minutes away, there were at his disposal the First Trunk lines to every big town in England. For a politician of no great means, who was asked to speak at Edinburgh on one evening and in Marseilles on the next, he was as well placed as any man in Europe.

He was a pleasant-looking man, not much over thirty years old; black wire-haired, clean-shaven, thin, virile, magnetic, blue-eyed and white-skinned; and he appeared this day extremely content with himself and the world. His lips moved slightly as he worked, his eyes enlarged and diminished with excitement, and more than once he paused and stared out again, smiling and flushed.

Then a door opened; a middle-aged man came nervously in with a bundle of papers, laid them down on the table without a word, and turned to go out. Oliver lifted his hand for attention, snapped a lever, and spoke.

“Well, Mr. Phillips?” he said.

“There is news from the East, sir,” said the secretary.

Oliver shot a glance sideways, and laid his hand on the bundle.

“Any complete message?” he asked.

“No, sir; it is interrupted again. Mr. Felsenburgh’s name is mentioned.”

Oliver did not seem to hear; he lifted the flimsy printed sheets with a sudden movement, and began turning them.

“The fourth from the top, Mr. Brand,” said the secretary.

Oliver jerked his head impatiently, and the other went out as if at a signal.

The fourth sheet from the top, printed in red on green, seemed to absorb Oliver’s attention altogether, for he read it through two or three times, leaning back motionless in his chair. Then he sighed, and stared again through the window.

Then once more the door opened, and a tall girl came in.

“Well, my dear?” she observed.

Oliver shook his head, with compressed lips.

“Nothing definite,” he said. “Even less than usual. Listen.”

He took up the green sheet and began to read aloud as the girl sat down in a window-seat on his left.

She was a very charming-looking creature, tall and slender, with serious, ardent grey eyes, firm red lips, and a beautiful carriage of head and shoulders. She had walked slowly across the room as Oliver took up the paper, and now sat back in her brown dress in a very graceful and stately attitude. She seemed to listen with a deliberate kind of patience; but her eyes flickered with interest.

“‘Irkutsk—April fourteen—Yesterday—as—usual—But—rumoured— defection—from—Sufi—party—Troops—continue—gathering— Felsenburgh—addressed—Buddhist—crowd—Attempt—on—Llama—last— Friday—work—of—Anarchists—Felsenburgh—leaving—for—Moscow—as —arranged—he….’ There—that is absolutely all,” ended Oliver dispiritedly. “It’s interrupted as usual.”

The girl began to swing a foot.

“I don’t understand in the least,” she said. “Who is Felsenburgh, after all?”

“My dear child, that is what all the world is asking. Nothing is known except that he was included in the American deputation at the last moment. The Herald published his life last week; but it has been contradicted. It is certain that he is quite a young man, and that he has been quite obscure until now.”

“Well, he is not obscure now,” observed the girl.

“I know; it seems as if he were running the whole thing. One never hears a word of the others. It’s lucky he’s on the right side.”

“And what do you think?”

Oliver turned vacant eyes again out of the window.

“I think it is touch and go,” he said. “The only remarkable thing is that here hardly anybody seems to realise it. It’s too big for the imagination, I suppose. There is no doubt that the East has been preparing for a descent on Europe for these last five years. They have only been checked by America; and this is one last attempt to stop them. But why Felsenburgh should come to the front—-” he broke off. “He must be a good linguist, at any rate. This is at least the fifth crowd he has addressed; perhaps he is just the American interpreter. Christ! I wonder who he is.”

“Has he any other name?”

“Julian, I believe. One message said so.”

“How did this come through?”

Oliver shook his head.

“Private enterprise,” he said. “The European agencies have stopped work. Every telegraph station is guarded night and day. There are lines of volors strung out on every frontier. The Empire means to settle this business without us.”

“And if it goes wrong?”

“My dear Mabel—if hell breaks loose—-” he threw out his hands deprecatingly.

“And what is the Government doing?”

“Working night and day; so is the rest of Europe. It’ll be Armageddon with a vengeance if it comes to war.”

“What chance do you see?”

“I see two chances,” said Oliver slowly: “one, that they may be afraid of America, and may hold their hands from sheer fear; the other that they may be induced to hold their hands from charity; if only they can be made to understand that co-operation is the one hope of the world. But those damned religions of theirs—-”

The girl sighed, and looked out again on to the wide plain of house-roofs below the window.

The situation was indeed as serious as it could be. That huge Empire, consisting of a federalism of States under the Son of Heaven (made possible by the merging of the Japanese and Chinese dynasties and the fall of Russia), had been consolidating its forces and learning its own power during the last thirty-five years, ever since, in fact, it had laid its lean yellow hands upon Australia and India. While the rest of the world had learned the folly of war, ever since the fall of the Russian republic under the combined attack of the yellow races, the last had grasped its possibilities. It seemed now as if the civilisation of the last century was to be swept back once more into chaos. It was not that the mob of the East cared very greatly; it was their rulers who had begun to stretch themselves after an almost eternal lethargy, and it was hard to imagine how they could be checked at this point. There was a touch of grimness too in the rumour that religious fanaticism was behind the movement, and that the patient East proposed at last to proselytise by the modern equivalents of fire and sword those who had laid aside for the most part all religious beliefs except that in Humanity. To Oliver it was simply maddening. As he looked from his window and saw that vast limit of London laid peaceably before him, as his imagination ran out over Europe and saw everywhere that steady triumph of common sense and fact over the wild fairy-stories of Christianity, it seemed intolerable that there should be even a possibility that all this should be swept back again into the barbarous turmoil of sects and dogmas; for no less than this would be the result if the East laid hands on Europe. Even Catholicism would revive, he told himself, that strange faith that had blazed so often as persecution had been dashed to quench it; and, of all forms of faith, to Oliver’s mind Catholicism was the most grotesque and enslaving. And the prospect of all this honestly troubled him, far more than the thought of the physical catastrophe and bloodshed that would fall on Europe with the advent of the East. There was but one hope on the religious side, as he had told Mabel a dozen times, and that was that the Quietistic Pantheism which for the last century had made such giant strides in East and West alike, among Mohammedans, Buddhists, Hindus, Confucianists and the rest, should avail to check the supernatural frenzy that inspired their exoteric brethren. Pantheism, he understood, was what he held himself; for him “God” was the developing sum of created life, and impersonal Unity was the essence of His being; competition then was the great heresy that set men one against another and delayed all progress; for, to his mind, progress lay in the merging of the individual in the family, of the family in the commonwealth, of the commonwealth in the continent, and of the continent in the world. Finally, the world itself at any moment was no more than the mood of impersonal life. It was, in fact, the Catholic idea with the supernatural left out, a union of earthly fortunes, an abandonment of individualism on the one side, and of supernaturalism on the other. It was treason to appeal from God Immanent to God Transcendent; there was no God transcendent; God, so far as He could be known, was man.

Yet these two, husband and wife after a fashion—for they had entered into that terminable contract now recognised explicitly by the State—these two were very far from sharing in the usual heavy dulness of mere materialists. The world, for them, beat with one ardent life blossoming in flower and beast and man, a torrent of beautiful vigour flowing from a deep source and irrigating all that moved or felt. Its romance was the more appreciable because it was comprehensible to the minds that sprang from it; there were mysteries in it, but mysteries that enticed rather than baffled, for they unfolded new glories with every discovery that man could make; even inanimate objects, the fossil, the electric current, the far-off stars, these were dust thrown off by the Spirit of the World—fragrant with His Presence and eloquent of His Nature. For example, the announcement made by Klein, the astronomer, twenty years before, that the inhabitation of certain planets had become a certified fact—how vastly this had altered men’s views of themselves. But the one condition of progress and the building of Jerusalem, on the planet that happened to be men’s dwelling place, was peace, not the sword which Christ brought or that which Mahomet wielded; but peace that arose from, not passed, understanding; the peace that sprang from a knowledge that man was all and was able to develop himself only by sympathy with his fellows. To Oliver and his wife, then, the last century seemed like a revelation; little by little the old superstitions had died, and the new light broadened; the Spirit of the World had roused Himself, the sun had dawned in the west; and now with horror and loathing they had seen the clouds gather once more in the quarter whence all superstition had had its birth.

Mabel got up presently and came across to her husband.

“My dear,” she said, “you must not be downhearted. It all may pass as it passed before. It is a great thing that they are listening to America at all. And this Mr. Felsenburgh seems to be on the right side.”

Oliver took her hand and kissed it.

II

Oliver seemed altogether depressed at breakfast, half an hour later. His mother, an old lady of nearly eighty, who never appeared till noon, seemed to see it at once, for after a look or two at him and a word, she subsided into silence behind her plate.

It was a pleasant little room in which they sat, immediately behind Oliver’s own, and was furnished, according to universal custom, in light green. Its windows looked out upon a strip of garden at the back, and the high creeper-grown wall that separated that domain from the next. The furniture, too, was of the usual sort; a sensible round table stood in the middle, with three tall arm-chairs, with the proper angles and rests, drawn up to it; and the centre of it, resting apparently on a broad round column, held the dishes. It was thirty years now since the practice of placing the dining-room above the kitchen, and of raising and lowering the courses by hydraulic power into the centre of the dining-table, had become universal in the houses of the well-to-do. The floor consisted entirely of the asbestos cork preparation invented in America, noiseless, clean, and pleasant to both foot and eye.

Mabel broke the silence.

“And your speech to-morrow?” she asked, taking up her fork.

Oliver brightened a little, and began to discourse.

It seemed that Birmingham was beginning to fret. They were crying out once more for free trade with America: European facilities were not enough, and it was Oliver’s business to keep them quiet. It was useless, he proposed to tell them, to agitate until the Eastern business was settled: they must not bother the Government with such details just now. He was to tell them, too, that the Government was wholly on their side; that it was bound to come soon.

“They are pig-headed,” he added fiercely; “pig-headed and selfish; they are like children who cry for food ten minutes before dinner-time: it is bound to come if they will wait a little.”

“And you will tell them so?”

“That they are pig-headed? Certainly.”

Mabel looked at her husband with a pleased twinkle in her eyes. She knew perfectly well that his popularity rested largely on his outspokenness: folks liked to be scolded and abused by a genial bold man who danced and gesticulated in a magnetic fury; she liked it herself.

“How shall you go?” she asked.

“Volor. I shall catch the eighteen o’clock at Blackfriars; the meeting is at nineteen, and I shall be back at twenty-one.”

He addressed himself vigorously to his entree, and his mother looked up with a patient, old-woman smile.

Mabel began to drum her fingers softly on the damask.

“Please make haste, my dear,” she said; “I have to be at Brighton at three.”

Oliver gulped his last mouthful, pushed his plate over the line, glanced to see if all plates were there, and then put his hand beneath the table.

Instantly, without a sound, the centre-piece vanished, and the three waited unconcernedly while the clink of dishes came from beneath.

Old Mrs. Brand was a hale-looking old lady, rosy and wrinkled, with the mantilla head-dress of fifty years ago; but she, too, looked a little depressed this morning. The entree was not very successful, she thought; the new food-stuff was not up to the old, it was a trifle gritty: she would see about it afterwards. There was a clink, a soft sound like a push, and the centre-piece snapped into its place, bearing an admirable imitation of a roasted fowl.

Oliver and his wife were alone again for a minute or two after breakfast before Mabel started down the path to catch the 14-1/2 o’clock 4th grade sub-trunk line to the junction.

“What’s the matter with mother?” he said.

“Oh! it’s the food-stuff again: she’s never got accustomed to it; she says it doesn’t suit her.”

“Nothing else?”

“No, my dear, I am sure of it. She hasn’t said a word lately.”

Oliver watched his wife go down the path, reassured. He had been a little troubled once or twice lately by an odd word or two that his mother had let fall. She had been brought up a Christian for a few years, and it seemed to him sometimes as if it had left a taint. There was an old “Garden of the Soul” that she liked to keep by her, though she always protested with an appearance of scorn that it was nothing but nonsense. Still, Oliver would have preferred that she had burned it: superstition was a desperate thing for retaining life, and, as the brain weakened, might conceivably reassert itself. Christianity was both wild and dull, he told himself, wild because of its obvious grotesqueness and impossibility, and dull because it was so utterly apart from the exhilarating stream of human life; it crept dustily about still, he knew, in little dark churches here and there; it screamed with hysterical sentimentality in Westminster Cathedral which he had once entered and looked upon with a kind of disgusted fury; it gabbled strange, false words to the incompetent and the old and the half-witted. But it would be too dreadful if his own mother ever looked upon it again with favour.

Oliver himself, ever since he could remember, had been violently opposed to the concessions to Rome and Ireland. It was intolerable that these two places should be definitely yielded up to this foolish, treacherous nonsense: they were hot-beds of sedition; plague-spots on the face of humanity. He had never agreed with those who said that it was better that all the poison of the West should be gathered rather than dispersed. But, at any rate, there it was. Rome had been given up wholly to that old man in white in exchange for all the parish churches and cathedrals of Italy, and it was understood that mediaeval darkness reigned there supreme; and Ireland, after receiving Home Rule thirty years before, had declared for Catholicism, and opened her arms to Individualism in its most virulent form. England had laughed and assented, for she was saved from a quantity of agitation by the immediate departure of half her Catholic population for that island, and had, consistently with her Communist-colonial policy, granted every facility for Individualism to reduce itself there ad absurdum. All kinds of funny things were happening there: Oliver had read with a bitter amusement of new appearances there, of a Woman in Blue and shrines raised where her feet had rested; but he was scarcely amused at Rome, for the movement to Turin of the Italian Government had deprived the Republic of quite a quantity of sentimental prestige, and had haloed the old religious nonsense with all the meretriciousness of historical association. However, it obviously could not last much longer: the world was beginning to understand at last.

He stood a moment or two at the door after his wife had gone, drinking in reassurance from that glorious vision of solid sense that spread itself before his eyes: the endless house-roofs; the high glass vaults of the public baths and gymnasiums; the pinnacled schools where Citizenship was taught each morning; the spider-like cranes and scaffoldings that rose here and there; and even the few pricking spires did not disconcert him. There it stretched away into the grey haze of London, really beautiful, this vast hive of men and women who had learned at least the primary lesson of the gospel that there was no God but man, no priest but the politician, no prophet but the schoolmaster.

Then he went back once more to his speech-constructing.

Mabel, too, was a little thoughtful as she sat with her paper on her lap, spinning down the broad line to Brighton. This Eastern news was more disconcerting to her than she allowed her husband to see; yet it seemed incredible that there could be any real danger of invasion. This Western life was so sensible and peaceful; folks had their feet at last upon the rock, and it was unthinkable that they could ever be forced back on to the mud-flats: it was contrary to the whole law of development. Yet she could not but recognise that catastrophe seemed one of nature’s methods….

She sat very quiet, glancing once or twice at the meagre little scrap of news, and read the leading article upon it: that too seemed significant of dismay. A couple of men were talking in the half-compartment beyond on the same subject; one described the Government engineering works that he had visited, the breathless haste that dominated them; the other put in interrogations and questions. There was not much comfort there. There were no windows through which she could look; on the main lines the speed was too great for the eyes; the long compartment flooded with soft light bounded her horizon. She stared at the moulded white ceiling, the delicious oak-framed paintings, the deep spring-seats, the mellow globes overhead that poured out radiance, at a mother and child diagonally opposite her. Then the great chord sounded; the faint vibration increased ever so slightly; and an instant later the automatic doors ran back, and she stepped out on to the platform of Brighton station.

As she went down the steps leading to the station square she noticed a priest going before her. He seemed a very upright and sturdy old man, for though his hair was white he walked steadily and strongly. At the foot of the steps he stopped and half turned, and then, to her surprise, she saw that his face was that of a young man, fine-featured and strong, with black eyebrows and very bright grey eyes. Then she passed on and began to cross the square in the direction of her aunt’s house.

Then without the slightest warning, except one shrill hoot from overhead, a number of things happened.

A great shadow whirled across the sunlight at her feet, a sound of rending tore the air, and a noise like a giant’s sigh; and, as she stopped bewildered, with a noise like ten thousand smashed kettles, a huge thing crashed on the rubber pavement before her, where it lay, filling half the square, writhing long wings on its upper side that beat and whirled like the flappers of some ghastly extinct monster, pouring out human screams, and beginning almost instantly to crawl with broken life.

Mabel scarcely knew what happened next; but she found herself a moment later forced forward by some violent pressure from behind, till she stood shaking from head to foot, with some kind of smashed body of a man moaning and stretching at her feet. There was a sort of articulate language coming from it; she caught distinctly the names of Jesus and Mary; then a voice hissed suddenly in her ears:

“Let me through. I am a priest.”

She stood there a moment longer, dazed by the suddenness of the whole affair, and watched almost unintelligently the grey-haired young priest on his knees, with his coat torn open, and a crucifix out; she saw him bend close, wave his hand in a swift sign, and heard a murmur of a language she did not know. Then he was up again, holding the crucifix before him, and she saw him begin to move forward into the midst of the red-flooded pavement, looking this way and that as if for a signal. Down the steps of the great hospital on her right came figures running now, hatless, each carrying what looked like an old-fashioned camera. She knew what those men were, and her heart leaped in relief. They were the ministers of euthanasia. Then she felt herself taken by the shoulder and pulled back, and immediately found herself in the front rank of a crowd that was swaying and crying out, and behind a line of police and civilians who had formed themselves into a cordon to keep the pressure back.

III

Oliver was in a panic of terror as his mother, half an hour later, ran in with the news that one of the Government volors had fallen in the station square at Brighton just after the 14-1/2 train had discharged its passengers. He knew quite well what that meant, for be remembered one such accident ten years before, just after the law forbidding private volors had been passed. It meant that every living creature in it was killed and probably many more in the place where it fell—and what then? The message was clear enough; she would certainly be in the square at that time.

He sent a desperate wire to her aunt asking for news; and sat, shaking in his chair, awaiting the answer. His mother sat by him.

“Please God—-” she sobbed out once, and stopped confounded as he turned on her.

But Fate was merciful, and three minutes before Mr. Phillips toiled up the path with the answer, Mabel herself came into the room, rather pale and smiling.

“Christ!” cried Oliver, and gave one huge sob as he sprang up.

She had not a great deal to tell him. There was no explanation of the disaster published as yet; it seemed that the wings on one side had simply ceased to work.

She described the shadow, the hiss of sound, and the crash.

Then she stopped.

“Well, my dear?” said her husband, still rather white beneath the eyes as he sat close to her patting her hand.

“There was a priest there,” said Mabel. “I saw him before, at the station.”

Oliver gave a little hysterical snort of laughter.

“He was on his knees at once,” she said, “with his crucifix, even before the doctors came. My dear, do people really believe all that?”

“Why, they think they do,” said her husband.

“It was all so—so sudden; and there he was, just as if he had been expecting it all. Oliver, how can they?”

“Why, people will believe anything if they begin early enough.”

“And the man seemed to believe it, too—the dying man, I mean. I saw his eyes.”

She stopped.

“Well, my dear?”

“Oliver, what do you say to people when they are dying?”

“Say! Why, nothing! What can I say? But I don’t think I’ve ever seen any one die.”

“Nor have I till to-day,” said the girl, and shivered a little. “The euthanasia people were soon at work.”

Oliver took her hand gently.

“My darling, it must have been frightful. Why, you’re trembling still.”

“No; but listen…. You know, if I had had anything to say I could have said it too. They were all just in front of me: I wondered; then I knew I hadn’t. I couldn’t possibly have talked about Humanity.”

“My dear, it’s all very sad; but you know it doesn’t really matter. It’s all over.”

“And—and they’ve just stopped?”

“Why, yes.”

Mabel compressed her lips a little; then she sighed. She had an agitated sort of meditation in the train. She knew perfectly that it was sheer nerves; but she could not just yet shake them off. As she had said, it was the first time she had seen death.

“And that priest—that priest doesn’t think so?”

“My dear, I’ll tell you what he believes. He believes that that man whom he showed the crucifix to, and said those words over, is alive somewhere, in spite of his brain being dead: he is not quite sure where; but he is either in a kind of smelting works being slowly burned; or, if he is very lucky, and that piece of wood took effect, he is somewhere beyond the clouds, before Three Persons who are only One although They are Three; that there are quantities of other people there, a Woman in Blue, a great many others in white with their heads under their arms, and still more with their heads on one side; and that they’ve all got harps and go on singing for ever and ever, and walking about on the clouds, and liking it very much indeed. He thinks, too, that all these nice people are perpetually looking down upon the aforesaid smelting-works, and praising the Three Great Persons for making them. That’s what the priest believes. Now you know it’s not likely; that kind of thing may be very nice, but it isn’t true.”

Mabel smiled pleasantly. She had never heard it put so well.

“No, my dear, you’re quite right. That sort of thing isn’t true. How can he believe it? He looked quite intelligent!”

“My dear girl, if I had told you in your cradle that the moon was green cheese, and had hammered at you ever since, every day and all day, that it was, you’d very nearly believe it by now. Why, you know in your heart that the euthanatisers are the real priests. Of course you do.”

Mabel sighed with satisfaction and stood up.

“Oliver, you’re a most comforting person. I do like you! There! I must go to my room: I’m all shaky still.”

Half across the room she stopped and put out a shoe.

“Why—-” she began faintly.

There was a curious rusty-looking splash upon it; and her husband saw her turn white. He rose abruptly.

“My dear,” he said, “don’t be foolish.”

She looked at him, smiled bravely, and went out.

When she was gone, he still sat on a moment where she bad left him. Dear me! how pleased he was! He did not like to think of what life would have been without her. He had known her since she was twelve—that was seven years ago-and last year they had gone together to the district official to make their contract. She had really become very necessary to him. Of course the world could get on without her, and he supposed that he could too; but he did not want to have to try. He knew perfectly well, for it was his creed of human love, that there was between them a double affection, of mind as well as body; and there was absolutely nothing else: but he loved her quick intuitions, and to hear his own thought echoed so perfectly. It was like two flames added together to make a third taller than either: of course one flame could burn without the other—in fact, one would have to, one day—but meantime the warmth and light were exhilarating. Yes, he was delighted that she happened to be clear of the falling volor.

He gave no more thought to his exposition of the Christian creed; it was a mere commonplace to him that Catholics believed that kind of thing; it was no more blasphemous to his mind so to describe it, than it would be to laugh at a Fijian idol with mother-of-pearl eyes, and a horse-hair wig; it was simply impossible to treat it seriously. He, too, had wondered once or twice in his life how human beings could believe such rubbish; but psychology had helped him, and he knew now well enough that suggestion will do almost anything. And it was this hateful thing that had so long restrained the euthanasia movement with all its splendid mercy.

His brows wrinkled a little as he remembered his mother’s exclamation, “Please God”; then he smiled at the poor old thing and her pathetic childishness, and turned once more to his table, thinking in spite of himself of his wife’s hesitation as she had seen the splash of blood on her shoe. Blood! Yes; that was as much a fact as anything else. How was it to be dealt with? Why, by the glorious creed of Humanity—that splendid God who died and rose again ten thousand times a day, who had died daily like the old cracked fanatic Saul of Tarsus, ever since the world began, and who rose again, not once like the Carpenter’s Son, but with every child that came into the world. That was the answer; and was it not overwhelmingly sufficient?

Mr. Phillips came in an hour later with another bundle of papers.

“No more news from the East, sir,” he said.

CHAPTER II

I

Percy Franklin’s correspondence with the Cardinal-Protector of England occupied him directly for at least two hours every day, and for nearly eight hours indirectly.

For the past eight years the methods of the Holy See had once more been revised with a view to modern needs, and now every important province throughout the world possessed not only an administrative metropolitan but a representative in Rome whose business it was to be in touch with the Pope on the one side and the people he represented on the other. In other words, centralisation had gone forward rapidly, in accordance with the laws of life; and, with centralisation, freedom of method and expansion of power. England’s Cardinal-Protector was one Abbot Martin, a Benedictine, and it was Percy’s business, as of a dozen more bishops, priests and laymen (with whom, by the way, he was forbidden to hold any formal consultation), to write a long daily letter to him on affairs that came under his notice.

It was a curious life, therefore, that Percy led. He had a couple of rooms assigned to him in Archbishop’s House at Westminster, and was attached loosely to the Cathedral staff, although with considerable liberty. He rose early, and went to meditation for an hour, after which he said his mass. He took his coffee soon after, said a little office, and then settled down to map out his letter. At ten o’clock he was ready to receive callers, and till noon he was generally busy with both those who came to see him on their own responsibility and his staff of half-a-dozen reporters whose business it was to bring him marked paragraphs in the newspapers and their own comments. He then breakfasted with the other priests in the house, and set out soon after to call on people whose opinion was necessary, returning for a cup of tea soon after sixteen o’clock. Then he settled down, after the rest of his office and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, to compose his letter, which though short, needed a great deal of care and sifting. After dinner he made a few notes for next day, received visitors again, and went to bed soon after twenty-two o’clock. Twice a week it was his business to assist at Vespers in the afternoon, and he usually sang high mass on Saturdays.

It was, therefore, a curiously distracting life, with peculiar dangers.

It was one day, a week or two after his visit to Brighton, that he was just finishing his letter, when his servant looked in to tell him that Father Francis was below.

“In ten minutes,” said Percy, without looking up.

He snapped off his last lines, drew out the sheet, and settled down to read it over, translating it unconsciously from Latin to English.

“WESTMINSTER, May 14th.

“EMINENCE: Since yesterday I have a little more information. It appears certain that the Bill establishing Esperanto for all State purposes will be brought in in June. I have had this from Johnson. This, as I have pointed out before, is the very last stone in our consolidation with the continent, which, at present, is to be regretted…. A great access of Jews to Freemasonry is to be expected; hitherto they have held aloof to some extent, but the ‘abolition of the Idea of God’ is tending to draw in those Jews, now greatly on the increase once more, who repudiate all notion of a personal Messiah. It is ‘Humanity’ here, too, that is at work. To-day I heard the Rabbi Simeon speak to this effect in the City, and was impressed by the applause he received…. Yet among others an expectation is growing that a man will presently be found to lead the Communist movement and unite their forces more closely. I enclose a verbose cutting from the New People to that effect; and it is echoed everywhere. They say that the cause must give birth to one such soon; that they have had prophets and precursors for a hundred years past, and lately a cessation of them. It is strange how this coincides superficially with Christian ideas. Your Eminence will observe that a simile of the ‘ninth wave’ is used with some eloquence…. I hear to-day of the secession of an old Catholic family, the Wargraves of Norfolk, with their chaplain Micklem, who it seems has been busy in this direction for some while. The Epoch announces it with satisfaction, owing to the peculiar circumstances; but unhappily such events are not uncommon now…. There is much distrust among the laity. Seven priests in Westminster diocese have left us within the last three months; on the other hand, I have pleasure in telling your Eminence that his Grace received into Catholic Communion this morning the ex-Anglican Bishop of Carlisle, with half-a-dozen of his clergy. This has been expected for some weeks past. I append also cuttings from the Tribune, the London Trumpet, and the Observer, with my comments upon them. Your Eminence will see how great the excitement is with regard to the last.

“Recommendation. That formal excommunication of the Wargraves and these eight priests should be issued in Norfolk and Westminster respectively, and no further notice taken.”

Percy laid down the sheet, gathered up the half dozen other papers that contained his extracts and running commentary, signed the last, and slipped the whole into the printed envelope that lay ready.

Then he took up his biretta and went to the lift.

The moment he came into the glass-doored parlour he saw that the crisis was come, if not passed already. Father Francis looked miserably ill, but there was a curious hardness, too, about his eyes and mouth, as he stood waiting. He shook his head abruptly.

“I have come to say good-bye, father. I can bear it no more.”

Percy was careful to show no emotion at all. He made a little sign to a chair, and himself sat down too. “It is an end of everything,” said the other again in a perfectly steady voice. “I believe nothing. I have believed nothing for a year now.”

“You have felt nothing, you mean,” said Percy.

“That won’t do, father,” went on the other. “I tell you there is nothing left. I can’t even argue now. It is just good-bye.”

Percy had nothing to say. He had talked to this man during a period of over eight months, ever since Father Francis had first confided in him that his faith was going. He understood perfectly what a strain it had been; he felt bitterly compassionate towards this poor creature who had become caught up somehow into the dizzy triumphant whirl of the New Humanity. External facts were horribly strong just now; and faith, except to one who had learned that Will and Grace were all and emotion nothing, was as a child crawling about in the midst of some huge machinery: it might survive or it might not; but it required nerves of steel to keep steady. It was hard to know where blame could be assigned; yet Percy’s faith told him that there was blame due. In the ages of faith a very inadequate grasp of religion would pass muster; in these searching days none but the humble and the pure could stand the test for long, unless indeed they were protected by a miracle of ignorance. The alliance of Psychology and Materialism did indeed seem, looked at from one angle, to account for everything; it needed a robust supernatural perception to understand their practical inadequacy. And as regards Father Francis’s personal responsibility, he could not help feeling that the other had allowed ceremonial to play too great a part in his religion, and prayer too little. In him the external had absorbed the internal.

So he did not allow his sympathy to show itself in his bright eyes.

“You think it my fault, of course,” said the other sharply.

“My dear father,” said Percy, motionless in his chair, “I know it is your fault. Listen to me. You say Christianity is absurd and impossible. Now, you know, it cannot be that! It may be untrue—I am not speaking of that now, even though I am perfectly certain that it is absolutely true—but it cannot be absurd so long as educated and virtuous people continue to hold it. To say that it is absurd is simple pride; it is to dismiss all who believe in it as not merely mistaken, but unintelligent as well—-”

“Very well, then,” interrupted the other; “then suppose I withdraw that, and simply say that I do not believe it to be true.”

“You do not withdraw it,” continued Percy serenely; “you still really believe it to be absurd: you have told me so a dozen times. Well, I repeat, that is pride, and quite sufficient to account for it all. It is the moral attitude that matters. There may be other things too—-”

Father Francis looked up sharply.

“Oh! the old story!” he said sneeringly.

“If you tell me on your word of honour that there is no woman in the case, or no particular programme of sin you propose to work out, I shall believe you. But it is an old story, as you say.”

“I swear to you there is not,” cried the other.

“Thank God then!” said Percy. “There are fewer obstacles to a return of faith.”

There was silence for a moment after that. Percy had really no more to say. He had talked to him of the inner life again and again, in which verities are seen to be true, and acts of faith are ratified; he had urged prayer and humility till he was almost weary of the names; and had been met by the retort that this was to advise sheer self-hypnotism; and he had despaired of making clear to one who did not see it for himself that while Love and Faith may be called self-hypnotism from one angle, yet from another they are as much realities as, for example, artistic faculties, and need similar cultivation; that they produce a conviction that they are convictions, that they handle and taste things which when handled and tasted are overwhelmingly more real and objective than the things of sense. Evidences seemed to mean nothing to this man.

So he was silent now, chilled himself by the presence of this crisis, looking unseeingly out upon the plain, little old-world parlour, its tall window, its strip of matting, conscious chiefly of the dreary hopelessness of this human brother of his who had eyes but did not see, ears and was deaf. He wished he would say good-bye, and go. There was no more to be done.

Father Francis, who had been sitting in a lax kind of huddle, seemed to know his thoughts, and sat up suddenly.

“You are tired of me,” he said. “I will go.”

“I am not tired of you, my dear father,” said Percy simply. “I am only terribly sorry. You see I know that it is all true.”

The other looked at him heavily.

“And I know that it is not,” he said. “It is very beautiful; I wish I could believe it. I don’t think I shall be ever happy again—but—but there it is.”

Percy sighed. He had told him so often that the heart is as divine a gift as the mind, and that to neglect it in the search for God is to seek ruin, but this priest had scarcely seen the application to himself. He had answered with the old psychological arguments that the suggestions of education accounted for everything.

“I suppose you will cast me off,” said the other.

“It is you who are leaving me,” said Percy. “I cannot follow, if you mean that.”

“But—but cannot we be friends?”

A sudden heat touched the elder priest’s heart.

“Friends?” he said. “Is sentimentality all you mean by friendship? What kind of friends can we be?”

The other’s face became suddenly heavy.

“I thought so.”

“John!” cried Percy. “You see that, do you not? How can we pretend anything when you do not believe in God? For I do you the honour of thinking that you do not.”

Francis sprang up.

“Well—-” he snapped. “I could not have believed—I am going.”

He wheeled towards the door.

“John!” said Percy again. “Are you going like this? Can you not shake hands?”

The other wheeled again, with heavy anger in his face.

“Why, you said you could not be friends with me!”

Percy’s mouth opened. Then he understood, and smiled. “Oh! that is all you mean by friendship, is it?—I beg your pardon. Oh! we can be polite to one another, if you like.”

He still stood holding out his hand. Father Francis looked at it a moment, his lips shook: then once more he turned, and went out without a word.

II

Percy stood motionless until he heard the automatic bell outside tell him that Father Francis was really gone, then he went out himself and turned towards the long passage leading to the Cathedral. As he passed out through the sacristy he heard far in front the murmur of an organ, and on coming through into the chapel used as a parish church he perceived that Vespers were not yet over in the great choir. He came straight down the aisle, turned to the right, crossed the centre and knelt down.

It was drawing on towards sunset, and the huge dark place was lighted here and there by patches of ruddy London light that lay on the gorgeous marble and gildings finished at last by a wealthy convert. In front of him rose up the choir, with a line of white surpliced and furred canons on either side, and the vast baldachino in the midst, beneath which burned the six lights as they had burned day by day for more than a century; behind that again lay the high line of the apse-choir with the dim, window-pierced vault above where Christ reigned in majesty. He let his eyes wander round for a few moments before beginning his deliberate prayer, drinking in the glory of the place, listening to the thunderous chorus, the peal of the organ, and the thin mellow voice of the priest. There on the left shone the refracted glow of the lamps that burned before the Lord in the Sacrament, on the right a dozen candles winked here and there at the foot of the gaunt images, high overhead hung the gigantic cross with that lean, emaciated Poor Man Who called all who looked on Him to the embraces of a God.

Then he hid his face in his hands, drew a couple of long breaths, and set to work.

He began, as his custom was in mental prayer, by a deliberate act of self-exclusion from the world of sense. Under the image of sinking beneath a surface he forced himself downwards and inwards, till the peal of the organ, the shuffle of footsteps, the rigidity of the chair-back beneath his wrists—all seemed apart and external, and he was left a single person with a beating heart, an intellect that suggested image after image, and emotions that were too languid to stir themselves. Then he made his second descent, renounced all that he possessed and was, and became conscious that even the body was left behind, and that his mind and heart, awed by the Presence in which they found themselves, clung close and obedient to the will which was their lord and protector. He drew another long breath, or two, as he felt that Presence surge about him; he repeated a few mechanical words, and sank to that peace which follows the relinquishment of thought.

There he rested for a while. Far above him sounded the ecstatic music, the cry of trumpets and the shrilling of the flutes; but they were as insignificant street-noises to one who was falling asleep. He was within the veil of things now, beyond the barriers of sense and reflection, in that secret place to which he had learned the road by endless effort, in that strange region where realities are evident, where perceptions go to and fro with the swiftness of light, where the swaying will catches now this, now that act, moulds it and speeds it; where all things meet, where truth is known and handled and tasted, where God Immanent is one with God Transcendent, where the meaning of the external world is evident through its inner side, and the Church and its mysteries are seen from within a haze of glory.

So he lay a few moments, absorbing and resting.

Then he aroused himself to consciousness and began to speak.

“Lord, I am here, and Thou art here. I know Thee. There is nothing else but Thou and I…. I lay this all in Thy hands—Thy apostate priest, Thy people, the world, and myself. I spread it before Thee—I spread it before Thee.”

He paused, poised in the act, till all of which he thought lay like a plain before a peak.

… “Myself, Lord—there but for Thy grace should I be going, in darkness and misery. It is Thou Who dost preserve me. Maintain and finish Thy work within my soul. Let me not falter for one instant. If Thou withdraw Thy hand I fall into utter nothingness.”

So his soul stood a moment, with outstretched appealing hands, helpless and confident. Then the will flickered in self-consciousness, and he repeated acts of faith, hope and love to steady it. Then he drew another long breath, feeling the Presence tingle and shake about him, and began again.

“Lord; look on Thy people. Many are falling from Thee. Ne in aeternum irascaris nobis. Ne in aeternum irascaris nobis…. I unite myself with all saints and angels and Mary Queen of Heaven; look on them and me, and hear us. Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam. Thy light and Thy truth! Lay not on us heavier burdens than we can bear. Lord, why dost Thou not speak!”

He writhed himself forward in a passion of expectant desire, hearing his muscles crack in the effort. Once more he relaxed himself; and the swift play of wordless acts began which he knew to be the very heart of prayer. The eyes of his soul flew hither and thither, from Calvary to heaven and back again to the tossing troubled earth. He saw Christ dying of desolation while the earth rocked and groaned; Christ reigning as a priest upon His Throne in robes of light, Christ patient and inexorably silent within the Sacramental species; and to each in turn he directed the eyes of the Eternal Father….

Then he waited for communications, and they came, so soft and delicate, passing like shadows, that his will sweated blood and tears in the effort to catch and fix them and correspond….

He saw the Body Mystical in its agony, strained over the world as on a cross, silent with pain; he saw this and that nerve wrenched and twisted, till pain presented it to himself as under the guise of flashes of colour; he saw the life-blood drop by drop run down from His head and hands and feet. The world was gathered mocking and good-humoured beneath. “He saved others: Himself He cannot save…. Let Christ come down from the Cross and we will believe.” Far away behind bushes and in holes of the ground the friends of Jesus peeped and sobbed; Mary herself was silent, pierced by seven swords; the disciple whom He loved had no words of comfort.

He saw, too, how no word would be spoken from heaven; the angels themselves were bidden to put sword into sheath, and wait on the eternal patience of God, for the agony was hardly yet begun; there were a thousand horrors yet before the end could come, that final sum of crucifixion…. He must wait and watch, content to stand there and do nothing; and the Resurrection must seem to him no more than a dreamed-of hope. There was the Sabbath yet to come, while the Body Mystical must lie in its sepulchre cut off from light, and even the dignity of the Cross must be withdrawn and the knowledge that Jesus lived. That inner world, to which by long effort he had learned the way, was all alight with agony; it was bitter as brine, it was of that pale luminosity that is the utmost product of pain, it hummed in his ears with a note that rose to a scream … it pressed upon him, penetrated him, stretched him as on a rack…. And with that his will grew sick and nerveless.

“Lord! I cannot bear it!” he moaned….

In an instant he was back again, drawing long breaths of misery. He passed his tongue over his lips, and opened his eyes on the darkening apse before him. The organ was silent now, and the choir was gone, and the lights out. The sunset colour, too, had faded from the walls, and grim cold faces looked down on him from wall and vault. He was back again on the surface of life; the vision had melted; he scarcely knew what it was that he had seen.

But he must gather up the threads, and by sheer effort absorb them. He must pay his duty, too, to the Lord that gave Himself to the senses as well as to the inner spirit. So he rose, stiff and constrained, and passed across to the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament.

As he came out from the block of chairs, very upright and tall, with his biretta once more on his white hair, he saw an old woman watching him very closely. He hesitated an instant, wondering whether she were a penitent, and as he hesitated she made a movement towards him.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” she began.

She was not a Catholic then. He lifted his biretta.

“Can I do anything for you?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but were you at Brighton, at the accident two months ago?”

“I was.”

“Ah! I thought so: my daughter-in-law saw you then.”

Percy had a spasm of impatience: he was a little tired of being identified by his white hair and young face.

“Were you there, madam?”

She looked at him doubtfully and curiously, moving her old, eyes up and down his figure. Then she recollected herself.

“No, sir; it was my daughter-in-law—I beg your pardon, sir, but—-”

“Well?” asked Percy, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice.

“Are you the Archbishop, sir?”

The priest smiled, showing his white teeth.

“No, madam; I am just a poor priest. Dr. Cholmondeley is Archbishop. I am Father Percy Franklin.”

She said nothing, but still looking at him made a little old-world movement of a bow; and Percy passed on to the dim, splendid chapel to pay his devotions.

III

There was great talk that night at dinner among the priests as to the extraordinary spread of Freemasonry. It had been going on for many years now, and Catholics perfectly recognised its dangers, for the profession of Masonry had been for some centuries rendered incompatible with religion through the Church’s unswerving condemnation of it. A man must choose between that and his faith. Things had developed extraordinarily during the last century. First there had been the organised assault upon the Church in France; and what Catholics had always suspected then became a certainty in the revelations of 1918, when P. Gerome, the Dominican and ex-Mason, had made his disclosures with regard to the Mark-Masons. It had become evident then that Catholics had been right, and that Masonry, in its higher grades at least, had been responsible throughout the world for the strange movement against religion. But he had died in his bed, and the public had been impressed by that fact. Then came the splendid donations in France and Italy—to hospitals, orphanages, and the like; and once more suspicion began to disappear. After all, it seemed—and continued to seem—for seventy years and more that Masonry was nothing more than a vast philanthropical society. Now once more men had their doubts.

“I hear that Felsenburgh is a Mason,” observed Monsignor Macintosh, the

Cathedral Administrator. “A Grand-Master or something.”

“But who is Felsenburgh?” put in a young priest.

Monsignor pursed his lips and shook his head. He was one of those humble persons as proud of ignorance as others of knowledge. He boasted that he never read the papers nor any book except those that had received the imprimatur; it was a priest’s business, he often remarked, to preserve the faith, not to acquire worldly knowledge. Percy had occasionally rather envied his point of view.

“He’s a mystery,” said another priest, Father Blackmore; “but he seems to be causing great excitement. They were selling his ‘Life’ to-day on the Embankment.”

“I met an American senator,” put in Percy, “three days ago, who told me that even there they know nothing of him, except his extraordinary eloquence. He only appeared last year, and seems to have carried everything before him by quite unusual methods. He is a great linguist, too. That is why they took him to Irkutsk.”

“Well, the Masons—-” went on Monsignor. “It is very serious. In the last month four of my penitents have left me because of it.”

“Their inclusion of women was their master-stroke,” growled Father

Blackmore, helping himself to claret.

“It is extraordinary that they hesitated so long about that,” observed

Percy.

A couple of the others added their evidence. It appeared that they, too, had lost penitents lately through the spread of Masonry. It was rumoured that a Pastoral was a-preparing upstairs on the subject.

Monsignor shook his head ominously.

“More is wanted than that,” he said.

Percy pointed out that the Church had said her last word several centuries ago. She had laid her excommunication on all members of secret societies, and there was really no more that she could do.

“Except bring it before her children again and again,” put in Monsignor.

“I shall preach on it next Sunday.”

Percy dotted down a note when he reached his room, determining to say another word or two on the subject to the Cardinal-Protector. He had mentioned Freemasonry often before, but it seemed time for another remark. Then he opened his letters, first turning to one which he recognised as from the Cardinal.

It seemed a curious coincidence, as he read a series of questions that Cardinal Martin’s letter contained, that one of them should be on this very subject. It ran as follows:

“What of Masonry? Felsenburgh is said to be one. Gather all the gossip you can about him. Send any English or American biographies of him. Are you still losing Catholics through Masonry?”

He ran his eyes down the rest of the questions. They chiefly referred to previous remarks of his own, but twice, even in them, Felsenburgh’s name appeared.

He laid the paper down and considered a little.

It was very curious, he thought, how this man’s name was in every one’s mouth, in spite of the fact that so little was known about him. He had bought in the streets, out of curiosity, three photographs that professed to represent this strange person, and though one of them might be genuine they all three could not be. He drew them out of a pigeon-hole, and spread them before him.

One represented a fierce, bearded creature like a Cossack, with round staring eyes. No; intrinsic evidence condemned this: it was exactly how a coarse imagination would have pictured a man who seemed to be having a great influence in the East.

The second showed a fat face with little eyes and a chin-beard. That might conceivably be genuine: he turned it over and saw the name of a New York firm on the back. Then he turned to the third. This presented a long, clean-shaven face with pince-nez, undeniably clever, but scarcely strong: and Felsenburgh was obviously a strong man.

Percy inclined to think the second was the most probable; but they were all unconvincing; and he shuffled them carelessly together and replaced them.

Then he put his elbows on the table, and began to think.

He tried to remember what Mr. Varhaus, the American senator, had told him of Felsenburgh; yet it did not seem sufficient to account for the facts. Felsenburgh, it seemed, had employed none of those methods common in modern politics. He controlled no newspapers, vituperated nobody, championed nobody: he had no picked underlings; he used no bribes; there were no monstrous crimes alleged against him. It seemed rather as if his originality lay in his clean hands and his stainless past—that, and his magnetic character. He was the kind of figure that belonged rather to the age of chivalry: a pure, clean, compelling personality, like a radiant child. He had taken people by surprise, then, rising out of the heaving dun-coloured waters of American socialism like a vision—from those waters so fiercely restrained from breaking into storm over since the extraordinary social revolution under Mr. Hearst’s disciples, a century ago. That had been the end of plutocracy; the famous old laws of 1914 had burst some of the stinking bubbles of the time; and the enactments of 1916 and 1917 had prevented their forming again in any thing like their previous force. It had been the salvation of America, undoubtedly, even if that salvation were of a dreary and uninspiring description; and now out of the flat socialistic level had arisen this romantic figure utterly unlike any that had preceded it…. So the senator had hinted…. It was too complicated for Percy just now, and he gave it up.

It was a weary world, he told himself, turning his eyes homewards. Everything seemed so hopeless and ineffective. He tried not to reflect on his fellow-priests, but for the fiftieth time he could not help seeing that they were not the men for the present situation. It was not that he preferred himself; he knew perfectly well that he, too, was fully as incompetent: had he not proved to be so with poor Father Francis, and scores of others who had clutched at him in their agony during the last ten years? Even the Archbishop, holy man as he was, with all his childlike faith—was that the man to lead English Catholics and confound their enemies? There seemed no giants on the earth in these days. What in the world was to be done? He buried his face in his hands….

Yes; what was wanted was a new Order in the Church; the old ones were rule-bound through no fault of their own. An Order was wanted without habit or tonsure, without traditions or customs, an Order with nothing but entire and whole-hearted devotion, without pride even in their most sacred privileges, without a past history in which they might take complacent refuge. They must be franc-tireurs of Christ’s Army; like the Jesuits, but without their fatal reputation, which, again, was no fault of their own. … But there must be a Founder—Who, in God’s Name? —a Founder nudus sequens Christum nudum…. Yes—Franc-tireurs —priests, bishops, laymen and women—with the three vows of course, and a special clause forbidding utterly and for ever their ownership of corporate wealth.—Every gift received must be handed to the bishop of the diocese in which it was given, who must provide them himself with necessaries of life and travel. Oh!—what could they not do?… He was off in a rhapsody.

Presently he recovered, and called himself a fool. Was not that scheme as old as the eternal hills, and as useless for practical purposes? Why, it had been the dream of every zealous man since the First Year of Salvation that such an Order should be founded!… He was a fool….

Then once more he began to think of it all over again.

Surely it was this which was wanted against the Masons; and women, too.—Had not scheme after scheme broken down because men had forgotten the power of women? It was that lack that had ruined Napoleon: he had trusted Josephine, and she had failed him; so he had trusted no other woman. In the Catholic Church, too, woman had been given no active work but either menial or connected with education: and was there not room for other activities than those? Well, it was useless to think of it. It was not his affair. If Papa Angelicus who now reigned in Rome had not thought of it, why should a foolish, conceited priest in Westminster set himself up to do so?

So he beat himself on the breast once more, and took up his office-book.

He finished in half an hour, and again sat thinking; but this time it was of poor Father Francis. He wondered what he was doing now; whether he had taken off the Roman collar of Christ’s familiar slaves? The poor devil! And how far was he, Percy Franklin, responsible?

When a tap came at his door presently, and Father Blackmore looked in for a talk before going to bed, Percy told him what had happened.

Father Blackmore removed his pipe and sighed deliberately.

“I knew it was coming,” he said. “Well, well.”

“He has been honest enough,” explained Percy. “He told me eight months ago he was in trouble.”

Father Blackmore drew upon his pipe thoughtfully.

“Father Franklin,” he said, “things are really very serious. There is the same story everywhere. What in the world is happening?”

Percy paused before answering.

“I think these things go in waves,” he said.

“Waves, do you think?” said the other.

“What else?”

Father Blackmore looked at him intently.

“It is more like a dead calm, it seems to me,” he said. “Have you ever been in a typhoon?”

Percy shook his head.

“Well,” went on the other, “the most ominous thing is the calm. The sea is like oil; you feel half-dead: you can do nothing. Then comes the storm.”

Percy looked at him, interested. He had not seen this mood in the priest before.

“Before every great crash there comes this calm. It is always so in history. It was so before the Eastern War; it was so before the French Revolution. It was so before the Reformation. There is a kind of oily heaving; and everything is languid. So everything has been in America, too, for over eighty years…. Father Franklin, I think something is going to happen.”

“Tell me,” said Percy, leaning forward.

“Well, I saw Templeton a week before he died, and he put the idea in my head…. Look here, father. It may be this Eastern affair that is coming on us; but somehow I don’t think it is. It is in religion that something is going to happen. At least, so I think…. Father, who in God’s name is Felsenburgh?”

Percy was so startled at the sudden introduction of this name again, that he stared a moment without speaking.

Outside, the summer night was very still. There was a faint vibration now and again from the underground track that ran twenty yards from the house where they sat; but the streets were quiet enough round the Cathedral. Once a hoot rang far away, as if some ominous bird of passage were crossing between London and the stars, and once the cry of a woman sounded thin and shrill from the direction of the river. For the rest there was no more than the solemn, subdued hum that never ceased now night or day.

“Yes; Felsenburgh,” said Father Blackmore once more. “I cannot get that man out of my head. And yet, what do I know of him? What does any one know of him?”

Percy licked his lips to answer, and drew a breath to still the beating of his heart. He could not imagine why he felt excited. After all, who was old Blackmore to frighten him? But old Blackmore went on before he could speak.

“See how people are leaving the Church! The Wargraves, the Hendersons, Sir James Bartlet, Lady Magnier, and then all the priests. Now they’re not all knaves—I wish they were; it would be so much easier to talk of it. But Sir James Bartlet, last month! Now, there’s a man who has spent half his fortune on the Church, and he doesn’t resent it even now. He says that any religion is better than none, but that, for himself, he just can’t believe any longer. Now what does all that mean?… I tell you something is going to happen. God knows what! And I can’t get Felsenburgh out of my head…. Father Franklin—-”

“Yes?”

“Have you noticed how few great men we’ve got? It’s not like fifty years ago, or even thirty. Then there were Mason, Selborne, Sherbrook, and half-a-dozen others. There was Brightman, too, as Archbishop: and now! Then the Communists, too. Braithwaite is dead fifteen years. Certainly he was big enough; but he was always speaking of the future, not of the present; and tell me what big man they have had since then! And now there’s this new man, whom no one knows, who came forward in America a few months ago, and whose name is in every one’s mouth. Very well, then!”

Percy knitted his forehead.

“I am not sure that I understand,” he said.

Father Blackmore knocked his pipe out before answering.

“Well, this,” he said, standing up. “I can’t help thinking Felsenburgh is going to do something. I don’t know what; it may be for us or against us. But he is a Mason, remember that…. Well, well; I dare say I’m an old fool. Good-night.”

“One moment, father,” said Percy slowly. “Do you mean—? Good Lord! What do you mean?” He stopped, looking at the other.

The old priest stared back under his bushy eyebrows; it seemed to Percy as if he, too, were afraid of something in spite of his easy talk; but he made no sign.

Percy stood perfectly still a moment when the door was shut. Then he moved across to his prie-dieu.

CHAPTER III

I

Old Mrs. Brand and Mabel were seated at a window of the new Admiralty Offices in Trafalgar Square to see Oliver deliver his speech on the fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Poor Laws Reform.

It was an inspiriting sight, this bright June morning, to see the crowds gathering round Braithwaite’s statue. That politician, dead fifteen years before, was represented in his famous attitude, with arms outstretched and down dropped, his head up and one foot slightly advanced, and to-day was decked, as was becoming more and more usual on such occasions, in his Masonic insignia. It was he who had given immense impetus to that secret movement by his declaration in the House that the key of future progress and brotherhood of nations was in the hands of the Order. It was through this alone that the false unity of the Church with its fantastic spiritual fraternity could be counteracted. St. Paul had been right, he declared, in his desire to break down the partition-walls between nations, and wrong only in his exaltation of Jesus Christ. Thus he had preluded his speech on the Poor Law question, pointing to the true charity that existed among Masons apart from religious motive, and appealing to the famous benefactions on the Continent; and in the enthusiasm of the Bill’s success the Order had received a great accession of members.

Old Mrs. Brand was in her best to-day, and looked out with considerable excitement at the huge throng gathered to hear her son speak. A platform was erected round the bronze statue at such a height that the statesman appeared to be one of the speakers, though at a slightly higher elevation, and this platform was hung with roses, surmounted by a sounding-board, and set with a chair and table.

The whole square round about was paved with heads and resonant with sound, the murmurs of thousands of voices, overpowered now and again by the crash of brass and thunder of drums as the Benefit Societies and democratic Guilds, each headed by a banner, deployed from North, South, East and West, and converged towards the wide railed space about the platform where room was reserved for them. The windows on every side were packed with faces; tall stands were erected along the front of the National Gallery and St. Martin’s Church, garden-beds of colour behind the mute, white statues that faced outwards round the square; from Braithwaite in front, past the Victorians—John Davidson, John Burns, and the rest—round to Hampden and de Montfort towards the north. The old column was gone, with its lions. Nelson had not been found advantageous to the Entente Cordiale, nor the lions to the new art; and in their place stretched a wide pavement broken by slopes of steps that led up to the National Gallery.

Overhead the roofs showed crowded friezes of heads against the blue summer sky. Not less than one hundred thousand persons, it was estimated in the evening papers, were collected within sight and sound of the platform by noon.

As the clocks began to tell the hour, two figures appeared from behind the statue and came forward, and, in an instant, the murmurs of talk rose into cheering.

Old Lord Pemberton came first, a grey-haired, upright man, whose father had been active in denouncing the House of which he was a member on the occasion of its fall over seventy years ago, and his son had succeeded him worthily. This man was now a member of the Government, and sat for Manchester (3); and it was he who was to be chairman on this auspicious occasion. Behind him came Oliver, bareheaded and spruce, and even at that distance his mother and wife could see his brisk movement, his sudden smile and nod as his name emerged from the storm of sound that surged round the platform. Lord Pemberton came forward, lifted his hand and made a signal; and in a moment the thin cheering died under the sudden roll of drums beneath that preluded the Masonic Hymn.

There was no doubt that these Londoners could sing. It was as if a giant voice hummed the sonorous melody, rising to enthusiasm till the music of massed bands followed it as a flag follows a flag-stick. The hymn was one composed ten years before, and all England was familiar with it. Old Mrs. Bland lifted the printed paper mechanically to her eyes, and saw the words that she knew so well:

“The Lord that dwells in earth and sea.” …

She glanced down the verses, that from the Humanitarian point of view had been composed with both skill and ardour. They had a religious ring; the unintelligent Christian could sing them without a qualm; yet their sense was plain enough—the old human creed that man was all. Even Christ’s, words themselves were quoted. The kingdom of God, it was said, lay within the human heart, and the greatest of all graces was Charity.

She glanced at Mabel, and saw that the girl was singing with all her might, with her eyes fixed on her husband’s dark figure a hundred yards away, and her soul pouring through them. So the mother, too, began to move her lips in chorus with that vast volume of sound.

As the hymn died away, and before the cheering could begin again, old Lord Pemberton was standing forward on the edge of the platform, and his thin, metallic voice piped a sentence or two across the tinkling splash of the fountains behind him. Then he stepped back, and Oliver came forward.

It was too far for the two to hear what was said, but Mabel slipped a paper, smiling tremulously, into the old lady’s hand, and herself bent forward to listen.

Old Mrs. Brand looked at that, too, knowing that it was an analysis of her son’s speech, and aware that she would not be able to hear his words.

There was an exordium first, congratulating all who were present to do honour to the great man who presided from his pedestal on the occasion of this great anniversary. Then there came a retrospect, comparing the old state of England with the present. Fifty years ago, the speaker said, poverty was still a disgrace, now it was so no longer. It was in the causes that led to poverty that the disgrace or the merit lay. Who would not honour a man worn out in the service of his country, or overcome at last by circumstances against which his efforts could not prevail?… He enumerated the reforms passed fifty years before on this very day, by which the nation once and for all declared the glory of poverty and man’s sympathy with the unfortunate.

So he had told them he was to sing the praise of patient poverty and its reward, and that, he supposed, together with a few periods on the reform of the prison laws, would form the first half of his speech.

The second part was to be a panegyric of Braithwaite, treating him as the Precursor of a movement that even now had begun.

Old Mrs. Brand leaned back in her seat, and looked about her.

The window where they sat had been reserved for them; two arm-chairs filled the space, but immediately behind there were others, standing very silent now, craning forward, watching, too, with parted lips: a couple of women with an old man directly behind, and other faces visible again behind them. Their obvious absorption made the old lady a little ashamed of her distraction, and she turned resolutely once more to the square.

Ah! he was working up now to his panegyric! The tiny dark figure was back, a yard nearer the statue, and as she looked, his hand went up and he wheeled, pointing, as a murmur of applause drowned for an instant the minute, resonant voice. Then again he was forward, half crouching—for he was a born actor—and a storm of laughter rippled round the throng of heads. She heard an indrawn hiss behind her chair, and the next instant an exclamation from Mabel…. What was that?

There was a sharp crack, and the tiny gesticulating figure staggered back a step. The old man at the table was up in a moment, and simultaneously a violent commotion bubbled and heaved like water about a rock at a point in the crowd immediately outside the railed space where the bands were massed, and directly opposite the front of the platform.

Mrs. Brand, bewildered and dazed, found herself standing up, clutching the window rail, while the girl gripped her, crying out something she could not understand. A great roaring filled the square, the heads tossed this way and that, like corn under a squall of wind. Then Oliver was forward again, pointing and crying out, for she could see his gestures; and she sank back quickly, the blood racing through her old veins, and her heart hammering at the base of her throat.

“My dear, my dear, what is it?” she sobbed.

But Mabel was up, too, staring out at her husband; and a quick babble of talk and exclamations from behind made itself audible in spite of the roaring tumult of the square.

II

Oliver told them the explanation of the whole affair that evening at home, leaning back in his chair, with one arm bandaged and in a sling.

They had not been able to get near him at the time; the excitement in the square had been too fierce; but a messenger had come to his wife with the news that her husband was only slightly wounded, and was in the hands of the doctors.

“He was a Catholic,” explained the drawn-faced Oliver. “He must have come ready, for his repeater was found loaded. Well, there was no chance for a priest this time.”

Mabel nodded slowly: she had read of the man’s fate on the placards.

“He was killed—trampled and strangled instantly,” said Oliver. “I did what I could: you saw me. But—well, I dare say it was more merciful.”

“But you did what you could, my dear?” said the old lady, anxiously, from her corner.

“I called out to them, mother, but they wouldn’t hear me.”

Mabel leaned forward—-

“Oliver, I know this sounds stupid of me; but—but I wish they had not killed him.”

Oliver smiled at her. He knew this tender trait in her.

“It would have been more perfect if they had not,” she said. Then she broke off and sat back.

“Why did he shoot just then?” she asked.

Oliver turned his eyes for an instant towards his mother, but she was knitting tranquilly.

Then he answered with a curious deliberateness.

“I said that Braithwaite had done more for the world by one speech than Jesus and all His saints put together.” He was aware that the knitting-needles stopped for a second; then they went on again as before.

“But he must have meant to do it anyhow,” continued Oliver.

“How do they know he was a Catholic?” asked the girl again.

“There was a rosary on him; and then he just had time to call on his

God.”

“And nothing more is known?”

“Nothing more. He was well dressed, though.”

Oliver leaned back a little wearily and closed his eyes; his arm still throbbed intolerably. But he was very happy at heart. It was true that he had been wounded by a fanatic, but he was not sorry to bear pain in such a cause, and it was obvious that the sympathy of England was with him. Mr. Phillips even now was busy in the next room, answering the telegrams that poured in every moment. Caldecott, the Prime Minister, Maxwell, Snowford and a dozen others had wired instantly their congratulations, and from every part of England streamed in message after message. It was an immense stroke for the Communists; their spokesman had been assaulted during the discharge of his duty, speaking in defence of his principles; it was an incalculable gain for them, and loss for the Individualists, that confessors were not all on one side after all. The huge electric placards over London had winked out the facts in Esperanto as Oliver stepped into the train at twilight.

“Oliver Brand wounded…. Catholic assailant…. Indignation of the country…. Well-deserved fate of assassin.”

He was pleased, too, that he honestly had done his best to save the man. Even in that moment of sudden and acute pain he had cried out for a fair trial; but he had been too late. He had seen the starting eyes roll up in the crimson face, and the horrid grin come and go as the hands had clutched and torn at his throat. Then the face had vanished and a heavy trampling began where it had disappeared. Oh! there was some passion and loyalty left in England!

His mother got up presently and went out, still without a word; and

Mabel turned to him, laying a hand on his knee.

“Are you too tired to talk, my dear?”

He opened his eyes.

“Of course not, my darling. What is it?”

“What do you think will be the effect?”

He raised himself a little, looking out as usual through the darkening windows on to that astonishing view. Everywhere now lights were glowing, a sea of mellow moons just above the houses, and above the mysterious heavy blue of a summer evening.

“The effect?” he said. “It can be nothing but good. It was time that something happened. My dear, I feel very downcast sometimes, as you know. Well, I do not think I shall be again. I have been afraid sometimes that we were losing all our spirit, and that the old Tories were partly right when they prophesied what Communism would do. But after this—-”

“Well?”

“Well; we have shown that we can shed our blood too. It is in the nick of time, too, just at the crisis. I don’t want to exaggerate; it is only a scratch—but it was so deliberate, and—and so dramatic. The poor devil could not have chosen a worse moment. People won’t forget it.”

Mabel’s eyes shone with pleasure.

“You poor dear!” she said. “Are you in pain?”

“Not much. Besides, Christ! what do I care? If only this infernal

Eastern affair would end!”

He knew he was feverish and irritable, and made a great effort to drive it down.

“Oh, my dear!” he went on, flushed a little. “If they would not be such heavy fools: they don’t understand; they don’t understand.”

“Yes, Oliver?”

“They don’t understand what a glorious thing it all is Humanity, Life, Truth at last, and the death of Folly! But haven’t I told them a hundred times?”

She looked at him with kindling eyes. She loved to see him like this, his confident, flushed face, the enthusiasm in his blue eyes; and the knowledge of his pain pricked her feeling with passion. She bent forward and kissed him suddenly.

“My dear, I am so proud of you. Oh, Oliver!”

He said nothing; but she could see what she loved to see, that response to her own heart; and so they sat in silence while the sky darkened yet more, and the click of the writer in the next room told them that the world was alive and that they had a share in its affairs.

Oliver stirred presently.

“Did you notice anything just now, sweetheart—when I said that about

Jesus Christ?”

“She stopped knitting for a moment,” said the girl.

He nodded.

“You saw that too, then…. Mabel, do you think she is falling back?”

“Oh! she is getting old,” said the girl lightly. “Of course she looks back a little.”

“But you don’t think—it would be too awful!”

She shook her head.

“No, no, my dear; you’re excited and tired. It’s just a little sentiment…. Oliver, I don’t think I would say that kind of thing before her.”

“But she hears it everywhere now.”

“No, she doesn’t. Remember she hardly ever goes out. Besides, she hates it. After all, she was brought up a Catholic.”

Oliver nodded, and lay back again, looking dreamily out.

“Isn’t it astonishing the way in which suggestion lasts? She can’t get it out of her head, even after fifty years. Well, watch her, won’t you?… By the way …”

“Yes?”

“There’s a little more news from the East. They say Felsenburgh’s running the whole thing now. The Empire is sending him everywhere— Tobolsk, Benares, Yakutsk—everywhere; and he’s been to Australia.”

Mabel sat up briskly.

“Isn’t that very hopeful?”

“I suppose so. There’s no doubt that the Sufis are winning; but for how long is another question. Besides, the troops don’t disperse.”

“And Europe?”

“Europe is arming as fast as possible. I hear we are to meet the Powers next week at Paris. I must go.”

“Your arm, my dear?”

“My arm must get well. It will have to go with me, anyhow.”

“Tell me some more.”

“There is no more. But it is just as certain as it can be that this is the crisis. If the East can be persuaded to hold its hand now, it will never be likely to raise it again. It will mean free trade all over the world, I suppose, and all that kind of thing. But if not—-”

“Well?”

“If not, there will be a catastrophe such as never has been even imagined. The whole human race will be at war, and either East or West will be simply wiped out. These new Benninschein explosives will make certain of that.”

“But is it absolutely certain that the East has got them?”

“Absolutely. Benninschein sold them simultaneously to East and West; then he died, luckily for him.”

Mabel had heard this kind of talk before, but her imagination simply refused to grasp it. A duel of East and West under these new conditions was an unthinkable thing. There had been no European war within living memory, and the Eastern wars of the last century had been under the old conditions. Now, if tales were true, entire towns would be destroyed with a single shell. The new conditions were unimaginable. Military experts prophesied extravagantly, contradicting one another on vital points; the whole procedure of war was a matter of theory; there were no precedents with which to compare it. It was as if archers disputed as to the results of cordite. Only one thing was certain—that the East had every modern engine, and, as regards male population, half as much again as the rest of the world put together; and the conclusion to be drawn from these premisses was not reassuring to England.

But imagination simply refused to speak. The daily papers had a short, careful leading article every day, founded upon the scraps of news that stole out from the conferences on the other side of the world; Felsenburgh’s name appeared more frequently than ever: otherwise there seemed to be a kind of hush. Nothing suffered very much; trade went on; European stocks were not appreciably lower than usual; men still built houses, married wives, begat sons and daughters, did their business and went to the theatre, for the mere reason that there was no good in anything else. They could neither save nor precipitate the situation; it was on too large a scale. Occasionally people went mad—people who had succeeded in goading their imagination to a height whence a glimpse of reality could be obtained; and there was a diffused atmosphere of tenseness. But that was all. Not many speeches were made on the subject; it had been found inadvisable. After all, there was nothing to do but to wait.

III

Mabel remembered her husband’s advice to watch, and for a few days did her best. But there was nothing that alarmed her. The old lady was a little quiet, perhaps, but went about her minute affairs as usual. She asked the girl to read to her sometimes, and listened unblenching to whatever was offered her; she attended in the kitchen daily, organised varieties of food, and appeared interested in all that concerned her son. She packed his bag with her own hands, set out his furs for the swift flight to Paris, and waved to him from the window as he went down the little path towards the junction. He would be gone three days, he said.

It was on the evening of the second day that she fell ill; and Mabel, running upstairs, in alarm at the message of the servant, found her rather flushed and agitated in her chair.

“It is nothing, my dear,” said the old lady tremulously; and she added the description of a symptom or two.

Mabel got her to bed, sent for the doctor, and sat down to wait.

She was sincerely fond of the old lady, and had always found her presence in the house a quiet sort of delight. The effect of her upon the mind was as that of an easy-chair upon the body. The old lady was so tranquil and human, so absorbed in small external matters, so reminiscent now and then of the days of her youth, so utterly without resentment or peevishness. It seemed curiously pathetic to the girl to watch that quiet old spirit approach its extinction, or rather, as Mabel believed, its loss of personality in the reabsorption into the Spirit of Life which informed the world. She found less difficulty in contemplating the end of a vigorous soul, for in that case she imagined a kind of energetic rush of force back into the origin of things; but in this peaceful old lady there was so little energy; her whole point, so to speak, lay in the delicate little fabric of personality, built out of fragile things into an entity far more significant than the sum of its component parts: the death of a flower, reflected Mabel, is sadder than the death of a lion; the breaking of a piece of china more irreparable than the ruin of a palace.

“It is syncope,” said the doctor when he came in. “She may die at any time; she may live ten years.”

“There is no need to telegraph for Mr. Brand?”

He made a little deprecating movement with his hands.

“It is not certain that she will die—it is not imminent?” she asked.

“No, no; she may live ten years, I said.”

He added a word or two of advice as to the use of the oxygen injector, and went away.

The old lady was lying quietly in bed, when the girl went up, and put out a wrinkled hand.

“Well, my dear?” she asked.

“It is just a little weakness, mother. You must lie quiet and do nothing. Shall I read to you?”

“No, my dear; I will think a little.”

It was no part of Mabel’s idea to duty to tell her that she was in danger, for there was no past to set straight, no Judge to be confronted. Death was an ending, not a beginning. It was a peaceful Gospel; at least, it became peaceful as soon as the end had come.

So the girl went downstairs once more, with a quiet little ache at her heart that refused to be still.

What a strange and beautiful thing death was, she told herself—this resolution of a chord that had hung suspended for thirty, fifty or seventy years—back again into the stillness of the huge Instrument that was all in all to itself. Those same notes would be struck again, were being struck again even now all over the world, though with an infinite delicacy of difference in the touch; but that particular emotion was gone: it was foolish to think that it was sounding eternally elsewhere, for there was no elsewhere. She, too, herself would cease one day, let her see to it that the tone was pure and lovely.

Mr. Phillips arrived the next morning as usual, just as Mabel had left the old lady’s room, and asked news of her.

“She is a little better, I think,” said Mabel. “She must be very quiet all day.”

The secretary bowed and turned aside into Oliver’s room, where a heap of letters lay to be answered.

A couple of hours later, as Mabel went upstairs once more, she met Mr.

Phillips coming down. He looked a little flushed under his sallow skin.

“Mrs. Brand sent for me,” he said. “She wished to know whether Mr.

Oliver would be back to-night.”

“He will, will he not? You have not heard?”

“Mr. Brand said he would be here for a late dinner. He will reach London at nineteen.”

“And is there any other news?”

He compressed his lips.

“There are rumours,” he said. “Mr. Brand wired to me an hour ago.”

He seemed moved at something, and Mabel looked at him in astonishment.

“It is not Eastern news?” she asked.

His eyebrows wrinkled a little.

“You must forgive me, Mrs. Brand,” he said. “I am not at liberty to say anything.”

She was not offended, for she trusted her husband too well; but she went on into the sick-room with her heart beating.

The old lady, too, seemed excited. She lay in bed with a clear flush in her white cheeks, and hardly smiled at all to the girl’s greeting.

“Well, you have seen Mr. Phillips, then?” said Mabel.

Old Mrs. Brand looked at her sharply an instant, but said nothing.

“Don’t excite yourself, mother. Oliver will be back to-night.”

The old lady drew a long breath.

“Don’t trouble about me, my dear,” she said. “I shall do very well now.

He will be back to dinner, will he not?”

“If the volor is not late. Now, mother, are you ready for breakfast?”

Mabel passed an afternoon of considerable agitation. It was certain that something had happened. The secretary, who breakfasted with her in the parlour looking on to the garden, had appeared strangely excited. He had told her that he would be away the rest of the day: Mr. Oliver had given him his instructions. He had refrained from all discussion of the Eastern question, and he had given her no news of the Paris Convention; he only repeated that Mr. Oliver would be back that night. Then he had gone of in a hurry half-an-hour later.

The old lady seemed asleep when the girl went up afterwards, and Mabel did not like to disturb her. Neither did she like to leave the house; so she walked by herself in the garden, thinking and hoping and fearing, till the long shadow lay across the path, and the tumbled platform of roofs was bathed in a dusty green haze from the west.

As she came in she took up the evening paper, but there was no news there except to the effect that the Convention would close that afternoon.

Twenty o’clock came, but there was no sign of Oliver. The Paris volor should have arrived an hour before, but Mabel, staring out into the darkening heavens had seen the stars come out like jewels one by one, but no slender winged fish pass overhead. Of course she might have missed it; there was no depending on its exact course; but she had seen it a hundred times before, and wondered unreasonably why she had not seen it now. But she would not sit down to dinner, and paced up and down in her white dress, turning again and again to the window, listening to the soft rush of the trains, the faint hoots from the track, and the musical chords from the junction a mile away. The lights were up by now, and the vast sweep of the towns looked like fairyland between the earthly light and the heavenly darkness. Why did not Oliver come, or at least let her know why he did not?

Once she went upstairs, miserably anxious herself, to reassure the old lady, and found her again very drowsy.

“He is not come,” she said. “I dare say he may be kept in Paris.”

The old face on the pillow nodded and murmured, and Mabel went down again. It was now an hour after dinner-time.

Oh! there were a hundred things that might have kept him. He had often been later than this: he might have missed the volor he meant to catch; the Convention might have been prolonged; he might be exhausted, and think it better to sleep in Paris after all, and have forgotten to wire. He might even have wired to Mr. Phillips, and the secretary have forgotten to pass on the message.

She went at last, hopelessly, to the telephone, and looked at it. There it was, that round silent month, that little row of labelled buttons. She half decided to touch them one by one, and inquire whether anything had been heard of her husband: there was his club, his office in Whitehall, Mr. Phillips’s house, Parliament-house, and the rest. But she hesitated, telling herself to be patient. Oliver hated interference, and he would surely soon remember and relieve her anxiety.

Then, even as she turned away, the bell rang sharply, and a white label flashed into sight.—WHITEHALL.

She pressed the corresponding button, and, her hand shaking so much that she could scarcely hold the receiver to her ear, she listened.

“Who is there?”

Her heart leaped at the sound of her husband’s voice, tiny and minute across the miles of wire.

“I—Mabel,” she said. “Alone here.”

“Oh! Mabel. Very well. I am back: all is well. Now listen. Can you hear?”

“Yes, yes.”

“The best has happened. It is all over in the East. Felsenburgh has done

it. Now listen. I cannot come home to-night. It will be announced in

Paul’s House in two hours from now. We are communicating with the Press.

Come up here to me at once. You must be present…. Can you hear?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Come then at once. It will be the greatest thing in history. Tell no one. Come before the rush begins. In half-an-hour the way will be stopped.”

“Oliver.”

“Yes? Quick.”

“Mother is ill. Shall I leave her?”

“How ill?”

“Oh, no immediate danger. The doctor has seen her.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Yes; come then. We will go back to-night anyhow, then. Tell her we shall be late.”

“Very well.”

“ … Yes, you must come. Felsenburgh will be there.”

CHAPTER IV

I

On the same afternoon Percy received a visitor.

There was nothing exceptional about him; and Percy, as he came downstairs in his walking-dress and looked at him in the light from the tall parlour-window, came to no conclusion at all as to his business and person, except that he was not a Catholic.

“You wished to see me,” said the priest, indicating a chair.

“I fear I must not stop long.”

“I shall not keep you long,” said the stranger eagerly. “My business is done in five minutes.”

Percy waited with his eyes cast down.

“A—a certain person has sent me to you. She was a Catholic once; she wishes to return to the Church.”

Percy made a little movement with his head. It was a message he did not very often receive in these days.

“You will come, sir, will you not? You will promise me?”

The man seemed greatly agitated; his sallow face showed a little shining with sweat, and his eyes were piteous.

“Of course I will come,” said Percy, smiling.

“Yes, sir; but you do not know who she is. It—it would make a great stir, sir, if it was known. It must not be known, sir; you will promise me that, too?”

“I must not make any promise of that kind,” said the priest gently. “I do not know the circumstances yet.”

The stranger licked his lips nervously.

“Well, sir,” he said hastily, “you will say nothing till you have seen her? You can promise me that.”

“Oh! certainly,” said the priest.

“Well, sir, you had better not know my name. It—it may make it easier for you and for me. And—and, if you please, sir, the lady is ill; you must come to-day, if you please, but not until the evening. Will twenty-two o’clock be convenient, sir?”

“Where is it?” asked Percy abruptly.

“It—it is near Croydon junction. I will write down the address presently. And you will not come until twenty-two o’clock, sir?”

“Why not now?”

“Because the—the others may be there. They will be away then; I know that.”

This was rather suspicious, Percy thought: discreditable plots had been known before. But he could not refuse outright.

“Why does she not send for her parish-priest?” he asked.

“She she does not know who he is, sir; she saw you once in the Cathedral, sir, and asked you for your name. Do you remember, sir?—an old lady?”

Percy did dimly remember something of the kind a month or two before; but he could not be certain, and said so.

“Well, sir, you will come, will you not?”

“I must communicate with Father Dolan,” said the priest. “If he gives me permission—-”

“If you please, sir, Father—Father Dolan must not know her name. You will not tell him?”

“I do not know it myself yet,” said the priest, smiling.

The stranger sat back abruptly at that, and his face worked.

“Well, sir, let me tell you this first. This old lady’s son is my employer, and a very prominent Communist. She lives with him and his wife. The other two will be away to-night. That is why I am asking you all this. And now, you till come, sir?”

Percy looked at him steadily for a moment or two. Certainly, if this was a conspiracy, the conspirators were feeble folk. Then he answered:

“I will come, sir; I promise. Now the name.”

The stranger again licked his lips nervously, and glanced timidly from side to side. Then he seemed to gather his resolution; he leaned forward and whispered sharply.

“The old lady’s name is Brand, sir—the mother of Mr. Oliver Brand.”

For a moment Percy was bewildered. It was too extraordinary to be true. He knew Mr. Oliver Brand’s name only too well; it was he who, by God’s permission, was doing more in England at this moment against the Catholic cause than any other man alive; and it was he whom the Trafalgar Square incident had raised into such eminent popularity. And now, here was his mother—-

He turned fiercely upon the man.

“I do not know what you are, sir—whether you believe in God or not; but will you swear to me on your religion and your honour that all this is true?”

The timid eyes met his, and wavered; but it was the wavering of weakness, not of treachery.

“I—I swear it, sir; by God Almighty.”

“Are you a Catholic?”

The man shook his head.

“But I believe in God,” he said. “At least, I think so.”

Percy leaned back, trying to realise exactly what it all meant. There was no triumph in his mind—that kind of emotion was not his weakness; there was fear of a kind, excitement, bewilderment, and under all a satisfaction that God’s grace was so sovereign. If it could reach this woman, who could be too far removed for it to take effect? Presently he noticed the other looking at him anxiously.

“You are afraid, sir? You are not going back from your promise?”

That dispersed the cloud a little, and Percy smiled.

“Oh! no,” he said. “I will be there at twenty-two o’clock. … Is death imminent?”

“No, sir; it is syncope. She is recovered a little this morning.”

The priest passed his hand over his eyes and stood up.

“Well, I will be there,” he said. “Shall you be there, sir?”

The other shook his head, standing up too.

“I must be with Mr. Brand, sir; there is to be a meeting to-night; but I must not speak of that…. No, sir; ask for Mrs. Brand, and say that she is expecting you. They will take you upstairs at once.”

“I must not say I am a priest, I suppose?”

“No, sir; if you please.”

He drew out a pocket-book, scribbled in it a moment, tore out the sheet, and handed it to the priest.

“The address, sir. Will you kindly destroy that when you have copied it?

I—I do not wish to lose my place, sir, if it can be helped.”

Percy stood twisting the paper in his fingers a moment.

“Why are you not a Catholic yourself?” he asked.

The man shook his head mutely. Then he took up his hat, and went towards the door.

Percy passed a very emotional afternoon.

For the last month or two little had happened to encourage him. He had been obliged to report half-a-dozen more significant secessions, and hardly a conversion of any kind. There was no doubt at all that the tide was setting steadily against the Church. The mad act in Trafalgar Square, too, had done incalculable harm last week: men were saying more than ever, and the papers storming, that the Church’s reliance on the supernatural was belied by every one of her public acts. “Scratch a Catholic and find an assassin” had been the text of a leading article in the New People, and Percy himself was dismayed at the folly of the attempt. It was true that the Archbishop had formally repudiated both the act and the motive from the Cathedral pulpit, but that too had only served as an opportunity hastily taken up by the principal papers, to recall the continual policy of the Church to avail herself of violence while she repudiated the violent. The horrible death of the man had in no way appeased popular indignation; there were not even wanting suggestions that the man had been seen coming out of Archbishop’s House an hour before the attempt at assassination had taken place.

And now here, with dramatic swiftness, had come a message that the hero’s own mother desired reconciliation with the Church that had attempted to murder her son.

Again and again that afternoon, as Percy sped northwards on his visit to a priest in Worcester, and southwards once more as the lights began to shine towards evening, he wondered whether this were not a plot after all—some kind of retaliation, an attempt to trap him. Yet he had promised to say nothing, and to go.

He finished his daily letter after dinner as usual, with a curious sense of fatality; addressed and stamped it. Then he went downstairs, in his walking-dress, to Father Blackmore’s room.

“Will you hear my confession, father?” he said abruptly.

II

Victoria Station, still named after the great nineteenth-century Queen, was neither more nor less busy than usual as he came into it half-an-hour later. The vast platform, sunk now nearly two hundred feet below the ground level, showed the double crowd of passengers entering and leaving town. Those on the extreme left, towards whom Percy began to descend in the open glazed lift, were by far the most numerous, and the stream at the lift-entrance made it necessary for him to move slowly.

He arrived at last, walking in the soft light on the noiseless ribbed rubber, and stood by the door of the long car that ran straight through to the Junction. It was the last of a series of a dozen or more, each of which slid off minute by minute. Then, still watching the endless movement of the lifts ascending and descending between the entrances of the upper end of the station, he stepped in and sat down.

He felt quiet now that he had actually started. He had made his confession, just in order to make certain of his own soul, though scarcely expecting any definite danger, and sat now, his grey suit and straw hat in no way distinguishing him as a priest (for a general leave was given by the authorities to dress so for any adequate reason). Since the case was not imminent, he had not brought stocks or pyx—Father Dolan had wired to him that he might fetch them if he wished from St. Joseph’s, near the Junction. He had only the violet thread in his pocket, such as was customary for sick calls.

He was sliding along peaceably enough, fixing his eyes on the empty seat opposite, and trying to preserve complete collectedness when the car abruptly stopped. He looked out, astonished, and saw by the white enamelled walks twenty feet from the window that they were already in the tunnel. The stoppage might arise from many causes, and he was not greatly excited, nor did it seem that others in the carriage took it very seriously; he could hear, after a moment’s silence, the talking recommence beyond the partition.

Then there came, echoed by the walls, the sound of shouting from far away, mingled with hoots and chords; it grew louder. The talking in the carriage stopped. He heard a window thrown up, and the next instant a car tore past, going back to the station although on the down line. This must be looked into, thought Percy: something certainly was happening; so he got up and went across the empty compartment to the further window. Again came the crying of voices, again the signals, and once more a car whirled past, followed almost immediately by another. There was a jerk—a smooth movement. Percy staggered and fell into a seat, as the carriage in which he was seated itself began to move backwards.

There was a clamour now in the next compartment, and Percy made his way there through the door, only to find half-a-dozen men with their heads thrust from the windows, who paid absolutely no attention to his inquiries. So he stood there, aware that they knew no more than himself, waiting for an explanation from some one. It was disgraceful, he told himself, that any misadventure should so disorganise the line.

Twice the car stopped; each time it moved on again after a hoot or two, and at last drew up at the platform whence it had started, although a hundred yards further out.

Ah! there was no doubt that something had happened! The instant he opened the door a great roar met his ears, and as he sprang on to the platform and looked up at the end of the station, he began to understand.

From right to left of the huge interior, across the platforms, swelling every instant, surged an enormous swaying, roaring crowd. The flight of steps, twenty yards broad, used only in cases of emergency, resembled a gigantic black cataract nearly two hundred feet in height. Each car as it drew up discharged more and more men and women, who ran like ants towards the assembly of their fellows. The noise was indescribable, the shouting of men, the screaming of women, the clang and hoot of the huge machines, and three or four times the brazen cry of a trumpet, as an emergency door was flung open overhead, and a small swirl of crowd poured through it towards the streets beyond. But after one look Percy looked no more at the people; for there, high up beneath the clock, on the Government signal board, flared out monstrous letters of fire, telling in Esperanto and English, the message for which England had grown sick. He read it a dozen times before he moved, staring, as at a supernatural sight which might denote the triumph of either heaven or hell.

“EASTERN CONVENTION DISPERSED.

PEACE, NOT WAR.

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD ESTABLISHED.

FELSENBURGH IN LONDON TO-NIGHT.”

III

It was not until nearly two hours later that Percy was standing at the house beyond the Junction.

He bad argued, expostulated, threatened, but the officials were like men possessed. Half of them had disappeared in the rush to the City, for it had leaked out, in spite of the Government’s precautions, that Paul’s House, known once as St. Paul’s Cathedral, was to be the scene of Felsenburgh’s reception. The others seemed demented; one man on the platform had dropped dead from nervous exhaustion, but no one appeared to care; and the body lay huddled beneath a seat. Again and again Percy had been swept away by a rush, as he struggled from platform to platform in his search for a car that would take him to Croydon. It seemed that there was none to be had, and the useless carriages collected like drift-wood between the platforms, as others whirled up from the country bringing loads of frantic, delirious men, who vanished like smoke from the white rubber-boards. The platforms were continually crowded, and as continually emptied, and it was not until half-an-hour before midnight that the block began to move outwards again.

Well, he was here at last, dishevelled, hatless and exhausted, looking up at the dark windows.

He scarcely knew what he thought of the whole matter. War, of course, was terrible. And such a war as this would have been too terrible for the imagination to visualise; but to the priest’s mind there were other things even worse. What of universal peace—peace, that is to say, established by others than Christ’s method? Or was God behind even this? The questions were hopeless.

Felsenburgh—it was he then who had done this thing—this thing undoubtedly greater than any secular event hitherto known in civilisation. What manner of man was he? What was his character, his motive, his method? How would he use his success?… So the points flew before him like a stream of sparks, each, it might be, harmless; each, equally, capable of setting a world on fire. Meanwhile here was an old woman who desired to be reconciled with God before she died….

He touched the button again, three or four times, and waited. Then a light sprang out overhead, and he knew that he was heard.

“I was sent for,” he exclaimed to the bewildered maid. “I should have been here at twenty-two: I was prevented by the rush.”

She babbled out a question at him.

“Yes, it is true, I believe,” he said. “It is peace, not war. Kindly take me upstairs.”

He went through the hall with a curious sense of guilt. This was Brand’s house then—that vivid orator, so bitterly eloquent against God; and here was he, a priest, slinking in under cover of night. Well, well, it was not of his appointment.

At the door of an upstairs room the maid turned to him.

“A doctor, sir?” she said.

“That is my affair,” said Percy briefly, and opened the door.

A little wailing cry broke from the corner, before he had time to close the door again.

“Oh! thank God! I thought He had forgotten me. You are a priest, father?”

“I am a priest. Do you not remember seeing me in the Cathedral?”

“Yes, yes, sir; I saw you praying, father. Oh! thank God, thank God!”

Percy stood looking down at her a moment, seeing her flushed old face in the nightcap, her bright sunken eyes and her tremulous hands. Yes; this was genuine enough.

“Now, my child,” he said, “tell me.”

“My confession, father.”

Percy drew out the purple thread, slipped it over his shoulders, and sat down by the bed.

But she would not let him go for a while after that.

“Tell me, father. When will you bring me Holy Communion?”

He hesitated.

“I understand that Mr. Brand and his wife know nothing of all this?”

“No, father.”

“Tell me, are you very ill?”

“I don’t know, father. They will not tell me. I thought I was gone last night.”

“When would you wish me to bring you Holy Communion? I will do as you say.”

“Shall I send to you in a day or two? Father, ought I to tell him?”

“You are not obliged.”

“I will if I ought.”

“Well, think about it, and let me know…. You have heard what has happened?”

She nodded, but almost uninterestedly; and Percy was conscious of a tiny prick of compunction at his own heart. After all, the reconciling of a soul to God was a greater thing than the reconciling of East to West.

“It may make a difference to Mr. Brand,” he said. “He will be a great man, now, you know.”

She still looked at him in silence, smiling a little. Percy was astonished at the youthfulness of that old face. Then her face changed.

“Father, I must not keep you; but tell me this—Who is this man?”

“Felsenburgh?”

“Yes.”

“No one knows. We shall know more to-morrow. He is in town to-night.”

She looked so strange that Percy for an instant thought it was a seizure. Her face seemed to fall away in a kind of emotion, half cunning, half fear.

“Well, my child?”

“Father, I am a little afraid when I think of that man. He cannot harm me, can he? I am safe now? I am a Catholic—?”

“My child, of course you are safe. What is the matter? How can this man injure you?”

But the look of terror was still there, and Percy came a step nearer.

“You must not give way to fancies,” he said. “Just commit yourself to our Blessed Lord. This man can do you no harm.”

He was speaking now as to a child; but it was of no use. Her old mouth was still sucked in, and her eyes wandered past him into the gloom of the room behind.

“My child, tell me what is the matter. What do you know of Felsenburgh?

You have been dreaming.”

She nodded suddenly and energetically, and Percy for the first time felt his heart give a little leap of apprehension. Was this old woman out of her mind, then? Or why was it that that name seemed to him sinister? Then he remembered that Father Blackmore had once talked like this. He made an effort, and sat down once more.

“Now tell me plainly,” he said. “You have been dreaming. What have you dreamt?”

She raised herself a little in bed, again glancing round the room; then she put out her old ringed hand for one of his, and he gave it, wondering.

“The door is shut, father? There is no one listening?”

“No, no, my child. Why are you trembling? You must not be superstitious.”

“Father, I will tell you. Dreams are nonsense, are they not? Well, at least, this is what I dreamt.

“I was somewhere in a great house; I do not know where it was. It was a house I have never seen. It was one of the old houses, and it was very dark. I was a child, I thought, and I was … I was afraid of something. The passages were all dark, and I went crying in the dark, looking for a light, and there was none. Then I heard a voice talking, a great way off. Father—-”

Her hand gripped his more tightly, and again her eyes went round the room.

With great difficulty Percy repressed a sigh. Yet he dared not leave her just now. The house was very still; only from outside now and again sounded the clang of the cars, as they sped countrywards again from the congested town, and once the sound of great shouting. He wondered what time it was.

“Had you better tell me now?” he asked, still talking with a patient simplicity. “What time will they be back?”

“Not yet,” she whispered. “Mabel said not till two o’clock. What time is it now, father?”

He pulled out his watch with his disengaged hand.

“It is not yet one,” he said.

“Very well, listen, father…. I was in this house; and I heard that talking; and I ran along the passages, till I saw light below a door; and then I stopped…. Nearer, father.”

Percy was a little awed in spite of himself. Her voice had suddenly dropped to a whisper, and her old eyes seemed to hold him strangely.

“I stopped, father; I dared not go in. I could hear the talking, and I could see the light; and I dared not go in. Father, it was Felsenburgh in that room.”

From beneath came the sudden snap of a door; then the sound of footsteps. Percy turned his head abruptly, and at the same moment heard a swift indrawn breath from the old woman.

“Hush!” he said. “Who is that?”

Two voices were talking in the hall below now, and at the sound the old woman relaxed her hold.

“I—I thought it to be him,” she murmured.

Percy stood up; he could see that she did not understand the situation.

“Yes, my child,” he said quietly, “but who is it?”

“My son and his wife,” she said; then her face changed once more.

“Why—why, father—-”

Her voice died in her throat, as a step vibrated outside. For a moment there was complete silence; then a whisper, plainly audible, in a girl’s voice.

“Why, her light is burning. Come in, Oliver, but softly.”

Then the handle turned.

CHAPTER V

I

There was an exclamation, then silence, as a tall, beautiful girl with flushed face and shining grey eyes came forward and stopped, followed by a man whom Percy knew at once from his pictures. A little whimpering sounded from the bed, and the priest lifted his hand instinctively to silence it.

“Why,” said Mabel; and then stared at the man with the young face and the white hair.

Oliver opened his lips and closed them again. He, too, had a strange excitement in his face. Then he spoke.

“Who is this?” he said deliberately.

“Oliver,” cried the girl, turning to him abruptly, “this is the priest I saw—-”

“A priest!” said the other, and came forward a step. “Why, I thought—-”

Percy drew a breath to steady that maddening vibration in his throat.

“Yes, I am a priest,” he said.

Again the whimpering broke out from the bed; and Percy, half turning again to silence it, saw the girl mechanically loosen the clasp of the thin dust cloak over her white dress.

“You sent for him, mother?” snapped the man, with a tremble in his voice, and with a sudden jerk forward of his whole body. But the girl put out her hand.

“Quietly, my dear,” she said. “Now, sir—-”

“Yes, I am a priest,” said Percy again, strung up now to a desperate resistance of will, hardly knowing what he said.

“And you come to my house!” exclaimed the man. He came a step nearer, and half recoiled. “You swear you are a priest?” he said. “You have been here all this evening?”

“Since midnight.”

“And you are not—-” he stopped again.

Mabel stepped straight between them.

“Oliver,” she said, still with that air of suppressed excitement, “we must not have a scene here. The poor dear is too ill. Will you come downstairs, sir?”

Percy took a step towards the door, and Oliver moved slightly aside.

Then the priest stopped, turned and lifted his hand.

“God bless you!” he said simply, to the muttering figure in the bed.

Then he went out, and waited outside the door.

He could hear a low talking within; then a compassionate murmur from the girl’s voice; then Oliver was beside him, trembling all over, as white as ashes, and made a silent gesture as he went past him down the stairs.

The whole thing seemed to Percy like some incredible dream; it was all so unexpected, so untrue to life. He felt conscious of an enormous shame at the sordidness of the affair, and at the same time of a kind of hopeless recklessness. The worst had happened and the best—that was his sole comfort.

Oliver pushed a door open, touched a button, and went through into the suddenly lit room, followed by Percy. Still in silence, he pointed to a chair, Percy sat down, and Oliver stood before the fireplace, his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket, slightly turned away.

Percy’s concentrated senses became aware of every detail of the room—the deep springy green carpet, smooth under his feet, the straight hanging thin silk curtains, the half-dozen low tables with a wealth of flowers upon them, and the books that lined the walls. The whole room was heavy with the scent of roses, although the windows were wide, and the night-breeze stirred the curtains continually. It was a woman’s room, he told himself. Then he looked at the man’s figure, lithe, tense, upright; the dark grey suit not unlike his own, the beautiful curve of the jaw, the clear pale complexion, the thin nose, the protruding curve of idealism over the eyes, and the dark hair. It was a poet’s face, he told himself, and the whole personality was a living and vivid one. Then he turned a little and rose as the door opened, and Mabel came in, closing it behind her.

She came straight across to her husband, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Sit down, my dear,” she said. “We must talk a little. Please sit down, sir.”

The three sat down, Percy on one side, and the husband and wife on a straight-backed settle opposite.

The girl began again.

“This must be arranged at once,” she said, “but we must have no tragedy.

Oliver, do you understand? You must not make a scene. Leave this to me.”

She spoke with a curious gaiety; and Percy to his astonishment saw that she was quite sincere: there was not the hint of cynicism.

“Oliver, my dear,” she said again, “don’t mouth like that! It is all perfectly right. I am going to manage this.”

Percy saw a venomous look directed at him by the man; the girl saw it too, moving her strong humorous eyes from one to the other. She put her hand on his knee.

“Oliver, attend! Don’t look at this gentleman so bitterly. He has done no harm.”

“No harm!” whispered the other.

“No—no harm in the world. What does it matter what that poor dear upstairs thinks? Now, sir, would you mind telling us why you came here?”

Percy drew another breath. He had not expected this line.

“I came here to receive Mrs. Brand back into the Church,” he said.

“And you have done so?”

“I have done so.”

“Would you mind telling us your name? It makes it so much more convenient.”

Percy hesitated. Then he determined to meet her on her own ground.

“Certainly. My name is Franklin.”

“Father Franklin?” asked the girl, with just the faintest tinge of mocking emphasis on the first word.

“Yes. Father Percy Franklin, from Archbishop’s House, Westminster,” said the priest steadily.

“Well, then, Father Percy Franklin; can you tell us why you came here? I mean, who sent for you?”

“Mrs. Brand sent for me.”

“Yes, but by what means?”

“That I must not say.”

“Oh, very good…. May we know what good comes of being ‘received into the Church?’”

“By being received into the Church, the soul is reconciled to God.”

“Oh! (Oliver, be quiet.) And how do you do it, Father Franklin?”

Percy stood up abruptly.

“This is no good, madam,” he said. “What is the use of these questions?”

The girl looked at him in open-eyed astonishment, still with her hand on her husband’s knee.

“The use, Father Franklin! Why, we want to know. There is no church law against your telling us, is there?”

Percy hesitated again. He did not understand in the least what she was after. Then he saw that he would give them an advantage if he lost his head at all: so he sat down again.

“Certainly not. I will tell you if you wish to know. I heard Mrs.

Brand’s confession, and gave her absolution.”

“Oh! yes; and that does it, then? And what next?”

“She ought to receive Holy Communion, and anointing, if she is in danger of death.”

Oliver twitched suddenly.

“Christ!” he said softly.

“Oliver!” cried the girl entreatingly. “Please leave this to me. It is much better so.—And then, I suppose, Father Franklin, you want to give those other things to my mother, too?”

“They are not absolutely necessary,” said the priest, feeling, he did not know why, that he was somehow playing a losing game.

“Oh! they are not necessary? But you would like to?”

“I shall do so if possible. But I have done what is necessary.”

It required all his will to keep quiet. He was as a man who had armed himself in steel, only to find that his enemy was in the form of a subtle vapour. He simply had not an idea what to do next. He would have given anything for the man to have risen and flown at his throat, for this girl was too much for them both.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Well, it is hardly to be expected that my husband should give you leave to come here again. But I am very glad that you have done what you think necessary. No doubt it will be a satisfaction to you, Father Franklin, and to the poor old thing upstairs, too. While we—- we—” she pressed her husband’s knee—”we do not mind at all. Oh!—but there is one thing more.”

“If you please,” said Percy, wondering what on earth was coming.

“You Christians—forgive me if I say anything rude—but, you know, you Christians have a reputation for counting heads, and making the most of converts. We shall be so much obliged, Father Franklin, if you will give us your word not to advertise this—this incident. It would distress my husband, and give him a great deal of trouble.”

“Mrs. Brand—-” began the priest.

“One moment…. You see, we have not treated you badly. There has been no violence. We will promise not to make scenes with my mother. Will you promise us that?”

Percy had had time to consider, and he answered instantly.

“Certainly, I will promise that.”

Mabel sighed contentedly.

“Well, that is all right. We are so much obliged…. And I think we may say this, that perhaps after consideration my husband may see his way to letting you come here again to do Communion and—and the other thing—-”

Again that spasm shook the man beside her.

“Well, we will see about that. At any rate, we know your address, and can let you know…. By the way, Father Franklin, are you going back to Westminster to-night?”

He bowed.

“Ah! I hope you will get through. You will find London very much excited. Perhaps you heard—-”

“Felsenburgh?” said Percy.

“Yes. Julian Felsenburgh,” said the girl softly, again with that strange excitement suddenly alight in her eyes. “Julian Felsenburgh,” she repeated. “He is there, you know. He will stay in England for the present.”

Again Percy was conscious of that slight touch of fear at the mention of that name.

“I understand there is to be peace,” he said.

The girl rose and her husband with her.

“Yes,” she said, almost compassionately, “there is to be peace. Peace at last.” (She moved half a step towards him, and her face glowed like a rose of fire. Her hand rose a little.) “Go back to London, Father Franklin, and use your eyes. You will see him, I dare say, and you will see more besides.” (Her voice began to vibrate.) “And you will understand, perhaps, why we have treated you like this—why we are no longer afraid of you—why we are willing that my mother should do its she pleases. Oh! you will understand, Father Franklin if not to-night, to-morrow; or if not to-morrow, at least in a very short time.”

“Mabel!” cried her husband.

The girl wheeled, and threw her arms round him, and kissed him on the mouth.

“Oh! I am not ashamed, Oliver, my dear. Let him go and see for himself.

Good-night, Father Franklin.”

As he went towards the door, hearing the ping of the bell that some one touched in the room behind him, he turned once more, dazed and bewildered; and there were the two, husband and wife, standing in the soft, sunny light, as if transfigured. The girl had her arm round the man’s shoulder, and stood upright and radiant as a pillar of fire; and even on the man’s face there was no anger now—nothing but an almost supernatural pride and confidence. They were both smiling.

Then Percy passed out into the soft, summer night.

II

Percy understood nothing except that he was afraid, as he sat in the crowded car that whirled him up to London. He scarcely even heard the talk round him, although it was loud and continuous; and what he heard meant little to him. He understood only that there had been strange scenes, that London was said to have gone suddenly mad, that Felsenburgh had spoken that night in Paul’s House.

He was afraid at the way in which be had been treated, and he asked himself dully again and again what it was that had inspired that treatment; it seemed that he bad been in the presence of the supernatural; he was conscious of shivering a little, and of the symptoms of an intolerable sleepiness. It was scarcely strange to him that he should be sitting in a crowded car at two o’clock of a summer dawn.

Thrice the car stopped, and he stared out at the signs of confusion that were everywhere; at the figures that ran in the twilight between the tracks, at a couple of wrecked carriages, a tumble of tarpaulins; he listened mechanically to the hoots and cries that sounded everywhere.

As he stepped out at last on to the platform, he found it very much as he had left it two hours before. There was the same desperate rush as the car discharged its load, the same dead body beneath the seat; and above all, as he ran helplessly behind the crowd, scarcely knowing whither he ran or why, above him burned the same stupendous message beneath the clock. Then he found himself in the lift, and a minute later he was out on the steps behind the station.

There, too, was an astonishing sight. The lamps still burned overhead, but beyond them lay the first pale streaks of the false dawn. The street that ran now straight to the old royal palace, uniting there, as at the centre of a web, with those that came from Westminster, the Mall and Hyde Park, was one solid pavement of heads. On this side and that rose up the hotels and “Houses of Joy,” the windows all ablaze with light, solemn and triumphant as if to welcome a king; while far ahead against the sky stood the monstrous palace outlined in fire, and alight from within like all other houses within view. The noise was bewildering. It was impossible to distinguish one sound from another. Voices, horns, drums, the tramp of a thousand footsteps on the rubber pavements, the sombre roll of wheels from the station behind—all united in one overwhelmingly solemn booming, overscored by shriller notes.

It was impossible to move.

He found himself standing in a position of extraordinary advantage, at the very top of the broad flight of steps that led down into the old station yard, now a wide space that united, on the left the broad road to the palace, and on the right Victoria Street, that showed like all else one vivid perspective of lights and heads. Against the sky on his right rose up the illuminated head of the Cathedral Campanile. It appeared to him as if he had known that in some previous existence.

He edged himself mechanically a foot or two to his left, till he clasped a pillar; then he waited, trying not to analyse his emotions, but to absorb them.

Gradually he became aware that this crowd was as no other that he had ever seen. To his psychical sense it seemed to him that it possessed a unity unlike any other. There was magnetism in the air. There was a sensation as if a creative act were in process, whereby thousands of individual cells were being welded more and more perfectly every instant into one huge sentient being with one will, one emotion, and one head. The crying of voices seemed significant only as the stirrings of this creative power which so expressed itself. Here rested this giant humanity, stretching to his sight in living limbs so far as he could see on every side, waiting, waiting for some consummation—stretching, too, as his tired brain began to guess, down every thoroughfare of the vast city.

He did not even ask himself for what they waited. He knew, yet he did not know. He knew it was for a revelation—for something that should crown their aspirations, and fix them so for ever.

He had a sense that he had seen all this before; and, like a child, he began to ask himself where it could have happened, until he remembered that it was so that he had once dreamt of the Judgment Day—of humanity gathered to meet Jesus Christ—Jesus Christ! Ah! how tiny that Figure seemed to him now—how far away—real indeed, but insignificant to himself—how hopelessly apart from this tremendous life! He glanced up at the Campanile. Yes; there was a piece of the True Cross there, was there not?—a little piece of the wood on which a Poor Man had died twenty centuries ago…. Well, well. It was a long way off….

He did not quite understand what was happening to him. “Sweet Jesus, be to me not a Judge but a Saviour,” he whispered beneath his breath, gripping the granite of the pillar; and a moment later knew how futile was that prayer. It was gone like a breath in this vast, vivid atmosphere of man. He had said mass, had he not? this morning—in white vestments.—Yes; he had believed it all then—desperately, but truly; and now….

To look into the future was as useless as to look into the past. There was no future, and no past: it was all one eternal instant, present and final….

Then he let go of effort, and again began to see with his bodily eyes.

The dawn was coming up the sky now, a steady soft brightening that appeared in spite of its sovereignty to be as nothing compared with the brilliant light of the streets. “We need no sun,” he whispered, smiling piteously; “no sun or light of a candle. We have our light on earth—the light that lighteneth every man….”

The Campanile seemed further away than ever now, in that ghostly glimmer of dawn—more and more helpless every moment, compared with the beautiful vivid shining of the streets.

Then he listened to the sounds, and it seemed to him as if somewhere, far down eastwards, there was a silence beginning. He jerked his head impatiently, as a man behind him began to talk rapidly and confusedly. Why would he not be silent, and let silence be heard?… The man stopped presently, and out of the distance there swelled up a roar, as soft as the roll of a summer tide; it passed up towards him from the right; it was about him, dinning in his ears. There was no longer any individual voice: it was the breathing of the giant that had been born; he was crying out too; he did not know what he said, but he could not be silent. His veins and nerves seemed alight with wine; and as he stared down the long street, hearing the huge cry ebb from him and move toward the palace, he knew why he had cried, and why he was now silent.

A slender, fish-shaped thing, as white as milk, as ghostly as a shadow, and as beautiful as the dawn, slid into sight half-a-mile away, turned and came towards him, floating, as it seemed, on the very wave of silence that it created, up, up the long curving street on outstretched wings, not twenty feet above the heads of the crowd. There was one great sigh, and then silence once more.

When Percy could think consciously again—for his will was only capable of efforts as a clock of ticks—the strange white thing was nearer. He told himself that he had seen a hundred such before; and at the same instant that this was different from all others.

Then it was nearer still, floating slowly, slowly, like a gull over the sea; he could make out its smooth nose, its low parapet beyond, the steersman’s head motionless; he could even hear now the soft winnowing of the screw—and then he saw that for which he had waited.

High on the central deck there stood a chair, draped, too, in white, with some insignia visible above its back; and in the chair sat the figure of a man, motionless and lonely. He made no sign as he came; his dark dress showed vividedly against the whiteness; his head was raised, and he turned it gently now and again from side to side.

It came nearer still, in the profound stillness; the head turned, and for an instant the face was plainly visible in the soft, radiant light.

It was a pale face, strongly marked, as of a young man, with arched, black eyebrows, thin lips, and white hair.

Then the face turned once more, the steersman shifted his head, and the beautiful shape, wheeling a little, passed the corner, and moved up towards the palace.

There was an hysterical yelp somewhere, a cry, and again the tempestuous groan broke out.

BOOK II

THE ENCOUNTER

CHAPTER I

I

Oliver Brand was seated at his desk, on the evening of the next day, reading the leading article of the New People, evening edition.

“We have had time,” he read, “to recover ourselves a little from the intoxication of last night. Before embarking on prophecy, it will be as well to recall the facts. Up to yesterday evening our anxiety with regard to the Eastern crisis continued; and when twenty-one o’clock struck there were not more than forty persons in London—the English delegates, that is to say—who knew positively that the danger was over. Between that moment and half-an-hour later the Government took a few discreet steps: a select number of persons were informed; the police were called out, with half-a-dozen regiments, to preserve order; Paul’s House was cleared; the railroad companies were warned; and at the half hour precisely the announcement was made by means of the electric placards in every quarter of London, as well as in all large provincial towns. We have not space now to adequately describe the admirable manner in which the public authorities did their duty; it is enough to say that not more than seventy fatalities took place in the whole of London; nor is it our business to criticise the action of the Government, in choosing this mode of making the announcement.

“By twenty-two o’clock Paul’s House was filled in every corner, the Old Choir was reserved for members of Parliament and public officials, the quarter-dome galleries were filled with ladies, and to the rest of the floor the public was freely admitted. The volor-police also inform us now that for about the distance of one mile in every direction round this centre every thoroughfare was blocked with pedestrians, and, two hours later, as we all know, practically all the main streets of the whole of London were in the same condition.

“It was an excellent choice by which Mr. OLIVER BRAND was selected as the first speaker. His arm was still in bandages; and the appeal of his figure as well as his passionate words struck the first explicit note of the evening. A report of his words will be found in another column. In their turns, the PRIME MINISTER, Mr. SNOWFORD, the FIRST MINISTER OF THE ADMIRALTY, THE SECRETARY FOR EASTERN AFFAIRS, and LORD PEMBERTON, all spoke a few words, corroborating the extraordinary news. At a quarter before twenty-three, the noise of cheering outside announced the arrival of the American delegates from Paris, and one by one these ascended the platform by the south gates of the Old Choir. Each spoke in turn. It is impossible to appreciate words spoken at such a moment as this; but perhaps it is not invidious to name Mr. MARKHAM as the orator who above all others appealed to those who were privileged to hear him. It was he, too, who told us explicitly what others had merely mentioned, to the effect that the success of the American efforts was entirely due to Mr. JULIAN FELSENBURGH. As yet Mr. FELSENBURGH had not arrived; but in answer to a roar of inquiry, Mr. MARKHAM announced that this gentleman would be amongst them in a few minutes. He then proceeded to describe to us, so far as was possible in a few sentences, the methods by which Mr. FELSENBURGH had accomplished what is probably the most astonishing task known to history. It seems from his words that Mr. FELSENBURGH (whose biography, so far as it is known, we give in another column) is probably the greatest orator that the world has ever known—we use these words deliberately. All languages seem the same to him; he delivered speeches during the eight months through which the Eastern Convention lasted, in no less than fifteen tongues. Of his manner in speaking we shall have a few remarks to make presently. He showed also, Mr. MARKHAM told us, the most astonishing knowledge, not only of human nature, but of every trait under which that divine thing manifests itself. He appeared acquainted with the history, the prejudices, the fears, the hopes, the expectations of all the innumerable sects and castes of the East to whom it was his business to speak. In fact, as Mr. MARKHAM said, he is probably the first perfect product of that new cosmopolitan creation to which the world has laboured throughout its history. In no less than nine places—Damascus, Irkutsk, Constantinople, Calcutta, Benares, Nanking, among them—he was hailed as Messiah by a Mohammedan mob. Finally, in America, where this extraordinary figure has arisen, all speak well of him. He has been guilty of none of those crimes—there is not one that convicts him of sin—those crimes of the Yellow Press, of corruption, of commercial or political bullying which have so stained the past of all those old politicians who made the sister continent what she has become. Mr. FELSENBURGH has not even formed a party. He, and not his underlings, have conquered. Those who were present in Paul’s House on this occasion will understand us when we say that the effect of those words was indescribable.

“When Mr. MARKHAM sat down, there was a silence; then, in order to quiet the rising excitement, the organist struck the first chords of the Masonic Hymn; the words were taken up, and presently not only the whole interior of the building rang with it, but outside, too, the people responded, and the city of London for a few moments became indeed a temple of the Lord.

“Now indeed we come to the most difficult part of our task, and it is better to confess at once that anything resembling journalistic descriptiveness must be resolutely laid aside. The greatest things are best told in the simplest words.

“Towards the close of the fourth verse, a figure in a plain dark suit was observed ascending the steps of the platform. For a moment this attracted no attention, but when it was seen that a sudden movement had broken out among the delegates, the singing began to falter; and it ceased altogether as the figure, after a slight inclination to right and left, passed up the further steps that led to the rostrum. Then occurred a curious incident. The organist aloft at first did not seem to understand, and continued playing, but a sound broke out from the crowd resembling a kind of groan, and instantly he ceased. But no cheering followed. Instead a profound silence dominated in an instant the huge throng; this, by some strange magnetism, communicated itself to those without the building, and when Mr. FELSENBURGH uttered his first words, it was in a stillness that was like a living thing. We leave the explanation of this phenomenon to the expert in psychology.

“Of his actual words we have nothing to say. So far as we are aware no reporter made notes at the moment; but the speech, delivered in Esperanto, was a very simple one, and very short. It consisted of a brief announcement of the great fact of Universal Brotherhood, a congratulation to all who were yet alive to witness this consummation of history; and, at the end, an ascription of praise to that Spirit of the World whose incarnation was now accomplished.

“So much we can say; but we can say nothing as to the impression of the personality who stood there. In appearance the man seemed to be about thirty-three years of age, clean-shaven, upright, with white hair and dark eyes and brows; he stood motionless with his hands on the rail, he made but one gesture that drew a kind of sob from the crowd, he spoke these words slowly, distinctly, and in a clear voice; then he stood waiting.

“There was no response but a sigh which sounded in the ears of at least one who heard it as if the whole world drew breath for the first time; and then that strange heart-shaking silence fell again. Many were weeping silently, the lips of thousands moved without a sound, and all faces were turned to that simple figure, as if the hope of every soul were centred there. So, if we may believe it, the eyes of many, centuries ago, were turned on one known now to history as JESUS OF NAZARETH.

“Mr. FELSENBURGH stood so a moment longer, then he turned down the steps, passed across the platform and disappeared.

“Of what took place outside we have received the following account from an eye-witness. The white volor, so well known now to all who were in London that night, had remained stationary outside the little south door of the Old Choir aisle, poised about twenty feet above the ground. Gradually it became known to the crowd, in those few minutes, who it was who had arrived in it, and upon Mr. FELSENBURGH’S reappearance that same strange groan sounded through the whole length of Paul’s Churchyard, followed by the same silence. The volor descended; the master stepped on board, and once more the vessel rose to a height of twenty feet. It was thought at first that some speech would be made, but none was necessary; and after a moment’s pause, the volor began that wonderful parade which London will never forget. Four times during the night Mr. FELSENBURGH went round the enormous metropolis, speaking no word; and everywhere the groan preceded and followed him, while silence accompanied his actual passage. Two hours after sunrise the white ship rose over Hampstead and disappeared towards the North; and since then he, whom we call, in truth, the Saviour of the world, has not been seen.

“And now what remains to be said?

“Comment is useless. It is enough to say in one short sentence that the new era has begun, to which prophets and kings, and the suffering, the dying, all who labour and are heavy-laden, have aspired in vain. Not only has intercontinental rivalry ceased to exist, but the strife of home dissensions has ceased also. Of him who has been the herald of its inauguration we have nothing more to say. Time alone can show what is yet left for him to do.

“But what has been done is as follows. The Eastern peril has been for ever dissipated. It is understood now, by fanatic barbarians as well as by civilised nations, that the reign of War is ended. ‘Not peace but a sword,’ said CHRIST; and bitterly true have those words proved to be. ‘Not a sword but peace’ is the retort, articulate at last, from those who have renounced CHRIST’S claims or have never accepted them. The principle of love and union learned however falteringly in the West during the last century, has been taken up in the East as well. There shall be no more an appeal to arms, but to justice; no longer a crying after a God Who hides Himself, but to Man who has learned his own Divinity. The Supernatural is dead; rather, we know now that it never yet has been alive. What remains is to work out this new lesson, to bring every action, word and thought to the bar of Love and Justice; and this will be, no doubt, the task of years. Every code must be reversed; every barrier thrown down; party must unite with party, country with country, and continent with continent. There is no longer the fear of fear, the dread of the hereafter, or the paralysis of strife. Man has groaned long enough in the travails of birth; his blood has been poured out like water through his own foolishness; but at length he understands himself and is at peace.

“Let it be seen at least that England is not behind the nations in this work of reformation; let no national isolation, pride of race, or drunkenness of wealth hold her hands back from this enormous work. The responsibility is incalculable, but the victory certain. Let us go softly, humbled by the knowledge of our crimes in the past, confident in the hope of our achievements in the future, towards that reward which is in sight at last—the reward hidden so long by the selfishness of men, the darkness of religion, and the strife of tongues—the reward promised by one who knew not what he said and denied what he asserted—Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful, for they shall inherit the earth, be named the children of God, and find mercy.”

Oliver, white to the lips, with his wife kneeling now beside him, turned the page and read one more short paragraph, marked as being the latest news.

“It is understood that the Government is in communication with Mr.

Felsenburgh.”

II

“Ah! it is journalese,” said Oliver, at last, leaning back. “Tawdry stuff! But—but the thing!”

Mabel got up, passed across to the window-seat, and sat down. Her lips opened once or twice, but she said nothing.

“My darling,” cried the man, “have you nothing to say?”

She looked at him tremulously a moment.

“Say!” she said. “As you said, What is the use of words?”

“Tell me again,” said Oliver. “How do I know it is not a dream?”

“A dream,” she said. “Was there ever a dream like this?”

Again she got up restlessly, came across the floor, and knelt down by her husband once more, taking his hands in hers.

“My dear,” she said, “I tell you it is not a dream. It is reality at last. I was there too—do you not remember? You waited for me when all was over—when He was gone out—we saw Him together, you and I. We heard Him—you on the platform and I in the gallery. We saw Him again pass up the Embankment as we stood in the crowd. Then we came home and we found the priest.”

Her face was transfigured as she spoke. It was as of one who saw a

Divine Vision. She spoke very quietly, without excitement or hysteria.

Oliver stared at her a moment; then he bent forward and kissed her

gently.

“Yes, my darling; it is true. But I want to hear it again and again.

Tell me again what you saw.”

“I saw the Son of Man,” she said. “Oh! there is no other phrase. The Saviour of the world, as that paper says. I knew Him in my heart as soon as I saw Him—as we all did—as soon as He stood there holding the rail. It was like a glory round his head. I understand it all now. It was He for whom we have waited so long; and He has come, bringing Peace and Goodwill in His hands. When He spoke, I knew it again. His voice was as—as the sound of the sea—as simple as that—as—as lamentable—as strong as that.—Did you not hear it?”

Oliver bowed his head.

“I can trust Him for all the rest,” went on the girl softly. “I do not know where He is, nor when He will come back, nor what He will do. I suppose there is a great deal for Him to do, before He is fully known—laws, reforms—that will be your business, my dear. And the rest of us must wait, and love, and be content.”

Oliver again lifted his face and looked at her.

“Mabel, my dear—-”

“Oh! I knew it even last night,” she said, “but I did not know that I knew it till I awoke to-day and remembered. I dreamed of Him all night…. Oliver, where is He?”

He shook his head.

“Yes, I know where He is, but I am under oath—-”

She nodded quickly, and stood up.

“Yes. I should not have asked that. Well, we are content to wait.”

There was silence for a moment or two. Oliver broke it.

“My dear, what do you mean when you say that He is not yet known?”

“I mean just that,” she said. “The rest only know what He has done—not what He is; but that, too, will come in time.”

“And meanwhile—-”

“Meanwhile, you must work; the rest will come by and bye. Oh! Oliver, be strong and faithful.”

She kissed him quickly, and went out.

Oliver sat on without moving, staring, as his habit was, out at the wide view beyond his windows. This time yesterday he was leaving Paris, knowing the fact indeed—for the delegates had arrived an hour before—but ignorant of the Man. Now he knew the Man as well—at least he had seen Him, heard Him, and stood enchanted under the glow of His personality. He could explain it to himself no more than could any one else—unless, perhaps, it were Mabel. The others had been as he had been: awed and overcome, yet at the same time kindled in the very depths of their souls. They had come out—Snowford, Cartwright, Pemberton, and the rest—on to the steps of Paul’s House, following that strange figure. They had intended to say something, but they were dumb as they saw the sea of white faces, heard the groan and the silence, and experienced that compelling wave of magnetism that surged up like something physical, as the volor rose and started on that indescribable progress.

Once more he had seen Him, as he and Mabel stood together on the deck of the electric boat that carried them south. The white ship had passed along overhead, smooth and steady, above the heads of that vast multitude, bearing Him who, if any had the right to that title, was indeed the Saviour of the world. Then they had come home, and found the priest.

That, too, had been a shock to him; for, at first sight, it seemed that this priest was the very man he had seen ascend the rostrum two hours before. It was an extraordinary likeness—the same young face and white hair. Mabel, of course, had not noticed it; for she had only seen Felsenburgh at a great distance; and he himself had soon been reassured. And as for his mother—it was terrible enough; if it had not been for Mabel there would have been violence done last night. How collected and reasonable she had been! And, as for his mother—he must leave her alone for the present. By and bye, perhaps, something might be done. The future! It was that which engrossed him—the future, and the absorbing power of the personality under whose dominion he had fallen last night. All else seemed insignificant now—even his mother’s defection, her illness—all paled before this new dawn of an unknown sun. And in an hour he would know more; he was summoned to Westminster to a meeting of the whole House; their proposals to Felsenburgh were to be formulated; it was intended to offer him a great position.

Yes, as Mabel had said; this was now their work—to carry into effect the new principle that had suddenly become incarnate in this grey-haired young American—the principle of Universal Brotherhood. It would mean enormous labour; all foreign relations would have to be readjusted—trade, policy, methods of government—all demanded re-statement. Europe was already organised internally on a basis of mutual protection: that basis was now gone. There was no more any protection, because there was no more any menace. Enormous labour, too, awaited the Government in other directions. A Blue-book must be prepared, containing a complete report of the proceedings in the East, together with the text of the Treaty which had been laid before them in Paris, signed by the Eastern Emperor, the feudal kings, the Turkish Republic, and countersigned by the American plenipotentiaries…. Finally, even home politics required reform: the friction of old strife between centre and extremes must cease forthwith—there must be but one party now, and that at the Prophet’s disposal…. He grew bewildered as he regarded the prospect, and saw how the whole plane of the world was shifted, how the entire foundation of western life required readjustment. It was a Revolution indeed, a cataclysm more stupendous than even invasion itself; but it was the conversion of darkness into light, and chaos into order.

He drew a deep breath, and so sat pondering.

Mabel came down to him half-an-hour later, as he dined early before starting for Whitehall.

“Mother is quieter,” she said. “We must be very patient, Oliver. Have you decided yet as to whether the priest is to come again?”

He shook his head.

“I can think of nothing,” he said, “but of what I have to do. You decide, my dear; I leave it in your hands.”

She nodded.

“I will talk to her again presently. Just now she can understand very little of what has happened…. What time shall you be home?”

“Probably not to-night. We shall sit all night.”

“Yes, dear. And what shall I tell Mr. Phillips?”

“I will telephone in the morning…. Mabel, do you remember what I told you about the priest?”

“His likeness to the other?”

“Yes. What do you make of that?”

She smiled.

“I make nothing at all of it. Why should they not be alike?”

He took a fig from the dish, and swallowed it, and stood up.

“It is only very curious,” he said. “Now, good-night, my dear.”

III

“Oh, mother,” said Mabel, kneeling by the bed; “cannot you understand what has happened?”

She had tried desperately to tell the old lady of the extraordinary change that had taken place in the world—and without success. It seemed to her that some great issue depended on it; that it would be piteous if the old woman went out into the dark unconscious of what had come. It was as if a Christian knelt by the death-bed of a Jew on the first Easter Monday. But the old lady lay in her bed, terrified but obdurate.

“Mother,” said the girl, “let me tell you again. Do you not understand that all which Jesus Christ promised has come true, though in another way? The reign of God has really begun; but we know now who God is. You said just now you wanted the Forgiveness of Sins; well, you have that; we all have it, because there is no such thing as sin. There is only Crime. And then Communion. You used to believe that that made you a partaker of God; well, we are all partakers of God, because we are human beings. Don’t you see that Christianity is only one way of saying all that? I dare say it was the only way, for a time; but that is all over now. Oh! and how much better this is! It is true—true. You can see it to be true!”

She paused a moment, forcing herself to look at that piteous old face, the flushed wrinkled cheeks, the writhing knotted hands on the coverlet.

“Look how Christianity has failed—how it has divided people; think of all the cruelties—the Inquisition, the Religious Wars; the separations between husband and wife and parents and children—the disobedience to the State, the treasons. Oh! you cannot believe that these were right. What kind of a God would that be! And then Hell; how could you ever have believed in that?… Oh! mother, don’t believe anything so frightful…. Don’t you understand that that God has gone—that He never existed at all—that it was all a hideous nightmare; and that now we all know at last what the truth is…. Mother! think of what happened last night—how He came—the Man of whom you were so frightened. I told you what He was like—so quiet and strong—how every one was silent—of the—the extraordinary atmosphere, and how six millions of people saw Him. And think what He has done—how He has healed all the old wounds—how the whole world is at peace at last—and of what is going to happen. Oh! mother, give up those horrible old lies; give them up; be brave.”

“The priest, the priest!” moaned the old woman at last.

“Oh! no, no, no—not the priest; he can do nothing. He knows it’s all lies, too!”

“The priest! the priest!” moaned the other again. “He can tell you; he knows the answer.”

Her face was convulsed with effort, and her old fingers fumbled and twisted with the rosary. Mabel grew suddenly frightened, and stood up.

“Oh! mother!” She stooped and kissed her. “There! I won’t say any more now. But just think about it quietly. Don’t be in the least afraid; it is all perfectly right.”

She stood a moment, still looking compassionately down; torn by sympathy and desire. No! it was no use now; she must wait till the next day.

“I’ll look in again presently,” she said, “when you have had dinner.

Mother! don’t look like that! Kiss me!”

It was astonishing, she told herself that evening, how any one could be so blind. And what a confession of weakness, too, to call only for the priest! It was ludicrous, absurd! She herself was filled with an extraordinary peace. Even death itself seemed now no longer terrible, for was not death swallowed up in victory? She contrasted the selfish individualism of the Christian, who sobbed and shrank from death, or, at the best, thought of it only as the gate to his own eternal life, with the free altruism of the New Believer who asked no more than that Man should live and grow, that the Spirit of the World should triumph and reveal Himself, while he, the unit, was content to sink back into that reservoir of energy from which he drew his life. At this moment she would have suffered anything, faced death cheerfully—she contemplated even the old woman upstairs with pity—for was it not piteous that death should not bring her to herself and reality?

She was in a quiet whirl of intoxication; it was as if the heavy veil of sense had rolled back at last and shown a sweet, eternal landscape behind—a shadowless land of peace where the lion lay down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid. There should be war no more: that bloody spectre was dead, and with him the brood of evil that lived in his shadow—superstition, conflict, terror, and unreality. The idols were smashed, and rats had run out; Jehovah was fallen; the wild-eyed dreamer of Galilee was in his grave; the reign of priests was ended. And in their place stood a strange, quiet figure of indomitable power and unruffled tenderness…. He whom she had seen—the Son of Man, the Saviour of the world, as she had called Him just now—He who bore these titles was no longer a monstrous figure, half God and half man, claiming both natures and possessing neither; one who was tempted without temptation, and who conquered without merit, as his followers said. Here was one instead whom she could follow, a god indeed and a man as well—a god because human, and a man because so divine.

She said no more that night. She looked into the bedroom for a few minutes, and saw the old woman asleep. Her old hand lay out on the coverlet, and still between the fingers was twisted the silly string of beads. Mabel went softly across in the shaded light, and tried to detach it; but the wrinkled fingers writhed and closed, and a murmur came from the half-open lips. Ah! how piteous it was, thought the girl, how hopeless that a soul should flow out into such darkness, unwilling to make the supreme, generous surrender, and lay down its life because life itself demanded it!

Then she went to her own room.

The clocks were chiming three, and the grey dawn lay on the walls, when she awoke to find by her bed the woman who had sat with the old lady.

“Come at once, madam; Mrs. Brand is dying.”

IV

Oliver was with them by six o’clock; he came straight up into his mother’s room to find that all was over.

The room was full of the morning light and the clean air, and a bubble of bird-music poured in from the lawn. But his wife knelt by the bed, still holding the wrinkled hands of the old woman, her face buried in her arms. The face of his mother was quieter than he had ever seen it, the lines showed only like the faintest shadows on an alabaster mask; her lips were set in a smile. He looked for a moment, waiting until the spasm that caught his throat had died again. Then he put his hand on his wife’s shoulder.

“When?” he said.

Mabel lifted her face.

“Oh! Oliver,” she murmured. “It was an hour ago. … Look at this.”

She released the dead hands and showed the rosary still twisted there; it had snapped in the last struggle, and a brown bead lay beneath the fingers.

“I did what I could,” sobbed Mabel. “I was not hard with her. But she would not listen. She kept on crying out for the priest as long as she could speak.”

“My dear … “ began the man. Then he, too, went down on his knees by his wife, leaned forward and kissed the rosary, while tears blinded him.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Leave her in peace. I would not move it for the world: it was her toy, was it not?”

The girl stared at him, astonished.

“We can be generous, too,” he said. “We have all the world at last. And she—she has lost nothing: it was too late.”

“I did what I could.”

“Yes, my darling, and you were right. But she was too old; she could not understand.”

He paused.

“Euthanasia?” he whispered with something very like tenderness.

She nodded.

“Yes,” she said; “just as the last agony began. She resisted, but I knew you would wish it.”

They talked together for an hour in the garden before Oliver went to his room; and he began to tell her presently of all that had passed.

“He has refused,” he said. “We offered to create an office for Him; He was to have been called Consultor, and he refused it two hours ago. But He has promised to be at our service…. No, I must not tell you where He is…. He will return to America soon, we think; but He will not leave us. We have drawn up a programme, and it is to be sent to Him presently…. Yes, we were unanimous.”

“And the programme?”

“It concerns the Franchise, the Poor Laws and Trade. I can tell you no more than that. It was He who suggested the points. But we are not sure if we understand Him yet.”

“But, my dear—-”

“Yes; it is quite extraordinary. I have never seen such things. There was practically no argument.”

“Do the people understand?”

“I think so. We shall have to guard against a reaction. They say that the Catholics will be in danger. There is an article this morning in the Era. The proofs were sent to us for sanction. It suggests that means must be taken to protect the Catholics.”

Mabel smiled.

“It is a strange irony,” he said. “But they have a right to exist. How far they have a right to share in the government is another matter. That will come before us, I think, in a week or two.”

“Tell me more about Him.”

“There is really nothing to tell; we know nothing, except that He is the supreme force in the world. France is in a ferment, and has offered him Dictatorship. That, too, He has refused. Germany has made the same proposal as ourselves; Italy, the same as France, with the title of Perpetual Tribune. America has done nothing yet, and Spain is divided.”

“And the East?”

“The Emperor thanked Him; no more than that.”

Mabel drew a long breath, and stood looking out across the heat haze that was beginning to rise from the town beneath. These were matters so vast that she could not take them in. But to her imagination Europe lay like a busy hive, moving to and fro in the sunshine. She saw the blue distance of France, the towns of Germany, the Alps, and beyond them the Pyrenees and sun-baked Spain; and all were intent on the same business, to capture if they could this astonishing figure that had risen over the world. Sober England, too, was alight with zeal. Each country desired nothing better than that this man should rule over them; and He had refused them all.

“He has refused them all!” she repeated breathlessly.

“Yes, all. We think He may be waiting to hear from America. He still holds office there, you know.”

“How old is He?”

“Not more than thirty-two or three. He has only been in office a few months. Before that He lived alone in Vermont. Then He stood for the Senate; then He made a speech or two; then He was appointed delegate, though no one seems to have realised His power. And the rest we know.”

Mabel shook her head meditatively.

“We know nothing,” she said. “Nothing; nothing! Where did He learn His languages?”

“It is supposed that He travelled for many years. But no one knows. He has said nothing.”

She turned swiftly to her husband.

“But what does it all mean? What is His power? Tell me, Oliver?”

He smiled back, shaking his head.

“Well, Markham said that it was his incorruption—that and his oratory; but that explains nothing.”

“No, it explains nothing,” said the girl.

“It is just personality,” went on Oliver, “at least, that’s the label to use. But that, too, is only a label.”

“Yes, just a label. But it is that. They all felt it in Paul’s House, and in the streets afterwards. Did you not feel it?”

“Feel it!” cried the man, with shining eyes. “Why, I would die for Him!”

They went back to the house presently, and it was not till they reached the door that either said a word about the dead old woman who lay upstairs.

“They are with her now,” said Mabel softly. “I will communicate with the people.”

He nodded gravely.

“It had better be this afternoon,” he said. “I have a spare hour at fourteen o’clock. Oh! by the way, Mabel, do you know who took the message to the priest?”

“I think so.”

“Yes, it was Phillips. I saw him last night. He will not come here again.”

“Did he confess it?”

“He did. He was most offensive.”

But Oliver’s face softened again as he nodded to his wife at the foot of the stairs, and turned to go up once more to his mother’s room.

CHAPTER II

I

It seemed to Percy Franklin as he drew near Rome, sliding five hundred feet high through the summer dawn, that he was approaching the very gates of heaven, or, still better, he was as a child coming home. For what he had left behind him ten hours before in London was not a bad specimen, he thought, of the superior mansions of hell. It was a world whence God seemed to have withdrawn Himself, leaving it indeed in a state of profound complacency—a state without hope or faith, but a condition in which, although life continued, there was absent the one essential to well-being. It was not that there was not expectation—for London was on tip-toe with excitement. There were rumours of all kinds: Felsenburgh was coming back; he was back; he had never gone. He was to be President of the Council, Prime Minister, Tribune, with full capacities of democratic government and personal sacro-sanctity, even King—if not Emperor of the West. The entire constitution was to be remodelled, there was to be a complete rearrangement of the pieces; crime was to be abolished by the mysterious power that had killed war; there was to be free food—the secret of life was discovered, there was to be no more death—so the rumours ran…. Yet that was lacking, to the priest’s mind, which made life worth living….

In Paris, while the volor waited at the great station at Montmartre, once known as the Church of the Sacred Heart, he had heard the roaring of the mob in love with life at last, and seen the banners go past. As it rose again over the suburbs he had seen the long lines of trains streaming in, visible as bright serpents in the brilliant glory of the electric globes, bringing the country folk up to the Council of the Nation which the legislators, mad with drama, had summoned to decide the great question. At Lyons it had been the same. The night was as clear as the day, and as full of sound. Mid France was arriving to register its votes.

He had fallen asleep as the cold air of the Alps began to envelop the car, and had caught but glimpses of the solemn moonlit peaks below him, the black profundities of the gulfs, the silver glint of the shield-like lakes, and the soft glow of Interlaken and the towns in the Rhone valley. Once he had been moved in spite of himself, as one of the huge German volors had passed in the night, a blaze of ghostly lights and gilding, resembling a huge moth with antennae of electric light, and the two ships had saluted one another through half a league of silent air, with a pathetic cry as of two strange night-birds who have no leisure to pause. Milan and Turin had been quiet, for Italy was organised on other principles than France, and Florence was not yet half awake. And now the Campagna was slipping past like a grey-green rug, wrinkled and tumbled, five hundred feet beneath, and Rome was all but in sight. The indicator above his seat moved its finger from one hundred to ninety miles.

He shook off the doze at last, and drew out his office book; but as he pronounced the words his attention was elsewhere, and, when Prime was said, he closed the book once more, propped himself more comfortably, drawing the furs round him, and stretching his feet on the empty seat opposite. He was alone in his compartment; the three men who had come in at Paris had descended at Turin.

He had been remarkably relieved when the message had come three days before from the Cardinal-Protector, bidding him make arrangements for a long absence from England, and, as soon as that was done, to come to Rome. He understood that the ecclesiastical authorities were really disturbed at last.

He reviewed the last day or two, considering the report he would have to present. Since his last letter, three days before, seven notable apostasies had taken place in Westminster diocese alone, two priests and five important laymen. There was talk of revolt on all sides; he had seen a threatening document, called a “petition,” demanding the right to dispense with all ecclesiastical vestments, signed by one hundred and twenty priests from England and Wales. The “petitioners” pointed out that persecution was coming swiftly at the hands of the mob; that the Government was not sincere in the promises of protection; they hinted that religious loyalty was already strained to breaking-point even in the case of the most faithful, and that with all but those it had already broken.

And as to his comments Percy was clear. He would tell the authorities, as he had already told them fifty times, that it was not persecution that mattered; it was this new outburst of enthusiasm for Humanity—an enthusiasm which had waxed a hundredfold more hot since the coming of Felsenburgh and the publication of the Eastern news—which was melting the hearts of all but the very few. Man had suddenly fallen in love with man. The conventional were rubbing their eyes and wondering why they had ever believed, or even dreamed, that there was a God to love, asking one another what was the secret of the spell that had held them so long. Christianity and Theism were passing together from the world’s mind as a morning mist passes when the sun comes up. His recommendations—? Yes, he had those clear, and ran them over in his mind with a sense of despair.

For himself, he scarcely knew if he believed what he professed. His emotions seemed to have been finally extinguished in the vision of the white car and the silence of the crowd that evening three weeks before. It had been so horribly real and positive; the delicate aspirations and hopes of the soul appeared so shadowy when compared with that burning, heart-shaking passion of the people. He had never seen anything like it; no congregation under the spell of the most kindling preacher alive had ever responded with one-tenth of the fervour with which that irreligious crowd, standing in the cold dawn of the London streets, had greeted the coming of their saviour. And as for the man himself—Percy could not analyse what it was that possessed him as he had stared, muttering the name of Jesus, on that quiet figure in black with features and hair so like his own. He only knew that a hand had gripped his heart—a hand warm, not cold—and had quenched, it seemed, all sense of religious conviction. It had only been with an effort that sickened him to remember, that he had refrained from that interior act of capitulation that is so familiar to all who have cultivated an inner life and understand what failure means. There had been one citadel that had not flung wide its gates—all else had yielded. His emotions had been stormed, his intellect silenced, his memory of grace obscured, a spiritual nausea had sickened his soul, yet the secret fortress of the will had, in an agony, held fast the doors and refused to cry out and call Felsenburgh king.

Ah! how he had prayed during those three weeks! It appeared to him that he had done little else; there had been no peace. Lances of doubt thrust again and again through door and window; masses of argument had crashed from above; he had been on the alert day and night, repelling this, blindly, and denying that, endeavouring to keep his foothold on the slippery plane of the supernatural, sending up cry after cry to the Lord Who hid Himself. He had slept with his crucifix in his hand, he had awakened himself by kissing it; while he wrote, talked, ate, walked, and sat in cars, the inner life had been busy-making frantic speechless acts of faith in a religion which his intellect denied and from which his emotions shrank. There had been moments of ecstasy—now in a crowded street, when he recognised that God was all, that the Creator was the key to the creature’s life, that a humble act of adoration was transcendently greater than the most noble natural act, that the Supernatural was the origin and end of existence there had come to him such moments in the night, in the silence of the Cathedral, when the lamp flickered, and a soundless air had breathed from the iron door of the tabernacle. Then again passion ebbed, and left him stranded on misery, but set with a determination (which might equally be that of pride or faith) that no power in earth or hell should hinder him from professing Christianity even if he could not realise it. It was Christianity alone that made life tolerable.

Percy drew a long vibrating breath, and changed his position; for far away his unseeing eyes had descried a dome, like a blue bubble set on a carpet of green; and his brain had interrupted itself to tell him that this was Rome. He got up presently, passed out of his compartment, and moved forward up the central gangway, seeing, as he went, through the glass doors to right and left his fellow-passengers, some still asleep, some staring out at the view, some reading. He put his eye to the glass square in the door, and for a minute or two watched, fascinated, the steady figure of the steerer at his post. There he stood motionless, his hands on the steel circle that directed the vast wings, his eyes on the wind-gauge that revealed to him as on the face of a clock both the force and the direction of the high gusts; now and again his hands moved slightly, and the huge fans responded, now lifting, now lowering. Beneath him and in front, fixed on a circular table, were the glass domes of various indicators—Percy did not know the meaning of half—one seemed a kind of barometer, intended, he guessed, to declare the height at which they were travelling, another a compass. And beyond, through the curved windows, lay the enormous sky. Well, it was all very wonderful, thought the priest, and it was with the force of which all this was but one symptom that the supernatural had to compete.

He sighed, turned, and went back to his compartment.

It was an astonishing vision that began presently to open before him—scarcely beautiful except for its strangeness, and as unreal as a raised map. Far to his right, as he could see through the glass doors, lay the grey line of the sea against the luminous sky, rising and falling ever so slightly as the car, apparently motionless, tilted imperceptibly against the western breeze; the only other movement was the faint pulsation of the huge throbbing screw in the rear. To the left stretched the limitless country, flitting beneath, in glimpses seen between the motionless wings, with here and there the streak of a village, flattened out of recognition, or the flash of water, and bounded far away by the low masses of the Umbrian hills; while in front, seen and gone again as the car veered, lay the confused line of Rome and the huge new suburbs, all crowned by the great dome growing every instant. Around, above and beneath, his eyes were conscious of wide air-spaces, overhead deepening into lapis-lazuli down to horizons of pale turquoise. The only sound, of which he had long ceased to be directly conscious, was that of the steady rush of air, less shrill now as the speed began to drop down—down—to forty miles an hour. There was a clang of a bell, and immediately he was aware of a sense of faint sickness as the car dropped in a glorious swoop, and he staggered a little as he grasped his rugs together. When he looked again the motion seemed to have ceased; he could see towers ahead, a line of house-roofs, and beneath he caught a glimpse of a road and more roofs with patches of green between. A bell clanged again, and a long sweet cry followed. On all sides he could hear the movement of feet; a guard in uniform passed swiftly along the glazed corridor; again came the faint nausea; and as he looked up once more from his luggage for an instant he saw the dome, grey now and lined, almost on a level with his own eyes, huge against the vivid sky. The world span round for a moment; he shut his eyes, and when he looked again walls seemed to heave up past him and stop, swaying. There was the last bell, a faint vibration as the car grounded in the steel-netted dock; a line of faces rocked and grew still outside the windows, and Percy passed out towards the doors, carrying his bags.

II

He still felt a sense of insecure motion as he sat alone over coffee an hour later in one of the remote rooms of the Vatican; but there was a sense of exhilaration as well, as his tired brain realised where he was. It had been strange to drive over the rattling stones in the weedy little cab, such as he remembered ten years ago when he had left Rome, newly ordained. While the world had moved on, Rome had stood still; she had other affairs to think of than physical improvements, now that the spiritual weight of the earth rested entirely upon her shoulders. All had seemed unchanged—or rather it had reverted to the condition of nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. Histories related how the improvements of the Italian government had gradually dropped out of use as soon as the city, eighty years before, had been given her independence; the trains ceased to run; volors were not allowed to enter the walls; the new buildings, permitted to remain, had been converted to ecclesiastical use; the Quirinal became the offices of the “Red Pope”; the embassies, huge seminaries; even the Vatican itself, with the exception of the upper floor, had become the abode of the Sacred College, who surrounded the Supreme Pontiff as stars their sun.

It was an extraordinary city, said antiquarians—the one living example of the old days. Here were to be seen the ancient inconveniences, the insanitary horrors, the incarnation of a world given over to dreaming. The old Church pomp was back, too; the cardinals drove again in gilt coaches; the Pope rode on his white mule; the Blessed Sacrament went through the ill-smelling streets with the sound of bells and the light of lanterns. A brilliant description of it had interested the civilised world immensely for about forty-eight hours; the appalling retrogression was still used occasionally as the text for violent denunciations by the poorly educated; the well-educated had ceased to do anything but take for granted that superstition and progress were irreconcilable enemies.

Yet Percy, even in the glimpses he had had in the streets, as he drove from the volor station outside the People’s Gate, of the old peasant dresses, the blue and red-fringed wine carts, the cabbage-strewn gutters, the wet clothes flapping on strings, the mules and horses—strange though these were, he had found them a refreshment. It had seemed to remind him that man was human, and not divine as the rest of the world proclaimed—human, and therefore careless and individualistic; human, and therefore occupied with interests other than those of speed, cleanliness, and precision.

The room in which he sat now by the window with shading blinds, for the sun was already hot, seemed to revert back even further than to a century-and-a-half. The old damask and gilding that he had expected was gone, and its absence gave the impression of great severity. There was a wide deal table running the length of the room, with upright wooden arm chairs set against it; the floor was red-tiled, with strips of matting for the feet, the white, distempered walls had only a couple of old pictures hung upon them, and a large crucifix flanked by candles stood on a little altar by the further door. There was no more furniture than that, with the exception of a writing-desk between the windows, on which stood a typewriter. That jarred somehow on his sense of fitness, and he wondered at it.

He finished the last drop of coffee in the thick-rimmed white cup, and sat back in his chair.

Already the burden was lighter, and he was astonished at the swiftness with which it had become so. Life looked simpler here; the interior world was taken more for granted; it was not even a matter of debate. There it was, imperious and objective, and through it glimmered to the eyes of the soul the old Figures that had become shrouded behind the rush of worldly circumstance. The very shadow of God appeared to rest here; it was no longer impossible to realise that the saints watched and interceded, that Mary sat on her throne, that the white disc on the altar was Jesus Christ. Percy was not yet at peace after all, he had been but an hour in Rome; and air, charged with never so much grace, could scarcely do more than it had done. But he felt more at ease, less desperately anxious, more childlike, more content to rest on the authority that claimed without explanation, and asserted that the world, as a matter of fact, proved by evidences without and within, was made this way and not that, for this purpose and not the other. Yet he had used the conveniences which he hated; he had left London a bare twelve hours before, and now here he sat in a place which was either a stagnant backwater of life, or else the very mid-current of it; he was not yet sure which.

There was a step outside, a handle was turned; and the

Cardinal-Protector came through.

Percy had not seen him for four years, and for a moment scarcely recognised him.

It was a very old man that he saw now, bent and feeble, his face covered with wrinkles, crowned by very thin, white hair, and the little scarlet cap on top; he was in his black Benedictine habit with a plain abbatial cross on his breast, and walked hesitatingly, with a black stick. The only sign of vigour was in the narrow bright slit of his eyes showing beneath drooping lids. He held out his hand, smiling, and Percy, remembering in time that he was in the Vatican, bowed low only as he kissed the amethyst.

“Welcome to Rome, father,” said the old man, speaking with an unexpected briskness. “They told me you were here half-an-hour ago; I thought I would leave you to wash and have your coffee.”

Percy murmured something.

“Yes; you are tired, no doubt,” said the Cardinal, pulling out a chair.

“Indeed not, your Eminence. I slept excellently.”

The Cardinal made a little gesture to a chair.

“But I must have a word with you. The Holy Father wishes to see you at eleven o’clock.”

Percy started a little.

“We move quickly in these days, father…. There is no time to dawdle.

You understand that you are to remain in Rome for the present?”

“I have made all arrangements for that, your Eminence.”

“That is very well…. We are pleased with you here, Father Franklin. The Holy Father has been greatly impressed by your comments. You have foreseen things in a very remarkable manner.”

Percy flushed with pleasure. It was almost the first hint of encouragement he had had. Cardinal Martin went on.

“I may say that you are considered our most valuable correspondent—certainly in England. That is why you are summoned. You are to help us here in future—a kind of consultor: any one can relate facts; not every one can understand them…. You look very young, father. How old are you?”

“I am thirty-three, your Eminence.”

“Ah! your white hair helps you…. Now, father, will you come with me into my room? It is now eight o’clock. I will keep you till nine—no longer. Then you shall have some rest, and at eleven I shall take you up to his Holiness.”

Percy rose with a strange sense of elation, and ran to open the door for the Cardinal to go through.

III

At a few minutes before eleven Percy came out of his little white-washed room in his new ferraiuola, soutane and buckle shoes, and tapped at the door of the Cardinal’s room.

He felt a great deal more self-possessed now. He had talked to the Cardinal freely and strongly, had described the effect that Felsenburgh had had upon London, and even the paralysis that had seized upon himself. He had stated his belief that they were on the edge of a movement unparalleled in history: he related little scenes that he had witnessed—a group kneeling before a picture of Felsenburgh, a dying man calling him by name, the aspect of the crowd that had waited in Westminster to hear the result of the offer made to the stranger. He showed him half-a-dozen cuttings from newspapers, pointing out their hysterical enthusiasm; he even went so far as to venture upon prophecy, and to declare his belief that persecution was within reasonable distance.

“The world seems very oddly alive,” he said; “it is as if the whole thing was flushed and nervous.”

The Cardinal nodded.

“We, too,” he said, “even we feel it.”

For the rest the Cardinal had sat watching him out of his narrow eyes, nodding from time to time, putting an occasional question, but listening throughout with great attention.

“And your recommendations, father—-” he had said, and then interrupted himself. “No, that is too much to ask. The Holy Father will speak of that.”

He had congratulated him upon his Latin then—for they had spoken in that language throughout this second interview; and Percy had explained how loyal Catholic England had been in obeying the order, given ten years before, that Latin should become to the Church what Esperanto was becoming to the world.

“That is very well,” said the old man. “His Holiness will be pleased at that.”

At his second tap the door opened and the Cardinal came out, taking him by the arm without a word; and together they turned to the lift entrance.

Percy ventured to make a remark as they slid noiselessly up towards the papal apartment.

“I am surprised at the lift, your Eminence, and the typewriter in the audience-room.”

“Why, father?”

“Why, all the rest of Rome is back in the old days.”

The Cardinal looked at him, puzzled.

“Is it? I suppose it is. I never thought of that.”

A Swiss guard flung back the door of the lift, saluted and went before them along the plain flagged passage to where his comrade stood. Then he saluted again and went back. A Pontifical chamberlain, in all the sombre glory of purple, black, and a Spanish ruff, peeped from the door, and made haste to open it. It really seemed almost incredible that such things still existed.

“In a moment, your Eminence,” he said in Latin. “Will your Eminence wait here?”

It was a little square room, with half-a-dozen doors, plainly contrived out of one of the huge old halls, for it was immensely high, and the tarnished gilt cornice vanished directly in two places into the white walls. The partitions, too, seemed thin; for as the two men sat down there was a murmur of voices faintly audible, the shuffling of footsteps, and the old eternal click of the typewriter from which Percy hoped he had escaped. They were alone in the room, which was furnished with the same simplicity as the Cardinal’s—giving the impression of a curious mingling of ascetic poverty and dignity by its red-tiled floor, its white walls, its altar and two vast bronze candlesticks of incalculable value that stood on the dais. The shutters here, too, were drawn; and there was nothing to distract Percy from the excitement that surged up now tenfold in heart and brain.

It was Papa Angelicus whom he was about to see; that amazing old man who had been appointed Secretary of State just fifty years ago, at the age of thirty, and Pope nine years previously. It was he who had carried out the extraordinary policy of yielding the churches throughout the whole of Italy to the Government, in exchange for the temporal lordship of Rome, and who had since set himself to make it a city of saints. He had cared, it appeared, nothing whatever for the world’s opinion; his policy, so far as it could be called one, consisted in a very simple thing: he had declared in Epistle after Epistle that the object of the Church was to do glory to God by producing supernatural virtues in man, and that nothing at all was of any significance or importance except so far as it effected this object. He had further maintained that since Peter was the Rock, the City of Peter was the Capital of the world, and should set an example to its dependency: this could not be done unless Peter ruled his City, and therefore he had sacrificed every church and ecclesiastical building in the country for that one end. Then he had set about ruling his city: he had said that on the whole the latter-day discoveries of man tended to distract immortal souls from a contemplation of eternal verities—not that these discoveries could be anything but good in themselves, since after all they gave insight into the wonderful laws of God—but that at present they were too exciting to the imagination. So he had removed the trams, the volors, the laboratories, the manufactories—saying that there was plenty of room for them outside Rome—and had allowed them to be planted in the suburbs: in their place he had raised shrines, religious houses and Calvaries. Then he had attended further to the souls of his subjects. Since Rome was of limited area, and, still more because the world corrupted without its proper salt, he allowed no man under the age of fifty to live within its walls for more than one month in each year, except those who received his permit. They might live, of course, immediately outside the city (and they did, by tens of thousands), but they were to understand that by doing so they sinned against the spirit, though not the letter, of their Father’s wishes. Then he had divided the city into national quarters, saying that as each nation had its peculiar virtues, each was to let its light shine steadily in its proper place. Rents had instantly begun to rise, so he had legislated against that by reserving in each quarter a number of streets at fixed prices, and had issued an ipso facto excommunication against all who erred in this respect. The rest were abandoned to the millionaires. He had retained the Leonine City entirely at his own disposal. Then he had restored Capital Punishment, with as much serene gravity as that with which he had made himself the derision of the civilised world in other matters, saying that though human life was holy, human virtue was more holy still; and he had added to the crime of murder, the crimes of adultery, idolatry and apostasy, for which this punishment was theoretically sanctioned. There had not been, however, more than two such executions in the eight years of his reign, since criminals, of course, with the exception of devoted believers, instantly made their way to the suburbs, where they were no longer under his jurisdiction.

But he had not stayed here. He had sent once more ambassadors to every country in the world, informing the Government of each of their arrival. No attention was paid to this, beyond that of laughter; but he had continued, undisturbed, to claim his rights, and, meanwhile, used his legates for the important work of disseminating his views. Epistles appeared from time to time in every town, laying down the principles of the papal claims with as much tranquillity as if they were everywhere acknowledged. Freemasonry was steadily denounced, as well as democratic ideas of every kind; men were urged to remember their immortal souls and the Majesty of God, and to reflect upon the fact that in a few years all would be called to give their account to Him Who was Creator and Ruler of the world, Whose Vicar was John XXIV, P.P., whose name and seal were appended.

That was a line of action that took the world completely by surprise. People had expected hysteria, argument, and passionate exhortation; disguised emissaries, plots, and protests. There were none of these. It was as if progress had not yet begun, and volors were uninvented, as if the entire universe had not come to disbelieve in God, and to discover that itself was God. Here was this silly old man, talking in his sleep, babbling of the Cross, and the inner life and the forgiveness of sins, exactly as his predecessors had talked two thousand years before. Well, it was only one sign more that Rome had lost not only its power, but its common sense as well. It was really time that something should be done.

And this was the man, thought Percy, Papa Angelicus, whom he was to see in a minute or two.

The Cardinal put his hand on the priest’s knee as the door opened, and a purple prelate appeared, bowing.

“Only this,” he said. “Be absolutely frank.”

Percy stood up, trembling. Then he followed his patron towards the inner door.

IV

A white figure sat in the green gloom, beside a great writing-table, three or four yards away, but with the chair wheeled round to face the door by which the two entered. So much Percy saw as he performed the first genuflection. Then he dropped his eyes, advanced, genuflected again with the other, advanced once more, and for the third time genuflected, lifting the thin white hand, stretched out, to his lips. He heard the door close as he stood up.

“Father Franklin, Holiness,” said the Cardinal’s voice at his ear.

A white-sleeved arm waved to a couple of chairs set a yard away, and the two sat down.

While the Cardinal, talking in slow Latin, said a few sentences, explaining that this was the English priest whose correspondence had been found so useful, Percy began to look with all his eyes.

He knew the Pope’s face well, from a hundred photographs and moving pictures; even his gestures were familiar to him, the slight bowing of the head in assent, the tiny eloquent movement of the hands; but Percy, with a sense of being platitudinal, told himself that the living presence was very different.

It was a very upright old man that he saw in the chair before him, of medium height and girth, with hands clasping the bosses of his chair-arms, and an appearance of great and deliberate dignity. But it was at the face chiefly that he looked, dropping his gaze three or four times, as the Pope’s blue eyes turned on him. They were extraordinary eyes, reminding him of what historians said of Pius X.; the lids drew straight lines across them, giving him the look of a hawk, but the rest of the face contradicted them. There was no sharpness in that. It was neither thin nor fat, but beautifully modelled in an oval outline: the lips were clean-cut, with a look of passion in their curves; the nose came down in an aquiline sweep, ending in chiselled nostrils; the chin was firm and cloven, and the poise of the whole head was strangely youthful. It was a face of great generosity and sweetness, set at an angle between defiance and humility, but ecclesiastical from ear to ear and brow to chin; the forehead was slightly compressed at the temples, and beneath the white cap lay white hair. It had been the subject of laughter at the music-halls nine years before, when the composite face of well-known priests had been thrown on a screen, side by side with the new Pope’s, for the two were almost indistinguishable.

Percy found himself trying to sum it up, but nothing came to him except the word “priest.” It was that, and that was all. Ecce sacerdos magnus! He was astonished at the look of youth, for the Pope was eighty-eight this year; yet his figure was as upright as that of a man of fifty, his shoulders unbowed, his head set on them like an athlete’s, and his wrinkles scarcely perceptible in the half light. Papa Angelicus! reflected Percy.

The Cardinal ceased his explanations, and made a little gesture. Percy drew up all his faculties tense and tight to answer the questions that he knew were coming.

“I welcome you, my son,” said a very soft, resonant voice.

Percy bowed, desperately, from the waist.

The Pope dropped his eyes again, lifted a paper-weight with his left hand, and began to play with it gently as he talked.

“Now, my son, deliver a little discourse. I suggest to you three heads—what has happened, what is happening, what will happen, with a peroration as to what should happen.”

Percy drew a long breath, settled himself back, clasped the fingers of his left hand in the fingers of his right, fixed his eyes firmly upon the cross-embroidered red shoe opposite, and began. (Had he not rehearsed this a hundred times!)

He first stated his theme; to the effect that all the forces of the civilised world were concentrating into two camps—the world and God. Up to the present time the forces of the world had been incoherent and spasmodic, breaking out in various ways—revolutions and wars had been like the movements of a mob, undisciplined, unskilled, and unrestrained. To meet this, the Church, too, had acted through her Catholicity— dispersion rather than concentration: franc-tireurs had been opposed to franc-tireurs. But during the last hundred years there had been indications that the method of warfare was to change. Europe, at any rate, had grown weary of internal strife; the unions first of Labour, then of Capital, then of Labour and Capital combined, illustrated this in the economic sphere; the peaceful partition of Africa in the political sphere; the spread of Humanitarian religion in the spiritual sphere. Over against this must be placed the increased centralisation of the Church. By the wisdom of her pontiffs, over-ruled by God Almighty, the lines had been drawing tighter every year. He instanced the abolition of all local usages, including those so long cherished by the East, the establishment of the Cardinal-Protectorates in Rome, the enforced merging of all friars into one Order, though retaining their familiar names, under the authority of the supreme General; all monks, with the exception of the Carthusians, the Carmelites and the Trappists, into another; of the three excepted into a third; and the classification of nuns after the same plan. Further, he remarked on the more recent decrees, establishing the sense of the Vatican decision on infallibility, the new version of Canon Law, the immense simplification that had taken place in ecclesiastical government, the hierarchy, rubrics and the affairs of missionary countries, with the new and extraordinary privileges granted to mission priests. At this point he became aware that his self-consciousness had left him, and he began, even with little gestures, and a slightly raised voice, to enlarge on the significance of the last month’s events.

All that had gone before, he said, pointed to what had now actually taken place—namely, the reconciliation of the world on a basis other than that of Divine Truth. It was the intention of God and of His Vicars to reconcile all men in Christ Jesus; but the corner-stone had once more been rejected, and instead of the chaos that the pious had prophesied, there was coming into existence a unity unlike anything known in history. This was the more deadly from the fact that it contained so many elements of indubitable good. War, apparently, was now extinct, and it was not Christianity that had done it; union was now seen to be better than disunion, and the lesson had been learned apart from the Church. In fact, natural virtues had suddenly waxed luxuriant, and supernatural virtues were despised. Friendliness took the place of charity, contentment the place of hope, and knowledge the place of faith.

Percy stopped, he had become conscious that he was preaching a kind of sermon.

“Yes, my son,” said the kind voice. “What else?”

What else?… Very well, continued Percy, movements such as these brought forth men, and the Man of this movement was Julian Felsenburgh. He had accomplished a work that—apart from God—seemed miraculous. He had broken down the eternal division between East and West, coming himself from the continent that alone could produce such powers; he had prevailed by sheer force of personality over the two supreme tyrants of life religious fanaticism and party government. His influence over the impassive English was another miracle, yet he had also set on fire France, Germany, and Spain. Percy here described one or two of his little scenes, saying that it was like the vision of a god: and he quoted freely some of the titles given to the Man by sober, unhysterical newspapers. Felsenburgh was called the Son of Man, because he was so pure-bred a cosmopolitan; the Saviour of the World, because he had slain war and himself survived—even—even—here Percy’s voice faltered—even Incarnate God, because he was the perfect representative of divine man.

The quiet, priestly face watching opposite never winced or moved; and he went on.

Persecution, he said, was coming. There had been a riot or two already. But persecution was not to be feared. It would no doubt cause apostasies, as it had always done, but these were deplorable only on account of the individual apostates. On the other hand, it would reassure the faithful; and purge out the half-hearted. Once, in the early ages, Satan’s attack had been made on the bodily side, with whips and fire and beasts; in the sixteenth century it had been on the intellectual side; in the twentieth century on the springs of moral and spiritual life. Now it seemed as if the assault was on all three planes at once. But what was chiefly to be feared was the positive influence of Humanitarianism: it was coming, like the kingdom of God, with power; it was crushing the imaginative and the romantic, it was assuming rather than asserting its own truth; it was smothering with bolsters instead of wounding and stimulating with steel or controversy. It seemed to be forcing its way, almost objectively, into the inner world. Persons who had scarcely heard its name were professing its tenets; priests absorbed it, as they absorbed God in Communion—he mentioned the names of the recent apostates—children drank it in like Christianity itself. The soul “naturally Christian” seemed to be becoming “the soul naturally infidel.” Persecution, cried the priest, was to be welcomed like salvation, prayed for, and grasped; but he feared that the authorities were too shrewd, and knew the antidote and the poison apart. There might be individual martyrdoms—in fact there would be, and very many—but they would be in spite of secular government, not because of it. Finally, he expected, Humanitarianism would presently put on the dress of liturgy and sacrifice, and when that was done, the Church’s cause, unless God intervened, would be over.

Percy sat back, trembling.

“Yes, my son. And what do you think should be done?”

Percy flung out his hands.

“Holy Father—the mass, prayer, the rosary. These first and last. The world denies their power: it is on their power that Christians must throw all their weight. All things in Jesus Christ—in Jesus Christ, first and last. Nothing else can avail. He must do all, for we can do nothing.”

The white head bowed. Then it rose erect.

“Yes, my son…. But so long as Jesus Christ deigns to use us, we must be used. He is Prophet and King as well as Priest. We then, too, must be prophet and king as well as priest. What of Prophecy and Royalty?”

The voice thrilled Percy like a trumpet.

“Yes, Holiness…. For prophecy, then, let us preach charity; for Royalty, let us reign on crosses. We must love and suffer…. “ (He drew one sobbing breath.) “Your Holiness has preached charity always. Let charity then issue in good deeds. Let us be foremost in them; let us engage in trade honestly, in family life chastely, in government uprightly. And as for suffering—ah! Holiness!”

His old scheme leaped back to his mind, and stood poised there convincing and imperious.

“Yes, my son, speak plainly.”

“Your Holiness—it is old—old as Rome—every fool has desired it: a new

Order, Holiness—a new Order,” he stammered.

The white hand dropped the paper-weight; the Pope leaned forward, looking intently at the priest.

“Yes, my son?”

Percy threw himself on his knees.

“A new Order, Holiness—no habit or badge—subject to your Holiness only—freer than Jesuits, poorer than Franciscans, more mortified than Carthusians: men and women alike—the three vows with the intention of martyrdom; the Pantheon for their Church; each bishop responsible for their sustenance; a lieutenant in each country…. (Holiness, it is the thought of a fool.) … And Christ Crucified for their patron.”

The Pope stood up abruptly—so abruptly that Cardinal Martin sprang up too, apprehensive and terrified. It seemed that this young man had gone too far.

Then the Pope sat down again, extending his hand.

“God bless you, my son. You have leave to go…. Will your Eminence stay for a few minutes?”

CHAPTER III

I

The Cardinal said very little to Percy when they met again that evening, beyond congratulating him on the way he had borne himself with the Pope. It seemed that the priest had done right by his extreme frankness. Then he told him of his duties.

Percy was to retain the couple of rooms that had been put at his disposal; he was to say mass, as a rule, in the Cardinal’s oratory; and after that, at nine, he was to present himself for instructions: he was to dine at noon with the Cardinal, after which he was to consider himself at liberty till Ave Maria: then, once more he was to be at his master’s disposal until supper. The work he would principally have to do would be the reading of all English correspondence, and the drawing up of a report upon it.

Percy found it a very pleasant and serene life, and the sense of home deepened every day. He had an abundance of time to himself, which he occupied resolutely in relaxation. From eight to nine he usually walked abroad, going sedately through the streets with his senses passive, looking into churches, watching the people, and gradually absorbing the strange naturalness of life under ancient conditions. At times it appeared to him like an historical dream; at times it seemed that there was no other reality; that the silent, tense world of modern civilisation was itself a phantom, and that here was the simple naturalness of the soul’s childhood back again. Even the reading of the English correspondence did not greatly affect him, for the stream of his mind was beginning to run clear again in this sweet old channel; and he read, dissected, analysed and diagnosed with a deepening tranquillity.

There was not, after all, a great deal of news. It was a kind of lull after storm. Felsenburgh was still in retirement; he had refused the offers made to him by France and Italy, as that of England; and, although nothing definite was announced, it seemed that he was confining himself at present to an unofficial attitude. Meanwhile the Parliaments of Europe were busy in the preliminary stages of code-revision. Nothing would be done, it was understood, until the autumn sessions.

Life in Rome was very strange. The city had now become not only the centre of faith but, in a sense, a microcosm of it. It was divided into four huge quarters—Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Teutonic and Eastern—besides Trastevere, which was occupied almost entirely by Papal offices, seminaries, and schools. Anglo-Saxondom occupied the southwestern quarter, now entirely covered with houses, including the Aventine, the Celian and Testaccio. The Latins inhabited old Rome, between the Course and the river; the Teutons the northeastern quarter, bounded on the south by St. Laurence’s Street; and the Easterns the remaining quarter, of which the centre was the Lateran. In this manner the true Romans were scarcely conscious of intrusion; they possessed a multitude of their own churches, they were allowed to revel in narrow, dark streets and hold their markets; and it was here that Percy usually walked, in a passion of historical retrospect. But the other quarters were strange enough, too. It was curious to see how a progeny of Gothic churches, served by northern priests, had grown up naturally in the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic districts, and how the wide, grey streets, the neat pavements, the severe houses, showed how the northerns had not yet realised the requirements of southern life. The Easterns, on the other hand, resembled the Latins; their streets were as narrow and dark, their smells as overwhelming, their churches as dirty and as homely, and their colours even more brilliant.

Outside the walls the confusion was indescribable. If the city represented a carved miniature of the world, the suburbs represented the same model broken into a thousand pieces, tumbled in a bag and shot out at random. So far as the eye could see, on all sides from the roof of the Vatican, there stretched an endless plain of house-roofs, broken by spires, towers, domes and chimneys, under which lived human beings of every race beneath the sun. Here were the great manufactories, the monster buildings of the new world, the stations, the schools, the offices, all under secular dominion, yet surrounded by six millions of souls who lived here for love of religion. It was these who had despaired of modern life, tired out with change and effort, who had fled from the new system for refuge to the Church, but who could not obtain leave to live in the city itself. New houses were continually springing up in all directions. A gigantic compass, fixed by one leg in Rome, and with a span of five miles, would, if twirled, revolve through packed streets through its entire circle. Beyond that too houses stretched into the indefinite distance.

But Percy did not realise the significance of all that he saw, until the occasion of the Pope’s name-day towards the end of August.

It was yet cool and early, when he followed his patron, whom he was to serve as chaplain, along the broad passages of the Vatican towards the room where the Pope and Cardinals were to assemble. Through a window, as he looked out into the Piazza, the crowd was yet more dense, if that were possible, than it had been an hour before. The huge oval square was cobbled with heads, through which ran a broad road, kept by papal troops for the passage of the carriages; and up the broad ribbon, white in the eastern light, came monstrous vehicles, a blaze of gilding and colour and cream tint; slow cheers swelled up and died, and through all came the rush and patter of wheels over the stones, like the sound of a tide-swept pebbly beach.

As they waited in an ante-chamber, halted by the pressure in front and behind—a pack of scarlet and white and purple—he looked out again, and realised what he had known only intellectually before, that here before his eyes was the royalty of the old world assembled—and he began to perceive its significance.

Round the steps of the basilica spread a great fan of coaches, each yoked to eight horses—the white of France and Spain, the black of Germany, Italy and Russia, and the cream-coloured of England. Those stood out in the near half-circle, and beyond was the sweep of the lesser powers: Greece, Norway, Sweden, Roumania and the Balkan States. One, the Turk, was alone wanting, he reminded himself. The emblems of some were visible—eagles, lions, leopards—guarding the royal crown above the roof of each. From the foot of the steps to the head ran a broad scarlet carpet, lined with soldiers.

Percy leaned against the shutter, and began to meditate. Here was all that was left of Royalty. He had seen their palaces before, here and there in the various quarters, with standards flying, and scarlet-liveried men lounging on the steps. He had raised his hat a dozen times as a landau thundered past him up the Course; be had even seen the lilies of France and the leopards of England pass together in the solemn parade of the Pincian Hill. He had read in the papers every now and again during the last five years that family after family had made its way to Rome, after papal recognition had been granted; he had been told by the Cardinal on the previous evening that William of England, with his Consort, had landed at Ostia in the morning and that the tale of the Powers was complete. But he had never before realised the stupendous, overwhelming fact of the assembly of the world’s royalty under the shadow of Peter’s Throne, nor the appalling danger that its presence constituted in the midst of a democratic world. That world, he knew, affected to laugh at the folly and the childishness of it all—at the desperate play-acting of Divine Right on the part of fallen and despised families; but the same world, he knew very well, had not yet lost quite all its sentiment; and if that sentiment should happen to become resentful—-

The pressure relaxed; Percy slipped out of the recess, and followed in the slow-moving stream.

Half-an-hour later he was in his place among the ecclesiastics, as the papal procession came out through the glimmering dusk of the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament into the nave of the enormous church; but even before he had entered the chapel he heard the quiet roar of recognition and the cry of the trumpets that greeted the Supreme Pontiff as he came out, a hundred yards ahead, borne on the sedia gestatoria, with the fans going behind him. When Percy himself came out, five minutes later, walking in his quaternion, and saw the sight that was waiting, he remembered with a sudden throb at his heart that other sight he had seen in London in a summer dawn three months before….

Far ahead, seeming to cleave its way through the surging heads, like the poop of an ancient ship, moved the canopy beneath which sat the Lord of the world, and between him and the priest, as if it were the wake of that same ship, swayed the gorgeous procession—Protonotaries Apostolic, Generals of Religious Orders and the rest—making its way along with white, gold, scarlet and silver foam between the living banks on either side. Overhead hung the splendid barrel of the roof, and far in front the haven of God’s altar reared its monstrous pillars, beneath which burned the seven yellow stars that were the harbour lights of sanctity. It was an astonishing sight, but too vast and bewildering to do anything but oppress the observers with a consciousness of their own futility. The enormous enclosed air, the giant statues, the dim and distant roofs, the indescribable concert of sound—of the movement of feet, the murmur of ten thousand voices, the peal of organs like the crying of gnats, the thin celestial music—the faint suggestive smell of incense and men and bruised bay and myrtle—and, supreme above all, the vibrant atmosphere of human emotion, shot with supernatural aspiration, as the Hope of the World, the holder of Divine Vice-Royalty, passed on his way to stand between God and man—this affected the priest as the action of a drug that at once lulls and stimulates, that blinds while it gives new vision, that deafens while it opens stopped ears, that exalts while it plunges into new gulfs of consciousness. Here, then, was the other formulated answer to the problem of life. The two Cities of Augustine lay for him to choose. The one was that of a world self-originated, self-organised and self-sufficient, interpreted by such men as Marx and Herve, socialists, materialists, and, in the end, hedonists, summed up at last in Felsenburgh. The other lay displayed in the sight he saw before him, telling of a Creator and of a creation, of a Divine purpose, a redemption, and a world transcendent and eternal from which all sprang and to which all moved. One of the two, John and Julian, was the Vicar, and the other the Ape, of God…. And Percy’s heart in one more spasm of conviction made its choice….

But the summit was not yet reached.

As Percy came at last out from the nave beneath the dome, on his way to the tribune beyond the papal throne, he became aware of a new element.

A great space was cleared about the altar and confession, extending, as he could see at least on his side, to the point that marked the entrance to the transepts; at this point ran rails straight across from side to side, continuing the lines of the nave. Beyond this red-hung barrier lay a gradual slope of faces, white and motionless; a glimmer of steel bounded it, and above, a third of the distance down the transept, rose in solemn serried array a line of canopies. These were of scarlet, like cardinalitial baldachini, but upon the upright surface of each burned gigantic coats supported by beasts and topped by crowns. Under each was a figure or two—no more—in splendid isolation, and through the interspaces between the thrones showed again a misty slope of faces.

His heart quickened as he saw it—as he swept his eyes round and across to the right and saw as in a mirror the replica of the left in the right transept. It was there then that they sat—those lonely survivors of that strange company of persons who, till half-a-century ago, had reigned as God’s temporal Vicegerents with the consent of their subjects. They were unrecognised, now, save by Him from whom they drew their sovereignty—pinnacles clustering and hanging from a dome, from which the walls had been withdrawn. These were men and women who had learned at last that power comes from above, and their title to rule came not from their subjects but from the Supreme Ruler of all—shepherds without sheep, captains without soldiers to command. It was piteous—horribly piteous, yet inspiring. The act of faith was so sublime; and Percy’s heart quickened as he understood it. These, then, men and women like himself, were not ashamed to appeal from man to God, to assume insignia which the world regarded as playthings, but which to them were emblems of supernatural commission. Was there not mirrored here, he asked himself, some far-off shadow of One Who rode on the colt of an ass amid the sneers of the great and the enthusiasm of children?…

It was yet more kindling as the mass went on, and he saw the male sovereigns come down to do their services at the altar, and to go to and fro between it and the Throne. There they went bareheaded, the stately silent figures. The English king, once again Fidei Defensor, bore the train in place of the old king of Spain, who, with the Austrian Emperor, alone of all European sovereigns, had preserved the unbroken continuity of faith. The old man leaned over his fald-stool, mumbling and weeping, even crying out now and again in love and devotion, as, like Simeon, he saw his Salvation. The Austrian Emperor twice administered the Lavabo; the German sovereign, who had lost his throne and all but his life upon his conversion four years before, by a new privilege placed and withdrew the cushion, as his Lord kneeled before the Lord of them both. So movement by movement the gorgeous drama was enacted; the murmuring of the crowds died to a stillness that was but one wordless prayer as the tiny White Disc rose between the white hands, and the thin angelic music pealed in the dome. For here was the one hope of these thousands, as mighty and as little as once within the Manger. There was none other that fought for them but only God. Surely then, if the blood of men and the tears of women could not avail to move the Judge and Observer of all from His silence, surely at least here the bloodless Death of His only Son, that once on Calvary had darkened heaven and rent the earth, pleaded now with such sorrowful splendour upon this island of faith amid a sea of laughter and hatred—this at least must avail! How could it not?

Percy had just sat down, tired out with the long ceremonies, when the door opened abruptly, and the Cardinal, still in his robes, came in swiftly, shutting the door behind him.

“Father Franklin,” he said, in a strange breathless voice, “there is the worst of news. Felsenburgh is appointed President of Europe.”

II

It was late that night before Percy returned, completely exhausted by his labours. For hour after hour he had sat with the Cardinal, opening despatches that poured into the electric receivers from all over Europe, and were brought in one by one into the quiet sitting-room. Three times in the afternoon the Cardinal had been sent for, once by the Pope and twice to the Quirinal.

There was no doubt at all that the news was true; and it seemed that Felsenburgh must have waited deliberately for the offer. All others he had refused. There had been a Convention of the Powers, each of whom had been anxious to secure him, and each of whom had severally failed; these private claims had been withdrawn, and an united message sent. The new proposal was to the effect that Felsenburgh should assume a position hitherto undreamed of in democracy; that he should receive a House of Government in every capital of Europe; that his veto of any measure should be final for three years; that any measure he chose to introduce three times in three consecutive years should become law; that his title should be that of President of Europe. From his side practically nothing was asked, except that he should refuse any other official position offered him that did not receive the sanction of all the Powers. And all this, Percy saw very well, involved the danger of an united Europe increased tenfold. It involved all the stupendous force of Socialism directed by a brilliant individual. It was the combination of the strongest characteristics of the two methods of government. The offer had been accepted by Felsenburgh after eight hours’ silence.

It was remarkable, too, to observe how the news had been accepted by the two other divisions of the world. The East was enthusiastic; America was divided. But in any case America was powerless: the balance of the world was overwhelmingly against her.

Percy threw himself, as he was, on to his bed, and lay there with drumming pulses, closed eyes and a huge despair at his heart. The world indeed had risen like a giant over the horizons of Rome, and the holy city was no better now than a sand castle before a tide. So much he grasped. As to how ruin would come, in what form and from what direction, he neither knew nor cared. Only he knew now that it would come.

He had learned by now something of his own temperament; and he turned his eyes inwards to observe himself bitterly, as a doctor in mortal disease might with a dreadful complacency diagnose his own symptoms. It was even a relief to turn from the monstrous mechanism of the world to see in miniature one hopeless human heart. For his own religion he no longer feared; he knew, as absolutely as a man may know the colour of his eyes, that it was secure again and beyond shaking. During those weeks in Rome the cloudy deposit had run clear and the channel was once more visible. Or, better still, that vast erection of dogma, ceremony, custom and morals in which he had been educated, and on which he had looked all his life (as a man may stare upon some great set-piece that bewilders him), seeing now one spark of light, now another, flare and wane in the darkness, had little by little kindled and revealed itself in one stupendous blaze of divine fire that explains itself. Huge principles, once bewildering and even repellent, were again luminously self-evident; he saw, for example, that while Humanity-Religion endeavoured to abolish suffering the Divine Religion embraced it, so that the blind pangs even of beasts were within the Father’s Will and Scheme; or that while from one angle one colour only of the web of life was visible—material, or intellectual, or artistic—from another the Supernatural was as eminently obvious. Humanity-Religion could only be true if at least half of man’s nature, aspirations and sorrows were ignored. Christianity, on the other hand, at least included and accounted for these, even if it did not explain them. This … and this … and this … all made the one and perfect whole. There was the Catholic Faith, more certain to him than the existence of himself: it was true and alive. He might be damned, but God reigned. He might go mad, but Jesus Christ was Incarnate Deity, proving Himself so by death and Resurrection, and John his Vicar. These things were as the bones of the Universe—facts beyond doubting—if they were not true, nothing anywhere was anything but a dream.

Difficulties?—Why, there were ten thousand. He did not in the least understand why God had made the world as it was, nor how Hell could be the creation of Love, nor how bread was transubstantiated into the Body of God but—well, these things were so. He had travelled far, he began to see, from his old status of faith, when he had believed that divine truth could be demonstrated on intellectual grounds. He had learned now (he knew not how) that the supernatural cried to the supernatural; the Christ without to the Christ within; that pure human reason indeed could not contradict, yet neither could it adequately prove the mysteries of faith, except on premisses visible only to him who receives Revelation as a fact; that it is the moral state, rather than the intellectual, to which the Spirit of God speaks with the greater certitude. That which he had both learned and taught he now knew, that Faith, having, like man himself, a body and a spirit—an historical expression and an inner verity—speaks now by one, now by another. This man believes because he sees—accepts the Incarnation or the Church from its credentials; that man, perceiving that these things are spiritual facts, yields himself wholly to the message and authority of her who alone professes them, as well as to the manifestation of them upon the historical plane; and in the darkness leans upon her arm. Or, best of all, because he has believed, now he sees.

So he looked with a kind of interested indolence at other tracts of his nature.

First, there was his intellect, puzzled beyond description, demanding, Why, why, why? Why was it allowed? How was it conceivable that God did not intervene, and that the Father of men could permit His dear world to be so ranged against Him? What did He mean to do? Was this eternal silence never to be broken? It was very well for those that had the Faith, but what of the countless millions who were settling down in contented blasphemy? Were these not, too, His children and the sheep of His pasture? What was the Catholic Church made for if not to convert the world, and why then had Almighty God allowed it, on the one side, to dwindle to a handful, and, on the other, the world to find its peace apart from Him?

He considered his emotions, but there was no comfort there, no stimulus. Oh! yes; he could pray still, by mere cold acts of the will, and his theology told him that God accepted such. He could say “Adveniat regnum tuum. … Fiat voluntas tua,” five thousand times a day, if God wanted that; but there was no sting or touch, no sense of vibration through the cords that his will threw up to the Heavenly Throne. What in the world then did God want him to do? Was it just then to repeat formulas, to lie still, to open despatches, to listen through the telephone, and to suffer?

And then the rest of the world—the madness that had seized upon the nations; the amazing stories that had poured in that day of the men in Paris, who, raving like Bacchantes, had stripped themselves naked in the Place de Concorde, and stabbed themselves to the heart, crying out to thunders of applause that life was too enthralling to be endured; of the woman who sang herself mad last night in Spain, and fell laughing and foaming in the concert hall at Seville; of the crucifixion of the Catholics that morning in the Pyrenees, and the apostasy of three bishops in Germany…. And this … and this … and a thousand more horrors were permitted, and God made no sign and spoke no word….

There was a tap, and Percy sprang up as the Cardinal came in.

He looked horribly worn; and his eyes had a kind of sunken brilliance that revealed fever. He made a little motion to Percy to sit down, and himself sat in the deep chair, trembling a little, and gathering his buckled feet beneath his red-buttoned cassock.

“You must forgive me, father,” he said. “I am anxious for the Bishop’s safety. He should be here by now.”

This was the Bishop of Southwark, Percy remembered, who had left England early that morning.

“He is coming straight through, your Eminence?”

“Yes; he should have been here by twenty-three. It is after midnight, is it not?”

As he spoke, the bells chimed out the half-hour.

It was nearly quiet now. All day the air had been full of sound; mobs had paraded the suburbs; the gates of the City had been barred, yet that was only an earnest of what was to be expected when the world understood itself.

The Cardinal seemed to recover himself after a few minutes’ silence.

“You look tired out, father,” he said kindly.

Percy smiled.

“And your Eminence?” he said.

The old man smiled too.

“Why, yes,” he said. “I shall not last much longer, father. And then it will be you to suffer.”

Percy sat up, suddenly, sick at heart.

“Why, yes,” said the Cardinal. “The Holy Father has arranged it. You are to succeed me, you know. It need be no secret.”

Percy drew a long trembling breath.

“Eminence,” he began piteously.

The other lifted a thin old hand.

“I understand all that,” he said softly. “You wish to die, is it not so?—and be at peace. There are many who wish that. But we must suffer first. Et pati et mori. Father Franklin, there must be no faltering.”

There was a long silence.

The news was too stunning to convey anything to the priest but a sense of horrible shock. The thought had simply never entered his mind that he, a man under forty, should be considered eligible to succeed this wise, patient old prelate. As for the honour—Percy was past that now, even had he thought of it. There was but one view before him—of a long and intolerable journey, on a road that went uphill, to be traversed with a burden on his shoulders that he could not support.

Yet he recognised its inevitability. The fact was announced to him as indisputable; it was to be; there was nothing to be said. But it was as if one more gulf had opened, and he stared into it with a dull, sick horror, incapable of expression.

The Cardinal first broke the silence.

“Father Franklin,” he said, “I have seen to-day a picture of

Felsenburgh. Do you know whom I at first took it for?”

Percy smiled listlessly.

“Yes, father, I took it for you. Now, what do you make of that?”

“I don’t understand, Eminence.”

“Why—-” He broke off, suddenly changing the subject.

“There was a murder in the City to-day,” he said. “A Catholic stabbed a blasphemer.”

Percy glanced at him again.

“Oh! yes; he has not attempted to escape,” went on the old man. “He is in gaol.”

“And—-”

“He will be executed. The trial will begin to-morrow…. It is sad enough. It is the first murder for eight months.”

The irony of the position was evident enough to Percy as he sat listening to the deepening silence outside in the starlit night. Here was this poor city pretending that nothing was the matter, quietly administering its derided justice; and there, outside, were the forces gathering that would put an end to all. His enthusiasm seemed dead. There was no thrill from the thought of the splendid disregard of material facts of which this was one tiny instance, none of despairing courage or drunken recklessness. He felt like one who watches a fly washing his face on the cylinder of an engine—the huge steel slides along bearing the tiny life towards enormous death—another moment and it will be over; and yet the watcher cannot interfere. The supernatural thus lay, perfect and alive, but immeasurably tiny; the huge forces were in motion, the world was heaving up, and Percy could do nothing but stare and frown. Yet, as has been said, there was no shadow on his faith; the fly he knew was greater than the engine from the superiority of its order of life; if it were crushed, life would not be the final sufferer; so much he knew, but how it was so, he did not know.

As the two sat there, again came a step and a tap; and a servant’s face looked in.

“His Lordship is come, Eminence,” he said.

The Cardinal rose painfully, supporting himself by the table. Then he paused, seeming to remember something, and fumbled in his pocket.

“See that, father,” he said, and pushed a small silver disc towards the priest. “No; when I am gone.”

Percy closed the door and came back, taking up the little round object.

It was a coin, fresh from the mint. On one side was the familiar wreath with the word “fivepence” in the midst, with its Esperanto equivalent beneath, and on the other the profile of a man, with an inscription. Percy turned it to read:

“JULIAN FELSENBURGH, LA PREZIDANTE DE UROPO.”

III

It was at ten o’clock on the following morning that the Cardinals were summoned to the Pope’s presence to hear the allocution.

Percy, from his seat among the Consultors, watched them come in, men of every nation and temperament and age—the Italians all together, gesticulating, and flashing teeth; the Anglo-Saxons steady-faced and serious; an old French Cardinal leaning on his stick, walking with the English Benedictine. It was one of the great plain stately rooms of which the Vatican now chiefly consisted, seated length wise like a chapel. At the lower end, traversed by the gangway, were the seats of the Consultors; at the upper end, the dais with the papal throne. Three or four benches with desks before them, standing out beyond the Consultors’ seats, were reserved for the arrivals of the day before —prelates and priests who had poured into Rome from every European country on the announcement of the amazing news.

Percy had not an idea as to what would be said. It was scarcely possible that nothing but platitudes would be uttered, yet what else could be said in view of the complete doubtfulness of the situation? All that was known even this morning was that the Presidentship of Europe was a fact; the little silver coin he had seen witnessed to that; that there had been an outburst of persecution, repressed sternly by local authorities; and that Felsenburgh was to-day to begin his tour from capital to capital. He was expected in Turin by the end of the week. From every Catholic centre throughout the world had come in messages imploring guidance; it was said that apostasy was rising like a tidal wave, that persecution threatened everywhere, and that even bishops were beginning to yield.

As for the Holy Father, all was doubtful. Those who knew, said nothing; and the only rumour that escaped was to the effect that he had spent all night in prayer at the tomb of the Apostle….

The murmur died suddenly to a rustle and a silence; there was a ripple of sinking heads along the seats as the door beside the canopy opened, and a moment later John, Pater Patrum, was on his throne.

At first Percy understood nothing. He stared only, as at a picture, through the dusty sunlight that poured in through the shrouded windows, at the scarlet lines to right and left, up to the huge scarlet canopy, and the white figure that sat there. Certainly, these southerners understood the power of effect. It was as vivid and impressive as a vision of the Host in a jewelled monstrance. Every accessory was gorgeous, the high room, the colour of the robes, the chains and crosses, and as the eye moved along to its climax it was met by a piece of dead white—as if glory was exhausted and declared itself impotent to tell the supreme secret. Scarlet and purple and gold were well enough for those who stood on the steps of the throne—they needed it; but for Him who sat there nothing was needed. Let colours die and sounds faint in the presence of God’s Viceroy. Yet what expression was required found itself adequately provided in that beautiful oval face, the poised imperious head, the sweet brilliant eyes and the clean-curved lips that spoke so strongly. There was not a sound in the room, not a rustle, nor a breathing—even without it seemed as if the world were allowing the supernatural to state its defence uninterruptedly, before summing up and clamouring condemnation.

Percy made a violent effort at self-repression, clenched his hands and listened.

“ … Since this then is so, sons in Jesus Christ, it is for us to answer. We wrestle not, as the Doctor of the Gentiles teaches us, against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Wherefore, he continues, take unto you the armour of God; and he further declares to us its nature—the girdle of truth, the breastplate of justice, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.

“By this, therefore, the Word of God bids us to war, but not with the weapons of this world, for neither is His kingdom of this world; and it is to remind you of the principles of this warfare that we have summoned you to Our Presence.”

The voice paused, and there was a rustling sigh along the seats. Then the voice continued on a slightly higher note.

“It has ever been the wisdom of Our predecessors, as is also their duty, while keeping silence at certain seasons, at others to speak freely the whole counsel of God. From this duty We Ourself must not be deterred by the knowledge of Our own weakness and ignorance, but to trust rather that He Who has placed Us on this throne will deign to speak through Our mouth and use Our words to His glory.

“First, then, it is necessary to utter Our sentence as to the new movement, as men call it, which has latterly been inaugurated by the rulers of this world.

“We are not unmindful of the blessings of peace and unity, nor do We forget that the appearance of these things has been the fruit of much that we have condemned. It is this appearance of peace that has deceived many, causing them to doubt the promise of the Prince of Peace that it is through Him alone that we have access to the Father. That true peace, passing understanding, concerns not only the relations of men between themselves, but, supremely, the relations of men with their Maker; and it is in this necessary point that the efforts of the world are found wanting. It is not indeed to be wondered at that in a world which has rejected God this necessary matter should be forgotten. Men have thought—led astray by seducers—that the unity of nations was the greatest prize of this life, forgetting the words of our Saviour, Who said that He came to bring not peace but a sword, and that it is through many tribulations that we enter God’s Kingdom. First, then, there should be established the peace of man with God, and after that the unity of man with man will follow. Seek ye first, said Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God—and then all these things shall be added unto you.

“First, then, We once more condemn and anathematise the opinions of those who teach and believe the contrary of this; and we renew once more all the condemnations uttered by Ourself or Our predecessors against all those societies, organisations and communities that have been formed for the furtherance of an unity on another than a divine foundation; and We remind Our children throughout the world that it is forbidden to them to enter or to aid or to approve in any manner whatsoever any of those bodies named in such condemnations.”

Percy moved in his seat, conscious of a touch of impatience…. The manner was superb, tranquil and stately as a river; but the matter a trifle banal. Here was this old reprobation of Freemasonry, repeated in unoriginal language.

“Secondly,” went on the steady voice, “We wish to make known to you Our desires for the future; and here We tread on what many have considered dangerous ground.”

Again came that rustle. Percy saw more than one cardinal lean forward with hand crooked at ear to hear the better. It was evident that something important was coming.

“There are many points,” went on the high voice, “of which it is not Our intention to speak at this time, for of their own nature they are secret, and must be treated of on another occasion. But what We say here, We say to the world. Since the assaults of Our enemies are both open and secret, so too must be Our defences. This then is Our intention.”

The Pope paused again, lifted one hand as if mechanically to his breast, and grasped the cross that hung there.

“While the army of Christ is one, it consists of many divisions, each of which has its proper function and object. In times past God has raised up companies of His servants to do this or that particular work—the sons of St. Francis to preach poverty, those of St. Bernard to labour in prayer with all holy women dedicating themselves to this purpose, the Society of Jesus for the education of youth and the conversion of the heathen—together with all the other Religious Orders whose names are known throughout the world. Each such company was raised up at a particular season of need, and each has corresponded nobly with the divine vocation. It has also been the especial glory of each, for the furtherance of its intention, while pursuing its end, to cut off from itself all such activities (good in themselves) which would hinder that work for which God had called it into being—following in this matter the words of our Redeemer, Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit. At this present season, then, it appears to Our Humility that all such Orders (which once more We commend and bless) are not perfectly suited by the very conditions of their respective Rules to perform the great work which the time requires. Our warfare lies not with ignorance in particular, whether of the heathens to whom the Gospel has not yet come, or of those whose fathers have rejected it, nor with the deceitful riches of this world, nor with science falsely so-called, nor indeed with any one of those strongholds of infidelity against whom We have laboured in the past. Rather it appears as if at last the time was come of which the apostle spoke when he said that that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God.

“It is not with this or that force that we are concerned, but rather with the unveiled immensity of that power whose time was foretold, and whose destruction is prepared.”

The voice paused again, and Percy gripped the rail before him to stay the trembling of his hands. There was no rustle now, nothing but a silence that tingled and shook. The Pope drew a long breath, turned his head slowly to right and left, and went on more deliberately than ever.

“It seems good, then, to Our Humility, that the Vicar of Christ should himself invite God’s children to this new warfare; and it is Our intention to enroll under the title of the Order of Christ Crucified the names of all who offer themselves to this supreme service. In doing this We are aware of the novelty of Our action, and the disregard of all such precautions as have been necessary in the past. We take counsel in this matter with none save Him Who we believe has inspired it.

“First, then, let Us say, that although obedient service will be required from all who shall be admitted to this Order, Our primary intention in instituting it lies in God’s regard rather than in man’s, in appealing to Him Who asks our generosity rather than to those who deny it, and dedicating once more by a formal and deliberate act our souls and bodies to the heavenly Will and service of Him Who alone can rightly claim such offering, and will accept our poverty.

“Briefly, we dictate only the following conditions.

“None shall be capable of entering the Order except such as shall be above the age of seventeen years.

“No badge, habit, nor insignia shall be attached to it.

“The Three Evangelical Counsels shall be the foundation of the Rule, to which we add a fourth intention, namely, that of a desire to receive the crown of martyrdom and a purpose of embracing it.

“The bishop of every diocese, if he himself shall enter the Order, shall be the superior within the limits of his own jurisdiction, and alone shall be exempt from the literal observance of the Vow of Poverty so long as he retains his see. Such bishops as do not feel the vocation to the Order shall retain their sees under the usual conditions, but shall have no Religious claim on the members of the Order.

“Further, We announce Our intention of Ourself entering the Order as its supreme prelate, and of making Our profession within the course of a few days.

“Further, We declare that in Our Own pontificate none shall be elevated to the Sacred College save those who have made their profession in the Order; and We shall dedicate shortly the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul as the central church of the Order, in which church We shall raise to the altars without any delay those happy souls who shall lay down their lives in the pursuance of their vocation.

“Of that vocation it is unnecessary to speak beyond indicating that it may be pursued under any conditions laid down by the Superiors. As regards the novitiate, its conditions and requirements, we shall shortly issue the necessary directions. Each diocesan superior (for it is Our hope that none will hold back) shall have all such rights as usually appertain to Religious Superiors, and shall be empowered to employ his subjects in any work that, in his opinion, shall subserve the glory of God and the salvation of souls. It is Our Own intention to employ in Our service none except those who shall make their profession.”

He raised his eyes once more, seemingly without emotion, then he continued:

“So far, then, We have determined. On other matters We shall take counsel immediately; but it is Our wish that these words shall be communicated to all the world, that there may be no delay in making known what it is that Christ through His Vicar asks of all who profess the Divine Name. We offer no rewards except those which God Himself has promised to those that love Him, and lay down their life for Him; no promise of peace, save of that which passeth understanding; no home save that which befits pilgrims and sojourners who seek a City to come; no honour save the world’s contempt; no life, save that which is hid with Christ in God.”

CHAPTER IV

I

Oliver Brand, seated in his little private room at Whitehall, was expecting a visitor. It was already close upon ten o’clock, and at half-past he must be in the House. He had hoped that Mr. Francis, whoever he might be, would not detain him long. Even now, every moment was a respite, for the work had become simply prodigious during the last weeks.

But he was not reprieved for more than a minute, for the last boom from the Victoria Tower had scarcely ceased to throb when the door opened and a clerkly voice uttered the name he was expecting.

Oliver shot one quick look at the stranger, at his drooping lids and down-turned mouth, summed him up fairly and accurately in the moments during which they seated themselves, and went briskly to business.

“At twenty-five minutes past, sir, I must leave this room,” he said.

“Until then—-” he made a little gesture.

Mr. Francis reassured him.

“Thank you, Mr. Brand—that is ample time. Then, if you will excuse me—-” He groped in his breast-pocket, and drew out a long envelope.

“I will leave this with you,” he said, “when I go. It sets out our desires at length and our names. And this is what I have to say, sir.”

He sat back, crossed his legs, and went on, with a touch of eagerness in his voice.

“I am a kind of deputation, as you know,” he said. “We have something both to ask and to offer. I am chosen because it was my own idea. First, may I ask a question?”

Oliver bowed.

“I wish to ask nothing that I ought not. But I believe it is practically certain, is it not?—that Divine Worship is to be restored throughout the kingdom?”

Oliver smiled.

“I suppose so,” he said. “The bill has been read for the third time, and, as you know, the President is to speak upon it this evening.”

“He will not veto it?”

“We suppose not. He has assented to it in Germany.”

“Just so,” said Mr. Francis. “And if he assents here, I suppose it will become law immediately.”

Oliver leaned over this table, and drew out the green paper that contained the Bill.

“You have this, of course—-” he said. “Well, it becomes law at once; and the first feast will be observed on the first of October. ‘Paternity,’ is it not? Yes, Paternity.”

“There will be something of a rush then,” said the other eagerly. “Why, that is only a week hence.”

“I have not charge of this department,” said Oliver, laying back the

Bill. “But I understand that the ritual will be that already in use in

Germany. There is no reason why we should be peculiar.”

“And the Abbey will be used?”

“Why, yes.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Francis, “of course I know the Government Commission has studied it all very closely, and no doubt has its own plans. But it appears to me that they will want all the experience they can get.”

“No doubt.”

“Well, Mr. Brand, the society which I represent consists entirely of men who were once Catholic priests. We number about two hundred in London. I will leave a pamphlet with you, if I may, stating our objects, our constitution, and so on. It seemed to us that here was a matter in which our past experience might be of service to the Government. Catholic ceremonies, as you know, are very intricate, and some of us studied them very deeply in old days. We used to say that Masters of Ceremonies were born, not made, and we have a fair number of those amongst us. But indeed every priest is something of a ceremonialist.”

He paused.

“Yes, Mr. Francis?”

“I am sure the Government realises the immense importance of all going smoothly. If Divine Service was at all grotesque or disorderly, it would largely defeat its own object. So I have been deputed to see you, Mr. Brand, and to suggest to you that here is a body of men—reckon it as at least twenty-five—who have had special experience in this kind of thing, and are perfectly ready to put themselves at the disposal of the Government.”

Oliver could not resist a faint flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth. It was a very grim bit of irony, he thought, but it seemed sensible enough.

“I quite understand, Mr. Francis. It seems a very reasonable suggestion.

But I do not think I am the proper person. Mr. Snowford—-”

“Yes, yes, sir, I know. But your speech the other day inspired us all. You said exactly what was in all our hearts—that the world could not live without worship; and that now that God was found at last—-”

Oliver waved his hand. He hated even a touch of flattery.

“It is very good of you, Mr. Francis. I will certainly speak to Mr.

Snowford. I understand that you offer yourselves as—as Masters of

Ceremonies—?”

“Yes, sir; and sacristans. I have studied the German ritual very carefully; it is more elaborate than I had thought it. It will need a good deal of adroitness. I imagine that you will want at least a dozen Ceremoniarii in the Abbey; and a dozen more in the vestries will scarcely be too much.”

Oliver nodded abruptly, looking curiously at the eager pathetic face of the man opposite him; yet it had something, too, of that mask-like priestly look that he had seen before in others like him. This was evidently a devotee.

“You are all Masons, of course?” he said.

“Why, of course, Mr. Brand.”

“Very good. I will speak to Mr. Snowford to-day if I can catch him.”

He glanced at the clock. There were yet three or four minutes.

“You have seen the new appointment in Rome, sir,” went on Mr. Francis.

Oliver shook his head. He was not particularly interested in Rome just now.

“Cardinal Martin is dead—he died on Tuesday—and his place is already filled.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes—the new man was once a friend of mine—Franklin, his name is—Percy Franklin.”

“Eh?”

“What is the matter, Mr. Brand? Did you know him?”

Oliver was eyeing him darkly, a little pale.

“Yes; I knew him,” he said quietly. “At least, I think so.”

“He was at Westminster until a month or two ago.”

“Yes, yes,” said Oliver, still looking at him. “And you knew him, Mr.

Francis?”

“I knew him—yes.”

“Ah!—well, I should like to have a talk some day about him.”

He broke off. It yet wanted a minute to his time.

“And that is all?” he asked.

“That is all my actual business, sir,” answered the other. “But I hope you will allow me to say how much we all appreciate what you have done, Mr. Brand. I do not think it is possible for any, except ourselves, to understand what the loss of worship means to us. It was very strange at first—-”

His voice trembled a little, and he stopped. Oliver felt interested, and checked himself in his movement to rise.

“Yes, Mr. Francis?”

The melancholy brown eyes turned on him full.

“It was an illusion, of course, sir—we know that. But I, at any rate, dare to hope that it was not all wasted—all our aspirations and penitence and praise. We mistook our God, but none the less it reached Him—it found its way to the Spirit of the World. It taught us that the individual was nothing, and that He was all. And now—-”

“Yes, sir,” said the other softly. He was really touched.

The sad brown eyes opened full.

“And now Mr. Felsenburgh is come.” He swallowed in his throat. “Julian Felsenburgh!” There was a world of sudden passion in his gentle voice, and Oliver’s own heart responded.

“I know, sir,” he said; “I know all that you mean.”

“Oh! to have a Saviour at last!” cried Francis. “One that can be seen and handled and praised to His Face! It is like a dream—too good to be true!”

Oliver glanced at the clock, and rose abruptly, holding out his hand.

“Forgive me, sir. I must not stay. You have touched me very deeply…. I will speak to Snowford. Your address is here, I understand?”

He pointed to the papers.

“Yes, Mr. Brand. There is one more question.”

“I must not stay, sir,” said Oliver, shaking his head.

“One instant—is it true that this worship will be compulsory?”

Oliver bowed as he gathered up his papers.

II

Mabel, seated in the gallery that evening behind the President’s chair, had already glanced at her watch half-a-dozen times in the last hour, hoping each time that twenty-one o’clock was nearer than she feared. She knew well enough by now that the President of Europe would not be half-a-minute either before or after his time. His supreme punctuality was famous all over the continent. He had said Twenty-One, so it was to be twenty-one.

A sharp bell-note impinged from beneath, and in a moment the drawling voice of the speaker stopped. Once more she lifted her wrist, saw that it wanted five minutes of the hour; then she leaned forward from her corner and stared down into the House.

A great change had passed over it at the metallic noise. All down the long brown seats members were shifting and arranging themselves more decorously, uncrossing their legs, slipping their hats beneath the leather fringes. As she looked, too, she saw the President of the House coming down the three steps from his chair, for Another would need it in a few moments.

The house was full from end to end; a late comer ran in from the twilight of the south door and looked distractedly about him in the full light before he saw his vacant place. The galleries at the lower end were occupied too, down there, where she had failed to obtain a seat. Yet from all the crowded interior there was no sound but a sibilant whispering; from the passages behind she could hear again the quick bell-note repeat itself as the lobbies were cleared; and from Parliament Square outside once more came the heavy murmur of the crowd that had been inaudible for the last twenty minutes. When that ceased she would know that he was come.

How strange and wonderful it was to be here—on this night of all, when the President was to speak! A month ago he had assented to a similar Bill in Germany, and had delivered a speech on the same subject at Turin. To-morrow he was to be in Spain. No one knew where he had been during the past week. A rumour had spread that his volor had been seen passing over Lake Como, and had been instantly contradicted. No one knew either what he would say to-night. It might be three words or twenty thousand. There were a few clauses in the Bill—notably those bearing on the point as to when the new worship was to be made compulsory on all subjects over the age of seven—it might be he would object and veto these. In that case all must be done again, and the Bill re-passed, unless the House accepted his amendment instantly by acclamation.

Mabel herself was inclined to these clauses. They provided that, although worship was to be offered in every parish church of England on the ensuing first day of October, this was not to be compulsory on all subjects till the New Year; whereas, Germany, who had passed the Bill only a month before, had caused it to come into full force immediately, thus compelling all her Catholic subjects either to leave the country without delay or suffer the penalties. These penalties were not vindictive: on a first offence a week’s detention only was to be given; on the second, one month’s imprisonment; on the third, one year’s; and on the fourth, perpetual imprisonment until the criminal yielded. These were merciful terms, it seemed; for even imprisonment itself meant no more than reasonable confinement and employment on Government works. There were no mediaeval horrors here; and the act of worship demanded was so little, too; it consisted of no more than bodily presence in the church or cathedral on the four new festivals of Maternity, Life, Sustenance and Paternity, celebrated on the first day of each quarter. Sunday worship was to be purely voluntary.

She could not understand how any man could refuse this homage. These four things were facts—they were the manifestations of what she called the Spirit of the World—and if others called that Power God, yet surely these ought to be considered as His functions. Where then was the difficulty? It was not as if Christian worship were not permitted, under the usual regulations. Catholics could still go to mass. And yet appalling things were threatened in Germany: not less than twelve thousand persons had already left for Rome; and it was rumoured that forty thousand would refuse this simple act of homage a few days hence. It bewildered and angered her to think of it.

For herself the new worship was a crowning sign of the triumph of Humanity. Her heart had yearned for some such thing as this—some public corporate profession of what all now believed. She had so resented the dulness of folk who were content with action and never considered its springs. Surely this instinct within her was a true one; she desired to stand with her fellows in some solemn place, consecrated not by priests but by the will of man; to have as her inspirers sweet singing and the peal of organs; to utter her sorrow with thousands beside her at her own feebleness of immolation before the Spirit of all; to sing aloud her praise of the glory of life, and to offer by sacrifice and incense an emblematic homage to That from which she drew her being, and to whom one day she must render it again. Ah! these Christians had understood human nature, she had told herself a hundred times: it was true that they had degraded it, darkened light, poisoned thought, misinterpreted instinct; but they had understood that man must worship —must worship or sink.

For herself she intended to go at least once a week to the little old church half-a-mile away from her home, to kneel there before the sunlit sanctuary, to meditate on sweet mysteries, to present herself to That which she was yearning to love, and to drink, it might be, new draughts of life and power.

Ah! but the Bill must pass first…. She clenched her hands on the rail, and stared steadily before her on the ranks of heads, the open gangways, the great mace on the table, and heard, above the murmur of the crowd outside and the dying whispers within, her own heart beat.

She could not see Him, she knew. He would come in from beneath through the door that none but He might use, straight into the seat beneath the canopy. But she would hear His voice—that must be joy enough for her….

Ah! there was silence now outside; the soft roar had died. He had come then. And through swimming eyes she saw the long ridges of heads rise beneath her, and through drumming ears heard the murmur of many feet. All faces looked this way; and she watched them as a mirror to see the reflected light of His presence. There was a gentle sobbing somewhere in the air—was it her own or another’s? … the click of a door; a great mellow booming over-head, shock after shock, as the huge tenor bells tolled their three strokes; and, in an instant, over the white faces passed a ripple, as if some breeze of passion shook the souls within; there was a swaying here and there; and a passionless voice spoke half a dozen words in Esperanto, out of sight:

“Englishmen, I assent to the Bill of Worship.”

III

It was not until mid-day breakfast on the following morning that husband and wife met again. Oliver had slept in town and telephoned about eleven o’clock that he would be home immediately, bringing a guest with him: and shortly before noon she heard their voices in the hall.

Mr. Francis, who was presently introduced to her, seemed a harmless kind of man, she thought, not interesting, though he seemed in earnest about this Bill. It was not until breakfast was nearly over that she understood who he was.

“Don’t go, Mabel,” said her husband, as she made a movement to rise. “You will like to hear about this, I expect. My wife knows all that I know,” he added.

Mr. Francis smiled and bowed.

“I may tell her about you, sir?” said Oliver again.

“Why, certainly.”

Then she heard that he had been a Catholic priest a few months before, and that Mr. Snowford was in consultation with him as to the ceremonies in the Abbey. She was conscious of a sudden interest as she heard this.

“Oh! do talk,” she said. “I want to hear everything.”

It seemed that Mr. Francis had seen the new Minister of Public Worship that morning, and had received a definite commission from him to take charge of the ceremonies on the first of October. Two dozen of his colleagues, too, were to be enrolled among the ceremoniarii, at least temporarily—and after the event they were to be sent on a lecturing tour to organise the national worship throughout the country.

Of course things would be somewhat sloppy at first, said Mr. Francis; but by the New Year it was hoped that all would be in order, at least in the cathedrals and principal towns.

“It is important,” he said, “that this should be done as soon as possible. It is very necessary to make a good impression. There are thousands who have the instinct of worship, without knowing how to satisfy it.”

“That is perfectly true,” said Oliver. “I have felt that for a long time. I suppose it is the deepest instinct in man.”

“As to the ceremonies—-” went on the other, with a slightly important air. His eyes roved round a moment; then he dived into his breast-pocket, and drew out a thin red-covered book.

“Here is the Order of Worship for the Feast of Paternity,” he said. “I have had it interleaved, and have made a few notes.”

He began to turn the pages, and Mabel, with considerable excitement, drew her chair a little closer to listen.

“That is right, sir,” said the other. “Now give us a little lecture.”

Mr. Francis closed the book on his finger, pushed his plate aside, and began to discourse.

“First,” he said, “we must remember that this ritual is based almost entirely upon that of the Masons. Three-quarters at least of the entire function will be occupied by that. With that the ceremoniarii will not interfere, beyond seeing that the insignia are ready in the vestries and properly put on. The proper officials will conduct the rest…. I need not speak of that then. The difficulties begin with the last quarter.”

He paused, and with a glance of apology began arranging forks and glasses before him on the cloth.

“Now here,” he said, “we have the old sanctuary of the abbey. In the place of the reredos and Communion table there will be erected the large altar of which the ritual speaks, with the steps leading up to it from the floor. Behind the altar—extending almost to the old shrine of the Confessor—will stand the pedestal with the emblematic figure upon it; and—so far as I understand from the absence of directions—each such figure will remain in place until the eve of the next quarterly feast.”

“What kind of figure?” put in the girl.

Francis glanced at her husband.

“I understand that Mr. Markenheim has been consulted,” he said. “He will design and execute them. Each is to represent its own feast. This for Paternity—-”

He paused again.

“Yes, Mr. Francis?”

“This one, I understand, is to be the naked figure of a man.”

“A kind of Apollo—or Jupiter, my dear,” put in Oliver.

Yes—that seemed all right, thought Mabel. Mr. Francis’s voice moved on hastily.

“A new procession enters at this point, after the discourse,” he said. “It is this that will need special marshalling. I suppose no rehearsal will be possible?”

“Scarcely,” said Oliver, smiling.

The Master of Ceremonies sighed.

“I feared not. Then we must issue very precise printed instructions. Those who take part will withdraw, I imagine, during the hymn, to the old chapel of St. Faith. That is what seems to me the best.”

He indicated the chapel.

“After the entrance of the procession all will take their places on these two sides—here—and here—while the celebrant with the sacred ministers—-”

“Eh?”

Mr. Francis permitted a slight grimace to appear on his face; he flushed a little.

“The President of Europe—-” He broke off. “Ah! that is the point. Will the President take part? That is not made clear in the ritual.”

“We think so,” said Oliver. “He is to be approached.”

“Well, if not, I suppose the Minister of Public Worship will officiate. He with his supporters pass straight up to the foot of the altar. Remember that the figure is still veiled, and that the candles have been lighted during the approach of the procession. There follow the Aspirations printed in the ritual with the responds. These are sung by the choir, and will be most impressive, I think. Then the officiant ascends the altar alone, and, standing, declaims the Address, as it is called. At the close of it—at the point, that is to say, marked here with a star, the thurifers will leave the chapel, four in number. One ascends the altar, leaving the others swinging their thurifers at its foot—hands his to the officiant and retires. Upon the sounding of a bell the curtains are drawn back, the officiant tenses the image in silence with four double swings, and, as he ceases the choir sings the appointed antiphon.”

He waved his hands.

“The rest is easy,” he said. “We need not discuss that.”

To Mabel’s mind even the previous ceremonies seemed easy enough. But she was undeceived.

“You have no idea, Mrs. Brand,” went on the ceremoniarius, “of the difficulties involved even in such a simple matter as this. The stupidity of people is prodigious. I foresee a great deal of hard work for us all…. Who is to deliver the discourse, Mr. Brand?”

Oliver shook his head.

“I have no idea,” he said. “I suppose Mr. Snowford will select.”

Mr. Francis looked at him doubtfully.

“What is your opinion of the whole affair, sir?” he said.

Oliver paused a moment.

“I think it is necessary,” he began. “There would not be such a cry for worship if it was not a real need. I think too—yes, I think that on the whole the ritual is impressive. I do not see how it could be bettered….”

“Yes, Oliver?” put in his wife, questioningly.

“No—there is nothing—except … except I hope the people will understand it.”

Mr. Francis broke in.

“My dear sir, worship involves a touch of mystery. You must remember that. It was the lack of that that made Empire Day fail in the last century. For myself, I think it is admirable. Of course much must depend on the manner in which it is presented. I see many details at present undecided—the colour of the curtains, and so forth. But the main plan is magnificent. It is simple, impressive, and, above all, it is unmistakable in its main lesson—-”

“And that you take to be—?”

“I take it that it is homage offered to Life,” said the other slowly. “Life under four aspects—Maternity corresponds to Christmas and the Christian fable; it is the feast of home, love, faithfulness. Life itself is approached in spring, teeming, young, passionate. Sustenance in midsummer, abundance, comfort, plenty, and the rest, corresponding somewhat to the Catholic Corpus Christi; and Paternity, the protective, generative, masterful idea, as winter draws on…. I understand it was a German thought.”

Oliver nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “And I suppose it will be the business of the speaker to explain all this.”

“I take it so. It appears to me far more suggestive than the alternative plan—Citizenship, Labour, and so forth. These, after all, are subordinate to Life.”

Mr. Francis spoke with an extraordinary suppressed enthusiasm, and the priestly look was more evident than ever. It was plain that his heart at least demanded worship.

Mabel clasped her hands suddenly.

“I think it is beautiful,” she said softly, “and—and it is so real.”

Mr. Francis turned on her with a glow in his brown eyes.

“Ah! yes, madam. That is it. There is no Faith, as we used to call it: it is the vision of Facts that no one can doubt; and the incense declares the sole divinity of Life as well as its mystery.”

“What of the figures?” put in Oliver.

“A stone image is impossible, of course. It must be clay for the present. Mr. Markenheim is to set to work immediately. If the figures are approved they can then be executed in marble.”

Again Mabel spoke with a soft gravity.

“It seems to me,” she said, “that this is the last thing that we needed. It is so hard to keep our principles clear—we must have a body for them—some kind of expression—-”

She paused.

“Yes, Mabel?”

“I do not mean,” she went on, “that some cannot live without it, but many cannot. The unimaginative need concrete images. There must be some channel for their aspirations to flow through—- Ah! I cannot express myself!”

Oliver nodded slowly. He, too, seemed to be in a meditative mood.

“Yes,” he said. “And this, I suppose, will mould men’s thoughts too: it will keep out all danger of superstition.”

Mr. Francis turned on him abruptly.

“What do you think of the Pope’s new Religious Order, sir?”

Oliver’s face took on it a tinge of grimness.

“I think it is the worst step he ever took—for himself, I mean. Either it is a real effort, in which case it will provoke immense indignation—or it is a sham, and will discredit him. Why do you ask?”

“I was wondering whether any disturbance will be made in the abbey.”

“I should be sorry for the brawler.”

A bell rang sharply from the row of telephone labels. Oliver rose and went to it. Mabel watched him as he touched a button—mentioned his name, and put his ear to the opening.

“It is Snowford’s secretary,” he said abruptly to the two expectant faces. “Snowford wants to—ah!”

Again he mentioned his name and listened. They heard a sentence or two from him that seemed significant.

“Ah! that is certain, is it? I am sorry…. Yes…. Oh! but that is better than nothing…. Yes; he is here…. Indeed. Very well; we will be with you directly.”

He looked on the tube, touched the button again, and came back to them.

“I am sorry,” he said. “The President will take no part at the Feast. But it is uncertain whether he will not be present. Mr. Snowford wants to see us both at once, Mr. Francis. Markenheim is with him.”

But though Mabel was herself disappointed, she thought he looked graver than the disappointment warranted.

CHAPTER V

I

Percy Franklin, the new Cardinal-Protector of England, came slowly along the passage leading from the Pope’s apartments, with Hans Steinmann, Cardinal-Protector of Germany, blowing at his side. They entered the lift, still in silence, and passed out, two splendid vivid figures, one erect and virile, the other bent, fat, and very German from spectacles to flat buckled feet.

At the door of Percy’s suite, the Englishman paused, made a little gesture of reverence, and went in without a word.

A secretary, young Mr. Brent, lately from England, stood up as his patron came in.

“Eminence,” he said, “the English papers are come.”

Percy put out a hand, took a paper, passed on into his inner room, and sat down.

There it all was—gigantic headlines, and four columns of print broken by startling title phrases in capital letters, after the fashion set by America a hundred years ago. No better way even yet had been found of misinforming the unintelligent.

He looked at the top. It was the English edition of the Era. Then he read the headlines. They ran as follows:

“THE NATIONAL WORSHIP. BEWILDERING SPLENDOUR. RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM. THE ABBEY AND GOD. CATHOLIC FANATIC. EX-PRIESTS AS FUNCTIONARIES.”

He ran his eyes down the page, reading the vivid little phrases, and drawing from the whole a kind of impressionist view of the scenes in the Abbey on the previous day, of which he had already been informed by the telegraph, and the discussion of which had been the purpose of his interview just now with the Holy Father.

There plainly was no additional news; and he was laying the paper down when his eye caught a name.

“It is understood that Mr. Francis, the ceremoniarius (to whom the thanks of all are due for his reverent zeal and skill), will proceed shortly to the northern towns to lecture on the Ritual. It is interesting to reflect that this gentleman only a few months ago was officiating at a Catholic altar. He was assisted in his labours by twenty-four confreres with the same experience behind them.”

“Good God!” said Percy aloud. Then he laid the paper down.

But his thoughts had soon left this renegade behind, and once more he was running over in his mind the significance of the whole affair, and the advice that he had thought it his duty to give just now upstairs.

Briefly, there was no use in disputing the fact that the inauguration of

Pantheistic worship had been as stupendous a success in England as in

Germany. France, by the way, was still too busy with the cult of human

individuals, to develop larger ideas.

But England was deeper; and, somehow, in spite of prophecy, the affair had taken place without even a touch of bathos or grotesqueness. It had been said that England was too solid and too humorous. Yet there had been extraordinary scenes the day before. A great murmur of enthusiasm had rolled round the Abbey from end to end as the gorgeous curtains ran back, and the huge masculine figure, majestic and overwhelming, coloured with exquisite art, had stood out above the blaze of candles against the tall screen that shrouded the shrine. Markenheim had done his work well; and Mr. Brand’s passionate discourse had well prepared the popular mind for the revelation. He had quoted in his peroration passage after passage from the Jewish prophets, telling of the City of Peace whose walls rose now before their eyes.

“Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee…. For behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind…. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders. O thou so long afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted; behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and thy foundations with sapphires…. I will make thy windows of agates and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. Arise, shine, for thy light is come.”

As the chink of the censer-chains had sounded in the stillness, with one consent the enormous crowd had fallen on its knees, and so remained, as the smoke curled up from the hands of the rebel figure who held the thurible. Then the organ had begun to blow, and from the huge massed chorus in the transepts had rolled out the anthem, broken by one passionate cry, from some mad Catholic. But it had been silenced in an instant….

It was incredible—utterly incredible, Percy had told himself. Yet the incredible had happened; and England had found its worship once more—the necessary culmination of unimpeded subjectivity. From the provinces had come the like news. In cathedral after cathedral had been the same scenes. Markenheim’s masterpiece, executed in four days after the passing of the bill, had been reproduced by the ordinary machinery, and four thousand replicas had been despatched to every important centre. Telegraphic reports had streamed into the London papers that everywhere the new movement had been received with acclamation, and that human instincts had found adequate expression at last. If there had not been a God, mused Percy reminiscently, it would have been necessary to invent one. He was astonished, too, at the skill with which the new cult had been framed. It moved round no disputable points; there was no possibility of divergent political tendencies to mar its success, no over-insistence on citizenship, labour and the rest, for those who were secretly individualistic and idle. Life was the one fount and centre of it all, clad in the gorgeous robes of ancient worship. Of course the thought had been Felsenburgh’s, though a German name had been mentioned. It was Positivism of a kind, Catholicism without Christianity, Humanity worship without its inadequacy. It was not man that was worshipped but the Idea of man, deprived of his supernatural principle. Sacrifice, too, was recognised—the instinct of oblation without the demand made by transcendent Holiness upon the blood-guiltiness of man…. In fact,—in fact, said Percy, it was exactly as clever as the devil, and as old as Cain.

The advice he had given to the Holy Father just now was a counsel of despair, or of hope; he really did not know which. He had urged that a stringent decree should be issued, forbidding any acts of violence on the part of Catholics. The faithful were to be encouraged to be patient, to hold utterly aloof from the worship, to say nothing unless they were questioned, to suffer bonds gladly. He had suggested, in company with the German Cardinal, that they two should return to their respective countries at the close of the year, to encourage the waverers; but the answer had been that their vocation was to remain in Rome, unless something unforeseen happened.

As for Felsenburgh, there was little news. It was said that he was in the East; but further details were secret. Percy understood quite well why he had not been present at the worship as had been expected. First, it would have been difficult to decide between the two countries that had established it; and, secondly, he was too brilliant a politician to risk the possible association of failure with his own person; thirdly, there was something the matter with the East.

This last point was difficult to understand; it had not yet become explicit, but it seemed as if the movement of last year had not yet run its course. It was undoubtedly difficult to explain the new President’s constant absences from his adopted continent, unless there was something that demanded his presence elsewhere; but the extreme discretion of the East and the stringent precautions taken by the Empire made it impossible to know any details. It was apparently connected with religion; there were rumours, portents, prophets, ecstatics there.

Upon Percy himself had fallen a subtle change which he himself was recognising. He no longer soared to confidence or sank to despair. He said his mass, read his enormous correspondence, meditated strictly; and, though he felt nothing he knew everything. There was not a tinge of doubt upon his faith, but neither was there emotion in it. He was as one who laboured in the depths of the earth, crushed even in imagination, yet conscious that somewhere birds sang, and the sun shone, and water ran. He understood his own state well enough, and perceived that he had come to a reality of faith that was new to him, for it was sheer faith—sheer apprehension of the Spiritual—without either the dangers or the joys of imaginative vision. He expressed it to himself by saying that there were three processes through which God led the soul: the first was that of external faith, which assents to all things presented by the accustomed authority, practises religion, and is neither interested nor doubtful; the second follows the quickening of the emotional and perceptive powers of the soul, and is set about with consolations, desires, mystical visions and perils; it is in this plane that resolutions are taken and vocations found and shipwrecks experienced; and the third, mysterious and inexpressible, consists in the re-enactment in the purely spiritual sphere of all that has preceded (as a play follows a rehearsal), in which God is grasped but not experienced, grace is absorbed unconsciously and even distastefully, and little by little the inner spirit is conformed in the depths of its being, far within the spheres of emotion and intellectual perception, to the image and mind of Christ.

So he lay back now, thinking, a long, stately, scarlet figure, in his deep chair, staring out over Holy Rome seen through the misty September haze. How long, he wondered, would there be peace? To his eyes even already the air was black with doom.

He struck his hand-bell at last.

“Bring me Father Blackmore’s Last report,” he said, as his secretary appeared.

II

Percy’s intuitive faculties were keen by nature and had been vastly increased by cultivation. He had never forgotten Father Blackmore’s shrewd remarks of a year ago; and one of his first acts as Cardinal-Protector had been to appoint that priest on the list of English correspondents. Hitherto he had received some dozen letters, and not one of them had been without its grain of gold. Especially he had noticed that one warning ran through them all, namely, that sooner or later there would be some overt act of provocation on the part of English Catholics; and it was the memory of this that had inspired his vehement entreaties to the Pope this morning. As in the Roman and African persecutions of the first three centuries, so now, the greatest danger to the Catholic community lay not in the unjust measures of the Government but in the indiscreet zeal of the faithful themselves. The world desired nothing better than a handle to its blade. The scabbard was already cast away.

When the young man had brought the four closely written sheets, dated from Westminster, the previous evening, Percy turned at once to the last paragraph before the usual Recommendations.

“Mr. Brand’s late secretary, Mr. Phillips, whom your Eminence commended to me, has been to see me two or three times. He is in a curious state. He has no faith; yet, intellectually, he sees no hope anywhere but in the Catholic Church. He has even begged for admission to the Order of Christ Crucified, which of course is impossible. But there is no doubt he is sincere; otherwise he would have professed Catholicism. I have introduced him to many Catholics in the hope that they may help him. I should much wish your Eminence to see him.”

Before leaving England, Percy had followed up the acquaintance he had made so strangely over Mrs. Brand’s reconciliation to God, and, scarcely knowing why, had commended him to the priest. He had not been particularly impressed by Mr. Phillips; he had thought him a timid, undecided creature, yet he had been struck by the extremely unselfish action by which the man had forfeited his position. There must surely be a good deal behind.

And now the impulse had come to send for him. Perhaps the spiritual atmosphere of Rome would precipitate faith. In any case, the conversation of Mr. Brand’s late secretary might be instructive.

He struck the bell again.

“Mr. Brent,” he said, “in your next letter to Father Blackmore, tell him that I wish to see the man whom he proposed to send—Mr. Phillips.”

“Yes, Eminence.”

“There is no hurry. He can send him at his leisure.”

“Yes, Eminence.”

“But he must not come till January. That will be time enough, unless there is urgent reason.”

“Yes, Eminence.”

The development of the Order of Christ Crucified had gone forward with almost miraculous success. The appeal issued by the Holy Father throughout Christendom had been as fire among stubble. It seemed as if the Christian world had reached exactly that point of tension at which a new organisation of this nature was needed, and the response had startled even the most sanguine. Practically the whole of Rome with its suburbs—three millions in all—had run to the enrolling stations in St. Peter’s as starving men run to food, and desperate to the storming of a breach. For day after day the Pope himself had sat enthroned below the altar of the Chair, a glorious, radiant figure, growing ever white and weary towards evening, imparting his Blessing with a silent sign to each individual of the vast crowd that swarmed up between the barriers, fresh from fast and Communion, to kneel before his new Superior and kiss the Pontifical ring. The requirements had been as stringent as circumstances allowed. Each postulant was obliged to go to confession to a specially authorised priest, who examined sharply into motives and sincerity, and only one-third of the applicants had been accepted. This, the authorities pointed out to the scornful, was not an excessive proportion; for it was to be remembered that most of those who had presented themselves had already undergone a sifting fierce as fire. Of the three millions in Rome, two millions at least were exiles for their faith, preferring to live obscure and despised in the shadow of God rather than in the desolate glare of their own infidel countries.

On the fifth evening of the enrolment of novices an astonishing incident had taken place. The old King of Spain (Queen Victoria’s second son), already on the edge of the grave, had just risen and tottered before his Ruler; it seemed for an instant as if he would fall, when the Pope himself, by a sudden movement, had risen, caught him in his arms and kissed him; and then, still standing, had spread his arms abroad and delivered a fervorino such as never had been heard before in the history of the basilica.

“Benedictus Dominus!” he cried, with upraised face and shining eyes. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people. I, John, Vicar of Christ, Servant of Servants, and sinner among sinners, bid you be of good courage in the Name of God. By Him Who hung on the Cross, I promise eternal life to all who persevere in His Order. He Himself has said it. To him that overcometh I will give a crown of life.

“Little children; fear not him that killeth the body. There is no more that he can do. God and His Mother are amongst us….”

So his voice had poured on, telling the enormous awe-stricken crowd of the blood that already had been shed on the place where they stood, of the body of the Apostle that lay scarcely fifty yards away, urging, encouraging, inspiring. They had vowed themselves to death, if that were God’s Will; and if not, the intention would be taken for the deed. They were under obedience now; their wills were no longer theirs but God’s; under chastity—for their bodies were bought with a price; under poverty, and theirs was the kingdom of heaven.

He had ended by a great silent Benediction of the City and the World: and there were not wanting a half-dozen of the faithful who had seen, they thought, a white shape in the form of a bird that hung in the air while he spoke white as a mist, translucent as water….

The consequent scenes in the city and suburbs had been unparalleled, for thousands of families had with one consent dissolved human ties. Husbands had found their way to the huge houses on the Quirinal set apart for them; wives to the Aventine; while the children, as confident as their parents, had swarmed over to the Sisters of St. Vincent who had received at the Pope’s orders the gift of three streets to shelter them in. Everywhere the smoke of burning went up in the squares where household property, rendered useless by the vows of poverty, were consumed by their late owners; and daily long trains moved out from the station outside the walls carrying jubilant loads of those who were despatched by the Pope’s delegates to be the salt of men, consumed in their function, and leaven plunged in the vast measures of the infidel world. And that infidel world welcomed their coming with bitter laughter.

From the rest of Christendom had poured in news of success. The same precautions had been observed as in Rome, for the directions issued were precise and searching; and day after day came in the long rolls of the new Religious drawn up by the diocesan superiors.

Within the last few days, too, other lists had arrived, more glorious than all. Not only did reports stream in that already the Order was beginning its work and that already broken communications were being re-established, that devoted missioners were in process of organising themselves, and that hope was once more rising in the most desperate hearts; but better than all this was the tidings of victory in another sphere. In Paris forty of the new-born Order had been burned alive in one day in the Latin quarter, before the Government intervened. From Spain, Holland, Russia had come in other names. In Dusseldorf eighteen men and boys, surprised at their singing of Prime in the church of Saint Laurence, had been cast down one by one into the city-sewer, each chanting as he vanished:

“Christi Fili Dei vivi miserere nobis,”

and from the darkness had come up the same broken song till it was silenced with stones. Meanwhile, the German prisons were thronged with the first batches of recusants. The world shrugged its shoulders, and declared that they had brought it on themselves, while yet it deprecated mob-violence, and requested the attention of the authorities and the decisive repression of this new conspiracy of superstition. And within St. Peter’s Church the workmen were busy at the long rows of new altars, affixing to the stone diptychs the brass-forged names of those who had already fulfilled their vows and gained their crowns.

It was the first word of God’s reply to the world’s challenge.

As Christmas drew on it was announced that the Sovereign pontiff would sing mass on the last day of the year, at the papal altar of Saint Peter’s, on behalf of the Order; and preparations began to be made.

It was to be a kind of public inauguration of the new enterprise; and, to the astonishment of all, a special summons was issued to all members of the Sacred College throughout the world to be present, unless hindered by sickness. It seemed as if the Pope were determined that the world should understand that war was declared; for, although the command would not involve the absence of any Cardinal from his province for more than five days, yet many inconveniences must surely result. However, it had been said, and it was to be done.

It was a strange Christmas.

Percy was ordered to attend the Pope at his second mass, and himself said his three at midnight in his own private oratory. For the first time in his life he saw that of which he had heard so often, the wonderful old-world Pontifical procession, lit by torches, going through the streets from the Lateran to St. Anastasia, where the Pope for the last few years had restored the ancient custom discontinued for nearly a century-and-a-half. The little basilica was reserved, of course, in every corner for the peculiarly privileged; but the streets outside along the whole route from the Cathedral to the church—and, indeed, the other two sides of the triangle as well, were one dense mass of silent heads and flaming torches. The Holy Father was attended at the altar by the usual sovereigns; and Percy from his place watched the heavenly drama of Christ’s Passion enacted through the veil of His nativity at the hands of His old Angelic Vicar. It was hard to perceive Calvary here; it was surely the air of Bethlehem, the celestial light, not the supernatural darkness, that beamed round the simple altar. It was the Child called Wonderful that lay there beneath the old hands, rather than the stricken Man of Sorrows.

Adeste fideles sang the choir from the tribune.—Come, let us adore, rather than weep; let us exult, be content, be ourselves like little children. As He for us became a child, let us become childlike for Him. Let us put on the garments of infancy and the shoes of peace. For the Lord hath reigned; He is clothed with beauty: the Lord is clothed with strength and hath girded Himself. He hath established the world which shall not be moved: His throne is prepared from of old. He is from everlasting. Rejoice greatly then, O daughter of Zion, shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold thy King cometh, to thee, the Holy One, the Saviour of the world. It will be time, then, to suffer by and bye, when the Prince of this world cometh upon the Prince of Heaven.

So Percy mused, standing apart in his gorgeousness, striving to make himself little and simple. Surely nothing was too hard for God! Might not this mystic Birth once more do what it had done before—bring into subjection through the might of its weakness every proud thing that exalts itself above all that is called God? It had drawn wise Kings once across the desert, as well as shepherds from their flocks. It had kings about it now, kneeling with the poor and foolish, kings who had laid down their crowns, who brought the gold of loyal hearts, the myrrh of desired martyrdom, and the incense of a pure faith. Could not republics, too, lay aside their splendour, mobs be tamed, selfishness deny itself, and wisdom confess its ignorance?…

Then he remembered Felsenburgh; and his heart sickened within him.

III

Six days later, Percy rose as usual, said his mass, breakfasted, and sat down to say office until his servant should summon him to vest for the Pontifical mass.

He had learned to expect bad news now so constantly—of apostasies, deaths, losses—that the lull of the previous week had come to him with extraordinary refreshment. It appeared to him as if his musings in St. Anastasia had been truer than he thought, and that the sweetness of the old feast had not yet wholly lost its power even over a world that denied its substance. For nothing at all had happened of importance. A few more martyrdoms had been chronicled, but they had been isolated cases; and of Felsenburgh there had been no tidings at all. Europe confessed its ignorance of his business.

On the other hand, to-morrow, Percy knew very well, would be a day of extraordinary moment in England and Germany at any rate; for in England it was appointed as the first occasion of compulsory worship throughout the country, while it was the second in Germany. Men and women would have to declare themselves now.

He had seen on the previous evening a photograph of the image that was to be worshipped next day in the Abbey; and, in a fit of loathing, had torn it to shreds. It represented a nude woman, huge and majestic, entrancingly lovely, with head and shoulders thrown back, as one who sees a strange and heavenly vision, arms downstretched and hands a little raised, with wide fingers, as in astonishment—the whole attitude, with feet and knees pressed together, suggestive of expectation, hope and wonder; in devilish mockery her long hair was crowned with twelve stars. This, then, was the spouse of the other, the embodiment of man’s ideal maternity, still waiting for her child….

When the white scraps lay like poisonous snow at his feet, he had sprung across the room to his prie-dieu, and fallen there in an agony of reparation.

“Oh! Mother, Mother!” he cried to the stately Queen of Heaven who, with Her true Son long ago in Her arms, looked down on him from Her bracket—no more than that.

But he was still again this morning, and celebrated Saint Silvester, Pope and Martyr, the last saint in the procession of the Christian year, with tolerable equanimity. The sights of last night, the throng of officials, the stately, scarlet, unfamiliar figures of the Cardinals who had come in from north, south, east and west—these helped to reassure him again—unreasonably, as he knew, yet effectually. The very air was electric with expectation. All night the piazza had been crowded by a huge, silent mob waiting till the opening of the doors at seven o’clock. Now the church itself was full, and the piazza full again. Far down the street to the river, so far as he could see as he had leaned from his window just now, lay that solemn motionless pavement of heads. The roof of the colonnade showed a fringe of them, the house-tops were black—and this in the bitter cold of a clear, frosty morning, for it was announced that after mass and the proceeding of the members of the Order past the Pontifical Throne, the Pope would give Apostolic Benediction to the City and the World.

Percy finished Terce, closed his book and lay back; his servant would be here in a minute now.

His mind began to run over the function, and he reflected that the entire Sacred College (with the exception of the Cardinal-Protector of Jerusalem, detained by sickness), numbering sixty-four members, would take part. This would mean an unique sight by and bye. Eight years before, he remembered, after the freedom of Rome, there had been a similar assembly; but the Cardinals at that time amounted to no more than fifty-three all told, and four had been absent.

Then he heard voices in his ante-room, a quick step, and a loud English expostulation. That was curious, and he sat up.

Then he heard a sentence.

“His Eminence must go to vest; it is useless.”

There was a sharp answer, a faint scuffle, and a snatch at the handle. This was indecent; so Percy stood up, made three strides of it to the door, and tore it open.

A man stood there, whom at first he did not recognise, pale and disordered.

“Why—-” began Percy, and recoiled.

“Mr. Phillips!” he said.

The other threw out his hands.

“It is I, sir—your Eminence—this moment arrived. It is life and death.

Your servant tells me—-”

“Who sent you?”

“Father Blackmore.”

“Good news or bad?”

The man rolled his eyes towards the servant, who still stood erect and offended a yard away; and Percy understood.

He put his hand on the other’s arm, drawing him through the doorway.

“Tap upon this door in two minutes, James,” he said.

They passed across the polished floor together; Percy went to his usual place in the window, leaned against the shutter, and spoke.

“Tell me in one sentence, sir,” he said to the breathless man.

“There is a plot among the Catholics. They intend destroying the Abbey to-morrow with explosives. I knew that the Pope—-”

Percy cut him short with a gesture.

CHAPTER VI

I

The volor-stage was comparatively empty this afternoon, as the little party of six stepped out on to it from the lift. There was nothing to distinguish these from ordinary travellers. The two Cardinals of Germany and England were wrapped in plain furs, without insignia of any kind; their chaplains stood near them, while the two men-servants hurried forward with the bags to secure a private compartment.

The four kept complete silence, watching the busy movements of the officials on board, staring unseeingly at the sleek, polished monster that lay netted in steel at their feet, and the great folded fins that would presently be cutting the thin air at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.

Then Percy, by a sudden movement, turned from the others, went to the open window that looked over Rome, and leaned there with his elbows on the sill, looking.

It was a strange view before him.

It was darkening now towards sunset, and the sky, primrose-green overhead, deepened to a clear tawny orange above the horizon, with a sanguine line or two at the edge, and beneath that lay the deep evening violet of the city, blotted here and there by the black of cypresses and cut by the thin leafless pinnacles of a poplar grove that aspired without the walls. But right across the picture rose the enormous dome, of an indescribable tint; it was grey, it was violet—it was what the eye chose to make it—and through it, giving its solidity the air of a bubble, shone the southern sky, flushed too with faint orange. It was this that was supreme and dominant; the serrated line of domes, spires and pinnacles, the crowded roofs beneath, in the valley dell’ Inferno, the fairy hills far away—all were but the annexe to this mighty tabernacle of God. Already lights were beginning to shine, as for thirty centuries they had shone; thin straight skeins of smoke were ascending against the darkening sky. The hum of this Mother of cities was beginning to be still, for the keen air kept folks indoors; and the evening peace was descending that closed another day and another year. Beneath in the narrow streets Percy could see tiny figures, hurrying like belated ants; the crack of a whip, the cry of a woman, the wail of a child came up to this immense elevation like details of a murmur from another world. They, too, would soon be quiet, and there would be peace.

A heavy bell beat faintly from far away, and the drowsy city turned to murmur its good-night to the Mother of God. From a thousand towers came the tiny melody, floating across the great air spaces, in a thousand accents, the solemn bass of St. Peter’s, the mellow tenor of the Lateran, the rough cry from some old slum church, the peevish tinkle of convents and chapels—all softened and made mystical in this grave evening air—it was the wedding of delicate sound and clear light. Above, the liquid orange sky; beneath, this sweet, subdued ecstasy of bells.

“Alma Redemptoris Mater,” whispered Percy, his eyes wet with tears. “_Gentle Mother of the Redeemer—the open door of the sky, star of the sea—have mercy on sinners. The Angel of the Lord announced it to Mary, and she conceived of the Holy Ghost…. Pour, therefore, Lord, Thy grace into our hearts. Let us, who know Christ’s incarnation, rise through passion and cross to the glory of Resurrection—through the same Christ our Lord.”

Another bell clanged sharply close at hand, calling him down to earth, and wrong, and labour and grief; and he turned to see the motionless volor itself one blaze of brilliant internal light, and the two priests following the German Cardinal across the gangway.

It was the rear compartment that the men had taken; and when he had seen that the old man was comfortable, still without a word he passed out again into the central passage to see the last of Rome.

The exit-door had now been snapped, and as Percy stood at the opposite window looking out at the high wall that would presently sink beneath him, throughout the whole of the delicate frame began to run the vibration of the electric engine. There was the murmur of talking somewhere, a heavy step shook the floor, a bell clanged again, twice, and a sweet wind-chord sounded. Again it sounded; the vibration ceased, and the edge of the high wall against the tawny sky on which he had fixed his eyes sank suddenly like a dropped bar, and he staggered a little in his place. A moment later the dome rose again, and itself sank, the city, a fringe of towers and a mass of dark roofs, pricked with light, span like a whirlpool; the jewelled stars themselves sprang this way and that; and with one more long cry the marvellous machine righted itself, beat with its wings, and settled down, with the note of the flying air passing through rising shrillness into vibrant silence, to its long voyage to the north.

Further and further sank the city behind; it was a patch now: greyness on black. The sky seemed to grow more huge and all-containing as the earth relapsed into darkness; it glowed like a vast dome of wonderful glass, darkening even as it glowed; and as Percy dropped his eyes once more round the extreme edge of the car the city was but a line and a bubble—a line and a swelling—a line, and nothingness.

He drew a long breath, and went back to his friends.

II

“Tell me again,” said the old Cardinal, when the two were settled down opposite to one another, and the chaplains were gone to another compartment. “Who is this man?”

“This man? He was secretary to Oliver Brand, one of our politicians. He fetched me to old Mrs. Brand’s death bed, and lost his place in consequence. He is in journalism now. He is perfectly honest. No, he is not a Catholic, though he longs to be one. That is why they confided in him.”

“And they?”

“I know nothing of them, except that they are a desperate set. They have enough faith to act, but not enough to be patient…. I suppose they thought this man would sympathise. But unfortunately he has a conscience, and he also sees that any attempt of this kind would be the last straw on the back of toleration. Eminence, do you realise how violent the feeling is against us?”

The old man shook his head lamentably.

“Do I not?” he murmured. “And my Germans are in it? Are you sure?”

“Eminence, it is a vast plot. It has been simmering for months. There have been meetings every week. They have kept the secret marvellously. Your Germans only delayed that the blow might be more complete. And now, to-morrow—-” Percy drew back with a despairing gesture.

“And the Holy Father?”

“I went to him as soon as mass was over. He withdrew all opposition, and sent for you. It is our one chance, Eminence.”

“And you think our plan will hinder it?”

“I have no idea, but I can think of nothing else. I shall go straight to the Archbishop and tell him all. We arrive, I believe, at three o’clock, and you in Berlin about seven, I suppose, by German time. The function is fixed for eleven. By eleven, then, we shall have done all that is possible. The Government will know, and they will know, too, that we are innocent in Rome. I imagine they will cause it to be announced that the Cardinal-Protector and the Archbishop, with his coadjutors, will be present in the sacristies. They will double every guard; they will parade volors overhead—and then—well! in God’s hands be the rest.”

“Do you think the conspirators will attempt it?”

“I have no idea,” said Percy shortly.

“I understand they have alternative plans.”

“Just so. If all is clear, they intend dropping the explosive from above; if not, at least three men have offered to sacrifice themselves by taking it into the Abbey themselves…. And you, Eminence?”

The old man eyed him steadily.

“My programme is yours,” he said. “Eminence, have you considered the effect in either case? If nothing happens—-”

“If nothing happens we shall be accused of a fraud, of seeking to advertise ourselves. If anything happens—well, we shall all go before God together. Pray God it may be the second,” he added passionately.

“It will be at least easier to bear,” observed the old man.

“I beg your pardon, Eminence. I should not have said that.”

There fell a silence between the two, in which no sound was heard but the faint untiring vibration of the screw, and the sudden cough of a man in the next compartment. Percy leaned his head wearily on his hand, and stared from the window.

The earth was now dark beneath them—an immense emptiness; above, the huge engulfing sky was still faintly luminous, and through the high frosty mist through which they moved stars glimmered now and again, as the car swayed and tacked across the wind.

“It will be cold among the Alps,” murmured Percy. Then he broke off. “And I have not one shred of evidence,” he said; “nothing but the word of a man.”

“And you are sure?”

“I am sure.”

“Eminence,” said the German suddenly, staring straight into his face, “the likeness is extraordinary.”

Percy smiled listlessly. He was tired of bearing that.

“What do you make of it?” persisted the other.

“I have been asked that before,” said Percy. “I have no views.”

“It seems to me that God means something,” murmured the German heavily, still staring at him.

“Well, Eminence?”

“A kind of antithesis—a reverse of the medal. I do not know.”

Again there was silence. A chaplain looked in through the glazed door, a homely, blue-eyed German, and was waved away once more.

“Eminence,” said the old man abruptly, “there is surely more to speak of. Plans to be made.”

Percy shook his head.

“There are no plans to be made,” he said. “We know nothing but the fact—no names—nothing. We—we are like children in a tiger’s cage. And one of us has just made a gesture in the tiger’s face.”

“I suppose we shall communicate with one another?”

“If we are in existence.”

It was curious how Percy took the lead. He had worn his scarlet for about three months, and his companion for twelve years; yet it was the younger who dictated plans and arranged. He was scarcely conscious of its strangeness, however. Ever since the shocking news of the morning, when a new mine had been sprung under the shaking Church, and he had watched the stately ceremonial, the gorgeous splendour, the dignified, tranquil movements of the Pope and his court, with a secret that burned his heart and brain—above all, since that quick interview in which old plans had been reversed and a startling decision formed, and a blessing given and received, and a farewell looked not uttered—all done in half-an-hour—his whole nature had concentrated itself into one keen tense force, like a coiled spring. He felt power tingling to his finger-tips—power and the dulness of an immense despair. Every prop had been cut, every brace severed; he, the City of Rome, the Catholic Church, the very supernatural itself, seemed to hang now on one single thing—the Finger of God. And if that failed—well, nothing would ever matter any more….

He was going now to one of two things—ignominy or death. There was no third thing—unless, indeed, the conspirators were actually taken with their instruments upon them. But that was impossible. Either they would refrain, knowing that God’s ministers would fall with them, and in that case there would be the ignominy of a detected fraud, of a miserable attempt to win credit. Or they would not refrain; they would count the death of a Cardinal and a few bishops a cheap price to pay for revenge—and in that case well, there was Death and Judgment. But Percy had ceased to fear. No ignominy could be greater than that which he already bore—the ignominy of loneliness and discredit. And death could be nothing but sweet—it would at least be knowledge and rest. He was willing to risk all on God.

The other, with a little gesture of apology, took out his office book presently, and began to read.

Percy looked at him with an immense envy. Ah! if only he were as old as that! He could bear a year or two more of this misery, but not fifty years, he thought. It was an almost endless vista that (even if things went well) opened before him, of continual strife, self-repression, energy, misrepresentation from his enemies. The Church was sinking further every day. What if this new spasm of fervour were no more than the dying flare of faith? How could he bear that? He would have to see the tide of atheism rise higher and more triumphant every day; Felsenburgh had given it an impetus of whose end there was no prophesying. Never before had a single man wielded the full power of democracy. Then once more he looked forward to the morrow. Oh! if it could but end in death!… Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur! …

It was no good; it was cowardly to think in this fashion. After all, God was God—He takes up the isles as a very little thing.

Percy took out his office book, found Prime and St. Sylvester, signed himself with the cross, and began to pray. A minute later the two chaplains slipped in once more, and sat down; and all was silent, save for that throb of the screw, and the strange whispering rush of air outside.

III

It was about nineteen o’clock that the ruddy English conductor looked in at the doorway, waking Percy from his doze.

“Dinner will be served in half-an-hour, gentlemen,” he said (speaking

Esperanto, as the rule was on international cars). “We do not stop at

Turin to-night.”

He shut the door and went out, and the sound of closing doors came down the corridor as he made the same announcement to each compartment.

There were no passengers to descend at Turin, then, reflected Percy; and no doubt a wireless message had been received that there were none to come on board either. That was good news: it would give him more time in London. It might even enable Cardinal Steinmann to catch an earlier volor from Paris to Berlin; but he was not sure bow they ran. It was a pity that the German had not been able to catch the thirteen o’clock from Rome to Berlin direct. So he calculated, in a kind of superficial insensibility.

He stood up presently to stretch himself. Then he passed out and along the corridor to the lavatory to wash his hands.

He became fascinated by the view as he stood before the basin at the rear of the car, for even now they were passing over Turin. It was a blur of light, vivid and beautiful, that shone beneath him in the midst of this gulf of darkness, sweeping away southwards into the gloom as the car sped on towards the Alps. How little, he thought, seemed this great city seen from above; and yet, how mighty it was! It was from that glimmer, already five miles behind, that Italy was controlled; in one of these dolls’ houses of which he had caught but a glimpse, men sat in council over souls and bodies, and abolished God, and smiled at His Church. And God allowed it all, and made no sign. It was there that Felsenburgh bad been, a month or two ago—Felsenburgh, his double! And again the mental sword tore and stabbed at his heart.

A few minutes later, the four ecclesiastics were sitting at their round table in a little screened compartment of the dining-room in the bows of the air-ship. It was an excellent dinner, served, as usual, from the kitchen in the bowels of the volor, and rose, course by course, with a smooth click, into the centre of the table. There was a bottle of red wine to each diner, and both table and chairs swung easily to the very slight motion of the ship. But they did not talk much, for there was only one subject possible to the two cardinals, and the chaplains had not yet been admitted into the full secret.

It was growing cold now, and even the hot-air foot-rests did not quite compensate for the deathly iciness of the breath that began to stream down from the Alps, which the ship was now approaching at a slight incline. It was necessary to rise at least nine thousand feet from the usual level, in order to pass the frontier of the Mont Cenis at a safe angle; and at the same time it was necessary to go a little slower over the Alps themselves, owing to the extreme rarity of the air, and the difficulty in causing the screw to revolve sufficiently quickly to counteract it.

“There will be clouds to-night,” said a voice clear and distinct from the passage, as the door swung slightly to a movement of the car.

Percy got up and closed it.

The German Cardinal began to grow a little fidgety towards the end of dinner.

“I shall go back,” he said at last. “I shall be better in my fur rug.”

His chaplain dutifully went after him, leaving his own dinner unfinished, and Percy was left alone with Father Corkran, his English chaplain lately from Scotland.

He finished his wine, ate a couple of figs, and then sat staring out through the plate-glass window in front.

“Ah!” he said. “Excuse me, father. There are the Alps at last.”

The front of the car consisted of three divisions, in the centre of one of which stood the steersman, his eyes looking straight ahead, and his hands upon the wheel. On either side of him, separated from him by aluminium walls, was contrived a narrow slip of a compartment, with a long curved window at the height of a man’s eyes, through which a magnificent view could be obtained. It was to one of these that Percy went, passing along the corridor, and seeing through half-opened doors other parties still over their wine. He pushed the spring door on the left and went through.

He had crossed the Alps three times before in his life, and well remembered the extraordinary effect they had had on him, especially as he had once seen them from a great altitude upon a clear day—an eternal, immeasurable sea of white ice, broken by hummocks and wrinkles that from below were soaring peaks named and reverenced; and, beyond, the spherical curve of the earth’s edge that dropped in a haze of air into unutterable space. But this time they seemed more amazing than ever, and he looked out on them with the interest of a sick child.

The car was now ascending; rapidly towards the pass up across the huge tumbled slopes, ravines, and cliffs that lie like outworks of the enormous wall. Seen from this great height they were in themselves comparatively insignificant, but they at least suggested the vastness of the bastions of which they were no more than buttresses. As Percy turned, he could see the moonless sky alight with frosty stars, and the dimness of the illumination made the scene even more impressive; but as he turned again, there was a change. The vast air about him seemed now to be perceived through frosted glass. The velvet blackness of the pine forests had faded to heavy grey, the pale glint of water and ice seen and gone again in a moment, the monstrous nakedness of rock spires and slopes, rising towards him and sliding away again beneath with a crawling motion—all these had lost their distinctness of outline, and were veiled in invisible white. As he looked yet higher to right and left the sight became terrifying, for the giant walls of rock rushing towards him, the huge grotesque shapes towering on all sides, ran upward into a curtain of cloud visible only from the dancing radiance thrown upon it by the brilliantly lighted car. Even as he looked, two straight fingers of splendour, resembling horns, shot out, as the bow searchlights were turned on; and the car itself, already travelling at half-speed, dropped to quarter-speed, and began to sway softly from side to side as the huge air-planes beat the mist through which they moved, and the antennae of light pierced it. Still up they went, and on—yet swift enough to let Percy see one great pinnacle rear itself, elongate, sink down into a cruel needle, and vanish into nothingness a thousand feet below. The motion grew yet more nauseous, as the car moved up at a sharp angle preserving its level, simultaneously rising, advancing and swaying. Once, hoarse and sonorous, an unfrozen torrent roared like a beast, it seemed within twenty yards, and was dumb again on the instant. Now, too, the horns began to cry, long, lamentable hootings, ringing sadly in that echoing desolation like the wail of wandering souls; and as Percy, awed beyond feeling, wiped the gathering moisture from the glass, and stared again, it appeared as if he floated now, motionless except for the slight rocking beneath his feet, in a world of whiteness, as remote from earth as from heaven, poised in hopeless infinite space, blind, alone, frozen, lost in a white hell of desolation.

Once, as he stared, a huge whiteness moved towards him through the veil, slid slowly sideways and down, disclosing, as the car veered, a gigantic slope smooth as oil, with one cluster of black rock cutting it like the fingers of a man’s hand groping from a mountainous wave.

Then, as once more the car cried aloud like a lost sheep, there answered it, it seemed scarcely ten yards away, first one windy scream of dismay, another and another; a clang of bells, a chorus broke out; and the air was full of the beating of wings.

IV

There was one horrible instant before a clang of a bell, the answering scream, and a whirling motion showed that the steersman was alert. Then like a stone the car dropped, and Percy clutched at the rail before him to steady the terrible sensation of falling into emptiness. He could hear behind him the crash of crockery, the bumping of heavy bodies, and as the car again checked on its wide wings, a rush of footsteps broke out and a cry or two of dismay. Outside, but high and far away, the hooting went on; the air was full of it, and in a flash he recognised that it could not be one or ten or twenty cars, but at least a hundred that had answered the call, and that somewhere overhead were hooting and flapping. The invisible ravines and cliffs on all sides took up the crying; long wails whooped and moaned and died amid a clash of bells, further and further every instant, but now in every direction, behind, above, in front, and far to right and left. Once more the car began to move, sinking in a long still curve towards the face of the mountain; and as it checked, and began to sway again on its huge wings, he turned to the door, seeing as he did so, through the cloudy windows in the glow of light, a spire of rock not thirty feet below rising from the mist, and one smooth shoulder of snow curving away into invisibility.

Within, the car shewed brutal signs of the sudden check: the doors of the dining compartments, as he passed along, were flung wide; glasses, plates, pools of wine and tumbled fruit rolled to and fro on the heaving floors; one man, sitting helplessly on the ground, rolled vacant, terrified eyes upon the priest. He glanced in at the door through which he had come just now, and Father Corkran staggered up from his seat and came towards him, reeling at the motion underfoot; simultaneously there was a rush from the opposite door, where a party of Americans had been dining; and as Percy, beckoning with his head, turned again to go down to the stern-end of the ship, he found the narrow passage blocked with the crowd that had run out. A babble of talking and cries made questions impossible; and Percy, with his chaplain behind him, gripped the aluminium panelling, and step by step began to make his way in search of his friends.

Half-way down the passage, as he pushed and struggled, a voice made itself heard above the din; and in the momentary silence that followed, again sounded the far-away crying of the volors overhead.

“Seats, gentlemen, seats,” roared the voice. “We are moving immediately.”

Then the crowd melted as the conductor came through, red-faced and determined, and Percy, springing into his wake, found his way clear to the stern.

The Cardinal seemed none the worse. He had been asleep, he explained, and saved himself in time from rolling on to the floor; but his old face twitched as he talked.

“But what is it?” he said. “What is the meaning?”

Father Bechlin related how he had actually seen one of the troop of volors within five yards of the window; it was crowded with faces, he said, from stem to stern. Then it had soared suddenly, and vanished in whorls of mist.

Percy shook his head, saying nothing. He had no explanation.

“They are inquiring, I understand,” said Father Bechlin again. “The conductor was at his instrument just now.”

There was nothing to be seen from the windows now. Only, as Percy stared out, still dazed with the shock, he saw the cruel needle of rock wavering beneath as if seen through water, and the huge shoulder of snow swaying softly up and down. It was quieter outside. It appeared that the flock had passed, only somewhere from an infinite height still sounded a fitful wailing, as if a lonely bird were wandering, lost in space.

“That is the signalling volor,” murmured Percy to himself.

He had no theory—no suggestion. Yet the matter seemed an ominous one. It was unheard of that an encounter with a hundred volors should take place, and he wondered why they were going southwards. Again the name of Felsenburgh came to his mind. What if that sinister man were still somewhere overhead?

“Eminence,” began the old man again. But at that instant the car began to move.

A bell clanged, a vibration tingled underfoot, and then, soft as a flake of snow, the great ship began to rise, its movement perceptible only by the sudden drop and vanishing of the spire of rock at which Percy still stared. Slowly the snowfield too began to flit downwards, a black cleft, whisked smoothly into sight from above, and disappeared again below, and a moment later once more the car seemed poised in white space as it climbed the slope of air down which it had dropped just now. Again the wind-chord rent the atmosphere; and this time the answer was as faint and distant as a cry from another world. The speed quickened, and the steady throb of the screw began to replace the swaying motion of the wings. Again came the hoot, wild and echoing through the barren wilderness of rock walls beneath, and again with a sudden impulse the car soared. It was going in great circles now, cautious as a cat, climbing, climbing, punctuating the ascent with cry after cry, searching the blind air for dangers. Once again a vast white slope came into sight, illuminated by the glare from the windows, sinking ever more and more swiftly, receding and approaching—until for one instant a jagged line of rocks grinned like teeth through the mist, dropped away and vanished, and with a clash of bells, and a last scream of warning, the throb of the screw passed from a whirr to a rising note, and the note to stillness, as the huge ship, clear at last of the frontier peaks, shook out her wings steady once more, and set out for her humming flight through space…. Whatever it was, was behind them now, vanished into the thick night.

There was a sound of talking from the interior of the car, hasty, breathless voices, questioning, exclaiming, and the authoritative terse answer of the guard. A step came along outside, and Percy sprang to meet it, but, as he laid his hand on the door, it was pushed from without, and to his astonishment the English guard came straight through, closing it behind him.

He stood there, looking strangely at the four priests, with compressed lips and anxious eyes.

“Well?” cried Percy.

“All right, gentlemen. But I’m thinking you’d better descend at Paris. I know who you are, gentlemen—and though I’m not a Catholic—-”

He stopped again.

“For God’s sake, man—-” began Percy.

“Oh! the news, gentlemen. Well, it was two hundred cars going to Rome.

There is a Catholic plot, sir, discovered in London—-”

“Well?”

“To wipe out the Abbey. So they’re going—-”

“Ah!”

“Yes, sir—to wipe out Rome.”

Then he was gone again.

CHAPTER VII

I

It was nearly sixteen o’clock on the same day, the last day of the year, that Mabel went into the little church that stood in the street beneath her house.

The dark was falling softly layer on layer; across the roofs to westward burned the smouldering fire of the winter sunset, and the interior was full of the dying light. She had slept a little in her chair that afternoon, and had awakened with that strange cleansed sense of spirit and mind that sometimes follows such sleep. She wondered later how she could have slept at such a time, and above all, how it was that she had perceived nothing of that cloud of fear and fury that even now was falling over town and country alike. She remembered afterwards an unusual busy-ness on the broad tracks beneath her as she had looked out on them from her windows, and an unusual calling of horns and whistles; but she thought nothing of it, and passed down an hour later for a meditation in the church.

She had grown to love the quiet place, and came in often like this to steady her thoughts and concentrate them on the significance that lay beneath the surface of life—the huge principles upon which all lived, and which so plainly were the true realities. Indeed, such devotion was becoming almost recognised among certain classes of people. Addresses were delivered now and then; little books were being published as guides to the interior life, curiously resembling the old Catholic books on mental prayer.

She went to-day to her usual seat, sat down, folded her hands, looked for a minute or two upon the old stone sanctuary, the white image and the darkening window. Then she closed her eyes and began to think, according to the method she followed.

First she concentrated her attention on herself, detaching it from all that was merely external and transitory, withdrawing it inwards … inwards, until she found that secret spark which, beneath all frailties and activities, made her a substantial member of the divine race of humankind.

This then was the first step.

The second consisted in an act of the intellect, followed by one of the imagination. All men possessed that spark, she considered…. Then she sent out her powers, sweeping with the eyes of her mind the seething world, seeing beneath the light and dark of the two hemispheres, the countless millions of mankind—children coming into the world, old men leaving it, the mature rejoicing in it and their own strength. Back through the ages she looked, through those centuries of crime and blindness, as the race rose through savagery and superstition to a knowledge of themselves; on through the ages yet to come, as generation followed generation to some climax whose perfection, she told herself, she could not fully comprehend because she was not of it. Yet, she told herself again, that climax had already been born; the birthpangs were over; for had not He come who was the heir of time?…

Then by a third and vivid act she realised the unity of all, the central fire of which each spark was but a radiation—that vast passionless divine being, realising Himself up through these centuries, one yet many, Him whom men had called God, now no longer unknown, but recognised as the transcendent total of themselves—Him who now, with the coming of the new Saviour, had stirred and awakened and shown Himself as One.

And there she stayed, contemplating the vision of her mind, detaching now this virtue, now that for particular assimilation, dwelling on her deficiencies, seeing in the whole the fulfilment of all aspirations, the sum of all for which men had hoped—that Spirit of Peace, so long hindered yet generated too perpetually by the passions of the world, forced into outline and being by the energy of individual lives, realising itself in pulse after pulse, dominant at last, serene, manifest, and triumphant. There she stayed, losing the sense of individuality, merging it by a long sustained effort of the will, drinking, as she thought, long breaths of the spirit of life and love….

Some sound, she supposed afterwards, disturbed her, and she opened her eyes; and there before her lay the quiet pavement, glimmering through the dusk, the step of the sanctuary, the rostrum on the right, and the peaceful space of darkening air above the white Mother-figure and against the tracery of the old window. It was here that men had worshipped Jesus, that blood-stained Man of Sorrow, who had borne, even on His own confession, not peace but a sword. Yet they had knelt, those blind and hopeless Christians…. Ah! the pathos of it all, the despairing acceptance of any creed that would account for sorrow, the wild worship of any God who had claimed to bear it!

And again came the sound, striking across her peace, though as yet she did not understand why.

It was nearer now; and she turned in astonishment to look down the dusky nave.

It was from without that the sound had come, that strange murmur, that rose and fell again as she listened.

She stood up, her heart quickening a little—only once before had she heard such a sound, once before, in a square, where men raged about a point beneath a platform….

She stepped swiftly out of her seat, passed down the aisle, drew back the curtains beneath the west window, lifted the latch and stepped out.

The street, from where she looked over the railings that barred the entrance to the church, seemed unusually empty and dark. To right and left stretched the houses, overhead the darkening sky was flushed with rose; but it seemed as if the public lights had been forgotten. There was not a living being to be seen.

She had put her hand on the latch of the gate, to open it and go out, when a sudden patter of footsteps made her hesitate; and the next instant a child appeared panting, breathless and terrified, running with her hands before her.

“They’re coming, they’re coming,” sobbed the child, seeing the face looking at her. Then she clung to the bars, staring over her shoulder.

Mabel lifted the latch in an instant; the child sprang in, ran to the door and beat against it, then turning, seized her dress and cowered against her. Mabel shut the gate.

“There, there,” she said. “Who is it? Who are coming?”

But the child hid her face, drawing at the kindly skirts; and the next moment came the roar of voices and the trampling of footsteps.

It was not more than a few seconds before the heralds of that grim procession came past. First came a flying squadron of children, laughing, terrified, fascinated, screaming, turning their heads as they ran, with a dog or two yelping among them, and a few women drifting sideways along the pavements. A face of a man, Mabel saw as she glanced in terror upwards, had appeared at the windows opposite, pale and eager—some invalid no doubt dragging himself to see. One group—a well-dressed man in grey, a couple of women carrying babies, a solemn-faced boy—halted immediately before her on the other side of the railings, all talking, none listening, and these too turned their faces to the road on the left, up which every instant the clamour and trampling grew. Yet she could not ask. Her lips moved; but no sound came from them. She was one incarnate apprehension. Across her intense fixity moved pictures of no importance of Oliver as he had been at breakfast, of her own bedroom with its softened paper, of the dark sanctuary and the white figure on which she had looked just now.

They were coming thicker now; a troop of young men with their arms linked swayed into sight, all talking or crying aloud, none listening—all across the roadway, and behind them surged the crowd, like a wave in a stone-fenced channel, male scarcely distinguishable from female in that pack of faces, and under that sky that grew darker every instant. Except for the noise, which Mabel now hardly noticed, so thick and incessant it was, so complete her concentration in the sense of sight—except for that, it might have been, from its suddenness and overwhelming force, some mob of phantoms trooping on a sudden out of some vista of the spiritual world visible across an open space, and about to vanish again in obscurity. That empty street was full now on this side and that so far as she could see; the young men were gone—running or walking she hardly knew—round the corner to the right, and the entire space was one stream of heads and faces, pressing so fiercely that the group at the railings were detached like weeds and drifted too, sideways, clutching at the bars, and swept away too and vanished. And all the while the child tugged and tore at her skirts.

Certain things began to appear now above the heads of the crowd—objects she could not distinguish in the failing light—poles, and fantastic shapes, fragments of stuff resembling banners, moving as if alive, turning from side to side, borne from beneath.

Faces, distorted with passion, looked at her from time to time as the moving show went past, open mouths cried at her; but she hardly saw them. She was watching those strange emblems, straining her eyes through the dusk, striving to distinguish the battered broken shapes, half-guessing, yet afraid to guess.

Then, on a sudden, from the hidden lamps beneath the eaves, light leaped into being—that strong, sweet, familiar light, generated by the great engines underground that, in the passion of that catastrophic day, all men had forgotten; and in a moment all changed from a mob of phantoms and shapes into a pitiless reality of life and death.

Before her moved a great rood, with a figure upon it, of which one arm hung from the nailed hand, swinging as it went; an embroidery streamed behind with the swiftness of the motion.

And next after it came the naked body of a child, impaled, white and ruddy, the head fallen upon the breast, and the arms, too, dangling and turning.

And next the figure of a man, hanging by the neck, dressed, it seemed, in a kind of black gown and cape, with its black-capped head twisting from the twisting rope.

II

The same night Oliver Brand came home about an hour before midnight.

For himself, what he had heard and seen that day was still too vivid and too imminent for him to judge of it coolly. He had seen, from his windows in Whitehall, Parliament Square filled with a mob the like of which had not been known in England since the days of Christianity—a mob full of a fury that could scarcely draw its origin except from sources beyond the reach of sense. Thrice during the hours that followed the publication of the Catholic plot and the outbreak of mob-law he had communicated with the Prime Minister asking whether nothing could be done to allay the tumult; and on both occasions he had received the doubtful answer that what could be done would be done, that force was inadmissible at present; but that the police were doing all that was possible.

As regarded the despatch of the volors to Rome, he had assented by silence, as had the rest of the Council. That was, Snowford had said, a judicial punitive act, regrettable but necessary. Peace, in this instance, could not be secured except on terms of war—or rather, since war was obsolete—by the sternness of justice. These Catholics had shown themselves the avowed enemies of society; very well, then society must defend itself, at least this once. Man was still human. And Oliver had listened and said nothing.

As he passed in one of the Government volors over London on his way home, he had caught more than one glimpse of what was proceeding beneath him. The streets were as bright as day, shadowless and clear in the white light, and every roadway was a crawling serpent. From beneath rose up a steady roar of voices, soft and woolly, punctuated by cries. From here and there ascended the smoke of burning; and once, as he flitted over one of the great squares to the south of Battersea, he had seen as it were a scattered squadron of ants running as if in fear or pursuit…. He knew what was happening…. Well, after all, man was not yet perfectly civilised.

He did not like to think of what awaited him at home. Once, about five hours earlier, he had listened to his wife’s voice through the telephone, and what he had heard had nearly caused him to leave all and go to her. Yet he was scarcely prepared for what he found.

As he came into the sitting-room, there was no sound, except that far-away hum from the seething streets below. The room seemed strangely dark and cold; the only light that entered was through one of the windows from which the curtains were withdrawn, and, silhouetted against the luminous sky beyond, was the upright figure of a woman, looking and listening….

He pressed the knob of the electric light; and Mabel turned slowly towards him. She was in her day-dress, with a cloak thrown over her shoulders, and her face was almost as that of a stranger. It was perfectly colourless, her lips were compressed and her eyes full of an emotion which he could not interpret. It might equally have been anger, terror or misery.

She stood there in the steady light, motionless, looking at him.

For a moment he did not trust himself to speak. He passed across to the window, closed it and drew the curtains. Then he took that rigid figure gently by the arm.

“Mabel,” he said, “Mabel.”

She submitted to be drawn towards the sofa, but there was no response to his touch. He sat down and looked up at her with a kind of despairing apprehension.

“My dear, I am tired out,” he said.

Still she looked at him. There was in her pose that rigidity that actors simulate; yet he knew it for the real thing. He had seen that silence once or twice before in the presence of a horror—once at any rate, at the sight of a splash of blood on her shoe.

“Well, my darling, sit down, at least,” he said.

She obeyed him mechanically—sat, and still stared at him. In the silence once more that soft roar rose and died from the invisible world of tumult outside the windows. Within here all was quiet. He knew perfectly that two things strove within her, her loyalty to her faith and her hatred of those crimes in the name of justice. As he looked on her he saw that these two were at death grips, that hatred was prevailing, and that she herself was little more than a passive battlefield. Then, as with a long-drawn howl of a wolf, there surged and sank the voices of the mob a mile away, the tension broke…. She threw herself forward towards him, he caught her by the wrists, and so she rested, clasped in his arms, her face and bosom on his knees, and her whole body torn by emotion.

For a full minute neither spoke. Oliver understood well enough, yet at present he had no words. He only drew her a little closer to himself, kissed her hair two or three times, and settled himself to hold her. He began to rehearse what he must say presently.

Then she raised her flushed face for an instant, looked at him passionately, dropped her head again and began to sob out broken words.

He could only catch a sentence here and there, yet he knew what she was saying….

It was the ruin of all her hopes, she sobbed, the end of her religion. Let her die, die and have done with it! It was all gone, gone, swept away in this murderous passion of the people of her faith … they were no better than Christians, after all, as fierce as the men on whom they avenged themselves, as dark as though the Saviour, Julian, had never come; it was all lost … War and Passion and Murder had returned to the body from which she had thought them gone forever…. The burning churches, the hunted Catholics, the raging of the streets on which she had looked that day, the bodies of the child and the priest carried on poles, the burning churches and convents. … All streamed out, incoherent, broken by sobs, details of horror, lamentations, reproaches, interpreted by the writhing of her head and hands upon his knees. The collapse was complete.

He put his hands again beneath her arms and raised her. He was worn out by his work, yet he knew he must quiet her. This was more serious than any previous crisis. Yet he knew her power of recovery.

“Sit down, my darling,” he said. “There … give me your hands. Now listen to me.”

He made really an admirable defence, for it was what he had been repeating to himself all day. Men were not yet perfect, he said; there ran in their veins the blood of men who for twenty centuries had been Christians…. There must be no despair; faith in man was of the very essence of religion, faith in man’s best self, in what he would become, not in what at present he actually was. They were at the beginning of the new religion, not in its maturity; there must be sourness in the young fruit. … Consider, too, the provocation! Remember the appalling crime that these Catholics had contemplated; they had set themselves to strike the new Faith in its very heart….

“My darling,” he said, “men are not changed in an instant. What if those Christians had succeeded!… I condemn it all as strongly as you. I saw a couple of newspapers this afternoon that are as wicked as anything that the Christians have ever done. They exulted in all these crimes. It will throw the movement back ten years…. Do you think that there are not thousands like yourself who hate and detest this violence?… But what does faith mean, except that we know that mercy will prevail? Faith, patience and hope—these are our weapons.”

He spoke with passionate conviction, his eyes fixed on hers, in a fierce endeavour to give her his own confidence, and to reassure the remnants of his own doubtfulness. It was true that he too hated what she hated, yet he saw things that she did not…. Well, well, he told himself, he must remember that she was a woman.

The look of frantic horror passed slowly out of her eyes, giving way to acute misery as he talked, and as his personality once more began to dominate her own. But it was not yet over.

“But the volors,” she cried, “the volors! That is deliberate; that is not the work of the mob.”

“My darling, it is no more deliberate than the other. We are all human, we are all immature. Yes, the Council permitted it, … permitted it, remember. The German Government, too, had to yield. We must tame nature slowly, we must not break it.”

He talked again for a few minutes, repeating his arguments, soothing, reassuring, encouraging; and he saw that he was beginning to prevail. But she returned to one of his words.

“Permitted it! And you permitted it.”

“Dear; I said nothing, either for it or against. I tell you that if we had forbidden it there would have been yet more murder, and the people would have lost their rulers. We were passive, since we could do nothing.”

“Ah! but it would have been better to die…. Oh, Oliver, let me die at least! I cannot bear it.”

By her hands which he still held he drew her nearer yet to himself.

“Sweetheart,” he said gravely, “cannot you trust me a little? If I could tell you all that passed to-day, you would understand. But trust me that I am not heartless. And what of Julian Felsenburgh?”

For a moment he saw hesitation in her eyes; her loyalty to him and her loathing of all that had happened strove within her. Then once again loyalty prevailed, the name of Felsenburgh weighed down the balance, and trust came back with a flood of tears.

“Oh, Oliver,” she said, “I know I trust you. But I am so weak, and all is so terrible. And He so strong and merciful. And will He be with us to-morrow?”

It struck midnight from the clock-tower a mile away as they yet sat and talked. She was still tremulous from the struggle; but she looked at him smiling, still holding his hands. He saw that the reaction was upon her in full force at last.

“The New Year, my husband,” she said, and rose as she said it, drawing him after her.

“I wish you a happy New Year,” she said. “Oh help me, Oliver.”

She kissed him, and drew back, still holding his hands, looking at him with bright tearful eyes.

“Oliver,” she cried again, “I must tell you this…. Do you know what I thought before you came?”

He shook his head, staring at her greedily. How sweet she was! He felt her grip tighten on his hands.

“I thought I could not bear it,” she whispered—”that I must end it all—ah! you know what I mean.”

His heart flinched as he heard her; and he drew her closer again to himself.

“It is all over! it is all over,” she cried. “Ah! do not look like that!

I could not tell you if it was not.”‘

As their lips met again there came the vibration of an electric bell from the next room, and Oliver, knowing what it meant, felt even in that instant a tremor shake his heart. He loosed her hands, and still smiled at her.

“The bell!” she said, with a flash of apprehension.

“But it is all well between us again?”

Her face steadied itself into loyalty and confidence.

“It is all well,” she said; and again the impatient bell tingled. “Go,

Oliver; I will wait here.”

A minute later he was back again, with a strange look on his white face, and his lips compressed. He came straight up to her, taking her once more by the hands, and looking steadily into her steady eyes. In the hearts of both of them resolve and faith were holding down the emotion that was not yet dead. He drew a long breath.

“Yes,” he said in an even voice, “it is over.”

Her lips moved; and that deadly paleness lay on her cheeks. He gripped her firmly.

“Listen,” he said. “You must face it. It is over. Rome is gone. Now we must build something better.”

She threw herself sobbing into his arms.

CHAPTER VIII

I

Long before dawn on the first morning of the New Year the approaches to the Abbey were already blocked. Victoria Street, Great George Street, Whitehall—even Millbank Street itself—were full and motionless. Broad Sanctuary, divided by the low-walled motor-track, was itself cut into great blocks and wedges of people by the ways which the police kept open for the passage of important personages, and Palace Yard was kept rigidly clear except for one island, occupied by a stand which was itself full from top to bottom and end to end. All roofs and parapets which commanded a view of the Abbey were also one mass of heads. Overhead, like solemn moons, burned the white lights of the electric globes.

It was not known at exactly what hour the tumult had steadied itself to definite purpose, except to a few weary controllers of the temporary turnstiles which had been erected the evening before. It had been announced a week previously that, in consideration of the enormous demand for seats, all persons who presented their worship-ticket at an authorised office, and followed the directions issued by the police, would be accounted as having fulfilled the duties of citizenship in that respect, and it was generally made known that it was the Government’s intention to toll the great bell of the Abbey at the beginning of the ceremony and at the incensing of the image, during which period silence must be as far as possible preserved by all those within hearing.

London had gone completely mad on the announcement of the Catholic plot on the afternoon before. The secret had leaked out about fourteen o’clock, an hour after the betrayal of the scheme to Mr. Snowford; and practically all commercial activities had ceased on the instant. By fifteen-and-a-half all stores were closed, the Stock Exchange, the City offices, the West End establishments—all had as by irresistible impulse suspended business, and from within two hours after noon until nearly midnight, when the police had been adequately reinforced and enabled to deal with the situation, whole mobs and armies of men, screaming squadrons of women, troops of frantic youths, had paraded the streets, howling, denouncing, and murdering. It was not known how many deaths had taken place, but there was scarcely a street without the signs of outrage. Westminster Cathedral had been sacked, every altar overthrown, indescribable indignities performed there. An unknown priest had scarcely been able to consume the Blessed Sacrament before he was seized and throttled; the Archbishop with eleven priests and two bishops had been hanged at the north end of the church, thirty-five convents had been destroyed, St. George’s Cathedral burned to the ground; and it was reported even, by the evening papers, that it was believed that, for the first time since the introduction of Christianity into England, there was not one Tabernacle left within twenty miles of the Abbey. “London,” explained the New People, in huge headlines, “was cleansed at last of dingy and fantastic nonsense.”

It was known at about fifteen-and-a-half o’clock that at least seventy volors had left for Rome, and half-an-hour later that Berlin had reinforced them by sixty more. At midnight, fortunately at a time when the police had succeeded in shepherding the crowds into some kind of order, the news was flashed on to cloud and placard alike that the grim work was done, and that Rome had ceased to exist. The early morning papers added a few details, pointing out, of course, the coincidence of the fall with the close of the year, relating how, by an astonishing chance, practically all the heads of the hierarchy throughout the world had been assembled in the Vatican which had been the first object of attack, and how these, in desperation, it was supposed, had refused to leave the City when the news came by wireless telegraphy that the punitive force was on its way. There was not a building left in Rome; the entire place, Leonine City, Trastevere, suburbs—everything was gone; for the volors, poised at an immense height, had parcelled out the City beneath them with extreme care, before beginning to drop the explosives; and five minutes after the first roar from beneath and the first burst of smoke and flying fragments, the thing was finished. The volors had then dispersed in every direction, pursuing the motor and rail-tracks along which the population had attempted to escape so soon as the news was known; and it was supposed that not less than thirty thousand belated fugitives had been annihilated by this foresight. It was true, remarked the Studio, that many treasures of incalculable value had been destroyed, but this was a cheap price to pay for the final and complete extermination of the Catholic pest. “There comes a point,” it remarked, “when destruction is the only cure for a vermin-infested house,” and it proceeded to observe that now that the Pope with the entire College of Cardinals, all the ex-Royalties of Europe, all the most frantic religionists from the inhabited world who had taken up their abode in the “Holy City” were gone at a stroke, a recrudescence of the superstition was scarcely to be feared elsewhere. Yet care must even now be taken against any relenting. Catholics (if any were left bold enough to attempt it) must no longer be allowed to take any kind of part in the life of any civilised country. So far as messages had come in from other countries, there was but one chorus of approval at what had been done.

A few papers regretted the incident, or rather the spirit which had lain behind it. It was not seemly, they said, that Humanitarians should have recourse to violence; yet not one pretended that anything could be felt but thanksgiving for the general result. Ireland, too, must be brought into line; they must not dally any longer.

It was now brightening slowly towards dawn, and beyond the river through the faint wintry haze a crimson streak or two began to burn. But all was surprisingly quiet, for this crowd, tired out with an all-night watch, chilled by the bitter cold, and intent on what lay before them, had no energy left for useless effort. Only from packed square and street and lane went up a deep, steady murmur like the sound of the sea a mile away, broken now and again by the hoot and clang of a motor and the rush of its passage as it tore eastwards round the circle through Broad Sanctuary and vanished citywards. And the light broadened and the electric globes sickened and paled, and the haze began to clear a little, showing, not the fresh blue that had been hoped for from the cold of the night, but a high, colourless vault of cloud, washed with grey and faint rose-colour, as the sun came up, a ruddy copper disc, beyond the river.

At nine o’clock the excitement rose a degree higher. The police between Whitehall and the Abbey, looking from their high platforms strung along the route, whence they kept watch and controlled the wire palisadings, showed a certain activity, and a minute later a police-car whirled through the square between the palings, and vanished round the Abbey towers. The crowd murmured and shuffled and began to expect, and a cheer was raised when a moment later four more cars appeared, bearing the Government insignia, and disappeared in the same direction. These were the officials, they said, going to Dean’s Yard, where the procession would assemble.

At about a quarter to ten the crowd at the west end of Victoria Street began to raise its voice in a song, and by the time that was over, and the bells had burst out from the Abbey towers, a rumour had somehow made its entrance that Felsenburgh was to be present at the ceremony. There was no assignable reason for this, neither then nor afterwards; in fact, the Evening Star declared that it was one more instance of the astonishing instinct of human beings en masse; for it was not until an hour later that even the Government were made aware of the facts. Yet the truth remained that at half-past ten one continuous roar went up, drowning even the brazen clamour of the bells, reaching round to Whitehall and the crowded pavements of Westminster Bridge, demanding Julian Felsenburgh. Yet there had been absolutely no news of the President of Europe for the last fortnight, beyond an entirely unsupported report that he was somewhere in the East.

And all the while the motors poured from all directions towards the Abbey and disappeared under the arch into Dean’s Yard, bearing those fortunate persons whose tickets actually admitted them to the church itself. Cheers ran and rippled along the lines as the great men were recognised—Lord Pemberton, Oliver Brand and his wife, Mr. Caldecott, Maxwell, Snowford, with the European delegates—even melancholy-faced Mr. Francis himself, the Government ceremoniarius, received a greeting. But by a quarter to eleven, when the pealing bells paused, the stream had stopped, the barriers issued out to stop the roads, the wire palisadings vanished, and the crowd for an instant, ceasing its roaring, sighed with relief at the relaxed pressure, and surged out into the roadways. Then once more the roaring began for Julian Felsenburgh.

The sun was now high, still a copper disc, above the Victoria Tower, but paler than an hour ago; the whiteness of the Abbey, the heavy greys of Parliament House, the ten thousand tints of house-roofs, heads, streamers, placards began to disclose themselves.

A single bell tolled five minutes to the hour, and the moments slipped by, until once more the bell stopped, and to the ears of those within hearing of the great west doors came the first blare of the huge organ, reinforced by trumpets. And then, as sudden and profound as the hush of death, there fell an enormous silence.

II

As the five-minutes bell began, sounding like a continuous wind-note in the great vaults overhead, solemn and persistent, Mabel drew a long breath and leaned back in her seat from the rigid position in which for the last half-hour she had been staring out at the wonderful sight. She seemed to herself to have assimilated it at last, to be herself once more, to have drunk her fill of the triumph and the beauty. She was as one who looks upon a summer sea on the morning after a storm. And now the climax was at hand.

From end to end and side to side the interior of the Abbey presented a great broken mosaic of human faces; living slopes, walls, sections and curves. The south transept directly opposite to her, from pavement to rose window, was one sheet of heads; the floor was paved with them, cut in two by the scarlet of the gangway leading from the chapel of St. Faith—on the right, the choir beyond the open space before the sanctuary was a mass of white figures, scarved and surpliced; the high organ gallery, beneath which the screen had been removed, was crowded with them, and, far down beneath, the dim nave stretched the same endless pale living pavement to the shadow beneath the west window. Between every group of columns behind the choir-stalls, before her, to right, left, and behind, were platforms contrived in the masonry; and the exquisite roof, fan-tracery and soaring capital, alone gave the eye an escape from humanity. The whole vast space was full, it seemed, of delicate sunlight that streamed in from the artificial light set outside each window, and poured the ruby and the purple and the blue from the old glass in long shafts of colour across the dusty air, and in broken patches on the faces and dresses behind. The murmur of ten thousand voices filled the place, supplying, it seemed, a solemn accompaniment to that melodious note that now pulsed above it. And finally, more significant than all, was the empty carpeted sanctuary at her feet, the enormous altar with its flight of steps, the gorgeous curtain and the great untenanted sedilia.

Mabel needed some such reassurance, for last night, until the coming of Oliver, had passed for her as a kind of appalling waking dream. From the first shock of what she had seen outside the church, through those hours of waiting, with the knowledge that this was the way in which the Spirit of Peace asserted its superiority, up to that last moment when, in her husband’s arms, she had learned of the Fall of Rome, it had appeared to her as if her new world had suddenly corrupted about her. It was incredible, she told herself, that this ravening monster, dripping blood from claws and teeth, that had arisen roaring in the night, could be the Humanity that had become her God. She had thought revenge and cruelty and slaughter to be the brood of Christian superstition, dead and buried under the new-born angel of light, and now it seemed that the monsters yet stirred and lived. All the evening she had sat, walked, lain about her quiet house with the horror heavy about her, flinging open a window now and again in the icy air to listen with clenched hands to the cries and the roarings of the mob that raged in the streets beneath, the clanks, the yells and the hoots of the motor-trains that tore up from the country to swell the frenzy of the city—to watch the red glow of fire, the volumes of smoke that heaved up from the burning chapels and convents.

She had questioned, doubted, resisted her doubts, flung out frantic acts of faith, attempted to renew the confidence that she attained in her meditation, told herself that traditions died slowly; she had knelt, crying out to the spirit of peace that lay, as she knew so well, at the heart of man, though overwhelmed for the moment by evil passion. A line or two ran in her head from one of the old Victorian poets:

You doubt If any one Could think or bid it? How could it come about?… Who did it? Not men! Not here! Oh! not beneath the sun…. The torch that smouldered till the cup o’er-ran The wrath of God which is the wrath of Man!

She had even contemplated death, as she had told her husband—the taking of her own life, in a great despair with the world. Seriously she had thought of it; it was an escape perfectly in accord with her morality. The useless and agonising were put out of the world by common consent; the Euthanasia houses witnessed to it. Then why not she?… For she could not bear it!… Then Oliver had come, she had fought her way back to sanity and confidence; and the phantom had gone again.

How sensible and quiet he had been, she was beginning to tell herself now, as the quiet influence of this huge throng in this glorious place of worship possessed her once more—how reasonable in his explanation that man was even now only convalescent and therefore liable to relapse. She had told herself that again and again during the night, but it had been different when he had said so. His personality had once more prevailed; and the name of Felsenburgh had finished the work.

“If He were but here!” she sighed. But she knew He was far away.

It was not until a quarter to eleven that she understood that the crowds outside were clamouring for Him too, and that knowledge reassured her yet further. They knew, then, these wild tigers, where their redemption lay; they understood what was their ideal, even if they had not attained to it. Ah! if He were but here, there would be no more question: the sullen waves would sink beneath His call of peace, the hazy clouds lift, the rumble die to silence. But He was away—away on some strange business. Well; He knew His work. He would surely come soon again to His children who needed Him so terribly.

She had the good fortune to be alone in a crowd. Her neighbour, a grizzled old man with his daughters beyond, was her only neighbour, and a stranger. At her left rose up the red-covered barricade over which she could see the sanctuary and the curtain; and her seat in the tribune, raised some eight feet above the floor, removed her from any possibility of conversation. She was thankful for that: she did not want to talk; she wanted only to control her faculties in silence, to reassert her faith, to look out over this enormous throng gathered to pay homage to the great Spirit whom they had betrayed, to renew her own courage and faithfulness. She wondered what the preacher would say, whether there would be any note of penitence. Maternity was his subject—that benign aspect of universal life—tenderness, love, quiet, receptive, protective passion, the spirit that soothes rather than inspires, that busies itself with peaceful tasks, that kindles the lights and fires of home, that gives sleep, food and welcome….

The bell stopped, and in the instant before the music began she heard, clear above the murmur within, the roar of the crowds outside, who still demanded their God. Then, with a crash, the huge organ awoke, pierced by the cry of the trumpets and the maddening throb of drums. There was no delicate prelude here, no slow stirring of life rising through labyrinths of mystery to the climax of sight—here rather was full-orbed day, the high noon of knowledge and power, the dayspring from on high, dawning in mid-heaven. Her heart quickened to meet it, and her reviving confidence, still convalescent, stirred and smiled, as the tremendous chords blared overhead, telling of triumph full-armed. God was man, then, after all—a God who last night had faltered for an hour, but who rose again on this morning of a new year, scattering mists, dominant over his own passion, all-compelling and all-beloved. God was man, and Felsenburgh his Incarnation! Yes, she must believe that! She did believe that!

Then she saw how already the long procession was winding up beneath the screen, and by imperceptible art the light grew yet more acutely beautiful. They were coming, then, those ministers of a pure worship; grave men who knew in what they believed, and who, even if they did not at this moment thrill with feeling (for she knew that in this respect her husband for one did not), yet believed the principles of this worship and recognised their need of expression for the majority of mankind—coming slowly up in fours and pairs and units, led by robed vergers, rippling over the steps, and emerging again into the coloured sunlight in all their bravery of Masonic apron, badge and jewel. Surely here was reassurance enough.

The sanctuary now held a figure or two. Anxious-faced Mr. Francis, in his robes of office, came gravely down the steps and stood awaiting the procession, directing with almost imperceptible motions his satellites who hovered about the aisles ready to point this way and that to the advancing stream; and the western-most seats were already beginning to fill, when on a sudden she recognised that something had happened.

Just now the roaring of the mob outside had provided a kind of underbass to the music within, imperceptible except to sub-consciousness, but clearly discernible in its absence; and this absence was now a fact.

At first she thought that the signal of beginning worship had hushed them; and then, with an indescribable thrill, she remembered that in all her knowledge only one thing had ever availed to quiet a turbulent crowd. Yet she was not sure; it might be an illusion. Even now the mob might be roaring still, and she only deaf to it; but again with an ecstasy that was very near to agony she perceived that the murmur of voices even within the building had ceased, and that some great wave of emotion was stirring the sheets and slopes of faces before her as a wind stirs wheat. A moment later, and she was on her feet, gripping the rail, with her heart like an over-driven engine beating pulses of blood, furious and insistent, through every vein; for with great rushing surge that sounded like a sigh, heard even above the triumphant tumult overhead, the whole enormous assemblage had risen to its feet.

Confusion seemed to break out in the orderly procession. She saw Mr. Francis run forward quickly, gesticulating like a conductor, and at his signal the long line swayed forward, split, recoiled, and again slid swiftly forward, breaking as it did so into twenty streams that poured along the seats and filled them in a moment. Men ran and pushed, aprons flapped, hands beckoned, all without coherent words. There was a knocking of feet, the crash of an overturned chair, and then, as if a god had lifted his hand for quiet, the music ceased abruptly, sending a wild echo that swooned and died in a moment; a great sigh filled its place, and, in the coloured sunshine that lay along the immense length of the gangway that ran open now from west to east, far down in the distant nave, a single figure was seen advancing.

III

What Mabel saw and heard and felt from eleven o’clock to half-an-hour after noon on that first morning of the New Year she could never adequately remember. For the time she lost the continuous consciousness of self, the power of reflection, for she was still weak from her struggle; there was no longer in her the process by which events are stored, labelled and recorded; she was no more than a being who observed as it were in one long act, across which considerations played at uncertain intervals. Eyes and ear seemed her sole functions, communicating direct with a burning heart.

She did not even know at what point her senses told her that this was Felsenburgh. She seemed to have known it even before he entered, and she watched Him as in complete silence He came deliberately up the red carpet, superbly alone, rising a step or two at the entrance of the choir, passing on and up before her. He was in his English judicial dress of scarlet and black, but she scarcely noticed it. For her, too, no one else existed but, He; this vast assemblage was gone, poised and transfigured in one vibrating atmosphere of an immense human emotion. There was no one, anywhere, but Julian Felsenburgh. Peace and light burned like a glory about Him.

For an instant after passing he disappeared beyond the speaker’s tribune, and the instant after reappeared once more, coming up the steps. He reached his place—she could see His profile beneath her and slightly to the left, pure and keen as the blade of a knife, beneath His white hair. He lifted one white-furred sleeve, made a single motion, and with a surge and a rumble, the ten thousand were seated. He motioned again and with a roar they were on their feet.

Again there was a silence. He stood now, perfectly still, His hands laid together on the rail, and His face looking steadily before Him; it seemed as if He who had drawn all eyes and stilled all sounds were waiting until His domination were complete, and there was but one will, one desire, and that beneath His hand. Then He began to speak….

In this again, as Mabel perceived afterwards, there was no precise or verbal record within her of what he said; there was no conscious process by which she received, tested, or approved what she heard. The nearest image under which she could afterwards describe her emotions to herself, was that when He spoke it was she who was speaking. Her own thoughts, her predispositions, her griefs, her disappointment, her passion, her hopes—all these interior acts of the soul known scarcely even to herself, down even, it seemed, to the minutest whorls and eddies of thought, were, by this man, lifted up, cleansed, kindled, satisfied and proclaimed. For the first time in her life she became perfectly aware of what human nature meant; for it was her own heart that passed out upon the air, borne on that immense voice. Again, as once before for a few moments in Paul’s House, it seemed that creation, groaning so long, had spoken articulate words at last—had come to growth and coherent thought and perfect speech. Yet then He had spoken to men; now it was Man Himself speaking. It was not one man who spoke there, it was Man—Man conscious of his origin, his destiny, and his pilgrimage between, Man sane again after a night of madness—knowing his strength, declaring his law, lamenting in a voice as eloquent as stringed instruments his own failure to correspond. It was a soliloquy rather than an oration. Rome had fallen, English and Italian streets had run with blood, smoke and flame had gone up to heaven, because man had for an instant sunk back to the tiger. Yet it was done, cried the great voice, and there was no repentance; it was done, and ages hence man must still do penance and flush scarlet with shame to remember that once he turned his back on the risen light.

There was no appeal to the lurid, no picture of the tumbling palaces, the running figures, the coughing explosions, the shaking of the earth and the dying of the doomed. It was rather with those hot hearts shouting in the English and German streets, or aloft in the winter air of Italy, the ugly passions that warred there, as the volors rocked at their stations, generating and fulfilling revenge, paying back plot with plot, and violence with violence. For there, cried the voice, was man as he had been, fallen in an instant to the cruel old ages before he had learned what he was and why.

There was no repentance, said the voice again, but there was something better; and as the hard, stinging tones melted, the girl’s dry eyes of shame filled in an instant with tears. There was something better—the knowledge of what crimes man was yet capable of, and the will to use that knowledge. Rome was gone, and it was a lamentable shame; Rome was gone, and the air was the sweeter for it; and then in an instant, like the soar of a bird, He was up and away—away from the horrid gulf where He had looked just now, from the fragments of charred bodies, and tumbled houses and all the signs of man’s disgrace, to the pure air and sunlight to which man must once more set his face. Yet He bore with Him in that wonderful flight the dew of tears and the aroma of earth. He had not spared words with which to lash and whip the naked human heart, and He did not spare words to lift up the bleeding, shrinking thing, and comfort it with the divine vision of love….

Historically speaking, it was about forty minutes before He turned to the shrouded image behind the altar.

“Oh! Maternity!” he cried. “Mother of us all—-”

And then, to those who heard Him, the supreme miracle took place…. For it seemed now in an instant that it was no longer man who spoke, but One who stood upon the stage of the superhuman. The curtain ripped back, as one who stood by it tore, panting, at the strings; and there, it seemed, face to face stood the Mother above the altar, huge, white and protective, and the Child, one passionate incarnation of love, crying to her from the tribune.

“Oh! Mother of us all, and Mother of Me!”

So He praised her to her face, that sublime principle of life, declared her glories and her strength, her Immaculate Motherhood, her seven swords of anguish driven through her heart by the passion and the follies of her Son—He promised her great things, the recognition of her countless children, the love and service of the unborn, the welcome of those yet quickening within the womb. He named her the Wisdom of the Most High, that sweetly orders all things, the Gate of Heaven, House of Ivory, Comforter of the afflicted, Queen of the World; and, to the delirious eyes of those who looked on her it seemed that the grave face smiled to hear Him….

A great panting as of some monstrous life began to fill the air as the mob swayed behind Him, and the torrential voice poured on. Waves of emotion swept up and down; there were cries and sobs, the yelping of a man beside himself at last, from somewhere among the crowded seats, the crash of a bench, and another and another, and the gangways were full, for He no longer held them passive to listen; He was rousing them to some supreme act. The tide crawled nearer, and the faces stared no longer at the Son but the Mother; the girl in the gallery tore at the heavy railing, and sank down sobbing upon her knees. And above all the voice pealed on—and the thin hands blanched to whiteness strained from the wide and sumptuous sleeves as if to reach across the sanctuary itself.

It was a new tale He was telling now, and all to her glory. He was from the East, now they knew, come from some triumph. He had been hailed as King, adored as Divine, as was meet and right—He, the humble superhuman son of a Human Mother—who bore not a sword but peace, not a cross but a crown. So it seemed He was saying; yet no man there knew whether He said it or not—whether the voice proclaimed it, or their hearts asserted it. He was on the steps of the sanctuary now, still with outstretched hands and pouring words, and the mob rolled after him to the rumble of ten thousand feet and the sighing of ten thousand hearts…. He was at the altar; He was upon it. Again in one last cry, as the crowd broke against the steps beneath, He hailed her Queen and Mother.

The end came in a moment, swift and inevitable. And for an instant, before the girl in the gallery sank down, blind with tears, she saw the tiny figure poised there at the knees of the huge image, beneath the expectant hands, silent and transfigured in the blaze of light. The Mother, it seemed, had found her Son at last.

For an instant she saw it, the soaring columns, the gilding and the colours, the swaying heads, the tossing hands. It was a sea that heaved before her, lights went up and down, the rose window whirled overhead, presences filled the air, heaven flashed away, and the earth shook it ecstasy. Then in the heavenly light, to the crash of drums, above the screaming of the women and the battering of feet, in one thunder-peal of worship ten thousand voices hailed Him Lord and God.

BOOK III

THE VICTORY

CHAPTER I

I

The little room where the new Pope sat reading was a model of simplicity. Its walls were whitewashed, its roof unpolished rafters, and its floor beaten mud. A square table stood in the centre, with a chair beside it; a cold brazier laid for lighting, stood in the wide hearth; a bookshelf against the wall held a dozen volumes. There were three doors, one leading to the private oratory, one to the ante-room, and the third to the little paved court. The south windows were shuttered, but through the ill-fitting hinges streamed knife-blades of fiery light from the hot Eastern day outside.

It was the time of the mid-day siesta, and except for the brisk scything of the cicade from the hill-slope behind the house, all was in deep silence.

The Pope, who had dined an hour before, had hardly shifted His attitude in all that time, so intent was He upon His reading. For the while, all was put away, His own memory of those last three months, the bitter anxiety, the intolerable load of responsibility. The book He held was a cheap reprint of the famous biography of Julian Felsenburgh, issued a month before, and He was now drawing to an end.

It was a terse, well-written book, composed by an unknown hand, and some even suspected it to be the disguised work of Felsenburgh himself. More, however, considered that it was written at least with Felsenburgh’s consent by one of that small body of intimates whom he had admitted to his society—that body which under him now conducted the affairs of West and East. From certain indications in the book it had been argued that its actual writer was a Westerner.

The main body of the work dealt with his life, or rather with those two or three years known to the world, from his rapid rise in American politics and his mediation in the East down to the event of five months ago, when in swift succession he had been hailed Messiah in Damascus, had been formally adored in London, and finally elected by an extraordinary majority to the Tribuniciate of the two Americas.

The Pope had read rapidly through these objective facts, for He knew them well enough already, and was now studying with close attention the summary of his character, or rather, as the author rather sententiously explained, the summary of his self-manifestation to the world. He read the description of his two main characteristics, his grasp upon words and facts; “words, the daughters of earth, were wedded in this man to facts, the sons of heaven, and Superman was their offspring.” His minor characteristics, too, were noticed, his appetite for literature, his astonishing memory, his linguistic powers. He possessed, it appeared, both the telescopic and the microscopic eye—he discerned world-wide tendencies and movements on the one hand; he had a passionate capacity for detail on the other. Various anecdotes illustrated these remarks, and a number of terse aphorisms of his were recorded. “No man forgives,” he said; “he only understands.” “It needs supreme faith to renounce a transcendent God.” “A man who believes in himself is almost capable of believing in his neighbour.” Here was a sentence that to the Pope’s mind was significant of that sublime egotism that is alone capable of confronting the Christian spirit: and again, “To forgive a wrong is to condone a crime,” and “The strong man is accessible to no one, but all are accessible to him.”

There was a certain pompousness in this array of remarks, but it lay, as the Pope saw very well, not in the speaker but in the scribe. To him who had seen the speaker it was plain how they had been uttered—with no pontifical solemnity, but whirled out in a fiery stream of eloquence, or spoken with that strangely moving simplicity that had constituted his first assault on London. It was possible to hate Felsenburgh, and to fear him; but never to be amused at him.

But plainly the supreme pleasure of the writer was to trace the analogy between his hero and nature. In both there was the same apparent contradictoriness—the combination of utter tenderness and utter ruthlessness. “The power that heals wounds also inflicts them: that clothes the dungheap with sweet growths and grasses, breaks, too, into fire and earthquake; that causes the partridge to die for her young, also makes the shrike with his living larder.” So, too, with Felsenburgh; He who had wept over the Fall of Rome, a month later had spoken of extermination as an instrument that even now might be judicially used in the service of humanity. Only it must be used with deliberation, not with passion.

The utterance had aroused extraordinary interest, since it seemed so paradoxical from one who preached peace and toleration; and argument had broken out all over the world. But beyond enforcing the dispersal of the Irish Catholics, and the execution of a few individuals, so far that utterance had not been acted upon. Yet the world seemed as a whole to have accepted it, and even now to be waiting for its fulfilment.

As the biographer pointed out, the world enclosed in physical nature should welcome one who followed its precepts, one who was indeed the first to introduce deliberately and confessedly into human affairs such laws as those of the Survival of the Fittest and the immorality of forgiveness. If there was mystery in the one, there was mystery in the other, and both must be accepted if man was to develop.

And the secret of this, it seemed, lay in His personality. To see Him was to believe in Him, or rather to accept Him as inevitably true. “We do not explain nature or escape from it by sentimental regrets: the bare cries like a child, the wounded stag weeps great tears, the robin kills his parents; life exists only on condition of death; and these things happen however we may weave theories that explain nothing. Life must be accepted on those terms; we cannot be wrong if we follow nature; rather to accept them is to find peace—our great mother only reveals her secrets to those who take her as she is.” So, too, with Felsenburgh. “It is not for us to discriminate: His personality is of a kind that does not admit it. He is complete and sufficing for those who trust Him and are willing to suffer; an hostile and hateful enigma to those who are not. We must prepare ourselves for the logical outcome of this doctrine. Sentimentality must not be permitted to dominate reason.”

Finally, then, the writer showed how to this Man belonged properly all those titles hitherto lavished upon imagined Supreme Beings. It was in preparation for Him that these types came into the realms of thought and influenced men’s lives.

He was the Creator, for it was reserved for Him to bring into being the perfect life of union to which all the world had hitherto groaned in vain; it was in His own image and likeness that He had made man.

Yet He was the Redeemer too, for that likeness had in one sense always underlain the tumult of mistake and conflict. He had brought man out of darkness and the shadow of death, guiding their feet into the way of peace. He was the Saviour for the same reason—the Son of Man, for He alone was perfectly human; He was the Absolute, for He was the content of Ideals; the Eternal, for He had lain always in nature’s potentiality and secured by His being the continuity of that order; the Infinite, for all finite things fell short of Him who was more than their sum.

He was Alpha, then, and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. He was Dominus et Deus noster (as Domitian had been, the Pope reflected). He was as simple and as complex as life itself—simple in its essence, complex in its activities.

And last of all, the supreme proof of His mission lay in the immortal nature of His message. There was no more to be added to what He had brought to light—for in Him all diverging lines at last found their origin and their end. As to whether or no He would prove to be personally immortal was an wholly irrelevant thought; it would be indeed fitting if through His means the vital principle should disclose its last secret; but no more than fitting. Already His spirit was in the world; the individual was no more separate from his fellows; death no more than a wrinkle that came and went across the inviolable sea. For man had learned at last that the race was all and self was nothing; the cell had discovered the unity of the body; even, the greatest thinkers declared, the consciousness of the individual had yielded the title of Personality to the corporate mass of man—and the restlessness of the unit had sunk into the peace of a common Humanity, for nothing but this could explain the cessation of party strife and national competition—and this, above all, had been the work of Felsenburgh.

“Behold I am with you always,” quoted the writer in a passionate peroration, “even now in the consummation of the world; and, the Comforter is come unto you. I am the Door—the Way, the Truth and the Life—the Bread of Life and the Water of Life. My name is Wonderful, the Prince of Peace, the Father Everlasting. It is I who am the Desire of all nations, the fairest among the children of men—and of my Kingdom there shall be no end.”

The Pope laid down the book, and leaned back, closing his eyes.

II

And as for Himself, what had He to say to all this? A Transcendent God Who hid Himself, a Divine Saviour Who delayed to come, a Comforter heard no longer in wind nor seen in fire!

There, in the next room, was a little wooden altar, and above it an iron box, and within that box a silver cup, and within that cup—Something. Outside the house, a hundred yards away, lay the domes and plaster roofs of a little village called Nazareth; Carmel was on the right, a mile or two away, Thabor on the left, the plain of Esdraelon in front; and behind, Cana and Galilee, and the quiet lake, and Hermon. And far away to the south lay Jerusalem….

It was to this tiny strip of holy land that the Pope had come—the land where a Faith had sprouted two thousand years ago, and where, unless God spoke in fire from heaven, it would presently be cut down as a cumberer of the ground. It was here on this material earth that One had walked Whom all men had thought to have been He Who would redeem Israel—in this village that He had fetched water and made boxes and chairs, on that long lake that His Feet had walked, on that high hill that He had flamed in glory, on that smooth, low mountain to the north that He had declared that the meek were blessed and should inherit the earth, that peacemakers were the children of God, that they who hungered and thirsted should be satisfied.

And now it was come to this. Christianity had smouldered away from Europe like a sunset on darkening peaks; Eternal Rome was a heap of ruins; in East and West alike a man had been set upon the throne of God, had been acclaimed as divine. The world had leaped forward; social science was supreme; men had learned consistency; they had learned, too, the social lessons of Christianity apart from a Divine Teacher, or, rather, they said, in spite of Him. There were left, perhaps, three millions, perhaps five, at the utmost ten millions—it was impossible to know—throughout the entire inhabited globe who still worshipped Jesus Christ as God. And the Vicar of Christ sat in a whitewashed room in Nazareth, dressed as simply as His master, waiting for the end.

He had done what He could. There had been a week five months ago when it had been doubtful whether anything at all could be done. There were left three Cardinals alive, Himself, Steinmann, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem; the rest lay mangled somewhere in the ruins of Rome. There was no precedent to follow; so the two Europeans had made their way out to the East, and to the one town in it where quiet still reigned. With the disappearance of Greek Christianity there had also vanished the last remnants of internecine war in Christendom; and by a kind of tacit consent of the world, Christians were allowed a moderate liberty in Palestine. Russia, which now held the country as a dependency, had sufficient sentiment left to leave it alone; it was true that the holy places had been desecrated, and remained now only as spots of antiquarian interest; the altars were gone but the sites were yet marked, and, although mass could no longer be said there, it was understood that private oratories were not forbidden.

It was in this state that the two European Cardinals had found the Holy City; it was not thought wise to wear insignia of any description in public; and it was practically certain even now that the civilised world was unaware of their existence; for within three days of their arrival the old Patriarch had died, yet not before Percy Franklin, surely under the strangest circumstances since those of the first century, had been elected to the Supreme Pontificate. It had all been done in a few minutes by the dying man’s bedside. The two old men had insisted. The German bad even recurred once more to the strange resemblance between Percy and Julian Felsenburgh, and had murmured his old half-heard remarks about the antithesis, and the Finger of God; and Percy, marvelling at his superstition, had accepted, and the election was recorded. He had taken the name of Silvester, the last saint in the year, and was the third of that title. He had then retired to Nazareth with his chaplain; Steinmann had gone back to Germany, and been hanged in a riot within a fortnight of his arrival.

The next matter was the creation of new cardinals, and to twenty persons, with infinite precautions, briefs had been conveyed. Of these, nine had declined; three more had been approached, of whom only one had accepted. There were therefore at this moment twelve persons in the world who constituted the Sacred College—two Englishmen, of whom Corkran was one; two Americans, a Frenchman, a German, an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole, a Chinaman, a Greek, and a Russian. To these were entrusted vast districts over which their control was supreme, subject only to the Holy Father Himself.

As regarded the Pope’s own life very little need be said. It resembled, He thought, in its outward circumstances that of such a man as Leo the Great, without His worldly importance or pomp. Theoretically, the Christian world was under His dominion; practically, Christian affairs were administered by local authorities. It was impossible for a hundred reasons for Him to do what He wished with regard to the exchange of communications. An elaborate cypher had been designed, and a private telegraphic station organised on His roof communicating with another in Damascus where Cardinal Corkran had fixed his residence; and from that centre messages occasionally were despatched to ecclesiastical authorities elsewhere; but, for the most part, there was little to be done. The Pope, however, had the satisfaction of knowing that, with incredible difficulty, a little progress had been made towards the reorganisation of the hierarchy in all countries. Bishops were being consecrated freely; there were not less than two thousand of them all told, and of priests an unknown number. The Order of Christ Crucified was doing excellent work, and the tales of not less than four hundred martyrdoms had reached Nazareth during the last two months, accomplished mostly at the hands of the mobs.

In other respects, also, as well as in the primary object of the Order’s existence (namely, the affording of an opportunity to all who loved God to dedicate themselves to Him more perfectly), the new Religious were doing good work. The more perilous tasks—the work of communication between prelates, missions to persons of suspected integrity—all the business, in fact, which was carried on now at the vital risk of the agent were entrusted solely to members of the Order. Stringent instructions had been issued from Nazareth that no bishop was to expose himself unnecessarily; each was to regard himself as the heart of his diocese to be protected at all costs save that of Christian honour, and in consequence each had surrounded himself with a group of the new Religious—men and women—who with extraordinary and generous obedience undertook such dangerous tasks as they were capable of performing. It was plain enough by now that had it not been for the Order, the Church would have been little better than paralysed under these new conditions.

Extraordinary facilities were being issued in all directions. Every priest who belonged to the Order received universal jurisdiction subject to the bishop, if any, of the diocese in which he might be; mass might be said on any day of the year of the Five Wounds, or the Resurrection, or Our Lady; and all had the privilege of the portable altar, now permitted to be wood. Further ritual requirements were relaxed; mass might be said with any decent vessels of any material capable of destruction, such as glass or china; bread of any description might be used; and no vestments were obligatory except the thin thread that now represented the stole; lights were non-essential; none need wear the clerical habit; and rosary, even without beads, was always permissible instead of the Office.

In this manner priests were rendered capable of giving the sacraments and offering the holy sacrifice at the least possible risk to themselves; and these relaxations had already proved of enormous benefit in the European prisons, where by this time many thousands of Catholics were undergoing the penalty of refusing public worship.

The Pope’s private life was as simple as His room. He had one Syrian priest for His chaplain, and two Syrian servants. He said His mass each morning, Himself wearing vestments and His white habit beneath, and heard a mass after. He then took His coffee, after changing into the tunic and burnous of the country, and spent the morning over business. He dined at noon, slept, and rode out, for the country by reason of its indeterminate position was still in the simplicity of a hundred years ago. He returned at dusk, supped, and worked again till late into the night.

That was all. His chaplain sent what messages were necessary to Damascus; His servants, themselves ignorant of His dignity, dealt with the secular world so far as was required, and the utmost that seemed to be known to His few neighbours was that there lived in the late Sheikh’s little house on the hill an eccentric European with a telegraph office. His servants, themselves devout Catholics, knew Him for a bishop, but no more than that. They were told only that there was yet a Pope alive, and with that and the sacraments were content.

To sum up, therefore—the Catholic world knew that their Pope lived under the name of Silvester; and thirteen persons of the entire human race knew that Franklin had been His name, and that the throne of Peter rested for the time in Nazareth.

It was, as a Frenchman had said, just a hundred years ago. Catholicism survived; but no more.

III

And as for His inner life, what can be said of that? He lay now back in his wooden chair, thinking with closed eyes.

He could not have described it consistently even to Himself, for indeed He scarcely knew it: He acted rather than indulged in reflex thought. But the centre of His position was simple faith. The Catholic Religion, He knew well enough, gave the only adequate explanation of the universe; it did not unlock all mysteries, but it unlocked more than any other key known to man; He knew, too, perfectly well, that it was the only system of thought that satisfied man as a whole, and accounted for him in his essential nature. Further, He saw well enough that the failure of Christianity to unite all men one to another rested not upon its feebleness but its strength; its lines met in eternity, not in time. Besides, He happened to believe it.

But to this foreground there were other moods whose shifting was out of his control. In his exalt moods, which came upon Him like a breeze from Paradise, the background was bright with hope and drama—He saw Himself and His companions as Peter and the Apostles must have regarded themselves, as they proclaimed through the world, in temples, slums, market-places and private houses, the faith that was to shake and transform the world. They had handled the Lord of Life, seen the empty sepulchre, grasped the pierced hands of Him Who was their brother and their God. It was radiantly true, though not a man believed it; the huge superincumbent weight of incredulity could not disturb a fact that was as the sun in heaven. Moreover, the very desperateness of the cause was their inspiration. There was no temptation to lean upon the arm of flesh, for there was none that fought for them but God. Their nakedness was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their weakness demanded God’s strength, and found it. Yet there was this difference, and it was a significant one. For Peter the spiritual world had an interpretation and a guarantee in the outward events he had witnessed. He had handled the Risen Christ, the external corroborated the internal. But for Silvester it was not so. For Him it was necessary so to grasp spiritual truths in the supernatural sphere that the external events of the Incarnation were proved by rather than proved the certitude of His spiritual apprehension. Certainly, historically speaking, Christianity was true—proved by its records—yet to see that needed illumination. He apprehended the power of the Resurrection, therefore Christ was risen.

Therefore in heavier moods it was different with him. There were periods, lasting sometimes for days together, clouding Him when He awoke, stifling Him as He tried to sleep, dulling the very savour of the Sacrament and the thrill of the Precious Blood; times in which the darkness was so intolerable that even the solid objects of faith attenuated themselves to shadow, when half His nature was blind not only to Christ, but to God Himself, and the reality of His own existence—when His own awful dignity seemed as the insignia of a fool. And was it conceivable, His earthly mind demanded, that He and His college of twelve and His few thousands should be right, and the entire consensus of the civilised world wrong? It was not that the world had not heard the message of the Gospel; it had heard little else for two thousand years, and now pronounced it false—false in its external credentials, and false therefore in its spiritual claims. It was a lost cause for which He suffered; He was not the last of an august line, He was the smoking wick of a candle of folly; He was the reductio ad absurdam of a ludicrous syllogism based on impossible premises. He was not worth killing, He and His company of the insane—they were no more than the crowned dunces of the world’s school. Sanity sat on the solid benches of materialism. And this heaviness waxed so dark sometimes that He almost persuaded Himself that His faith was gone; the clamours of mind so loud that the whisper of the heart was unheard, the desires for earthly peace so fierce that supernatural ambitions were silenced—so dense was the gloom, that, hoping against hope, believing against knowledge, and loving against truth, He cried as One other had cried on another day like this—Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani! … But that, at least, He never failed to cry.

One thing alone gave Him power to go on, so far at least as His consciousness was concerned, and that was His meditation. He had travelled far in the mystical life since His agonies of effort. Now He used no deliberate descents into the spiritual world: He threw, as it were, His hands over His head, and dropped into spacelessness. Consciousness would draw Him up, as a cork, to the surface, but He would do no more than repeat His action, until by that cessation of activity, which is the supreme energy, He floated in the twilight realm of transcendence; and there God would deal with Him—now by an articulate sentence, now by a sword of pain, now by an air like the vivifying breath of the sea. Sometimes after Communion He would treat Him so, sometimes as He fell asleep, sometimes in the whirl of work. Yet His consciousness did not seem to retain for long such experiences; five minutes later, it might be, He would be wrestling once more with the all but sensible phantoms of the mind and the heart.

There He lay, then, in the chair, revolving the intolerable blasphemies that He had read. His white hair was thin upon His browned temples, His hands were as the hands of a spirit, and His young face lined and patched with sorrow. His bare feet protruded from beneath His stained tunic, and His old brown burnous lay on the floor beside Him….

It was an hour before He moved, and the sun had already lost half its fierceness, when the steps of the horses sounded in the paved court outside. Then He sat up, slipped His feet into their shoes, and lifted the burnous from the floor, as the door opened and the lean sun-burned priest came through.

“The horses, Holiness,” said the man.

The Pope spoke not one word that afternoon, until the two came towards sunset up the bridle-path that leads between Thabor and Nazareth. They had taken their usual round through Cana, mounting a hillock from which the long mirror of Gennesareth could be seen, and passing on, always bearing to the right, under the shadow of Thabor until once more Esdraelon spread itself beneath like a grey-green carpet, a vast circle, twenty miles across, sprinkled sparsely with groups of huts, white walls and roofs, with Nain visible on the other side, Carmel heaving its long form far off on the right, and Nazareth nestling a mile or two away on the plateau on which they had halted.

It was a sight of extraordinary peace, and seemed an extract from some old picture-book designed centuries ago. Here was no crowd of roofs, no pressure of hot humanity, no terrible evidences of civilisation and manufactory and strenuous, fruitless effort. A few tired Jews had come back to this quiet little land, as old people may return to their native place, with no hope of renewing their youth, or refinding their ideals, but with a kind of sentimentality that prevails so often over more logical motives, and a few more barrack-like houses had been added here and there to the obscure villages in sight. But it was very much as it had been a hundred years ago.

The plain was half shadowed by Carmel, and half in dusty golden light. Overhead the clear Eastern sky was flushed with rose, as it had flushed for Abraham, Jacob, and the Son of David. There was no little cloud here, as a man’s hand, over the sea, charged with both promise and terror; no sound of chariot-wheels from earth or heaven, no vision of heavenly horses such as a young man had seen thirty centuries ago in this very sky. Here was the old earth and the old heaven, unchanged and unchangeable; the patient, returning spring had starred the thin soil with flowers of Bethlehem, and those glorious lilies to which Solomon’s scarlet garments might not be compared. There was no whisper from the Throne as when Gabriel had once stooped through this very air to hail Her who was blessed among women, no breath of promise or hope beyond that which God sends through every movement of His created robe of life.

As the two halted, and the horses looked out with steady, inquisitive eyes at the immensity of light and air beneath them, a soft hooting cry broke out, and a shepherd passed below along the hillside a hundred yards away, trailing his long shadow behind him, and to the mellow tinkle of bells his flock came after, a troop of obedient sheep and wilful goats, cropping and following and cropping again as they went on to the fold, called by name in that sad minor voice of him who knew each, and led instead of driving. The soft clanking grew fainter, the shadow of the shepherd shot once to their very feet, as he topped the rise, and vanished again as he stepped down once more; and the call grew fainter yet, and ceased.

The Pope lifted His hand to His eyes for an instant, then smoothed it down His face.

He nodded across to a dim patch of white walls glimmering through the violet haze of the falling twilight.

“That place, father,” He said, “what is its name?”

The Syrian priest looked across, back once more at the Pope, and across again.

“That among the palms, Holiness?”

“Yes.”

“That is Megiddo,” he said. “Some call it Armageddon.”

CHAPTER II

I

At twenty-three o’clock that night the Syrian priest went out to watch for the coming of the messenger from Tiberias. Nearly two hours previously he had heard the cry of the Russian volor that plied from Damascus to Tiberias, and Tiberias to Jerusalem, and even as it was the messenger was a little late.

These were very primitive arrangements, but Palestine was out of the world—a slip of useless country—and it was necessary for a man to ride from Tiberias to Nazareth each night with papers from Cardinal Corkran to the Pope, and to return with correspondence. It was a dangerous task, and the members of the New Order who surrounded the Cardinal undertook it by turns. In this manner all matters for which the Pope’s personal attention was required, and which were too long and not too urgent, could be dealt with at leisure by him, and an answer returned within the twenty-four hours.

It was a brilliant moonlit night. The great golden shield was riding high above Thabor, shedding its strange metallic light down the long slopes and over the moor-like country that rose up from before the house-door—casting too heavy black shadows that seemed far more concrete and solid than the brilliant pale surfaces of the rock slabs or even than the diamond flashes from the quartz and crystal that here and there sparkled up the stony pathway. Compared with this clear splendour, the yellow light from the shuttered house seemed a hot and tawdry thing; and the priest, leaning against the door-post, his eyes alone alight in his dark face, sank down at last with a kind of Eastern sensuousness to bathe himself in the glory, and to spread his lean, brown hands out to it.

This was a very simple man, in faith as well as in life. For him there were neither the ecstasies nor the desolations of his master. It was an immense and solemn joy to him to live here at the spot of God’s Incarnation and in attendance upon His Vicar. As regarded the movements of the world, he observed them as a man in a ship watches the heaving of the waves far beneath. Of course the world was restless, he half perceived, for, as the Latin Doctor had said, all hearts were restless until they found their rest in God. Quare fremuerunt gentes?… Adversus Dominum, et adversus Christum ejus! As to the end—he was not greatly concerned. It might well be that the ship would be overwhelmed, but the moment of the catastrophe would be the end of all things earthly. The gates of hell shall not prevail: when Rome falls, the world falls; and when the world falls, Christ is manifest in power. For himself, he imagined that the end was not far away. When he had named Megiddo this afternoon it had been in his mind; to him it seemed natural that at the consummation of all things Christ’s Vicar should dwell at Nazareth where His King had come on earth—and that the Armageddon of the Divine John should be within sight of the scene where Christ had first taken His earthly sceptre and should take it again. After all, it would not be the first battle that Megiddo had seen. Israel and Amalek had met here; Israel and Assyria; Sesostris had ridden here and Sennacherib. Christian and Turk had contended here, like Michael and Satan, over the place where God’s Body had lain. As to the exact method of that end, he had no clear views; it would be a battle of some kind, and what field could be found more evidently designed for that than this huge flat circular plain of Esdraelon, twenty miles across, sufficient to hold all the armies of the earth in its embrace? To his view once more, ignorant as he was of present statistics, the world was divided into two large sections, Christians and heathens, and he supposed them very much of a size. Something would happen, troops would land at Khaifa, they would stream southwards from Tiberias, Damascus and remote Asia, northwards from Jerusalem, Egypt and Africa; eastwards from Europe; westwards from Asia again and the far-off Americas. And, surely, the time could not be far away, for here was Christ’s Vicar; and, as He Himself had said in His gospel of the Advent, Ubicumque fuerit corpus, illie congregabuntur et aquilae. Of more subtle interpretations of prophecy he had no knowledge. For him words were things, not merely labels upon ideas. What Christ and St. Paul and St. John had said—these things were so. He had escaped, owing chiefly to his isolation from the world, that vast expansion of Ritschlian ideas that during the last century had been responsible for the desertion by so many of any intelligible creed. For others this had been the supreme struggle—the difficulty of decision between the facts that words were not things, and yet that the things they represented were in themselves objective. But to this man, sitting now in the moonlight, listening to the far-off tap of hoofs over the hill as the messenger came up from Cana, faith was as simple as an exact science. Here Gabriel had descended on wide feathered wings from the Throne of God set beyond the stars, the Holy Ghost had breathed in a beam of ineffable light, the Word had become Flesh as Mary folded her arms and bowed her head to the decree of the Eternal. And here once more, he thought, though it was no more than a guess—yet he thought that already the running of chariot-wheels was audible—the tumult of the hosts of God gathering about the camp of the saints—he thought that already beyond the bars of the dark Gabriel set to his lips the trumpet of doom and heaven was astir. He might be wrong at this time, as others had been wrong at other times, but neither he nor they could be wrong for ever; there must some day be an end to the patience of God, even though that patience sprang from the eternity of His nature. He stood up, as down the pale moonlit path a hundred yards away came a pale figure of one who rode, with a leather bag strapped to his girdle.

II

It would be about three o’clock in the morning that the priest awoke in his little mud-walled room next to that of the Holy Father’s, and heard a footstep coming up the stairs. Last evening he had left his master as usual beginning to open the pile of letters arrived from Cardinal Corkran, and himself had gone straight to his bed and slept. He lay now a moment or two, still drowsy, listening to the pad of feet, and an instant later sat up abruptly, for a deliberate tap had sounded on the door. Again it came; he sprang out of bed in his long night-tunic, drew it up hastily in his girdle, went to the door and opened it.

The Pope was standing there, with a little lamp in one hand, for the dawn had scarcely yet begun, and a paper in the other.

“I beg your pardon, Father; but there is a message I must have sent at once to his Eminence.”

Together they went out through the Pope’s room, the priest, still half-blind with sleep, passed up the stairs, and emerged into the clear cold air of the upper roof. The Pope blew out His lamp, and set it on the parapet.

“You will be cold, Father; fetch your cloak.”

“And you, Holiness?”

The other made a little gesture of denial, and went across to the tiny temporary shed where the wireless telegraphic instrument stood.

“Fetch your cloak, Father,” He said again over His shoulder. “I will ring up meanwhile.”

When the priest came back three minutes later, in his slippers and cloak, carrying another cloak also for his master, the Pope was still seated at the table. He did not even move His head as the other came up, but once more pressed on the lever that, communicating with the twelve-foot pole that rose through the pent-house overhead, shot out the quivering energy through the eighty miles of glimmering air that lay between Nazareth and Damascus.

This simple priest had scarcely even by now become accustomed to this extraordinary device invented a century ago and perfected through all those years to this precise exactness—that device by which with the help of a stick, a bundle of wires, and a box of wheels, something, at last established to be at the root of all matter, if not at the very root of physical life, spoke across the spaces of the world to a tiny receiver tuned by a hair’s breadth to the vibration with which it was set in relations.

The air was surprisingly cold, considering the heat that had preceded and would follow it, and the priest shivered a little as he stood clear of the roof, and stared, now at the motionless figure in the chair before him, now at the vast vault of the sky passing, even as he looked, from a cold colourless luminosity to a tender tint of yellow, as far away beyond Thabor and Moab the dawn began to deepen. From the village half-a-mile away arose the crowing of a cock, thin and brazen as a trumpet; a dog barked once and was silent again; and then, on a sudden, a single stroke upon a bell hung in the roof recalled him in an instant, and told him that his work was to begin.

The Pope pressed the lever again at the sound, twice, and then, after a pause, once more—waited a moment for an answer, and then when it came, rose and signed to the priest to take his place.

The Syrian sat down, handing the extra cloak to his master, and waited until the other had settled Himself in a chair set in such a position at the side of the table that the face of each was visible to the other. Then he waited, with his brown fingers poised above the row of keys, looking at the other’s face as He arranged himself to speak. That face, he thought, looking out from the hood, seemed paler than ever in this cold light of dawn; the black arched eyebrows accentuated this, and even the steady lips, preparing to speak, seemed white and bloodless. He had His paper in His hand, and His eyes were fixed upon this.

“Make sure it is the Cardinal,” he said abruptly.

The priest tapped off an enquiry, and, with moving lips, raid off the printed message, as like magic it precipitated itself on to the tall white sheet of paper that faced him.

“It is his Eminence, Holiness,” he said softly. “He is alone at the instrument.”

“Very well. Now then; begin.”

“We have received your Eminence’s letter, and have noted the news…. It should have been forwarded by telegraphy—why was that not done?”

The voice paused, and the priest who had snapped off the message, more quickly than a man could write it, read aloud the answer.

“‘I did not understand that it was urgent. I thought it was but one more assault. I had intended to communicate more so soon as I heard more.”‘

“Of course it was urgent,” came the voice again in the deliberate intonation that was used between these two in the case of messages for transmission. “Remember that all news of this kind is always urgent.”

“‘I will remember,’ read the priest. “ `I regret my mistake.’”

“You tell us,” went on the Pope, His eyes still downcast on the paper, “that this measure is decided upon; you name only three authorities. Give me, now, all the authorities you have, if you have more.”

There was a moment’s pause. Then the priest began to read off the names.

“Besides the three Cardinals whose names I sent, the Archbishops of Thibet, Cairo, Calcutta and Sydney have all asked if the news was true, and for directions if it is true; besides others whose names I can communicate if I may leave the table for a moment.’”

“Do so,” said the Pope.

Again there was a pause. Then once more the names began.

“‘The Bishops of Bukarest, the Marquesas Islands and Newfoundland. The

Franciscans in Japan, the Crutched Friars in Morocco, the Archbishops of

Manitoba and Portland, and the Cardinal-Archbisbop of Pekin. I have

despatched two members of Christ Crucified to England.’”

“Tell us when the news first arrived, and how.”

“‘I was called up to the instrument yesterday evening at about twenty o’clock. The Archbishop of Sydney was asking, through our station at Bombay, whether the news was true. I replied I had heard nothing of it. Within ten minutes four more inquiries had come to the same effect; and three minutes later Cardinal Ruspoli sent the positive news from Turin. This was accompanied by a similar message from Father Petrovski in Moscow. Then—- ‘“

“Stop. Why did not Cardinal Dolgorovski communicate it?”

“‘He did communicate it three hours later.’”

“Why not at once?”

“‘His Eminence had not heard it.’”

“Find out at what hour the news reached Moscow—not now, but within the day.”

“‘I will.’”

“Go on, then.”

“‘Cardinal Malpas communicated it within five minutes of Cardinal Ruspoli, and the rest of the inquiries arrived before midnight. China reported it at twenty-three.’”

“Then when do you suppose the news was made public?”

“‘It was decided first at the secret London conference, yesterday, at about sixteen o’clock by our time. The Plenipotentiaries appear to have signed it at that hour. After that it was communicated to the world. It was published here half an hour past midnight.’”

“Then Felsenburgh was in London?”

“‘I am not yet sure. Cardinal Malpas tells me that Felsenburgh gave his provisional consent on the previous day.’”

“Very good. That is all you know, then?”

“‘I was called up an hour ago by Cardinal Ruspoli again. He tells me that he fears a riot in Florence; it will be the first of many revolutions, he says.’”

“Does he ask for anything?”

“‘Only for directions.’”

“Tell him that we send him the Apostolic Benediction, and will forward directions within the course of two hours. Select twelve members of the Order for immediate service.”

“‘I will.’”

“Communicate that message also, as soon as we have finished, to all the Sacred College, and bid them communicate it with all discretion to all metropolitans and bishops, that priests and people may know that We bear them in our heart.”

“‘I will, Holiness.’”

“Tell them, finally, that We had foreseen this long ago; that We commend them to the Eternal Father without Whose Providence no sparrow falls to the ground. Bid them be quiet and confident; to do nothing, save confess their faith when they are questioned. All other directions shall be issued to their pastors immediately!”

“‘I will, Holiness.’”

There was again a pause.

The Pope had been speaking with the utmost tranquillity as one in a dream. His eyes were downcast upon the paper, His whole body as motionless as an image. Yet to the priest who listened, despatching the Latin messages, and reading aloud the replies, it seemed, although so little intelligible news had reached him, as if something very strange and great was impending. There was the sense of a peculiar strain in the air, and although he drew no deductions from the fact that apparently the whole Catholic world was in frantic communication with Damascus, yet he remembered his meditations of the evening before as he had waited for the messenger. It seemed as if the powers of this world were contemplating one more step—with its nature he was not greatly concerned.

The Pope spoke again in His natural voice.

“Father,” he said, “what I am about to say now is as if I told it in confession. You understand?—Very well. Now begin.”

Then again the intonation began.

“Eminence. We shall say mass of the Holy Ghost in one hour from now. At the end of that time, you will cause that all the Sacred College shall be in touch with yourself, and waiting for our commands. This new decision is unlike any that have preceded it. Surely you understand that now. Two or three plans are in our mind, yet We are not sure yet which it is that our Lord intends. After mass We shall communicate to you that which He shall show Us to be according to His Will. We beg of you to say mass also, immediately, for Our intention. Whatever must be done must be done quickly. The matter of Cardinal Dolgorovski you may leave until later. But we wish to hear the result of your inquiries, especially in London, before mid-day. Benedicat te Omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus.”

“‘Amen!’” murmured the priest, reading it from the sheet.

III

The little chapel in the house below was scarcely more dignified than the other rooms. Of ornaments, except those absolutely essential to liturgy and devotion, there were none. In the plaster of the walls were indented in slight relief the fourteen stations of the Cross; a small stone image of the Mother of God stood in a corner, with an iron-work candlestick before it, and on the solid uncarved stone altar, raised on a stone step, stood six more iron candlesticks and an iron crucifix. A tabernacle, also of iron, shrouded by linen curtains, stood beneath the cross; a small stone slab projecting from the wall served as a credence. There was but one window, and this looked into the court, so that the eyes of strangers might not penetrate.

It seemed to the Syrian priest as he went about his business—laying out the vestments in the little sacristy that opened out at one side of the altar, preparing the cruets and stripping the covering from the altar-cloth—that even that slight work was wearying. There seemed a certain oppression in the air. As to how far that was the result of his broken rest he did not know, but he feared that it was one more of those scirocco days that threatened. That yellowish tinge of dawn had not passed with the sun-rising; even now, as he went noiselessly on his bare feet between the predella and the prie-dieu where the silent white figure was still motionless, he caught now and again, above the roof across the tiny court, a glimpse of that faint sand-tinged sky that was the promise of beat and heaviness.

He finished at last, lighted the candles, genuflected, and stood with bowed head waiting for the Holy Father to rise from His knees. A servant’s footstep sounded in the court, coming across to hear mass, and simultaneously the Pope rose and went towards the sacristy, where the red vestments of God who came by fire were laid ready for the Sacrifice.

Silvester’s bearing at mass was singularly unostentatious. He moved as swiftly as any young priest, His voice was quite even and quite low, and his pace neither rapid nor pompous. According to tradition, He occupied half-an-hour ab amictu ad amictum; and even in the tiny empty chapel He observed to keep His eyes always downcast. And yet this Syrian never served His mass without a thrill of something resembling fear; it was not only his knowledge of the awful dignity of this simple celebrant; but, although he could not have expressed it so, there was an aroma of an emotion about the vestmented figure that affected him almost physically—an entire absence of self-consciousness, and in its place the consciousness of some other Presence, a perfection of manner even in the smallest details that could only arise from absolute recollection. Even in Rome in the old days it had been one of the sights of Rome to see Father Franklin say mass; seminary students on the eve of ordination were sent to that sight to learn the perfect manner and method.

To-day all was as usual, but at the Communion the priest looked up suddenly at the moment when the Host had been consumed, with a half impression that either a sound or a gesture had invited it; and, as he looked, his heart began to beat thick and convulsive at the base of his throat. Yet to the outward eyes there was nothing unusual. The figure stood there with bowed head, the chin resting on the tips of the long fingers, the body absolutely upright, and standing with that curious light poise as if no weight rested upon the feet. But to the inner sense something was apparent the Syrian could not in the least formulate it to himself; but afterwards he reflected that he had stared expecting some visible or audible manifestation to take place. It was an impression that might be described under the terms of either light or sound; at any instant that delicate vivid force, that to the eyes of the soul burned beneath the red chasuble and the white alb, might have suddenly welled outwards under the appearance of a gush of radiant light rendering luminous not only the clear brown flesh seen beneath the white hair, but the very texture of the coarse, dead, stained stuffs that swathed the rest of the body. Or it might have shown itself in the strain of a long chord on strings or wind, as if the mystical union of the dedicated soul with the ineffable Godhead and Humanity of Jesus Christ generated such a sound as ceaselessly flows out with the river of life from beneath the Throne of the Lamb. Or yet once more it might have declared itself under the guise of a perfume—the very essence of distilled sweetness—such a scent as that which, streaming out through the gross tabernacle of a saint’s body, is to those who observe it as the breath of heavenly roses….

The moments passed in that hush of purity and peace; sounds came and went outside, the rattle of a cart far away, the sawing of the first cicada in the coarse grass twenty yards away beyond the wall; some one behind the priest was breathing short and thick as under the pressure of an intolerable emotion, and yet the figure stood there still, without a movement or sway to break the carved motionlessness of the alb-folds or the perfect poise of the white-shod feet. When He moved at last to uncover the Precious Blood, to lay His hands on the altar and adore, it was as if a statue had stirred into life; to the server it was very nearly as a shock.

Again, when the chalice was empty, that first impression reasserted itself; the human and the external died in the embrace of the Divine and Invisible, and once more silence lived and glowed…. And again as the spiritual energy sank back again into its origin, Silvester stretched out the chalice.

With knees that shook and eyes wide in expectation, the priest rose, adored, and went to the credence.

It was customary after the Pope’s mass that the priest himself should offer the Sacrifice in his presence, but to-day so soon as the vestments had been laid one by one on the rough chest, Silvester turned to the priest.

“Presently,” he said softly. “Go up, father, at once to the roof, and tell the Cardinal to be ready. I shall come in five minutes.”

It was surely a scirocco-day, thought the priest, as he came up on to the flat roof. Overhead, instead of the clear blue proper to that hour of the morning, lay a pale yellow sky darkening even to brown at the horizon. Thabor, before him, hung distant and sombre seen through the impalpable atmosphere of sand, and across the plain, as he glanced behind him, beyond the white streak of Nain nothing was visible except the pale outline of the tops of the hills against the sky. Even at this morning hour, too, the air was hot and breathless, broken only by the slow-stifling lift of the south-western breeze that, blowing across countless miles of sand beyond far-away Egypt, gathered up the heat of the huge waterless continent and was pouring it, with scarcely a streak of sea to soften its malignity, on this poor strip of land. Carmel, too, as he turned again, was swathed about its base with mist, half dry and half damp, and above showed its long bull-head running out defiantly against the western sky. The very table as he touched it was dry and hot to the hand, by mid-day the steel would be intolerable.

He pressed the lever, and waited; pressed it again, and waited again. There came the answering ring, and he tapped across the eighty miles of air that his Eminence’s presence was required at once. A minute or two passed, and then, after another rap of the bell, a line flicked out on the new white sheet.

“‘I am here. Is it his Holiness?’”

He felt a hand upon his shoulder, and turned to see Silvester, hooded and in white, behind his chair.

“Tell him yes. Ask him if there is further news.”

The Pope went to the chair once more and sat down, and a minute later the priest, with growing excitement, read out the answer.

“‘Inquiries are pouring in. Many expect your Holiness to issue a challenge. My secretaries have been occupied since four o’clock. The anxiety is indescribable. Some are denying that they have a Pope. Something must be done at once.’”

“Is that all?” asked the Pope.

Again the priest read out the answer. “‘Yes and no. The news is true. It will be inforced immediately. Unless a step is taken immediately there will be widespread and final apostasy.’”

“Very good,” murmured the Pope, in his official voice. “Now listen carefully, Eminence.” He was silent for a moment, his fingers joined beneath his chin as just now at mass. Then he spoke.

“We are about to place ourselves unreservedly in the hands of God. Human prudence must no longer restrain us. We command you then, using all discretion that is possible, to communicate these wishes of ours to the following persons under the strictest secrecy, and to no others whatsoever. And for this service you are to employ messengers, taken from the Order of Christ Crucified, two for each message, which is not to be committed to writing in any form. The members of the Sacred College, numbering twelve; the metropolitans and Patriarchs through the entire world, numbering twenty-two; the Generals of the Religious Orders: the Society of Jesus, the Friars, the Monks Ordinary, and the Monks Contemplative four. These persons, thirty-eight in number, with the chaplain of your Eminence, who shall act as notary, and my own who shall assist him, and Ourself—forty-one all told—these persons are to present themselves here at our palace of Nazareth not later than the Eve of Pentecost. We feel Ourselves unwilling to decide the steps necessary to be taken with reference to the new decree, except we first hear the counsel of our advisers, and give them an opportunity of communicating freely one with another. These words, as we have spoken them, are to be forwarded to all those persons whom we have named; and your Eminence will further inform them that our deliberations will not occupy more than four days.

“As regards the questions of provisioning the council and all matters of that kind, your Eminence will despatch to-day the chaplain of whom we have spoken, who with my own chaplain will at once set about preparations, and your Eminence will yourself follow, appointing Father Marabout to act in your absence, not later than four days hence.

“Finally, to all who have asked explicit directions in the face of this new decree, communicate this one sentence, and no more.

“Lose not your confidence which hath a great reward. For yet a little while, and, He that is to come will come and will not delay.—Silvester the Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God.”

CHAPTER III

I

Oliver Brand stepped out from the Conference Hall in Westminster on the

Friday evening, so soon as the business was over and the

Plenipotentiaries had risen from the table, more concerned as to the

effect of the news upon his wife than upon the world.

He traced the beginning of the change to the day five months ago when the President of the World had first declared the development of his policy, and while Oliver himself had yielded to that development, and from defending it in public had gradually convinced himself of its necessity, Mabel, for the first time in her life, had shown herself absolutely obstinate.

The woman to his mind seemed to him to have fallen into some kind of insanity. Felsenburgh’s declaration had been made a week or two after his Acclamation at Westminster, and Mabel had received the news of it at first with absolute incredulity.

Then, when there was no longer any doubt that he had declared the extermination of the Supernaturalists to be a possible necessity, there had been a terrible scene between husband and wife. She had said that she had been deceived; that the world’s hope was a monstrous mockery; that the reign of universal peace was as far away as ever; that Felsenburgh had betrayed his trust and broken his word. There had been an appalling scene. He did not even now like to recall it to his imagination. She had quieted after a while, but his arguments, delivered with infinite patience, seemed to produce very little effect. She settled down into silence, hardly answering him. One thing only seemed to touch her, and that was when he spoke of the President himself. It was becoming plain to him that she was but a woman after all at the mercy of a strong personality, but utterly beyond the reach of logic. He was very much disappointed. Yet he trusted to time to cure her.

The Government of England had taken swift and skilful steps to reassure those who, like Mabel, recoiled from the inevitable logic of the new policy. An army of speakers traversed the country, defending and explaining; the press was engineered with extraordinary adroitness, and it was possible to say that there was not a person among the millions of England who had not easy access to the Government’s defence.

Briefly, shorn of rhetoric, their arguments were as follows, and there was no doubt that, on the whole, they had the effect of quieting the amazed revolt of the more sentimental minds.

Peace, it was pointed out, had for the first time in the world’s history become an universal fact. There was no longer one State, however small, whose interests were not identical with those of one of the three divisions of the world of which it was a dependency, and that first stage had been accomplished nearly half-a-century ago. But the second stage—the reunion of these three divisions under a common head—an infinitely greater achievement than the former, since the conflicting interests were incalculably more vast—this had been consummated by a single Person, Who, it appeared, had emerged from humanity at the very instant when such a Character was demanded. It was surely not much to ask that those on whom these benefits had come should assent to the will and judgment of Him through whom they had come. This, then, was an appeal to faith.

The second main argument was addressed to reason. Persecution, as all enlightened persons confessed, was the method of a majority of savages who desired to force a set of opinions upon a minority who did not spontaneously share them. Now the peculiar malevolence of persecution in the past lay, not in the employment of force, but in the abuse of it. That any one kingdom should dictate religious opinions to a minority of its members was an intolerable tyranny, for no one State possessed the right to lay down universal laws, the contrary to which might be held by its neighbour. This, however, disguised, was nothing else than the Individualism of Nations, a heresy even more disastrous to the commonwealth of the world than the Individualism of the Individual. But with the arrival of the universal community of interests the whole situation was changed. The single personality of the human race had succeeded to the incoherence of divided units, and with that consummation—which might be compared to a coming of age, an entirely new set of rights had come into being. The human race was now a single entity with a supreme responsibility towards itself; there were no longer any private rights at all, such as had certainly existed, in the period previous to this. Man now possessed dominion over every cell which composed His Mystical Body, and where any such cell asserted itself to the detriment of the Body, the rights of the whole were unqualified.

And there was no religion but one that claimed the equal rights of universal jurisdiction—and that the Catholic. The sects of the East, while each retained characteristics of its own, had yet found in the New Man the incarnation of their ideals, and had therefore given in their allegiance to the authority of the whole Body of whom He was Head. But the very essence of the Catholic Religion was treason to the very idea of man. Christians directed their homage to a supposed supernatural Being who was not only—so they claimed—outside of the world but positively transcended it. Christians, then—leaving aside the mad fable of the Incarnation, which might very well be suffered to die of its own folly—deliberately severed themselves from that Body of which by human generation they had been made members. They were as mortified limbs yielding themselves to the domination of an outside force other than that which was their only life, and by that very act imperilled the entire Body. This madness, then, was the one crime which still deserved the name. Murder, theft, rape, even anarchy itself, were as trifling faults compared to this monstrous sin, for while these injured indeed the Body they did not strike at its heart—individuals suffered, and therefore those minor criminals deserved restraint; but the very Life was not struck at. But in Christianity there was a poison actually deadly. Every cell that became infected with it was infected in that very fibre that bound it to the spring of life. This, and this alone, was the supreme crime of High Treason against man—and nothing but complete removal from the world could be an adequate remedy.

These, then, were the main arguments addressed to that section of the world which still recoiled from the deliberate utterance of Felsenburgh, and their success had been remarkable. Of course, the logic, in itself indisputable, had been dressed in a variety of costumes gilded with rhetoric, flushed with passion, and it had done its work in such a manner that as summer drew on Felsenburgh had announced privately that he proposed to introduce a bill which should carry out to its logical conclusion the policy of which he had spoken.

Now, this too, had been accomplished.

II

Oliver let himself into his house, and went straight upstairs to Mabel’s room. It would not do to let her hear the news from any but his own lips. She was not there, and on inquiry he heard that she had gone out an hour before.

He was disconcerted at this. The decree had been signed half-an-hour earlier, and in answer to an inquiry from Lord Pemberton it had been stated that there was no longer any reason for secrecy, and that the decision might be communicated to the press. Oliver had hurried away immediately in order to make sure that Mabel should hear the news from him, and now she was out, and at any moment the placards might tell her of what had been done.

He felt extremely uneasy, but for another hour or so was ashamed to act. Then be went to the tube and asked another question or two, but the servant had no idea of Mabel’s movements; it might be she had gone to the church; sometimes she did at this hour. He sent the woman off to see, and himself sat down again in the window-seat of his wife’s room, staring out disconsolately at the wide array of roofs in the golden sunset light, that seemed to his eyes to be strangely beautiful this evening. The sky was not that pure gold which it had been every night during this last week; there was a touch of rose in it, and this extended across the entire vault so far as he could see from west to east. He reflected on what he had lately read in an old book to the effect that the abolition of smoke had certainly changed evening colours for the worse…. There had been a couple of severe earthquakes, too, in America—he wondered whether there was any connection…. Then his thoughts flew back to Mabel….

It was about ten minutes before he heard her footstep on the stairs, and as he stood up she came in.

There was something in her face that told him that she knew everything, and his heart sickened at her pale rigidity. There was no fury there—nothing but white, hopeless despair, and an immense determination. Her lips showed a straight line, and her eyes, beneath her white summer hat, seemed contracted to pinpricks. She stood there, closing the door mechanically behind her, and made no further movement towards him.

“Is it true?” she said.

Oliver drew one steady breath, and sat down again.

“Is what true, my dear?”

“Is it true,” she said again, “that all are to be questioned as to whether they believe in God, and to be killed if they confess it?”

Oliver licked his dry lips.

“You put it very harshly,” he said. “The question is, whether the world has a right—-”

She made a sharp movement with her head.

“It is true then. And you signed it?”

“My dear, I beg you not to make a scene. I am tired out. And I will not answer that until you have heard what I have to say.”

“Say it, then.”

“Sit down, then.”

She shook her head.

“Very well, then…. Well, this is the point. The world is one now, not many. Individualism is dead. It died when Felsenburgh became President of the World. You surely see that absolutely new conditions prevail now—there has never been anything like it before. You know all this as well as I do.”

Again came that jerk of impatience.

“You will please to hear me out,” he said wearily. “Well, now that this has happened, there is a new morality; it is exactly like a child coming to the age of reason. We are obliged, therefore, to see that this continues—that there is no going back—no mortification—that all the limbs are in good health. ‘If thy hand offend thee, cut it off,’ said Jesus Christ. Well, that is what we say…. Now, for any one to say that they believe in God—I doubt very much whether there is any one who really does believe, or understand what it means—but for any one even to say so is the very worst crime conceivable: it is high treason. But there is going to be no violence; it will all be quite quiet and merciful. Why, you have always approved of Euthanasia, as we all do. Well, it is that that will be used; and—-”

Once more she made a little movement with her hand. The rest of her was like an image.

“Is this any use?” she asked.

Oliver stood up. He could not bear the hardness of her voice.

“Mabel, my darling—-”

For an instant her lips shook; then again she looked at him with eyes of ice.

“I don’t want that,” she said. “It is of no use.. Then you did sign it?”

Oliver had a sense of miserable desperation as he looked back at her.

He would infinitely have preferred that she had stormed and wept.

“Mabel—-” he cried again.

“Then you did sign it?”

“I did sign it,” he said at last.

She turned and went towards the door. He sprang after her.

“Mabel, where are you going?”

Then, for the first time in her life, she lied to her husband frankly and fully.

“I am going to rest a little,” she said. “I shall see you presently at supper.”

He still hesitated, but she met his eyes, pale indeed, but so honest that he fell back.

“Very well, my dear…. Mabel, try to understand.”

He came down to supper half-an-hour later, primed with logic, and even kindled with emotion. The argument seemed to him now so utterly convincing; granted the premises that they both accepted and lived by, the conclusion was simply inevitable.

He waited a minute or two, and at last went to the tube that communicated with the servants’ quarters.

“Where is Mrs. Brand?” he asked.

There was an instant’s silence, and then the answer came:

“She left the house half-an-hour ago, sir. I thought you knew.”

III

That same evening Mr. Francis was very busy in his office over the details connected with the festival of Sustenance that was to be celebrated on the first of July. It was the first time that the particular ceremony had taken place, and he was anxious that it should be as successful as its predecessors. There were a few differences between this and the others, and it was necessary that the ceremoniarii should be fully instructed.

So, with his model before him—a miniature replica of the interior of the Abbey, with tiny dummy figures on blocks that could be shifted this way and that, he was engaged in adding in a minute ecclesiastical hand rubrical notes to his copy of the Order of Proceedings.

When the porter therefore rang up a little after twenty-one o’clock, that a lady wished to see him, he answered rather brusquely down the tube that it was impossible. But the bell rang again, and to his impatient question, the reply came up that it was Mrs. Brand below, and that she did not ask for more than ten minutes’ conversation. This was quite another matter. Oliver Brand was an important personage, and his wife therefore had significance, and Mr. Francis apologised, gave directions that she was to come to his ante-room, and rose, sighing, from his dummy Abbey and officials.

She seemed very quiet this evening, he thought, as he shook hands with her a minute later; she wore her veil down, so that he could not see her face very well, but her voice seemed to lack its usual vivacity.

“I am so sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Francis,” she said. “I only want to ask you one or two questions.”

He smiled at her encouragingly.

“Mr. Brand, no doubt—-”

“No,” she said, “Mr. Brand has not sent me. It is entirely my own affair. You will see my reasons presently. I will begin at once. I know I must not keep you.”

It all seemed rather odd, he thought, but no doubt he would understand soon.

“First,” she said, “I think you used to know Father Franklin. He became a Cardinal, didn’t he?”

Mr. Francis assented, smiling.

“Do you know if he is alive?”

“No,” he said. “He is dead. He was in Rome, you know, at the time of its destruction.”

“Ah! You are sure?”

“Quite sure. Only one Cardinal escaped—Steinmann. He was hanged in

Berlin; and the Patriarch of Jerusalem died a week or two later.”

“Ah! very well. Well, now, here is a very odd question. I ask for a particular reason, which I cannot explain, but you will soon understand…. It is this—Why do Catholics believe in God?”

He was so much taken aback that for a moment he sat staring.

“Yes,” she said tranquilly, “it is a very odd question. But—-” she hesitated. “Well, I will tell you,” she said. “The fact is, that I have a friend who is—is in danger from this new law. I want to be able to argue with her; and I must know her side. You are the only priest—I mean who has been a priest—whom I ever knew, except Father Franklin. So I thought you would not mind telling me.”

Her voice was entirely natural; there was not a tremor or a falter in it. Mr. Francis smiled genially, rubbing his hands softly together.

“Ah!” he said. “Yes, I see…. Well, that is a very large question.

Would not to-morrow, perhaps—-?”

“I only want just the shortest answer,” she said. “It is really important for me to know at once. You see, this new law comes into force—-”

He nodded.

“Well—very briefly, I should say this: Catholics say that God can be perceived by reason; that from the arrangements of the world they can deduce that there must have been an Arranger—a Mind, you understand. Then they say that they deduce other things about God—that He is Love, for example, because of happiness—-”

“And the pain?” she interrupted.

He smiled again.

“Yes. That is the point—that is the weak point.”

“But what do they say about that?”

“Well, briefly, they say that pain is the result of sin—-”

“And sin? You see, I know nothing at all, Mr. Francis.”

“Well, sin is the rebellion of man’s will against God’s.”

“What do they mean by that?”

“Well, you see, they say that God wanted to be loved by His creatures, so He made them free; otherwise they could not really love. But if they were free, it means that they could if they liked refuse to love and obey God; and that is what is called Sin. You see what nonsense—-”

She jerked her head a little.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “But I really want to get at what they think….

Well, then, that is all?”

Mr. Francis pursed his lips.

“Scarcely,” he said; “that is hardly more than what they call Natural

Religion. Catholics believe much more than that.”

“Well?”

“My dear Mrs. Brand, it is impossible to put it in a few words. But, in brief, they believe that God became man—that Jesus was God, and that He did this in order to save them from sin by dying—-”

“By bearing pain, you mean?”

“Yes; by dying. Well, what they call the Incarnation is really the point. Everything else flows from that. And, once a man believes that, I must confess that all the rest follows—even down to scapulars and holy water.”

“Mr. Francis, I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

He smiled indulgently.

“Of course not,” he said; “it is all incredible nonsense. But, you know,

I did really believe it all once.”

“But it’s unreasonable,” she said.

He made a little demurring sound.

“Yes,” he said, “in one sense, of course it is—utterly unreasonable.

But in another sense—-”

She leaned forward suddenly, and he could catch the glint of her eyes beneath her white veil.

“Ah!” she said, almost breathlessly. “That is what I want to hear. Now, tell me how they justify it.”

He paused an instant, considering.

“Well,” he said slowly, “as far as I remember, they say that there are other faculties besides those of reason. They say, for example, that the heart sometimes finds out things that the reason cannot—intuitions, you see. For instance, they say that all things such as self-sacrifice and chivalry and even art—all come from the heart, that Reason comes with them—in rules of technique, for instance—but that it cannot prove them; they are quite apart from that.”

“I think I see.”

“Well, they say that Religion is like that—in other words, they practically confess that it is merely a matter of emotion.” He paused again, trying to be fair. “Well, perhaps they would not say that—although it is true. But briefly—-”

“Well?”

“Well, they say there is a thing called Faith—a kind of deep conviction unlike anything else—supernatural—which God is supposed to give to people who desire it—to people who pray for it, and lead good lives, and so on—-”

“And this Faith?”

“Well, this Faith, acting upon what they call Evidences—this Faith makes them absolutely certain that there is a God, that He was made man and so on, with the Church and all the rest of it. They say too that this is further proved by the effect that their religion has had in the world, and by the way it explains man’s nature to himself. You see, it is just a case of self-suggestion.”

He heard her sigh, and stopped.

“Is that any clearer, Mrs. Brand?”

“Thank you very much,” she said, “it certainly is clearer. … And it is true that Christians have died for this Faith, whatever it is?”

“Oh! yes. Thousands and thousands. Just as Mohammedans have for theirs.”

“The Mohammedans believe in God, too, don’t they?”

“Well, they did, and I suppose that a few do now. But very few: the rest have become esoteric, as they say.”

“And—and which would you say were the most highly evolved people—East or West?”

“Oh! West undoubtedly. The East thinks a good deal, but it doesn’t act much. And that always leads to confusion—even to stagnation of thought.”

“And Christianity certainly has been the Religion of the West up to a hundred years ago?”

“Oh! yes.”

She was silent then, and Mr. Francis had time again to reflect how very odd all this was. She certainly must be very much attached to this Christian friend of hers.

Then she stood up, and he rose with her.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Francis…. Then that is the kind of outline?”

“Well, yes; so far as one can put it in a few words.”

“Thank you…. I mustn’t keep you.”

He went with her towards the door. But within a yard of it she stopped.

“And you, Mr. Francis. You were brought up in all this. Does it ever come back to you?”

He smiled.

“Never,” he said, “except as a dream.”

“How do you account for that, then? If it is all self-suggestion, you have had thirty years of it.”

She paused; and for a moment he hesitated what to answer.

“How would your old fellow-Catholics account for it?”

“They would say that I bad forfeited light—that Faith was withdrawn.”

“And you?”

Again he paused.

“I should say that I had made a stronger self-suggestion the other way.”

“I see…. Good-night, Mr. Francis.”

She would not let him come down the lift with her, so when he had seen the smooth box drop noiselessly below the level, he went back again to his model of the Abbey and the little dummy figures. But, before he began to move these about again, he sat for a moment or two with pursed lips, staring.

CHAPTER IV

I

A week later Mabel awoke about dawn; and for a moment or two forgot where she was. She even spoke Oliver’s name aloud, staring round the unfamiliar room, wondering what she did here. Then she remembered, and was silent….

It was the eighth day she had spent in this Home; her probation was finished: to-day she wits at liberty to do that for which she had come. On the Saturday of the previous week she had gone through her private examination before the magistrate, stating under the usual conditions of secrecy her name, age and home, as well as her reasons for making the application for Euthanasia; and all had passed off well. She had selected Manchester as being sufficiently remote and sufficiently large to secure her freedom from Oliver’s molestation; and her secret had been admirably kept. There was not a hint that her husband knew anything of her intentions; for, after all, in these cases the police were bound to assist the fugitive. Individualism was at least so far recognised as to secure to those weary of life the right of relinquishing it. She scarcely knew why she had selected this method, except that any other seemed impossible. The knife required skill and resolution; firearms were unthinkable, and poison, under the new stringent regulations, was hard to obtain. Besides, she seriously wished to test her own intentions, and to be quite sure that there was no other way than this….

Well, she was as certain as ever. The thought had first come to her in the mad misery of the outbreak of violence on the last day of the old year. Then it had gone again, soothed away by the arguments that man was still liable to relapse. Then once more it had recurred, a cold and convincing phantom, in the plain daylight revealed by Felsenburgh’s Declaration. It had taken up its abode with her then, yet she controlled it, hoping against hope that the Declaration would not be carried into action, occasionally revolting against its horror. Yet it had never been far away; and finally when the policy sprouted into deliberate law, she had yielded herself resolutely to its suggestion. That was eight days ago; and she had not had one moment of faltering since that.

Yet she had ceased to condemn. The logic had silenced her. All that she

knew was that she could not bear it; that she had misconceived the New

Faith; that for her, whatever it was for others, there was no hope….

She had not even a child of her own.

Those eight days, required by law, had passed very peacefully. She had taken with her enough money to enter one of the private homes furnished with sufficient comfort to save from distractions those who had been accustomed to gentle living: the nurses had been pleasant and sympathetic; she had nothing to complain of.

She had suffered, of course, to some degree from reactions. The second night after her arrival had been terrible, when, as she lay in bed in the hot darkness, her whole sentient life had protested and struggled against the fate her will ordained. It had demanded the familiar things—the promise of food and breath and human intercourse; it had writhed in horror against the blind dark towards which it moved so inevitably; and, in the agony had been pacified only by the half-hinted promise of some deeper voice suggesting that death was not the end. With morning light sanity had come back; the will had reassumed the mastery, and, with it, had withdrawn explicitly the implied hope of continued existence. She had suffered again for an hour or two from a more concrete fear; the memory came back to her of those shocking revelations that ten years ago had convulsed England and brought about the establishment of these Homes under Government supervision—those evidences that for years in the great vivisection laboratories human subjects had been practised upon—persons who with the same intentions as herself had cut themselves off from the world in private euthanasia-houses, to whom had been supplied a gas that suspended instead of destroying animation…. But this, too, had passed with the return of light. Such things were impossible now under the new system—at least, in England. She had refrained from making an end upon the Continent for this very reason. There, where sentiment was weaker, and logic more imperious, materialism was more consistent. Since men were but animals—the conclusion was inevitable.

There had been but one physical drawback, the intolerable heat of the days and nights. It seemed, scientists said, that an entirely unexpected heat-wave had been generated; there were a dozen theories, most of which were mutually exclusive one of another. It was humiliating, she thought, that men who professed to have taken the earth under their charge should be so completely baffled. The conditions of the weather had of course been accompanied by disasters; there had been earthquakes of astonishing violence, a ripple had wrecked not less than twenty-five towns in America; an island or two had disappeared, and that bewildering Vesuvius seemed to be working up for a denouement. But no one knew really the explanation. One man had been wild enough to say that some cataclysm had taken place in the centre of the earth…. So she had heard from her nurse; but she was not greatly interested. It was only tiresome that she could not walk much in the garden, and had to be content with sitting in her own cool shaded room on the second floor.

There was only one other matter of which she had asked, namely, the effect of the new decree; but the nurse did not seem to know much about that. It appeared that there had been an outrage or two, but the law had not yet been enforced to any great extent; a week, after all, was a short time, even though the decree had taken effect at once, and magistrates were beginning the prescribed census.

It seemed to her as she lay awake this morning, staring at the tinted ceiling, and out now and again at the quiet little room, that the heat was worse than ever. For a minute she thought she must have overslept; but, as she touched her repeater, it told her that it was scarcely after four o’clock. Well, well; she would not have to bear it much longer; she thought that about eight it would be time to make an end. There was her letter to Oliver yet to be written; and one or two final arrangements to be made.

As regarded the morality of what she was doing-the relation, that is to say, which her act bore to the common life of man—she had no shadow of doubt. It was her belief, as of the whole Humanitarian world, that just as bodily pain occasionally justified this termination of life, so also did mental pain. There was a certain pitch of distress at which the individual was no longer necessary to himself or the world; it was the most charitable act that could be performed. But she had never thought in old days that that state could ever be hers; Life had been much too interesting. But it had come to this: there was no question of it.

Perhaps a dozen times in that week she had thought over her conversation with Mr. Francis. Her going to him had been little more than instinctive; she did just wish to hear what the other side was—whether Christianity was as ludicrous as she had always thought. It seemed that it was not ludicrous; it was only terribly pathetic. It was just a lovely dream—an exquisite piece of poetry. It would be heavenly to believe it, but she did not. No—a transcendent God was unthinkable, although not quite so unthinkable as a merely immeasurable Man. And as for the Incarnation—well, well!

There seemed no way out of it. The Humanity-Religion was the only one. Man was God, or at least His highest manifestation; and He was a God with which she did not wish to have anything more to do. These faint new instincts after something other than intellect and emotion were, she knew perfectly well, nothing but refined emotion itself.

She had thought a great deal of Felsenburgh, however, and was astonished at her own feelings. He was certainly the most impressive man she had ever seen; it did seem very probable indeed that He was what He claimed to be—the Incarnation of the ideal Man the first perfect product of humanity. But the logic of his position was too much for her. She saw now that He was perfectly logical—that He had not been inconsistent in denouncing the destruction of Rome and a week later making His declaration. It was the passion of one man against another that He denounced—of kingdom against kingdom, and sect against sect—for this was suicidal for the race. He denounced passion, too, not judicial action. Therefore, this new decree was as logical as Himself—it was a judicial act on the part of an united world against a tiny majority that threatened the principle of life and faith: and it was to be carried out with supreme mercy; there was no revenge or passion or partisan spirit in it from beginning to end; no more than a man is revengeful or passionate when he amputates a diseased limb—Oliver had convinced her of that.

Yes, it was logical and sound. And it was because it was so that she could not bear it…. But ah! what a sublime man Felsenburgh was; it was a joy to her even to recall his speeches and his personality. She would have liked to see him again. But it was no good. She had better be done with it as tranquilly as possible. And the world must go forward without her. She was just tired out with Facts.

She dozed off again presently, and it seemed scarcely five minutes before she looked up to see a gentle smiling face of a white-capped nurse bending over her.

“It is nearly six o’clock, my dear—the time you told me. I came to see about breakfast.”

Mabel drew a long breath. Then she sat up suddenly, throwing back the sheet.

II

It struck a quarter-past six from the little clock on the mantel-shelf as she laid down her pen. Then she took up the closely written sheets, leaned back in her deep chair, and began to read.

“HOME OF REST,

“NO 3A MANCHESTER WEST.

“MY DEAR: I am very sorry, but it has come back to me. I really cannot go on any longer, so I am going to escape in the only way left, as I once told you. I have had a very quiet and happy time here; they have been most kind and considerate. You see, of course, from the heading on this paper, what I mean….

“Well, you have always been very dear to me; you are still, even at this moment. So you have a right to know my reasons so far as I know them myself. It is very difficult to understand myself; but it seems to me that I am not strong enough to live. So long as I was pleased and excited it was all very well—especially when He came. But I think I had expected it to be different; I did not understand as I do now how it must come to this—how it is all quite logical and right. I could bear it, when I thought that they had acted through passion, but this is deliberate. I did not realise that Peace must have its laws, and must protect itself. And, somehow, that Peace is not what I want. It is being alive at all that is wrong.

“Then there is this difficulty. I know how absolutely in agreement you are with this new state of affairs; of course you are, because you are so much stronger and more logical than I am. But if you have a wife she must be of one mind with you. And I am not, any more, at least not with my heart, though I see you are right…. Do you understand, my dear?

“If we had had a child, it might have been different. I might have liked to go on living for his sake. But Humanity, somehow—Oh! Oliver! I can’t—I can’t.

“I know I am wrong, and that you are right—but there it is; I cannot change myself. So I am quite sure that I must go.

“Then I want to tell you this—that I am not at all frightened. I never can understand why people are—unless, of course, they are Christians. I should be horribly frightened if I was one of them. But, you see, we both know that there is nothing beyond. It is life that I am frightened of—not death. Of course, I should be frightened if there was any pain; but the doctors tell me there is absolutely none. It is simply going to sleep. The nerves are dead before the brain. I am going to do it myself. I don’t want any one else in the room. In a few minutes the nurse here—Sister Anne, with whom I have made great friends—will bring in the thing, and then she will leave me.

“As regards what happens afterwards, I do not mind at all. Please do exactly what you wish. The cremation will take place to-morrow morning at noon, so that you can be here if you like. Or you can send directions, and they will send on the urn to you. I know you liked to have your mother’s urn in the garden; so perhaps you will like mine. Please do exactly what you like. And with all my things too. Of course I leave them to you.

“Now, my dear, I want to say this—that I am very sorry indeed now that I was so tiresome and stupid. I think I did really believe your arguments all along. But I did not want to believe them. Do you see now why I was so tiresome?

“Oliver, my darling, you have been extraordinarily good to me…. Yes, I know I am crying, but I am really very happy. This is such a lovely ending. I wish I hadn’t been obliged to make you so anxious during this last week: but I had to—I knew you would persuade me against it, if you found me, and that would have been worse than ever. I am sorry I told you that lie, too. Indeed, it is the first I ever did tell you.

“Well, I don’t think there is much more to say. Oliver, my dear, good-bye. I send you my love with all my heart.

“MABEL.”

She sat still when she had read it through, and her eyes were still wet with tears. Yet it was all perfectly true. She was far happier than she could be if she had still the prospect of going back. Life seemed entirely blank: death was so obvious an escape; her soul ached for it, as a body for sleep.

She directed the envelope, still with a perfectly steady hand, laid it on the table, and leaned back once more, glancing again at her untasted breakfast.

Then she suddenly began to think of her conversation with Mr. Francis; and, by a strange association of ideas, remembered the fall of the volor in Brighton, the busy-ness of the priest, and the Euthanasia boxes….

When Sister Anne came in a few minutes later, she was astonished at what she saw. The girl crouched at the window, her hands on the sill, staring out at the sky in an attitude of unmistakable horror.

Sister Anne came across the room quickly, setting down something on the table as she passed. She touched the girl on the shoulder.

“My dear, what is it?”

There was a long sobbing breath, and Mabel turned, rising as she turned, and clutched the nurse with one shaking hand, pointing out with the other.

“There!” she said. “There—look!”

“Well, my dear, what is it? I see nothing. It is a little dark!”

“Dark!” said the other. “You call that dark! Why, why, it is black—black!”

The nurse drew her softly backwards to the chair, turning her from the window. She recognised nervous fear; but no more than that. But Mabel tore herself free, and wheeled again.

“You call that a little dark,” she said. “Why, look, sister, look!”

Yet there was nothing remarkable to be seen. In front rose up the feathery hand of an elm, then the shuttered windows across the court, the roof, and above that the morning sky, a little heavy and dusky as before a storm; but no more than that.

“Well, what is it, my dear? What do you see?”

“Why, why … look! look!—There, listen to that.”

A faint far-away rumble sounded as the rolling of a waggon—so faint that it might almost be an aural delusion. But the girl’s hands were at her ears, and her face was one white wide-eyed mask of terror. The nurse threw her arms round her.

“My dear,” she said, “you are not yourself. That is nothing but a little heat-thunder. Sit down quietly.”

She could feel the girl’s body shaking beneath her hands, but there was no resistance as she drew her to the chair.

“The lights! the lights!” sobbed Mabel.

“Will you promise me to sit quietly, then?”

She nodded; and the nurse went across to the door, smiling tenderly; she had seen such things before. A moment later the room was full of exquisite sunlight, as she switched the handle. As she turned, she saw that Mabel had wheeled herself round in the chair, and with clasped hands was still staring out at the sky above the roofs; but she was plainly quieter again now. The nurse came back, and put her hand on her shoulder.

“You are overwrought, my dear…. Now you must believe me. There is nothing to be frightened of. It is just nervous excitement…. Shall I pull down the blind?”

Mabel turned her face…. Yes, certainly the light had reassured her. Her face was still white and bewildered, but the steady look was coming back to her eyes, though, even as she spoke, they wandered back more than once to the window.

“Nurse,” she said more quietly, “please look again and tell me if you see nothing. If you say there is nothing I will believe that I am going mad. No; you must not touch the blind.”

No; there was nothing. The sky was a little dark, as if a blight were coming on; but there was hardly more than a veil of cloud, and the light was scarcely more than tinged with gloom. It was just such a sky as precedes a spring thunderstorm. She said so, clearly and firmly.

Mabel’s face steadied still more.

“Very well, nurse…. Then—-”

She turned to the little table by the side on which Sister Anne had set down what she had brought into the room.

“Show me, please.”

The nurse still hesitated.

“Are you sure you are not too frightened, my dear? Shall I get you anything?”

“I have no more to say,” said Mabel firmly. “Show me, please.”

Sister Anne turned resolutely to the table.

There rested upon it a white-enamelled box, delicately painted with flowers. From this box emerged a white flexible tube with a broad mouthpiece, fitted with two leather-covered steel clasps. From the side of the box nearest the chair protruded a little china handle.

“Now, my dear,” began the nurse quietly, watching the other’s eyes turn once again to the window, and then back—”now, my dear, you sit there, as you are now. Your head right back, please. When you are ready, you put this over your mouth, and clasp the springs behind your head…. So…. it works quite easily. Then you turn this handle, round that way, as far as it will go. And that is all.”

Mabel nodded. She had regained her self-command, and understood plainly enough, though even as she spoke once again her eyes strayed away to the window.

“That is all,” she said. “And what then?”

The nurse eyed her doubtfully for a moment.

“I understand perfectly,” said Mabel. “And what then?”

“There is nothing more. Breathe naturally. You will feel sleepy almost directly. Then you close your eyes, and that is all.”

Mabel laid the tube on the table and stood up. She was completely herself now.

“Give me a kiss, sister,” she said.

The nurse nodded and smiled to her once more at the door. But Mabel hardly noticed it; again she was looking towards the window.

“I shall come back in half-an-hour,” said Sister Anne.

Then her eyes caught a square of white upon the centre table. “Ah! that letter!” she said.

“Yes,” said the girl absently. “Please take it.”

The nurse took it up, glanced at the address, and again at Mabel. Still she hesitated.

“In half-an-hour,” she repeated. “There is no hurry at all. It doesn’t take five minutes…. Good-bye, my dear.”

But Mabel was still looking out of the window, and made no answer.

III

Mabel stood perfectly still until she heard the locking of the door and the withdrawal of the key. Then once more she went to the window and clasped the sill.

From where she stood there was visible to her first the courtyard beneath, with its lawn in the centre, and a couple of trees growing there—all plain in the brilliant light that now streamed from her window, and secondly, above the roofs, a tremendous pall of ruddy black. It was the more terrible from the contrast. Earth, it seemed, was capable of light; heaven had failed.

It appeared, too, that there was a curious stillness. The house was, usually, quiet enough at this hour: the inhabitants of that place were in no mood for bustle: but now it was more than quiet; it was deathly still: it was such a hush as precedes the sudden crash of the sky’s artillery. But the moments went by, and there was no such crash: only once again there sounded a solemn rolling, as of some great wain far away; stupendously impressive, for with it to the girl’s ears there seemed mingled a murmur of innumerable voices, ghostly crying and applause. Then again the hush settled down like wool.

She had begun to understand now. The darkness and the sounds were not for all eyes and ears. The nurse had seen and heard nothing extraordinary, and the rest of the world of men saw and heard nothing. To them it was no more than the hint of a coming storm.

Mabel did not attempt to distinguish between the subjective and the objective. It was nothing to her as to whether the sights and sounds were generated by her own brain or perceived by some faculty hitherto unknown. She seemed to herself to be standing already apart from the world which she had known; it was receding from her, or, rather, while standing where it had always done, it was melting, transforming itself, passing to some other mode of existence. The strangeness seemed no more strange than anything else than that … that little painted box upon the table.

Then, hardly knowing what she said, looking steadily upon that appalling sky, she began to speak….

“O God!” she said. “If You are really there really there—-”

Her voice faltered, and she gripped the sill to steady herself. She wondered vaguely why she spoke so; it was neither intellect nor emotion that inspired her. Yet she continued….

“O God, I know You are not there—of course You are not. But if You were there, I know what I would say to You. I would tell You how puzzled and tired I am. No—No—I need not tell You: You would know it. But I would say that I was very sorry for all this. Oh! You would know that too. I need not say anything at all. O God! I don’t know what I want to say. I would like You to look after Oliver, of course, and all Your poor Christians. Oh! they will have such a hard time…. God. God—You would understand, wouldn’t You?” …

Again came the heavy rumble and the solemn bass of a myriad voices; it seemed a shade nearer, she thought…. She never liked thunderstorms or shouting crowds. They always gave her a headache …

“Well, well,” she said. “Good-bye, everything—-”

Then she was in the chair. The mouthpiece—yes; that was it….

She was furious at the trembling of her hands; twice the spring slipped from her polished coils of hair…. Then it was fixed … and as if a breeze fanned her, her sense came back….

She found she could breathe quite easily; there was no resistance—that was a comfort; there would be no suffocation about it…. She put out her left hand and touched the handle, conscious less of its sudden coolness than of the unbearable heat in which the room seemed almost suddenly plunged. She could hear the drumming pulses in her temples and the roaring of the voices…. She dropped the handle once more, and with both hands tore at the loose white wrapper that she had put on this morning….

Yes, that was a little easier; she could breathe better so. Again her fingers felt for and found the handle, but the sweat streamed from her fingers, and for an instant she could not turn the knob. Then it yielded suddenly….

For one instant the sweet languid smell struck her consciousness like a blow, for she knew it as the scent of death. Then the steady will that had borne her so far asserted itself, and she laid her hands softly in her lap, breathing deeply and easily.

She had closed her eyes at the turning of the handle, but now opened them again, curious to watch the aspect of the fading world. She had determined to do this a week ago: she would at least miss nothing of this unique last experience.

It seemed at first that there was no change. There was the feathery head of the elm, the lead roof opposite, and the terrible sky above. She noticed a pigeon, white against the blackness, soar and swoop again out of sight in an instant….

… Then the following things happened….

There was a sudden sensation of ecstatic lightness in all her limbs; she attempted to lift a hand, and was aware that it was impossible; it was no longer hers. She attempted to lower her eyes from that broad strip of violet sky, and perceived that that too was impossible. Then she understood that the will had already lost touch with the body, that the crumbling world had receded to an infinite distance—that was as she had expected, but what continued to puzzle her was that her mind was still active. It was true that the world she had known had withdrawn itself from the dominion of consciousness, as her body had done, except, that was, in the sense of hearing, which was still strangely alert; yet there was still enough memory to be aware that there was such a world—that there were other persons in existence; that men went about their business, knowing nothing of what had happened; but faces, names, places had all alike gone. In fact, she was conscious of herself in such a manner as she had never been before; it seemed as if she had penetrated at last into some recess of her being into which hitherto she had only looked as through clouded glass. This was very strange, and yet it was familiar, too; she had arrived, it seemed, at a centre, round the circumference of which she had been circling all her life; and it was more than a mere point: it was a distinct space, walled and enclosed…. At the same instant she knew that hearing, too, was gone….

Then an amazing thing happened—yet it appeared to her that she had always known it would happen, although her mind had never articulated it. This is what happened.

The enclosure melted, with a sound of breaking, and a limitless space was about her—limitless, different to everything else, and alive, and astir. It was alive, as a breathing, panting body is alive—self-evident and overpowering—it was one, yet it was many; it was immaterial, yet absolutely real—real in a sense in which she never dreamed of reality….

Yet even this was familiar, as a place often visited in dreams is familiar; and then, without warning, something resembling sound or light, something which she knew in an instant to be unique, tore across it….

Then she saw, and understood….

CHAPTER V

I

Oliver had passed the days since Mabel’s disappearance in an indescribable horror. He had done all that was possible: he had traced her to the station and to Victoria, where he lost her clue; he had communicated with the police, and the official answer, telling him nothing, had arrived to the effect that there was no news: and it was not until the Tuesday following her disappearance that Mr. Francis, hearing by chance of his trouble, informed him by telephone that he had spoken with her on the Friday night. But there was no satisfaction to be got from him—indeed, the news was bad rather than good, for Oliver could not but be dismayed at the report of the conversation, in spite of Mr. Francis’s assurances that Mrs. Brand had shown no kind of inclination to defend the Christian cause.

Two theories gradually emerged, in his mind; either she was gone to the protection of some unknown Catholic, or—and he grew sick at the thought—she had applied somewhere for Euthanasia as she had once threatened, and was now under the care of the Law; such an event was sufficiently common since the passing of the Release Act in 1998. And it was frightful that he could not condemn it.

On the Tuesday evening, as he sat heavily in his room, for the hundredth time attempting to trace out some coherent line through the maze of intercourse he had had with his wife during these past months, his bell suddenly rang. It was the red label of Whitehall that had made its appearance; and for an instant his heart leaped with hope that it was news of her. But at the first words it sank again.

“Brand,” came the sharp fairy voice, “is that you?… Yes, I am Snowford. You are wanted at once—at once, you understand. There is an extraordinary meeting of the Council at twenty o’clock. The President will be there. You understand the urgency. No time for more. Come instantly to my room.”

Even this message scarcely distracted him. He, with the rest of the world, was no longer surprised at the sudden descents of the President. He came and vanished again without warning, travelling and working with incredible energy, yet always, as it seemed, retaining his personal calm.

It was already after nineteen; Oliver supped immediately, and a quarter-of-an-hour before the hour presented himself in Snowford’s room, where half a dozen of his colleagues were assembled.

That minister came forward to meet him, with a strange excitement in his face. He drew him aside by a button.

“See here, Brand, you are wanted to speak first—immediately after the President’s Secretary who will open; they are coming from Paris. It is about a new matter altogether. He has had information of the whereabouts of the Pope…. It seems that there is one…. Oh, you will understand presently. Oh, and by the way,” he went on, looking curiously at the strained face, “I am sorry to hear of your anxiety. Pemberton told me just now.”

Oliver lifted a hand abruptly.

“Tell me,” he said. “What am I wanted to say?”

“Well, the President will have a proposal, we imagine. You know our minds well enough. Just explain our attitude towards the Catholics.”

Oliver’s eyes shrank suddenly to two bright lines beneath the lids. He nodded.

Cartwright came up presently, an immense, bent old man with a face of parchment, as befitted the Lord Chief Justice.

“By the way, Brand, what do you know of a man called Phillips? He seems to have mentioned your name.”

“He was my secretary,” said Oliver slowly. “What about him?”

“I think he must be mad. He has given himself up to a magistrate, entreating to be examined at once. The magistrate has applied for instructions. You see, the Act has scarcely begun to move yet.”

“But what has he done?”

“That’s the difficulty. He says he cannot deny God, neither can he affirm Him.—He was your secretary, then?”

“Certainly. I knew he was inclined to Christianity. I had to get rid of him for that.”

“Well, he is to be remanded for a week. Perhaps he will be able to make up his mind.”

Then the talk shifted off again. Two or three more came up, and all eyed Oliver with a certain curiosity; the story was gone about that his wife had left him. They wished to see how he took it.

At five minutes before the hour a bell rang, and the door into the corridor was thrown open.

“Come, gentlemen,” said the Prime Minister.

The Council Chamber was a long high room on the first floor; its walls from floor to ceiling were lined with books. A noiseless rubber carpet was underfoot. There were no windows; the room was lighted artificially. A long table, set round with armed chairs, ran the length of the floor, eight on either side; and the Presidential chair, raised on a dais, stood at the head.

Each man went straight to his chair in silence, and remained there, waiting.

The room was beautifully cool, in spite of the absence of windows, and was a pleasant contrast to the hot evening outside through which most of these men had come. They, too, had wondered at the surprising weather, and had smiled at the conflict of the infallible. But they were not thinking about that now: the coming of the President was a matter which always silenced the most loquacious. Besides, this time, they understood that the affair was more serious than usual.

At one minute before the hour, again a bell sounded, four times, and ceased; and at the signal each man turned instinctively to the high sliding door behind the Presidential chair. There was dead silence within and without: the huge Government offices were luxuriously provided with sound-deadening apparatus, and not even the rolling of the vast motors within a hundred yards was able to send a vibration through the layers of rubber on which the walls rested. There was only one noise that could penetrate, and that the sound of thunder. The experts were at present unable to exclude this.

Again the silence seemed to fall in one yet deeper veil. Then the door opened, and a figure came swiftly through, followed by Another in black and scarlet.

II

He passed straight up to the chair, followed by two secretaries, bowed slightly to this side and that, sat down and made a little gesture. Then they, too, were in their chairs, upright and intent. For perhaps the hundredth time, Oliver, staring upon the President, marvelled at the quietness and the astounding personality of Him. He was in the English judicial dress that had passed down through centuries—black and scarlet with sleeves of white fur and a crimson sash—and that had lately been adopted as the English presidential costume of him who stood at the head of the legislature. But it was in His personality, in the atmosphere that flowed from Him, that the marvel lay. It was as the scent of the sea to the physical nature—it exhilarated, cleansed, kindled, intoxicated. It was as inexplicably attractive as a cherry orchard in spring, as affecting as the cry of stringed instruments, as compelling as a storm. So writers had said. They compared it to a stream of clear water, to the flash of a gem, to the love of woman. They lost all decency sometimes; they said it fitted all moods, as the voice of many waters; they called it again and again, as explicitly as possible, the Divine Nature perfectly Incarnate at last….

Then Oliver’s reflections dropped from him like a mantle, for the President, with downcast eyes and head thrown back, made a little gesture to the ruddy-faced secretary on His right; and this man, without a movement, began to speak like an impersonal actor repeating his part.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in an even, resonant voice, “the President is come direct from Paris. This afternoon His Honour was in Berlin; this morning, early, in Moscow. Yesterday in New York. To-night His Honour must be in Turin; and to-morrow will begin to return through Spain, North Africa, Greece and the southeastern states.”

This was the usual formula for such speeches. The President spoke but little himself now; but was careful for the information of his subjects on occasions like this. His secretaries were perfectly trained, and this speaker was no exception. After a slight pause, he continued:

“This is the business, gentlemen.

“Last Thursday, as you are aware, the Plenipotentaries signed the Test Act in this room, and it was immediately communicated all over the world. At sixteen o’clock His Honour received a message from a man named Dolgorovski—who is, it is understood, one of the Cardinals of the Catholic Church. This he claimed; and on inquiry it was found to be a fact. His information confirmed what was already suspected—namely, that there was a man claiming to be Pope, who had created (so the phrase is) other cardinals, shortly after the destruction of Rome, subsequent to which his own election took place in Jerusalem. It appears that this Pope, with a good deal of statesmanship, has chosen to keep his own name and place of residence a secret from even his own followers, with the exception of the twelve cardinals; that he has done a great deal, through the instrumentality of one of his cardinals in particular, and through his new Order in general, towards the reorganisation of the Catholic Church; and that at this moment he is living, apart from the world, in complete security.

“His Honour blames Himself that He did not do more than suspect something of the kind—misled, He thinks, by a belief that if there had been a Pope, news would have been heard of it from other quarters, for, as is well known, the entire structure of the Christian Church rests upon him as upon a rock. Further, His Honour thinks inquiries should have been made in the very place where now it is understood that this Pope is living.

“The man’s name, gentlemen, is Franklin—-”

Oliver started uncontrollably, but relapsed again to bright-eyed intelligence as for an instant the President glanced up from his motionlessness.

“Franklin,” repeated the secretary, “and he is living in Nazareth, where, it is said, the Founder of Christianity passed His youth.

“Now this, gentlemen, His Honour heard on Thursday in last week. He caused inquiries to be made, and on Friday morning received further intelligence from Dolgorovski that this Pope had summoned to Nazareth a meeting of his cardinals, and certain other officials, from all over the world, to consider what steps should be taken in view of the new Test Act. This His Honour takes to show an extreme want of statesmanship which seems hard to reconcile with his former action. These persons are summoned by special messengers to meet on Saturday next, and will begin their deliberations after some Christian ceremonies on the following morning.

“You wish, gentlemen, no doubt, to know Dolgorovski’s motives in making all this known. His Honour is satisfied that they are genuine. The man has been losing belief in his religion; in fact, he has come to see that this religion is the supreme obstacle to the consolidation of the race. He has esteemed it his duty, therefore, to lay this information before His Honour. It is interesting as an historical parallel to reflect that the same kind of incident marked the rise of Christianity as will mark, it is thought, its final extinction—namely, the informing on the part of one of the leaders of the place and method by which the principal personage may be best approached. It is also, surely, very significant that the scene of the extinction of Christianity is identical with that of its inauguration….

“Well, gentlemen, His Honour’s proposal is as follows, carrying out the Declaration to which you all acceded. It is that a force should proceed during the night of Saturday next to Palestine, and on the Sunday morning, when these men will be all gathered together, that this force should finish as swiftly and mercifully as possible the work to which the Powers have set their hands. So far, the comment of the Governments which have been consulted has been unanimous, and there is little doubt that the rest will be equally so. His Honour felt that He could not act in on grave a matter on His own responsibility; it is not merely local; it is a catholic administration of justice, and will have results wider than it is safe minutely to prophesy.

“It is not necessary to enter into His Honour’s reasons. They are already well known to you; but before asking for your opinion, He desires me to indicate what He thinks, in the event of your approval, should be the method of action.

“Each Government, it is proposed, should take part in the final scene, for it is something of a symbolic action; and for this purpose it is thought well that each of the three Departments of the World should depute volors, to the number of the constituting States, one hundred and twenty-two all told, to set about the business. These volors should have no common meeting-ground, otherwise the news will surely penetrate to Nazareth, for it is understood that, this new Order of Christ Crucified has a highly organised system of espionage. The rendezvous, then, should be no other than Nazareth itself; and the time of meeting should be, it is thought, not later than nine o’clock according to Palestine reckoning. These details, however, can be decided and communicated as soon as a determination has been formed as regards the entire scheme.

“With respect to the exact method of carrying out the conclusion, His Honour is inclined to think it will be more merciful to enter into no negotiations with the persons concerned. An opportunity should be given to the inhabitants of the village to make their escape if they so desire it, and then, with the explosives that the force should carry, the end can be practically instantaneous.

“For Himself, His Honour proposes to be there in person, and further that the actual discharge should take place from His own car. It seems but suitable that the world which has done His Honour the goodness to elect Him to its Presidentship should act through His hands; and this would be at least some slight token of respect to a superstition which, however infamous, is yet the one and only force capable of withstanding the true progress of man.

“His Honour promises you, gentlemen, that in the event of this plan being carried out, we shall be no more troubled with Christianity. Already the moral effect of the Test Act has been prodigious. It is understood that, by tens of thousands, Catholics, numbering among them even members of this new fanatical Religious Order, have been renouncing their follies even in these few days; and a final blow struck now at the very heart and head of the Catholic Church, eliminating, as it would do, the actual body on which the entire organisation subsists, would render its resurrection impossible. It is a well-known fact that, granted the extinction of the line of Popes, together with those necessary for its continuance, there could be no longer any question amongst even the most ignorant that the claim of Jesus had ceased to be either reasonable or possible. Even the Order that has provided the sinews for this new movement must cease to exist.

“Dolgorovski, of course, is the difficulty, for it is not certainly known whether one Cardinal would be considered sufficient for the propagation of the line; and, although reluctantly, His Honour feels bound to suggest that at the conclusion of the affair, Dolgorovski, also, who will not, of course, be with his fellows at Nazareth, should be mercifully removed from even the danger of a relapse….

“His Honour, then, asks you, gentlemen, as briefly as possible, to state your views on the points of which I have had the privilege of speaking.”

The quiet business-like voice ceased.

He had spoken throughout in the manner with which he had begun; his eyes had been downcast throughout; his voice had been tranquil and restrained. His deportment had been admirable.

There was an instant’s silence, and all eyes settled steadily again upon the motionless figure in black and scarlet and the ivory face.

Then Oliver stood up. His face was as white as paper; his eyes bright and dilated.

“Sir,” he said, “I have no doubt that we are all of one mind. I need say no more than that, so far as I am a representative of my colleagues, we assent to the proposal, and leave all details in your Honour’s hands.”

The President lifted his eyes, and ran them swiftly along the rigid faces turned to him.

Then, in the breathless hush, he spoke for the first time in his strange voice, now as passionless as a frozen river.

“Is there any other proposal?”

There was a murmur of assent as the men rose to their feet.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” said the secretary.

III

It was a little before seven o’clock on the morning of Saturday that Oliver stepped out of the motor that had carried him to Wimbledon Common, and began to go up the steps of the old volor-stage, abandoned five years ago. It had been thought better, in view of the extreme secrecy that was to be kept, that England’s representative in the expedition should start from a comparatively unknown point, and this old stage, in disuse now, except for occasional trials of new Government machines, had been selected. Even the lift had been removed, and it was necessary to climb the hundred and fifty steps on foot.

It was with a certain unwillingness that he had accepted this post among the four delegates, for nothing had been heard of his wife, and it was terrible to him to leave London while her fate was as yet doubtful. On the whole, he was less inclined than ever now to accept the Euthanasia theory; he had spoken to one or two of her friends, all of whom declared that she had never even hinted at such an end. And, again, although he was well aware of the eight-day law in the matter, even if she had determined on such a step there was nothing to show that she was yet in England, and, in fact, it was more than likely that if she were bent on such an act she would go abroad for it, where laxer conditions prevailed. In short, it seemed that he could do no good by remaining in England, and the temptation to be present at the final act of justice in the East by which land, and, in fact, it was more than likely that if she were to be wiped out, and Franklin, too, among them—Franklin, that parody of the Lord of the World—this, added to the opinion of his colleagues in the Government, and the curious sense, never absent from him now, that Felsenburgh’s approval was a thing to die for if necessary—these things had finally prevailed. He left behind him at home his secretary, with instructions that no expense was to be spared in communicating with him should any news of his wife arrive during his absence.

It was terribly hot this morning, and, by the time that he reached the top he noticed that the monster in the net was already fitted into its white aluminium casing, and that the fans within the corridor and saloon were already active. He stepped inside to secure a seat in the saloon, set his bag down, and after a word or two with the guard, who, of course, had not yet been informed of their destination, learning that the others were not yet come, he went out again on to the platform for coolness’ sake, and to brood in peace.

London looked strange this morning, he thought. Here beneath him was the common, parched somewhat with the intense heat of the previous week, stretching for perhaps half-a-mile—tumbled ground, smooth stretches of turf, and the heads of heavy trees up to the first house-roofs, set, too, it seemed, in bowers of foliage. Then beyond that began the serried array, line beyond line, broken in one spot by the gleam of a river-reach, and then on again fading beyond eyesight. But what surprised him was the density of the air; it was now, as old books related it had been in the days of smoke. There was no freshness, no translucence of morning atmosphere; it was impossible to point in any one direction to the source of this veiling gloom, for on all sides it was the same. Even the sky overhead lacked its blue; it appeared painted with a muddy brush, and the sun shewed the same faint tinge of red. Yes, it was like that, he said wearily to himself—like a second-rate sketch; there was no sense of mystery as of a veiled city, but rather unreality. The shadows seemed lacking in definiteness, the outlines and grouping in coherence. A storm was wanted, he reflected; or even, it might be, one more earthquake on the other side of the world would, in wonderful illustration of the globe’s unity, relieve the pressure on this side. Well, well; the journey would be worth taking even for the interest of observing climatic changes; but it would be terribly hot, he mused, by the time the south of France was reached.

Then his thoughts leaped back to their own gnawing misery.

It was another ten minutes before he saw the scarlet Government motor, with awnings out, slide up the road from the direction of Fulham; and yet five minutes more before the three men appeared with their servants behind them—Maxwell, Snowford and Cartwright, all alike, as was Oliver, in white duck from head to foot.

They did not speak one word of their business, for the officials were going to and fro, and it was advisable to guard against even the smallest possibility of betrayal. The guard had been told that the volor was required for a three days’ journey, that provisions were to be taken in for that period, and that the first point towards which the course was to lie was the centre of the South Downs. There would be no stopping for at least a day and a night.

Further instructions had reached them from the President on the previous morning, by which time He had completed His visitation, and received the assent of the Emergency Councils of the world. This Snowford commented upon in an undertone, and added a word or two as to details, as the four stood together looking out over the city.

Briefly, the plan was as follows, at least so far as it concerned England. The volor was to approach Palestine from the direction of the Mediterranean, observing to get into touch with France on her left and Spain on her right within ten miles of the eastern end of Crete. The approximate hour was fixed at twenty-three (eastern time). At this point she was to show her night signal, a scarlet line on a white field; and in the event of her failing to observe her neighbours was to circle at that point, at a height of eight hundred feet, until either the two were sighted or further instructions were received. For the purpose of dealing with emergencies, the President’s car, which would finally make its entrance from the south, was to be accompanied by an aide-de-camp capable of moving at a very high speed, whose signals were to be taken as Felsenburgh’s own.

So soon as the circle was completed, having Esdraelon as its centre with a radius of five hundred and forty miles, the volors were to advance, dropping gradually to within five hundred feet of sea-level, and diminishing their distance one from another from the twenty-five miles or so at which they would first find themselves, until they were as near as safety allowed. In this manner the advance at a pace of fifty miles an hour from the moment that the circle was arranged would bring them within sight of Nazareth at about nine o’clock on the Sunday morning.

The guard came up to the four as they stood there silent.

“We are ready, gentlemen,” he said.

“What do you think of the weather?” asked Snowford abruptly.

The guard pursed his lips.

“A little thunder, I expect, sir,” he said.

Oliver looked at him curiously.

“No more than that?” he asked.

“I should say a storm, sir,” observed the guard shortly.

Snowford turned towards the gangway.

“Well, we had best be off: we can lose time further on, if we wish.”

It was about five minutes more before all was ready. From the stern of the boat came a faint smell of cooking, for breakfast would be served immediately, and a white-capped cook protruded his head for an instant, to question the guard. The four sat down in the gorgeous saloon in the bows; Oliver silent by himself, the other three talking in low voices together. Once more the guard passed through to his compartment at the prow, glancing as he went to see that all were seated; and an instant later came the clang of the signal. Then through all the length of the boat—for she was the fastest ship that England possessed—passed the thrill of the propeller beginning to work up speed; and simultaneously Oliver, staring sideways through the plate-glass window, saw the rail drop away, and the long line of London, pale beneath the tinged sky, surge up suddenly. He caught a glimpse of a little group of persons staring up from below, and they, too, dropped in a great swirl, and vanished. Then, with a flash of dusty green, the Common bad vanished, and a pavement of house-roofs began to stream beneath, the long lines of streets on this side and that turning like spokes of a gigantic wheel; once more this pavement thinned, showing green again as between infrequently laid cobble-stones; then they, too, were gone, and the country was open beneath.

Snowford rose, staggering a little.

“I may as well tell the guard now,” he said. “Then we need not be interrupted again.”

CHAPTER VI

I

The Syrian awoke from a dream that a myriad faces were looking into his own, eager, attentive and horrible, in his corner of the roof-top, and sat up sweating and gasping aloud for breath. For an instant he thought that he was really dying, and that the spiritual world was about him. Then, as he struggled, sense came back, and he stood up, drawing long breaths of the stifling night air.

Above him the sky was as the pit, black and empty; there was not a glimmer of light, though the moon was surely up. He had seen her four hours before, a red sickle, swing slowly out from Thabor. Across the plain, as he looked from the parapet, there was nothing. For a few yards there lay across the broken ground a single crooked lance of light from a half-closed shutter; and beneath that, nothing. To the north again, nothing; to the west a glimmer, pale as a moth’s wing, from the house-roofs of Nazareth; to the east, nothing. He might be on a tower-top in space, except for that line of light and that grey glimmer that evaded the eye.

On the roof, however, it was possible to make out at least outlines, for the dormer trap had been left open at the head of the stairs, and from somewhere within the depths of the house there stole up a faint refracted light.

There was a white bundle in that corner; that would be the pillow of the Benedictine abbot. He had seen him lay himself down there some time—was it four hours or four centuries ago? There was a grey shape stretched along that pale wall—the Friar, he thought; there were other irregular outlines breaking the face of the parapet, here and there along the sides.

Very softly, for he knew the caprices of sleep, he stepped across the paved roof to the opposite parapet and looked over, for there yet hung about him a desire for reassurance that he was still in company with flesh and blood. Yes, indeed he was still on earth; for there was a real and distinct light burning among the tumbled rocks, and beside it, delicate as a miniature, the head and shoulders of a man, writing. And in the circle of light were other figures, pale, broken patches on which men lay; a pole or two, erected with the thought of a tent to follow; a little pile of luggage with a rug across it; and beyond the circle other outlines and shapes faded away into the stupendous blackness.

Then the writing man moved his head, and a monstrous shadow fled across the ground; a yelp as of a strangling dog broke out suddenly close behind him, and, as he turned, a moaning figure sat up on the roof, sobbing itself awake. Another moved at the sound, and then as, sighing, the former relapsed heavily against the wall, once more the priest went back to his place, still doubtful as to the reality of all that he saw, and the breathless silence came down again as a pall.

He woke again from dreamless sleep, and there was a change. From his corner, as he raised his heavy eyes, there met them what seemed an unbearable brightness; then, as he looked, it resolved itself into a candle-flame, and beyond it a white sleeve, and higher yet a white face and throat. He understood, and rose reeling; it was the messenger come to fetch him as had been arranged.

As he passed across the space, once he looked round him, and it seemed that the dawn must have come, for that appalling sky overhead was visible at last. An enormous vault, smoke-coloured and opaque, seemed to curve away to the ghostly horizons on either side where the far-away hills raised sharp shapes as if cut in paper. Carmel was before him; at least he thought it was that—a bull head and shoulders thrusting itself forward and ending in an abrupt descent, and beyond that again the glimmering sky. There were no clouds, no outlines to break the huge, smooth, dusky dome beneath the centre of which this house-roof seemed poised. Across the parapet, as he glanced to the right before descending the steps, stretched Esdraelon, sad-coloured and sombre, into the metallic distance. It was all as unreal as some fantastic picture by one who had never looked upon clear sunlight. The silence was complete and profound.

Straight down through the wheeling shadows he went, following the white-hooded head and figure down the stairs, along the tiny passage, stumbling once against the feet of one who slept with limbs tossed loose like a tired dog; the feet drew back mechanically, and a little moan broke from the shadows. Then he went on, passing the servant who stood aside, and entered.

There were half-a-dozen men gathered here, silent, white figures standing apart one from the other, who genuflected as the Pope came in simultaneously through the opposite door, and again stood white-faced and attentive. He ran his eyes over them as he stopped, waiting behind his master’s chair—there were two he knew, remembering them from last night—dark-faced Cardinal Ruspoli, and the lean Australian Archbishop, besides Cardinal Corkran, who stood by his chair at the Pope’s own table, with papers laid ready.

Silvester sat down, and with a little gesture caused the others to sit too. Then He began at once in that quiet tired voice that his servant knew so well.

“Eminences-we are all here, I think. We need lose no more time, then….

Cardinal Corkran has something to communicate—-” He turned a little.

“Father, sit down, if you please. This will occupy a little while.”

The priest went across to the stone window-seat, whence he could watch the Pope’s face in the light of the two candles that now stood on the table between him and the Cardinal-Secretary. Then the Cardinal began, glancing up from his papers.

“Holiness. I had better begin a little way back. Their Eminences have not heard the details properly….

“I received at Damascus, on last Friday week, inquiries from various prelates in different parts of the world, as to the actual measure concerning the new policy of persecution. At first I could tell them nothing positively, for it was not until after twenty o’clock that Cardinal Ruspoli, in Turin, informed me of the facts. Cardinal Malpas confirmed them a few minutes later, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Pekin at twenty-three. Before mid-day on Saturday I received final confirmation from my messengers in London.

“I was at first surprised that Cardinal Dolgorovski did not communicate it; for almost simultaneously with the Turin message I received one from a priest of the Order of Christ Crucified in Moscow, to which, of course, I paid no attention. (It is our rule, Eminences, to treat unauthorised communications in that way.) His Holiness, however, bade me make inquiries, and I learned from Father Petrovoski and others that the Government placards published the news at twenty o’clock—by our time. It was curious, therefore, that the Cardinal had not seen it; if he had seen it, it was, of course, his duty to acquaint me immediately.

“Since that time, however, the following facts have come out. It is established beyond a doubt that Cardinal Dolgorovski received a visitor in the course of the evening. His own chaplain, who, your Eminences are perhaps aware, has been very active in Russia on behalf of the Church, informs me of this privately. Yet the Cardinal asserts, in explanation of his silence, that he was alone during those hours, and had given orders that no one was to be admitted to his presence without urgent cause. This, of course, confirmed His Holiness’s opinion, but I received orders from Him to act as if nothing had happened, and to command the Cardinal’s presence here with the rest of the Sacred College. To this I received an intimation that he would be present. Yesterday, however, a little before mid-day, I received a further message that his Eminency had met with a slight accident, but that he yet hoped to present himself in time for the deliberations. Since then no further news has arrived.”

There was a dead silence.

Then the Pope turned to the Syrian priest.

“Father,” he said, “it was you who received his Eminency’s messages.

Have you anything to add to this?”

“No, Holiness.”

He turned again.

“My son,” he said, “report to Us publicly what you have already reported to Us in private.”

A small, bright-eyed man moved out of the shadows.

“Holiness, it was I who conveyed the message to Cardinal Dolgorovski. He refused at first to receive me. When I reached his presence and communicated the command he was silent; then he smiled; then he told me to carry back the message that he would obey.”

Again the Pope was silent.

Then suddenly the tall Australian stood up.

“Holiness,” he said, “I was once intimate with that man. It was partly through my means that he sought reception into the Catholic Church. This was not less than fourteen years ago, when the fortunes of the Church seemed about to prosper…. Our friendly relations ceased two years ago, and I may say that, from what I know of him, I find no difficulty in believing—-”

As his voice shook with passion and he faltered, Silvester raised his hand.

“We desire no recriminations. Even the evidence is now useless, for what was to be done has been done. For ourselves, we have no doubt as to its nature…. It was to this man that Christ gave the morsel through our hands, saying Quod faces, fac cities. Cum ergo accepisset Me buccellam, exivit continuo. Erat autem nox.”

Again fell the silence, and in the pause sounded a long half-vocal sigh from without the door. It came and went as a sleeper turned, for the passage was crowded with exhausted men—as a soul might sigh that passed from light to darkness.

Then Silvester spoke again. And as He spoke He began, as if mechanically, to tear up a long paper, written with lists of names, that lay before Him.

“Eminences, it is three hours after dawn. In two hours more We shall say mass in your presence, and give Holy Communion. During those two hours We commission you to communicate this news to all who are assembled here; and further, We bestow on each and all of you jurisdiction apart from all previous rules of time and place; we give a Plenary Indulgence to all who confess and communicate this day. Father—” he turned to the Syrian—”Father, you will now expose the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel, after which you will proceed to the village and inform the inhabitants that if they wish to save their lives they had best be gone immediately—immediately, you understand.”

The Syrian started from his daze.

“Holiness,” he stammered, stretching out a hand, “the lists, the lists!”

(He had seen what these were.)

But Silvester only smiled as He tossed the fragments on to the table.

Then He stood up.

“You need not trouble, my son…. We shall not need these any more….

“One last word, Eminences…. If there is one heart here that doubts or is afraid, I have a word to say.”

He paused, with an extraordinarily simple deliberateness, ran the eyes round the tense faces turned to Him.

“I have had a Vision of God,” He said softly. “I walk no more by faith, but by sight.”

II

An hour later the priest toiled back in the hot twilight up the path from the village, followed by half-a-dozen silent men, twenty yards behind, whose curiosity exceeded their credulousness. He had left a few more standing bewildered at the doors of the little mud-houses; and had seen perhaps a hundred families, weighted with domestic articles, pour like a stream down the rocky path that led to Khaifa. He had been cursed by some, even threatened; stared upon by others; mocked by a few. The fanatical said that the Christians had brought God’s wrath upon the place, and the darkness upon the sky: the sun was dying, for these hounds were too evil for him to look upon and live. Others again seemed to see nothing remarkable in the state of the weather….

There was no change in that sky from its state an hour before, except that perhaps it had lightened a little as the sun climbed higher behind that impenetrable dusky shroud. Hills, grass, men’s faces—all bore to the priest’s eyes the look of unreality; they were as things seen in a dream by eyes that roll with sleep through lids weighted with lead. Even to other physical senses that unreality was present; and once more he remembered his dream, thankful that that horror at least was absent. But silence seemed other than a negation of sound, it was a thing in itself, an affirmation, unruffled by the sound of footsteps, the thin barking of dogs, the murmur of voices. It appeared as if the stillness of eternity had descended and embraced the world’s activities, and as if that world, in a desperate attempt to assert its own reality, was braced in a set, motionless, noiseless, breathless effort to hold itself in being. What Silvester had said just now was beginning to be true of this man also. The touch of the powdery soil and the warm pebbles beneath the priest’s bare feet seemed something apart from the consciousness that usually regards the things of sense as more real and more intimate than the things of spirit. Matter still had a reality, still occupied space, but it was of a subjective nature, the result of internal rather than external powers. He appeared to himself already to be scarcely more than a soul, intent and steady, united by a thread only to the body and the world with which he was yet in relations. He knew that the appalling heat was there; once even, before his eyes a patch of beaten ground cracked and lisped as water that touches hot iron, as he trod upon it. He could feel the heat upon his forehead and hands, his whole body was swathed and soaked in it; yet he regarded it as from an outside standpoint, as a man with neuritis perceives that the pain is no longer in his hand but in the pillow which supports it. So, too, with what his eyes looked upon and his ears heard; so, too, with that faint bitter taste that lay upon his lips and nostrils. There was no longer in him fear or even hope—he regarded himself, the world, and even the enshrouding and awful Presence of spirit as facts with which he had but little to do. He was scarcely even interested; still less was he distressed. There was Thabor before him—at least what once had been Thabor, now it was no more than a huge and dusky dome-shape which impressed itself upon his retina and informed his passive brain of its existence and outline, though that existence seemed no better than that of a dissolving phantom.

It seemed then almost natural—or at least as natural as all else—as he came in through the passage and opened the chapel-door, to see that the floor was crowded with prostrate motionless figures. There they lay, all alike in the white burnous which he had given out last night; and, with forehead on arms, as during the singing of the Litany of the Saints at an ordination, lay the figure he knew best and loved more than all the world, the shoulders and white hair at a slight elevation upon the single altar step. Above the plain altar itself burned the six tall candles; and in the midst, on the mean little throne, stood the white-metal monstrance, with its White Centre….

Then he, too, dropped, and lay as he was….

He did not know how long it was before the circling observant consciousness, the flow of slow images, the vibration of particular thoughts, ceased and stilled as a pool rocks quietly to peace after the dropped stone has long lain still. But it came at last—that superb tranquillity, possible only when the senses are physically awake, with which God, perhaps once in a lifetime, rewards the aspiring trustful soul—that point of complete rest in the heart of the Fount of all existence with which one day He will reward eternally the spirits of His children. There was no thought in him of articulating this experience, of analysing its elements, or fingering this or that strain of ecstatic joy. The time for self-regarding was passed. It was enough that the experience was there, although he was not even self-reflective enough to tell himself so. He had passed from that circle whence the soul looks within, from that circle, too, whence it looks upon objective glory, to that very centre where it reposes—and the first sign to him that time had passed was the murmur of words, heard distinctly and understood, although with that apartness with which a drowsy man perceives a message from without—heard as through a veil through which nothing but thinnest essence could transpire.

Spiritus Domini replevit orbem terrarum…. The Spirit of the Lord hath fulfilled all things, alleluia: and that which contains all things hath knowledge of the voice, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

Exsurgat Deus (and the voice rose ever so slightly). “Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered; and let them who hate Him flee before His face.”

Gloria Patri….

Then he raised his heavy head; and a phantom figure stood there in red vestments, seeming to float rather than to stand, with thin hands outstretched, and white cap on white hair seen in the gleam of the steady candle-flames; another, also in white, kneeled on the step….

Kyrie eleison … Gloria in excelsis Deo … those things passed like a shadow-show, with movements and rustlings, but he perceived rather the light which cast them. He heard Deus qui in hodierna die … but his passive mind gave no pulse of reflex action, no stir of understanding until these words. Cum complerentur dies Pentecostes….

“When the day of Pentecost was fully come, all the disciples were with one accord in the same place; and there came from heaven suddenly a sound, as of a mighty wind approaching, and it filled the house where they were sitting…. “

Then he remembered and understood…. It was Pentecost then! And with memory a shred of reflection came back. Where then was the wind, and the flame, and the earthquake, and the secret voice? Yet the world was silent, rigid in its last effort at self-assertion: there was no tremor to show that God remembered; no actual point of light, yet, breaking the appalling vault of gloom that lay over sea and land to reveal that He burned there in eternity, transcendent and dominant; not even a voice; and at that he understood yet more. He perceived that that world, whose monstrous parody his sleep had presented to him in the night, was other than that he had feared it to be; it was sweet, not terrible; friendly, not hostile; clear, not stifling; and home, not exile. There were presences here, but not those gluttonous, lustful things that had looked on him last night…. He dropped his head again upon his hands, at once ashamed and content; and again he sank down to depths of glimmering inner peace….

Not again, for a while, did he perceive what he did or thought, or what passed there, five yards away on the low step. Once only a ripple passed across that sea of glass, a ripple of fire and sound like a rising star that flicks a line of light across a sleeping lake, like a thin thread of vibration streaming from a quivering string across the stillness of a deep night—and be perceived for an instant as in a formless mirror that a lower nature was struck into existence and into union with the Divine nature at the same moment…. And then no more again but the great encompassing hush, the sense of the innermost heart of reality, till he found himself kneeling at the rail, and knew that That which alone truly existed on earth approached him with the swiftness of thought and the ardour of Divine Love….

Then, as the mass ended, and he raised his passive happy soul to receive the last gift of God, there was a cry, a sudden clamour in the passage, and a man stood in the doorway, gabbling Arabic.

III

Yet even at that sound and sight his soul scarcely tightened the languid threads that united it through every fibre of his body with the world of sense. He saw and heard the tumult in the passage, frantic eyes and mouths crying aloud, and, in strange contrast, the pale ecstatic faces of those princes who turned and looked; even within the tranquil presence-chamber of the spirit where two beings, Incarnate God and all but Discarnate Man, were locked in embrace, a certain mental process went on. Yet all was still as apart from him as a lighted stage and its drama from a self-contained spectator. In the material world, now as attenuated as a mirage, events were at hand; but to his soul, balanced now on reality and awake to facts, these things were but a spectacle….

He turned to the altar again, and there, as he had known it would be, in the midst of clear light, all was at peace: the celebrant, seen as through molten glass, adored as He murmured the mystery of the Word-made-Flesh, and once more passing to the centre, sank upon His knees.

Again the priest understood; for thought was no longer the process of a mind, rather it was the glance of a spirit. He knew all now; and, by an inevitable impulse, his throat began to sing aloud words that, as he sang, opened for the first time as flowers telling their secret to the sun.

O Salutaris Hostia Qui coeli pandis ostium. . . .

They were all singing now; even the Mohammedan catechumen who had burst in a moment ago sang with the rest, his lean head thrust out and his arms tight across his breast; the tiny chapel rang with the forty voices, and the vast world thrilled to hear it….

Still singing, the priest saw the veil laid as by a phantom upon the Pontiff’s shoulders; there was a movement, a surge of figures—shadows only in the midst of substance,

… Uni Trinoque Domino ….

—and the Pope stood erect, Himself a pallor in the heart of light, with spectral folds of silk dripping from His shoulders, His hands swathed in them, and His down-bent head hidden by the silver-rayed monstrance and That which it bore….

… Qui vitam sine termino Nobis donet in patria ….

… They were moving now, and the world of life swung with them; of so much was he aware. He was out in the passage, among the white, frenzied faces that with bared teeth stared up at that sight, silenced at last by the thunder of Pange Lingua, and the radiance of those who passed out to eternal life…. At the corner he turned for an instant to see the six pale flames move along a dozen yards behind, as spear-heads about a King, and in the midst the silver rays and the White Heart of God…. Then he was out, and the battle lay in array….

That sky on which he had looked an hour ago had passed from darkness charged with light to light overlaid with darkness—from glimmering night to Wrathful Day—and that light was red….

From behind Thabor on the left to Carmel on the far right, above the hills twenty miles away rested an enormous vault of colour; here were no gradations from zenith to horizon; all was the one deep smoulder of crimson as of the glow of iron. It was such a colour as men have seen at sunsets after rain, while the clouds, more translucent each instant, transmit the glory they cannot contain. Here, too, was the sun, pale as the Host, set like a fragile wafer above the Mount of Transfiguration, and there, far down in the west where men had once cried upon Baal in vain, hung the sickle of the white moon. Yet all was no more than stained light that lies broken across carven work of stone….

… In suprema nocte coena,

sang the myriad voices,

Recumbens cum fratribus

Observata lege plena

Cibis in legalibus

Cibum turbae duodenae

Se dat suis manibus ….

He saw, too, poised as motes in light, that ring of strange fish-creatures, white as milk, except where the angry glory turned their backs to flame, white-winged like floating moths, from the tiny shape far to the south to the monster at hand scarcely five hundred yards away; and even as he looked, singing as he looked, he understood that the circle was nearer, and perceived that these as yet knew nothing….

_Verbum caro, panem verum Verbo carnem efficit ….

They were nearer still, until now even at his feet there slid along the ground the shadow of a monstrous bird, pale and undefined, as between the wan sun and himself moved out the vast shape that a moment ago hung above the Hill…. Then again it backed across and waited …

Et si census deficit Ad formandum cor sincerum Sola fides sufficit ….

He had halted and turned, going in the midst of his fellows, hearing, he thought, the thrill of harping and the throb of heavenly drums; and, across the space, moved now the six flames, steady as if cut of steel in that stupendous poise of heaven and earth; and in their centre the silver-rayed glory and the Whiteness of God made Man….

… Then, with a roar, came the thunder again, pealing in circle beyond circle of those tremendous Presences—Thrones and Powers—who, themselves to the world as substance to shadow, are but shadows again beneath the apex and within the ring of Absolute Deity…. The thunder broke loose, shaking the earth that now cringed on the quivering edge of dissolution….

TANTUM ERGO SACRAMENTUM VENEREMUR CERNUI ET ANTIQUUM DOCUMENTUM NOVO CEDAT RITUI.

Ah! yes; it was He for whom God waited now—He who far up beneath that trembling shadow of a dome, itself but the piteous core of unimagined splendour, came in His swift chariot, blind to all save that on which He had fixed His eyes so long, unaware that His world corrupted about Him, His shadow moving like a pale cloud across the ghostly plain where Israel had fought and Sennacherib boasted—that plain lighted now with a yet deeper glow, as heaven, kindling to glory beyond glory of yet fiercer spiritual flame, still restrained the power knit at last to the relief of final revelation, and for the last time the voices sang….

PRAESTET FIDES SUPPLEMENTUM SENSUUM DEFECTUI ….

… He was coming now, swifter than ever, the heir of temporal ages and the Exile of eternity, the final piteous Prince of rebels, the creature against God, blinder than the sun which paled and the earth that shook; and, as He came, passing even then through the last material stage to the thinness of a spirit-fabric, the floating circle swirled behind Him, tossing like phantom birds in the wake of a phantom ship…. He was coming, and the earth, rent once again in its allegiance, shrank and reeled in the agony of divided homage….

… He was coming—and already the shadow swept off the plain and vanished, and the pale netted wings were rising to the cheek; and the great bell clanged, and the long sweet chord rang out—not more than whispers heard across the pealing storm of everlasting praise….

…. GENITORI GENITOQUE LAUS ET JUBILATIO SALUS HONOR VIRTUS QUOQUE SIT ET BENEDICTIO PROCEDENTI AB UTROQUE COMPAR SIT LAUDATIO.

and once more

PROCEDENTI AB UTROQUE COMPAR SIT LAUDATIO ….

Then this world passed, and the glory of it.

THE END

LOURDES

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

ST. LOUIS MO.: B. HERDER, PUBLISHER 17, S. BROADWAY LONDON: MANRESA PRESS ROEHAMPTON, S.W.

1914

NIHIL OBSTAT: S. GEORGIUS KIERAN HYLAND, S.T.D., CENSOR DEPUTATUS

IMPRIMATUR: GULIELMUS F. BROWN, VICARIUS GENERALIS, SOUTHWARCENSI.

15 MAII, 1914.

CONTENTS

LOURDES

PREFACE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

LOURDES

PREFACE

Since writing the following pages six years ago, I have had the privilege of meeting a famous French scientist—to whom we owe one of the greatest discoveries of recent years—who has made a special study of Lourdes and its phenomena, and of hearing him comment upon what takes place there. He is, himself, at present, not a practising Catholic; and this fact lends peculiar interest to his opinions. His conclusions, so far as he has formulated them, are as follows:

(1) That no scientific hypothesis up to the present accounts satisfactorily for the phenomena. Upon his saying this to me I breathed the word “suggestion”; and his answer was to laugh in my face, and to tell me, practically, that this is the most ludicrous hypothesis of all.

(2) That, so far as he can see, the one thing necessary for such cures as he himself has witnessed or verified, is the atmosphere of prayer. Where this rises to intensity the number of cures rises with it; where this sinks, the cures sink too.

(3) That he is inclined to think that there is a transference of vitalizing force either from the energetic faith of the sufferer, or from that of the bystanders. He instanced an example in which his wife, herself a qualified physician, took part. She held in her arms a child, aged two and a half years, blind from birth, during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament. As the monstrance came opposite, tears began to stream from the child’s eyes, hitherto closed. When it had passed, the child’s eyes were open and seeing. This Mme. —— tested by dangling her bracelet before the child, who immediately clutched at it, but, from the fact that she had never learned to calculate distance, at first failed to seize it. At the close of the procession Mme. ——, who herself related to me the story, was conscious of an extraordinary exhaustion for which there was no ordinary explanation. I give this suggestion as the scientist gave it to me—the suggestion of some kind of transference of vitality; and make no comment upon it, beyond saying that, superficially at any rate, it does not appear to me to conflict with the various accounts of miracles given in the Gospel in which the faith of the bystanders, as well as of sufferers, appeared to be as integral an element in the miracle as the virtue which worked it.

Owing to the time that has elapsed since the following pages were written for the Ave Maria—by the kindness of whose editor they are reprinted now—it is impossible for me to verify the spelling of all the names that occur in the course of the narrative. I made notes while at Lourdes, and from those notes wrote my account; it is therefore extremely probable that small errors of spelling may have crept in, which I am now unable to correct.

Robert Hugh Benson.

Church of our Lady of Lourdes,

New York,

Lent, 1914

I

The first sign of our approach to Lourdes was a vast wooden cross, crowning a pointed hill. We had been travelling all day, through the August sunlight, humming along the straight French roads beneath the endless avenues; now across a rich plain, with the road banked on either side to avert the spring torrents from the Pyrenees; now again mounting and descending a sudden shoulder of hill. A few minutes ago we had passed into Tarbes, the cathedral city of the diocese in which Lourdes lies; and there, owing to a little accident, we had been obliged to halt, while the wheels of the car were lifted, with incredible ingenuity, from the deep gutter into which the chauffeur had, with the best intentions, steered them. It was here, in the black eyes, the dominant profiles, the bright colours, the absorbed childish interest of the crowd, in their comments, their laughter, their seriousness, and their accent, that the South showed itself almost unmixed. It was market-day in Tarbes; and when once more we were on our way, we still went slowly; passing, almost all the way into Lourdes itself, a long-drawn procession—carts and foot passengers, oxen, horses, dogs, and children—drawing nearer every minute toward that ring of solemn blue hills that barred the view to Spain.

It is difficult to describe with what sensations I came to Lourdes. As a Christian man, I did not dare to deny that miracles happened; as a reasonably humble man, I did not dare to deny that they happened at Lourdes; yet, I suppose, my attitude even up to now had been that of a reverent agnostic—the attitude, in fact, of a majority of Christians on this particular point—Christians, that is, who resemble the Apostle Thomas in his less agreeable aspect. I had heard and read a good deal about psychology, about the effect of mind on matter and of nerves on tissue; I had reflected upon the infection of an ardent crowd; I had read Zola’s dishonest book; and these things, coupled with the extreme difficulty which the imagination finds in realizing what it has never experienced—since, after all, miracles are confessedly miraculous, and therefore unusual—the effect of all this was to render my mental state a singularly detached one. I believed? Yes, I suppose so; but it was a halting act of faith pure and simple; it was not yet either sight or real conviction.

The cross, then, was the first glimpse of Lourdes’ presence; and ten minutes later we were in the town itself.

Lourdes is not beautiful, though it must once have been. It was once a little Franco-Spanish town, set in the lap of the hills, with a swift, broad, shallow stream, the Gave, flowing beneath it. It is now cosmopolitan, and therefore undistinguished. As we passed slowly through the crowded streets—for the National Pilgrimage was but now arriving—we saw endless rows of shops and booths sheltering beneath tall white blank houses, as correct and as expressionless as a brainless, well- bred man. Here and there we passed a great hotel. The crowd about our wheels was almost as cosmopolitan as a Roman crowd. It was largely French, as that is largely Italian; but the Spaniards were there, vivid-faced men and women, severe Britons, solemn Teutons; and, I have no doubt, Italians, Belgians, Flemish and Austrians as well. At least I heard during my three days’ stay all the languages that I could recognize, and many that I could not. There were many motor-cars there besides our own, carriages, carts, bell-clanging trams, and the litters of the sick. Presently we dismounted in a side street, and set out to walk to the Grotto, through the hot evening sunshine.

The first sign of sanctity that we saw, as we came out at the end of a street, was the mass of churches built on the rising ground above the river. Imagine first a great oval of open ground, perhaps two hundred by three hundred yards in area, crowded now with groups as busy as ants, partly embraced by two long white curving arms of masonry rising steadily to their junction; at the point on this side where the ends should meet if they were prolonged, stands a white stone image of Our Lady upon a pedestal, crowned, and half surrounded from beneath by some kind of metallic garland arching upward. At the farther end the two curves of masonry of which I have spoken, rising all the way by steps, meet upon a terrace. This terrace is, so to speak, the centre of gravity of the whole.

For just above it stands the flattened dome of the Rosary Church, of which the doors are beneath the terrace, placed upon broad flights of steps. Immediately above the dome is the entrance to the crypt of the basilica; and, above that again, reached by further flights of steps, are the doors of the basilica; and, above it, the roof of the church itself, with its soaring white spire high over all.

Let me be frank. These buildings are not really beautiful. They are enormous, but they are not impressive; they are elaborate and fine and white, but they are not graceful. I am not sure what is the matter with them; but I think it is that they appear to be turned out of a machine. They are too trim; they are like a well-dressed man who is not quite a gentleman; they are like a wedding guest; they are haute-bourgeoise, they are not the nobility. It is a terrible pity, but I suppose it could not be helped, since they were allowed so little time to grow. There is no sense of reflectiveness about them, no patient growth of character, as in those glorious cathedrals, Amiens, Chartres, Beauvais, which I had so lately seen. There is nothing in reserve; they say everything, they suggest nothing. They have no imaginative vista.

We said not one word to one another. We threaded our way across the ground, diagonally, seeing as we went the Bureau de Constatations (or the office where the doctors sit), contrived near the left arm of the terraced steps; and passed out under the archway, to find ourselves with the churches on our left, and on our right the flowing Gave, confined on this side by a terraced walk, with broad fields beyond the stream.

The first thing I noticed were the three roofs of the piscines, on the left side of the road, built under the cliff on which the churches stand. I shall have more to say of them presently, but now it is enough to remark that they resemble three little chapels, joined in one, each with its own doorway; an open paved space lies across the entrances, where the doctors and the priests attend upon the sick. This open space is fenced in all about, to keep out the crowd that perpetually seethes there. We went a few steps farther, worked our way in among the people, and fell on our knees.

Overhead, the cliff towered up, bare hanging rock beneath, grass and soaring trees above; and at the foot of the cliff a tall, irregular cave. There are two openings of this cave; the one, the larger, is like a cage of railings, with the gleam of an altar in the gloom beyond, a hundred burning candles, and sheaves and stacks of crutches clinging to the broken roofs of rock; the other, and smaller, and that farther from us, is an opening in the cliff, shaped somewhat like a vesica. The grass still grows there, with ferns and the famous climbing shrub; and within the entrance, framed in it, stands Mary, in white and blue, as she stood fifty years ago, raised perhaps twenty feet above the ground.

Ah, that image!... I said, “As she stood there!” Yet it could not have been so; for surely even simple Bernadette would not have fallen on her knees. It is too white, it is too blue; it is, like the three churches, placed magnificently, yet not impressive; fine and slender, yet not graceful.

But we knelt there without unreality, with the river running swift behind us; for we knelt where a holy child had once knelt before a radiant vision, and with even more reason; for even if the one, as some say, had been an hallucination, were those sick folk an hallucination? Was Pierre de Rudder’s mended leg an hallucination, or the healed wounds of Marie Borel? Or were those hundreds upon hundreds of disused crutches an illusion? Did subjectivity create all these? If so, what greater miracle can be demanded?

And there was more than that. For when later, at Argelès, I looked over the day, I was able to formulate for the first time the extraordinary im pressions that Lourdes had given me. There was everything hostile to my peace—an incalculable crowd, an oppressive heat, dust, noise, weariness; there was the disappointment of the churches and the image; there was the sour unfamiliarity of the place and the experience; and yet I was neither troubled nor depressed nor irritated nor disappointed. It appeared to me as if some great benign influence were abroad, soothing and satisfying; lying like a great summer air over all, to quiet and to stimulate. I cannot describe this further; I can only say that it never really left me during those three days, I saw sights that would have saddened me elsewhere—apparent injustices, certain disappointments, dashed hopes that would almost have broken my heart; and yet that great Power was over all, to reconcile, to quiet and to reassure. To leave Lourdes at the end was like leaving home.

After a few minutes before the Grotto, we climbed the hill behind, made an appointment for my Mass on the morrow; and, taking the car again, moved slowly through the crowded streets, and swiftly along the country roads, up to Argelès, nearly a dozen miles away.

II

We were in Lourdes again next morning a little after six o’clock; and already it might have been high noon, for the streets were one moving mass of pilgrims. From every corner came gusts of singing; and here and there through the crowd already moved the brancardiers—men of every nation with shoulder-straps and cross—bearing the litters with their piteous burdens.

I was to say Mass in the crypt; and when I arrived there at last, the church was full from end to end. The interior was not so disappointing as I had feared. It had a certain solid catacombic gloom beneath its low curved roof, which, if it had not been for the colours and some of the details, might very nearly have come from the hand of a good architect. The arrangements for the pilgrims were as bad as possible; there was no order, no marshalling; they moved crowd against crowd like herds of bewildered sheep. Some were for Communion, some for Mass only, some for confession; and they pushed patiently this way and that in every direction. It was a struggle before I got my vestments; I produced a letter from the Bishop of Rodez, with whom I had lunched a few days before; I argued, I deprecated, I persuaded, I quoted. Everything once more was against my peace of mind; yet I have seldom said Mass with more consolations than in that tiny sanctuary of the high Altar.... An ecclesiastic served, and an old priest knelt devoutly at a prie-Dieu.

When the time for Communion came, I turned about and saw but one sea of faces stretching from the altar rail into as much of the darkness as I could discern. For a quarter of an hour I gave Communion rapidly; then, as soon as another priest could force his way through the crowd, I continued Mass; he had not nearly finished giving Communion when I had ended my thanksgiving. This, too, was the same everywhere—in the crypt, in the basilica, in the Rosary Church, and above all in the Grotto. The average number of Communions every day throughout the year in Lourdes is, I am told, four thousand. In that year of Jubilee, however, Dr. Boissarie informed me, in round numbers, one million Communions were made, sixty thousand Masses were said, with two thousand Communions at each midnight Mass.... Does Jesus Christ go out when Mary comes in? We are told so by non-Catholics. Rather, it seems as if, like the Wise Men of old, men still find the Child with Mary His Mother.

At the close of my Mass, the old priest rose from his place and began to prepare the vessels and arrange the Missal. As soon as I took off the vestments he put them on. I assented passively, supposing him to be the next on the list; I even answered his Kyrie. But at the Collect a frantic sacristan burst through the crowd; and from remarks made to the devout old priest and myself, I learned that the next on the list was still waiting in the sacristy, and that this old man was an adroit though pious interloper who had determined not to take “No” for an answer. He finished his Mass. I forbear from comment.

For a while afterward we stood on the terrace above the piscines; and, indeed, after breakfast I returned here again alone, and remained during all the morning. It was an extraordinary sight. From the terrace, the cliff fell straight away down to the roofs of the three chapel-like buildings, fifty or sixty feet beneath. Beyond that I could see the paved space, sprinkled with a few moving figures; and, beyond the barrier, the crowd stretching across the roadway and far on either side. Behind them was the clean river and the green meadows, all delicious in the early sunlight.

During that morning I must have seen many hundreds of the sick carried into the baths; for there were almost two thousand sick in Lourdes on that day. I could even watch their faces, white and drawn with pain, or horribly scarred, as they lay directly beneath me, “waiting for some man to put them into the water.” I saw men and women of all nations and all ranks attending upon them, carrying them tenderly, fanning their faces, wiping their lips, giving them to drink of the Grotto water. A murmur of thousands of footsteps came up from beneath (this National Pilgrimage of France numbered between eighty and an hundred thousand persons); and loud above the footsteps came the cries of the priests, as they stood in a long row facing the people, with arms extended in the form of a cross. Now and again came a far-off roar of singing from the Grotto to my left, where Masses were said continuously by bishops and favoured priests; or from my right, from the great oval space beneath the steps; and then, on a sudden a great chorus of sound from beneath, as the Gloria Patri burst out when the end of some decade was reached. All about us was the wheeling earth, the Pyrenees behind, the meadows in front; and over us heaven, with Mary looking down.

Once from beneath during that long morning I heard terrible shrieks, as of a demoniac, that died into moans and ceased. And once I saw a little procession go past from the Grotto, with the Blessed Sacrament in the midst. There was no sensation, no singing. The Lord of all went simply by on some errand of mercy, and men fell on their knees and crossed themselves as He went.

After déjeûner at the Hotel Moderne, where now it was decided that we should stay until the Monday, we went down to the Bureau. At first there were difficulties made, as the doctors were not come; and I occupied a little while in watching the litters unloaded from the wagonettes that brought them gently down to within a hundred yards of the Grotto. Once indeed I was happy to be able to fit a brancardier’s straps into the poles that supported a sick woman. It was all most terrible and most beautiful. Figure after figure was passed along the seats—living crucifixes of pain—and lowered tenderly to the ground, to lie there a moment or two, with the body horribly flat and, as it seemed, almost non-existent beneath the coverlet; and the white face with blazing eyes of anguish, or passive and half dead, to show alone that a human creature lay there. Then one by one each was lifted and swung gently down to the gate of the piscines.

At about three o’clock, after an hour’s waiting, I succeeded in getting a certain card passed through the window, and immediately a message came out from Dr. Cox that I was to be admitted. I passed through a barrier, through a couple of rooms, and found myself in the Holy Place of Science, as the Grotto is the Holy Place of Grace.

It is a little room in which perhaps twenty persons can stand with comfort. Again and again I saw more than sixty there. Down one side runs a table, at one end of which sits Dr. Cox; in the centre, facing the room, is the presiding doctor’s chair, where, as a rule, Dr. Boissarie is to be found. Dr. Cox set me between him and the president, and I began to observe.

At the farther end of the room is a long glazed case of photographs hung against the wall. Here are photographs of many of the most famous patients. The wounds of Marie Borel are shown there; Marie Borel herself had been present in the Bureau that morning to report upon her excellent health. (She was cured last year instantaneously, in the piscine, of a number of running wounds, so deep that they penetrated the intestines.) On the table lay some curious brass objects, which I learned later were models of the bones of Pierre de Rudder’s legs. (This man had for eight years suffered from a broken leg and two running wounds—one at the fracture, the other on the foot. These were gangrenous. The ends of the broken bones were seen immediately before the cure, which took place instantaneously at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes at Oostacker. Pierre lived rather over twenty years after his sudden and complete restoration to health). For the rest, the room is simple enough. There are a few chairs. Another door leads into a little compartment where the sick can be examined privately; a third and a fourth lead into the open air on either side. There are two windows, looking out respectively on this side and that.

Now I spent a great deal of my time in the Bureau. (I was given presently a “doctor’s cross” to wear—consisting of a kind of cardboard with a white upright and red cross-bar—so that I could pass in and out as I wished). I may as well, then, sum up once and for all the impressions I received from observing the methods of the doctors. There were all kinds of doctors there continually—Catholics and free-thinkers, old, young, middle-aged. The cases were discussed with the utmost freedom. Any could ask questions of the miraculés or of the other doctors. The certificates of the sick were read aloud. I may observe, too, that if there was any doubt as to the certificates, if there was any question of a merely nervous malady, any conceivable possibility of a mistake, the case was dismissed abruptly. These certificates, then, given by the doctor attending the sick person, dated and signed, are of the utmost importance; for without them no cure is registered. Yet, in spite of these demands, I saw again and again sixty or seventy men, dead silent, staring, listening with all their ears, while some poor uneducated man or woman, smiling radiantly, gave a little history or answered the abrupt kindly questions of the presiding doctor.

Again, and again, too, it seemed to me that all this had been enacted before. There was once upon a time a man born blind who received his sight, and round him there gathered keen-eyed doctors of another kind. They tried to pose him with questions. It was unheard of, they cried, that a man born blind should receive his sight; at least it could not have been as he said. Yet there stood the man in the midst, seeing them as they saw him, and giving his witness. “This,” he said, “was the way it was done. Such and such is the name of the Man who cured me. And look for yourselves! I was blind; now I see.”

After I had looked and made notes and asked questions of Dr. Cox, Dr. Boissarie came in. I was made known to him; and presently he took me aside, with a Scottish priest (who all through my stay showed me great kindness), and began to ask me questions. It seemed that, since there was no physical miraculé present just now, a spiritual miraculé would do as well; for he asked me a hundred questions as to my conversion and its causes, and what part prayer played in it; and the doctors crowded round and listened to my halting French.

“It was the need of a divine Leader—an authority—then, that brought you in?”

“Yes, it was that; it was the position of St. Peter in the Scriptures and in history; it was the supernatural unity of the Church. It is impossible to say exactly which argument predominated.”

“It was, in fact, the grace of God,” smiled the Doctor.

Dr. Boissarie, as also Dr. Cox, was extremely good to me. He is an oldish man, with a keen, clever, wrinkled face; he is of middle-size, and walks very slowly and deliberately; he is a fervent Catholic. He is very sharp and businesslike, but there is an air of wonderful goodness and kindness about him; he takes one by the arm in a very pleasant manner; I have seen dilatory, rambling patients called to their senses in an instant, yet never frightened.

Dr. Cox, who has been at Lourdes for fourteen years, is a typical Englishman, ruddy, with a white moustache. His part is mostly secretarial, it seems; though he too asks questions now and again. It was he who gave me the “doctor’s cross,” and who later obtained for me an even more exceptional favour, of which I shall speak in the proper place. I heard a tale that he himself had been cured of some illness at Lourdes, but I cannot vouch for it as true. I did not like to ask him outright.

Presently from outside came the sound of organized singing, and the room began to empty. The afternoon procession was coming. I ran to the window that looks toward the Grotto; and there, sitting by an Assumptionist Father—one of that Order who once had, officially, charge of the Grotto, and now unofficially assists at it—I saw the procession go past.

I have no idea of its numbers. I saw only beyond the single line of heads outside the window, an interminable double stream of men go past, each bearing a burning taper and singing as he came. There were persons of every kind in that stream—groups of boys and young men, with their priest beating time in the midst; middle-aged men and old men. I saw again and again that kind of face which a foolish Briton is accustomed to regard as absurd—a military, musketeer profile, immense moustaches and imperial, and hair en brosse. Yet indeed there was nothing absurd. It was terribly moving, and a lump rose in my throat, as I watched such a sanguine bristling face as one of these, all alight with passion and adoration. Such a man might be a grocer, or a local mayor, or a duke; it was all one; he was a child of Mary; and he loved her with all his heart, and Gabriel’s salute was on his lips. Then the priests began to come; long lines of them in black; then white cottas; then gleams of purple; then a pectoral cross or two; and last the great canopy swaying with all its bells and tassels.

III

Now, it is at the close of the afternoon procession that the sick more usually are healed. I crossed the Bureau to the other window that looks on to what I will call the square, and began to watch for the reappearance of the procession on that side. In front of me was a dense crowd of heads, growing more dense every step up to the barriers that enclose the open space in the midst. It was beyond those barriers, as I knew, that the sick were laid ready for the passing by of Jesus of Nazareth. On the right rose the wide sweep of steps and terraces leading up to the basilica, and every line of stone was crowned with heads. Even on the cliffs beyond, I could see figures coming and going and watching. In all, about eighty thousand persons were present.

Presently the singing grew loud again; the procession had turned the corner and entered the square; and I could see the canopy moving quickly down the middle toward the Rosary Church, for its work was done. The Blessed Sacrament was now to be carried round the lines of the sick, beneath an ombrellino.

I shall describe all this later, and more in detail; it is enough just now to say that the Blessed Sacrament went round, that It was carried at last to the steps of the Rosary Church, and that, after the singing of the Tantum Ergo by that enormous crowd, Benediction was given. Then the Bureau began to fill, and I turned round for the scientific aspect of the affair.

The first thing that I saw was a little girl, seeming eight or nine years old, who walked in and stood at the other side of the table, to be examined. Her name was Marguerite Vandenabeele—so I read on the certificate—and she had suffered since birth from infantile paralysis, with such a result that she was unable to put her heels to the ground. That morning in the piscine she had found herself able to walk properly though her heels were tender from disuse. We looked at her—the doctors who had begun again to fill the room, and myself, with three or four more amateurs. There she stood, very quiet and unexcited, with a slightly flushed face. Some elder person in charge of her gave in the certificate and answered the questions. Then she went away.

Now, I must premise that the cures that took place while I was at Lourdes that August cannot yet be regarded as finally established, since not sufficient time has elapsed for their test and verification. Occasionally there is a relapse soon after the apparent cure, in the case of certain diseases that may be more or less affected by a nervous condition; occasionally claimants are found not to be cured at all. For scientific certainty, therefore, it is better to rely upon cures that have taken place a year, or at least some months previously, in which the restored health is preserved. There are, of course a large number of such cases; I shall come to them presently.

The next patient to enter the room was one Mlle. Bardou. I learned later from her lips that she was a secularized Carmelite nun, expelled from her convent by the French Government. There was the further pathos in her case in the fact that her cure, when I left Lourdes, was believed to be at least doubtful. But now she took her seat, with a radiantly happy face, to hand in her certificate and answer the questions. She had suffered from renal tuberculosis; her certificate proved that. She was here herself, without pain or discomfort, to prove that she no longer suffered. Relief had come during the procession. A question or two was put to her; an arrangement was made for her return after examination; and she went out.

The room was rapidly filling now; there were forty or fifty persons present. There was a sudden stir; those who sat rose up; and there came into the room three bishops in purple—from St. Paul in Brazil, the Bishop of Beauvais, and the famous orator, Monseigneur Touchet, of Orléans—all of whom had taken part in the procession. These sat down, and the examination went on.

The next to enter was Juliette Gosset, aged twenty-five, from Paris. She had a darkish plain face, and was of middle size. She answered the questions quietly enough, though there was evident a suppressed excitement beneath. She had been cured during the procession, she said; she had stood up and walked. And her illness? She showed a certificate, dated in the previous March, asserting that she suffered gravely from tubercu losis, especially in the right lung; she added herself that hip disease had developed since that time, that one leg had become seven centimetres shorter than the other, and that she had been for some months unable to sit or kneel. Yet here she walked and sat without the smallest apparent discomfort. When she had finished her tale, a doctor pointed out that the certificate said nothing of any hip disease. She assented, explaining again the reason; but added that the hospital where she lodged in Lourdes would corroborate what she said. Then she disappeared into the little private room to be examined.

There followed a nun, pale and black-eyed, who made gestures as she stood by Dr. Boissarie and told her story. She spoke very rapidly. I learned that she had been suffering from a severe internal malady, and that she had been cured instantaneously in the piscine. She handed in her certificate, and then she, too, vanished.

After a few minutes there returned the doctor who had examined Juliette Gosset. Now, I think it should impress the incredulous that this case was pronounced unsatisfactory, and will not, probably, appear upon the registers. It was perfectly true that the girl had had tuberculosis, and that now nothing was to be detected except the very faintest symptom—so faint as to be negligible—in the right lung. It appeared to be true also that she had had hip disease, since there were upon her body certain marks of treatment by burning; and that her legs were now of an exactly equal length. But, firstly, the certificate was five months old, secondly, it made no mention of hip disease; thirdly, seven centimetres was almost too large a measure to be believed. The case then was referred back for further investigation; and there it stood when I left Lourdes. The doctors shook their heads considerably over the seven centimetres.

There followed next one of the most curious instances of all. It was an old miraculée who came back to report; her case is reported at length in Dr. Boissarie’s œuvre de Lourdes, on pages 299-308. Her name was Marie Cools, and she came from Anvers, suffering apparently from mal de Pott, and paralysis and anæsthesia of the legs. This state had lasted for about three years. The doctors consulted differed as to her case: two diagnosing it as mentioned above, two as hysteria. For ten months she had suffered, moreover, from constant feverishness; she was continually sick, and the work of digestion was painful and difficult. There was a marked lateral deviation of the spinal column, with atrophy of the leg muscles. At the second bath she began to improve, and the pains in the back ceased; at the fourth bath the paralysis vanished, her appetite came steadily back, and the sickness ceased. Now she came in to announce her continued good health.

There are a number of interesting facts as to this case; and the first is the witness of the infidel doctor who sent her to Lourdes, since it seemed to him that “religious suggestion,” was the only hope left. He, by the way, had diagnosed her case as one of hysteria. “It had a result,” he writes, “which I, though an unbeliever, can characterize only as marvellous. Marie Cools returned completely, absolutely cured. No trace of paralysis or anæsthesia. She is actually on her feet; and, two hospital servants having been stricken by typhoid, she is taking the place of one of them.” Another interesting fact is that a positive storm raged at Anvers over her cure, and that Dr. Van de Vorst was at the ensuing election dismissed from the hospital, with at least a suspicion that the cause of his dismissal lay in his having advised the girl to go to Lourdes at all.

Dr. Boissarie makes an interesting comment or two on the case, allowing that it may perhaps have been hysteria, though this is not at all certain. “When we have to do with nervous maladies, we must always remember the rules of Benedict XIV.: ‘The miracle cannot consist in the cessation of the crises, but in the cessation of the nervous state which produces them.’” It is this that has been accomplished in the case of Marie Cools. And again: “Either Marie Cools is not cured, or there is in her cure something other than suggestion, even religious. It is high time to leave that tale alone, and to cease to class under the title of religious suggestion two orders of facts completely distinct—superficial and momentary modifications, and constitutional modifications so profound that science cannot explain them. I repeat: to make of an hysterical patient one whose equilibrium is perfect ... is a thing more difficult than the cure of a wound.”

So he wrote at the time of her apparent cure, hesitating still as to its permanence. And here, before my eyes and his, she stood again, healthy and well.

And so at last I went back to dinner. A very different scene followed. For a couple of hours we had been materialists, concerning ourselves not with what Mary had done by grace—at least not in that aspect—but with what nature showed to have been done, by whatever agency, in itself. Now once more we turned to Mary.

It was dark when we arrived at the square, but the whole place was alive with earthly lights. High up to our left hung the church, outlined in fire—tawdry, I dare say, with its fairy lights of electricity, yet speaking to three-quarters of this crowd in the highest language they knew. Light, after all, is the most heavenly thing we possess. Does it matter so very much if it is decked out and arranged in what to superior persons appears a finikin fashion?

The crowd itself had become a serpent of fire, writhing here below in endlessly intricate coils; up there along the steps and parapets, a long-drawn, slow-moving line; and from the whole incalculable number came gusts and roars of singing, for each carried a burning torch and sang with his group. The music was of all kinds. Now and again came the Laudate Mariam from one company, following to some degree the general movement of the procession, and singing from little paper-books which each read by the light of his wind-blown lantern; now the Gloria Patri, as a band came past reciting the Rosary; but above all pealed the ballad of Bernadette, describing how the little child went one day by the banks of the Gave, how she heard the thunderous sound, and, turning, saw the Lady, with all the rest of the sweet story, each stanza ending with that

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria!

that I think will ring in my ears till I die.

It was an astounding sight to see that crowd and to hear that singing, and to watch each group as it came past—now girls, now boys, now stalwart young men, now old veteran pilgrims, now a bent old woman; each face illumined by the soft paper-shrouded candle, and each mouth singing to Mary. Hardly one in a thousand of those came to be cured of any sickness; perhaps not one in five hundred had any friend among the patients; yet here they were, drawn across miles of hot France, to give, not to get. Can France, then, be so rotten?

As I dropped off to sleep that night, the last sound of which I was conscious was, still that cannon-like chorus, coming from the direction of the square:

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria!

Ave, Ave, Ave Maria!

IV

I awoke to that singing again, in my room above the door of the hotel; and went down presently to say my Mass in the Rosary Church, where, by the kindness of the Scottish priest of whom I have spoken, an altar had been reserved for me. The Rosary Church is tolerably fine within. It has an immense flattened dome, beyond which stands the high altar; and round about are fifteen chapels dedicated to the Fifteen Mysteries, which are painted above their respective altars.

But I was to say Mass in a little temporary chapel to the left of the entrance, formed, I suppose, out of what usually serves as some kind of a sacristy. The place was hardly forty feet long; its high altar, at which I both vested and said Mass, was at the farther end; but each side, too, was occupied by three priests, celebrating simultaneously upon altar-stones laid on long, continuous boards that ran the length of the chapel. The whole of the rest of the space was crammed to overflowing; indeed it had been scarcely possible to get entrance to the chapel at all, so vast was the crowd in the great church outside.

After breakfast I went down to the Bureau once more, and found business already begun. The first case, which was proceeding as I entered, was that of a woman (whose name I could not catch) who had been cured of consumption in the previous year, and who now came back to report a state of continued good health. Her brother-in-law came with her, and she remarked with pleasure that the whole family was now returning to the practice of religion. During this investigation I noticed also Juliette Gosset seated at the table, apparently in robust health.

There followed Natalie Audivin, a young woman who declared that she had been cured in the previous year, and that she supposed her case had been entered in the books; but at the moment, at any rate, her name could not be found, and for the present the case was dismissed.

I now saw a Capuchin priest in the room—a small, rosy, bearded man—and supposed that he was present merely as a spectator; but a minute or two later Dr. Boissarie caught sight of him, and presently was showing him off to me, much to his smiling embarrassment. He had caught consumption of the intestines, it seemed, some years before, from attending upon two of his dying brethren, and had come to Lourdes almost at his last gasp in the year 1900 A. D. Here he stood, smiling and rosy.

There followed Mademoiselle Madeleine Laure, cured of severe internal troubles (I did not catch the details) in the previous year.

Presently the Bishop of Dalmatia came in, and sat in his chair opposite me, while we heard the account of Miss Noemie Nightingale, of Upper Norwood, cured in the previous June of deafness, rising, in the case of one ear at least, from a perforation of the drum. She was present at the piscines, when on a sudden she had felt excruciating pains in the ears. The next she knew was that she heard the Magnificat being sung in honour of her cure.

Mademoiselle Marie Bardou came in about this time, and passed through to the inner room to be examined; while we received from a doctor a report of the lame child whom we had seen on the previous day. All was as had been said. She could now put her heels to the ground and walk. It seemed she had been conscious of a sensation of hammering in her feet at the moment of the cure, followed by a feeling of relief.

And so they went on. Next came Mademoiselle Eugénie Meunier, cured two months before of fistula. She had given her certificate into the care of her curé, who could not at this moment be found—naturally enough, as she had made no appointment with him!—but she was allowed to tell her story, and to show a copy of her parish magazine in which her story was given. She had had in her body one wound of ten centimetres in size. After bathing one evening she had experienced relief; by the next morning the wound, which had flowed for six months, was completely closed, and had remained so. Her strength and appetite had returned. This cure had taken place in her own lodging, since her state was such that she was forbidden to go to the Grotto.

The next case was that of a woman with paralysis, who was entered provisionally as one of the “ameliorations.” She was now able to walk, but the use of her hand was not yet fully restored. She was sent back to the piscines, and ordered to report again later.

The next was a boy of about twelve years old, Hilaire Ferraud, cured of a terrible disease of the bone three years before. Until that time he was unable to walk without support. He had been cured in the piscines. He had been well ever since. He followed the trade of a carpenter. And now he hopped solemnly, first on one leg and then on the other, to the door and back, to show his complete recovery. Further, he had had running wounds on one leg, now healed. His statements were verified.

The next was an oldish man, who came accom panied by his tall, black-bearded son, to report on his continued good health since his recovery, eight years previously, from neurasthenia and insanity. He had had the illusion of being persecuted, with suicidal tendencies; he had been told he could not travel twenty miles, and he had travelled over eight hundred kilometres, after four years’ isolation. He had stayed a few months in Lourdes, bathing in the piscines, and the obsession had left him. His statements were verified; he was congratulated and dismissed.

There followed Emma Mourat to report; and then Madame Simonet, cured eight years ago of a cystic tumour in the abdomen. She had been sitting in one of the churches, I think, when there was a sudden discharge of matter, and a sense of relief. On the morrow, after another bath, the sense of discomfort had finally disappeared. During Madame Simonet’s examination, as the crowd was great, several persons were dismissed till a later hour.

There followed another old patient to report. She had been cured two years before of myelitis and an enormous tumour that, after twenty-two years of suffering, had been declared “incurable” in her certificate. The cure had taken place during the procession, in the course of which she suddenly felt herself, she said, impelled to rise from her litter. Her appetite had returned and she had enjoyed admirable health ever since. Her name was looked up, and the details verified.

There followed Madame François and some doctor’s evidence. Nine years ago she had been cured of fistula in the arm. She had been operated upon five times; finally, as her arm measured a circumference of seventy-two centimetres, amputation had been declared necessary. She had refused, and had come to Lourdes. Her cure occupied three days, at the end of which her arm had resumed its normal size of twenty-five centimetres. She showed her arm, with faint scars visible upon it; it was again measured and found normal.

It was an amazing morning. Here I had sat for nearly three hours, seeing with my own eyes persons of all ages and both sexes, suffering from every variety of disease, present themselves before sixty or seventy doctors, saying that they had been cured miraculously by the Mother of God. Various periods had elapsed since their cures—a day, two or three months, one year, eight years, nine years. These persons had been operated upon, treated, subjected to agonizing remedies; one or two had been declared actually incurable; and then, either in an instant, or during the lapse of two or three days, or two or three months, had been restored to health by prayer and the application of a little water in no way remarkable for physical qualities.

What do the doctors say to this? Some confess frankly that it is miraculous in the literal sense of the term, and join with the patients in praising Mary and her Divine Son. Some say nothing; some are content to say that science at its present stage cannot account for it all, but that in a few years, no doubt ... and the rest of it. I did not hear any say that: “He casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils”; but that is accounted for by the fact that those who might wish to say it do not believe in Beelzebub.

But will science ever account for it all? That I leave to God. All that I can say is that, if so, it is surely as wonderful as any miracle, that the Church should have hit upon a secret that the scientists have missed. But is there not a simpler way of accounting for it? For read and consider the human evidence as regards Bernadette—her age, her simplicity, her appearance of ecstasy. She said that she saw this Lady eighteen times; on one of these occasions, in the presence of bystanders. She was bidden, she said, to go to the water. She turned to go down to the Gave, but was recalled and bidden to dig in the earth of the Grotto. She did so, and a little muddy water appeared where no soul in the village knew that there was water. Hour by hour this water waxed in volume; to-day it pours out in an endless stream, is conducted through the piscines; and it is after washing in this water that bodies are healed in a fashion for which “science cannot account.” Perhaps it cannot. Perhaps it is not intended. But there are things besides science, and one of them is religion. Is not the evidence tolerably strong? Or is it a series of coincidences that the child had an hallucination, devised some trick with the water, and that this water happens to be an occasion of healing people declared incurable by known means?

What is the good of these miracles? If so many are cured, why are not all? Are the miraculés especially distinguished for piety? Is it to be expected that unbelievers will be convinced? Is it claimed that the evidence is irresistible? Let us go back to the Gospels. It used to be said by doubters that the “miraculous element” must have been added later by the piety of the disciples, because all the world knew now that “miracles” did not happen. That a priori argument is surely silenced by Lourdes. “Miracles” in that sense undoubtedly do happen, if present-day evidence is worth anything whatever. What, then, is the Christian theory?

It is this. Our Blessed Lord appears to have worked miracles of such a nature that their signi ficance was not, historically speaking, absolutely evident to those who, for other reasons, did not “believe in Him.” It is known how some asked for a “sign from heaven” and were refused it; how He Himself said that even if one rose from the dead, they would not believe; yet, further, how He begged them to believe Him even for His work’s sake, if for nothing else. We know, finally, how, when confronted with one particular miracle, His enemies cried out that it must have been done by diabolical agency.

Very good, then. It would seem that the miracles of Our Lord were of a nature that strongly disposed to belief those that witnessed them, and helped vastly in the confirmation of the faith of those who already believed; but that miracles, as such, cannot absolutely compel the belief of those who for moral reasons refuse it. If they could, faith would cease to be faith.

Now, this seems precisely the state of affairs at Lourdes. Even unbelieving scientists are bound to admit that science at present cannot account for the facts, which is surely the modern equivalent for the Beelzebub theory. We have seen, too, how severely scientific persons such as Dr. Boissarie and Dr. Cox—if they will permit me to quote their names—knowing as well as anyone what medicine and surgery and hypnotism and suggestion can and cannot do, corroborate this evidence, and see in the facts a simple illustration of the truth of that Catholic Faith which they both hold and practise.

Is not the parallel a fair one? What more, then, do the adversaries want? There is no arguing with people who say that, since there is nothing but Nature, no process can be other than natural. There is no sign, even from heaven, that could break down the intellectual prejudice of such people. If they saw Jesus Christ Himself in glory, they could always say that “at present science cannot account for the phenomenon of a luminous body apparently seated upon a throne, but no doubt it will do so in the course of time.” If they saw a dead and corrupting man rise from the grave, they could always argue that he could not have been dead and corrupting, or he could not have risen from the grave. Nothing but the Last Judgment could convince such persons. Even when the trumpet sounds, I believe that some of them, when they have recovered from their first astonishment, will make remarks about aural phenomena.

But for the rest of us, who believe in God and His Son and the Mother of God on quite other grounds—because our intellect is satisfied, our heart kindled, our will braced by the belief; and because without that belief all life falls into chaos, and human evidence is nullified, and all noble mo tive and emotion cease—for us, who have received the gift of faith, in however small a measure, Lourdes is enough. Christ and His Mother are with us. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Is not that, after all, the simplest theory?

V

After déjeûner I set out again to find the Scottish priest, who hoped to be able to take me to a certain window in the Rosary Church, where only a few were admitted, from which we might view the procession and the Blessing of the Sick. But we were disappointed; and, after a certain amount of scheming, we managed to get a position at the back of the crowd on the top of the church steps. I was able to climb up a few inches above the others, and secured a very tolerable view of the whole scene.

The crowd was beyond describing. Here about us was a vast concourse of men; and as far as the eye could reach down the huge oval, and far away beyond the crowned statue, and on either side back to the Bureau on the left, and on the slopes on the right, stretched an inconceivable pavement of heads. Above us, too, on every terrace and step, back to the doors of the great basilica, we knew very well, was one seething, singing mob. A great space was kept open on the level ground beneath us—I should say one hundred by two hundred yards in area—and the inside fringe of this was composed of the sick, in litters, in chairs, standing, sitting, lying and kneeling. It was at the farther end that the procession would enter.

After perhaps half an hour’s waiting, during which one incessant gust of singing rolled this way and that through the crowd, the leaders of the procession appeared far away—little white or black figures, small as dolls—and the singing became general. But as the endless files rolled out, the singing ceased, and a moment later a priest, standing solitary in the great space began to pray aloud in a voice like a silver trumpet.

I have never heard such passion in my life. I began to watch presently, almost mechanically, the little group beneath the ombrellino, in white and gold, and the movements of the monstrance blessing the sick; but again and again my eyes wandered back to the little figure in the midst, and I cried out with the crowd, sentence after sentence, following that passionate voice:

“Seigneur, nous vous adorons!”

“Seigneur,” came the huge response, “nous vous adorons!”

“Seigneur, nous vous aimons!” cried the priest.

“Seigneur, nous vous aimons!” answered the people.

“Sauvez-nous, Jésus; nous périssons!”

“Sauvez-nous, Jésus; nous périssons!”

“Jésus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitié de nous!”

“Jésus, Fils de Marie, ayez pitié de nous!”

Then with a surge rose up the plainsong melody.

“Parce, Domine!” sang the people. “Parce populo tuo! Ne in aeternum irascaris nobis.”

Again:

“Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto.”

“Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.”

Then again the single voice and the multitudinous answer:

“Vous êtes la Résurrection et la Vie!”

And then an adjuration to her whom He gave to be our Mother.

“Mère du Sauveur, priez pour nous!”

“Salut des Infirmes, priez pour nous!”

Then once more the singing; then the cry, more touching than all:

“Seigneur, guérissez nos malades!”

“Seigneur, guérissez nos malades!”

Then the kindling shout that brought the blood to ten thousand faces:

“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!” (I shook to hear it).

“Hosanna!” cried the priest, rising from his knees with arms flung wide.

“Hosanna!” roared the people, swift as an echo.

“Hosanna! Hosanna!” crashed out again and again, like great artillery.

Yet there was no movement among those piteous prostrate lines. The Bishop, the ombrellino over him, passed on slowly round the circle; and the people cried to Him whom he bore, as they cried two thousand years ago on the road to the city of David. Surely He will be pitiful upon this day—the Jubilee Year of His Mother’s graciousness, the octave of her assumption to sit with Him on His throne!

“Mère du Sauveur, priez pour nous!”

“Jésus, vous êtes mon Seigneur et mon Dieu!”

Yet there was no movement.

If ever “suggestion” could work a miracle, it must work it now. “We expect the miracles during the procession to-morrow and on Sunday,” a priest had said to me on the previous day. And there I stood, one of a hundred thousand, confident in expectation, thrilled by that voice, nothing doubting or fearing; there were the sick beneath me, answering weakly and wildly to the crying of the priest; and yet there was no movement, no sudden leap of a sick man from his bed as Jesus went by, no vibrating scream of joy—”Je suis guéri! Je suis guéri!”—no tumultuous rush to the place, and the roar of the Magnificat, as we had been led to expect.

The end was coming near now. The monstrance had reached the image once again, and was ad vancing down the middle. The voice of the priest grew more passionate still, as he tossed his arms and cried for mercy

“Jésus, ayez pitié de nous!—ayez pitié de nous!”

And the people, frantic with ardour and desire, answered him in a voice of thunder:

“Ayez pitié de nous!—ayez pitié de nous!”

And now up the steps came the grave group to where Jesus would at least bless His own, though He would not heal them; and the priest in the midst, with one last cry, gave glory to Him who must be served through whatever misery:

“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!”

Surely that must touch the Sacred Heart! Will not His Mother say one word?

“Hosanna! Hosanna au Fils de David!”

“Hosanna!” cried the priest.

“Hosanna!” cried the people.

“Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!...”

One articulate roar of disappointed praise, and then—Tantum ergo Sacramentum! rose in its solemnity.

When Benediction was over, I went back to the Bureau; but there was little to be seen there. No, there were no miracles to-day, I was told—or hardly one. Perhaps one in the morning. It was not known.

Several Bishops were there again, listening to the talk of the doctors, and the description of certain cases on previous days. Père Salvator, the Capuchin, was there again; as also the tall bearded Assumptionist Father of whom I have spoken. But there was not a great deal of interest or excitement. I had the pleasure of talking a while with the Bishop of Tarbes, who introduced me again to the Capuchin, and retold his story.

But I was a little unhappy. The miracle was that I was not more so. I had expected so much: I had seen nothing.

I talked to Dr. Cox also before leaving.

“No,” he told me, “there is hardly one miracle to-day. We are doubtful, too, about that leg that was seven centimetres too short.”

“And is it true that Mademoiselle Bardou is not cured?” (A doctor had been giving us certain evidence a few minutes before).

“I am afraid so. It was probably a case of intense subjective excitement. But it may be an amelioration. We do not know yet. The real work of investigating comes afterwards.”

How arbitrary it all seemed, I thought, as I walked home to dinner. That morning, on my way from the Bureau, I had seen a great company of white banners moving together; and, on inquiry, had found that these were the miraculés chiefly of previous years—about three hundred and fifty in number. They formed a considerably large procession. I had looked at their faces: there were many more women than men (as there were upon Calvary). But as I watched them I could not conceive upon what principle the Supernatural had suddenly descended on this and not on that. “Two men in one bed.... Two women grinding at the mill.... One is taken and the other left.” Here were persons of all ages—from six to eighty, I should guess—of all characters, ranks, experiences; of both sexes. Some were religious, some grocers, some of the nobility, a retired soldier or two, and so on. They were not distinguished for holiness, it seemed. I had heard heartbreaking little stories of the ten lepers over again—one grateful, nine selfish. One or two of the girls, I heard, had had their heads turned by flattery and congratulation; they had begun to give themselves airs.

And, now again, here was this day, this almost obvious occasion. It was the Jubilee Year; everything was about on a double scale. And nothing had happened! Further, five of the sick had actually died at Lourdes during their first night there. To come so far and to die!

On what principle, then, did God act? Then I suddenly understood, not God’s principles, but my own; and I went home both ashamed and comforted.

VI

I said a midnight Mass that night in the same chapel of the Rosary Church as on the previous morning. Again the crush was terrific. On the steps of the church I saw a friar hearing a confession; and on entering I found High Mass proceeding in the body of the church itself, with a congregation so large and so worn-out that many were sleeping in constrained attitudes among the seats. In fact, I was informed, since the sleeping accommodation of Lourdes could not possibly provide for so large a pilgrimage, there were many hundreds, at least, who slept where they could—on the steps of churches, under trees and rocks, and by the banks of the river.

I was served at my Mass by a Scottish priest, immediately afterwards I served his at the same altar. While vesting, I noticed a priest at the high altar of this little chapel reading out acts of prayer, to which the congregation responded; and learned that two persons who had been received into the Church on that day were to make their First Communion. As midnight struck, simultaneously from the seven altars came seven voices:

“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

Once more, on returning home and going to bed a little after one o’clock in the morning, the last sound that I heard was of the “Gloria Patri” being sung by other pilgrims also returning to their lodging.

After coffee, a few hours later, I went down again to the square. It was Sunday, and a Pontifical High Mass was being sung on the steps of the Rosary Church. As usual, the crowd filled the square, and I could hardly penetrate for a while beyond the fringe; but it was a new experience to hear that vast congregation in the open air responding with one giant voice to the plain-song of the Mass. It was astonishing what expression showed itself in the singing. The Sanctus was one of the most impressive peals of worship and adoration that I have ever heard. At the close of the Mass, all the bishops present near the altar—I counted six or seven—turned and gave the blessing simultaneously. On the two great curves that led up to the basilica were grouped the white banners of the miraculés.

Soon after arriving at the Bureau a very strange and quiet little incident happened. A woman with a yellowish face, to which the colour was slowly returning, came in and sat down to give her evi dence. She declared to us that during the procession yesterday she had been cured of a tumour on the liver. She had suddenly experienced an overwhelming sense of relief, and had walked home completely restored to health. On being asked why she did not present herself at the Bureau, she answered that she did not think of it: she had just gone home. I have not yet heard whether this was a true cure or not; all I can say at present is I was as much impressed by her simple and natural bearing, her entire self-possession, and the absence of excitement, as by anything I saw at Lourdes. I cannot conceive such a woman suffering from an illusion.

A few minutes later Dr. Cox called to me, and writing on a card, handed it to me, telling me it would admit me to the piscines for a bath. I had asked for this previously; but had been told it was not certain, owing to the crush of patients, whether it could be granted. I set out immediately to the piscines.

There are, as I have said, three compartments in the building called the piscines. That on the left is for women; in the middle, for children and for those who do not undergo complete immersion; on the right, for men. It was into this last, then, that I went, when I had forced my way through the crowd, and passed the open court where the priests prayed. It was a little paved place like a chapel, with a curtain hung immediately before the door. When I had passed this, I saw at the farther end, three or four yards away, was a deepish trough, wide and long enough to hold one person. Steps went down on either side of it, for the attendants. Immediately above the bath, on the wall, was a statue of Our Lady; and beneath it a placard of prayers, large enough to be read at a little distance.

There were about half a dozen people in the place—two or three priests and three or four patients. One of the priests, I was relieved to see, was the Scotsman whose Mass I had served the previous midnight. He was in his soutane, with his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. He gave me my directions, and while I made ready I watched the patients. There was one lame man, just beside me, beginning to dress; two tiny boys, and a young man who touched me more than I can say. He was standing by the head of the bath, holding a basin in one hand and a little image of our Lady in the other, and was splashing water ingeniously with his fingers into his eyes; these were horribly inflamed, and I could see that he was blind. I cannot describe the passion with which he did this, seeming to stare all the while towards the image he held, and whispering out prayers in a quick undertone—hoping, no doubt, that his first sight would be the image of his Mother. Then I looked at the boys. One of them had horribly prolonged and thin legs; I could not see what was wrong with the other, except that he looked ill and worn out. Close beside me, on the wet, muddy paving, lay an indescribable bandage that had been unrolled from the lame man’s leg.

When my turn came, I went wrapped in a soaking apron, down a step or so into the water; and then, with a priest holding either hand, lay down at full length so that my head only emerged. That water had better not be described. It is enough to say that people suffering from most of the diseases known to man had bathed in it without ceasing for at least five or six hours. Yet I can say, with entire sincerity, that I did not have even the faintest physical repulsion, though commonly I hate dirt at least as much as sin. It is said, too, that never in the history of Lourdes has there been one case of disease traceable to infection from the baths. The water was cold, but not unpleasantly. I lay there, I suppose, about one minute, while the two priests and myself repeated off the placard the prayers inscribed there. These were, for the most part, petitions to Mary to pray. “O Marie,” they ended, “conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours a vous!”

As I dressed again after the bath, I had one more sight of the young man. He was being led out by a kindly attendant, but his face was all distorted with crying, and from his blind eyes ran down a stream of terrible tears. It is unnecessary to say that I said a “Hail Mary” for his soul at least.

As soon as I was ready, I went out and sat down for a while among the recently bathed, and began to remind myself why I had bathed. Certainly I was not suffering from anything except a negligible ailment or two. Neither did I do it out of curiosity, because I could have seen without difficulty all the details without descending into that appalling trough. I suppose it was just an act of devotion. Here was water with a history behind it; water that was as undoubtedly used by Almighty God for giving benefits to man as was the clay laid upon blind eyes long ago near Siloe, or the water of Bethesda itself. And it is a natural instinct to come as close as possible to things used by the heavenly powers. I was extraordinarily glad I had bathed, and I have been equally glad ever since. I am afraid it is of no use as evidence to say that until I came to Lourdes I was tired out, body and mind; and that since my return I have been unusually robust. Yet that is a fact, and I leave it there.

As I sat there a procession went past to the Grotto, and I walked to the railings to look at it. I do not know at all what it was all about, but it was as impressive as all things are in Lourdes. The miraculés came first with their banners—file after file of them—then a number of prelates, then brancardiers with their shoulder-harness, then nuns, then more brancardiers. I think perhaps they may have been taking a recent miraculé to give thanks; for when I arrived presently at the Bureau again, I heard that, after all, several appeared to have been cured at the procession on the previous day.

I was sitting in the hall of the hotel a few minutes later when I heard the roar of the Magnificat from the street, and ran out to see what was forward. As I came to the door, the heart of the procession went by. A group of brancardiers formed an irregular square, holding cords to keep back the crowd; and in the middle walked a group of three, followed by an empty litter. The three were a white-haired man on this side, a stalwart brancardier on the other, and between them a girl with a radiant face, singing with all her heart. She had been carried down from her lodging that morning to the piscines; she was returning on her own feet, by the power of Him who said to the lame man, “Take up thy bed and go into thy house.” I followed them a little way, then I went back to the hotel.

VII

In the afternoon we went down to meet a priest who had promised a place to one of our party in the window of which I have spoken before. But the crowd was so great that we could not find him, so presently we dispersed as best we could. Two other priests and myself went completely round the outside of the churches, in order, if possible, to join in the procession, since to cross the square was a simple impossibility. In the terrible crush near the Bureau, I became separated from the others, and fought my way back, and into the Bureau, as the best place open to me now for seeing the Blessing of the Sick.

It was now at last that I had my supreme wish. Within a minute or two of my coming to look through the window, the Blessed Sacrament entered the reserved space among the countless litters. The crowd between me and the open space was simply one pack of heads; but I could observe the movements of what was going forward by the white top of the ombrellino as it passed slowly down the farther side of the square.

The crowd was very still, answering as before the passionate voice in the midst; but watching, watching, as I watched. Beside me sat Dr. Cox, and our Rosaries were in our hands. The white spot moved on and on, and all else was motionless. I knew that beyond it lay the sick. “Lord, if it be possible—if it be possible! Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” It had reached now the end of the first line.

“Seigneur, guérissez nos malades!” cried the priest.

“Seigneur, guérissez nos malades!” answered the people.

“Vous êtes mon Seigneur et mon Dieu!”

And then on a sudden it came.

Overhead lay the quiet summer air, charged with the Supernatural as a cloud with thunder—electric, vibrating with power. Here beneath lay souls thirsting for its touch of fire—patient, desirous, infinitely pathetic; and in the midst that Power, incarnate for us men and our salvation. Then it descended, swift and mighty.

I saw a sudden swirl in the crowd of heads beneath the church steps, and then a great shaking ran through the crowd; but there for a few instants it boiled like a pot. A sudden cry had broken out, and it ran through the whole space; waxing in volume as it ran, till the heads beneath my window shook with it also; hands clapped, voices shouted: “Un miracle! Un miracle!”

I was on my feet, staring and crying out. Then quietly the shaking ceased, and the shouting died to a murmur; and the ombrellino moved on; and again the voice of the priest thrilled thin and clear, with a touch of triumphant thankfulness: “Vous êtes la Résurrection et la Vie!” And again, with entreaty once more—since there still were two thousand sick untouched by that Power, and time pressed—that infinitely moving plea: “Seigneur, celui qui vous aime est malade!” And: “Seigneur, faites que je marche! Seigneur, faites que j’entende!”

And then again the finger of God flashed down, and again and again; and each time a sick and broken body sprang from its bed of pain and stood upright; and the crowd smiled and roared and sobbed. Five times I saw that swirl and rush; the last when the Te Deum pealed out from the church steps as Jesus in His Sacrament came home again. And there were two that I did not see. There were seven in all that afternoon.

Now, is it of any use to comment on all this? I am not sure; and yet, for my own satisfaction if for no one else’s, I wish to set down some of the thoughts that came to me both then and after I had sat at the window and seen God’s loving-kindness with my own eyes.

The first overwhelming impression that remained with me is this—that I had been present, in my own body, in the twentieth century, and seen Jesus pass along by the sick folk, as He passed two thousand years before. That, in a word, is the supreme fact of Lourdes. More than once as I sat there that afternoon I contrasted the manner in which I was spending it with that in which the average believing Christian spends Sunday afternoon. As a child, I used to walk with my father, and he used to read and talk on religious subjects; on our return we used to have a short Bible-class in his study. As an Anglican clergyman, I used to teach in Sunday schools or preach to children. As a Catholic priest, I used occasionally to attend at catechism. At all these times the miraculous seemed singularly far away; we looked at it across twenty centuries; it was something from which lessons might be drawn, upon which the imagination might feed, but it was a state of affairs as remote as the life of prehistoric man; one assented to it, and that was all. And here at Lourdes it was a present, vivid event. I sat at an ordinary glass window, in a soutane made by an English tailor, with another Englishman beside me, and saw the miraculous happen. Time and space disappeared; the centuries shrank and vanished; and behold we saw that which “prophets and kings have desired to see and have not seen!”

Of course “scientific” arguments, of the sort which I have related, can be brought forward in an attempt to explain Lourdes; but they are the same arguments that can be, and are, brought forward against the miracles of Jesus Christ Himself. I say nothing to those here; I leave that to scientists such as Dr. Boissarie; but what I cannot understand is that professing Christians are able to bring a priori arguments against the fact that Our Lord is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever—the same in Galilee and in France. “These signs shall follow them that believe,” He said Himself; and the history of the Catholic Church is an exact fulfilment of the words. It was so, St. Augustine tells us, at the tombs of the martyrs; five hundred miracles were reported at Canterbury within a few years of St. Thomas’ martyrdom. And now here is Lourdes, as it has been for fifty years, in this little corner of poor France!

I have been asked since my return: “Why cannot miracles be done in England?” My answer is, firstly, that they are done in England, in Liverpool, and at Holywell, for example; secondly, I answer by another question as to why Jesus Christ was not born in Rome; and if He had been born in Rome, why not in Nineveh and Jerusalem? Thirdly, I answer that perhaps more would be done in England, if there were more faith there. It is surely a little unreasonable to ask that, in a country which three hundred and fifty years ago deliberately repudiated Christ’s Revelation of Himself, banished the Blessed Sacrament and tore down Mary’s shrines, Christ and His Mother should cooperate supernaturally in marvels that are rather the rewards of the faithful. “It is not meet to take the children’s bread and to cast it to the dogs”—these are the words of our Lord Himself. If London is not yet tolerant enough to allow an Eucharistic Procession in her streets, she is scarcely justified in demanding that our Eucharistic Lord should manifest His power. “He could do no mighty work there,” says the Evangelist, of Capharnaum, “because of their unbelief.”

This, then, is the supreme fact of Lourdes: that Jesus Christ in His Sacrament passes along that open square, with the sick laid in beds on either side; and that at His word the lame walk and lepers are cleansed and deaf hear—that they are seen leaping and dancing for joy.

Even now, writing within ten days of my return, all seems like a dream; and yet I know that I saw it. For over thirty years I had been accustomed to repeat the silly formula that “the age of miracles is past”; that they were necessary for the establishment of Christianity, but that they are no longer necessary now, except on extremely rare occasions perhaps; and in my heart I knew my foolishness. Why, for those thirty years Lourdes had been in existence! And if I spoke of it at all, I spoke only of hysteria and auto-suggestion and French imaginativeness, and the rest of the nonsense. It is impossible for a Christian who has been at Lourdes to speak like that again.

And as for the unreality, that does not trouble me. I have no doubt that those who saw the bandages torn from the leper’s limbs and the sound flesh shown beneath, or the once blind man, his eyes now dripping with water of Siloe, looking on Him who had made him whole, or heard the marvellous talk of “men like trees walking,” and the rest—I have no doubt that ten days later they sat themselves with unseeing eyes, and wondered whether it was indeed they who had witnessed those things. Human nature, like a Leyden jar, cannot hold beyond a fixed quantity; and this human nature, with experience, instincts, education, common talk, public opinion, and all the rest of it, echoing round it; the assumption that miracles do not happen; that laws are laws; in other words, that Deism is the best that can be hoped—well, it is little wonder that the visible contradiction of all this conventionalism finds but little room in the soul.

Then there is another point that I should like to make in the presence of “Evangelical” Christians who shake their heads over Mary’s part in the matter. It is this—that for every miracle that takes place in the piscines, I should guess that a dozen take place while That which we believe to be Jesus Christ goes by. Catholics, naturally, need no such reassurance; they know well enough from interior experience that when Mary comes forward Jesus does not retire! But for those who think as some Christians do, it is necessary to point out the facts. And again. I have before me as I write the little card of ejaculations that are used in the procession. There are twenty-four in all. Of these, twenty-one are addressed to Jesus Christ; in two more we ask the “Mother of the Saviour” and the “Health of the Sick” to pray for us; in the last we ask her to “show herself a Mother.” If people will talk of “proportion” in a matter in which there is no such thing—since there can be no comparison, without grave irreverence, between the Creator and a creature—I would ask, Is there “disproportion” here?

In fact, Lourdes, as a whole, is an excellent little compendium of Catholic theology and Gospel-truth. There was once a marriage feast, and the Mother of Jesus was there with her Son. There was no wine. She told her Son what He already knew; He seemed to deprecate her words; but He obeyed them, and the water became wine.

There is at Lourdes not a marriage feast, but something very like a deathbed. The Mother of Jesus is there with her Son. It is she again who takes the initiative. “Here is water,” she seems to say; “dig, Bernadette, and you will find it.” But it is no more than water. Then she turns to her Son. “They have water,” she says, “but no more.” And then He comes forth in His power. “Draw out now from all the sick beds of the world and bear them to the Governor of the Feast. Use the commonest things in the world—physical pain and common water. Bring them together, and wait until I pass by.” Then Jesus of Nazareth passes by; and the sick leap from their beds, and the blind see, and the lepers are cleansed, and devils are cast out.

Oh, yes! the parallel halts; but is it not near enough?

Seigneur, guérissez nos malades!

Salut des Infirmes, priez pour nous!

VIII

The moment Benediction was given, the room began rapidly to fill; but I still watched the singing crowd outside. Among others I noticed a woman, placid and happy—such a woman as you would see a hundred times a day in London streets, with jet ornaments in her hat, middle-aged, almost startlingly commonplace. No, nothing dramatic happened to her; that was the point. But there she was, taking it all for granted, joining in the Magnificat with a roving eye, pleased as she would have been pleased at a circus; interrupting herself to talk to her neighbour; and all the while gripping in a capable hand, on which shone a wedding ring, the bars of the Bureau window behind which I sat, that she might make the best of both worlds—Grace without and Science within. She, as I, had seen what God had done; now she proposed to see what the doctors would make of it all; and have, besides, a good view of the miraculés when they appeared.

I suppose it was her astonishing ordinariness that impressed me. It was surprising to see such a one during such a scene; it was as incongruous as a man riding a bicycle on the judgment Day. Yet she, too, served to make it all real. She was like the real tree in the foreground of a panorama. She served the same purpose as the Voix de Lourdes, a briskly written French newspaper that gives the lists of the miracles.

When I turned round at last, the room was full. Among the people present I remember an Hungarian canon, and the Brazilian Bishop with six others. Dr. Deschamps, late of Lille, now of Paris, was in the chair; and I sat next him.

The first patient to enter was Euphrasie Bosc, a dark girl of twenty-seven. She rolled a little in her walk as she came in; then she sat down and described the “white swellings” on her knee, with other details; she told how she had been impelled to rise during the procession just now. She was made to walk round the room to show her state, and was then sent off, and told to return at another time.

Next came Emma Sansen, a pale girl of twenty-five. She had suffered from endo-pericarditis for five years, as her certificate showed; she had been confined to her room for two years. She told her story quickly and went out.

There followed Sister Marguérite Emilie, an Assumptionist, aged thirty-nine, a brisk, brown-faced, tall woman, in her religious habit. Her malady had been mal de Pott, a severe spinal affliction, accompanied by abscesses and other horrors. She, too, appeared in the best of health.

We began then to hear a doctor give news of a certain Irish Religious, cured that morning in the piscines; but we were interrupted by the entry of Emile Lansman, a solid artisan of twenty-five who came in walking cheerfully, carrying a crutch and a stick which he no longer needed. Paralysis of the right leg and traumatism of the spine had been his, up to that day. Now he carried his crutch.

He was followed by another man whose name I did not catch, and on whose case I wrote so rapidly that I am scarcely able to read all my notes. His story, in brief, was as follows. He had had some while ago a severe accident, which involved a kind of appalling disembowelment. For the last year or two he had had gastric troubles of all kinds, including complete loss of appetite. His certificate showed too, that he suffered from partial paralysis (he himself showed us how little he had been able to open his fingers), and anæsthesia of the right arm. (I looked over Dr. Deschamps’ shoulder and read on the paper the words lésion incurable). It was certified further that he was incapable of manual work. Then he described to us how yesterday in the piscine, upon coming out of the bath, he had been aware of a curious sensation of warmth in the stomach; he had then found that, for the first time for many months, he wished for food; he was given it, and he enjoyed it. He moved his fingers in a normal manner, raised his arm and let it fall.

Then for the first time in the Bureau I heard a sharp controversy. One doctor suddenly broke out, saying that there was no actual proof that it was not all “hysterical simulation.” Another answered him; an appeal was made to the certificate. Then the first doctor delivered a little speech, in excellent taste, though casting doubt upon the case; and the matter was then set aside for investigation with the rest. I heard Dr. Boissarie afterwards thank him for his admirable little discourse.

Finally, though it was getting late, Honorie Gras, aged thirty-five, came in to give her evidence. She had suffered till to-day from “purulent arthritis” and “white swellings” on the left knee. To-day she walked. Her certificate confirmed her, and she was dismissed.

It was all very matter-of-fact. There is no reason to fear that Lourdes is all hymn-singing and adjurations. It is a pleasure to think that, on the right of the Rosary Church, and within a hundred yards of the Grotto, there is this little room, filled with keen-eyed doctors from every school of faith and science, who have only to present their cards and be made free of all that Lourdes has to show. They are keen-brained as well as keen-eyed. I heard one of them say quietly that if the Mother of God, as it appeared, cured incurable cases, it was hard to deny to her the power of curing curable cases also. It does not prove, that is to say, that a cure is not miraculous, if it might have been cured by human aid. And it is interesting and suggestive to remember that of such cases one hears little or nothing. For every startling miracle that is verified in the Bureau, I wonder how many persons go home quietly, freed from some maddening little illness by the mercy of Mary—some illness that is worthless as a “case” in scientific eyes, yet none the less as real as is its cure?

Of course one element that tends to keep from the grasp of the imagination all the miracles of the place is all this scientific phraseology. In the simple story of the Gospel, it seems almost supernaturally natural that a man should have “lain with an infirmity for forty years,” and should, at the word of Jesus Christ, have taken up his bed and walked; or that, as in the “Acts,” another’s “feet and ankle-bones should receive strength” by the power of the Holy Name. But when we come to tuberculosis and mal de Pott and lésion incurable and “hysterical simulation,” in some manner we seem to find ourselves in rather a breathless and stuffy room, where the white flower of the supernatural appears strangely languid to the eye of the imagination.

That, however, is all as it should be. We are bound to have these things. Perhaps the most startling miracle of all is that the Bureau and the Grotto stand side by side, and that neither stifles the other. Is it possible that here at last Science and Religion will come to terms, and each confess with wonder the capacities of the other, and, with awe, that divine power that makes them what they are, and has “set them their bounds which they shall not pass?” It would be remarkable if France, of all countries, should be the scene of that reconciliation between these estranged sisters.

That night, after dinner, I went out once more to see the procession with torches; and this time my friend and I each took a candle, that we might join in that act of worship. First, however, I went down to the robinets—the taps which flow between the Grotto and the piscines—and, after a heartcrushing struggle, succeeded in filling my bottle with the holy water. It was astonishing how selfish one felt while still in the battle, and how magnanimous when one had gained the victory. I filled also the bottle of a voluble French priest, who despairingly extended it toward me as he still fought in the turmoil. “Eh, bien!” cried a stalwart Frenchwoman at my side, who had filled her bottle and could not extricate herself. “If you will not permit me to depart, I remain!” The argument was irresistible; the crowd laughed childishly and let her out.

Now, I regret to say that once more the churches were outlined in fairy electric lamps, that the metallic garlands round our Mother’s statue blazed with them; that, even worse, the old castle on the hill and the far away Calvary were also illuminated; and, worst of all, that the procession concluded with fireworks—rockets and bombs. Miracles in the afternoon; fireworks in the evening!

Yet the more I think of it, the less am I displeased. When one reflects that more than half of the enormous crowd came, probably, from tiny villages in France—where a rocket is as rare as an angelic visitation; and, on the carnal side, as beautiful in their eyes—it seems a very narrow-minded thing to object. It is true that you and I connect fireworks with Mafeking night or Queen Victoria’s Jubilee; and that they seem therefore incongruous when used to celebrate a visitation of God. But it is not so with these people. For them it is a natural and beautiful way of telling the glory of Him who is the Dayspring from on high, who is the Light to lighten the Gentiles, whose Mother is the Stella Matutina, whose people once walked in darkness and now have seen a great Light. It is their answer—the reflection in the depths of their sea—to the myriad lights of that heaven which shines over Lourdes. Therefore let us leave the fireworks in peace.

It was a very moving thing to walk in that procession, with a candle in one hand and a little paper book in the other, and help to sing the story of Bernadette, with the unforgettable Aves at the end of each verse, and the Laudate Mariam, and the Nicene Creed. Credo in ... unam sanctam Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam. My heart leaped at that. For where else but in the Catholic Church do such things happen as these that I had seen? Imagine, if you please, miracles in Manchester! Certainly they might happen there, if there were sufficient Catholics gathered in His Name; but put for Manchester, Exeter Hall or St. Paul’s Cathedral! The thought is blindingly absurd. No; the Christianity of Jesus Christ lives only in the Catholic Church.

There alone in the whole round world do you find that combination of lofty doctrine, magnificent moral teaching, the frank recognition of the Cross; sacramentalism logically carried out, yet gripping the heart as no amateur mysticism can do; and miracles. “Mercy and Truth have met together.” “These signs shall follow them that believe.... Faith can remove mountains.... All things are possible to him that believes.... Whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in My Name.... Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am I in the midst of them.” There alone, where souls are built upon Peter, do these things really happen.

I have been asked lately whether I am “happy” in the Catholic Church. Happy! What can one say to a question like that? Does one ask a man who wakes up from a foolish dream to sunshine in his room, and to life and reality, whether he is happy? Of course many non-Catholics are happy. I was happy myself as an Anglican; but as a Catholic one does not use the word; one does not think about it. The whole of life is different; that is all that can be said. Faith is faith, not hope; God is Light, not twilight; eternity, heaven, hell, purgatory, sin and its consequences—these things are facts, not guesses and conjectures and suspicions desperately clung to. “How hard it is to be a Christian!” moans the persevering non-Catholic. “How impossible it is to be anything else!” cries the Catholic.

We went round, then, singing. The procession was so huge that it seemed to have no head and no tail. It involved itself a hundred times over; it swirled in the square, it humped itself over the Rosary Church; it elongated itself half a mile away up beyond our Mother’s garlanded statue; it eddied round the Grotto. It was one immense pool and river of lights and song. Each group sang by itself till it was overpowered by another; men and women and children strolled along patiently singing and walking, knowing nothing of where they went, nothing of what they would be singing five minutes hence. It depended on the voice-power of their neighbours.

For myself, I found myself in a dozen groups, before, at last, after an hour or so, I fell out of the procession and went home. Now I walked cheek by jowl with a retired officer; now with an artisan; once there came swiftly up behind a company of “Noelites”—those vast organizations of boys and girls in France—singing the Laudate Mariam to my Ave Maria; now in the middle of a group of shop-girls who exchanged remarks with one another whenever they could fetch breath. I think it was all the most joyous and the most spontaneous (as it was certainly the largest) human function in which I have ever taken part. I have no idea whether there were any organizers of it all—at least I saw none. Once or twice a solitary priest in the midst, walking backward and waving his arms, attempted to reconcile conflicting melodies; once a very old priest; with a voice like the tuba stop on the organ, turned a humorously furious face over his shoulder to quell some mistake—from his mouth, the while issuing this amazingly pungent volume of sound. But I think these were the only attempts at organization that I saw.

And so at last I dropped out and went home, hoarse but very well content. I had walked for more than an hour—from the statue, over the lower church and down again, up the long avenue, and back again to the statue. The fireworks were over, the illuminations died, and the day was done; yet still the crowds went round and the voice of conflicting melody went up without cessation. As I went home the sound was still in my ears. As I dropped off to sleep, I still heard it.

IX

Next morning I awoke with a heavy heart, for we were to leave in the motor at half-past eight, I had still a few errands to do, and had made no arrangements for saying Mass; so I went out quickly, a little after seven, and up to the Rosary Church to get some pious objects blessed. It was useless: I could not find the priest of whom I had been told, whose business it is perpetually to bless such things. I went to the basilica, then round by the hill-path down to the Grotto, where I became wedged suddenly and inextricably into a silent crowd.

For a while I did not understand what they were doing beyond hearing Mass; for I knew that, of course, a Mass was proceeding just round the corner in the cave. But presently I perceived that these were intending communicants. So I made what preparation I could, standing there; and thanked God and His Mother for this unexpected opportunity of saying good-bye in the best way—for I was as sad as a school-boy going the rounds of the house on Black Monday—and after a quarter of an hour or so I was kneeling at the grill, be neath the very image of Mary. After making my thanksgiving, still standing on the other side, I blessed the objects myself—strictly against all rules, I imagine—and came home to breakfast; and before nine we were on our way.

We were all silent as we progressed slowly and carefully through the crowded streets, seeing once more the patient brancardiers and the pitiful litters on their way to the piscines. I could not have believed that I could have become so much attached to a place in three summer days. As I have said before, everything was against it. There was no leisure, no room to move, no silence, no sense of familiarity. All was hot and noisy and crowded and dusty and unknown. Yet I felt that it was such a home of the soul as I never visited before—of course it is a home, for it is the Mother that makes the home.

We saw no more of the Grotto nor the churches nor the square nor the statue. Our road led out in such a direction that, after leaving the hotel, we had only commonplace streets, white houses, shops, hotels and crowds; and soon we had passed from the very outskirts of the town, and were beginning with quickening speed to move out along one of those endless straight roads that are the glory of France’s locomotion.

Yet I turned round in my seat, sick at heart, and pulled the blind that hung over the rear window of the car. No, Lourdes was gone! There was the ring of the eternal hills, blue against the blue summer sky, with their shades of green beneath sloping to the valleys, and the rounded bastions that hold them up. The Gave was gone, the churches gone, the Grotto—all was gone. Lourdes might be a dream of the night.

No, Lourdes was not gone. For there, high on a hill, above where the holy city lay, stood the cross we had seen first upon our entrance, telling us that if health is a gift of God, it is not the greatest; that the Physician of souls, who healed the sick, and without whom not one sparrow falls to the ground, and not one pang is suffered, Himself had not where to lay His head, and died in pain upon the Tree.

And even as I looked we wheeled a corner, and the cross was gone.

How is it possible to end such a story without bathos? I think it is not possible, yet I must end it. An old French priest said one day at Lourdes, to one of those with whom I travelled, that he feared that in these times the pilgrims did not pray so much as they once did, and that this was a bad sign. He spoke also of France as a whole, and its fall. My friend said to him that, in her opinion, if these pilgrims could but be led as an army to Paris—an army, that is, with no weapons except their Rosaries—the country could be retaken in a day.

Now, I do not know whether the pilgrims once prayed more than they do now; I only know that I never saw any one pray so much; and I cannot help agreeing with my friend that, if this power could be organized, we should hear little more of the apostasy of France. Even as it is, I cannot understand the superior attitude that Christian Englishmen take up with regard to France. It is true that in many districts religion is on a downward course, that the churches are neglected, and that even infidelity is becoming a fashion; but I wonder very much whether, on the whole, taking Lourdes into account, the average piety of France, is not on a very much higher level than the piety of England. The government, as all the world now knows, is not in the least representative of the country; but, sad to relate, the Frenchman is apt to extend his respect for the law into an assumption of its morality. When a law is passed, there is an end of it.

Yet, judging by the intensity of faith and love and resignation that is evident at Lourdes, and indeed by the numbers of those present, it would seem as if Mary, driven from the towns with her Divine Son, has chosen Lourdes—the very farthest point from Paris—as her earthly home, and draws her children after her, standing there with her back to the wall. I do not think this is fanciful. That which is beyond time and space must communicate with us in those terms; and we can only speak of these things in the same terms. Huysmans expresses the same thing in other words. Even if Bernadette were deceived, he says, at any rate these pilgrims are not; even if Mary did not come in 1858 to the banks of the Gave, she has certainly come there since, drawn by the thousands of souls that have gone to seek her there.

This, then, is the last thing I can say about Lourdes. It is quite useless as evidence—indeed it would be almost impertinent to dare to offer further evidence at all—yet I may as well hand it in as my contribution. It is this, that Lourdes is soaked, saturated and kindled by the all but sensible presence of the Mother of God. I am quite aware of all that can be said about subjectivity and auto-suggestion, and the rest; but there comes a point in all arguments when nothing is worth anything except an assertion of a personal conviction. Such, then, is mine.

First, it was borne in upon me what a mutilated Christianity that is which practically takes no account of Mary. This fragmentary, lopsided faith was that in which I myself had been brought up, and which to-day still is the faith of the majority of my fellow-countrymen. The Mother of God—the Second Eve, the Immaculate Maiden Mother, who, as if to balance Eve at the Tree of Death, stood by the Tree of Life—in popular non-Catholic theology is banished, with the rest of those who have passed away, to a position of complete insignificance. This arrangement, I had become accustomed to believe, was that of Primitive Christianity and of the Christianity of all sensible men: Romanism had added to the simple Gospel, and had treated the Mother of God with an honour which she would have been the first to deprecate.

Well, I think that at Lourdes the startling contrast between facts and human inventions was, in this respect, first made vivid to my imagination. I understood how puzzling it must be for “old Catholics,” to whom Mary is as real and active as her Divine Son, to understand the sincerity of those to whom she is no more than a phantom, and who yet profess and call themselves Christians. Why, at Lourdes Mary is seen to stand, to all but outward eyes, in exactly that position in which at Nazareth, at Cana, in the Acts of the Apostles, in the Catacombs, and in the whole history of Christendom, true lovers of her Son have always seen her—a Mother of God and man, tender, authoritative, silent, and effective!

Yet, strangely enough, it is not at all the ordinary and conventional character of a merely tender mother that reveals itself at Lourdes—one who is simply desirous of relieving pain and giving what is asked. There comes upon one instead the sense of a tremendous personage—Regina Cœli as well as Consolatrix Afflictorum—one who says “No” as well as “Yes,” and with the same serenity; yet with the “No” gives strength to receive it. I have heard it said that the greatest miracle of all at Lourdes is the peace and resignation, even the happiness, of those who, after expectation has been wrought to the highest, go disappointed away, as sick as they came. Certainly that is an amazing fact. The tears of the young man in the piscine were the only tears of sorrow I saw at Lourdes.

Mary, then, has appeared to me in a new light since I have visited Lourdes. I shall in future not only hate to offend her, but fear it also. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of that Mother who allows the broken sufferer to crawl across France to her feet—and then to crawl back again. She is one of the Maries of Chartres, that reveals herself here, dark, mighty, dominant, and all but inexorable; not the Mary of an ecclesiastical shop, who dwells amid tinsel and tuberoses. She is Sedes Sapientiæ, Turris Eburnea, Virgo Paritura, strong and tall and glorious, pierced by seven swords, yet serene as she looks to her Son.

Yet, at the same time, the tenderness of her great heart shows itself at Lourdes almost beyond bearing. She is so great and so loving! It affects those to whom one speaks—the quiet doctors, even those who, through some confusion of mind or some sin, find it hard to believe; the strong brancardiers, who carry their quivering burdens with such infinite care; the very sick themselves, coming back from the piscines in agony, yet with the faces of those who come down from the altar after Holy Communion. The whole place is alive with Mary and the love of God—from the inadequate statue at the Grotto to the brazen garlands in the square, even as far as the illuminated castle and the rockets that burst and bang against the steady stars. If I were sick of some deadly disease, and it were revealed to me that I must die, yet none the less I should go to Lourdes; for if I should not be healed by Mary, I could at least learn how to suffer as a Christian ought. God has chosen this place—He only knows why, as He, too, alone chooses which man shall suffer and which be glad —He has chosen this place to show His power; and therefore has sent His Mother there, that we may look through her to Him.

Is this, then, all subjectivity and romantic dreaming? Well, but there are the miracles!

NONE OTHER GODS

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

AUTHOR OF “THE CONVENTIONALISTS,” “THE NECROMANCERS,” “A WINNOWING,” ETC.

CONTENTS

NONE OTHER GODS

DEDICATORY LETTER

PART I

CHAPTER I

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

V

CHAPTER VI

I

II

III

CHAPTER VII

I

II

III

IV

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

II

IV

V

VI

VII

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

III

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER V

I

II

CHAPTER VI

PART III

CHAPTER I

II

III

CHAPTER II

I

II

III

CHAPTER III

I

II

III

CHAPTER IV

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER V

I

II

III

IV

CHAPTER VI

I

II

CHAPTER VII

I

II

III

IV

V

CHAPTER VIII

I

II

III

IV

V

THE END

NONE OTHER GODS

DEDICATORY LETTER

My dear Jack Kirkby,

To whom can I dedicate this book but to you who were, not only the best friend of the man I have written about, but one without whom the book could not have been written? It is to you that I owe practically all the materials necessary for the work: it was to you that Frank left the greater part of his diary, such as it was (and I hope I have observed your instructions properly as regards the use I have made of it); it was you who took such trouble to identify the places he passed through; and it was you, above all, who gave me so keen an impression of Frank himself, that it seems to me I must myself have somehow known him intimately, in spite of the fact that we never met.

I think I should say that it is this sense of intimacy, this extraordinary interior accessibility (so to speak) of Frank, that made him (as you and I both think) about the most lovable person we have ever known. They were very extraordinary changes that passed over him, of course—(and I suppose we cannot improve, even with all our modern psychology, upon the old mystical names for such changes—Purgation, Illumination and Union)—but, as theologians themselves tell us, that mysterious thing which Catholics call the Grace of God does not obliterate, but rather emphasizes and transfigures the natural characteristics of every man upon whom it comes with power. It was the same element in Frank, as it seems to me—the same root-principle, at least—that made him do those preposterous things connected with bread and butter and a railway train, that drove him from Cambridge in defiance of all common-sense and sweet reasonableness; that held him still to that deplorable and lamentable journey with his two traveling companions, and that ultimately led him to his death. I mean, it was the same kind of unreasonable daring and purpose throughout, though it issued in very different kinds of actions, and was inspired by very different motives.

Well, it is not much good discussing Frank in public like this. The people who are kind enough to read his life—or, rather, the six months of it with which this book deals—must form their own opinion of him. Probably a good many will think him a fool. I daresay he was; but I think I like that kind of folly. Other people may think him simply obstinate and tiresome. Well, I like obstinacy of that sort, and I do not find him tiresome. Everyone must form their own views, and I have a perfect right to form mine, which I am glad to know coincide with your own. After all, you knew him better than anyone else.

I went to see Gertie Trustcott, as you suggested, but I didn’t get any help from her. I think she is the most suburban person I have ever met. She could tell me nothing whatever new about him; she could only corroborate what you yourself had told me, and what the diaries and other papers contained. I did not stay long with Miss Trustcott.

And now, my dear friend, I must ask you to accept this book from me, and to make the best of it. Of course, I have had to conjecture a great deal, and to embroider even more; but it is no more than embroidery. I have not touched the fabric itself which you put into my hands; and anyone who cares to pull out the threads I have inserted can do so if they will, without any fear of the thing falling to pieces.

I have to thank you for many pleasurable and even emotional hours. The offering which I present to you now is the only return I can make.

I am,

Ever yours sincerely,

Robert Hugh Benson.

P.S.—We’ve paneled a new room since you were last at Hare Street. Come and see it soon and sleep in it. We want you badly. And I want to talk a great deal more about Frank.

P.P.S.—I hear that her ladyship has gone back to live with her father; she tried the Dower House in Westmoreland, but seems to have found it lonely. Is that true? It’ll be rather difficult for Dick, won’t it?

PART I

CHAPTER I

I

“I think you’re behaving like an absolute idiot,” said Jack Kirkby indignantly.

Frank grinned pleasantly, and added his left foot to his right one in the broad window-seat.

These two young men were sitting in one of the most pleasant places in all the world in which to sit on a summer evening—in a ground-floor room looking out upon the Great Court of Trinity College, Cambridge. It was in that short space of time, between six and seven, during which the Great Court is largely deserted. The athletes and the dawdlers have not yet returned from field and river; and Fellows and other persons, young enough to know better, who think that a summer evening was created for the reading of books, have not yet emerged from their retreats. A white-aproned cook or two moves across the cobbled spaces with trays upon their heads; a tradesman’s boy comes out of the corner entrance from the hostel; a cat or two stretches himself on the grass; but, for the rest, the court lies in broad sunshine; the shadows slope eastwards, and the fitful splash and trickle of the fountain asserts itself clearly above the gentle rumble of Trinity Street.

Within, the room in which these two sat was much like other rooms of the same standing; only, in this one case the walls were paneled with white-painted deal. Three doors led out of it—two into a tiny bedroom and a tinier dining-room respectively; the third on to the passage leading to the lecture-rooms. Frank found it very convenient, since he thus was enabled, at every hour of the morning when the lectures broke up, to have the best possible excuse for conversing with his friends through the window.

The room was furnished really well. Above the mantelpiece, where rested an array of smoking-materials and a large silver cigarette-box, hung an ancestral-looking portrait, in a dull gilded frame, of an aged man, with a ruff round his neck, purchased for one guinea; there was a sofa and a set of chairs upholstered in a good damask: a black piano by Broadwood; a large oval gate-leg table; a bureau; shelves filled with very indiscriminate literature—law books, novels, Badminton, magazines and ancient school editions of the classics; a mahogany glass-fronted bookcase packed with volumes of esthetic appearance—green-backed poetry books with white labels; old leather tomes, and all the rest of the specimens usual to a man who has once thought himself literary. Then there were engravings, well framed, round the walls; a black iron-work lamp, fitted for electric light, hung from the ceiling; there were a couple of oak chests, curiously carved. On the stained floor lay three or four mellow rugs, and the window-boxes outside blazed with geraniums. The débris of tea rested on the window-seat nearest the outer door.

Frank Guiseley, too, lolling in the window-seat in a white silk shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and gray flannel trousers, and one white shoe, was very pleasant to look upon. His hair was as black and curly as a Neapolitan’s; he had a smiling, humorous mouth, and black eyes—of an extraordinary twinkling alertness. His clean-shaven face, brown in its proper complexion as well as with healthy sunburning (he had played very vigorous lawn-tennis for the last two months), looked like a boy’s, except for the very determined mouth and the short, straight nose. He was a little below middle height—well-knit and active; and though, properly speaking, he was not exactly handsome, he was quite exceptionally delightful to look at.

Jack Kirkby, sitting in an arm-chair a yard away, and in the same sort of costume—except that he wore both his shoes and a Third Trinity blazer—was a complete contrast in appearance. The other had something of a Southern Europe look; Jack was obviously English—wholesome red cheeks, fair hair and a small mustache resembling spun silk. He was, also, closely on six feet in height.

He was anxious just now, and, therefore, looked rather cross, fingering the very minute hairs of his mustache whenever he could spare the time from smoking, and looking determinedly away from Frank upon the floor. For the last week he had talked over this affair, ever since the amazing announcement; and had come to the conclusion that once more, in this preposterous scheme, Frank really meant what he said.

Frank had a terrible way of meaning what he said—he reflected with dismay. There was the affair of the bread and butter three years ago, before either of them had learned manners. This had consisted in the fastening up in separate brown-paper parcels innumerable pieces of bread and butter, addressing each with the name of the Reverend Junior Dean (who had annoyed Frank in some way), and the leaving of the parcels about in every corner of Cambridge, in hansom cabs, on seats, on shop-counters and on the pavements—with the result that for the next two or three days the dean’s staircase was crowded with messenger boys and unemployables, anxious to return apparently lost property.

Then there had been the matter of the flagging of a fast Northern train in the middle of the fens with a red pocket-handkerchief, to find out if it were really true that the train would stop, followed by a rapid retreat on bicycles so soon as it had been ascertained that it was true; the Affair of the German Prince traveling incognito, into which the Mayor himself had been drawn; and the Affair of the Nun who smoked a short black pipe in the Great Court shortly before midnight, before gathering up her skirts and vanishing on noiseless india-rubber-shod feet round the kitchen quarters into the gloom of Neville’s Court, as the horrified porter descended from his signal-box.

Now many minds could have conceived these things; a smaller number of people would have announced their intention of doing them: but there were very few persons who would actually carry them all out to the very end: in fact, Jack reflected, Frank Guiseley was about the only man of his acquaintance who could possibly have done them. And he had done them all on his own sole responsibility.

He had remembered, too, during the past week, certain incidents of the same nature at Eton. There was the master who had rashly inquired, with deep sarcasm, on the fourth or fifth occasion in one week when Frank had come in a little late for five-o’clock school, whether “Guiseley would not like to have tea before pursuing his studies.” Frank, with a radiant smile of gratitude, and extraordinary rapidity, had answered that he would like it very much indeed, and had vanished through the still half-open door before another word could be uttered, returning with a look of childlike innocence at about five-and-twenty minutes to six.

“Please, sir,” he had said, “I thought you said I might go?”

“And have you had tea?”

“Why, certainly, sir; at Webber’s.”

Now all this kind of thing was a little disconcerting to remember now. Truly, the things in themselves had been admirably conceived and faithfully executed, but they seemed to show that Frank was the kind of person who really carried through what other people only talked about—and especially if he announced beforehand that he intended to do it.

It was a little dismaying, therefore, for his friend to reflect that upon the arrival of the famous letter from Lord Talgarth—Frank’s father—six days previously, in which all the well-worn phrases occurred as to “darkening doors” and “roof” and “disgrace to the family,” Frank had announced that he proposed to take his father at his word, sell up his property and set out like a prince in a fairy-tale to make his fortune.

Jack had argued till he was sick of it, and to no avail. Frank had a parry for every thrust. Why wouldn’t he wait a bit until the governor had had time to cool down? Because the governor must learn, sooner or later, that words really meant something, and that he—Frank—was not going to stand it for one instant.

Why wouldn’t he come and stay at Barham till further notice? They’d all be delighted to have him: It was only ten miles off Merefield, and perhaps—Because Frank was not going to sponge upon his friends. Neither was he going to skulk about near home. Well, if he was so damned obstinate, why didn’t he go into the City—or even to the Bar? Because (1) he hadn’t any money; and (2) he would infinitely sooner go on the tramp than sit on a stool. Well, why didn’t he enlist, like a gentleman? Frank dared say he would some time, but he wanted to stand by himself a bit first and see the world.

“Let’s see the letter again,” said Jack at last. “Where is it?”

Frank reflected.

“I think it’s in that tobacco-jar just behind your head,” he said. “No, it isn’t; it’s in the pouch on the floor. I know I associated it somehow with smoking. And, by the way, give me a cigarette.”

Jack tossed him his case, opened the pouch, took out the letter, and read it slowly through again.

“Merefield Court,

“near Harrogate.

“May 28th, Thursday.

“I am ashamed of you, sir. When you first told me of your intention, I warned you what would happen if you persisted, and I repeat it now. Since you have deliberately chosen, in spite of all that I have said, to go your own way, and to become a Papist, I will have no more to do with you. From this moment you cease to be my son. You shall not, while I live, darken my doors again, or sleep under my roof. I say nothing of what you have had from me in the past—your education and all the rest. And, since I do not wish to be unduly hard upon you, you can keep the remainder of your allowance up to July and the furniture of your rooms. But, after that, not one penny shall you have from me. You can go to your priests and get them to support you.

“I am only thankful that your poor mother has been spared this blow.

“T.”

Jack made a small murmurous sound as he finished. Frank chuckled aloud.

“Pitches it in all right, doesn’t he?” he observed dispassionately.

“If it had been my governor—” began Jack slowly.

“My dear man, it isn’t your governor; it’s mine. And I’m dashed if there’s another man in the world who’d write such a letter as that nowadays. It’s—it’s too early-Victorian. They’d hardly stand it at the Adelphi! I could have put it so much better myself.... Poor old governor!”

“Have you answered it?”

“I ... I forget. I know I meant to.... No, I haven’t. I remember now. And I shan’t till I’m just off.”

“Well, I shall,” remarked Jack.

Frank turned a swift face upon him.

“If you do,” he said, with sudden fierce gravity, “I’ll never speak to you again. I mean it. It’s my affair, and I shall run it my own way.”

“But—”

“I mean it. Now! give me your word of honor—”

“I—”

“Your word of honor, this instant, or get out of my room!”

There was a pause. Then:

“All right,” said Jack.

Then there fell a silence once more.

II

The news began to be rumored about, soon after the auction that Frank held of his effects a couple of days later. He carried out the scene admirably, entirely unassisted, even by Jack.

First, there appeared suddenly all over Cambridge, the evening before the sale, just as the crowds of undergraduates and female relations began to circulate about after tea and iced strawberries, a quantity of sandwich-men, bearing the following announcement, back and front:

TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. The Hon. Frank Guiseley

has pleasure in announcing that on

June 7th (Saturday)

at half-past ten a.m. precisely

in Rooms 1, Letter J, Great Court, Trinity College,

he will positively offer for

SALE BY AUCTION

The household effects, furniture, books, etc., of the Hon. Frank Guiseley, including—

A piano by Broadwood (slightly out of tune); a magnificent suite of drawing-room furniture, upholstered in damask, the sofa only slightly stained with tea; one oak table and another; a bed; a chest of drawers (imitation walnut, and not a very good imitation); a mahogany glass-fronted bookcase, containing a set of suggestive-looking volumes bound in faint colors, with white labels; four oriental mats; a portrait of a gentleman (warranted a perfectly respectable ancestor); dining-room suite (odd chairs); numerous engravings of places of interest and noblemen’s seats; a Silver Cigarette-box and fifteen Cigarettes in it (Melachrino and Mixed American); a cuckoo-clock (without cuckoo); five walking-sticks; numerous suits of clothes (one lot suitable for Charitable Purposes); some books—all very curious indeed—comprising the works of an Eminent Cambridge Professor, and other scholastic luminaries, as well as many other articles.

At Half-past Ten a.m. Precisely

All friends, and strangers, cordially invited.

No Reserve Price.

It served its purpose admirably, for by soon after ten o’clock quite a considerable crowd had begun to assemble; and it was only after a very serious conversation with the Dean that the sale was allowed to proceed. But it proceeded, with the distinct understanding that a college porter be present; that no riotous behavior should be allowed; that the sale was a genuine one, and that Mr. Guiseley would call upon the Dean with further explanations before leaving Cambridge.

The scene itself was most impressive.

Frank, in a structure resembling an auctioneer’s box, erected on the hearth-rug, presided, with extraordinary gravity, hammer in hand, robed in a bachelor’s gown and hood. Beneath him the room seethed with the company, male and female, all in an excellent humor, and quite tolerable prices were obtained. No public explanations were given of the need for the sale, and Jack, in the deepest dismay, looked in again that afternoon, about lunch-time, to find the room completely stripped, and Frank, very cheerful, still in his hood and gown, smoking a cigarette in the window-seat.

“Come in,” he said. “And kindly ask me to lunch. The last porter’s just gone.”

Jack looked at him.

He seemed amazingly genial and natural, though just a little flushed, and such an air of drama as there was about him was obviously deliberate.

“Very well; come to lunch,” said Jack. “Where are you going to dine and sleep?”

“I’m dining in hall, and I’m sleeping in a hammock. Go and look at my bedroom.”

Jack went across the bare floor and looked in. A hammock was slung across from a couple of pegs, and there lay a small carpet-bag beneath it. A basin on an upturned box and a bath completed the furniture.

“You mad ass!” said Jack. “And is that all you have left?”

“Certainly. I’m going to leave the clothes I’ve got on to you, and you can fetch the hammock when I’ve gone.”

“When do you start?”

“Mr. Guiseley will have his last interview and obtain his exeat from the Dean at half-past six this evening. He proposes to leave Cambridge in the early hours of to-morrow morning.”

“You don’t mean that!”

“Certainly I do.”

“What are you going to wear?”

Frank extended two flanneled legs, ending in solid boots.

“These—a flannel shirt, no tie, a cap, a gray jacket.”

Jack stood again in silence, looking at him.

“How much money did your sale make?”

“That’s immaterial. Besides, I forget. The important fact is that when I’ve paid all my bills I shall have thirteen pounds eleven shillings and eightpence.”

“What?”

“Thirteen pounds eleven shillings and eightpence.”

Jack burst into a mirthless laugh.

“Well, come along to lunch,” he said.

It seemed to Jack that he moved in a dreary kind of dream that afternoon as he went about with Frank from shop to shop, paying bills. Frank’s trouser-pockets bulged and jingled a good deal as they started—he had drawn all his remaining money in gold from the bank—and they bulged and jingled considerably less as the two returned to tea in Jesus Lane. There, on the table, he spread out the coins. He had bought some tobacco, and two or three other things that afternoon, and the total amounted now but to twelve pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence.

“Call it thirteen pounds,” said Frank. “There’s many a poor man—”

“Don’t be a damned fool!” said Jack.

“I’m being simply prudent,” said Frank. “A contented heart—”

Jack thrust a cup of tea and the buttered buns before him.

These two were as nearly brothers as possible, in everything but blood. Their homes lay within ten miles of one another. They had gone to a private school together, to Eton, and to Trinity. They had ridden together in the holidays, shot, dawdled, bathed, skated, and all the rest. They were considerably more brothers to one another than were Frank and Archie, his actual elder brother, known to the world as Viscount Merefield. Jack did not particularly approve of Archie; he thought him a pompous ass, and occasionally said so.

For Frank he had quite an extraordinary affection, though he would not have expressed it so, to himself, for all the world, and a very real admiration of a quite indefinable kind. It was impossible to say why he admired him. Frank did nothing very well, but everything rather well; he played Rugby football just not well enough to represent his college; he had been in the Lower Boats at Eton, and the Lent Boat of his first year at Cambridge; then he had given up rowing and played lawn-tennis in the summer and fives in the Lent Term just well enough to make a brisk and interesting game. He was not at all learned; he had reached the First Hundred at Eton, and had read Law at Cambridge—that convenient branch of study which for the most part fills the vacuum for intelligent persons who have no particular bent and are heartily sick of classics; and he had taken a Third Class and his degree a day or two before. He was remarkably averaged, therefore; and yet, somehow or another, there was that in him which compelled Jack’s admiration. I suppose it was that which is conveniently labeled “character.” Certainly, nearly everybody who came into contact with him felt the same in some degree.

His becoming a Catholic had been an amazing shock to Jack, who had always supposed that Frank, like himself, took the ordinary sensible English view of religion. To be a professed unbeliever was bad form—it was like being a Little Englander or a Radical; to be pious was equally bad form—it resembled a violent devotion to the Union Jack. No; religion to Jack (and he had always hitherto supposed, to Frank) was a department of life in which one did not express any particular views: one did not say one’s prayers; one attended chapel at the proper times; if one was musical, one occasionally went to King’s on Sunday afternoon; in the country one went to church on Sunday morning as one went to the stables in the afternoon, and that was about all.

Frank had been, too, so extremely secretive about the whole thing. He had marched into Jack’s rooms in Jesus Lane one morning nearly a fortnight ago.

“Come to mass at the Catholic Church,” he said.

“Why, the—” began Jack.

“I’ve got to go. I’m a Catholic.”

“What!”

“I became one last week.”

Jack had stared at him, suddenly convinced that someone was mad. When he had verified that it was really a fact; that Frank had placed himself under instruction three months before, and had made his confession—(his confession!)—on Friday, and had been conditionally baptized; when he had certified himself of all these things, and had begun to find coherent language once more, he had demanded why Frank had done this.

“Because it’s the true religion,” said Frank. “Are you coming to mass or are you not?”

Jack had gone then, and had come away more bewildered than ever as to what it was all about. He had attempted to make a few inquiries, but Frank had waved his hands at him, and repeated that obviously the Catholic religion was the true one, and that he couldn’t be bothered. And now here they were at tea in Jesus Lane for the last time.

Of course, there was a little suppressed excitement about Frank. He drank three cups of tea and took the last (and the under) piece of buttered bun without apologies, and he talked a good deal, rather fast. It seemed that he had really no particular plans as to what he was going to do after he had walked out of Cambridge with his carpet-bag early next morning. He just meant, he said, to go along and see what happened. He had had a belt made, which pleased him exceedingly, into which his money could be put (it lay on the table between them during tea), and he proposed, naturally, to spend as little of that money as possible.... No; he would not take one penny piece from Jack; it would be simply scandalous if he—a public-school boy and an University man—couldn’t keep body and soul together by his own labor. There would be hay-making presently, he supposed, and fruit-picking, and small jobs on farms. He would just go along and see what happened. Besides there were always casual wards, weren’t there? if the worst came to the worst; and he’d meet other men, he supposed, who’d put him in the way of things. Oh! he’d get on all right.

Would he ever come to Barham? Well, if it came in the day’s work he would. Yes: certainly he’d be most obliged if his letters might be sent there, and he could write for them when he wanted, or even call for them, if, as he said, it came in the day’s work.

What was he going to do in the winter? He hadn’t the slightest idea. He supposed, what other people did in the winter. Perhaps he’d have got a place by then—gamekeeper, perhaps—he’d like to be a gamekeeper.

At this Jack, mentally, threw up the sponge.

“You really mean to go on at this rotten idea of yours?”

Frank opened his eyes wide.

“Why, of course. Good Lord! did you think I was bluffing?”

“But ... but it’s perfectly mad. Why on earth don’t you get a proper situation somewhere—land-agent or something?”

“My dear man,” said Frank, “if you will have it, it’s because I want to do exactly what I’m going to do. No—I’m being perfectly serious. I’ve thought for ages that we’re all wrong somehow. We’re all so beastly artificial. I don’t want to preach, but I want to test things for myself. My religion tells me—” He broke off. “No; this is fooling. I’m going to do it because I’m going to do it. And I’m really going to do it. I’m not going to be an amateur—like slumming. I’m going to find out things for myself.”

“But on the roads—” expostulated Jack.

“Exactly. That’s the very point. Back to the land.”

Jack sat up.

“Good Lord!” he said. “Why, I never thought of it.”

“What?”

“It’s your old grandmother coming out.”

Frank stared.

“Grandmother?”

“Yes—old Mrs. Kelly.”

Frank laughed suddenly and loudly.

“By George!” he said, “I daresay it is. Old Grandmamma Kelly! She was a gipsy—so she was. I believe you’ve hit it, Jack. Let’s see: she was my grandfather’s second wife, wasn’t she?”

Jack nodded.

“And he picked her up off the roads on his own estate. Wasn’t she trespassing, or something?”

Jack nodded again.

“Yes,” he said, “and he was a magistrate and ought to have committed her: And he married her instead. She was a girl, traveling with her parents.”

Frank sat smiling genially.

“That’s it,” he said. “Then I’m bound to make a success of it.”

And he took another cigarette.

Then one more thought came to Jack: he had determined already to make use of it if necessary, and somehow this seemed to be the moment.

“And Jenny Launton,” he said “I suppose you’ve thought of her?”

A curious look came into Frank’s eyes—a look of great gravity and tenderness—and the humor died out. He said nothing for an instant. Then he drew out of his breast-pocket a letter in an envelope, and tossed it gently over to Jack.

“I’m telling her in that,” he said. “I’m going to post it to-night, after I’ve seen the Dean.”

Jack glanced down at it.

“Miss Launton,

“The Rectory,

“Merefield, Yorks.”

ran the inscription. He turned it over; it was fastened and sealed.

“I’ve told her we must wait a bit,” said Frank, “and that I’ll write again in a few weeks.”

Jack was silent.

“And you think it’s fair on her?” he asked deliberately.

Frank’s face broke up into humor.

“That’s for her to say,” he observed. “And, to tell the truth, I’m not at all afraid.”

“But a gamekeeper’s wife! And you a Catholic!”

“Ah! you don’t know Jenny,” smiled Frank. “Jenny and I quite understand one another, thank you very much.”

“But is it quite fair?”

“Good Lord!” shouted Frank, suddenly roused. “Fair! What the devil does it matter? Don’t you know that all’s fair—under certain circumstances? I do bar that rotten conventionalism. We’re all rotten—rotten, I tell you; and I’m going to start fresh. So’s Jenny. Kindly don’t talk of what you don’t understand.”

He stood up, stretching. Then he threw the end of his cigarette away.

“I must go to the Dean,” he said. “It’s close on the half-hour.”

III

The Reverend James Mackintosh was an excellent official of his college, and performed his duties with care and punctilium. He rose about half-past seven o’clock every morning, drank a cup of tea and went to chapel. After chapel he breakfasted, on Tuesdays and Thursdays with two undergraduates in their first year, selected in alphabetical order, seated at his table; on the other days of the week in solitude. At ten o’clock he lectured, usually on one of St. Paul’s Epistles, on which subjects he possessed note-books filled with every conceivable piece of information that could be gathered together—grammatical, philological, topographical, industrial, social, biographical—with a few remarks on the fauna, flora, imports, characteristics and geological features of those countries to which those epistles were written, and in which they were composed. These notes, guaranteed to guide any student who really mastered them to success, and even distinction, in his examinations, were the result of a lifetime of loving labor, and some day, no doubt, will be issued in the neat blue covers of the “Cambridge Bible for Schools.” From eleven to twelve he lectured on Church history of the first five centuries—after which period, it will be remembered by all historical students, Church history practically ceased. At one he lunched; from two to four he walked rapidly (sometimes again in company with a serious theological student), along the course known as the Grantchester Grind, or to Coton and back. At four he had tea; at five he settled down to administer discipline to the college, by summoning and remonstrating with such undergraduates as had failed to comply with the various regulations; at half-past seven he dined in hall—a meek figure, clean shaven and spectacled, seated between an infidel philosopher and a socialist: he drank a single glass of wine afterwards in the Combination Room, smoked one cigarette, and retired again to his rooms to write letters to parents (if necessary), and to run over his notes for next day.

And he did this, with the usual mild variations of a University life, every weekday, for two-thirds of the year. Of the other third, he spent part in Switzerland, dressed in a neat gray Norfolk suit with knickerbockers, and the rest with clerical friends of the scholastic type. It was a very solemn thought to him how great were his responsibilities, and what a privilege it was to live in the whirl and stir of one of the intellectual centers of England!

Frank Guiseley was to Mr. Mackintosh a very great puzzle. He had certainly been insubordinate in his first year (Mr. Mackintosh gravely suspected him of the Bread-and-Butter affair, which had so annoyed his colleague), but he certainly had been very steady and even deferential ever since. (He always took off his hat, for example, to Mr. Mackintosh, with great politeness.) Certainly he was not very regular at chapel, and he did not dine in hall nearly so often as Mr. Mackintosh would have wished (for was it not part of the University idea that men of all grades of society should meet as equals under the college roof?). But, then, he had never been summoned for any very grave or disgraceful breach of the rules, and was never insolent or offensive to any of the Fellows. Finally, he came of a very distinguished family; and Mr. Mackintosh had the keenest remembrance still of his own single interview, three years ago, with the Earl of Talgarth.

Mr. Mackintosh wondered, then, exactly what he would have to say to Mr. Guiseley, and what Mr. Guiseley would have to say to him. He thought, if the young man were really going down for good, as he had understood this morning, it was only his plain duty to say a few tactful words about responsibility and steadiness. That ridiculous auction would serve as his text.

Mr. Mackintosh paused an instant, as he always did, before saying “Come in!” to the knock on the door (I think he thought it helped to create a little impression of importance). Then he said it; and Frank walked in.

“Good evening, Mr. Guiseley.... Yes; please sit down. I understood from you this morning that you wished for your exeat.”

“Please,” said Frank.

“Just so,” said Mr. Mackintosh, drawing the exeat book—resembling the butt of a check-book—towards him. “And you are going down to-morrow?”

“Yes,” said Frank.

“Going home?” murmured the Dean, inscribing Frank’s name in his neat little handwriting.

“No,” said Frank.

“Not?... To London, perhaps?”

“Well, not exactly,” said Frank; “at least, not just yet.”

Mr. Mackintosh blotted the book carefully, and extracted the exeat. He pushed it gently towards Frank.

“About that auction!” he said, smiling indulgently; “I did want to have a word with you about that. It was very unusual; and I wondered.... But I am happy to think that there was no disturbance.... But can you tell me exactly why you chose that form of ... of ...”

“I wanted to make as much money as ever I could,” said Frank.

“Indeed!... Yes.... And ... and you were successful?”

“I cleared all my debts, anyhow,” said Frank serenely. “I thought that very important.”

Mr. Mackintosh smiled again. Certainly this young man was very well behaved and deferential.

“Well, that’s satisfactory. And you are going to read at the Bar now? If you will let me say so, Mr. Guiseley, even at this late hour, I must say that I think that a Third Class might have been bettered. But no doubt your tutor has said all that?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Well, then, a little more application and energy now may perhaps make up for lost time. I suppose you will go to the Temple in October?”

Frank looked at him pensively a moment.

“No, Mr. Mackintosh,” he said suddenly; “I’m going on the roads. I mean it, quite seriously. My father’s disowned me. I’m starting out to-morrow to make my own living.”

There was dead silence for an instant. The Dean’s face was stricken, as though by horror. Yet Frank saw he had not in the least taken it in.

“Yes; that’s really so,” he said. “Please don’t argue with me about it. I’m perfectly determined.”

“Your father ... Lord Talgarth ... the roads ... your own living ... the college authorities ... responsibility!”

Words of this sort burst from Mr. Mackintosh’s mouth.

“Yes ... it’s because I’ve become a Catholic! I expect you’ve heard that, sir.”

Mr. Mackintosh threw himself back (if so fierce a word may be used of so mild a manner)—threw himself back in his chair.

“Mr. Guiseley, kindly tell me all about it. I had not heard one word—not one word.”

Frank made a great effort, and told the story, quite fairly and quite politely. He described his convictions as well as he could, the various steps he had taken, and the climax of the letter from his father. Then he braced himself, to hear what would be said; or, rather, he retired within himself, and, so to speak, shut the door and pulled down the blinds.

It was all said exactly as he knew it would be. Mr. Mackintosh touched upon a loving father’s impatience, the son’s youth and impetuosity, the shock to an ancient family, the responsibilities of membership in that family, the dangers of rash decisions, and, finally, the obvious errors of the Church of Rome. He began several sentences with the phrase: “No thinking man at the present day ...”

In fact, Mr. Mackintosh was, so soon as he had recovered from the first shock, extraordinarily sensible and reasonable. He said all the proper things, all the sensible and reasonable and common-sense things, and he said them, not offensively or contemptuously, but tactfully and persuasively. And he put into it the whole of his personality, such as it was. He even quoted St. Paul.

He perspired a little, gently, towards the end: so he took off his glasses and wiped them, looking, still with a smile, through kind, short-sighted eyes, at this young man who sat so still. For Frank was so quiet that the Dean thought him already half persuaded. Then once more he summed up, when his glasses were fixed again; he ran through his arguments lightly and efficiently, and ended by a quiet little assumption that Frank was going to be reasonable, to write to his father once more, and to wait at least a week. He even called him “my dear boy!”

“Thanks very much,” said Frank.

“Then you’ll think it over quietly, my dear boy. Come and talk to me again. I’ve given you your exeat, but you needn’t use it. Come in to-morrow evening after hall.”

Frank stood up.

“Thanks, very much, Mr. Mackintosh. I’ll ... I’ll certainly remember what you’ve said.” He took up his exeat as if mechanically.

“Then you can leave that for the present,” smiled the Dean, pointing at it. “I can write you another, you know.”

Frank put it down quickly.

“Oh, certainly!” he said.

“Well, good-night, Mr. Guiseley.... I ... I can’t tell you how glad I am that you confided in me. Young men are a little unwise and impetuous sometimes, you know. Good-night ... good-night. I shall expect you to-morrow.”

When Frank reached the court below he stood waiting a moment. Then a large smile broke out on his face, and he hurried across to a passage opposite, found a friend’s door open, and rushed in. The room was empty. He flew across to the window and crouched down, peeping over the sill at the opening on the other side of the court leading to Mr. Mackintosh’s staircase.

He was rewarded almost instantly. Even as he settled himself on the window seat a black figure, with gown ballooning behind, hurried out and whisked through the archway leading towards the street. He gave him twenty seconds, and then ran out himself, and went in pursuit. Half-way up the lane he sighted him once more, and, following cautiously on tiptoe, with a handkerchief up to his face, was in time to behold Mr. Mackintosh disappear into the little telegraph office on the left of Trinity Street.

“That settles it, then,” observed Frank, almost aloud. “Poor Jack—I’m afraid I shan’t be able to breakfast with him after all!”

IV

It was a little after four o’clock on the following morning that a policeman, pacing with slow, flat feet along the little lane that leads from Trinity Hall to Trinity College, yawning as he went, and entirely unconscious of the divine morning air, bright as wine and clear as water, beheld a remarkable spectacle.

There first appeared, suddenly tossed on to the spikes that top the gate that guards the hostel, a species of pad that hung over on both sides of the formidable array of points. Upon this, more cautiously, was placed by invisible hands a very old saddle without any stirrups.

The policeman stepped back a little, and flattened himself—comparatively speaking—against the outer wall of the hostel itself. There followed a silence.

Suddenly, without any warning, a heavy body, discernible a moment later as a small carpet-bag, filled to bursting, fell abruptly on to the pavement; and, again, a moment later, two capable-looking hands made their appearance, grasping with extreme care the central rod on which the spikes were supposed to revolve, on either side of the saddle.

Still the policeman did not make any sign; he only sidled a step or two nearer and stood waiting.

When he looked up again, a young gentleman, in flannel trousers, gray jacket, boots, and an old deerstalker, was seated astride of the saddle, with his back to the observer. There was a pause while the rider looked to this side and that; and then, with a sudden movement, he had dropped clear of the wall, and come down on feet and hands to the pavement.

“Good morning, officer!” said the young gentleman, rising and dusting his hands, “it’s all right. Like to see my exeat? Or perhaps half a crown—”

V

About six o’clock in the morning, Jack Kirkby awoke suddenly in his bedroom in Jesus Lane.

This was very unusual, and he wondered what it was all about. He thought of Frank almost instantly, with a jerk, and after looking at his watch, very properly turned over and tried to go to sleep again. But the attempt was useless; there were far too many things to think about; and he framed so many speeches to be delivered with convincing force at breakfast to his misguided friend, that by seven o’clock he made up his mind that he would get up, go and take Frank to bathe, and have breakfast with him at half-past eight instead of nine. He would have longer time, too, for his speeches. He got out of bed and pulled up his blind, and the sight of the towers of Sidney Sussex College, gilded with sunshine, determined him finally.

When you go to bathe before breakfast at Cambridge you naturally put on as few clothes as possible and do not—even if you do so at other times—say your prayers. So Jack put on a sweater, trousers, socks, canvas shoes, and a blazer, and went immediately down the oilcloth-covered stairs. As he undid the door he noticed a white thing lying beneath it, and took it up. It was a note addressed to himself in Frank’s handwriting; and there, standing on the steps, he read it through; and his heart turned suddenly sick.

There is all the difference in the world between knowing that a catastrophe is going to happen, and knowing that it has happened. Jack knew—at least, with all his reasonable part—that Frank was going to leave Cambridge in the preposterous manner described, after breakfast with himself; and it was partly because of this very knowledge that he had got up earlier in order to have an extra hour with Frank before the final severance came. Yet there was something in him—the same thing that had urged him to rehearse little speeches in bed just now—that told him that until it had actually happened, it had not happened, and, just conceivably, might not happen after all. And he had had no idea how strong this hopeful strain had been in him—nor, for that matter, how very deeply and almost romantically he was attached to Frank—until he felt his throat hammering and his head becoming stupid, as he read the terse little note in the fresh morning air of Jesus Lane.

It ran as follows:

“Dear Jack,

“It’s no good, and I’m off early! That ass Mackintosh went and wired to my people directly I left him. I tracked him down. And there’ll be the devil to pay unless I clear out. So I can’t come to breakfast. Sorry.

“Yours,

“F.G.

“P.S.—By the way, you might as well go round to the little man and try to keep him quiet. Tell him it’ll make a scandal for Trinity College, Cambridge, if he makes a fuss. That’ll stop him, perhaps. And you might try to rescue my saddle from the porter. He’s probably got it by now.”

Three minutes later a figure in a sweater, gray trousers, canvas shoes, Third Trinity blazer and no cap, stood, very inarticulate with breathlessness, at the door of the Senior Dean’s rooms, demanding of a scandalized bed-maker to see the official in question.

“‘E’s in his barth, sir!” expostulated the old woman.

“Then he must come out of it!” panted Jack.

“—That is, if ‘e’s out o’ bed.”

“Then he can stop in it, if he isn’t.... I tell you—”

Jack gave up arguing. He took the old lady firmly by the shoulders, and placed her in the doorway of the audience-room; then he was up the inner stairs in three strides, through the sitting-room, and was tapping at the door of the bedroom. A faint sound of splashing ceased.

“Who’s there? Don’t—”

“It’s me, sir—Kirkby! I’m sorry to disturb you, but—”

“Don’t come in!” cried an agitated voice, with a renewed sound of water, as if someone had hastily scrambled out of the bath.

Jack cautiously turned the handle and opened the door a crack. A cry of dismay answered his move, followed by a tremendous commotion and swishing of linen.

“I’m coming in, sir,” said Jack, struggling between agitation and laughter. It was obvious from the sounds that the clergyman had got into bed again, wet, and as God made him. There was no answer, and Jack pushed the door wider and went in.

It was as he had thought. His unwilling host had climbed back into bed as hastily as possible, and the bed-clothes, wildly disordered, were gathered round his person. A face, with wet hair, looking very odd and childlike without his glasses, regarded him with the look of one who sees sacrilege done. A long flannel nightgown lay on the ground between the steaming bath and the bed, and a quantity of water lay about on the floor, in footprints and otherwise.

“May I ask what is the meaning of this disgraceful—”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jack briefly, “but Frank Guiseley’s bolted. I’ve just found this note.” It did not occur to him, as he handed the note to a bare arm, coyly protruded from the tangled bed-clothes, that this very officer of the college was referred to in it as “that ass” and “the little man.” ... All his attention, not occupied with Frank, was fixed on the surprising new discovery that deans had bodies and used real baths like other people. Somehow that had never occurred to him he had never imagined them except in smooth, black clothes and white linen. His discovery seemed to make Mr. Mackintosh more human, somehow.

The Dean read the note through as modestly as possible, holding it very close to his nose, as his glasses were unattainable, with an arm of which not more than the wrist appeared. He swallowed in his throat once or twice, and seemed to taste something with his lips, as his manner was.

“This is terrible!” said the Dean. “Had you any idea—”

“I knew he was going some time to-day,” said Jack, “and understood that you knew too.”

“But I had no idea—”

“You did telegraph, didn’t you, sir?”

“I certainly telegraphed. Yes; to Lord Talgarth. It was my duty. But—”

“Well; he spotted it. That’s all. And now he’s gone. What’s to be done?”

Mr. Mackintosh considered a moment or two. Jack made an impatient movement.

“I must telegraph again,” said the Dean, with the air of one who has exhausted the resources of civilization.

“But, good Lord! sir—”

“Yes. I must telegraph again. As soon as I’m dressed. Or perhaps you would—”

“Office doesn’t open till eight. That’s no good. He’ll be miles away by then.”

“It’s the only thing to be done,” said the Dean with sudden energy. “I forbid you to take any other steps, Mr. Kirkby. I am responsible—”

“But—”

“We must not make a scandal.... What else did you propose?”

“Why—fifty things. Motor-cars; police—”

“Certainly not. We must make no scandal as he ... as he very properly says.” (The Dean swallowed in his throat again. Jack thought afterwards that it must have been the memory of certain other phrases in the letter.) “So if you will be good enough to leave me instantly, Mr. Kirkby, I will finish my dressing and deal with the matter.”

Jack wheeled and went out of the room.

It was a miserable breakfast to which he sat down half an hour later—still in flannels, and without his bath. Frank’s place was laid, in accordance with the instructions he had given his landlady last night, and he had not the heart to push the things aside. There were soles for two, and four boiled eggs; there was coffee and marmalade and toast and rolls and fruit; and the comfortable appearance of the table simply mocked him.

He had had very confused ideas just now as to what was possible with regard to the pursuit of Frank; a general vision of twenty motor-cars, each with a keen-eyed chauffeur and an observant policeman, was all that had presented itself to his imagination; but he had begun to realize by now that you cannot, after all, abduct a young man who has committed no crime, and carry him back unwillingly, even to Cambridge! Neither the Dean of Trinity nor a father possesses quite unlimited power over the freedom of a pupil and a son. And, after all, Frank had only taken his father at his word!

These reflections, however, did not improve the situation. He felt quite certain, in theory, that something more could be done than feebly to send another telegram or two; the only difficulty was to identify that something. He had vague ideas, himself, of hiring a motor-car by the day, and proceeding to scour the country round Cambridge. But even this did not stand scrutiny. If he had failed to persuade Frank to remain in Cambridge, it was improbable that he could succeed in persuading him to return—even if he found him. About eight important roads run out of Cambridge, and he had not a glimmer of an idea as to which of these he had taken. It was possible, even, that he had not taken any of them, and was walking across country. That would be quite characteristic of Frank.

He finished breakfast dismally, and blew through an empty pipe, staring lackadaisically out of the window at the wall of Sidney Sussex for two or three minutes before lighting up. Cambridge seemed an extraordinary flat and stupid place now that Frank was no longer within it. Really there was nothing particular to do. It had become almost a regular engagement for him to step round to the Great Court about eleven, and see what was to be done. Sometimes Frank wanted lawn-tennis—sometimes a canoe on the Backs—at any rate, they would either lunch or dine together. And if they didn’t—well, at any rate, Frank was there!

He tried to picture to himself what Frank was doing; he had visions of a sunlit road running across a fen, with a figure tramping up it; of a little wayside inn, and Frank drinking beer in the shade. But it seemed an amazing waste of company that the figure should always be alone. Why hadn’t he proposed to go with him himself? He didn’t know; except, that it certainly would not have been accepted. And yet they could have had quite a pleasant time for a couple of months; and, after a couple of months, surely Frank would have had enough of it!

But, again—would he?... Frank seemed really in earnest about making his living permanently; and when Frank said that he was going do a thing, he usually did it! And Jack Kirkby did not see himself leaving his own mother and sisters indefinitely until Frank had learned not to be a fool.

He lit his pipe at last; and then remembered the commission with regard to the saddle—whatever that might mean. He would stroll round presently and talk to the porter about it ... Yes, he would go at once; and he would just look in at Frank’s rooms again. There was the hammock to fetch, too.

But it was a dreary little visit. He went round as he was, his hands deep in his pockets, trying to whistle between his teeth and smoke simultaneously; and he had to hold his pipe in his hand out of respect for rules, as he conversed with the stately Mr. Hoppett in Trinity gateway. Mr. Hoppett knew nothing about any saddle—at least, not for public communication—but his air of deep and diplomatic suspiciousness belied his words.

“It’s all right,” said Jack pleasantly, “I had nothing to do with the elopement. The Dean knows all about it.”

“I know nothing about that, sir,” said Mr. Hoppett judicially.

“Then you’ve not got the saddle?”

“I have not, sir.”

Frank’s outer door was open as Jack came to the familiar staircase, and his heart leaped in spite of himself, as he peered in and heard footsteps in the bedroom beyond. But it was the bed-maker with a mop, and a disapproving countenance, who looked out presently.

“He’s gone, Mrs. Jillings,” said Jack.

Mrs. Jillings sniffed. She had heard tales of the auction and thought it a very improper thing for so pleasant a young gentleman to do.

“Yes, sir.”

“There isn’t a saddle here, is there?”

“Saddle, sir? No, sir. What should there be a saddle here for?”

“Oh, well,” said Jack vaguely. “I’ve come to fetch away the hammock, anyhow.”

Certainly the rooms looked desolate. Even the carpets were gone, and the unstained boards in the middle seemed suggestive of peculiar dreariness. It was really very difficult to believe that these were the rooms where he and Frank had had such pleasant times—little friendly bridge-parties, and dinners, and absurd theatricals, in which Frank had sustained, with extreme rapidity, with the aid of hardly any properties except a rouge-pot, a burnt cork and three or four wisps of hair of various shades, the part of almost any eminent authority in the University of Cambridge that you cared to name. There were long histories, invented by Frank himself, of the darker sides of the lives of the more respectable members of the Senate—histories that grew, like legends, term by term—in which the most desperate deeds were done. The Master of Trinity, for example, in these Sagas, would pass through extraordinary love adventures, or discover the North Pole, or give a lecture, with practical examples, of the art of flying; the Provost of King’s would conspire with the President of Queen’s College, to murder the Vice-Chancellor and usurp his dignities. And these histories would be enacted with astonishing realism, chiefly by Frank himself, with the help of a zealous friend or two who were content to obey.

And these were all over now; and that was the very door through which the Vice-Chancellor was accustomed to escape from his assassins!

Jack sighed again; passed through, picked up the parcel of clothes that lay in the window-seat, unhitched the hammock in which Frank had slept last night (he noticed the ends of three cigarettes placed on the cover of a convenient biscuit-tin), and went off resembling a retiarius. Mrs. Jillings sniffed again as she looked after him up the court. She didn’t understand those young gentlemen at all; and frequently said so.

VI

At half-past six o’clock that morning—about the time that Jack awoke in Cambridge—John Harris, laborer, emerged, very sleepy and frowsy—for he had sat up late last night at the “Spotted Dog”—from the door of a small cottage on the Ely road, in the middle of Grunty Fen. He looked this way and that, wondering whether it were as late as his kitchen-clock informed him, and observing the sun, that hung now lamentably high up in that enormous dome of summer sky that sat on the fenland like a dish-cover on a dish. And as he turned southwards he became aware of a young gentleman carrying a carpet-bag in one hand, and a gray jacket over his other arm, coming up to him, not twenty yards away. As he came nearer, Mr. Harris noticed that his face was badly bruised as by a blow.

“Good morning,” said the young gentleman. “Hot work.”

John Harris made some observation.

“I want some work to do,” said the young gentleman, disregarding the observation. “I’m willing and capable. Do you know of any? I mean, work that I shall be paid for. Or perhaps some breakfast would do as a beginning.”

John Harris regarded the young gentleman in silence.

CHAPTER II

I

Merefield Court, as every tourist knows may be viewed from ten to five on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the family are not in residence, and on Tuesdays only, from two to four, when they are. It is unnecessary, therefore, to describe it very closely.

It stands very nearly on the top of a hill, protected by woods from the north winds of Yorkshire; and its towers and pinnacles can be seen from ten miles away down the valley. It is built, architecturally considered, in the form of an irregular triangular court—quite unique—with the old barbican at the lower end; the chapel wing directly opposite; the ruins of the old castle on the left, keep and all, and the new house that is actually lived in on the right. It is of every conceivable date (the housekeeper will supply details) from the British mound on which the keep stands, to the Georgian smoking-room built by the grandfather of the present earl; but the main body of the house, with which we are principally concerned—the long gray pile facing south down to the lake, and northwards into the court—is Jacobean down to the smallest detail, and extremely good at that. It was on the end of this that the thirteenth earl the fifteenth baron and the fourteenth viscount (one man, not three) thought it proper to build on a Palladian kind of smoking-room of red sandstone, brought at enormous cost from half across England. Fortunately, however, ivy has since covered the greater part of its exterior.

It was in this room—also used as a billiard-room—that Archie Guiseley (Viscount Merefield), and Dick Guiseley, his first cousin, first heard the news of Frank’s intentions.

They were both dressed for dinner, and were knocking the balls about for ten minutes, waiting for the gong, and they were talking in that incoherent way characteristic of billiard-players.

“The governor’s not very well again,” observed Archie, “and the doctor won’t let him go up to town. That’s why we’re here.”

Dick missed a difficult cannon (he had only arrived from town himself by the 6.17), and began to chalk his cue very carefully.

“There’s nothing whatever to do,” continued Archie, “so I warn you.”

Dick opened his mouth to speak and closed it again, pursing it up precisely as once more he addressed himself to the balls, and this time brought off a really brilliant stroke.

“And he’s in a terrible way about Frank,” continued the other. “You’ve heard all about that?”

Dick nodded.

“And he swears he won’t have him home again, and that he can go to the devil.”

Dick arched his eyebrows interrogatively.

“Of course, he doesn’t mean it.... But the gout, you know, and all that.... I think Frank had better keep out of the way, though, for a bit. Oh! by the way, the Rector and Jenny are coming to dinner.”

“What does Jenny say to it all?” asked Dick gently.

“Oh! Jenny laughs.”

These two young men—for Archie was only twenty-five, and Dick a year or two older—were quite remarkably like one another in manner and general bearing. Each, though their faces were entirely different, wore that same particular form of mask that is fashionable just now. Each had a look in his eyes as if the blinds were down—rather insolent and yet rather pleasant. Each moved in the same kind of way, slow and deliberate; each spoke quietly on rather a low note, and used as few words as possible. Each, just now, wore a short braided dinner-jacket of precisely the same cut.

For the rest, they were quite unlike. Archie was clean-shaven, of a medium sort of complexion, with a big chin and rather loosely built; Dick wore a small, pointed brown beard, and was neat and alert. Neither of them did anything particular in the world. Archie was more or less tied to his father, except in the autumn—for Archie drew the line at Homburg, and went about for short visits, returning continually to look after the estate; Dick lived in a flat in town on six hundred a year, allowed him by his mother, and was supposed to be a sort of solicitor. They saw a good deal of one another, off and on, and got on together rather better than most brothers; certainly better than did Archie and Frank. It was thought a pity by a good many people that they were only cousins.

Then, as they gossiped gently, the door suddenly opened and a girl came in.

She was a very striking girl indeed, and her beauty was increased just now by obvious excitement held well in check. She was tall and very fair, and carried herself superbly, looking taller than she really was. Her eyes, particularly bright just now, were of a vivid blue, wide-open and well set in her face; her mouth was strong and sensible; and there was a glorious air of breeziness and health about her altogether. She was in evening dress, and wore a light cloak over her white shoulders.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said—”Oh! good evening, Mr. Dick!—but there’s something wrong. Clarkson ran out to tell us that Lord Talgarth—it’s a telegram or something. Father sent me to tell you.”

Archie looked at her a second; then he was gone, swiftly, but not hurriedly. The girl turned to Dick.

“I’m afraid it’s something about Frank,” she said. “I heard Clarkson mention his name to father. Is there any more news?”

Dick laid down his cue across the table.

“I only came an hour ago,” he said. “Archie was telling me just now.”

Jenny went across to the deep chair on the hearth, threw off her cloak and sat down.

“Lord Talgarth’s—well—if he was my father I should say he was in a passion. I heard his voice.” She smiled a little.

Dick leaned against the table, looking at her.

“Poor Frank!” he said.

She smiled again, more freely.

“Yes ... poor, dear Frank! He’s always in hot water, isn’t he?”

“I’m afraid it’s serious this time,” observed Dick. “What did he want to become a Catholic for?”

“Oh, Frank’s always unexpected!”

“Yes, I know; but this happens to be just the one very thing—”

She looked at him humorously.

“Do you know, I’d no notion that Lord Talgarth was so deeply religious until Frank became a Catholic.”

“Yes, I know,” said Dick. “But it is just his one obsession. Frank must have known that.”

“And I’ve not the slightest doubt,” said Jenny, “that that was an additional reason for his doing it.”

“Well, what’ll happen?”

She jerked her head a little.

“Oh! it’ll pass off. You’ll see. Frank’ll find out, and then we shall all be happy ever afterwards.”

“But meantime?”

“Oh! Frank’ll go and stay with friends a month or two. I daresay he’ll come to the Kirkbys’, and I can go and see him.”

“Suppose he does something violent? He’s quite capable of it.”

“Oh! I shall talk to him. It’ll be all right. I’m very sensible indeed, you know. All my friends tell me that.”

Dick was silent.

“Don’t you think so?”

“Think what?”

“That I’m very sensible.”

Dick made a little movement with his head.

“Oh! I suppose so. Yes, I daresay.... And suppose my uncle cuts him off with a shilling? He’s quite capable of it. He’s a very heavy father, you know.”

“He won’t. I shall talk to him too.”

“Yes; but suppose he does?”

She threw him a swift glance.

“Frank’ll put the shilling on his watch-chain, after it’s been shown with all the other wedding-presents. What are you going to give me, Mr. Dick?”

“I shall design a piece of emblematic jewelry,” said Dick very gravely. “When’s the wedding to be?”

“Well, we hadn’t settled. Lord Talgarth wouldn’t make up his mind. I suppose next summer some time.”

“Miss Jenny—”

“Yes?”

“Tell me—quite seriously—what you’d do if there was a real row—a permanent one, I mean—between Frank and my uncle?”

“Dear Mr. Dick—don’t talk so absurdly. I tell you there’s not going to be a row. I’m going to see to that myself.”

“But suppose there was?”

Jenny stood up abruptly.

“I tell you I’m a very sensible person, and I’m not going to imagine absurdities. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to strike an attitude and talk about love in a cottage?”

“Well, that would be one answer.”

“Very well, then. That’ll do, won’t it? You can take it as said.... I’m going to see what’s happening.”

But as she went to the door there came footsteps and voices outside; and the next moment the door opened suddenly, and Lord Talgarth, followed by his son and the Rector, burst into the room.

II

I am very sorry to have to say it, but the thirteenth Earl of Talgarth was exactly like a man in a book—and not a very good book. His character was, so to speak, cut out of cardboard—stiff cardboard, and highly colored, with gilt edges showing here and there. He also, as has been said, resembled a nobleman on the stage of the Adelphi. He had a handsome inflamed face, with an aquiline nose and white eyebrows that moved up and down, and all the other things; he was stout and tall, suffered from the gout, and carried with him in the house a black stick with an india-rubber pad on the end. There were no shades about him at all. Construct a conventionally theatrical heavy father, of noble family, and you have Lord Talgarth to the life. There really are people like this in the world—of whom, too, one can prophesy, with tolerable certainty, how they will behave in any given situation.

Certainly, Lord Talgarth was behaving in character now. He had received meek Mr. Mackintosh’s deferential telegram, occupying several sheets, informing him that his son had held an auction of all his belongings, and had proposed to take to the roads; asking, also, for instructions as to how to deal with him. And the hint of defiant obstinacy on the part of Frank—the fact, indeed, that he had taken his father at his word—had thrown that father into a yet more violent fit of passion. Jenny had heard him spluttering and exclamatory with anger as she came into the hall (the telegram had but that instant been put into his hands), and even now the footmen, still a little pale, were exchanging winks in the hall outside; while Clarkson, his valet, and the butler stood in high and subdued conference a little way off.

What Lord Talgarth would really have wished was that Frank should have written to him a submissive—even though a disobedient—letter, telling him that he could not forego his convictions, and preparing to assume the rôle of a Christian martyr. For he could have sneered at this, and after suitable discipline forgiven its writer more or less. Of course, he had never intended for one instant that his threats should really be carried out; but the situation—to one of Lord Talgarth’s temperament—demanded that the threats should be made, and that Frank should pretend to be crushed by them. That the boy should have behaved like this brought a reality of passion into the affair—disconcerting and infuriating—as if an actor should find his enemy on the stage was armed with a real sword. There was but one possibility left—which Lord Talgarth instinctively rather than consciously grasped at—namely, that an increased fury on his part should once more bring realities back again to a melodramatic level, and leave himself, as father, master both of the situation and of his most disconcerting son. Frank had behaved like this in minor matters once or twice before, and Lord Talgarth had always come off victor. After all, he commanded all the accessories.

When the speeches had been made—Frank cut off with a shilling, driven to the Colonies, brought back again, and finally starved to death at his father’s gates—Lord Talgarth found himself in a chair, with Jenny seated opposite, and the rest of the company gone to dinner. He did not quite realize how it had all been brought about, nor by whose arrangement it was that a plate of soup and some fish were to come presently, and Jenny and he to dine together.

He pulled himself together a little, however, and began to use phrases again about his “graceless son,” and “the young villain,” and “not a penny of his.” (He was, of course, genuinely angry; that must be understood.)

Then Jenny began to talk.

“I think, you know,” she said quietly, “that you aren’t going the right way to work. (It’s very impertinent of me, isn’t it?—but you did say just now you wanted to hear what I thought.)”

“Of course I do; of course I do. You’re a sensible girl, my dear. I’ve always said that. But as for this young—”

“Well, let me say what I think. (Yes, put the soup down here, will you. Is that right, Lord Talgarth?).” She waited till the man was gone again and the old man had taken up his spoon. Then she took up her own. “Well, I think what you’ve done is exactly the thing to make Frank more obstinate than ever. You see, I know him very well. Now, if you’d only laughed at him and patted his head, so to speak, from the beginning, and told him you thought it an excellent thing for a boy of his character, who wants looking after—”

Lord Talgarth glared at her. He was still breathing rather heavily, and was making something of a noise over his soup.

“But how can I say that, when I think—”

“Oh! you can’t say it now, of course; it’s too late. No; that would never do. You must keep it up—only you mustn’t be really angry. Why not try a little cold severity?”

She looked so charming and humorous that the old man began to melt a little. He glanced up at her once or twice under his heavy eyebrows.

“I wonder what you’ll do,” he said with a kind of gruffness, “when you find you’ve got to marry a pauper?”

“I shan’t have to marry a pauper,” said Jenny. “That wouldn’t do either.”

“Oh! you’re counting on that eight hundred a year still, are you?”

Jenny allowed a little coldness to appear on her face. Rude banter was all very well, but it mustn’t go too far. (Secretly she allowed to herself sometimes that this old man had elements of the cad in his character.)

“That’s entirely my own affair,” she said, “and Frank’s.”

Lord Talgarth blazed up a little.

“And the eight hundred a year is mine,” he said.

Jenny laid down her spoon as the servant reappeared with the fish and the menu-card. He came very opportunely. And while her host was considering what he would eat next, she was pondering her next move.

Jenny, as has been said, was an exceedingly sensible girl. She had grown up in the Rectory, down at the park gates; and since her mother’s death, three years previously, had managed her father’s house, including her father, with great success. She had begun to extend her influence, for the last year or two, even over the formidable lord of the manor himself, and, as has been seen, was engaged to his son. Her judgment was usually very sound and very sane, and the two men, with the Rector, had been perfectly right just now in leaving the old man to her care for an hour or so. If anything could quiet him it would be this girl. She was quite fearless, quite dignified, and quite able to hold her own. And her father perceived that she rather enjoyed it.

When the man had gone out again, she resumed:

“Well, let’s leave it,” she said, “for a day or two. There’s no hurry, and—”

“But I must answer this—this telegram,” he growled. “What am I to say to the feller?”

“Tell him to follow his discretion, and that you have complete confidence—”

“But—”

“Yes; I know you haven’t, really. But it’ll do no harm, and it’ll make him feel important.”

“And what if the boy does take to the roads?”

“Let him,” said Jenny coolly. “It won’t kill him.”

He looked up at her again in silence.

Jenny herself was very far from comfortable, though she was conscious of real pleasure, too, in the situation. She had seen this old man in a passion pretty often, but she had never seen him in a passion with any real excuse. No one ever thwarted him. He even decided where his doctor should send him for his cure, and in what month, and for how long. And she was not, therefore, quite certain what would happen, for she knew Frank well enough to be quite sure that he meant what he said. However, she reflected, the main thing at present was to smooth things down all round as far as possible. Then she could judge.

“Can’t make out why you ever consented to marry such a chap at all!” he growled presently.

“Oh, well—” said Jenny.

III

It was a delicious evening, and the three men, after dinner, strolled out on to the broad terrace that ran, looking over the lake, straight up and down the long side of the house. They had not had the advantage, since the servants were in the room, of talking over the situation as they wished, and there was no knowing when Lord Talgarth and Jenny might emerge. So they sat down at a little stone table at the end furthest from the smoking-room, and Archie and Dick lit their cigarettes.

There is not a great deal to say about the Rector. The most effective fact about him was that he was the father of Jenny. It was a case, here, of “Averill following Averill”: his father and grandfather, both second sons, as was the Rector himself, had held the living before him, and had performed the duties of it in the traditional and perfectly respectable way. This one was a quiet middle-aged man, clean-shaven except for two small whiskers. He wore a white tie, and a small gold stud was visible in the long slit of his white shirt-front. He was on very easy terms in this house, in an unintimate manner, and dined here once a fortnight or so, without saying or hearing anything of particular interest. He had been secretly delighted at his daughter’s engagement, and had given his consent with gentle and reserved cordiality. He was a Tory, not exactly by choice, but simply—for the same reason as he was Church of England—because he was unable, in the fiber of him, to imagine anything else. Of course, Lord Talgarth was the principal personage in his world, simply because he was Lord Talgarth and owned practically the whole parish and two-thirds of the next. He regarded his daughter with the greatest respect, and left in her hands everything that he decently could. And, to do her justice, Jenny was a very benevolent, as well as capable, despot. In short, the Rector plays no great part in this drama beyond that of a discreet, and mostly silent, Greek chorus of unimpeachable character. He disapproved deeply, of course, of Frank’s change of religion—but he disapproved with that same part of him that appreciated Lord Talgarth. It seemed to him that Catholicism, in his daughter’s future husband, was a defect of the same kind as would be a wooden leg or an unpleasant habit of sniffing—a drawback, yet not insuperable. He would be considerably relieved if it could be cured.

The three men sat there for some while without interruption from the smoking-room, while the evening breeze died, the rosy sky paled, and the stars came out one by one, like diamonds in the clear blue. They said, of course, all the proper things, and Dick heard a little more than he had previously known.

Dick was always conscious of a faint, almost impersonal, resentment against destiny when he stayed at Merefield. It was obvious to him that the position of heir there was one which would exactly have suited his tastes and temperament. He was extremely pleased to belong to the family—and it was, indeed, a very exceptional family as regards history: it had been represented in nearly every catastrophe since the Norman Conquest, and always on the winning side, except once—but it was difficult to enjoy the distinction as it deserved, living, as he did, in a flat in London all by himself. When his name was mentioned to a well-informed stranger, it was always greeted by the question as to whether he was one of the Guiseleys of Merefield, and it seemed to him singularly annoying that he could only answer “First cousin.” Archie, of course, was a satisfactory heir; there was no question of that—he was completely of Dick’s own school of manner—but it seemed a kind of outrage that Frank, with his violent convictions and his escapades, should be Archie’s only brother. There was little of that repose about him that a Guiseley needed.

It would be about half-past nine that the sound of an opening door, and voices, from the further end of the terrace, told them that the smoking-room conference was over, and they stood up as Jenny, very upright and pale in the twilight, with her host at her side, came up towards them. Dick noticed that the cigar his uncle carried was smoked down almost to the butt, and augured well from that detail. The old man’s arm was in the girl’s, and he supported himself on the other side, limping a little, on his black stick.

He sat down with a grunt and laid his stick across the table.

“Well, boys, we’ve settled it,” he said. “Jenny’s to write the telegram.”

“No one need be anxious any more,” announced Jenny imperturbably. “Lord Talgarth’s extremely angry still, as he has every right to be, and Frank’s going to be allowed to go on the tramp if he wants to.”

The Rector waited, in deferential silence, for corroboration.

“Jenny’s a very sensible girl,” observed Lord Talgarth. “And what she says is quite right.”

“Do you mean to say—” began Archie.

The old man frowned round at him.

“All that I’ve said holds good,” he said.

“Frank’s made his bed and he must lie on it. I warned him. And Jenny sees that, too.”

Archie glanced at the girl, and Dick looked hard at her, straight into her face. But there was absolutely no sign there of any perturbation. Certainly she looked white in the falling dusk, but her eyes were merry and steadfast, and her voice perfectly natural.

“That’s how we’ve settled it,” she said. “And if I’m satisfied, I imagine everyone else ought to be. And I’m going to write Frank a good long letter all by myself. Come along, father, we must be going. Lord Talgarth isn’t well, and we mustn’t keep him up.”

IV

When the last game of billiards had been played, and whisky had been drunk, and Archie had taken up his candle, Dick stood still, with his own in his hand.

“Aren’t you coming?” said Archie.

Dick paused.

“I think I’ll smoke one more cigarette on the terrace,” he said. “It’s a heavenly night, and I want to get the taste of the train out of my mouth.”

“All right, then. Lock up, will you, when you come in? I’m off.”

It was, indeed, a heavenly night. Behind him as he sat at the table where they had had coffee the great house shimmered pale in the summer twilight, broken here by a line or two of yellow light behind shuttered windows, here with the big oriel window of the hall, blazing with coats, fully illuminated. (He must remember, he thought, to put out the lights there as he went to bed.)

And about him was the great soft, sweet-smelling darkness, roofed in by the far-off sky alight with stars; and beneath him in the valley he could catch the glimmer of the big lake and the blotted masses of pine and cypress black against it.

It was here, then, under these circumstances, that Dick confessed to himself, frankly and openly for the first time, that he was in love with Jenny Launton.

He had known her for years, off and on, and had thought of her as a pretty girl and a pleasant companion. He had skated with her, ridden with her, danced with her, and had only understood, with a sense of mild shock, at the time of her engagement to Frank six months before, that she was of an age to become a wife to someone.

That had been the beginning of a process which culminated to-night, as he now understood perfectly. Its next step had been a vague wonder why Archie hadn’t fallen in love with her himself; and he had explained it by saying that Archie had too great a sense of his own importance to permit himself to marry a rector’s daughter with only a couple of hundred a year of her own. (And in this explanation I think he was quite correct.) Then he had begun to think of her himself a good deal—dramatically, rather than realistically—wondering what it would feel like to be engaged to her. If a younger son could marry her, surely a first cousin could—even of the Guiseleys. So it had gone on, little by little. He had danced with her here at Christmas—just after the engagement—and had stayed on a week longer than he had intended. He had come up again at Easter, and again at Whitsuntide, though he always protested to his friends that there was nothing to do at Merefield in the summer. And now here he was again, and the thing had happened.

At first, as he sat here, he tried to analyze his attitude to Frank.

He had never approved of Frank altogether; he didn’t quite like the queer kinds of things that Frank did; for Frank’s reputation at Merefield was very much what it was at Cambridge. He did ridiculous and undignified things. As a small boy, he had fought at least three pitched battles in the village, and that was not a proper thing for a Guiseley to do. He liked to go out with the keepers after poachers, and Dick, very properly, asked himself what keepers were for except to do that kind of thing for you? There had been a bad row here, too, scarcely eighteen months ago; it had been something to do with a horse that was ill-treated, and Frank had cut a very absurd and ridiculous figure, getting hot and angry, and finally thrashing a groom, or somebody, with his own hands, and there had been uncomfortable talk about police-courts and actions for assault. Finally, he had fallen in love with, proposed to, and become engaged to, Jenny Launton. That was an improper thing for a younger son to do, anyhow, at his age, and Dick now perceived that the fact that Jenny was Jenny aggravated the offense a hundredfold. And, last of all, he had become a Catholic—an act of enthusiasm which seemed to Dick really vulgar.

Altogether, then, Frank was not a satisfactory person, and it would do him no harm to have a little real discipline at last....

It was the striking of midnight from the stable clock that woke Dick up from his deep reverie, and was the occasion of his perceiving that he had come to no conclusion about anything, except that Frank was an ass, that Jenny was—well—Jenny, and that he, Dick, was an ill-used person.

I do not like to set down here, even if I could, all the considerations that had passed through Dick’s mind since a quarter-past eleven, simply because the very statement of them would give a false impression. Dick was not a knave, and he did not deceive himself about himself more than most of us do. Yet he had considered a number of points that, strictly speaking, he ought not to have considered. He had wondered whether Frank would die; he had wondered whether, if he did not, Lord Talgarth would really be as good as his word; and, if so, what effect that would have on Jenny. Finally, he had wondered, with a good deal of intellectual application, what exactly Jenny had meant when she had announced all that about the telegram she was going to send in Lord Talgarth’s name, and the letter she was going to send in her own. (He had asked Archie just now in the smoking-room, and he, too, had confessed himself beaten. Only, he had been quite sure that jenny would get her way and obtain Frank’s forgiveness.)

Also, in the course of his three-quarters of an hour he had considered, for perhaps the hundredth time since he had come to the age of discretion, what exactly three lives between a man and a title stood for. Lord Talgarth was old and gouty; Archie was not married, and showed no signs of it; and Frank—well, Frank was always adventurous and always in trouble.

Well, I have set down the points, after all. But it must not be thought that the gentleman with the pointed brown beard and thoughtful eyes, who at five minutes past twelve went up the two steps into the smoking-room, locked the doors, as he had been directed, took up his candle and went to bed, went with an uneasy conscience, or, in fact, was a villain in any way whatever.

CHAPTER III

I

The first spot in Frank’s pilgrimage which I have been able to visit and identify in such a way that I am able to form to myself a picture of his adventure more or less complete in all its parts, lies about ten miles north-west of Doncaster, in a little valley, where curiously enough another pilgrim named Richard lived for a little while nearly six hundred years ago.

Up to the time of Frank’s coming there, in the season of hay-making, numberless little incidents of his experience stand out, vivid, indeed, but fragmentary, yet they do not form to my mind a coherent whole. I think I understand to some extent the process by which he became accustomed to ordinary physical hard living, into which the initiation began with his series of almost wholly sleepless nights and heavy sleep-burdened days. Night was too strange—in barns, beneath hay-ricks, in little oppressive rooms, in stable-lofts—for him to sleep easily at first; and between his tramps, or in the dinner-hour, when he managed to get work, he would drop off in the hot sunshine down into depths of that kind of rest that is like the sea itself—glimmering gulfs, lit by glimpses of consciousness of the grass beneath his cheek, the bubble of bird-song in the copses, stretching down into profound and utter darkness.

Of how the little happenings of every day wore themselves into a coherent whole, and modified, not indeed himself, but his manner of life and his experience and knowledge, I can make no real picture at all. The first of these took place within ten miles of Cambridge on his first morning, and resulted in the bruised face which Mr. Harris noticed; it concerned a piece of brutality to a dog in which Frank interfered.... (He was extraordinarily tender to animals.) Then there was the learning as to how work was obtained, and, even more considerable, the doing of the work. The amateur, as Frank pointed out later, began too vigorously and became exhausted; the professional set out with the same deliberation with which he ended. One must not run at one’s spade, or hoe, or whatever it was; one must exercise a wearisome self-control ... survey the work to be done, turn slowly, spit on one’s hands, and after a pause begin, remembering that the same activity must show itself, if the work was to be renewed next day, up to the moment of leaving off.

Then there was the need of becoming accustomed to an entirely different kind of food, eaten in an entirely different way, and under entirely different circumstances. There was experience to be gained as to washing clothes—I can almost see Frank now by a certain kind of stream, stripped to the waist, waiting while his shirt dried, smoking an ill-rolled cigarette, yet alert for the gamekeeper. Above all, there was an immense volume of learning—or, rather, a training of instinct—to be gained respecting human nature: a knowledge of the kind of man who would give work, the kind of man who meant what he said, and the kind of man who did not; the kind of woman who would threaten the police if milk or bread were asked for—Frank learned to beg very quickly—the kind of woman who would add twopence and tell him to be off, and the kind of woman who, after a pause and a slow scrutiny, would deliberately refuse to supply a glass of water. Then there was the atmosphere of the little towns to be learned—the intolerable weariness of pavements, and the patient persistence of policemen who would not allow you to sit down. He discovered, also, during his wanderings, the universal fact that policemen are usually good-hearted, but with absolutely no sense of humor whatever; he learned this through various attempts to feign that the policeman was in fancy-dress costume and had no real authority. He learned, too, that all crimes pale before “resisting the police in the execution of their duty”; then, he had to learn, to, the way in which other tramps must be approached—the silences necessary, the sort of questions which were useless, the jokes that must be laughed at and the jokes that must be resented.

All this is beyond me altogether; it was beyond even Frank’s own powers of description. A boy, coming home for the holidays for the first time, cannot make clear to his mother, or even to himself, what it is that has so utterly changed his point of view, and his relations towards familiar things.

So with Frank.

He could draw countless little vignettes of his experiences and emotions—the particular sensation elicited, for example, by seeing through iron gates happy people on a lawn at tea—the white china, the silver, the dresses, the flannels, the lawn-tennis net—as he went past, with string tied below his knees to keep off the drag of the trousers, and a sore heel; the emotion of being passed by a boy and a girl on horseback; the flood of indescribable associations roused by walking for half a day past the split-oak paling of a great park, with lodge-gates here and there, the cooing of wood-pigeons, and the big house, among its lawns and cedars and geranium-beds, seen now and then, far off in the midst. But what he could not describe, or understand, was the inner alchemy by which this new relation to things modified his own soul, and gave him a point of view utterly new and bewildering. Curiously enough, however (as it seems to me), he never seriously considered the possibility of abandoning this way of life, and capitulating to his father. A number of things, I suppose—inconceivable to myself—contributed to his purpose; his gipsy blood, his extraordinary passion for romance, the attraction of a thing simply because it was daring and unusual, and finally, a very exceptionally strong will that, for myself, I should call obstinacy.

The silence—as regards his old world—was absolute and unbroken. He knew perfectly well that by now letters and telegrams must be waiting for him at Jack’s home, including at least one from Jenny, and probably a dozen; but as to Jenny, he knew she would understand, and as to the rest, he honestly did not care at all. He sent her a picture postcard once or twice—from Ely, Peterborough, Sleaford and Newark—towns where he stayed for a Sunday (I have seen in Sleaford the little room where he treated himself to a bed for two nights)—and was content. He made no particular plans for the future; he supposed something would turn up; and he settled with himself, by the help of that same will which I have mentioned before, that he would precipitate no conclusions till he reached Barham later on in the early autumn.

His faith and morals during these weeks are a little difficult to describe. As regards his morals, at least in one particular point, he had formulated the doctrine that, when he was very hungry, game might not be touched, but that rabbits and birds were permissible if they could be snared in the hedges of the high-road. He became an expert at this kind of thing, and Jack has described to me, as taught by Frank, a few devices of which I was entirely ignorant. Frank tramped for a couple of days with a gamekeeper out of work, and learned these things from him, as well as one or two simple methods of out-of-door cookery. As regards his religion, I think I had better not say much just now; very curious influences were at work upon him: I can only say that Frank himself has described more than once, when he could be induced to talk, the extraordinary, and indeed indescribable, thrill with which he saw, now and again, in town or country, a priest in his vestments go to the altar—for he heard mass when he could....

So much, then, is all that I can say of the small, detached experiences that he passed through, up to the point when he came out one evening at sunset from one of the fields of Hampole where he had made hay all day, when his job was finished, and where he met, for the first time, the Major and Gertie Trustcott.

II

They were standing with the sunset light behind them, as a glory—two disreputable figures, such as one sees in countless thousands along all the high-roads of England in the summer. The Major himself was a lean man, with a red mustache turning gray, deep-set, narrow, blood-shot eyes, a chin and very square jaw shaved about two days previously. He had an old cricketing cap on his head, trousers tied up with string, like Frank’s, and one of those long, square-tailed, yellowish coats with broad side-pockets such as a gamekeeper might have worn twenty years ago. One of his boots was badly burst, and he, seemed to rest his weight by preference on the other foot. He was not prepossessing; but Frank saw, with his newly-gained experience, that he was different from other tramps. He glanced at the girl and saw that she too was not quite of the regular type, though less peculiar than her companion; and he noticed with an odd touch at his heart that she had certain characteristics in common with Jenny. She was not so tall, but she had the same colored hair under a filthy white sun-bonnet and the same kind of blue eyes: but her oval face again was weak and rather miserable. They were both deeply sunburned.

Frank had learned the discretion of the roads by now, and did no more than jerk his head almost imperceptibly as he went past. (He proposed to go back to the farm to get his dwindled belongings, as the job was over, and to move on a few miles northward before sleeping.)

As he went, however, he knew that the man had turned and was looking after him: but he made no sign. He had no particular desire for company. He also knew by instinct, practically for certain, that these two were neither husband and wife, nor father and daughter. The type was obvious.

“I say, sir!”

Frank turned as bucolically as he could.

“I say, sir—can you direct this lady and myself to a lodging?”

Frank had tried to cultivate a low and characterless kind of voice, as of a servant or a groom out of work. He knew he could never learn the proper accent.

“Depends on what kind of lodging you want, sir.”

“What’d suit you ‘ud suit us,” said the Major genially, dropping the “sir.”

“I’m going further, sir,” said Frank. “I’ve done my job here.”

The Major turned to the girl, and Frank caught the words, “What d’you say, Gertie?” There was a murmur of talk; and then the man turned to him again:

“If you’ve no objection, sir, we’ll come with you. My good lady here is good for a mile or two more, she says, and we’d like some company.”

Frank hesitated. He did not in the least wish for company himself. He glanced at the girl again.

“Very good, sir,” he said. “Then if you’ll wait here I’ll be back in five minutes—I’ve got to get my belongings.”

He nodded to the low farm buildings in the valley just below the village.

“We will await you here, sir,” said the Major magnificently, stroking his mustache.

As Frank came back up the little hill a few minutes later, he had made up his mind as to what to say and do. It was his first experience of a gentleman-tramp, and it was obvious that under the circumstances he could not pretend to be anything else himself. But he was perfectly determined not to tell his name. None of his belongings had anything more than his initials upon them, and he decided to use the name he had already given more than once. Probably they would not go far together; but it was worth while to be on the safe side.

He came straight up to the two as they sat side by side with their feet in the ditch.

“I’m ready, sir,” he said. “Yes; you’ve spotted me all right.”

“University man and public school boy,” said the Major without moving.

“Eton and Cambridge,” said Frank.

The Major sprang up.

“Harrow and the Army,” he said. “Shake hands.”

This was done.

“Name?” said the Major.

Frank grinned.

“I haven’t my card with me,” he said. “But Frank Gregory will do.”

“I understand,” said the Major. “And ‘The Major’ will do for me. It has the advantage of being true. And this lady?—well, we’ll call her my wife.”

Frank bowed. He felt he was acting in some ridiculous dream; but his sense of humor saved him. The girl gave a little awkward bow in response, and dropped her eyes. Certainly she was very like Jenny, and very unlike.

“And a name?” asked Frank. “We may as well have one in case of difficulties.”

The Major considered.

“What do you say to Trustcott?” he asked. “Will that do?”

“Perfectly,” said Frank. “Major and Mrs. Trustcott.... Well, shall we be going?”

Frank had no particular views as to lodgings, or even to roads, so long as the direction was more or less northward. He was aiming, generally speaking, at Selby and York; and it seemed that this would suit the Major as well as anything else. There is, I believe, some kind of routine amongst the roadsters; and about that time of the year most of them are as far afield as at any time from their winter quarters. The Major and Mrs. Trustcott, he soon learned, were Southerners; but they would not turn homewards for another three months yet, at least. For himself, he had no ideas beyond a general intention to reach Barham some time in the autumn, before Jack went back to Cambridge for his fourth year.

“The country is not prepossessing about here,” observed the Major presently; “Hampole is an exception.”

Frank glanced back at the valley they were leaving. It had, indeed, an extraordinarily retired and rural air; it was a fertile little tract of ground, very limited and circumscribed, and the rail that ran through it was the only sign of the century. But the bright air was a little dimmed with smoke; and already from the point they had reached tall chimneys began to prick against the horizon.

“You have been here before?” he said.

“Why, yes; and about this time last year, wasn’t it, Gertie? I understand a hermit lived here once.”

“A hermit might almost live here to-day,” said Frank.

“You are right, sir,” said the Major.

Frank began to wonder, as he walked, as to why this man was on the roads. Curiously enough, he believed his statement that he had been in the army. The air of him seemed the right thing. A militia captain would have swaggered more; a complete impostor would have given more details. Frank began to fish for information.

“You have been long on the roads?” he said.

The Major did not appear to hear him.

“You have been long on the roads?” persisted Frank.

The other glanced at him furtively and rather insolently. “The younger man first, please.”

Frank smiled.

“Oh, certainly!” he said. “Well, I have left Cambridge at the end of June only.”

“Ah! Anything disgraceful?”

“You won’t believe me, I suppose, if I say ‘No’?”

“Oh! I daresay I shall.”

“Well, then, ‘No.’”

“Then may I ask—?”

“Oh, yes! I was kicked out by my father—I needn’t go into details. I sold up my things and came out. That’s all!”

“And you mean to stick to it?”

“Certainly—at least for a year or two.”

“That’s all right. Well, then—Major—what did we say? Trustcott? Ah, yes, Trustcott. Well, then, I think we might add ‘Eleventh Hussars’; that’s near enough. The final catastrophe was, I think, cards. Not that I cheated, you understand. I will allow no man to say that of me. But that was what was said. A gentleman of spirit, you understand, could not remain in a regiment when such things could be said. Then we tumbled downhill; and I’ve been at this for four years. And, you know, sir, it might be worse!”

Frank nodded.

Naturally he did not believe as necessarily true this terse little story, and he was absolutely certain that if cards were mixed up in it at all, obviously the Major had cheated. So he just took the story and put it away, so to speak. It was to form, he perceived, the understanding on which they consorted together. Then he began to wonder about the girl. The Major soon supplied a further form.

“And Mrs. Trustcott, here? Well, she joined me, let us say, rather more than eighteen months ago. We had been acquainted before that, however. That was when I was consenting to serve as groom to some—er—some Jewish bounder in town. Mrs. Trustcott’s parents live in town.”

The girl, who had been trudging patiently a foot or two behind them, just glanced up at Frank and down again. He wondered exactly what her own attitude was to all this. But she made no comment.

“And now we know one another,” finished the Major in a tone of genial finality. “So where are you taking us—er—Mr. Gregory?”

III

They were fortunate that night.

The part of Yorkshire where they were traveling consists chiefly of an innumerable quantity of little cottages, gathered for the most part round collieries. One has the impression—at any rate, from a motor—that there is nothing but villages. But that is not a fact. There are stretches of road, quite solitary at certain hours; and in one of these they noticed presently a little house, not twenty yards from the road, once obviously forming part of a row of colliers’ cottages, of which the rest were demolished.

It was not far off from ruin itself, and was very plainly uninhabited. Across the front door were nailed deal props, originally, perhaps, for the purpose of keeping it barred, and useful for holding it in its place. The Major and Gertie kept watch on the road while Frank pushed open the crazy little gate and went round to the back. A minute later he called to them softly.

He had wrenched open the back door, and within in the darkness they could make out a little kitchen, stripped of everything—table, furniture, and even the range itself. The Major kicked something presently in the gloom, swore softly, and announced he had found a kettle. They decided that all this would do very well.

Tramps do not demand very much, and these were completely contented when they had made a small fire, damped down with a turf to prevent it smoking, had boiled a little water, stewed some tea, and eaten what they had. Even this was not luxurious. The Major produced the heel of a cheese and two crushed-looking bananas, and Frank a half-eaten tin of sardines and a small, stale loaf. The Major announced presently that he would make a savory; and, indeed, with cheese melted on to the bread, and sardines on the top, he did very well. Gertie moved silently about; and Frank, in the intervals of rather abrupt conversation with the Major, found his eyes following her as she spread out their small possessions, vanished up the stairs and reappeared. Certainly she was very like Jenny, even in odd little details—the line of her eyebrows, the angle of her chin and so forth—perhaps more in these details than in anything else. He began to wonder a little about her—to imagine her past, to forecast her future. It seemed all rather sordid. She disappeared finally without a word: he heard her steps overhead, and then silence.

Then he had to attend to the Major a little more.

“It was easy enough to tell you,” said that gentleman.

“How?”

“Oh, well, if nothing else, your clothes.”

“Aren’t they shabby enough?”

The Major eyed him with half-closed lids, by the light of the single candle-end, stuck in its own wax on the mantelshelf.

“They’re shabby enough, but they’re the wrong sort. There’s the cut, first—though that doesn’t settle it. But these are gray flannel trousers, for one thing, and then the coat’s not stout enough.”

“They might have been given me,” said Frank, smiling.

“They fit you too well for that.”

“I’ll change them when I get a chance,” observed Frank.

“It would be as well,” assented the Major.

Somehow or another the sense of sordidness, which presently began to affect Frank so profoundly, descended on him for the first time that night. He had managed, by his very solitariness hitherto, to escape it so far. It had been possible to keep up a kind of pose so far; to imagine the adventure in the light of a very much prolonged and very realistic picnic. But with this other man the thing became impossible. It was tolerable to wash one’s own socks; it was not so tolerable to see another man’s socks hung up on the peeling mantelpiece a foot away from his own head, and to see two dirty ankles, not his own, emerging from crazy boots.

The Major, too, presently, when he grew a trifle maudlin over his own sorrows, began to call him “Frankie,” and “my boy,” and somehow it mattered, from a man with the Major’s obvious record. Frank pulled himself up only just in time to prevent a retort when it first happened, but it was not the slightest use to be resentful. The thing had to be borne. And it became easier when it occurred to him to regard the Major as a study; it was even interesting to hear him give himself away, yet all with a pompous appearance of self-respect, and to recount his first meeting with Gertie, now asleep upstairs.

The man was, in fact, exactly what Frank, in his prosperous days, would have labeled “Bounder.” He had a number of meaningless little mannerisms—a way of passing his hand over his mustache, a trick of bringing a look of veiled insolence into his eyes; there were subjects he could not keep away from—among them Harrow School, the Universities (which he called ‘Varsity), the regiment he had belonged to, and a certain type of adventure connected with women and champagne. And underneath the whole crust of what the Major took to be breeding, there was a piteous revelation of a feeble, vindictive, and rather nasty character. It became more and more evident that the cheating incident—or, rather, the accusation, as he persisted in calling it—was merely the last straw in his fall, and that the whole thing had been the result of a crumbly unprincipled kind of will underneath, rather than of any particular strain of vice. He appeared, even now, to think that his traveling about with a woman who was not his wife was a sort of remnant of fallen splendor—as a man might keep a couple of silver spoons out of the ruin of his house.

“I recommend you to pick up with one,” remarked the Major. “There are plenty to be had, if you go about it the right way.”

“Thanks,” said Frank, “but it’s not my line.”

IV

The morning, too, was a little trying.

Frank had passed a tolerable night. The Major had retired upstairs about ten o’clock, taking his socks with him, presumably to sleep in them, and Frank had heard him creaking about upstairs for a minute or two; there had followed two clumps as the boots were thrown off; a board suddenly spoke loudly; there was a little talking—obviously the Major had awakened Gertie in order to make a remark or two—and then silence.

Frank had not slept for half an hour; he was thinking, with some depression, of the dreary affair into which he had been initiated, of the Major, and of Gertie, for whom he was beginning to be sorry. He did not suppose that the man actually bullied her; probably he had done this sufficiently for the present—she was certainly very quiet and subdued—or perhaps she really admired him, and thought it rather magnificent to travel about with an ex-officer. Anyhow, it was rather deplorable....

When he awoke next morning, the depression was on him still; and it was not lifted by the apparition of Gertie on which he opened his eyes from his corner, in an amazingly dirty petticoat, bare-armed, with her hair in a thick untidy pig-tail, trying to blow the fire into warmth again.

Frank jumped up—he was in his trousers and shirt.

“Let me do that,” he said.

“I’ll do it,” said Gertie passionlessly.

The Major came down ten minutes later, considerably the worse for his night’s rest. Yesterday he had had a day’s beard on him; to-day he had two, and there was a silvery sort of growth in the stubble that made it look wet. His eyes, too, were red and sunken, and he began almost instantly to talk about a drink. Frank stood it for a few minutes, then he understood and capitulated.

“I’ll stand you one,” he said, “if you’ll get me two packets of Cinderellas.”

“What’s the good of that?” said the Major. “Pubs aren’t open yet. It’s only just gone five.”

“You’ll have to wait, then,” said Frank shortly.

Presently the Major did begin to bully Gertie. He asked her what the devil was the good of her if she couldn’t make a fire burn better than that. He elbowed her out of the way and set to work at it himself. She said nothing at all. Yet there was not the faintest use in Frank’s interfering, and, indeed, there was nothing to interfere in.

Food, too, this morning, seemed disgusting; and again Frank learned the difference between a kind of game played by oneself and a reality in which two others joined. There had been something almost pleasing about unrolling the food wrapped up at supper on the previous night, and eating it, with or without cooking, all alone; but there was something astonishingly unpleasant in observing sardines that were now common property lying in greasy newspaper, a lump of bread from which their hands tore pieces, and a tin bowl of warmish cocoa from which all must drink. This last detail was a contribution on the part of Major and Mrs. Trustcott, and it would have been ungracious to refuse. The Major, too, was sullen and resentful this morning, and growled at Gertie more than once.

Even the weather seemed unpropitious as they set out together again soon after six. Rain had fallen in the night, yet not all the rain that there was overhead. There were still clouds hanging, mixed with the smoke from the chimneys; the hedges seemed dulled and black in spite of their green; the cinder path they walked on was depressing, the rain-fed road even more so. They passed a dozen men on their way to the pits, who made remarks on the three, and retaliation was out of the question.

It was very disconcerting to Frank to find the difference that his new circumstances made; and yet he did not seriously consider changing them. It seemed to him, somehow or other, in that strange fashion in which such feelings come, that the whole matter was pre-arranged, and that the company in which he found himself was as inevitably his—at least for the present—as the family to a child born into it. And there was, of course, too, a certain element of relief in feeling himself no longer completely alone; and there was also, as Frank said later, a curious sense of attraction towards, and pity for, Gertie that held him there.

At the first public-house that was open the Major stopped.

“I’ll get your Cinderellas now, if you like,” he said.

This had not been Frank’s idea, but he hardly hesitated.

“All right,” he said. “Here’s fourpence.”

The Major vanished through the swing-doors as a miner came out, and a gush of sweet and sickly scent—beer, spirits, tobacco—poured upon the fresh air. And there was a vision of a sawdusted floor and spittoons within.

Frank looked at Gertie, who had stopped like a patient donkey, and, like a prudent one, had let her bundle instantly down beside the Major’s.

“Like one, too?” he said.

She shook her head.

“Not for me.” ... And no more.

In a couple of minutes the Major was out again.

“Only had one packet left,” he said, and with an air of extreme punctiliousness and magnanimity replaced one penny in Frank’s hand. He had the air of one who is insistent on the little honesties of life. There was also a faintly spirituous atmosphere about him, and his eyes looked a little less sunken.

Then he handed over the cigarettes.

“Shouldn’t mind one myself,” he said genially.

Frank gave him one before lighting his own.

“You’re a good sort,” said the Major, “and I wish I could give you one of my old cigars I used to give my friends.”

“Ah! well, when your ship comes home,” observed Frank, throwing away his match.

The Major nodded his head as with an air of fallen grandeur.

“Well,” he said, “vorwärts. That means ‘forward,’ my dear,” he explained to Gertie.

Gertie said nothing. They took up their bundles and went on.

V

It was not till a week later that Gertie did that which was to effect so much in Frank—she confided in him.

The week had consisted of the kind of thing that might be expected—small negligible adventures; work now and then—the Major and Frank working side by side—a digging job on one day, the carrying of rather dingy smoke-stained hay on another, the scraping of garden-paths that ran round the small pink house of a retired tradesman, who observed them magnificently though a plate-glass window all the while, with a cigar in his teeth, and ultimately gave them ninepence between them. They slept here and there—once, on a rainy night, in real lodgings, once below a haystack. Frank said hardly a word to Gertie, and did little more than listen to the Major, who was already beginning to repeat himself; but he was aware that the girl was watching him.

The crisis came about under circumstances that might be expected—on a rather sentimental kind of Sunday evening, in a village whose name I forget (perhaps it was Escrick) between Selby and York. Frank had made a small excursion by himself in the morning and had managed to hear mass; they had dined well off cold bacon and beans, and had walked on in the afternoon some miles further; and they came to the village a little after six o’clock. The Major had a blister, which he had exhibited at least four times to the company, and had refused to go further; and as they came to the outskirts of the village, volunteered to go and look for shelter, if the two would wait for him at a stile that led across fields to the old church.

The scene was rather like the setting of the last act in a melodrama of a theater on the Surrey side of the Thames—the act in which the injured heroine, with her child, sinks down fainting as the folk are going to church in the old village on a June evening among the trees—leading up to moonlight effects and reunion. There was no organ to play “off,” but the bells were an excellent substitute, and it was these that presently melted the heart of Gertie.

When the Major had disappeared, limping, the two climbed over the stile and sat down with their bundles under the hedge, but they presently found that they had chosen something of a thoroughfare. Voices came along presently, grew louder, and stopped as the speakers climbed the stile. The first pair was of a boy and girl, who instantly clasped again mutual waists, and went off up the path across the field to the churchyard without noticing the two tramps; their heads were very near together.

Then other couples came along, old and young, and twice a trio—one, two young men in black, who skirmished on either side of a very sedate girl in white; one, two girls who shoved one another, and giggled, walking in step three yards behind another young man with his hat on one side, who gloried in being talked at and pretended to be rapt in abstraction. Then some children came; then a family—papa walking severely apart in a silk hat, and mamma, stout and scarlet-faced, in the midst of the throng. Finally there came along a very old Darby and Joan, who with many Yorkshire ejaculations helped one another over the stile, and moved on with bent heads, scolding one another affectionately. It was as this last couple reached the spot where the path ran into the corn that the peal of four bells broke out, and Gertie broke down.

Frank had not been noticing her particularly. He was gloomy himself; the novelty of the whole affair had gone; the Major was becoming intolerable, and Frank’s religion was beginning to ebb from his emotions. Mass this morning had not been a success from an emotional point of view; he had had an uncomfortable seat on a pitch-pine bench in a tin church with an American organ; the very young priest had been tiresome and antipathetic.... Frank had done his best, but he was tired and bored; the little church had been very hot, and it was no longer any fun to be stared at superciliously by a stout tradesman as he came out into the hot sunshine afterwards.

Just now he had been watching the figures make their appearance from the stile, re-form groups and dwindle slowly down to the corn, and their heads and shoulders bob along above it—all with a kind of resentment. These people had found their life; he was still looking for his. He was watching, too, the strangely unreal appearance of the sunlit fields, the long shadows, the golden smoky light, and the church tower, set among cypresses half a mile away—yet without any conscious sentiment. He had not said a word to Gertie, nor she to him, and he was totally taken by surprise when, after the first soft crash of bells for evening service, she had suddenly thrown herself round face forward among the grasses and burst out sobbing.

“My dear girl!” said Frank, “whatever’s the matter?” Then he stopped.

Fortunately, the procession of worshipers had run dry, and the two were quite alone. He sat upright, utterly ignorant of what to say. He thought perhaps she was in pain ... should he run for the Major or a doctor?... Then, as after a minute or two of violent sobbing she began a few incoherent words, he understood.

“Oh! I’m a wicked girl ... a wicked girl ... it’s all so beautiful ... the church bells ... my mother!”

He understood, then, what had precipitated this crisis and broken down the girl’s reserve. It was, in fact, exactly that same appeal which holds a gallery breathless and tearful in the last act of a Surrey-side melodrama—the combination of Sunday quiet, a sunset, church bells, associations and human relationships; and Gertie’s little suburban soul responded to it as a bell to a bell-rope. It was this kind of thing that stood to her for holiness and peace and purity, and it had gone clean through her heart. And he understood, too, that it was his presence that had allowed her to break down. The Major’s atmosphere had held her taut so far. Frank was conscious of a lump in his own throat as he stared out, helpless, first at the peaceful Sunday fields and then down at the shaking shoulders and the slender, ill-clad, writhed form of Gertie.... He did not know what to do ... he hoped the Major would not be back just yet. Then he understood he must say something.

“Don’t cry,” he said. “The Major—”

She sat up on the instant in sudden consternation, her pretty, weak, sunburned face disfigured with tears, but braced for the moment by fear.

“No, no,” said Frank; “he isn’t coming yet; but—”

Then she was down again, moaning and talking. “Oh!... Oh!... I’m a wicked girl.... My mother!... and I never thought I should come to this!”

“Well, why don’t you chuck it?” said Frank practically.

“I can’t!... I can’t! I ... I love him!”

That had not occurred to this young man as a conceivable possibility, and he sat silenced. The church-bells pealed on; the sun sank a little lower; Gertie sobbed more and more gently; and Frank’s mind worked like a mill, revolving developments. Finally, she grew quiet, lay still, and, as the bells gave place to one of their number, sat up. She dabbed at her eyes with a handful of wet grass, passed her sleeve across them once or twice, and began to talk.

“I ... I’m very silly, Frankie,” she said, “but I can’t help it. I’m better now. Don’t tell George.”

“Of course I shan’t!” said Frank indignantly.

“You’re a gentleman too,” said Gertie. (Frank winced a little, interiorly, at the “too.”) “I can see that you’re polite to a lady. And I don’t know however I came to tell you. But there it is, and no harm’s done.”

“Why don’t you leave him?” said Frank courageously. A little wave of feeling went over her face.

“He’s a gentleman,” she said.... “No, I can’t leave him. But it does come over you sometimes; doesn’t it?” (Her face wavered again.) “It was them bells, and the people and all.”

“Where’s your home?”

She jerked her head in a vague direction.

“Down Londonwards,” she said. “But that’s all done with. I’ve made my bed, and—”

“Tell me plainly: does he bully you?”

“Not to say bully,” she said. “He struck me once, but never again.”

“Tell me if he does it again.”

A small, sly, admirative look came into her eyes. “We’ll see,” she said.

Frank was conscious of a considerable sense of disappointment. The thing had been almost touching just now, as the reserve first broke up, but it was a very poor little soul, it seemed to him, that had at last made its appearance. (He did not yet see that that made it all the more touching.) He did not quite see what to do next. He was Christian enough to resent the whole affair; but he was aristocratic enough in his fastidiousness to think at this moment that perhaps it did not matter much for people of this sort. Perhaps it was the highest ideal that persons resembling the Major and Gertie could conceive. But her next remark helped to break up his complacency.

“You’re a Catholic,” she said. “People say that you Catholics don’t mind this kind of thing—me and the Major, I mean.”

There was a dreadful sort of sly suggestiveness about this remark that stung him. He exploded: and his wounded pride gave him bitterness.

“My good girl,” he said, “Catholics simply loathe it. And even, personally, I think it’s beastly.”

“Well—I ...”

“I think it’s beastly,” said Frank didactically. “A good girl like you, well-brought-up, good parents, nice home, religious—instead of which “—he ended in a burst of ironical reminiscence—”you go traveling about with a—” he checked himself—”a man who isn’t your husband. Why don’t you marry him?”

“I can’t!” wailed Gertie, suddenly stricken again with remorse; “his wife’s alive.”

Frank jumped. Somehow that had never occurred to him. And yet how amazingly characteristic of the Major!

“Well—leave him, then!”

“I can’t!” cried poor Gertie. “I can’t!... I can’t!”

CHAPTER IV

I

Frank awoke with a start and opened his eyes.

But it was still dark and he could see nothing. So he turned over on the other side and tried to go to sleep.

The three of them had come to this little town last night after two or three days’ regular employment; they had sufficient money between them; they had found a quite tolerable lodging; they had their programme, such as it was, for the next day or so; and—by the standard to which he had learned to adjust himself—there was no sort of palpable cause for the horror that presently fell on him. I can only conjecture that the origin lay within, not without, his personality.

The trouble began with the consciousness that on the one side he was really tired, and on the other that he could not sleep and, to clinch it, the knowledge that a twenty-mile walk lay before him. He began to tell himself that sleep was merely a question of will—of will deliberately relaxing attention. He rearranged his position a little; shifted his feet, fitted himself a little more closely into the outlines of the bed, thrust one hand under the pillow and bade himself let go.

Then the procession of thoughts began as orderly as if by signal.

He found himself presently, after enumerating all the minor physical points of discomfort—the soreness of his feet, the knobbiness of the bed, the stuffiness of the room in which the three were sleeping, the sound of the Major’s slow snoring—beginning to consider the wisdom of the whole affair. This was a point that he had not consciously yet considered, from the day on which he had left Cambridge. The impetus of his first impulse and the extreme strength of his purpose had, up to the present—helped along by novelty—kept him going. Of course, the moment had to come sooner or later; but it seems a little hard that he was obliged to face it in that peculiarly dreary clarity of mind that falls upon the sleepless an hour or two before the dawn.

For, as he looked at it all now, he saw it as an outsider would see it, no longer from the point of view of his own personality. He perceived a young man, of excellent abilities and prospects, sacrificing these things for an idea that fell to pieces the instant it was touched. He touched it now with a critical finger, and it did so fall to pieces; there was, obviously, nothing in it at all. It was an impulse of silly pride, of obstinacy, of the sort of romance that effects nothing. There was Merefield waiting for him—for he knew perfectly well that terms could be arranged; there was all that leisureliness and comfort and distinction in which he had been brought up and which he knew well how to use; there was Jenny; there was his dog, his horse ... there was, in fact, everything for which Merefield stood. He saw it all now, visualized and clear in the dark; and he had exchanged all this—well—for this room, and the Major’s company, and back-breaking toil.... And for no reason.

So he regarded all this for a good long while; with his eyes closed, with the darkness round him, with every detail visible and insistent, seen as in the cold light of morning before colors reassert themselves and reconcile all into a reasonable whole....

“... I must really go to sleep!” said Frank to himself, and screwed up his eyes tight.

There came, of course, a reaction presently, and he turned to his religion. He groped for his rosary under his pillow, placed before him (according to the instructions given in the little books) the “Mystery of the Annunciation to Mary,” and began the “Our Father.” ... Half-way through it he began all over again to think about Cambridge, and Merefield and Jack Kirkby, and the auction in his own rooms, and his last dinner-party and the design on the menu-cards, and what a fool he was; and when he became conscious of the rosary again he found that he held in his fingers the last bead but three in the fifth decade. He had repeated four and a half decades without even the faintest semblance of attention. He finished them hopelessly, and then savagely thrust the string of beads under his pillow again; turned over once more, rearranged his feet, wished the Major would learn how to sleep like a gentleman; and began to think about his religion in itself.

After all, he began to say to himself, what proof was there—real scientific proof—that the thing was true at all? Certainly there was a great deal of it that was, very convincing—there was the curious ring of assertion and confidence in it, there was its whole character, composed (like personality) of countless touches too small to be definable; there was the definite evidence adduced from history and philosophy and all the rest. But underneath all that—was there, after all, any human evidence in the world sufficient to establish the astounding dogmas that lay at the root? Was it conceivable that any such evidence could be forthcoming?

He proceeded to consider the series of ancient dilemmas which, I suppose, have presented themselves at some time or another to every reasonable being—Free-will and Predestination; Love and Pain; Foreknowledge and Sin; and their companions. And it appeared to him, in this cold, emotionless mood, when the personality shivers, naked, in the presence of monstrous and unsympathetic forces, that his own religion, as much as every other, was entirely powerless before them.

He advanced yet further: he began to reflect upon the innumerable little concrete devotions that he had recently learned—the repetition of certain words, the performance of certain actions—the rosary for instance; and he began to ask himself how it was credible that they could possibly make any difference to eternal issues.

These things had not yet surrounded themselves with the atmosphere of experience and association, and they had lost the romance of novelty; they lay before him detached, so to say, and unconvincing.

I do not mean to say that during this hour he consciously disbelieved; he honestly attempted to answer these questions; he threw himself back upon authority and attempted to reassure himself by reflecting that human brains a great deal more acute than his own found in the dilemmas no final obstacles to faith; he placed himself under the shelter of the Church and tried to say blindly that he believed what she believed. But, in a sense, he was powerless: the blade of his adversary was quicker than his own; his will was very nearly dormant; his heart was entirely lethargic, and his intellect was clear up to a certain point and extraordinarily swift....

Half an hour later he was in a pitiable state; and had begun even to question Jenny’s loyalty. He had turned to the thought of her as a last resort for soothing and reassurance, and now, in the chilly dawn, even she seemed unsubstantial.

He began by remembering that Jenny would not live for ever; in fact, she might die at any moment; or he might; and he ended by wondering, firstly, whether human love was worth anything at all, and, secondly, whether he possessed Jenny’s. He understood now, with absolute certitude, that there was nothing in him whatever which could possibly be loved by anyone; the whole thing had been a mistake, not so much on his part as on Jenny’s. She had thought him to be something he was not. She was probably regretting already the engagement; she would certainly not fulfill it. And could she possibly care for anyone who had been such an indescribable fool as to give up Merefield, and his prospects and his past and his abilities, and set out on this absurd and childish adventure? So once more he came round in a circle and his misery was complete.

He sat up in bed with a sudden movement as the train of thought clicked back into its own beginning, clasped his hands round his knees and stared round the room.

The window showed a faint oblong of gray now, beyond where the Major breathed, and certain objects were dingily and coldly visible. He perceived the broken-backed chair on which his clothes were heaped—with the exception of his flannel shirt, which he still wore; he caught a glimmer of white where Gertie’s blouse hung up for an airing.

He half expected that things would appear more hopeful if he sat up in bed. Yet they did not. The sight of the room, such as it was, brought the concrete and material even more forcibly upon him—the gross things that are called Facts. And it seemed to him that there were no facts beyond them. These were the bones of the Universe—a stuffy bedroom, a rasping flannel suit, a cold dawn, a snoring in the gloom, and three bodies, heavy with weariness.... There once had been other facts: Merefield and Cambridge and Eton had once existed; Jenny had once been a living person who loved him; once there had been a thing called Religion. But they existed no longer. He had touched reality at last.

Frank drew a long, dismal sigh; he lay down; he knew the worst now; and in five minutes he was asleep.

II

Of course, the thing wore away by midday, and matters had readjusted themselves. But the effect remained as a kind of bruise below the surface. He was conscious that it had once been possible for him to doubt the value of everything; he was aware that there was a certain mood in which nothing seemed worth while.

It was practically his first experience of the kind, and he did not understand it. But it did its work; and I date from that day a certain increased sort of obstinacy that showed itself even more plainly in his character. One thing or the other must be the effect of such a mood in which—even though only for an hour or two—all things other than physical take on themselves an appearance of illusiveness: either the standard is lowered and these things are treated as slightly doubtful; or the will sets its teeth and determines to live by them, whether they are doubtful or not. And the latter I take to be the most utter form of faith.

About midday the twine round Frank’s bundle broke abruptly, and every several article fell on to the road. He repressed a violent feeling of irritation, and turned round to pick them up. The Major and Gertie instinctively made for a gate in the hedge, rested down their bundles and leaned against it.

Frank gathered the articles—a shirt, a pair of softer shoes, a razor and brush, a tin of potted meat, a rosary, a small round cracked looking-glass and a piece of lead piping—and packed them once more carefully together on the bank. He tested his string, knotted it, drew it tight, and it broke again. The tin of potted meat—like some small intelligent animal—ran hastily off the path and dived into a small drain.

A short cry of mirth broke from the Major, and Gertie smiled.

Frank said nothing at all. He lay down on the road, plunged his arm into the drain and drew up the potted meat; it had some disagreeable-looking moist substance adhering to it, which he wiped off on to his sleeve, and then regretted having done so. Again he packed his things; again he drew the string tight, and again it snapped.

“Lord! man, don’t be so hard on it.”

Frank looked up with a kind of patient fury. His instinct was to kick every single object that lay before him on the path as hard as possible in every direction.

“Have you any more string?” he said.

“No. Stick the things in your pocket and come on.”

Frank made no answer. He went to the hedge and drew out a long supple twig of hazel, stripped it of its leaves, and once more tried, with it, to tie up his parcel. But the angle was too acute, and just as the twig tightened satisfactorily it snapped, and this time the razor slid out sideways into a single minute puddle that lay on the path.

The Major snorted in mirthful impatience.

“But—”

“Kindly let me alone,” said Frank icily. “The thing’s got to go like this, or not at all.”

He drew out the razor from the puddle, opened it and dried the blade on his sleeve. During the process Gertie moved suddenly, and he looked up. When he looked down again be perceived that he had slit a neat slice into the cloth of his jacket.

He remained quite still for one moment. Then he sat down on the bank, and examined the twine once more.

The Major began to make slightly offensive comments. Then Frank looked up.

“You can go to hell!” he said quite softly, “or anywhere else you like. But I’m going to do up the bundle in my way and not yours.”

Now that is a sort of parable. It really happened, for it was reported to a witness by Frank himself exactly as I have told it, and it seems to me a very good little symbol of his state of mind. It is quite indefensible, of course—and especially his regrettable language that closed the interview; but it gives a pleasant little glimpse, I think, of Frank’s character just now, in section. The things had to go in a certain way: he saw no adequate reason to change that way, and ultimately, of course, the twine held. It must have been a great satisfaction to him.

III

It seems that Frank must have been allowed just now to sample several different kinds of moods, for he had a very different kind of awakening a day or two later.

They had come to some piece of open country that I am unable to identify, and for some reason or other determined to spend the night out of doors. There was a copse a hundred yards away from the road, and in the copse a couple of small shelters built, probably, for wood-pigeon shooting. The Major and Gertie took possession of one, and Frank of the other, after they had supped in the dark under the beeches.

Frank slept deeply and well, half waking once, however, at that strange moment of the night when the earth turns and sighs in her sleep, when every cow gets up and lies down again. He was conscious of a shrill crowing, thin as a bugle, from some farm-yard out of sight; then he turned over and slept again.

When he awoke it was daylight. He lay on his back looking at the network of twigs overhead, the beech leaves beyond, and the sky visible only in glimpses—feeling extremely awake and extremely content. Certainly he was a little stiff when he moved, but there was a kind of interior contentment that caused that not to matter.

After a minute or two he sat up, felt about for his shoes and slipped them on. Then he unwound the wrapping about his neck, and crept out of the shelter.

It was that strange pause before the dawn when the light has broadened so far as to extinguish the stars, and to bring out all the colors of earth into a cold deliberate kind of tint. Everything was absolutely motionless about him as he went under the trees and came out above the wide park-land of which the copse was a sort of barrier. The dew lay soaking and thick on the grass slopes, but there was not yet such light as to bring out its sparkle; and everywhere, dotted on the green before him, sat hundreds of rabbits, the nearest not twenty yards away.

The silence and the solemnity of the whole seemed to him extraordinary. There was not a leaf that stirred—each hung as if cut of steel; there was not a bird which chirped nor a distant cock that crew; the rabbits eyed him unafraid in this hour of truce.

It seemed to him like some vast stage on to which he had wandered unexpectedly. The performance of the day before had been played to an end, the night scene-shifting was finished, and the players of the new eternal drama were not yet come. An hour hence they would be all about: the sounds would begin again; men would cross the field-paths, birds would be busy; the wind would awake and the ceaseless whisper of leaves answer its talking. But at present the stage was clear-swept, washed, clean and silent.

It was the solemnity then that impressed him most—solemnity and an air of expectation. Yet it was not mere expectation. There was a suggestion of the fundamental and the normal, as if perhaps movement and sound were, after all, no better than interruptions; as if this fixed poise of nature were something complete in itself; as if these trees hung out their leaves to listen to something that they could actually hear, as if these motionless creatures of the woodland were looking upon something that they could actually see; as if there were some great secret actually present and displayed in dead silence and invisibility before those only who possessed the senses necessary to perceive it.

It was odd to regard life from this standpoint—to look back upon the days and their incidents that were past, forward upon the days and incidents to come. Again it was possible for Frank to look upon these things as an outsider and a deliberate critic—as he had done in the stuffy room of the lodging-house in the town. Yet now, though he was again an outsider, though he was again out of the whirl of actual living, he seemed to be looking at things—staring out, as he was, almost unseeingly at the grass slopes before him—from exactly the opposite side. Then, they had seemed to him the only realities, these tangible physical things, and all else illusion: now it was the physical things that were illusive, and something else that was real. Once again the two elements of life lay detached—matter and spirit; but it was as obviously now spirit that was the reality as it had been matter a day or two before. It was obviously absurd to regard these outward things on which he looked as anything but a frame of something completely different. They were too silent, too still, too little self-sufficient to be complete in themselves. Something solid lay embraced within them....

So, then, he stared and ruminated, scarcely perceiving that he thought, so intensely conscious was he of that of which he thought. It was not that he understood anything of that on which he looked; he was but aware that there was something to be understood. And the trees hung rigid above him, and the clear blue sky still a hard stone beyond them, not yet flushed with dawn; and the grass lay before him, contracted, it seemed, with cold, and every blade soaked in wet; and the silence was profound....

Then a cock crew, a mile away, a thin, brazen cry; a rabbit sat up, then crouched and bolted, and the spell faded like a mist.

Frank turned and walked back under the trees, to see if the Major was awake.

CHAPTER V

I

We are arrived now at one of those few deplorable incidents in Frank’s career, against which there is no defense. And the painful thing about it is that Frank never seemed to think that it required any defense. He shows no penitence for it in his diary: and yet moralists are united in telling us that we must never do evil that good may come. It is only, paralleled by his rash action in leaving Cambridge in defiance of all advice and good sense; so far, that is to say, as a legally permissible act, however foolish, can be paralleled by one of actual crime. Moralists, probably, would tell us, in fact, that the first led inevitably to the second.

It fell out in this way.

Once or twice in his travels with the Major he had been haunted by an uncomfortable suspicion that this or that contribution that the warrior made to their common table had not been come by honestly. When a gentleman, known to possess no more than tenpence, and with a predilection to drink, leaves the shelter of a small copse; let us say, at seven o’clock, and reappears, rather breathless, forty minutes later with a newly-plucked fowl—or even with a fowl not plucked at all, and still warm, or with half a dozen eggs; and, in addition, issues out again later in the evening and returns with a strong smell of spirits and a watery eye—it seems a little doubtful as to whether he has been scrupulously honest. In cases of this kind Frank persevered in making some excuse for not joining in the festivity: he put it to himself as being a matter of pride; but it is hard to understand that it was simply that in a young man who made no scruple of begging in cases of necessity. However, there it was, and even the Major, who began by protesting, ended by acquiescing.

They were somewhere in the neighborhood of Market Weighton when the thing happened—I cannot identify the exact spot. The situation was as follows:

They had secured an excellent barn for their night’s lodging—facing on the road on the outskirts of a village. Behind them were, the farm buildings, and the farmer’s household gone to bed. The sun had set and it was dark. They had supped sparingly, of necessity, and had finished every morsel of food. (Frank had even found himself mechanically gathering up crumbs on a wet finger.) They had had a bad week of it; the corn was not yet ready for cutting, and there seemed no work anywhere for honest men. The Major’s gloom had become terrible; he had even made remarks upon a choice between a workhouse and a razor. He had got up after supper and turned his waistcoat pockets inside out to secure the last possible grains of tobacco, and had smoked about a quarter of a pipeful gathered in this way without uttering one word. He had then uttered a short string of them, had seized his cap and disappeared.

Frank, too, was even more heavy and depressed than usual. The last shreds of romance were gone from his adventure long ago, and yet his obstinacy held firm. But he found he could not talk much. He watched Gertie listlessly as she, listless too, began to spread out nondescript garments to make a bed in the corner. He hardly spoke to her, nor she to him.

He was beginning to feel sleepy, when he heard rather hurried steps, as of one trying to run on tiptoe, coming up the lane, and an instant later in popped the Major.

“Put out that damned light!” he whispered sharply.

The candle end went out with the swiftness of thought.

“What’s up?” Frank roused himself to ask. There had been a strenuous look about the face seen an instant before that interested him.

There was dead silence. Gertie seemed frozen into motionlessness in her corner, almost as if she had had experience of this kind of thing before. Frank listened with all his ears; it was useless to stare into the dark: here in this barn the blackness was complete.

At first there was no sound at all, except a very soft occasional scrape of a boot-nail that betokened that the Major was seeking cover somewhere. Then, so suddenly that he started all over, Frank felt a hand on his arm and smelt a tobacco-laden breath. (Alas! there had been no drink to-night.)

“See here, Frankie, my boy.... I ... I’ve got the thing on me.... What shall I do with it?... It’s no good chucking it away: they’d find it.”

“Got what?” whispered Frank.

“There was a kid coming along ... she had a tin of something ... I don’t even know what it is.... And ... and she screamed out and someone ran out. But they couldn’t spot me; it was too dark.”

“Hush!” whispered Frank sharply, and the hand tightened on his arm. But it was only a rat somewhere in the roof.

“Well?” he said.

“Frankie ... I suppose you wouldn’t take it from me ... and ... and be off somewhere. We could meet again later.... I ... I’m afraid someone may have spotted us coming through the village earlier. They’ll ... they’ll search, I expect.”

“You can do your own dirty work,” whispered Frank earnestly through the darkness.

“Frankie, my boy ... don’t be hard on a poor devil.... I ... I can’t leave Gertie.”

“Well, hide it somewhere.”

“No good—they’d ... Good God—!”

The voice was stricken into silence once more, as a light, hardly seen before it was gone again, shone through a crack in the side of the barn. Then there was unmistakable low talking somewhere.

Frank felt the man, crouched at his side, suddenly stand up noiselessly, and in that instant his own mind was made up.

“Give it here, you fool,” he said. “Here!”

He felt a smooth flat and circular thing thrust suddenly into his hands with a whisper that he could not catch, and simultaneously he heard a rush of footsteps outside. He had just time to stuff the thing inside his coat and roll over as if asleep when the door flew open, and three or four men, with a policeman at their head, burst into the barn.

II

It would be charitable, I think, to suppress the name of the small market-town where the trial was held. The excellent magistrates who conducted it certainly did their best under very difficult circumstances; for what are you to do if a man accused of theft cordially pleads guilty? and yet, certainly it would distress them to hear of a very obvious miscarriage of justice executed at their hands.

On Friday morning at ten o’clock the vehicles began to arrive—the motor of the country gentleman, the dog-cart of the neighboring rector, and the brougham of the retired general. It was the General who presided.

The court-room was not more dismal than court-rooms usually are. When I visited it on my little pilgrimage, undertaken a few months ago, it had been repainted and the woodwork grained to represent oak. Even so, it was not cheering.

At the upper end, under one of the windows, were ranged five seats on a daïs, with a long baize-covered table before them. Then, on a lower level, stood the clerk’s and solicitors’ table, fenced by a rail from the vulgar crowd who pressed in, hot and excited, to see the criminals and hear justice done. There was a case arising from an ancient family feud, exploded at last into crime; one lady had thrown a clog at another as the last repartee in a little dialogue held at street doors; the clog had been well aimed, and the victim appeared now with a very large white bandage under her bonnet, to give her testimony. This swelled the crowd beyond its usual proportions, as both ladies were well known in society.

The General was a kindly-looking old man (Frank recognized his name as soon as he heard it that morning, though he had never met him before) and conversed cheerily with his brother magistrates as they took their seats. The Rector was—well, like other rectors, and the Squire like other squires.

It was a quarter to twelve before the ladies’ claims were adjusted. They were both admonished in a paternal kind of way, and sent about their business, since there was disputed evidence as to whether or not the lady with the bandage had provoked the attack, not only by her language, but by throwing a banana-skin at the lady without the bandage. They were well talked to, their husbands were bidden to keep them in order, and they departed, both a little crestfallen, to discuss the whole matter over a pint of beer.

There was a little shifting about in court; a policeman, looking curiously human without his helmet, pushed forward from the door and took his place by the little barrier. The magistrates and the clerk and the inspector all conferred a little together, and after an order or two, the door near the back of the court leading from the police-cells opened, and Frank stepped forward into the dock, followed by another policeman who clicked the barrier behind the prisoner and stood, waiting, like Rhadamanthus. Through the hedge of the front row of the crowd peered the faces of Gertie and the Major.

We need not bother with the preliminaries—in fact, I forget how they ran—Frank gave his name of Frank Gregory, his age as twenty-two years, his occupation as casual laborer, and his domicile as no fixed abode.

The charge was read to him. It was to the effect that he, on the night of Tuesday, the twenty-third instant, had in the village (whose name I choose to forget, if I ever knew it), seized from Maggie Cooper, aged nine years, a tin of preserved salmon, with intent to steal. The question put to the prisoner was: Did he or did he not plead guilty?

“I plead guilty, sir,” said Frank, without a tremor.

He had been two full days in the cells by now, and it had not improved his appearance. He was still deeply sunburned, but he was a little pale under the eyes, and he was unshaven. He had also deliberately rumpled his hair and pulled his clothes to make them look as untidy as possible. He answered in a low voice, so as to attract as little attention as possible. He had given one quick look at the magistrates as he came in, to make sure he had never met them out shooting or at dinner-parties, and he had been deeply relieved to find them total strangers.

“You plead guilty, eh?” said the General.

Frank nodded.

“Well, well! let’s hear the whole story. Where is the complainant?”

A rather pale and awe-stricken child appeared somewhere in a little box opposite Frank, with a virtuous mother in black silk behind her. It appeared that this child was on her way to her aunt—her father was a grocer—with a tin of salmon that had been promised and forgotten (that was how she came to be out so late). As she reached the corner by Barker’s Lane a man had jumped at her and seized the tin. (No; he had not used any other violence.) She had screamed at the top of her voice, and Mrs. Jennings’ door had opened. Then the man had run away.

“Had she seen the man clearly?” No, she hadn’t seen him at all; she had just seen that he was a man. (“Called himself one,” put in a voice.) The witness here cast an indignant—almost vindictive—look at Frank.

Then a few corroborations were issued. Mrs. Jennings, a widow lady, keeping house for her brother who was a foreman in Marks’ yard, ratified the statement about the door being opened. She was going to shut up for the night when she heard the child scream. Her brother, a severe-looking man, with a black beard, finished her story. He had heard his sister call out, as he was taking off his boots at the foot of the stairs; he had run out with his laces dangling, in time to see the man run past the public-house fifty yards up the street. No ... he, too, had not seen the man clearly, but he had seen him before, in company with another; the two had come to his yard that afternoon to ask for work and been refused, as they wanted no more hands.

“Well, what had happened then?”

He had hammered at two or three doors as he ran past, among them that of the police-constable, and himself had run on, in time to hear the prisoner’s footsteps run up the lane leading to the barn. He had stopped then as he was out of breath, and as he thought they would have the man now, since there was no exit from the lane except through Mr. Patten’s farm-yard, and if he’d gone that way they’d have heard the dogs.

Finally the police-constable corroborated the entire story, and added that he, in company with the foreman and two other men, had “proceeded” to the barn immediately, and there had found the prisoner, who was pretending to be asleep, with the tin of salmon (produced and laid on the table) hidden inside his jacket. He had then taken him into custody.

“Was there any one else in the barn?”

Yes—two persons, who gave the names of George and Gertie Trustcott. These were prepared to give evidence as to the prisoner’s identity, and as to his leaving and returning to the barn on the evening in question, if the magistrate wished.... Yes; they were present in court.

The General began to turn a little testy as the constable finished. He seemed a magistrate who liked to be paternal, and he appeared to grow impatient under the extraordinarily correct language of the policeman.

He turned to Frank—seeming to forget all about the two witnesses not yet called—and spoke rather sharply:

“You don’t deny all that? You plead guilty, eh?”

“Yes, sir,” said Frank, gazing at the very pink salmon emblazoned on the tin.

“Why did you do it?”

“I was hungry, sir.”

“Hungry, eh? An able-bodied lad like you? Can’t you work, then?”

“When I can get it, sir,” said Frank

“Eh?... eh? Well, that’s true enough. You couldn’t get it that day, anyhow. Mr. What’s-his-name’s told us that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then the Rector leaned forward swiftly—to Frank’s horror.

“You speak like an educated man.”

“Do I, sir? I’m very pleased to hear it.”

There was a faint snigger in court.

“Where were you educated?” persisted the Rector.

“Am I bound to incriminate myself, sir?”

“Incriminate?” said the General suddenly interested. “Eh? you mean, after a good education. I see. No, of course you’re not, my lad.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And you plead guilty? And you’d like the case dealt with now?”

“If you please, sir.”

The clerk rose swiftly in his place and began to whisper to the magistrates behind his hand. Frank understood perfectly what was happening; he understood that it was doubtful whether or no his case could be dealt with in this court. He exploded within himself a violent adjuration to the Supreme Authorities, and the next instant the General sat back.

“Nonsense! nonsense! It isn’t highway robbery at all within the meaning of the term. We’ll deal with it now—eh, gentlemen?”

There was a little more whispering, and finally the General settled himself and took up a quill pen.

“Well, we’ll deal with it now, my lad, as you wish. I’m sorry to see a fellow like you in this position—particularly if you’ve had a good education, as you seem to have had. Cowardly thing, you know, to attack a child like that, isn’t it? even if you were hungry. You ought to be more hardy than that, you know—a great fellow like you—than to mind a bit of hunger. Boys like you ought to enlist; that’d make a man of you in no time. But no.... I know you; you won’t.... You’d sooner loaf about and pick up what you can—sooner than serve His Majesty. Well, well, there’s no compulsion—not yet; but you should think over it. Come and see me, if you like, when you’ve done your time, and we’ll see what can be done. That’d be better than loafing about and picking up tins of salmon, eh?”

“Well, I’ve no more to say. But you just think over it. And we’ll give you fourteen days.”

Then as Frank went out he saw the three magistrates lean back in conversation.

III

I find it very hard to explain, even to myself, the extraordinary depression that fell upon Frank during his fourteen days. He could hardly bear even to speak of it afterwards, and I find in his diary no more than a line or two, and those as bald as possible. Apparently it was no kind of satisfaction to him to know that the whole thing was entirely his own doing, or that it was the thought of Gertie that had made him, in the first instance, take the tin from the Major. Yet it was not that there was any sense of guilt, or even of mistake. One would have thought that from everybody’s point of view, and particularly Gertie’s, it would be an excellent thing for the Major to go to prison for a bit. It would certainly do him no harm, and it would be a real opportunity to separate the girl from his company. As for any wrong in his pleading guilty, he defended it (I must say, with some adroitness) by saying that it was universally acknowledged that the plea of “Not Guilty” is merely formal, and in no way commits one to its intrinsic truth (and he is right there, at least according to Moral Theology as well as common sense) and, therefore, that the alternative plea is also merely formal.

And yet he was depressed by his fourteen days to the verge of melancholia.

There are several contributory causes that may be alleged.

First, there is the extreme ignominy of all the circumstances, beginning with the paternal scolding in court, in the presence of grocers and persons who threw clogs, continuing with the dreary journey by rail, in handcuffs, and the little crowds that gathered to laugh or stare, and culminating with the details of the prison life. It is not pleasant for a cleanly man to be suspected of dirt, to be bathed and examined all over by a man suffering himself apparently from some species of eczema; it is not pleasant to be ordered about peremptorily by uniformed men, who, three months before, would have touched their hats to you, and to have to do things instantly and promptly for the single reason that one is told to do them.

Secondly, there was the abrupt change of life—of diet, air and exercise....

Thirdly, there was the consideration, the more terrible because the more completely unverifiable, as to what difference all this would make, not only to the regard of his friends for him, but to his own regard for himself. Innocence of a fault does not entirely do away with the distress and stigma of its punishment. He imagined himself telling Jenny; he tried to see her laughing, and somehow he could not. It was wholly uncharacteristic of all that he knew of her, and yet somehow, night after night, as the hours dragged by, he seemed to see her looking at him a little contemptuously.

“At any rate,” he almost heard her say, “if you didn’t do it, you made a friend of a man who did. And you were in prison.”

Oh! there are countless excellent explanations of his really terrible depression; and yet somehow it does not seem to me at all in line with what I know of Frank, to think that they explain it in the least. I prefer to believe, with a certain priest who will appear by and by, that the thing was just one stage of a process that had to be accomplished, and that if it had not come about in this way, it must have come about in another. As for his religion, all emotional grasp of that fled, it seemed finally, at the touch of real ignominy. He retained the intellectual reasons for which he had become a Catholic, but the thing seemed as apart from him as his knowledge of law—such as it was—acquired at Cambridge, or his proficiency in lawn-tennis. Certainly it was no kind of consolation to him to reflect on the sufferings of Christian martyrs!

It was a Friday evening when he came out and went quickly round the corner of the jail, in order to get away from any possibility of being identified with it.

He had had a short interview with the Governor—a very conscientious and religious man, who made a point of delivering what he called “a few earnest words” to every prisoner before his release. But, naturally enough, they were extraordinarily off the point. It was not helpful to Frank to have it urged upon him to set about an honest livelihood—it was what he had tried to do every day since June—and not to go about robbing innocent children of things like tins of salmon—it was the very last thing he had ever dreamed of doing.

He had also had more than one interview with the chaplain of the Established Church, in consequence of his resolute refusal to acknowledge any religious body at all (he had determined to scotch this possible clue to his identification); and those interviews had not been more helpful than any other. It is not of much use to be entreated to turn over a new leaf when you see no kind of reason for doing so; and little books left tactfully in your cell, directed to the same point, are equally useless. Frank read them drearily through. He did not actually kick them from side to side of his cell when he had finished; that would have been offensive to the excellent intentions of the reverend gentleman....

Altogether I do not quite like to picture Frank as he was when he came out of jail, and hurried away. It is such a very startling contrast with the gayety with which he had begun his pilgrimage.

He had had plenty of time to think over his plans during the last fortnight, and he went, first, straight to the post-office. The Governor had given him half-a-crown to start life with, and he proposed to squander fourpence of it at once in two stamps, two sheets of paper and two envelopes.

His first letter was to be to Jack; the second to Major Trustcott, who had thoughtfully given him the address where he might be found about that date.

But there were to be one or two additional difficulties first.

He arrived at the post-office, went up the steps and through the swing doors. The place had been newly decorated, with a mahogany counter and light brass lattice rails, behind which two young ladies of an inexpressibly aristocratic demeanor and appearance were engaged in conversation: their names, as he learned from a few sentences he listened to before daring to interrupt so high a colloquy, were Miss Mills and Miss Jamieson.

After a decent and respectful pause Frank ventured on his request.

“Two stamps, two sheets of paper and two envelopes, please ... miss.” (He did manage that!)

Miss Mills continued her conversation:

“So I said to her that that would never do, that Harold would be sure to get hold of it, and that then—”

Frank shuffled his feet a little. Miss Mills cast him a high glance.

“—There’d be trouble, I said, Miss Jamieson.”

“You did quite right, dear.”

“Two stamps, two sheets of paper and two envelopes, please, miss.” He clicked four pence together on the counter. Miss Mills rose slowly from her place, went a yard or two, and took down a large book. Frank watched her gratefully. Then she took a pen and began to make entries in it.

“Two stamps, two sheets of paper and two envelopes, please.”

Frank’s voice shook a little with anger. He had not learned his lesson yet.

Miss Mills finished her entry; looked at Frank with extreme disdain, and finally drew out a sheet of stamps.

“Pennies?” she inquired sharply.

“Please.”

Two penny stamps were pushed across and two pennies taken up.

“And now two sheets of paper and two envelopes, please, miss,” went on Frank, encouraged. He thought himself foolish to be angry. Miss Jamieson uttered a short laugh and glanced at Miss Mills. Miss Mills pursed her lips together and took up her pen once more.

“Will you be good enough to give me what I ask for, at once, please?”

The whole of Frank blazed in this small sentence: but Miss Mills was equal to it.

“You ought to know better,” she said, “than to come asking for such things here! Taking up a lot of time like that.”

“You don’t keep them?”

Miss Mills uttered a small sound. Miss Jamieson tittered.

“Shops are the proper places for writing-paper. This is a post-office.”

Words cannot picture the superb high breeding shown in this utterance. Frank should have understood that he had been guilty of gross impertinence in asking such things of Miss Mills; it was treating her almost as a shop-girl. But he was extremely angry by now.

“Then why couldn’t you have the civility to tell me so at once?”

Miss Jamieson laid aside a little sewing she was engaged on.

“Look here, young man, you don’t come bullying and threatening here. I’ll have to call the policeman if you do.... I was at the railway station last Friday week, you know.”

Frank stood still for one furious instant. Then his heart sank and he went out without a word.

The letters got written at last, late that evening, in the back room of a small lodging-house where he had secured a bed. I have the one he wrote to Jack before me as I write, and I copy it as it stands. It was without address or date.

“Dear Jack,

“I want you to do, something for me. I want you to go to Merefield and see, first, Jenny, and then my father; and tell them quite plainly and simply that I’ve been in prison for a fortnight. I want Jenny to know first, so that she can think of what to say to my father. The thing I was sent to prison for was that I pleaded guilty to stealing a tin of salmon from a child called Mary Cooper. You can see the account of the case in the County Gazette for last Saturday week, the twenty-seventh. The thing I really did was to take the tin from somebody else I was traveling with. He asked me to.

“Next, I want you to send on any letters that may have come for me to the address I enclose on a separate piece of paper. Please destroy the address at once; but you can show this letter to Jenny and give her my love. You are not to come and see me. If you don’t, I’ll come and see you soon.

“Things are pretty bad just now, but I’m going to go through with it.

“Yours,

“F.

“P.S.—By the way, please address me as Mr. F. Gregory when you write.”

He was perfectly obstinate, you understand, still.

Frank’s troubles as regards prison were by no means exhausted by his distressing conversation with the young ladies in the post office, and the next one fell on him as he was leaving the little town early on the Saturday morning.

He had just turned out of the main street and was going up a quiet side lane that looked as if it would lead to the York Road, when he noticed a disagreeable little scene proceeding up a narrow cul-de-sac across whose mouth he was passing.

A tall, loose-limbed young man, in his working-clothes, obviously slightly excited with drink, had hold of a miserable old man by the scruff of the neck with one hand, and was cuffing him with the other.

Now I do not wish to represent Frank as a sort of knight-errant, but the fact is that if anyone with respectable and humane ideas goes on the tramp (I have this from the mouth of experienced persons) he has to make up his mind fairly soon either to be a redresser of wrongs or to be conveniently short-sighted. Frank was not yet sufficiently experienced to have learned the wisdom of the second alternative.

He went straight up the cul-de-sac and without any words at all hit the young man as hard as possible under the ear nearest to him.

There seems to have been a moment of amazed silence; the young man dropped the old one, who fled out into the lane, and struck back at Frank, who parried. Simultaneously a woman screamed somewhere; and faces began to appear at windows and doors.

It is curious how the customs of the Middle Ages, as well as some of their oaths, seem to have descended to the ranks of the British working-man. In the old days—as also in prize-fights to-day—it was quite usual to assail your adversary with insults as well as with blows. This was done now. The young man, with a torrent of imprecations, demanded who Frank thought he was, asked where he was coming to, required of society in general an explanation of a stranger’s interfering between a son and a qualified father. There was a murmur of applause and dissent, and Frank answered, with a few harmless expletives such as he had now learned to employ as a sort of verbal disguise, that he did not care how many sons or fathers were in question, that he did not propose to see a certain kind of bully abuse an old man, and that he would be happy to take the old man’s place....

Then the battle was set.

Frank had learned to box in a certain small saloon in Market Street, Cambridge, and knew perfectly well how to take care of himself. He received about half the force of one extremely hard blow just on his left cheek-bone before he got warmed to his work; but after that he did the giving and the loose-limbed young man the receiving, Frank was even scientific; he boxed in the American manner, crouching, with both arms half extended (and this seems to have entirely bewildered his adversary) and he made no effort to reach the face. He just thumped away steadily below the spot where the ribs part, and where—a doctor informs me—a nerve-center, known as the solar plexus, is situated. He revolved, too, with considerable agility, round his opponent, and gradually drew the battle nearer and nearer to the side lane outside. He knew enough of slum-chivalry by now to be aware that if a sympathizer, or sycophant, of the young man happened to be present, he himself would quite possibly (if the friend happened to possess sufficient courage) suddenly collapse from a disabling blow on the back of the neck. Also, he was not sure whether there was any wife in the question; and in this case it would be a poker, or a broken bottle, held dagger-wise, that he would have to meet. And he wished therefore to have more room round him than the cul-de-sac afforded.

But there was no need for precaution.

The young man had begun to look rather sickly under the eyes and to hiccup three or four times in distressed manner; when suddenly the clamor round the fight ceased. Frank was aware of a shrill old voice calling out something behind him; and the next instant, simultaneously with the dropping of his adversary’s hands, he himself was seized from behind by the arms, and, writhing, discerned is blue sleeve and a gloved hand holding him.

“Now, what’s all this?” said a voice in his ear.

There was a chorus of explanation, declaring that “‘Alb” had been set upon without provocation. There was a particularly voluble woman with red arms and an exceedingly persuasive manner, who advanced from a doorway and described the incident from her own point of view. She had been hanging out the children’s things, she began, and so forth; and Frank was declared the aggressor and “‘Alb” the innocent victim.

Then the chorus broke out again, and “‘Alb,” after another fit of hiccupping, corroborated the witnesses in a broken and pathetically indignant voice.

Frank tore himself from one embracing arm and faced round, still held by the other.

“All right; I shan’t run away.... Look here; that’s a black lie. He was hitting that old man. Where is he? Come on, uncle, and tell us all about it.”

The old man advanced, his toothless face contorted with inexplicable emotion, and corroborated the red-armed woman, and the chorus generally, with astonishing volubility and emphasis.

“You old fool!” said Frank curtly. “What are you afraid of? Let’s have the truth, now. Wasn’t he hitting you?”

“He, he, he!” giggled the old man, torn by the desire of self-preservation on one side and, let us hope, by a wish for justice on the other. “He warn’t hittin’ of me. He’s my son, he is.... ‘Alb is.... We were just having—”

“There! get out of this,” said the policeman, releasing Frank with a shove. “We don’t want your sort here. Coming and making trouble.... Yes; my lad. You needn’t look at me like that. I know you.”

“Who the deuce are you talking to?” snapped Frank.

“I know who I’m talking to, well enough,” pronounced the policeman judicially. “F. Gregory, ain’t it? Now you be off out of this, or you’ll be in trouble again.”

There was something vaguely kindly about the man’s manner, and Frank understood that he knew very tolerably where the truth lay, but wished to prevent further disturbance. He gulped down his fury. It was no good saying anything; but the dense of the injustice of the universe was very bitter. He turned away—

A murmur of indignation broke out from the crowd, bidding the policeman do his duty.

And as Frank went up the lane, he heard that zealous officer addressing the court with considerable vigor. But it was very little comfort to him. He walked out of the town with his anger and resentment still hot in his heart at the indignity of the whole affair.

V

By the Sunday afternoon Frank was well on his way to York.

It was a heavy, hot day, sunny, but with brooding clouds on the low horizons; and he was dispirited and tired as he came at last into a small, prim village street rather after two o’clock (its name, once more, I suppress).

His possessions by now were greatly reduced. His money had gone, little by little, all through his journey with the Major, and he had kept of other things only one extra flannel shirt, a pair of thick socks and a small saucepan he had bought one day. The half-crown that the Governor had given him was gone, all but fourpence, and he wanted, if possible, to arrive at York, where he was to meet the Major, at least with that sum in his possession. Twopence would pay for a bed and twopence more for supper.

Half-way up the street he stopped suddenly. Opposite him stood a small brick church, retired by a few yards of turf, crossed by a path, from the iron railings that abutted on the pavement: and a notice-board proclaimed that in this, church of the Sacred Heart mass was said on Sundays at eleven, on holidays of obligation at nine, and on weekdays at eight-thirty a.m. Confessions were heard on Saturday evenings and on Thursday evenings before the first Friday, from eight to nine p.m. Catechism was at three p.m. on Sundays; and rosary, sermon and benediction at seven p.m. A fat cat, looking as if it were dead, lay relaxed on the grass beneath this board.

The door was open and Frank considered an instant. But he thought that could wait for a few minutes as he glanced at the next house. This was obviously the presbytery.

Frank had never begged from a priest before, and he hesitated a little now. Then he went across the street into the shadow on the other side, leaned against the wall and looked. The street was perfectly empty and perfectly quiet, and the hot summer air and sunshine lay on all like a charm. There was another cat, he noticed, on a doorstep a few yards away, and he wondered how any living creature in this heat could possibly lie like that, face coiled round to the feet, and the tail laid neatly across the nose. A dreaming cock crooned heart-brokenly somewhere out of sight, and a little hot breeze scooped up a feather of dust in the middle of the road and dropped again.

Even the presbytery looked inviting on a day like this. He had walked a good twenty-five miles to-day, and the suggestion of a dark, cool room was delicious. It was a little pinched-looking house, of brick, like the church, squeezed between the church and a large grocery with a flamboyant inscription over its closed shutters. All the windows were open, hung inside with cheap lace curtains, and protected with dust-screens. He pictured the cold food probably laid out within, and his imagination struck into being a tall glass jug of something like claret-cup, still half-full. Frank had not dined to-day.

Then he limped boldly across the street, rapped with the cast-iron knocker, and waited.

Nothing at all happened.

Presently the cat from the notice-board appeared round the corner, eyed Frank suspiciously, decided that he was not dangerous, came on, walking delicately, stepped up on to the further end of the brick stair, and began to arch itself about and rub its back against the warm angle of the doorpost. Frank rapped again, interrupting the cat for an instant, and then stooped down to scratch it under the ear. The cat crooned delightedly. Steps sounded inside the house; the cat stopped writhing, and as the door opened, darted in noiselessly with tail erect past the woman who held the door uninvitingly half open.

She had a thin, lined face and quick black eyes.

“What do you want?” she asked sharply, looking up and down Frank’s figure with suspicion. Her eyes dwelt for a moment on the bruise on his cheek-bone.

“I want to see the priest, please,” said Frank.

“You can’t see him.”

“I am very sorry,” said Frank, “but I must see him.”

“Coming here begging!” exclaimed the woman bitterly. “I’d be ashamed! Be off with you!”

Frank’s dignity asserted itself a little.

“Don’t speak to me in that tone, please. I am a Catholic, and I wish to see the priest.”

The woman snorted; but before she could speak there came the sound of an opening door and a quick step on the linoleum of the little dark passage.

“What’s all this?” said a voice, as the woman stepped back.

He was a big, florid young man, with yellow hair, flushed as if with sleep; his eyes were bright and tired-looking, and his collar was plainly unbuttoned at the back. Also, his cassock was unfastened at the throat and he bore a large red handkerchief in his hand. Obviously this had just been over his face.

Now, I do not blame this priest in the slightest. He had sung a late mass—which never agreed with him—and in his extreme hunger he had eaten two platefuls of hot beef, with Yorkshire pudding, and drunk a glass and a half of solid beer. And he had just fallen into a deep sleep before giving Catechism, when the footsteps and voices had awakened him. Further, every wastrel Catholic that came along this road paid him a call, and he had not yet met with one genuine case of want. When he had first come here he had helped beggars freely and generously, and he lived on a stipend of ninety pounds a year, out of which he paid his housekeeper fifteen.

“What do you want?” he said.

“May I speak to you, father?” said Frank.

“Certainly. Say what you’ve got to say.”

“Will you help me with sixpence, father?”

The priest was silent, eyeing Frank closely.

“Are you a Catholic?”

“Yes, father.”

“I didn’t see you at mass this morning.”

“I wasn’t here this morning. I was walking on the roads.”

“Where did you hear mass?”

“I didn’t hear it at all, father. I was on the roads.”

“What’s your work?”

“I haven’t any.”

“Why’s that?”

Frank shrugged his shoulders a little.

“I do it when I can get it,” he said.

“You speak like an educated man.”

“I am pretty well educated.”

The priest laughed shortly.

“What’s that bruise on your cheek?”

“I was in a street fight, yesterday, father.”

“Oh, this is ridiculous!” he said. “Where did you come from last?”

Frank paused a moment. He was very hot and very tired.... Then he spoke.

“I was in prison till Friday,” he said. “I was given fourteen days on the charge of robbing a child, on the twenty-sixth. I pleaded guilty. Will you help me, father?”

If the priest had not been still half stupid with sleep and indigestion, and standing in the full blaze of this hot sun, he might have been rather struck by this last sentence. But he did have those disadvantages, and he saw in it nothing but insolence.

He laughed again, shortly and angrily.

“I’m amazed at your cheek,” he said. “No, certainly not! And you’d better learn manners before you beg again.”

Then he banged the door.

About ten minutes later he woke up from a doze, very wide awake indeed, and looked round. There lay on the table by him a Dutch cheese, a large crusty piece of bread and some very soft salt butter in a saucer. There was also a good glass of beer left—not claret-cup—in a glass jug, very much as Frank had pictured it.

He got up and went out to the street door, shading his eyes against the sun. But the street lay hot and dusty in the afternoon light, empty from end to end, except for a cat, nose in tail, coiled on the grocery door-step.

Then he saw two children, in white frocks, appear round a corner, and he remembered that it was close on time for Catechism.

CHAPTER VI

I

About the time that Frank was coming into the village where the priest lived, Jenny had just finished lunch with her father. She took a book, two cigarettes, a small silver matchbox and a Japanese fan, and went out into the garden. She had no duties this afternoon; she had played the organ admirably at the morning service, and would play it equally admirably at the evening service. The afternoon devotions in the little hot Sunday school—she had decided, in company with her father a year or two ago—and the management of the children, were far better left in the professional hands of the schoolmistress.

She went straight out of the drawing-room windows, set wide and shaded by awnings, and across the lawn to the seat below the ancient yews. There she disposed herself, with her feet up, lit a cigarette, buried the match and began to read.

She had not heard from Frank for nearly three weeks; his last communication had been a picture postcard of Selby Abbey, with the initial “F” neatly printed at the back. But she was not very greatly upset. She had written her letter as she had promised, and had heard from Jack Kirkby, to whose care she sent it, that he had no idea of Frank’s whereabouts, and that he would send on the letter as soon as he knew more. She supposed that Frank would communicate with her again as soon as he thought proper.

Other circumstances to be noted were that Dick had gone back to town some while ago, but would return almost immediately now for the grouse-shooting; that Archie and Lord Talgarth were both up at the house—indeed, she had caught sight of them in the red-curtained chancel-pew this morning, and had exchanged five words with them both after the service—and that in all other respects other things were as they had been a month ago.

The Dean of Trinity had telegraphed in great dismay on the morning following his first communication that Frank had gone, and that no one had the slightest idea of his destination; he had asked whether he should put detectives on the track, and had been bidden, in return, politely but quite firmly, to mind his own business and leave Lord Talgarth’s younger son to Lord Talgarth.

It was a sleepy afternoon, even up here among the hills, and Jenny had not read many pages before she became aware of it. The Rectory garden was an almost perfect place for a small doze; the yews about her made a grateful shade, and the limes behind them even further cooled the air, and, when the breeze awoke, as one talking in his sleep, the sound about her was as of gentle rain. The air was bright and dusty with insects; from the limes overhead, the geranium beds, and the orchard fifty yards away, came the steady murmur of bees and flies.

Jenny woke up twenty minutes later with a sudden start, and saw someone standing almost over her. She threw her feet down, still bewildered by the sudden change and the glare on which she opened her eyes, and perceived that it was Jack Kirkby, looking very dusty and hot.

“I am so sorry,” said Jack apologetically, “but I was told you were out here.”

She did not know Jack very well, though she had known him a long time. She looked upon him as a pleasant sort of boy whom she occasionally met at lawn-tennis parties and flower shows, and things like that, and she knew perfectly how to talk to young men.

“How nice of you to came over,” she said. “Did you bicycle? Have something to drink?”

She made room for him on the seat and held out her second cigarette.

“It’s your last,” said Jack.

“I’ve lots more in the house.”

She watched him as he lit it, and as the last shreds of sleep rolled away, put the obvious question.

“You’ve news of Frank?”

Jack threw away the match and drew two or three draughts of smoke before answering.

“Yes,” he said.

“Where is he?”

“He gave an address at York, though he wasn’t there when he wrote. I sent your letter on there yesterday.”

“Oh I did he give any account of himself?”

Jack looked at her.

“Well, he did. I’ve come about that. It’s not very pleasant.”

“Is he ill?” asked Jenny sharply.

“Oh, no; not at all; at least, he didn’t say so.”

“What’s the matter, then?”

Jack fumbled in his breast-pocket and drew out a letter, which he held a moment before unfolding.

“I think you’d better read what he says, Miss Launton. It isn’t pleasant, but it’s all over now. I thought I’d better tell you that first.”

She held out her hand without speaking.

Jack gave it her, and addressed himself carefully to his cigarette. He didn’t like this kind of thing at all, he wished Frank wouldn’t give him unpleasant commissions. But, of course, it had to be done. He looked out at the lawn and the sleepy house, but was aware of nothing except the girl beside him in her white dress and the letter in her hands. When she had finished it, she turned back and read it again. Then she remained perfectly still, with the letter held on her knee.

“Poor, dear old boy!” she said suddenly and quietly.

An enormous wave of relief rolled up and enveloped Jack. He had been exceedingly uncomfortable this morning, ever since the letter had come. His first impulse had been to ride over instantly after breakfast; then he had postponed it till lunch; then he had eaten some cold beef about half-past twelve and come straight away. He told himself he must give her plenty of time to write by the late Sunday night post.

He had not exactly distrusted Jenny; Frank’s confidence was too overwhelming and too infectious. But he had reflected that it was not a wholly pleasant errand to have to inform a girl that her lover had been in prison for a fortnight. But the tone in which she had just said those four words was so serene and so compassionate that he was completely reassured. This really was a fine creature, he said to himself.

“I’m extraordinarily glad you take it like that,” he said.

Jenny looked at him out of her clear, direct eyes.

“You didn’t suppose I should abuse him, did you?... How exactly like Frank! I suppose he did it to save some blackguard or other.”

“I expect that was it,” said Jack.

“Poor, dear old boy!” she said again.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Jack began again:

“You see, I’ve got to go and tell Lord Talgarth. Miss Launton, I wish you’d come with me. Then we can both write by to-night’s post.”

Jenny said nothing for an instant. Then:

“I suppose that would be best,” she said. “Shall we go up pretty soon? I expect we shall find him in the garden.”

Jack winced a little. Jenny smiled at him openly.

“Best to get it over, Mr. Jack. I know it’s like going to the dentist. But it can’t be as bad as you think. It never is. Besides, you’ll have somebody to hold your hand, so to speak.”

“I hope I shan’t scream out loud,” observed Jack. “Yes, we’d better go—if you don’t mind.”

He stood up and waited. Jenny rose at once.

“I’ll go and get a hat. Wait for me here, will you? I needn’t tell father till this evening.”

II

The park looked delicious as they walked slowly up the grass under the shade of the trees by the side of the drive. The great beeches and elms rose in towering masses, in clump after clump, into the distance, and beneath the nearest stood a great stag with half a dozen hinds about him, eyeing the walkers. The air was very still; only from over the hill came the sound of a single church bell, where some infatuated clergyman hoped to gather the lambs of his flock together for instruction in the Christian religion.

“That’s a beauty,” said Jack, waving a languid hand towards the stag. “Did you ever hear of the row Frank and I got into when we were boys?”

Jenny smiled. She had been quite silent since leaving the Rectory.

“I heard of a good many,” she said. “Which was this?”

Jack recounted a story of Red Indians and ambuscades and a bow and arrows, ending in the flight of a frantic stag over the palings and among the garden beds; it was on a Sunday afternoon, too.

“Frank was caned by the butler, I remember; by Lord Talgarth’s express orders. Certainly he richly deserved it. I was a guest, and got off clear.”

“How old were you?”

“We were both about eleven, I think.”

“Frank doesn’t strike me as more than about twelve now,” observed Jenny.

“There’s something in that,” admitted Jack.... “Oh! Lord! how hot it is!” He fanned himself with his hat.

There was no sign of life as they passed into the court and up to the pillared portico; and at last, when the butler appeared, the irregular state of his coat-collar showed plainly that he but that moment had put his coat on.

(This would be about the time that Frank left the village after his interview with the priest.)

Yes; it seemed that Lord Talgarth was probably in the garden; and, if so, almost certainly in the little square among the yews along the upper terrace. His lordship usually went there on hot days. Would Miss Launton and Mr. Kirkby kindly step this way?

No; he was not to trouble. They would find their own way. On the upper terrace?

“On the upper terrace, miss.”

The upper terrace was the one part of the old Elizabethan garden left entirely unaltered. On either side rose up a giant wall of yew, shaped like a castle bastion, at least ten feet thick; and between the two ran a broad gravel path up to the sun-dial, bordered on either side by huge herbaceous beds, blazing with the color of late summer. In two or three places grass paths crossed these, leading by a few yards of turf to windows cut in the hedge to give a view of the long, dazzling lake below, and there was one gravel path, parallel to these, that led to the little yew-framed square built out on the slope of the hill.

Two very silent persons now came out from the house by the garden door on the south side, turned along the path, went up a dozen broad steps, passed up the yew walk and finally turned again down the short gravel way and stood abashed.

His lordship was indeed here!

A long wicker chair was set in one angle, facing them, in such a position that the movement of the sun would not affect the delightful shade in which the chair stood. A small table stood beside it, with the Times newspaper tumbled on to it, a box of cigars, a spirit-bottle of iridescent glass, a syphon, and a tall tumbler in which a little ice lay crumbled at the bottom. And in the wicker chair, with his mouth wide open, slept Lord Talgarth.

“Good gracious!” whispered Jenny.

There was a silence, and then like far-off thunder a slow meditative snore. It was not an object of beauty or dignity that they looked upon.

“In one second I shall laugh,” asserted Jenny, still in a cautious whisper.

“I think we’d better—” began Jack; and stopped petrified, to see one vindictive-looking eye opened and regarding him, it seemed, with an expression of extraordinary malignity. Then the other eye opened, the mouth abruptly closed and Lord Talgarth sat up.

“God bless my soul!”

He rolled his eyes about a moment while intelligence came back.

“You needn’t be ashamed of it,” said Jenny. “Mr. Jack Kirkby caught me at it, too, half an hour ago.”

His lordship’s senses had not even now quite returned. He still stared at them innocently like a child, cleared his throat once or twice, and finally stood up.

“Jack Kirkby, so it is! How do, Jack? And Jenny?

“That’s who we are,” said Jenny. “Are you sure you’re quite recovered?”

“Recovered! Eh—!” (He emitted a short laugh.) “Sit down. There’s chairs somewhere.”

Jack hooked out a couple that were leaning folded against the low wall of yew beneath the window and set them down.

“Have a cigar, Jack?”

“No, thanks.”

They were on good terms—these two. Jack shot really well, and was smart and deferential. Lord Talgarth asked no more than this from a young man.

“Well—what’s the matter?”

Jack left it thoughtfully for Jenny to open the campaign. She did so very adroitly.

“Mr. Jack came over to see me,” she said, “and I thought I couldn’t entertain him better than by bringing him up to see you. You haven’t such a thing as a cigarette, Lord Talgarth?”

He felt about in his pockets, drew out a case and pushed it across the table.

“Thanks,” said Jenny; and then, without the faintest change of tone: “We’ve some news of Frank at last.”

“Frank, eh? Have you? And what’s the young cub at, now?”

“He’s in trouble, as usual, poor boy!” remarked Jenny, genially. “He’s very well, thank you, and sends you his love.”

Lord Talgarth cast her a pregnant glance.

“Well, if he didn’t, I’m sure he meant to,” went on Jenny; “but I expect he forgot. You see, he’s been in prison.”

The old man jerked such a face at her, that even her nerve failed for an instant. Jack saw her put her cigarette up to her mouth with a hand that shook ever so slightly. And yet before the other could say one word she recovered herself.

“Please let me say it right out to the end first,” she said. “No; please don’t interrupt! Mr. Jack, give me the letter ... oh! I’ve got it.” (She drew it out and began to unfold it, talking all the while with astonishing smoothness and self-command.) “And I’ll read you all the important part. It’s written to Mr. Kirkby. He got it this morning and very kindly brought it straight over here at once.”

Jack was watching like a terrier. On the one side he saw emotions so furious and so conflicting that they could find no expression, and on the other a restraint and a personality so complete and so compelling that they simply held the field and permitted no outburst. Her voice was cool and high and natural. Then he noticed her flick a glance at himself, sideways, and yet perfectly intelligible. He stood up.

“Yes, do just take a stroll, Mr. Kirkby.... Come back in ten minutes.”

And as he passed out again through the thick archway on to the terrace he heard, in an incredibly matter-of-fact voice, the letter begin.

“Dear Jack....”

Then he began to wonder what, as a matter of interest, Lord Talgarth’s first utterance would be. But he felt he could trust Jenny to manage him. She was an astonishingly sane and sensible girl.

III

He was at the further end of the terrace, close beneath the stable wall, when the stable clock struck the quarter for the second time. That would make, he calculated, about seventeen minutes, and he turned reluctantly to keep his appointment. But he was still thirty yards away from the opening when a white figure in a huge white hat came quickly out. She beckoned to him with her head, and he followed her down the steps. She gave him one glance as if to reassure him as he caught her up, but said not a word, good or bad, till they had passed through the house again, and were well on their way down the drive.

“Well?” said Jack.

Jenny hesitated a moment.

“I suppose anyone else would have called him violent,” she said. “Poor old dear! But it seems to me he behaved rather well on the whole—considering all things.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“If one took anything he said as containing any truth at all, it would mean that he was going to flog Frank with his own hands, kick him first up the steps of the house then down again, and finally drown him in the lake with a stone round his neck. I think that was the sort of programme.”

“But—”

“Oh! we needn’t be frightened,” said Jenny. “But if you ask me what he will do, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Did you suggest anything?”

“He knows what my views are,” said jenny.

“And those?”

“Well—make him a decent allowance and let him alone.”

“He won’t do that!” said Jack. “That’s far too sensible.”

“You think so?”

“That would solve the whole problem, of course,” went on Jack, “marriage and everything. I suppose it would have to be about eight hundred a year. And Talgarth must have at least thirty thousand.”

“Oh! he’s more than that,” said Jenny. “He gives Mr. Dick twelve hundred.”

There was a pause. Jack did not know what to think. He was only quite certain that the thing would have been far worse if he had attempted to manage it himself.

“Well, what shall I say to Frank?” he asked. Jenny paused again.

“It seems to me the best thing for you to do is not to write. I’ll write myself this evening, if you’ll give me his address, and explain—”

“I can’t do that,” said Jack. “I’m awfully sorry, but—”

“You can’t give me his address?”

“No, I’m afraid I mustn’t. You see, Frank’s very particular in his letter....”

“Then how can I write to him? Mr. Kirkby, you’re really rather—”

“By George! I’ve got it!” cried Jack. “If you don’t mind my waiting at the Rectory. Why shouldn’t you write to him now, and let me take the letter away and post it? It’ll go all the quicker, too, from Barham.”

He glanced at her, wondering whether she were displeased. Her answer reassured him.

“That’ll do perfectly,” she said, “if you’re sure you don’t mind waiting.”

The Rectory garden seemed more than ever a harbor from storm as they turned into it. The sun was a little lower now, and the whole lawn lay in shadow. As they came to the door she stopped.

“I think I’d better go and get it over,” she said. “I can tell father all about it after you’ve gone. Will you go now and wait there?” She nodded towards the seat where they had sat together earlier.

But it was nearly an hour before she came out again, and a neat maid, in apron and cap, had come discreetly out with the tea-things, set them down and retired.

Jack had been thinking of a hundred things, which all centered round one—Frank. He had had a real shock this morning. It had been intolerable to think of Frank in prison, for even Jack could guess something of what that meant to him; and the tone of the letter had been so utterly unlike what he had been accustomed to from his friend. He would have expected a bubbling torrent of remarks—wise and foolish—full of personal descriptions and unkind little sketches. And, indeed, there had come this sober narration of facts and requests....

But in all this there was one deep relief—that it should be a girl like Jenny who was the heart of the situation. If she had been in the least little bit disturbed, who could tell what it would mean to Frank? For Frank, as he knew perfectly well, had a very deep heart indeed, and had enshrined Jenny in the middle of it. Any wavering or hesitation on her part would have meant misery to his friend. But now all was perfectly right, he reflected; and really, after all, it did not matter very much what Lord Talgarth said or did. Frank was a free agent; he was very capable and very lovable; it couldn’t possibly be long before something turned up, and then, with Jenny’s own money the two could manage very well. And Lord Talgarth could not live for ever; and Archie would do the right thing, even if his father didn’t.

It was after half-past four before he looked up at a glint of white and saw Jenny standing at the drawing-room window. She stood there an instant with a letter in her hand; then she stepped over the low sill and came towards him across the grass, serene and dignified and graceful. Her head was bare again, and the great coils of her hair flashed suddenly as they caught a long horizontal ray from the west.

“Here it is,” she said. “Will you direct it? I’ve told him everything.”

Jack nodded.

“That’s excellent!” he said. “It shall go to-night.”

He glanced up at her and saw her looking at him with just the faintest wistfulness. He understood perfectly, he said to himself: she was still a little unhappy at not being allowed to send the letter herself. What a good girl she was!

“Have some tea before you go?” she said.

“Thanks. I’d better not. They’ll be wondering what’s happened to me.”

As he shook hands he tried to put something of his sympathy into his look. He knew exactly how she was feeling, and he thought her splendidly brave. But she hardly met his eyes, and again he felt he knew why.

As he opened the garden gate beyond the house he turned once more to wave. But she was busy with the tea-things, and a black figure was advancing briskly upon her from the direction of the study end of the house.

CHAPTER VII

I

Life had been a little difficult for the Major for the last fortnight or so. Not only was Frank’s material and moral support lacking to him, but the calls upon him, owing to Gertie’s extreme unreasonableness, had considerably increased. He had explained to her, over and over again, with a rising intensity each time, how unselfishly he had acted throughout, how his sole thought had been for her in his recent course of action. It would never have done, he explained pacifically, for a young man like Frank to have the responsibility of a young girl like Gertie on his hands, while he (the Major) was spending a fortnight elsewhere. And, in fact, even on the most economical grounds he had acted for the best, since it had been himself who had been charged in the matter of the tin of salmon, it would not have been a fortnight, but more like two months, during which the little community would have been deprived of his labor. He reminded her that Frank had had a clean record up to that time with the police....

But explanation had been fruitless. Gertie had even threatened a revelation of the facts of the case at the nearest police-station, and the Major had been forced to more manly tactics with her. He had not used a stick; his hands had served him very well, and in the course of his argument he had made a few insincere remarks on the mutual relations of Frank and Gertie that the girl remembered.

He had obtained a frugal little lodging in one of the small streets of York, down by the river—indeed looking straight on to it; and, for a wonder, five days’ regular work at the unloading of a string of barges. The five days expired on the Saturday before Frank was expected, but he had several shillings in hand on the Sunday morning when Frank’s letter arrived, announcing that he hoped to be with them again on Sunday night or Monday morning. Two letters, also, had arrived for his friend on the Sunday morning—one in a feminine handwriting and re-directed, with an old postmark of June, as well as one of the day before—he had held it up to the light and crackled it between his fingers, of course, upon receiving it—and the other an obvious bill—one postmark was Cambridge and the other Barham. He decided to keep them both intact. Besides, Gertie had been present at their delivery.

The Major spent, on the whole, an enjoyable Sunday. He lay in bed till a little after twelve o’clock, with a second-hand copy of the Sporting Times, and a tin of tobacco beside him. They dined at about one o’clock, and he managed to get a little spirit to drink with his meal. He had walked out—not very far—with Gertie in the afternoon, and had managed by representing himself as having walked seven miles—he was determined not to risk anything by foolishly cutting it too fine—to obtain a little more. They had tea about six, and ate, each of them, a kippered herring and some watercress. Then about seven o’clock Frank suddenly walked in and sat down.

“Give me something to eat and drink,” he said.

He looked, indeed, extraordinarily strained and tired, and sat back on the upturned box by the fireplace as if in exhaustion. He explained presently when Gertie had cooked another herring, and he had drunk a slop-basinful of tea, that he had walked fasting since breakfast, but he said nothing about the priest. The Major with an air of great preciseness measured out half a finger of whisky and insisted, with the air of a paternal doctor, upon his drinking it immediately.

“And now a cigarette, for God’s sake,” said Frank. “By the way, I’ve got some work for to-morrow.”

“That’s first-rate, my boy,” said the Major. “I’ve been working myself this week.”

Frank produced his fourpence and laid it on the corner of the table.

“That’s for supper and bed to-night,” he said.

“Nonsense, my boy; put it back in your pocket.”

“Kindly take that fourpence,” remarked Frank. “You can add some breakfast to-morrow, if you like.”

He related his adventures presently—always excepting the priest—and described how he had met a man at the gate of a builder’s yard this evening as he came through York, who had promised him a day’s job, and if things were satisfactory, more to follow.

“He seemed a decent chap,” said Frank.

The Major and Gertie had not much to relate. They had left the market-town immediately after Frank’s little matter in the magistrates’ court, and had done pretty well, arriving in York ten days ago. They hardly referred to Frank’s detention, though he saw Gertie looking at him once or twice in a curiously shy kind of way, and understood what was in her mind. But for very decency’s sake the Major had finally to say something.

“By the way, my boy, I won’t forget what you did for me and for my little woman here. I’m not a man of many words, but—”

“Oh! that’s all right,” said Frank sleepily. “You’ll do as much for me one day.”

The Major assented with fervor and moist eyes. It was not till Frank stood up to go to bed that anyone remembered the letters.

“By the way, there are two letters come for you,” said the Major, hunting in the drawer of the table. Frank’s bearing changed. He whisked round in an instant.

“Where are they?”

They were put into his hand. He looked at them carefully, trying to make out the postmark—turned them upside down and round, but he made no motion to open them.

“Where am I to sleep?” he said suddenly. “And can you spare a bit of candle?”

(And as he went upstairs, it must have been just about the time that the letter-box at Barham was cleared for the late Sunday post.)

II

Frank lay a long time awake in the dark that night, holding tight in his hand Jenny’s letter, written to him in June. The bill he had not even troubled to open.

For the letter said exactly and perfectly just all those things which he most wished to hear, in the manner in which he wished to hear them. It laughed at him gently and kindly; it called him an extraordinarily silly boy; it said that his leaving Cambridge, and, above all, his manner of leaving it—Frank had added a postscript describing his adventure with the saddle and the policeman—were precisely what the writer would have expected of him; it made delightful and humorous reflections upon the need of Frank’s turning over a new leaf—there was quite a page of good advice; and finally it gave him a charming description—just not over the line of due respect—of his father’s manner of receiving the news, with extracts from some of the choicest remarks made upon that notable occasion. It occupied four closely-written pages, and if there were, running underneath it all, just the faintest taint of strain and anxiety, loyally concealed—well—that made the letter no less pleasant.

I have not said a great deal about what Jenny meant to Frank, just because he said so very little about her himself. She was, in fact, almost the only element in his variegated life upon which he had not been in the habit of pouring out torrential comments and reflections. His father and Archie were not at all spared in his conversation with his most intimate friends; in fact, he had been known, more than once, in a very select circle at Cambridge, to have conducted imaginary dialogues between those two on himself as their subject, and he could imitate with remarkable fidelity his Cousin Dick over a billiard-table. But he practically never mentioned Jenny; he had not even a photograph of her on his mantelpiece. And it very soon became known among his friends, when the news of his engagement leaked out through Jack, that it was not to be spoken of in his presence. He had preserved the same reticence, it may be remembered, about his religion.

And so Frank at last fell asleep on a little iron bedstead, just remembering that it was quite possible he might have another letter from her to-morrow, if Jack had performed his commission immediately. But he hardly expected to hear till Tuesday.

Gertie was up soon after five next morning to get breakfast for her men, since the Major had announced that he would go with Frank to see whether possibly there might not be a job for him too; and as soon as they had gone, very properly went to sleep again on the bed in the sitting-room.

Gertie had a strenuous time of it, in spite of the Major’s frequently expressed opinion that women had no idea what work was. For, first, there was the almost unending labor of providing food and cooking it as well as possible; there was almost a standing engagement of mending and washing clothes; there were numerous arguments to be conducted, on terms of comparative equality, if possible, with landladies or farmers’ wives—Gertie always wore a brass wedding-ring and showed it sometimes a little ostentatiously; and, finally, when the company was on the march, it was only fair that she should carry the heavier half of the luggage, in order to compensate for her life of luxury and ease at other times. Gertie, then, was usually dog-tired, and slept whenever she could get a chance.

It was nearly eight o’clock before she was awakened again by sharp knocking on her door; and on opening it, found the landlady’ standing there, examining a letter with great attention. (It had already been held up to the light against the kitchen window.)

“For one of your folks, isn’t it, Mrs.—er—” Gertie took it. It was written on excellent paper, and directed in a man’s handwriting to Mr. Gregory:

“Thank you, Mrs.—er—” said Gertie.

Then she went back into her room, put the letter carefully away in the drawer of the table and set about her household business.

About eleven o’clock she stepped out for a little refreshment. She had, of course, a small private exchequer of her own, amounting usually to only a few pence, of which the Major knew nothing. This did not strike her as at all unfair; she only wondered gently sometimes at masculine innocence in not recognizing that such an arrangement was perfectly certain. She got into conversation with some elder ladies, who also had stepped out for refreshment, and had occasion, at a certain point, to lay her wedding-ring on the bar-counter for exhibition. So it was not until a little after twelve that she remembered the time and fled. She was not expecting her men home to dinner; in fact, she had wrapped up provisions for them in fragments of the Major’s Sporting Times before they had left; but it was safer to be at home. One never knew.

As she came into the room, for an instant her heart leaped into her mouth, but it was only Frank.

“Whatever’s the matter?” she said.

“Turned off,” said Frank shortly. He was sitting gloomily at the table with his hands in his pockets.

“Turned off?”

He nodded.

“What’s up?”

“‘Tecs,” said Frank.

Gertie’s mouth opened a little.

“One of them saw me going in and wired for instructions. He had seen the case in the police-news and thought I answered to the description. Then he came back at eleven and told the governor.”

“And—”

“Yes.”

There was a pause.

“And George?”

“Oh! he’s all right,” said Frank a little bitterly. “There’s nothing against him. Got any dinner, Gertie? I can’t pay for it ... oh, yes, I can; here’s half a day.” (He chucked ninepence upon the table; the sixpence rolled off again, but he made no movement to pick it up.)

Gertie looked at him a moment.

“Well—” she began emphatically, then she stooped to pick up the sixpence.

Frank sighed.

“Oh! don’t begin all that—there’s a good girl. I’ve said it all myself—quite adequately, I assure you.”

Gertie’s mouth opened again. She laid the sixpence on the table.

“I mean, there’s nothing to be said,” explained Frank. “The point is—what’s to be done?”

Gertie had no suggestions. She began to scrape out the frying-pan in which the herrings had been cooked last night.

“There’s a letter for you,” she said suddenly.

Frank sat up.

“Where?”

“In the drawer there—by your hand. Frankie....”

Frank tore at the handle and it came off. He uttered a short exclamation. Then, with infinite craft he fitted the handle in again, wrapped in yet one more scrap of the Sporting Times, and drew out the drawer. His face fell abruptly as he saw the handwriting.

“That can wait,” he muttered, and chucked the letter face downwards on to the table.

“Frankie,” said the girl again, still intent on her frying-pan.

“Well?”

“It’s all my fault,” she said in a low voice.

“Your fault! How do you make that out?”

“If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have taken the tin from George, and....”

“Oh, Lord!” said Frank, “if we once begin on that!... And if it hadn’t been for George, he wouldn’t have taken the tin; and if it hadn’t been for Maggie Cooper, there wouldn’t have been the tin; and if it hadn’t been for Maggie’s father’s sister, she wouldn’t have gone out with it. It’s all Maggie’s father’s sister’s fault, my dear! It’s nothing to do with you.”

The words were brisk enough, but the manner was very heavy. It was like repeating a lesson learned in childhood.

“That’s all right,” began Gertie again, “but—”

“My dear girl, I shall be annoyed if you go back to all that. Why can’t you let it alone? The point is, What’s to happen? I can’t go on sponging on you and the Major.”

Gertie flushed under her tan.

“If you ever leave us,” she said, “I’ll—”

“Well?”

“I’ll ... I’ll never leave George.”

Frank was puzzled for a moment. It seemed a non sequitur.

“Do you mean—”

“I’ve got me eyes,” said Gertie emphatically, “and I know what you’re thinking, though you don’t say much. And I’ve been thinking, too.”

Frank felt a faint warmth rise in his own heart. “You mean you’ve been thinking over what I said the other day?”

Gertie bent lower over her frying-pan and scraped harder than ever.

“Do stop that confounded row one second!” shouted Frank.

The noise stopped abruptly. Gertie glanced up and down again. Then she began again, more gently.

“That’s better,” said Frank.... “Well, I hope you have,” he went on paternally. “You’re a good girl, Gertie, and you know better. Go on thinking about it, and tell me when you’ve made up your mind. When’ll dinner be ready?”

“Half an hour,” said Gertie.

“Well, I’ll go out for a bit and look round.”

He took up the letter carelessly and went out.

III

As he passed the window Gertie glanced towards it with the corner of her eye. Then, frying-pan still in hand, she crept up to the angle and watched him go down the quay.

A very convenient barrel was set on the extreme edge of the embankment above the water, with another beside it, and Frank made for this immediately. She saw him sit on one of the barrels and put the letter, still unopened, on the top of the other. Then he fumbled in his pockets a little, and presently a small blue cloud of smoke went upwards like incense. Gertie watched him for an instant, but he did not move again. Then she went back to her frying-pan.

Twenty minutes later dinner was almost ready.

Gertie had spread upon the table, with great care, one of the Major’s white pocket-handkerchiefs. He insisted upon those being, not only retained, but washed occasionally, and Gertie understood something of his reasons, since in the corner of each was embroidered a monogram, of which the letters were not “G.T.” But she never could make out what they were.

Upon this tablecloth she had placed on one side a black-handled fork with two prongs, and a knife of the same pattern (this was for Frank) and on the other a small pewter tea-spoon and a knife, of which the only handle was a small iron spike from which the wood had fallen away. (This was for herself.) Then there was a tooth-glass for Frank, and a teacup—without a handle, but with a gold flower in the middle of it, to make up—for herself. In the center of the pocket-handkerchief stood a crockery jug, with a mauve design of York Minster, with a thundercloud behind it and a lady and gentleman with a child bowling a hoop in front of it. This was the landlady’s property, and was half full of beer. Besides all this, there were two plates, one of a cold blue color, with a portrait of the Prince Consort, whiskers and hat complete, in a small medallion in the center, and the other white, with a representation of the Falls of Lodore. There was no possibility of mistaking any of the subjects treated upon these various pieces of table-ware, since the title of each was neatly printed, in various styles, just below the picture.

Gertie regarded this array with her head on one side. It was not often that they dined in such luxury. She wished she had a flower to put in the center. Then she stirred the contents of the frying-pan with an iron spoon, and went again to the window.

The figure on the barrel had not moved; but even as she looked she saw him put out his hand to the letter. She watched him. She saw him run a finger inside the envelope, and toss the envelope over the edge of the quay. Then she saw him unfold the paper inside and become absorbed.

This would never do. Gertie’s idea of a letter was that it occupied at least several minutes to read through; so she went out quickly to the street door to call him in.

She called him, and he did not turn his head, nor even answer.

She called him again.

IV

The letter that Frank read lies, too, with a few other papers, before me as I write.

It runs as follows:

“My Dear Frank,

“I know you won’t like what I have to say, but it has to be said. Believe me, it costs me as much to write as you to read—perhaps more.

“It is this: Our engagement must be at an end.

“You have a perfect right to ask me for reasons, so I will give them at once, as I don’t want to open the subject again. It would do no kind of good. My mind is absolutely made up.

“My main reason is this: When I became engaged to you I did not know you properly. I thought you were quite different from what you are. I thought that underneath all your nice wildness, and so on, there was a very solid person. And I hinted that, you will remember, in my first letter, which I suppose you have received just before this. And now I simply can’t think that any longer.

“I don’t in the least blame you for being what you are: that’s not my business. But I must just say this—that a man who can do what you’ve done, not only for a week or two, as I thought at first, as a sort of game, but for nearly three months, and during that time could leave me with only three or four postcards and no news; above all, a man who could get into such disgrace and trouble, and actually go to prison, and yet not seem to mind much—well, it isn’t what I had thought of you.

“You see, there are a whole lot of things together. It isn’t just this or that, but the whole thing.

“First you became a Catholic, without telling me anything until just before. I didn’t like that, naturally, but I didn’t say anything. It isn’t nice for a husband and wife to be of different religions. Then you ran away from Cambridge; then you got mixed up with this man you speak of in your letter to Jack; and you must have been rather fond of him, you know, to go to prison for him, as I suppose you did. And yet, after all that, I expect you’ve gone to meet him again in York. And then there’s the undeniable fact of prison.

“You see, it’s all these things together—one after another. I have defended you to your father again and again; I haven’t allowed anybody to abuse you without standing up for you; but it really has gone too far. You know I did half warn you in that other letter. I know you couldn’t have got it till just now, but that wasn’t my fault; and the letter shows what I was thinking, even three months ago.

“Don’t be too angry with me, Frank. I’m very fond of you still, and I shall always stand up for you when I can. And please don’t answer this in any way. Jack Kirkby isn’t answering just yet. I asked him not, though he doesn’t know why.

“Your father is going to send the news that the engagement is broken off to the newspapers.

“Yours sincerely,

“Jenny Launton.”

PART II

CHAPTER I

I

Barham, as all Yorkshire knows, lies at the foot of a long valley, where it emerges into the flatter district round Harrogate. It has a railway all to itself, which goes no further, for Barham is shut in on the north by tall hills and moors, and lies on the way to nowhere. It is almost wholly an agricultural town, and has a curious humped bridge, right in the middle of the town, where men stand about on market days and discuss the price of bullocks. It has two churches—one, disused, on a precipitous spur above the town, surrounded by an amazingly irregular sort of churchyard, full, literally, to bursting (the Kirkbys lie there, generation after generation of them, beneath pompous tombs), and the other church a hideous rectangular building, with flat walls and shallow, sham Gothic windows. It was thought extremely beautiful when it was built forty years ago. The town itself is an irregular and rather picturesque place, with a twisting steep High Street, looking as if a number of houses had been shot at random into this nook among the hills and left to find their own levels.

The big house where the Kirkbys have lived since the middle of the seventeenth century is close to the town, as the squire’s house ought to be, and its park gates open right upon the northern end of the old bridge. There’s nothing of great interest in the house (I believe there is an old doorway in the cellar, mentioned in guide-books), since it was rebuilt about the same time as the new church first rose. It is just a big, comfortable, warm, cool, shady sort of house, with a large hall and a fine oak staircase, surrounded by lawns and shrubberies, that adjoin on the west the lower slopes, first of the park and then of the moors that stretch away over the horizon.

There is a pleasant feudal air about the whole place—feudal, in a small and neighborly kind of way. Jack’s father died just a year before his only son came of age; and Jack himself, surrounded by sisters and an excellent and beneficently-minded mother, has succeeded to all the immemorial rights and powers, written and unwritten, of the Squire of Barham. He entertained me delightfully for three or four days a few months ago, when I was traveling about after Frank’s footsteps, and I noticed with pleasure as we drove through the town that there was hardly a living creature in the town whom he did not salute; and who did not salute him.

He took me first to the bridge and pulled up in the middle of it, to point out a small recess in it, over the central pier, intended, no doubt, to give shelter to foot-passengers before the bridge was widened, in case a large vehicle came through.

“There,” he said. “That’s the place I first saw Frank when he came.”

We drove on up through the town, and at the foot of the almost precipitous hill leading up to the ruined church we got out, leaving the dog-cart in charge of the groom. We climbed the hill slowly, for it was a hot day, Jack uttering reminiscences at intervals (many of which are recorded in these pages) and turned in at the churchyard gate.

“And this was the place,” said Jack, “where I said good-by to him.”

II

It was on the twenty-fifth of September, a Monday, that Jack sat in the smoking-room, in Norfolk jacket and gaiters, drinking tea as fast as he possibly could. He had been out on the moors all day, and was as thirsty as the moors could make him, and he had been sensual enough to smoke a cigarette deliberately before beginning tea, in order to bring his thirst to an acute point.

Then, the instant he had finished he snatched for his case again, for this was to be the best cigarette of the whole day, and discovered that his sensuality had overreached itself for once, and that there were none left. He clutched at the silver box with a sinking heart, half-remembering that he had filled his case with the last of them this morning. It was a fact, and he knew that there were no others in the house.

This would never do, and he reflected that if he sent a man for some more, he would not get them for at least twenty minutes. (Jack never could understand why an able-bodied footman always occupied twenty minutes in a journey that ought to take eight.) So he put on his cap again, stepped out of the low window and set off down the drive.

It was getting a little dark as he passed out of the lodge-gates. The sun, of course, had set at least an hour before behind the great hill to the west, but the twilight proper was only just beginning. He was nearly at the place now, and as he breasted the steep ascent of the bridge, peered over it, at least with his mind’s eye, at the tobacconist’s shop—first on the left—where a store of “Mr. Jack’s cigarettes” was always on hand.

He noticed in the little recess I have just spoken of a man leaning with his elbows on the parapet, and staring out up the long reach of the stream to the purple evening moors against the sky and the luminous glory itself; and as he came opposite him, wondered vaguely who it was and whether he knew him. Then, as he got just opposite him, he stopped, uneasy at heart.

Naturally Frank was never very far away from Jack’s thoughts just now—ever since, indeed, he had heard the news in a very discreet letter from the Reverend James Launton a week or two ago. (I need not say he had answered this letter, not to the father, but to the daughter, but had received no reply.)

He had written a frantic letter to Frank himself then, but it had been returned, marked: “Unknown at this address.” And ever since he had eyed all tramps on the road with an earnestness that elicited occasionally a salute, and occasionally an impolite remark.

The figure whose back he saw now certainly was not much like Frank; but then—again—it was rather like him. It was dressed in a jacket and trousers so stained with dust and wet as to have no color of their own at all, and a cloth cap of the same appearance. A bundle tied up in a red handkerchief, and a heavy stick, rested propped against an angle of the recess.

Jack cleared his throat rather loud and stood still, prepared to be admiring the view, in case of necessity; the figure turned an eye over its shoulder, then faced completely round; and it was Frank Guiseley.

Jack for the first instant said nothing at all, but stood transfixed, with his mouth a little open and his eyes staring. Frank’s face was sunburned almost beyond recognition, his hair seemed cut shorter than usual, and the light was behind him.

Then Jack recovered.

“My dear man,” he said, “why the—”

He seized him by the hands and held him, staring at him.

“Yes; it’s me all right,” said Frank. “I was just wondering—”

“Come along, instantly.... Damn! I’ve got to go to a tobacconist’s; it’s only just here. There isn’t a cigarette in the house. Come with me?”

“I’ll wait here,” said Frank.

“Will you? I shan’t be a second.”

It was, as a matter of fact, scarcely one minute before Jack was back; he had darted in, snatched a box from the shelf and vanished, crying out to “put it down to him.” He found Frank had faced round again and was staring at the water and sky and high moors. He snatched up his friend’s bundle and stick.

“Come along,” he said, “we shall have an hour or two before dinner.”

Frank, in silence, took the bundle and stick from him again, firmly and irresistibly, and they did not speak again till they were out of ear-shot of the lodge. Then Jack began, taking Frank’s arm—a custom for which he had often been rebuked.

“My dear old man!” he said. “I ... I can’t say what I feel. I know the whole thing, of course, and I’ve expressed my mind plainly to Miss Jenny.”

“Yes?”

“And to your father. Neither have answered, and naturally I haven’t been over again.... Dick’s been there, by the way.”

Frank made no comment.

“You look simply awful, old chap,” pursued Jack cheerily. “Where on earth have you been for the last month? I wrote to York and got the letter returned.”

“Oh! I’ve been up and down,” said Frank impassively.

“With the people you were with before—the man, I mean?”

“No. I’ve left them for the present. But I shall probably join them again later.”

“Join...!” began the other aghast.

“Certainly! This thing’s only just begun,” said Frank, with that same odd impassivity. “We’ve seen the worst of it, I fancy.”

“But you don’t mean you’re going back! Why, it’s ridiculous!”

Frank stopped. They were within sight of the house now and the lights shone pleasantly out.

“By the way, Jack, I quite forgot. You will kindly give me your promise to make no sort of effort to detain me when I want to go again, or I shan’t come any further.”

“But, my dear chap—”

“Kindly promise at once, please.”

“Oh, well! I promise, but—”

“That’s all right,” said Frank, and moved on.

“I say,” said Jack, as they came up to the hall door. “Will you talk now or will you change, or what?”

“I should like a hot bath first. By the way, have you anyone staying in the house?”

“Not a soul; and only two sisters at home. And my mother, of course.”

“What about clothes?”

“I’ll see about that. Come on round to the smoking-room window. Then I’ll get in Jackson and explain to him. I suppose you don’t mind your name being known? He’ll probably recognize you, anyhow.”

“Not in the least, so long as no one interferes.”

Jack rang the bell as soon as they came into the smoking-room, and Frank sat down in a deep chair. Then the butler came. He cast one long look at the astonishing figure in the chair.

“Oh!—er—Jackson, this is Mr. Frank Guiseley. He’s going to stay here. He’ll want some clothes and things. I rather think there are some suits of mine that might do. I wish you’d look them out.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?

“This is Mr. Frank Guiseley—of Merefield.... It is, really! But we don’t want more people talking than are necessary. You understand? Please don’t say anything about it, except that he’s come on a walking-tour. And please tell the housekeeper to get the Blue Room ready, and let somebody turn on the hot water in the bath-room until further notice. That’s all, Jackson ... and the clothes. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get the eau de lubin from my dressing-room and put it in the bath-room. Oh, yes; and the wooden bowl of soap.”

“These clothes of mine are not to be thrown away, please, Jackson,” said Frank gravely from the chair. “I shall want them again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s all, then,” said Jack.

Mr. Jackson turned stiffly and left the room.

“It’s all right,” said Jack. “You remember old Jackson. He won’t say a word. Lucky no one saw us as we came up.”

“It doesn’t matter much, does it?” said Frank.

There was a pause.

“I say, Frank, when will you tell me—”

“I’ll answer any questions after dinner to-night. I simply can’t talk now.”

Dinner was a little difficult that night.

Mrs. Kirkby had been subjected to a long lecture from her son during the half hour in which she ought to have been dressing, in order to have it firmly implanted in her mind that Frank—whom she had known from a boy—was simply and solely in the middle of a walking-tour all by himself. She understood the situation perfectly in a minute and a half—(she was a very shrewd woman who did not say much)—but Jack was not content. He hovered about her room, fingering photographs and silver-handled brushes, explaining over and over again how important it was that Frank should be made to feel at his case, and that Fanny and Jill—(who were just old enough to come to dinner in white high-necked frocks that came down to their very slender ankles, and thick pig-tails down their backs)—must not be allowed to bother him. Mrs. Kirkby said, “Yes, I understand,” about a hundred and thirty times, and glanced at the clock. She stood with one finger on the electric button for at least five minutes before venturing to ring for her maid, and it was only that lady’s discreet tap at one minute before eight that finally got Jack out of the room. He looked in on Frank in the middle of his dressing, found to his relief that an oldish suit of dress-clothes fitted him quite decently, and then went to put on his own. He came down to the drawing-room seven minutes after the gong with his ears very red and his hair in a plume, to find Frank talking to his mother, and eyed by his sisters who were pretending to look at photographs, with all the ease in the world.

But dinner itself was difficult. It was the obvious thing to talk about Frank’s “walking-tour”; and yet this was exactly what Jack dared not do. The state of the moors, and the deplorable ravages made among the young grouse by the early rains, occupied them all to the end of fish; to the grouse succeeded the bullocks: to the bullocks, the sheep, and, by an obvious connection—obvious to all who knew that gentleman—from the sheep to the new curate.

But just before the chocolate soufflée there came a pause, and Jill, the younger of the two sisters, hastened to fill the gap.

“Did you have a nice walking-tour, Mr. Guiseley?”

Frank turned to her politely.

“Yes, very nice, considering,” he said.

“Have you been alone all the time?” pursued Jill, conscious of a social success.

“Well, no,” said Frank. “I was traveling with a ... well, with a man who was an officer in the army. He was a major.”

“And did you—”

“That’s enough, Jill,” said her mother decidedly. “Don’t bother Mr. Guiseley. He’s tired with his walk.”

The two young men sat quiet for a minute or two after the ladies had left the room. Then Jack spoke.

“Well?” he said.

Frank looked up. There was an odd, patient kind of look in his eyes that touched Jack a good deal. Frank had not been distinguished for submissiveness hitherto.

“Oh! a bit later, if you don’t mind,” he said. “We can talk in the smoking-room.”

IV

“Well, I’ll tell you the whole thing as far as I understand it,” began Frank, as the door closed behind Jackson, who had brought whisky and candles. “And then I’ll answer any questions you want.”

He settled himself back in his chair, stretching out his legs and clasping his hands behind his head. Jack had a good view of him and could take notice of his own impressions, though he found them hard to put into words afterwards. The words he finally chose were “subdued” and “patient” again, and there are hardly two words that would have been less applicable to Frank three months before. At the same time his virility was more noticeable than ever; he had about him, Jack said, something of the air of a very good groom—a hard-featured and sharp, yet not at all unkindly look, very capable and, at the same time, very much restrained. There was no sentimental nonsense about him at all—his sorrow had not taken that form.

“Well, I needn’t talk much about Jenny’s last letter and what happened after that. I was entirely unprepared, of course. I hadn’t the faintest idea—Well, she was the one person about whom I had no doubts at all! I actually left the letter unread for a few minutes (the envelope was in your handwriting, you know)—because I had to think over what I had to do next. The police had got me turned away from a builder’s yard—”

Jack emitted a small sound. He was staring at Frank with all his eyes.

“Yes; that’s their way,” said Frank. “Well, when I read it, I simply couldn’t think any more at all for a time. The girl we were traveling with—she had picked up with the man I had got into trouble over, you know—the girl was calling me to dinner, she told me afterwards. I didn’t hear a sound. She came and touched me at last, and I woke up. But I couldn’t say anything. They don’t even now know what’s the matter. I came away that afternoon. I couldn’t even wait for the Major—”

“Eh?”

“The Major.... Oh! that’s what the chap calls himself. I don’t think he’s lying, either. I simply couldn’t stand him another minute just then. But I sent them a postcard that night—I forget where from; and—There aren’t any letters for me, are there?

“One or two bills.”

“Oh! well, I shall hear soon, I expect. I must join them again in a day or two. They’re somewhere in this direction, I know.”

“And what did you do?”

Frank considered.

“I’m not quite sure. I know I walked a great deal. People were awfully good to me. One woman stopped her motor—and I hadn’t begged, either—”

“You! Begged!”

“Lord, yes; lots of times.... Well, she gave me a quid, and I didn’t even thank her. And that lasted me very well, and I did a little work too, here and there.”

“But, good Lord! what did you do?”

“I walked. I couldn’t bear towns or people or anything. I got somewhere outside of Ripon at last, and went out on to the moors. I found an old shepherd’s hut for about a week or ten days—”

“And you—”

“Lived there? Yes. I mended the hut thoroughly before I came away. And then I thought I’d come on here.”

“What were you doing on the bridge?”

“Waiting till dark. I was going to ask at the lodge then whether you were at home.”

“And if I hadn’t been?”

“Gone on somewhere else, I suppose.”

Jack tried to help himself to a whisky and soda, but the soda flew out all over his shirt-front like a fountain, and he was forced to make a small remark. Then he made another.

“What about prison?”

Frank smiled.

“Oh! I’ve almost forgotten that. It was beastly at the time, though.”

“And ... and the Major and the work! Lord! Frank, you do tell a story badly.”

He smiled again much more completely.

“I’m too busy inside,” he said. “Those things don’t seem to matter much, somehow.”

“Inside? What the deuce do you mean?”

Frank made a tiny deprecating gesture.

“Well, what it’s all about, you know ... Jack.”

“Yes.”

“It’s a frightfully priggish thing to say, but I’m extraordinarily interested as to what’s going to happen next—inside, I mean. At least, sometimes; and then at other times I don’t care a hang.”

Jack looked bewildered, and said so tersely. Frank leaned forward a little.

“It’s like this, you see. Something or other has taken me in hand: I’m blessed if I know what. All these things don’t happen one on the top of the other just by a fluke. There’s something going on, and I want to know what it is. And I suppose something’s going to happen soon.”

“For God’s sake do say what you mean!”

“I can’t more than that. I tell you I don’t know. I only wish somebody could tell me.”

“But what does it all amount to? What are you going to do next?”

“Oh! I know that all right. I’m going to join the Major and Gertie again.”

“Frank!”

“Yes?... No, not a word, please. You promised you wouldn’t. I’m going to join those two again and see what happens.”

“But why?”

“That’s my job. I know that much. I’ve got to get that girl back to her people again. She’s not his wife, you know.”

“But what the devil—”

“It seems to me to matter a good deal. Oh! she’s a thoroughly stupid girl, and he’s a proper cad; but that doesn’t matter. It’s got to be done; or, rather, I’ve got to try to do it. I daresay I shan’t succeed, but that, again, doesn’t matter. I’ve got to do my job, and then we’ll see.”

Jack threw up his hands.

“You’re cracked!” he said.

“I daresay,” said Frank solemnly.

There was a pause. It seemed to Jack that the whole thing must be a dream. This simply wasn’t Frank at all. The wild idea came to him that the man who sat before him with Frank’s features was some kind of changeling. Mentally he shook himself.

“And what about Jenny?” he said.

Frank sat perfectly silent and still for an instant. Then he spoke without heat.

“I’m not quite sure,” he said. “Sometimes I’d like to ... well, to make her a little speech about what she’s done, and sometimes I’d like to crawl to her and kiss her feet—but both those things are when I’m feeling bad. On the whole, I think—though I’m not sure—that is not my business any more; in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s not. It’s part of the whole campaign and out of my hands. It’s no good talking about that any more. So please don’t, Jack.”

“One question?”

“Well?”

“Have you written to her or sent her a message?”

“No.”

“And I want to say one other thing. I don’t think it’s against the bargain.”

“Well?”

“Will you take five hundred pounds and go out to the colonies?”

Frank looked up with an amused smile.

“No, I won’t—thanks very much.... Am I in such disgrace as all that, then?”

“You know I don’t mean that,” said Jack quietly.

“No, old chap. I oughtn’t to have said that. I’m sorry.”

Jack waved a hand.

“I thought perhaps you’d loathe England, and would like—And you don’t seem absolutely bursting with pride, you know.”

“Honestly, I don’t think I am,” said Frank. “But England suits me very well—and there are the other two, you know. But I’ll tell you one thing you could do for me.”

“Yes?”

“Pay those extra bills. I don’t think they’re much.”

“That’s all right,” said Jack. “And you really mean to go on with it all?”

“Why, yes.”

V

The moors had been pretty well shot over already since the twelfth of August, but the two had a very pleasant day, for all that, a couple of days later. They went but with a keeper and half a dozen beaters—Frank in an old homespun suit of Jack’s, and his own powerful boots, and made a very tolerable bag. There was one dramatic moment, Jack told me, when they found that luncheon had been laid at a high point on the hills from which the great gray mass of Merefield and the shimmer of the lake in front of the house were plainly visible only eight miles away. The flag was flying, too, from the flagstaff on the old keep, showing, according to ancient custom, that Lord Talgarth was at home. Frank looked at it a minute or two with genial interest, and Jack wondered whether he had noticed, as he himself had, that even the Rectory roof could be made out, just by the church tower at the foot of the hill.

Neither said anything, but as the keeper came up to ask for orders as they finished lunch, he tactfully observed that there was a wonderful fine view of Merefield.

“Yes,” said Frank, “you could almost make out people with a telescope.”

The two were walking together alone as they dropped down, an hour before sunset, on to the upper end of Barham. They were both glowing with the splendid air and exercise, and were just in that state of weariness that is almost unmixed physical pleasure to an imaginative thinker who contemplates a hot bath, a quantity of tea, and a long evening in a deep chair. Frank still preserved his impassive kind of attitude towards things in general, but Jack noticed with gentle delight that he seemed more off his guard, and that he even walked with something more of an alert swing than he had on that first evening when they trudged up the drive together.

Their road led them past the gate of the old churchyard, and as they approached it, dropping their feet faster and faster down the steep slope, Jack noticed two figures sitting on the road-side, with their feet in the ditch—a man and a girl. He was going past them, just observing that the man had rather an unpleasant face, with a ragged mustache, and that the girl was sunburned, fair-haired and rather pretty, when he became aware that Frank had slipped behind him. The next instant he saw that Frank was speaking to them, and his heart dropped to zero.

“All right,” he heard Frank say, “I was expecting you. This evening, then.... I say, Jack!”

Jack turned.

“Jack, this is Major and Mrs. Trustcott, I told you of. This is my friend, Mr.—er—Mr. Jack.”

Jack bowed vaguely, overwhelmed with disgust.

“Very happy to make your acquaintance, sir,” said the Major, straightening himself in a military manner. “My good lady and I were resting here. Very pleasant neighborhood.”

“I’m glad you like it,” said Jack.

“Then, this evening,” said Frank again. “Can you wait an hour or two?”

“Certainly, my boy,” said the Major. “Time’s no consideration with us, as you know.”

(Jack perceived that this was being said at him, to show the familiarity this man enjoyed with his friend.)

“Would nine o’clock be too late?”

“Nine o’clock it shall be,” said the Major.

“And here?”

“Here.”

“So long, then,” said Frank. “Oh, by the way—” He moved a little closer to this appalling pair, and Jack stood off, to hear the sound of a sentence or two, and then the chink of money.

“So long, then,” said Frank again. “Come along, Jack; we must make haste.”

“Good-evening, sir,” cried the Major, but Jack made no answer.

“Frank, you don’t mean to tell me that those are the people?”

“That’s the Major and Gertie—yes.”

“And what was all that about this evening?”

“I must go, Jack. I’m sorry; but I told you it couldn’t be more than a few days at the outside.”

Jack was silent, but it was a hard struggle.

“By the way, how shall we arrange?” went on the other. “I can’t take these clothes, you know; and I can’t very well be seen leaving the house in my own.”

“Do as you like,” snapped Jack.

“Look here, old man, don’t be stuffy. How would it do if I took a bag and changed up in that churchyard? It’s locked up after dark, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got a key, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, that’s it. And I’ll leave the bag and the key in the hedge somewhere.”

Jack was silent.

Jack held himself loyally in hand that evening, but he could not talk much. He consented to explain to his mother that Frank had to be off after dinner that night, and he also visited the housekeeper’s room, and caused a small bundle, not much larger than a leg of mutton, including two small bottles which jingled together, to be wrapped up in brown paper—in which he inserted also a five-pound note (he knew Frank would not take more)—and the whole placed in the bag in which Frank’s old clothes were already concealed. For the rest of the evening he sat, mostly silent, in one chair, trying not to watch Frank in another; pretending to read, but endeavoring to picture to his imagination what he himself would feel like if he were about to join the Major and Gertie in the churchyard at nine o’clock.... Frank sat quite quiet all the evening, reading old volumes of Punch.

They dined at half-past seven, by request—Frank still in his homespun suit. Fanny and Jill were rather difficult. It seemed to them both a most romantic thing that this black-eyed, sunburned young man, with whom they had played garden-golf the day before, should really be continuing his amazing walking-tour, in company with two friends, at nine o’clock that very night. They wondered innocently why the two friends had not been asked to join them at dinner. It was exciting, too, and unusual, that this young man should dine in an old homespun suit. They asked a quantity of questions. Where was Mr. Guiseley going first? Frank didn’t quite know; Where would he sleep that night? Frank didn’t quite know; he would have to see. When was the walking-tour going to end? Frank didn’t quite know. Did he really like it? Oh, well, Frank thought it was a good thing to go on a walking tour, even if you were rather uncomfortable sometimes.

The leave-taking was unemotional. Jack had announced suddenly and loudly in the smoking-room before dinner that he was going to see the last of Frank, as far as the churchyard; Frank had protested, but had yielded. The rest had all said good-by to him in the hall, and at a quarter to nine the two young men went out into the darkness.

VI

It was a clear autumn night—a “wonderful night of stars”—and the skies blazed softly overhead down to the great blotted masses of the high moors that stood round Barham. It was perfectly still, too—the wind had dropped, and the only sound as the two walked down the park was the low talking of the stream over the stones beyond the belt of trees fifty yards away from the road.

Jack was sick at heart; but even so, he tells me, he was conscious that Frank’s silence was of a peculiar sort. He felt somehow as if his friend were setting out to some great sacrifice in which he was to suffer, and was only partly conscious of it—or, at least, so buoyed by some kind of exaltation or fanaticism as not to realize what he was doing. (He reminded me of a certain kind of dream that most people have now and then, of accompanying some friend to death: the friend goes forward, silent and exultant, and we cannot explain nor hold him back.

“That was the sort of feeling,” said Jack lamely.)

Jack had the grim satisfaction of carrying the bag in which, so to speak, the knife and fillet were hidden. He changed his mood half a dozen times even in that quarter of an hour’s walk through the town. Now the thing seemed horrible, like a nightmare; now absurdly preposterous; now rather beautiful; now perfectly ordinary and commonplace. After all, Jack argued with himself, there are such people as tramps, and they survive. Why should not Frank? He had gipsy blood in him, too. What in the world was he—Jack—frightened of?

“Do you remember our talking about your grandmother?” he said suddenly, as they neared the lodge.

“Yes. Why?”

“Only I’ve just thought of something else. Wasn’t one of your people executed under Elizabeth?”

“By gad, yes; so he was. I’d quite forgotten. It was being on the wrong side for once.”

“How—the wrong side?”

There was amusement in Frank’s voice as he answered.

“It was for religion,” he said. “He was a Papist. All the rest of them conformed promptly. They were a most accommodating lot. They changed each time without making any difficulty. I remember my governor telling us about it once. He thought them very sensible. And so they were, by George! from one point of view.”

“Has your religion anything to do with all this?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” said Frank, with an indifferent air.

There were a good many doors open in the High Street as they went up it, and Jack saluted half a dozen people mechanically as they touched their hats to him as he passed in the light from the houses.

“What does it feel like being squire?” asked Frank.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jack.

“Rather good fun, I should think,” said Frank.

They were nearing the steep part of the ascent presently, and the church clock struck nine.

“Bit late,” said Frank.

“When will you come again?” asked the other suddenly. “I’m here another fortnight, you know, and then at Christmas again. Come for Christmas if you can.”

“Ah! I don’t know where I shall be. Give my love to Cambridge, though.”

“Frank!”

“Yes?”

“Mayn’t I say what I think?”

“No!”

Ah! there was the roof of the old church standing out against the stars, and there could be no more talking. They might come upon the other two at any moment now. They went five steps further, and there, in the shadow of the gate, burned a dull red spot of fire, that kindled up as they looked, and showed for an instant the heavy eyes of the Major with a pipe in his mouth.

“Good-evening, sir,” came the military voice, and the girl rose to her feet beside him. “You’re just in time.”

“Good-evening,” said Jack dully.

“We’ve had a pleasant evening of it up here, Mr. Kirkby, after we’d stepped down and had a bit of supper at the ‘Crown.’”

“I suppose you heard my name there,” said Jack.

“Quite right, sir.”

“Give us the key,” said Frank abruptly.

He unlocked the door and pushed it back over the grass-grown gravel.

“Wait for me here, will you?” he said to Jack.

“I’m coming in. I’ll show you where to change.”

Twenty yards of an irregular twisted path, over which they stumbled two or three times, led them down to the little ruined doorway at the west end of the old church. Jack’s father had restored the place admirably, so far as restoration was possible, and there stood now, strong as ever, the old tower, roofed and floored throughout, abutting on the four roofless walls, within which ran the double row of column bases.

Jack struck a light, kindled a bicycle lamp he had brought with him, and led the way.

“Come in here,” he said.

Frank followed him into the room at the base of the tower and looked round.

“This looks all right,” he said. “It was a Catholic church once, I suppose?

“Yes; the parson says this was the old sacristy. They’ve found things here, I think—cupboards in the wall, and so on.”

“This’ll do excellently,” said Frank. “I shan’t be five minutes.”

Jack went out again without a word. He felt it was a little too much to expect him to see the change actually being made, and the garments of sacrifice put on. (It struck him with an unpleasant shock, considering the form of his previous metaphor, that he should have taken Frank into the old sacristy.)

He sat down on the low wall, built to hold the churchyard from slipping altogether down the hill-side, and looked out over the little town below.

The sky was more noticeable here; one was more conscious of the enormous silent vault, crowded with the steady stars, cool and aloof; and, beneath, of the feverish little town with sparks of red light dotted here and there, where men wrangled and planned and bargained, and carried on the little affairs of their little life with such astonishing zest. Jack was far from philosophical as a rule, but it is a fact that meditations of this nature did engross him for a minute or two while he sat and waited for Frank, and heard the low voices talking in the lane outside. It even occurred to him for an instant that it was just possible that what Frank had said in the smoking-room before dinner was true, and that Something really did have him in hand, and really, did intend a definite plan and result to emerge from this deplorable and quixotic nonsense. (I suppose the contrast of stars and human lights may have helped to suggest this sort of thing to him.)

Then he gave himself up again to dismal considerations of a more particular kind.

He heard Frank come out, and turned to see him in the dim light, bag in hand, dressed again as he had been three days ago. On his head once more was the indescribable cap; on his body the indescribable clothes. He wore on his feet the boots in which he had tramped the moors that day. (How far away seemed that afternoon now, and the cheerful lunch in the sunshine on the hill-top!)

“Here I am, Jack.”

Then every promise went to the winds. Jack stood up and took a step towards him.

“Frank, I do implore you to give up this folly. I asked you not to do it at Cambridge, and I ask you again now. I don’t care a damn what I promised. It’s simple madness, and—”

Frank had wheeled without a word, and was half-way to the gate. Jack stumbled after him, calling under his breath; but the other had already passed through the gate and joined the Major and Gertie before Jack could reach him.

“And so you think up here is the right direction?” Frank was saying.

“I got some tips at the ‘Crown,’” said the Major. “There are some farms up there, where—”

“Frank, may I speak to you a minute?”

“No.... All right, Major; I’m ready at once if you are.”

He turned towards Jack.

“By the way,” he said, “what’s in this parcel?”

“Something to eat and drink,” murmured Jack.

“Oh ... I shan’t want that, thanks very much. Here’s the bag with the clothes in it. I’m awfully grateful, old man, for all your kindness. Awfully sorry to have bothered you.”

“By the way, Frankie,” put in the hateful voice at his side, “I’ll take charge of that parcel, if you don’t want it.”

“Catch hold, then,” said Frank. “You’re welcome to it, if you’ll carry it. You all right, Gertie?”

The girl murmured something inaudible. As at their first meeting, she had said nothing at all. The Major lifted a bundle out of the depths of the hedge, slung it on his stick, and stood waiting, his face again illuminated with the glow of his pipe. He had handed the new parcel to Gertie without a word.

“Well, good-by again, old man,” said Frank, holding out his hand. He, too, Jack saw, had his small bundle wrapped up in the red handkerchief, as on the bridge when they had first met. Jack took his hand and shook it. He could say nothing.

Then the three turned and set their faces up the slope. He could see them, all silent together, pass up, more and more dim in the darkness of the hedge, the two men walking together, the girl a yard behind them. Then they turned the corner and were gone. But Jack still stood where Frank had left him, listening, until long after the sound of their footfalls had died away.

VII

Jack had a horrid dream that night.

He was wandering, he thought, gun in hand after grouse, alone on the high moors. It was one of those heavy days, so common in dreams, when the light is so dim that very little can be seen. He was aware of countless hill-tops round him, and valleys that ran down into profound darkness, where only the lights of far-off houses could be discerned. His sport was of that kind peculiar to sleep-imaginings. Enormous birds, larger than ostriches, rose occasionally by ones or twos with incredible swiftness, and soared like balloons against the heavy, glimmering sky. He fired at these and feathers sprang from them, but not a bird fell. Once he inflicted an indescribable wound ... and the bird sped across the sky, blotting out half of it, screaming. Then as the screaming died he became aware that there was a human note in it, and that Frank was crying to him, somewhere across the confines of the wold, and the horror that had been deepening with each shot he fired rose to an intolerable climax. Then began one of the regular nightmare chases: he set off to run; the screaming grew fainter each instant; he could not see his way in the gloom; he clambered over bowlders; he sank in bogs, and dragged his feet from them with infinite pains; his gun became an unbearable burden, yet he dared not throw it from him; he knew that he should need it presently.... The screaming had ceased now, yet he dared not stop running; Frank was in some urgent peril, and he knew it was not yet too late, if he could but find him soon. He ran and ran; the ground was knee-deep now in the feathers that had fallen from the wounded birds; it was darker than ever, yet he toiled on hopelessly, following, as he thought, the direction from which the cries had come. Then as at last he topped the rise of a hill, the screaming broke out again, shrill and frightful, close at hand, and the next instant he saw beneath him in the valley a hundred yards away that for which he had run so far. Running up the slope below, at right angles to his own path came Frank, in the dress-clothes he had borrowed, with pumps upon his feet; his hands were outstretched, his face white as ashes, and he screamed as he ran. Behind him ran a pack of persons whose faces he could not see; they ran like hounds, murmuring as they came in a terrible whining voice. Then Jack understood that he could save Frank; he brought his gun to the shoulder, aimed it at the brown of the pack and drew the trigger. A snap followed, and he discovered that he was unloaded; he groped in his cartridge-belt and found it empty.... He tore at his pockets, and found at last one cartridge; and as he dashed it into the open breach, his gun broke in half. Simultaneously the quarry vanished over an edge of hill, and the pack followed, the leaders now not ten yards behind the flying figure in front.

Jack stood there, helpless and maddened. Then he flung the broken pieces of his gun at the disappearing runners; sank down in the gloom, and broke out into that heart-shattering nightmare sobbing which shows that the limit has been reached.

He awoke, still sobbing—certain that Frank was in deadly peril, if not already dead, and it was a few minutes before he dared to go to sleep once more.

CHAPTER II

I

The Rectory garden at Merefield was, obviously, this summer, the proper place to spend most of the day. Certainly the house was cool—it was one of those long, low, creeper-covered places that somehow suggest William IV. and crinolines (if it is a fact that those two institutions flourished together, as I think), with large, darkish rooms and wide, low staircases and tranquil-looking windows through which roses peep; but the shadow of the limes and the yews was cooler still. A table stood almost permanently through those long, hot summer days in the place where Dick had sat with Jenny, and here the Rector and his daughter breakfasted, lunched and dined, day after day, for a really extraordinarily long period.

Jenny herself lived in the garden even more than her father; she got through the household business as quickly as possible after breakfast, and came out to do any small businesses that she could during the rest of the morning. She wrote a few letters, read a few books, sewed a little, and, on the whole, presented a very domestic and amiable picture. She visited poor people for an hour or so two or three days a week, and occasionally, when Lord Talgarth was well enough, rode out with him and her father after tea, through the woods, and sometimes with Lord Talgarth alone.

She suffered practically no pangs of conscience at all on the subject of Frank. Her letter had been perfectly sincere, and she believed herself to have been exceedingly sensible. (It is, perhaps, one may observe, one of the most dangerous things in the world to think oneself sensible; it is even more dangerous than to be told so.) For the worst of it all was that she was quite right. It was quite plain that she and Frank were not suited to one another; that she had looked upon that particular quality in him which burst out in the bread-and-butter incident, the leaving of Cambridge, the going to prison, and so forth, as accidental to his character, whereas it was essential. It was also quite certain that it was the apotheosis of common-sense for her to recognize that, to say so, and to break off the engagement.

Of course, she had moments of what I should call “grace,” and she would call insanity, when she wondered for a little while whether to be sensible was the highest thing in life; but her general attitude to these was as it would be towards temptation of any other kind. To be sensible, she would say, was to be successful and effective; to be otherwise was to fail and to be ineffective.

Very well, then.

At the beginning of September Dick Guiseley came to Merefield to shoot grouse. The grouse, as I think I have already remarked, were backward this year, and, after a kind of ceremonial opening, to give warning as it were, on the twelfth of August, they were left in peace. Business was to begin on the third, and on the evening of the second Dick arrived.

He opened upon the subject that chiefly occupied his thoughts just now with Archie that night when Lord Talgarth had gone to bed. They were sitting in the smoking-room, with the outer door well open to admit the warm evening air. They had discussed the prospects of grouse next day with all proper solemnity, and Archie had enumerated the people who were to form their party. The Rector was coming to shoot, and Jenny was to ride out and join them at lunch.

Then Archie yawned largely, finished his drink, and took up his candle.

“Oh! she’s coming, is she?” said Dick meditatively.

Archie struck a match.

“How’s Frank?” went on Dick.

“Haven’t heard from him.”

“Where is the poor devil?”

“Haven’t an idea.”

Dick emitted a monosyllabic laugh.

“And how’s she behaving?”

“Jenny? Oh! just as usual. She’s a sensible girl and knows her mind.”

Dick pondered this an instant.

“I’m going to bed,” said Archie. “Got to have a straight eye to-morrow.”

“Oh! sit down a second.... I want to talk.”

Archie, as a compromise, propped himself against the back of a chair.

“She doesn’t regret it, then?” pursued Dick.

“Not she,” said Archie. “It would never have done.”

“I know,” agreed Dick warmly. (It was a real pleasure to him that head and heart went together in this matter.) “But sometimes, you know, women regret that sort of thing. Wish they hadn’t been quite so sensible, you know.”

“Jenny doesn’t,” said Archie.

Dick took up his glass which he had filled with his third whisky-and-soda, hardly five minutes before, and drank half of it. He sucked his mustache, and in that instant confidentialism rose in his heart.

“Well, I’m going to have a shot myself,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m going to have a shot. She can but say ‘No.’”

Archie’s extreme repose of manner vanished for a second. His jaw dropped a little.

“But, good Lord! I hadn’t the faintest—”

“I know you hadn’t. But I’ve had it for a long time.... What d’you think, Archie?”

“My good chap—”

“Yes, I know; leave all that out. We’ll take that as read. What comes next?”

Archie looked at him a moment.

“How d’you mean? Do you mean, do I approve?”

“Well, I didn’t mean that,” admitted Dick. “I meant, how’d I better set about it?”

Archie’s face froze ever so slightly. (It will be remembered that Jack Kirkby considered him pompous.)

“You must do it your own way,” he said.

“Sorry, old man,” said Dick. “Didn’t mean to be rude.”

Archie straightened himself from the chair-back.

“It’s all rather surprising,” he said. “It never entered my head. I must think about it. Good-night. Put the lights out when you come.”

“Archie, old man, are you annoyed?”

“No, no; that’s all right,” said Archie.

And really and truly that was all that passed between these two that night on the subject of Jenny—so reposeful were they.

II

There was a glorious breeze blowing over the hills as Jenny rode slowly up about noon next day. The country is a curious mixture—miles of moor, as desolate and simple and beautiful as moors can be, and by glimpses, now and then in the valleys between, of entirely civilized villages, with even a town or two here and there, prick-up spires and roofs; and, even more ominous, in this direction and that, lie patches of smoke about the great chimneys.

Jenny was meditative as she rode up alone. It is very difficult to be otherwise when one has passed through one considerable crisis, and foresees a number of others that must be met, especially if one has not made up one’s mind as to the proper line of action. It is all very well to be sensible, but a difficulty occasionally arises as to which of two or three courses is the more in accordance with that character. To be impulsive certainly leads to trouble sometimes, but also, sometimes it saves it.

Jenny looked charming in repose. She was in a delightful green habit; she wore a plumy kind of hat; she rode an almost perfect little mare belonging to Lord Talgarth, and her big blue, steady eyes roved slowly round her as she went, seeing nothing. It was, in fact, the almost perfect little mare who first gave warning of the approach to the sportsmen, by starting violently all over at the sound of a shot, fired about half a mile away. Jenny steadied her, pulled her up, and watched between the cocked and twitching ears.

Below her, converging slowly upwards, away from herself, moved a line of dots, each precisely like its neighbor in color (Lord Talgarth was very particular, indeed, about the uniform of his beaters), and by each moved a red spot, which Jenny understood to be a flag. The point towards which they were directed culminated in a low, rounded hill, and beneath the crown of this, in a half circle, were visible a series of low defenses, like fortifications, to command the face of the slope and the dips on either side. This was always the last beat—in this moor—before lunch; and lunch itself, she knew, would be waiting on the other side of the hill. Occasionally as she watched, she saw a slight movement behind this or that butt—no more—and the only evidence of human beings, beside the beaters, lay in the faint wreath of all but invisible smoke that followed the reports, coming now quicker and quicker, as the grouse took alarm. Once with a noise like a badly ignited rocket, there burst over the curve before her a flying brown thing, that, screaming with terrified exultation, whirred within twenty yards of her head and vanished into silence. (One cocked ear of the mare bent back to see if the rocket were returning or not.)

Jenny’s meditations became more philosophical than ever as she looked. She found herself wondering how much free choice the grouse—if they were capable themselves of philosophizing—would imagine themselves to possess in the face of this noisy but insidious death. She reminded herself that every shred of instinct and experience that each furious little head contained bade the owner of it to fly as fast and straight as possible, in squawking company with as many friends as possible, away from those horrible personages in green and silver with the agitating red flags, and up that quiet slope which, at the worst, only emitted sudden noises. A reflective grouse would perhaps (and two out of three did) consider that he could fly faster and be sooner hidden from the green men with red flags, if he slid crosswise down the valleys on either side. But—Jenny observed—that was already calculated by these human enemies, and butts (like angels’ swords) commanded even these approaches too.

It was obvious, then, that however great might be the illusion of free choice, in reality there was none: they were betrayed hopelessly by the very instincts intended to safeguard them; practical common-sense, in this case, at least, led them straight into the jaws of death. A little originality and impulsiveness would render them immortal so far as guns were concerned....

Yes; but there was one who had been original, who had actually preferred to fly straight past a monster in green on a gray mare rather than to face the peaceful but deathly slopes; and he had escaped. But obviously he was an exception. Originality in grouse—

At this point the mare breathed slowly and contemptuously and advanced a delicate, impatient foot, having quite satisfied herself that danger was no longer imminent; and Jenny became aware she was thinking nonsense.

There were a number of unimportant but well-dressed persons at lunch, with most of whom Jenny was acquainted. These extended themselves on the ground and said the right things one after another; and all began with long drinks, and all ended with heavy meals. There were two other women whom she knew slightly, who had driven up half an hour before. Everything was quite perfect—down even to hot grilled grouse that emerged from emblazoned silver boxes, and hot black coffee poured from “Thermos” flasks. Jenny asked intelligent questions and made herself agreeable.

At the close of lunch she found herself somehow sitting on a small rock beside Dick. Lord Talgarth was twenty yards away, his gaitered legs very wide apart, surveying the country and talking to the keeper. Her father was looking down the barrels of his rather ineffective gun, and Archie, with three or four other men and two women, a wife and a sister, was smoking with his back against a rock.

“Shall you be in to-morrow?” asked Dick casually.

Jenny paused an instant.

“I should think so!” she said. “I’ve got one or two things to do.”

“Perhaps I may look in? I want to talk to you about something if I may.”

“Shan’t you be shooting again?”

“No; I’m not very fit and shall take a rest.”

Jenny was silent.

“About what time?” pursued Dick.

Jenny roused herself with a little start. She had been staring out over the hills and wondering if that was the church above Barham that she could almost see against the horizon.

“Oh! any time up to lunch,” she said vaguely.

Dick stood up slowly with a satisfied air and stretched himself. He looked very complete and trim, thought Jenny, from his flat cap to his beautifully-spatted shooting-boots. (It was twelve hundred a year, at least, wasn’t it?)

“Well, I suppose we shall be moving directly,” he said.

A beater came up bringing the mare just before the start was made.

“All right, you can leave her,” said Jenny. “I won’t mount yet. Just hitch the bridle on to something.”

It was a pleasant and picturesque sight to see the beaters, like a file of medieval huntsmen, dwindle down the hill in their green and silver in one direction, and, five minutes later, the sportsmen in another. It looked like some mysterious military maneuver on a small scale; and again Jenny considered the illusion of free choice enjoyed by the grouse, who, perhaps, two miles away, crouched in hollows among the heather. And yet, practically speaking, there was hardly any choice at all....

Lady Richard, the wife of one of the men, interrupted her in a drawl.

“Looks jolly, doesn’t it?” she said.

Jenny assented cordially.

(She hated this woman, somehow, without knowing why. She said to herself it was the drawl and the insolent cold eyes and the astonishing complacency; and she only half acknowledged that it was the beautiful lines of the dress and the figure and the assured social position.)

“We’re driving,” went on the tall girl. “You rode, didn’t you?

“Yes.”

“Lord Talgarth’s mare, isn’t it? I thought I recognized her.”

“Yes. I haven’t got a horse of my own, you know,” said Jenny deliberately.

“Oh!”

Jenny suddenly felt her hatred rise almost to passion.

“I must be going,” she said. “I’ve got to visit an old woman who’s dying. A rector’s daughter, you know—”

“Ah! yes.”

Then Jenny mounted from a rock (Lady Richard held the mare’s head and settled the habit), and rode slowly away downhill.

III

Dick approached the Rectory next day a little before twelve o’clock with as much excitement in his heart as he ever permitted to himself.

Dick is a good fellow—I haven’t a word to say against him, except perhaps that he used to think that to be a Guiseley, and to have altogether sixteen hundred a year and to live in a flat in St. James’s, and to possess a pointed brown beard and melancholy brown eyes and a reposeful manner, relieved him from all further effort. I have wronged him, however; he had made immense efforts to be proficient at billiards, and had really succeeded; and, since his ultimate change of fortune, has embraced even further responsibilities in a conscientious manner.

Of course, he had been in love before in a sort of way; but this was truly different. He wished to marry Jenny very much indeed.... That she was remarkably sensible, really beautiful and eminently presentable, of course, paved the way; but, if I understand the matter rightly, these were not the only elements in the case. It was the genuine thing. He did not quite know how he would face the future if she refused him; and he was sufficiently humble to be in doubt.

The neat maid told him at the door that Miss Launton had given directions that he was to be shown into the garden if he came.... No; Miss Launton was in the morning-room, but she should be told at once. So Dick strolled across the lawn and sat down by the garden table.

He looked at the solemn, dreaming house in the late summer sunshine; he observed a robin issue out from a lime tree and inspect him sideways; and then another robin issue from another lime tree and drive the first one away. Then he noticed a smear of dust on his own left boot, and flicked it off with a handkerchief. Then, as he put his handkerchief away again, he saw Jenny coming out from the drawing-room window.

She looked really extraordinarily beautiful as she came slowly across towards him and he stood to meet her. She was bare-headed, but her face was shadowed by the great coils of hair. She was in a perfectly plain pink dress, perfectly cut, and she carried herself superbly. She looked just a trifle paler than yesterday, he thought, and there was a very reserved, steady kind of question in her eyes. (I am sorry to be obliged to go on saying this sort of thing about Jenny every time she comes upon the scene; but it is the sort of thing that everyone is obliged to go on thinking whenever she makes her appearance.)

“I’ve got a good deal to say,” said Dick, after they had sat a moment or two. “May I say it right out to the end?”

“Why, certainly,” said Jenny.

Dick leaned back and crossed one knee over the other. His manner was exactly right—at any rate, it was exactly what he wished it to be, and all through his little speech he preserved it. It was quite restrained, extremely civilized, and not at all artificial. It was his method of presenting a fact—the fact that he really was in love with this girl—and was in his best manner. There was a lightness of touch about this method of his, but it was only on the surface.

“I daresay it’s rather bad form my coming and saying all this so soon, but I can’t help that. I know you must have gone through an awful lot in the last month or two—perhaps even longer—but I don’t know about that. And I want to begin by apologizing if I am doing what I shouldn’t. The fact is that—well, that I daren’t risk waiting.”

He did not look at Jenny (he was observing the robin that had gone and come again since Jenny had appeared), but he was aware that at his first sentence she had suddenly settled down into complete motionlessness. He wondered whether that was a good omen or not.

“Well, now,” he said, “let me give a little account of myself first. I’m just thirty-one; I’ve got four hundred a year of my own, and Lord Talgarth allows me twelve hundred a year more. Then I’ve got other expectations, as they say. My uncle gives me to understand that my allowance is secured to me in his will; and I’m the heir of my aunt, Lady Simon, whom you’ve probably met. I just mention that to show I’m not a pauper—”

“Mr. Guiseley—” began Jenny.

“Please wait. I’ve not done yet. Do you mind? ... I’m a decent living man. I’m not spotless, but I’ll answer any questions you like to put—to your father. I’ve not got any profession, though I’m supposed to be a solicitor; but I’m perfectly willing to work if ... if it’s wished, or to stand for Parliament, or anything like that—there hasn’t, so far, seemed any real, particular reason why I should work. That’s all. And I think you know the sort of person I am, all round.

“And now we come to the point.” (Dick hesitated a fraction of a second. He was genuinely moved.) “The point is that I’m in love with you, and I have been for some time past. I ... I can’t put it more plainly ... (One moment, please, I’ve nearly done.) ... I can’t think of anything else; and I haven’t been able to for the last two or three months. I ... I ... I’m fearfully sorry for poor old Frank; I’m very fond of him, you know, but I couldn’t help finding it an extraordinary relief when I heard the news. And now I’ve come to ask you, perfectly straight, whether you’ll consent to be my wife.”

Dick looked at her for the first time since he had begun his little speech.

She still sat absolutely quiet (she had not even moved at the two words she had uttered), but she had gone paler still. Her mouth was in repose, without quiver or movement, and her beautiful eyes looked steadily on to the lawn before her. She said nothing.

“If you can’t give me an answer quite at once,” began Dick again presently, “I’m perfectly willing to—”

She turned and looked him courageously in the face.

“I can’t say ‘Yes,’” she said. “That would be absurd.... You have been quite straightforward with me, and I must be straightforward with you. That is what you wish, isn’t it?”

Dick inclined his head. His heart was thumping furiously with exultation—in spite of her words.

“Then what I say is this: You must wait a long time. If you had insisted on an answer now, I should have said ‘No.’ I hate to keep you waiting, particularly when I do really think it will be ‘No’ in the long run; but as I’m not quite sure, and as you’ve been perfectly honest and courteous, if you really wish it I won’t say ‘No’ at once. Will that do?”

“Whatever you say,” said Dick.

“You mustn’t forget I was engaged to Frank till quite lately. Don’t you see how that obscures one’s judgment? I simply can’t judge now, and I know I can’t.... You’re willing to wait, then?—even though I tell you now that I think it will be ‘No’?”

“Whatever you say,” said Dick again; “and may I say thank you for not saying ‘No’ at once?”

A very slight look of pain came into the girl’s eyes.

“I would sooner you didn’t,” she said. “I’m sorry you said that....”

“I’m sorry,” said poor Dick.

There was a pause.

“One other thing,” said Jenny. “Would you mind not saying anything to my father? I don’t want him to be upset any more. Have you told anybody else you were—?”

“Yes,” said Dick bravely, “I told Archie.”

“I’m sorry you did that. Will you then just tell him exactly what I said—exactly, you know. That I thought it would be ‘No’; but that I only didn’t say so at once because you wished it.”

“Very well,” said Dick.

It was a minute or so before either spoke again. Jenny had that delightful and soothing gift which prevents silence from being empty. It is the same gift, in another form, as that which enables its possessor to put people at their ease. (It is, I suppose, one of the elements of tact.) Dick had a sense that they were still talking gently and reasonably, though he could not quite understand all that Jenny was meaning.

She interrupted it by a sudden sentence.

“I wonder if it’s fair,” she said. “You know I’m all but certain. I only don’t say so because—”

“Let it be at that,” said Dick. “It’s my risk, isn’t it?”

III

When he had left her at last, she sat on perfectly still in the same place. The robin had given it up in despair: this human creature was not going to scratch garden-paths as she sometimes did, and disclose rich worms and small fat maggots. But a cat had come out instead and was now pacing with stiff forelegs, lowered head and trailing tail, across the sunny grass, endeavoring to give an impression that he was bent on some completely remote business of his own.

He paused at the edge of the shadow and eyed the girl malignantly.

“Wow!” said the cat.

There was no response.

“Wow!” said the cat.

Jenny roused herself.

“Wow!” said Jenny meditatively.

“Wow!” said the cat, walking on.

“Wow!” said Jenny.

Again there was a long silence.

“Wow!” said Jenny indignantly.

The cat turned a slow head sideways as he began to cross the path, but said nothing. He waited for another entreaty, but Jenny paid no more attention. As he entered the yews he turned once more.

“Wow!” said the cat, almost below his breath.

But Jenny made no answer. The cat cast one venomous look and disappeared.

Then there came out a dog—a small brown and black animal, very sturdy on his legs, and earnest and independent in air and manner. He was the illegitimate offspring of a fox-terrier. He trotted briskly across from the direction of the orchard, diagonally past Jenny. As he crossed the trail of the cat he paused, smelt, and followed it up for a yard or two, till he identified for certain that it proceeded from an acquaintance; then he turned to resume his journey. The movement attracted the girl’s attention.

“Lama!” called Jenny imperiously. “Come here this instant!”

Lama put his head on one side, nodded and smiled at her indulgently, and trotted on.

“Oh, dear me!” said Jenny, sighing out loud.

CHAPTER III

I

There lived (and still lives, I believe) in the small Yorkshire village of Tarfield a retired doctor, entirely alone except for his servants, in a large house. It is a very delightful house, only—when I stayed there not long ago—it seemed to me that the doctor did not know how to use it. It stands in its own grounds of two or three acres, on the right-hand side of the road to a traveler going north, separated by a row of pollarded limes from the village street, and approached—or, rather, supposed to be approached—by a Charles II. gate of iron-scroll work. I say “supposed to be approached” because the gate is invariably kept locked, and access can only be gained to the house through the side gate from the stable-yard. The grounds were abominably neglected when I saw them; grass was growing on every path, and as fine a crop of weeds surged up amongst the old autumn flowers as ever I have seen. The house, too, was a sad sight. There here two big rooms, one on either side of the little entrance-hall—one a dining-room, the other a sort of drawing-room—and both were dreary and neglected-looking places. In the one the doctor occasionally ate, in the other he never sat except when a rare visitor came to see him, and the little room supposed to be a study at the foot of the stairs in the inner hall that led through the kitchen was hardly any better. I was there, I say, last autumn, and the condition of the place must have been very much the same as that in which it was when Frank came to Tarfield in October.

For the fact was that the doctor—who was possessed of decent private means—devoted the whole of his fortune, the whole of his attention, and the whole of his life—such as it was—to the study of toxins upstairs.

Toxins, I understand, have something to do with germs. Their study involves, at any rate at present, a large stock of small animals, such as mice and frogs and snakes and guinea-pigs and rabbits, who are given various diseases and then studied with loving attention. I saw the doctor’s menagerie when I went to see him about Frank; they were chiefly housed in a large room over the kitchen, communicating with the doctor’s own room by a little old powder-closet with two doors, and the smell was indescribable. Ranks of cages and boxes rose almost to the ceiling, and in the middle of the room was a large business-like looking wooden kitchen-table with various appliances on it. I saw the doctor’s room also—terribly shabby, but undoubtedly a place of activity. There were piles of books and unbound magazines standing about in corners, with more on the table, as well as a heap of note-books. An array of glass tubes and vary-colored bottles stood below the window, with a microscope, and small wooden boxes on one side. And there was, besides, something which I think he called an “incubator”—a metal affair, standing on four slender legs; a number of glass tubes emerged from this, each carefully stoppered with cotton wool, and a thermometer thrust itself up in one corner.

A really high degree of proficiency in any particular subject invariably leads to atrophy in other directions. A man who eats and breathes and dreams Toxins, for instance, who lives so much in Toxins that he corresponds almost daily with learned and unintelligible Germans; who knows so much about Toxins that when he enters, with shabby trousers and a small hand-bag, into the room of a polished specialist in Harley Street, he sees as in a dream the specialist rise and bow before him—who, when he can be persuaded to contribute a short and highly technical article to a medical magazine, receives a check for twenty-five guineas by return of post—a man of this kind is peculiarly open to the danger of thinking that anything which cannot be expressed in terms of Toxin is negligible nonsense. It is the characteristic danger of every specialist in every branch of knowledge; even theologians are not wholly immune.

It was so in the case of Dr. Whitty (I forget all the initials that should follow his name). He had never been married, he never took any exercise; occasionally, when a frog’s temperature approached a crisis, he slept in his clothes, and forgot to change them in the morning. And he was the despair of the zealous vicar. He was perfectly convinced that, since the force that underlay the production of Toxins could accomplish so much, it could surely accomplish everything. He could reduce his roses, his own complexion, the grass on his garden-paths, the condition of his snakes’, and frogs’ skins, and the texture of his kitchen-table—if you gave him time—to terms of Toxin; therefore, argued Dr. Whitty, you could, if you had more time, reduce everything else to the same terms. There wasn’t such a thing as a soul, of course—it was a manifestation of a combination of Toxins (or anti-Toxins, I forget which); there was no God—the idea of God was the result of another combination of Toxins, akin to a belief in the former illusion. Roughly speaking, I think his general position was that as Toxins are a secretion of microbes (I am certain of that phrase, anyhow), so thought and spiritual experiences and so forth are a secretion of the brain. I know it sounded all very brilliant and unanswerable and analogous to other things. He hardly ever took the trouble to say all this; he was far too much interested in what he already knew, or was just on the point of finding out, to treat of these extravagant and complicated ramifications of his subject. When he really got to know his mice and bats, as they deserved to be known, it might be possible to turn his attention to other things. Meanwhile, it was foolish and uneconomical. So here he lived, with a man-of-all-work and his man’s wife, and daily went from strength to strength in the knowledge of Toxins.

It was to this household that there approached, in the month of October, a small and dismal procession of three.

The doctor was first roused to a sense of what was happening as he shuffled swiftly through his little powder-closet one morning soon after breakfast, bearing in his hand the corpse of a mouse which had at last, and most disappointingly, succumbed to a severe attack of some hybrid of leprosy. As he flew through to his microscope he became aware of an altercation in the stable-yard beneath.

“I tell you he ain’t a proper doctor,” he heard his man explaining; “he knows nothing about them things.”

“My good fellow,” began a high, superior voice out of sight; but Dr. Whitty swept on, and was presently deep in indescribable disgustingness of the highest possible value to the human race, especially in the South Seas. Time meant nothing at all to him, when this kind of work was in hand; and it was after what might be an hour or two hours, or ten minutes, that he heard a tap on his door.

He uttered a sound without moving his eye, and the door opened.

“Very sorry, sir,” said his man, “but there’s a party in the yard as won’t—”

The doctor held up his hand for silence, gazed a few moments longer, poked some dreadful little object two or three times, sighed and sat back.

“Eh?”

“There’s a party in the yard, sir, wants a doctor.”

(This sort of thing had happened before.)

“Tell them to be off,” he said sharply. He was not an unkindly man, but this sort of thing was impossible. “Tell them to go to Dr. Foster.”

“I ‘ave, sir,” said the man.

“Tell them again,” said the doctor.

“I ‘ave, sir. ‘Arf a dozen times.”

The doctor sighed—he was paying practically no attention at all, of course. The leprous mouse had been discouraging; that was all.

“If you’d step down, sir, an instant—”

The doctor returned from soaring through a Toxined universe.

“Nonsense,” he said sharply. “Tell them I’m not practicing. What do they want?”

“Please, sir, it’s a young man as ‘as poisoned ‘is foot, ‘e says. ‘E looks very bad, and—”

“Eh? Poison?”

“Yes, sir.”

The doctor appeared to reflect a moment (that mouse, you know—); then he recovered.

“I’ll be down directly,” he said almost mechanically. “Take ‘em all into the study.”

II

Dr. Whitty could hardly explain to me, even when he tried, exactly why he had made an exception in this particular instance. Of course, I understand perfectly myself why he did; but, for himself, all he could say was that he supposed the word Poison happened to meet his mood. He had honestly done with the mouse just now; he had no other very critical case, and he thought he might as well look at the poisoned young man for an instant, before finally despatching him to Dr. Foster, six miles further on.

When he came into the study ten minutes later he found the party ranged to meet him. A girl was sitting on a box in the corner by the window, and stood up to receive him; a young man was sitting back in a Windsor chair, with one boot off, jerking spasmodically; his eyes stared unmeaningly before him. A tallish, lean man of a particularly unprepossessing appearance was leaning over him with an air of immense solicitude. They were all three evidently of the tramp-class.

What they saw—with the exception of Frank, I expect, who was too far gone to notice anything—was a benignant-looking old man, very shabby, in an alpaca jacket, with a rusty velvet cap on his head, and very bright short-sighted eyes behind round spectacles. This figure appeared in the doorway, stood looking at them a moment, as if bewildered as to why he or they were there at all; and then, with a hasty shuffling movement, darted across the floor and down on his knees.

The following colloquy was held as soon as the last roll of defiled bandage had dropped to the floor, and Frank’s foot was disclosed.

“How long’s this been going on?” asked the doctor sharply, holding the discolored thing carefully in his two hands.

“Well, sir,” said the Major reflectively, “he began to limp about—let’s see—four days ago. We were coming through—”

The doctor, watching Frank’s face curiously (the spasm was over for the present), cut the Major short by a question to the patient.

“Now, my boy, how d’you feel now?”

Frank’s lips moved; he seemed to be trying to lick them; but he said nothing, and his eyes closed, and he grinned once or twice, as if sardonically.

“When did these spasms begin?” went on the doctor, abruptly turning to the Major again.

“Well, sir—if you mean that jerking—Frankie began to jerk about half an hour ago when we were sitting down a bit; but he’s seemed queer since breakfast. And he didn’t seem to be able to eat properly.”

“How do you mean? D’you mean he couldn’t open his mouth?”

“Well, sir, it was something like that.”

The doctor began to make comments in a rapid undertone, as if talking to himself; he pressed his hand once or twice against Frank’s stomach; he took up the filthy bandage and examined it. Then he looked at the boot.

“Where’s the sock?” he asked sharply.

Gertie produced it from a bundle. He looked at it closely, and began to mumble again. Then he rose to his feet.

“What’s the matter with him, doctor?” asked the Major, trying to look perturbed.

“We call it tetanus,” said the doctor.

“Who are you, my man?” he said. “Any relation?”

The Major looked at him loftily.

“No, sir.... I am his friend.”

“Ha! Then you must leave your friend in my charge. He shall be well in a week at the latest.”

The Major was silent.

“Well?” snapped the doctor.

“I understood from your servant, sir—”

“You speak like an educated man.”

“I am an educated man.”

“Ha—well—no business of mine. What were you about to say?”

“I understood from your servant, sir, that this was not quite in your line; and since—”

The specialist smiled grimly. He snatched up a book from a pile on the table, thrust open the title-page and held it out.

“Read that, sir.... As it happens, it’s my hobby. Go and ask Dr. Foster, if you like.... No, sir; I must have your friend; it’s a good sound case.”

The Major read the title-page in a superior manner. It purported to be by a James Whitty, and the name was followed by a series of distinctions and of the initials, which I have forgotten. F.R.S. were the first.

“My name,” said the doctor.

The Major handed the book back with a bow.

“I am proud to make your acquaintance, Dr. Whitty. I have heard of you. May I present Mrs. Trustcott?”

Gertie looked confused. The doctor made a stiff obeisance. Then his face became animated again.

“We must move your friend upstairs,” he said. “If you will help, Mr. Trustcott, I will call my servant.”

III

It was about half-past nine that night that the doctor, having rung the bell in the spare bedroom, met his man at the threshold.

“I’ll sleep in this room to-night,” he said; “you can go to bed. Bring in a mattress, will you?”

The man looked at his master’s face. (He looked queer-like, reported Thomas later to his wife.)

“Hope the young man’s doing well, sir?”

A spasm went over the doctor’s face.

“Most extraordinary young man in the world,” he said.... Then he broke off. “Bring the mattress at once, Thomas. Then you can go to bed.”

He went back and closed the door.

Thomas had seldom seen his master so perturbed over a human being before. He wondered what on earth was the matter. During the few minutes that he was in the room he looked at the patient curiously, and he noticed that the doctor was continually looking at him too. Thomas described to me Frank’s appearance. He was very much flushed, he said, with very bright eyes, and he was talking incessantly. And it was evidently this delirious talking that had upset the doctor. I tried to get out of Doctor Whitty what it was that Frank had actually said, but the doctor shut up his face tight and would say nothing. Thomas was more communicative, though far from adequate.

It was about religion, he said, that Frank was talking—about religion.... And that was really about all that he could say of that incident.

Thomas awoke about one o’clock that night, and, still with the uneasiness that he had had earlier in the evening, climbed out of bed without disturbing his wife, put on his slippers and great-coat and made his way down the attic stairs. The October moon was up, and, shining through the staircase window, showed him the door of the spare bedroom with a line of light beneath it. From beyond that door came the steady murmur of a voice....

Now Thomas’s nerves were strong: he was a little lean kind of man, very wiry and active, nearly fifty years old, and he had lived with his master, and the mice and the snakes, and disagreeable objects in bottles, for more than sixteen years. He had been a male nurse in an asylum before that. Yet there was something—he told me later—that gripped him suddenly as he was half-way down the stairs and held him in a kind of agony which he could in no way describe. It was connected with the room behind that lighted door. It was not that he feared for his master, nor for Frank. It was something else altogether. (What a pity it is that our system of education teaches neither self-analysis nor the art of narration!)

He stood there—he told me—he should think for the better part of ten minutes, unable to move either way, listening, always listening, to the voice that rose and sank and lapsed now and then into silences that were worse than all, and telling himself vigorously that he was not at all frightened.

It was a creak somewhere in the old house that disturbed him and snapped the thin, rigid little thread that seemed to paralyze his soul; and still in a sort of terror, though no longer in the same stiff agony, he made his way down the three or four further steps of the flight, laid hold of the handle, turned it and peered in.

Frank was lying quiet so far as he could see. A night-light burned by the bottles and syringes on the table at the foot of the bed, and, although shaded from the young man’s face, still diffused enough light to shoes the servant the figure lying there, and his master, seated beyond the bed, very close to it, still in his day-clothes—still, even, in his velvet cap—his chin propped in his hand, staring down at his patient, utterly absorbed and attentive.

There was nothing particularly alarming in all that, and yet there was that in the room which once more seized the man at his heart and held him there, rigid again, terrified, and, above all, inexpressibly awed. (At least, that is how I should interpret his description.) He said that it wasn’t like the spare bedroom at all, as he ordinarily knew it (and, indeed, it was a mean sort of room when I saw it, without a fireplace, though of tolerable size). It was like another room altogether, said Thomas.

He tried to listen to what Frank was saying, and I imagine he heard it all quite intelligently; yet, once more, all he could say afterwards was that it was about religion ... about religion....

So he stood, till he suddenly perceived that the doctor was looking at him with a frown and contorted features of eloquence. He understood that he was to go. He closed the door noiselessly; and, after another pause, sped upstairs without a sound in his red cloth slippers.

IV

When Frank awoke to normal consciousness again, he lay still, wondering what it was all about. He saw a table at the foot of his bed and noticed on it a small leather case, two green bottles stoppered with india-rubber, and a small covered bowl looking as if it contained beef-tea. He extended his explorations still further, and discovered an Hanoverian wardrobe against the left wall, a glare of light (which he presently discerned to be a window), a dingy wall-paper, and finally a door. As he reached this point the door opened and an old man with a velvet skull-cap, spectacles, and a kind, furrowed face, came in and stood over him.

“Well?” said the old man.

“I am a bit stiff,” said Frank.

“Are you hungry?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, you’re doing very well, if that’s any satisfaction to you,” observed the doctor, frowning on him doubtfully.

Frank said nothing.

The doctor sat down on a chair by the bed that Frank suddenly noticed for the first time.

“Well,” said the doctor, “I suppose you want to know the facts. Here they are. My name is Whitty; I’m a doctor; you’re in my house. This is Wednesday afternoon; your friends brought you here yesterday morning. I’ve given them some work in the garden. You were ill yesterday, but you’re all right now.”

“What was the matter?”

“We won’t bother about names,” said the doctor with a kind sharpness. “You had a blister; it broke and became a sore; then you wore one of those nasty cheap socks and it poisoned it. That’s all.”

“That’s in those bottles?” asked Frank languidly. (He felt amazingly weak and stupid.)

“Well, it’s an anti-toxin,” said the doctor. “That doesn’t tell you much, does it?”

“No,” said Frank.... “By the way, who’s going to pay you, doctor? I can’t.”

The doctor’s face rumpled up into wrinkles. (Frank wished he wouldn’t sit with his back to the window.)

“Don’t you bother about that, my boy. You’re a case—that’s what you are.”

Frank attempted a smile out of politeness.

“Now, how about some more beef-tea, and then going to sleep again?”

Frank assented.

It was not until the Thursday morning that things began to run really clear again in Frank’s mind. He felt for his rosary under his pillow and it wasn’t there. Then he thumped on the floor with a short stick which had been placed by him, remembering that in some previous existence he had been told to do this.

A small, lean man appeared at the door, it seemed, with the quickness of thought.

“My rosary, please,” said Frank. “It’s a string of beads. I expect it’s in my trouser-pocket.”

The man looked at him with extraordinary earnestness and vanished.

Then the doctor appeared holding the rosary.

“Is this what you want?” he asked.

“That’s it! Thanks very much.”

“You’re a Catholic?” went on the other, giving it him.

“Yes.”

The doctor sat down again.

“I thought so,” he said.

Frank wondered why. Then a thought crossed his mind.

“Have I been talking?” he said. “I suppose I was delirious?”

The doctor made no answer for a moment; he was looking at him fixedly. Then he roused himself.

“Well, yes, you have,” he said.

Frank felt rather uncomfortable.

“Hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t.”

The old man laughed shortly and grimly.

“Oh, no,” he said. “Far from it. At least, your friends wouldn’t think so.”

“What was it about?”

“We’ll talk about that later, if you like,” said the doctor. “Now I want you to get up a bit after you’ve had some food.”

It was with a very strange sensation that Frank found himself out in the garden next day, in a sheltered corner, seated in a wicker chair in which, by the help of bamboo poles, he had been carried downstairs by Thomas and the Major, with the doctor leading the way and giving directions as to how to turn the corners. The chair was brought out through an irregularly-shaped little court at the back of the house and set down in the warm autumn noon, against an old wall, with a big kitchen garden, terribly neglected, spread before him. The smoke of burning went up in the middle distance, denoting the heap of weeds pulled by the Major and Gertie during the last three days. He saw Gertie in the distance once or twice, in a clean sun-bonnet, going about her business, but she made no sign. The smell of the burning weeds gave a pleasant, wholesome and acrid taste to his mouth.

“Now then,” said the doctor, “we can have our little talk.” And he sat down beside him on another chair.

Frank felt a little nervous, he scarcely knew why. It seemed to him that it would be far better not to refer to the past at all. And it appeared to him a little unusual that a doctor should be so anxious about it. Twice or three times since yesterday this old man had begun to ask him a question and had checked himself. There was a very curious eagerness about him now.

“I’m awfully grateful and all that,” said Frank. “Is there anything special you want to know? I suppose I’ve been talking about my people?”

The doctor waved a wrinkled hand.

“No, no,” he said, “not a word. You talked about a girl a little, of course—everybody does; but not much. No, it isn’t that.”

Frank felt relieved. He wasn’t anxious about anything else.

“I’m glad of that. By the way, may I smoke?”

The doctor produced a leather case of cigarettes and held it out.

“Take one of these,” he said.

“Because,” continued Frank, “I’m afraid I mustn’t talk about my people. The name I’ve got now is Gregory, you know.” He lit his cigarette, noticing how his fingers still shook, and dropped the match.

“No, it’s not about that,” said the doctor; “it’s not about that.”

Frank glanced at him, astonished by his manner.

“Well, then—?” he began.

“I want to know first,” said the doctor slowly, “where you’ve got all your ideas from. I’ve never heard such a jumble in my life. I know you were delirious; but ... but it hung together somehow; and it seemed much more real to you than anything else.”

“What did?” asked Frank uncomfortably.

The doctor made no answer for a moment. He looked out across the untidy garden with its rich, faded finery of wild flowers and autumn leaves, and the yellowing foliage beyond the wall, and the moors behind—all transfigured in October sunshine. The smoke of the burning weeds drew heavenly lines and folds of ethereal lace-work across the dull splendors beyond.

“Well,” he said at last, “everything. You know I’ve heard hundreds and hundreds of folks ...” he broke off again, “... and I know what people call religion about here—and such a pack of nonsense ...” (He turned on Frank again suddenly.) “Where d’you get your ideas from?”

“Do you mean the Catholic religion?” said Frank.

“Bah! don’t call it that. I know what that is—” Frank interrupted him.

“Well, that’s my religion,” he said. “I haven’t got any other.”

“But ... but the way you hold it,” cried the other; “the grip ... the grip it has of you. That’s the point. D’you mean to tell me—”

“I mean that I don’t care for anything else in the whole world,” said Frank, stung with sudden enthusiasm.

“But ... but you’re not mad! You’re a very sensible, fellow. You don’t mean to tell me you really believe all that—all that about pain and so on? We doctors know perfectly what all that is. It’s a reaction of Nature ... a warning to look out ... it’s often simply the effects of building up; and we’re beginning to think—ah! that won’t interest you! Listen to me! I’m what they call a specialist—an investigator. I can tell you, without conceit, that I probably know all that is to be known on a certain subject. Well, I can tell you as an authority—”

Frank lifted his head a little. He was keenly interested by the fire with which this other enthusiast spoke.

“I daresay you can,” said Frank. “And I daresay it’s all perfectly true; but what in the world has all that got to do with it—with the use made of it—the meaning of it? Now I—”

“Hush! hush!” said the doctor. “We mustn’t get excited. That’s no good.”

He stopped and stared mournfully out again.

“I wish you could really tell me,” he said more slowly. “But that’s just what you can’t. I know that. It’s a personal thing.”

“But my dear doctor—” said Frank.

“That’s enough,” said the other. “I was an old fool to think it possible—”

Frank interrupted again in his turn. (He was conscious of that extraordinary mental clearness that comes sometimes to convalescents, and he suddenly perceived there was something behind all this which had not yet made its appearance.)

“You’ve some reason for asking all this,” he said. “I wish you’d tell me exactly what’s in your mind.”

The old man turned and looked at him with a kind of doubtful fixedness.

“Why do you say that, my boy?”

“People like you,” said Frank smiling, “don’t get excited over people like me, unless there’s something.... I was at Cambridge, you know. I know the dons there, and—”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the doctor, drawing a long breath. “I hadn’t meant to. I know it’s mere nonsense; but—” He stopped an instant and called aloud: “Thomas! Thomas!”

Thomas’s lean head, like a bird’s, popped out from a window in the kitchen court behind.

“Come here a minute.”

Thomas came and stood before them with a piece of wash-leather in one hand and a plated table-spoon in the other.

“I want you to tell this young gentleman,” said the doctor deliberately, “what you told me on Wednesday morning.”

Thomas looked doubtfully from one to the other.

“It was my fancy, sir,” he said.

“Never mind about that. Tell us both.”

“Well, sir, I didn’t like it. Seemed to me when I looked in—”

(“He looked in on us in the middle of the night,” explained the doctor. “Yes, go on, Thomas.”)

“Seemed to me there was something queer.”

“Yes?” said the doctor encouragingly.

“Something queer,” repeated Thomas musingly.... “And now if you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll have to get back—”

The doctor waved his hands despairingly as Thomas scuttled back without another word.

“It’s no good,” he said, “no good. And yet he told me quite intelligibly—”

Frank was laughing quietly to himself.

“But you haven’t told me one word—”

“Don’t laugh,” said the old man simply. “Look here, my boy, it’s no laughing matter. I tell you I can’t think of anything else. It’s bothering me.”

“But—”

The doctor waved his hands.

“Well,” he said, “I can say it no better. It was the whole thing. The way you looked, the way you spoke. It was most unusual. But it affected me—it affected me in the same way; and I thought that perhaps you could explain.”

V

It was not until the Monday afternoon that Frank persuaded the doctor to let him go. Dr. Whitty said everything possible, in his emphatic way, as to the risk of traveling again too soon; and there was one scene, actually conducted in the menagerie—the only occasion on which the doctor mentioned Frank’s relations—during which he besought the young man to be sensible, and to allow him to communicate with his family. Frank flatly refused, without giving reasons.

The doctor seemed strangely shy of referring again to the conversation in the garden; and, for his part, Frank shut up like a box. They seem both to have been extraordinarily puzzled at one another—as such people occasionally are. They were as two persons, both intelligent and interested, entirely divided by the absence of any common language, or even of symbols. Words that each used meant different things to the other. (It strikes me sometimes that the curse of Babel was a deeper thing than appears on the surface.)

The Major and Gertie, all this while, were in clover. The doctor had no conception of what six hours’ manual work could or could not do, and, in return for these hours, he made over to the two a small disused gardener’s cottage at the end of his grounds, some bedding, their meals, and a shilling the day. It was wonderful how solicitous the Major was as to Frank’s not traveling again until it was certain he was capable of it; but Frank had acquired a somewhat short and decisive way with his friend, and announced that Monday night must see them all cleared out.

The leave-taking—so far as I have been able to gather—was rather surprisingly emotional. The doctor took Frank apart into the study where he had first seen him, and had a short conversation, during which one sovereign finally passed from the doctor to the patient.

I have often tried to represent to myself exactly what elements there were in Frank that had such an effect upon this wise and positive old man. He had been a very upsetting visitor in many ways. He had distracted his benefactor from a very important mouse that had died of leprosy; he had interfered sadly with working hours; he had turned the house, comparatively speaking, upside down. Worse than all, he had—I will not say modified the doctor’s theories—that would be far too strong a phrase; but he had, quite unconsciously, run full tilt against them; and finally, worst of all, he had done this right in the middle of the doctor’s own private preserve. There was absolutely every element necessary to explain Frank’s remarks during his delirium; he was a religiously-minded boy, poisoned by a toxin and treated by the anti-toxin. What in the world could be expected but that he should rave in the most fantastic way, and utter every mad conception and idea that his subjective self contained. As for that absurd fancy of the doctor himself, as well as of his servant that there was “something queer” in the room—the more he thought of it, the less he valued it. Obviously it was the result of a peculiar combination of psychological conditions, just as psychological conditions were themselves the result of an obscure combination of toxin—or anti-toxin—forces.

Yet for all that, argue as one may, the fact remained that this dry and rather misanthropic scientist was affected in an astonishing manner by Frank’s personality. (It will appear later on in Frank’s history that the effect was more or less permanent.)

Still more remarkable to my mind was the very strong affection that Frank conceived for the doctor. (There is no mystery coming: the doctor will not ultimately turn out to be Frank’s father in disguise; Lord Talgarth still retains that distinction.) But it is plainly revealed by Frank’s diary that he was drawn to this elderly man by very much the same kind of feelings as a son might have. And yet it is hardly possible to conceive two characters with less in common. The doctor was a dogmatic materialist—and remains so still—Frank was a Catholic. The doctor was scientific to his finger-tips—Frank romantic to the same extremities; the doctor was old and a confirmed stay-at-home—Frank was young, and an incorrigible gipsy. Yet so the matter was. I have certain ideas of my own, but there is no use in stating them, beyond saying perhaps that each recognized in the other—sub-consciously only, since each professed himself utterly unable to sympathize in the smallest degree with the views of the other—a certain fixity of devotion that was the driving-force in each life. Certainly, on the surface, there are not two theories less unlike than the one which finds the solution of all things in Toxin, and the other which finds it in God. But perhaps there is a reconciliation somewhere.

The Major and Gertie were waiting in the stable-yard when the two other men emerged. The Major had a large bag of apples—given him by Thomas at the doctor’s orders—which he was proceeding to add to Gertie’s load at the very moment when the two others came out. Frank took them, without a word, and slung them over his own back.

The doctor stood blinking a moment in the strong sunshine.

“Well, good-by, my boy,” he said. “Good luck! Remember that if ever you come this way again—”

“Good-by, sir,” said Frank.

He held out his disengaged hand.

Then an astonishing thing happened. The doctor took the hand, then dropped it; threw his arms round the boy’s neck, kissed him on both cheeks, and hurried back through the garden gate, slamming it behind him. And I imagine he ran upstairs at once to see how the mice were.

Well, that is the whole of the incident. The two haven’t met since, that I am aware. And I scarcely know why I have included it in this book. But I was able to put it together from various witnesses, documentary and personal, and it seemed a pity to leave it out.

CHAPTER IV

I

An enormous physical weariness settled down on Frank, as he trudged silently with the Major, towards evening, a week later.

He had worked all the previous day in a farm-yard—carting manure, and the like; and though he was perfectly well again, some of the spring had ebbed from his muscles during his week’s rest. This day, too, the first of November, had been exhausting. They had walked since daybreak, after a wretched night in a barn, plodding almost in silence, mile after mile, against a wet south-west wind, over a discouraging kind of high-road that dipped and rose and dipped again, and never seemed to arrive anywhere.

It is true that Frank was no longer intensely depressed; quite another process had been at work upon him for the last two or three months, as will be seen presently; but his limbs seemed leaden, and the actual stiffness in his shoulders and loins made walking a little difficult.

They were all tired together. They did not say much to one another. They had, in fact, said all that there was to be said months ago; and they were reduced—as men always are reduced when a certain pitch is reached—to speak simply of the most elementary bodily things—food, tobacco and sleep. The Major droned on now and then—recalling luxuries of past days—actual roofs over the head, actual hot meat to put in the mouth, actual cigars—and Frank answered him. Gertie said nothing.

She made up for it, soon after dark had fallen, by quite suddenly collapsing into a hedge, and announcing that she would die if she didn’t rest. The Major made the usual remarks, and she made no answer.

Frank interposed suddenly.

“Shut up,” he said. “We can’t stop here. I’ll go on a bit and see what can be done.”

And, as he went off into the darkness, leaving his bundle, he heard the scolding voice begin again, but it was on a lower key and he knew it would presently subside into a grumble, soothed by tobacco.

He had no idea as to the character of the road that lay before him. They had passed through a few villages that afternoon, whose names meant nothing to him, and he scarcely knew why, even, they were going along this particular road. They were moving southwards towards London—so much had been agreed—and they proposed to arrive there in another month or so. But the country was unfamiliar to him, and the people seemed grudging and uncouth. They had twice been refused the use of an outhouse for the night, that afternoon.

It seemed an extraordinarily deserted road. There were no lights from houses, so far as he could make out, and the four miles that had been declared at their last stopping-place to separate them from the next village appeared already more like five or six. Certainly the three of them had between two and three shillings, all told; there was no actual need of a workhouse just yet, but naturally it was wished to spend as little as possible.

Then on a sudden he caught a glimpse of a light burning somewhere, that appeared and vanished again as he moved, and fifty yards more brought him to a wide sweep, a pair of gate-posts with the gate fastened back, and a lodge on the left-hand side. So much he could make out dimly through the November darkness; and as he stood there hesitating, he thought he could see somewhere below him a few other lights burning through the masses of leafless trees through which the drive went downhill.

He knew very well by experience that lodge-keepers were, taken altogether, perhaps the most unsympathetic class in the community. (They live, you see, right on the high road, and see human nature at its hottest and crossest as well as its most dishonest.) Servants at back doors were, as a rule, infinitely more obliging; and, as obviously this was the entrance to some big country house, the right thing to do would be to steal past the lodge on tiptoe and seek his fortune amongst the trees. Yet he hesitated; the house might be half a mile away, for all he knew; and, certainly there was a hospitable look about the fastened-back gate.

There came a gust of wind over the hills behind him, laden with wet.... He turned, went up to the lodge door and knocked.

He could hear someone moving about inside, and just as he was beginning to wonder whether his double tap had been audible, the door opened and disclosed a woman in an apron.

“Can you very kindly direct me—” began Frank politely.

The woman jerked her head sharply in the direction of the house.

“Straight down the hill,” she said. “Them’s the orders.”

“But—”

It was no good; the door was shut again in his face, and he stood alone in the dark.

This was all very unusual. Lodge-keepers did not usually receive “orders” to send tramps, without credentials, on to the house which the lodge was supposed to guard.... That open gate, then, must have been intentional. Plainly, however, he must take her at her word; and as he tramped down the drive, he began to form theories. It must be a fanatic of some kind who lived here, and he inclined to consider the owner as probably an eccentric old lady with a fad, and a large number of lap-dogs.

As he came nearer, through the trees, he became still more astonished, for as the branches thinned, he became aware of lights burning at such enormous distances apart that the building seemed more like a village than a house.

Straight before him shone a row of lighted squares, high up, as if hung in air, receding in perspective, till blocked out by a black mass which seemed a roof of some kind; far on the left shone some kind of illuminated gateway, and to his right another window or two glimmered almost beneath his feet.

Another fifty yards down the winding drive disclosed a sight that made him seriously wonder whether the whole experience were real, for now only a few steps further on, and still lower than the level at which he was, stood, apparently, a porter’s lodge, as of a great college. There was a Tudor archway, with rooms above it and rooms on either side; a lamp hung from the roof illuminated the dry stone pavement within, and huge barred gates at the further end, shut off all other view. It looked like the entrance to some vast feudal castle, and he thought again that if an eccentric old lady lived here, she must be very eccentric indeed. He began to wonder whether a seneschal in a belt hung with keys would presently make his appearance: he considered whether or not he could wind a horn, if there were no other way of summoning the retainers.

When at last he tapped at a small interior door, also studded and barred with iron, and the door opened, the figure he did see was hardly less of a shock to him than a seneschal would have been.

For there stood, as if straight out of a Christmas number, the figure of a monk, tall, lean, with gray hair, clean-shaven, with a pair of merry eyes and a brisk manner. He wore a broad leather band round his black frock, and carried his spare hand thrust deep into it.

II

The monk sighed humorously.

“Another of them,” he said. “Well, my man?”

“Please, father—”

The monk closed his eyes as in resignation.

“You needn’t try that on,” he said. “Besides, I’m not a father. I’m a brother. Can you remember that?”

Frank smiled back.

“Very well, brother. I’m a Catholic myself.”

“Ah! yes,” sighed the monk briskly. “That’s what they all say. Can you say the ‘Divine Praises’? Do you know what they are?... However, that makes no difference, as—”

“But I can, brother. ‘Blessed be God. Blessed be His—”

“But you’re not Irish?”

“I know I’m not. But—”

“Are you an educated man? However, that’s not my affair. What can I do for you, sir?”

The monk seemed to take a little more interest in him, and Frank took courage.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m an educated man. My name’s Frank Gregory. I’ve got two friends out on the road up there—a man and a woman. Their name’s Trustcott—and the woman—”

“No good; no good,” said the monk. “No women.”

“But, brother, she really can’t go any further. I’m very sorry, but we simply must have shelter. We’ve got two or three shillings, if necessary—”

“Oh, you have, have you?” said the monk keenly. “That’s quite new. And when did you touch food last? Yesterday morning? (Don’t say ‘S’elp me!’ It’s not necessary.)”

“We last touched food about twelve o’clock to-day. We had beans and cold bacon,” said Frank deliberately. “We’re perfectly willing to pay for shelter and food, if we’re obliged. But, of course, we don’t want to.”

The monk eyed him very keenly indeed a minute or two without speaking. This seemed a new type.

“Come in and sit down a minute,” he said. “I’ll fetch the guest-master.”

It was a very plain little room in which Frank sat, and seemed designed, on purpose, to furnish no temptation to pilferers. There was a table, two chairs, a painted plaster statue of a gray-bearded man in black standing on a small bracket with a crook in his hand; a pious book, much thumb-marked, lay face downwards on the table beside the oil lamp. There was another door through which the monk had disappeared, and that was absolutely all. There was no carpet and no curtains, but a bright little coal fire burned on the hearth, and two windows looked, one up the drive down which Frank had come, and the other into some sort of courtyard on the opposite side.

About ten minutes passed away without anything at all happening. Frank heard more than one gust of rain-laden wind dash against the little barred window to the south, and he wondered how his friends were getting on. The Major, at any rate, he knew, would manage to keep himself tolerably dry. Then he began to think about this place, and was surprised that he was not surprised at running into it like this in the dark. He knew nothing at all about monasteries—he hardly knew that there were such things in England (one must remember that he had only been a Catholic for about five months), and yet somehow, now that he had come here, it all seemed inevitable. (I cannot put it better than that: it is what he himself says in his diary.)

Then, as he meditated, the door opened, and there came in a thin, eager-looking elderly man, dressed like the brother who followed him, except that over his frock he wore a broad strip of black stuff, something like a long loose apron, hanging from his throat to his feet, and his head was enveloped in a black hood.

Frank stood up and bowed with some difficulty. He was beginning to feel stiff.

“Well,” said the priest sharply, with his bright gray eyes, puckered at the corners, running over and taking in the whole of Frank’s figure from close-cut hair to earthy boots. “Brother James tells me you wish to see me.”

“It was Brother James who said so, father,” said Frank.

“What is it you want?”

“I’ve got two friends on the road who want shelter—man and woman. We’ll pay, if necessary, but—”

“Never mind about that,” interrupted the priest sharply. “Who are you?”

“The name I go by is Frank Gregory.”

“The name you go by, eh?... Where were you educated?”

“Eton and Cambridge.”

“How do you come to be on the roads?”

“That’s a long story, father.”

“Did you do anything you shouldn’t?”

“No. But I’ve been in prison since.”

“And your name’s Frank Gregory.... F.G., eh?”

Frank turned as if to leave. He understood that he was known.

“Well—good-night, father—”

The priest turned with upraised hand.

“Brother James, just step outside.”

Then he continued as the door closed.

“You needn’t go, Mr.—er—Gregory. Your name shall not be mentioned to a living being without your leave.”

“You know about me?”

“Of course I do.... Now be sensible, my dear fellow; go and fetch your friends. We’ll manage somehow.” (He raised his voice and rapped on the table.) “Brother James ... go up with Mr. Gregory to the porter’s lodge. Make arrangements to put the woman up somewhere, either there or in a gardener’s cottage. Then bring the man down here.... His name?”

“Trustcott,” said Frank.

“And when you come back, I shall be waiting for you here.”

III

Frank states in his diary that an extraordinary sense of familiarity descended on him as, half an hour later, the door of a cell closed behind Dom Hildebrand Maple, and he found himself in a room with a bright fire burning, a suit of clothes waiting for him, a can of hot water, a sponging tin and a small iron bed.

I think I understand what he means. Somehow or other a well-ordered monastery represents the Least Common Multiple of nearly all pleasant houses. It has the largeness and amplitude of a castle, and the plainness of decent poverty. It has none of that theatricality which it is supposed to have, none of the dreaminess or the sentimentality with which Protestants endow it. He had passed just now through, first, a network of small stairways, archways, vestibules and passages, and then along two immense corridors with windows on one side and closed doors on the other. Everywhere there was the same quiet warmth and decency and plainness—stained deal, uncarpeted boards, a few oil pictures in the lower corridor, an image or two at the turn and head of the stairs; it was lighted clearly and unaffectedly by incandescent gas, and the only figures he had seen were of two or three monks, with hooded heads (they had raised these hoods slightly in salutation as he passed), each going about his business briskly and silently. There was even a cheerful smell of cooking at the end of one of the corridors, and he had caught a glimpse of two or three aproned lay brothers, busy in the firelight and glow of a huge kitchen, over great copper pans.

The sense of familiarity, then, is perfectly intelligible: a visitor to a monastery steps, indeed, into a busy and well-ordered life, but there is enough room and air and silence for him to preserve his individuality too.

As soon as he was washed and dressed, he sat down in a chair before the fire; but almost immediately there came a tap on his door, and the somewhat inflamed face of the Major looked in.

“Frankie?” he whispered, and, reassured, came in and closed the door behind. (He looked very curiously small and unimportant, thought Frank. Perhaps it was the black suit that had been lent him.)

“By gad, Frankie ... we’re in clover,” he whispered, still apparently under the impression that somehow he was in church. “There are some other chaps, you know, off the roads too, but they’re down by the lodge somewhere.” (He broke off and then continued.) “I’ve got such a queer Johnnie in my room—ah! you’ve got one, too.”

He went up to examine a small plaster statue of a saint above the prie-dieu.

“It’s all right, isn’t it?” said Frank sleepily.

“And there’s another Johnnie’s name on the door. The Rev. S. Augustine, or something.”

He tip-toed back to the fire, lifted his tails, and stood warming himself with a complacent but nervous smile.

(Frank regarded him with wonder.)

“What do all the Johnnies do here?” asked the Major presently. “Have a rare old time, I expect. I bet they’ve got cellars under here all right. Just like those chaps in comic pictures, ain’t it?”

(Frank decided it was no use to try to explain.)

The Major babbled on a minute or two longer, requiring no answer, and every now and then having his roving eye caught by some new marvel. He fingered a sprig of yew that was twisted into a crucifix hung over the bed. (“Expect it’s one of those old relics,” he said, “some lie or other.”) He humorously dressed up the statue of the saint in a pocket-handkerchief, and said: “Let us pray,” in a loud whisper, with one eye on the door. And all the while there still lay on him apparently the impression that if he talked loud or made any perceptible sound he would be turned out again.

He was just beginning a few steps of a noiseless high-kicking dance when there was a tap at the door, and he collapsed into an attitude of weak-kneed humility. Dom Hildebrand came in.

“If you’re ready,” he said, “we might go down to supper.”

Frank relates in his diary that of all else in the monastery, apart from the church, the refectory and its manners impressed him most. (How easy it is to picture it when one has once seen the ceremonies!)

He sat at a center table, with the Major opposite (looking smaller than ever), before a cloth laid with knife, spoon and forks. All round the walls on a low daïs, with their backs against them, sat a row of perhaps forty monks, of every age, kind and condition. The tables were bare wood, laid simply with utensils and no cloths, with a napkin in each place. At the end opposite the door there sat at a table all alone a big, portly, kindly-faced man, of a startlingly fatherly appearance, clean-shaven, gray-haired, and with fine features. This was the Abbot. Above him hung a crucifix, with the single word “Sitio” beneath it on a small black label.

The meal began, however, with the ceremony of singing grace. The rows of monks stood out, with one in the middle, facing the Abbot, each with his hood forward and his hands hidden in his scapular. It was sung to a grave tone, with sudden intonations, by the united voices in unison—blessing, response, collect, psalm and the rest. (Frank could not resist one glance at the Major, whose face of consternation resembled that of a bird in the company of sedate cats.)

Then each went to his place, and, noiselessly, the orderly meal began and continued to the reading first of the gospel, and then of a history, from a pulpit built high in the wall. All were served by lay brothers, girded with aprons; almost every movement, though entirely natural, seemed ordered by routine and custom, and was distinguished by a serious sort of courtesy that made the taking of food appear, for once, as a really beautiful, august, and almost sacramental ceremony. The great hall, too, with its pointed roof, its tiled floor, its white-wood scrubbed tables, and its tall emblazoned windows, seemed exactly the proper background—a kind of secular sanctuary. The food was plain and plentiful: soup, meat, cheese and fruit; and each of the two guests had a small decanter of red wine, a tiny loaf of bread, and a napkin. The monks drank beer or water.

Then once more followed grace, with the same ceremonial.

When this was ended, Frank turned to see where Father Hildebrand was, supposing that all would go to their rooms; but as he turned he saw the Abbot coming down alone. He moved on, this great man, with that same large, fatherly air, but as he passed the two guests, he inclined slightly towards them, and Frank, with a glance to warn the Major, understanding that they were to follow, came out of his place and passed down between the lines of the monks, still in silence.

The Abbot went on, turned to the right, and as he moved along the cloister, loud sonorous chanting began behind. So they went, on and on, up the long lighted corridor, past door after door, as in some church procession. Yet all was obviously natural and familiar.

They turned in at last beneath an archway to the left, went through a vestibule, past a great stone of a crowned Woman with a Child in her arms, and as they entered the church, the Abbot dipped his finger into a stoop and presented it to Frank. Frank touched the drop of water, made the sign of the cross, and presented again his damp finger to the Major, who looked at him with a startled eye.

The Abbot indicated the front row of the seats in the nave, and Frank went into it, to watch the procession behind go past, flow up the steps, and disappear into the double rows of great stalls that lined the choir.

There was still silence—and longer silence, till Frank understood....

IV

His eyes grew accustomed to the gloom little by little, and he began to be able to make out the magnificence of the place he was in. Behind him stretched the immense nave, its roof and columns lost in darkness, its sides faintly illuminated by the glimmer of single oil-lamps, each in a small screened-off chapel. But in front of him was the greater splendor.

From side to side across the entrance to the choir ran the rood-screen, a vast erection of brown oak and black iron, surmounted by a high loft, from which glimmered down sheaves of silvered organ pipes, and, higher yet, in deep shadow, he could make out three gigantic figures, of which the center one was nailed to a cross. Beyond this began the stalls—dark and majestic, broken by carving—jutting heads of kings and priests leaning forward as if to breathe in the magnetism of that immense living silence generated by forty men at their prayers. At the further end there shone out faintly the glory of the High Altar, almost luminous, it seemed, in the light of the single red spark that hung before it. Frank could discern presently the gilded figures that stood among the candlesticks behind, the throne and crucifix, the mysterious veiling curtains of the Tabernacle.... Finally, in the midst of the choir, stood a tall erection which he could not understand.

An extraordinary peace seemed to descend and envelop him as he looked—a kind of crown and climax of various interior experiences that were falling on him now—for the last few weeks. (It is useless trying to put it into words. I shall hope to do my best presently by quoting Frank himself.) There was a sense of home-coming; there was a sense of astonishing sanity; there was a sense of an enormous objective peace, meeting and ratifying that interior peace which was beginning to be his. It appeared to him, somehow, as if for the first time he experienced without him that which up to now he had chiefly found within. Certainly there had been moments of this before—not merely emotional, you understand—when heart and head lay still from their striving, and the will reposed in Another Will. But this was the climax: it summed up all that he had learned in the last few months; it soothed the last scars away, it explained and answered—and, above all, correlated—his experiences. No doubt it was the physical, as well as the spiritual, atmosphere of this place, the quiet corridors, the warmth and the plainness and the solidity, even the august grace of the refectory—all these helped and had part in the sensation. Yet, if it is possible for you to believe it, these were no more than the vessels from which the heavenly fluid streamed; vessels, rather, that contained a little of that abundance that surged up here as in a fountain....

Frank started a little at a voice in his ear.

“When’s it going to begin?” whispered the Major in a hoarse, apprehensive voice.

V

A figure detached itself presently from the dark mass of the stalls and came down to where they were sitting. Frank perceived it was Father Hildebrand.

“We’re singing Mattins of the Dead, presently,” he said in a low voice. “It’s All Souls’ Eve. Will you stay, or shall I take you to your room?”

The Major stood up with alacrity.

“I’ll stay, if I may,” said Frank.

“Very well. Then I’ll take Mr. Trustcott upstairs.”

Half an hour later the ceremony began.

Here, I simply despair of description. I know something of what Frank witnessed and perceived, for I have been present myself at this affair in a religious house; but I do not pretend to be able to write it down.

First, however, there was the external, visible, audible service: the catafalque, a bier-like erection, all black and yellow, guarded by yellow flames on yellow candles—the grave movements, the almost monstrous figures, the rhythm of the ceremonies, and the wail of, the music of forty voices singing as one—all that is understood....

But the inner side of these things—the reverse of which these things are but a coarse lining, the substance of which this is a shadow—that is what passes words and transcends impressions.

It seemed to Frank that one section, at any rate, of that enormous truth at which he had clutched almost blindly when he had first made his submission to the Church—one chamber in that House of Life—was now flung open before him, and he saw in it men as trees walking.... He was tired and excited, of course; he was intensely imaginative; but there are some experiences that a rise of temperature cannot explain and that an imagination cannot originate....

For it seemed to him that here he was aware of an immeasurable need to which those ministrations were addressed, and this whole was countless in its units and clamant in its silence. It was as a man might see the wall of his room roll away, beyond which he had thought only the night to lie, and discern a thronging mass of faces crying for help, pressing upon him, urging, yet all without sound or word. He attempts in his diary to use phrases for all this—he speaks of a pit in which is no water, of shadows and forms that writhe and plead, of a light of glass mingled with fire; and yet of an inevitability, of a Justice which there is no questioning and a Force that there is no resisting. And, on the other side, there was this help given by men of flesh and blood like himself—using ceremonies and gestures and strange resonant words.... The whole was as some enormous orchestra—there was the wail on this side, the answer on that—the throb of beating hearts—there were climaxes, catastrophes, soft passages, and yet the result was one vast and harmonious whole.

It was the catafalque that seemed to him the veiled door to that other world that so manifested itself—seen as he saw it in the light of the yellow candles—it was as the awful portal of death itself; beneath that heavy mantle lay not so much a Body of Humanity still in death, as a Soul of Humanity alive beyond death, quick and yet motionless with pain. And those figures that moved about it, with censor and aspersorium, were as angels for tenderness and dignity and undoubted power. They were men like himself, yet they were far more; and they, too, one day, like himself, would pass beneath that pall and need the help of others that should follow them....

Something of this is but a hint of what Frank experienced; it came and went, no doubt, in gusts, yet all through he seems to have felt that sense that here was a door into that great watching world beyond—that here, in what is supposed by the world to be the narrow constraint of religion, was a liberty and an outlook into realities such as the open road and nature can but seldom give. But for my part, I can no more follow him further than I can write down the passion of the lover and the ecstasy of the musician. If these things could be said in words, they would have been said long ago. But at least it was along this path of perception that Frank went—a path that but continued the way along which he had come with such sure swiftness ever since the moment he had taken his sorrows and changed them from bitter to sweet. Some sentences that he has written mean nothing to me at all....

Only this I see clearly, both from my talks with Father Hildebrand and from the diary which Frank amplified at his bidding—that Frank had reached the end of a second stage in his journey, and that a third was to begin.

It is significant also, I think, in view of what is to follow, that the last initiation of this stage should have taken place on such an occasion as this.

CHAPTER V

I

There are certain moods into which minds, very much tired or very much concentrated, occasionally fall, in which the most trifling things take on them an appearance of great significance. A man in great anxiety, for example, will regard as omens or warnings such things as the ringing of a bell or the flight of a bird. I have heard this process deliberately defended by people who should know better. I have heard it said that those moods of intense concentration are, as a matter of fact states of soul in which the intuitive or mystical faculties work with great facility, and that at such times connections and correlations are perceived which at other times pass unnoticed. The events of the world then are, by such people, regarded as forming links in a chain of purpose—events even which are obviously to the practical man merely the effects of chance and accident. It is utterly impossible, says the practical man, that the ringing of a bell, or the grouping of tea-leaves, or the particular moment at which a picture falls from a wall, can be anything but fortuitous: and it is the sign of a weak and superstitious mind to regard them as anything else. There can be no purpose or sequence except in matters where we can perceive purpose or sequence.

Of course the practical man must be right; we imply that he is right, since we call him practical, and I have to deplore, therefore, the fact that Frank on several occasions fell into a superstitious way of looking at things. The proof is only too plain from his own diary—not that he interprets the little events which he records, but that he takes such extreme pains to write them down—events, too, that are, to all sensibly-minded people, almost glaringly unimportant and insignificant.

I have two such incidents to record between the the travelers’ leaving the Benedictine monastery and their arriving in London in December. The Major and Gertie have probably long since forgotten the one which they themselves witnessed, and, indeed, there is no particular reason why they should remember it. Of the other Frank seems to have said nothing to his friends. Both of them, however, are perfectly insignificant—they concern, respectively, only a few invisible singers and a couple of quite ordinary human beings. They are described with a wholly unnecessary wealth of detail in Frank’s diary, though without comment, and I write them down here for that reason, and that reason only.

The first was as follows:

They were approaching a certain cathedral town, not a hundred miles from London, and as the evening was clear and dry, though frosty, and money was low, they determined to pass the night in a convenient brick-yard about half a mile out of the town.

There was a handy shed where various implements were kept; the Major, by the help of a little twisted wire, easily unfastened the door. They supped, cooking a little porridge over a small fire which they were able to make without risk, and lay down to sleep after a pipe or two.

Tramps go to sleep early when they mean business, and it could not have been more than about eleven o’clock at night when Frank awoke with the sense that he had slept long and deeply. He seems to have lain there, content and quiet enough, watching the last ember dying in the brazier where they had made their fire.... There was presently a stir from the further corner of the shed, a match was struck, and Frank, from his improvised pillow, beheld the Major’s face suddenly illuminated by the light with which he was kindling his pipe once more. He watched the face with a sort of artistic interest for a few seconds—the drooping shadows, the apparently cavernous eyes, the deep-shaded bar of the mustache across the face. In the wavering light cast from below it resembled the face of a vindictive beast. Then the Major whispered, between his puffs:

“Frankie?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! you’re awake too, are you?”

“Yes.”

A minute later, though they had spoken only in whispers, Gertie drew a long sighing breath from her corner of the shed and they could hear that she, too, sat up and cleared her throat.

“Well, this is a pretty job,” said the Major jovially to the company generally. “What’s the matter with us?”

Frank said nothing. He lay still, with a sense of extraordinary content and comfort, and heard Gertie presently lie down again. The Major smoked steadily.

Then the singing began.

It was a perfectly still night, frost-bound and motionless. It was late enough for the sounds of the town to have died away (cathedral towns go to bed early and rise late), and, indeed, almost the only sounds they had heard, even three or four hours before, had been the occasional deliberate chime of bells, like a meditative man suddenly uttering a word or two aloud. Now, however, everything was dead silent. Probably the hour had struck immediately before they awoke, since Frank remarks that it seemed a long time before four notes tolled out the quarter.

The singing came first as a sensation rather than as a sound, so far away was it. It was not at once that Frank formulated the sense of pleasure that he experienced by telling himself that someone was singing.

At first it was a single voice that made itself heard—a tenor of extraordinary clarity. The air was unknown to him, but it had the character of antiquity; there was a certain pleasant melancholy about it; it contained little trills and grace-notes, such as—before harmony developed in the modern sense—probably supplied the absence of chords. There was no wind on which the sound could rise or fall, and it grew from a thread out of the distance into clear singing not a quarter of a mile away....

The Major presently grunted over his pipe some expression of surprise; but Frank could say nothing. He was almost holding his breath, so great was his pleasure.

The air, almost regretfully, ran downhill like a brook approaching, an inevitable full close; and then, as the last note was reached, a chord of voices broke in with some kind of chorus.

The voices were of a quartette of men, and rang together like struck notes, not loud or harsh, but, on the contrary, with a restrained softness that must, I suppose, have been the result of very careful training. It was the same air that they were repeating, but the grace-notes were absent, and the four voices, in chord after chord, supplied their place by harmony. It was impossible to tell what was the subject of the song or even whether it were sacred or secular, for it was of that period—at least, so I conjecture—when the two worlds were one, and when men courted their love and adored their God after the same fashion. Only there ran through all that air of sweet and austere melancholy, as if earthly music could do no more than hint at what the heart wished to express.

Frank listened in a sort of ecstasy. The music was nearer now, coming from the direction from which the three travelers had themselves come this afternoon. Presently, from the apparent diminuendo, it was plain that the singers were past, and were going on towards the town. There was no sound of footsteps; the Major remarked on that, when he could get Frank to attend a few minutes later, when all was over; but there were field paths running in every direction, as well as broad stretches of grass beside the road, so the singers may very well have been walking on soft ground. (These points are dispassionately noted down in the diary.)

The chorus was growing fainter now; once more the last slopes of the melody were in sight—those downhill gradations of the air that told of the silence to come. Then once more, for an instant, there was silence, till again, perhaps nearly a quarter of a mile away, the single tenor voice began da capo. And the last that Frank heard, at the moment before the quarter struck and, soft and mellow though it was, jarred the air and left the ear unable to focus itself again on the tiny woven thread of sound, was, once more the untiring quartette taking up the melody, far off in the silent darkness.

It seems to me a curious little incident—this passing of four singers in the night; it might have seemed as if our travelers, by a kind of chance, were allowed to overhear the affairs of a world other than their own—and the more curious because Frank seems to have been so much absorbed by it. Of course, from a practical point of view, it is almost painfully obvious what is the explanation. It must have been a quartette from the cathedral choir, returning from some festivity in the suburbs; and it must have happened that they followed the same route, though walking on the grass, along which Frank himself had come that evening.

II

The second incident is even more ordinary, and once again I must declare that nothing would have induced me to incorporate it into this story had it not appeared, described very minutely in the sort of log-book into which Frank’s diary occasionally degenerates.

They were within a very few miles of the outskirts of London, and December had succeeded November. They had had a day or two of work upon some farm or other. (I have not been able to identify the place), and had run into, and, indeed, exchanged remarks with two or three groups of tramps also London bound.

They were given temporary lodgings in a loft over a stable, by the farmer for whom they worked, and this stable was situated in a court at the end of the village street, with gates that stood open all day, since the yard was overlooked by the windows of the farmer’s living-house—and, besides, there was really nothing to steal.

They had finished their work in the fields (I think it had to do with the sheep and mangel-wurzels, or something of the kind); they had returned to their lodgings, received their pay, packed up their belongings, and had already reached the further end of the village on their way to London, when Frank discovered that he had left a pair of socks behind. This would never do: socks cost money, and their absence meant sore feet and weariness; so he told the Major and Gertie to walk on slowly while he went back. He would catch them up, he said, before they had gone half a mile. He hid his bundle under a hedge—every pound of weight made a difference at the end of a day’s work—and set off.

It was just at that moment between day and night—between four and five o’clock—as he came back into the yard. He went straight through the open gates, glancing about, to explain matters to the farmer if necessary, but, not seeing him, went up the rickety stairs, groped his way across to the window, took down his socks from the nail an which he had hung them last night, and came down again.

As he came into the yard, he thought he heard something stirring within the open door of the stable on his right, and thinking it to be the farmer, and that an explanation would be advisable, looked in.

At first he saw nothing, though he could hear a horse moving about in the loose-box in the corner. Then he saw a light shine beneath the crack of the second door, beside the loose-box, that led into the farm-yard proper; and the next instant the door opened, a man came in with a lantern obviously just lighted, as the flame was not yet burned up, and stopped with a half-frightened look on seeing Frank. But he said nothing.

Frank himself was just on the point of giving an explanation when he, too, stopped dead and stared. It seemed to him that he had been here before, under exactly the same circumstances; he tried to remember what happened next, but he could not....

For this was what he saw as the flame burned up more brightly.

The man who held the lantern and looked at him in silence with a half-deprecating air was a middle-aged man, bearded and bare-headed. He had thrown over his shoulders a piece of sacking, that hung from him almost like a robe. The light that he carried threw heavy wavering shadows about the stable, and Frank noticed the great head of a cart-horse in the loose-box peering through the bars, as if to inquire what the company wanted. Then, still without speaking, Frank let his eyes rove round, and they stopped suddenly at the sight of yet one more living being in the stable. Next to the loose-box was a stall, empty except for one occupant; for there, sitting on a box with her back to the manger and one arm flung along it to support her weight, was the figure of a girl. Her head, wrapped in an old shawl, leaned back against her arm, and a very white and weary face, absolutely motionless, looked at him. She had great eyes, with shadows beneath, and her lips were half opened. By her side lay a regular tramp’s bundle.

Frank looked at her steadily a moment, then he looked back at the man, who still had not moved or spoken. The draught from the door behind blew in and shook the flame of his lantern, and the horse sighed long and loud in the shadows behind. Once more Frank glanced at the girl; she had lowered her arm from the manger and now sat looking at him, it seemed, with a curious intentness and expectancy.

There was nothing to be said. Frank bowed a little, almost apologetically, and went out.

Now that was absolutely all that happened. Frank says so expressly in his diary. He did not speak to them, nor they to him; nor was any explanation given on either side. He went out across the yard in silence, seeing nothing of the farmer, but hearing a piano begin to play beyond the brightly lighted windows, of which he could catch a glimpse over the low wall separating the yard from the garden. He walked quickly up the village street and caught up his companions, as he had said, less than half a mile further on. He said nothing to them of his experience—indeed, what was there to say?—but he must have written it down that same night when they reached their next lodging, and written it down, too, with that minuteness of detail which surprised me so much when I first read it.

For the explanation of the whole thing is as foolishly obvious as was that of the singing that the three had heard in the suburbs of Peterborough. Obviously a couple of tramps had turned into this stable for shelter. Perhaps the girl was the man’s daughter; perhaps his wife; perhaps neither. Plainly they had no right there—and that would explain the embarrassed silence of the two: they knew they were trespassing, and feared to be turned away. Perhaps already they had been turned away from the village inn. But the girl was obviously tired out, and the man had determined to risk it.

That, then, was the whole affair—commonplace, and even a little sordid. And yet Frank thought that it was worth writing down!

CHAPTER VI

An extract, taken by permission, from a few pages of Frank Guiseley’s diary. These pages were written with the encouragement of Dom Hildebrand Maple, O.S.B., and were sent to him later at his own request.

“... He told me a great many things that surprised me. For instance, he seemed to know all about certain ideas that I had had, before I told him of them, and said that I was not responsible, and he picked out one or two other things that I had said, and told me that these were much more serious....

“I went to confession to him on Friday morning, in the church. He did not say a great deal then, but he asked if I would care to talk to him afterwards. I said I would, and went to him in the parlor after dinner. The first thing that happened was that he asked me to tell him as plainly as I could anything that had happened to me—in my soul, I mean—since I had left Cambridge. So I tried to describe it.

“I said that at first things went pretty well in my soul, and that it was only bodily things that troubled me—getting fearfully tired and stiff, being uncomfortable, the food, the sleeping, and so on. Then, as soon as this wore off I met the Major and Gertie. I was rather afraid of saying all that I felt about these; but he made me, and I told him how extraordinarily I seemed to hate them sometimes, how I felt almost sick now and then when the Major talked to me and told me stories.... The thing that seemed to torment me most during this time was the contrast between Cambridge and Merefield and the people there, and the company of this pair; and the only relief was that I knew I could, as a matter of fact, chuck them whenever I wanted and go home again. But this relief was taken away from me as soon as I understood that I had to keep with them, and do my best somehow to separate them. Of course, I must get Gertie back to her people some time, and till that’s done it’s no good thinking about anything else.

“After a while, however—I think it was just before I got into trouble with the police—I began to see that I was a conceited ass for hating the Major so much. It was absurd for me, I said, to put on airs, when the difference between him and me was just that he had been brought up in one way and I in another. I hated the things he did and said, not because they were wrong, but because they were what I called ‘bad form.’ That was really the whole thing. Then I saw a lot more, and it made me feel miserable. I used to think that it was rather good of me to be kind to animals and children, but I began to see that it was simply the way I was made: it wasn’t any effort to me. I simply ‘saw red’ when I came across cruelty. And I saw that that was no good.

“Then I began to see that I had done absolutely nothing of any good whatever—that nothing had really cost me anything; and that the things I was proud of were simply self-will—my leaving Cambridge, and all the rest. They were theatrical, or romantic, or egotistical; there was no real sacrifice. I should have minded much more not doing them. I began to feel extraordinarily small.

“Then the whole series of things began that simply smashed me up.

“First there was the prison business. That came about in this way:

“I had just begun to see that I was all wrong with the Major—that by giving way to my feelings about him (I don’t mean that I ever showed it, but that was only because I thought it more dignified not to!), I was getting all wrong with regard to both him and myself, and that I must do something that my whole soul hated if it was to be of any use. Then there came that minute in the barn, when I heard the police were after us, and that there was really no hope of escape. The particular thing that settled me was Gertie. I knew, somehow, that I couldn’t let the Major go to prison while she was about. And then I saw that this was just the very thing to do, and that I couldn’t be proud of it ever, because the whole thing was so mean and second-rate. Well, I did it, and it did me a lot of good somehow. I felt really rolled in the dirt, and that little thing in the post-office afterwards rubbed it in. I saw how chock-full I must be of conceit really to mind that, as I did, and to show off, and talk like a gentleman.

“Then there came the priest who refused to help me. That made me for a time perfectly furious, because I had always said to myself that Catholics, and especially priests, would always understand. But before I got to York I saw what an ass I had made of myself. Of course, the priest was perfectly right (I saw that before I got ten yards away, though I wouldn’t acknowledge it for another five miles). I was a dirty tramp, and I talked like a brazen fool. (I remember thinking my ‘openness’ to him rather fine and manly!) Well, that made me smaller still.

“Then a sort of despair came on me when the police got me turned out of my work in York. I know it was only a little thing (though I still think it unfair), but it was like a pebble in your boot when you’re already going lame from something else.

“And then came Jenny’s letter. (I want to write about that rather carefully.)

“I said just now that I was getting to feel smaller and smaller. That’s perfectly true, but there was still a little hard lump in the middle that would not break. Things might have gone crumbling away at me for ever, and I might have got smaller still, but they wouldn’t have smashed me.

“Now there were two things that I held on to all this time—my religion and Jenny. I gave them turns, so to speak, though Jenny was never absent. When everything religious tasted flat and dull and empty, I thought about Jenny: when things were better—when I had those two or three times I told Father Hildebrand about (...)—I still thought of Jenny, and imagined how splendid it would be when we were both Catholics together and married. But I never dreamed that Jenny would ever be angry or disappointed. I wouldn’t talk about her to anybody ever, because I was so absolutely certain of her. I knew, I thought, that the whole world might crumble away, but that Jenny would always understand, down at the bottom, and that she and I would remain....

“Well, then came her letter.

“Honestly, I don’t quite know what I was doing inside for the next week or so. Simply everything was altered. I never had any sort of doubt that she meant what she said, and it was as if there wasn’t any sun or moon or sky. It was like being ill. Things happened round me: I ate and drank and walked, but the only thing I wanted was to get away, and get down somewhere into myself and hide. Religion, of course, seemed no good at all. I don’t understand quite what people mean by ‘consolations’ of religion. Religion doesn’t seem to me a thing like Art or Music, in which you can take refuge. It either covers everything, or it isn’t religion. Religion never has seemed to me (I don’t know if I’m wrong) one thing, like other things, so that you can change about and back again.... It’s either the background and foreground all in one, or it’s a kind of game. It’s either true, or it’s a pretense.

“Well, all this, in a way, taught me it was absolutely true. Things wouldn’t have held together at all unless it was true. But it was no sort of satisfaction. It seemed to me for a while that it was horrible that it was true; that it was frightful to think that God could be like that—since this Jenny-business had really happened. But I didn’t feel all this exactly consciously at the time. I seemed as if I was ill, and could only lie still and watch and be in hell. One thing, however, Father Hildebrand thought very important (he asked me about it particularly) was that I honestly did not feel any resentment whatever against either God or Jenny. It was frightful, but it was true, and I just had to lie still inside and look at it. He tells me that this shows that the first part of the ‘process,’ as he called it, was finished (he called it the ‘Purgative Way’). And I must say that what happened next seems to fit in rather well.

“The new ‘process’ began quite suddenly when I awoke in the shepherd’s hut one morning at Ripon. The instant I awoke I knew it. It was very early in the morning, just before sunrise, but there was a little wood behind me, and the birds were beginning to chirp.

“It’s very hard to describe it in words, but the first thing to say is that I was not exactly happy just then, but absolutely content. I think I should say that it was like this: I saw suddenly that what had been wrong in me was that I had made myself the center of things, and God a kind of circumference. When He did or allowed things, I said, ‘Why does He?’—from my point of view. That is to say, I set up my ideas of justice and love and so forth, and then compared His with mine, not mine with His. And I suddenly saw—or, rather, I knew already when I awoke—that this was simply stupid. Even now I cannot imagine why I didn’t see it before: I had heard people say it, of course—in sermons and books—but I suppose it had meant nothing to me. (Father Hildebrand tells me that I had seen it intellectually, but had never embraced it with my will.) Because when one once really sees that, there’s no longer any puzzle about anything. One can simply never say ‘Why?’ again. The thing’s finished.

“Now this ‘process’ (as Father H. calls it) has gone on in a most extraordinary manner ever since. That beginning near Ripon was like opening a door into another country, and I’ve been walking ever since and seeing new things. All sorts of things that I had believed as a Catholic—things, I mean, which I assented to simply because the Church said so, have, so to speak, come up and turned themselves inside out. I couldn’t write them down, because you can’t write these things down, or even put them intelligibly to yourself. You just see that they are so. For instance, one morning at mass—quite suddenly—I saw how the substance of the bread was changed, and how our Lord is united with the soul at Communion—of course it’s a mystery (that’s what I mean by saying that it can’t be written down)—but I saw it, in a flash, and I can see it still in a sort of way. Then another day when the Major was talking about something or other (I think it was about the club he used to belong to in Piccadilly), I understood about our Lady and how she is just everything from one point of view. And so on. I had that kind of thing at Doctor Whitty’s a good deal, particularly when I was getting better. I could talk to him all the time, too, or count the knobs on the wardrobe, or listen to the Major and Gertie in the garden—and yet go on all the time seeing things. I knew it wasn’t any good talking to Doctor Whitty himself much, though I can’t imagine why a man like that doesn’t see it all for himself....

“It seems to me most extraordinary now that I ever could have had those other thoughts I told Father H. about—I mean about sins, and about wondering whether, after all, the Church was actually true. In a sort of way, of course, they come back to me still, and I know perfectly well I must be on my guard; but somehow it’s different.

“Well, all this is what Father H. calls the ‘Illuminative Way,’ and I think I understand what he means. It came to a sort of point on All Souls’ Eve at the monastery. I saw the whole thing then for a moment or two, and not only Purgatory. But I will write that down later. And Father H. tells me that I must begin to look forward to a new ‘process’—what he calls the ‘Way of Union.’ I don’t understand much what he means by that; I don’t see that more could happen to me. I am absolutely and entirely happy; though I must say that there has seemed a sort of lull for the last day or two—ever since All Souls’ Day, in fact. Perhaps something is going to happen. It’s all right, anyhow. It seems very odd to me that all this kind of thing is perfectly well known to priests. I thought I was the first person who had ever felt quite like this.

“I must add one thing. Father H. asked me whether I didn’t feel I had a vocation to the Religious Life; he told me that from everything he could see, I had, and that my coming to the monastery was simply providential.

“Well, I don’t agree, and I have told him so. I haven’t the least idea what is going to happen next; but I know, absolutely for certain, that I have got to go on with the Major and Gertie to East London. Gertie will have to be got away from the Major somehow, and until that is done I mustn’t do anything else.

“I have written all this down as plainly as I can, because I promised Father H. I would.”

PART III

CHAPTER I

Mrs. Partington was standing at the door of her house towards sunset, waiting for the children to come back from school.

Her house is situated in perhaps the least agreeable street—Turner Road—in perhaps the least agreeable district of East London—Hackney Wick. It is a disagreeable district because it isn’t anything in particular. It has neither the tragic gayety of Whitechapel nor the comparative refinement of Clapton. It is a large, triangular piece of land, containing perhaps a square mile altogether, or rather more, approached from the south by the archway of the Great Eastern Railway, defined on one side by the line, and along its other two sides, partly by the river Lea—a grimy, depressed-looking stream—and partly by the Hackney Marshes—flat, dreary wastes of grass-grown land, useless as building ground and of value only for Saturday afternoon recreations of rabbit coursing and football. The dismalness of the place is beyond description at all times of the year. In winter it is bleak and chilly; in summer it is hot, fly-infested, and hideously and ironically reminiscent of real fields and real grass. The population is calculated to change completely about every three years, and I’m sure I am not surprised. It possesses two important blocks of buildings besides the schools—a large jam factory and the church and clergy-house of the Eton Mission.

Turner Road is perhaps the most hopeless of all the dozen and a half of streets. (It is marked black, by the way, in Mr. Booth’s instructive map.) It is about a quarter of a mile long and perfectly straight. It is intersected at one point by another street, and is composed of tall dark houses, with flat fronts, perhaps six or seven stories in height. It is generally fairly silent and empty, and is inhabited by the most characteristic members of the Hackney Wick community—quiet, white-faced men, lean women, draggled and sharp-tongued, and countless over-intelligent children—all of the class that seldom remain long anywhere—all of the material out of which the real criminal is developed. No booths or stalls ever stand here; only, on Saturday nights, there is echoed here, as in a stone-lined pit, the cries and the wheel-noises from the busy thoroughfare a hundred yards away round the corner. The road, as a whole, bears an aspect of desperate and fierce dignity; there is never here the glimpse of a garden or of flowers, as in Mortimer Road, a stone’s throw away. There is nothing whatever except the tall, flat houses, the pavements, the lampposts, the grimy thoroughfare and the silence. The sensation of the visitor is that anything might happen here, and that no one would be the wiser. There is an air of horrible discretion about these houses.

Mrs. Partington was—indeed is (for I went to see her not two months ago)—of a perfectly defined type. She must have been a handsome factory girl—dark, slender, and perfectly able to take care of herself, with thin, muscular arms, generally visible up to the elbow, hard hands, a quantity of rather untidy hair—with the tongue of a venomous orator and any amount of very inferior sentiment, patriotic and domestic. She has become a lean, middle-aged woman, very upright and very strong, without any sentiment at all, but with a great deal of very practical human experience to take its place. She has no illusions about either this world or the next; she has borne nine children, of which three survive; and her husband is almost uninterruptedly out of work. However, they are prosperous (for Turner Road), and have managed, so far, to keep their home together.

The sunset was framed in a glow of smoky glory at the end of the street down which Mrs. Partington was staring, resembling a rather angry search-light turned on from the gates of heaven. The street was still quiet; but already from the direction of the Board-school came thin and shrill cries as the swarm of children exploded in all directions. Mrs. Partington (she would have said) was waiting for her children—Jimmy, Maggie and ‘Erb—and there were lying within upon the bare table three thick slices of bread and black jam; as a matter of fact, she was looking out for her lodgers, who should have arrived by midday.

Then she became aware that they were coming, even as she looked, advancing down the empty street en échelon. Two of them she knew well enough—they had lodged with her before; but the third was to be a stranger, and she was already interested in him—the Major had hinted at wonderful mysteries....

So she shaded her eyes against the cold glare and watched them carefully, with that same firm, resolute face with which she always looked out upon the world; and even as, presently, she exchanged that quick, silent nod of recognition with the Major and Gertie, still she watched the brown-faced, shabby young man who came last, carrying his bundle and walking a little lame.

“You’re after your time,” she said abruptly.

The Major began his explanations, but she cut them short and led the way into the house.

II

I find it very difficult to record accurately the impression that Frank made upon Mrs. Partington; but that the impression was deep and definite became perfectly clear to me from her conversation. He hardly spoke at all, she said, and before he got work at the jam factory he went out for long, lonely walks across the marshes. He and the Major slept together, it seemed, in one room, and Gertie, temporarily with the children and Mrs. Partington in another. (Mr. Partington, at this time, happened to be away on one of his long absences.) At meals Frank was always quiet and well-behaved, yet not ostentatiously. Mrs. Partington found no fault with him in that way. He would talk to the children a little before they went to school, and would meet them sometimes on their way back from school; and all three of them conceived for him an immense and indescribable adoration. All this, however, would be too long to set down in detail.

It seems to have been a certain air of pathos which Mrs. Partington herself cast around him, which affected her the most, and I imagine her feeling to have been largely motherly. There was, however, another element very obviously visible, which, in anyone but Mrs. Partington, I should call reverence.... She told me that she could not imagine why he was traveling with the Major and Gertie, so she at least understood something of the gulf between them.

So the first week crept by, bringing us up to the middle of December.

It was on the Friday night that Frank came back with the announcement that he was to go to work at the jam factory on Monday. There was a great pressure, of course, owing to the approach of Christmas, and Frank was to be given joint charge of a van. The work would last, it seemed, at any rate, for a week or two.

“You’ll have to mind your language,” said the Major jocosely. (He was sitting in the room where the cooking was done and where, by the way, the entire party, with the exception of the two men, slept; and, at this moment, had his feet on the low mantelshelf between the saucepan and Jimmy’s cap.)

“Eh?” said Frank.

“No language allowed there,” said the Major. “They’re damn particular.”

Frank put his cap down and took his seat on the bed.

“Where’s Gertie?” he asked. (“Yes, come on, Jimmie.”)

Jimmie crept up beside him, looking at him with big black, reverential eyes. Then he leaned against him with a quick smile and closed his eyes ecstatically. Frank put an arm round the boy to support him.

“Oh! Gertie’s gone to see a friend,” said the Major. “Did you want her?”

Frank said nothing, and Mrs. Partington looked from one to the other swiftly.

Mrs. Partington had gathered a little food for thought during the last few days. It had become perfectly evident to her that the girl was very much in love with this young man, and that while this young man either was, or affected to be, ignorant of it, the Major was not. Gertie had odd silences when Frank came into the room, or yet more odd volubilities, and Mrs. Partington was not quite sure of the Major’s attitude. This officer and her husband had had dealings together in the past of a nature which I could not quite determine (indeed, the figure of Mr. Partington is still a complete mystery to me, and rather a formidable mystery); and I gather that Mrs. Partington had learned from her husband that the Major was not simply negligible. She knew him for a blackguard, but she seems to have been uncertain of what kind was this black-guardism—whether of the strong or the weak variety. She was just a little uncomfortable, therefore, as to the significance of Gertie; and had already wondered more than once whether or no she should say a motherly word to the young man.

There came a sound of footsteps up the street as Mrs. Partington ironed a collar of Jimmie’s on the dining-room table, and laid down the iron as a tap fell on the door. The Major took out his pipe and began to fill it as she went out to see who was knocking.

“Oh! good evening, Mrs. Partington,” sounded in a clear, high-bred voice from the street door. “May I come in for a minute or two? I heard you had lodgers, and I thought perhaps—”

“Well, sir, we’re rather upside-down just now—and—”

“Oh! I won’t disturb you more than a minute,” came the other voice again. There were footsteps in the passage, and the next instant, past the unwilling hostess, there came a young, fresh-colored clergyman, carrying a silk hat, into the lamplight of the kitchen. Frank stood up instantly, and the Major went so far as to take down his feet. Then he, too, stood up.

“Good evening!” said the clergyman. “May I just come in for a minute or two? I heard you had come, and as it’s in my district—May I sit down, Mrs. Partington?”

Mrs. Partington with sternly knit lips, swept a brown teapot, a stocking, a comb, a cup and a crumby plate off the single unoccupied chair, and set it a little forward near the fire. Clergymen were, to her mind, one of those mysterious dispensations of the world for which there was no adequate explanation at all—like policemen and men’s gamblings and horse-races. There they were, and there was no more to be said. They were mildly useful for entertaining the children and taking them to Southend, and in cases of absolute despair they could be relied upon for soup-tickets or even half-crowns; but the big mysterious church, with its gilded screen, its curious dark glass, and its white little side-chapel, with the Morris hangings, the great clergy-house, the ladies, the parish magazine and all the rest of it—these were simply inexplicable. Above all inexplicable was the passion displayed for district-visiting—that strange impulse that drove four highly-cultivated young men in black frock-coats and high hats and ridiculous little collars during five afternoons in the week to knock at door after door all over the district and conduct well-mannered conversations with bored but polite mothers of families. It was one of the phenomena that had to be accepted. She supposed it stood for something beyond her perceptions.

“I thought I must come in and make your acquaintance,” said the clergyman, nursing his hat and smiling at the company. (He, too, occasionally shared Mrs. Partington’s wonder as to the object of all this; but he, too, submitted to it as part of the system.) “People come and go so quickly, you know—”

“Very pleased to see a clergyman,” said the Major smoothly. “No objection to smoke, sir, I presume?” He indicated his pipe.

“Not at all,” said the clergyman. “In fact, I smoke myself; and if Mrs. Partington will allow me—” He produced a small pink and gilded packet of Cinderellas. (I think he thought it brought him vaguely nearer the people to smoke Cinderellas.)

“Oh! no objection at all, sir,” put in Mrs. Partington, still a little grimly. (She was still secretly resenting being called upon at half-past six. You were usually considered immune from this kind of thing after five o’clock.)

“So I thought I must just look in and catch you one evening,” explained the clergyman once more, “and tell you that we’re your friends here—the clergy, you know—and about the church and all that.”

He was an extremely conscientious young man—this Mr. Parham-Carter—an old Etonian, of course, and now in his first curacy. It was all pretty bewildering to him, too, this great and splendid establishment, the glorious church by Bodley, with the Magnificat in Gothic lettering below the roof, the well-built and furnished clergy-house, the ladies’ house, the zeal, the self-devotion, the parochial machinery, the Band of Hope, the men’s and boys’ clubs, and, above all, the furious district-visiting. Of course, it produced results, it kept up the standards of decency and civilization and ideals; it was a weight in the balances on the side of right and good living; the clubs kept men from the public-house to some extent, and made it possible for boys to grow up with some chance on their side. Yet he wondered, in fits of despondency, whether there were not something wrong somewhere.... But he accepted it: it was the approved method, and he himself was a learner, not a teacher.

“Very kind of you, sir,” said the Major, replacing his feet on the mantelshelf. “And at what time are the services on Sunday?”

The clergyman jumped. He was not accustomed to that sort of question.

“I ...” he began.

“I’m a strong Churchman, sir,” said the Major. “And even if I were not, one must set an example, you know. I may be narrow-minded, but I’m particular about all that sort of thing. I shall be with you on Sunday.”

He nodded reassuringly at Mr. Parham-Carter.

“Well, we have morning prayer at ten-thirty next Sunday, and the Holy Eucharist at eleven—and, of course, at eight.”

“No vestments, I hope?” said the Major sternly.

Mr. Parham-Carter faltered a little. Vestments were not in use, but to his regret.

“Well, we don’t use vestments,” he said, “but—”

The Major resumed his pipe with a satisfied air.

“That’s all right,” he said. “Now, I’m not bigoted—my friend here’s a Roman Catholic, but—”

The clergyman looked up sharply, and for the first time became consciously conscious of the second man. Frank had sat back again on the bed, with Jimmie beside him, and was watching the little scene quietly and silently, and the clergyman met his eyes full. Some vague shock thrilled through him; Frank’s clean-shaven brown face seemed somehow familiar—or was it something else?

Mr. Parham-Carter considered the point for a little while in silence, only half attending to the Major, who was now announcing his views on the Establishment and the Reformation settlement. Frank said nothing at all, and there grew on the clergyman a desire to hear his voice. He made an opportunity at last.

“Yes, I see,” he said to the Major; “and you—I don’t know your name?”

“Gregory, sir,” said Frank. And again a little shock thrilled Mr. Parham-Carter. The voice was the kind of thing he had expected from that face.

It was about ten minutes later, that the clergyman thought it was time to go. He had the Major’s positive promise to attend at least the evening service on the following Sunday—a promise he did not somehow very much appreciate—but he had made no progress with Frank. He shook hands all round very carefully, told Jimmie not to miss Sunday-school, and publicly commended Maggie for a recitation she had accomplished at the Band of Hope on the previous evening; and then went out, accompanied by Mrs. Partington, still silent, as far as the door. But as he actually went out, someone pushed by the woman and came out into the street.

“May I speak to you a minute?” said the strange young man, dropping the “sir.” “I’ll walk with you as far as the clergy-house if you’ll let me.”

When they were out of earshot of the house Frank began.

“You’re Parham-Carter, aren’t you?” he said. “Of Hales’.”

The other nodded. (Things were beginning to resolve themselves in his mind.)

“Well, will you give me your word not to tell a soul I’m here, and I’ll tell you who I am? You’ve forgotten me, I see. But I’m afraid you may remember. D’you see?”

“All right.”

“I’m Guiseley, of Drew’s. We were in the same division once—up to Rawlins. Do you remember?”

“Good Lord! But—”

“Yes, I know. But don’t let’s go into that. I’ve not done anything I shouldn’t. That’s not the reason I’m like this. It’s just turned out so. And there’s something else I want to talk to you about. When can I come and see you privately? I’m going to begin work to-morrow at the jam factory.”

The other man clutched at his whirling faculties.

“To-night—at ten. Will that do?”

“All right. What am I to say—when I ring the bell, I mean?”

“Just ask for me. They’ll show you straight up to my room.”

“All right,” said Frank, and was gone.

III

Mr. Parham-Carter’s room in the clergy-house was of the regular type—very comfortable and pleasing to the eye, as it ought to be for a young man working under such circumstances; not really luxurious; pious and virile. The walls were a rosy distemper, very warm and sweet, and upon them, above the low oak book-cases, hung school and college groups, discreet sporting engravings, a glorious cathedral interior, and the Sistine Madonna over the mantelpiece. An oar hung all along one ceiling, painted on the blade with the arms of an Oxford college. There was a small prie-dieu, surmounted by a crucifix of Ober-Ammergau workmanship: there was a mahogany writing-table with a revolving chair set before it; there were a couple of deep padded arm-chairs, a pipe-rack, and a row of photographs—his mother in evening dress, a couple of sisters, with other well-bred-looking relations. Altogether, with the curtains drawn and the fire blazing, it was exactly the kind of room that such a wholesome young man ought to have in the East of London.

Frank was standing on the hearth-rug as Mr. Parham-Carter came in a minute or two after ten o’clock, bearing a small tray with a covered jug, two cups and a plate of cake.

“Good-evening again,” said the clergyman. “Have some cocoa? I generally bring mine up here.... Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”

Frank said nothing. He sat down. He put his cap on the floor by his chair and leaned back. The other, with rather nervous movements, set a steaming cup by his side, and a small silver box of cigarettes, matches and an ash-tray. Then he sat down himself, took a long pull at his cocoa, and waited with a certain apprehensiveness.

“Who else is here?” asked Frank abruptly.

The other ran through the three names, with a short biography of each. Frank nodded, reassured at the end.

“That’s all right,” he said. “All before my time, I expect. They might come in, you know.”

“Oh, no!” said the clergyman. “I told them not, and—”

“Well, let’s come to business,” said Frank. “It’s about a girl. You saw that man to-day? You saw his sort, did you? Well, he’s a bad hat. And he’s got a girl going about with him who isn’t his wife. I want to get her home again to her people.”

“Yes?”

“Can you do anything? (Don’t say you can if you can’t, please....) She comes from Chiswick. I’ll give you her address before I go. But I don’t want it muddled, you know.”

The clergyman swallowed in his throat. He had only been ordained eighteen months, and the extreme abruptness and reality of the situation took him a little aback.

“I can try,” he said. “And I can put the ladies on to her. But, of course, I can’t undertake—”

“Of course. But do you think there’s a reasonable chance? If not, I’d better have another try myself.”

“Have you tried, then?”

“Oh, yes, half a dozen times. A fortnight ago was the last, and I really thought—”

“But I don’t understand. Are these people your friends, or what?”

“I’ve been traveling with them off and on since June. They belong to you, so far as they belong to anyone. I’m a Catholic, you know—”

“Really? But—”

“Convert. Last June. Don’t let’s argue, my dear chap. There isn’t time.”

Mr. Parham-Carter drew a breath.

There is no other phrase so adequate for describing his condition of mind as the old one concerning head and heels. There had rushed on him, not out of the blue, but, what was even more surprising, out of the very dingy sky of Hackney Wick (and Turner Road, at that!), this astonishing young man, keen-eyed, brown-faced, muscular, who had turned out to be a school-fellow of his own, and a school-fellow whose reputation, during the three hours since they had parted, he had swiftly remembered point by point—Guiseley of Drew’s—the boy who had thrown off his coat in early school and displayed himself shirtless; who had stolen four out of the six birches on a certain winter morning, and had conversed affably with the Head in school yard with the ends of the birches sticking out below the skirts of his overcoat; who had been discovered on the fourth of June, with an air of reverential innocence, dressing the bronze statue of King Henry VI. in a surplice in honor of the day. And now here he was, and from his dress and the situation of his lodging-house to be reckoned among the worst of the loafing class, and yet talking, with an air of complete confidence and equality of a disreputable young woman—his companion—who was to be rescued from a yet more disreputable companion and restored to her parents in Chiswick.

And this was not all—for, as Mr. Parham-Carter informed me himself—there was being impressed upon him during this interview a very curious sensation, which he was hardly able, even after consideration, to put into words—a sensation concerning the personality and presence of this young man which he could only describe as making him feel “beastly queer.”

It seems to have been about this point that he first perceived it clearly—distinguished it, that is to say, from the whole atmosphere of startling and suggesting mystery that surrounded him.

He looked at Frank in silence a moment or two....

There Guiseley sat—leaning back in the red leather chair, his cocoa still untouched. He was in a villainous suit that once, probably, had been dark blue. The jacket was buttoned up to his chin, and a grimy muffler surrounded his neck. His trousers were a great deal too short, and disclosed above a yellow sock, on the leg nearest to him, about four inches of dark-looking skin. His boots were heavy, patched, and entirely uncleaned, and the upper toe-cap of one of them gaped from the leather over the instep. His hands were deep in his pockets, as if even in this warm room, he felt the cold.

There was nothing remarkable there. It was the kind of figure presented by unsatisfactory candidates for the men’s club. And yet there was about him this air, arresting and rather disconcerting....

It was a sort of electric serenity, if I understand Mr. Parham-Carter aright—a zone of perfectly still energy, like warmth or biting cold, as of a charged force: it was like a real person standing motionless in the middle of a picture. (Mr. Parham-Carter did not, of course, use such beautiful similes as these; he employed the kind of language customary to men who have received a public school and university education, half slang and half childishness; but he waved his hands at me and distorted his features, and conveyed, on the whole, the kind of impression I have just attempted to set down.)

Frank, then, seemed as much out of place in this perfectly correct and suitable little room as an Indian prince in Buckingham Palace; or, if you prefer it, an English nobleman (with spats) in Delhi. He was just entirely different from it all; he had nothing whatever to do with it; he was wholly out of place, not exactly as regarded his manner (for he was quite at his ease), but with regard to his significance. He was as a foreign symbol in a familiar language.

Its effect upon Mr. Parham-Carter was quite clear and strong. He instanced to me the fact that he said nothing to Frank about his soul: he honestly confessed that he scarcely even wished to press him to come to Evensong on Sunday. Of course, he did not like Frank’s being a Roman Catholic; and his whole intellectual being informed him that it was because Frank had never really known the Church of England that he had left it. (Mr. Parham-Carter had himself learned the real nature of the Church of England at the Pusey House at Oxford.) But there are certain atmospheres in which the intellectual convictions are not very important, and this was one of them. So here the two young men sat and stared at one another, or, rather, Mr. Parham-Carter stared at Frank, and Frank looked at nothing in particular.

“You haven’t drunk your cocoa,” said the clergyman suddenly.

Frank turned abruptly, took up the cup and drank the contents straight off at one draught.

“And a cigarette?”

Frank took up a cigarette and put in his mouth.

“By the way,” he said, taking it out again, “when’ll you send your ladies round? The morning’s best, when the rest of us are out of the way.”

“All right.”

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything else?”

“My dear chap,” said the other, “I wish you’d tell me what it’s all about—why you’re in this sort of life, you know. I don’t want to pry, but—”

Frank smiled suddenly and vividly.

“Oh, there’s nothing to say. That’s not the point. It’s by my own choice practically. I assure you I haven’t disgraced anybody.”

“But your people—”

“Oh! they’re all right. There’s nothing the matter with them.... Look here! I really must be going.”

He stood up, and something seemed to snap in the atmosphere as he did so.

“Besides, I’ve got to be at work early—”

“I say, what did you do then?”

“Do then? What do you mean?”

“When you stood up—Did you say anything?...”

Frank looked at him bewildered.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Mr. Parham-Carter did not quite know what he had meant himself. It was a sensation come and gone, in an instant, as Frank had moved ... a sensation which I suppose some people would call “psychical”—a sensation as if a shock had vibrated for one moment through every part of his own being, and of the pleasant little warm room where he was sitting. He looked at the other, dazed for a second or two, but there was nothing. Those two steady black eyes looked at him in a humorous kind of concern....

He stood up himself.

“It was nothing,” he said. “I think I must be getting sleepy.”

He put out his hand.

“Good-night,” he said. “Oh! I’ll come and see you as far as the gate.”

Frank looked at him a second.

“I say,” he said; “I suppose you’ve never thought of becoming a Catholic?”

“My dear chap—”

“No! Well, all right.... oh! don’t bother to come to the gate.”

“I’m coming. It may be locked.”

Mr. Parham-Carter stood looking after Frank’s figure even after it had passed along the dark shop fronts and was turning the corner towards Turner Road. Then it went under the lamplight, and disappeared.

It was a drizzling, cold night, and he himself was bareheaded; he felt the moisture run down his forehead, but it didn’t seem to be happening to him. On his right rose up the big parish-hall where the entertainments were held, and beyond it, the east end of the great church, dark now and tenantless; and he felt the wet woodwork of the gate grasped in his fingers.

He did not quite know what was happening to him but everything seemed different. A hundred thoughts had passed through his mind during the last half hour. It had occurred to him that he ought to have asked Guiseley to come to the clergy-house and lodge there for a bit while things were talked over; that he ought, tactfully, to have offered to lend him money, to provide him with a new suit, to make suggestions as to proper employment instead of at the jam factory—all those proper, philanthropic and prudent suggestions that a really sensible clergyman would have made. And yet, somehow, not only had he not made them, but it was obvious and evident when he regarded them that they could not possibly be made. Guiseley (of Drew’s) did not require them, he was on another line altogether.... And what was that line?

Mr. Parham-Carter leaned on the gate a full five minutes considering all this. But he arrived at no conclusion.

CHAPTER II

I

The Rector of Merefield was returning from a short pastoral visitation towards the close of an afternoon at the beginning of November. His method and aims were very characteristic of himself, since he was one of that numerous class of persons who, interiorly possessing their full share of proper pride, wear exteriorly an appearance of extreme and almost timid humility. The aims of his visiting were, though he was quite unaware of the fact, directed towards encouraging people to hold fast to their proper position in life (for this, after all, is only another name for one’s duty towards one’s neighbor), and his method was to engage in general conversation on local topics. There emerged, in this way, information as to the patient’s habits and actions; it would thus transpire, for example, whether the patient had been to church or not, whether there were any quarrels, and, if so, who were the combatants and for what cause.

He had been fairly satisfied to-day; he had met with good excuses for the absence of two children from day-school, and of a young man from choir-practice; he had read a little Scripture to an old man, and had been edified by his comments upon it. It was not particularly supernatural, but, after all, the natural has its place, too, in life, and he had undoubtedly fulfilled to-day some of the duties for whose sake he occupied the position of Rector of Merefield, in a completely inoffensive manner. The things he hated most in the world were disturbances of any kind, abruptness and the unexpected, and he had a strong reputation in the village for being a man of peace.

It sounds a hard thing to say of so conscientious a man, but a properly preserved social order was perhaps to his mind the nearest approach to the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. Each person held his proper position, including himself, and he no more expected others to be untrue to their station than he wished to be untrue to his own. There were, of course, two main divisions—those of gentle birth and those not of gentle birth, and these were as distinct as the sexes. But there were endless gradations in each respectively, and he himself regarded those with as much respect as those of the angelic hierarchy: the “Dominations” might, or might not be as “good” as the “Powers,” but they were certainly different, by Divine decree. It would be a species of human blasphemy, therefore, for himself not to stand up in Lord Talgarth’s presence, or for a laborer not to touch his hat to Miss Jenny. This is sometimes called snobbishness, but it is nothing of the kind. It is merely a marked form of Toryism.

It was a pleasant autumnal kind of afternoon, and he took off his hat as he turned up past the park gates to feel the cool air, as he was a little heated with his walk. He felt exceedingly content with all things: there were no troubles in the parish, he enjoyed excellent health, and he had just done his duty. He disliked pastoral visiting very deeply indeed; he was essentially a timid kind of man, but he made his rules and kept them, for he was essentially a conscientious man. He was so conscientious that he was probably quite unaware that he disliked this particular duty.

Just as he came opposite the gates—great iron-work affairs with ramping eagles and a Gothic lodge smothered in ivy—the man ran out and began to wheel them back, after a hasty salute to his pastor; and the Rector, turning, saw a sight that increased his complacency. It was just Jenny riding with Lord Talgarth, as he knew she was doing that afternoon.

They made a handsome, courtly kind of pair—a sort of “father and daughter” after some romantic artist or other. Lord Talgarth’s heavy figure looked well-proportioned on horseback, and he sat his big black mare very tolerably indeed. And Jenny looked delicious on the white mare, herself in dark green. A groom followed twenty yards behind.

Lord Talgarth’s big face nodded genially to the Rector and he made a kind of salute; he seemed in excellent dispositions; Jenny was a little flushed with exercise, and smiled at her father with a quiet, friendly dignity.

“Just taking her ladyship home,” said the old man.... “Yes; charming day, isn’t it?”

The Rector followed them, pleased at heart. Usually Jenny rode home alone with the groom to take back her mare to the stables. It was the first time, so far as he could remember, that Lord Talgarth had taken the trouble to escort her all the way home himself. It really was very pleasant indeed, and very creditable to Jenny’s tact, that relations were so cordial.... And they were dining there to-morrow, too. The social order of Merefield seemed to be in an exceedingly sound condition.

II

Lord Talgarth, too, seemed to the lodge-keeper, as ten minutes later the gates rolled back again to welcome their lord, in an unusually genial temper (and, indeed, there was always about this old man as great a capacity for geniality on one side as for temper on the other; it is usually so with explosive characters). He even checked his horse and asked after “the missus” in so many words; although two days before a violent message had come down to complain of laxity in the gate-opening, owing to the missus’ indisposition on an occasion when the official himself had been digging cabbages behind the Gothic lodge and the hoot of the motor had not been heard.

The missus, it seemed, was up and about again (indeed her husband caught a glimpse out of the tail of his eye of a pale face that glanced and withdrew again apprehensively above the muslin curtain beyond his lordship).

“That’s all right,” remarked Lord Talgarth heartily, and rode on.

The lodge-keeper exchanged a solemn wink with the groom half a minute later, and stood to watch the heavy figure ahead plunging about rather in the saddle as the big black mare set her feet upon the turf and viewed her stable afar off.

It was a fact that Lord Talgarth was pleased with himself and all the world to-day, for he kept it up even with the footman who slipped, and all but lost his balance, as he brought tea into the library.

“Hold up!” remarked the nobleman.

The footman smiled gently and weakly, after the manner of a dependent, and related the incident with caustic gusto to his fellows in the pantry.

After tea Lord Talgarth lay back in his chair and appeared to meditate, as was observed by the man who fetched out the tea-things and poked the fire; and he was still meditating, though now there was the aromatic smell of tobacco upon the air, when his own man came to tell him that it was time to dress.

It was indeed a perfect room for arm-chair meditations; there were tall book-shelves, mahogany writing-tables, each with its shaded electric lamp; the carpet was as deep as a summer lawn; and in the wide hearth logs consumed themselves in an almost deferential silence. There was every conceivable thing that could be wanted laid in its proper place. It was the kind of room in which it would seem that no scheme could miscarry and every wish must prevail; the objective physical world grouped itself so obediently to the human will that it was almost impossible to imagine a state of things in which it did not so. The great house was admirably ordered; there was no sound that there should not be—no hitches, no gaps or cracks anywhere; it moved like a well-oiled machine; the gong, sounded in the great hall, issued invitations rather than commands. All was leisurely, perfectly adapted and irreproachable.

It is always more difficult for people who live in such houses as these to behave well under adverse fortune than for those who live in houses where the Irish stew can be smelled at eleven o’clock in the morning, and where the doors do not shut properly, and the kitchen range goes wrong. Possibly something of this fact helped to explain the owner’s extreme violence of temper on the occasion of his son’s revolt. It was intolerable for a man all of whose other surroundings moved like clockwork, obedient to his whims, to be disobeyed flatly by one whose obedience should be his first duty—to find disorder and rebellion in the very mainspring of the whole machine.

Possibly, too, the little scheme that was maturing in Lord Talgarth’s mind between tea and dinner that evening helped to restore his geniality; for, as soon as the thought was conceived, it became obvious that it could be carried through with success.

He observed: “Aha! it’s time, is it?” to his man in a hearty kind of way, and hoisted himself out of his chair with unusual briskness.

III

He spent a long evening again in the library alone. Archie was away; and after dining alone with all the usual state, the old man commanded that coffee should be brought after him. The butler found him, five minutes later, kneeling before a tall case of drawers, trying various keys off his bunch, and when the man came to bring in whisky and clear away the coffee things he was in his deep chair, a table on either side of him piled with papers, and a drawer upon his knees.

“You can put this lot back,” he remarked to the young footman, indicating a little pile of four drawers on the hearth-rug. He watched the man meditatively as he attempted to fit them into their places.

“Not that way, you fool! Haven’t you got eyes?... The top one at the top!”

But he said it without bitterness—almost contemplatively. And, as the butler glanced round a moment or two later to see that all was in order, he saw his master once more beginning to read papers.

“Good-night,” said Lord Talgarth.

“Good-night, my lord,” said the butler.

There was a good deal of discussion that night in the men’s wing as to the meaning of all this, and it was conducted with complete frankness. Mr. Merton, the butler, had retired to his own house in the stable-yard, and Mr. Clarkson, the valet, was in his lordship’s dressing-room; so the men talked freely. It was agreed that only two explanations were possible for the unusual sweetness of temper: either Mr. Frank was to be reinstated, or his father was beginning to break up. Frank was extremely popular with servants always; and it was generally hoped that the former explanation was the true one. Possibly, however, both were required.

Mr. Clarkson too was greatly intrigué that night. He yawned about the dressing-room till an unusually late hour, for Lord Talgarth generally retired to rest between ten and half-past. To-night, however, it was twenty minutes to twelve before the man stood up suddenly from the sofa at the sound of a vibration in the passage outside. The old man came in briskly, bearing a bundle of papers in one hand and a bed-candle in the other, with the same twinkle of good temper in his eyes that he had carried all the evening.

“Give me the dispatch-box under the sofa,” he said; “the one in the leather case.”

This was done and the papers were laid in it, carefully, on the top. Mr. Clarkson noticed that they had a legal appearance, were long-shaped and inscribed in stiff lettering. Then the dispatch-box was reclosed and set on the writing-table which my lord used sometimes when he was unwell.

“Remind me to send for Mr. Manners to-morrow,” he said. (This was the solicitor.)

Getting ready for bed that evening was almost of a sensational nature, and Mr. Clarkson had to keep all his wits about him to respond with sufficient agility to the sallies of his master. Usually it was all a very somber ceremony, with a good deal of groaning and snarling in asides. But to-night it was as cheerful as possible.

The mysteries of it all are too great for me to attempt to pierce them; but it is really incredible what a number of processes are necessary before an oldish man, who is something of a buck and something of an invalid, and altogether self-centered, is able to lay him down to rest. There are strange doses to be prepared and drunk, strange manipulations to be performed and very particular little ceremonies to be observed, each in its proper place. Each to-night was accompanied by some genial comment: the senna-pod distillation, that had been soaking since seven p.m. in hot water, was drunk almost with the air of a toast; the massaging of the ankles and toes (an exercise invented entirely by Lord Talgarth himself) might have been almost in preparation for a dance.

He stood up at last, an erect, stoutish figure, in quilted dressing-gown and pyjamas, before the fire, as his man put on his slippers for him, for the little procession into the next room.

“I think I’m better to-night, Clarkson,” he said.

“Your lordship seems very well indeed, my lord,” murmured that diplomat on the hearth-rug.

“How old do you think I am, Clarkson?”

Clarkson knew perfectly well, but it was better to make a deprecatory confused noise.

“Ah! well, we needn’t reckon by years ... I feel young enough,” observed the stately figure before the fire.

Then the procession was formed: the double doors were set back, the electric light switched on; Lord Talgarth passed through towards the great four-posted bed that stood out into the bedroom, and was in bed, with scarcely a groan, almost before the swift Mr. Clarkson could be at his side to help him in. He lay there, his ruddy face wonderfully handsome against the contrast of his gray hair and the white pillow, while Mr. Clarkson concluded the other and final ceremonies. A small table had to be wheeled to a certain position beside the bed, and the handle of the electric cord laid upon it in a particular place, between the book and the tray on which stood some other very special draught to be drunk in case of thirst.

“Call me a quarter of an hour earlier than usual,” observed the face on the pillow. “I’ll take a little stroll before breakfast.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“What did I tell you to remind me to do after breakfast?”

“Send for Mr. Manners, my lord.”

“That’s right. Good-night, Clarkson.”

“Good-night, my lord.”

There was the usual discreet glance round the room to see that all was in order; then the door into the dressing-room closed imperceptibly behind Mr. Clarkson’s bent back.

CHAPTER III

I

Winter at Merefield Rectory is almost as delightful as summer, although in an entirely different way. The fact is that the Rectory has managed the perfect English compromise. In summer, with the windows and doors wide open, with the heavy radiant creepers, with the lawns lying about the house, with the warm air flowing over the smooth, polished floors and lifting the thin mats, with the endless whistle of bird song—then the place seems like a summer-house. And in winter, with the heavy carpets down, and the thick curtains, the very polished floors, so cool in summer, seem expressly designed to glimmer warmly with candle and fire-light; and the books seem to lean forward protectively and reassert themselves, and the low beamed ceilings to shelter and safeguard the interior comfort. The center of gravity is changed almost imperceptibly. In summer the place is a garden with a house in the middle; in winter a house surrounded by shrubberies.

The study in one way and the morning-room in another are the respective pivots of the house. The study is a little paneled room on the ground-floor, looking out upon the last of the line of old yews and the beginning of the lawn; the morning-room (once known as the school-room) is the only other paneled room in the house, on the first floor, looking out upon the front. And round these two rooms the two sections of the house-life tranquilly revolve. Here in one the Rector controls the affairs of the parish, writes his sermons, receives his men friends (not very many), and reads his books. There in the other Jenny orders the domestic life of the house, interviews the cook, and occupies herself with her own affairs. They are two rival, but perfectly friendly, camps.

Lately (I am speaking now of the beginning of November) there had not been quite so much communication between the two camps as usual, not so many informal negotiations. Jenny did not look in quite so often upon her father—for ten minutes after breakfast, for instance, or before lunch—and when he looked in on her he seemed to find her generally with rather a preoccupied air, often sitting before the wide-arched fireplace, with her hands behind her head, looking at the red logs.

He was an easy man, as has been seen, and did not greatly trouble his head about it: he knew enough of the world to recognize that an extremely beautiful girl like Jenny, living on the terms she did with the great house—and a house with men coming and going continually, to say nothing of lawn-tennis parties and balls elsewhere—cannot altogether escape complications. He was reasonable enough, too, to understand that a father is not always the best confidant, and he had supreme confidence in Jenny’s common sense.

I suppose he had his dreams; he would scarcely have been human if he had not, and he was quite human. The throwing over of Frank had brought him mixed emotions, but he had not been consulted either at the beginning or the end of the engagement, and he acquiesced. Of Dick’s affair he knew nothing at all.

That, then, was the situation when the bomb exploded. It exploded in this way.

He was sitting in his study one morning—to be accurate, it was the first Saturday in November, two days after the events of the last chapter—preparing to begin the composition of his sermon for the next day. They had dined up at the great house the night before quite quietly with Lord Talgarth and Archie, who had just come back.

He had selected his text with great care from the Gospel for the day, when the door suddenly opened and Jenny came in. This was very unusual on Saturday morning; it was an understood thing that he must be at his sermon; but his faint sense of annoyance was completely dispelled by his daughter’s face. She was quite pale—not exactly as if she had received a shock, but as if she had made up her mind to something; there was no sign of tremor in her face; on the contrary, she looked extremely determined, but her eyes searched his as she stopped.

“I’m dreadfully sorry, father, but may I talk to you for a few minutes?”

She did not wait for his answer, but came straight in and sat down in his easy-chair. He laid his pen down and turned a little at his writing-table to face her.

“Certainly, dear. What is it? Nothing wrong?”

(He noticed she had a note in her hand.)

“No, nothing wrong....” She hesitated. “But it’s rather important.”

“Well?”

She glanced down at the note she carried. Then she looked up at him again.

“Father, I suppose you’ve thought of my marrying some day—in spite of Frank?”

“Eh?”

“Would you mind if I married a man older than myself—I mean a good deal older?”

He looked at her in silence. Two or three names passed before his mind, but he couldn’t remember—

“Father, I’m in trouble. I really am. I didn’t expect—”

Her voice faltered. He saw that she really found it difficult to speak. A little wave of tenderness rolled over his heart. It was unlike her to be so much moved. He got up and came round to her.

“What is it, dear? Tell me.”

She remained perfectly motionless for an instant. Then she held out the note to him, and simultaneously stood up. As he took it, she went swiftly past him and out of the door. He heard the swish of her dress pass up the stairs, and then the closing of a door. But he hardly heeded it. He was reading the note she had given him. It was a short, perfectly formal offer of marriage to her from Lord Talgarth.

II

“Father, dear,” said Jenny, “I want you to let me have my say straight out, will you?”

He bowed his head.

They were sitting, on the evening of the same day, over the tea-things in his study. He had not seen her alone for one moment since the morning. She had refused to open her door to him when he went up after reading the note: she had pleaded a headache at lunch, and she had been invisible all the afternoon. Then, as he came in about tea-time, she had descended upon him, rather pale, but perfectly herself, perfectly natural, and even rather high-spirited. She had informed him that tea would be laid in his study, as she wanted a long talk. She had poured out tea, talking all the time, refusing, it seemed, to meet his eyes. When she had finished, she had poured out his third cup, and then pushed her own low chair back so far that he could not see her face.

Then she had opened the engagement.

To say that the poor man had been taken aback would be a very poor way of describing his condition. The thing simply had never entered his head. He had dreamed, in wild moments, of Archie; he had certainly contemplated Dick; but Lord Talgarth himself, gouty and aged sixty-five!... And yet he had not been indignant. Indignation not only did not do with Jenny, but it was impossible. To be quite frank, the man was afraid of his daughter; he was aware that she would do ultimately as she wished, and not as he wished; and his extreme discomfort at the thought of this old man marrying his daughter was, since he was human, partly counter-balanced by the thought of who the old man was. Lastly, it must be remembered that Jenny was really a very sensible girl, and that her father was quite conscious of the fact.

Jenny settled herself once more in her chair and began.

“Father, dear, I want to be quite sensible about this. And I’ve been very foolish and silly about it all day. I can’t imagine why I behaved as I did. There’s nothing to go and mope about, that Lord Talgarth has been kind enough to do me this honor. Because it is an honor, you know, however you look at it, that anyone should ask one to be his wife.

“Well, I want to say what I have to say first, and then I want you to say exactly what you think. I’ve thought it all out, so I shan’t be very long.”

(He put down his cup noiselessly, as if in the presence of a sick person. He was anxious not to lose a word, or even an inflection).

“First of all, let’s have all the things against it. He’s an old man. We mustn’t forget that for one minute. And that’s a very strong argument indeed. Some people would think it final, but I think that’s foolish....

“Secondly, it never entered my head for one instant.” (Jenny said this quite deliberately, almost reverently.) “Of course I see now that he’s hinted at it very often, but I never understood it at the time. I’ve always thought of him as a sort of—well—a sort of uncle. And that’s another strong argument against it. If it was a right thing to do, oughtn’t it to have occurred to me too? I’m not quite sure about that.

“Thirdly, it’s unsuitable for several reasons. It’ll make talk. Here have I been engaged to Frank for ages and broken it off. Can’t you imagine how people will interpret that now? I suppose I oughtn’t to mind what people say, but I’m afraid I do. Then I’m the Rector’s daughter ... and I’ve been running in and out continually—dining with them, sitting with him alone. Can’t you imagine what people—Lady Richard, for instance—will make of it?... I shall be an adventuress, and all the rest of it. That’s not worth much as an argument, but it is a ... a consideration. One must look facts in the face and think of the future.

“Fourthly, Lord Talgarth probably won’t live very long....” (Jenny paused, and then, with extraordinary impressiveness, continued).... “And that, of, course, is perhaps the strongest argument of all. If I could be of any real use to him—” She stopped again.

The Rector shifted a little in his chair.

It was impossible for him to conceal from himself any longer the fact that up to now he had really been expecting Jenny to accept the offer. But he was a little puzzled now at the admirable array of reasons she had advanced against that. She had put into words just the sensible view of which he himself had only had a confused apprehension; she had analyzed into all its component parts that general sense which one side of him had pushed before him all day—that the thing was really abominable. And this side of him at this time was uppermost. He drew a whistling breath.

“Well, my dear,” he began, and the relief was very apparent in his voice. But Jenny interrupted.

“One minute, please, father! In fairness to—to everyone I must put the other side.... I suppose the main question is this, after all. Am I fond of him?—fond enough, that is, to marry him—because, of course, I’m fond of him; he’s been so extraordinarily kind always.... I suppose that’s really the only thing to be considered. If I were fond enough of him, I suppose all the arguments against count for nothing. Isn’t that so?... Yes; I want you to say what you think.”

He waited. Still he could make out nothing of her face, though he glanced across the tea-things once or twice.

“My dear, I don’t know what to say. I—”

“Father, dear, I just want that from you. Do you think that any consideration at all ought to stand in the way, if I were—I don’t say for one single moment that I am—but if I were—well, really fond of him? I’m sorry to have to speak so very plainly, but it’s no good being silly.”

He swallowed in his throat once or twice.

“If you really were fond of him—I think ... I think that, no consideration of the sort you have mentioned ought to ... to stand in your way.”

“Thank you, father,” said Jenny softly.

“When did you first think of it?”

Jenny paused.

“I think I knew he was going to ask me two days ago—the day you met us out riding, you know.”

There was a long silence.

They had already discussed, when Frank’s affair had been before them, all secondary details.

The Rector’s sister was to have taken Jenny’s place. There was nothing of that sort to talk about now. They were both just face to face with primary things, and they both knew it.

The Rector’s mind worked like a mill—a mill whose machinery is running aimlessly. The wheels went round and round, but they effected nothing. He was completely ignorant as to what Jenny intended. He perceived—as in a series of little vignettes—a number of hypothetical events, on this side and that, but they drew to no conclusion in his mind. He was just waiting on his daughter’s will.

Jenny broke the silence with a slow remark in another kind of voice.

“Father, dear, there’s something else I must tell you. I didn’t see any need to bother you with it before. It’s this. Mr. Dick Guiseley proposed to me when he was here for the shooting.”

She paused, but her father said nothing.

“I told him he must wait—that I didn’t know for certain, but that I was almost certain. If he had pressed for an answer I should have said ‘No.’ Oddly enough, I was thinking only yesterday that it wasn’t fair to keep him waiting any longer. Because ... because it’s ‘No’ ... anyhow, now.”

The Rector still could not speak. It was just one bewilderment. But apparently Jenny did not want any comments.

“That being so,” she went on serenely, “my conscience is clear, anyhow. And I mustn’t let what I think Mr. Dick might say or think affect me—any more than the other things. Must I?”

“... Jenny, what are you going to do? Tell me!”

“Father, dear,” came the high astonished voice, “I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I must think. Did you think I’d made up my mind? Why! How could I? Of course I should say ‘No’ if I had to answer now.”

“I—” began the Rector and stopped. He perceived that the situation could easily be complicated.

“I must just think about it quietly,” went on the girl. “And I must write a note to say so.... Father ...”

He glanced in her direction.

“Father, about being fond of a man.... Need it be—well, as I was fond of Frank? I don’t think Lord Talgarth could have expected that, could he? But if you—well—get on with a man very well, understand him—can stand up to him without annoying him ... and ... and care for him, really, I mean, in such a way that you like being with him very much, and look up to him very much in all kinds of ways—(I’m very sorry to have to talk like this, but whom am I to talk to, father dear?) Well, if I found I did care for Lord Talgarth like that—like a sort of daughter, or niece, and more than that too, would that—”

“I don’t know,” said the Rector, abruptly standing up. “I don’t know; you mustn’t ask me. You must settle all that yourself.”

She looked up at him, startled, it seemed, by the change in his manner.

“Father, dear—” she began, with just the faintest touch of pathetic reproach in her voice. But he did not appear moved by it.

“You must settle,” he said. “You have all the data. I haven’t. I—”

He stepped towards the door.

“Tell me as soon as you have decided,” he said, and went out.

III

The little brown dog called Lama, who in an earlier chapter once trotted across a lawn, and who had lately been promoted to sleeping upon Jenny’s bed, awoke suddenly that night and growled a low breathy remonstrance. He had been abruptly kicked from beneath the bedclothes.

“Get off, you heavy little beast,” said a voice in the darkness.

Lama settled himself again with a grunt, half of comfort, half of complaint.

“Get off!” came the voice again, and again his ribs were heaved at by a foot.

He considered it a moment or two, and even shifted nearer the wall, still blind with sleep; but the foot pursued him, and he awoke finally to the conviction that it would be more comfortable by the fire; there was a white sheepskin there, he reflected. As he finally reached the ground, a scratching was heard in the corner, and he was instantly alert, and the next moment had fitted his nose, like a kind of india-rubber pad, deep into a small mouse-hole in the wainscoting, and was breathing long noisy sighs down into the delicious and gamey-smelling darkness.

“Oh! be quiet!” came a voice from the bed.

Lama continued his investigations unmoved, and having decided, after one long final blow, that there was to be no sport, returned to the sheepskin with that brisk independent air that was so characteristic of him. He was completely awake now, and stood eyeing the bed a moment, with the possibility in his mind that his mistress was asleep again, and that by a very gentle leap—But a match was struck abruptly, and he lay down, looking, with that appearance of extreme wide-awakedness in his black eyes that animals always wear at night, at his restless mistress.

He could not quite understand what was the matter.

First she lit a candle, took a book from the small table by the bed and began to read resolutely. This continued till Lama’s eyes began to blink at the candle flame, and then he was suddenly aware that the light was out and the book closed, and all fallen back again into the clear gray tones which men call darkness.

He put his head down on his paws, but his eyebrows rose now and again as he glanced at the bed.

Then the candle was lighted again after a certain space of time, but this time there was no book opened. Instead, his mistress took her arms out of bed, and clasped them behind her head, staring up at the ceiling....

This was tiresome, as the light was in his eyes, and his body was just inert enough with sleep to make movement something of an effort....

Little by little, however, his eyebrows came down, remained down, and his eyes closed....

He awoke again at a sound. The candle was still burning, but his mistress had rolled over on to her side and seemed to be talking gently to herself. Then she was over again on this side, and a minute later was out of bed, and walking to and fro noiselessly on the soft carpet.

He watched her with interest, his eyes only following her. He had never yet fully understood this mysterious change of aspect that took place every night—the white thin dress, the altered appearance of the head, and—most mysterious of all—the two white things that ought to be feet, but were no longer hard and black. He had licked one of them once tentatively, and had found that the effect was that it had curled up suddenly; there had been a sound as of pain overhead, and a swift slap had descended upon him.

He was observing these things now—to and fro, to and fro—and his eyes moved with them.

After a certain space of time the movement stopped. She was standing still near a carved desk—important because a mouse had once been described sitting beneath it; and she stood so long that his eyes began to blink once more. Then there was a rustle of paper being torn, and he was alert again in a moment. Perhaps paper would be thrown for him presently....

She came across to the hearth-rug, and he was up, watching her hands, while his own short tail flickered three or four times in invitation. But it was no good: the ball was crumpled up and thrown on to the red logs. There was a “whup” from the fire and a flame shot up. He looked at this carefully with his head on one side, and again lay down to watch it. His mistress was standing quite still, watching it with him.

Then, as the flame died down, she turned abruptly, went straight back to the bed, got into it, drew the clothes over her and blew the candle out.

After a few moments steady staring at the fire, he perceived that a part of the ball of paper had rolled out on to the stone hearth unburned. He looked at it for some while, wondering whether it was worth getting up for. Certainly the warmth was delicious and the sheepskin exquisitely soft.

There was no sound from the bed. A complete and absolute silence had succeeded to all the restlessness.

Finally he concluded that it was impossible to lie there any longer and watch such a crisp little roll of paper still untorn. He got up, stepped delicately on to the wide hearth, and pulled the paper towards him with a little scratching sound. There was a sigh from the bed, and he paused. Then he lifted it, stepped back to his warm place, lay down, and placing his paws firmly upon the paper, began to tear scraps out of it with his white teeth.

“Oh, be quiet!” came the weary voice from the bed.

He paused, considered; then he tore two more pieces. But it did not taste as it should; it was a little sticky, and too stiff. He stood up once more, turned round four times and lay down with a small grunt.

In the morning the maid who swept up the ashes swept up these fragments too. She noticed a wet scrap of a picture postcard, with the word “Selby” printed in the corner. Then she threw that piece, too, into the dustpan.

CHAPTER IV

I

Mrs. Partington and Gertie had many of those mysterious conversations that such women have, full of “he’s” and “she’s” and nods and becks and allusions and broken sentences, wholly unintelligible to the outsider, yet packed with interest to the talkers. The Major, Mr. Partington (still absent), and Frank were discussed continually and exhaustively; and, so far as the subjects themselves ranged, there was hardly an unimportant detail that did not come under notice, and hardly an important fact that did. Gertie officially passed, of course, as Mrs. Trustcott always.

A couple of mornings after Frank had begun his work at the jam factory, Mrs. Partington, who had stepped round the corner to talk with a friend for an hour or so, returned to find Gertie raging. She raged in her own way; she was as white as a sheet; she uttered ironical and unintelligible sentences, in which Frank’s name appeared repeatedly, and it emerged presently that one of the Mission-ladies had been round minding other folks’ business, and that Gertie would thank that lady to keep her airs and her advice to herself.

Now Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie was not the Major’s wife, and Gertie knew that she knew it; and Mrs. Partington knew that Gertie knew that she knew it. Yet, officially, all was perfectly correct; Gertie wore a wedding-ring, and there never was the hint that she had not a right to it. It was impossible, therefore, for Mrs. Partington to observe out loud that she understood perfectly what the Mission-lady had been talking about. She said very little; she pressed her thin lips together and let Gertie alone. The conversations that morning were of the nature of disconnected monologues from Gertie with long silences between.

It was an afternoon of silent storm. The Major was away in the West End somewhere on mysterious affairs; the children were at school, and the two women went about, each knowing what was in the mind of the other, yet each resolved to keep up appearances.

At half-past five o’clock Frank abruptly came in for a cup of tea, and Mrs. Partington gave it him in silence. (Gertie could be heard moving about restlessly overhead.) She made one or two ordinary remarks, watching Frank when he was not looking. But Frank said very little. He sat up to the table; he drank two cups of tea out of the chipped enamel mug, and then he set to work on his kippered herring. At this point Mrs. Partington left the room, as if casually, and a minute later Gertie came downstairs.

She came in with an indescribable air of virtue, rather white in the face, with her small chin carefully thrust out and her eyelids drooping. It was a pose she was accustomed to admire in high-minded and aristocratic barmaids. Frank nodded at her and uttered a syllable or two of greeting.

She said nothing; she went round to the window, carrying a white cotton blouse she had been washing upstairs, and hung it on the clothes-line that ran inside the window. Then, still affecting to be busy with it, she fired her first shot, with her back to him.

“I’ll thank you to let my business alone....”

(Frank put another piece of herring into his mouth.)

“... And not to send round any more of your nasty cats,” added Gertie after a pause.

There was silence from Frank.

“Well?” snapped Gertie.

“How dare you talk like that!” said Frank, perfectly quietly.

He spoke so low that Gertie mistook his attitude, and, leaning her hands on the table, she poured out the torrent that had been gathering within her ever since the Mission-lady had left her at eleven o’clock that morning. The lady had not been tactful; she was quite new to the work, and quite fresh from a women’s college, and she had said a great deal more than she ought, with an earnest smile upon her face that she had thought conciliatory and persuasive. Gertie dealt with her faithfully now; she sketched her character as she believed it to be; she traced her motives and her attitude to life with an extraordinary wealth of detail; she threw in descriptive passages of her personal appearance, and she stated, with extreme frankness, her opinion of such persons as she had thought friendly, but now discovered to be hypocritical parsons in disguise. Unhappily I have not the skill to transcribe her speech in full, and there are other reasons, too, why her actual words are best unreported: they were extremely picturesque.

Frank ate on quietly till he had finished his herring; then he drank his last cup of tea, and turned a little in his chair towards the fire. He glanced at the clock, perceiving that he had still ten minutes, just as Gertie ended and stood back shaking and pale-eyed.

“Is that all?” he asked.

It seemed it was not all, and Gertie began again, this time on a slightly higher note, and with a little color in her face. Frank waited, quite simply and without ostentation. She finished.

After a moment’s pause Frank answered.

“I don’t know what you want,” he said. “I talked to you myself, and you wouldn’t listen. So I thought perhaps another woman would do it better—”

“I did listen—”

“I beg your pardon,” said Frank instantly. “I was wrong. You did listen, and very patiently. I meant that you wouldn’t do what I said. And so I thought—”

Gertie burst out again, against cats and sneaking hypocrites, but there was not quite the same venom in her manner.

“Very good,” said Frank. “Then I won’t make the mistake again. I am very sorry—not in the least for having interfered, you understand, but for not having tried again myself.” (He took up his cap.) “You’ll soon give in, Gertie, you know. Don’t you think so yourself?”

Gertie looked at him in silence.

“You understand, naturally, why I can’t talk to you while the Major’s here. But the next time I have a chance—”

The unlatched door was pushed open and the Major came in.

II

There was an uncomfortable little pause for a moment. It is extremely doubtful, even now, exactly how much the Major heard; but he must have heard something, and to a man of his mind the situation that he found must have looked extremely suspicious. Gertie, flushed now, with emotion very plainly visible in her bright eyes, was standing looking at Frank, who, it appeared, was a little disconcerted. It would have been almost miraculous if the Major had not been convinced that he had interrupted a little private love-making.

It is rather hard to analyze the Major’s attitude towards Gertie; but what is certain is that the idea of anyone else making love to her was simply intolerable. Certainly he did not treat her with any great chivalry; he made her carry the heavier bundles on the tramp; he behaved to her with considerable disrespect; he discussed her freely with his friends on convivial occasions. But she was his property—his and no one else’s. He had had his suspicions before; he had come in quietly just now on purpose, and he had found himself confronted by this very peculiar little scene.

He looked at them both in silence. Then his lips sneered like a dog’s.

“Pardon me,” he said, with extreme politeness. “I appear to be interrupting a private conversation.”

No one said anything. Frank leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece.

“It was private, then?” continued the Major with all the poisonous courtesy at his command.

“Yes; it was private,” said Frank shortly.

The Major put his bowler hat carefully upon the table.

“Gertie, my dear,” he said. “Will you be good enough to leave us for an instant? I regret having to trouble you.”

Gertie breathed rather rapidly for a moment or two. She was not altogether displeased. She understood perfectly, and it seemed to her rather pleasant that two men should get into this kind of situation over her. She was aware that trouble would come to herself later, probably in the form of personal chastisement, but to the particular kind of feminine temperament that she possessed even a beating was not wholly painful, and the cheap kind of drama in which she found herself was wholly attractive. After an instant’s pause, she cast towards Frank what she believed to be a “proud” glance and marched out.

“If you’ve got much to say,” said Frank rapidly, as the door closed, “you’d better keep it for this evening. I’ve got to go in ... in two minutes.”

“Two minutes will be ample,” said the Major softly.

Frank waited.

“When I find a friend,” went on the other, “engaged in an apparently exciting kind of conversation, which he informs me is private, with one who is in the position of my wife—particularly when I catch a sentence or two obviously not intended for my ears—I do not ask what was the subject of the conversation, but I—”

“My dear man,” said Frank, “do put it more simply.”

The Major was caught, so to speak, full in the wind. His face twitched with anger.

Then he flung an oath at Frank.

“If I catch you at it again,” he said, “there’ll be trouble. God damn you!”

“That is as it may be,” said Frank.

The Major had had just one drink too much, and he was in the kind of expansive mood that changes very rapidly.

“Can you tell me you were not trying to take her from me?” he cried, almost with pathos in his voice.

This was, of course, exactly what Frank had been trying to do.

“You can’t deny it!... Then I tell you this, Mr. Frankie”—the Major sprang up—”one word more from you to her on that subject ... and ... and you’ll know it. D’you understand me?”

He thrust his face forward almost into Frank’s.

It was an unpleasant face at most times, but it was really dangerous now. His lips lay back, and the peculiar hot smell of spirit breathed into Frank’s nostrils. Frank turned and looked into his eyes.

“I understand you perfectly,” he said. “There’s no need to say any more. And now, if you’ll forgive me, I must get back to my work.”

He took up his cap and went out.

The Major, as has been said, had had one glass too much, and he had, accordingly, put into words what, even in his most suspicious moments, he had intended to keep to himself. It might be said, too, that he had put into words what he did not really think. But the Major was, like everyone else, for good or evil, a complex character, and found it perfectly possible both to believe and disbelieve the same idea simultaneously. It depended in what stratum the center of gravity happened to be temporarily suspended. One large part of the Major knew perfectly well, therefore, that any jealousy of Frank was simply ridiculous—the thing was simply alien; and another part, not so large, but ten times more concentrated, judged Frank by the standards by which the Major (qua blackguard) conducted his life. For people who lived usually in that stratum, making love to Gertie, under such circumstances, would have been an eminently natural thing to do, and, just now, the Major chose to place Frank amongst them.

The Major himself was completely unaware of these psychological distinctions, and, as he sat, sunk in his chair, brooding, before stepping out to attend to Gertie, he was entirely convinced that his suspicions were justified. It seemed to him now that numberless little details out of the past fitted, with the smoothness of an adjusted puzzle, into the framework of his thought.

There was, first, the very remarkable fact that Frank, in spite of opportunities to better himself, had remained in their company. At Barham, at Doctor Whitty’s, at the monastery, obvious chances had offered themselves and he had not taken them. Then there were the small acts of courtesy, the bearing of Gertie’s bundles two or three times. Finally, there was a certain change in Gertie’s manner—a certain silent peevishness towards himself, a curious air that fell on her now and then as she spoke to Frank or looked at him.

And so forth. It was an extraordinarily convincing case, clinched now by the little scene that he had just interrupted. And the very irregularity of his own relations with Gertie helped to poison the situation with an astonishingly strong venom.

Of course, there were other considerations, or, rather, there was one—that Frank, obviously, was not the kind of man to be attracted by the kind of woman that Gertie was—a consideration made up, however, of infinitely slighter indications. But this counted for nothing. It seemed unsubstantial and shadowy. There were solid, definable arguments on the one side; there was a vague general impression on the other....

So the Major sat and stared at the fire, with the candle-light falling on his sunken cheeks and the bristle on his chin—a poor fallen kind of figure, yet still holding the shadow of a shadow of an ideal that might yet make him dangerous.

Presently he got up with a sudden movement and went in search of Gertie.

III

There are no free libraries in Hackney Wick; the munificences of Mr. Carnegie have not yet penetrated to that district (and, indeed, the thought of a library of any kind in Hackney Wick is a little incongruous). But there is one in Homerton, and during the dinner-hour on the following day Frank went up the steps of it, pushed open the swing-doors, and found his way to some kind of a writing-room, where he obtained a sheet of paper, an envelope and a penny stamp, and sat down to write a letter.

The picture that I have in my mind of Frank at this present time may possibly be a little incorrect in one or two details, but I am quite clear about its main outlines, and it is extremely vivid on the whole. I see him going in, quietly and unostentatiously—quite at his ease, yet a very unusual figure in such surroundings. I hear an old gentleman sniff and move his chair a little as this person in an exceedingly shabby blue suit with the collar turned up, with a muffler round his neck and large, bulging boots on his feet, comes and sits beside him. I perceive an earnest young lady, probably a typist in search of extra culture, look at him long and vacantly from over her copy of Emerson, and can almost see her mind gradually collecting conclusions about him. The attendant, too, as he asks for his paper, eyes him shrewdly and suspiciously, and waits till the three halfpence are actually handed across under the brass wire partition before giving him the penny stamp. These circumstances may be incorrect, but I am absolutely clear as to Frank’s own attitude of mind. Honestly, he no longer minds in the very least how people behave to him; he has got through all that kind of thing long ago; he is not at all to be commiserated; it appears to him only of importance to get the paper and to be able to write and post his letter without interruption. For Frank has got on to that plane—(I know no other word to use, though I dislike this one)—when these other things simply do not matter. We all touch that plane sometimes, generally under circumstances of a strong mental excitement, whether of pleasure or pain, or even annoyance. A man with violent toothache, or who has just become engaged to be married, really does not care what people think of him. But Frank, for the present at least, has got here altogether, though for quite different reasons. The letter he wrote on this occasion is, at present, in my possession. It runs as follows. It is very short and business-like:

“Dear Jack,

“I want to tell you where I am—or, rather, where I can be got at in case of need. I am down in East London for the present, and one of the curates here knows where I’m living. (He was at Eton with me.) His address is: The Rev. E. Parham-Carter, The Eton Mission, Hackney Wick, London, N.E.

“The reason I’m writing is this: You remember Major Trustcott and Gertie, don’t you? Well, I haven’t succeeded in getting Gertie back to her people yet, and the worst of it is that the Major knows that there’s something up, and, of course, puts the worst possible construction upon it. Parham-Carter knows all about it, too—I’ve just left a note on him, with instructions. Now I don’t quite know what’ll happen, but in case anything does happen which prevents my going on at Gertie, I want you to come and do what you can. Parham-Carter will write to you if necessary.

“That’s one thing; and the next is this: I’d rather like to have some news about my people, and for them to know (if they want to know—I leave that to you) that I’m getting on all right. I haven’t heard a word about them since August. I know nothing particular can have happened, because I always look at the papers—but I should like to know what’s going on generally.

“I think that’s about all. I am getting on excellently myself, and hope you are. I am afraid there’s no chance of my coming to you for Christmas. I suppose you’ll be home again by now.

“Ever yours,

“F.G.”

“P.S.—Of course you’ll keep all this private—as well as where I’m living.”

Now this letter seems to me rather interesting from a psychological point of view. It is extremely business-like, but perfectly unpractical. Frank states what he wants, but he wants an absurd impossibility. I like Jack Kirkby very much, but I cannot picture him as likely to be successful in helping to restore a strayed girl to her people. I suppose Frank’s only excuse is that he did not know whom else to write to.

It is rather interesting, too, to notice his desire to know what is going on at his home; it seems as if he must have had, some faint inkling that something important was about to happen, and this is interesting in view of what now followed immediately.

He directed his letter, stamped it, and posted it in the library post-box in the vestibule. Then, cap in hand, he pushed open the swing-doors and ran straight into Mr. Parham-Carter.

“Hullo!” said that clergyman—and went a little white.

“Hullo!” said Frank; and then: “What’s the matter?”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going back to the jam factory.”

“May I walk with you?”

“Certainly, if you don’t mind my eating as I go along.”

The clergyman turned with him and went beside him in silence, as Frank, drawing out of his side-pocket a large hunch of bread and cheese, wrapped up in the advertisement sheet of the Daily Mail, began to fill his mouth.

“I want to know if you’ve had any news from home.”

Frank turned to him slightly.

“No,” he said sharply, after a pause.

Mr. Parham-Carter licked his lips.

“Well—no, it isn’t bad news; but I wondered whether—”

“What is it?”

“Your governor’s married again. It happened yesterday. I thought perhaps you didn’t know.”

There was dead silence for an instant.

“No, I didn’t know,” said Frank. “Who’s he married?”

“Somebody I never heard of. I wondered whether you knew her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Wait a second,” said the other, plunging under his greatcoat to get at his waistcoat pocket. “I’ve got the paragraph here. I cut it out of the Morning Post. I only saw it half an hour ago. I was coming round to you this evening.”

He produced a slip of printed paper. Frank stood still a moment, leaning against some area-railings—they were in the distinguished quarter of Victoria Park Road—and read the paragraph through. The clergyman watched him curiously. It seemed to him a very remarkable situation that he should be standing here in Victoria Park Road, giving information to a son as to his father’s marriage. He wondered, but only secondarily, what effect it would have upon Frank.

Frank gave him the paper back without a tremor.

“Thanks very much,” he said. “No; I didn’t know.”

They continued to walk.

“D’you know her at all?”

“Yes, I know her. She’s the Rector’s daughter, you know.”

“What! At Merefield? Then you must know her quite well.”

“Oh! yes,” said Frank, “I know her quite well.”

Again there was silence. Then the other burst out:

“Look here—I wish you’d let me do something. It seems to me perfectly ghastly—”

“My dear man,” said Frank. “Indeed you can’t do anything.... You got my note, didn’t you?”

The clergyman nodded.

“It’s just in case I’m ill, or anything, you know. Jack’s a great friend of mine. And it’s just as well that some friend of mine should be able to find out where I am. I’ve just written to him myself, as I said in my note. But you mustn’t give him my address unless in case of real need.”

“All right. But are you sure—”

“I’m perfectly sure.... Oh! by the way, that lady you sent round did no good. I expect she told you?”

“Yes; she said she’d never come across such a difficult case.”

“Well, I shall have to try again myself.... I must turn off here. Good luck!”

IV

Gertie was sitting alone in the kitchen about nine o’clock that night—alone, that is to say, except for the sleeping ‘Erb, who, in a cot at the foot of his mother’s bed, was almost invisible under a pile of clothes, and completely negligible as a witness. Mrs. Partington, with the other two children, was paying a prolonged visit in Mortimer Road, and the Major, ignorant of this fact, was talking big in the bar of the “Queen’s Arms” opposite the Men’s Club of the Eton Mission.

Gertie was enjoying herself just now, on the whole. It is true that she had received some chastisement yesterday from the Major; but she had the kind of nature that preferred almost any sensation to none. And, indeed, the situation was full of emotion. It was extraordinarily pleasant to her to occupy such a position between two men—and, above all, two “gentlemen.” Her attitude towards the Major was of the most simple and primitive kind; he was her man, who bullied her, despised her, dragged her about the country, and she never for one instant forgot that he had once been an officer in the army. Even his blows (which, to tell the truth, were not very frequent, and were always administered in a judicial kind of way) bore with them a certain stamp of brilliance; she possessed a very pathetic capacity for snobbishness. Frank, on the other side, was no less exciting. She regarded him as a good young man, almost romantic, indeed, in his goodness—a kind of Sir Galahad; and he, whatever his motive (and she was sometimes terribly puzzled about his motives), at any rate, stood in a sort of rivalry to the Major; and it was she who was the cause of contention. She loved to feel herself pulled this way and that by two such figures, to be quarreled over by such very strong and opposite types. It was a vague sensation to her, but very vivid and attractive; and although just now she believed herself to be thoroughly miserable, I have no doubt whatever that she was enjoying it all immensely. She was very feminine indeed, and the little scene of last night had brought matters to an almost exquisite point. She was crying a little now, gently, to herself.

The door opened. Frank came in, put down his cap, and took his seat on the bench by the fire.

“All out?” he asked.

Gertie nodded, and made a little broken sound.

“Very good,” said Frank. “Then I’m going to talk to you.”

Gertie wiped away a few more tears, and settled herself down for a little morbid pleasure. It was delightful to her to be found crying over the fire. Frank, at any rate, would appreciate that.

“Now,” said Frank, “you’ve got the choice once more, and I’m going to put it plainly. If you don’t do what I want this time, I shall have to see whether somebody else can’t persuade you.”

She glanced up, a little startled.

“Look here,” said Frank. “I’m not going to take any more trouble myself over this affair. You were a good deal upset yesterday when the lady came round, and you’ll be more upset yet before the thing’s over. I shan’t talk to you myself any more: you don’t seem to care a hang what I say; in fact, I’m thinking of moving my lodgings after Christmas. So now you’ve got your choice.”

He paused.

“On the one side you’ve got the Major; well, you know him; you know the way he treats you. But that’s not the reason why I want you to leave him. I want you to leave him because I think that down at the bottom you’ve got the makings of a good woman—”

“I haven’t,” cried Gertie passionately.

“Well, I think you have. You’re very patient, and you’re very industrious, and because you care for this man you’ll do simply anything in the world for him. Well, that’s splendid. That shows you’ve got grit. But have you ever thought what it’ll all be like in five years from now?”

“I shall be dead,” wailed Gertie. “I wish I was dead now.”

Frank paused.

“And when you’re dead—?” he said slowly.

There was an instant’s silence. Then Frank took up his discourse again. (So far he had done exactly what he had wanted. He had dropped two tiny ideas on her heart once more—hope and fear.)

“Now I’ve something to tell you. Do you remember the last time I talked to you? Well, I’ve been thinking what was the best thing to do, and a few days ago I saw my chance and took it. You’ve got a little prayer-book down at the bottom of your bundle, haven’t you? Well, I got at that (you never let anyone see it, you know), and I looked through it. I looked through all your things. Did you know your address was written in it? I wasn’t sure it was your address, you know, until—”

Gertie sat up, white with passion.

“You looked at my things?”

Frank looked her straight in the face.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” he said. “Wait till I’ve done.... Well, I wrote to the address, and I got an answer; then I wrote again, and I got another answer and a letter for you. It came this morning, to the post-office where I got it.”

Gertie looked at him, still white, with her lips parted.

“Give me the letter,” she whispered.

“As soon as I’ve done talking,” said Frank serenely. “You’ve got to listen to me first. I knew what you’d say: you’d say that your people wouldn’t have you back. And I knew perfectly well from the little things you’d said about them that they would. But I wrote to make sure....

“Gertie, d’you know that they’re breaking their hearts for you?... that there’s nothing, in the whole world they want so much as that you should come back?...”

“Give me the letter!”

“You’ve got a good heart yourself, Gertie; I know that well enough. Think hard, before I give you the letter. Which is best—the Major and this sort of life—and ... and—well, you know about the soul and God, don’t you?... or to go home, and—”

Her face shook all over for one instant.

“Give me the letter,” she wailed suddenly.

Then Frank gave it her.

V

“But I can’t possibly go home like this,” whispered Gertie agitatedly in the passage, after the Major’s return half an hour later.

“Good Lord!” whispered Frank, “what an extraordinary girl you are, to think—”

“I don’t care. I can’t, and I won’t.”

Frank cast an eye at the door, beyond which dozed the Major in the chair before the fire.

“Well, what d’you want?”

“I want another dress, and ... and lots of things.”

Frank stared at her resignedly.

“How much will it all come to?”

“I don’t know. Two pounds—two pounds ten.”

“Let’s see: to-day’s the twentieth. We must get you back before Christmas. If I let you have it to-morrow, will it do?—to-morrow night?”

She nodded. A sound came from beyond the door, and she fled.

I am not sure about the details of the manner in which Frank got the two pounds ten, but I know he got it, and without taking charity from a soul. I know that he managed somehow to draw his week’s money two days before pay-day, and for the rest, I suspect the pawnshop. What is quite certain is that when his friends were able to take stock of his belongings a little later, the list of them was as follows:

One jacket, one shirt, one muffler, a pair of trousers, a pair of socks, a pair of boots, one cap, one tooth-brush, and a rosary. There was absolutely nothing else. Even his razor was gone.

Things, therefore, were pretty bad with him on the morning of the twenty-second of December. I imagine that he still possessed a few pence, but out of this few pence he had to pay for his own and Gertie’s journey to Chiswick, as well as keep himself alive for another week. At least, so he must have thought.

It must have been somewhere in Kensington High Street that he first had a hint of a possibility of food to be obtained free, for, although I find it impossible to follow all his movements during these days, it is quite certain that he partook of the hospitality of the Carmelite Fathers on this morning. He mentions it, with pleasure, in his diary.

It is a very curious and medieval sight—this feeding of the poor in the little deep passage that runs along the outside of the cloister of the monastery in Church Street. The passage is approached by a door at the back of the house, opening upon the lane behind, and at a certain hour on each morning of the year is thronged from end to end with the most astonishing and deplorable collection of human beings to be seen in London. They are of all ages and sizes, from seventeen to seventy, and the one thing common to them all is extreme shabbiness and poverty.

A door opens at a given moment; the crowd surges a little towards a black-bearded man in a brown frock, with an apron over it, and five minutes later a deep silence, broken only by the sound of supping and swallowing, falls upon the crowd. There they stand, with the roar of London sounding overhead, the hooting of cars, the noise of innumerable feet, and the rain—at least, on this morning—falling dismally down the long well-like space. And here stand between two and three hundred men, pinched, feeble, and yet wolfish, gulping down hot soup and bread, looking something like a herd of ragged prisoners pent in between the high walls.

Here, then, Frank stood in the midst of them, gulping his soup. His van and horses, strictly against orders, remained in Church Street, under the care of a passer-by, whom Frank seems to have asked, quite openly, to do it for him for God’s sake.

It is a dreary little scene in which to picture him, and yet, to myself, it is rather pleasant, too. I like to think of him, now for the second time within a few weeks, and all within the first six months of his Catholic life, depending upon his Church for the needs of the body as well as for the needs of the soul. There was nothing whatever to distinguish him from the rest; he, too, had now something of that lean look that is such a characteristic of that crowd, and his dress, too, was entirely suitable to his company. He spoke with none of his hosts; he took the basin in silence and gave it back in silence; then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and went out comforted.

CHAPTER V

I

Dick Guiseley sat over breakfast in his rooms off Oxford Street, entirely engrossed in a local Yorkshire paper two days old.

His rooms were very characteristic of himself. They were five in number—a dining-room, two bedrooms, and two sitting-rooms divided by curtains, as well as a little entrance-hall that opened on to the landing, close beside the lift that served all the flats. They were furnished in a peculiarly restrained style—so restrained, in fact, that it was almost impossible to remember what was in them. One was just conscious of a sense of extreme comfort and convenience. There was nothing in particular that arrested the attention or caught the eye, except here and there a space or a patch of wall about which Dick had not yet made up his mind. He had been in them two years, indeed, but he had not nearly finished furnishing. From time to time a new piece of furniture appeared, or a new picture—always exceedingly good of its kind, and even conspicuous. Yet, somehow or other, so excellent was his taste, as soon as the thing was in place its conspicuousness (so to speak) vanished amidst the protective coloring, and it looked as if it had been there for ever. The colors were chosen with the same superfine skill: singly they were brilliant, or at least remarkable (the ceilings, for instance, were of a rich buttercup yellow); collectively they were subdued and unnoticeable. And I suppose this is exactly what rooms ought to be.

The breakfast-table at which he sat was a good instance of his taste. The silver-plate on it was really remarkable. There was a delightful Caroline tankard in the middle, placed there for the sheer pleasure of looking at it; there was a large silver cow with a lid in its back; there were four rat-tail spoons; the china was an extremely cheap Venetian crockery of brilliant designs and thick make. The coffee-pot and milk-pot were early Georgian, with very peculiar marks; but these vessels were at present hidden under the folded newspaper. There were four chrysanthemums in four several vases of an exceptional kind of glass. It sounds startling, I know, but the effect was not startling, though I cannot imagine why not. Here again one was just conscious of freshness and suitability and comfort.

But Dick was taking no pleasure in it all this morning. He was feeling almost physically sick, and the little spirit-heated silver dish of kidneys on his Queen Anne sideboard was undisturbed. He had cut off the top of an egg which was now rapidly cooling, and a milky surface resembling thin ice was forming on the contents of his coffee-cup. And meanwhile he read.

The column he was reading described the wedding of his uncle with Miss Jenny Launton, and journalese surpassed itself. There was a great deal about the fine old English appearance of the bridegroom, who, it appeared, had been married in a black frock-coat and gray trousers, with white spats, and who had worn a chrysanthemum in his button-hole (Dick cast an almost venomous glance upon the lovely blossom just beside the paper), and the beautiful youthful dignity of the bride, “so popular among the humble denizens of the country-side.” The bride’s father, it seemed, had officiated at the wedding in the “sturdy old church,” and had been greatly affected—assisted by the Rev. Matthieson. The wedding, it seemed, had been unusually quiet, and had been celebrated by special license: few of the family had been present, “owing,” said the discreet reporter, “to the express wish of the bridegroom.” (Dick reflected sardonically upon his own convenient attack of influenza from which he was now completely recovered.) Then there was a great deal more about the ancient home of the Guiseleys, and the aristocratic appearance of Viscount Merefield, the young and popular heir to the earldom, who, it appeared, had assisted at the wedding in another black frock-coat. General Mainwaring had acted as best man. Finally, there was a short description of the presents of the bridegroom to the bride, which included a set of amethysts, etc....

Dick read it all through to the luxuriant end, down to the peals of the bells and the rejoicings in the evening. He ate several pieces of dry toast while he read, crumbling them quickly with his left hand, and when he had finished, drank his coffee straight off at one draught. Then he got up, still with the paper, sat down in the easy-chair nearest to the fire and read the whole thing through once more. Then he pushed the paper off his knee and leaned back.

It would need a complete psychological treatise to analyze properly all the emotions he had recently gone through—emotions which had been, so to say, developed and “fixed” by the newspaper column he had just read. He was a man who was accustomed to pride himself secretly upon the speed with which he faced each new turn of fortune, and the correctness of the attitude he assumed. Perhaps it would be fair to say that the Artistic Stoic was the ideal towards which he strove. But, somehow, those emotions would not sort themselves. There they all were—fury, indignation, contempt, wounded pride, resignation, pity—there were no more to be added or subtracted; each had its place and its object, yet they would not coalesce. Now fury against his uncle, now pity for himself, now a poisonous kind of contempt of Jenny. Or, again, a primitive kind of longing for Jenny, a disregard of his uncle, an abasement of himself. The emotions whirled and twisted, and he sat quite still, with his eyes closed, watching them.

But there was one more emotion which had made its appearance entirely unexpectedly as soon as he had heard the news, that now, greatly to his surprise, was beginning to take a considerable place amongst the rest—and this was an extraordinarily warm sense of affection towards Frank—of all people. It was composed partly of compassion, and partly of an inexplicable sort of respect for which he could perceive no reason. It was curious, he thought later, why this one figure should have pushed its way to the front just now, when his uncle and Jenny and, secondarily, that Rector (“so visibly affected by the ceremony”) should have occupied all the field. Frank had never meant very much to Dick; he had stood for the undignified and the boyish in the midst of those other stately elements of which Merefield, and, indeed, all truly admirable life, was composed.

Yet now this figure stood out before him with startling distinctness.

First there was the fact that both Frank and himself had suffered cruelly at the hands of the same woman, though Frank incomparably the more cruelly of the two. Dick had the honesty to confess that Jenny had at least never actually broken faith with himself; but he had also the perspicuity to see that it came to very nearly the same thing. He knew with the kind of certitude that neither needs nor appeals to evidence that Jenny would certainly have accepted him if it had not been that Lord Talgarth had already dawned on her horizon, and that she put him off for a while simply to see whether this elderly sun would rise yet higher in the heavens. It was the same consideration, no doubt, that had caused her to throw Frank over a month or two earlier. A Lord Talgarth in the bush was worth two cadets in the hand. That was where her sensibleness had come in, and certainly it had served her well.

It was this community of injury, then, that primarily drew Dick’s attention to Frank; and, when once it lead been so drawn, it lingered on other points in his personality. Artistic Stoicism is a very satisfying ideal so long as things go tolerably well. It affords an excellent protection against such misfortunes as those of not being appreciated or of losing money or just missing a big position—against all such ills as affect bodily or mental conveniences. But when the heart is touched, Artistic Stoicism peels off like rusted armour. Dick had seriously began to consider, during the last few days, whether the exact opposite of Artistic Stoicism (let us call it Natural Impulsiveness) is not almost as good an equipment. He began to see something admirable in Frank’s attitude to life, and the more he regarded it the more admirable it seemed.

Frank, therefore, had begun to wear to him the appearance of something really moving and pathetic. He had had a communication or two from Jack Kirkby that had given him a glimpse of what Frank was going through, and his own extremely artificial self was beginning to be affected by it.

He looked round his room now, once or twice, wondering whether it was all worth while. He had put his whole soul into these rooms—there was that Jacobean press with the grotesque heads—ah! how long he had agonized over that in the shop in the King’s Road, Chelsea, wondering whether or not it would do just what he wanted, in that space between the two doors. There was that small statue of a Tudor lady in a square head-dress that he had bought in Oxford: he had occupied at least a week in deciding exactly from what point she was to smile on him; there was the new curtain dividing the two rooms: he had had half a dozen patterns, gradually eliminated down to two, lying over his sofa-back for ten days before he could make up his mind. (How lovely it looked, by the way, just now, with that patch of mellow London sunlight lying across the folds!)

But was it all worth it?... He argued the point with himself, almost passively, stroking his brown beard meditatively; but the fact that he could argue it at all showed that the foundations of his philosophy were shaken.

Well, then ... Frank ... What about him? Where was he?

II

About eleven o’clock a key turned in his outer door and a very smart-looking page-boy came through, after tapping, with a telegram on a salver.

Dick was writing to Hamilton’s, in Berners Street, about a question of gray mats for the spare bedroom, and he took the telegram and tore open the envelope with a preoccupied air. Then he uttered a small exclamation.

“Any answer, sir?”

“No. Yes.... Wait a second.”

He took a telegraph-form with almost indecent haste, addressed it to John Kirkby, Barham, Yorks, and wrote below:

“Certainly; will expect you dinner and sleep.—Richard Guiseley.”

Then, when the boy had gone, he read again the telegram he had received:

“Have received letter from Frank; can probably discover address if I come to town. Can you put me up to-night?—Jack Kirkby, Barham.”

He pondered it a minute or so. Then he finished his note to Hamilton’s, but it was with a distracted manner. Then for several minutes he walked up and down his rooms with his hands in his jacket-pockets, thinking very deeply. He was reflecting how remarkable it was that he should hear of Frank again just at this time, and was wondering what the next move of Providence would be.

The rest of Dick’s day was very characteristic of him; and considering my other personages in this story and their occupations, I take a dramatic sort of pleasure in writing it down.

He went out to lunch with a distinguished lady of his acquaintance—whose name I forbear to give; she was not less than seventy years old, and the two sat talking scandal about all their friends till nearly four o’clock. The Talgarth affair, even, was discussed in all its possible lights, and Dick was quite open about his own part in the matter. He knew this old lady very well, and she knew him very well. She was as shrewd as possible and extremely experienced, and had helped Dick enormously in various intricacies and troubles of the past; and he, on the other hand, as a well-informed bachelor, was of almost equal service to her. She was just the least bit in the world losing touch with things (at seventy you cannot do everything), and Dick helped to keep her in touch. He lunched with her at least once a week when they were both in town.

At four he went to the Bath Club, ordered tea and toast and cigarettes, and sat out, with his hat over his eyes, on the balcony, watching the swimmers. There was a boy of sixteen who dived with surprising skill, and Dick took the greatest possible pleasure in observing him. There was also a stout man of his acquaintance whose ambition it had been for months to cross the bath by means of the swinging rings, and this person, too, afforded him hardly less pleasure, as he always had to let go at the fourth ring, if not the third, whence he plunged into the water with a sound that, curiously enough, was more resonant than sibilant.

At six, after looking through all the illustrated papers, he went out to get his coat, and was presently in the thick of a heated argument with a member of the committee on the subject of the new carpet in the front hall. It was not fit, said Dick (searching for hyperboles), for even the drawing-room of the “Cecil.”

This argument made him a little later than he had intended, and, as he came up in the lift, the attendant informed him, in the passionless manner proper to such people, that the Mr. Kirkby who had been mentioned had arrived and was waiting for him in his rooms.

III

Shortly before midnight Dick attempted to sum up the situation. They had talked about Frank practically without ceasing, since Dick’s man had set coffee on the table at nine o’clock, and both had learned new facts.

“Well, then, wire to go down to this man, Parham-Carter,” said Dick, “the first thing after breakfast to-morrow. Do you know anything about the Eton Mission?”

“No. One used to have a collection for it each half, you know, in the houses.”

“How do we go?”

“Oh! railway from Broad Street. I’ve looked it up. Victoria Park’s the station.”

Dick drew two or three draughts of smoke from his cigar-butt, and laid it down in a small silver tray at his elbow. (The tray was a gift from the old lady he had lunched with to-day.)

“All you’ve told me is extraordinarily interesting,” he said. “It really was to get away this girl that he’s stopped so long?”

“I expect that’s what he tells himself—that’s the handle, so to speak. But it’s chiefly a sort of obstinacy. He said he would go on the roads, and so he’s gone.”

“I rather like that, you know,” said Dick.

Jack snorted a little.

“Oh, it’s better than saying a thing and not doing it. But why say it?”

“Oh! one must do something,” said Dick. “At least, some people seem to think so. And I rather envy them, you know. I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t do anything. Unless you can call this sort of thing doing something.” He waved his hand vaguely round his perfectly arranged room.

Jack said nothing. He was inclined to be a little strenuous himself in some ways, and he had always been conscious of a faint annoyance with Dick’s extreme leisureliness.

“I see you agree,” went on Dick. “Well, we must see what can be done.”

He stood up smiling and began to expand and contract his fingers luxuriously before the fire behind his back.

“If we can only get Frank away,” murmured Jack. “That’s enough for the present.”

“And what do you propose to do with him then?”

“Oh, Lord! Anything. Go round the world if he likes. Come and stay at my place.”

“And suppose he thinks that’s a bit too near to ... to Lady Talgarth.”.

This switched Jack back again to a line he had already run on for an hour this evening.

“Yes, that’s the ghastly part of it all. He’s sure not to have heard. And who the devil’s to tell him? And how will he take it?”

“Do you know,” said Dick, “I’m really not frightened about that? All you’ve told me about him makes me think he’ll behave very well. Funny thing, isn’t it, that you know him so much better than I do? I never dreamed there was so much in him, somehow.”

“Oh, there’s a lot in Frank. But one doesn’t always know what it is.”

“Do you think his religion’s made much difference?”

“I think it’s done this for him,” said Jack slowly. “(I’ve been thinking a lot about that). I think it’s fixed things, so to speak ....” He hesitated. He was not an expert in psychological analysis. Dick took him up quickly. He nodded three or four times.

“Exactly,” he said. “That’s it, no doubt. It’s given him a center—a hub for the wheel.”

“Eh?”

“It’s ... it’s joined everything on to one point in him. He’ll be more obstinate and mad than ever before. He’s got a center now.... I suppose that’s what religion’s for,” he added meditatively.

This was Greek to Jack. He looked at Dick uncomprehendingly.

Dick turned round and began to stare into the fire, still contracting and expanding his fingers.

“It’s a funny thing—this religion,” he said at last. “I never could understand it.”

“And what about Archie?” asked Jack with sudden abruptness. (He had no continuity of mind.)

Dick brought his meditations to a close with equal abruptness, or perhaps he would not have been so caustic as regards his first cousin.

“Oh, Archie’s an ass!” he said. “We can leave him out.”

Jack changed the subject again. He was feeling the situation very acutely indeed, and the result was that all its elements came tumbling out anyhow.

“I’ve been beastly uncomfortable,” he said.

“Yes?” said Dick. “Any particular way?”

Jack shifted one leg over the other. He had not approached one element in the situation at all, as yet, with Dick, but it had been simmering in him for weeks, and had been brought to a point by Frank’s letter received this morning. And now the curious intimacy into which he had been brought with Dick began to warm it out of him.

“You’ll think me an ass, too, I expect,” he said. “And I rather think it’s true. But I can’t help it.”

Dick smiled at him encouragingly. (Certainly, thought Jack, this man was nicer than he had thought him.)

“Well, it’s this—” he said suddenly. “But it’s frightfully hard to put into words. You know what I told you about Frank’s coming to me at Barham?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there was something he said then that made me uncomfortable. And it’s made me more and more uncomfortable ever since ...” (He paused again.) “Well, it’s this. He said that he felt there was something going on that he couldn’t understand—some sort of Plan, he said—in which he had to take part—a sort of scheme to be worked out, you know. I suppose he meant God,” he explained feebly.

Dick looked at him questioningly.

“Oh! I can’t put it into words,” said Jack desperately. “Nor did he, exactly. But that was the kind of idea. A sort of Fate. He said he was quite certain of it.... And there were lots of little things that fitted in. He changed his clothes in the old vestry, you know—in the old church. It seemed like a sort of sacrifice, you know. And then I had a beastly dream that night. And then there was something my mother said. ... And now there’s his letter: the one I showed you at dinner—about something that might happen to him.... Oh! I’m a first-class ass, aren’t I?”

There was a considerable silence. He glanced up in an ashamed sort of way, at the other, and saw him standing quite upright and still, again with his back to the fire, looking out across the room. From outside came the hum of the thoroughfare—the rolling of wheels, the jingle of bells, the cries of human beings. He waited in a kind of shame for Dick’s next words. He had not put all these feelings into coherent form before, even to himself, and they sounded now even more fantastic than he had thought them. He waited, then, for the verdict of this quiet man, whom up to now he had deemed something of a fool, who cared about nothing but billiards and what was called Art. (Jack loathed Art.)

Then the verdict came in a surprising form. But he understood it perfectly.

“Well, what about bed?” said Dick quietly.

IV

It was on the morning of the twenty-fourth that Mr. Parham-Carter was summoned by the neat maid-servant of the clergy-house to see two gentlemen. She presented two cards on a plated salver, inscribed with the names of Richard Guiseley and John B. Kirkby. He got up very quickly, and went downstairs two at a time. A minute later he brought them both upstairs and shut the door.

“Sit down,” he said. “I’m most awfully glad you’ve come. I ... I’ve been fearfully upset by all this, and I haven’t known what to do.”

“Now where is he?” demanded Jack Kirkby.

The clergyman made a deprecatory face.

“I’ve absolutely promised not to tell,” he said. “And you know—”

“But that’s ridiculous. We’ve come on purpose to fetch him away. It simply mustn’t go on. That’s why I didn’t write. I sent Frank’s letter on to Mr. Guiseley here (he’s a cousin of Frank’s, by the way), and he asked me to come up to town. I got to town last night, and we’ve come down here at once this morning.”

Mr. Parham-Carter glanced at the neat melancholy-faced, bearded man who sat opposite.

“But you know I promised,” he said.

“Yes,” burst in Jack; “but one doesn’t keep promises one makes to madmen. And—”

“But he’s not mad in the least. He’s—”

“Well?”

“I was going to say that it seems to me that he’s more sane than anyone else,” said the young man dismally. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but—”

Dick Guiseley nodded with such emphasis that he stopped.

“I know what you mean,” said Dick in his gentle drawl. “And I quite understand.”

“But it’s all sickening rot,” burst in Jack. “He must be mad. You don’t know Frank as I do—neither of you. And now there’s this last business—his father’s marriage, I mean; and—”

He broke off and looked across at Dick.

“Go on,” said Dick; “don’t mind me.”

“Well, we don’t know whether he’s heard of it or not; but he must hear sooner or later, and then—”

“But he has heard of it,” interrupted the clergyman. “I showed him the paragraph myself.”

“He’s heard of it! And he knows all about it!”

“Certainly. And I understood from him that he knew the girl: the Rector’s daughter, isn’t it?”

“Knows the girl! Why, he was engaged to her himself.”

“What?”

“Yes; didn’t he tell you?”

“He didn’t give me the faintest hint—”

“How did he behave? What did he say?”

Mr. Parham-Carter stared a moment in silence.

“What did he say?” snapped out Jack impatiently.

“Say? He said nothing. He just told me he knew the girl, when I asked him.”

“Good God!” remarked Jack. And there was silence.

Dick broke it.

“Well, it seems to me we’re rather in a hole.”

“But it’s preposterous,” burst out Jack again. “Here’s poor old Frank, simply breaking his heart, and here are we perfectly ready to do anything we can—why, the chap must be in hell!”

“Look here, Mr. Parham-Carter,” said Dick softly. “What about your going round to his house and seeing if he’s in, and what he’s likely to be doing to-day.”

“He’ll be at the factory till this evening.”

“The factory?”

“Yes; he’s working at a jam factory just now.”

A sound of fury and disdain broke from Jack.

“Well,” continued Dick, “(May I take a cigarette, by the way?), why shouldn’t you go round and make inquiries, and find out how the land lies? Then Kirkby and I might perhaps hang about a bit and run up against him—if you’d just give us a hint, you know.”

The other looked at him a moment.

“Well, perhaps I might,” he said doubtfully. “But what—”

“Good Lord! But you’ll be keeping your promise, won’t you? After all, it’s quite natural we should come down after his letter—and quite on the cards that we should run up against him.... Please to go at once, and let us wait here.”

In a quarter of an hour Mr. Parham-Carter came back quickly into the room and shut the door.

“Yes; he’s at the factory,” he said. “Or at any rate he’s not at home. And they don’t expect him back till late.”

“Well?”

“There’s something up. The girl’s gone, too. (No; she’s not at the factory.) And I think there’s going to be trouble.”

CHAPTER VI

I

The electric train slowed down and stopped at the Hammersmith terminus, and there was the usual rush for the doors.

“Come on, Gertie,” said a young man, “here we are.”

The girl remained perfectly still with her face hidden.

The crowd was enormous this Christmas Eve, and for the most part laden with parcels; the platforms surged with folk, and each bookstall, blazing with lights (for it was after seven o’clock), was a center of a kind of whirlpool. There was sensational news in the evening papers, and everyone was anxious to get at the full details of which the main facts were tantalizingly displayed on the posters. Everyone wanted to know exactly who were the people concerned and how it had all happened. It was a delightful tragedy for the Christmas festivities.

“Come on,” said the young man again. “They’re nearly all out.”

“I can’t,” moaned the girl.

Frank took her by the arm resolutely.

“Come!” he said.

Then she came, and the two passed out together into the mob waiting to come in.

“We shall have to walk,” said Frank. “I’m sorry; but I’ve got to get home somehow.”

She bowed her head and said nothing.

Gertie presented a very unusual appearance this evening. Certainly she had laid out the two-pound-ten to advantage. She was in a perfectly decent dark dress with a red stripe in it; she had a large hat and some species of boa round her neck; she even carried a cheap umbrella with a sham silver band and a small hand-bag with one pocket-handkerchief inside it. And to her own mind, no doubt, she was a perfect picture of the ideal penitent—very respectable and even prosperous looking, and yet with a dignified reserve. She was not at all flaunting, she must have thought; neither was she, externally, anything of a disgrace. It would be evident presently to her mother that she had returned out of simple goodness of heart and not at all because her recent escapade had been a failure. She would still be able to talk of “the Major” with something of an air, and to make out that he treated her always like a lady. (When I went to interview her a few months ago I found her very dignified, very self-conscious, excessively refined and faintly reminiscent of fallen splendor; and her mother told me privately that she was beginning to be restless again and talked of going on to the music-hall stage.)

But there is one thing that I find it very hard to forgive, and that is, that as the two went together under the flaming white lights towards Chiswick High Street, she turned to Frank a little nervously and asked him if he would mind walking just behind her. (Please remember, however, in extenuation, that Gertie’s new pose was that of the Superior Young Lady.)

“I don’t quite like to be seen—” murmured this respectable person.

“Oh, certainly!” said Frank, without an instant’s hesitation.

They had met, half an hour before, by appointment, at the entrance to the underground station at Victoria. Frank’s van-journeyings would, he calculated, bring him there about half-past six, and, strictly against the orders of his superiors, but very ingeniously, with the connivance of his fellow-driver of the van, he had arranged for his place to be taken on the van for the rest of the evening by a man known to his fellow-driver—but just now out of work—for the sum of one shilling, to be paid within a week. He was quite determined not to leave Gertie alone again, when once the journey to Chiswick had actually begun, until he had seen her landed in her own home.

The place of meeting, too, had suited Gertie very well. She had left Turner Road abruptly, without a word to anyone, the instant that the Major’s military-looking back had been seen by her to pass within the swing-doors of the “Queen’s Arms” for his usual morning refreshment. Then she had occupied herself chiefly by collecting her various things at their respective shops, purchased by Frank’s two-pound-ten, and putting them on. She had had a clear threepence to spare beyond the few shillings she had determined to put by out of the total, and had expended it by a visit to the cinematograph show in Victoria Street. There had been a very touching series of pictures of the “Old Home in the Country,” and the milking of the cows, with a general atmosphere of roses and church-bells, and Gertie had dissolved into tears more than once, and had cried noiselessly into her new pocket-handkerchief drawn from her new hand-bag. But she had met Frank quite punctually, for, indeed, she had burned her boats now entirely and there was nothing else left for her to do.

At the entrance to Chiswick High Street another brilliant thought struck her. She paused for Frank to come up.

“Frankie,” she said, “you won’t say anything about the two-pound-ten, will you? I shouldn’t like them to think—”

“Of course not,” said Frank gravely, and after a moment, noticing that she glanced at him again uneasily, understood, and fell obediently to the rear once more.

About a quarter of a mile further on her steps began to go slower. Frank watched her very carefully. He was not absolutely sure of her even now. Then she crossed over the street between two trams, and Frank dodged after her. Then she turned as if to walk back to Hammersmith. In an instant Frank was at her side.

“You’re going the wrong way,” he said.

She stopped irresolutely, and had to make way for two or three hurrying people, to pass.

“Oh, Frankie! I can’t!” she wailed softly.

“Come!” said Frank, and took her by the arm once more.

Five minutes later they stood together half-way down a certain long lane that turns out of Chiswick High Street to the left, and there, for the first time, she seems to have been genuinely frightened. The street was quite empty; the entire walking population was parading up and down the brightly-lit thoroughfare a hundred yards behind them, or feverishly engaged in various kinds of provision shops. The lamps were sparse in this lane, and all was comparatively quiet.

“Oh, Frankie!” she moaned again. “I can’t! I can’t!... I daren’t!”

She leaned back against the sill of a window.

Yet, even then, I believe she was rather enjoying herself. It was all so extremely like the sort of plays over which she had been accustomed to shed tears. The Prodigal’s Return! And on Christmas Eve! It only required a little snow to be falling and a crying infant at her breast....

I wonder what Frank made of it. He must have known Gertie thoroughly well by now, and certainly there is not one sensible man in a thousand whose gorge would not have risen at the situation. Yet I doubt whether Frank paid it much attention.

“Where’s the house?” he said.

He glanced up at the number of the door by which he stood.

“It must be a dozen doors further on,” he said.

“It’s the last house in the row,” murmured Gertie, in a weak voice. “Is father looking out? Go and see.”

“My dear girl,” said Frank, “do not be silly. Do remember your mother’s letter.”

Then she suddenly turned on him, and if ever she was genuine she was in that moment.

“Frankie,” she whispered, “why not take me away yourself? Oh! take me away! take me away!”

He looked into her eyes for an instant, and in that instant he caught again that glimpse as of Jenny herself.

“Take me away—I’ll live with you just as you like!” She took him by his poor old jacket-lapel. “You can easily make enough, and I don’t ask—”

Then he detached her fingers and took her gently by the arm.

“Come with me,” he said. “No; not another word.”

Together in silence they went the few steps that separated them from the house. There was a little garden in front, its borders set alternately with sea-shells and flints. At the gate she hesitated once more, but he unlatched the gate and pushed her gently through.

“Oh! my gloves!” whispered Gertie, in a sharp tone of consternation. “I left them in the shop next the A.B.C. in Wilton Road.”

Frank nodded. Then, still urging her, he brought her up to the door and tapped upon it.

There were footsteps inside.

“God bless you, Gertie. Be a good girl. I’ll wait in the road for ten minutes, so that you can call me if you want to.”

Then he was gone as the door opened.

II

The next public appearance of Frank that I have been able to trace, was in Westminster Cathedral. Now it costs an extra penny at least, I think, to break one’s journey from Hammersmith to Broad Street, and I imagine that Frank would not have done this after what he had said to Gertie about the difficulty connected with taking an omnibus, except for some definite reason, so it is only possible to conclude that he broke his journey at Victoria in an attempt to get at those gloves.

It seems almost incredible that Gertie should have spoken of her gloves at such a moment, but it really happened. She told me so herself. And, personally, on thinking over it, it seems to me tolerably in line (though perhaps the line is rather unusually prolonged) with all that I have been able to gather about her whole character. The fact is that gloves, just then, were to her really important. She was about to appear on the stage of family life, and she had formed a perfectly consistent conception of her part. Gloves were an integral part of her costume—they were the final proof of a sort of opulence and refinement; therefore, though she could not get them just then, it was perfectly natural and proper of her to mention them. It must not be thought that Gertie was insincere: she was not; she was dramatic. And it is a fact that within five minutes of her arrival she was down on her knees by her mother, with her face hidden in her mother’s lap, crying her heart out. By the time she remembered Frank and ran out into the street, he had been gone more than twenty minutes.

One of the priests attached to Westminster Cathedral happened to have a pause about half-past nine o’clock in his hearing of confessions. He had been in his box without a break from six o’clock, and he was extremely tired and stiff about the knees. He had said the whole of his office during intervals, and he thought he would take a little walk up and down the south aisle to stretch his legs.

So he unlatched the little door of his confessional, leaving the light burning in case someone else turned up; he slipped off his stole and came outside.

The whole aisle, it seemed, was empty, though there was still a sprinkling of folks in the north aisle, right across the great space of the nave; and he went down the whole length, down to the west end to have a general look up the Cathedral.

He stood looking for three or four minutes.

Overhead hung the huge span of brickwork, lost in darkness, incredibly vast and mysterious, with here and there emerging into faint light a slice of a dome or the slope of some architrave-like dogmas from impenetrable mystery. Before him lay the immense nave, thronged now with close-packed chairs in readiness for the midnight Mass, and they seemed to him as he looked with tired eyes, almost like the bent shoulders of an enormous crowd bowed in dead silence of adoration. But there was nothing yet to adore, except up there to the left, where a very pale glimmer shone on polished marble among the shadows before the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. There was one other exception; for overhead, against the half-lighted apse, where a belated sacristan still moved about, himself a shadow, busy with the last preparations of the High Altar—there burgeoned out the ominous silhouette of the vast hanging cross, but so dark that the tortured Christ upon it was invisible.... Yet surely that was right on this night, for who, of all those who were to adore presently the Child of joy, gave a thought to the Man of Sorrows? His Time was yet three months away....

As the priest stood there, looking and imagining, with that strange clarity of mind and intuition that a few hours in the confessional gives to even the dullest brain, he noticed the figure of a man detach itself from one of the lighted confessionals on the left and come down towards him, walking quickly and lightly. To his surprise, this young man, instead of going out at the northwest door, wheeled and came towards him.

He noticed him particularly, and remembered his dress afterwards: it was a very shabby dark blue suit, splashed with mud from the Christmas streets, very bulgy about the knees; the coat was buttoned up tightly round a muffler that had probably once been white, and his big boots made a considerable noise as he came.

The priest had a sudden impulse as the young man crossed him.

“A merry Christmas,” he said.

The young man stopped a moment and smiled all over his face, and the priest noticed the extraordinary serenity and pleasantness of the face—and that, though it was the face of a Poor Man, with sunken cheeks and lines at the corners of the mouth.

“Thank you, Father,” he said. “The same to you.”

Then he went on, his boots as noisy as ever, and turned up the south aisle. And presently the sound of his boots ceased.

The priest still stood a moment or two, looking and thinking, and it struck him with something of pleasure that the young man, though obviously of the most completely submerged tenth, had not even hesitated or paused, still less said one word, with the hope of a little something for Christmas’ sake. Surely he had spoken, too, with the voice of an educated man.

He became suddenly interested—he scarcely knew why, and the impression made just by that single glimpse of a personality deepened every moment.... What in the world was that young man doing here?... What was his business up in that empty south aisle? Who was he? What was it all about?

He thought presently that he would go up and see; it was on his way back to the clergy-house, too. But when he reached the corner of the aisle and could see up it, there seemed to be no one there.

He began to walk up, wondering more than ever, and then on a sudden he saw a figure kneeling on the lower step of the chapel on the right, railed off and curtained now, where the Crib was ready to be disclosed two hours later.

It all seemed very odd. He could not understand why anyone should wish to pray before an impenetrable curtain. As he came nearer he saw it was his friend all right. Those boots were unmistakable. The young man was kneeling on the step, quite upright and motionless, his cap held in his hands, facing towards the curtain behind which, no doubt, there stood the rock-roofed stable, with the Three Personages—an old man, a maid and a new-born Child. But their time, too, was not yet. It was two hours away.

Priests do not usually stare in the face of people who are saying their prayers—they are quite accustomed to that phenomenon; but this priest (he tells me) simply could not resist it. And as he passed on his noiseless shoes, noticing that the light from his own confessional shone full upon the man, he turned and looked straight at his face.

Now I do not understand what it was that he saw; he does not understand it himself; but it seems that there was something that impressed him more than anything else that he had ever seen before or since in the whole world.

The young man’s eyes were open and his lips were closed. Not one muscle of his face moved. So much for the physical facts. But it was a case where the physical facts are supremely unimportant.... At any rate, the priest could only recall them with an effort. The point was that there was something supra-physical there—(personally I should call it supernatural)—that stabbed the watcher’s heart clean through with one over whelming pang.... (I think that’s enough.)

When the priest reached the Lady chapel he sat down, still trembling a little, and threw all his attention into his ears, determined to hear the first movement that the kneeling figure made behind him. So he sat minute after minute. The Cathedral was full of echoes—murmurous rebounds of the noises of the streets, drawn out and mellowed into long, soft, rolling tones, against which, as against a foil, there stood out detached, now and then, the sudden footsteps of someone leaving or entering a confessional, the short scream of a slipping chair—once the sudden noise of a confessional-door being opened and the click of the handle which turned out the electric light. And it was full of shadows, too; a monstrous outline crossed and recrossed the apse behind the High Altar, as the sacristan moved about; once a hand, as of a giant, remained poised for an instant somewhere on the wall beside the throne. It seemed to the priest, tired and clear-brained as he was, as if he sat in some place of expectation—some great cavern where mysteries moved and passed in preparation for a climax. All was hushed and confused, yet alive; and the dark waves would break presently in the glory of the midnight Mass.

He scarcely knew what held him there, nor what it was for which he waited. He thought of the lighted common-room at the end of the long corridor beyond the sacristy. He wondered who was there; perhaps one or two were playing billiards and smoking; they had had a hard day of it and would scarcely get to bed before three. And yet, here he sat, tired and over-strained, yet waiting—waiting for a disreputable-looking young man in a dirty suit and muffler and big boots, to give over praying before a curtain in an empty aisle.

A figure presently came softly round the corner behind him. It was the priest whom he had heard leaving his confessional just now.

“Haven’t you done yet?” whispered the new-comer, pausing behind his chair.

“Coming in a minute or two,” he said.

The figure passed on; presently a door banged like muffled thunder somewhere beyond the sacristy, and simultaneously he heard a pair of boots going down the aisle behind.

He got up instantly, and with long, silent steps made his way down the aisle also. The figure wheeled the corner and disappeared; he himself ran on tip-toe and was in time to see him turning away from the holy-water basin by the door. But he came so quickly after him that the door was still vibrating as he put his hand upon it. He came out more cautiously through the little entrance, and stood on the steps in time to see the young man moving off, not five yards away, in the direction of Victoria Street. But here something stopped him.

Coming straight up the pavement outside the Art and Book Company depot was a newsboy at the trot, yelling something as he came, with a poster flapping from one arm and a bundle of papers under the other. The priest could not catch what he said, but he saw the young man suddenly stop and then turn off sharply towards the boy, and he saw him, after fumbling in his pocket, produce a halfpenny and a paper pass into his hands.

There then he stood, motionless on the pavement, the sheet spread before him flapping a little in the gusty night wind.

“Paper, sir!” yelled the boy, pausing in the road. “‘Orrible—”

The priest nodded; but he was not thinking much about the paper, and produced his halfpenny. The paper was put into his hand, but he paid no attention to it. He was still watching the motionless figure on the pavement. About three minutes passed. Then the young man suddenly and dexterously folded the paper, folded it again and slipped it into his pocket. Then he set off walking and a moment later had vanished round the corner into Victoria Street.

The priest thought no more of the paper as he went back through the Cathedral, wondering again over what he had seen....

But the common-room was empty when he got to it, and presently he spread the paper before him on the table and leaned over it to see what the excitement was about. There was no doubt as to what the news was—there were headlines occupying nearly a third of a column; but it appeared to him unimportant as general news: he had never heard of the people before. It seemed that a wealthy peer who lived in the North of England, who had only recently been married for the second time, had been killed in a motor smash together with his eldest son. The chauffeur had escaped with a fractured thigh. The peer’s name was Lord Talgarth.

CHAPTER VII

I

On the morning of the twenty-fourth a curious little incident happened—I dug the facts out of the police news—in a small public-house on the outskirts of South London. Obviously it is no more than the sheerest coincidence. Four men were drinking a friendly glass of beer together on their way back to work from breakfast. Their ecclesiastical zeal seems to have been peculiarly strong, for they distinctly stated that they were celebrating Christmas on that date, and I deduce from that statement that beer-drinking was comparatively infrequent with them.

However, as they were about to part, there entered to them a fifth, travel-stained and tired, who sat down and demanded some stronger form of stimulant. The new-comer was known to these four, for his name was given, and his domicile was mentioned as Hackney Wick. He was a small man, very active and very silent and rather pale; and he seems to have had something of a mysterious reputation even among his friends and to be considered a dangerous man to cross.

He made no mystery, however, as to where he had come from, nor whither he was going. He had come from Kent, he said, and humorously added that he had been hop-picking, and was going to join his wife and the family circle for the festival of Christmas. He remarked that his wife had written to him to say she had lodgers.

The four men naturally stayed a little to hear all this news and to celebrate Christmas once more, but they presently were forced to tear themselves away. It was as the first man was leaving (his foreman appears to have been of a tyrannical disposition) that the little incident happened.

“Why,” he said, “Bill” (three out of the five companions seemed to have been usually called “Bill”), “Bill, your boots are in a mess.”

The Bill in question made caustic remarks. He observed that it would be remarkable if they were not in such weather. But the other persisted that this was not mud, and a general inspection was made. This resulted in the opinion of the majority being formed that Bill had trodden in some blood. Bill himself was one of the majority, though he attempted in vain to think of any explanation. Two men, however, declared that in their opinion it was only red earth. (A certain obscurity appears in the evidence at this point, owing to the common use of a certain expletive in the mouth of the British working-man.) There was a hot discussion on the subject, and the Bill whose boots were under argument seems to have been the only man to keep his head. He argued very sensibly that if the stains were those of blood, then he must have stepped in some—perhaps in the gutter of a slaughter-house; and if it was not blood, then it must be something else he had trodden in. It was urged upon him that it was best washed off, and he seems finally to have taken the advice, though without enthusiasm.

Then the four men departed.

The landlady’s evidence was to the same effect. She states that the new-comer, with whose name she had been previously unacquainted, though she knew his face, had remained very tranquilly for an hour or so and had breakfasted off bacon and eggs. He seemed to have plenty of money, she said. He had finally set off, limping a little, in a northward direction.

Now this incident is a very small one. I only mention it because, in reading the evidence later, I found myself reminded of a parallel incident, recorded in a famous historical trial, in which something resembling blood was seen on the hand of the judge. His name was Ayloff, and his date the sixteenth century.

II

Mrs. Partington had a surprise—not wholly agreeable—on that Christmas Eve. For at half-past three, just as the London evening was beginning to close in, her husband walked into the kitchen.

She had seen nothing of him for six weeks, and had managed to get on fairly well without him. I am not even now certain whether or no she knows what her husband’s occupation is during these absences of his—I think it quite possible that, honestly, she does not—and I have no idea myself. It seemed, however, this time, that he had prospered. He was in quite a good temper, he was tolerably well dressed, and within ten minutes of his arrival he had produced a handful of shillings. Five of these he handed over to her at once for Christmas necessaries, and ten more he entrusted to Maggie with explicit directions as to their expenditure.

While he took off his boots, his wife gave him the news—first, as to the arrival of the Major’s little party, and next as to its unhappy dispersion on that very day.

“He will ‘ave it as the young man’s gone off with the young woman,” she observed.

Mr. Partington made a commentatory sound.

“An’ ‘e’s ‘arf mad,” she added. “‘E means mischief if ‘e can manage it.”

Mr. Partington observed, in his own particular kind of vocabulary, that the Major’s intentions were absurd, since the young man would scarcely be such a peculiarly qualified kind of fool as to return. And Mrs. Partington agreed with him. (In fact, this had been her one comfort all day. For it seemed to her, with her frank and natural ideas, that, on the whole, Frank and Gertie had done the proper thing. She was pleased, too, to think that she had been right in her surmises as to Gertie’s attitude to Frank. For, of course, she never doubted for one single instant that the two had eloped together in the ordinary way, though probably without any intentions of matrimony.)

Mr. Partington presently inquired as to where the Major was, and was informed that he was, of course, at the “Queen’s Arms.” He had been there, in fact, continuously—except for sudden excursions home, to demand whether anything had been heard of the fugitives—since about half-past eleven that morning. It was a situation that needed comfort.

Mrs. Partington added a few comments on the whole situation, and presently put on her bonnet and went out to supplement her Christmas preparations with the extra five shillings, leaving her husband to doze in the Windsor chair, with his pipe depending from his mouth. He had walked up from Kent that morning, he said.

She returned in time to get tea ready, bringing with her various “relishes,” and found that the situation had developed slightly since her departure. The Major had made another of his infuriated returns, and had expanded at length to his old friend Mr. Partington, recounting the extraordinary kindness he had always shown to Frank and the confidence he had reposed in him. He had picked him up, it seemed, when the young man had been practically starving, and had been father and comrade to him ever since. And to be repaid in this way! He had succeeded also by his eloquence, Mrs. Partington perceived, in winning her husband’s sympathies, and was now gone off again, ostensibly to scour the neighborhood once more, but, more probably, to attempt to drown his grieved and wounded feelings.

Mrs. Partington set her thin lips and said nothing. She noticed also, as she spread the table, a number of bottles set upon the floor, two of them with yellow labels—the result of Maggie’s errand—and prepared herself to face a somewhat riotous evening. But Christmas, she reflected for her consolation, comes but once a year.

It was about nine o’clock that the two men and the one woman sat down to supper upstairs. The children had been put to bed in the kitchen as usual, after Jimmie had informed his mother that the clergyman had been round no less than three times since four o’clock to inquire after the vanished lodger. He was a little tearful at being put to bed at such an unusually early hour, as Mr. Parham-Carter, it appeared, had promised him no less than sixpence if he would come round to the clergy-house within five minutes after the lodger’s return, and it was obviously impossible to traverse the streets in a single flannel shirt.

His mother dismissed it all as nonsense. She told him that Frankie was not coming back at all—that he wasn’t a good young man, and had run away without paying mother her rent. This made the situation worse than ever, as Jimmie protested violently against this shattering of his ideal, and his mother had to assume a good deal of sternness to cover up her own tenderness of feeling. But she, too—though she considered the flight of the two perfectly usual—was conscious of a very slight sense of disappointment herself that it should have been this particular young man who had done it.

Then she went upstairs again to supper.

III

The famous archway that gives entrance to the district of Hackney Wick seems, especially on a rainy night, directly designed by the Great Eastern Railway as a vantage ground for observant loafers with a desire to know every soul that enters or leaves Hackney Wick. It is, of course, possible to, enter Hackney Wick by other ways—it may be approached by the marshes, and there is, I think, another way round about half a mile to the east, under the railway. But those ways have nothing whatever to do with people coming from London proper. You arrive at Victoria Park Station; you turn immediately to the right and follow the pavement down, with the park on your left, until you come to the archway where the road unites with that coming from Homerton. One is absolutely safe, therefore, assuming that one has not to deal with watchful criminals, in standing under the arch with the certitude that sooner or later, if you wait long enough, the man whom you expect to enter Hackney Wick will pass within ten yards of you.

Mr. Parham-Carter, of course, knew this perfectly well, and had, finally, communicated the fact to the other two quite early in the afternoon. An elaborate system of watches, therefore, had been arranged, by which one of the three had been on guard continuously since three o’clock. It was Jack who had had the privilege (if he had but known it) of observing Mr. Partington himself returning home to his family for Christmas, and it was Dick, who came on guard about five, who had seen the Major—or, rather, what was to him merely a shabby and excited man—leave and then return to the “Queen’s Arms” during his hour’s watch.

After the amazing and shocking news, however, of the accident to Lord Talgarth and Archie, the precautions had been doubled. It was the clergyman who had first bought an evening paper soon after five o’clock, and within five minutes the other two knew it also.

It is of no good to try to describe the effect it had on their minds, beyond saying that it made all three of them absolutely resolute that Frank should by no possible means escape them. The full dramatic situation of it all they scarcely appreciated, though it soaked more and more into them gradually as they waited—two of them in the Men’s Club just round the corner, and the third, shivering and stamping, under the arch. (An unemployed man, known to the clergyman, had been set as an additional sentry on the steps of the Men’s Club, whose duty it would be, the moment the signal was given from the arch that Frank was coming, to call the other two instantly from inside. Further, the clergyman—as has been related—had been round three times since four o’clock to Turner Road, and had taken Jimmie into his pay.)

The situation was really rather startling, even to the imperturbable Dick. This pleasant young man, to whom he had begun to feel very strangely tender during the last month or two, now tramping London streets (or driving a van), in his miserable old clothes described to him by the clergyman, or working at the jam factory, was actually no one else at this moment but the new Lord Talgarth—with all that that implied. Merefield was his, the big house in Berkeley Square was his; the moor in Scotland.... It was an entire reversal of the whole thing: it was as a change of trumps in whist: everything had altered its value....

Well, he had plenty of time, both before he came off guard at seven and after he had joined the clergyman in the Men’s Club, to sort out the facts and their consequences.

About half-past ten the three held a consultation under the archway, while trains rumbled overhead. They attracted very little attention here: the archway is dark and wide; they were muffled to the eyes; and there usually is a fringe of people standing under shelter here on rainy evenings. They leaned back against the wall and talked.

They had taken further steps since they had last met. Mr. Parham-Carter had been round to the jam factory, and had returned with the news that the van had come back under the charge of only one of the drivers, and that the other one, who was called Gregory (whom Mr. Parham-Carter was inquiring after), would certainly be dismissed in consequence. He had taken the address of the driver, who was now off duty—somewhere in Homerton—with the intention of going to see him next morning if Frank had not appeared.

There were two points they were discussing now. First, should the police be informed? Secondly, was it probable that Frank would have heard the news, and, if so, was it conceivable that he had gone straight off somewhere in consequence—to his lawyers, or even to Merefield itself?

Dick remembered the name of the firm quite well—at least, he thought so. Should he send a wire to inquire?

But then, in that case, Jack shrewdly pointed out, everything was as it should be. And this reflection caused the three considerable comfort.

For all that, there were one or two “ifs.” Was it likely that Frank should have heard the news? He was notoriously hard up, and the name Talgarth had not appeared, so far, on any of the posters. Yet he might easily have been given a paper, or picked one up ... and then....

So the discussion went on, and there was not much to be got out of it. The final decision come to was this: That guard should be kept, as before, until twelve o’clock midnight; that at that hour the three should leave the archway and, in company, visit two places—Turner Road and the police-station—and that the occupants of both these places should be informed of the facts. And that then all three should go to bed.

IV

At ten minutes past eleven Dick moved away from the fire in the Men’s Club, where he had just been warming himself after his vigil, and began to walk up and down.

He had no idea why he was so uncomfortable, and he determined to set to work to reassure himself. (The clergyman, he noticed, was beginning to doze a little by the fire, for the club had just been officially closed and the rooms were empty.)

Of course, it was not pleasant to have to tell a young man that his father and brother were dead (Dick himself was conscious of a considerable shock), but surely the situation was, on the whole, enormously improved. This morning Frank was a pauper; to-night he was practically a millionaire, as well as a peer of the realm. This morning his friends had nothing by which they might appeal to him, except common sense and affection, and Frank had very little of the one, and, it would seem, a very curious idea of the other.

Of course, all that affair about Jenny was a bad business (Dick could hardly even now trust himself to think of her too much, and not to discuss her at all), but Frank would get over it.

Then, still walking up and down, and honestly reassured by sheer reason, he began to think of what part Jenny would play in the future.... It was a very odd situation, a very odd situation indeed. (The deliberate and self-restrained Dick used an even stronger expression.) Here was a young woman who had jilted the son and married the father, obviously from ambitious motives, and now found herself almost immediately in the position of a very much unestablished kind of dowager, with the jilted son reigning in her husband’s stead. And what on earth would happen next? Diamonds had been trumps; now it looked as if hearts were to succeed them; and what a very remarkable pattern was that of these hearts.

But to come back to Frank—

And at that moment he heard a noise at the door, and, as the clergyman started up from his doze, Dick saw the towzled and becapped head of the unemployed man and his hand beckoning violently, and heard his hoarse voice adjuring them to make haste. The gentleman under the arch, he said, was signaling.

The scene was complete when the two arrived, with the unemployed man encouraging them from behind, half a minute later under the archway.

Jack had faced Frank fairly and squarely on the further pavement, and was holding him in talk.

“My dear chap,” he was saying, “we’ve been waiting for you all day. Thank the Lord you’ve come!”

Frank looked a piteous sight, thought Dick, who now for the first time saw the costume that Mr. Parham-Carter had described with such minuteness. He was standing almost under the lamp, and there were heavy drooping shadows on his face; he looked five years older than when Dick had last seen him—only at Easter. But his voice was confident and self-respecting enough.

“My dear Jack,” he was saying, “you really mustn’t interrupt. I’ve only just—” Then he broke off as he recognized the others.

“So you’ve given me away after all,” he said with a certain sternness to the clergyman.

“Indeed I haven’t,” cried that artless young man. “They came quite unexpectedly this morning.”

“And you’ve told them that they could catch me here,” said Frank “Well, it makes no difference. I’m going on—Hullo! Dick!”

“Look here!” said Dick. “It’s really serious. You’ve heard about—” His voice broke.

“I’ve heard about it,” said Frank. “But that doesn’t make any difference for to-night.”

“But my dear man,” cried Jack, seizing him by the lapel of his coat, “it’s simply ridiculous. We’ve come down here on purpose—you’re killing yourself—”

“One moment,” said Frank. “Tell me exactly what you want.”

Dick pushed to the front.

“Let him alone, you fellows.... This is what we want, Frank. We want you to come straight to the clergy-house for to-night. To-morrow you and I’ll go and see the lawyers first thing in the morning, and go up to Merefield by the afternoon train. I’m sorry, but you’ve really got to go through with it. You’re the head of the family now. They’ll be all waiting for you there, and they can’t do anything without you. This mustn’t get into the papers. Fortunately, not a soul knows of it yet, though they would have if you’d been half an hour later. Now, come along.”

“One moment,” said Frank. “I agree with nearly all that you’ve said. I quite agree with you that”—he paused a moment—”that the head of the family should be at Merefield to-morrow night. But for to-night you three must just go round to the clergy-house and wait. I’ve got to finish my job clean out—and—”

“What job?” cried two voices simultaneously.

Frank leaned against the wall and put his hands in his pockets.

“I really don’t propose to go into all that now. It’d take an hour. But two of you know most of the story. In a dozen words it’s this—I’ve got the girl away, and now I’m going to tell the man, and tell him a few other things at the same time. That’s the whole thing. Now clear off, please. (I’m awfully obliged, you know, and all that), but you really must let me finish it before I do anything else.”

There was a silence.

It seemed tolerably reasonable, put like that—at least, it seemed consistent with what appeared to the three to be the amazing unreason of all Frank’s proceedings. They hesitated, and were lost.

“Will you swear not to clear out of Hackney Wick before we’ve seen you again?” demanded Jack hoarsely.

Frank bowed his head.

“Yes,” he said.

The clergyman and Dick were consulting in low voices. Jack looked at them with a wild sort of appeal in his face. He was completely bewildered, and hoped for help. But none came.

“Will you swear—” he began again.

Frank put his hand suddenly on his friend’s shoulder.

“Look here, old man. I’m really rather done up. I think you might let me go without any more—”

“All right, we agree,” said Dick suddenly. “And—”

“Very good,” said Frank. “Then there’s really no more—”

He turned as if to go.

“Frank, Frank—” cried Jack.

Frank turned and glanced at him, and then went on.

“Good-night,” he cried.

And so they let him go.

They watched him, in silence, cross the road by the “Queen’s Arms” and pass up the left-hand pavement. As he drew near each lamp his shadow lay behind him, shortened, vanished and reappeared before him. After the third lamp they lost him, and they knew he would a moment later pass into Turner Road.

So they let him go.

V

Mr. Parham-Carter’s room looked very warm and home-like after the comfortlessness of the damp lamp-lit streets. It was as has already been related: the Madonna, the prints, the low book-cases, the drawn curtains, the rosy walls, the dancing firelight and the electric lamp.

It was even reassuring at first—safe and protected, and the three sat down content. A tray with some cold meat and cheese rested on the table by the fire, and cocoa in a brown jug stood warming in the fender. They had had irregular kinds of refreshments in the Men’s Club at odd intervals, and were exceedingly hungry....

They began to talk presently, and it was astonishing how the sight and touch of Frank had cheered them. More than one of the three has confessed to me since that a large part of the anxiety was caused by his simple absence and by imaginative little pictures of street accidents. It would have been so extremely ironical if he had happened to have been run over on the day on which he became Lord Talgarth.

They laid their little plans, too, for the next day. Dick had thought it all out. He, Jack and Frank were to call at the lawyers’ office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and leave a message, as the office would be closed of course, immediately after the wanderer had been dressed properly in ready-made clothes. Then they would catch the early afternoon train and get to Merefield that night. The funeral could not possibly take place for several days: there would have to be an inquest.

Then they read over the account of the smash in the Star newspaper—special edition. It seemed to have been nobody’s fault. The brake had refused to act going down a steep hill; they had run into a wall; the chauffeur had been thrown clean over it; the two passengers had been pinned under the car. Lord Talgarth was dead at once; Archie had died five minutes after being taken out.

So they all talked at once in low voices, but in the obvious excitement of relief. It was an extraordinary pleasure to them—now that they looked at it in the sanity conferred by food and warmth—to reflect that Frank was within a quarter of a mile of them—certainly in dreary surroundings; but it was for the last time. To-morrow would see him restored to ordinary life, his delusions and vagaries plucked from him by irresistible circumstance, and the future in his hands.

Midnight still found them talking—alert and cheerful; but a little silence fell as they heard the chiming of bells.

“Christmas Day, by George!” said the clergyman. “Merry Christmas!”

They shook hands, smiling shamefacedly, as is the custom of Englishmen.

“And to think of old Frank—” mused Jack half aloud. “I told you, Guiseley, about his coming to me in the autumn?” (He had been thinking a great deal about that visit lately, and about what Frank had told him of himself—the idea he had of Something going on behind the scenes in which he had passively to take his part; his remark on how pleasant it must be to be a squire. Well, the play had come to an end, it seemed; now there followed the life of a squire indeed. It was curious to think that Frank was, actually at this moment, Lord Talgarth!)

Dick nodded his head, smiling to himself in his beard. Somehow or another the turn things had taken had submerged in him for the present the consciousness of the tragedy up at Merefield, and his own private griefs, and the memory of Jenny.

Jack told it all again briefly. He piled it on about the Major and his extreme repulsiveness, and the draggled appearance of Gertie, and Frank’s incredible obstinacy.

“And to think that he’s brought it off, and got the girl home to her people.... Well, thank the Lord that’s over! We shan’t have any more of that sort of thing.”

Dick got up presently and began to walk about, eyeing the pictures and the books.

“Want to turn in?” asked the cleric.

“Well, I think, as we’ve an early start—”

The clergyman jumped up.

“You’ve a beastly little room, I’m afraid. We’re rather full up. And you, Mr. Kirkby!”

“I’ll wait till you come back,” he said.

The two went out, after good-nights, and Jack was left staring at the fire.

He felt very wide-awake, and listened contentedly to the dying noises of the streets. Somewhere in that hive outside was Frank—old Frank. That was very good to think of....

During these last months Frank’s personality had been very persistently before him. It was not that he pretended to understand him in the very least; but he understood enough now to feel that there was something very admirable in it all. It was mad and quixotic and absurd, but it had a certain light of nobility. Of course, it would never do if people in general behaved like that; society simply could not go on if everyone went about espousing the cause of unhappy and badly-behaved individuals, and put on old clothes and played the Ass. But, for all that, it was not unpleasant to reflect that his own friend had chosen to do these things in despite of convention. There was a touch of fineness in it. And it was all over now, thank God.... What times they would have up in the north!

He heard a gate clash somewhere outside. The sound just detached itself from the murmur of the night. Then a late train ran grinding over the embanked railway behind the house, and drew up with the screaming of brakes at Victoria Park Station, and distracted him again.

“Are you ready, Mr. Kirkby?” said the clergyman, coming in.

Jack stood up, stretching himself. In the middle of the stretch he stopped.

“What’s that noise?” he asked.

They stood listening.

Then again came the sharp, prolonged tingle of an electric bell, followed by a battering at a door downstairs.

Jack, looking in the other’s face, saw him go ever so slightly pale beneath his eyes.

“There’s somebody at the door,” said Mr. Parham-Carter. “I’ll just go down and see.”

And, as Jack stood there, motionless and breathless, he could hear no sound but the thick hammering of his own heart at the base of his throat.

CHAPTER VIII

I

At half-past eleven o’clock Mrs. Partington came upstairs to the room where the two men were still drinking, to make one more suggestion that it was time to go to bed.

It was a dreary little room, this front bedroom on the first floor, where Frank and the Major had slept last night in one large double bed. The bed was pushed now close against the wall, the clothes still tumbled and unmade, with various articles lying upon it, as on a table. A chair without a back stood between it and the window.

The table where the two men still sat was pulled close to the fire that had been lighted partly in honor of Mr. Partington and partly in honor of Christmas, and was covered with a débris of plates and glasses and tobacco and bottles. There was a jam-jar filled with holly obtained from the butcher’s shop, in the middle of the table. There was very little furniture in the room; there was a yellow-painted chest of drawers opposite the door, and this, too, held a little regiment of bottles; there was a large oleograph of Queen Victoria hanging above the bed, and a text—for some inscrutable reason—was permitted to hang above the fireplace, proclaiming that “The Lord is merciful and long-suffering,” in Gothic letters, peeping modestly out of a wealth of painted apple-blossoms, with a water-wheel in the middle distance and a stile. On the further side of the fireplace was a washhand-stand, with a tin pail below it, and the Major’s bowler hat reposing in the basin. There was a piece of carpet underneath the table, and a woolly sort of mat, trodden through in two or three places, beside the bed.

Mrs. Partington coughed as she came in, so tremendous was the reek of tobacco smoke, burning paraffin and spirits.

“Bless the men!” she said, and choked once more.

She was feeling comparatively light-hearted; it was a considerable relief to her that Frank actually had not come back, though she never had for one instant expected him to do so. But she didn’t want any more disturbances or quarrels, and, as she looked at the Major, who turned in his chair as she came in, she felt even more relieved. His appearance was not reassuring.

He had been drinking pretty steadily all day to drown his grief, and had ended up by a very business-like supper with his landlord. There were four empty beer bottles and one empty whisky bottle distributed on the table or floor, and another half-empty whisky bottle stood between the two men on the table. And as she looked at the Major (she was completely experienced in alcoholic symptoms), she understood exactly what stage he had reached....

Now the Major was by no means a drunkard—let that be understood. He drank whenever he could, but a tramp cannot drink to very grave excess. He is perpetually walking and he is perpetually poor. But this was a special occasion; it was Christmas; he was home in London; his landlord had returned, and he had lost Gertie.

He had reached, then, the dangerous stage, when the alcohol, after having excited and warmed and confused the brain, recoils from it to some extent, leaving it clear and resolute and entirely reckless, and entirely conscious of any idea that happens to be dominant (at least, that is the effect on some temperaments). The maudlin stage had passed long ago, at the beginning of supper, when the Major had leaned his head on his plate and wept over the ingratitude of man and the peculiar poignancy of “old Frankie’s” individual exhibition of it. A noisy stage had succeeded to this, and now there was deadly quiet.

He was rather white in the face; his eyes were set, but very bright, and he was smoking hard and fast.

“Now then,” said Mrs. Partington cheerfully, “time for bed.”

Her husband winked at her gravely, which was his nearest approach to hilarity. He was a quiet man at all times.

The Major said nothing.

“There! there’s ‘Erb awake again,” said the mother, as a wail rose up the staircase. “I’ll be up again presently.” And she vanished once more.

Two of the children were awake after all.

Jimmie lay, black-eyed and alert, beside his brother, and looked at his mother reflectively as she came in. He was still thinking about the sixpence that might conceivably have been his. ‘Erb’s lamentation stopped as she came in, and she went to the table first to turn down the smoking lamp.

She was quite a kindly mother, a great deal more tender than she seemed, and ‘Erb knew it well enough. But he respected her sufficiently to stop crying when she came in.

“Now then,” she said with motherly sternness. “I can’t ‘ave—”

Then she stopped abruptly. She had heard steps on the pavement outside as she came into the room, and now she heard the handle of the street door turned and someone come into the passage. She stood wondering, and in that pause she missed her chance, for the steps came straight past the door and began to go upstairs. It might, of course, conceivably be one of the lodgers on the top-floor, and yet she knew it was not. She whisked to the door a moment later, but it was too late, and she was only just in time to see the figure she knew turn the corner of the four stairs that led to the first-floor landing.

“Is that Frankie?” asked Jimmie, suddenly sitting up in bed. “Oh! mother, let me—”

“You be quiet!” snapped the woman, and stood listening; with parted lips.

II

From that point Mrs. Partington seems to have been able to follow very closely what must have taken place upstairs.

It was a very quiet night, here in Turner Road: the roysterers were in the better-lighted streets, and the sober folk were at home. And there was not a footstep on the pavements outside to confuse the little drama of sound that came down to her through the ill-fitting boards overhead. She could not explain afterwards why she did not interfere. I imagine that she hoped against hope that she was misinterpreting what she heard, and also that a kind of terror seized her which she found it really impossible to shake off.

First, there was the opening and closing of the door; two or three footsteps, and then dead silence.

Then she heard talking begin, first one voice, then a crescendo, as if two or three clamored together; then one voice again. (It was impossible, so far, to distinguish which was which.)

This went on for a minute or two; occasionally there was a crescendo, and once or twice some voice rose almost into a shout.

Then, without warning, there was a shuffling of feet, and a crash, as of an overturned chair; and, instant upon the noise, ‘Erb set up a prolonged wail.

“You be quiet!” snapped the woman in a sharp whisper.

The noises went on: now the stamp of a foot; now the scraping of something overhead and a voice or two in sharp deep exclamation, and then complete silence once more. ‘Erb was sobbing now, as noiselessly as he could, terrified at his mother’s face, and Jimmie was up, standing on the floor in his flannel shirt, listening like his mother. Maggie still slept deeply on the further side of the bed.

The woman went on tip-toe a step nearer the door, opened it, and peeped out irresolutely. But the uncarpeted stairs stretched up into the darkness, unlit except for the glimmer that came from the room at whose door she was standing....

There was a voice now, rising and falling steadily, and she heard it broken in upon now and again by something that resembled a chuckle. Somehow or another this sickened her more than all else; it was like her husband’s voice. She recoiled into the room, and, as she did so, there came the sound of blows and the stamping of feet, and she knew, in a way that she could not explain, that there was no fight going on. It was some kind of punishment, not a conflict....

She would have given the world to move, to run to the street door and scream for help; but her knees shook under her and her heart seemed to be hammering itself to bits. Jimmie had hold of her now, clinging round her, shaking with terror and murmuring something she could not understand. Her whole attention was upstairs. She was wondering how long it would go on.

It must be past midnight now, she thought: the streets seethed still as death. But overhead there was still movement and the sound of blows, and then abruptly the end came.

There was one more crescendo of noise—two voices raised in dispute, one almost shrill, in anger or expostulation; then one more sudden and heavy noise as of a blow or a fall, and dead silence.

III

The next thing that Mrs. Partington remembered afterwards was that she found herself standing on the landing upstairs, listening, yet afraid to move.

All was very nearly silent within: there was just low talking, and the sound of something being moved. It was her husband’s voice that she heard.

Beyond her the stairs ran up to the next story, and she became aware presently that someone else was watching, too. An untidy head of a woman leaned over the banisters, and candle-light from somewhere beyond lit up her face. She was grinning.

Then the sharp whisper came down the stairs demanding what was up.

Mrs. Partington jerked her thumb towards the closed door and nodded reassuringly. She was aware that she must be natural at all costs. The woman still hung over the banisters a minute longer and then was gone.

Jimmie was with her too, now, still just in his shirt, perfectly quiet, with a face as white as paper. His big black eyes dwelt on his mother’s face.

Then suddenly she could bear the suspense no more. She stole up to the door, still on tip-toe, still listening, and laid her fingers on the handle. There were more gentle movements within now, the noise of water and a basin (she heard the china clink distinctly), but no more words.

She turned the handle resolutely and looked in.

The Major was leaning in the corner by the window, with his hands in his pockets, staring with a dull, white, defiant kind of face at the bed. The lamp on the mantelpiece lighted him up clearly. On his knees by the bedside was her husband, with his back to her, supporting a basin on the bed and some thing dark that hung over it. Then she saw Frank. It was he who was lying on the bed almost upon his face; one boot dangled down on this side, and it was his head that her husband was supporting. She stared at it a moment in terror.... Then her eyes wandered to the floor, where, among the pieces of broken glass, a pool of dark liquid spread slowly over the boards. Twigs and detached leaves of holly lay in the midst of it. And at that sight her instinct reasserted herself.

She stepped forward and took her husband by the shoulder. He turned a face that twitched a little towards her. She pushed him aside, took the basin from him, and the young man’s head....

“Clear out of this,” she whispered sharply. “Quick, mind! You and the Major!... Jimmie!” The boy was by her in an instant, shaking all over, but perfectly self-controlled.

“Jimmie, put your things on and be off to the clergy-house. Ring ‘em up, and ask for Mr. Carter. Bring him round with you.”

Frank’s head slipped a little in her hands, and she half rose to steady it. When she had finished and looked round again for her husband, the room was empty. From below up the stairs came a sudden draught, and the flame leaped in the lamp-chimney. And then, once more unrestrained, rose up the wailing of ‘Erb.

IV

A little after dawn on that Christmas morning Mr. Parham-Carter sat solitary in the kitchen. The children had been packed off to a neighbor’s house before, and he himself had been to and fro all night and was tired out—to the priest’s house at Homerton, to the doctor’s, and to the parish nurse. All the proper things had been done. Frank had been anointed by the priest, bandaged by the doctor, and settled in by the nurse into the middle of the big double bed. He had not yet recovered consciousness. They were upstairs now—Jack, Dick and the nurse; the priest and the doctor had promised to look in before nine—there was nothing more that they could do for the present, they said—and Mrs. Partington was out at this moment to fetch something from the dispensary.

He had heard her story during one of the intervals in the course of the night, and it seemed to him that he had a tolerably accurate theory of the whole affair—if, that is to say, her interpretation of the noises she had heard was at all correct.

The Major must have made an unexpected attack, probably by a kick that had temporarily disabled Frank, and must then, with Mr. Partington’s judicial though amused approval, have proceeded to inflict chastisement upon Frank as he lay on the floor. This must have gone on for a considerable time; Frank seemed to have been heavily kicked all over his body. And the thing must have ended with a sudden uncontrolled attack on the part of the Major, not only with his boots, but with at least one of the heavy bottles. The young man’s head was cut deeply, as if by glass, and it was probably three or four kicks on the head, before Mr. Partington could interfere, that had concluded the punishment. The doctor’s evidence entirely corroborated this interpretation of events. It was, of course, impossible to know whether Frank had had the time or the will to make any resistance. The police had been communicated with, but there was no news yet of the two men involved.

It was one of those bleak, uncomfortable dawns that have no beauty either of warmth or serenity—at least it seemed so here in Turner Road. Above the torn and dingy strip of lace that shrouded the lower part of the window towered the black fronts of the high houses against the steely western sky. It was extraordinarily quiet. Now and then a footstep echoed and died suddenly as some passer-by crossed the end of the street; but there was no murmur of voices yet, or groups at the doors, as, no doubt, there would be when the news became known.

The room, too, was cheerless; the fire was long ago gone out; the children’s bed was still tumbled and disordered, and the paraffin lamp had smoked itself out half an hour ago. Overhead the clergyman could hear now and again a very gentle footstep, and that was all.

He was worn out with excitement and a kind of terror; and events took for him the same kind of clear, hard outline as did the physical objects themselves in this cold light of dawn. He had passed through a dozen moods: furious anger at the senseless crime, at the hopeless, miserable waste of a life, an overwhelming compassion and a wholly unreasonable self-reproach for not having foreseen danger more clearly the night before. There were other thoughts that had come to him too—doubts as to whether the internal significance of all these things were in the least analogous to the external happenings; whether, perhaps, after all, the whole affair were not on the inner side a complete and perfect event—in fact, a startling success of a nature which he could not understand. Certainly, exteriorly, a more lamentable failure and waste could not be conceived; there had been sacrificed such an array of advantages—birth, money, education, gifts, position—and for such an exceedingly small and doubtful good, that no additional data, it would appear, could possibly explain the situation. Yet was it possible that such data did exist somewhere, and that another golden and perfect deed had been done—that there was no waste, no failure, after all?

But at present these thoughts only came to him in glimpses; he was exhausted now of emotion and speculation. He regarded the pitiless facts with a sunken, unenergetic attention, and wondered when he would be called again upstairs.

There came a footstep outside; it hesitated, then the street door was pushed open and the step came in, up to the room door, and a small face, pinched with cold, its eyes all burning, looked at him.

“Come in, Jimmie,” he whispered.

And so the two sat, huddled one against the other, and the man felt again and again a shudder, though not of cold, shake the little body at his side.

V

Ten minutes later a step came down the stairs, a little hurriedly, though on tip-toe; and Mrs. Partington, her own thin face lined with sleeplessness and emotion, and her lips set, nodded at him emphatically. He understood, and went quickly past her, followed closely by the child, and up the narrow stairs.... He heard the street-door close behind him as the woman left the house.

It seemed to him as he came into the room as if he had stepped clean out of one world into another. And the sense of it was so sudden and abrupt that he stood for an instant on the threshold amazed at the transition.

First, it was the absolute stillness and motionlessness of the room that impressed him, so far as any one element predominated. There were persons in the room, but they were as statues.

On the farther side of the bed, decent now and arranged and standing out across the room, kneeled the two men, Jack Kirkby and Dick Guiseley, but they neither lifted their eyes nor showed the faintest consciousness of his presence as he entered. Their faces were in shadow: behind them was the cold patch of the window, and a candle within half an inch of extinction stood also behind them on a table in the corner, with one or two covered vessels and instruments.

The nurse kneeled on this side, one arm beneath the pillow and the other on the counterpane.

And then there was Frank.

He lay perfectly still upon his back, his hands clasped before him (and even these were bandaged). His head lay high on three or four pillows, and he wore what looked like a sort of cap, wholly hiding his hair and ears. His profile alone showed clear-cut and distinct against the gloom in the corner behind. His face was entirely tranquil, as pale as ivory; his lips were closed. His eyes alone were alive.

Presently those turned a little, and the man standing at the door, understanding the look, came forward and kneeled too by the bed.

Then, little by little, he began, in that living stillness, to understand rather better what it was that he was witnessing.... It was not that there was anything physical in the room, beyond the things of which his senses told him; there was but the dingy furniture, the white bed, august now with a strange dignity as of a white altar, and the four persons beside himself—five now, for Jimmie was beside him. But that the physical was not the plane in which these five persons were now chiefly conscious was the most evident thing of all.... There was about them, not a Presence, not an air, not a sweetness or a sound, and yet it is by such negatives only that the thing can be expressed.

And so they kneeled and waited.

“Why, Jack—”

It shook the waiting air like the sound of a bell, yet it was only whispered. The man nearest him on the other side shook with a single spasmodic movement and laid his fingers gently on the bandaged hands. And then for a long while there was no further movement or sound.

“Rosary!” said Frank suddenly, still in a whisper.... “Beads....”

Jack moved swiftly on his knees, took from the table a string of beads from where they had been laid the night before, and put them into the still fingers. Then he laid his own hands over them again.

Again there was a long pause.

Outside in the street a footstep came up from the direction of Mortimer Road, waxed loud and clear on the pavement, and died again down towards the street leading to the marshes. And, but for this, there was no further sound for a while. Then a cock crew, thin and shrill, somewhere far away; a dray rumbled past the end of the street and was silent.

But the silence in the room was of a different quality; or, rather, the world seemed silent because this room was so, and not the other way. It was here that the center lay, where a battered man was dying, and from this center radiated out the Great Peace.

It was no waste then, after all!—this life of strange unreason ending in this very climax of uselessness, exactly when ordinary usefulness was about to begin. Could that be waste that ended so?

“Priest,” whispered the voice from the bed.

Then Dick leaned forward.

“He has been,” he said distinctly and slowly. “He was here at two o’clock. He did—what he came for. And he’s coming again directly.”

The eyes closed in sign of assent and opened again.

He seemed to be looking, as in a kind of meditation, at nothing in particular. It was as a man who waits at his ease for some pleasant little event that will unroll by and by. He was in no ecstasy, and, it seemed, in no pain and in no fierce expectation; he was simply at his ease and waiting. He was content, whatever those others might be.

For a moment it crossed the young clergyman’s mind that he ought to pray aloud, but the thing was dismissed instantly. It seemed to him impertinent nonsense. That was not what was required. It was his business to watch, not to act.

So, little by little, he ceased to think actively, he ceased to consider this and that. At first he had wondered how long it would be before the doctor and the priest arrived. (The woman had gone to fetch them.) He had wished that they would make haste.... He had wondered what the others felt, and how he would describe it all to his Vicar. Now, little by little, all this ceased, and the peace grew within and without, till the balance of pressure was equalized and his attention floated at the perfect poise.

Again there was no symbol or analogy that presented itself. It was not even by negation that he thought. There was just one positive element that included all: time seemed to mean nothing, the ticks of the clock with the painted face were scarcely consecutive; it was all one, and distance was nothing, nor nearness—not even the nearness of the dying face against the pillows....

It was so, then, that something of that state to which Frank had passed communicated itself to at least one of those who saw him die.

A little past the half hour Frank spoke again.

“My love to Whitty,” he said.... “Diary.... Tell him....”

The end came a few minutes before nine o’clock, and it seems to have come as naturally as life itself. There was no drama, no dying speech, not one word.

Those who were there saw him move ever so slightly in bed, and his head lifted a little. Then his head sank once more and the Failure was complete.

THE END

ODDSFISH!

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

AUTHOR OF “COME RACK! COME ROPE!”, “LORD OF THE WORLD,” “INITIATION,” ETC.

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1914

CONTENTS

ODDSFISH!

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

PART II

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

PART III

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

PART IV

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

EPILOGUE

ODDSFISH!

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I wish to express my gratitude for great help received in the writing of this book to Miss MacDermot, Miss Stearne and others, as well as to three friends who submitted to hearing it read aloud in manuscript, and who assisted me by their criticisms and suggestions.

Further, I think it worth saying that in all historical episodes in this book I have taken pains to be as accurate as possible. The various plots, the political movements, and the closing scenes of Charles II’s life are here described with as much fidelity to truth as is compatible with historical romance. In particular, I do not think that the King himself is represented as doing or saying anything—except of course to my fictitious personages—to which sound history does not testify. I have also taken considerable pains in the topographical descriptions of Whitehall.

PROLOGUE

The day from which I reckon the beginning of all those adventures which occupied me in the Courts of England and France and elsewhere, was the first day of May in the year sixteen hundred and seventy-eight—the day, that is, on which my Lord Abbot carried me from St. Paul’s-without-the- Walls to the Vatican Palace, to see our Most Holy Lord Innocent the Eleventh.

It had been a very hot day in Rome, as was to be expected at that season; and I had stayed in the cloister in the cool, as my Lord Abbot had bidden me, not knowing whether it would be on that day or another, or, indeed, on any at all, that His Holiness would send for me. I knew that my Lord Abbot had been to the Vatican again and again on the business; and had spoken of me, as he said he would, not to the Holy Father only, but to the Cardinal Secretary of State and to others; but I did not know, and he did not tell me, as to whether that business had been prosperous; though I think he must have known long before how it would end. An hour before Ave Maria, then, he sent to me, as I walked in the cloisters, and when I came to him, told me, all short, to dress myself in my old secular clothes, as fine as I could, and to be ready to ride with him in half an hour, because our Most Holy Lord had consented to receive me one hour after Ave Maria. He said nothing more to me than that; he did not tell me how I was to bear myself, nor what I was to say, neither as I stood in his cell, nor as we rode as fast as we could, with the servants before and behind, into Rome and through the streets of it. I knew nothing more than this—that since neither I nor my novice-master were in the least satisfied as to my vocation, and since I had considerable estates of my own in France (though I was an Englishman altogether on my father’s side), and could speak both French and English with equal ease, and Italian and Spanish tolerably—that since, in short, I was a very well-educated young gentleman, and looked more than my years, and bore myself—(so I was told)—with ease and discretion in any company, and could act a part if it were required of me—I might perhaps be of better service to the Church in some secular employment than in sacred. This was all that I knew. The rest my Lord Abbot left to my own wits to understand, and to our Holy Father, if he would, to discover to me: and that, indeed, was presently what he did.

I had been within the Vatican before three or four times, both when I had first come to Rome four years ago, and once as attendant upon my Lord Abbot; but never before had I felt of such importance within those walls; for this time it was myself to whom the Holy Father was to give audience, and not merely to one in whose company I was. I was in secular clothes too—the peruke, buckles, sword, and all the rest, which I had laid aside two years ago, though these were a little old and tarnished—and I bore myself as young men will (for I was only twenty-one years old at that time), with an air and a swing; though my heart beat a little faster as we passed through the great rooms, after leaving our cloaks in an antechamber and arranging our dress after the ride; and at last were bidden to sit down while the young Monsignore who had received us in the last saloon went in to know if the Holy Father were ready to see us.

It was a smaller room—this in which we sat—than the others through which we had passed, and in which the crimson liveried servants were; and its walls were all covered with hangings from cornice to floor. That which was opposite to me presented, I remember, Jacob receiving the blessing which his brother Esau should have had; and I wondered, as I sat there, whether I myself were come, as Jacob, to get a blessing to which I had no right. Idly Lord Abbot said nothing at all; for he was a stout man and a little out of breath; and almost before he had got it again, and before I was sure as to whether I were more like to the liar Jacob, who won a blessing when he should not, or to unspiritual Esau, who lost a blessing which he should have had, the young Monsignore in his purple came back again, and, bowing so low that we saw the little tonsure on the top of his head, beckoned to us to enter.

By the time that, behind my Lord Abbot, I had performed the three genuflections and, at the third, was kissing the ring of our Most Holy Lord, I had already taken into my mind something of the room I was in and of him who sat there, wheeled round in his chair to greet us. The room was far more plain than I had thought to find it, though pretty rich too. The walls had sacred hangings upon them; but it was so dark with the shuttered windows that I could not make out very well what their subjects were. A dozen damask and gilt chairs stood round the walls, and three or four tables; and, in the centre of all, where I was now arrived, stood the greatest table of all, carved of some black wood, and at the middle of one side the chair in which sat the Holy Father himself.

He had very kind but very piercing eyes: this was the first thing that I thought; his hair beneath his cap, as well as his beard, was all iron-grey; his complexion was a little sallow, and seemed all the more sallow because of his red velvet cap and white soutane; (for he wore no cloak because of the heat). As soon as I had kissed his ring he bade me stand up—(speaking in Italian, as he did all through the audience)—and then beckoned me to a chair opposite to his, and my Lord Abbot to another on one side. And then at once he went on to speak of the business on which we were come—as if he knew all about it, and had no time to spend on compliments.

Now our Holy Father Innocent the Eleventh was, I suppose, one of the greatest men that ever sat in Peter’s Seat. I would not speak evil, if I could help it, of any of Christ’s Vicars; but this at least I may say—that Pope Innocent reformed a number of things that sorely needed it. He would have no nepotism at the Papal Court; men stood or fell by their own merits: so I knew very well that my estates in France, even if they had been ten times as great, would serve me nothing at all. He was very humble too—(he asked pardon, it was said, even of his own servants if he troubled them)—so I knew that no swashbuckling air on my part would do me anything but harm—(and, indeed, that was all laid aside, willy nilly, so soon as I came in)—since, like all humble men he esteemed the pride, even of kings, at exactly its proper worth, which is nothing at all. He was, too, a man of great spirituality, so I knew that my having come to St. Paul’s as a novice and now wishing to leave it again, would scarcely exalt me in his eyes. I felt then a very poor creature indeed as I sat there and listened to him.

“This, then, is Master Roger Mallock,” he said to my Lord Abbot, “of whom your Lordship spoke to me.”

“This is he, Holy Father,” said my Lord.

“He has been a novice for two years then; and his superiors are not sure of his vocation?”

“Yes, Holy Father.”

The Pope looked again at me then, and I dropped my eyes.

“And you yourself, my son?” he asked.

“Holy Father,” I said, “I am sure that at present I have no vocation. What God may give me in the future I do not know. I only know what He has not given me in the present.”

Innocent tightened his lips at that; but I think it was to prevent himself smiling.

“And he is an English gentleman,” he went on presently, “and he has estates in France that bring him in above twenty thousand francs yearly; and he is twenty-one years of age; and he is accustomed to all kinds of society, and he is a devoted son of Holy Church, and he speaks French and English and Italian and Spanish and German—”

“No, Holy Father, not German—except a few words,” I said.

“And he is discreet and courageous and virtuous—”

“Holy Father—” I began in distress, for I thought he was mocking me.

“And he desires nothing; better than to serve his spiritual superiors in any employment to which they may put him—Eh, my son?”

I looked into the Pope’s face and down again; but I said nothing.

“Eh, my son?” he said again with a certain sharpness.

“Holy Father, I have been taught never to contradict my superiors; but indeed in this—”

“Bravo!” said Innocent.

Then he turned to my Lord Abbot, as if I were no longer in the room.

“The question,” he said, “is not only whether this young gentleman is capable of hearing everything and saying nothing, of preserving his virtue, of handling locked caskets without even desiring to look inside unless it is his business, of living in the world yet not being of it—but whether he is willing to do all this without being paid for it—except perhaps his bare expenses.”

My Lord Abbot said nothing.

“I can have a thousand paid servants,” said Innocent, “who are worth exactly their wages; but, since money cannot buy virtue or discretion or courage, in such servants I cannot demand those things. And I can have a thousand foolish servants who could earn no wages anywhere because of their foolishness, and these never have discretion and not often either virtue or courage. But what I wish is to have servants who are as wise sons to me—who have all these things, and will use them for love’s sake—for the love of Holy Church and of Christ and His Mother, and who will be content with the wages that These give.”

He stopped suddenly and looked at me quickly again; and my heart burned in my breast; for this that he was saying was all that I most desired; and I saw by that that my talk must have been reported to him. I loved Holy Church then, and the cause of Jesus and Mary, as young men do love, and as I hope to love till I die. I asked nothing better than to serve such causes as these even to death. It was not for lack of ardour that I wished to leave the monastery; it was because, truthfully, I had a fever on me of greater activity; because, truthfully, I was not sure of my vocation; because, truthfully, I doubted whether such gifts and such wealth and such education as were mine could not be used better in the world than in the cloister. I knew that I could take a place to-morrow in either the French or the English Court, without disgracing myself or others; and it was precisely of this that I had spoken to my Lord Abbot; and here was our Holy Father himself putting into words those very ambitions that I had. I met his eyes, and knew that I was beginning to flush.

“Well, my son?” he said.

“Holy Father,” I said, “my virtues and capacities, such as they are, I must leave to my superiors. But my desires are those of which your Holiness has spoken. I ask no wages: I ask only to be allowed to serve whatever cause my superiors may assign to me.”

He continued to look at me, and for very shame I presently dropped my eyes again.

“Well, my Lord Abbot?” he said again. “Let us hear what you have to say.”

Then my lord began to speak; and before he was half-done I wished myself anywhere else in the world. For, as great men alone are capable, he could be as lavish of praise as of blame. He said that I was all that of which His Holiness had spoken; that I had been obedient and exact as a novice; and he said other things too of which even under obedience I could not speak. Then too he added what he had never said to me before, that he was not sure that I had no vocation; but that since God spoke through exterior circumstances as well as through interior drawings, His Holy Will seemed to point, at least at present, to a life in the world for me; that he was sure I would be as obedient there as here; that I had learned not only to use my tongue but, what is much harder, to hold it. And he ended by begging the Holy Father to take me into his service and to use me in the ways in which perhaps I might be useful. All this, of course, I now understand to have been rehearsed before; but just at that time I had no more than a suspicion that this was so.

When he had finished, His Holiness once more turned and looked at me; and I upon the ground: and then at last he spoke.

“My son,” he said, “you have heard what his Reverence has said of you; and I too have heard it, and not to-day for the first time. It seems that you are right in thinking that for the present at any rate you have no vocation to Holy Religion. Well, then, the question is as to what is your Vocation, for Our Lord never leaves any man without a Vocation of some kind. You are very young for such service as that on which we think to send you; for we shall send you to the Court of England first, and then perhaps now and again to France; but you look five years at least older than your age, and, I am told, have ten times its discretion. I need not tell you that you will have no very heavy mission given to you at first; you must mix freely with the world and use your wits and see what is best to be done, sending back reports to the Cardinal Secretary. You will live at your own charges, as you yourself have said that you wished to do; but you may draw upon us here for any journeys that you may undertake upon our business up to a certain amount. In a word you will be in the diplomatic service of the Holy See, though without direct office or commission beyond that which I now give you myself. You will have full liberty to make a career for yourself in the English or French Courts, so long as this comes always second to your service to ourselves. If you acquit yourself well—in the way which will be explained to you later—you may make a career with us too, and will have rewards if you want them: but for the present there must be no talk of that. As you must be in the world yet not of it; so you must be of the Court of Rome yet not in it. It is a delicate position that you will hold; and, to compensate for the informality of it, you will have the more liberty on your side, to make a career, as I have said, or to marry, if God calls you to that, or in any other way…. Does that content you, my son?”

I do not know what I said; for all that the Holy Father had told me was what I myself had said to my Lord Abbot. I knew that affairs in England were in a very strange condition, that the Duke of York who was next heir to the throne was a Catholic, and that Charles himself was favourably disposed to us; and I knew a number of other things too which will appear in the course of this tale; and I had said to my Lord that sometimes even a hair’s weight will make a balance tip; and had asked again and again if I might not, with my advantages, such as they were, be of more service to Holy Church in a more worldly place than the cloister; and now here was our Most Holy Lord himself granting and confirming all that I had wished.

“There! there!” he said to me presently, when I had tried to say what was in my heart. “Go and serve God in this way as well as you can; and remember that you can be as well sanctified in the Court of a King as in a cloister—and better, if it is the Court that is your Vocation. Go and do your best, my son; and we shall see what you can make of it.”

When we were outside again I saw that my Lord Abbot’s face was all suffused, as was my own, for there was something strangely fiery and keen and holy about Innocent; but he said nothing, except that we must now go and see His Eminence the Cardinal Secretary of State, for I was to receive my more particular instructions from him.

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

I came to London on the fifteenth of June, having left it seven years before in company with my father, to go to Paris, two years before he died.

It was drawing on to sunset as we rode up through the Southwark fields and, at the top of a little eminence in the ground saw for the first time plainly all the City displayed before us.

We came along the Kent road, having caught sight again and again of such spires as had risen after the Great Fire, and of the smoke that rose from the chimneys; but I may say that I was astonished at the progress the builders had made from what I could remember of seven years before. Then there had still been left great open spaces where there should have been none; now it was a city once more; and even the Cathedral shewed its walls and a few roofs above the houses. The steeples too of Sir Christopher Wren’s new churches pricked everywhere; though I saw later that there was yet much building to be done, both in these and in many of the greater houses. My man James rode with me; (for I had been careful not to form too great intimacies with the party with whom I had ridden from Dover); and I remarked to him upon the matter.

“And there, sir,” he said to me, pointing to it, “is the monument no doubt that they have raised to it.”

And so we found it to be a day or two later—a tall pillar, with an inscription upon it saying that the Fire had been caused by the Papists—a black lie, as every honest man knows.

By the time that we came to London Bridge the sun was yet lower, setting in a glory of crimson, so that it was hard to see against it much of Westminster, across the Southwark marshes and the river; but yet I could make out the roofs of the Abbey and of some of the great buildings of Whitehall, where my adventures, I thought, were to lie. But between that and the other end of London Bridge, just before we set foot on it, the rest of the City was plain enough; and, indeed, it was a splendid sight to see the river, all, as it seemed, of molten gold with the barges and the wherries plying upon it, and the great houses on the banks and their gardens coming down to the water-gates, and the forest of chimneys and roofs and steeples behind, and all of a translucent blue colour. The sounds of the City, too, came to us plainly across the water—the chiming of bells and the firing of some sunset gun, and even the noise of wheels and the barking of dogs and the crowing of cocks—all in a soft medley of human music that made my heart rejoice; for in spite of my long exile abroad and my French and Italianate manners, I counted myself always an Englishman.

Now the first design that I had in mind, and for which I had made my dispositions, was to go straight to my lodging that had been secured for me by my cousin Tom Jermyn, where he was to meet me, and where he too would lie that night. It was with him that I was to present my letters at Whitehall in a day or two, after I had bought my clothes and other necessaries; in short he was to be my cicerone for a while—for he was a Catholic too, like myself—but he was not to be told that I had come on any mission at all, until at anyrate I had well tested his discretion.

Now the mission on which I had been instructed by the Cardinal Secretary was in one sense a very light one, and in another a very difficult one; for its express duties were of the smallest.

Affairs in England at this time were in a very strange condition. First, the Duke of York, who was heir to the throne, was a declared Catholic; and then the King himself was next door to one, in heart at anyrate. Certainly he had never been reconciled to the Church, though the report among some was that he had been, during his life in Paris: but in heart, as I have said, he was one, and waited only for a favourable occasion to declare himself. For he had been so bold seventeen years before, as to send to Rome a scheme by which the Church of England was to be reunited to Rome under certain conditions, as that the mass, or parts of it, should be read in English, that the Protestant clergy who would submit to ordination should be allowed to keep their wives, and other matters of that kind. His answer from Rome, sent by word of mouth only, was that no scheme could be nearer to the heart of His Holiness; but that he must not be too precipitate. Let him first show that his subjects were with him in his laudable desires; and then perhaps the terms of the matter might be spoken of again. For the King himself, and indeed even the Duke too at this time (though later he amended his life), Catholic in spirit, were scarce Christian in life. The ladies of the Court then must not be overlooked, for they as much as any statesman, and some think, more, controlled the king and his brother very greatly at this time.

But this was not all. Next, the King was embroiled in a great number of ways. The more extreme of his Protestant subjects feared and hated the Catholic Church as much as good Catholics hate and fear the Devil; and although for the present our people had great liberty both at Court and elsewhere, no man could tell when that liberty might be curtailed. And, indeed, it had been to a great part already curtailed five years before by the Test Act, forbidding the Catholics to hold any high place at the Court or elsewhere, though this was largely evaded. There was even a movement among some of them, and among the most important of them too, in the House of Lords and elsewhere, to exclude the Duke of York from the succession; and they advanced amongst themselves in support of this the fear that a French army might be brought in to subdue England to the Church. And, worst of all, as I had learned privately in Rome, there was some substance in their fear, though few else knew it; since the King was in private treaty with Louis for this very purpose. Again, a further embroilment lay in the propositions that had been made privately to the King that he should rid himself of his Queen—Catherine—on the pretext that she had borne no child to him, and could not, and marry instead some Protestant princess. Lastly, and most important of all, so greatly was Charles turned towards the Church, that he had begged more than once, and again lately, that a priest might be sent to him to be always at hand, in the event of his sudden sickness, whom none else knew to be a priest; and it was this last matter, I think, that had determined the Holy Father to let me go, as I had wished, though I was no priest, to see how the King would bear himself to me; and then, perhaps afterwards, a priest might be sent as he desired.

This then was the mission on which I was come to London.

I was to present myself at Court and place myself at His Majesty’s disposal. The letters that I carried were no more than such as any gentleman might bring with him; but the King had been told beforehand who I was, and that I was come to be a messenger or a go-between if he so wished, with him and Rome. So much the King was told, and the Duke. But on my side I was told a little more—that I was to do my utmost, if the King were pleased with me, to further his conversion and his declaration of himself as a Catholic; that I was to mix with all kinds of folks, and observe what men really thought of all such matters as these, and send my reports regularly to Rome; that I was to place myself at the King’s service in any way that I could—in short that I was to follow my discretion and do, as a layman may sometimes even more than a priest, all that was in my power for the furtherance of the Catholic cause.

Now it may be wondered perhaps how it was that I, who was so young, should be entrusted with such matters as these. Here then, I am bound to say, however immodest it may appear, that I have had always the art of making friends easily and of commending myself quickly. I had lived too in the societies of both Paris and Rome; and I had the accomplishments of a gentleman as well as his blood. I was thought a pleasant fellow, that is to say, who could make himself agreeable; and I certainly had too—and I am not ashamed to say this—but one single ambition in the world, and that was to serve God’s cause: and these things do not always go together in this world. Last of all, it must be observed, that no very weighty secrets were entrusted to me: I bore no letters; and I had been told no more of affairs in general than such as any quick and intelligent man might pick up for himself. Even should I prove untrustworthy or indiscreet, or even turn traitor, no very great harm would be done. If, upon the other hand, I proved ready and capable, all that I could learn in England and, later perhaps, in France, would serve me well in the carrying out of weightier designs that might then be given into my charge.

Such then I was; and such was my mission, on this fifteenth day of June, as I rode up with James my man—a servant found for me in Rome, who had once been in the service of my Lord Stafford—to the door of the lodgings engaged for me in Covent Garden Piazza above a jeweller’s shop.

It was after sunset that we came there; and all the way along the Strand, until we nearly reached the York Stairs, I had said nothing to my man, but had used my eyes instead, striving to remember what I could of seven years before. The houses of great folk were for the most part on my left—Italianate in design, with the river seen between them, and lesser houses, of the architecture that is called “magpie,” on the right. The way was very foul, for there had been rain that morning, and there seemed nothing to carry the filth away: in places faggots had been thrown down to enable carts to pass over. The Strand was very full of folk of all kinds going back to their houses for supper.

Covent Garden Piazza was a fairer place altogether. It was enclosed in railings, and a sun-dial stood in the centre; and on the south was the space for the market, with a cobbled pavement. To the east of St. Paul’s Church stood the greater houses, built on arcades, where many fashionable people of the Court lived or had their lodgings, and it was in one of these that I too was to lodge: for I had bidden my Cousin Jermyn to do the best he could for me, and his letter had reached me at Dover, telling me to what place I was to come.

As I sat on my horse, waiting while my man went in to one of the doorways to inquire, a gentleman ran suddenly out of another, with no hat on his head.

“Why, you are my Cousin Roger, are you not?” he cried from the steps.

“Then you are my Cousin Tom Jermyn,” I said.

“The very man!” he cried back; and ran down to hold my stirrup.

All the way up the stairs he was talking and I was observing him. He seemed a hearty kind of fellow enough, with a sunburnt face from living in the country; and he wore his own hair. He was still in riding-dress; and he told me, before we had reached the first landing, that he was come but an hour ago from his house at Hare Street, in Hertfordshire.

“And I have brought little Dorothy with me,” he cried. “You remember little Dorothy? She is a lady of quality now, aged no less than sixteen; and is come up to renew her fal-lals for her cousin’s arrival; for you must come down with us to Hare Street when your business is done.”

I cannot say that even after all this heartiness, I thought very much of my Cousin Tom. He spoke too loud, I thought, on the common stair: but I forgot all that when I came into the room that was already lighted with a pair of wax candles and set eyes on my Cousin Dorothy, who stood up as we came in, still in her riding-dress, with her whip and gloves on the table. Now let me once and for all describe my Cousin Dorothy; and then I need say no more. She was sixteen years old at this time—as her father had just told me. She was of a pale skin, with blue eyes and black lashes and black hair; but she too was greatly sunburnt, with the haymaking (as her father presently told me again; for she spoke very little after we had saluted one another). She was in a green skirt and a skirted doublet of the same colour, and wore a green hat with a white feather; but those things I did not remember till I was gone to bed and was thinking of her. It is a hard business for a lover to speak as he should of the maid who first taught him his lessons in that art; but I think it was her silence, and the look in her eyes, that embodied for me at first what I found so dear afterwards. She was neither tall nor short; she was very slender; and she moved without noise. All these things I write down now from my remembrance of the observations that I made afterwards. It would be foolish to say that I loved her so soon as I saw her; for no man does that in reality, whatever he may say of it later; I was aware only that here was a maid whose presence made the little room very pleasant to me, and with whom taking supper would be something more than the swallowing of food and drink.

The rooms of my lodging were good enough, as I saw when my Cousin Tom flung open the doors to show me them all. They were three in number: this room into which we had first come from the stairs was hung in green damask, with candles in sconces between the panels of the stuff; the door on the left opened into the room where my Cousin Dorothy would lie, with her maid; and that on the right my Cousin Tom and I would share between us. The windows of all three looked out upon the piazza.

He said a great number of times that he was sorry that he had brought up his daughter without giving me warning; but that the maid had set her heart on it and would take no denial. (This I presently discovered to be wholly false.) For a week, he said, and no more, I should be discommoded; and after that, when I had come back from Hare Street, I should be able to entertain my friends in peace.

I answered him, of course, with the proper compliments; but I liked his manner less than ever. He was too boisterous, I thought, on a first meeting; and too hearty in his expressions of goodwill. When we were set down to supper, he began again, with what I thought a good deal of indiscretion.

“So you are come from Rome!” he said loudly, “and from a monastery too, as I hear. Well, no man loves a monk more than I do—in their monasteries; but I am glad you are not to be one. We will teach him better here—eh, Dolly, my dear?”

It was only my man James who was in the room when he spoke; yet as soon as he was gone out to fetch another dish I thought I had best say a word.

“Cousin,” I said, “with your leave; I think it best not to speak of monasteries—”

He interrupted me.

“Why, you need fear nothing,” he cried. “We Catholics are all in the fashion these days. Why, there is Mr. Huddleston that goes about in his priest’s habit: and the Capuchins at St. James’, and the very Jesuits too—”

“I think it would be better not—” I began.

“Oho!” cried Cousin Tom. “That is in the wind, is it? Why, I’ll be as mum as a mouse!”

I did not know what he meant; and I supposed that he did not know himself, unless indeed by sheer blundering he had pitched upon the truth that I was come on a mission. But so soon as James was in the room again, he began upon the other tack, and talked of Prince this and the Duke of that, with whom I might be supposed to be on terms of intimacy, winking on me all the while, so that my man saw it. However, I answered him civilly. I could do no less; for he was my cousin, and in a manner my host; and, most of all, I must depend upon him for a few days at least, to tell me how I must set about my audiences and my personal affairs.

My Cousin Dorothy said little or nothing all this time; but sat with downcast eyes, giving a look now and again at the table to see if we had all that we needed; for she was housekeeper at Hare Street, her mother having died ten years before, and she herself being the only child. She did not look at me at all, or shew any displeasure; and yet it seemed to me that she was not best pleased with her father’s manners. Once, towards the end of supper, when James came behind him with the wine-jug, I saw her shake her head at him; and, indeed, Cousin Tom was already pretty red in the face with all that he had drunk.

When the meal was finished at last, and the table cleared, and the servants gone downstairs to their own supper, he began again with his talk, stretching his legs in the window-seat where he sat; while I sat still in my chair wheeled away from the table, and my Cousin Dorothy went in and out of the rooms, bestowing the luggage that she and her maid had unpacked. I watched her as she went to and fro, telling myself (as some lads will, who pride themselves on being come to manhood) that she was only a little maid.

“As to your affairs, Cousin Roger,” he said, “they will soon be determined. I take it that when you have kissed His Majesty’s hand and paid your duty to the Duke, you will have done all that you should for the present.”

I did not contradict him; but he was not to be restrained.

“You are come to seek your fortune, no doubt:” (he winked on me again as he said this, to draw attention to his discretion); “and there is nothing else in the world but that, no doubt, that brings you to England.” (He said this with an evident irony that even a child would have understood.) “Not that you have not a very pretty fortune already: I understand that it is near upon a thousand pounds a year; and great estates in Normandy too, when you shall be twenty-eight years old. I am right, am I not?”

Now he was right; but I wondered that he should take such pains to know it all.

“There or thereabouts,” I said.

“That condition of twenty-eight years is a strange one,” he went on.

“Now what made your poor father fix upon that, I wonder?”

I told him that my father held that a man’s life went by sevens, and that every man was a boy till he was twenty-one, a fool till he was twenty-eight, and a man, by God’s grace, after that.

“Ah, that was it, was it?” he said, stretching his legs yet further. “I have often wondered as to how that was.”

And that shewed me that his mind must have run a good deal upon my fortunes; but as yet I did not understand the reason.

When, presently, my Cousin Dorothy had shut the door of her room, and my man was gone down again to the horses, he began again on his old tack.

“You and I, Cousin Roger,” he said, “will soon understand one another. I knew that as soon as I clapped eyes on you. Come, tell me what your business is here. I’m as close as the grave over a friend’s secrets.”

“My dear cousin,” I said, “I do not know what business you mean. Was not my letter explicit enough? I am come to live here as an English gentleman. What other business should I have?”

He winked again at me.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “And now having done your duty to your discretion, do it to your friendship for me too. I know very well that a man who comes from a Roman monastery, with letters from the French ambassador, does not come for nothing. Is there some new scheme on hand?—for the honour of Holy Church, no doubt?”

I thanked God then that I had said not one word in my letter that Shaftesbury himself might not have read. I had been in two minds about it; but had determined to wait until I saw my cousin and learned for myself what kind of man he was.

“My dear cousin,” I said again, “even if I had come on some such mission, I should assure you, as I do now, that it was nothing of the kind. How else could such missions be kept secret at all? It would be a secretum commissum in any case; as the theologians would say. I can but repeat what I said in my letter to you; and, if you will think of it, you will see that it is not likely that any matter of importance would be entrusted to a young man of my age.”

That seemed to quiet him. I have often noticed that to appeal to the experience and wisdom of a fool is the surest way to content him.

He began then to talk of the Court; and it would not be decent of me to record even a tenth part of the gossip he told me regarding the corruption that prevailed in Whitehall. Much of it was no doubt true; and a great deal more than he told me in some matters; but it came pouring out from him, and with such evident pleasure to himself, that it was all I could do to preserve a pleasant face towards him. He told me of the little orange-girl, Nell Gwyn, who was now just twenty-eight years old; and how she lived here and there as the King gave her houses—in Pall Mall, and in Sandford House in Chelsea, and at first at the “Cock and Pie” in Drury Lane; and how her hair was of a reddish brown, and how, when she laughed her eyes disappeared in her head; and of the Duchess of Cleveland, that was once Mrs. Palmer and then my Lady Castlemaine, now in France; and of the Duchess of Portsmouth, and her son created Duke of Richmond three years ago; and of the mock marriage that was celebrated, in my Lord Arlington’s house at Euston, seven years ago between her and the King. And these things were only the more decent matters of which he spoke; and of all he spoke with that kind of chuckling pleasure that a heavy country squire usually shews in such things, so that I nearly hated him as he sat there. For to myself such things seem infinitely sorrowful; and all the more so in such a man as the King was; and they seemed the more sorrowful the more that I knew of him later; for he had so much of the supernatural in him after all, and knew what he did.

Then presently my Cousin Jermyn began upon the Duke; and at that I nearly loosed my tongue at him altogether. For I knew very well that the guilt of the Duke was heavier even than the guilt of the King, since James had the grace of the Sacraments to help him and the light of the Faith to guide him. But I judged it better not to shew my anger, since I was, as the Holy Father had told me, to be “in the world,” though interiorly not of it: and so I feigned sleep instead, and presently had to snore aloud before my cousin could see it: and, as he stopped speaking, my Cousin Dorothy came in to bid us good-night.

“Why, I have been half asleep,” I said. “I am tired with my journey.

What were you saying, cousin?”

He leered again at that, as if to draw attention to his daughter’s presence.

“Why, we were talking of high matters of state,” he said, “when you fell asleep—matters too high for little maids to hear of. Give me a kiss, my dear.”

When she came to me, I kissed her on the forehead, and not upon the cheek which she offered me.

“Is that the Italian custom?” cried my Cousin Tom. “Why, we can teach you better than that—eh, Dolly?”

She said nothing to that; but looked at me a little anxiously and then at the table where the wine stood; and I thought that I understood her.

“Well, cousin,” I said, “I, too, had best be off to bed. We had best both go. I do not want to lie awake half the night; and if you wake me when you come to bed, I shall not sleep again.”

He tried to persuade me to stay and drink a little more; but I would not: and for very courtesy he had to come with me.

In spite of my drowsiness, however, when I was once in bed and the light was out I could not at once sleep. I heard the watchman go by and cry that it was a fine night; and I heard the carriages go by, and the chairs; and saw the light of the links on the ceiling at the end of my bed; and I heard a brawl once and the clash of swords and the scream of a woman; as well as the snoring of my Cousin Tom, who fell asleep at once, so full he was of French wine. But it was not these things that kept me awake, except so far as they were signs to me of where I was.

For here I was in London at last, which, whatever men may say, is the heart of the world, as Rome is the heart of the Church; and there, within a gunshot, was the gate of Whitehall where the King lived, and where my fortunes lay. Neither was I here as a mere Englishman come home again after seven years, but as a messenger from the Holy See, with work both to find and to do. To-morrow I must set out, to buy, as I may say, the munitions of war—my clothes and my new periwigs and my swords and my horses; and then after that my holy war was to begin. I had my letters not only to the Court, but to the Jesuits as well—though of these I had been careful to say nothing to my cousin; for I could present these very well without his assistance. And this holy war I was to carry on by my own wits, though a soldier in that great army of Christ that fights continually with spiritual weapons against the deceits of Satan.

I wondered, then, as I lay there in the dark, as to whether this war would be as bloodless as seemed likely; whether indeed it were true (and if true, whether it were good or bad) that Catholics should again almost be in the fashion, as my cousin had said. There were still those old bloody laws against us; was it so sure that they would never be revived again? And if they were revived, how should I bear myself; and how would my Cousin Jermyn, and all those other Catholics of whom London was so full?

Of all these things, then, I thought; but my last thoughts, before I commended myself finally to God and Our Lady, were of my Cousin Dorothy—that little maid, as I feigned to myself to think of her. Yes; I would go down to Hare Street in Hertfordshire so soon as I conveniently could, without neglecting my business. It would be pleasant to see what place it was that my Cousin Dorothy called her home.

CHAPTER II

It was again a fair evening, five days later, when, in one of my new suits, with my new silver-handled sword, I set out on foot to Whitehall to see the King first and the Duke afterwards, as word had been brought me from the Chamberlain’s office; for I had presented my letters on the morning after I had come to London.

Those four days had passed busily and merrily enough in company with my cousins. The first two days I had spent in the shops, and had expended above forty pounds, with both my cousins to advise me. It would not be to the purpose to describe all that I bought; but there was a blue suit I had, that was made very quickly, and that was the one I wore when I went to see the King, that was very fine. All was of blue; the coat was square-cut, with deep skirts, and had great laced cuffs that turned up as high as the elbow, showing the ruffled wristbands of the shirt beneath; the waistcoat below—in the new fashion—was so hung as to come down to my knees; and both coat and waistcoat had buttons all the way down the front, with silver trimming. My stockings—for the brodequins were out of fashion again now—were of a darker blue, and my shoes of strong leather, with a great rosette upon each, for buckles were not usual at this time. Then my cravat was of Flanders lace; and my Cousin Dorothy showed me how to fasten it so that the ends lay down square in front; and my hat was round with a blue favour in it upon the left side; and I wore it with what was called the “Monmouth cock.” I carried a long cane in my hand, with a silver head, and a pair of soft leather gloves, without cuffs to them. Then, as my own hair was still short, I bought a couple of dark periwigs of my own colour, and put on, the better to go to Whitehall in. Besides these things I had three other suits, one very plain, of grey, and two less plain; a case of pistols, and a second sword, very plain and strong, in a leather scabbard, with its belt; two pair of riding-boots, besides other shoes; and two dozen of shirts and cravats, of which half were plain, without lace.

While we went to and fro on all those businesses, we saw something both of the town and of the folks. On our way back from Cheapside one day, we turned aside to see the Monument, with the lying inscription upon it; and then to see the Cathedral, which was already of a considerable height. Of the persons of importance we saw one day the Duke of Buckingham in his coach, drawn by two white horses, with riders before and behind, pass along towards Whitehall; and a chair went by us one evening in which, it was said, was the Duchess of Portsmouth (once Madame de la Querouaille, or Mrs. Carwell); but it was so closely guarded that I could not see within. Also, we saw my Lord Shaftesbury, a sly yet proud looking fellow, I thought him, walking with Mr. Pepys, who fell later under suspicion of being a Catholic, because his servant was one.

On the Saturday evening we went to take the air in St. James’ Park, and walked by Rosamund’s pond; and here we but just missed seeing the King and Queen; for as we came into it from Charing Cross (where I had seen for the first time in the public street the Punch-show, which I think must take its origin from Pontius Pilate) their Majesties rode out—hand in hand, I heard later—through the Park Gate into the Horse-Guards, and so to Whitehall, with guards in buff and steel following. There was a great company of gentlemen and ladies who rode behind, of whom we caught a sight; but they were too far away for us to recognize any of them. (I saw, too, the cress-carts come in from Tothill fields.)

On the Sunday morning we went all three together to hear mass sung in St. James’; and here for the first time I saw Mr. Huddleston, who was of the congregation, who was in his priest’s habit—as my cousin had told me—for this was allowed to him by Act of Parliament, because he had saved the King’s life after the battle of Worcester. He was a man that looked like a scholar, but was very brown with the sun, too. We could not see the Duke, for he was in his closet, with the curtains half drawn—a tribune, as we should call it in Rome. It was very sweet to me to hear mass again after my journey; and it was not less sweet to me that my Cousin Dorothy was beside me; but the crush was so great, of Protestants who had come to see the ceremonies, as well as of Catholics, that there was scarcely room even to kneel down at the elevation. On our way back we saw Prince Rupert, a fat pasty-faced man, driving out in his coach. He spent all his time in chymical experiments, I was told. As Sedley said, he had exchanged Naseby for Noseby.

I had been bidden, on the Monday, to present myself first at Mr. Chiffinch’s lodgings that were near the chapel, between the Privy Stairs and the Palace Stairs; and, as I was before my time, when I came into the Court, behind the Banqueting Hall, I turned aside to see the Privy Garden. A fellow in livery, of whom there were half a dozen in sight, asked me my business very civilly; and when I told him, let me go through by the Treasury and the King’s laboratory, so that I might see the garden: and indeed it was very well worth seeing. There were sixteen great beds, set in the rectangle, with paved walks between; there was a stone vase on a pedestal, or a statue, in the centre of each bed, and a great sundial in the midst of them all. There were some ladies walking at the further end, beneath the two rows of trees; and the sight was a very pretty one, for the sunlight was still on part of the garden and on the Bowling-Green beyond the trees; and the flowers and the ladies’ dresses, and the high windows that flashed back the light, all conspired to make what I looked upon very beautiful. The lodgings that looked on to the Privy Garden and the Bowling-Green were much coveted, I heard later; and only such personages as Prince Rupert, my Lord Peterborough, Sir Philip Killigrew, and such like, could get them there.

Mr. Chiffinch’s lodgings, when I came to them, were not so fine; for they looked out upon little courts on both sides, and my Lady Arlington’s lodgings blocked his view to the river. I went up the stairs, and beat upon the door with my cane: and a voice cried to me to enter.

Now I had heard enough of Mr. Chiffinch to make me prejudge him; for his main business, it seemed, was to pander to the King’s pleasures; and he had his rooms so near the river, it was said, that he might more easily meet those who came by water and take them up to His Majesty’s rooms unobserved: yet when I saw him, I understood that any prejudgement was unnecessary. For if ever man bore his character in his face it was Mr. Chiffinch.

He had risen at my knock, and was standing in the light of the window. He was dressed in a dark suit, very plain, yet of very rich stuff, and had laid his periwig aside, so that I could see his features. He was a dark secret-looking man with his eyes set near together, and with a lip so short that it seemed as if he sneered; he stooped a little too. Yet I am bound to say that his manner was perfection itself.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” I said. And at that he bowed.

“I am Mr. Roger Mallock,” I said; “and I was bidden to come here at this hour.”

“I am honoured to meet you, Mr. Mallock,” he said. “I have had His Majesty’s instructions very particular in your regard. I am ashamed that you should find me so unready; but I will not keep you above five minutes, if you will sit down for a little.”

He made haste to set me a chair near the window; and with another apology or two he went out of a second door. The room in which he left me was like the suit that he wore—in that it was both plain and rich. There were three or four chairs with arms; a table, with twisted legs, on which lay a great heap of papers and a pair of candlesticks: and there was a tall lightly-carved press, with locks, between the windows. The walls were plain, with a few good engravings hung upon them. I went up to examine one, and found it to be a new one, by Faithorne.

Now that I was drawing so near to the King, I found my apprehensions returning upon me, for half my success, I knew, if not all, turned upon the manner I first shewed to him. I knew very well that I could bear myself with sufficient address; but sufficient address was not all that was needed: I must so act that His Majesty would remember me afterwards, and with pleasure. Yet how was I to ensure this?

As I was so thinking to myself, Mr. Chiffinch came in again, having, with marvellous speed, changed his suit into one of brown velvet, with a great black periwig, from which his sharp face looked out like a ferret from a hole.

“I must ask your pardon, Mr. Mallock,” he said, as I stood up to meet him, “again and again; but I have scarcely an hour to myself day or night. Duty treads on the heels of duty all day long. But we have still time: His Majesty does not expect us till half-past five.”

I made the usual compliments and answers, to which he bowed again; and then, as I thought he would, he began upon what was not his business—at least I thought not then.

“You are come from Rome, I hear. I trust that His Holiness was in good health?”

“The reports were excellent,” I said, determined not to be taken in this way.

“You have seen His Holiness lately, no doubt?”

“It was the French and Spanish ambassadors,” I said, “who gave me my letters. A poor gentleman like myself does not see the Holy Father once in a twelvemonth.”

He seemed contented with that; and I think he put me down as something of a well-bred simpleton, which was precisely what I wished him to think; for his manner changed a little.

“You have seen His Majesty before, no doubt?”

“I have not been in England for seven years,” I said, smiling. “I saw His Majesty once when I was a lad, as he went to dinner; and I have seen him once, on Saturday last; at least, I saw the top of his hat from a hundred yards off.”

“And the Duke of York?” he asked.

“I have never seen the Duke of York in my life, to my knowledge,” I said.

Now I saw well enough what he was after. Without a doubt he had a suspicion that I was an emissary in some way from the Holy Father, or at least that I was more than I appeared to be; and being one of those men who desire to know everything, that they may understand, as the saying is, which way the cat will jump, and how to jump with her, he was determined to find out all that he could. On my side, therefore, I assumed the air of a rather stupid gentleman, to bear out better the character that I had—that I was a mere gentleman from Rome, recommended by the Catholic ambassadors; and I think that, for the time at anyrate, he took me so to be; for his manner became less inquisitive.

“We must be going to His Majesty, sir,” he said presently, rising; and then he added as if by chance: “You are a Catholic, Mr. Mallock?”

“Why, yes,” I said: for there was no need of any concealment on the point of my religion.

As we went downstairs and along the passage that led by Sir Francis Clinton’s lodgings, he began to speak of how I was to behave myself to the King, and how kiss his hand and the rest. I knew very well all these things, but I listened to him as if I did not, and even put a question or two; and he answered me very graciously.

“You should be very modest with His Majesty,” he said, “if you would please him. He likes not originals over-much; or, rather, I would say—(but it must not be repeated)—that he likes to be the only original of the company.”

And when Mr. Chiffinch said that I knew that he was lying to me; for the very opposite was the truth; and I understood that he still had his suspicions of me and wished me to fail with the King. But I nodded wisely, and thanked him.

A couple of Yeomen of the Guard—of which body no man was less than six feet tall—stood at the foot of the little stairs that led up to the King’s lodgings: and these made no motion to hinder the King’s page and his companion. So English were they that they did not even turn their eyes as we went through, Mr. Chiffinch preceding me with an apology.

At the door on the landing of the first floor he turned to me again before he knocked.

“His Majesty will be within the second room,” he said. “Will you wait, Mr. Mallock, please, in this first anteroom, and I will go through. This is a private reception by His Majesty. There will be no formalities.”

He tapped upon both the doors that were one inside the other; and then led me through. The first chamber was very richly furnished, though barely. There was a long table with chairs about it; and he led me to one of these. Then with a nod or two he passed on to a second door, tapped upon it softly and went through, closing it behind him. I heard a woman’s laugh as he went through, suddenly broken off.

There was, I supposed (and as I learned afterwards to be the case) one other way at least out of the King’s lodgings, through his private library, where he kept all his clocks and wheels and such-like; for when, after a minute or two, the door opened again and Mr. Chiffinch beckoned me in, there was no woman with the King.

It was a great room—His Majesty’s closet as it was called—which he used for such solitary life as he led; and while I was with him, and afterwards upon other occasions, I saw little by little how it was furnished. The table in the midst, at which His Majesty wrote, was all in disorder; it was piled high with papers and books, for he would do what writing or reading he cared to do by fits and starts. The walls were hung with panels of tapestry, and tall curtains of brocade hung at the windows. Between the panels were pictures hung upon the walls—three or four flower-pictures by Varelst; three pictures of horses and dogs by Hondius, and a couple of Dutch pictures by Hoogstraaten. Over the fireplace was a chimney-breast by Gibbons; and the ceiling was all a-sprawl with gods and goddesses, I suppose by Verrio. In the windows, which looked out on two sides, over the river and into a little court, were little tables covered with curious things, for His Majesty delighted in such ingenuities—Dutch figures in silver, clockwork, and the like, and a basket of spaniels lay beneath one of the tables. A second great table stood against the wall on the further side from that on which I entered, covered with retorts and instruments, and behind it a press, and near it sat the King. The floor was carpeted with rush matting, loosely woven, with rugs upon it. But of all these things I saw little or nothing at the first, for Mr. Chiffinch was gone out behind me, and I was alone with His Majesty. One of the spaniels had given a little yelp as I came in; but disposed himself to sleep again.

Now I am not one of those who think that those who are noble by birth must always be noble by character, though I know that it should be so. I knew, too, very well that Charles was less than noble in a great number of ways. His women did what they liked with him; he would spend fortunes on those who pleased him and did him nothing but injury, and would let his faithful lovers and servants go starve. He lived always, you would say, only for the flesh and the pride of the eyes; he was careless and selfish and ungrateful; in short, he was as dissolute as a man could be, or, rather, as dissolute as a king could be, and that is much more. Yet for all this, he was a man of an extraordinary power, if he had cared to use it. It was said of him that “he could, if he would, but that he would not”; and of his brother that “he would if he could, but that he could not”; and I know no better epigram on the two than that. James was all intention without success; and Charles all success without intention. And so James at the end lived and died as a saint, though he was far from being one at this time; and Charles lived and died a sinner, though, thank God, a penitent one.

Now although I knew all this well enough, and how Charles’ private life stank in the nostrils of God and man, I cannot describe how he affected me with loyalty and compassion and even a kind of love, in this little while that I had with him in private, nor how these emotions grew upon me the more that I knew him.

He was sitting in his great chair, not yet dressed for supper, for his wristbands were tumbled and turned back, and his huge dark brown periwig was ever so little awry. He was in a dark suit, with a lace cravat; and his rosetted shoes were crossed one over the other as he sat. The light of the window fell full upon him from one side, shewing his swarthy face, his thin close moustaches, and his heavy eyes under his arched brows—shewing above all that air of strange and lovable melancholy that was so marked a trait in those of the Stuart blood. He smiled a little at me, but did not move, except to put out his hand. I came across the floor, kneeled and kissed his hand, then, at a motion from him, stood up again.

“So you are Mr. Roger Mallock,” he said. “Welcome to England, Mr. Roger

Mallock. You bring good news of His Holiness, I hope.”

“His Holiness does very well, Sir,” I said.

“We should all do as well if we were as holy,” said the King. “And you come to look after my soul, I am informed.”

(He said this with a kind of gravity that can scarcely be believed.)

“I am no priest, Sir,” I said, “if you mean that. I am only a forerunner, at the best.”

“Vox clamantis in deserto,” said the King. “I hope I shall be no Herod to cut off your head. But it is very kind of you to come to this wilderness. And have you seen my brother yet?”

“I am to see his Royal Highness immediately,” I said. “I waited upon

Your Majesty first.”

“Poor James!” said the King. “He wants looking after, I think. And what have you come to do in England, Mr. Mallock?”

Now I felt that I was cutting a poor figure at present; and that I must say something presently, if I could, to make the King remember me afterwards. It appeared to me that he was trying me, as he tried all newcomers, to see whether they would be witty or amusing; but, for the life of me, I could think of nothing to say.

“I am come to put myself wholly at Your Majesty’s disposal,” I said.

“Come! come! That’s better,” said Charles. “It is usually the other way about. Servus servorum Dei, you know. And in what manner do you propose that I should use you?”

“I will clean Your Majesty’s shoes, if you will. Or I will run errands in my own. Or I will sing psalms, or ditties; or I will row in a boat; or I will play tennis, or fence. I am what is called an accomplished young gentleman, Sir.”

Now I think I put in a shade too many clauses, for I was a little agitated. But the King’s face lightened up very pleasantly.

“But I have plenty of folks who can do all that,” he said. “In what are you distinguished from the rest?”

Then I determined on a bold stroke; for I knew that the King liked such things, if they were not too bold.

“I am a Jesuit at heart, Sir;” I said. “I desire to do these things, if Your Majesty wills it so, simply that I may serve His Holiness in serving Your Majesty.”

“Oho!” said Charles; and he gathered his feet under him and looked at me more closely. I met his eyes fairly and then dropped my own.

“Oho! That is frank enough, Mr. Mallock. You know all about me, I suppose. You seem very young for such work. How old are you? Twenty-five?”

“I pass as twenty-five, Sir. But I am only twenty-one!”

“I would that I were!” said Charles earnestly. “And so you are a Jesuit in disguise—a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“No, Sir. I am a Jesuit at heart only, in that I would do anything in

God’s cause. But I am rather a sheep in wolf’s clothing. I was a

Benedictine novice till lately.”

He seemed not to hear me. He had dropped his chin on his hand, and was looking at me as if he were thinking of something else.

“So you are come to serve me,” he said presently, “in any way that I will; and you will serve me only that you may serve your master better. And what wages do you want?”

“None that Your Majesty can give,” I said.

“Better and better,” said Charles. “Nor place, nor position?”

“Only at Your Majesty’s feet.”

“And what if I kick you?”

“I will look for the halfpence elsewhere, Sir.”

Then the King laughed outright, in the short harsh way he had; and I knew that I had pleased him. Then he stood up, and I saw that he was taller than I had thought. He was close upon six feet high.

“Well, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “this seems all very pleasant and satisfactory. You said you would run errands. I suppose you mean to Rome?”

“To Rome and back, Sir,” I said. “Or to anywhere else, except Hell.”

“Oh! you draw the line there, do you?”

“No, Sir. It is God Almighty who has drawn it. I am not responsible.”

“But you observe God His line?”

“Yes, Sir. At least, I try to.”

“We all do that, I suppose. The pity is that we do not succeed more consistently … Well, Mr. Mallock, I have nothing for you at present. I am a great deal too busy. These ladies, you know, demand so much. I suppose you heard one of them laugh just now?”

“I hear nothing but Your Majesty’s commands,” I said very meekly.

Charles laughed again and began to walk up and down.

“Well—and there are all these clockwork businesses, and chymical and the like. And there is so much to eat and drink and see: and there are the affairs of the kingdom—I had forgot that. Well; I have no time at present, Mr. Mallock, as you can see for yourself. But I will not forget you, if I want you. Where do you lodge?”

I named my lodgings in Covent Garden.

“And I have a cousin, Sir,” I said, “who has bidden me to his house in

Hare Street. I shall be here or there.”

“His name?”

“Thomas Jermyn, Sir.”

The King nodded.

“I will remember that,” he said. “Well, it may be a long time before I have anything more to say to His Holiness. ‘He that will not when he may—’ You know all about that, I suppose, Mr. Mallock?”

“I know that Your Majesty has the reunion of Christendom at heart,” I said discreetly.

“Yes, yes; I understand,” said Charles. “I have received very favourable accounts of you, sir. And your letters, which are for the public eye, are perfectly in order. Well; I will remember, Mr. Mallock. Meanwhile you had best not shew yourself at Court in public too much.” (And this he said very earnestly.)

He put out his hand to be kissed.

“And you will give my compliments to my brother James,” he said.

One of the spaniels snored in his sleep as I went out again.

CHAPTER III

My interview with the Duke was a very different matter. I was informed at his lodgings that he was not yet come from tennis; and upon asking how long he would be, or if I might go to the tennis-court, was told that he might be half an hour yet, and that I might go there if I wished; so I went up from the river again, with a fellow they sent to guide me, down through the Stone Gallery, across the Privy Garden, and so across the street, midway between the gates, and so by the Duke of Monmouth’s lodgings to the tennis-court. Here, as I went across the street, I caught sight of the sentries changing guard. These were the Coldstream Guards, in their red coats; for it was these foot-guards who did duty for the most part in the Palace and round about at the gates. The other troops about His Majesty were, first the King’s Guards proper, who attended him when he rode out: these were in buff coats and cuirasses, very well mounted, and very gay with ribbons and velvet and gold lace and what not: and to each troop of these were attached a company of grenadiers with their grenades. Besides these were the Blues, also cavalry; and the dragoons, who were infantry on horseback, and carried bayonets. Of the foot-soldiers, such as the Buffs, most were mousquetaires; but some trailed pikes, and every one of them had a sword. These troops I saw constantly in town; besides the Yeomen who were closely attached to the person of his Sacred Majesty.

It was by the Duke of Monmouth’s lodgings that I had my first sight of the Duke of Monmouth himself; for as I came towards the archway, by which were the lodgings of my Lady Suffolk, he himself came out from his own. I did not know who he was, until the fellow by me saluted him and doffed his cap, whereupon I did the same. I think I have never seen a more handsome lad in all my life (for he looked no more, though he was near thirty years old). His face was as smooth as a girl’s, though not at all effeminate; he had a high and merry look with him, and bore himself, with his two friends, like a prince; he had violet eyes and arched brows over them. It is piteous to me now to think of his end, and that it was against his uncle by blood (whom I was to see presently) that he rebelled later, and by his uncle that he was condemned; and it is yet more piteous to think how he met that end, crying and cringing for fear of his life, both in the ditch in which he was discovered, and afterward in prison. He looked very kindly on me as he passed, lifting his hand to his hat; but I think he would not have so looked if he had known all about me; for he was as venomous against the Catholics as a man could be, or at least feigned himself so, for I think he had not a great deal of religion at any time. But he was to know me better afterwards.

When I came up into the gallery of the tennis-court I found it pretty full; yet not so full but that I could get a sight of the players. The Duke was in the court of the dédans when I first came in, so I could see no more of him than his back and his cropped head; but when, after two chaces he crossed over, I had a good view of him.

He was more heavily built than Charles; but his features were not unlike the King’s, though he was fairer in complexion, I suppose; and his lip was shorter, and he wore no hair on his face. He had somewhat of a heavier look too in his face, without the fire that burned like embers in his brother’s eyes. All this I noticed somewhat of, even from the gallery, though he was all a-sweat with his exercise.

I had left word with one of the men below as to my name and my business; and when the game was ended and the Duke went out, I remained still upstairs for a little, thinking that perhaps another would be played, and then perhaps he would send for me. But a servant came up presently and told me I was to follow to the Stone Gallery, where the Duke would walk for a while before changing his clothes, as his custom was. This Stone Gallery, as I had seen, was roofed, with skylights in it, and had presses of books all along the walls, together with collections of all kinds.

When I came to the Gallery he was at the further end, walking with Sir Robert Murray, as I learned afterwards, who was a very earnest Protestant, but always at Court; but when he saw me he sent Sir Robert away and beckoned to me to come. So I went up to him and kissed his hand, and he bade me walk with him for a little. (He had put on a cloak and hat to prevent his taking cold.)

Now his manner was wholly different from His Majesty’s. There was a courtesy always in Charles that was not in James; for the Duke said nothing as to his receiving me here in his déshabille, but began immediately to talk in a low voice.

“I am pleased that you are come to England, Mr. Mallock. I have had news of you from Rome.”

Then he asked very properly of the Holy Father, and of a Cardinal or two that he knew; and I answered him as well as I could. But I very soon saw that His Royal Highness wanted nothing like wit from me: he was somewhat of a solemn man, and had great ideas of his rights, and that all men who were below his own station should keep their own. He desired deference and attention above all things.

He spoke presently of Catholics in England.

“God hath blest us very highly,” he said, “both in numbers and influence. But we can well do with more of both; for I never heard of any cause that could not. There is a feeling against us in many quarters, but it is less considerable every year. You are to attach yourself to His Majesty, I understand?”

“But I am to have no place or office, sir,” I said. “I am rather to be at His Majesty’s disposal—to fetch and carry, I may say, if he should need my services.”

His Highness looked at me sidelong and swiftly; and I understood that he did not wish any originality even in speech.

“We must all be discreet, however,” he said—(though I suppose there was never any man less discreet than himself, especially when he most needed to be so). “It is useless to say that we are altogether loved; for we are not. But you will soon acquaint yourself with all our politics.”

I did not say that I had already done so; but assured him that I would do my best.

“As a general guide, I may say,” he went on; “where there is Whiggery, there is disloyalty, however much the Whigs may protest. They say they desire a king as much as any; but it is not a king that they want, but his shadow only.”

He talked on in this manner for a little, for we had the Gallery to ourselves, telling me, what I knew very well already, that the Catholics and the High Churchmen were, as a whole, staunch Royalists; but that the rest, especially those of the old Covenanting blood, still were capable of mischief. He did not tell me outright that it was largely against his own succession that the disaffection was directed; nor that the Duke of Monmouth was his rival; but he told me enough to show that my own information was correct enough, and that in the political matters my weight, such as it was, must be thrown on to the side of the Tories—as the other party was nicknamed. I understood, even in that first conversation with him, why he was so little loved; and I remembered, with inward mirth, how His Majesty once, upon being remonstrated with by his brother for walking out so freely without a guard, answered that he need have no fears; for “they will never kill me,” said he, “to set you upon the throne.”

“You have seen Father Whitbread, no doubt,” said the Duke suddenly.

“No, sir. I waited to pay my homage first to His Majesty and to yourself.”

He nodded once or twice at that.

“Yes, yes; but you will see him presently, I take it. You could not have a better guide. Why—”

He broke off on a sudden.

“Why here is the man himself,” he said.

A man in a sober suit was indeed approaching, as His Highness spoke. He was of about the middle-size, clean-shaven, of grave and kindly face, and resembled such a man as a lawyer or physician might be. He was dressed in all points like a layman, though I suppose it was tolerably well known what he was, if not his name.

He saluted as he came near, and made as if he would have passed us.

“Mr. Whitbread! Mr. Whitbread!” cried the Duke.

The priest turned and bowed again, uncovering as he did so. Then he came up to the Duke and kissed his hand.

“I was on my way to see your Royal Highness,” he said, “but when I saw you were in company—”

“Why, this is Mr. Mallock, come from Rome, who has letters to you. This will save you a journey, Mallock.”

The priest and I saluted one another; and I found his face and manner very pleasant.

“I have heard of you, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “but I hope His Highness is misinformed, and that this will not save you a journey, after all.”

“I was just telling this gentleman,” broke in the Duke, as we continued our walking, “that he must take you for his mentor, Dr. Whitbread, in these difficult times. Mr. Mallock seems very young for his business, but I suppose that the Holy Father knows what he is about.”

“The Holy Father, sir,” I said, “has committed himself in no sort of way to me. I am scarcely more than a free-lance who has had his blessing.”

“Well, well; it is all the same thing,” said James a little impatiently.

“Free-lance or drilled soldier—they fight for the same cause.”

He continued to talk in the same manner for a little, as if for my instruction; and I listened with all the meekness I had. He did not tell me one word which I did not already know; but I had perceived by now what kind of man he was—well intentioned, no doubt, as courageous as a lion, and as impatient of opposition, and not a little stupid: at least he had not a tenth of his brother’s wits, as all the world knew. He solemnly informed me therefore of what all the world knew, and I listened to him.

When he dismissed me at last, however, he remembered to ask where I lodged, and I told him.

“A very good place too,” he said. “I am glad your cousin had the sense to put you there. Then I will remember you, if I need you for anything.”

“I will go with Mr. Mallock,” said the priest, “if Your Royal Highness will permit. I came but to pay my respects; and it is a little late.”

The Duke nodded; and gave us his hand to kiss.

As we went out through the Courtyard, Father Whitbread pointed out a few things to me which be thought might be of interest; and I liked the man more at every step. He was a complete man of the world, with a certain gentle irony, yet none the less kindly for it. He did not say one disparaging word of anyone, nor any hint of criticism at His Royal Highness; yet he knew, and I knew that he knew, and he knew that again, that our Catholic champion was a shade disappointing; and that, not in his vices only—of which my Lady Southesk could have given an account—but in that which I am forced to call his stupidity. But, after all, our Saviour uttered a judgment generally as to the children of light and the children of this world, that must always be our consolation when our friends are dull or perverse. Father Whitbread only observed emphatically that the Duke was a man of excellent heart.

He showed me the windows of a number of lodgings on the way, and the direction of a great many more: for indeed this Palace of Whitehall was liker a little town than a house. Father Patricks, he said, had a lodging near the Pantry, which he shewed me.

“There be some of us priests who have an affinity, do you not think, Mr. Mallock? with pantries and butteries and such like—good sound men too, many of them. I have not a word to say against Mr. Patricks.”

He shewed me too how the Palace was in four quarters, of which two were divided from two by Whitehall itself and the street between the gatehouses. That half of it that was nearer to the Park held the tennis-court and the cock-pit and the lodgings of the Duke of Monmouth and others nearer Westminster, and the other half the Horse Guards and the barracks: and that nearer the river held, to the south the Stone Gallery, the Privy Garden, the Bowling Green and a great number of lodgings amongst which were those of the King and of his brother and Prince Rupert, and of the Queen too, as well as of their more immediate attendants—and this part contained what was left of the old York House; to the north was another court surrounded by lodgings, the Wood-Yard, the two courts called Scotland Yard, and the clock-house at the extremity, nearest Charing Cross. In the very midst of the whole Palace, looking upon Whitehall itself, was the Banqueting House where His Majesty dined in state, and from a window of which King Charles the First, of blessed memory, went out to lose his head. Indeed as we went by the end of the Banqueting House the trumpets blew for supper; and we saw a great number of cooks and scullions run past with dishes on their heads.

As we went up Whitehall, Mr. Whitbread began to speak of more intimate things.

“You are a stranger in England, Mr. Mallock, I think.”

I told him I had not been in the country for seven years.

“You will find a great many changes,” he said; “and I think we are on the eve of some more. Certainly His Majesty has wonderfully established his position; and yet, if you understand me, there is a great and growing disaffection. It is the Catholic Faith that they fear; and I cannot help thinking that some victims may be required again presently, though I do not know what they can allege against us. There is a deal of feeling, too, against the Queen; she has borne no children—that is true; but the main part of it arises from her religion: and so with the Duke of York also. Certainly we are in the fashion in one way: but those who are on the top of the wave must always look to come down suddenly.”

Here again, Father Whitbread did not tell me anything that I did not know; yet he put matters together as I had not heard them put before; and he seemed to me altogether a shrewd kind of man whose judgment I might very well rely upon; and as we went up the Strand he spoke again of the Queen.

“His Majesty hath been urged again and again to divorce her; but he will not. He said to the Duke himself in my hearing one day that an innocent woman should never suffer through him—which is good hearing. But Her Majesty is not very happy, I am afraid.”

When we came to the Maypole, which I had already seen, in the midst of the Strand, he spoke to me of how it had been carried there and set up with great rejoicing, after the Restoration. It was a great structure, hung about by a crown and a vane; and he said that it stood as a kind of symbol against Puritanism.

“There are many,” he told me, “who would pull it down to-morrow if they could, as if it were some kind of idol.”

He saw me as far as the door of my lodgings; but he would not come in. He said that he had no great desire to be known more widely than be was at present known.

“But if you have time to come in to-morrow morning about ten o’clock to Mr. Fenwick’s lodgings in Drury Lane—over the baker’s shop—I shall be there, and Mr. Ireland also—all Fathers of our Society; and I will very gladly make you known to them. My own lodgings are in Weld Street—at the Ambassador’s.”

I thanked him for his kindness, and said I would be there; and so I bade him good-night.

Although I had learned very few things that day which I had not known already, I felt that evening as I sat at supper, and afterwards, in the coffee house at 17, Fleet Street (which he recommended to me) that I knew them in a different manner. For I had spoken with some of the principal actors, and, above all, with the King himself. My cousin questioned me delightedly upon my experiences when we were alone with our pipes at one end of the great room that had been a council-chamber; and related to me all his own experiences with the King at great length; and how Charles had made to him some witty remarks which I think must have lost in the telling, for they were not witty at all when I heard them. It appeared that my cousin had spoken with the King three or four times, at City-banquets and such like; and he would know all that His Majesty had said to me. But much I would not tell him, and some I could not: I could not that is, even if I would, have conveyed to him the strange compassion that I felt, and the yet more strange affection, for this King who might have done so much, and who did so little—except what he should not; and I would not on any account tell him of what the King had said as to Rome and his desires and procrastinations. But I told him how I had met Father Whitbread, and how I was to go and see him on the morrow.

“Why, I will come with you myself,” he said. “I know Mr. Fenwick’s lodgings very well: and we will ride afterwards as far as Waltham Cross, and lie there; and so to Hare Street for dinner next day.”

All the way home again, and when my Cousin Dorothy was gone to bed, and we sat over a couple of tankards of College Ale, he would talk of nothing but the Jesuits.

“They are too zealous,” he said. “I am as good a Catholic as any man in England or Rome; but I like not this over-zeal. They are everywhere, these good fathers; and it will bring trouble on them. They hold their consults even in London, which I think over-rash; and no man knows what passes at them. Now I myself—” and so his tongue wagged on, telling of his own excellence and prudence, and even his own spirituality, while his eyes watered with the ale that he drank, and his face grew ever more red. And yet there was no true simplicity in the man; he had that kind of cunning that is eked out with winks and becks and nods that all the world could see. He talked of my Cousin Dorothy, too, and her virtues, and what a great lady she would be some day when these virtues were known; and he, declared that in spite of this he would never let her go to Court; and then once more he went back again to his earlier talk of the corruptions there, and of what my Lady this and Her Grace of that had said and done and thought.

Mr. Fenwick’s lodgings in Drury Lane were such as any man might have. The Jesuit Fathers lived apart in London—Father Whitbread in the City, Father Ireland in Russell Street, and Father Harcourt, who was called the “Rector of London,” I heard, in Duke Street, near the arch—lest too much attention should be drawn to them if they were all together. They were pleasant quiet men, and received me very kindly—for my cousin who had forgot some matter he had to do before he went into the country, was gone down into the City to see to it. Mr. Grove, whom I learned later to be a lay brother of the Society, opened the door to me; and shewed me to the room where they were all three together.

They were all three of them just such men as you might meet anywhere, in coffee-houses or taverns, none of them under forty or over sixty years old. Father Harcourt was seventy—but he was not there. They were in sober suits, such as a lawyer might wear, and carried swords. These were not all the Jesuits thereabouts; for I heard them speak of Father John Gavan and Father Anthony Turner (who were in the country on that day), and others.

As I talked with them, and gave my news and listened to theirs, again and again I thought of the marvellous misjudgments that were always passed upon the Society; of how men such as these were always thought to be plotting and conspiring, and how any charge against a Jesuit was always taken as proven scarcely before it was stated; and that not by common men only, but by educated gentlemen too, who should know better. For their talk was of nothing but of the most harmless and Christian matters, and of such simplicity that no man who heard them could doubt their sincerity. It is true that they spoke of such things as the conversion of England, and of the progress that the Faith was making; and they told many wonderful stories of the religion of the common people in country places, and how a priest was received by them as an angel of God, and of their marvellous goodness and constancy under the bitterest trials; but so, I take it, would the Apostles themselves have spoken in Rome and Asia and Jerusalem. But as to the disloyalty that was afterwards charged against them, still less of any hatred or murderous designs, there was not one such thought that passed through any of their minds.

It was a plain but well-furnished chamber in which we sat. Beneath the windows folks came and went continually. There were hangings on the wall; and a press full of books and papers, and two or three tables; but there was no concealment of anything, nor thought of it. Through the door I saw Mr. Grove laying for dinner.

“But you will surely stay for dinner,” said Father Fenwick, when I said that I must be gone presently.

I told him that I was to ride to Waltham Cross with my cousins, and that

I was to meet them for dinner first at the coffee-house beside the

Maypole in the Strand.

“And to Hare Street to-morrow, then,” said Father Whitbread—or Mr.

White as he was called sometimes.

I told him, Yes; and that I did not know how long I should be there.

“The King will be at Windsor next month, I think,” he said; “but he will be back again for August. You had best be within call then, if he should send for you.” (For I had told them all freely what had passed between myself and His Majesty, and what His Holiness had said to me too.)

“You can command any of us at any time,” he added, “if we can be of service to you. There are so many folks of all kinds, here, there and everywhere, that it is near impossible for a stranger to take stock of them all; and it may be that our experience may be of use to you, to know whom to trust and of whom to beware. But the most safe rule in these days is, Trust no man till you know him, and not entirely even then. There are men in this City who would sell their souls gladly if any could be found to give them anything for it; how much more then, if they could turn a penny or two by selling you or me or another in their stead!”

I thanked him for his warning; and told him that I would indeed be on my guard.

“Least of all,” he said, “would I trust those of my own household. I know your cousin for a Catholic, Mr. Mallock, but you will forgive me for saying that it is from Catholics that we have to fear the most. I do not mean by that that Mr. Jermyn is not excellent and sincere; for I know nothing of him except what you have told me yourself. But zeal without discretion is a very firebrand; and prudence without zeal may become something very like cowardice; and either of these two things may injure the Catholic cause irreparably in the days that are coming. St. Peter’s was the one, and Judas’, I take it, was the other; for I hold Judas to have been by far the greater coward of the two.”

When I came out into the passage with him, I kneeled down and asked his blessing; for I knew that this was of a truth a man of God.

CHAPTER IV

It was a little after noon next day that first we saw the Norman church upon the hill, and then the roofs of Hare Street.

I had been astonished at the badness of the roads from London, coming as I had from Rome, where paved ways go out in every direction. We came out by Bishopsgate, by the Ware road, and arrived at Waltham Cross a little before sunset, riding through heavy dust that had hardly been laid at all by the recent rains. We rode armed, with four servants, besides my Cousin Dorothy’s maid, for fear of the highwaymen who had robbed a coach only last week between Ware and London. My Cousin Dorothy rode a white mare named Jenny which mightily became her. We lay at the Four Swans at Waltham Cross, and went out before supper to see the Cross which was erected where Queen Eleanor’s body had lain—of which the last was at Charing Cross—and I was astonished that the Puritans had not more mutilated it. The beds were pretty comfortable, and the ale excellent, so that once more my Cousin Tom drank too much of it. And so, early in the morning we took horse again, and rode through Puckeridge, where we left for the first time the road by which the King went to Newmarket, when he went through Royston; and we found the track very bad thenceforward. My Cousin Tom carried with him, though for no purpose except for show, a map by John Ogilby which shows all the way from London to King’s Lynn, very ingeniously, and which was made after the Restoration to encourage road traffic again; but it was pleasant for me to look at it from time to time and see what progress we made towards Hormead Magna which is the parish in which Hare Street lies.

Now it was very pleasant for me to ride, as I did a good deal, with my Cousin Dorothy; for her father, for a great part, rode with the men and cracked stories with them. For journeying with a person sets up a great deal of intimacy; and acquaintance progresses at least as swiftly as the journey itself. She spoke to me very freely of her father, though never as a daughter should not; and told me how distressed she was sometimes at the quantity of ale and strong waters that he drank. She told me also how seldom it was that a Catholic could hear mass at Hare Street: sometimes, she said, a priest would lie there, and say mass in the attic; but not very often; and sometimes if a priest were in the neighbourhood they would ride over and hear mass wherever he happened to be. The house, she said, lay near upon the road, so that they would hear a good deal of news in this way. But she told me nothing of another matter—for indeed she could not—which distressed her; though I presently guessed it for myself, as will appear in the course of this tale.

My horse, Peter (as I had named him after the Apostle when I bought him at Dover), was pretty weary as we came in sight of the church of Hormead Parva; for I had given him plenty to do while I was in London; and he stumbled three or four times.

“We are nearly home,” said my Cousin Dorothy; and pointed with her whip.

“It is pleasant to hear such a word,” I said: “for, as for me, I have none.”

She said nothing to that; and I was a little ashamed to have said it; for nothing is easier than to touch a maid’s heart by playing Othello to her Desdemona.

“I have no business to have said that, cousin,” I went on presently: “for England is all home to me just now.”

“I hope you will find it so, cousin,” she said.

The country was pretty enough through which we rode; though in no ways wonderful. It was pasture-land for the most part, with woods here and there; and plenty of hollow ways (all of which were marked upon the map with great accuracy), by which drovers brought their sheep to the highway. I saw also a good many fields of corn. The hills were lowish, and ran in lines, with long valleys between; and there was one such on the right as we came to Hare Street, through which flowed a little stream, nearly dry in the summer.

The house itself was the greatest house in the village, and lay at the further end of it upon the right; sheltered from the road by limes, in the midst of which was the gateway, and the house twenty yards within. My Cousin Tom came up with us as we entered the village, and shewed me with a great deal of pride his new iron gate just set up, with a twisted top.

“It is the finest little gate for ten miles round,” he said, “and cost me near twenty pound.”

We rode past the gate, however, into the yard just beyond; and here there was a great barking of dogs set up; and two or three men ran out. I helped my Cousin Dorothy from her horse; and then all three of us went through a side-door to the front of the house.

The house without was of timber and plaster, very solidly built, but in no way pretentious; and the plaster was stamped, in panels, with a kind of comb-pattern in half circles, peculiar, my cousin told me, to that part of the country. Within, it was very pleasant. There was a little passage as we came in, and to right and left lay the Great Chamber (as it was called), and the dining-room. Beyond the little passage was the staircase, panelled all the way up, with the instruments of the Passion and other emblems carved on a row of the panels; and at the foot of the staircase on the right lay a little parlour, very pretty, with hangings presenting the knights of the Holy Grail riding upon their Quest. Upon the left of the staircase, lay a paved hall, with a little pantry under the stairs, to the left, and the kitchens running out to the back; and opposite to them, enclosing a little grassed court, the brewhouse and the bakehouse. Behind all lay the kitchen gardens; and behind the brewhouse a row of old yews and a part of the lawn, that also ran before the house. The house was of three stories high, and contained about twenty rooms with the attics.

It is strange how some houses, upon a first acquaintance with them, seem like old friends; and how others, though one may have lived in them fifty years are never familiar to those who live in them. Now Hare Street House was one of the first kind. This very day that I first set eyes on it, it was as if I had lived there as a child. The sunlight streamed into the Great Chamber, and past the yews into the parlour; and upon the lawns outside; and the noise of the bees in the limes was as if an organ played softly; and it was all to me as if I had known it a hundred years.

My Cousin Tom carried me upstairs presently to the Guest-chamber—a great panelled room, with a wide fire-place, above the dining-room—that I might wash my hands and face before dinner; and my heart smote me a little for all my thoughts of him, for, when all was said, he had received me very hospitably, and was now bidding me welcome again, and that I must live there as long as I would, and think of it as my home.

“And here,” he said, opening a door at the foot of the bed, “is a little closet where your man can hang your clothes; it looks out upon the yard; and my room is beyond it, over the kitchen.”

I thanked him again and again for his kindness; and so he left me.

We dined below presently, very excellently. The room was hung with green, with panels of another pattern upon it; and the dishes were put in through a little hatch from the kitchen passage. My man James waited with the rest, and acquitted himself very well. Then after dinner, when the servants were gone away, my Cousin Tom carried me out, with a mysterious air, to the foot of the stairs.

“Now look well round you, Cousin Roger,” he said, when he had me standing there; “and see if there be anything that would draw your attention.”

I looked this way and that but saw nothing; and said so.

“Have you ever heard of Master Owen,” he said, “of glorious memory?”

“Why, yes,” I said, “he was a Jesuit lay-brother, martyred under

Elizabeth: and he made hiding-holes, did he not?”

“Well; he hath been at work here. Look again, Cousin Roger.”

I turned and saw my Cousin Dorothy smiling—(and it was a very pretty sight too!)—but there was nothing else to be seen. I beat with my foot; and it rang a little hollow.

“No, no; those are the cellars,” said my Cousin Tom.

I beat then upon the walls, here and there; but to no purpose; and then upon the stairs.

“That is the sloping roof of the pantry, only,” said my Cousin Tom.

I confessed myself outwitted; and then with great mirth he shewed me how, over the door into the paved hall, there was a space large enough to hold three or four men; and how the panels opened on this side, as well as into the kitchen passage on the other.

“A priest or suchlike might very well lie here a week or two, might he not?” asked my Cousin Tom delightedly; “and if the sentry was at the one side, he might be fed from the other. It is cunningly contrived, is it not? A man has but to leap up here from a chair; and he is safe.”

I praised it very highly, to please him; and indeed it was very curious and ingenious.

“But those days are done,” I said.

“Who can tell that?” he cried—(though a week ago he had told me the same himself). “Some priest might very well be flying for his life along this road, and turn in here. Who knows whether it may not be so again?”

I said no more then on that point; though I did not believe him.

“And there is one more matter I must shew you in your own chamber; if you have any private papers and suchlike.”

Then he shewed me in my own room, by the head of the bed that stood along the wall, how one of the panels slid back from its place, discovering a little space behind where a man might very well keep his papers or his money.

“Not a living soul,” he said, “knows of that, besides Dolly and myself.

You are at liberty to use that, Cousin Roger, if you like.”

I thanked him; and said I would do so.

The rest of that day I spent in going about the house, and acquainting myself with it all. My Cousin Dorothy shewed me the rooms. Her own was a little one at the head of the stairs; and she told me, smiling, that a ghost was said to walk there.

“But I have never been troubled with it,” she said. “It is a tall old, woman, they say, who comes up the stairs and into the room; but she does no harm to anyone.”

Next her room, along the front of the house, lay two other greater rooms, one with a fire-place and one without: then was my chamber, and then her father’s: and upstairs were the attics where the men lay. The maids lay in two little rooms above the kitchen.

It was mighty pleasant to me to be with my Cousin Dorothy. She had changed her riding clothes into others more suitable for a country maid—with a white starched neckerchief that came down upon her shoulders, and a grey dress and petticoat below that. Her sleeves were short, as the custom is in the country, with great linen cuffs folded back upon them, so as to leave her hands and arms to the elbow free for her occupations. But most of all I loved her simplicity and her quietness and her discretion. Her father bade her expressly to shew me all the house; or she would not have done it, for she was very maidenly and modest; but as soon as he said that, she did it without affectation. She shewed me the parlour too, with the hangings upon the walls, and the chapel of the Grail, with the Grail itself upon an altar within, flanked by two candlesticks, that was represented over the fire-place. She came out with me too to shew me the bakehouse where the baking was already begun, and the brewhouse—both of which too were all built of timber and plaster; and there my Cousin Tom came upon us, and carried me off to see his garden and his pasture; for he farmed a few acres about here, and made a good profit out of it: and it was while I walked with him that for the first time I understood what his intention was towards me.

He was speaking, as he very often did, of his daughter Dorothy—which I had taken to be a father’s affection only. (We were walking at the time up and down in the pasture below the garden; and the house lay visible among the gardens, very fair and peaceful with the sunlight upon it.)

“She will be something of an heiress,” he said; “and when I say that, I do not mean that she will have as many acres as yourself. But she will have near a thousand pound a year so soon as poor Tom Jermyn dies: and I may die any day, for I am short in the neck, and might very well be taken with an apoplexy. I wish above all things then, to see her safely married before I go—to some solid man who will care for her. There is a plenty of Protestants about here that would have her; for she is a wonderful housewife, and as pure as Diana too.”

He paused at that; and looked at me in that cunning way of his that I misliked so much. Yet even now I did not see what he would be at; for gentlemen do not usually fling their daughters at the head of any man; and he knew nothing of me but that I was pretty rich and would be more so one day. But I suppose that that was enough for him.

“I had thought at one time,” he went on, “of sending her to Court. I could get her in, under the protection of my Lady Arlington. But the Court is no place for a maiden who knows nothing of the world. What would you advise, Cousin Roger? I would not have her marry a Protestant, if I could help it.”

And with that he looked at me again.

Then, all of a sudden I saw his meaning; and my heart stood still; for not only did his words reveal him to me, but myself also; and I understood why he had questioned me so closely in town, as to my fortune. I cannot say at this time that I loved my Cousin Dolly—for I had not known that I loved her—but his words were very effective. Indeed I had not thought to marry, though I was free to do so; for a novice does not quickly shake off his monkishness. I had thought far more of the mission I was come to England upon, and what I could accomplish, with God’s blessing, for Christ and His Church. But, as I say, my heart stood still when my cousin said that to me; for, as in a vision, I saw myself here as her husband, and her as my wife, in this house among its gardens. Here we might live a life which even the angels might envy—harmless, innocent, separate from sinners, as the Apostle says—not accomplishing, maybe, any great things, but at least refraining from the hindering of God’s Kingdom. The summers would come and go, and we still be here, with our children growing about us, to inherit the place and the name, such as it was. And no harm done, no vows broken, no offence to any. Such thoughts as these did not as yet shew any very great ardour of love in me; and indeed I had not got this yet; but she was the first maid I had ever had any acquaintance with, at least for some while; and this no doubt, had its effect upon me. All this came upon me of a sudden; and as I lifted my eyes I saw my Cousin Dolly’s sunbonnet going among the herbs of the garden; and saw her in my mind’s eye too as I had seen her just now, cool and innocent and good, with that touch of hidden fire in her eyes that draws a man’s heart. Neither had she looked unkindly on me: our intimacy had made wonderful progress, though I had known her scarcely more than a week: she had spoken to me of her father, too, as one would speak only to a friend. Yet I could not say one word of this to him; for he had not said anything explicit to me: and I knew, too, that I must give myself time; for a man does not, if he is wise, change the course of his life on an instant’s thought. Yet I must not say No outright, and thereby, maybe, bang the door on my new hopes.

“I could not advise you at present,” I said. “I do not know my cousin well enough to advise anything. I am one with you so far as concerns the Court: I cannot think that any Catholic father should send his daughter into such a den of lions—and worse. And I am one with you as concerns marrying her to a Protestant. Yet I can say no more at present.”

And at that my Cousin Tom looked at me in such a manner as near to ruin his own scheme; for his eyes said, if his mouth did not, that now we understood one another; and were upon the same side, or at least not opposed; and to think that I was leagued with him against her made my heart hot with anger.

“Very well,” he said; “we will say no more at present.” And he bade me observe an old ram that was regarding us, with a face not unlike Cousin Tom’s own: but I suppose that he did not know this.

In this manner, then, began our life at Hare Street; for I was there six weeks before I went back again to London in the way I shall relate presently. The days were passed for the most time, from rising until dinner, upon the farm, or in hunting; for we rode out now and again with the neighbours after a stag who had come from the woods. But we did not, because of the Papistry of the house, see a great deal of the neighbours, or they of us. The parson of Hormead came to see us now and again, and behaved very civilly: but during those six weeks we had no sight of a priest, except once when we rode to Standon to hear mass. After dinner, I gave myself up to writing; for I thought that I could best serve His Holiness in this way, making my diary each day in shorthand (as I had learned from an Italian); and it is from that very diary that this narrative is composed; and I wrote too a report or two, apologizing for the poverty of it, which I determined to send to the Cardinal Secretary as soon as I had an opportunity. I read too a little Italian or Spanish or French every day; and thus, for the most part kept to my chamber. But all my papers I put away each afternoon in the little hiding-place in my chamber; and made excuse for keeping my room on the score of my practice in languages.

We supped at five o’clock—which was the country hour; and after that, to me, came the best part of the day.

For my Cousin Dorothy, I had learned, was an extraordinary fine musician. We had, of course, no music such as was possible in town; but she had taught a maid to play upon a fiddle, and herself played upon the bass-viol; and the two together would play in the Great Chamber after supper for an hour or two, when the dishes were washed. In this manner we had many a corrant and saraband; and I was able to prick down for them too some Italian music I remembered, which she set for the two instruments. Sometimes, too, when Cousin Tom was not too drowsy after his day and his ale, the three would sing and I would listen; for my Cousin Tom sang a plump bass very well when he was in the mood for it. As for me, I had but a monk’s voice, that is very well when all the choir is a-cry together, but not of much use under other circumstances. In this way then I made acquaintance with a number of songs—such as Mr. Wise’s “It is not that I love you less” and his duet “Go, perjured man!” of which the words are taken from Herrick’s “Hesperides,” and of which the music was made by Mr. Wise (who was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal) at His Majesty’s express wish.

I have many very pleasant memories of Hare Street, but I think none more pleasant than of the music in the Great Chamber. I would sit near the window, and see them in the evening light, with their faces turned to me; or, when it grew late with the candlelight upon them and their dresses or sometimes when the evening was fair and warm I would sit out upon the lawn, and they at the window, and listen to the singing coming out of the candlelight, and see them move against it. My Cousin Dorothy would make herself fine in the evening—not, I mean, like a Court lady, for these dresses of hers were put away in lavender—but with a lace neckerchief on her throat and shoulders, and lace ruffles at her wrists.

Yet all this while I made no progress with her or even with myself; for every time that I was alone with her, or when her father was asleep in his chair, a remembrance of what he had said came over me with a kind of sickness, and I could not say one word that might seem to set me on his side against her; and so I was torn two ways, and the very thing by which he had hoped to encourage me, (or rather to help himself) had the contrary effect, and silenced me when I might have spoken.

For I understood very well by now what was in his mind. He saw no prospect of marrying Dolly to a Protestant—or I take it, if I know the man, he would have leapt at it; neither was there any hope of marrying her to a Catholic; and as for his talk about my Lady Arlington I did not believe one word of it. Therefore, since I was at hand, and would be a wealthy man some day, and indeed even now did very well on my French rentes, he had set his heart on this. It was not wholly evil; yet the cold-bloodedness of it affected me like a stink….

The matter ended, for the time, on the evening of the thirteenth of August, in the following manner, when my adventures, of which my life, ever since my audience with our Most Holy Lord the Pope, had been but a prelude, properly began—those adventures for whose sake I have begun this transcript from my diary, and this adventure was pre-shadowed, as I think now, by one or two curious happenings.

On the morning of the thirteenth of August, two days before the Feast of the Assumption (on which we had intended to hear mass again at Standon) my Cousin Dorothy came down a little late, and found us already over our oatbread and small beer which we were accustomed to take upon rising—and which was called our “morning.”

“I slept very ill,” she said; and no more then.

Afterwards, however, as I was lighting my pipe in the little court at the back of the house, she came out and beckoned me in; and I saw that something was amiss. I went after her into the little hung parlour and we sat down.

“I slept very ill, cousin,” she said again; and I observed again that her eyes looked hollow. “And I dare not tell my father my fancies,” she said, “for he is terrified at such things; and has forbade the servants to speak of such things.”

“The tall old woman, then?” I said; for I had not forgotten what she had told me before.

“Yes,” she said, smiling a little painfully—”and yet I was not at all afraid when she came; or when I thought that she did.”

“Tell me the whole tale,” I said.

“I awakened about one o’clock this morning,” she said, “and knew that my sleep was gone from me altogether. Yet I did not feel afraid or restless; but lay there content enough, expecting something, but what it would be I did not know. The cocks were crowing as I awakened; and then were silent; and it appeared to me as if all the world were listening. After a while—I should say it was ten minutes or thereabouts—I turned over with my face to the wall; and as I did so, I heard a soft step coming up the stairs. One of the maids, thought I, late abed or early rising, for sickness. When the steps came to my door they ceased; and a hand was laid upon the latch; and at that I made to move; but could not. Yet it was not fear that held me there, though it was like a gentle pricking all over me. Then the latch was lifted, and still I could not move, not even my eyes; and a person came in, and across the floor to my bed. And even then I could not move nor cry out. Presently the person spoke; but I do not know what she said, though it was only a word or two: but the voice came from high up, as almost from the canopy of the bed, and it was the voice of an old woman, speaking in a kind of whisper. I said nothing; for I could not: and then again the steps moved across the floor, and out of the door; and I heard the latch shut again; and then they passed away down the stairs.”

My Cousin Dorothy was pale as death by this time; and her blue eyes were set wide open. I made to take her by the hand; but I did not.

“You were dreaming,” I said; “it was the memory of the tale you have heard.”

She shook her head; but she said nothing.

“You have never had it before?” I asked.

“Never,” she said.

“You must lie in another chamber for a week or two, and forget it.”

“I cannot do that,” she said. “My father would know of it.” And she spoke so courageously that I was reassured.

“Well; you must cry out if it comes again. You can have your maid to sleep with you.”

“I might do that,” she said; and then—

“Cousin Roger; doth God permit these things to provide us against some danger?”

“It may be so,” I said, to quiet her; “but be sure that no harm can come of it.”

At that we heard her father calling her; and she stood up.

“I have told you as a secret, Cousin Roger; there must be no word to my father.”

I pledged myself to that; for I could see what a spirit she had; and we said no more about it then.

As the day passed on, the sky grew heavy—or rather the air; for the sky was still blue overhead; only on the horizon to the south the clouds that are called cumuli began to gather. The air was so hot too that I could scarcely bear to work, for I had set myself to take some plant-cuttings in a little glass-house that was in the garden against the south wall; and by noon the sky was overcast.

After dinner I went up to my chamber; and a great heaviness fell upon me, till I looked out of the window and saw that beyond the limes the clouds spewed a reddish tint that marked the approach of thunder; and at that grew reassured again; and not only for myself but for my Cousin Dorothy, whose tale had lain close on my heart through the morning: for this thought I, is the explanation of it all: the maid was oppressed by the heat and the approaching storm, and fancied all the rest.

I fell asleep in my chair, over my Italian; and when I awakened it was near supper-time, and the heaviness was upon me again, like lead; and my diary not written.

After supper and some talk, I made excuse to do my writing; and as it was growing dark, and I was finishing, I heard music from the Great Chamber beneath. They were singing together a song I had not heard before; and I listened, well pleased, promising myself the pleasure too of going downstairs presently and hearing it.

Between two of the verses, I heard on a sudden, over the hill-top beyond the village, the beat of a horse’s hoofs, galloping; but I thought no more of it. At the end of the next verse, even before it was finished, I heard the hoofs again, through the music; I ran to the window to see who rode so fast; and was barely in time to see a courier, in a blue coat, dash past the new iron gate, pulling at his horse as he did so; an instant later, I heard the horse turn in at the yard gate, and immediately the singing ceased.

As I came down the stairs, I saw my Cousin Dolly run out into the inner lobby, and her face, in the dusk, was as white as paper; and the same instant there came a hammering at the hall door.

“What is it? What is it?” cried she; and clung to me as I came down.

I saw, through the inner door, my Cousin Tom unbolting the outer one; he had taken down a pistol that hung upon the wall, for the highwaymen waxed very bold sometimes; then when he opened the door, I heard my name.

I went forward, and received from the courier, a sealed letter; and there, in the twilight I opened and read it. It was from Mr. Chiffinch, bidding me come to town at once on King’s business.

“I must ride to town,” I said. “Cousin Tom, will you order my horse for me; and another for this man? I do not know when I shall be back again.”

And, as I said these words, I saw my Cousin Dorothy’s face looking at me from the dusk of the inner hall, and knew what was in her mind; and that it was the matter of the tall old woman in her room.

CHAPTER V

The storm was broken before we could set out, and the ride so far as Hoddesdon was such as I shall never forget; for the wind was violent against us; and it was pitchy dark before we came even to Puckeridge; the thunder was as if great guns were shot off, or bags of marbles dashed on an oak floor overhead; and the countryside was as light as day under the flashes, so that we could see the trees and their shadows, and, I think, sometimes the green colour of them too. We wore, all three of us—the courier, I and my man James—horse-men’s cloaks, but these were saturated within half an hour. We had no fear of highwaymen, even had we not been armed, for the artillery of heaven had long ago driven all other within doors.

The hardest part of the journey was that I knew, no more than the dead—indeed not so much—why it was that Mr. Chiffinch had sent for me. He had said nothing in his letter, save that His Majesty wished my presence at once; and on the outside of the letter was written the word “Haste,” three times over. I thought of a hundred matters that it might be, but none of them satisfied me.

It is near forty miles from Hare Street to Whitehall; but so bad was the way that, though we changed horses at Waltham Cross—at the Four Swans—we did not come to London until eight o’clock in the morning; and it was half-past eight before we rode up to Whitehall. The last part of the journey was pretty pleasant, for the rain held off; and it was strange to see the white hard light of the clouded dawn upon the fields and the trees. But by the time we came to London it was long ago broad day—by three or four hours at the least; and all the folks were abroad in the streets.

I went straight to Mr. Chiffinch’s lodgings, sending my man to the lodging in Covent Garden, to bestow the horses and to come again to the guard-house to await my orders. Mr. Chiffinch was not within, for he had not expected me so early, a servant told me; but he had looked for my coming about eleven or twelve o’clock, and had given orders that I was to be taken to a closet to change my clothes if I needed it. This I did; and then was set down to break my fast; and while I was at it, Mr. Chiffinch himself came in.

He told me that I had done very well to come so swiftly; but he smiled a little as he said it.

“His Majesty is closeted with one or two more until ten o’clock. I will send to let him know you are come.”

I did not ask him for what business I had been sent for; since he did not choose to tell me himself; and he went out again. But he was presently back once more; and told me that His Majesty would see me at once.

My mind was all perturbed as I went with him in the rain across the passages: I felt as if some great evil threatened, but I could make no conjecture as to what it was about; or how it could be anything that was at once so sudden and that demanded my presence. We went straight up the stairs, and across the same ante-room; and Mr. Chiffinch flung open the door of the same little closet where I had spoken with the King, speaking my name as he did so.

His Majesty was sitting in the very same place where he sat before, with his chair wheeled about, so that he faced three men. One of them I knew at once, for my cousin had pointed him out to me in the park—my Lord Danby, who was Lord Treasurer at this time—and he was sitting at the end of the great table, nearest to the King: on the other side of the table, nearer to me as I entered, were two men, upon whom I had never set eyes before—one of them, a little man in the dress of an apothecary or attorney; and the other a foolish-looking minister in his cassock and bands. All four turned their eyes upon me as I came in, and then the two who were standing, turned them back again towards His Majesty. There was a heap of papers on the table below my Lord Danby’s hand.

His Majesty made a little inclination of his head to me, but said nothing, putting out his hand; and when I had kissed it, and stood back with the other two, he continued speaking as if I were not there. His face had a look, as if he were a little ennuyé, and yet a little merry too.

“Continue, my Lord,” he said.

“Now, doctor,” said my Lord, in a patient kind of voice as if he encouraged the other, “you tell us that all these papers were thrust under your door. By whom were they thrust, do you think?”

“My Lord, I have my suspicions,” said the minister; “but I do not know.”

“Can you verify these suspicions of yours, do you think?”

“My Lord, I can try.”

“And under how many heads are they ranged?” asked the King, drawling a little in his speech.

“Sir; they are under forty-three heads.”

The King rolled his eyes, as if in a droll kind of despair; but he said nothing.

“And you tell me—” began my Lord; but His Majesty broke in:

“Mon Dieu!” he said; “and here is good Mr. Mallock, come here hot-foot, and knows not a word of the proceedings. Mr. Mallock, these good gentlemen—Doctor Tonge, a very worthy divine and a physician of the soul, and Mr. Kirby, a very worthy chymist, and a physician of the body—are come to tell me of a plot against my life on the part of some of my faithful lieges, whereby they would thrust me swiftly down to hell—body and soul together. So that, I take it is why God Almighty hath raised up these physicians to save me. I wish you to hear their evidence. That is why I sent for you. Continue, my Lord.”

My Lord looked a little displeased, pursing up his mouth, at the manner in which the King told the tale; but he said nothing on that point.

“Grove and Pickering, then, it appears, were to shoot His Majesty; and

Wakeman to poison him—”

(“They will take no risks you see, Mr. Mallock,” put in the King.)

“Yes, my Lord,” said Tonge. “They were to have screwed pistols, with silver bullets, champed, that the wounds may not heal.”

(“Prudent! prudent!” cried the King.)

Then my Lord Danby lost his patience; and pushed the papers together with a sweep of his arm.

“Sir,” he said, “I think we may let these worthy gentlemen go for the present, until the papers are examined.”

“With all my heart,” said the King. “But not Mr. Mallock. I wish to speak privately with Mr. Mallock.”

So the two were dismissed; but I noticed that the King did not give them his hand to kiss. They appeared to me a pair of silly folks, rather than wicked as others thought them afterwards, who themselves partly believed, at any rate, the foolish tale that they told. Mr. Kirby was a little man, as I have said, with a sparrow-like kind of air; and Doctor Tonge had no great distinction of any kind, except his look of foolishness.

When they were gone, my Lord Danby turned to the King, with a kind of indignation.

“Your Majesty may be pleased to make a mock of it all; but your loving subjects cannot. I have permission then to examine these papers, and report to Your Majesty?”

“Why, yes,” said the King, “so you do not inflict the forty-three heads upon me. I have one of my own which I must care for.”

My Lord said no more; he gathered his papers without a word, saluted the King at a distance, still without speaking, and went out, giving me a sharp glance as he went.

“Now, Mr. Mallock,” said His Majesty, “sit you down and listen to me.”

I sat down; but I was all bewildered as to why I had been sent for. What had I to do with such affairs as these?

“Do you know of a man called Grove?” the King asked me suddenly.

Now the name had meant nothing to me when I had heard it just now; but when it was put to me in this way I remembered. I was about to speak, when he spoke again.

“Or Pickering?” he said.

“Sir; a man called Grove is known to me; but no Pickering.”

“Ha! then there is a man called Grove—if it be the same. He is a

Papist?”

“Sir, he is a lay-brother of the Society of Jesus, and dwells—”

The King held up his hand.

“I wish to know nothing more than I am obliged. Pickering is some sort of Religious, too, they tell me. And what kind of a man is Grove?”

“He is a modest kind of man, Sir. He opened the door to me, and I saw him a-laying of the table for dinner. I know no more of him than that.”

Then the King drew himself up in his chair suddenly, as I had seen him do before, and his mocking manner left him. It was as if another man sat there.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, shaking his finger at me with great solemnity, “listen to me. I had thought for a long time that an attempt would be made against the Catholics. There is a great deal of feeling in the country, now that my brother is one of them, and I myself am known not to be disinclined towards them. And I make no doubt at all that this is such an attempt. They have begun with the Jesuits; for that will be the most popular cry; and they have added in Sir George Wakeman’s name, Her Majesty’s physician, to give colour to it all. By and by they will add other names; (you will see if it be not so), until not a Jesuit, and scarce a Catholic is left who is not embroiled in it. I do not know who is behind this matter; it may be my Lord Danby himself, or Shaftesbury, or a score of others. Or it may be some discontented fellow who will make his fortune over it; for all know that such a cry as this will be a popular one. But this I know for a verity—that there is not one word of truth in the tale from beginning to end; and it will appear so presently, no doubt. Yet meanwhile a great deal of mischief may be done; and my brother, may be, and even Her Majesty, may suffer for it, if we are not very prudent. Now, Mr. Mallock, I sent for you, for I did not know who else to send for. You are not known in England, or scarcely: you come commended to me by the Holy Father himself; you are neither priest nor Jesuit. What, then, you must do for me is this. First, you must speak not one word of the matter to any living soul—not even your confessor; for if we can quash the whole matter privately, so much the better. I had you in just now, that Danby and the others might see that you had my confidence; but I said nothing of who you were nor where you came from; and, if they inquire, they will know nothing but that you come commended by the ambassadors. Very well then; you must go about freely amongst the Jesuits, and rake together any evidence that you can that may be of use to them if the affair should ever be made public; and yet they must know nothing of the reason—I lay that upon you. And you must mix freely in taverns and coffee-houses, especially among the smaller gentry, and hear what you can—as to whether the plot hath yet leaked out—(for it is no less)—and what they think of it; and if not, what it is that they say of the Catholics. You understand me, Mr. Mallock?”

I said, Yes: but my heart had grown sick during the King’s speech to me; for all that I had ever thought in Rome, of England, seemed on the point of fulfilment. His Majesty too had spoken with an extraordinary vehemence, that was like a fire for heat. But I must have commanded my countenance well; for he commended me on my behaviour.

“Your manner is excellent, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “both just now and a few minutes ago. You take it very well. And I have your word upon it that you will observe secrecy?”

“My word on it, Sir,” I said.

Then His Majesty leaned back again and relaxed a little.

“That is very well,” he said; “and I think I have chosen my man well. You need not fear, Mr. Mallock, that any harm will come to the good Fathers, or to Grove or Pickering either. They cannot lay a finger upon them without my consent; and that they shall never have. It is to prevent rather the scandal of the whole matter that I am anxious; and to save the Queen and my brother from any trouble. You do not know yet, I think, all the feeling that there is upon the Catholics.”

I said nothing: it was my business to listen rather, and indeed what His

Majesty said next was worth hearing.

“There be three kinds of religion in my realm,” he said. “The Presbyterian and Independent and that kind—for I count those all one; and that is no religion for a gentleman. And there is the Church of England, of which I am the head, which numbers many gentlemen, but is no religion for a Christian; and there is the Catholic, which is the only religion (so far as I am acquainted with any), suited for both gentlemen and Christians. That is my view of the matter, Mr. Mallock.”

The merry look was back in his eyes, melancholy though they always were, as he said this. For myself, it was on the tip of my tongue to ask His Majesty why, if he thought so, he did not act upon it. But I did not, thinking it too bold on so short an acquaintance; and I think I was right in that; for he put it immediately into words himself.

“I know what you are thinking, Mr. Mallock. Well; I am not yet a good enough Christian for that.”

I knew very well what His Majesty meant when he said that: he was thinking of his women to whom as yet he could not say good-bye; and the compassion surged up in me again at the thought that a man so noble as this, and who knew so much (as his speeches had shewed me), could be so ignoble too—so tied and bound by his sins; and it affected me so much—here in his presence that had so strange a fascination in it—that it was as if a hand had squeezed my throat, so that I could not speak, even if I would.

“Well, sir,” he said, “I must thank you for coming so quickly when I sent for you. Mr. Chiffinch knows why you are come; but no one else; and even to him you must not say one word. You will do well and discreetly; of that I am sure. I will send for you again presently; and you may come to me when you will.”

He gave me his hand to kiss; and I went out, promising that no pains should be spared.

It was indeed a difficult task that His Majesty had laid upon me. I was to speak freely to the priests, yet not freely; and how to collect the evidence that was required I knew not; since I knew nothing at all of when the conspiring was said to be done, nor what would be of avail to protect them; and all the way to my lodgings with my man James, I was thinking of what was best to do. My man had ordered that all things should be ready for my entertainment, and I found the rooms prepared, and the beds laid; and the first thing I did after dinner was to go to bed, after I had written to my Cousin Tom at Hare Street, and sleep until the evening.

When I was dressed and had had supper in the coffee-house, listening as well as I could to the talk, but hearing nothing pertinent, I went back again to Drury Lane, to Mr. Fenwick’s lodging, to lay the foundation of my plan. For I had determined, between sleeping and waking, that the best thing to be done, was to shew myself as forward and friendly as I could, so that I might mix with the Fathers freely, in the hope that I might light on something; and it so fell out, that although my small adventures that evening had no use in them in the event, yet they were strangely relevant to what took place afterwards.

The first small adventure was as follows:

I was walking swiftly up Drury Lane, scanning the houses, for it was falling dark, and the oil-lights that burned, one before every tenth house, cast but a poor illumination, when just beyond one of the lights I knocked against a fellow who was coming out suddenly from a little passage at the side, just, as it chanced, opposite to Mr. Fenwick’s house. I turned, to beg his pardon, for it was more my fault than his, that we had come together; and I set my eyes upon the most strange and villainous face that I have ever seen. The fellow was dressed in a dark suit, and wore a crowned hat, and carried a club in his hand, and he appeared to be one of the vagrom-men as they are called, who are at the bottom of all riots and such like things. He was a smallish man in his height, but his face was the strangest thing about him; and in the light from the lamp I thought at first that he had some kind of deformity in it. For his mouth was, as it were in the very midst of his face; there was a little forehead above, with eyes set close beneath it, and a little nose, and then his mouth, turned up at the corners as if he smiled, and beneath that a vast chin, as large as the rest of his face.

He cried out “Lard!” as I ran against him; by which I understood him to say “Lord!”

I asked his pardon.

“O Lard!” he said again, “‘tis nothing, sir. My apologies to you, sir.”

I bowed to him civilly again, and passed on; but as I knocked upon Mr. Fenwick’s door, I saw that he was staring after me, from the entrance to that same passage from which he had come.

My second adventure was that, upon coming upstairs, I found that in the chamber with Mr. Fenwick were the mother and sister of Mr. Ireland, waiting for him to come and take them back to their lodging. They were quiet folks enough—a little shy, it appeared to me, of strange company. But I did my best to be civil, and they grew more talkative. Mrs. Ireland would be near sixty years old, I would take it, dressed in a brown sac, such as had been fashionable ten years back, and her daughter, I should think about thirty years old. They told me that they had been to supper, and to the play in the Duke’s Playhouse, where Mr. Shirley’s tragi-comedy The Young Admiral had been done; and that Mr. Ireland was to come for them here, as presently he did, for it was scarce safe for ladies to be abroad at such an hour in the streets without an escort, so wild were the pranks played (and worse than pranks), by even the King’s gentlemen themselves, as well as by the riff-raff.

We sat and talked a good while; and Mr. Grove brought chocolate up for the ladies. But for myself, I had such a variety of thoughts, as I talked with them all, knowing what I did, and they knowing nothing, that I could scarce command my voice and manner sometimes. For here were these innocent folk—with Mr. Grove smiling upon them with the chocolate—talking of the play and what-not, and of which of the actors pleased them and which did not—and I noticed that the ladies, as always, were very severe upon the women—and the good fathers, too, pleased that they were pleased, and rallying them upon their gaiety—(for it appeared that these ladies did not go often into company); and here sat I, with my secret upon my heart, knowing—or guessing at least—that a plot was afoot to ruin them all and turn their merriment into mourning.

But I think that I acquitted myself pretty well; and that none guessed that anything was amiss with me; for I spoke of the plays I had seen in Rome, before that I was a novice, and of the singers that I heard there; and I listened, too, to their own speeches, gathering this and that, of what they did and where they went, if by chance I might gather something to their own advantage thereafter.

It was pretty to see, too, how courteous and gallant Mr. Ireland was with his mother and sister; and how he put their cloaks about them at the door, and feigned that he was a constable to carry them off to prison—(at which my heart failed me again)—for frequenting the company of suspected persons; and how he gave an arm to each of them, as they set off into the dark.

That night too, as I lay abed, I thought much of all this again. I had established a great friendliness with the Fathers by now, telling them I was come up again to London, as Mr. Whitbread had recommended me, until the Court should go again to Windsor, and that perhaps I should go with it thither. They had told me at that, that one of their Fathers was there, named Mr. Bedingfeld (who was of the Oxburgh family, I think), and that he was confessor to the Duke of York, and that they would recommend me to him if I should go. But all through my anxiety I comforted myself with the assurance the King had given to me, that, whatever else might ensue, not a hair of their heads should be touched, for I had great confidence in His Majesty’s word, given so solemnly.

CHAPTER VI

Now begins in earnest that chapter of horrors that will be with me till I die; and the learning of that lesson that I might have learned long before from one that was himself a Prince, and knew what he was talking of—I mean King David, who bids us in his psalm to “put no trust in princes nor in any child of man.”

For several days all passed peacefully enough. I waited upon Mr. Chiffinch, and asked whether the King had spoken of me again, and was told he had not; so I went about my business, which was to haunt the taverns and to frequent the company of the Jesuits.

I made an acquaintance or two in the taverns at this time, which served me later, though not in the particular manner that I had wished; but for the most part matters seemed quiet enough. Men did not speak a great deal of the Catholics; and I always fenced off questions by beginning, in every company that I found myself in, by speaking of some Church of England divine with a great deal of admiration, soon earning for myself, I fear, the name of a pious and grave fellow, but at the same time, of a safe man in matters of Church and State.

One of these acquaintances was a Mr. Rumbald, a maltster (which was all I thought him then), who frequented the Mitre tavern, without Aldgate, where I went one day, dressed in one of my sober country suits, wearing my hat at a somewhat rakish cock, that I might seem to be a simple fellow that aped town-ways.

The tavern was full when I came to it, and called for dinner; but I made such a to-do that the maid went to an inner room, and presently returning, told me I might have my dinner there. It was a little parlour she spewed me to, with old steel caps upon the wall, and strewed rushes under foot; and there were three or four men there who had just done dinner, all but one. This one was a ruddy man, with red hair going grey, dressed very plain, but well, with a hard kind of look about him; and he had had as much to drink as a man should have, and was in the merry stage of his drink. Here, thought I, is the very man for me. He is of both country and town; here is a chamber of which he seems lord—for he ordered the maid about royally, and cursed her once or twice—and it is a chamber apart from the rest. So I thought this a very proper place to hear some talk in, and a very proper fellow to hear it from. For a while I thought he had something of the look of an old soldier about him; but then I thought no more of it.

When the others were gone out, and there was a little delay, I too—(God forgive me!)—cursed the poor maid for a slut once or twice, and bade her make haste with my dinner; and my manner had its effect, for the fellow warmed to me presently and told me that he was Mr. Rumbald, and I said on my part that my name was Mallock; and we shook hands upon it, for that was the mood of the ale that was in him. (But he had other moods, too, I learned later, when he was very repentant for his drink.)

I began then, to speak of Hare Street, and said that I lodged there sometimes; and then began to speak of the parson there, and of what a Churchman he was.

“Of Hare Street, eh?” said he. “Why I am not far from there myself. I am of Hoddesdon, or near to it. Where have you lodged in Hare Street, and what is your business?”

I was in a quandary at that, for it seemed to me then (though it was not in reality), a piece of bad fortune that he should come from thereabouts.

“I am Jack-of-all-trades,” I said. “I did some garden work there for Mr.

Jermyn, the Papist.”

“The Papist, eh?” cried Mr. Rumbald.

“I would work for the Devil,” said I, “if he would pay me enough.”

The words appeared to Mr. Rumbald very witty, though God knows why: I suppose it was the ale in him: for he laughed aloud and beat on his leg.

“I’ll be bound you would,” he said.

And it was these words of mine which (under God’s Providence, as I think now) established my reputation with Mr. Rumbald as a dare-devil kind of fellow that would do anything for money. He began, too, at that (which pleased me better at the time), to speak of precisely those matters of which I wished to hear. It was not treasonable talk, for the ale had not driven all the sense out of him; but it was as near treasonable as might be; and it was above all against the Catholics that he raged. I would not defile this page by writing down all that he said; but neither Her Majesty nor the Duke of York escaped his venom; there appeared nothing too bad to be said of them; and he spoke of other names, too, of the Duchess of Portsmouth whom he called by vile names (yet not viler than she had rightfully earned) and the Duchess of Cleveland; and he began upon the King, but stopped himself.

“But you are a Church of England man?” he said. “Well, so am I now, at least I call myself so, though I should be a Presbyterian; but—” And he stopped again.

Now all this was mighty interesting to me; for it was worse than anything I had heard before; and yet he said it all as if it was common talk among his kind, where he came from; and it was very consonant with what the King had set me to do, which was to hear what the common people had to say. My gorge rose at the man again and again; but I was a tolerable actor in those days, and restrained myself very well. When he went at last he clapped me on the back, as if it were I who had done all the bragging.

“You are the right kind of fellow,” he said, “and, by God, I wish there were more of us. You will remember my name—Mr. Rumbald the maltster—I am to be heard of here at any time, for I come up on my business every week—though I was not always a maltster.”

I promised I would remember him: and indeed after a while all England has remembered him ever since.

It was that same evening, I think (for my diary is confused at this time, and no wonder), that when I came back to my lodgings about supper-time, I found that a man had been from Mr. Chiffinch to bid me come to Whitehall as soon as I returned; but the messenger had not seemed greatly perturbed, James told me; so I changed my clothes and had my supper and set out.

It would be about half-past seven o’clock when I came to Mr. Chiffinch’s; and when I tapped I had no answer. I tapped again; and then a servant of Mr. Chiffinch’s came running up the stairs (who had left his post, I suspect) and asked me what I wanted there. When I told him he seemed surprised, and he said that Mr. Chiffinch had company in his inner closet; but that he would speak with him. So he left me standing there; and went through, and I heard a door shut within. Presently he came out again in something of a hurry, and bade me come in; and, to my astonishment we went through the first room that was empty, and out again beyond and down a dark passage. I heard voices as I went, talking rapidly somewhere, but there was no one to be seen. Then he knocked softly upon a door at the end of the passage; a voice cried to us to come in; and I entered; and, to my astonishment, not only was the little closet half full of persons, but these persons were somewhat exceptional.

At the end of the table that was opposite me, sat His Majesty, tilting his chair back a little as if he were weary of the talk; but his face was flushed as if with anger. Upon his right sat the Duke, with his periwig pushed a little back, and his face more flushed even than the King’s. Opposite to the Duke sat two men, whom I took to be priests by their faces—one fair, the other dark—(and I presently proved to be right)—and beside him Mr. Chiffinch, very eager-looking, and lean, talking at a great speed, with his hands clasped upon the table. Finally, my Lord Danby sat next to the Duke, opposite to Mr. Chiffinch, with a sullen look upon his face. There was a great heap of papers, again, upon the table, between the five men. All these persons turned their eyes upon me as I came in and bowed low to the company; and then Mr. Chiffinch jerked back a chair that was beside him, and beckoned to me to sit down in it. The room appeared to me a secret kind of place, with curtains pulled across the windows, where a man might be very private if he wished. Mr. Chiffinch ended speaking as I came in, and all sat silent.

His Majesty broke the silence.

“You are very late, Mr. Mallock,” he said—no more than that; but I felt the reproof very keenly. “Tell him, Chiffinch.”

Then Mr. Chiffinch related to me an extraordinary story; and he told it very well, balancing the two sides of it, so that I could not tell what he thought.

It appeared that a day or two ago, Doctor Tonge had come to my Lord Danby, in pursuance of the tale he had told before, saying that he had received further information, from the very man whom he had suspected, and now had certified, to be the writer of the first information under forty-three heads, to the effect that a packet of letters was on its way to Windsor, to that very Mr. Bedingfeld (of whom Mr. Whitbread had spoken to me), on the matter of the plot to murder the King, and the Duke too unless he would consent to the affair. My Lord Danby posted immediately to Windsor that he might intercept these letters and examine them for himself; but found that not only had Mr. Bedingfeld received them, but had taken them to the Duke, saying that he did not understand one word that was written in them. Those letters purported to have been written from a number of Jesuits, and others—amongst whom were a Mr. Coleman, an agent of the Duke’s, and Mr. Langhorn, a lawyer; and related to a supposed plot, not only to murder the King, and his brother, too, perhaps, but to re-establish the Popish domination, to burn Westminster, as they had already burned the City; and that the new positions in the State had already been designed to certain persons, whose names were all mentioned in the letters, by the Holy Father himself. The matter that was now being discussed in this little chamber was, What was best to be done?

Mr. Chiffinch told me this, as shortly almost as I have written it down, glancing at His Majesty once or twice, and at the Duke, as if he wished to know whether he were telling it properly; and as soon as he ended His Majesty began:

“That is where we stand now, Mr. Mallock. As for me, I do not believe one word of the tale, as I have said before: and I say that it is best to destroy the letters, to tell Doctor Tonge that he is a damned fool, if not worse, so to be cozened, and to say no more of it. I would not have this made public for a thousand pounds. It is as I said before: I knew that the matter would grow.”

“And I say, Sir,” put in the Duke savagely, “that Your Majesty forgets who it is who are implicated—that it is these good Jesuit Fathers, and my own confessor, too”—(he bowed slightly to the fair man, who returned it)—”and that if the matter be not probed to the bottom, the names of all will suffer, in the long run.”

“Brother, brother,” said Charles, “I entreat you not to speak so violently. We all know how good the Fathers are, and do not suspect any one of them. It is to save their name—”

“And I tell you,” burst in James again, “that mine is the only way to do it! Do you think, Sir, that these folks who are behind it all will let the matter rest? It will grow and grow, as Your Majesty said; and we shall have half the kingdom involved.”

Here was a very pretty dispute, with sense on both sides, and yet there appeared to me that there was more on His Majesty’s than on the other. If even then Dr. Tonge had been sent for and soundly rated, and made to produce his informant, and the matter sifted, I believe we should have heard no more of it. But it was not ordained so. They all spoke a good deal, appealing to the two priests—Mr. Bedingfeld and Mr. Young—and they both gave their opinions.

Presently Charles was silent; letting his chair come forward again on to its four legs, and putting his head in his hands over the table. I had never seen him so perturbed before. Then I ventured on a question.

“Sir, may I ask who is Doctor Tonge’s informant?”

His Majesty glanced up at me as if he saw me for the first time.

“Tell him, Chiffinch,” he said.

“His name is Doctor Oates,” said the page. “He was a Papist once, and is turned informer, he says. He still feigns secretly to be friends with one or two of the Jesuits, he says.”

“But every word you hear here is sub sigillo, Mr. Mallock,” added the

King.

I knew no such name; and said no more. I had never heard of the man.

“Have you anything to say, Mr. Mallock?” asked the King presently.

“I have some reports to hand in, Sir,” I said, “but they do not bear directly upon this matter.”

The King lifted his heavy eyes and let them fall again. He appeared weary and dispirited.

When we broke up at last, nothing was decided. On the one hand the letters were not destroyed, and the Duke was still unforbidden to pursue his researches; and, on the other there was no permission for a public inquiry to be held. The counsels, in short, were divided; and that is the worst state of all. The Duke said nothing to me, either at the table or before he went out with Mr. Bedingfeld—or Mr. Mumford as he was usually called: he appeared to consider me too young to be of any importance, and to tolerate me only because the King wished it. I handed to Mr. Chiffinch the reports of what folks had said to me in taverns and elsewhere: and went away.

The days went by; and nothing of any importance appeared further. I still frequented the company of the Jesuit Fathers, and the taverns as before; but no more was heard, until a few days before the end of September. On that day I was passing through the Court of Whitehall to see if there were anything for me at Mr. Chiffinch’s—for the King was at Windsor again—when I saw Father Whitbread and Father Ireland, coming swiftly out from the way that led to the Duke’s lodgings—for he stayed here a good deal during these days. They were talking together, and did not see me till I was close upon them. When I greeted them, they stopped all of a sudden.

“The very man!” said Mr. Whitbread.

Then he asked me whether I would come with them to the lodgings of Mr. Fenwick, for they had something to say to me; and I went with them very willingly, for it appeared to me that perhaps they had heard of the matter which I had found so hard to keep from them. We said nothing at all on the way; and when we got within, Mr. Whitbread told Mr. Grove to stand at the foot of the stairs that no one might come up without his knowledge. They bolted the door also, when we were within the chamber. Then we all sat down.

“Now, Mr. Mallock,” said Father Whitbread, “we know all that you know; and why you have been with us so much; and we thank you for your trouble.”

I said nothing; but I bowed to them a little. But I knew that I had been of little service as yet.

“It is all out,” said the priest, “or will be in a day or two. Mr. Oates hath been to Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, the Westminster magistrate, with the whole of his pretended information—his forty-three heads to which he hath added now thirty-eight more, and he will be had before the Council to-morrow. Sir Edmund hath told Mr. Coleman his friend, and the Duke’s agent, all that hath been sworn to before him; Mr. Coleman hath told the Duke and hath fled from town to-night; and the Duke has prevailed with the King to have the whole affair before the Council. I think that His Majesty’s way with it would have been the better; but it is too late for that now. Now the matter must all come out; and Sir Edmund hath said sufficient to shew us that it will largely turn upon a consult that our Fathers held here in London, last April, at the White Horse Tavern; for Oates hath mingled truth and falsehood in a very ingenious fashion. He was at St. Omer’s, you know, as a student; and was expelled for an unspeakable crime, as he was expelled from our other college at Valladolid also, for the same cause: so he knows a good deal of our ways. He feigns, too, to be a Doctor of Divinity in Salamanca University; but that is another of his lies, as I know for a truth. What we wish to know, however, is how he knows so much of our movements during these last months; for not one of us has seen him. You have been to and fro to our lodgings a great deal, Mr. Mallock. Have you ever seen, hanging about the streets outside any of them, a fellow with a deformed kind of face—so that his mouth—”

And at that I broke in: for I had never forgotten the man’s face, against whom I had knocked one night in Drury Lane.

“I have seen the very man,” I cried. “He is of middle stature; with a little forehead and nose and a great chin.”

“That is the man,” said Mr. Whitbread. “When did you see him?”

I told them that it was on the night that I found Mrs. Ireland and her daughter come from the play.

“He was standing in the mouth of the passage opposite,” I said, “and watched me as I went in.”

“He will have been watching many nights, I think,” said Mr. Whitbread, “here, and in Duke Street, and at my own lodgings too.”

I asked what he would do that for, if he had his tale already.

“That he may have more truth to stir up with his lies,” said Mr. Whitbread. “He will say who he has seen go in and out; and we shall not be able to deny it.”

He said this very quietly, without any sign of perturbation; and Mr.

Ireland was the same. They seemed a little thoughtful only.

“But no harm can come to you,” I cried. “His Majesty hath promised it.”

“Yes: His Majesty hath promised it,” said Mr. Whitbread in such a manner that my heart turned cold; but I said no more on the point.

“Now, Mr. Mallock,” said the priest, “we must consider what is best to be done. When the case comes on, as it surely will, the question for us is what you must do. I doubt not that you could give evidence that you have found us harmless folk”—(he smiled as he said this)—”but I do not know that you will be able to add much to what other of our witnesses will be able to say. I am not at all sure but that it may not be best for you to keep away from the case at first at any rate. You have the King’s ear, which is worth more to us than any testimony you could give.”

“Why do you not fly the country?” I cried.

He smiled again.

“Because that,” he said, “would be as much as to say that we were guilty; and so the whole Society would be thought guilty, and the Church too. No, Mr. Mallock, we must see the matter out, and trust to what justice we can get. But I do not think we shall get a great deal.”

So it was decided then, that I would not give testimony unless there was some call for it; and I took my leave, marvelling at the constancy of these men, who preferred to imperil life itself, sooner than reputation.

Well; all went forward as Mr. Whitbread had said it would. On the twenty-eighth day of September Dr. Oates appeared before the Council to give his testimony; and it was to the same effect as was that which I had heard Mr. Chiffinch relate before, as to the Jesuit plot to murder the King, and if need be, the Duke too, and to establish Catholic domination in England.

I went into a gallery in the Council room for a little, to confirm with my own eyes whether it were Dr. Titus Oates himself against whom I had knocked in Drury Lane; and it was the man without doubt, though he looked very different in his minister’s dress. It was not a very great room, and only those were admitted who had permission. His Majesty himself was there upon the second day; and sat in the midst of the table, at the upper end, with the Duke beside him, and the great officers round about; amongst whom I marked my Lord Shaftesbury, who I was beginning to think knew more of the plot than had appeared; Dr. Oates stood in a little pew at one side, so that when he turned to speak I could see his face. Dr. Tonge and Mr. Kirby and others sat on a seat behind him.

He was dressed as a minister—for he had been one, before his pretended reconciliation to the Catholic Church—in gown and bands and wore a great periwig; and not his face only—which no man could forget who had once set eyes on it—but the strange accent with which he spoke, confirmed me that it was the man I had seen.

My Lord Danby, I think it was, questioned him a good deal, as well as others: and he repeated the same tale with great fluency, with many gibes and aphorisms such as that the Jesuits had laid a wager that if Carolus Rex would not become R.C.—which is Roman Catholic—he should not much longer remain C.R. He said too that he had been reconciled to the Church on Ash Wednesday of last year; but that “he took God and His holy angels to witness that he had never changed the religion in his heart,” but that it was all a pretence to spy out Papistical plots.

His Royal Highness broke out, when he had done, declaring the whole matter a bundle of lies; and when one or two asked Oates for any writings or letters that he had—since he had been so long amongst the Jesuits, and was so much trusted by them—he said that he had none; but could get them easily enough if warrants and officers were given him. I suppose the truth was that he had not wit enough to write them as yet, but had thought the Windsor letters (as I may call them) would be enough. (These questions had also been put to him on the day before, but were repeated now for the King’s benefit.)

His Majesty himself, I think, proved the shrewdest examiner of them all.

“You said that you met Don Juan, the Spaniard, in your travels, Doctor

Oates. Pray, what is he like in face and figure?”

“My Lard—Your Majesty,” said Oates, “he is a tall black thin faylow, with swatthy features”—(for so he pronounced his words.)

“Eh?” asked the King.

Dr. Oates repeated his words; and the King turned, nodding and smiling, to His Royal Highness; for the Spanish bastard is far more Austrian than Spanish, and is fair and fat and of small stature.

“Excellent, Doctor Oates,” said the King. “And now there is another small matter. You told these gentlemen yesterday that you saw—with your own eyes—the bribe of ten thousand pound paid down by the French King’s confessor. Pray, where was this money paid?”

“In the Jesuits’ house in Paris, your Majesty,” said the man.

“And where is that?”

“That—Your Majesty—that house is—is near the King’s own house.” (But he spoke hesitatingly.)

Then the King broke out in indignation; and beat his hand on the table.

“Man!” he cried. “The Jesuits have no house within one mile of the

Louvre!”

It pleased me to hear the King say that; for I was a little uneasy at Father Whitbread’s manner when he had spoken of the King’s promise; but I was less pleased a day or two afterwards to hear that His Majesty was gone to Newmarket, to the races, and had left the Council to do as best it could; and that the Jesuits had been taken that same night—Michaelmas eve—after Oates had been had before the Council. There had been a great to-do at the taking of Father Whitbread, for the Spanish soldiers had been called out to save the Ambassador’s house, so great was the mob that went to see him taken.

The next public event in the whole affair was the last and worst of all the links that were being forged so swiftly: and the news of it came to me as follows.

I had gone to sup in Aldgate, where I had listened to a good deal of talk from some small gentry, as to the Papist plot; and had been happy to hear three or four of them declare that they believed there was nothing in it, and even the rest of them were far from positive on the matter; and I had stayed late over my pipe with them, so that it was long after my usual time when I returned towards my lodgings, walking alone, for I said good-bye to the last of my companions in the City.

As I came up into the Strand, I saw before me what appeared to be the tail of a great concourse of people, and heard the murmur of their voices; and, mending my pace a little, I soon came up with them. I went along for a little, trying to hear what they were saying upon the affair, and to learn what the matter was; for by now the street was one pack of folk all moving together. Little by little, then, I began to hear that someone had been strangled, and that “he was found with his neck broken,” and then that “his own sword was run through his heart,” and words of that kind.

Now I had heard talk before that Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was run away with a woman, and to avoid the payment of his debts, which, if it were true, were certainly a very strange happening at such a time, since he was the magistrate before whom Oates had laid his information; but six days were gone by, and I had not thought very much of it, for his running away could not now in any way affect the information that had been laid. He was a very gentle man, though melancholy; and, though a good Protestant, troubled no man that was of another religion than himself—neither Papist nor Independent.

But when I heard the people about me speaking in this manner, the name of Sir Edmund came to my mind; and I asked a fellow that was tramping near me, who it was that was strangled and where the body was. But he turned on me with such a burst of oaths, that I thought it best to draw no more attention to myself, and presently slipped away. Then I thought myself of a little rising ground, a good bit in advance, whence, perhaps I might be able to see something of what was passing; and I made my way across the street, to a lane that led round on the north. As I came across, in the fringes of the crowd, I saw a minister walking, in his cassock; so I saluted him courteously, and asked what the matter was.

He looked at me with an agitated face, and said nothing: his lips worked, and he was very pale, yet it seemed to me with anger: so I asked him again; and this time he answered.

“Sir, I do not know who you are,” he said. “But it is Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey who has been foully murdered by the Papists. He hath been found on Primrose Hill, and we are taking him to his house. I do not know, sir—”

But I was gone; and up the lane as fast as I could run. All that I had heard, all that I had feared, all even that I had dreamed, was being fulfilled. The links were forging swiftly. I do not know, even now as I write, how it was that Sir Edmund met his end, whether he had killed himself, as I think—for he was of a melancholiac disposition, as was his father and his grandfather before him—or whether, as indeed I think possible, he was murdered by the very man who swore so many Catholic lives away, by way of giving colour to his own designs—for if a man will swear away twenty lives, what should hinder him from taking one? One thing only I know, that no Catholic, whether old or young, Jesuit or not, saint or sinner, had any act or part in it; and on that I would lay down my own life.

By the time that I arrived at the rising mound—for a force mightier than prudence drove me to see the end—the head of the great concourse was beginning to arrive. Across the street from side to side stretched the company, all tramping together and murmuring like the sound of the sea. It was as if all London town was gone mad: for I do not believe there were above twenty men in that great mob, who were not persuaded that here was the corroboration of all that had been said upon the matter of the plot; and that the guilt of the Papists was made plain. Some roared, as they came, threats and curses upon the Pope, the Jesuits, and every Catholic that drew breath; but the most part marched silently, and more terribly, as it appeared to me. The street was becoming as light as day, for torches were being kindled as they came; and, at the last, came the great coach, swaying upon its swings, in which the body was borne.

I craned my head this way and that to see; and, as the coach passed beneath me, I saw into its interior, and how there lay there, supported by two men, the figure of another man whose face was covered with a white cloth.

CHAPTER VII

It would occupy too much space, were I to set down in detail all that passed between the finding of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s body, and the being brought to trial of the Jesuit Fathers. But a brief summary must be given.

The funeral of Sir Edmund was held three or four days later in St. Martin’s, and the sermon was preached by Dr. Lloyd, his friend, who spoke from a pulpit guarded by two other thumping divines, lest he should be murdered by the Papists as he did it. There was a concourse of people that cannot be imagined; and seventy-two ministers walked in canonicals at the head of the procession. Dr. Lloyd spoke of the dead man as a martyr to the Protestant religion.

By the strangest stroke of ill-fortune Parliament met ten days before the funeral, which happened on the thirty-first of October; so that the excitement of the people—greatly increased by the exhibition of the dead body of Sir Godfrey—was ratified by their rulers—I say their rulers, since His Majesty, it appeared, could do nothing to stem the tide. It was my Lord Danby who opened the matter in the House of Peers that he might get what popularity he could to protect him against the disgrace that he foresaw would come upon him presently for the French business; and every violent word that he spoke was applauded to the echo. The House of Commons took up the cry; a solemn fast was appointed for the appeasing of God Almighty’s wrath; guards were set in all the streets, and chains drawn across them, to prevent any sudden rising of the Papists; and all Catholic householders were bidden to withdraw ten miles from London. (This I did not comply with; for I was no householder.) Besides all this, both men and women went armed continually—the men with the “Protestants’ flails,” and ladies with little pistols hidden in their muffs. Workmen, too, were set to search and dig everywhere for “Tewkesbury mustard-balls,” as they were called—or fire-balls, with which it was thought that the Catholics would set London a-fire, as Oates had said they would—or vast treasures which the Jesuits were thought to have buried in the Savoy and other places. Folks took alarm at the leastest matters; once my Lord Treasurer himself rode into London crying that the French army was already landed, when all that he had seen were some horses in the mist; once it was thought, from the noise of digging that some fat-head heard, that the Papists were mining to blow up Westminster. The King, whom I dared not go to see in all this uproar, and who did not send for me, went to and fro even in Whitehall, guarded everywhere—in private, as I heard, pouring scorn upon the plot, yet in public concealing his opinion; and upon the ninth of November he made a speech in the House of Lords, confirming all my fears, thanking his subjects for their devotion, and urging them to deal effectually with the Popish recusants that were such a danger to the kingdom! In October, too, five Catholic Lords—the Earl of Powis, Viscount Stafford, my Lord Petre, my Lord Arundell of Wardour, and my Lord Bellasis were committed to the Tower on a charge of treason.

I saw Dr. Oates more than once during these days, coming out of Whitehall with the guards that were given to protect him, carrying himself very high, in his minister’s dress; and no wonder, for the man was the darling of the nation and was called its “Saviour,” and had had a great pension voted to him of twelve hundred pounds a year. He did not think then, I warrant, of the day when he would be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn at a cart’s tail; and again, laid upon a sled and whipped again through the City, for that he could not stand by reason of his first punishment. Another fellow too had come forward, named Bedloe, once a stable-boy to my Lord Bellasis, who had given himself up at Bristol, with “information,” as he called it, as to Sir Edmund’s murder, which he said had been done in Somerset House itself, by the priests and others, saying that the wax that was found upon the dead man’s breeches came from the candles of the altar that the priests had held over him while they did it! Presently too, at the trial and even before it, Bedloe made his evidence to concur with Oates’, though at the first there was no sign of it. Even before the trial, however, the audacity of the two villains waxed so great, as even to seek to embroil Her Majesty herself in the matter, and to make her privy to the whole plot; and this Oates did, at the bar of the House of Commons. But the King was so wrath at this, that little more was heard of it.

The Duke of York, during these proceedings, saved himself very well. When the Bill for the disabling of Papists from the holding of office or of sitting in either House of Parliament, had passed through the Commons, he made a speech upon it in the House of Lords, speaking so well that others as well as he were moved to tears by it. He said that his religion should be a matter between his soul and God only; and should never affect his public conduct; and this with so much weight that the decision was given in his favour, since he was the King’s brother. I should never have thought that he could have done so well.

Mr. Coleman was the first to be brought to trial, at the beginning of December, for he came back and gave himself up the day after he had at first fled. He was already pre-judged; for so violent was the feeling against the Papists that my Lord Lucas said in the House of Lords that if he could have his way, he “would not have even a Popish cat to mew and purr about the King.” Coleman, I say, was the first of those who had before been accused; but a Mr. Stayley, a Catholic banker (who had his house not far from me in Covent Garden), was even before him judged and executed, on account of some words that a lying Scotsman had said he had heard him use in the tavern in the same place.

I did not go to the trial of Mr. Coleman; for that I had nothing to say for him; and indeed Mr. Coleman’s own letters—written three or four years ago—were the severest witnesses against him, in which he had written to Father La Chaise—(whom Oates at first called Father Le Shee)—the French King’s confessor, and others, that if he could lay hands on a good sum of money, he could accomplish a great project he had for the restoration of the Catholic religion in England. (These letters were found in a drawer he had forgotten, when he had burned all the rest; and proved very unfortunate for him.) He meant by this, I have no doubt, the bribing of many Parliament-men to win toleration, and to get His Royal Highness restored as Lord High Admiral. He said this was his meaning; and I see no reason to doubt it, for he was a pragmatical kind of man, full of great affairs; but Chief Justice Scroggs waved it all away; and it was made to appear exactly consonant with all that Oates and Bedloe had said as to the project of killing the King. So great was the excitement, not of the common people only, but of those who should have known better, and so shrewd were these who took advantage of it, that my Lord Shaftesbury, who was waxing very hot upon the supposed Plot, for his own ends, was heard to say that any man that threw doubt on the plot must be treated as an enemy. Mr. Coleman was executed at Tyburn on the third day of December.

The trial of Father Ireland, Mr. Grove and Mr. Pickering—who was a Benedictine lay-brother—was opened on the seventeenth day of December, in the Sessions House at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey.

I was in the Court early, before the trial began, carrying a letter with me which Mr. Chiffinch got for me from my Lord Peterborough, that I might have a good place; and I had a very good one; for it was in a little gallery that looked down into the well of the court, so that I could see all that I wished, and the faces of all the prisoners, judges and witnesses, and yet by leaning back could avoid observation—for I had no wish, for others’ sake, if not for my own, to be recognized by any of the witnesses. The seats for my Lords were on the left, under a state, with their desks before them; the place for the prisoners on the right, facing the judges; and for the witnesses opposite to me. The jury was beneath; and the counsels in front of them with their backs to me.

When the Court was full to bursting, my Lords came in, with the Chief Justice—that is Sir William Scroggs—in the midst. I had never seen him before, though I knew how hot he was against Catholics, and I looked to see what he was like. It was a dark morning, and the candles were lighted on my Lords’ desks; and I could see his face pretty well in their light. He was in scarlet, and wore his great wig; and he talked behind his hand, with what seemed a great deal of merriment to Mr. Justice Bertue, who sat on one side of him, and the Recorder Jeffreys who sat upon the other. He had very heavy brows; his face was clean-shaven, and his mouth was like a trap when he shut it, and looked grave, as he did so soon as the clerk had done his formalities. He was a strong man, I thought, who would brook no opposition, and would have his way—as indeed he did; and the rest of my Lords had little or no say in the proceedings; and least of all had the jury, except to do what the Lord Chief Justice bid them.

The three prisoners—for Mr. Whitbread and Mr. Fenwick were presently withdrawn to be tried later, since they could not get two false witnesses against them at that time—were Mr. Ireland, Mr. Grove and Mr. Pickering, and I looked upon them with infinite compassion, to see how they would bear themselves. Mr. Pickering I had never seen before; so I could not tell whether or no he bore himself as usual. But the two others I had seen again and again; yet, with respect to them both I remembered principally that occasion when Mr. Ireland had entertained his mother and sister in Mr. Fenwick’s lodging on that one night he was in town, and gone off with them into the dark so merrily; and Mr. Grove had brought up the chocolate in white cups, and we had all been merry together. Now they stood here in the dock together, and answered to their names cheerfully and courageously; and I could see that neither anguish of heart nor the fear of death had availed to change their countenances in the leastest degree. They stood there, scarcely moving, except once or twice to whisper to one another, while Dr. Oates told his lying tale.

It was now for the first time that I understood how shrewdly, and yet how clumsily now and then, the man had weaved together his information. He spoke with an abundance of detail that astonished me; he spoke of names and places with the greatest precision; he related how himself had been sent from St. Omer’s with fifty pounds promised him, to kill Dr. Tonge who had lately translated a book from the French named “The Jesuits’ Morals”; he spoke of a chapel in Mrs. Sanders’ house, at Wild-House, where he had been present, he said, at a piece of conspiring; and so forth continually, interlarding his tale with bursts of adjuration and piety and indignation, so evidently feigned—though with something of the Puritan manner in it—that I marvelled that any man could be deceived who did not wish to be; and all with his vile accent. He spoke much also, as Mr. Whitbread had told me that he would, of the consult of the Fathers—of all that is, who had the jus suffragii in England—that had been held at the White Horse Tavern in the Strand, in April; pretending that at this the murder of the King was again decided upon, and designed too, in all particulars; how Mr. Pickering and Mr. Grove had been deputed to do the killing in St. James’ Park with screwed pistols, as His Majesty walked there, or if not there, at Newmarket or Windsor; and how commissions had been given to various persons (whom he named), which they were to hold in the army that was to be raised, when His Majesty had been murdered, and the French King Louis let in with his troops. Worst of all, however, was the assertion which he made again and again that no Catholic’s oath, even in Court, could be taken to be worth anything, since the Pope gave them all dispensations to swear falsely; for such an assertion as this deprives an accused man of all favour with the jury and destroys the testimonies of all Catholic witnesses. And, what amazed me most of all was that Chief Justice Scroggs supported him in this, and repeated it to the jury again and again. He said so first to Mr. Whitbread, before he was withdrawn.

“If you have a religion,” he said, “that can give a dispensation for oaths, sacraments, protestations and falsehoods, how can you expect that we should believe you?”

“I know no such thing,” said Mr. Whitbread very tranquilly.

Bedloe, too, told the same tale as he had told before, but with many embellishments; and was treated by my Lords with as much respect, very nearly, as Oates himself; and they were both given refreshment by the Chief Justice’s order.

I could have found it in my heart to kill that man—Oates, I mean—as he stood there in his gown and bands and periwig, with his guards behind him, swearing away those good men’s lives; now standing upright, now leaning on the rail before him, and now reposing himself on a stool that was brought for him. His monstrous countenance was as the face of a devil; he feigned now to weep, now to be merry. But most of all I hated the man, when the piteous sight was seen of the entrance of Mrs. Ireland and her daughter, who came to testify that Mr. Ireland was not in London at all on those days in August when Oates had sworn that he had spoken with him there. They stood there, as gallant women as might be, turning their eyes now and again upon the priest who was all the world to them by ties both of nature and grace; but all their testimony went for nothing, since, first my Lord had told the jury that a Catholic’s oath was worth nothing, and next the prisoners had had no opportunity to know what charges precisely they were that were to be brought against them, and had had therefore no time to get their witnesses together. They complained very sharply of this; but my Lord puffed it all away, and would scarcely allow them to finish one sentence without interruption.

Mr. Ireland said upon one occasion that though he had no witnesses, for he had had no time to get them, yet he could get witnesses that there were witnesses.

“I know,” said the Chief Justice, “what your way of arguing is; that is very pretty. You have witnesses that can prove you have witnesses, and those witnesses can prove that you have more witnesses, and so in infinitum. And thus you argue in everything you do.”

It was growing dark when the evidence (for so it was called) was done; and the end was drawing near; and the candles which had been put out long ago were lighted again by an usher, who came in with a taper when the Lord Chief Justice called for lights. But the candles burned very badly, by reason of the closeness of the Court in which so many persons had been gathered for so long; and shed but a poor illumination. My eyes were weary too with staring upon the people—now upon the monstrous face of Oates, that was like a nightmare for terror, now upon the prisoners so patient in the dock, and now upon my Lords on their high seats beneath the state, and especially upon that hard and bitter face of Chief Justice Scroggs who, if ever a man murdered innocent folk, was murdering to-day the three men before him, by the direction which he gave to the jury, and the manner he conducted the case. I could, by now, see the faces only one by one, as each leant into the light of the candles; and it appeared to me, again and again, that these were mocking demons and not men, and Oates the lord of them all and of hell itself from which they all came, and to which they must return. I closed my eyes sometimes, both to rest them, and that I might pray for bare justice to be done; but my prayers were to me like the lifting of weights too great for my strength. One hope only remained to me, and that lay in His Majesty; for, although he had permitted the deaths of Coleman and of Stayley, these might indeed have appeared guilty to one who knew nothing of them; but I could not find it in my heart to believe that he would suffer these Jesuits to die, of whom he had sworn to me that not a hair of their heads should be injured. I had determined, too, to go to His Majesty, so soon as the trial was done, and the verdict given as I knew it would be, and hear from his own lips that he would keep his word, at whatever cost to himself.

It was dark then, by the time that all the evidence had been given, and the Chief Justice had done his directing of the jury. The Court, crowded though it was with the people, was as still as death, so soon as the jury came back after a very short recess. I could hear only the breathing of the folks on all hands. A woman sat beside me, who had been as early as myself that morning; but she had roared and clapped with the rest, at the earlier stages, when the Chief Justice had silenced the prisoners or thrown doubt upon what they said. She was quiet now, however, and I wondered how the evidence had affected her.

When the jury were ready to give their verdict, the talking that had broken out a little, grew silent again; but when the verdict of Guilty was given, it broke out once more into a storm of shouting; so that the rafters rang with it. The woman beside me—for I sat at the end of a bench and had nothing but the wall beyond me—appeared to awaken at the tumult and join her voice to it, beating with her hand at the edge of the gallery in front of her. As for me I looked at the prisoners. They were all upright in their places, Mr. Ireland in the midst of the three; and were as still as if nothing were the matter. They were looking at the Lord Chief Justice, at whom I too turned my eyes, and saw he was grinning and talking behind his hand to the Recorder. It was a very travesty of justice that I was looking at, and no true trial at all. There were a thousand points of dissonance that I had remarked myself—as to how it was, for instance, that one fellow had been promised twenty guineas for killing the King and another fifteen hundred pounds; as to how it was that Oates, who professed himself so loyal, had permitted four ruffians to go to Windsor (as he said), with intent to murder the King, and that he had said nothing of it at the time. But all was passed over in this lust for the Jesuits’ blood.

I knew that my Lord would make a great speech on the affair, before he would make an end and give sentence; for this was a great opportunity for him to curry favour not only with the people, but with men like my Lord Shaftesbury who was behind him in all the matter; and as I had no wish to hear what he would have to say (for I knew it all by heart already) and, still less to hear the terrible words of the sentence for High Treason passed upon these three good men in the dock, I rose up quietly from my place, and slipped out of the door by which I had come in. As I was about to close the door behind me I heard silence made, and my Lord Justice Scroggs beginning his speech—and these were the words which first he addressed to the jury.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you have done like very good subjects and very good Christians; that is to say like very good Protestants; and now much good may their thirty thousand masses do them!” When he said this, he was referring to a piece of Dr. Oates’ lying evidence as to a part of the reward that they should get for killing the King. But I closed the door; for I could bear to hear no more. But afterwards I heard that they then adjourned for an hour or two, and that it was the Recorder—Sir George Jeffreys—that gave sentence.

When I presented myself, half an hour later, at Mr. Chiffinch’s lodgings, I had very nearly persuaded myself that all would yet be well. For I thought it impossible that any man to whom the report of the trial should be brought, could ever think that justice had been done; least of all the King who is the fount of it, under God. I knew very well that His Majesty would have to bear the brunt of some unpopularity if he refused to sign the warrants for their death; but he appeared to me to care not very much for popularity—since he outraged it often enough in worse ways than in maintaining the right. He had said to me, too, so expressly that no harm should come to the Fathers or to Mr. Grove and Mr. Pickering either; and he had said so, I was informed, even more forcibly to the Duke and those that were with him—saying that his right hand should rot off if ever he took the pen into his hand for such a purpose. I remembered these things, even while the plaudits of the crowd still rang in my ears, and the bitter cruelty of my Lord Chief Justice’s words to the jury. His Majesty, I said to myself, is above all these lesser folk, and will see that no wrong is done. And, besides all this, he is half a Catholic himself and he knows against what kind of men these charges have been made.

I was pretty reassured then, when I knocked upon the door of Mr. Chiffinch’s lodgings, and told the man who opened to me that I must see his master.

He took me through immediately into the little passage I had been in before, and himself tapped upon the door of the inner parlour; then he opened it, and let me through: for Mr. Chiffinch was accustomed by now to receive me at any hour.

He rose civilly enough, and asked me what I wished with him, so soon as the door was shut.

“The verdict is given,” I said. “I must see His Majesty.”

He screwed up his lips in a way he had.

“It is Guilty, I suppose,” he said.

I told him Yes;

“And I have never seen,” I said, “such a travesty of justice.”

He looked down upon the table, considering, drumming his fingers upon it.

“That is as may be,” he said. “But as for His Majesty—”

I broke out on him at that: for I was fiercely excited.

“Man,” I cried, “there is no question about that. I must see His Majesty instantly.”

He looked at me again, as if considering.

“Well,” he said. “What must be, must. I will see His Majesty. He is not yet gone to supper.”

At the door he turned again.

“The verdict was Guilty?” he said. “You were there and heard it?”

I told him Yes; for I was all impatient.

“And how was that verdict received in court?”

“It was applauded,” I said shortly.

He still waited an instant. Then he went out.

I was all in a fever till he came back; for his manner and his hesitation had renewed my terrors. Yet still I would not let myself doubt. I went up and down the room, and looked at the pictures in it. There was a little one by Lely, not finished, of my Lady Castlemaine, done before she was made Duchess, which I suppose the King had given to him; but I remembered afterwards nothing else that I saw at that time.

In about half an hour he came back again; but he shut the door behind him before he spoke.

“His Majesty will see you in a few minutes,” he said, “but he goes to supper presently; and must not be detained. And there is something else that I must ask you first.”

I was all impatient to be gone; but impatience would not help me at all.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, sitting down, “did you see any man following you from the Court? Or at the doors of the Palace?”

My heart stood still when he said that; for though I had done my best at all times for the last month or two to pass unnoticed so far as I could, I had known well enough that having been so much with the Jesuits as I had, it was not impossible that I had been marked by some spy or other, or even by Oates himself, since he had seen me go into Mr. Fenwick’s lodgings. But I had fancied of late that I must have escaped notice, and had been more bold lately, as in going to the Court to-day.

“Followed?” I said. “What do you mean, Mr. Chiffinch?”

“You saw no fellow after you, or loitering near, at the gates, as you came in?”

“I saw no one,” I said.

“The gates were barred, as usual?”

“Yes,” I said. “And the guard fetched a lieutenant before he would let me in.”

(For ever since the late alarms extraordinary precautions had been taken in keeping the great gates of the Palace always guarded.)

“And you saw no one after you?”

“No one,” I said.

“Well,” said Mr. Chiffinch, “a fellow was after you. For when you were gone in he came up to the guard and asked who you were, and by what right you had entered. The lieutenant sent a mail to tell me so, and I met him in the passage as I went out.”

“Who was the fellow?”

“Oh! a man called Dangerfield. The lieutenant very prudently detained him; and I went across and questioned him before I went to His Majesty. I know nothing of the man, except that he hath been convicted, for I saw the branding in his hand when we examined him. We let him go again immediately.”

“He knows my name?”

Mr. Chiffinch smiled.

“We are not so foolish as that, Mr. Mallock. He thinks you have some place at Court; but we did not satisfy him as to your name.”

I said nothing; for there was nothing to say.

“You had best be very careful, Mr. Mallock,” went on the page, standing up again. “You have been mixing a great deal with unpopular folks. You will be of no service to His Majesty at all if you fall under suspicion. You had best go back by water to the Temple Stairs.”

He spoke a little coldly; and I perceived that he thought I had been indiscreet.

“Well,” he said, “we had best be going to His Majesty’s lodgings.”

I had flattered myself, up to the present, that I knew His Majesty’s capacities tolerably well. I thought him to be an easily read man, with both virtues and vices uppermost, wearing his heart on his sleeve, as the saying is—indolent, witty, lacking all self-control—yet not, as I might say, a deep man. I was to learn the truth, or rather begin to learn it, on this very night.

When I entered his private closet he was sitting not where I had seen him before, but at the great table in the midst of the floor, with his papers about him, and an appearance of great industry. He did not do more than look up for an instant, and then down again; and I stood there before him, after I had bowed and been taken no notice of, as it were a scholar waiting to be whipped.

He was all ready for supper, in his lace, with his hat on his head; and he was writing a letter, with a pair of candles burning before him in silver candlesticks. His face wore a very heavy and preoccupied look; and I was astonished that he paid me no attention.

He finished at last, threw sand on the paper from the pounce-box, and pushed it aside. Then he leaned his cheeks in his hands, and his elbows on the table, and looked at me. But he did not speak unkindly.

“Here you are then,” he said. “And I hear you bring news from the Old

Bailey?”

“I came from there half an hour ago, Sir.”

“Ah! And the verdict was Guilty, Mr. Chiffinch tells me?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“How did the people take it?”

“They applauded a great deal, Sir.”

“They applauded, you say. At the end only, or all the while?”

“They applauded, Sir, whenever any of my Lords made a hit against the

Catholics.”

“Were there any who did otherwise?”

“Not one, Sir, that I could hear.”

“The Chief Justice. What did he say?”

“He made many protestations of devotion to your Majesty, Sir, and to the Protestant Religion. He beat down the Catholics at every point. He permitted none of their witnesses to speak freely.”

The King was silent a moment. Then he went on again.

“And the prisoners. How did they bear themselves?”

“They bore themselves like gallant gentlemen, Sir. They fought every point, so far as the Chief Justice would permit them.”

“Did they shew any fear when the verdict was brought in?”

“None, Sir. They relied upon your Majesty’s protection, no doubt.”

Again His Majesty was silent. I still stood on the other side of the table from him, waiting to say what I had to say. The King shewed no sign of having heard what I had last said.

Then, to my astonishment he turned on me again very sharply.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “I have a fault to find with you. Mr. Chiffinch tells me that you were followed from the Court, and that a fellow was asking after you at the gate. You say that you wish to serve me. Well, those who serve me must be very discreet and very shrewd. Plainly, you have not been so in this instance. You are a very young man; and I do not wish to be severe. But you must remember, Mr. Mallock, that such a thing as this must not happen any more.”

My mouth was gone suddenly dry at this attack of His Majesty upon me. I licked my lips with my tongue in readiness to answer; but before I could speak, the King went on again.

“Now I had a little business to entrust to you; but I am not sure if it be not best to give it to another hand.”

He took up from the table before him a newly sealed little packet that I had not noticed before; and sat weighing it in his hand, as if considering, while his eyes searched my face.

“Sir—” I began.

“Yes, Mr. Mallock, I know what you would say. That is all very well; but my servants must not make mistakes such as you have made. It was the height of madness for you to go to the Court at all to-day. I have no doubt that you were seen there, and followed; and you could have been of no service to your friends there, in any case. Mr. Chiffinch tells me he will provide a wherry for you immediately, that you may go back without observation. You must do this. The question before my mind is as to whether you shall take this packet with you, or not. What do you say, Mr. Mallock?”

All the while he had been speaking, I had been in a torment of misery. As yet I had done little or nothing for His Majesty, after all my commissioning from Rome; and now that the first piece of work was on hand, it was doubtful whether I had not forfeited it by my clumsiness. For the moment I forgot what I had come for. I was all set on acquitting myself well. I was but twenty-one years old!

“Sir,” I cried, “if your Majesty will entrust that to me, you shall never repent it.”

He smiled; but his face went back again to its heaviness. “It is a very difficult commission,” he said. “And, what is of more importance than all else is that the packet should fall into no hand other than the one that should have it. For this reason, there is no name written upon it. But I have sealed it with a private signet of my own, both within and without; and you must bear the packet with you until you can deliver it.”

“I understand, Sir.”

“I can send no courier with it, for the reasons of which I have spoken. No man, Mr. Mallock, but you and I must know of its very existence. Neither can I tell you now to whom the packet must be given. You must bear it with you, sir, until you have a message from me, signed with the same seal as that which it bears, telling you where you must take it, and to whom. You understand?”

“I understand, Sir.”

“You must leave London immediately until your face is forgotten, and until this storm is over. You have a cousin in the country?”

“Yes, Sir; Mr. Jermyn at Hare Street.”

“You had best lie there for the present; and I can send to you there, so soon as I have an opportunity. Meanwhile you must have this always at hand, and be ready to set out with it, so soon as you hear where you must go with it. That is all plain, Mr. Mallock?”

“I understand, Sir.”

The King rose abruptly, pushing back his chair; and as he rose I heard the trumpets for supper, in the Court outside.

“Then you had best be gone. Take it, Mr. Mallock.”

I came round and received the packet; and I kissed the King’s hand which he had not given to me as I had come in. My heart was overjoyed at the confidence which he shewed me; and I slipped the packet immediately within my waistcoat. It was square and flat and lay there easily in a little pocket which the tailor had contrived there. Then, as I stood up again, the memory of what I had come for flashed back on me again.

“Sir,” I said, “there is one other matter.”

His Majesty was already turning away; but he stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“Eh?” he said.

“Sir, it is with regard to the Jesuits who were condemned to-day.”

He jerked his hand impatiently in a way he had.

“I have no time for that,” he said, “no time.”

Then he was gone out at the other door, and I heard him going downstairs.

Now as I came downstairs again the further way, and heard the trumpets go, to shew that the King was come out, I had no suspicion of anything but my own foolishness in not speaking of what I had come about. But, by the time that I was at the Temple Stairs, I wondered whether or no the King had not had that very design, to put me off from which I wished to say. And at the present time I am certain of it—that His Majesty wished to hear from me at once of the proceedings at the trial, and then spoke immediately of that other matter of the packet, and of my being followed to the Palace Gates, with the express purpose of hindering me from saying anything; for I am sure that at this time he had not yet made up his mind as to what he would do when the warrants were brought to him, and did not wish to speak of it.

CHAPTER VIII

The first thing that I did when I got home was to call for my man James, and bid him shut the door. (My man was about forty years old, and he had been got for me in Rome, having fallen ill there in the service of my Lord Stafford—being himself a Catholic, and a very good one, for he went to the sacraments three or four times in the year, wherever he was. He was a clean-shaven fellow, and very sturdy and quick, and a good hand at cut and thrust and the quarter-staff, as I had seen for myself at Hare Street on the summer evenings. I had found him always discreet and silent, though I had not as yet given him any great confidence.)

“James,” I said to him with great solemnity, “I have something to say to you which must go no further.”

He stood waiting on my word.

“A fellow hath been after me to-day—named Dangerfield—a very brown man, with no hair on his face” (for so Mr. Chiffinch had told me). “He hath been branded on the hand for some conviction. I tell you this that you may know him if you see him again. I take him to be a Protestant spy: but I do not know for certain.”

He still stood waiting. He knew very well, I think, that I was on some business, and that therefore I was in some danger too at such a time; though I had never spoken to him of it.

“And another thing that I have to say to you is that we must ride for Hare Street to-morrow, and arrive there by to-morrow night—without lying anywhere on the road. You must have the horses here, and all ready, by seven o’clock in the morning. And you must tell no one where we are going to, to hinder any from following us, if we can help it. We must lie at Hare Street a good while.

“And the third thing I have to say is this; that you must watch out very shrewdly for any signs that we are known or suspected of anything. I tell you plainly that both you and I may be in some danger for a while; so if you have no taste for that, you had best begone. You will keep quiet, I know very well.”

“Sir, I will stay with you, if you please,” said James, as the last word was out of my mouth.

I gave him a look of pleasure; but no more; and he understood me very well.

“Then that is all that I have to say. You may bring supper in as soon as you like.”

Before I lay down that night I had transferred His Majesty’s packet to a belt that I put next to my skin; and so I went to bed.

It was still pretty dark when we came out upon the Ware road upon the next morning. I did not call James up to ride with me; for I had a great number of things to think about; and first amongst them was the commission which His Majesty had given me. What then could such a business be?—a packet that I must carry with me, and deliver to a man whose name should be given me afterwards! Why, then, was it entrusted to me so soon? And why could not the name be given to me immediately? But to such riddles there was no answer; and I left it presently alone.

The second thing that I had to think of was the matter of the men whom I had seen condemned yesterday; and even of that I did not know much more than of the packet. His Majesty had not spoken of them, except to ask questions at the beginning; and this seemed as a bad omen to me. Yet I had the King’s word on it that they should not suffer; and, when I considered, there was no obligation or even any reason at all that he should talk out the matter with myself. Yet, though I presently put this affair too from my mind, since I had no certain knowledge of what would happen, it came back to me again and again—that memory of Mr. Ireland and Mr. Grove in the lodgings in Drury Lane, so harmless and so merry, and again as I had seen them yesterday in the dock, with Mr. Pickering, so helpless and yet so courageous in face of the injustice that was being done on them.

The third thing that I had to think upon was Hare Street to which I was going as fast as I could, and of those who would greet me there, and most of all, I need not say, of my Cousin Dolly. Her father had written to me two or three times during the four months that I had been away; and his last had been the letter of a very much frightened man, what with the news that had come to him of the proceedings in London and the feeling against the Catholics. But I had written back to him that nothing was to be feared if he would but stay still and hold his tongue; and that I myself would be with him presently, I hoped, and would reassure him; for in spite of the hot feeling in London the country Catholics suffered from it little or not at all, so long as they minded their own business. But it was principally of my Cousin Dolly that I thought; for the memory of her had been with me a great deal during the four months I had lived in London; but I was determined to do nothing in a hurry, since the remembrance of her father’s words to me, and, even more, of his manner and look in speaking, stuck in my throat and hindered me from seeing clearly. I knew very well, however, that my principal reason why I urged Peter on over the bad roads, was that I might see her the more quickly.

Nothing of any importance happened to us on the way. At Hoddesdon the memory of Mr. Rumbald came back to my mind, and I wondered where it was in Hoddesdon or near it that he had his malt-houses; and before that we stayed again for dinner at the Four Swans in Waltham Cross, where the host knew me again and asked how matters were in London; and we came at last in sight of the old church at Hormead Parva, just as the sun was going down upon our left. Peter, my horse, knew where he was then, and needed no more urging, for he knew that his stable was not far away.

They knew of course nothing of my coming; and when I dismounted in the yard there was not a man to be seen. I left my horse with James; and went along the flagged path that led to the door, and beat upon the door. The house seemed all dark and deserted; and it was not till I had beaten once more at the door that I saw a light shewing beneath it. Presently a very unsteady voice cried out to know who was there; and I knew it for my Cousin Tom’s; so I roared at him that it was myself. There followed a great to-do of unlocking and unbarring—for they had the house—as I found presently—fortified as it were a castle; and when the door was undone there was my Cousin Tom with a great blunderbuss and two men with swords behind him.

“Why, whatever is forward?” I said sharply; for I was impatient with the long waiting and the cold, for a frost was beginning as the sun set.

“Why, Cousin Roger, we knew nothing of your coming,” said my Cousin Tom, looking a little foolish, I thought. “We did not know who was at the door.”

“I only knew myself of my coming yesterday,” I said. “And whatever is the house fortified for?”

My cousin was putting up the bolts again as I spoke; (the two men were gone away into the back of the house);—and, as soon as he had done, he said:

“Why, there are dangerous folks about, Cousin Roger. And it is a

Catholic house, you see.”

I smiled at that; but said no more; for at that moment my Cousin Dolly came through from the back of the house where she had been sent by her father for safety; and at that sight I thought no more of the door.

I saluted her as a cousin should; and she me. She looked mighty pretty to me, in her dark dress, with her lace on, for supper was just on the table; and I cannot but think she was pleased to see me, for she was all smiling and flushed.

“So it is you, Cousin Roger,” she said. “I thought it might very well be. We looked for you before Christmas.”

At supper, and afterwards, I learned in what a panic poor Cousin Tom had lived since the news of the plot, and, above all, of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s death; and what he said to me made me determine to speak to him of my own small peril, for he had the right to know, and to forbid me his house, if he wished. But I hoped that he would not. It appeared that when the news of Sir Edmund’s death had come, there had been something of a to-do in the village, of no great signification; for it was no more than a few young men who marched up and down shouting together—as such yokels will, upon the smallest excuse; and one of them had cried out at the gate of Hare Street House. At Barkway there had been more of a business; for there they had burnt an effigy of the Pope in the churchyard; and the parson—who was a stout Churchman—had made a speech upon it. However, this had played upon Cousin Tom’s fears, and he had fortified the house with bolts, and slept with a pistol by his bed.

I told him that same night—not indeed all that happened to me; but enough of it to satisfy him. I said that I had been a good deal at the Jesuits’ lodgings; and at the trial of the three; and that a fellow had attempted to follow me home; but that I had thrown him off.

Cousin Tom had the pipe from his mouth and was holding it in his hand, by the time I had done.

“Now, Cousin,” I said, “if you think I am anything of a danger to the house, you have but to say the word, and I will be off. On the other hand, I and my man might be of some small service to you if it came to a brawl.”

“You threw him off?” asked Cousin Tom.

“It was at Whitehall—” I began; and then I stopped: for I had not intended to speak of the King.

“Oho!” said Cousin Tom. “Then you have been at Whitehall again?”

“Why, yes,” I said, trying to pass it off. “I have been there and everywhere.”

Cousin Tom put the pipe back again into his mouth.

“And there is another matter,” I said (for Hare Street suited me very well as a lodging, and I had named it as such to His Majesty). “It is not right, Cousin Tom, that you should keep me here for nothing. Let me pay something each month—” (And I named a suitable sum.)

That determined Cousin Tom altogether. My speaking of Whitehall had greatly reassured him; and now this offer of mine made up his mind; for he was something of a skinflint in some respects. (For all that I did for him when I was here, in the fields and at the farm, more than repaid him for the expense of my living there.) He protested a little, and said that between kinsfolk no such question should enter in; but he protested with a very poor grace; and so the matter was settled, and we both satisfied.

So, once more, the time began to pass very agreeably for me. Here was I, safe from all the embroilments of town, in the same house with my Cousin Dorothy, and with plenty of leisure for my languages again. Yet my satisfaction was greatly broken up when I heard, on the last day of January that all that I had feared was come about, and that of the three men whom I had seen condemned at the Old Bailey, two—Mr. Ireland and Mr. Grove—had been executed seven days before: (Mr. Pickering was kept back on some excuse, and not put to death until May). The way I heard of it was in this manner.

I was in Puckeridge one day, on a matter which I do not now remember, and was going to the stable of the White Hart inn to get my horse to ride back again, when I ran into Mr. Rumbald who was there on the same errand. I was in my country suit, and very much splashed; and it was going on for evening, so he noticed nothing of me but my face.

“Why, Mallock,” he cried—”It is Mr. Mallock, is it not?”

I told him yes.

He exchanged a few words with me, for he was one of those fellows who when they have once made up their minds to a thing, do not easily change it, and he was persuaded that I was of his kind and something of a daredevil too, which was what he liked. Then at the end he said something which made me question him as to what he meant.

“Have you not heard?” he cried. “Why the Popish dogs were hanged a week ago—Ireland and Grove, I mean. And there be three or four more men—accused by Bedloe of Godfrey’s murder, and will be tried presently.”

I need not say what a horror it was to me to hear that; for I had had more hope in my heart than I had thought. But I was collected enough to say something that satisfied him; and, as again he had been drinking, he was not very quick.

“And those three or four?” I asked. “Are they Jesuits too?”

“No,” said Rumbald, “but there will be another batch presently, I make no doubt.”

I got rid of him at last; and rode homewards; but it was with a very heavy heart. Not once yet had the King exercised his prerogative of mercy; and if he yielded at the first, and that against the Jesuits whom he had sworn to protect, was there anything in which he would resist?

My Cousin Dorothy saw in my face as I came in that something was the matter; so I told her the truth.

“May they rest in peace,” she said; and blessed herself.

From time to time news reached us in this kind of manner. Though we were not a great distance from London we were in a very solitary place, away from the high-road that ran to Cambridge; and few came our way. Even in Puckeridge it was not known, I think, who I was, nor that I was cousin to Mr. Jermyn; so I had no fear of Mr. Rumbald suspecting me. Green, Berry, and Hill were all convicted of Sir Edmund’s murder, through the testimony of Bedloe, who said that he had himself seen the body at Somerset House, and that Sir Edmund had been strangled there by priests and others and conveyed later to the ditch in Primrose Hill where he was found. Another fellow, too, named Miles Prance, a silversmith in Princes Street (out of Drury Lane), who was said by Bedloe to have been privy to the murder, in the fear of his life, and after inhuman treatment in prison, did corroborate the story and add to it, under promise of pardon, which he got. Green, Berry, and Hill, then, were hanged on the tenth day of February, on the testimonies of these two; and were as innocent as unborn babes. It was remarked how strangely their names went with the name of the murdered man and of the place he was found in.

For a while after that, matters were more quiet. A man named Samuel Atkins was tried presently, but was acquitted; and then a Nathaniel Reading was tried for suppressing evidence, and was punished for it. But our minds, rather, were fixed upon the approaching trial of the “Five Jesuits” as they were called, who still awaited it in prison—Whitbread, Fenwick, Harcourt, Gavan and Turner—all priests. But I had not a great deal of hope for these, when I thought of what had happened to the rest; and, indeed, at the end of May, Mr. Pickering himself was executed. At the beginning of May too, we heard of the bloody murder of Dr. Sharpe, the Protestant Archbishop in Scotland, by the old Covenanters, driven mad by the persecution this man had put them to; but this did not greatly affect our fortunes either way. One of the most bitter thoughts of all was that a secular priest named Serjeant, who, with another named Morris, was of Gallican views, had given evidence in public court against the Jesuits’ casuistry.

Meanwhile, in other matters, we were quiet enough. Still I hesitated in pushing my suit with my Cousin Dolly, until I could see whether she was being forced to it or not. But my Cousin Tom had more wits than I had thought; for he said no more to me on the point, nor I to him; and I think I should have spoken to her that summer, had not an interruption come to my plans that set all aside for the present. During those months of spring and early summer we had no religious consolation at all; for we were too near London, and at the same time too solitary for any priest to come to us.

The interruption came in this manner.

I had sent my man over to Waltham Cross on an affair of a horse that was to be sold there on the nineteenth day of June (as I very well remember, from what happened afterwards); and when he came back he asked if he might speak with me privately. When I had him alone in my room he told me he had news from a Catholic ostler at the Four Swans, with whom he had spoken, that a party had been asking after me there that very morning.

“I said to him, sir, What kind of a party was it? And he told me that there were four men; and that they went in to drink first and to dine, for they came there about noon. I asked him then if any of them had any mark by which he could be known; and he laughed at that; and said that one of them was branded in the hand, for he was pulling his glove on when he came into the yard afterwards, so that it was seen.”

I said nothing for a moment, when James said that, for I was considering whether so small a business of so many months ago was worth thinking of.

“And what then?” I said.

“Well, sir; as I was riding back I kept my eyes about me; and especially in the villages where it might be easy to miss them; and in Puckeridge, as I came by the inn I looked into the yard, and saw there four horses all tied up together.”

“Did you ask after them?” I said.

“No, sir; I thought it best not. But I pushed on as quickly as I could.”

“Did the ostler at Waltham Cross tell you what answer was given to the inquiries?”

“No, sir—he heard your name only from the parlour window as he went through the yard.”

Now here was I in a quandary. On the one hand this was a very small affair, and not much evidence either way, and I did not wish to alarm my Cousin Tom if I need not; and, on the other if they were after me I had best be gone as soon as I could. It was six months since the fellow Dangerfield had asked after me at Whitehall, and no harm had followed. Yet here was the tale of the branded hand—and, although there were many branded hands in England, the consonance of this with what had happened, misliked me a little.

“And was there any more news?” I asked.

“Why, yes, sir; I had forgot. The man told me too that the five Jesuits were cast six days ago, and Mr. Langhorn a day later, and that they were all sentenced together.” (Mr. Langhorn was a lawyer, a very hot and devout Catholic; but his wife was as hot a Protestant.)

Now on hearing that I was a little more perturbed. Here were Mr. Whitbread and Mr. Fenwick, in whose company I had often been seen in public before the late troubles, condemned and awaiting sentence; and here was a fellow with a branded hand asking after me in Waltham Cross. Oates and Bedloe and Tonge and Kirby and a score of others were evidence that any man who sought his fortune might very well do so in Popish plots and accusations; and it was quite believable that Dangerfield was one more of them, and that after these new events he was after me. Yet, still, I did not wish to alarm my Cousin Tom; for he was a man who could not hide his feelings, I thought.

It was growing dark now; for it was after nine o’clock, and cloudy, with no moon to rise; and all would soon be gone to bed; so what I did I must do at once. I sat still in my chair, thinking that if I were hunted out of Hare Street I had nowhere to go; and then on a sudden I remembered the King’s packet which he had given me, and which I still carried, as always, wrapped in oil-cloth next to my skin, since no word had come from him as to what I was to do with it. And at that remembrance I determined that I must undergo no risks.

“James,” I said, “I think that we must be ready to go away if we are threatened in any way. Go down to the stables and saddle a fresh horse for you, and my own. Then come up here again and pack a pair of valises. I do not know as yet whether we must go or not; but we must be ready for it. Then take the valises and the horses down to the meadow, through the garden, and tie all up there, under the shadow of the trees from where you can see the house. And you must remain there yourself till twelve o’clock to-night. At twelve o’clock, as near as I can tell it, if all is quiet I will show a light three times from the garret window; and when you see that you can come back again and go to bed. If they are after us at all they will come when they think we are all asleep; and it will be before twelve o’clock. Do you understand it all?”

(I was very glib in all this; for I had thought it out all beforehand, if ever there should be an alarm of this kind.)

My man said that he understood very well, and went away, and I down to the Great Chamber where I had left my cousins.

As I came in at the door, my Cousin Tom woke up with a great snuffle; and stared at me as if amazed, as folks do when suddenly awakened.

“Well; to bed,” he said. “I am half there already.”

My Cousin Dorothy looked up from her sewing; and I think she knew that something was forward; for she continued to look at me.

“Not to bed yet, Cousin Tom,” I said. “There is a matter I must speak of first.”

Well; I sat down and told him as gently as I could—all the affair, except of the King’s packet; and by the time I was done he was no longer at all drowsy. I told him too of the design I had formed, and that James was gone to carry it out.

“Had you not best be gone at once?” he said; and I saw the terror in his eyes, lest he too should be embroiled. But my Cousin Dorothy looked at me, unafraid; only there was a spot of colour on either cheek.

“Well,” I said, “I can ride out into the fields and wait there, if you wish it, until morning: if you will send for me then if all be quiet.”

But I explained to him again that I was in two minds as to whether I should go at all, so very small was the evidence of danger.

He looked foolish at that; but I could see that he wanted me gone: so I stood up.

“Well, Cousin,” I said, “I see that you will be easier if I go. I will begone first and see whether James has the horses out; and you had best meanwhile go to my chamber and put away all that can incriminate you—in one of your hiding-holes.”

I was half-way to the kitchen when I heard my Cousin Dorothy come after me; and I could see that she was in a great way.

“Cousin,” she said, “I am ashamed that my father should speak like that.

If I were mistress—”

“My dear Cousin,” I said lightly, “if you were mistress, I should not be here at all.”

“It is a shame,” she said again, paying no attention, as her way was when she liked. “It is a shame that you should spend all night in the fields for nothing.”

As she was speaking I heard James come downstairs with the valises. As he went past he told me he already had the horses tied under the trees. I nodded to him, and bade him go on, and he went out into the yard and so through the stables.

“I had best go help your father put the things away,” I said. “They will not be here, at any rate, until the lights of the house are all out.”

We went upstairs together and found my Cousin Tom already busy: he had my clothes all in a great heap, ready to carry down to the hiding-hole above the door; my papers he already had put away into the little recess behind the bed, and the books, most of which had not my name in them, he designed to carry to his own chamber.

We worked hard at all this—my Cousin Tom in a kind of fever, rolling his eyes at every sound; and, at the last, we had all put away, and were about to close the door of the hiding-hole. Then my Cousin Dorothy held up her hand.

“Hush!” she said; and then, “There was a step on the paved walk.”

CHAPTER IX

When my Cousin Dorothy said that, we all became upon the instant as still as mice; and I saw my Cousin Tom’s mouth suddenly hang open and his eyes to become fixed. For myself, I cannot say precisely what I felt; but it would be foolish to say that I was not at all frightened. For to be crept upon in the dark, when all is quiet, in a solitary country place; and to know, as I did, that behind all the silence there is the roar of a mob—(as it is called)—for blood, and the Lord Chief Justice’s face of iron and his bitter murderous tongue, and the scaffold and the knife—this is daunting to any man. I made no mistake upon the matter. If this were Dangerfield himself, my life was ended; he would not have come here, so far, and with such caution; he would not have been at the pains to smell me out at all, unless he were sure of his end; and, indeed, my companying so much with the Jesuits and my encounter with Oates, and my seeking service with the King, and for no pay too—all this, in such days, was evidence enough to hang an angel from heaven.

This passed through my mind like a picture; and then I remembered that it was no more than a step on a paved path.

“If it is they,” I whispered, “they will be round the house by now. We had best look from a dark window.”

But my Cousin Tom seized me suddenly by the arm in so fierce a grip that

I winced and all but cried out; and so we stood.

“If you have brought ruin on me—” he began presently in a horrid kind of whisper; and then he gripped me again; for again, so that no man could mistake it, came a single step on the paved path; and in my mind I saw how two men had crossed from lawn to lawn, to get all round the house, each stepping once upon the stones. They must have entered from the yard.

In those moments there came to me too a knowledge, of the truth of which I neither had nor have any doubt at all, that my Cousin Tom was considering whether he might save himself or no by handing me forthwith to the searchers. But I suppose he thought not; for presently his hand relaxed.

“In with you,” he whispered; and made a back for me to climb up into the hiding-hole. I looked at my Cousin Dolly, and she nodded at me ever so gently; so I set my foot on my Cousin Tom’s broad back, and my hands to the ledge, and raised myself up. It was a pretty wide space within, sufficient to hold three or four men, though my clothes and a few books covered most of the floor; but the only light I had was from the candle that my Cousin Dolly carried in her hand. As I turned to the door again, I caught a sight of her face, very pretty and very pale, looking up at me: I remember even now the shadow on her eyes and beneath her hair; and then the door was put to quickly, and I was all in the dark.

It was a very strange experience to lie there and to hear all that went on in the house, scarcely a hand’s-breadth away.

I lay there, I should think, ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before the assault was made; and during that time too I could tell pretty well all that went on. There remained for a minute or thereabouts, a line of light upon the roof of my little chamber from the candle that my Cousin Dolly carried; (and that line of light was as a star to me); then I heard a little whispering; the light went out; and I heard soft steps going upstairs. Then I heard first the door of my Cousin Dolly’s chamber close, and then another door which was my Cousin Tom’s. Then followed complete silence; and I knew that the two would go to bed, and be found there, as if ignorant of everything.

The assault was made on two doors at once, at front and back. They had another man or two, I have no doubt, in the stable-yard; and more beneath the windows everywhere, so that I could not escape any way. There came on a sudden loud hammerings and voices shouting altogether; but I could not tell what it was that they cried; but I suppose it must have been, “Open in the King’s name!”

Then the house awakened, all, that is, that were asleep; and the rest feigned to do so. I heard steps run down the stairs, and voices everywhere; as the maids over the kitchen awakened and screamed as maids will, and the men awakened and ran down from the garret. Then, overhead, across the lobby I heard my Cousin Tom’s footsteps, and I nearly laughed to myself at the thought of the part that he must play, and of how ill he would play it. And all the while the beating on the doors went on; and I heard voices through the lath and plaster from the back-hall; and then the sound of unbolting, and the knocking ceased on that side, though it still went on upon the, other.

My hiding-hole, as I have said, was in the very centre of the house; one side faced upon the back-hall; and the opposite down the front passage; and, of the other two, one upon the stairs and one upon the kitchen passage, and these two had the doors in them. Above me was the lobby; and beneath me, first the little way into the back-hall, and beneath that the cellars. It was strange how prominent the place was, and yet how well concealed. One might live ten years in the house without suspecting its presence.

Presently the whole house was full of talking; and the front door was opened; and I heard a gentleman’s voice speaking. He was Mr. Harris, I learned afterwards, a Justice of the Peace from Puckeridge, whom Dangerfield had brought with him.

Much of what was said I could not hear; but I heard enough to understand why I was being looked for, and what would be the charges against me. Now the voices came muffled; and now clear; so that I would hear half a sentence and no more, as the speaker moved on.

“I tell you he left for Rome to-night,” I heard my Cousin Tom say (which was an adroit lie indeed, as no one could tell whether I had or no), “and he hath taken his man with him.”

“That is very well—” began the gentleman’s voice; and then no more.

Presently I heard one of the men of the house, named Dick—a good friend of mine, ask what they were after me for; and some fellow, as he went by, answered:

“—Consorting with the Jesuits, and conspiring—” and no more.

So, then, I lay and listened. Much that I heard had no relevance at all, for it was the protesting of maids and such-like. The footsteps went continually up and down; sometimes voices rose in anger; sometimes it was only a whisper that went by. I heard presses open and shut; and once or twice the noise of hammering overhead; and then silence again; but no silence was for long.

Here again I find it very hard to say all that I felt during that search. My thoughts came and went like pictures upon the dark. Now my heart would so beat that it sickened me, of sheer terror that I should be found; and this especially when a man would stay for a while talking on the stairs within an arm’s length of where I lay: now it was as I might say, more of the intellect; and I pondered on what I heard my Cousin Tom say, and marvelled at his shrewdness; for fear, if it does not drive away wits, sharpens them wonderfully. He had, of course, put me in greater peril, by saying that I was gone to Rome; but he had saved himself very adroitly, for no witness in the house could tell that I had not done so; for here was my chamber empty, and I and my man and my clothes and my books and my horses all vanished away. At one time, then, I was all eyes and ears in the muffled dark, hearing my heart thump as it had been another’s; at another time I would be looking within and contemplating my own fear.

Again and again, however, I thought of my Cousin Dorothy and wondered where she was and what she was at. I had not heard her voice all that time; and, on a sudden, after the men had been in the house near an hour I should say, I heard her sob suddenly, close to me, in a terrified kind of voice.

“Keep them, Nancy, keep them here as long as you can. It will give him—”

“Eh?” said a man’s voice suddenly beneath. “What was that?”

“I said nothing,” stammered my Cousin Dolly’s voice.

Well; there was a to-do. The fellow beneath called out to Mr. Harris, who was upstairs; and I heard him come down. My Cousin Dolly was sobbing and crying out, and so was the maid Nancy to whom she had spoken. At first I could make nothing of it, nor why she had said what she had; and then, as I heard them all go into the parlour together, I understood that if my Cousin Tom had been shrewd, his daughter had been shrewder; and had said what she had, knowing that a man was within earshot.

But there was nothing for me to do but to lie there still; for I could hear nothing from the parlour but a confused sound of voices, now three or four speaking at once, now a man’s voice (which I took to be the magistrate’s), and now, I thought my Cousin Dolly’s. I heard, too, above me, my Cousin Tom speaking very angrily, and understood that he was kept from his daughter—which was the best thing in the world for me, since he might very well have spoiled the whole design. At last I heard Dolly cry out very loud; then I heard the parlour-door open and three or four men came tumbling out, who ran beneath my hiding-hole and out through the kitchen passage to the stable. I was all a-tremble now, especially at my cousin’s cry; but I gave her credit for being as shrewd still as I had heard her to be on the stairs; and I proved right in the event; for almost immediately after that my Cousin Tom was let come downstairs, and I heard every word, of the colloquy.

“Well, Mr. Jermyn,” said the gentleman’s voice, immediately without my little door, “I am sorry indeed to have troubled you in this way; but I am the King’s justice of the peace and I must do my duty. Which way did you say Mr. Mallock was gone?”

“By…by Puckeridge,” stammered poor Tom.

“Ah! indeed,” said the other voice, with something of a sneer in it. “Why Mistress Dorothy here says it was by Barkway and so to Harwich; and of the two versions I prefer the lady’s. For, first, we should have seen him if he had come by Puckeridge, since we have been lying there since three o’clock this afternoon; and second, no such man in his senses would go to Rome by London. I am sorry I cannot commend your truthfulness, Mr. Jermyn, as much as your professions of loyalty.”

“I tell you—” began my Cousin Tom, angrily enough.

“I need no telling, Mr. Jermyn. Your cousin is gone by Barkway; and my men are gone to get the horses out to follow him. We shall catch him before Newmarket, I make no doubt.”

Then I heard Dolly’s sobbing as she clung to her father.

“Oh! father! father!” she mourned. “The gentleman forced it out of me. I could not help it. I could not help it!”

(As for me, I smiled near from ear to ear in the dark, to hear how well she feigned grief; and I think I loved my Cousin Dolly then as never before. It would have made a cat laugh, too, to hear the gentleman’s chivalry in return.)

“Mistress Dorothy,” he said, “I grieve to have troubled you like this. But you have done your duty as an English maid should; and set your loyalty to His Majesty before all else.”

Mistress Dorothy sobbed so admirably in return that my own eyes filled with tears to hear her; and I was a little sorry for the poor gentleman too. He was so stupid, and yet so well mannered too now that he had got all that he wanted, or thought he had.

“Well, mistress, and Mr. Jermyn, I must not delay any longer. The horses will be ready.”

They moved away still talking, all except my Cousin Dolly who sank upon the stairs still sobbing. She cried out after Mr. Harris to have mercy; and then fell a-crying again. When the door of the kitchen passage shut—for they were all gone out by now—her crying ceased mighty soon; and then I heard her laugh very softly to herself, and break off again, as if she had put her hand over her mouth. But I dared not speak to her yet.

I listened very carefully—for all the house was still now—for the sound of the horses’ feet; and presently I heard them, and reckoned that a dozen at least must have come after me; and I heard the voices of the men too as they rode away, grow faint and cease. Then I heard my Cousin Dolly slip through the door beneath me, and she gave me one little rap to the floor of my hiding-hole as she went beneath it.

I did not hear her come back; for Cousin Tom’s footsteps were loud in the kitchen passage; and the men too were tramping in and upstairs, while the maids went back to bed through the kitchen; and then, when all was quiet again I heard her voice speak suddenly in a whisper.

“You can open now, Cousin Roger, they be all gone away.” I unbolted and pushed open the little door quickly enough then; and though I was dazed with the candlelight the first thing that I saw was Dolly’s face, her eyes as bright as stars with merriment and laughter, and her cheeks flushed to rose, looking up at me.

CHAPTER X

That ride of mine all night to London was such as I shall never forget, not from any outward incident that happened, but for the thoughts that went continually through my heart and brain; and I do not suppose that I spoke twenty words to James all night, until we saw about seven o’clock the smoke and spires of London against the morning sky.

So soon as the coast was clear, and the last sound of the horses was died away on the hill beyond the Castle Inn—for the men rode fast and hard to catch me—I was out and away in the opposite direction, to Puckeridge; but first we brought the horses back as softly as we could, with James (who, like a good servant had not stirred an inch from his orders through all the tumult which he had heard plainly enough from the meadow), round to the head of the little lane that leads from Hormead Magna into Hare Street. There we waited, I say, all four of us in silence, until we heard the hoofs no more; and then James and I mounted on our horses.

I had said scarcely a word to Dorothy, nor she to me; for we both felt, I think, that there was no great need of words after such an adventure, and that it had knit us closer together than any words could do; and, besides, that was no place to talk. Yet it was not all pure joy; for here was the knowledge which we both had, that I must go away, and that God only knew when I should get back again; and, whatever that knowledge was to Dorothy, it was as a sword for pain to me. As for my Cousin Tom, he was no better than a dummy; for he was still terrified at all that had happened, and at the magistrate’s words to him. I told them both, while we were still in the house, that I must go to London, partly for that that was the last place in the world that any would look for me in, and partly—(but this I told neither of them)—for that I must return the packet to His Majesty: and I said that from London I would go to France for a little, until it seemed safe for me to get back again. But there, waiting in the dark, I said nothing at all; but before I mounted I kissed Dorothy on the cheek; and her cheek was wet, but whether with the feigned tears she had shed in the house, or with tears even dearer to me than those, I do not know. But I dared not delay any longer, for fear that when Mr. Harris came to Barkway, which was five miles away, he might learn that no one that could be James and I had passed that way, and so return to search again.

The clouds had rolled away by now; and it was a clear night of stars until they began to pale about two o’clock in the morning; and I think that for a lover who desires to be alone with his thoughts, there is no light of sun or moon or candle so sweet as the light of stars; and by that time we were beyond Ware and coming out of the valley.

It was solemn to me to watch that dawn coming up, for it was, I thought, the last dawn that I should see in England for a while, since I was determined but to see the King in London, and push straight on to Dover and take the packet there: and it was a solemn dawn too, in another way, for it was the first I had seen since I had been certain not only that I loved my Cousin Dolly as I had my own heart, but that she loved me also; and that is a great day for a lover.

To see the King then, and to push on to Dover, was all that I had rehearsed to myself; but Providence had one more adventure for me first, that was one of the saddest I have ever had in all my life, and yet not all sad.

My road took me in through the City and down Gracechurch Street; but here I took a fancy to turn to the right up Leadenhall and Cornhill, which were all crowded with folks, though at first I did not think why, that I might go by Newgate where the Jesuits lay, and see at least the walls that enclosed those saints of God; for I was pretty bold here, knowing that Mr. Dangerfield who was my chief peril, was off to Harwich to find me; and even if they found that I was not gone through Barkway, I did not think that they could catch me, for their horses were tired and ours fresh; and you do not easily get a change of a dozen horses, or anywhere near it, in Hertfordshire villages. So I went very boldly, and made no pretence not to look folks in the face.

After we had passed up Cheapside it appeared to me that the streets were strangely full, and that all the folk were going the same way; and so astonished was I at this—for no suspicion of the truth came to me—that I bid my man ask someone what the matter was. When he came up with me again I could see that something was the matter indeed; and so it was.

“Sir,” he said in a low voice, so that none else could hear, “they are taking the prisoners to execution this morning.”

Then there came upon me a kind of madness—for, although by God’s blessing it brought no harm to me—yet it was nothing else; and I determined to go to Newgate as I had intended, and at least see them brought out. For here was to be a martyrdom indeed—five men, all priests, all Religious—suffering, in God’s eyes at least, for nothing in the world but the Catholic religion; yes, and in men’s too, if they had known all, for I remembered how Mr. Whitbread had refused to escape, while he had yet a whole day for it, for fear of seeming to confess his guilt and so bringing scandal upon the Church and his order. From such a martyrdom, then, so near to me, how could I turn away? and I determined, if I could, to speak with Father Whitbread, and get his blessing.

When I got near Newgate the press grew greater every instant; but as we were on horseback and the greater number of the folks on foot, we got through them at last, and so came to the foot of the stairs by the chapel, where the sleds were laid ready with a pair of horses to each. I had never before seen an execution done in England, so I observed very carefully everything that was to be seen. The sleds were three in number, and were each made flat of strong wood with runners about an inch high; and there was a pair of horses harnessed to each, with a man to guide them. I got close to these, next behind the line of yellow trainbandmen who kept the way open, as well as the stairs. We were in the shadow here, in a little court of which the gates were set open, but the people were all crowded in behind the trainbandmen as well as in the street outside, and from them rose a great murmuring of talk, of which I did not hear a word spoken in sympathy, for I suppose that the Catholics there held their tongues.

We had not very long to wait; for, by the appointment of God, I was come just to time; and very soon the door at the head of the stairs was opened and men began to come out. I saw Mr. Sheriff How among them, who was to see execution done; but I did not observe these very closely, since I was looking for the Jesuits.

Mr. Harcourt came first into the sunlight that was at the head of the steps; and at the sight of him I was moved very deeply; for he was an old man with short white hair, very thick, and walked with a stick with his other hand in some fellow’s arm. A great rustle of talk began when he appeared, and swelled into a roar, but he paid no attention to it, and came down, smiling and looking to his steps. Next came Mr. Whitbread; and at the sight of him I was as much affected as by the old man; for I had spoken with him so often. He too walked cheerfully, first looking about him resolutely as he came out at all the faces turned up to his; and at him too was even a greater roaring, for the people thought him to be at the head of all the conspiracy. He was pinioned loosely with cords, but not so that he could not lift his hands (and so were the other three that followed), and a fellow held the other end of the cord in his hand. Mr. Turner and Mr. Gavan, who came next, I had never seen before—(Mr. Gavan was he that was taken in the stables of the Imperial Ambassador—Count Wallinstein)—they came one behind the other, and paid no more attention than the others to the noise that greeted them; and last of all came Mr. Fenwick who had entertained me so often in Drury Lane, looking pinched, I thought, with his imprisonment, yet as courageous as any. Behind him came a minister and then the tail of the guard.

As I saw Mr. Fenwick come out I put into execution a design I had formed just now; and slipping from my horse I got out a guinea and begged in a low voice the fellow before me—for I was just by the sled on which Mr. Harcourt and Mr. Whitbread would be bound—to let me through enough to speak a word with him; and at the same time I pressed the guinea into his hand: so he stood aside a little and let me through, on my knees, enough to speak to Mr. Whitbread. Mr. Harcourt was already laid down on the sled, on the further side from me, and Mr. Whitbread was getting to his knees for the same end. As he turned and sat himself on the sled he saw me, and frowned ever so little. Then he smiled as I made the sign of the cross on myself and he made it too at me, and I saw his lips move as he blessed me. He was not an arm’s length from me. That was enough for me; and I stepped back again and mounted my horse once more. The fellow who had let me through looked at me over his shoulder once or twice, but said nothing; for he had my guinea; and, as for myself I sat content, though my eyes pricked with tears, for I had had the last blessing (or very nearly) which that martyr of God would ever give in this world.

When they were all ready, and the five were bound on the sleds, with their beads to the horses’ heels, I looked to see how I could best follow; and it appeared to me that it was best for me to keep close at the tail, rather than to attempt to go before. When the word was given, the whips cracked, and the sled nearest me, with Mr. Whitbread and Mr. Harcourt upon it, began to move. Then came Mr. Turner and Mr. Gavan, and last Mr. Fenwick all by himself. The minister whose name was Samuel Smith, as I learned later, and who was the Ordinary of Newgate, followed on foot, and behind him came the guards to close them all in.

My fellow in front, whom I had bribed, seemed to understand what I wanted; for in the confusion he let me through, and my man James forced his way after me; so that we found ourselves with three or four other gentlemen, riding immediately behind the guards, as we came out of the court into the street outside; and so we followed, all the way to Tyburn.

That adventure of mine was I think the most observable I have ever had, and, too, the greatest privilege to my soul: for here was I, if ever any man did, following the Cross of Christ in the passion of His servants—such a Via Crucis as I have never made in any church—for here was the very road along which so many hundreds of the Catholic martyrs had passed before; and at the end was waiting the very death by which they had died. I know that the martyrdom of these five was not so evident an one as that of others before them, since those died for the Faith directly, and these for an alleged conspiracy; yet before God, I think, they died no less for Religion, since it was in virtue of their Religion that they were accused. So, then, I followed them.

All the way along Holborn we went, and High Holborn and St. Giles, and at last out into the Oxford Road that ran then between fields and gardens; and all the way we went the crowds went with us, booing and roaring from time to time, and others, too, from the windows of the houses, joined in the din that was made. At first the way was nasty enough, with the pails that folks had emptied out of doors into the gutter; but by the time we reached the Oxford Road the way was dusty only; so that the five on the sleds were first nastied, and then the dust fell on them from the horses’ heels. I could see only Mr. Fenwick’s face from time to time; he kept his eyes closed the most of the way, and was praying, I think. Of the rest I could see nothing.

It was a terrible sight to me when we came out at last and saw the gallows—the “Deadly Nevergreen” as it was called—the three posts with the beams connecting them—against the western sky. The ropes were in place all in one line; and a cart was there beneath them. A cauldron, too, sent up its smoke a little distance away beside the brook. All this space was kept clear again by guards; and there were some of the new grenadiers among them, in their piebald livery, with furred caps; and without the guards there was a great crowd of people. Here, then, was the place of the Passion.

The confusion was so great as the sleds went within the line of guards, and the people surged this way and that, that I was forced, somewhat, out of the place I had hoped to get, and found myself at last a good way off, with a press of people between me and the gallows; so that I could see nothing of the unbinding; and, when they spoke later could not hear all that they said.

It was not long before they were all in the cart together, with the ropes about their necks, and the hangman down again upon the ground; and as soon as that was done, a great silence fell everywhere. I had seen Mr. Gavan say something to the hangman, and he answered again; but I could not hear what it was.

Then, when the silence fell, I heard Mr. Whitbread begin; and the first sentence was clear enough, though his voice sounded thin at that distance.

“I suppose,” he said, “it is expected I should speak something to the matter I am condemned for, and brought hither to suffer.”

Then he went on to say how he was wholly guiltless of any plot against His Majesty, and that in saying so he renounced and repudiated any pretended pardons or dispensations that were thought to have been given him to swear falsely. He prayed God to bless His Majesty, and denied that it was any part of Catholic teaching that a king might be killed as it was said had been designed by the alleged plot; and he ended by recommending his soul into the hands of his blessed Redeemer by whose only merits and passion he hoped for salvation. He spoke very clearly, with a kind of coldness.

Father Harcourt’s voice was not so clear, as he was an old man; but I heard Mr. Sheriff How presently interrupt him. (He was upon horseback close beside the gallows.)

“Or of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey’s death?” he asked.

“Did you not write that letter concerning the dispatch of Sir Edmund

Berry Godfrey?”

“No, sir,” cried the old man very loud. “These are the words of a dying man. I would not do it for a thousand worlds.”

He went on to affirm his innocence of all laid to his charge; and he ended by begging the prayers of all in the communion of the Roman Church in which he himself died.

When Mr. Anthony Turner had spoke a while, again Sheriff How interrupted him.

“You do only justify yourselves here,” he said. “We will not believe a word that you say. Spend your time in prayer, and we will not think your time too long.”

But Mr. Turner went on as before, affirming his entire innocence; and, at the end he prayed aloud, and I heard every word of it.

“O my dear Saviour and Redeemer,” he cried, lifting up his eyes, and his hands too as well as he could for the cords, “I return Thee immortal thanks for all Thou hast pleased to do for me in the whole course of my life, and now in the hour of my death, with a firm belief of all things Thou hast revealed, and a stedfast hope of obtaining everlasting bliss. I cheerfully cast myself into the arms of Thy mercy, whose arms were stretched on the Cross for my redemption. Sweet Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Then Mr. Gavan spoke to the same effect as the rest, but he argued a little more, and theologically too, being a young man; and spoke of Mariana the Jesuit who had seemed to teach a king-killing doctrine; but this sense on his words he repudiated altogether. He too, at the end, commended his soul into the hands of God, and said that he was ready to die for Jesus as Jesus had died for him.

Mr. Fenwick had scarcely begun before Mr. Sheriff How broke in on him, and argued with him concerning the murder of Sir Edmund.

“As for Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey,” cried Mr. Fenwick, “I protest before

God that I never saw the man in my life.”

“For my part,” said the Sheriff, “I am of opinion that you had a hand in it.”

“Now that I am a dying man,” said the priest, “do you think that I would go and damn my soul?”

“I wish you all the good that I can,” said Mr. How, “but I assure you I believe never a word you say.”

Well; he let him alone after that; and Mr. Fenwick finished, once more denying and renouncing the part that had been assigned to him, and maintaining his innocence.

There followed after that a very long silence, of half an hour, I should think. The five men stood in the cart together, with their eyes cast down; and each, I think, absolved his neighbour. The crowd about kept pretty quiet, only murmuring together; and cried no more insults at them. I, too, did my best to pray with them and for them; but my horse was restless, and I had some ado to keep him quiet. After a good while, Mr. Sheriff How spoke to them again.

“Pray aloud, gentlemen, that we may join with you. We shall do you no hurt if we do you no good.”

They said nothing to that; and he spoke again, with some sharpness.

“Are you ashamed of your prayers?”

Still they did not speak; and he turned on Father Gavan.

“Why, Mr. Gavan,” he said, “it is reported that you did preach in the

Quakers’ meeting-house.”

The priest opened his eyes.

“No, sir,” he said, “I never did preach there in all my life.”

It was very solemn and dreadful to wait there while they prayed; for they were at it again for twenty minutes, I should judge, and no more interruptions from Mr. How, who, I think, was a shade uneasy. It was a clear June day, beginning to be hot; and the birds were chirping in the trees about the place—for at times the silence was so great that one could hear a pin fall, as they say. Now I felt on the brink of hell—at the thought of the pains that were waiting for my friends, at the memory of that great effusion of blood that had been poured out and of the more that was to follow. There was something shocking in the quietness and the glory of the day—such a day as many that I had spent in the meadows of Hare Street, or in the high woods—faced as it was with this dreadful thing against the blue sky, and the five figures beneath it, like figures in a frieze, and the smoke of the cauldron that drifted up continually or brought a reek of tar to my nostrils. And, again, all this would pass; and I would feel that it was not hell but heaven that waited; and that all was but as a thin veil, a little shadow of death, that hung between me and the unimaginable glories; and that at a word all would dissolve away and Christ come and this world be ended. So, then, the minutes passed for me: I said my Paternoster and Ave and Credo and De Profundis, over and over again; praying that the passage of those men might be easy, and that their deaths might be as sacrifices both for themselves and for the country. I was beyond fearing for myself now; I was in a kind of madness of pity and longing. And, at the last I saw Mr. Whitbread raise his head and look at the Sheriff.

There rose then, as he made a sign, a great murmur from all the crowd. I had thought that they would have been impatient, but they were not; and had kept silence very well; and I think that this spectacle of the five men praying had touched many hearts there. Now, however, when the end approached, they seemed to awaken again, and to look for it; and they began to move their heads about to see what was done, so that the crowd was like a field of wheat when the wind goes over it.

Then fell a horrible thing.

There broke out suddenly a cry, that was like a trumpet suddenly sounding after drums—of a different kind altogether from the murmuring that was before. I turned my head whence it came, and saw a great confusion break out in the outskirts of the crowd. Then I saw a horse’s head, and a man’s bare head behind it, whisk out from the trees in the direction of the park, and come like a streak across the open ground. As the galloper came nearer, I could see that he was spurring as if for life. Then once more a great roar broke out everywhere—

“A pardon! a pardon!” And so it was.

The crowd opened out to let the man through; and immediately he was at the gallows, and handing the paper to the sheriff. A roar was going up now on all sides; but as in dumb play I could see that Mr. How was speaking to the priests who still stood as before. Mr. Whitbread shook his head in answer and so did the others. Then I saw Mr. How make a sign; the hangman came forward again (for he had stepped back just now); and the roar died suddenly to silence.

Then I understood that the pardon was offered only on conditions which these men could not accept—and indeed they turned out afterwards to be that they should confess their guilt—and my anger at that bitter mockery swelled up so that I could scarcely hold myself in. But I did so.

Then the hangman climbed once more into the cart, and, one by one with each, he adjusted the rope, and then pulled down the caps over their faces, beginning with Father Whitbread and ending with Father Fenwick. Then he got down from the cart again; and the murmur rose once more to a roar.

I kept my eyes fixed upon the five, caring for nothing else; and even in that horrible instant my lips moved in the De Profundis for their souls’ easy passage. Then I saw old Father Harcourt suddenly stagger, and then the rest staggered; and I saw that the cart was being pulled away. And then all five of them were in the air together, beginning to twist to and fro; and I shut my eyes, for I could bear no more.

CHAPTER XI

It was not till we were coming down St. Martin’s Lane on the way to Whitehall, that my thoughts ran clear again, and I could think upon the designs I had formed. Until then, it seemed to me that I rode as in a dream, seeing my thoughts before me, but having no power to look within or consider myself. One thing too moved before me whenever I closed my eyes; and that was the slow twisting frieze of the five figures against the blue sky.

I spoke suddenly to James as we went.

“You will leave me,” I said, “at the Whitehall gate; and go back to my lodgings. Procure a pair of good horses at the Covent Garden inn; and say we will leave them at any place they name on the Dover Road.”

He answered that he would do so, and it was the first word he had spoken since we had left Tyburn. At the palace-doors I found no difficulty in admittance, for it was the hour for changing guard, and a lieutenant that was known to me let me in at once; so I went straight in and across the court, just as I was, in my dusty clothes and boots, carrying nothing but my riding-whip. My mind now seethed with bitter thoughts and words, now fell into a stupor, and I rehearsed nothing of what I should say to His Majesty, except that I was done with his service and was then going to France for a little, unless it pleased him to have me arrested and hanged too for nothing. Then I would give him back his papers and begone.

I came up the stairs to Mr. Chiffinch’s lodgings, just as himself came out; and he fell back a step when he saw me.

“Why, where do you come from?” he asked.

“They are after me,” I said briefly. “But that is not all.”

“Why, what else?” said he, staring at me.

“I am come from seeing the martyrdoms,” I said.

“For God’s sake!—” he cried; and caught me by the arm and drew me in.

“Now have you dined?” he said, when he had me in a chair.

“Not yet.”

He looked at me, fingering his lip.

“I suppose you have come to see His Majesty?” he said.

I told him, Yes: no more.

“And what if His Majesty will not see you?” he asked, trying me.

“His Majesty will see me,” I said. “I have something for him.”

Again he hesitated. I think for a minute or two he thought it might be a pistol or a knife that I had for the King.

“If I bring you to him,” he said, “will you give me your word to remain here till I come for you?”

“Yes; I will do that,” I said. “But I must see him immediately.”

“Well—” said Mr. Chiffinch. And then without a word he wheeled and went out of the room.

I do not know how long I sat there; but it may have been half an hour. I sat like a dazed man; for I had had no sleep, and what I had seen drove away all desire for it. I sat there, staring, and pondering round and round in circles, like a wheel turning. Now it was of Dorothy; now of the Jesuits; now of His Majesty and Mr. Chiffinch; now again, of the road to Dover, and of what I should do in France.

There came at last a step on the stairs, and Mr. Chiffinch came in. At the door he turned, and took from a man in the passage, as I suppose, a covered dish, with a spoon in it. Then he shut the door with his heel, and came forward and set the dish down.

“Dinner first—” he said.

“I must see His Majesty,” I repeated.

“Why you are an obstinate fellow, Mr. Mallock,” he said, smiling. “Have

I not given you my word you shall see him?”

“Directly?”

He leaned his hands on the table and looked at me.

“Mr. Mallock; His Majesty will be here in ten minutes’ time. I told him you must eat something first; and he said he would wait till then.”

The stew he had brought me was very savoury: and I ate it all up; for I had had nothing to eat since supper last night; and, by the time I had done, and had told him very briefly what had passed at Hare Street, I felt some of my bewilderment was gone. It is marvellous how food can change the moods of the immortal soul herself; but I was none the less determined, I thought, to leave the King’s service; for I could not serve any man, I thought, whose hands were as red as his in the blood of innocents.

I had hardly done, and was blessing myself, when Mr. Chiffinch went out suddenly, and had returned before I had stood up, to hold the door open for the King.

He came in, that great Prince,—(for in spite of all I still count him to be that, in posse if not in esse)—as airy and as easy as if nothing in the world was the matter. He was but just come from dinner, and his face was flushed a little under its brown, with wine; and his melancholy eyes were alight. He was in one of his fine suits too, for to-day was Saturday; and as it was hot weather his suit was all of thin silk, puce-coloured, with yellow lace; and he carried a long cane in his ringed hand. He might not have had a care in the world, to all appearances; and he smiled at me, as if I were but just come back from a day in the country.

“Well, Mr. Mallock”—he said; and put out his hand to be kissed.

Now I had determined not to kiss his hand—whatever the consequences might be; but when I saw him like that I could do no otherwise; for my love and my pity for him—(if I may use such a word of a subject towards his Sovereign)—surged up again, which I thought were dead for ever; so I was on my knees in an instant, and I kissed his brown hand and smelled the faint violet essence which he used. Then, before I could say anything, he had me down in a chair, and himself in another, and was beginning to talk. (Mr. Chiffinch was gone out; but I had not seen him go.)

“It is a bloody business,” he said sorrowfully—”a very bloody business.

But what else could be done? If I had not consented, I would be no

longer King; but off on my travels again; and all England in confusion.

However; that is as it may be. What do you want to see me for, Mr.

Mallock?”

He spoke so kindly to me, and with such feeling too, and his condescension seemed to me so infinite in his coming here to wait upon me—(though this was very often his custom, I think, when he wished to see a man or a woman in private)—that I determined to put off my announcement to him that I could no longer be in his service. So first I drew out from my waistcoat the packet I had taken from under my shirt, and put there, while Mr. Chiffinch was away.

“Sir;” I said, “I have brought your packet back again. I have had no word from you as to its delivery; and as I must go abroad to-day I dare keep it no longer. Your Majesty, I fear, must find another messenger.”

His face darkened for an instant as if he could not remember something; but it lightened again as he took the packet from me, and turned it over.

“Why; I remember,” he said. “It was sealed within and without, was it not?”

That seemed to me a strangely irrelevant thing to say but I told him,

Yes it was.

“And you were to deliver to—eh? what was his name?”

“Your Majesty told me that the name would be sent to me.”

“Why, so I did,” said the King, smiling. “Well; let us open the packet and see what is within.”

He took up a little ivory knife that was on the table by his elbow, and slipped it beneath the folds of the paper, so as to burst open the seals; and when he had done that, there was another wrapper, also sealed. This seal he also scrutinized, still smiling a little; and then he burst that; and when he had taken off that covering, a folded piece of paper fell out. This he unfolded, and spread flat with his fingers; and there was nothing written on that side; then he turned it over, and shewed me how there was nothing written on that either. So the message I had borne about me, was nothing in the world but a piece of blank paper.

I drew a long breath when I saw that; for my anger surged up at the way I had been fooled; but before I could think of anything to say, the King spoke.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “you have done very well. You understand it now, eh?”

“No, Sir; I do not,” I said.

“Why; it is a very old trick;” went on His Majesty, “to see if a messenger will be faithful. Your folks did it first, I think, in Queen Bess her reign; so as to risk nothing. And you have kept it all this while!”

“I obeyed Your Majesty’s commands,” I said.

“Well; and you have delivered it to the right person.” (He tossed the papers altogether upon the table and turned to me again.) “Now, sir; I had no real doubt of you; but others were not so sure; and I consented to this to please them; so now that all has been done, I can use you more freely, if you will: I have more than one mission which must be done for me; and if you like it, Mr. Mallock, you may have the first.”

“Sir; I must go to France immediately. The hunt is up, after me, too.”

“What do you mean by that?” he said sharply. “The hunt! What is that?”

“I would not weary Your Majesty with it all; but the truth is that the fellow Dangerfield, who came after me here, came yesterday with a magistrate and near a dozen men, to Hare Street to take me. I eluded them, and came to London.”

“You eluded them! How was that?”

Well; I told him as shortly as I could; and he laughed outright when I came to my Cousin Dolly’s part in it.

“Why: that was very wittily done!” he said. “The minx!”

I did not much like that; but I could not find fault with the King.

“And I was at Tyburn this morning, Sir.”

“What! At Tyburn!”

“At Tyburn, Sir; and I was so sick at heart at what I saw there—five of Your Majesty’s most faithful servants murdered in the name of justice, that I would not have cared greatly if I had been hanged with them.”

His face darkened a little; but not with anger at me.

“It is a bloody business, as I have said,” he said gently. “But come!—it is to France that you go.”

“There is as good as any other place,” I said, “so I be out of the kingdom. I have estates there, too.”

“But to France will suit very well,” said the King. “For it is to France that I designed to send you. I have plenty of couriers who can take written messages, and I have plenty of men who can talk—some think, too much; but I have no one at hand at this moment whom I can send to Court, and who will acquit himself well there, and that can take a message too—none, that is, that is not occupied. What do you say, Mr. Mallock? Would a couple of months there please you?”

Here then was the time for my announcement; for I knew that if I did not make it then I should make it never.

I stood up; and my heart beat thickly.

“Sir,” I said. “Six months ago I would have run anywhere to serve you. But in six months many things have happened; and I cannot serve a Prince any more who cannot keep his word even to save the innocent. I had best be gone again to Rome, I think, and see what they can give me there. I am sick of England, which I once loved so much.”

It was those very words—or others very like them that I said. I do not know where I got the courage to say them, for my life lay altogether in the King’s hand: a word from him, or even silence, and I should have kicked my heels that night in Newgate, and a week or two later in the air, on a charge of being in with the Jesuits in their plot. Yet I said them; for I could say nothing else.

His Majesty’s face turned black as thunder as I began; and when I was done it was all stiff with pride.

“That is your mind, Mr. Mallock, then?” he said.

“That is my mind, Sir,” I answered him.

And then a change went over his face once more. God knows why he relented; I think it may have been that he had somewhat of a fancy for me, and remembered how I had pleased him and tried to serve him. And when he spoke, it was very gently indeed.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “those are very brave words. But I think they are not worthy of a man of your parts. For consider; were you not sent here by the Holy Father to help a poor sinner who had need of it? And is it Catholic charity to leave the sinner because of his sins?”

I said nothing to that; for I was all confounded at his mildness. I suppose I had braced myself for something very different.

“It is true I am not a Catholic; but were you not sent here, in answer to my entreaty, that you might help to make it easy for me to become one? Is it apostolic, then, to run away so soon—”

“If Your Majesty,” I burst out, “would but shew some signs—”

He lifted his eyebrows at that.

“Signs! In these days?” he said. “Why, I should hang, myself, in a week’s time! Are these the days, think you, to shew Catholicism? Why; do you not think that my own heart is not near broken with all I have had to do?”

He spoke with extraordinary passion; for that was his way when he was very deeply moved (which, to tell the truth, however, was not very often). But I have never known a man so careless and indolent on the surface, who had a softer heart than His Sacred Majesty, if it could but be touched.

“The blood of God’s priests,” he cried, holding the arms of his chair so that it shook—”their blood cries from the ground against me! Do you think I do not know that? Yet what can I do? I am tied and bound by circumstance. I could not save them; and in the attempt I could only lose my own life or throne as well. The people are mad for their blood! Why Scroggs himself said in public at one of the trials, that even the King’s Mercy could not come between them and death. And it is at this moment, then, that the servants to whom I had looked to help me, leave me! Go if you will, Mr. Mallock, and save your own soul. You shall have a safe passage to France; but never again speak to me of Catholic charity.”

Every word that he said rang true in my heart. It was true indeed, as he said, that no effort of his could have saved the men, and he could only have perished himself. There were scores of men, even among his own guards, I have no doubt, who would have killed him if he had shewn at this time the least mercy, or the least inclination towards Catholicism. His back was to the wall; he fought not for himself only, but for Monarchy itself in England. There would have been an end of all, and we back again under the tyranny of the Commonwealth if he had acted otherwise; or as I had thought that he would.

He had scarcely finished when I was on my knees before him.

“Sir,” I cried, “I am heartily ashamed of myself. I ask pardon for all that I have said. I will go to France or to anywhere else; and will think myself honoured by it, and by the forgiveness of Your Majesty. Sir; let me be your servant once more.”

The passion was gone from his face as he looked down on me there; and he was, as before, the great Prince, with his easy manner and his unimaginable charm.

“Why that is very well said,” he answered me. “And I shall be glad to have your services, Mr. Mallock. Mr. Chiffinch will give you all instructions.”

“That was a very bold speech,” said Mr. Chiffinch presently, when the

King was gone away again—”which you made to His Majesty.”

“Why, did you hear it?” I cried.

He smiled at me.

“Why, yes,” he said. “I was behind the open door just within the further chamber. I was not sure of you, Mr. Mallock, neither was the King for that matter.”

“Sure of me?”

“I thought perhaps we might have a real threatener of the King’s life, at last,” he said. “You had a very wild look when you came in, Mr. Mallock.”

“Yet His Majesty came; and unarmed!” I cried: “and as happy as—as a

King!”

“Why, what else?” asked Mr. Chiffinch.

Our eyes met; and for the first time I understood how even a man like this, with his pandering to the King’s pleasures, and his own evil life, could have as much love and admiration for such a man, as I myself had.

PART II

CHAPTER I

I do not mean to set down in this volume all that befell me during the years that I was in the King’s service, partly because that would make too large a book, but chiefly because there were committed to me affairs of which this French one was the first, of which I took my oath never to speak without leave. Up to the present in England nothing had been said to me which would be private twenty years afterwards; I take no shame at all at revealing what little I was able to do for the King personally in England—(except perhaps in one or two points which must not be spoken of)—nor of my adventures and my endeavours to be of service to those who were one with me in religion; but of the rest, the least said the soonest mended. So the best plan which I can think of is to leave out on every occasion all that passed, or very nearly all, when I was out of my country, both in France and Rome, for I went away—on what I may call secret service—three times altogether between my first coming and the King’s death. It is enough to say that this time I was in Paris about three months, and in Normandy one; and that I had acquitted myself, so far, to His Majesty’s satisfaction.[A]

[Footnote A: Plainly this business of Mr. Mallock had some connection with Charles’ perpetual intrigues with France, for Louis’ support of him. At this time Charles’ intrigues were a little unsuccessful; so it may be supposed that without Mr. Mallock they would have been even worse.]

I returned to London then on the night of the sixteenth of November, of the same year; and I brought with me a letter to the King from a certain personage in France.

Now to one living in a Catholic country the rumours that come from others not so happy, are either greatly swollen and exaggerated in his mind, or thought nothing of. It was the latter case with me. I was in high favour on both sides of the Channel; and this, I suppose made me think little of the troubles in my own country: so when I and James reached London late in the evening, after riding up from Kent, I went straight to Whitehall, as bold as brass to demand to see Mr. Chiffinch. We had ridden fast, and had talked with but very few folks, and these ignorant; so that I knew nothing of what impended, and was astonished that the sentinels at the gate eyed me so suspiciously.

“Yes, sir,” said the younger, to whom I had addressed myself, “and what might your business with Mr. Chiffinch be?”

I had learned by now not to quack gossip or to parley with underlings; so I answered him very shortly.

“Then fetch the lieutenant,” I said; and sat back on my horse like a great person.

When the lieutenant came he was one I had never seen before, nor he me; and he too asked me what I wanted with Mr. Chiffinch.

“Lord, man!” I cried, for I was weary with my journey, and a little impatient. “Do you think I shall blurt out private business for all the world to hear? Send me under guard if you will—a man on each side—so you send me.”

He did not do that (for I think he thought that I might be some important personage from my way with him), but he would not let James come in too; and he said a man must go with me to show me the way.

“Or I, him,” I said. “However; let it be so;” and I told James to ride on to the lodgings, and make all ready for me there.

Now I had heard in France of the events in the kingdom; but as they had not greatly affected Catholics, and, if anything, had even helped them, I was in no great state of mind. Within a week of my getting to Paris the news came of how the Duke of Monmouth had been sent with an army to Scotland and had trounced the Highlanders (who prayed and preached when they should have fought) at Bothwell Bridge on the river Clyde; and of the punishment he inflicted on them afterwards; though this was nothing to what Dr. Sharpe (who had been killed by them in May) or Lauderdale would have done to them. Of Catholic fortunes there was not a great deal of bad news, and some good: Sir George Wakeman, with three Benedictines, was acquitted of any design to murder the King; and Mr. Kerne, a priest, had been acquitted at Hereford of the charge under 27 Elizabeth—that famous statute, still in force, that forbade any priest that had received Orders beyond the seas, to reside in England. On the other hand, in the provinces, a few had suffered; of whom I remember, on the Feast of the Assumption a Franciscan named Johnson, a man of family, had been condemned at Worcester; and Mr. Will Plessington at Chester: and these were executed. Since then, no deaths that I had heard of, had taken place in England for such causes: and affairs seemed pretty quiet.

I was all unprepared then for the news I had from Mr. Chiffinch, as soon as he had greeted me, and paid me compliments on the way I had done my French business.

“You are come just in time,” he said ruefully. “We are to have a great to-do to-morrow, I hear.”

I asked him what that might be, lolling in my chair, for I was stiff with riding.

“Why it is your old friend Dangerfield, I hear, who is the thorn in our pillow now. He hath first feigned to discover a Covenanting plot against His Majesty; and then turned it into a Popish one. There has been much foolish talk about a meal-tub, and papers hidden in it, and such-like: and now there is to be a great procession of malcontents to-morrow, to burn the Pope and the Devil and Sir George Jeffreys, and God knows who, at Temple Bar. But that is not all.”

“Why, what else?” I asked. “And why is not the procession forbidden?”

“Who do you think is behind it all?” he said. “Why; no one less than my Lord Shaftesbury himself. Dangerfield is but one of his tools. And that is not all.”

“Lord!” said I. “What a troublous country!” (I spoke lightly, for I did not understand the weight of all these events.) “What else is the matter?”

“It is the Duke of Monmouth,” he said, “who is the pawn in Shaftesbury’s game. My Lord would give the world to have the Duke declared legitimate, and so oust James. His Grace of Monmouth is something of a popular hero now, after his doings in Scotland, and most of all since he stands for the Protestant Religion. He hath dared to strike out the bar sinister from his arms too; and goeth about the country as if he were truly royal. So His Royal Highness is gone back to Scotland again in a great fury; and His Majesty is once again in a strait betwixt two, as the Scriptures say. There is his Catholic brother on the one side; and there is this young spark of a Protestant bastard on the other. We shall know better to-morrow how the feeling runs. His Majesty was taken very ill in August; and I am not surprised at it.”

This was all very heavy news for me. I had hoped in France that most at least of the Catholic troubles were over, and now, here again they were, in a new form. I sighed aloud.

“Heigho!” I said. “But this is all beyond me, Mr. Chiffinch. I had best be gone into the country.”

“I think you had,” he said very seriously. “You can do nothing in this place.”

I was very glad when I heard him say that; for I had thought a great deal of Hare Street, and of my Cousin Dolly there; and it was good news to me to hear that I might soon see her again.

“But I must see the sight to-morrow,” I said; and soon after that I took my leave.

It was a marvellous sight indeed, the next evening. I went to see a Mr. Martin in the morning, that lived in the Strand, a Catholic bookseller, and got leave from him to sit in his window from dinner onwards, that I might see the show.

It was about five o’clock that the affair began; and the day was pretty dark by then. A great number of people began to assemble little by little, up Fleet Street on the one side, the Strand on the other, and down Chancery Lane in the midst; for it was announced everywhere, and even by criers in some parts, that the procession would take place and would end at Temple Bar. My Lord Shaftesbury, who had lately lost the presidency of the Council, had rendered himself irreconcilable with the Duke of York, and his only hope (as well as of others with him) lay in ruining His Highness. All this, therefore, was designed to rouse popular feeling against the Duke and the Catholic cause. So this was my welcome home again!

It was strange to watch the folks assembling, and the gradual kindling of the flambeaux. In the windows on either side of the street were set candles; and a line of coaches was drawn up against the gutter on the further side. But still more strange and disconcerting were the preparations already made to receive the procession. An open space was kept by fellows with torches to the east of the City Gate; and here, looking towards the City, with her back to the Gate, close beside the Pillory, stood Queen Bess in effigy, upon a pedestal, as it were a Protestant saint in her shrine; for the day had been chosen on account of its being the day of her accession and of Queen Mary’s death. She was set about with gilded laurel-wreaths, and bore a gilded sceptre; and beneath her, like some sacrificial fire, blazed a great bonfire, roaring up to heaven with its sparks and smoke. Half a dozen masked fellows, in fantastic dresses, tended the bonfire and replenished the flambeaux that burned about the effigy. Indeed it was strangely like some pagan religious spectacle—the goddess at the entrance of her temple (for the gate looked like that); and the resemblance became more marked as the ceremonies were performed which ended the show. A Catholic might well be pardoned for retorting “Idolatry,” and saying that he preferred Mary Queen of Heaven to Bess Queen of England.

It was from Moorfields that the procession came, and it took a good while to come. But I was entertained enough by the sight of all the people, to pass the time away. A number of gentlefolks opposite to my window sat on platforms, all wrapped up in furs, and some of them masked, with a few ministers among them; and I make no doubt that Dr. Tonge was there, though I did not see him. But I did see a merry face which I thought was Mistress Nell Gwyn’s; and whether it was she or not that I saw, I heard afterwards that she had been there, to His Majesty’s great displeasure.

And in the same group I saw Mr. Killigrew’s face—that had been page to Charles the First, and came back to be page to his son—for his grotesque and yet fine face was unmistakable; the profligate fop Sir George Etheredge, gambler and lampooner, with drink and the devil all over him; solemn Thomas Thynne, murdered two years afterwards, for a woman’s sake, by Count Conigsmark, who was hanged for it and lay in great state in a satin coffin; and last, my Lord Dover, with his great head and little legs, looking at the people through a tortoiseshell glass. The Court, or at least, some of it, enjoyed itself here, in spite of the character of the demonstration. Meanwhile out of sight a great voice shouted jests and catchwords resonantly from time to time, to amuse the people; and the crowd, that was by now packed everywhere against the houses, upon the roofs and even up Chancery Lane, answered his hits with roaring cheers. I heard the name of the Duke of Monmouth several times; and each time it was received with acclamation. Once the Duke of York’s was called out; and the booing and murring at it were great enough to have daunted even him. (But he was in Scotland now—too far away to hear it—and seemed like to remain there.) And once Mrs. Gwyn’s name was shouted, and something else after it; and there was a stir on the platform where I thought I had seen her; and then a great burst of cheering; for she was popular enough, in spite of her life, for her Protestantism. (It was not works, they hated, thought I to myself, but Faith!)

The first that I knew of the coming of the procession was the sound of fifes up Fleet Street; and a great jostling and roaring that followed it by those who strove to see better. I was distracted for an instant by a dog that ran out suddenly, tail down, into the open space and disappeared again yelping. When I turned again the head of the procession was in sight, coming into view round the house that was next to Mr. Martin’s.

First, between the torches that lined the procession through all its length, came a band of fifers, very fine, in scarlet tunics and stiff beaver-hats; shrilling a dirge as they walked; and immediately behind them a funeral herald in black, walking very upright and stiff, with a bell in one hand which he rang, while he cried out in a great mournful bellowing voice:

“Remember Justice Godfrey! Remember Justice Godfrey;” and then pealed upon his bell again. (It was pretty plain from that that we Catholics were to bear the brunt of all, as usual!)

Behind him came a terrible set of three. In the midst, led by a groom, was a great white horse, with bells on his bridle sounding as he came; and on his back an effigy, dressed in riding costume, with boots, and with white riding gloves and cravat all spattered over with blood. His head lolled on his shoulders, as if the neck were broken, turning a pale bloody face from side to side, with fallen jaw and great rolling melancholy eyes; for this was of Justice Godfrey. Beside him walked a man in black, that held him fast with one hand, and had a dripping dagger in the other—to represent a Jesuit. This was perhaps the worst of all; but there was plenty more to come.

There followed, after Justice Godfrey, a pardoner, dressed as a priest, in a black cope sown all over with death’s heads, waving papers in his hands, and proclaiming indulgences to all Protestant-killers, so loud that he might be heard at Charing Cross; and next behind him a fellow carrying a silver cross, that shone very fine in the red light of the bonfire and the flambeaux, and drew attention to what came after. For behind him came eight Religious, Carmelites and Franciscans, in the habits of their Orders, going two by two with clasped hands and bowed heads as if they prayed; and after them that which was, in intention, the centre of all—for this was a set of six Jesuits in black, with lean painted faces, each bearing a dagger which he waved, gnashing his teeth and grinning on the folks.

There had been enough roaring and cheering before; but at this sight the people went near mad; and I had thought for an instant that the very actors would be torn in pieces for the sake of the parts they played.

Mr. Martin and his wife were close beside me in the window; and I turned to them.

“We are fortunate not to be Jesuits,” I said, “and known to be such. Our lives would not be worth a pin.”

He nodded at me very gravely: and I saw how white was his wife’s face.

When I looked again a very brilliant group was come into view—four bishops in rochets and violet, with large pectoral crosses. These walked very proud and prelatical, looking disdainfully at the people who roared at the burlesque; and behind them, again, four more in gilded mitres. (I do not know what this generation knew of Catholic bishops; for not one in a thousand of them had ever set eyes on one.)

After a little space followed six cardinals in scarlet, very gorgeous, with caps and trains of the same colour. These swept along, looking to neither right nor left, followed by a lean man in a black silk suit and gown, skulking and bending, bearing a glass retort in one hand, and a phial, with a label flying from it, in the other. On this was written, I heard afterwards, the words “Jesuit-Powder”; but I could not read it from where I was.

Then at last the tail of the procession began to come into view.

Two priests, in great white copes, bore aloft each a tall cross; and behind them I could see through the flare and reek of the torches, a vast scarlet chair advancing above the heads of the people. It was borne on a platform, and was embroidered all over with gold and silver bullion. Upon the platform itself were four boys, two and two, on either side of the throne, in red skull-caps and cassocks and short white surplices, each with a tall red cross held in the inner hand, and a bloodstained dagger in the other, which they waved now and again. Upon the throne itself sat a huge effigy. It was dressed in a scarlet robe, embroidered like the throne; its feet in gold embroidered slippers were thrust forward on a cushion; its hands in rich gloves were clasped to the arms of the chair; and its grinning waxen face, very pale, was surmounted by a vast tiara on which were three crowns, one above the other. Round the neck hung a gold cross and chain; and a pair of great keys hung down on one side. A devil in tight fitting black, with a masked face, and long sprouting nails, with a tail hung behind him, and two tall horns on his head, rolled his eyes from side to side, and whispered continually into the ear of the effigy from behind the throne. A great mob of people and torches and guards came shouting on behind. And when I saw that, a kind of despair came upon me. If that, thought I, is what my countrymen think of Catholics and the Holy Father, what use to strive any more for their conversion?

By the time that the tail had come up, the rest of the procession was disposed round the bonfire, leaving a broad space in the midst where the throne and effigy might be set down.

And now there appeared on the Pillory beside the Queen’s image, one of the six cardinals that had come up a little while before, and began a sort of rhyming dialogue with a choir that was set on another platform over against him. I could not hear all that was said, although the people kept pretty quiet to hear it too; but I heard enough. The cardinal was proclaiming the Catholic Religion as the only means of salvation and threatened both temporal and eternal punishment to all that would not have it; and the choir answered, roaring out the glories of England and Protestantism. The fifes screamed for the cardinal’s words, as if accompanying them; and trumpets answered him for England; and at the end, shaking his fist at the Queen and with another gesture as of despair he came down from the Pillory.

Then came the end.

The devil, behind the throne, slipped altogether behind it and stood tossing his hands with delight; while meantime the effigy, contrived in some way I could not understand, rose stiffly from the seat and stood upright. First he lifted his hands as if in entreaty towards the Queen’s image; then he shook them as if threatening, meanwhile rolling his head with its tiara from side to side as if seeking supporters. Two men then sprang upon the platform, as if in answer, dressed like English apprentices, bare-armed and with leather aprons; and these seized each an arm of the effigy; and at that the devil, after one more fit of laughter, holding his sides, and shouting aloud as if in glee, leapt down behind the platform, dragging the chair after him. The four boys stood an instant as if in terror, and then followed him, with clumsy gestures of horror.

The three figures that remained now began to wrestle together, stamping to and fro, up to the very edge, then reeling back again, and so on—the two apprentices against the great red dummy. At that the shouting of the crowd grew louder and louder, and the torches tossed up and down: it was like hell itself, for noise and terror, there in the red flare of the bonfire: and, at the last, all roaring together, with the trumpets and drums sounding, and the fifes too, the effigy was got to the edge of the platform, where it yet swayed for an instant or two, and then toppled down into the fire beneath.

It was a great spectacle, I cannot but confess it, and admirably designed; and I took my leave of Mr. Martin and his lady, and went home to supper through the crowded streets, more in tune, perhaps, with my country’s state than I had been when I lolled last night in Mr. Chiffinch’s closet.

CHAPTER II

With Dangerfield’s demonstration in my mind I was not greatly inclined to embroil myself in other matters; and I kept my intention to ride down to Hare Street three days after, when I had done my business in London and kissed the King’s hand; and this I had done by the evening of the second day. I saw His Majesty on that second day; but he was much pressed for time, and he did no more than thank me for what I had done: and so was gone. On that evening, however, a new little adventure befell me.

The taverns in town were rare places for making new acquaintances; and since I, for the most part, dined and supped in them, I met a good number of gentlemen. From these I would conceal, usually, most of my circumstances, and sometimes even my name, though that would not have told them much. Above all I was very careful to conceal my dealings with His Majesty, and as, following the directions he had first given me, I presented myself seldom or never at Court, and did my business through Mr. Chiffinch, and in his lodgings, usually, I do not suppose that there were five men in town, if so many, who knew that I had any private knowledge of him at all. In this manner then, I heard a deal of treasonable talk of which I did not think much, and only reported generally to Mr. Chiffinch when he asked me what was the feeling in town with regard to Court affairs. It was through this, and helped, I daresay, by what I have been told was the easy pleasantness which I affected in company, that I stumbled over my next adventure; and one that was like, before the end of it, to have cost me dear.

I went to supper, by chance, on the second day after my coming to London, to an inn I had never been to before—the Red Bull in Cheapside—a very large inn, in those days, with a great garden at the back, where gentlemen would dine in summer, and a great parlour running out into it from the back of the house, of but one story high. The rooms beneath seemed pretty full, for it was a cold night; and as there appeared no one to attend to me I went upstairs, and knocked on the door of one of the rooms. The talking within ceased as I knocked, and none answered; so I opened the door and put my head in. There was a number of persons seated round the table who all looked at me.

“This is a private room, sir,” said one of them at the head.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” I said. “I was but looking for someone to serve me.” And I was about to withdraw when a voice hailed me aloud.

“Why it is Mr. Mallock!” the voice cried; and turning again to see who it was I beheld my old friend Mr. Rumbald, seated next the one that presided.

I greeted him.

“But I had best be gone,” I said. “It is a private room, the gentleman told me.”

“No, no,” cried the maltster. “Come in, Mr. Mallock.” And he said something to the gentleman he sat by, who was dressed very finely.

I could see that something was in the wind; and as I was out for adventure, it seemed to me that here was one ready-made, however harmless it might turn out in the end. So I closed the door behind me; there was a shifting along the benches, and I stepped over into a place next my friend.

“How goes the world with you, sir?” demanded Mr. Rumbald of me, looking at my suit, which indeed was pretty fine.

“Very hungrily at present,” I said. “Where the devil are the maids got to?”

He called out to the man that sat nearest the door, and he got up and bawled something down the passage.

“But it has treated me better lately,” I said. “I have been in France on my affairs.” (I said this with an important air, for there is no disguise so great as the truth, if it is put on a little awry.)

“Oho!” said Rumbald, who again, in spite of his old Presbyterianism, had had a cup too many. And he winked on the company. I had not an idea of what he meant by that; but I think he was but shewing off his friend as a travelled gentleman.

“And we have been speaking of England,” he went on, “and of them that govern it, and of the Ten Commandments, in special the sixth.”

I observed signs of consternation among one or two of the company when he said this, and remembering of what political complexion Mr. Rumbald had been on our previous meeting, I saw in general, at least, what they had been after. But what he meant of the Sixth Commandment which is that of killing, according to the Protestant arrangement of it, I understood nothing.

“And of who shall govern England hereafter,” I said in a low voice, but very deliberate.

There fell a silence when I said that; and I was wondering what in God’s name I should say next, when the maid came in, and I fell to abusing of her with an oath or two. When she was gone away again to get me my supper, the gentleman in the fine dress at the head of the table leaned forward a little.

“That, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “is of what we were speaking. How did you know that?”

“I know my friend Mr. Rumbald,” I said.

This appeared to give the greatest pleasure to the maltster. He laughed aloud, and beat me on the back; but his eyes were fierce for all his merriment. I felt that this would be no easy enemy to have.

“Mr. Mallock knows me,” he said, “and I know Mr. Mallock. I assure you, gentlemen, you can speak freely before Mr. Mallock.” And he poured a quantity of his college-ale into a tankard that stood before me.

It appeared, however, that several of the company had sudden affairs elsewhere; and, before we even smelled of treason, three or four of them made their excuses and went away. This confirmed me in my thought that I was stumbled upon one of those little gatherings of malcontents, of whom the town was full, who talked largely over their cups of the Protestant succession and the like, but did very little. But I was not quite right in my surmise, as will appear presently.

By the time that my supper came up—(I cursed the maid again for her delay, though, poor wench, she was near run off her legs)—there were left but four of us in the room; the gentleman at the head of the table, a lean quiet man with a cast in his eye who sat opposite me, Mr. Rumbald and myself.

There was, however, a shade of caution yet left in my friend that the ale had not yet driven out; and before proceeding any further, he observed again that my fortunes had improved.

“Why, they have improved a great deal,” I said—for he had caught me with my silver-hilted sword and my lace, and I saw him looking at them—”I live in Covent Garden now, where you must come and see me, Mr. Rumbald.”

“And your politics with them?” he asked.

“My politics are what they ever were,” I said; and that was true enough.

“You were at Temple Bar?” he asked.

“Why I only came from France the day before; but you may depend upon it

I was there. It warmed my heart.”

“You know who was behind it all?” asked the gentleman at the head of the table, suddenly.

I knew well enough that such men as these despise ignorance above all things, and that a shrewd fellow—or a man that they think to be one is worth a thousand simpletons in their eyes; so I made no pretence of not knowing what he meant.

“Why of course I do!” I said contemptuously. “It was my Lord

Shaftesbury.”

Now the truth of this was not known to everyone in London at this time, though it was known a little while later: and I should not have known it myself if Mr. Chiffinch had not told me. But these men knew it, it seemed, well enough; and my knowledge of it blew me sky-high in their view.

“My Lord Shaftesbury, God bless him!” said the lean squinting man, suddenly; and drained his mug.

“God bless him!” I said too, and put my lips to mine. My hand was immediately grasped by Mr. Rumbald; and so cordial relations were confirmed.

Well; we settled down then to talk treason. I must not deny that these persons skewed still some glimmerings of sense; they did not, that is to say, as yet commit themselves irrevocably to my mercy: they appeared to me to talk generally, with a view to trying me: but I acquitted myself to their satisfaction.

We deposed Charles, we excluded James, we legitimized Monmouth; we armed the loyal citizens and took away the arms of all others. We appointed even days of humiliation and thanksgiving; and we grew more enthusiastic and reckless with every mug. The lean man confided to me with infinite pride, that he had been one of the cardinals in the procession to Temple Bar; and I grasped his hand in tearful congratulation. We were near weeping with loyalty at the end, not to Charles but to Monmouth. The only man who preserved his self-control completely was the gentleman at the head of the table, though he too adventured a good deal, throwing it before me as a bait before a trout; and each time I gulped it down and asked for more. He was a finely featured man, with a nose set well out in his face, and had altogether the look and bearing of a gentleman.

It must have been full half-past nine before we broke up; and that was at the going of our president. We too rose and saw him to the door; and the lean man said he would see him downstairs, so Mr. Rumbald and I were left, he swaying a little and smiling, holding on to the door-post, and I endeavouring to preserve my dignity.

I was about to say good-night too and begone, when he plucked me suddenly by the sleeve.

“Come back again, Mr. Mallock,” he said. “I have something to say to you.”

We went back again, shutting the door behind us, and sat down. It was a pleasant little parlour this, decently furnished, and I feigned to be looking at the hanging that was over the press where they kept the tankards, as if I had no curiosity in the world.

“Here, Mr. Mallock,” said my friend’s voice behind me. “Look at this.”

He had drawn out a little black pocket-book, leather-bound, and with it three or four loose papers. I sat down by him, and took it from him.

“It is some kind of an account-book,” I said.

“You are right, sir,” said Mr. Rumbald.

He sat with an air of vast importance, while I examined the book. It had a great number of entries, concerning such things as accounts for beer and other refreshments, with others which I could not understand. There were also the names of inns in London, with marks opposite to them, and times of day written down besides. I could make nothing of all this; so I turned to the papers. Here, to my astonishment, on one of them was written a list of names, some very well known, beginning with my Lord Shaftesbury’s, and on the two others a number of notes in short-hand, with three or four of the same names as before written long-hand. One of these slipped to the floor as I held them, and I stooped to pick it up; when I raised my head again, the pocket-book and the other two papers had disappeared again into Mr. Rumbald’s possession. He did not seem to have seen the one that fell, so I held it on my knee beneath the table, thinking to examine it later.

“Well?” I asked. “What is the matter?”

The maltster had an air of great mystery upon his face. He regarded me sternly, though his eyes watered a little.

“Enough to hang us all,” he said; and I saw the fierce light in his eyes again, through the veil of drink.

“Why; how is that?” asked I, slipping the paper I held, behind me, and into the skirt pocket of my coat.

“Those accounts,” he said, “they are all for the procession; for I provided myself a good deal of the refreshment; and was paid for it by a man of my Lord’s, who has signed the book.”

“And the two papers?” I asked.

“Ah!” said Mr. Rumbald. “That is another matter altogether.”

I feigned that I was incurious.

“Well,” I said, “every man to his own trade. I would not meddle with another’s, for the world.”

“That is best,” said my friend.

I tried a sentence or two more; but caution seemed to have returned to him, though a little late; and I presently saw I should get no more out of him. I congratulated him again on the pleasant evening we had spent; and five minutes later we went downstairs together, very friendly; and he winked upon me as I went out, after paying my account, as if there were some secret understanding between us.

I had a cold walk back to Covent Garden, remembering with satisfaction, as I went, that I had not told Mr. Rumbald more particularly where I lodged; and thinking over what I had heard. It was not a great deal after all, I thought. When all was said, I had only heard over again what was known well enough at Court, that my Lord Shaftesbury was behind this demonstration, and had his finger in the whole affair of Monmouth; I had but stumbled upon one of those companies, who were known, well enough, to be everywhere, who were for Monmouth against His Royal Highness: and I had but seen, what surely might be guessed to exist,—the accounts of the refreshments supplied to the actors in the demonstration—and had been told that my Lord’s man had paid the score. There might, indeed, be more behind; but of that I had no evidence at all; I had received no confidence that could be of any value: and as for the paper in my skirt-pocket, I valued it no more than a rush; and wondered I had taken the trouble to secure it.

When I reached my lodgings, I took it out and looked at it again. I had not even the means of reading it. The name of my Lord Shaftesbury, as I have said, was written in long-hand three or four times; and the Duke of Monmouth’s twice. There also appeared other names of which I did not know a great deal, and one at least of which I knew nothing, which was “College”; though this for all I knew was for a college in an University. Other names were that of my Lord Essex and John Hampden, and Algernon Sidney. The paper was about a foot in length and six inches across; and I thought so little of it—thinking that a paper of importance would scarcely be entrusted to a man like Rumbald, who threw them about a tavern—that I was very near throwing it into the fire. But I kept it—though God knows that afterwards I wished I had not done so—and slipped it into my pocket-book where I kept three or four others, intending, when I had an opportunity, to give it to some clerk, learned in short-hand, to read for me.

And so I went to bed.

CHAPTER III

It was with a very happy heart that the next night, about seven o’clock, I rode down Hare Street village, and saw the lights of the house shining through the limes.

It was a very different coming back from my going. Then we four had stood together in the dark at the corner of the lane, fearing lest a window should be thrown up. Now I rode back with James, secure and content, fearing nothing: for Mr. Chiffinch had told me that all peril had passed from Dangerfield, even had he met me and known me, which was not likely. They were after other game now than the old conspirators.

I had sent a message to Hare Street on the day after I was come to London, that I would be with them on this day: and so soon as I rode into the yard the men ran out, and I heard a window open in the house; so that by the time I came to the door it was open, and my cousins there to meet me.

It was very strange, that evening there, to be so with my Cousin Dolly; for each of us knew, and that the other knew that too, that matters were advanced with us, since we had been through peril together. It was strange how diffident we both were, and how we could not meet one another’s eyes; and yet I was aware that she would have it otherwise if she could, and strove to be natural. We had music again that night, and Dolly and her maid sang the setting of “Go, perjured man” which she had made from Mr. Wise’s. For myself, I sat in a corner by the fire and watched her. She was in grey that night, with lace, and a string of little fresh-water pearls.

When she was gone to bed, my Cousin Tom and I had a crack together; and he seemed to me more sensible than I had thought him at first. We talked of a great number of things; and he asked me about France and my life there; and I had a great ado from being indiscreet and telling him too much. I represented to him that I was gone over to be out of the way of Dangerfield, as indeed I had; but I said nothing at all to him as to my business there: and he seemed content.

He told me also of what he had written to me as to the return of Mr. Harris, very tired and angry, the next afternoon after his search of the house. He had ridden near all the way to Newmarket, inquiring for me everywhere: and had come to the conclusion at last that I had not gone that way after all.

“He was very high with me,” said my Cousin Tom, “but I was higher yet. I told him that it was not my business both to make conspirators and to arrest them; and since he had done me the honour of thinking I had done the first, I had done him the honour of thinking that he could do the second: but that it seemed I was wrong in that.”

This seemed a considerable effort of wit for my Cousin Tom; but scarcely one calculated to soothe Mr. Harris.

Finally, when I was thinking of bed my Cousin Tom opened out once again on an old matter that was before my mind continually now: and he spoke, I think, very sensibly.

“Cousin Roger,” he said: “there is one other affair I must speak to you of, now that you are come again to Hare Street and seem likely to remain here for a while; and that is of my daughter. I know you would not have me say too much; and I will not. But have you considered the advice you said you would give me a great while ago?”

I did not answer him for a moment; for I was not sure if he were very wise or very foolish in opening upon it again. Then I determined to be open with the man.

“Cousin Tom,” I said, “I am both glad and sorry that you have spoken of this; and I will tell you the whole truth, which I think perhaps you may have guessed. The reason why I could not give you advice before was that I was not sure of my own mind. Well; I am sure of it now; and I wish to ask my Cousin Dolly, so soon as I see an opportunity to do so, if she will marry me. But I must say this—that I am going to take no risks. I shall not ask her so long as I think she will refuse me; and I think, to tell the truth, that she would not have me if I asked her now.”

My Cousin Tom began to speak: but I prevented him.

“One moment,” I said, “and you shall say what you will. There is one reason that comes to my mind which perhaps may explain her unwillingness; and that is that she may think that she is being thrown at my head. You have been very kind, Cousin, in allowing me to make this my home in the country; and I know”—(here I lied vehemently)—”I know that nothing was further from your thoughts than this. Yet it may seem so, to a foolish maid who knows nothing of the world. I do not know if you have ever said anything to her—”

“Why, Cousin—” cried Tom, in such a manner that I knew he was lying too—”what do you think—”

“Just so,” I said; for I did not wish him to lie more than he need; “I was sure—”

“I may have said a word or two, once or twice,” pursued Cousin Tom, intent on his own exposure—”that she must think soon about getting married, and so forth. But to say that I have thrown her at your head, Cousin, is not, I think, a kindly thing—”

“My dear man!” cried I. “I have been saying expressly that I knew you had done nothing of the sort; but that perhaps Dolly thought so.” (This quieted him a little, for I watched his face.) “So the best way, I think, is for us all to be quiet for a little and say nothing. You know now what my own wishes are; and that is enough for you and me. As to estates, I will make a settlement, if ever the marriage is arranged, that will satisfy you; but I think we need not trouble about that at present. I will do my utmost to push my suit; but it must be in my own way; and that way will be to say nothing at all for a while, but to establish easy relations with her. She is a little perturbed at present: I saw that, for I watched her to-night; and unless she can grow quiet again, all will come to nothing.”

So I spoke, in the folly of my own wisdom that seemed to me so great at that time. I had dealt with men, but not at all with women, and knew nothing of them. If I had but followed my heart and spoken to her at once, while the warmth of my welcome, and the memory of the peril we had undergone together were still in heart, matters might have been very different. But I thought otherwise, and that I would be very prudent and circumspect, knowing nothing at all of a maid’s heart and her ways. As for Cousin Tom, he had to yield to me; for what else could he do? The prospect that I opened before him was a better one than he could get anywhere else: he had no opening at Court, in spite of his bragging; and the Protestants round about were too wise, in their rustic way, to engage themselves with a Papist at such a time. So there the matter remained.

When I came to my chamber, it had a very pleasant aspect to me. The curtains were across the windows; a great fire blazed on the hearth—(I had heard my Cousin Dolly’s footsteps pass across the landing, before she went to bed,—no doubt to put more wood on)—my bed was ready, and on the round table in the middle was a jug of horn-beam branches with some winter flowers. It was six months since I had been here; and matters were considerably better with me now than they had been then. Then I was being hunted; now I was free from all anxiety on that score: then I had been going up to London to resign what little position I had; now I was re-established, owing to what I had done in France, on a better footing than ever. More than all, I knew now, without any doubt at all, what my heart told me of my Cousin Dolly; and I was here, with every liberty to commend my suit to her.

Before I went to bed I opened the little secret cupboard by my bed, and put into it three or four private papers I had, and amongst them that written in cipher that I had had from Mr. Rumbald. Then I went to bed; and dreamed of Dolly.

Then began for me a time of great peace and serenity.

First came Christmas, with its homely joys, and Twelfth night on which we cut and ate a great cake that Dolly had made; then there was the winter’s work to be done in preparation for the spring; and then spring itself, with the crocuses sprouting between the joints of the paved walk round the house; and the daffodils in the long box-bed beneath the limes. I write these little things down, for it was principally by these things that I remember those months; and the noise of the world outside seemed as sounds heard in a dream. I went up to London, now and again—but not very often; and saw His Majesty in private twice, and he honoured me by asking my advice again on certain French affairs; but, for the time, all these things were secondary in my mind to the cows of Hare Street and to how the pigs did. It is marvellous how men’s minds can come down to such matters, and become absorbed in them, and let the rest of the world go hang. I thought now and again of my mission from Rome; yet I do not think I was faithless to it; for there was nothing at that time which I could do for the King; and he expressly had desired me not to mix much with the Court and so become known. The truth of the matter was that at this time he was largely occupied with a certain woman, whose name had best not be spoken; and when His Majesty ran upon those lines, he could think of little else. I sent my reports regularly to Rome; and the Cardinal Secretary seemed satisfied; and so therefore was I.

It was, with my Cousin Dolly, precisely as I had thought. She was at first very shy indeed, going up to her chamber early in the evening, so that we had little or no music; but relaxing a little as I shewed myself friendly without being forward. I caught her eyes on me sometimes; and she seemed to be appraising me, I thought in my stupidity, as to whether she could trust me not to make love to her; but now, as I think, for a very different reason; and I would see her sometimes as I went out of doors, peeping at me for an instant out of a window. It was not, however, all hide and seek. We would talk frankly and easily enough at times, and spend an hour or two together, or when her father was asleep, with the greatest friendliness; and meanwhile I, poor fool, was thinking how wise and prudent I was; and what mighty progress I was making by these crooked ways.

In Easter week we had a great happiness—so great that it near broke me down in my resolution—and I would to God it had—(at least in certain moods I wish so).

I was returning along the Barkway road from a meadow where I had been to look to the new lambs, in my working dress, when I heard a horse coming behind me. I stepped aside to let him go by, when I heard myself called.

“My man,” said the voice. “Can you tell me where is Mr. Jermyn’s house?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I am going there myself.”

He was a grave-looking gentleman, very dark; and as I looked at him I remembered him; but I could see he did not remember me, and no wonder, for he had only seen me once, on a very agitating occasion, for a short while. He was riding a very good horse, which was going lame, but without any servant, and he had his valise strapped on the crupper. In appearance he was a country-squire on his way to town. I determined to give him a surprise as we went along.

“I hope you are well, Mr. Hamerton,” I said.

He gave a great start at that, and looked at me closely.

“I do not remember you,” he said. “And why do you call me Mr. Hamerton?”

“I knew that is not the name you were usually known by, father. Would you be easier if I called you Mr. Young?”

“I give it up,” he said. “Who are you, sir?”

“Do you remember a young man,” I said, “a year and a half ago, who came into Mr. Chiffinch’s inner parlour on a certain occasion? You were sitting near His Royal Highness; His Majesty was at the end of the table; and by you was Father Bedingfeld who died in prison in December.”

He smiled at me.

“I remember everything except the young man,” he said. “So you are he.

And what is your name, sir?”

I told him.

“I am Mr. Jermyn’s cousin,” I said. “And I have been looking after his lambs for him. I would there was some spiritual shepherd who would look after us. We have not heard mass since Christmas.” (For we had ridden over to Standon on that day.)

He seemed altogether easier at that.

“Why, that can be remedied to-morrow,” he said. “If you have an altar stone and linen and vestments. I have all else with me.”

We had these, and I told him so.

“Then you mean to lie at Hare Street to-night, sir?” I said.

“I had hoped to do so,” he said. “I am come from Lincolnshire; and I was recommended to Mr. Jermyn’s if I could not get so far as Standon; and I cannot, for my horse is lame.”

My Cousin Tom received the priest in a surprising medley of emotions which he exhibited one by one to me who knew him so well. He was at first plainly terrified at receiving a priest and a Jesuit; but, presently recovered himself a little and strove to remember that here was one of God’s priests who would bring a blessing on the house—(and said so); finally all else was swallowed up in pleasure, or very nearly, when I took occasion on Mr. Hamerton’s going upstairs to pull off his boots, to tell him that I had seen this priest very intimate with His Royal Highness the Duke of York; and that he had been a near friend of Mr. Bedingfeld, the Duke’s confessor.

My Cousin Dorothy received him with the reverence that pious maids can shew so easily towards a priest. She had his chamber ready for him in ten minutes; with fresh water in the basin and flowers upon the table: she even set out for his entertainment three or four books of devotion by his bedside. And all the time at supper she never ceased to give him attention, drawing the men’s eyes to his plate and cup continually.

Mr. Hamerton was a very quiet gentleman, wonderfully at his ease at once, and never losing his discretion; he talked generally and pleasantly at supper, of his road to Hare Street, and told us an edifying story or two of Catholics at whose houses he had lain on his way from Lincolnshire. These Jesuits are wonderful folk: he seemed to know the country all over, and where were the safer districts and where the dangerous. I have no doubt he could have given me an excellent road-map with instructions that would take me safe from London to Edinburgh, if I had wished it.

“And have you never been troubled with highwaymen?” asked my Cousin Tom.

“No, Mr. Jermyn,” said the priest, “except once, and that was a Catholic robber. I thought he was by the start he gave when he saw my crucifix as he was searching me; and taxed him with it. So the end was, he returned me my valuables, and took a little sermon from my lips instead.”

When supper was over, and Dorothy had gone upstairs to make all ready for mass on the next morning, Mr. Hamerton, at our questioning, began to tell us a little of the state of politics and what he thought would happen; and every word that he said came true.

“His Grace of Monmouth will be our trouble,” he said. “The King adores him; and he hath so far prevailed with His Majesty as to get the Duke of York sent twice to Scotland. I think few folk understand what feeling there is in the country for the Protestant Duke. It was through my Lord Shaftesbury, who is behind him, that His Royal Highness was actually sent away, for Monmouth could do nothing without him; and I have no kind of doubt that he has further schemes in his mind too.”

(This was all fulfilled a couple of months later, as I remembered when the time came, by my Lord Shaftesbury’s actually presenting James’ name as that of a recusant, before the grand jury of Middlesex; but the judges dismissed the jury immediately.)

“And you think, father,” asked my Cousin Tom very solemnly, “that these seditions will lead to trouble?”

“I have no doubt of it at all,” said he. “The country—especially London—is full of disaffection. Their demonstration last year did a deal to stir it up. The Duke of York is back now, against my advice; but I have no doubt he will have to go on his travels again. Were His majesty to die now—(quod Deus avertat!)—I do not know how we should stand.”

Mr. Hamerton took occasion to ask me that night, when we were alone for a minute or two, what I was doing in the country.

“I remember you perfectly now,” said he. “Father Whitbread spoke to me of you, besides.”

I told him that I had nothing to do in town; and with His Majesty’s consent was lying hid for a little, in order that what little was known of me might be forgotten again.

“Well; I suppose you are wise,” he said, “and that you will be able to do more hereafter. But the time will come presently when we shall all be needed.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him if he could read cipher, and to shew him my paper—reminded of it, by his talk of disaffection; but my Cousin Tom came back at that moment; and I put it off; and I presently forgot it again.

The memory of the mass that we heard next morning will never leave me; for it was the first time that I had heard it in the house.

We used the long attic, for fear of disturbance, and had a man posted beneath—for it was still death for a priest to say mass in England. All the servants that were Catholics were there; and all, I think, went to the sacraments. Mr. Hamerton heard confessions before the mass began.

The north end of the attic had been prepared by Dolly and her maid; and looked very pretty and fine. A couple of men had carried up a great low press, that had the instruments of the Passion painted upon its panels; and this served for an altar. Behind it Dolly had put up a hanging from downstairs, that was of Abraham offering Isaac, and had set upon the altar a pair of silver candlesticks from the parlour, and a little standing crucifix, with jugs of country flowers between the candlesticks and the cross. She had laid too, as a foot-pace, a Turkey rug that came too from the parlour; and had put a little table to serve as a credence. Mr. Hamerton had with him little altar-vessels made for travelling, with a cup that unscrewed from the stem, and every other necessary except what he asked us to provide.

It is the experience of everyone, I think, that mass differs from mass, as a star (in the apostle’s words) differs from another star in glory—I do not mean in its essential effects, for that is the same always, but in the devotion which it arouses in those that hear it. This mass then seemed to me like scarcely any other that I had ever heard, except perhaps that at which I received my first communion in the country church in France. Mr. Hamerton said it with great deliberation and recollection; and, as my Cousin Tom served him, as a host should, I was not distracted by anything. My Cousin Dolly and I kneeled side by side in front, and again, side by side, to receive Holy Communion.

I was in a kind of ecstasy of delight, and not, I think unworthily; for, though much of my delight came from being there with my cousin, and receiving our Lord’s Body with her, I do not think that is any dishonour to God whom we must love first of all, to find a great joy in loving Him in the company of those we love purely and uprightly. So at least it seems to me.

Mr. Hamerton told us he must be riding very early; and not much after seven o’clock we stood at the gate to bid him farewell. I made my man James go with him so far as Ware to set him on his road, though the priest begged me not to trouble myself.

When I came back to the house I was in a torment of indecision as to whether this would not be the best occasion I could ever find of telling my Cousin Dorothy all that was in my heart in her regard; and I even went into the Great Chamber after her, still undecided. But her manner prevented me; for I thought I saw in her something of a return of that same shyness which she had shewed to me when I had come last time back to Hare Street; and I went out again without saying one word except of the priest’s visit and of what a good man he seemed.

Even then, I think, if I had spoken, matters might have taken a very different course; but, whether through God’s appointment or my own diffidence, this was not to be; and again I said nothing to her.

CHAPTER IV

Our next adventure, not unlike the last exteriorly, was very different from it interiorly; and led to very strange results in the event. It came about in this way.

It was in May that Mr. Hamerton had come to us, for Easter that year fell in that month; and the weather after that, which had been very bitter in the winter, with so much snow as I never saw before, but clearer about Eastertime, fell very wet and stormy again in June.

It was on a Thursday evening, in the first week in June, that the bad weather set in with a violent storm of rain and a high wind. We sat in the Great Chamber after supper, and had some music as usual: and between the music we listened to the gusts of wind and the rattle of the rain, which made so great a noise that Dolly said that it was no use for her to go to bed yet, for that she would not sleep if she went. Her maid went to bed; and we three sat talking till nearly half-past ten o’clock, which is very late for the country where men rise at four o’clock.

The wind made such a noise that we heard nothing of the approach to the house; and the first that we knew of anyone’s coming was a hammering at the door.

“Why, who is that;” said I, “that comes so late?”

I could see that my Cousin Tom did not like it, for his face shewed it—(I suppose it was the memory of that other time when the hammering came)—so I said nothing, but went myself to the outer door and unbolted it.

A fellow stood there in a great riding-cloak; but I could see he wore some kind of a livery beneath.

“Well,” I said, “what do you want?”

He saw that I was a gentleman by my dress; and he answered me very civilly.

“My master is benighted, sir,” said he; “and he bid me come and ask whether he might lie here to-night. There is no inn in the place.”

“Why, who is your master?” I asked.

He did not seem to hear my question, for he went on immediately.

“There are only five of the party, sir,” he said. “Two gentlemen and three servants.”

I saw that my Cousin Tom was behind me now; and that Dolly was looking from the door of the Great Chamber.

“You have not yet told us,” I said, “what your master’s name is.”

“I think, sir, he had best answer that,” said the fellow.

Now this might very well be a Catholic, and perhaps an important person who had heard of Mr. Jermyn, but did not wish to advertise who himself was. I looked at my Cousin Tom; and thought from his look that the same thought had come to him.

“Well, Cousin?” I said.

“They had best come in—” he said shortly. “Dolly, rouse some of the servants. They will want supper, I suppose.”

He nodded to the man, who went back immediately; and a minute later two gentlemen came up the flagged path, also in great cloaks that appeared soaked with the rain.

“By God, sir!” said the first of them, “we are grateful to you. This is a wild night.”

My Cousin, Tom said something civil, and when the door was shut, helped this man off with his cloak, while I helped the other. The former was explaining all the while how they were on their way to town from Newmarket; and how they had become bogged a little after Barkway, losing their road in the darkness. They had intended to push on to Waltham Cross, he said, or Ware at the least, and lie there. He spoke with a merry easy air that shewed him for a well-bred and pleasant fellow. My own man said nothing, but left it all to the other.

When I turned to see the one who spoke, I was more surprised than ever in all my life before; for it was no other than the Duke of Monmouth himself. He looked a shade older than when I had last seen him in the park above a year ago; but he was the very same and I could not mistake him. As for me, he would not know me from Adam, for he had never spoken with me in all his life. I did not know what to do, as to whether I should make to recognize him or not; but he saved me the trouble; for as I followed the others into the Great Chamber, he was already speaking.

“It is very good of you, Mr. Jermyn,” he said, “to receive us like this. My name is Morton, and my friend’s here Mr. Atkins. You can put us where you will—on the floor if you have no other place.”

“We can do better than that, sir,” said Tom. “There is only my daughter here and Mr. Mallock my cousin. My daughter is gone to call the servants.”

The Duke looked very handsome and princely as he stood on the hearth, although there was no fire, and surveyed the room. He was in a dark blue riding-suit, darker than it should be upon the shoulders with the rain that had soaked through his cloak; but it was of the colour of his eyes that were very fine and attractive; and he wore his own hair. The other man looked pretty mean beside him; and yet he was not ill-looking. He was a fair man, too, with a rosy face; in a buff suit.

“We can manage two changes of clothes, Mr. Morton,” went on my Cousin Tom, “if you fear to take a cold; or you can sup immediately; as you will.”

“Why, Mr. Jermyn; I think we will sup first and go to bed afterwards.

The clothes can be dried, no doubt, before morning.”

In spite of all his efforts, he spoke as one born to command and with a kind of easy condescension too; and certainly this had its effect upon poor Tom; for he was all eagerness and welcome, who just now had been a shade surly. He was beginning to say that it was for his guests to choose, when my Cousin Dolly came in suddenly through the open door.

“Why here is my little maid, gentlemen—” he said; and Dolly did her reverence.

Now I had in my mind no thought of jealousy at all; and yet when I saw how the Duke bowed to my cousin, I am bound to say that a touch of it pierced me like a dart—there and gone again, I thought. But it had been there. I thought how few gentlemen poor Dolly saw down here in Hare Street: beyond the parson—and he was a man who would go out before the pudding in a great house, and marry the lady’s maid—there was scarce one who might write Esquire after his name; and the breeding of most of the squires was mostly rustical. As for her, she did her reverence very prettily, without a trace of the country in it; and, strange to say, her manner seemed to change. I mean by that, that she seemed wholly at her ease in this new kind of company, fully as much as with her maids.

“You have had a very wet ride, sir,” she said, without any sign of confusion or shyness; “the maids are kindling a fire in the kitchen, to dry your clothes before morning: and your men shall have beds in the attic.”

The Duke made a pretty answer, which she took as prettily.

“And a cold supper shall be in immediately,” she said.

Then my Cousin Tom must needs begin upon the maid, as if she were a child, or idiotic; and say what a good housekeeper his little maid was to him, and how she could do so many things; and the Duke took it all with courtesy, yet did not encourage it, as if he understood her ways better than her father did—which was, very likely, true enough.

“And you come up to London, mistress,” he said, “no doubt,” with a look at her dress that was not at all insolent, and yet very plain. And it was indeed a pretty good one; and I remember it very well. It was cut like a French sac—a fashion that had first come in about ten years before, and still lasted; and was a little lower at the throat than many that she wore. It was of a brownish kind of yellow, of which I do not know the name, and had white lace to it, and silver lace on the bodice. She was sunburnt again, but not too much, as I had first seen her; and her blue eyes looked very bright in her face; and she wore a ring on either hand, as she usually did in the evening, and had her little pearls round her neck. It was strange to me how I observed all this, so soon as the Duke had drawn attention to it; whereas I had not observed it particularly before.

Wen we went into supper it was the same with the Duke and her. He behaved to her with the greatest deference, yet not at all exaggerated so as to be in the least insolent. He treated her, it appeared to me, as he would have treated one of his own ladies, though there had been every excuse, especially with Cousin Tom’s way of speaking to her, and the deep country we were in, if he had not noticed her at all. Mr. Atkins, as he called himself, followed suit; but said very little. Once, when the dishes had to be taken away, and Dolly rose to do it—before I could move—(my Cousin Tom, of course, sat there like a dummy)—I observed the Duke make a little movement with his eyes towards Mr. Atkins, who immediately rose up and did it for her.

The effect of all this upon me was to make me do my best in talk; but it was not very easy without betraying that I knew more of the Court than might be supposed; but the Duke outdid me every time. He listened with the greatest courtesy; and then said something a little better. I think I have never seen a man do better; but it was always so with him. Five years later he won the hearts of all the drapers in Taunton, in that terrible enterprise of his, besides ranging on his side some of the noblest blood in England. Twenty-six young maids in that town gave him a Bible and a pair of colours worked by their hands; and twenty-six young maids, it was said, went away after it in love with him. He did not prove himself very much of a hero in the field; but from his manner in company one could never have guessed at that. He had all the bearing of a prince, and all the charm of a boy with it.

My Cousin Tom said something when supper was ending about Dolly’s skill in music; and how she and her maid sang together.

“May we not hear it for ourselves?” asked the Duke.

“But you are wet, sir,” said my Cousin Tom.

The Duke smiled.

“I shall not think of that, sir,” he said, “if Mistress Dorothy will sing to us.”

Well; so it was settled. The maid was in the kitchen, and was presently fetched; and she and Dolly sang together once or twice, though it was now after eleven o’clock. They sang Mr. Wise’s “Go, perjured man,” I remember, again; and then M. Grabu’s “Song upon Peace.” The Duke sat still in the great chair, shading his eyes from the candlelight, and watching my Cousin Dolly: and once, when my Cousin Tom broke in upon the second song with something he had just thought of to say, he put him aside with a gesture, very royal and commanding, and yet void of offence, until the song was done.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Jermyn,” he said a moment afterwards, “but I have never been so entranced. What was it that you wished to say?”

As Dolly came towards him he stood up.

“Mistress Dorothy,” he said, “you have given us a great deal of pleasure.” And he said this with so much gravity and feeling that she flushed. It was the first evident sign she had given that he had pleased her.

“And I mean it,” he went on, “when I say it is a pity you do not come to town more often. Such singing as that should have a larger audience than the two or three you have had to-night.”

Dolly smiled at him.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “But I know my place better than that.”

This was all a little bitter to me; for by this time a wild kind of jealousy had risen again in me which I knew to be unreasonable, and yet could not check. It was true that I myself took the greatest pains never to forget my manners; but I knew very well that novelty has a pleasantness all of its own; and the novelty of such company as this, charged with the peculiar charm of the Duke’s manner, must surely, I thought, have its effect upon her.

“Well,” said he, “I could spend all night in this chamber with such music; but I must not keep Mistress Dorothy from her sleep another moment.”

He kissed her fingers with the greatest grace, and then bowed by the door as she went out.

When we had taken them to the great guest-room that was as large, very nearly, as the Great Chamber, and over it, and bidden them good-night, my Cousin Tom remembered that we had forgotten to ask Mr. Morton at what time he must ride in the morning; so I went back again to ask.

I stayed at the door for one instant after knocking, for it seemed they had not heard me; and in that little interval I heard the Duke’s voice within, very distinct.

“A damned pretty wench,” he cried. “We must—”

And at that I opened the door and went in, my jealousy suddenly flaming up again, so that I lost my wits.

They stared at me in astonishment. The Duke already was stripped to his shirt by one of the beds.

“I beg your pardon, Sir,” I said. “But at what hour will Your Grace have the horses?”

Mr. Atkins wheeled round full upon me; and the Duke’s mouth opened a little. Then the Duke burst into a fit of laughter.

“By God, sir!” he said. “You have detected us. How long have you known it?”

“From the moment Your Grace took off your hat,” I said.

He laughed again, highly and merrily.

“Well; no harm is done,” he said. “We took other names to make matters easier for all. You have told Mr. Jermyn?”

“No, sir,” I said.

“I beg of you not to do so,” he said. “It will spoil all. Nor Mistress

Dorothy. It is far easier to do without ceremony now and again.”

I bowed again; but I said nothing.

“Then you may as well know,” said the Duke, “that Mr. Atkins is none other than my Lord of Essex. We have been at Newmarket together.”

I bowed to my lord, and he to me.

“Well—the horses,” said Monmouth. “At eight o’clock, if you please.”

I said nothing to Tom, for I was very uncertain what to do; and though I was mad with anger at what I had heard the Duke say as I waited at the door—(though now I cannot say that there was any great harm in the words themselves)—I still kept my wits enough to know that I was too angry to judge fairly. I lay awake a long time that night, turning from side to side after that I had heard the wet clothes of our guests carried downstairs to be dried by morning before the fire. It was all a mighty innocent matter, so far as it had gone; but I would not see that. I told myself that a man of the Duke’s quality should not come to a little country-house under an alias, even if he had been bogged ten times over; that he should not make pretty speeches to a country maid and kiss her fingers, and hold open the door for her, even though all these things or some of them were just what I had done myself. Frankly, I understand now that no harm was meant; that every word the Duke had said was true, and that it was but natural for him to try to please all across whom he came; but I would not see it at the time.

On the next morning when I came downstairs early it seemed to me that my Cousin Dorothy was herself downstairs too early for mere good manners. The guests were not yet stirring; yet the maids were up, and the ale set out in the dining-room, and the smell of hot oat-cake came from the kitchen. There were flowers also upon the table; and my cousin was in a pretty brown dress of hers that she did not wear very often.

I looked upon her rather harshly; and I think she observed it; for she said nothing to me as she went about her business.

I went out into the stable-yard to see the horses; and found my Cousin Tom there already, admiring them; and indeed they were fine, especially a great dappled grey that was stamping under the brush of the fellow who had first knocked at our door last night.

“That is Mr. Morton’s horse, I suppose?” said Tom.

The man who was grooming him did not speak; and Tom repeated his question.

“Yes, sir,” said the man, with a queer look which I understood, though

Tom did not, “this is Mr. Morton’s.”

“And the chestnut is Mr. Atkins’?” asked my cousin.

“Just so, sir; Mr. Atkins’,” said the man, with the corners of his mouth twitching.

The grinning ape—as I thought him—very nearly set me off into saying that I knew all about it; and that the yellow saddle-cloth was the colour the Duke of Monmouth used always; but I did not. It appeared to me then the worst of manners that these personages should come and make a mock of country-folk, so that even the servants laughed at us.

Our guests were downstairs when I came in again, and talking very merrily to my Cousin Dorothy, who was as much at her ease as last night. The Duke sneezed once or twice.

“You have taken a cold, sir,” said Dolly.

“It was in a good cause,” he said; and sneezed again.

“Salute,” said I.

He gave me a quick look, astonished, I suppose, that a rustic should know the Italian ways.

“Grazie,” said he, smiling. “You have been in Italy, Mr. Mallock?”

“Oh! I have been everywhere,” I said, with a foolish idea of making him respect me.

When they rode away at last, we all stood at the gate to watch them go. The storm had cleared away wonderfully; and the air was fresh and summerlike, and ten thousand jewels sparkled on the limes. They made a very gallant cavalcade. The horses had recovered from their weariness, for they were finely bred, all five of them; and the Duke’s horse especially was full of spirit, and curvetted a little, with pleasure and the strength of our corn, as he went along. The servants’ liveries too were gay and pleasant to the eye:—(they were not the Duke’s own liveries; for when he went about outside town he used a plainer sort)—and the Duke’s dark blue, with his fair curls and his great hat which he waved as he went, and my Lord Essex’s spruce figure in his buff, all made a very pretty picture as they went up the village street.

It was this, I think, and my Cousin Dolly’s silence as she looked after them, that determined me; and as we three went back again up the flagged path to the house, and the servants round again to the yard, I spoke.

“Cousin Tom,” I said. “Do you wish to know who our guests were?”

He looked at me in astonishment, and my Cousin Dolly too.

“Mr. Morton is the Duke of Monmouth,” I said, “and Mr. Atkins, my Lord

Essex.”

CHAPTER V

It was a long time before my Cousin Tom recovered from his astonishment and his pleasure at having entertained such personages in his house. He told me, of course, presently, when he had had time to think of it, that he had guessed it all along, but had understood that His Grace wished to be incognito; and I suppose at last he came to believe it. He would fall suddenly musing in the evenings; and I would know what he was thinking of; and it was piteously amusing to see, how one night again, not long after, he rose and ran to the door when a drunken man knocked upon it, and what ill words he gave him when he saw who it was. His was a slow-moving mind; and I think he could not have formed the project, which he afterwards carried out, while I was with him, or he must have let it out to me.

It was a little piteous, too, to see with what avidity he seized upon any news of the Duke, and how his natural inclinations and those consonant with his religion strove with his new-found loyalty to a bastard. A week or two later we had news of the attempt made by my Lord Shaftesbury to injure the Duke of York’s cause by presenting his name as that of a recusant, to the Middlesex grand jury. It was a mighty bold thing to do, and though the attempt failed so far as that the judges dismissed the jury while they were still deliberating, it shewed how little my Lord feared the Duke or His Majesty and how much resolved he was to establish, if he could, the Protestant succession and the Duke of Monmouth’s pretended claim to it. A deal of nonsense, too, was talked at this time of how the Duke was truly legitimate, and how Mistress Lucy Walters had been secretly married to the King, before ever poor Queen Catherine had been heard of; and the proofs of all this, it was reported, were in a certain Black Box that no one had ever set eyes on; and the matter became so much a thing of ridicule that once at the play, I think, when one of the actors carried on a black box, there was a roar of laughter and jeering from the pit.

It was wonderful to hear my Cousin Tom hold forth upon the situation.

One evening in September, two months after our adventure of the Duke’s coming, after a long silence, he made a little discourse upon it all.

“I should not be surprised,” said he, “if there was more in the tale than most men think. It is not likely that the proofs of the marriage would be easy to come by, in such a case; for Mistress Walters, whom I think I once saw at Tunbridge Wells, was not at all of the King’s position even by blood; and it is less likely that His Majesty, who was but a very young man at that time, would have stood out against her when she wished marriage. Besides there is no doubt that he knew her long before there was any prospect of his coming to the throne. Then too there has always appeared, to my mind at least, something in the Duke’s bearing and carriage that it would be very hard for a bastard to have. He has a very princely air.”

To such talk as this I would make no answer; but I would watch my Cousin

Dorothy’s face; and think that I read there something that I did not

like—an interest that she should not feel: and, after a pause my Cousin

Tom would proceed in his conjectures.

It was on the day following this particular discourse, which I remember very well, for my jealousy had so much worked up that I was very near breaking my resolution and telling my Cousin Dolly all that was in my heart, that a letter came for me from Mr. Chiffinch, so significant that I will write down some sentences of it.

“His Majesty bids me to write to you to come up to town again for a few days. He thinks that you may perhaps be of some use with His Royal Highness to urge him to go back to Scotland again, which at present he vows that he will not do. His Majesty is aware that the Duke scarcely knows you at all; yet he tells me to say this, and that I will explain to you when you come how you can be of service. There will be a deal of trouble this autumn; the Parliament is to meet in October, and will be in a very ill-humour, it is thought.”

There was a little more of this sort; and then came a sentence or two that roused my anger.

“I have heard much here of your entertainment of the Duke of Monmouth, and of what a pretty girl your cousin is. His Majesty laughed very much when he heard of it; and swears that he suspects you of going over to the Protestant side after all. The Duke knows nothing of what you are, or of anything you have done; but he has talked freely of his entertainment at Hare Street, thinking it, I suppose, to be a Protestant house. In public the King has had nothing to say to him; but he loves him as much as ever, and would not, I think be very sorry, in his heart, though he never says so, if he were to be declared legitimate.”

This made me angry then, for what the letter said as to the Duke of Monmouth’s talk; and it disconcerted me too, for, if the King himself were to join the popular party, there would be little hope of the Catholic succession. The Duchess of Portsmouth, also, I had heard, had lately become of that side; and I dared say it was she who had talked His Majesty round.

Now my Cousin Tom knew that I had had this letter, for he had seen the courier bring it; but he did not know from whom it came; and, as already he was a little suspicious, I thought, of what I did in town, I thought it best to tell him that it was from a friend at Court; and what it said as to the Duke of Monmouth’s talk, hoping that this perhaps might offend him against the Duke. But it had the very opposite effect, much to my discomfiture.

“His Grace says that, does he?” he said, smiling. “I am sure it is very courteous of him to remember his poor entertainment”; and (Dolly coming in at this instant) he told her too what the Duke had said.

“Hear what the Duke of Monmouth hath been saying, my dear! He says you are a mighty pretty girl.”

And Dolly, greatly to my astonishment, did not seem displeased, as soon as she had heard the tale; for she laughed and said nothing.

As I rode up to London next day in answer to my summons, I was wondering how in the world I could be of service to the Duke of York. As Mr. Chiffinch had said, I knew next to nothing of him, nor he of me; but when I was gone round to the page’s rooms the morning after I came, he told me something of the reasons for which I had been summoned.

“Such Jesuits as are left,” he said, “and the Duke’s confessor among them, seem all of opinion that the Duke had best remain in London and fight it out. We hear, without a doubt, that my Lord Shaftesbury, who seems most desperate, will bring in the Exclusion Bill again this Session; and the priests say that it is best for His Royal Highness to be here; and to plead again for himself as he did so well two years ago. His Majesty on the other hand is honestly of opinion—and I would sooner trust to his foresight than to all the Jesuits in the world—that he himself can fight better for his brother if that brother be in Scotland; for out of sight, out of mind. And he desires you, as a Catholic, yet not a priest, to go and talk to the Duke on that side. He hath sent half a dozen to him already; and, since he knows that the Duke is aware of what you have done in France, he thinks that your word may tip the balance. For the Duke, I think, is in two minds, beneath all his protestations.”

For myself, I was of His Majesty’s opinion; for the sight of the Duke irritated folk who had not yet forgotten the Oates Plot; and I consented very willingly to go and see him.

I was astonished to find that by now I had really become something of a personage myself, amongst those few who had heard what I had done in France; and I was received by His Royal Highness in his lodgings after supper that evening with a very different air from that which he had when I had last spoken with him.

The Duke was pacing up and down his closet when I came in, and turned to me with a very friendly manner.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, when I had saluted him and was sat down, “I am very glad to see you. His Majesty has told me all that you have done, and has urged me to see you, as you are devoted as I know, to the Catholic cause, and know the world too; and men’s minds. Do you think I should go or stay?”

“Sir,” I said, “my opinion is that you should go. There is a quantity of disaffection in town. I have met with a good deal of it myself. If Your Royal Highness is to be seen continually going about, that disaffection will be kept alive. Men are astonishingly stupid. They act, largely, upon that which they see, not on that which they know: and by going to Scotland you will meet them both ways. They will not see Your Highness at all; and all that they will know of you is that you are doing the King’s work and helping the whole kingdom in Edinburgh.”

“But they say I torture folks there!” said the Duke.

“They say so, Sir. They will say anything. But not a reasonable man believes it.”

(It was true, indeed, that such gossip went about; but the substance of it was ridiculous. Good fighters do not torture; and no one denied to the Duke the highest pitch of personal courage. He had fought with the greatest gallantry against the Dutch.)

He said nothing to that; but sat brooding.

His closet was a very magnificent chamber; but not so magnificent as he who sat in it. He was but just come from supper, and wore his orders on his coat; but all his dress could not distract those who looked at him from that kingly Stuart face that he had. He was, perhaps, the heaviest looking of them all, with not a tithe of Monmouth’s brilliant charm, or the King’s melancholy power; yet he too had the air of command and more than a touch of that strange romance which they all had. Until that blood is diluted down to nothing, I think that a Stuart will always find men to love and to die for him. But it was Stuart against Stuart this time; so who could tell with whom the victory would lie?

So I was thinking to myself, when suddenly the Duke looked up.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “I hear that you have a very persuasive manner with both men and women. There is an exceedingly difficult commission which I wish you would execute for me. You have spoken with the Duchess of Portsmouth?”

“Never, Sir,” I said. “I have seen Her Grace in the park only.”

“Well; she has thrown her weight against me with the King. God knows why! But I wonder you have not met her?”

“Sir, I never go to Court, by His Majesty’s wish.”

“Yes,” he said. “But Her Grace is the King’s chief agent in his French affairs; and you are in them too, I hear. But that is His Majesty’s way; he uses each singly, and never two together if he can help it.” (This was perfectly true, and explained a good deal to me. I had heard much of the Duchess in France, but nothing at all of her from the King.)

“Well,” continued the Duke, “I wish you would see her for me, Mr. Mallock; and try to get from her why she is so hot against me. She is a Catholic, as you are, and she should not be so. But she is all on fire for Monmouth and the Protestant succession; and she is all powerful with the King.”

“I shall be happy to do what I can, Sir,” said I, “but I do not suppose

Her Grace will confide in me.”

“I know that,” he said, “but you may pick up something. You are the fourth I have sent on that errand, and nothing come of it.”

We talked a while longer on these affairs, myself more and more astonished at the confidence given me (but I think now that it was because the Duke had so few that he could trust); and when I took my leave it was with a letter written and signed and sealed by the Duke, which I was to present at Her Grace’s lodgings immediately.

The Duchess, at this time, was, I think, the most powerful figure in England; since her influence over the King was unbounded. She had come to England ten years ago as Charles’ mistress, a good and simple maid in the beginning, as I believe, and of good Breton parents, who would not let her go to the French Court, yet were persuaded to let her go to the English—where, God help her! she soon ceased to be either good or simple. In the year seventy-two she was created Duchess of Portsmouth who up to that time had been the Breton woman Madame Kéroual (or, as she was called in England Madam Carwell). Three years later her son had been made Duke of Richmond. At the time of the Popish Plot she had been terrified of her life, and it was only at the King’s persuasion that she remained in England. I cannot say that she was popular with the people, for her coach was cried after pretty often unless she had her guards with her; and this always threw her into paroxysms of terror. Yet she remained in England, and was treated as of royal blood both by Charles who loved her, and James who feared her.

A couple of days later I received a message to say that Her Grace would receive me after supper on that same evening: so I put on my finest suit, and set out in a hired coach.

The Duchess lived at this time in lodgings at the end of the Great Gallery in Whitehall; and I think that of all the apartments I had ever set eyes on—even the royal lodgings themselves—this was the finest; and no wonder, for they had been pulled down two or three times before she was satisfied, thus fulfilling the old proverb of Setting a Beggar on Horseback. I was made to wait awhile in an outer chamber, all as if she were royal; and I examined the pieces of furniture there, and there was nothing in the Queen’s own lodging to approach to them—so massy was the plate and so great and exquisitely carved the tables and chairs. When I was taken through at last by a fellow dressed in a livery like the King’s own, the next room, where I was bidden to sit down, was full as fine. There was a quantity of tapestry upon the walls, of new French fabric, so resembling paintings that I had to touch before I was sure of them—of Versailles, and St. Germain, with hunting pieces and landscapes and exotic fowls. There were Japan cabinets, screens and pendule clocks, and a great quantity of plate, all of silver, as well as were the sconces that held the candles; and the ceilings were painted all over, as were His Majesty’s own, I suppose by Verrio.

As I sat there, considering what I should say to her, I heard music continually through one of the doors; and when at last it was flung open and my Lady came through, she brought, as it were, a gust of music with her.

I bowed very low, as I had been instructed, in spite of the character of the woman, and then I kneeled to kiss her hand. Then she sat down, and left me standing, like a servant.

She appeared at that time to be about thirty years old, though I think she was far beyond this; but she had a wonderfully childish face, very artfully painted and darkened by the eyes. I cannot deny, however, that she was very handsome indeed, and well set-off by her jewels and her silver-lace gown, cut very low so as to shew her dazzling skin. Her fingers too, when I kissed them, were but one mass of gems. Her first simplicity was gone, indeed.

I loathed this work that I was sent on; since it forced me to be civil to this spoiled creature, instead of, as I should have wished, naming her for what she was, to her face. However, that had been done pretty often by the mob; so I doubt if I could have told her anything she did not know already. Her voice was set very low and was a little rough; yet it was not ugly at all. She spoke in French; and so did I.

“Well, Mr. Mallock,” she said, “I have company; but I did not wish to refuse another of His Royal Highness’s ambassadors. What is the matter now, if you please?”

Now I knew that this kind of personage loved flattery—for it was nothing but this that had ruined her—and that it could scarcely be too thick: so I framed my first sentences in that key: for, after all, my first business was to please her.

“His Royal Highness is desolated, madam,” I said, “because he thinks he has displeased you.”

“Displeased me!” she cried. “Why, what talk is this of a Prince to a poor Frenchwoman?”

She smiled very unpleasantly as she said this; and nearly all the time I was with her, her eyes were running up and down my figure. I was wearing a good ring or two also, and my sword-hilt was very prettily set with diamonds; and she always had an eye for such things.

“There can be no talk of Prince and subject, madam,” I said, “when Her

Grace of Portsmouth is in question.”

She smiled once more; and I saw that she liked this kind of talk. So I gave her plenty of it.

“La! la!” she said. “This is very pretty talk. What is your business, sir, if you please?”

“It is what I have said, madam; and nothing else upon my honour! His

Royal Highness is seriously discomposed.”

“Then why does he not come to see me, and ask me himself?” snapped my Lady. “He hath not been these three months back. Why does he send a—a messenger?”

(She was on the very point of saying servant; and it pleased me that she had not done so. I noted also in my mind that wounded vanity was one of the reasons for her behaviour, as it usually is with a woman.)

“Madam,” I said, “His Royal Highness does not come, I am sure, because he does not know how he would be received. It seems that Your Grace’s favour is given to another, altogether, now.”

“God bless us!” said the Duchess. “Why not say Monmouth and be done with it?”

“It is Your Grace who has named him,” I said: “but the Duke of Monmouth is the very man.”

She gave a great flirt to her fan; and I saw by her face what I had suspected before, that it was not only with music that she was intoxicated. Then she jerked her pretty head.

“Sit down, sir,” she said; and when I had done so, pleased at the progress I was making, she told me everything I wanted to know, though she did not think so herself.

“See here, Mr. Mallock: You appear an intelligent kind of man. Now ask yourself a question or two, and you will know all that I know myself. What kind of a chance, think you, has a Catholic as King of England, as against a Protestant; and what kind of a chance, think you, has the Duke of York beside the Duke of Monmouth? I speak freely, because from your having come on this errand, I suppose you are a man that can be trusted. I wonder you have not seen it for yourself. His Royal Highness has no tact—no aplomb: he sets all against him by his lordly ways. He could not make a friend of any man, to save his life: he can never forget his royalty. He sulks there in his lodgings, and will not even come to see a poor Frenchwoman. And now, sir, you know all that I know myself.”

The woman’s ill-breeding came out very plainly when she spoke; and I remember even then wondering that His Majesty could make so much of her. But it is often the way that men of good breeding can never see its lack in others, especially in women: or will not. However I concealed all this from Her Grace, and let go more of my courtesy.

“But, madam,” I said, “with all the goodwill in the world it is Versailles to a china orange that His Royal Highness will succeed in the event. I do not say that he will make as good a King as the Duke of Monmouth, nor that his being a Catholic will be anything but a disadvantage to him; but disadvantages or no, if he is King, it is surely better to be upon his side, and help, not hinder him.”

I would not have dared to say such a thing to a respectable woman; for it advised her, almost without disguise, to look to her own advantage only.

She gave me a sharp look.

“That is where we are not agreed,” said she.

I made a little despairing gesture with my hands.

“Well, madam—if you do not accept facts—”

“Why do you think the Duke of York is so sure to succeed?” she asked sharply; and I saw that I had touched her.

“Madam,” I said, “we English are a very curious people. It is true that we cut off His late Majesty’s head; but it is also true that we welcomed back his son with acclamation. We are not quick and logical as is your own glorious nation; we have very much more sentimentality; and, among those matters that we are sentimental about, is that of Royalty. I dare wager a good deal that if government by Monarchy goes in either of our countries, it will go in Your Grace’s fatherland first. We abuse those in high places, and we disobey them, and we talk against them; yet we cling to them.

“And there is a second reason—” I went on rapidly; for she was at the point of speaking—”We are a highly respectable nation, with all the prejudices of respectability; and one of these prejudices concerns His Grace of Monmouth’s parentage”—(I saw her flare scarlet at that; but I knew what I was doing)—”It is a foolish Pharisaic sort of prejudice, no doubt, madam; but it is there; and I do not believe—”

She could bear no more; for her own son had precisely that bar sinister also; and in her anger she said what I wished to hear.

“This is intolerable, sir,” she flared at me, gripping the arms of her chair. “I do not wish to hear any more about your stupid English nation. It is because they are stupid that I do what I do. They can be led by the nose, like your stupid king: I can do what I will—”

“Madam,” I entreated, and truly my accents were piteous, “I beg of you not to speak like that. I am a servant of His Majesty’s—I cannot hear such talk—”

I rose from my chair.

Now in that Court there was more tittle-tattle, I think, than in any place on God’s earth; and she knew that well enough; and understood that she had said something which unless she prevented it, would go straight to Charles’ ears. It is true that she ruled him absolutely; but he kicked under her yoke a little now and then; and if there were one thing that he would not brook it was to be called stupid. She let go of the arms of her chair, and went a little white. I think she had no idea till then that I was in the King’s service.

“I said nothing—” she murmured.

I stood regarding her; and I think my manner must have been good.

“I said nothing that should be repeated,” she added, a little louder.

I still kept silence.

“You will not repeat it, Mr. Mallock?”

“Madam,” I said, “I have only one desire: and that is to serve His Majesty and His Majesty’s lawful heir. My mouth can be sealed absolutely, if that end is served.”

I said that very slowly and deliberately.

I saw her breathe a little more freely. It was a piteous sight to see a woman so depending upon such things as a complexion, and whiffs of scandal, and servants’ gossip.

“Mr. Mallock,” she said, “I cannot veer round all in a moment, even though I must confess that what you have said to me, has touched me very closely.”

She looked at me miserably.

“Madam,” I said, for I dared not grasp at more than this, for fear of losing all, “that has wiped out your words as if they had never been spoken.”

I kissed her hand and went out.

I did not go to the Duke, for I hold that, when a man has to sift carefully between what he must say and what he must not, it is best to do it on paper; but I went back to my lodgings and wrote to him that it was merely for her own advantage that the Duchess had behaved so, and because she thought that the Protestant succession was certain—her own advantage, that is to say, mingled with a little woman’s vanity. I begged His Royal Highness therefore to go and see the Duchess, if he thought well, and, if possible, publicly, when she held her reception, before he went to Scotland—(for I was diplomat enough to know that the assuming he would go to Scotland would be the best persuasion to make him)—; and at the end I told him that I thought my arguments had prevailed a little with Her Grace, and that though she could not at once turn weathercock, he might take my word for it that she would not be so forward as she had been. But I did not tell him what argument I had chiefly used; for I hold that even to such a woman as that, a man should keep his word.

Everything I told the Duke in that letter fell true. The Duchess began to cool very much in the Protestant cause, though perhaps that was helped a little by Monmouth’s having fallen under the King’s displeasure: and the Duke of York went two or three times to the Duchess’ receptions; and to Scotland on the day before Parliament met.

CHAPTER VI

It was on Mr. Chiffinch’s advice that I remained in London for the present, determining however to spend Christmas at Hare Street; and indeed I had plenty to do in making my reports to Rome on the situation.

There was a storm brewing. From all over the country came in addresses to the King, as they were called, praying him to assemble Parliament, and that, not only for defence against Popery, but against despotism as well; and all these were nourished and inspired by my Lord Shaftesbury. His Majesty answered this by proclaiming through the magistrates that such addresses were contrary to the laws that left such things at the King’s discretion; and the court-party against the country-party presently begun to send addresses beseeching His Majesty to defend that prerogative of his fearlessly. Names began to be flung about: the court-party called the other the party of Whigs, because of their whey faces that would turn all sour; and the country-party nicknamed the others Tories, which was the name of the banditti in the wilder parts of Ireland. So it appeared that whenever Parliament should meet, there would be, as the saying is, a pretty kettle of fish to fry.

Parliament met at last on the twenty-first of October, the Duke of York having set out to Scotland with a fine retinue on the day before; (which some thought too pointed); and the King himself opened it.

With all my love for His Majesty I am forced to confess that he presented a very poor spectacle on that occasion. Not only did he largely yield to the popular clamour, and profess himself willing, within reason, to befriend any measures for the repression of Popery; but he stood at the fire afterwards in the House of Lords, for a great while, warming his back and laughing with his friends. I was in the gallery and saw it myself. Laughter is a very good thing, but a seemly gravity is no less good. As might be expected of curs, they barked all the louder when there was no one to stand up to them; and within a week, after numerous insulting proposals made to honour that horde of lying informers that had done so much mischief already, and of preferring such men as Dr. Tonge to high positions in the Church, once more that Exclusion Bill of theirs came forward.

The Commons passed it, as might be expected, since my Lord Shaftesbury had packed that House with his own nominees.

I was in Whitehall on the night that it was debated in the Lords—four days later—and up to ten o’clock His Majesty had not returned from the House; for he was present at that debate—a very unusual thing with him. I went up and down for a little while outside His Majesty’s lodgings; and about half-past ten I saw Mr. Chiffinch coming.

“His Majesty is not back yet,” he said; and presently he proposed that we should go to the House ourselves.

From the little gallery whither he conducted me, I had a very good view of the House, and, yet more, of one of the strangest sights ever seen there.

Upon the carpet that was laid by the fire, for it was a cold night, stood His Majesty himself with a circle of friends about him. Now and again there came up to him one of the Peers for whom he had sent; he talked to him a few minutes; and then let him go; for he was doing nothing else than solicit each of them for his vote.

The cry was raised presently to clear the House; and we went away; for their Lordships were to record their votes; and we had not stood half an hour in the court outside, before there came a great cheering and shouting; followed hard by a great booing from the crowds that stood packed outside. My Lords had thrown out the Exclusion Bill by above two-thirds of their number—which was ninety-three. Presently His Majesty came out by his private way, laughing and jesting aloud with two or three others.

It was to be expected that the country-party would make some retort to this; and what that retort was I heard a few days later, from a couple of gentlemen who came into the parlour at the Covent Garden tavern where I was taking my supper. They came in very eagerly, talking together, and when they had sat down, one of them turned to me.

“You have heard the news, sir?”

“No, sir. What news?”

“My Lord Stafford is to be tried for his life.”

I did not know what political complexion these two were of; so I looked wise and inquired how that was known.

“A clerk that is in the House of Lords told me, sir. I have always found his information to be correct.”

This was all very well for the clerk’s friend, thought I; but not enough for me; and so soon as I had finished my supper and bidden them good-night I was off to Mr. Chiffinch.

“Why yes,” he said. “It is like to be true enough. I had heard talk of it, but no more. It is he whom they have chosen as the weakest of the Five in the Tower; and if they can prevail against him they will proceed against the rest, I suppose. I wonder who the informers will be.”

I inquired how it was that the Peers did not resist.

“They fear for themselves and their places,” said Mr. Chiffinch. “They will yield up anything but that, if a man or two will but push them hard enough. And, if they try my Lord, they will certainly condemn him. There is no question of that. To acquit him would cause a yet greater uproar than to refuse to hear the case at all.”

“And His Majesty?”

Mr. Chiffinch eyed me gravely.

“His Majesty will never prefer his private feelings before the public utility.”

“And this is to the public utility?”

“Why yes; or the country-party thinks it is. It is the best answer they can make to their rebuff on the matter of the Exclusion Bill.”

The rumour proved to be perfectly true. The Five Lords who were still in the Tower, had been sent there, it may be remembered, above two years ago, on account of their religion, although the pretended plot professed by Oates was of course alleged against them. Since that time Parliament had been busy with other matters; but such an opportunity was now too good to be lost, of striking against the court-party, and, at the same time, of feeding the excitement and fanaticism of their own.

The trial came on pretty quickly, beginning on the last day of November; and as I had never seen a Peer tried by his fellows, I determined to be present, and obtained an order to admit me every day; and the first day, strangely enough, was the birthday of my Lord Stafford himself.

Westminster Hall, in which the trial was held, was a very noble sight when all the folks were in their places. (I sat myself in a high gallery, in which sat, too, ambassadors and public ministers—at the upper end, above the King’s state.)

I could not see that which was immediately beneath me, neither of the box in which sat His Majesty during a good deal of the trial, nor, upon the left side where the great ladies sat. But I had a very good view of the long forms on which the Peers sat, before the state (under which was the throne), the wool-packs for the Judges, and the chair of the Lord Steward—all which was ranged exactly as in the House of Lords itself. Behind the Peers’ forms rose the stands, scaffolded up to the roof, for the House of Commons to sit in; so that the Hall resembled the shape of a V in its section, with a long arena in the midst. The lower end held, in the middle, the bar for the prisoner to stand at, and a place for him to retire into: a box for his two daughters, of whom one was the Marchioness of Winchester; and the proper places for the Lieutenant of the Tower (whence my Lord was brought by water), the axe-bearer, who had the edge of his axe turned away from the prisoner, and the guards that kept him. Upon either hand of the entrance, nearer to the throne, stood, upon one side a box for the witnesses, and upon the other, those that were called the Managers—being lawyers and attorneys and the like; but these were in their cloaks and swords, as were others who were with them, of the Parliamentary party, since they were here as representing the Commons, and not as lawyers first of all.

The two first days were tedious enough; and I did not stay a great while; for the articles of impeachment were read, and formalities discharged. One matter of interest only appeared; and that was the names of the witnesses, when I learned for the first time that Oates and Dugdale and Turberville were to be the principal. I think more than I were astonished to hear that Dr. Oates was in this conspiracy too, as in so many others; and that he would swear, when the time came, that he had delivered to my Lord a commission from the Holy Father, to be paymaster in the famous Catholic army of which we had heard so much.

I was much occupied too on these days in observing the appearance and demeanour of the prisoner, whom I could see very well. He was now in his seventieth year, and looked full his age; but he bore himself with great dignity and restraint. He had somewhat of a cold look in his face; and indeed it was true that he was not greatly beloved by anybody, though respected by all.

The principal witnesses, even before Oates, were Dugdale and Turberville. First these gave their general testimony—and afterwards their particular. Mr. Dugdale related how that the plot, in general, had been on hand for above fifteen or sixteen years; and he repeated all the stuff that had so stirred up the people before, as to indulgences and pardons promised by the Pope to those who would kill the King. I must confess that I fell asleep once or twice during this testifying, for I knew it all by heart already. And, in particular, he said that my Lord had debated with others at my Lord Aston’s, how to kill the King: and that himself was present at such debates.

A great hum broke out in the Hall, when Dugdale swore that he had heard with his own ears my Lord Stafford and others who had been present, give their assent one by one to the King’s murder. His Majesty himself, I was told later by Mr. Chiffinch, retired to the back of his box to laugh, when he heard that said; for neither then nor ever did he believe a word of it.

Next came Mr. Oates; and he too reaffirmed what he had said before, with an hundred ingenious additions and particularities as to times and places—and this, I think, as much as anything was the reason why so many simple folk had believed him in the first event.

Then Turberville, who said falsely that he had once been a friar, and at

Douay, related how my Lord, as he had said, had attempted to bribe him

to kill the King, and suchlike nonsense. This, he said, had happened in

France.

My Lord Stafford questioned the prisoners a little; and shewed up many holes in their story. For instance, he asked Turberville whether he had ever been in his chamber in Paris; and put this question through the High Steward.

“Yes, my Lord, I have,” said Turberville.

“What kind of a room is it?” asked my Lord.

“I can’t remember that,” said Turberville, who before had sworn he had been in it many times.

“No,” said my Lord, “I dare swear you can’t.”

“I cannot tell the particulars—what stools and chairs were in the room.”

On the third day, which was Thursday, my Lord was bidden to call his witnesses and make his defence; and I must confess that he did not do this very well; for, first he made a great pother about this and that statute, of the 13 Charles II. and 25 Edward—nothing of which served him at all; and next his witnesses did him harm rather than good; and Dugdale, whom he examined was so clever and quiet and positive in his statements that it was mere oath against oath. Third, my Lord Stafford himself did appear a little confused as to whether he had known Dugdale or not, not being sure of him, as he said, in his periwig; for when Dugdale was bailiff to my Lord Aston at Tixall, he wore no such thing. All that he did, in regard to Dugdale, was to shew by one of his witnesses that Dugdale, when bailiff at Tixall, had been a mean dishonest fellow; but then, as the Lord High Sheriff observed, it would scarcely be an honest man whom one would bribe to kill the King.

When he dealt with Turberville too, he did not do much better; for he stood continually upon little points of no importance—such points as a witness may very well mistake—as to where the windows of his house in Paris looked out, and whether the Prince of Conde lodged to right or left—such little points as a lawyer would leave alone, if he could not prove them positively.

On the fourth and fifth day I was not present; for I had a great deal to do in writing my reports for Rome; and on the sixth day—which was Monday—I was not there above an hour, for I saw that the trial would not end that day. But on the Tuesday I was there before ten o’clock; and at eleven o’clock my Lords came back to give judgment. It was a dark morning, as it had been at the trial of the Jesuits; and the candles were lighted.

As soon as all were seated my Lord Stafford was brought in; and I observed him during all that followed. He stood very quiet at the bar, with his hands folded; and although, before the voting was over, he must have known which way it was gone, he flinched never a hair nor went white at all. (His bringing in while the voting was done was contrary to the law; but no one observed it; and I knew nothing of it till afterwards.)

The Lord High Steward first asked humble leave from my Lords to sit down as he spoke, as he was ailing a little, and then put the question to each Lord, beginning with my Lord Butler of Weston.

“My Lord Butler of Weston,” said he, “is William Lord Viscount Stafford guilty of the treason whereof he stands impeached, or not guilty?”

And my Lord answered in a loud voice, laying his hand upon his breast:

“Not guilty, upon my honour.”

There were in all eighty-six lords who voted; and each answered, Guilty, or Not Guilty, upon his honour, as had done the first, each standing up in his place. At the first I could not tell on which side lay the most; but as they went on, there could be no doubt that he was condemned. Prince Rupert, Duke of Cumberland, voted last, as he was of royal blood, and gave it against him.

The Lord High Sheriff, who had marked down each vote upon a paper on his desk, now added them all up: and there was a great silence while he did this. (I could see him doing it from where I sat.) Then he spoke in a loud voice, raising his head.

“My Lords,” said he, “upon telling your votes I find that there are thirty-one of my Lords that think the prisoner not guilty, and fifty-five that have found him guilty—Serjeant,” said he; and then I think that he was about to call for the prisoner, when he saw him already there. Then, before he spoke again, I saw the headsman turn the edge of the axe towards my Lord Stafford; and a rustle of whispering ran through the Hall.

“My Lord Stafford,” said the High Steward, “I have but heavy tidings for you: your Lordship hath been impeached for high treason; you have pleaded not guilty: my Lords have heard your defence, and have considered of the evidence; and their Lordships do find you guilty of the treason whereof you are impeached.”

Then my Lord Stafford, raising his head yet higher, and flinching not at all, cried out:

“God’s holy name be praised, my Lords, for it!”

Then the Lord High Steward asked him why judgment of death should not be given on him; and after saying that he had not expected it, and that he prayed God to forgive those that had sworn falsely against him, he went on, as before, upon a legal point—that was wholly without relevance— that he had not been forced to hold up his hand at the beginning as he thought to be a legal form in all trials; and when he had said that, my Lords went out to consider their judgment.

It was above an hour before they came back. During that hour my Lord Stafford was permitted to sit down in the box provided for him; but no one was admitted to speak with him. He sat very still, leaning his head upon his hand.

When all were come back again, he was made to stand up at the bar once more; and his face was as resolute and quiet as ever.

Then, when the Lord High Steward had answered his point, saying that in no way did the holding up of the hand affect the legality of the trial; he began to give sentence.

“My part, therefore, which remains,” said he, “is a very sad one. For I never yet gave sentence of death upon any man, and am extremely sorry that I must begin with your Lordship.”

My Lord Nottingham was silent for an instant when he had said that, seeking, I think, to command his voice: and then he began his speech, which I think he had learned by heart; and it was one of the most moving discourses that I have ever heard, though he committed a great indecency in it, when he said that henceforth no man could ever doubt again that it was the Papists who had burned London; and professed himself—(though this I suppose he was bound to do)—satisfied with the evidence.

When he came to give sentence, I watched my Lord Stafford’s face again very hard; and he flinched never a hair. It was the same sentence as that to which the Jesuits too had listened, and many other Catholics.

“You go to the place,” said my Lord Nottingham, “from whence you came; from thence you must be drawn upon a hurdle to the place of execution: when you come there you must be hanged up by the neck there, but not till you are dead; for you must be cut down alive, your bowels ripped up before your face and thrown into the fire. Then your head must be severed from your body; and your body divided into four quarters, and these must be at the disposal of the King. And God Almighty be merciful to your soul!”

There was a moment of silence; and then my Lord Stafford answered.

“My Lords,” he said quietly, yet so that every word was heard, “I humbly beseech you give me leave to speak a few words: I do give your Lordships hearty thanks for all your favours to me. I do here, in the presence of God Almighty, declare I have no malice in my heart to them that have condemned me. I know not who they are, nor desire to know: I forgive them all, and beseech your Lordships all to pray for me—” (His voice shook a little, and he was silent. Then he went on again. All else were as still as death.)

“My Lords, I have one humble request to make to your Lordships, and that is, my Lords, that the little short time I have to live a prisoner, I may not be a close prisoner as I have been of late; but that Mr. Lieutenant may have an order that my wife and children and friends may come at me. I do humbly beg this favour of your Lordships, which I hope you will be pleased to give me.”

His voice grew very low as he ended; and I saw his lips shake a little.

The Lord High Steward answered him with great feeling.

“My Lord Stafford,” he said—(and that was an unusual thing to say, for he had said before that since he was to be attainted he could not be called My Lord again)—”I believe I may, with my Lords’ leave, tell you one thing further; that my Lords, as they proceed with rigour of justice, so they proceed with all the mercy and compassion that may be; and therefore my Lords will be humble suitors to the King, that he will remit all the punishment but the taking off of your head.”

And at that my Lord Stafford broke down altogether, and sobbed upon the rail; and it is a terrible thing to see an old man weep like that. When he could command his voice, he said:

“My Lords, your justice does not make me cry, but your goodness.”

Then my Lord Nottingham stood up, and taking the staff of office that lay across his desk, he broke it in two halves. When I looked again, the prisoner was going out between his guards, and the axe before, with its edge turned towards him in token of death.

I was at Mr. Chiffinch’s again that night to hear the news; but he was not there. When he came in at last, he appeared very excited. Then he told me the news.

“They are at His Majesty already,” he said, “that he cannot remit the penalty of High Treason. But the King swears that he will, law or no law, judges or no judges. I have never seen him so determined. He does not believe one word of the evidence.”

“Yet he will sign the warrant for the beheading?” I asked.

“Why,” said Mr. Chiffinch, “His Majesty does not wish to go upon his travels again.”

CHAPTER VII

The night before I went down to Hare Street,—for I went on Christmas Eve—I was present for the first time at the high supper in Whitehall, which His Majesty gave to the Spanish Ambassador. I had never been at such a ceremony before; and went out of curiosity only, being given admission to one of the stands by the door, whence I might see it all. It would have appeared very strange to me that the King could be so merry, as he was that night, when so much innocent blood had been shed upon his own warrant, and when such a man, as my Lord Stafford was, lay in the Tower, expecting his death six days later;—had I not known the nature of His Majesty pretty well by now. For, beneath all the merriment, I think he was not very happy, though he never shewed a sign of it.

I stood, as I said, upon a little scaffold to the right of the entrance; and I was glad of it; for there was a great pack of people crowded in, as the custom was, also to see the spectacle; and they were all about me and in front, as well as in the gallery where the music was.

The Banqueting Hall had its walls all hung over with very rich tapestry, representing all kinds of merry scenes of hunting and fighting and the like, and there were great presses along the walls, piled with plate of gold and silver. The music was all on the balusters above—wind-music, trumpets and kettledrums, that played as Their Majesties came in, after the heralds and Black Rod. I had not had before an opportunity of seeing the Queen so well as I saw her now; and I watched her closely, for I was sorry for the poor woman. She was very gloriously dressed in a pale brocade, with quantities of Flanders lace upon her shoulders and at her elbows, that set off her little figure very well. She was very handsome, I thought, though so little; and her complexion and her face were both very good, except that her teeth shewed too much as she smiled. She had, however, nothing of that witty or brilliant air about her that pleased the King so much in women; and she sat very quietly throughout supper, beside the King, not speaking a great deal. But I thought I saw in her at first a very piteous desire to please him; and he listened, smiling, as a man might listen to a dull child; and, indeed, I think that that was all that he thought of her. His Majesty himself appeared very noble and gallant, in His Order of the Garter, and with the Golden Fleece too, over his rich suit. Both Their Majesties wore a good number of jewels.

Their Majesties sat at a little high table, under a state, with their gentlemen and ladies standing behind them; and the Spaniards, with the King’s other guests at a table that ran down the middle of the hall, yet close enough at the upper end for the Ambassador and the King to speak together. My Lord Shaftesbury was there; and it was strange to see him, I knowing how much he was privately under His Majesty’s displeasure, and Prince Rupert, very fat and pale and stupid; and Sir Thomas Killigrew and a score of others. His Majesty was served by the Lords and pensioners; and the rest by pages and the like, and gentlemen. About the middle of the dinner toasts were drunk—and first of all His Majesty’s, and the trumpets sounded and the music played, all standing, and when they were sat down again I heard the guns shot off at the Tower; and I thought of him who lay there, and how he heard them near at hand, and how he might have been here, supping with the Spaniards, had he not fallen under the popular displeasure on account of his religion. It was a wonderful thing to see the toast drunk, all that company standing upon its feet, and shouting.

When the banquet came in, and the French wines, a very curious scene of disorder presently began—these gentlemen flinging the dessert about and at one another, for they were beginning to be a little drunk: and I saw Killigrew fling a bunch of raisins at one of the Spaniards, in sport. His Majesty sat smiling throughout, not at all displeased; but not drunk at all himself; and indeed he seldom or never drank to excess nor gamed to excess, though he loved to see others do so.

At the end, when all was finished, a choir under the direction of the King’s Master of Music sang a piece very sweetly from the gallery, with the wind music sounding softly; but no one paid the least attention; and then we all stood up again, such as had seats on the scaffolds, to see Their Majesties go out. But such a scene as it all was, when the fruit and sweetmeats were flung about would not have been tolerated in Rome, nor, I think in any Court in Europe.

The next morning, very early, James and I set out for Hare Street.

Now the determination had been forming in my mind for some weeks past, that I would delay no longer in that which lay nearer to my heart by now, I think, than all politics or missions or anything else; and that was to ask my Cousin Dolly if she would have me or no; and all the way down to Hare Street I was considering this and rehearsing what I should say. I still had some hesitation upon the point, for I remembered how strange and shy she had been when I had last been there, and had thought it to be because perhaps she believed that she was being flung at me by her father. But the memory of my jealousy had worked upon me very much —that jealousy, I mean, that I had had when His Grace of Monmouth had come and made his pretty speeches; and I was all but resolved to put all to the test, one way or the other. I had thought of her continually: in all that I had seen—in even the sorrowful affair in Westminster Hall and the merry business a fortnight after at the supper—I had seen it, so to say, all through her eyes and wondered how she would judge of it all, and wished her there. The sting of my jealousy indeed was gone: I reproached myself for having thought ill of her even for a moment; yet the warmth was still there; and so it was in this mood that I came at last to the house, at supper-time.

It was extraordinary merry and pretty within. Neither was below stairs when I came; for my Cousin Tom was in the cellar, and my Cousin Dolly in the kitchen; and when I went into the Great Chamber it was all untenanted. But the walls were hung all over with wreaths and holly: and there were wax candles in the sconces all ready for lighting the next day. But the parlour, where were the hangings of the Knights of the Grail was even more pretty; for there were hung streamers across the ceiling, from corner to corner, and a great bunch of mistletoe united them at the centre.

As I was looking at this my Cousin Dolly ran in, her hands all over flour; and as I saw her—”Here,” I said to myself, “is the place where it shall be done.”

She could not touch me or kiss me, because of the flour; but she permitted me to kiss her, my cold lips against her warm cheek; and her eyes were as stars for merriment. There is something very strange and mystical about Christmas, to me—(which I think is why the Puritans were so savage against it)—for I suppose that the time in which our Lord was born as a little Child, makes children of us all, that we may understand Him better.

“Well, you are come then!” said Dolly to me—”and we not ready for you.”

“I am ready enough for home,” said I. And she smiled very friendly at me for that word.

“I am glad you call it that,” said she.

There was but a little dried fish and rice for supper that night, as it was a fast day; but the supper of Christmas Eve is always a kind of sacramental for me, when midnight mass is to follow. There was no midnight mass for us that Christmas, nor any mass at all; though I suppose it was celebrated as usual in the Ambassadors’ chapels, and the Queen’s: yet the supper had yet that air of mystery and expectancy about it.

“We are all to dance to-morrow night,” said Dolly.

“So that is why the floor is cleared in the Great Chamber,” I said.

She nodded at me. She looked more of a child than I had ever seen her.

“Will you dance with me, Dolly?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, “but my first is with my father.”

I told them presently, though it was but a melancholy tale for Christmas Eve, of my Lord Stafford’s trial, and all that I had seen there; and of the supper last night in Whitehall.

“My Lord is to be beheaded in five days,” I said. “We must pray for his soul. He will die as bravely as he has lived; I make no doubt.”

“And you have no doubt of his innocence?” asked Cousin Tom.

I stared on him.

“Why no,” I said, “nor any man, except those paid to believe his guilt.”

He pressed me to tell him more of what I had seen in London; and whether

I had seen the Duke of Monmouth again.

“He is in Holland,” I said, “under His Majesty’s displeasure. But I saw

Her Grace of Portsmouth.”

“Why, that is his friend, is it not?” asked Tom.

“Yes,” I said, “and a poor friend to his father and the Duke of York.”

The next night was a very merry one.

We had dined at noon as usual: and that was pretty merry too; for all the servants dined with us, and the men from the farm and their wives. It was sad to have had no mass at all; and all that we had instead of it was the sound of the bells from Hormead, from the church that had been our own a hundred and fifty years ago—which was worse than nothing. At dinner we observed the usual ceremonial, with the drinking of healths and the burning of candles; and Dolly and her father and her maid sang a grace at the beginning and end—with a carol or two afterwards that was a surprise to me. It was very homely and friendly and Christian; and I saw my man James with his arm around one of the dairymaids—which is pretty Christian too, I think. We kept it up till it was near time to get supper ready, telling of stories all the while about the fire in the old way. Some of them were poor enough; but some were good. Dick, the cow-man, whom we had long suspected of poaching, exposed himself very sadly, when the ale was in him, by relating a number of poaching tricks I had never heard before. One was of how to catch stares, or shepsters, when they fly up and down, as they do before lodging in a thicket. Then you must turn out, said Dick, a quick stare with a limed thread of three yards long, when she will fly straight to the rest, and, flocking among them, will infallibly bring down at least one or two, and perhaps five or six, all entangled in her thread. And another was how to take wild ducks. Go into the water, said he, up to the neck, with a pumpkin put over your head, and whilst the ducks come up to eat the seeds, you may take them by the legs and pull them under quietly, one by one, till they be drowned. But I would not like to do that in cold weather; and indeed it seems to me altogether like that other method by which you take larks by a-putting of salt upon their tails. I asked Dick, very serious, whether he had tried that plan; and he said he had not, but that a friend had told him of it; and the company became very merry.

There were other tales too, more grave than these, of sacrilege, and suchlike. One, which my man James told, was of a man who took an altar stone from an old church, to press cheeses with; but the cheeses ran blood; so they took it from that and put it in the laundry to bat the linen on. But at night, such a sound of batting was heard continually from the laundry—and no one there—that the man took it back again to the church, and buried it in the churchyard. And another was of two men who had thrown down a village-cross upon a bowling-green; and when one of them next day tried to move it from there, for the playing—he being a very strong man, and lifting it on end—it fell upon him, backwards, and crushed his breast, so that he never spoke again. And there were many tales told of church-lands; and how my Lord Strafford, that was beheaded, before his death told his son to get rid of them all, for that they brought a curse always upon them that held them. And there was another story told at the end by a man from the farm who had been in London at the time, and had seen it for himself—how my Lords Castlehaven and Arran, in St. James’ Park, did, for a wager, kill a strong buck in His Majesty’s presence, by running on foot, and each with a knife only. They took nearly three hours to do it in, but the wager was for six, so they won that. They killed him at last in Rosamund’s Pond, having driven him in there with stones. I could well believe this latter tale, and that the thing had been done in the king’s presence, having seen what I had at supper two nights before.

When we came into the Great Chamber after supper all was ready for the dancing; and Mr. Thompson, who was the Hormead schoolmaster, and a concealed Catholic—though he went to the church with the children and did teach them their religion, for his living—was at the spinet to which we were to dance. There was a fellow also to play the fiddle, and another for a horn.

The dancing was very pretty to see; and we did a great number, beginning as the custom is, with country dances; and it was in the first of these that my Cousin Dolly did dance with her father, and I with Dolly’s maid. We were all dressed too, not indeed in our best, but in our second best—with silk stockings, and the farm men and the maids were in their Sunday clothes. But each one had put on something for the occasion; one had a pair of buckled shoes of a hundred years old, and another an old ring. My Cousin Tom and I wore our own hair, and no periwigs. My Cousin Dolly was very pretty in her grey sarcenet, with her little pearls, and her hair dressed in a new fashion.

It was all very sweet to me, for it was so natural and without affectation; and it all might have been a hundred years ago before the old customs went out and the new came in from France, in which men pay dancers to dance, instead of doing it for themselves. The room was very well decked, and the candles lighted all round the walls; and when some of the greenery fell down and was trodden underfoot, the smell of it was very pleasant. A little fire was on the hearth—not great, lest we should be too hot.

We danced country dances first, as I have said; and then my Cousin Dolly shewed us one or two town dances, and I danced a sarabande in her company; but then as the rest of the folk liked the country dances the best, we went back to these.

Presently I saw my Cousin Dolly go out, and went after her to ask if she needed anything.

“No,” said she, “only to get cool again.”

“Come into the parlour,” said I; and made her come with me. This too had a couple of candles burning over the hearth, and a little fire, for any who wished to come in; but it was empty, for even my Cousin Tom was disporting himself next door in a round dance that had but just begun.

Then it was that all my resolution came to a point; for all circumstances looked that way—my determination to speak, the blessed time of Christmas, the extraordinary kindness of Dolly to me all day, and the very place empty, yet lighted and waiting, as if by design.

For a moment after she had sat down on one side of the hearth, and I on the other, I could not speak; for I seemed to myself all shaking, and again she looked such a child, with her pale cheeks flushed with the exercise, and her eyes alight with merriment. All went before me in that moment—my old thought that I was to be a monk, my leaving the novitiate, my mission from Rome, such as it was, and the work I had been able to do for the King. To all this I must say good-bye; and yet this price I should pay seemed to me scarcely to be considered as weighed against this little maid. So it went by me like a picture, and was gone, and I looked up.

There was that in my air, I suppose, and the way I looked at her, that told her what my meaning was; for before I had spoken even a syllable she was on her feet again, and the flush was stricken from her face.

“Oh! no! Cousin Roger,” she cried. “No, no, Cousin Roger!

“It is Yes, Yes, Cousin Dolly,” said I. “Or at least I hope so.” (I said this with more assurance than I shewed, for if I was sure of anything it was that she loved me in return. And I stood up and leaned on the chimney-breast.)

She stood there, staring on me; and the flush crept back.

“What have I said?” she whispered.

“You need say nothing more, my dear, except what I bid you. My dear love, you have guessed just what it was that I had to say. Sit down again, if you please, Cousin, while I tell you.”

As I looked at her, a very curious change came across her face. I saw it at once, but I did not think upon it till afterwards. She had been a very child just now, in her terror that I should speak—just that terror, I should suppose, that every maid must have when a man first speaks to her of love. Yet, as I looked, that terror went from her face, and her wide eyes narrowed a little as she brought down her brows, and her parted lips closed. It was, I thought, just that she had conquered herself, and set herself to hear what I had to say, before answering me as I wished. She moved very slowly back to her chair, and sat down, crossing her hands on her lap. That was all that I thought it was, so little did I know women’s hearts, and least of all hers.

I remained yet a moment longer, leaning my forehead on my hand, and my hand flat upon the tapestry, staring into the red logs, and considering how to say what I had to say with the least alarm to her. I felt—though I am ashamed to say it—as it were something of condescension towards her. I knew that it was a good match for her, for had not her father drilled that into me by a hundred looks and hints? I knew that I was something considerable, and like to be more so, and that I was sacrificing a good deal for her sake. And then a kind of tenderness came over me as I thought how courageous she was, and good and simple, and I put these other thoughts away, and turned to her where she sat with the firelight on her chin and brows and hair, very rigid and still.

“Dolly, my dear,” I said, “I think you know what I have to say to you.

It is that I love you very dearly, as you must have seen—”

She made a little quick movement as if to speak.

“Wait, cousin,” I said, “till I have done. I tell you that I love you very dearly, and honor you, and can never forget what you did for me. And I am a man of a very considerable estate and a Catholic; so there is nothing to think of in that respect. And your father too will be pleased, I know; and we are—”

Again she made that little quick movement; and I stopped.

“Well, my dear?”

She looked up at me very quietly.

“Well, Cousin Roger; and what then?”

That confused me a little; for I had thought that she had understood.

And then I thought that perhaps she too was confused.

“Why, my dear,” I said very patiently as I thought, as one would speak to a child, “I am asking you if you will be my wife.”

I turned away from the fire altogether, and faced her, thinking I should have her in my arms. But at first she said nothing at all, but sat immovable, scrutinizing me, I thought, as if to read all that was in my head and heart. But it was all new to me, for what did I know of love except that it was very strange and sweet? So I waited for her answer. That answer came.

“Cousin Roger,” she said in a very low voice, “I am very sorry you have spoken as you have—”

I straightened myself suddenly and looked at her more closely. She had not moved at all, except her face. A kind of roaring murmur began to fill my ears.

“Because,” said she—and every word of hers now was pain to me—”because there is but one answer that I can give, which is No.”

“Why—” cried I.

“You have spoken very kindly and generously. But—” and at this her voice began to ring a little—”but I am not what you think me—a maid to be flung at the head of any man who will choose to take her.”

“Cousin!” cried I; and then she was on her feet too, her face all ablaze.

“Yes, Cousin!” cried she; “and never any more than that. You have acted very well, Cousin Roger; and I thank you for that compliment—that you thought it worth while to play the part—and for your great kindness to a poor country maid. I had thought it to be all over long ago—before you went away; or I would not have behaved as I have. But since you have considered it again carefully, and chosen to—to insult me after all; I have no answer at all to give, except No, a thousand times over.”

“Why, Cousin—” I began again.

She stamped her foot. I could not have imagined she could be so angry.

“Wait till I have done,” she said—”I do not know what my father thinks of me; but I suppose that you and he have designed all this; and led me on to make a fool of myself—Oh! Let me go! let me go!”

Oh! the triple fool that I was! Yet who had ever taught me the ways of love, or what women mean, or what their hearts are like? If I had been one half the man that I thought myself, I would have seized her there, and forced back her foolishness with kisses, and vowed that, conspirator or not, she must have me; that we knew one another too well to play false coin like this. Or I should have blazed at her in return; and told her that she lied in thinking I was as base as that. Why, I should have just borne myself like a lover to whom love is all, and dignity and wounded pride nothing; for what else is there but love, sacred or profane, in the whole world that God has made? If I had done that! If only I had done that then! But I suppose that I was no lover then.

So I drew back, smarting and wounded; and let her go by; and a minute later I heard the door of her chamber slam behind her, and the key turn.

For myself I went out very slowly, five minutes after, and upstairs to my own chamber, and began to consider what things I must take with me on the morrow; for I would not stay another day in the house where I had been so insulted and denied.

CHAPTER VIII

Pride is a very good salve, when one has no humility; and it was Pride that I applied to myself to heal the wounds I had.

I came down again to the Great Chamber, half an hour later, very cold and dignified, and danced again, like the solemn fool that I was, first with one and then with another; and all the while I told myself, like the prophet that “I did well to be angry”; and that I would shew her that no man, of my ability, could depend upon any mere woman for his content. Yet the pain at my heart was miserable.

It is very near incredible to me now how I, who truly knew something of the world, and of men and of affairs, could be so childish and ignorant in a matter of this sort. In truth this was what I was; I knew nothing of true love at all; how therefore should I be a proper lover? I saw my Cousin Tom, who mopped himself a great deal, eyeing me now and again; and he presently came up and asked me where Dolly was.

“In her chamber, I think,” said I, with my nose in the air; and with such a manner that he said no more.

It was enough to break my heart to continue dancing; but it was the task I had set myself upstairs; and till near ten o’clock we continued to dance—but no Dolly to help us. I had even determined how I should bear myself if she came—and how superb should be my dignity; but she did not come to see it. We ended with singing “Here’s a health unto His Majesty”; and I took care that my voice should be loud so that she should hear it. (I had even, poor fool that I was! walked heavily past her chamber-door just now, that she might hear me go.)

When all were gone away at last, I waited for my Cousin Tom, and then went with him into the parlour; where I told him very briefly all that had passed, with the same dignity that I had set myself to preserve. I even spoke in a high sort of voice, to shew my self-command and detachment. My Cousin Tom appeared as if thunderstruck.

“Good God!” said he. “The minx! to behave like that!”

“It is no longer any concern of mine,” I said. “For myself I shall go back to town to-morrow.”

“But—” began he.

“My dear Cousin,” I said, “it is the only thing that I can do—to set to work again. Mistress Dorothy must recover herself alone. I could not expect her to tolerate such a personage as I must appear in her eyes.”

“But you will came back again,” said Tom. “And I’ll talk to the chit as she deserves.”

I preserved my lofty attitude.

“That again,” said I, “is no concern of mine. And as for coming back, when Mistress Dorothy has found her a husband whom she can respect—we may perhaps consider it.”

He sat very silent for a while after that; and I know now, though I did not know then, what was the design he was considering—at least I suppose it was then that he saw it clear before him. At the time I thought he was giving his attention to myself; and I wondered a little that he did not press me again to stay, though I would not have done so.

It was a very desolate morning when I awakened next day, and knew what had happened, and that I must go away again from the house I had learned so much to love; but there was no help for it; and, as I put on my clothes, I put on my pride with them; and came down very cold and haughty to get my “morning” as we called it, in the dining-room before riding; and there in the dining-room was my Cousin Dolly, whom I had thought to be in her chamber, as the door was shut when I came past it.

We bade one another good morning very courteously indeed; but we gave no other salute to one another. She knew last night that I was going, as my Cousin Tom had told her maid to tell her; and I was surprised that she was there. Presently I had an explanation of it.

“Cousin Roger,” said she, “I was very angry last night; and I wished to tell you I was sorry for that, and for the hard words I used, before you went away.”

I bowed my head very dignifiedly.

“And I, too,” I said, “must ask your pardon for so taking you by surprise. I thought—” and then I ceased.

She had looked a little white and tired, I thought; but she flushed again with anger when I said that.

“You thought it would be no surprise,” she said.

“I did not say so, Cousin,” said I. “You have no right to interpret—”

“But you thought it.”

I drank my ale.

“Oh! what you must think of me!” she cried in a sudden passion; and ran out of the room.

I think that was the most disconsolate journey I have ever taken. It was a cold morning, with a fine rain falling: my man James was disconsolate too (and I remembered the dairy-maid, when I saw it), and I was leaving the one place I had begun to think of as my home, and her who had so much made it home to me. I had not even seen her again before I went; and our last words had been of anger; and of that chopping kind of argument that satisfies no one.

I tried to distract myself with other thoughts—of what I was going to; for I had determined to go straight to Whitehall and ask for some employment; yet back and back again came the memories, and little scenes of the house, and the appearance of the Great Chamber when it was all lit up, and of the figure of that little maid who had so angered me, and the way she carried her head, and the turns of her hand—and how happy we all were yesterday about this time. However, I need not enlarge upon that. Those that have ever so suffered will know what I thought, without more words; and those who have not suffered would not understand, though I used ten thousand. And every step of all the way to London, which we reached about six o’clock, spoke to me of her with whom I had once ridden along it. As we came up into Covent Garden I turned to my man James and gave him more confidence than I had ever given to him before—for I think that he knew what had happened.

“James,” said I, “this is a very poor home-coming; but it is not my fault.”

Though fortune so far had been against me, I must confess that it favoured me a little better afterwards, for when I went in to Mr. Chiffinch’s on the next morning, he gave me the very news that I wished to hear.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “you are the very man I most wished to see. There is a great pother in France again. I do not know all the ins and outs of the affair; but His Majesty is very anxious. He spoke of you only this morning, Mr. Mallock.”

My heart quickened a little. In spite of my pain it was a pleasure to hear that His Majesty had spoken of me; for I think my love to him was very much more deep, in one way, though not in another, than even to Dolly herself.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I, “I will be very plain with you. I have had a disappointment; and I came back to town—”

He whistled, with a witty look.

“The pretty cousin?” he said.

I could not afford to quarrel with him, but I could keep my dignity.

“That is my affair, Mr. Chiffinch. However—there is the fact. I am come to town for this very purpose—to beg for something to do. Will His Majesty see me?”

He looked at me for an instant; then he thought better, I think, of any further rallying.

“Why I am sure he will. But it will not be for a few days, yet. There is a hundred businesses at Christmas. Can you employ yourself till then?”

“I can kick my heels, I suppose,” said I, “as well as any man.”

“That will do very well,” said Mr. Chiffinch. “But I warn you, that I think it will be a long affair. His Majesty hath entangled himself terribly, and Monsieur Barillon is furious.”

“The longer the better,” said I.

On the twenty-ninth I went down to see my Lord Stafford die. I was in so distracted a mood that I must see something, or go mad; for I had heard that it would not be until the evening of that day that His Majesty would see me, and that I must be ready to ride for Dover on the next morning. Mr. Chiffinch had told me enough to shew that the business would be yet more subtle and delicate than the last; and that I might expect some very considerable recognition if I carried it through rightly. I longed to be at it. One half of my longing came from the desire to occupy my mind with something better than my poor bungled love-affairs; and the other half from a frantic kind of determination to shew my Mistress Dolly that I was better than she thought me; and that I was man enough to attend to my affairs and carry them out competently, even if I were not man enough to marry her. It must be understood that I shewed no signs of this to anyone, and scarcely allowed it even to myself; but speaking with that honesty which I have endeavoured to preserve throughout all these memoirs, I am bound to say that my mind was in very much that condition of childish anger and resentment. I had a name as a strong man: God only knew how weak I was; for I did not even know it myself.

There was a great crowd on Tower Hill to see my Lord Stafford’s execution; for not only was he well known, although, as I have said, not greatly beloved; but the rumours were got about—and that they were true enough I knew from Mr. Chiffinch—that he had said very strange things about my Lord Shaftesbury, and how he could save his own life if he willed, not by confessing anything of which he himself had been accused, but by relating certain matters in which my Lord Shaftesbury was concerned. However, he did not; yet the tale had gone about that perhaps he would; and that a reprieve might come even upon the scaffold itself.

When I came to Tower Hill on horseback, about nine o’clock, the crowd covered the most of it; but I drove my horse through a little, so that I could have a fair sight both of the scaffold, and of the way, kept clear by soldiers, along which the prisoner must come.

I had not been there above a few minutes, when a company went by, and in the midst the two sheriffs, on horseback, whose business it was to carry through the execution; and they drew up outside the gate, to preserve the liberties of the Tower. While they were waiting, I watched those that were upon the scaffold—two writers to take down all that was said; and the headsman with his axe in a cloth—but this he presently uncovered—and the block which he laid down upon the black baize put ready for it, and for the prisoner to lie down upon. Then the coffin was put up behind, with but the two letters W.S. as I heard afterwards: and the year 1680.

Then, as a murmur broke out in the crowd, I turned; and there was my Lord coming along, walking with a staff, between his guards, with the sheriffs—of whom Mr. Cornish was one and Mr. Bethell the other—and the rest following after.

When my Lord was come up on the scaffold, the headsman had gone again; but he asked for him and gave him some money at which the man seemed very discontented, whereupon he gave him some more. It is a very curious custom this—but I think it is that the headsman may strike straight, and not make a botch of it.

When my Lord turned again I could see his face very plainly. He wore a peruke, and his hat upon that. He was in a dark suit, plain but rich; and had rings upon his fingers, which I could see as he spoke. He was wonderfully upright for a man of his age; and his face shewed no perturbation at all, though it was more fallen than I had thought.

He read all his speech, very clearly, from a paper he took out of his pocket; but as he delivered copies of it to the Sheriffs and the writers—(and it was put in print, too, on the very same day by two o’clock)—I need not give it here. He declared his innocence most emphatically; calling God to witness; and he thanked God that his death was come on him in such a way that he could prepare himself well for eternity; but he did not thank the King for remitting the penalties of treason, as he might have done. He made no great references, as was expected that he would, to disclosures that he might have made; but only in general terms. He denied most strongly that it was any part of the Catholic Religion to give or receive indulgences for murder or for any other sin; and he ended by committing his soul into the hands of Jesus Christ, by whose merits and passion he hoped to be saved. His voice was thin, but very clear for so old a man; and the crowd listened to him with respect and attention. I think all those Catholic deaths and the speeches that the prisoners make will by and by begin to affect public opinion, and lead men to reflect that those who stand in the immediate presence of God, are not likely, one after another, to go before Him with lies upon their lips.

When he was done he distributed the copies of his speech, and then presently kneeled down, and read a prayer or two. They were in Latin, but I could not hear the words distinctly.

When he rose up again, all observing him, he went to the rail and spoke aloud.

“God bless you, gentlemen!” he said. “God preserve His Majesty; he is as good a prince as ever governed you; obey him as faithfully as I have done, and God bless you all, gentlemen!”

It was very affecting to hear him speak so, for he did it very emphatically; but even then one of their ministers that was on the scaffold would not let him be.

“Sir,” he asked, speaking loud all across the scaffold, “do you disown the indulgences of the Romish Church?”

My Lord turned round suddenly in a great passion.

“Sir!” he cried. “What have you to do with my religion? However, I do say that the Church of Rome allows no indulgences for murder, lying and the like; and whatever I have said is true.”

“What!” cried the minister. “Have you received no absolution?”

“I have received none at all,” said my Lord, more quietly; meaning of the kind that the minister meant, for I have no doubt at all that he made his confession in the Tower.

“You said that you never saw those witnesses?” asked the minister, who,

I think, must have been a little uneasy.

“I never saw any of them,” said my Lord, “but Dugdale; and that was at a time when I spoke to him about a foot-boy.” (This was at Tixall, when Dugdale was bailiff there to my Lord Aston.)

They let him alone after that; and he immediately began to prepare himself for death. First he took off his watch and his rings, and gave them to two or three of his friends who were on the scaffold with him. Then he took his staff which was against the rail, and gave that too; and last his crucifix, which he took, with its chain, from around his neck.

His man then came up to him, and very respectfully helped him off with his peruke first, and then his coat, laying them one on the other in a corner. My Lord’s head looked very thin and shrunken when that was done, as it were a bird’s head. Then his man came up again with a black silk cap to put his hair under, which was rather long and very grey and thin; and he did it. And then his man disposed his waistcoat and shirt, pulling them down and turning them back a little.

Then my Lord looked this way and that for an instant; and then went forward to the black baize, and kneeled on it, with his man’s help, and then laid himself down flat, putting his chin over the block which was not above five or six inches high.

Yet no one moved—and the headsman stood waiting in a corner, with his axe. One of the sheriffs—Mr. Cornish, I think it was—said something to the headsman; but I could not hear what it was; and then I saw my Lord kneel upright again, and then stand up. I think he was a little deaf, and had not heard what was said.

“Why, what do you want?” he said.

“What sign will you give?” asked Mr. Cornish.

“No sign at all. Take your own time. God’s will be done,” said my Lord; and again applied himself to the block, his man helping him as before, and then standing back.

“I hope you forgive me,” said the headsman, before he was down.

“I do,” said my Lord; and that was the last word that he spoke; for the headsman immediately stepped up, so soon as he was down, and with one blow cut his head all off, except a bit of skin, which he cut through with his knife.

Then he lifted up the head, and carried it to the four sides of the scaffold by the hair, crying:

“Here is the head of a traitor,” as the custom was. My Lord’s face looked very peaceful.

I rode home again alone, thinking of what I had seen, and the innocent blood that was being shed, and wondering whether this might not be the last shed for that miserable falsehood. But even after that sight, the thought of my Cousin Dorothy was never very far away; and before I was home again I was once more thinking of her more than of that from which I was just come, or of that to which I was going, for I was to see His Majesty that evening and so to France next day.

PART III

CHAPTER I

It was on a very stormy evening, ten months later, that I rode again into London, on my way from Rome and Paris.

Now, here again, I must omit altogether, except on one or two very general points, all that had passed since I had gone away on the day after my Lord Stafford’s execution on Tower Hill. It is enough to say that I had done my business in Paris very much to His Majesty’s satisfaction, as well as to that of others; and that M. Barillon himself had urged me to stay there altogether, saying that I could make a career for myself there (as the Romans say), such as I could never make in England. But I would not, though I must confess that I was very much tempted to it; and I know now, though I did not know it altogether then, that there were just two things that prevented me—and these were that His Majesty and my Cousin Dorothy were in England and not France.

Of my Cousin Dorothy I had heard scarcely anything at all; for the last letter I had had from Hare Street was at Eastertide; and Tom said not very much about his daughter, except that she was pretty well; and that he thought of taking her to town in the summer for a little. The rest of his letter was, two-thirds of it all about Hare Street and the lambs and how the fruit promised; and one-third of the affairs of the kingdom.

These affairs, of which I learned from other sources besides my Cousin

Tom, were, in brief, as follows.

His Majesty, for the first time, since he had come to the throne, had shewn an extraordinary open courage in dealing with the country-party. (I must confess that my success in France was not wholly without connection with this. He was so much strengthened in French affairs that he felt, I suppose, that he could act more strongly at home.)

First, in January, he had dissolved the Parliament that had threatened the exclusion of the Duke of York, and that would vote him no money till he would yield. First he prorogued it, though there was a great clamour in his very presence; and then he dissolved it, coming in so early in the morning that none suspected his design.

Then he summoned a new Parliament to meet at Oxford: for at Oxford he knew he would have the support of the city, whereas at London he had not. That Parliament at Oxford will never be forgotten, I think; for it was more like an armed camp than a Parliament. Both parties went armed. My Lord Shaftesbury, in order to rouse the feeling on his side, went there in a borrowed coach without his liveries, as if he feared arrest or even death. But His Majesty answered that by himself going with all his guards about him, as if for the same reason. There were continual brawls in the city, and duels too. The parties went about like companies of cats and dogs, snarling and spitting at one another continually; and so fierce was the feeling that nothing could be done. My Lord Shaftesbury’s creatures were still strong enough to hold their own; and at last His Majesty did the bravest thing he had ever done. He caused a sedan-chair to be brought privately to his lodgings, and his crown and robes to be put in there. Then he went in himself, and away to where the House of Lords was sitting, and before anyone could utter a word, he dissolved the Parliament once more, and altogether, and never again summoned another.

But that was not all.

First, it appeared as if even His Majesty himself was frightened at what he had done, for he allowed my Lord Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Oliver Plunket, to be convicted and executed in London, clean contrary to all evidence or right or justice—just because he was a Papist, and the popular cry had been raised against him that he was conspiring to bring the French over to Ireland, whereas he was a good and kindly old man, who lived in the greatest simplicity and neither did nor designed harm to any living creature. (I do not know whether it was the name France that frightened the King; but certainly at that time I was engaged on his behalf in some transactions with that country which would have ruined him had they ever been known.) But then he recovered himself, after the sacrifice of one more Catholic, and did what he should have done a great while ago, and caused my Lord Shaftesbury to be arrested and sent to the Tower on a charge of fomenting insurrection, which was precisely what my Lord had been doing for the last two years at least.

But His Majesty’s scheme fell through; for the sheriffs, who were Whigs, and on my Lord’s side, therefore, packed the grand jury of the City and acquitted him.

Then there was another affair of which I, in my business in France, saw something of the other side. My negotiations were coming to a successful end, when news came over to Paris that the Prince William of Orange was in England, and made much of by His Majesty. This last was a lie; but I wrote across to His Majesty of what a bad impression such a rumour made; and urged him to make amends—which he did very handsomely. The Duke of Monmouth too was back again in London, and so was the Duke of York; so the chess-pieces were all again for the present on the squares on which the game had begun. It was also a little satisfaction to me to hear that Her Grace of Portsmouth had urged the Duke of York’s return; for I thought myself not a little responsible for her change of face. Once again, however, the Duke returned to finish affairs in Scotland, and then came back to Court; and it was on his journey there that the Gloucester was wrecked, and His Royal Highness so nearly drowned.

The Duke of Monmouth however saw that affairs were moving against him; so he determined on a very bold stroke; and, after returning to England once more without His Majesty’s leave, went through all the country as if on a royal progress; and it was astonishing how well he was received. It was then that Mr. Chiffinch wrote to me at length, telling me of the spies he had sent to follow the Duke everywhere, and asking whether I would not come over myself to help in it. But I was just considering whether I would not go to Rome; and, indeed, before I could make up my mind, another letter came saying that the Duke was to be arrested, and then let out on bail, and that he could do no more harm for the present. So I went to Rome, and there I stayed a good while, reporting myself and all that I had done, and being received very graciously by those who had sent me.

Since then, not very much of public import had happened, until in the first week in November I received in Paris a very urgent letter from Mr. Chiffinch telling me to return at once; but no more in it than that.

It was a very stormy night, as I have said, when I rode in over London

Bridge to where the lights of the City shone over the water.

I was very content at my coming; for in spite of all my resolutions, it was a terrible kind of happiness to me to be in the same country (and so near to her, too) as was my Cousin Dorothy. I had striven to put her out of my head, I had occupied myself with that which is the greatest of all sports—and that is the game that Kings play in secret—I had become something of a personage, and rode now with four servants, instead of one. Yet never could I forget her. But I was resolved to play no more with such nonsense; to live altogether in London, and to send my men in a day or two to get my things from Hare Street. It often appears to me very strange, when I see some great man go by whose name is in all men’s mouths for some office he holds or for his great wealth or power, to reflect that he has his secret interests as much as any, and is moved by them far more deeply than by those public matters for which men think that he cares. I was not yet a great personage, though I meant to be so; and my name was in no men’s mouths, for it was of the very essence of what I did that it should not be; yet I was held in high consideration by two kings. But for all that, as I turned westwards from London Bridge, I looked northwards up Gracechurch Street, and longed to be riding to Hare Street, rather than to Whitehall.

It was strange, and yet very familiar too, to go up those stairs again, all alone—(for I had sent my men on to Covent Garden, where I had taken two sets of lodgings now, instead of one)—to tell the servant that Mr. Chiffinch looked for me, and to be conducted by him straight through to the private closet where he awaited me over his papers. I was in my boots, all splashed, and very weary indeed. Yet I had learned, ever since the day when His Majesty had found fault with me so long ago, never to delay even by five minutes, when kings call.

“Well?” I said; as I came in.

“Well!” said he; and took me by the hands.

Now it may seem surprising that I could tolerate such a man as was Mr. Chiffinch, still more that I should have become on such terms with him. The truth is, that I regarded him as two men, and not one. On the one side he was the spy, the servant, the panderer to the King’s more disgraceful secrets; on the other he was a man of an extraordinary shrewdness, utterly devoted to His Majesty, and very competent indeed in very considerable affairs. If ever the secret memoirs of Charles II. see the light of day, Mr. Chiffinch will be honoured and admired, as well as contemned.

“First sup;” he said. “I have all ready: and not one word till you are done.”

He took me through into a little dining-room that was opposite the closet; and here was all that a hungry man might desire of cold meats and wine. He had had it set out, he told me ever since five o’clock (for I had sent to tell him I would be there that night).

While I ate he would say nothing at all of the business on hand; but talked only of France and what I had done there. He told me the King was very greatly pleased; and there were rewards if I wished them—or even a title, though he was not sure of what kind, for I was a very young man.

“He vows you have done a thousand times more than the Duchess of Portsmouth in all her time. But I would recommend you to take nothing. It will not be forgotten, you may be sure. If you took anything now, it would make you known, and ruin half your work. If you will take my advice, Mr. Mallock, you will tell the King, Bye and bye; and have a peerage when the time comes.”

Now of course these thoughts had crossed my mind too: but it was more to hear them from a man like this. I nodded at him but said nothing, feigning that my mouth was full; for indeed I did not quite know what to say. I need not say that the thought of my Cousin Dorothy came to me again very forcibly. At least I should have shewn her what I could do.

When I was quite done, Mr. Chiffinch carried me back to the parlour; and there, having locked the door, he told me what was wanted of me.

When he had done, I looked at him in astonishment. “You are as sure as that?” I said.

“We are sure, beyond the very leastest doubt, that at last there is a plot to kill the King. There are rumours and rumours. Well, these are of the right kind. And we are convinced that my Lord Shaftesbury is behind it, and my Lord Essex, and Mr. Sidney; and who else we do not know. My men whom I sent to spy out how Monmouth was received in the country, tell me the same. But the trouble is that we have no proof at all; and cannot lay a finger on them. And there is only that way, that I told you of, to find it out.”

“That I should mix with them—feign to be one of them!” said I.

The man threw out his hands.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “I told the King you were too nice for it. He said on the contrary that he was sure you would do it; that it was not a matter of niceness, but of plot against counterplot.”

“A pretty simile!” I said with some irony; for I confess I did not like the idea; though I was far from sure I would not do it in the end.

“‘If one army is besieging a castle or town,’ said he, ‘and mines beneath the ground after nightfall secretly, is it underhand action to do the same, and to countermine them?’ But I said I was not sure what you would think of it. You see, Mr. Mallock, I scarcely know a single person who unites the qualities that you do. We must have a gentleman, or he would never be accepted by them; and he must be a shrewd man too. Well, I will not say we have no shrewd gentlemen: but what shrewd gentlemen have we, think you, who are not perfectly known—and their politics?”

“The Duchess of Portsmouth knows me,” said I, beginning to hesitate.

“But she does not know one word of this affair; nor will they tell her.

She is far too loyal for that.”

“But she will have told others what I am.”

“It is not likely, Mr. Mallock. We must take our chance of it. Truly I see no one for it but yourself. I would not have sent for you, if I had, for you were very useful in France. But the difficulty is, you see, that we can take no observable precautions. We have doubled the guards inside the palace at night; but we dare not in the day; for if that were known, they would suspect that we knew all, and would be on their guard. As it is, they have no idea that we know anything.”

“How do they mean to do it?”

“That again we do not know. If they can find a fanatic—and there are plenty of the old Covenanting blood left—they might shoot His Majesty as he sits at supper. Or they may drag him out of his coach one day, as they did with Archbishop Sharpe. Or they might poison him. I have the cook always to taste the dishes before they come into Hall; but who can guard against so many avenues?”

I sat considering; but I was so weary that I knew I could decide nothing rightly. On the one side the thing appealed to me; for there was danger in it, and what does a young man love like that? And there was a great compliment in it for me—that I should be the one man they had for the affair. Yet it did not sound to me very like work for a gentleman—to feign to be a conspirator—to win confidence and then to betray it, in however a good cause.

What astonished me most however was the thought that the country-party had waxed as desperate as this. Certainly their tide was going down—as I had heard in France; but I did not know it was gone so low as this. And that they who had lied and perjured themselves over the Oates falsehoods, and had used them, and had kept the people’s suspicions alive, and had professed such loyalty, and had been the cause of so much bloodshedding—that these men should now, upon their side, enter upon the very design that they had accused the Catholics of—this was very nearly enough to decide me.

“Well,” said I, “you must give me twenty-four hours to determine in. I am drawn two ways. I do not know what to do.”

“I can assure you,” said the page eagerly, “that His Majesty would give you almost anything you asked for—if you did this, and were successful.”

I pursed my lips up.

“Perhaps he would,” I said. “But I do not know that I want very much.”

“Then he would give you all the more.”

I stood up to take my leave.

“Well, sir,” I said, “I must go home again and to bed. I am tired out. I will be with you again to-morrow at the same time.”

He rose to take me to the outer door.

“You will not want to go to Hare Street this time,” he said, smiling.

“To Hare Street!” I said. “Why should I go there?”

“Well—the pretty cousin!” said he.

I set my teeth. I did not like Mr. Chiffinch’s familiarities.

“Well, then, why should I not go?” I asked.

“Why: she is here! Did you not know?”

“Here!—in London.”

“Aye: in Whitehall. I saw her only yesterday.”

“In Whitehall! What do you mean, Mr. Chiffinch?”

I suppose my face went white. I knew that my heart beat like a hammer.

“Why, what I say!” said he. “Why do you look like that, Mr. Mallock?”

“Tell me!” I cried. “Tell me this instant!”

“Why: she is Maid of Honour to Her Majesty. The Duchess of Portsmouth is protecting her.”

“Where is she?”

“Why—”

“Where is she?”

“She is with the rest, I suppose…. Mr. Mallock! Mr. Mallock! Where are you going?”

But I was gone.

CHAPTER II

When I was out in the air I stopped short; and then remembering that Mr. Chiffinch would be after me perhaps, and would try to prevent me, I went on as quick as I could, turned a corner or two in that maze of passages, and stopped again. As yet I had no idea as to what to do; my brain burned with horror and fury; and I stood there in the dark, clenching my hands again and again, with my whip in one of them. It was enough for me that my Cousin Dolly was in that den of tigers and serpents that was called the Court, and under the protection of the woman once called Carwell. There was not one thought in my brain but this—all others were gone, or were but as phantoms—the King, the Duke, Monmouth, the Queen—they would be so many wicked ghosts, and no more—before me—and I would go through them as through smoke, to tear her out of it.

I suppose that some species of sanity returned to me after a while, for I found myself presently pacing up and down the terrace by the river, and considering that this was a strange hour—eight o’clock at night, to be searching out one of Her Majesty’s ladies; and, after that, little by little, persons and matters began to take their right proportions on them again. I could not, I perceived, merely demand where Mistress Jermyn lodged, beat down her door and carry her away with me safe to Hare Street. Their Majesties of England still stood for something in Whitehall, and so did reason and commonsense, and Dolly’s own good name. I began to perceive that matters were not so simple.

I do not think I reasoned at all as to her dangers there; but I was as one who sees a flower on a dunghill. One does not argue about the matter, or question whether it be smirched or not, nor how it got there. Neither did I consider at all how my cousin came to be at Court, nor whether any evil had yet come to her. I did not even consider that I did not know whether she were but just come, or had been there a great while. I considered only that she must be got out of it—and how to set about it.

I might have stood and paced there till midnight, had not one of the sentinels at the water-gate—placed there I suppose, as Mr. Chiffinch had told me just now, as an additional security, after nightfall—stepped out from his place and challenged me. I had had the word, of course, as I came in; and I gave it him, and he was contented. But I was not. Here, thought I, is my opportunity.

“Here,” said I, “can you tell me where Mistress Dorothy Jermyn is lodged?”

He was a young fellow, plainly from the country, as I saw, by his look in the light of the lantern he had.

“No, sir,” he said.

“Think again,” I said. “She is under the protection of Her Grace of

Portsmouth. She is one of the Queen’s ladies.”

“Is she a little lady, sir—from the country—that came last month?”

“Yes,” I said, feigning that I knew all about it, and trying to control my voice. “That is she.”

“Why, she is with the others, sir,” he said.

“She is not with the Duchess then?”

“No, sir; I know she is not. There is no lady with the Duchess beside her own. I was on my duty there last week.”

This was something of a relief. At least she was not with that woman.

Now I knew where the Queen’s Maids lodged. It was not an hundred yards away, divided by a little passage-way from Her Majesty’s apartment, and adjoining the King’s, with a wall between. There were five of these; besides those who lodged with their families—but they changed so continually that I could not be sure whether I knew any of them or not. I had had a word or two once with Mademoiselle de la Garde; but she was the only one I had ever spoken with; and besides, she might no longer be there; and she was a great busybody too; and beyond her I knew only that there was an old lady, whose name I had forgot, that was called Governess to them all and played the part of duenna, except when she could be bribed by green oysters and Spanish wine, not to play it. Such fragments of gossip as that was all that I could remember; as well as certain other gossip too, as to the life of these ladies, which I strove to forget.

However, I could do nothing at that instant, but bid the man good-night, and go up into the palace again with a brisk assured air, as if I knew what I was about. A bell beat eight from the clock-tower, as I went. Then when I had turned the corner to the left, I stopped again to reckon up what I knew.

This did not come to very much. Her Majesty, I knew, was attended always by two Maids of Honour at the least; and at this hour would be, very likely, at cards with them, if there were no reception or entertainment. If there were, then all would be there, and Dolly with them; and even in that humour I did not think of forcing my way into Her Majesty’s presence and demanding my cousin. These receptions or parties or some such thing, were at least twice or three times a week, if Her Majesty were well. The reasonable thing to do, I confess, was to go home to Covent Garden, quietly; and come again the next day and find out a little; but there was very little reason in me. I was set but upon one thing; and that was to see Dolly that night with my own eyes; and assure myself that matters were, so far, well with her.

At the last I set out bravely, my legs carrying me along—as it appears to me now—of their own accord: for I cannot say that I had formed any design at all of what I should do; and there I found myself after a minute or two of walking in the rain, at the door of the lodgings where all the ladies that had not their families at Court lived together. There were three steps up to the heavy oaken door that was studded over with nails; and in the little window by the door a light was burning. I had come by the sentinel that stood before the way up to the King’s lodgings, and had given him the word; but I saw that he was watching me, and that I must shew no hesitation. I went therefore up the steps, as bold as a lion, and knocked upon the oaken door.

I waited a full minute; but there was no answer; so I knocked again, louder; and presently heard movements within, and the sound of the bolts being drawn. Then the door opened, but only a little; and I saw an old woman’s face looking at me.

She said something; but I could not hear what it was.

“Is Mistress Jermyn within doors?” I asked.

The old face mumbled at me; but I could not hear a word. “Is Mistress

Jermyn within?” I asked again.

Once again the face mumbled at me; and then the door began to close.

This would never do; so I set my foot against it, suddenly all overcome with impatience—(for I was in no mood to chop words)—and with the same kind of fury that had seized me in Mr. Chiffinch’s rooms. I saw red, as the saying is; and it was not likely that a deaf old woman would stop me. She fluttered the door passionately; and then, as I pushed on it, she cried out. There was a great rattle of footsteps, and as I came into the little paved entrance, a heavy bald fellow ran out of the room where I had seen the light—(which was the porter’s parlour)—in his shirt-sleeves, very angry and hot-looking.

He looked at me, like a bull, with lowered head; and I saw that he carried some weapon in his hand.

“Is Mistress Jermyn within doors?” I asked, putting on a high kind of air.

“Who the devil are you?” said he.

I was not going to argue that point, for it was the weakest spot in my assault. So I sat down on the stairs that rose straight up to the first floor. (It was a little oak-panelled entrance that I was in, with a single lamp burning in a socket on the wall.)

“You will first answer my question,” I said. “Is Mistress Jermyn within doors?”

Then he came at me, thinking, I suppose that my sitting down gave him an advantage, and he lifted his weapon as he came. I had no time to draw my own sword—which was besides, somewhere between my legs; but I rose up, and, as I rose, struck out at his chin with all my force, with my whole weight behind.

He staggered back against the doorway he had come out by; and the same moment two things happened. The old woman screamed aloud; and Dolly sprang suddenly out on to the head of the stairs, from a door that opened there, full into the light of the lamp.

“Why-” cried she.

“Oh! there you are,” I said bitterly. “Then Mistress Jermyn is within doors.”

Then I turned and went straight upstairs after her; and, as I went heard the ring of running footsteps in the paved passage out of doors, and knew that the guard was coming up. The fellow still leaned, dazed, against the doorpost; and the old woman was pouring out scream after scream.

I went after Dolly straight into the room from which she had come. It was a little parlour, very richly furnished, with candles burning, and curtains across the windows. It looked out towards the river, I suppose. Dolly was standing, as pale as paper; but I could not tell—nor did I greatly care—whether it were anger or terror. I think I must have looked pretty frightening—(but then, she had spirit enough for anything!)—for I was still in my splashed boots and disordered dress, and as angry as I have ever been in my life. I could see she was not dressed for Her Majesty; so I supposed—(and I proved to be right)—that she was not in attendance this evening. It was better fortune than I deserved, to find her so.

“Now,” said I, “what are you doing here?”

(I spoke sharply and fiercely, as to a bad child. I was far too angry to do otherwise. As I spoke, I heard the guard come in below; and a clamour of voices break out. I knew that they would be up directly.)

“Now,” I said again, “you have your choice! Will you give me up to the guard; or will you hear what I have to say? You can send them away if you will. You can say I am your cousin?”

She looked at me; but said nothing.

“Oh! I am not drunk,” I said. “Now, you can—”

Then came a thunder of footsteps on the stairs; and I stopped. I knew I had broken every law of the Court; I had behaved unpardonably. It would mean the end of everything for me. But I would not, even now, have asked pardon from God Almighty for what I had done.

Then Dolly, with a gesture, waved me aside; and confronted the serjeant on the threshold.

“You can go,” she said. “This is my cousin. I will arrange with them below.”

The man hesitated. Over his shoulder I could see a couple more faces, glaring in at me.

Dolly stamped her foot.

“I tell you to go. Do you not hear me?”

“Mistress—” began the man.

“How dare you disobey me!” cried Dolly, all aflame with some emotion.

“This is my own parlour, is it not?”

He still looked doubtfully; and his eyes wandered from her to me, and back again. He was yet just without the room. Then Dolly slammed to the door, in a passion, in his very face.

Then she wheeled on me, like lightning. (I heard the men’s footsteps begin to go downstairs.)

“Now you will explain, if you please—” she began, with a furious kind of bitterness.

“My maid,” said I, “that kind of talk will not do with me”—(for at her tone my anger blazed up higher even than hers). “It is I who have to ask Why and How?”

“How dare you—” she began.

I went up without more ado, and took her by the shoulders. Never in all the time I had known her, had the thought ever come to me, that one day I might treat her so. She struggled violently, and seemed on the point of crying out. Then she bit her lip; but there was no yielding in me; and I compelled her backwards to a chair.

“You will sit there,” I said. “And I shall stand. I will have no nonsense at all.”

She looked at me, I thought, with more hate than I had ever seen in human eyes; glaring up at me with scorn and anger and resentment all mingled.

“Yes—you can bully maids finely—” she said. “You can come and cringe for their protection first—”

I laughed, very short and harsh.

“That manner is of no good at all—” I said. “You will answer my questions. How did you come here? How long have you been here?”

She said nothing; but continued to look at me. Then again my anger rose like a wave.

“Do you think to stare me down?” I said. “If you will not answer me,

I’ll begone to those who will.”

“You dare not!”

“Dare not! Do you think to frighten me?—Dolly, my dear, I am not in the mood to argue. Will you tell me how you came here, and how long ago? I must have an answer before I go.”

For an instant she was silent.

“Will you go straight home again if I tell you?”

“Yes—I will promise that,” said I—for now that I had seen her with my own eyes most of what I desired was done. The rest could wait twelve hours.

“Well, then,” she said, “I have been here a month; and my father put me here.”

“Your father!”

“Yes, my father. Have you anything to say against him?”

“No: I will say it to him.”

I wheeled about to go to the door.

“You have done enough mischief then, you think!” sneered Dolly.

I turned about again.

“Mischief!”

“Why, you have ruined my name,” said Dolly, with the savage look in her eyes still there. “But you did not think of that! You thought only of yourself. The whole palace will know to-morrow that you beat down the porter to force your way in. And it will not lose in the telling.”

I had nothing to say to that. It was true enough, and the very kind of talk with which the Court continually diverted itself. But I would not show my dismay. Indeed the very thought of any trouble to her had no more occurred to my mind than the consequences to a charging bull.

“We will see about that,” I said, “when I speak with His Majesty.”

Dolly laughed again, but without merriment.

“Oh! you will do this and that, no doubt,” she said. “And when shall you see His Majesty?”

I took out my watch.

“It is nearly nine,” I said. “I shall see His Majesty in thirteen hours.

You had best be packing your valises. We shall ride at noon.”

I waited no more to hear her laugh, as she did again; but went out and down the staircase. The porter’s chamber had its door half open: I pushed the door and went in. The fellow started up.

“Here is a guinea,” said I, throwing one upon the table; “and my apologies. But ‘twas you that began it!”

Then I turned and went out.

As I came down the steps into the little lamplit way, a man was coming swiftly up it from the direction of the court, with one of the guards behind him. I stopped short, thinking I was to be arrested. But it was the page.

“Good God!” he said. “You have done finely indeed!”

I was still all shaking; and I simulated anger without any difficulty.

“And whose fault is that?” said I, as if in a fury. “Do you think—”

“And His Majesty may come by at any instant!” he said.

“Why; that is what I wish. In any case I must see him at ten o’clock to-morrow.”

“You are mad!” he said. “You had best begone to the country before dawn: and even that will not save you.” He looked over his shoulder at the young man who had fetched him, and who now stood waiting.

“Save me! What have I done? I have but been to visit my cousin.” (I said this very loud, that the guard might hear.)

Again Mr. Chiffinch looked over his shoulder, and back again. I could see the shine of lanterns where others waited behind. We were just outside the King’s lodging.

“Well, sir,” he said. “But you will go now, will you not?”

“Why, yes,” I said. “And I will be with you at half-past nine to-morrow.”

He beckoned the young soldier up.

“See this gentleman to the gate,” he said. “He will find his way home, after that.”

CHAPTER III

I spent a very heavy evening before I went to bed; and when I was there I could not sleep; for it appeared to me that I had made a great fool of myself, having injured my own prospects and done no good to anyone. I understood perfectly that I had acted in an unpardonable manner; for Her Majesty’s Maids of Honour were kept, or were supposed to be kept, in very great seclusion at home, as if they were Vestal virgins—which was indeed a very great supposition. Tale after tale came back to my mind of those Maids in the past—of Mademoiselle de la Garde herself, of Miss Stewart, Miss Hyde, Miss Hamilton, and others like them—some of whom were indeed good, but had the greatest difficulty in remaining so; for the Court of Charles was a terrible place for virtue. It was astonishing to me that the horror of the place had not before this affected me; but it is always so. We are very philosophical, always, over the wrongs that do not touch ourselves.

As to how my Cousin Dolly came to be in such a place, I began to think that I understood. It must all have dated from that unhappy visit of the Duke of Monmouth to Hare Street; my Cousin Tom must have followed up that strange introduction, and the affair must have been worked through Her Grace of Portsmouth. I think I could have taken my Cousin Tom by the throat, and choked him, as I thought of this.

Meantime I had no idea as to what I should do the next day—except, indeed, see His Majesty, and say, perhaps, one tenth of what I felt. I had told Dolly we should ride at noon next day; I was beginning to wonder whether this prediction would be fulfilled. Yet, though I had begun to consider myself more than in the first flush, I still felt my anger rise in me like a tide whenever I regarded the bare facts. But mere anger would never do; and I set myself to drive it down. Besides, it would be there, I knew, and ready, if I should need it on the next day.

When I arrived at Mr. Chiffinch’s the next morning, I found him in a very grave mood. He did not rise as I came in, but nodded to me, only.

“Sit down, Mr. Mallock,” said he. “This is a very serious affair.”

“So I think,” I said.

He waved that away.

“His Majesty hath heard every word of it, with embellishments. He is very angry indeed. Nothing but what you have done for him lately could have saved you; and even now I do not know—”

“Man,” I said, “do not let us leave such talk as this. It is not I who am in question—”

“I think you will find that it is,” he answered me, with a quick look.

I strove to be patient, and, even more, to appear so.

“Well,” I said, “what have I done? I am come back from France: I hear my cousin is here; I go to see her; a fellow at the door is impertinent, and I chastise him for it. Then I go upstairs to my cousin’s parlour—”

“That is the point,” he interrupted. “It is not your cousin’s. It is the lodging of the Maids of Honour.”

Yes: he had me there. That was my weak point. But I would not let him see that.

“How was I to understand that distinction? I knocked at the door as peaceably as any man could.”

“And after that,” he said, smiling a little grimly, “after that, your cousinly affection blinded you.”

“Well, that will do,” I said.

He smiled again.

“Well; that is your case,” he observed. “We will see how His Majesty regards it. For I must tell you, Mr. Mallock, that for five minutes last night it was touch and go whether you were not to be arrested. And I will tell you this too, that if you had not come this morning, you would have been brought.”

“As bad as that?” I said, laughing. (But I must confess that his gravity dismayed me a little.)

“As bad as that,” he said. “You must go to His Majesty at ten.”

“As I arranged,” I said.

“As His Majesty arranged,” said Mr. Chiffinch, rising: “and it is close upon the time.”

And then he added, with the utmost gravity.

“If there is one thing His Sacred Majesty is touchy upon, it is the reputation of the ladies of the Court. I would remember that, sir, if I were you.”

I observed a while ago that Pride is a good weapon if one has not Humility. So is Anger a good weapon, if one has not Patience; and I do not mean simulated Anger, but the passion itself, held in a leash, like a dog, and loosed when the time comes. Now, so great was my feeling for His Majesty, and that not only of an honest loyalty, but of a real kind of respect that I had for his person and his parts—a real fear of the very great strength of will that lay beneath his weakness—that I understood that, unless my anger was fairly near the surface, I should be beaten down when I came into his presence. So, as we went together towards his lodgings, I looked to see that my anger was there, patted it on the head so to say, and called it Good Dog: and was relieved to hear it growl softly in answer.

Plainly we were expected; because the two guards at the door stood aside as soon as they saw us, and one of them called out something to a man above. There were two more at the door itself; and we went in.

As we came in at the door of the private closet, having had no answer to our knock, His Majesty came in at the other with two dogs at his heels. He paid no attention to me at all, and barely nodded at my companion. Then he sat down to his table, and began to write; leaving us standing there like a pair of schoolboys.

Again I stroked the head of my anger. I could see the King was very seriously displeased; and that unless I could keep myself determined, he would have the best of the interview; and that I was resolved he should not have.

Suddenly he spoke, still writing.

“You can go, Chiffinch,” said he. “Come back in half an hour.”

He looked up for a flash and nodded; and I thought, God knows why, that he had in mind the guards outside, and that they should be within call. I knew precisely what my legal offence would be—that of brawling within the precincts of the palace; and the penalties of this I did not care to think about; for I was not sure enough what they were.

When the door closed behind Mr. Chiffinch I felt more alone than ever. I regarded the King’s dark face, turned down upon his paper; his dusky ringed hand with the lace turned back; the blue-gemmed quill that he used, his great plumed hat. I looked now and again, discreetly, round the room, at the gorgeous carvings, the tall presses, the innumerable clocks, the brightly polished windows with the river flowing beneath. I felt very little and lonely. Then, in a flash, the memory came back that not fifty yards away was Dolly’s little parlour, and Dolly herself; and my determination surged up once more.

Suddenly His Majesty threw down his pen.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said very sternly, “there is only one excuse for you—that you were drunk last night. Do you plead that?”

He was looking straight at me with savage melancholy eyes. I dropped my own.

“No, Sir.”

“You dare to say you were not drunk?”

“Yes, Sir.”

His Majesty caught up an ivory knife and sat drawing it through his fingers, still looking at me, I perceived; though I kept my eyes down. I could see that he was violently impatient.

“Mr. Mallock,” said he, “this is intolerable. You come back from France where you have done me good service—I will never deny that—and you win my gratitude; and then you fling it all away by a piece of unpardonable behaviour. Are you aware of the penalties for such behaviour as yours?—brawling in the Palace itself, knocking my men down, forcing your way into the lodgings of Her Majesty’s Ladies? Have you anything to say as to why you should not go before the Green Cloth?”

A great surge of contradiction and defiance rose within me; but I choked it down again. It was there if I should need it. The effort held me steady and balanced.

“Do you hear me, sir?”

“Yes, Sir,” said I.

“Well—what have you to say?”

He glanced past me towards the door; and I thought again that the guards were in his mind.

“Sir; I have a very great deal to say. But I fear I should offend Your

Majesty.”

The King jerked his head impatiently.

“It is of the nature of a defence?”

“Certainly, Sir.”

“Say it then. You need one.”

I raised my eyes and looked him in the face. He was frowning; and his lips were moving. Evidently he was very angry; and yet he was perplexed, too.

“Sir, this is precisely what took place. I returned from France last night, where, as Your Majesty was good enough to remark, I was able to be of some little service. Upon my return I heard from Mr. Chiffinch that my ‘pretty cousin’ as he was kind enough to call her, was in Whitehall, as one of Her Majesty’s ladies. I went to see my cousin, perhaps a little precipitately, but I went peaceably, first inquiring of one of Your Majesty’s guards where her lodgings were. I knocked, peaceably, upon the door. An old woman opened to me, and would give me no intelligible answer to my—peaceable—inquiry as to whether my cousin were there. I prevented her closing the door in my face, but peaceably; then a fellow ran out, and asked me who the devil I was. Again, peaceably, I inquired for my cousin. I even sat down upon the stairs. Then he made at me; and in self-defence I struck him once, with my hand. My cousin looked out of a door, and I went up into what I understood was her parlour. When the guard came, she sent them away, telling them I was her cousin. The serjeant was impertinent to her; and she shut the door in his face. I remained five minutes, or six, with my cousin, and then went peaceably away, and to my lodgings. That is the entire truth, Sir, from beginning to end.”

The King laughed, very short and harsh.

“You put it admirably,” he said. “You are a diplomat, indeed.”

“That is my defence to Your Majesty; and it is perfectly true—neither less nor more than the truth. But I am not only a diplomat.”

He did not fully understand me, I think, for he looked at me sharply.

“Well?” he said. “What else?”

“I have another defence for the public—Sir—not so courteous to Your

Majesty.”

He remained rigid an instant.

“Then for the public,” he said, “you do not think the truth enough?”

“No, Sir; it is for Your Majesty that I think the truth too much.”

“I will have it!” cried the King. “This moment!”

Interiorly I licked my lips, as a dog when he sees a bone. His Majesty should have the truth now, with a vengeance. All was falling out exactly as I had designed. He should not have kept me waiting so long; or I might not have thought of it.

“Well, Sir,” said I, “you will remember I should not have dared to say it to Your Majesty, had I not been commanded.”

He said nothing. Then, once more, I ruffled my growling dog’s ears, so that he snarled.

“First, Sir; to the public I should say: If this is counted brawling, what of other scenes in Whitehall on which no charge was made? What of the sun-dial, smashed all to fragments one night, in the Privy Garden, by certain of the King’s Gentlemen whom I could name? What of the broken door-knockers—not only in the City, but upon certain doors in Whitehall itself—broken, again by certain of the King’s Gentlemen whom I could name? What of a scene I viewed myself in the Banqueting Hall last Christmastide in Your Majesty’s presence, when a Spanish gentleman received full in his face a bunch of raisins, from—”

“Ah!” snarled the King. “And you would say that to the public?”

“Sir—that is only the exordium “—(my voice was raised a little, I think, for indeed I was raging again by now). “Next, I would observe that Mistress Jermyn is my own cousin, and that the hour was eight o’clock in the evening—not nine, if I may so far correct Your Majesty; whereas very different hours are kept by some members of the Court, and the ladies are not their cousins at all.”

I had never seen the King so angry. He was unable to speak for fury. His face paled to parchment-colour under his sallow skin, and his eyes burned like coals. This time I lashed my anger, deliberately, instead of tickling it merely.

“Sir; that is not nearly all; but I will miss out a few points, and come to my peroration. My peroration would be after this fashion. Such, I would say, is the charge against one who has been of service to His Majesty; and such is the Court (as I have described) of that same King. There is not a Court in Europe that has a Prince so noble as our own can be, of better parts, or of higher ambitions, or of so pure a blood. And there is no Prince who is served so poorly; no Court that so stinks in the nostrils of God and man, as does his. He is capable,” I cried (for by now I was lost to all consideration for myself; my loyalty and love for him had come to the aid of my anger; and I saw that never again should I have such an opportunity of speaking my mind), “He is capable of as great achievements, as any Prince that has gone before him; for he has already won back the throne which his fathers lost. Would it be of service, I would say, to such a Prince as this, to punish a man who would lay down his life for him to give him even a moment’s pleasure; and to let go scot-free men and women who have never done anything but injure him?”

I ceased; breathless, yet triumphing; for I knew that I had held His Majesty with my words. How he would take it, when he recovered, I did not know: nor did I greatly care. I had spoken my mind to him at last; and what I had said was no more than my conviction. That blessed gift of anger had done the rest: and, having done its work, retired again to chaos; and left me clear-headed and master of myself.

When I looked at him he was motionless. He was still very pale, but the terrible brightness of his eyes was gone.

Then he roused himself to sneer; but I did not care for that; for there was no other way for him just then, consonant with his own dignity.

“Very admirably preached!” said he; “even if a trifle treasonous.”

“I am pleased Your Majesty is satisfied,” I said, with a little bow.

Then he broke down altogether, in the only way that he could; he gave a great spirt of laughter; then he leaned back and laughed till the tears ran down. Presently he was quieter.

“Oddsfish!” he cried, “this is a turning of tables indeed! I sent for you, Mr. Mallock—”

The door opened softly behind me; and a man put his head in.

“Go away! go away!” cried the King. “Cannot you see I am being preached to?”

The door closed again.

“I sent for you, Mr. Mallock, to reprimand you very severely. And instead of that it is you who have held the whip. Little Ken is nothing to it: you should have been a Bishop, Mr. Mallock.”

Again he spirted with laughter. Then he drew himself up in his chair a little; and became more grave.

“This is all very well,” he said. “But I think I must get in my reprimand, for all that. You will not be sent to the guard-room, or the Green Cloth—(or whatever it is that would meet your case)—this time, Mr. Mallock; I will deal with you myself. But it is a very serious business, and your distinctions would not serve you in law. A sundial is not so important as a Christian lady; and a bunch of raisins is not, legally, a blow in the face. Still less are all the sundials and Spaniards in the world, equal to one of Her Majesty’s Maids of Honour. You understand that?”

I bowed again; reminding myself that I was not done with him, even yet.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Consider yourself reprimanded severely, Mr. Mallock.”

I bowed; but I stood still.

“You have my leave—Oh! by the way, Mr. Mallock; there are just ten words I must have with you on the French affairs.”

He motioned to a seat.

“I may kiss the hand that has beaten me?” said I.

He laughed again. He was a very merry prince when he was in the mood.

“It should be the other way about, I should think,” he said. But he gave me his hand; and I sat down.

All the while we were talking, still, with one-half of my mind I was considering what was to be done next. It was a part, only, of my business that had been done; yet how to accomplish the rest without spoiling all? Presently His Majesty himself repeated that which Mr. Chiffinch had already said to me; and spoke of some kind of recognition that was due to me. That gave me my cue.

“Your Majesty is exceedingly kind,” I said. “But I trust I am not to be dismissed from the King’s service? Mr. Chiffinch appeared to think—”

“Why, no,” said he; “not even after all your crimes. Besides we have something for you. Did he not tell you?”

“Any public recognition, Sir,” I said, “would effectually do so. The very small value that my services may have would wholly be lost, if they were known in any way.”

“Chiffinch said the same,” observed the King meditatively. “But—”

“Sir,” I said, “might I not have some private recognition instead? There is a very particular favour I have in mind, which would be private altogether; and which I would take as a complete discharge of that which Your Majesty has been good enough to call a debt of the King’s.”

“Not money, man! Surely!” exclaimed the King in alarm.

“Not in the least, Sir; it will not cost the exchequer a farthing.”

“Well, you shall have it then. You may be sure of that.”

“Well, Sir,” said I, “it is a serious matter. Your Majesty will dislike it exceedingly.”

He pursed his lips and looked at me sharply.

“Wait!” he said. “It will not affect my honour or—or my religion in any way?”

I assumed an air of slight offence.

“Sir; I should not be likely to ask it, if it affected Your Majesty’s honour. And as for religion—” I stopped: for one more opening presented itself which I dared not neglect. From both his manner and his words I saw that religion was not very far from his thoughts.

“Well—sir,” he said. “And what of religion?”

“Sir, I pray every day for Your Majesty’s conversion—”

“Conversion, eh?”

“Conversion to the Holy Catholic Church, Sir. I would give my life for that, ten times over.”

“There! there! have done,” said His Majesty, with a touch of uneasiness.

“But I would not ask a pledge, blindfold, Sir; even to save all those ten lives of mine.”

“One more than a cat, eh? Do you know, Mr. Mallock, you remind me sometimes of a cat. You are so demure, and yet you can pounce and scratch when the occasion comes.”

“I would sooner it had been a little dog, Sir,” I said, glancing at the spaniels that were curled up together before the fire.

“Well—well; we are wandering,” smiled the King. “Now what is this favour?”

I supposed I must have looked very grave and serious; for before I could speak he leaned forward.

“It is to count as a complete discharge, I understood you to say, Mr.

Mallock, for all obligations on my part. And there is no money in it?”

“Yes, Sir,” said I. “And there is no money in it.”

He must have seen I was serious.

“Well; I take you at your word, sir. I will grant it. Tell me what it is.”

He leaned back, looking at me curiously.

“Sir,” I said, “it is now about half-past ten o’clock. What I ask is that my cousin, Mistress Dorothy Jermyn, receives an immediate dismissal from Her Majesty’s service; and is ordered to leave London with me, for her father’s house, at noon.”

His Majesty looked at me amazed. I think he did not know whether to be angry, or to laugh.

“Well, sir,” he said at last. “That is the maddest request I have ever had. You mean what you say?”

“Certainly, Sir.”

“Well: you must have it then. It is the queerest kindness I have ever done. Why do you ask it? Eh?”

“Sir; you do not want my peroration over again!”

His face darkened.

“That is very like impudence, Mr. Mallock.”

“I do not mean it for such, Sir. It is the naked truth.”

“You think this is not a fitting place for her?”

“I am sure it is not, Sir,” I said very earnestly, “nor for any country-maid. Would Your Majesty think—”

He jerked his head impatiently.

“What my Majesty thinks is one thing; what I, Charles Stuart, do, is another. Well: you must have it. There is no more to be said.”

I think he expected me to stand up and take my leave. But I remained still in my chair.

“Well; what else, sir?” he asked.

“Sir; it is near a quarter to eleven. I have not the order, yet.”

“Bah! well—am I to write it then?”

“If Your Majesty will condescend.”

“And what shall I say to the Queen? It is not very courteous to dismiss a lady of hers so abruptly.”

“Sir; tell Her Majesty it is a debt of honour.”

He wheeled back to his table, took up a sheet and began to write. When he had done he scattered the sand on it, and held it out to me, his mouth twitching a little.

“Will that serve?” he said.

I have that paper still. It is written with five lines only, and a signature. It runs as follows:

“This is to command Mistress Dorothy Jermyn, late Maid of Honour to Her Majesty, now dismissed by the King, though through no fault of her own, to leave the Court at Whitehall at noon to-day, in company with her cousin Mr. Roger Mallock, and never to return thither without his consent.

“CHARLES R.”

Then followed the date.

I had a criticism or two; but I dared not make them.

“That is more than I could have asked, Sir. I am under an eternal obligation to Your Majesty.”

“I daresay: but all mine are discharged to you, until you earn some more. It might have meant a peerage, Mr. Mallock.”

“I do not regret it, Sir,” I said.

As I rose after kissing his hand, he said one more word to me.

“You are either a very wise man, or a fool, Mr. Mallock. And by God I do not know which. But I do know you are a very brave one.”

“I was a very angry one, Sir,” said I.

“But you are appeased?”

“A thousand times, Sir.”

CHAPTER IV

I knew I could never carry the matter through alone; so, upon leaving the King’s presence, I sought out Mr. Chiffinch immediately and told him what had passed.

He whistled, loud.

“You are pretty fortunate,” he said. “Many a man—”

“I have no time for compliments,” said I. “You must come with me to my cousin at once. We must ride at noon; and it is close upon eleven.”

“You want me to plead for you, eh?”

“Not at all,” said I. “There will be no pleading. It is to certify only that this is the King’s writing, and that he means what he says.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Chiffinch. “And what of the matter I spoke to you of last night? Have you decided? There is not much time to lose.”

“You must give me a day or two,” I said.

It was he who knocked this time; and it was not until the old woman had opened, and was curtseying to the King’s page, that he called me up.

“Come, Mr. Mallock. Your cousin is within.”

We went straight upstairs after the old lady; and upon her knock being answered, she threw the door open.

My Cousin Dolly was sitting over her needle, all alone. She looked, I thought, unusually pale; but she flushed scarlet, and sprang up, so soon as she saw me.

“Good-day, Mistress Jermyn,” said the page very courteously. “We are come on a very sad errand—sad, that is, to those whom you will leave behind.”

“What do you mean, sir?” asked Dolly, very fiercely. She did not give me one look, after the first.

He held out the paper to her. She took it, with fingers that shook a little, and read it through at least twice.

“Is this an insult, sir; or a very poor pleasantry?” (Her face was gone pale again.)

“It is neither, mistress. It is a very sober fact.”

“This is the King’s hand?” she snapped.

“It is,” said Mr. Chiffinch.

“Dolly,” said I, “I told you to be ready by noon; but you would not believe me. I suppose your packing is not done?”

She paid me no more attention than if I had been a chair.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said she, “you tell me, upon your honour, that this is the King’s hand, and that he means what is written here?”

“I give you my honour, mistress,” he said.

She tossed the paper upon the table; she went swiftly across to the further door, and opened it.

“Anne!” she said.

A voice answered her from within.

“Put out my riding-dress. Pack all that you can, that I shall need in the country. We have to ride at noon.” She shut the door again, and turned on us—or rather, upon Mr. Chiffinch.

“Sir,” she said, “you have done your errand. Perhaps you will now relieve me of your company. I shall be awaiting my cousin, Mr. Roger Mallock, as the King requires, at noon.”

“Dolly—” said I.

She continued, looking through me, as through glass.

“At noon: and I trust he will not keep me waiting.”

There was no more to be done. We turned and went out.

“Lord! what a termagant is your pretty cousin, Mr. Mallock!” said my companion when we were out of doors again. “You could have trusted her well enough, I think.”

I was not in the mood to discuss her with him; I had other things to think of.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” I said, “I am very much obliged to you; but I must be off for my own packing.” And I bade him good-day.

When I rode into the court, five minutes before noon, a very piteous little group awaited me by the inner gate. Dolly, very white and angry, stood by the mounting-block, striving to preserve her dignity. Her maid was behind her, arguing how the bags should be disposed on the pack-horse, with the fellow who was to lead it. Dolly’s own horse was not yet come; but as I rode up to salute her, he came out of an archway led by a groom.

I leapt off, and stood by the mounting-block to help her. Again it was as if I were not there. She jerked her head to the man.

“Help me,” she said.

He was in a quandary, for he could not leave the horse’s head.

“I am very sorry, Dolly,” said I, “but you will have to put up for me for once. Come.”

She gave a look of despair round about; but there was no help.

“It is on the stroke of noon,” I said.

She submitted; but it was with the worst grace I have ever seen. She accepted my ministrations; but it was as if I were a machine: not one word did she speak, good or bad.

By the time that she was mounted, her maid was up too, and the bags disposed.

“Come,” I said again; and mounted my own horse.

As we rode out through the great gate, the Clock Tower beat the hour of noon.

I am weary of saying that my journeys were strange; but, certainly, this was another of them.

Through the narrow streets I made no attempt to ride beside her. In the van went three of my men; then rode I; then, about ten yards behind, came Dolly and her maid. Then came two pack-horses, led by a fellow who controlled them both; and my fourth man closed the dismal cavalcade. So we went through the streets—all the way down the Strand and into the City, wheeled to the left, and so out by Bishopsgate. It was a clear kind of day, without rain: but the clouds hung low, and I thought it would rain before nightfall. I intended to do the whole journey in a day; so as to be at Hare Street before midnight at least. A night on the way, and Dolly’s company at supper, all alone with me, or even with her maid, appeared to me too formidable to face.

When we were out in the country, I reined my horse in. I saw a change pass over Dolly’s face; then it became like stone.

“We have a long ride, for one day,” said I.

She made no answer. My anger rose a little.

“My Cousin,” I said, “I had the honour to speak to you.”

“I do not wish to have the dishonour of answering you,” said Dolly.

It was a weakness on her part to answer at all; but I suppose she could not resist the repartee.

“A very neat hit,” I said. “Must all our conversation run upon these lines?”

She made no answer at all.

“Anne,” I said, “rein your horse back ten yards.”

“Anne,” said Dolly, “ride precisely where you are.”

“Very good,” said I. “I have no objection to your maid hearing what I have to say. I thought it would be you that would object.”

“Anne,” said Dolly, “did you pack the sarcenet?”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Then tell me again the tale that you were—”

I broke in with such fury that even Dolly ceased.

“My Cousin,” I said, “I have a louder voice than either of you; and I shall use it, if you do not listen, so that the whole countryside shall hear. I have to say this—that some time or another to-day I have to have a private conversation with you. It is for you to choose the time and place. If you give me no opportunity now, I shall make it myself, later. Will you hear what I have to say now?”

There was a very short silence.

“Anne,” said Dolly, “now that we can hear ourselves speak, will you tell me again the tale that you began last night?”

She said it, not at all lightly, but with a coldness and a distilled kind of anger that gave me no choice. I lifted my hat a little; shook my reins; and once more took up my position ten yards ahead. There was a low murmur of voices behind; and then silence. It appeared that the tale was not to be told after all.

We dined, very late, at a little inn, called the Cross-Keys, between Edmonton and Ware. I remember nothing at all, either of the inn or the host or the food—nothing but the name of the inn, for the name struck me, with a dreary kind of wit, as reflective of the cross-purposes which we were at. We three dined together, in profound silence, except when Dolly addressed a word or two to her maid. As for me, she took the food which I carved, all as if I were a servant, without even such a thank-you as a man gives to a servant.

We took the road again, about three o’clock; and even then the day was beginning to draw in a little, very bleak and dismal; and that, too, I took as a symbol of my heart within, and of my circumstances and prospects. Certainly I had gained my desire in one way; I had got Dolly away from Court; yet that was the single point I had to congratulate myself upon. All else, it appeared, was ruined. I had lost all the advantage, or very nearly all, that I had ever won from the King—(for I knew, that although he had been merry at the end of the time, he would not forget how I had worsted him)—and as for Dolly, I supposed she would never speak to me again. It had been bad enough when I had left Hare Street nearly a twelvemonth ago: my return to it now was a hundred times worse.

Although Dolly, however, would not speak to me, I was entirely determined to speak to Dolly. I proposed to rehearse to her what I had done, and why; and when that was over, I would leave it in her hands whether I remained at Hare Street a day or two, or left again next morning. More than a day or two, I did not even hope for. I had insulted her—it seemed—beyond forgiveness. Yet, besides my miserableness, there was something very like pleasure as well, though of a grim sort. I had spoken my mind to her, pretty well, and would do so more explicitly; and I was to speak my mind very well indeed to her father. There was a real satisfaction to me in that prospect. Then, once more, I would shut the door for ever on Hare Street, and go back again to town, and begin all over again at the beginning, and try to retrieve a little of what I had lost. Such then were my thoughts.

We supped, at Ware—at the Saracen’s Head, and the same wretched performance was gone through as at the Cross-Keys. Night was fallen completely; and we had candles that guttered not a little. Dolly was silent, however, this time, even to her maid. She did not give me one look, all through supper.

When I came out afterwards to the horses, the yard was all in a mist: I could see no more than a spot of light where the lamp should be by the stable-door. The host came with me.

“It has fallen very foggy, sir,” he said. “Would it not be best to stay the night?”

I was considering the point before answering; but my cousin answered for me, from behind.

“Nonsense,” said she. “I know every step of the way. Where are the horses?”

(Even that, I observed, she said to the host and not to me.)

“The lady is impatient to get home,” I said. “Is the fog likely to spread far?”

“It may be from here to Cambridge, sir,” he said—”at this time of the year.”

“Where are the horses?” said Dolly again.

There was no help for it. Once more we mounted; Dolly, again, assisted by the host, and not by me: but Anne was gracious enough to accept my ministrations.

For a few miles all went well: but the roads hereabouts were very soft and boggy; it was next to impossible sometimes to know whether we were right or not; and after a while one of my men waited for me—he that carried the lantern to guide the rest of us. The first I saw of him was his horse’s ears, very black, like a pair of horns, against the lighted mist. “Sir,” he said, “I do not know the road. I can see not five yards, light or no light.”

I called out to James.

“James,” said I, “do you know where we are?”

“No, sir,” said he, “at least not very well.”

“Cousin,” I said—(for Dolly had reined up her horse close behind, not knowing, I suppose, that I was so near). “Cousin, I am sorry to trouble you; but unless you can lead us—”

“Give me the lantern,” she said sharply to my man.

She took it from him, and pushed forwards. I wheeled my horse after her and followed. The rest fell in behind somewhere. I did not say one word, good or bad; for a certain thought had come to me of what might happen. She thought, I suppose, that Anne was behind her.

So impatient was my Cousin Dolly, that, certain of her road, as she supposed, she urged her horse presently into a kind of amble. I urged mine to the same; and so, for perhaps ten minutes, we rode in silence. I could hear the horses behind—or rather the sucking noise of their feet,—fall behind a little, and then a little more. The men were talking, too; and so was Anne, to them—for she liked men’s company, and did not get very much of it in Dolly’s service—and this I suppose was the reason why they did not notice how the distance grew between us. After about ten minutes I heard a man shout; but the fog deadened his voice, so that it sounded a great way off; and Dolly, I suppose, thought he was not of our party at all; for she never turned her head; and besides, she was intent on hating me, and that, I think, absorbed her more than she knew. I said nothing; I rode on in silence, seeing her like an outline only in the dark, now and again—and, more commonly nothing but a kind of lighted mist, now and then obscured. It appeared to me that we were very far away to the right; but then I never professed to know the way; and it was no business of mine. Truly the very courses of nature fought against my cousin and her passionate ways. Presently I turned at a sound; and there was James’ mare at my heels. I knew her even in the dark, by the white blaze on her forehead. I had been listening for the voices; and had not noticed he was there. I reined up, instantly; and as he came level I plucked his sleeve.

“James,” I whispered in Italian, lest Dolly should catch even a phrase of what I said—”not a word. Go back and find the others. Leave us. We will find our way.”

James was an exceedingly discreet and sensible fellow—as I knew. He reined back upon the instant, and was gone in the black mist; and I could hear his horse’s footsteps passing into the distance. What he thought, God and he alone knew; for he never told me.

The soft sound of the hoofs was scarcely died away, before I too had to pull in suddenly; for there were the haunches of Dolly’s horse before the very nose of my poor grey. She had halted; and was listening. I held my breath.

“Anne,” she said suddenly. “Anne, where are you?”

As in the Scripture—there was no voice nor any that answered. There was no sound at all but the creaking of the harness, and the soft breathing of the horses, for we had been coming over heavy ground. The world was as if buried in wool.

“Anne,” she said again; and I caught a note of fear in her voice.

“Cousin,” said I softly, “I fear Anne is lost, and so are the rest. You see you would not speak to me; and it was none of my business—”

“Who is that?” said she sharply. But she knew well enough.

I resolved to spare her nothing; for I was beginning to understand her a little better.

“It is Cousin Roger,” I said. “You see you said you knew the road, and so—”

Then she lashed her horse suddenly; and I heard him plunge. But he could not go fast, from the heaviness of the ground; and he was very weary too, as were we all. Besides, she forgot that she carried the lantern, I think; and I was able to follow her easily enough; as the light moved up and down. Then the light halted once more; and I saw a great whiteness beyond it which I could not at first understand.

I came up quietly; and spoke again.

“Dolly, my dear; we had best have a little truce—an armed truce, if you will—but a truce. You can be angry with me again afterwards.”

“You coward!” she said, with a sob in her voice, “to lead me away like this—”

“My dear, it was you who did the leading. Do me bare justice. I have followed very humbly.”

She made no answer.

“Cousin; be reasonable,” I said. “Let us find the way out of this; and when we are clear you can say what you will—or say nothing once more.”

She took me at my word, and preserved her deadly silence.

I slipped off my horse; she was within an arm’s length, and, not trusting her, I passed my arm with scarcely a noticeable movement through her bridle. It was well that I did so; for an instant after she tore at the bridle, not knowing I had hold of it, and lashed her horse again, thinking to escape whilst I was on the ground. I was very near knocked down by the horse’s shoulder, but I slipped up my hand and caught him close to the bit—holding my own with my other hand.

“You termagant!” I said, as soon as I had them both quiet; for I was very angry indeed to be treated so after all my gentleness. “No more trust for me. It would serve you right if I left you here.”

“Leave me,” she wailed, “leave me, you coward!”

I set my teeth.

“I shall not,” I said. “I shall punish you by remaining. I know you hate my company. Well, you will submit to it, then, because I choose so. Now then, let us see—”

Then she burst out suddenly into a passion of weeping. I set my teeth harder than ever. There was only one way, after all, to get the better of Dolly; and I had pitched on it.

“Yes: it is very well to cry,” I said. “You nearly had me killed just now. Well: you will have to listen to me presently, whether you like it or not. Give me the lantern.”

She made no movement. She had fought down the tears a little; but I could hear her breath still sobbing. I reached up and took the lantern from her right hand.

“Now; where in God’s name are we?” said I.

We had ridden into some kind of blind alley, I presently saw; and that was why Dolly’s horse had halted. Even that I had not owed to her goodwill. For we had ridden, I saw presently, lifting the lantern up and down, into a great chalk pit; and must have turned off along the track that led to it, from one of those sunken ways that drovers use to bring their flocks up to the high road. That we were to the right of the high road I was certain, of my own observation. Ergo; if we could get back into the sunken way and turn to the right, we might find ourselves on familiar ground again. However, I said nothing of this to Dolly. I was resolved that she should suffer a little more first. I took the bridles of the two horses more securely, slipping my hand with the lantern through the bridle of my own, turned their heads round and walked between them, looking very closely on this side and that, and turning my lantern every way. After twenty yards I saw that I was right. The bank on my left proved to be no bank, but the cliff-edge of the chalk pit only, by which the sunken way passed very near. I led the horses round to the right; and there were we, in the very situation I had surmised. Still holding Dolly’s bridle, I mounted my own horse; and when I had done so, to secure myself and her the better, I pulled the reins suddenly over her horse’s head, and brought them into my left hand.

“That is safer,” I observed. “Now we can pretend to be friends again; and hold that conversation of which I spoke after we left London.”

There was no answer, as we set out along the way. It was a little clearer by now; and I could see the bank on my right. I glanced at her; and in the light of the lantern I could see that she was sitting very upright and motionless like a shadow. I lowered the lantern to the right side, so that she was altogether in the dark and the bank illuminated. I felt a little compassion for her indeed; but I dared not shew it.

“Now, Cousin,” I said, “I preached to His Majesty yesterday; and he told me I should be a Bishop at least. Now it is you that must hear a sermon.”

Again she said nothing.

I had rehearsed pretty well by now all that I meant to say to her; and it was good for me that I had, else I might have fallen weak again when I saw her so unhappy. As it was I kept back some of the biting sentences I had prepared. My address was somewhat as follows. We jogged forward very gingerly as I spoke.

“Cousin,” I began, “you have treated me very ill. The first of your offences to me was that, though I had earned, I think, the right to call myself your friend, neither you nor your father gave me any hint whatever of your going to Court. I know very well why you did not; and I shall have a little discourse to make to your father upon the matter, at the proper time. But for all that I had a right to be told. If you were to go, I might at least have got you better protection in the beginning than that of the—the—well—of Her Grace of Portsmouth.

“Now all that was the cause of the very small offence that I committed against you myself—that of forcing my way into your lodgings. For that I offer my apologies—not for the fact, but for the manner of it. And even that apology is not very deep: I shall presently tell you why.

“The next of your offences to me was that open defiance which you shewed, and some of the words you addressed to me, both then and afterwards. You have told me I was a coward, several times, under various phrases, and twice, I think, sans phrase. Cousin; I am a great many things I should not be; but I do not think I am a coward; at least I have never been a coward in your presence. Again, you have told me that I was very good at bullying. For that I thank God, and gladly plead guilty. If a maid is bent on her own destruction, if nothing else will serve she must be bullied out of it. Again, I thank God that I was there to do it.”

I looked at her out of the tail of my eye. Her head seemed to me to be a little hung down; but she said nothing at all.

“The third offence of yours is the intolerable discourtesy you have shewn to me all to-day—and before servants, too. I put myself to great pains to get you out of that stinking hole called Whitehall; I risked His Majesty’s displeasure for the same purpose: I have been at your disposal ever since noon; and you have treated me like a dog. You will continue to treat me so, no doubt, until we get to Hare Street; and you will do your best no doubt to provoke a quarrel between your father and myself. Well; I have no great objection to that; but I have not deserved that you should behave so. I have done nothing, ever since I have known you, but try to serve you—” (my voice rose a little; for I was truly moved, and far more than my words shewed)—”You first treated me like a friend; then, when you would not have me as a lover, I went away, and I stayed away. Then, when you would not have me as a lover, and I would not have you as my friend, I became, I think I may fairly say, your defender; and all that you do in return—”

Then, without any mistake at all, I caught the sound of a sob; and all my pompous eloquence dropped from me like a cloak. My anger was long since gone, though I had feigned it had not. To be alone with her there, enclosed in the darkness as in a little room—her horse and mine nodding their heads together, and myself holding her bridle—all this, and the silence round us, and my own heart, very near bursting, broke me down.

“Oh! Dolly,” I cried. “Why are you so bitter with me? You know that I have never thought ill of you for an instant. You know I have done nothing but try to serve you—I have bullied you? Yes: I have; and I would do the same a thousand times again in the same cause. You are wilful and obstinate; but I thank God I am more wilful and obstinate than you. I am sick of this fencing and diplomacy and irony. You know what I am—I am not at all the fine gentleman that leaned his head on the chimney-breast—that was make-believe and foolishness. I am a bully and a brute—you have told me so—”

“Oh!” wailed Dolly suddenly—no longer pretending; and I caught the note in her voice for which I had been waiting. I dropped the lantern; the horses plunged violently at the flare and the crash; but I cared nothing for that. I dragged furiously on the bridle; and as the horses swung together, I caught her round the shoulders, and kissed her fiercely on the cheek. She clung to me, weeping.

CHAPTER V

Well; I had beaten her at last; and in the only way in which she would yield. Weakness was of no use with her, nor gentleness, nor even that lofty patronage which, poor fool! I had shewn her in the parlour at Hare Street. She must be man’s mate—which is certainly a rather savage relation at bottom—not merely his pretty and grateful wife. This I learned from her, as we rode onwards and up into the high road—(where, I may say in passing, there was no sign of our party)—though she did not know she was telling it me.

“Oh! Roger,” she said. “And I thought you were a—a pussy-cat.”

“That is the second time I have been told so in two days,” I said.

“Who told you so?”

“His Majesty.”

“I thought His Majesty was wiser,” said she.

“He has been pretty wise, though,” I said. “If it were not for him, we should not be riding here together.”

“I suppose you made him do that too,” she said.

But it was not only of Dolly that I had learned my lessons; it was of myself also. I was astonished how inevitable it appeared to me now that we should be riding together on such terms; and I understood that never, for one instant, all through this miserable year away from her, had I ever, interiorly, loosed my hold upon her. Beneath all my resolutions and wilful distractions the intention had persevered. All the while I was saying to myself in my own mind that I should never see Dolly again, something that was not my mind—(I suppose my heart)—was telling me the precise opposite. Well; the heart had been right, after all.

She asked me presently what I should say to her father.

“I shall forgive him a great deal now, that I thought I never should,”

I said with wonderful magnanimity. “A few sharp words only, and no more.

You see, my dear, it was through his sending you to Court—”

“Yes: yes,” she said.

“He has behaved abominably, however,” I said, “and I shall tell him so.

Dolly, my love.”

“Yes,” said she.

“I must go back very soon to town. I have been offered a piece of work; and even if I do not accept it, I must speak of it to them.”

“Them?”

“Yes, my dear. I must say no more than that. It is secretum commissum as we say in Rome.”

“And to think that you were a Benedictine novice!” exclaimed Dolly.

We talked awhile of that then; she asked me a number of questions that may be imagined under such circumstances: and my answers also can be imagined; and we spoke of a great number of things, she and I riding side by side in the dark, our very horses friendly one with another—she telling me all of how she went to Court, and why she went, and I telling her my side of the affair—until at last in Puckeridge a man ran out from the inn yard to say that our party was within and waiting for us. They had met, it appeared, a rustic fellow who had set them right, soon after they had lost us.

I do not know what they thought at first; but I know what they thought in the end; for I rated them very soundly for not keeping nearer to us; and bade James ride ahead with the lantern with all the rest between, and Dolly and I in the rear to keep them from straying again. In this manner then did she and I contrive to have a great deal more conversation before we came a little before midnight to Hare Street.

The village was all dark as we came through it; and all dark was the House when we pushed open the yard gates and rode in. We went through and beat upon the door, and presently heard a window thrown up.

“Who is there?” cried my Cousin Tom’s voice.

I bade Dolly’s maid answer. (She was all perplexed, poor wench, at the change of relations between her mistress and me.)

“It is Mistress Jermyn, sir,” she said.

“Yes, father; I have come back,” cried Dolly.

There was an exclamation from poor Tom; and in two or three minutes we saw a light beneath the door, and heard him drawing the bolts. I pushed Dolly and her maid forward as the door opened, and then myself strode suddenly forward into the light.

“Why—God bless—” cried Tom; who was in his coat and shoes. I could see how his face fell when he saw me. I looked at him very grimly: but I said nothing to him at once (for I was sorely tempted to laugh at his apparition), but turned to James and bade him see to the rest and find beds somewhere. Then I went after Dolly and her father into the Great Chamber, still with my hat on my head and looking very stern. He was talking very swiftly in a low voice to Dolly; but he stopped when I came in.

“Yes, Cousin Tom,” I said, “I am come back again—all unlooked for, as I see.”

“But, good God!” he cried. “What is the matter; and why is Dolly here? I was but just asking—”

I pulled out the King’s paper which I had all ready, and thrust it down before the lantern that he had put on the table: and I waited till he had read it through.

“There, Cousin!” I said when he was staring on me again, “that is enough warrant for both you and me, I think. Have you anything to say?”

He began to bluster.

“Cousin,” I said, “if I have any patience it is because Dolly has given it back to me. You had best not say too much. You have done all the harm you could; and it is only by God’s mercy that it has not been greater.”

He said that he was Dolly’s father and could do as he pleased. Besides, she herself had consented.

“I know that,” I said, “because she has told me so; and that it was in despair that she went, because we two fools bungled our business. Well, you may be her father; but the Scripture tells us that a woman must leave her father and cleave to her husband; and that is what I am to be to her.”

Well; when I said that, there was the Devil to pay—we three standing there in the cold chamber, with the draughts playing upon poor Tom’s legs. He looked a very piteous object, very much fallen from that fine figure that he had presented when I had first set eyes on him; but he strove to compensate by emphasis what he lacked in dignity. He said that he had changed his mind; that even third cousins once removed should not marry; that he had now other designs for his daughter; that I had no right to dictate to him in his own house. He waxed wonderfully warm; but even then, in the first flush of his resistance I thought I saw a kind of wavering. I sat with one leg across the corner of the great table until he was done; while Dolly sat in a chair, turning her merry eyes from the one to the other of us. For myself, I felt no lack of confidence. I had beaten the daughter; now I was to beat the father.

When he had finished, and drew breath, I stood up.

“Very bravely said, Cousin, bare legs and all,” I said. “We will speak of it all again to-morrow. But now for a bite; we have been riding since noon.”

It was very strange to go upstairs again after a mouthful or two, and a glass of warm ale, and see my chamber again from which I had departed in such unhappiness near a twelvemonth ago. James had made a little fire for me, before which I drew off my boots and undressed myself. For it was from this very chamber that I had gone forth in such despair, when Dolly had said that she would not have me: and now, here I was in it again, all glowing with my ride and my drink and my great content, having kissed Dolly just now in her father’s presence as a symbol of our troth. And so I went to bed and dreamed and woke and dreamed again.

We had our talk out next morning, Tom pacing up and down the Great Chamber, until I entreated him for God’s sake to sit down and save my stiff neck. He was very high at first; but I was astonished how quickly he came down.

“That is very well,” I said, “to speak now of better prospects for Dolly. But you will do me the honour of remembering, my dear Cousin, that in this very room once you spoke to me very differently. If you have changed your mind, you might at least have told me so; for I have not changed mine at all; and Dolly, it seems, is come round to my way of thinking at last.”

“But how did you do it?” asked he, stopping in his walk.

“I lost my temper altogether,” said I; “and that is a very good way if you have tried all the rest.”

“But the King, man, the King! How did you get that paper out of him? Why

His Majesty himself, I am told, took particular notice—”

“Eh?” said I.

“That is no matter now,” he said. “What were you going to say?”

“I must have that first,” said I.

Tom began to pace the floor again.

“It is nothing at all, Cousin. It is that His Majesty spoke very kindly to my daughter upon her first coming to Court.”

“I am glad I did not know that,” I said, “or I might have said more to him.”

“Well; but what did you say?”

Now I was in half a dozen minds as to what I should tell him. He knew for certain nothing at all of my comings and goings and of what I did for the King; yet I thought that he must have guessed a good deal. I judged it safer, therefore, to tell him a little, to stop his month; but not too much.

“Why,” I said very carefully, “I have been of a little service to the King; and His Majesty was good enough to ask me if there were any little favour he could do me. So that is what I asked him.”

Tom stopped in his pacing again: and it was then that I entreated him to sit down and talk like a Christian. He did so, without a word.

“In France, I suppose?” he said immediately after.

“Why, yes.”

Tom looked at me again.

“And you travel with four men now, instead of one.”

“I find it more convenient,” I said.

“And more expensive too,” he observed.

“Why, yes: a little more expensive, too,” I answered. But I was a shade uneasy; because this increase of servants was at His Majesty’s desire and cost. I made haste to turn the conversation back once more. I did not wish Tom to think that I was of any importance at all.

“Well; but what of Dolly?” I said.

It was then that my Cousin suddenly came down from his loftiness. He seemed to awake out of a little reverie.

“You come into the enjoyment of your property,” he said, “in four years from now?”

“In less than that,” I said. “It is three years and a half. My birthday is in June.”

He asked me one or two more questions then as to its amount, and what arrangements I would make in the event of my marriage. When I had satisfied him upon these matters, he fell again into a reverie.

“Well?” said I, a little sharply.

“Cousin,” he said, “I do not wish to stand in your way. But there must be no talk of marriage till ‘85. Will that content you?”

It did not in the least; but it was what I had expected. I was scarcely rich enough yet to support a wife, and knew that, well enough; for if I married and left the King’s service there would be no more travelling expenses for me. Dolly and I last night had agreed upon that as the least that we could consent to.

“Four years is a long time,” said I.

“You said three and a half just now,” he observed a little bitterly.

“Well: three and a half. I suppose I must take that, if I can get nothing better.”

Now I was secretly a little astonished that my Cousin Tom had consented so quickly, after his recent ambitions. Plainly he had aimed higher than at my poor standard during those months; for when a maid went to Court as one of the Queen’s ladies the least that was expected of her was that she would marry a pretty rich man. But the reason of it all was unpleasantly evident to me. He must have gathered from what I had said and done that my favour was increasing with the King; and therefore he must have argued too that I must be serving His Majesty in some very particular way—which was the very last thing I desired him to know, as he was such a gossip. But I dared say no more then. We grasped one another’s hands very heartily: and then I went to find Dolly.

The days that followed were very happy ones—though, as I shall presently relate, they were to be interrupted once more. I had in my mind, during them all, that I must soon go up to London again to tell Mr. Chiffinch my final decision that I could not undertake the work that he had proposed to me; for I had spoken of it at some length with Dolly, giving her a confidence that I dared not give to her father. But I did not think that I should have to go so soon.

It was in the hour before supper one evening that I told her of it, as we sat in the tapestried parlour, looking into the fire from the settle where we sat together.

“My dear,” said I, “I wish to ask your advice. But it is a very private matter indeed.”

“Tell me,” said Dolly contentedly. (Her hand was in mine, and she looked extraordinary pretty in the firelight.)

“I am asked whether I will undertake a little work. In itself it is excellent. It concerns the protection of His Majesty; but it is the means that I am doubtful about.”

Then I told her that of the details—of the how and the when and the where—I knew no more than she: but that, if all went well, I might find myself trusted by a traitor: and that I was considering whether in such a cause as this it was a work to which I could put my hand, to betray that trust, if I got it. But before I was done speaking I knew that I could not—so wonderfully does speaking to another clear one’s mind—and that though I could not condemn outright a man who thought fit to do so, any more than I would condemn a scavenger for cleaning the gutter, it was not work for a gentleman to seek out a confidence that he might betray it again.

“Now that I have put it into words,” I said, “I see that it cannot be done. Certainly it would advance me very much with His Majesty; (and that is one reason why I spoke to you of it)—but such advance would be too dearly bought. Do you not think so too, my dear?”

She nodded slowly and very emphatically three or four times, without speaking, as her manner was.

“Then that is decided,” said I, “and in a day or two I will go to town and tell them so.”

So we put the matter away then; and spoke of matters far more dear to both of us, until Tom came in and exclaimed at our sitting in the dark as he called it.

The interruption came that very night.

We were at supper, and speaking of Christmas, and of how we would have again the dancing as last year, when we heard a man ride past the house, pulling up his horse as he came. Such interruptions came pretty often;—it was so that I had been first sent for by Mr. Chiffinch: and it was so again that the Duke of Monmouth had come, and others—but we had plenty too of others who came, seeing the house at the end of the village, to ask their way, or what not; so we paid no attention to it. Presently, however, we heard a man’s steps come along the paved walk, and then a knocking at the door. James went out to see who was there; and came back immediately saying that it was a courier with a letter for me. My conscience smote me a little, for I had delayed more than a week now from answering Mr. Chiffinch: and, sure enough, when I went out, the man was come from him. I took the letter he gave me into the Great Chamber to read it, and was astonished at its contents. There were but four lines in it.

“Mr. Mallock,” it ran, “come immediately—that is to-morrow. The Lord hath delivered them into our hands. Ride by Amwell; and go through the place slowly between eleven and twelve with no servant near.” And it was signed with his initials only.

I went back again into the dining-room immediately, and shut the door behind me.

“I must go to town, to-morrow,” I said, all short.

Dolly looked up at me, gone a little white. I shook my head and smiled at her, but secretly; so that Tom did not see.

CHAPTER VI

I do not think that I have yet related how great was the work that Mr. Chiffinch had done in the matter of the spies that he had everywhere during those later years of His Majesty Charles the Second. That which he had done during Monmouth’s progress in the north—his receiving of reports day by day, and even hour by hour—this was only one instance of his activity. The secret-looking men, or even the bold-looking gentlemen, whom I had met on his stairs so continually, or for whose sake I was kept waiting sometimes when I went to see him—these were his tools and messengers. This company of spies was of all grades; and it was to serve in that company that he had sent for me from France, and that I was determined to decline.

Though, however, I was so determined, I did not dare to disobey the directions that his letter gave me; for I could not be sure that it was for this work in particular that he had summoned me; though I guessed that it was. I would go, thought I, and do in everything as he had said; I would ride through Amwell, with my servants behind at a good distance: I would see what befell me there—for that something would, was certain from the letter; then I would proceed on to London, and if the affair were against my honour, as I was sure it would be, I would refuse any further part in it. My one hardship was that I could do no more than tell Dolly in private that I would hold to my resolution. I dared not tell her anything of the contents of the letter which I had immediately destroyed. I promised her that I would be back for Christmas at the latest. She came out to the yard-gate to wish me good-bye: my servants were gone in front; and my Cousin Tom had the sense to be out of the way; so our good-byes were all that such miserable things ever can be. I waved to her at the corner, and she waved back.

When we came about two miles to the north of Amwell—which we did about eleven o’clock, as I had been bid, I bade my servants stay behind, and not come after me till half an hour later; further I bade them, if, when they came, they found me in any man’s company, neither to salute me nor to make any sign of recognition; but to pass straight on to Hoddesdon and wait for me there, not at the inn where I was known, but at another little one—the King’s Arms—at the further end of the village, and there they were to dine. Even then, when I came, if I did, they were not to salute me until I had spoken with them. All this I did, interpreting as well as I could, what Mr. Chiffinch had said; and they, since they were well-trained in that kind of service, understood me perfectly.

It was near half-past eleven when I came, riding very slowly, into the village street, looking this way and that so as to shew my face, but as if I were just looking about me. I noticed a couple of servants, in a very plain livery which I thought I had seen before, in the yard of the Mitre, but they paid no attention to me. So I passed up the street to the end, and no one spoke with me or shewed any sign. Now I knew that there was something forward, and that unless I fell in with it the arrangement would have failed; so I turned again and rode back, as if I were looking for an inn. Again no one spoke with me; so I rode, as if discontented, into the yard of the Mitre, and demanded of an ostler whether there was any food fit to eat there.

He looked at me in a kind of hesitation.

“Yes, sir,” he said; “but—but the parlour is full. A party is there, from London.”

Then I knew that I had been right to come; because at the same moment I remembered where I had seen those liveries before. They were those worn by the men who had come with Monmouth to Hare Street.

I said nothing to the ostler; but slipped off my horse, as he took the bridle, and went indoors. The fellow called out after me; but I made as if I did not hear. (I have found, more than once, that a little deafness is a very good thing.) There were voices I heard talking beyond a door at the end of the passage; I went up to this, and without knocking, lifted the latch and went in.

The room, that looked out, with one window only, into a small enclosed garden, was full of men. There were eight of them, as I counted presently; all round a table on which stood a couple of tall jugs and tankards. I raised my hand to my hat.

“I beg pardon, gentlemen. Is there room—”

“Why—it is Mr.—” I heard a voice say, suddenly stifled.

Beyond that, for a moment, there was silence. Then a man stood up suddenly, with a kind of eagerness.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “Mr. Mallock! Do you not remember me?”

“Your back is to the light, sir—” I began; and then: “Why it is Mr.

Rumbald.”

“The same, sir; the same. There is a friend of yours, here, sir—Come in and sit down, sir. There is plenty of room for another friend.”

There was a very curious kind of eagerness in the maltster’s voice, which puzzled me not a little; and there was a change of manner too in him, that puzzled me no less. He spoke as if he had almost expected me, or was peculiarly astonished to see me there; and there was none of that hail-fellow air about him any more. He spoke to me as to a gentleman—as indeed I shewed I was by my dress—but yet manifested no surprise at seeing me so. However, I had neither time nor thought to consider this at the moment, for the friend of mine of whom he spoke, and who was now standing up to greet me, was no other than my Lord Essex—he who had been riding with Monmouth from Newmarket; and he whose name Mr. Chiffinch had expressly spoken of to me. Yet how did Mr. Rumbald know that we knew one another?

I made haste to salute him; for he too, I thought, had an air of eagerness.

“Come in and sit down, Mr. Mallock,” he said. “We have dined early; and are presently off to town again. Are you riding our way?”

“Why, yes,” I said, “I am going up to my lodgings for a little.”

(As I spoke a thousand questions beseiged me. Why was there this air of expectation in them at all? How did Mr. Chiffinch know that they would be here at this time? Why had he arranged that I should meet them? Why had he not spoken of their names to me; since he had told me so freely of them before? Well; I must wait, thought I, and meantime go very gingerly. I was not going to put my hand to this kind of work; but I did not wish to spoil Mr. Chiffinch’s design if I could help it.)

“Why,” said my Lord, “if you are going to town, may I not ride with you? Some of these gentlemen are in a hurry; but I am sure I am not. Have you no servants, Mr. Mallock?”

“I have sent mine on before,” I said, marvelling more than ever at the man’s friendliness, “but I shall be very happy to ride with your Lordship, if you can wait till I have dined.”

My Lord said a word to a man who sat near the door, who slipped out: and I heard his voice ordering dinner for me. Meantime I observed the company.

There were eight, as I have said; but I knew for certain two only—the maltster and my Lord Essex. The rest puzzled me not a little. They seemed well-bred fellows enough; but they were dressed very plainly, and appeared no more than country squires or lawyers or suchlike. They were talking of the most indifferent things in the world, with silences, as if they wondered what next to speak of; they hardly looked at me at all after a minute or two; and presently one by one began to stand up and take their leave, saluting my Lord by name, and bowing only to me. By the time that my dinner came there were left only my Lord, who was very attentive to me, and Mr. Rumbald; and before I was well set-to, even Mr. Rumbald stood up to say good-bye.

Again I was puzzled by the man; for again he appeared very friendly with me, and again shewed no sign of astonishment at my acquaintance with my Lord and at my appearance as a gentleman.

“I am very glad, sir,” he said, shaking my hand with great warmth, “that you will have so pleasant a ride to town with your friend. And you will remember my house too, will you not, over the river, if ever you are by that way.”

I told him that I would: and thanked him for his courtesy; and he went out, after shaking hands too with my Lord, taking care to exchange no glances with him, though it would be evident, even to a child, that there was some secret between them.

When he was gone, my Lord turned to me.

“A very good fellow, Rumbald—a very good fellow indeed.”

I assented, heartily.

“Honest as the day,” said my Lord.

“There is no doubt of it,” said I, with my mouth full.

“And a good patriot too. It is what we want, Mr. Mallock.”

Again I assented; and my Lord presently changed the conversation.

During the rest of dinner he said nothing that was significant of any of the things I suspected. I knew now, beyond a doubt, both from what Mr. Chiffinch had said and from the strangely mixed company, and the circumstances under which I found them, that something was forward; but as to what it was all about I knew no more than the dead. Neither did I as yet see a single glimmer of light on the questions that had puzzled me just now. So I determined that when we were safe out on the lonely road I would throw a bait or two; though my resolution still held that I would do no dirty work, even for His Majesty himself.

I dined very tolerably, and lit a pipe afterwards: (my Lord told me that he used no tobacco); and presently in a kind of impatience—for indeed the position I found myself in was a little disconcerting—I observed that it was past noon.

“You are quite right,” said my Lord, “quite right. I will tell them to have the horses ready. Your servants are gone on before, I think you said, Mr. Mallock?”

I told him Yes; but I wondered why he did not shout for the maid, instead of going out himself; but I understood the reason when I found presently, when we took the road, that his own men kept a full hundred yards in the rear. Evidently he had gone out to tell them to do so.

So soon as we were clear of Amwell, I began. There was a little wind, and the weather was moist and thick, so there was no danger of our being overheard.

“My Lord,” I said, “I am very much puzzled by what I have seen.”

“Eh?” said he.

“It was a very mixed company just now, in Amwell.”

He frowned a little.

“Very excellent gentlemen, all of them—” I hastened to add. “But I was wondering what it was that drew them all together. I can only think of two things.”

“What are they, Mr. Mallock?” asked my Lord a little eagerly.

“Religion or politics, my Lord,” I said. “And I am sure that it is not the first.”

He appeared to reflect; but he was not a very good actor; and I could see that it was feigned.

“Why you are very sharp, sir,” he said. “You have put your finger on the very place—the very place.” (And he continued with far too short a pause): “On which side are you, Mr. Mallock? For the country or for the Court?”

“That is a dangerous question to answer, my Lord,” I said, very short.

“It is only dangerous for one side,” said he.

I nodded, in a grave and philosophical manner. Then I sighed.

“You are quite right, my Lord.”

I could see that he was glancing at me continually. Yet no explanation of his behaviour yet crossed my mind.

“Mr. Mallock,” said he after a silence, “it is no good fencing about the question. I can see that you are disaffected.”

“That is a very safe way to put it,” I said. “Who is not—on one side or the other?”

“Yes,” said he, “but you are sharp enough to know what I mean.”

Again I nodded; but my mind was working like a mill; for a new thought had come to me that seemed to illumine all the rest; and yet I could not understand. The thought was this. Plainly my Lord Essex knew a good deal about me: he knew enough, that is, to begin a conversation of this kind with one whom he had only met once before—a mad proceeding altogether, if that were all he knew. Ergo, thought I, he must know more than that; and if he knew more he must know that I was in the service of His Majesty and presumably devoted to that service; probably, too, from the understanding between himself and Rumbald, he knew that I had chosen on previous occasions to masquerade as if I were not a gentleman. Was he quite mad then? For to talk like this to one in the confidence of His Majesty was surely a crazed proceeding! Yet my Lord Essex was not a fool.

Looking back upon the matter as I write, it is hard for me to understand why I did not see through his design, since I saw so much of it. Yet it was not until London was in sight, or rather its lights against the sky, that all fell into its place; and I wondered at the simplicity of it. I think that it was the way he talked to me—the manner in which he skirted continually on the fringe of treason, yet said nothing that I could lay hold upon, and, above all, mentioned no names—that gave me the clue. I fear I fell a little silent as I perceived how point after point ratified the conclusion to which I had come; but I do not think he noticed it; and, even if he did, it would only encourage him the more. And when I saw the whole, as plain as a map, my scruples left me altogether. I would not have betrayed the true confidence of this man, or of any other; that resolution still held firm; but this was another matter altogether.

By the time that we reached Covent Garden—for he rode with me as far as that—I think he was satisfied that he had caught me in the way that he wished; for he had given me the names of one or two places where I could communicate with him if I desired; and was nearer actual treason in his talk than ever before—though he did not go much beyond deploring the Popish succession, and feigning that he did not know that I was a Catholic; and, on my side, I had feigned to be greatly interested in all that he had said, and had let him see, though not too evidently, that it was feigning on my side too. We parted, outwardly, the best of friends; inwardly we were at one another’s throats.

So soon as I had dismounted—he having left me in the Strand—and gone indoors, I came out again, not fearing, indeed rather hoping, that he would be watching for me, and, in my boots just as I was, set out for Whitehall.

Mr. Chiffinch was within, expecting me. Even he looked a little excited; and no wonder. But first I made him answer my questions before I would say a word beyond telling him that his design had prospered.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I over my supper which he had brought for me to his parlour. “Before I say one more word, you must tell me three or four things. The first is this. How did you know that it was in me that my Lord Essex would confide?”

“That is easily answered,” said he. “My men told me that my Lord was after you everywhere—both in your lodgings and here.”

“Ah!” I said, “and was there a fellow called Rumbald, with him?”

“You are right,” he said. “How did you know that?”

“Wait,” I said. “The next is, If you could tell me so much in your letter, why did you not tell me the names of the persons?”

He smiled.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “from your hesitation I knew that you would refuse to do such work as this. So I intended to catch you unawares, and to entangle you in it. I knew that you would not refuse to go to Amwell, and behave there as I directed, if I said no more than I did.”

“Well; you would have failed,” I said.

“What!” said he. “You are still going to refuse?”

“No,” said I, “I accept the work: but it is not what you think it is.”

“Why—what is it then?”

“Wait,” I said. “The next is, How did you know that they would be at

Amwell at that time?”

“Oh! that is easy enough; one of my fellows got that out of one of Rumbald’s maids—that a party of six would lie at the Ryehouse last night; and that they would meet two more at dinner in Amwell at eleven o’clock to-day. Rumbald has been known to us a long while. But it is the others we are waiting for.”

I was silent. There were no more questions I wished to ask at present; though there might be others later.

“Well,” said the page, a little eagerly; and his narrow face looked very like a fox’s, as he spoke. “Well; and what is your news?”

I finished my stew, and laid down the spoon.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I, “let me first ask one more question. Why do you think that my Lord Essex was after me at all? How did he know of me?”

“Plainly from Rumbald,” said he.

“And why did he want me?”

He smiled.

“Why, Rumbald thinks you disaffected towards the King; and yet knows you are in his service. You would be a very great helper to them, if you cared.”

It was my turn to smile.

“My Lord Essex is not a fool,” I said. “If they know so much of me, would they not know more?”

“Plainly they do not,” he said. “Or they would not have tried to get you on their side.”

I laughed softly.

“Sir,” I said, “you are very sharp: but you are not sharp enough.”

Then I related to him the behaviour of them all in the inn; and how Rumbald had shewn no surprise in seeing that I was a gentleman after all; and how my Lord Essex had talked in what would have been the maddest manner, if his intention had been as Chiffinch had thought it to be; and with every word that I said the page’s face grew longer.

“Well,” he cried, “it is beyond me altogether. What then is the explanation?”

“My friend,” I said, “you were right. Neither before nor after what has passed to-day would I have done the work you designed for me which was to get these men’s confidence, and then betray it again. But it is not their idea to give me their confidence at all. So I will work with you very gladly.”

“But then what can you do—” he began in amazement.

“Listen,” I said. “It will fall out just as I say. They will give me very few names; they will admit me to none of their real secrets; but yet they will feign to do so.”

“But, what a’ God’s name—”

“Oh! man!” I cried, “you are surely slow-witted to-day. They will do all this—” (I leaned forward as I spoke for further emphasis)—”in order that I may hand it on to His Majesty; but they will give me no real secret till the climax is come, and their designs perfected. And then they will give me a false one altogether. They think that they will make me a tool to further their true plans by betraying false ones. We may know this for certain then—that whatever they tell me, knowing that I will tell you, is not what they intend, but something else altogether. And it will not be hard to know the truth, if we are certified of what is false.”

There was complete silence in the room when I had finished, except for the wash of the tide outside the windows. The man’s mouth was open, and his eyes set in thought. Then sense came back to his face; and he smiled suddenly and widely.

“God!” he said, and slapped me suddenly on the thigh. “Good God! you have hit it, I believe.”

CHAPTER VII

From now onwards there began for me such a series of complications that I all but despair of making clear even the course that they ran. My diaries are filled with notes and initials and dates which I dared not at the time set down more explicitly; and my memory is often confused between them. For, indeed, my work in France was but child’s play to this, neither was there any danger in France such as was here.

For consider what, not a double part merely, but a triple, I had to play. The gentlemen, who were beginning at this time to conspire in real earnest against the King and the Constitution, some of whom afterwards, such as my Lord Russell, suffered death for it, and others of whom like my Lord Howard of Escrick escaped by turning King’s evidence—although their guilt was very various—these gentlemen, through my Lord Essex, had got at me, as they thought, to betray not truth but falsehood to His Majesty, and told me matters, under promise of secrecy, which they intended me to tell to the King and his advisers. To them, therefore, I had to feign feigning: I had to feign, that is, that I was feigning to keep their confidence, but that in reality that I was betraying it; while to Mr. Chiffinch I had to disclose these precious secrets not as true but as false, and conjecture with him what was the truth. (My evidence, later, was never called upon, nor did my name appear in any way, for that the jury would never have understood it.) I had, therefore, a double danger to guard against; first that which came from the conspirators—the fear that they should discover I was tricking them, or rather that I had discovered their trickery; and, on the other side, that I should become involved with them in the fall that was so certain from the beginning, and be myself accused of conspiracy—or of misprision of treason at the least. Against the latter I guarded as well as I could, by revealing to Mr. Chiffinch every least incident so soon as it happened; and on three occasions in the following year having a long discourse with His Majesty. But against the former danger I had only my wits to protect me.

The best thing, therefore, that I can do is to relate a few of the events that happened to me. (I have never, I think, experienced such a strain on my wits; for it went on for a good deal more than a year, since I could for a long time arrive at no certain proofs of the guilt of the conspirators, and His Majesty did not wish to strike until their conviction was assured.)

The first meeting of the conspirators to which I was admitted was in January. (I had not been able, of course, to go to Hare Street for Christmas; but the letters I had now and again from Dolly, greatly encouraged and comforted me. I had told her that I “was keeping to my resolution,” but that “I should be in some peril for a good while to come,” and begged her to remember me often in her pure prayers.)

A fellow came to my lodgings about the middle of January, with a letter from my Lord Essex. It ran as follows:

“SIR,—With regard to some matters of which we spoke together on the occasion of our very pleasant ride to town last month, I am very anxious to see you again. Pray do not write any answer to this; but if you can meet me on Thursday night at the house of my friend Mr. West, in Creed Lane, at nine o’clock, we may have a little conversation with some other friends of ours. I am, sir, your obliged servant,

“Essex.”

I told the fellow that the answer was Yes. My Lord had been to see me in Covent Garden twice, but had said very little that was at all explicit; but Mr. Chiffinch had bid me hold myself in readiness, and put aside all else for the further invitations that would surely come. And so it had.

I found the house without difficulty; and was shewn into a little parlour near the door; where presently my Lord came to me alone, all smiles.

“I am very glad you are come, Mr. Mallock,” he said. “I was sure that you would. I have a few friends here who meet to talk politics; and they would greatly like to hear your views on the points. I think I may now venture to say that we know who you are, Mr. Mallock, and that you have done a good deal for His Majesty in France. Your opinion then would be of the greatest interest to us all.”

(I understood why he put so much emphasis on France; it was to quiet me as to any suspicions they thought I might have as to my being the King’s servant in England too.)

I answered him very civilly, smiling as if I was at my ease; and after a word or two more he took me in. It was a long low room, with a beamed ceiling and shuttered windows, in which the men were sitting. There were six of them there; and I knew two of them, immediately. He that sat at the head of the table, a very grim-looking man, with pointed features, in an iron-grey peruke, was no other than my Lord Shaftesbury himself; and the one on his left, with a highish colour in his cheeks, was my Lord Grey. Of the rest I knew nothing; but those two were enough to shew me that I must make no mistakes. There were candles on the table.

My Lord Essex smiled as he turned to me.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “I see you know some of these gentlemen by sight.”

“I know my Lord Shaftesbury, and my Lord Grey by sight,” I said, bowing to each. They each inclined a little in return.

“And this is Mr. West,” said my Lord.

This was a very busy-looking active little fellow, with bright dark eyes. (He had the name of being an atheist, I learned afterwards.)

“Sit down, Mr. Mallock,” said my Lord, pointing to a chair on my Lord

Shaftesbury’s right. I did so. There was no servant in the room. The two

other men were presently made known to me as a Mr. Sheppard and a Mr.

Goodenough. I knew nothing of either of these two at this time.

Now it may seem that it was extraordinary bold of all these persons to admit me, believing as they did, that I was on His Majesty’s side, and would reveal all to him; and it was, in one way, bold of them; yet it was the more clever. For, as will appear, they said nothing to me at present that could be taken hold of in any way; and yet they sent, or rather thought they sent, to the King, false news that would help their cause.

When he had discoursed for a little while on general matters, yet drawing nearer ever to the point, my Lord Essex opened the engagement.

“That Mr. Rumbald,” he said. “Do you know who he is, Mr. Mallock?”

“Why, he is a maltster, is he not?” I said.

“Well: he married a maltster’s widow, who is dead now. But he is an honest old Cromwellian—loyal enough to His Majesty—” (the gentlemen all solemnly put hands to their hats)—”yet very greatly distressed at the course things are taking.”

“An old soldier?” I asked.

“Yes: he was a Colonel under Oliver.”

Such was the opening; and after that we talked more freely, though not so freely as, I doubt not, they had talked for an hour before I came. My Lord Shaftesbury did not say a great deal; he had a quick discontented look; but I think I satisfied him. He was in a very low condition at this time—all but desperate—so strongly had the tide set against him since my Lord Stafford’s death and the reaction that followed it; and I think he would have grasped at anything to further his fortunes: for that was what he chiefly cared about. My Lord Essex did most of the talking, and Mr. West; and I could see that they were shewing me off, as a new capture, and one on whose treachery to them their hopes might turn.

Now there were three or four matters on which they were very emphatic. First, that no injury was intended to the King or the Duke of York; but this they did not disclaim for themselves so much as for the disaffected persons generally; as regards themselves they said little or nothing: and from this I deduced that the King’s life would certainly be aimed at; and the more so, as they said what a pity it was that His Majesty’s guards were still doubled.

“It shews a lack of confidence in the people,” said my Lord Essex.

(From that, then, I argued that an attempt was contemplated upon

Whitehall.)

The second thing that Mr. West was very emphatic upon was the need of proceeding, if any reform were to be brought about, in a legal and Parliamentary manner.

“Why does not His Majesty call another Parliament?” he added, “that at least we may air our grievances? It is true enough that my Lord Shaftesbury—” (here he bowed to my Lord who blinked in return)—”that my Lord Shaftesbury found Parliament against him in the event; but he does not complain of that. He hath at least been heard.”

(From that I argued either that they thought they would be stronger in a new Parliament, or that they contemplated acting in quite another manner. I could not tell for certain which; but I supposed the latter.)

The third thing that Mr. Goodenough said, relating how he had heard it from a Mr. Ferguson of Bristol, was that the West of England was in a very discontented condition, and that His Majesty would do well to send troops there.

Now I knew that his statement was tolerably true; and that therefore the false part must be the second. The only conclusion I could draw was that they wished troops to be withdrawn from London.

To all these things, however, I assented civilly, arguing a little, for form’s sake; but not too much.

When at last we broke up, my Lord Essex again came with me to the door, and carried me first, for an instant into the little parlour.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “we have had a pleasant evening, have we not? But I need not tell you that our talk had best not be repeated. We have said not a word that is disloyal to His Majesty: but even a little fault-finding is apt to be misrepresented in these days.”

I said that I understood him perfectly (which indeed I did); and nodded very sagely.

“Let us meet again, then, Mr. Mallock—on that understanding. I have some more friends I would wish you to meet; and whom I am sure you could do good to. There is a quantity of discontent about.”

I went to see Mr. Chiffinch the next day, and reported all that had passed, as they had intended me to do. We drew up a little report which was carried into effect: first, that no troops should be sent out of London; but that they should be dispersed as much as possible within the confines of the City; next that the guards at the gates of Whitehall should be diminished by one half—(this, to give colour to the malcontents’ hope; and provoke them to action)—but the guards within increased by the same amount, yet kept out of sight so much as was possible; thirdly, that a rumour should be set about that the King would call a Parliament within the year at latest; and this Mr. Chiffinch promised to undertake (for a very great effect indeed can be produced on popular opinion by those who know the value of false rumours); but that His Majesty should be dissuaded from doing anything of the kind. Such then was the result of that first meeting to which I was admitted; and such more or less was our course of procedure all through the spring and summer. This I have related in full, to serve as an example of our method, because, since it was the first, I remember it very distinctly. In this manner I used the information I gained for the King’s benefit; and, at the same time the conspirators were led to believe that I was their tool, and no more.

The next important incident fell in the beginning of the summer.

Now, in the meantime I had learned, from Mr. Chiffinch for the most part, though there were some matters I was able rather to inform him about, that there were two separate and distinct parties amongst the conspirators. There were those who intended nothing but some kind of a rising—scarcely more than an armed demonstration—and to this party would belong such a man as my Lord Russell—if he were of them at all; and there were those who meant a great deal more than this—who were hoping, in fact so to excite their followers as to bring about the King’s death. But of these I found it very hard to get any names—and quite impossible, so far, to obtain any positive proof at all. The Duke of Monmouth, I knew, was of the moderate party; so, I thought then, was my Lord Grey—but Mr. Algernon Sidney whom I met once or twice was of the extreme side. But as to my Lord Shaftesbury, I knew nothing: he was pretty silent always; and it was with regard to him most of all that we desired evidence. It was this division of parties, no doubt, that hindered any action; the moderates were for ever trying to drag back the fanatics; and the fanatics to urge on the moderates; so that nothing was done.

From my diaries I find that I spoke with my Lord Essex no less than eight times between Christmas and July; I saw my Lord Russell only once as I shall relate presently, but did not speak with him: the rest I met now and again, but never all of them together. It was necessary, no doubt, that they should be well drilled before they could be trusted with me. Mr. Rumbald I met about four times, and my Lord Howard but once. I think all this time they were wholly satisfied that I passed on to Mr. Chiffinch what they told me, and nothing else; for he and I usually contrived to carry out part at least of their recommendations.

I first began to learn something of my Lord Russell’s position in the matter in a meeting in July, in the house of the Mr. Sheppard (whom I had met at Mr. West’s), that was situated in Wapping; and I learned something else too at the same time. My Lord Essex; came for me in his coach that day, and himself carried me down. (I need not say that on these occasions I carried always some pistol or other weapon with me beside my sword, for I never knew when they might not find me out.)

Mr. Sheppard’s house was in a little street, that was a cul-de-sac, between the Garden Grounds, which was a great open space, and the Old Stairs on the river. It was about eight o’clock, and was beginning to be twilight when we came.

As we descended from the coach I noticed at a little distance away a number of fellows, very rough looking, standing together watching us; and I perceived that they saluted my Lord who returned the salute very heartily. I did not much like that. Who were these folks, I wondered, who knew my Lord?

The house was very ordinary within; it was flagged with stones that had some kind of matting upon them: the entrance was all panelled; and, what surprised me was that no servant was to be seen. Mr. Sheppard himself opened the door to us when we knocked.

We did not speak at all as we came in; and my Lord led me straight through into the parlour on the left that was full of tobacco-smoke. This was a very good room, hung all round with tapestry, though of a poorish quality, and, though it was not yet dark, the windows were shuttered and barred. At the table sat half a dozen persons, of whom I knew my Lord Shaftesbury at the head of the table as usual, and Mr. Goodenough that sat with his back to the hearth. Between these two sat a gentleman whom I knew to be my Lord Howard of Escrick, though I had never spoken with him. He carried himself with a very high air, and was the only man there dressed as if he were still in Westminster; the rest were subdued, somewhat, in their appearance. My Lord Howard looked at me with an intolerant kind of disdain, which my Lord Essex made haste to cover by directing me to my place.

I thought that my Lord Shaftesbury seemed very heavy this evening. He treated me with a silent kind of civility; and so, too, did he treat the rest. His eyes wandered away sometimes as we talked, as if he were thinking of something else. We spoke of nothing of any importance for a time, for Mr. Sheppard was bringing in wine with his own hands, though I saw a number of used glasses on the press which shewed me that the company had been here some time already.

It would be not until after ten or twelve minutes that Mr. Sheppard was deputed to open the affair on account of which I had been sent for.

“Now then, Sheppard,” said my Lord Essex who sat on my right, “tell us the news.”

Mr. Sheppard pushed his glass forward and leaned his elbows on the table. I could see that all that he said was directed principally at me.

“Well, my lords,” he said, “I have very good news. You remember how I told you that I was beginning to fear for the people down here—that they would be provoked soon into some kind of a rising. They are still not wholly pacified—” (here he shot a look at me, which he should not have done)—”but I am doing my best to tell them that we have very good hopes indeed that His Majesty will be persuaded to call a Parliament; and I think they are beginning to believe me. I think we may say that the danger is past.”

“Why; what danger is that, Mr. Sheppard?” said I, very innocently.

“Why—a rising!” he said. “Has not my Lord Essex told you?”

“Ah! yes!” said I, “I had forgot.” (This was wholly false. He had told me once or twice at least that there was danger of this. This had been a month ago; and his object had been to persuade me that they had been telling the truth.)

“I saw some fellows as we came in,” I said.

“Those are the malcontents,” he said. “There are not more than a very few now, who go about and brag.”

I assented.

“By the way,” said my Lord Essex to Shaftesbury who looked at him heavily, “I spoke with my Lord Russell a week ago. You know my Lord Russell, Mr. Mallock?”

I said that I did not.

“Well; I had hoped he would have been here to-night. But he is gone down to the country—to Stratton—where he has his seat.”

He talked a while longer of my Lord Russell; and I saw that he wished me to believe that my Lord was of their party: whence I argued to myself that was just what he was not; but that they wished to win him over for the sake of his name, perhaps, and his known probity. (And, as the event shewed, I was right in that conjecture.)

Two or three of them were still talking together in this strain, and while I listened enough to tell me that it was nothing very important that they said, I was observing my Lord Shaftesbury: and, upon my heart! I was sorry for the man. Three years ago he was in the front of the rising tide, in the full blast of popularity and power; he had so worked upon the old Popish Plot and the mob, that he had all the movement with him: His Majesty himself was afraid of him, and was forced to follow his leading. Now he was fallen from all this; the Court-party had triumphed because he had so overshot his mark, and here was he, in this poor quarter, in the house of a man that would have been nothing to him five years ago, forced to this very poor kind of conspiring for his last hopes. He sat as if he knew all this himself: his eyes strayed about him as we talked, and there were heavy pouches beneath them, and deep lines at the corner of his nose and mouth. It was this man, thought I, who was so largely responsible for the death of so many innocents—and all for his own ambition!

Presently I heard His Grace of Monmouth spoken of. It was Mr. Sheppard who spoke the name; and in an instant I was on the alert again. What he said fell very pat with what I was thinking of my Lord Shaftesbury.

“I declare,” cried Mr. Sheppard, once more talking at me very evidently, “that His Grace of Monmouth breaks my heart. I was with his Grace a fortnight ago. His loyalty and love for the King are overpowering. I had heard”—(this was a very bold stroke of poor Mr. Sheppard)—”I had heard that some villainous fellows had proposed to His Grace—oh! a great while ago, in April, I think—that an assault should be made upon the King; and that His Grace near killed one of them for it. Yet His Majesty will scarce speak to him, so much he distrusts him.”

This was all very pretty: and from it I argued that the Duke was deeper in the affair than we had thought, and perhaps belonged even to the extremest party, led, we supposed, chiefly by Mr. Sidney. But I murmured that it was a shame that His Majesty treated him so; and while I was listening to further eulogies on His Grace, a new thought came to me which I determined to put into execution that very night; for I felt we were not making any progress.

There was not much more conversation of any significance, and I was soon able to carry out what I determined; for my Lord Essex when we broke about half-past nine o’clock, again offered to take me home.

I said good-night very respectfully to the company; and followed him into the coach.

For a while I said nothing, but appeared preoccupied; so that at last my Lord clapped me on the knee and asked me if I ailed—which was what I wished him to do.

“My Lord,” said I, with an appearance of great openness, “I have a confession to make.”

“Well?” said he. “What is it?”

“I am disappointed,” I said. “There is a deal of talk; and most interesting talk; and all very loyal and respectful. But I had fancied there was more behind.”

“What do you mean?” asked he.

“Well:” I said. “If His Grace of Monmouth will do nothing, will none of his friends do it for him?”

“Of what nature?” asked my Lord.

“My Lord,” said I, “need I say more?”

He was silent for a while; and I could see how his mind was a trifle bewildered. But he did presently exactly what I hoped he would do.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “you are right: there is more behind. And I promise you you shall hear of it when the time comes. Is that enough?”

“That is enough, my Lord,” said I. “I am content.”

I was with Mr. Chiffinch before the gates were shut for the night; and this was the report I gave him.

“I have learned three things at least,” I said, when he had bolted the door, and drawn the hanging across it. “First that they are contemplating a rising as soon as they can get their men together; and that it will be from Wapping and thereabouts that the insurrectionists will come. Next that His Grace of Monmouth is more deeply involved than we had thought. And the third thing is, that I have persuaded my Lord Essex that I can be trusted to be a good traitor, and to report everything; but that if they do not commit more important falsehoods to me, I shall lose heart with them. We may expect then that after a little while I shall have more vital and significant lies told me, whence we can arrive at the truth.”

“Is that everything?” said he.

“Ah! there is one thing more. They are trying to entangle my Lord Russell; and they think that they will succeed, and so do I; but at present he will not be caught.”

CHAPTER VIII

We are drawing nearer now to the heart of the conspiracy that was forming little by little, as an abscess forms in the body of a sick man. For two months more no great move was made. I was summoned now and again to such meetings as those which I have described: and sometimes one man was there and sometimes another. They were becoming less cautious with me in this—since I had by now the names of nearly all the Londoners involved: and Mr. Chiffinch had the names of the principal men in Scotland and the provinces, especially in the West, with whom they were concerting. They still fed me with lies from time to time, in small points; and I gained a little knowledge from these as to what they wished me to believe, and hence as to what was indeed the truth.

It was in October that the next meeting of importance took place—the next, that is to say, to which I myself was admitted: and it was again in Mr. Sheppard’s house in Wapping. There were gathered there, for the first time mostly all the principal gentlemen in the affair; and this was one more sign of how reckless they were becoming that I was admitted there at all. But I think it was because Mr. Chiffinch and I had been very discreet and careful that they thought that they had me in hand, and that I was somewhat of an innocent fool, and revealed no more than what they wished.

Before I went there—for I went by water this time, in a private wherry, to Wapping Old Stairs, I went first to Mr. Chiffinch to see if there were any news for me.

“Why, yes,” he said, when he had me alone, “there is a little matter I would like you to find out about. The Duke of Monmouth was here with my Lord Grey, a day or two ago: they all dined with Sir Thomas Armstrong: and all three of them went round the posts and the guardroom, and saw everything. Now what was that for?”

“Sir Thomas Armstrong?” said I in astonishment. “Why he is—”

I was about to say he was one of His Majesty’s closest friends and evil geniuses; but I stopped. There was no need.

The page smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “Well; Mr. Mallock? If you can find out anything—”

“And the Duke too!” I said. “Well; I was right, was I not?” (For what I had found out was true enough—that His Grace was far more deeply involved than we had at first suspected. We had known that he was their protégé, but not that he was so much in their counsel, and of one mind with them.)

“His Grace will come to some disaster, I think,” said Mr. Chiffinch very tranquilly.

When I came to Wapping Old Stairs it appeared that the watermen there knew well enough what was forward; for while one ran down to help me from the wherry, a number of others stood watching as if they knew what I had come for; and all saluted me as I went up. At the head of the stairs, I looked back, and two more wherries with a gentleman in each were just coming in.

Mr. Sheppard himself opened the door to me, and appeared a little confused, looking over his shoulder into the entrance-hall where two or three gentlemen were just going into the great parlour on the left. I could have sworn that one of them was the Duke, from the way he carried himself. With him was another whom I thought I knew, but he was not familiar to me. I appeared to notice nothing, but beat off the mud from my boots.

“Mr. Mallock,” said Mr. Sheppard, “they are not yet all come; and two or three who are here have a little private business on another matter first. Will you wait a little in another room?”

I assented immediately; and he took me through the hall into another little parlour behind that in which the company was assembled.

“It will not be more than ten minutes,” he said. “I will come for you myself when they are done.”

When he was gone again I observed the room. It had but one window, which was shuttered; but it had two doors—the one by which I was come in, and another, beyond the hearth, leading to the great parlour. This door was closed.

Now it was of the greatest importance that I should hear what was passing in the next room. I should learn more in five words spoken there then, than in five hours when they were playing a part to me; and I had no scruple whatever, considering what they were at, and how they were using me, in learning by any means that were in my power what I wished to know. Even from where I stood I could hear the murmur of talk; and it was probable, it seemed to me, that if I laid my ear on the panel of the door I should hear every word of it. But first I pulled out a chair and set it by the table, with my hat and cane beside it. Then I went to the door into the hall, which opened, fortunately, with its hinge nearer to the hearth—(so that a man entering would not see immediately into that part of the room in which I should be)—and beneath the door I slipped a little sliver of wood from the wood-basket by the hearth, so that the door would stick a little. Having done that I went on tip-toe to the other door and put my ear to the panel. But I feared they would not say anything very significant, with me so close.

Now it was a little while before I could distinguish which voice belonged to what man. I got the Duke’s at once; there was a lordly kind of ring in it that could never be forgotten; and I got presently my Lord Grey’s voice; and then one with a drawl in it which I had never heard before; and then one that had no special characteristic, but was a little slow. These were the four whom I heard speak, besides Mr. Sheppard once. The conversation I heard was somewhat as follows. I set it all down on my way home.

The Duke said: “I am very pleased indeed that you are come after all, my Lord. We understand by that you have put aside all suspicions; and that is an encouragement.”

The slow voice said; “I would do anything in my power, your Grace, which was not against my conscience, to help on that cause of which you have spoken; but I must confess—”

My Lord Grey said, sharply: “There, there! we understand, and are very glad of it. The thing can be arranged without any treason at all, or any injury to a soul. It is merely a demonstration—no more, upon my honour.”

The drawling voice said: “No more will be needed. His Grace and we two went round everywhere. They are not like soldiers at all; they are remiss in everything.”

The Duke said: “You see, my Lord, it is exactly as I said. God knows we would not injure a soul. I well know your Lordship’s high principles.”

The slow voice said: “Well, your Grace, so long as that is understood—I shall be very happy to hear what the design may be.”

Mr. Sheppard said: “One instant, my Lord—” Then he dropped his voice; and I saw what he was at. I slipped back as quick as I could; drew out the sliver of wood from beneath the other door, and sat down. Then I heard his footstep outside.

When he came in, I was in the chair; but I rose.

“I beg pardon for keeping you, sir,” he said: “there is just that trifle of business, and no more. I am come to keep you company.”

Well; I resigned myself to it with a good air; and we sat and talked there of indifferent matters, or very nearly, for at least half an hour longer. It was highly provoking to me, but it could not be helped—that I should sit there with an affair of real importance proceeding in the next room, and I placed so favourably for the hearing of it. However I had gained something, though at present I did not know how much.

Suddenly Mr. Sheppard stood up; and I heard a door open and voices in the entrance hall.

“You will excuse me, sir, an instant,” he said. “I must see these gentlemen out.”

I bowed to him as I stood up and put myself in such a position that I could get a good look into the hall as he went out; and fortune favoured me, for there in the light of the pair of candles outside I caught a plain sight of the plump and rather solemn face of my Lord Russell. It was only for an instant; but that was enough; and at the same time I heard the drawling voice of someone out of sight, bidding good-night to others within the parlour. Then Mr. Sheppard shut the door behind him, and I sat down again.

Well; I had gained something; and I was beginning to repeat to myself what I had heard, for that is the best way of all to imprint it on the memory; when Mr. Sheppard came in again and invited me to follow him.

“Who was that that spoke?” I said carelessly, “as you went out just now?

I can swear I know the voice.”

He glanced sharply at me.

“That?” he said. “Oh! that must have been Sir Thomas Armstrong who is just gone out.”

The parlour had no more than five men in it when we entered; and one seemed about to take his leave. That one was His Grace of Monmouth. I was a little astonished that they let me see him there, though I understood presently why it was so. He turned to me very friendly, while I was observing the two others I did not know—one of whom, Mr. Ferguson, was dressed as a minister.

“Why, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “you come as I go!”

He recognized me a shade too swiftly. That shewed me that they had been speaking of me to him.

I said something civil; and then I saw that he was to say the piece they had just taught him; for that he was not sharp enough to be trusted long in the room with me.

“I hear you are all consulting,” said he, “how to keep the peace. Well; I have given my counsel; and my Lord Essex here knows what I wish. I would I could stay, gentlemen; but that cannot be done.”

There was a loyal and grateful murmur from the others. Indeed he looked a prince, every inch of him. He took his leave with a superb courtesy, giving his hand to each; and each bowed over it very low. I was not sure but that Mr. Sheppard did not kiss it. For myself, I kissed it outright. While I did so, I could have sworn that Mr. Sheppard said something very swiftly in the ear of my Lord Essex.

Now I was wondering why they had kept me from my Lord Russell. His probity was known well enough; and if they had wished to reassure me they could have done no better than tell me he was one of them; and then, of a sudden I recollected that to reassure me was the very last thing they wished; on the contrary, they wished to hold me tight, betraying only what they wished me to betray, until they were ready for their final stroke. And, just as I had arrived at that, when we were all sat down, my Lord Essex again dumfoundered me.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “I wish to tell you, now we are in private, that my Lord Russell has been here, as well as His Grace and Sir Thomas Armstrong. You can tell from the presence of those three what our chief difficulty will be; for not one of them will hear of even the danger of any injury to His Majesty or the Duke of York. His Grace of Monmouth, of course, had to be consulted on one or two points; and he brought those other two with him to hear what we had to say. Well; I think we have satisfied them; though I fear, later, that they will not approve of our methods. But we did not wish my Lord Russell to see you until we had done talking to him; for fear that he might know something of your disaffection. We have satisfied him—and, what is more important—His Grace too, for the present; and they will not interfere with us.”

Now this speech was an exceedingly ingenious one. Before he had done speaking I understood that Mr. Sheppard had suspected that I had seen my Lord Russell, and that that was why they were so open with me. But the rest of the speech was very shrewd indeed; and I think it might have deceived me, if I had not learned by the conversation that it was His Grace who was trying to reassure my Lord, and no one that was trying to reassure His Grace. But the web was so well woven that for the moment I could not see through it all; though I understood it all presently, when I had had a little time to think. For the instant, however, I saw one safe answer that I could make.

“I am obliged to your Lordship for telling me,” I said, “and I trust from what you have said that it is but a preliminary to a little more information. Your Lordship told me in July that there would be more news for me presently.”

He could not resist a glance at my Lord Grey—as if in triumph at his success.

“That is what we are met for,” he said; and then—”Why, Mr. Mallock, I have not made these other gentlemen known to you.”

They turned out to be—on the right of my Lord, the minister, Mr. Ferguson—he who had been spoken of before as an informant from Bristol; and a Colonel Rumsey—an old Cromwellian like the maltster of Hoddesdon—who sat next to Mr. Ferguson. We saluted one another; and then the affair began.

“Mr. Mallock,” said my Lord, “the first piece of news is a little disappointing. It is that my Lord Shaftesbury is ill. It is not at all grave; but he is confined to his bed; and that throws back some of our designs.”

(I made a proper answer of regret; and considered what was likely to be the truth. At the moment I could not see what this would be.)

“The next piece of news I have, gentlemen,” went on my Lord—(for I think he thought he appeared to be speaking too much at me)—”is that owing to my Lord Shaftesbury’s illness we must relinquish all thoughts of any demonstration in London. That, Mr. Mallock, was what we had hoped to be able to do in a week or two from now. Well; that is impossible. For the rest, Mr. Ferguson had better tell us.”

This gentleman I took to be somewhat of an ass by his appearance and manner; but I am not sure he was not the cleverest liar of them all. He spoke with a strong Scotch accent, and an appearance of shy sheepiness, and therefore with an air too of extraordinary truth. He spoke, too, at great length, as if he were in his pulpit; and my Lord Essex yawned behind his hand once or twice.

Briefly put—Mr. Ferguson’s report was as follows:

The discontent in the West was rising to a climax; and if a much longer delay were made, real danger might follow. It was sadly disconcerting, therefore, to him to hear that there was any hitch in the London designs: for the promise that he had given to some of the leaders in the West (whose names, he said, with an appearance of a stupid boorish kind of cunning, “had best not be said even here”) was that a demonstration should be made simultaneously both here, in the West, and in Scot—

Here he interrupted himself sharply; and I saw that he had made a blunder. But he covered it so admirably, that if I had not previously known that discontent was seething among the Covenanters, I am sure I should have suspected nothing.

“In Scotland,” said he, “we must look for nothing. They are forever promising and not performing—though I say it of my own countrymen. Any demonstration there would surely be a failure.”

It was admirably done; and it was then that I perceived what an actor the man was.

Well; when he had done, we talked over it a while. I professed myself very well satisfied with what I had heard; and I put forward an opinion that it would be far better to delay no longer in the West. A demonstration there might lead to alarm here; troops might be withdrawn here, and relieve the pressure, and thus make possible a further demonstration in London. I spoke, I think, with some eloquence, remembering however that they all looked on me with the same confidence that I had in them—and no more: that is, that they believed me a liar. My observations were received with applause, very well delivered.

It was growing pretty late by the time we had done; yet before we went I had learned one more piece of news, partly through a little trap I laid, and partly through my Lord Essex’s clumsiness.

“Well,” said I, “I must be getting homewards, my Lords. I wish my Lord Shaftesbury had been here. Could I see his Lordship, do you think?—if I were to call at his town house? There is a very particular matter—”

My Lord Essex started a little. He was tired and overanxious, I think, with the continual part that he had to play before me; yet it was the first slip he made.

“My Lord is out of town—” he said. Then he paused. “You could not tell us, I suppose—”

I affected indifference. (Was my Lord out of town, I wondered?)

“Why; it is nothing,” I said.

My Lord exchanged a look with Mr. Sheppard; and made his second mistake.

“I saw my Lord only—last week,” he said suddenly. “He wishes his address to be private for the present; but—

“Do not trouble yourself, my Lord,” I said. “I assure you it has nothing to do with our business here.”

I repeated this, I think, with a good enough manner to persuade them that what I said was true; and presently afterwards took my leave.

As I sat in the wherry that took me back to the Privy Stairs—(I had announced of course, “to the Temple”)—I was preparing in my mind what I should say. I had learned a considerable amount for an evening; for the conversation I had overheard, added to what Mr. Chiffinch had told me, added to what they had all said in the parlour, interpreted and fitted together, was pretty significant.

These were the points I arranged.

First, that the visit of the Duke, my Lord Grey and Sir Thomas Armstrong to Whitehall was to see in what state the guards were in case of a surprise; and the conclusion they had arrived at was they “were not like soldiers at all” but “very remiss.”

Second, that a “demonstration” in London was very imminent.

Third, that they had won over my Lord Russell enough at least to gain the help that his name would give.

Fourth, I was confirmed in what Mr. Chiffinch had told me as to the probability of a rising in Scotland.

Fifth, I was confirmed in my view that the Duke was very deeply involved.

Sixth, it appeared to me exceedingly probable that my Lord Shaftesbury was still in town, though not in his own house: and, all things considered, it was very nearly certain that he was hidden in Wapping. He was, probably also, a little ill, or he would have been at our meeting to-night.

One conclusion then, immediate and pressing, came out of all this; that an assault on Whitehall and an attack on the King’s person was in urgent contemplation.

Then, as we went up under the stars, my waterman and I, one of those moods came upon me which come on all men in such stress as I was; and I appeared to myself, for the time, to be worlds away from all this sedition and passion and fever. The little affairs of men which they thought so great seemed to me in that hour very little and wicked—like the scheming of naughty children, or the quarrels and spites of efts in a muddy pond. In that hour my whole heart grew sick at this miserable murderous pother in the midst of which my duty seemed to lie; and yearned instead to those things that are great indeed—the love of the maid who had promised herself to me, and the Love of God that should make us one. My religion—though I am a little ashamed to confess it—had been very little to me lately: I had heard mass, indeed, usually, on Sundays, in one of the privileged chapels, and had confessed myself at Easter and once since, to one of the Capuchins, and received Communion; yet, for the rest it had largely been blotted out by these hot absorbing affairs in which I found myself. But, in that hour (for the tide was beginning to set against us)—it came back on me like a breeze in a stifling room. I thought of that cleanly passionless life I had led as a novice, and of that no less cleanly, though perhaps less supernatural life, that should one day be mine and Dolly’s—and these politics and these plottings and this listening at doors, and this elaborate lying—all blew off from me like a cloud.

When we were yet twenty yards from the Privy Stairs a wherry shot past us, with no light burning. There was but one passenger in it, whom I knew well enough, though I feigned to see nothing; and once more my sickness came on me, that it was for a King like this, slipping out on some shameful pleasure, that I so toiled and endangered myself.

When I had reported all to Mr. Chiffinch, sitting back weary in my chair, yet knowing that I must go through with the work to which I had set my hand, he remained silent.

“Well?” I said. “Am I wrong in any point?”

“Why no,” he said. “Your information tallies perfectly with all I know, and has increased the sum very much. For example, I had no idea where my Lord Shaftesbury was. I have no doubt whatever, from what you say, that he is in Wapping.”

“Will you send and take him there?” I asked.

“No,” he said shortly. “Leave him alone. We failed last time we took him. And he can do no great harm there. Plainly too, he is at the waterside that he may escape if there is need. I shall set spies there; and no more.”

“What is to be done then? Double the guards again?”

“Why that of course,” said he.

“And what else?” I asked; for I could see that he had not said all.

“A counterstroke,” he said. “But of what kind? You say the rising will be pretty soon.”

“I do not suppose for a week or two at the most. They were decided, I am sure; but no more.”

Suddenly the man slapped his leg; and his eyes grew little with his smile.

“I have it for sure,” he said. “It will be for the seventeenth of November. That is the popular date. Queen Bess and Dangerfield and the rest.”

“But what can you do?”

“Why,” said he, “forbid by proclamation all processions or bonfires on that day. Then they cannot even begin to gather.”

He proved right in every particular. The proclamation was issued, and met their intended assault to the very moment, as we learned afterwards, besides frightening the leaders lest their intention had been discovered: and the next night came one of the spies whom Mr. Chiffinch had sent down to Wapping, to say that my Lord Shaftesbury had slipped away and taken boat for Holland.

CHAPTER IX

Now indeed the fear grew imminent. I had thought that once my Lord Shaftesbury was gone abroad, one of two things would happen—either that the whole movement would collapse, or that the leaders would be arrested forthwith. But Mr. Chiffinch was sharper than I this time; and said No to both.

“No,” said he, sitting like a Judge, with his fingers together, on the morning after my Lord Shaftesbury’s evasion. “The feeling is far too strong to fall away all of a sudden. I dare predict just the contrary, that, now that the coolest of them all is gone—for he dare not come back again—the hot-heads will take the lead; and that means the sharpest peril we have yet encountered. This time they will not stop at a demonstration; indeed I doubt if they could raise one successfully; they will aim direct at the person of the King. It is their only hope left.”

“Then why not take them before they can do any mischief?” I asked.

“First, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “because we have not enough positive evidence—at any rate not enough to hang them all; and next we must catch the small fry—the desperate little ones who will themselves attempt the killing. It is now that I should be ready for a visit from your friend Rumbald, if I were you. They can have no suspicion that you have done anything but betray them in the way they intended: they have a great weapon, they think, in you, to continue carrying false news. Now, Mr. Mallock, is the very time come of which you once spoke to me—the climax, when they will feign to reveal everything to you, and then make their last stroke. You have seen my Lord Essex again?”

“Not a sight of him. I had only a very guarded note, two days ago, but very friendly: saying that the designs were fallen through for the present.”

“Precisely what I have been saying,” observed Mr. Chiffinch. “No, Mr. Mallock, you must not stir from town. I am sorry for your pretty cousin, and Christmas, and the rest: but you see for yourself that we must leave no loophole unguarded. His Majesty must not die out of his bed, if we can help it.”

There, then, I was nailed until more should happen. I dared not ask my cousins to come to town; for God only knew what mischief my Cousin Tom might not play; and I had not eyes on both sides of my head at once. I wrote only to Dolly; and said that once more I was disappointed; but that I would most certainly see her soon, if I had to ride two nights running, from town and back.

I accomplished this, but not until Christmas was well over, and indeed Lent begun. During those weeks, certainly nothing of any importance happened to me, though my Lord Essex kept me in touch with him, and I even was present at one very dismal meeting with him and Mr. Ferguson, when it was deplored, in my presence, that the “demonstration”—as they still called it—of the seventeenth of November had been so adroitly prevented; and my Lord Shaftesbury’s death—which had taken place (chiefly, I think, from disappointment) that very week—was spoken of with a certain relief. I think they were pleased to have matters entirely in their own hands now. However they proposed no immediate action, which more than ever persuaded me that this was what they intended. Yet the days went by: and no more news came, either from them or from Mr. Chiffinch—so I took affairs into my own hands, and one night, before the gates of the City were shut went down to Hare Street with a couple of men, leaving James at home, for I could trust him better than any other man.

Now I need not relate all that passed at Hare Street; for every lover knows how sweet was that day to me. I had seen her not at all for more than a year—(one year of those three that were to pass!)—and though we had written often to one another, whenever we could get a letter taken, yet the letters had done no more than increase my thirst. I think she was dearer to me than ever; she was a shade paler and more grave, and I knew what it was that had made her so, for I had told her very plainly indeed that I was in peril and that she must pray much for me. My Cousin Tom was friendly enough, though I saw he was no more reconciled in his heart to our affair than he had been at the beginning; but I guessed nothing whatever of what he was contemplating. (However perhaps he was not contemplating it then, for he did not attempt it till much later.) Yet he was pretty reasonable, and interrupted us no more than was necessary; so we had that day to ourselves, until night fell, and I must ride again. I was so weary that night, though refreshed in my spirit, that I think I drowsed a little on my horse, and thought that I stood again at the gate of the yard with Dolly, bareheaded in spite of the cold, holding the lantern to help us to mount.

I was still brooding all the way up Fleet Street, and even to my own door; until I saw James standing there; and at the sight of him I knew that something was fallen out.

I said nothing, but nodded at him only, as a master may, but he understood that he was to follow upstairs. There, in my chamber I faced him.

“Well?” said I. “What is it?”

“Sir,” he said, “a fellow came last night and seemed much put out when I told him you were out of town.”

“What sort of a fellow was he?” said I.

“He was a clean-shaven man, sir, rather red in the face, with reddish hair turning grey on his temples.”

“Heavily built?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well; what did he say?”

“He said that you would know what affair he was come about—that it was very urgent; and that he could not stay in town beyond noon to-day. He said, sir, that he was to be found till then at the Mitre without Aldgate.”

Well; that was enough for me. But I did not relish the prospect of no sleep again; for I cannot trust my wits when I have not slept my seven or eight hours. But there was no help for it.

“James,” said I, “bring my morning up here at once, with some meat too. I may not be able to dine to-day, or not till late. When you have brought it I shall have a letter ready, for Mr. Chiffinch. That you must take yourself. Then return here, and pack a pair of valises, with a suit in them for yourself. Have two horses ready at eleven o’clock: you must come with me, and no one else. I do not know how long we may be away. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. I must get some sleep if I can before eleven.”

Then a thought came to me. If Rumbald must be gone from town by noon, would he not likely want me to go with him?

“Wait,” I said. “I do not know this man very well; but I will tell you that his name is Rumbald and that he lives at the Rye, near Hoddesdon. You had best not come with me. But do all else as I have said; but you must ride by yourself at eleven, to Hoddesdon; and put up at the inn there—I forget its name, but the largest there, if there be more than one. Remain there until you hear from me again: I may want a courier. Do not go a hundred yards from the inn on any account; and do not seem to know me, unless I speak to you first. You may see me, or you may not. I know nothing till I have seen Rumbald. If you do not hear of me before ten o’clock to-night, you can go to bed, and return here in the morning. I will communicate with you by to-morrow night at latest. If I do not, go to Mr. Chiffinch yourself and tell him.”

My mind was working at that swift feverish speed which weariness sometimes will give. I was amazed afterwards at my own foresight, for there was very little evidence of what was intended; and yet there had come upon me, as in an illumination, that the time for which we had waited so long was arrived at last. I do not see how I could have guessed more than I did; neither do I now see how I guessed so much.

My letter to Mr. Chiffinch was not long. It ran as follows:

“Rumbald hath been to see me; and bids me be with him, if I can, by noon to-day at the Mitre, without Aldgate. I know no more than that; but I am making ready to go down with him to the Rye at Hoddesdon, if he should want me there. I think that something is intended, if we are right in our conjectures. I shall have my man at the inn in Hoddesdon. You must send no one else for fear of alarming them, unless my man comes to you to-morrow to tell you that he does not know where I am. Is His Majesty still at Newmarket? If so, when does he purpose to return? Which road will he come by? Send an answer back by my man who bears this.

“R.M.”

Well; that was all that I could do. I gave the letter to James; telling him not to awaken me with the answer till he came at eleven o’clock; and after eating a good meal, I went to my bed and fell sound asleep; and it seemed scarcely five minutes, before James came knocking, with Mr. Chiffinch’s answer. I sat up on my bed and read it—my mind still swimming with sleep.

“Prospere procede!” it ran. “I will observe all that you say. The King and His Royal Highness are together at Newmarket. They purpose to return on a Saturday, as the King usually does; but he hath not yet sent to say whether it will be to-morrow, the 18th or the 25th. I shall hear by night, no doubt. Neither do I know the road by which they may come.”

I read it through twice; then I tore it into fragments and gave them to

James.

“Burn all these,” I said. “Are the horses ready?”

“Yes, sir,” said James.

Undoubtedly my sleep had refreshed me; for by the time that I rode up to the Mitre without Aldgate, I was awake with a kind of clear-headedness that astonished me. It appeared to me that I had thought out every contingency. I had with me a little valise, ready for the country, if need be; yet I could return to my lodgings without remark. James was already on his way to Hoddesdon, and would be there if I needed him. No harm was done if my conjectures were at fault; I had left no loophole that I could see, if they were not. It was with a tolerably contented heart, in spite of the dangers I foresaw—(for I think these gave spice to my adventure)—that I rode up to the Mitre, and saw Mr. Rumbald himself standing astraddle in the doorway.

I must confess however that the sight of him gave me a little check. He appeared to me more truculent than I had ever seen him. He had his hands behind him, with a great whip in them; he hardly smiled to me, but nodded only, fixing his fierce eyes on my face. He had, more than I had ever noticed it before, that hard fanatic look of the Puritan. After all, I reflected, this maltster had commanded a troop under Cromwell at Naseby. His manner was very different from when I had last seen him; he appeared to me as if desperate.

However, I think I shewed nothing of what I felt. I saluted him easily, and swung myself off my horse. He had gone into the house at my approach; and I followed him straight through into a little parlour to which, it seemed, he had particular access, for he turned a key in the door as he went in. When I was in, after him, and the door was shut, he turned to me, with a very stern look.

“Well, Mr. Mallock?” he said. “I see you are come ready for a ride.”

“Yes,” I said. “I had your message.”

He nodded. Then he came a little closer, looking at me with his fierce eyes.

“You understand what is forward?”

“I understand enough,” said I.

“That is very good then. We will ride at once.”

As we came out, a couple of men—one of them I noticed in particular, dressed as a workman—(I set him down for a carpenter or some such thing)—made as though they would speak to us; but Rumbald waved his hand at them sharply, as if to hold them off. I could see that he was displeased. I said nothing, but I marked the man closely: he was a little fellow, that looked ill. Mr. Rumbald’s horse was already there; and mine was being held still by the ostler into whose hands I had given him. We mounted without another word; and rode away.

I think we did not speak one word at all till we were out from town. Such was his mood, and such therefore I imitated. He rode like a soldier, sitting easily and squarely in his saddle; and the more I observed him and thought of him, the less I liked my business. It was wonderful how some emotion had driven up the power that lay in him. All that genial hail-fellow manner was gone completely.

When we were clear of town he spoke at last.

“This is a very grave business, sir,” he said. “We had best not speak of it till we are home. Have you no servants?”

He spoke so naturally of my servants that I saw he was astonished I had none. I had very little time to think what I should answer; it appeared to me that I had best be open.

“Yes,” I said. “My man is gone on to Hoddesdon to await me there. I thought it was best he should not ride with us.”

He looked at me with a peculiar expression that I could not understand; but only for an instant. Then he nodded, and turned his stern face again over his horse’s ears.

My moods were very various as I rode on. Now I felt as a sheep being led to the slaughter; now as an adventurer on a quest; and, again, of a sudden there would sweep over me a great anxiety as to His Majesty’s safety. The thought of Dolly, too, came upon me continually and affected me now in this way, now in that. Now I longed to be free and safe back at Hare Street; now I knew that I could never look her in the face again if I evaded my plain duty. One thing I can say, however, from my heart, and that is that never for an instant did I seriously consider any evasion. It was all in the course that I had chosen—to “serve the King.” Well; I must do so now, wherever it led me. What, however, greatly added to the horror of my position was that I knew that this strong fellow at my side thought me to be a traitor to himself and was using that knowledge only for his own ends. He would surely be ruthless if he found I had served my turn; and here was I, riding to his house, and only two men in the world knew whither I was gone.

Rumbald had already dined; and thought not at all of me. We drew rein therefore, nowhere; but rode straight on, through village and country alike—now ambling for a little, once or twice cantering, and then walking again when the way had holes in it. So we passed through Totteridge and Barnet and Enfield Chase and Wood Green, and came at last to Broxbourne where the roads forked, and we turned down to the right. It was terrible that ride—all in silence; once or twice I had attempted a general observation; but he answered so shortly that I tried no more; and I am not ashamed to say that I committed myself again and again to the tuition of Our Lady of Good Counsel whose picture I had venerated in Rome. Indeed, it was counsel that I needed.

I did not know precisely where was the Rye, nor what it was like; for I had avoided the place, of design. I supposed it only a little place, perhaps in a village. I was a trifle disconcerted therefore when, as we crossed the Lea by a wooden bridge, he pointed with his whip, in silence, to a very solid-looking house that even had battlemented roofs—not two hundred yards away, to the left of the road. There was no other building that I could see, except the roofs of an outhouse or two, and suchlike. However, I nodded, and said nothing. No words were best: in silence we rode on over the bridge, and beyond; and in silence we turned in through a gateway, and up to the house, crossing a moat as we went.

Indeed, now I was astonished more than ever at the house. It was liker a castle. There was an arched entrance, very solid, all of brick, with the teeth even of a portcullis shewing. An old man came out of a door on our right, as our hoofs rang out; but he made no sign or salute; he took our horses’ heads as we dismounted, and I heard him presently leading them away.

Still without speaking, the Colonel led me through the little guard-room on the right, hung round with old weapons of the Civil War, and up a staircase at the further end. At the head of the staircase a door was open on the right, and I saw a bed within; but we went up a couple more steps on the left, and came out into the principal living-room of the house.

It was a very good chamber, this, panelled about eight feet up the walls, with the bricks shewing above, but whitewashed. A hearth was on the right; a couple of windows in the wall opposite, and another door beyond the hearth. The furniture was very plain but very good: a great table stood under the windows with three or four chairs about it. The walls seemed immensely strong and well-built; and, though the place could not stand out for above an hour or two against guns, in the old days it could have faced a little siege of men-at-arms, very well.

Rumbald, when he had seen me shut the door behind me, went across to the table and put down his whip upon it.

“Sit down, sir,” he said. “Here is my little stronghold.”

He said it with a grim kind of geniality, at which I did not know whether to be encouraged or not: I did as he told me, and looked about me with as easy an air as I could muster.

“A little stronghold indeed,” I said.

He paid no attention.

“Now, sir,” he said, “we have not very much time. Supper will be up in half in hour; we had best have our talk first, and then you may send for your servant. Old Alick will find him out.”

“With all my heart,” I said, wondering that he made so much of my servant.

He sat down suddenly, and looked at me very heavily and penetratingly.

“Sir,” he said, “you are going to hear the truth at last, I said we had not much time. Well; we have not.”

“Then let me have the truth quickly,” I said.

He took his eyes from my face. I was glad of that; as I did not greatly like his regard. What, thought I, if I be alone with a madman?

“Well, sir,” he said, “we are driven desperate, as you may have guessed. I say, we; for you have identified yourself with our cause a hundred times over. My Lord Shaftesbury is gone; my Lord Essex is hanging back. Well; but those are not all. We have other men besides those that have been urged on and urged on, and now cannot be restrained. I have tried to restrain them myself”—(here he gulped in his throat: lying was not very easy to this man, I think)—”and I have failed. Well, sir, I must trust you more than I have ever trusted you before.”

Again he stopped.

Then all came out with a rush.

“Not half a mile from here,” said he, “along the Newmarket road there be twenty men, with blunderbusses and other arms, waiting for His Majesty and the Duke, who will come to-morrow.”

“But how do you know?” cried I—all bewildered for the instant.

His head shook with passion.

“Listen,” said he. “We have had certain information that they come this way—Why, do you think we have not—” (again he broke off; but I knew well enough what he would have said!) “I tell you we know it. The King is not lying at Royston, to-night. He comes by this road to-morrow. Now then, sir—what do you say to that?”

My mind was still all in a whirl. I had looked for sudden danger, but not so sudden as this. Half a dozen questions flashed before me. I put the first into words:

“Why have you told me?” I cried.

His face contracted suddenly. (It was growing very dark by now, and we had no candles. The muscles of his face stood out like cords.)

“Not so loud!” said he; and then: “Well, are you not one of us? You are pledged very deeply, sir; I tell you.”

Then came the blessed relief. For the first moment, so genuine appeared his passion, I had believed him; and that the ambushment was there, as he had said. Then, like a train of gunpowder, light ran along my mind and I understood that it was the same game still that they were playing with me; that there was no ambushment ready; that they had indeed fixed upon this journey of the King’s; but that they were unprepared and desired delay. His anxiety about my servant; his evident displeasure and impatience; his sending for me at all when he must have known over and over again that I was not of his party—each detail fitted in like a puzzle. And yet I must not shew a sign of it!

I hid my face in my hands for a moment, to think what I could answer.

Then I looked up.

“Mr. Rumbald,” said I, “you are right. I am too deeply pledged. Tell me what I am to do. It is sink or swim with me now.”

He believed, of course, that I was lying; and so I was, but not as he thought. He believed that he had gained his point; and the relief of that thought melted him. He believed, that is, that I should presently make an excuse to get hold of my servant and send him off to delay the King’s coming. Then, I suppose, he saw the one flaw in his design; and he strove, very pitifully, to put it right.

“One more thing, Mr. Mallock,” said he, “this is not the only party that waits for him. There is another on the Royston road, among the downs near Barkway. They will catch him whichever way he comes.”

I nodded.

“I had supposed so,” I said; for I did not wish to confuse him further.

“Well,” said he, “why I have sent for you is that you may help me here. There may be more guards with the King than we think for. It may come to a fight; and even a siege here—if they come this way. We must be ready to defend this place for a little.”

It was, indeed, pitiful to see how poor he was as an actor. His sternness was all gone, or very nearly: he babbled freely and drunkenly—walking up and down the chamber, like a restless beast. He told me point after point that he need not—even their very code—how “swan-quills” and “goose-quills” and “crow-quills” stood for blunderbusses and muskets and pistols; and “sand and ink” for powder and balls. It was, as I say, pitiful to see him, now that his anxiety was over, and he had me, as he thought, in his toils. It was a very strange nature that he had altogether;—this old Cromwellian and Puritan—and I am not sure to this day whether he were not in good faith in his murderous designs. I thought of these things, even at this moment; and wondered what he would do if he knew the truth.

At supper he fell silent again, and even morose; and I think it possible he may have had some suspicions of me; for he suspected everyone, I think. But he brightened wonderfully when I said with a very innocent air that I would like my servant to be fetched, and that I would give him his instructions and send him back to London, for that I did not wish to embroil him in this matter.

“Why, certainly, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “it is what I wish. I trust you utterly, as you see. You shall see him where you will.”

He turned to his old man who came in at that instant, and bade him fetch Mr. Mallock’s servant from Hoddesdon. I described him to Alick, and scribbled a note that would bring him. Then we fell to the same kind of talking again.

It was eight o’clock, pretty well, by the time that James came to the Rye. I had determined to see him out of doors where none could hear us; and before eight I was walking up and down in the dark between the gate and the house, talking to my host. When the two men came through the gate, Rumbald was very particular to leave me immediately, that I might, as he thought, send my man to Newmarket to put off the King’s coming; and have no interruption.

“I will leave you,” said he. “You shall see how much I trust you.”

I waited till he was gone in and the door shut. Then I took James apart into a little walled garden that I had noticed as I came in, where we could not by any chance be overheard. Even then too I spoke in a very small whisper.

“James,” said I, “go back to Hoddesdon; and get a fresh horse. Leave all luggage behind and ride as light as you can, for you must go straight to Newmarket; and be there before six o’clock, at any cost. Go straight to the King’s lodgings, and ask for any of Mr. Chiffinch’s men that are there, whom you know. Do you know of any who are there?”

“Yes, sir,” whispered James; and he named one.

“Very good. With him you must go straight to His Majesty; and have him awakened if need be. Tell him that you come from me—Mr. Chiffinch’s men will support you in that. Tell His Majesty that if he values his life he must return to town to-morrow—and not sleep anywhere on the way: and that the Duke of York must come with him. Tell him that there is no fear whatever if he comes at once; but that there is every fear if he delays. He had best come, too, by this road and not by Royston. You understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I shall remain here until to-morrow night at the earliest. If I am not at home by Sunday night, go to Mr. Chiffinch, as I told you this morning. Is all clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then go at once. Spare no horses or expense. Good-night, James.”

“Good-night, sir.”

I watched him out of the gate. Then I turned and went back to the house.

CHAPTER X

It was a strange night and day that followed. On the one side my host found it hard, I think, to maintain the story he had told me, in action; for, in accordance with his tale, he had to bear himself as though he expected before nightfall the assassination of the King and His Royal Highness half a mile away, and the rush of the murderers to his house for shelter. On my side, it was scarcely less hard, for I knew nothing of how my man James had fared, or whether or no His Majesty would act upon my message. I guessed, however, that he would, if only my man got there; for Chiffinch’s men (who now followed him everywhere) would be as eager as I that no danger should come to him.

My plans therefore were more secure than Rumbald’s; since I knew, either that His Majesty would come, and no harm done, or that, merely, he would not come. In the latter case Rumbald would be certified that I had done as he thought I would; and would, no doubt, let me go peacefully, to use me again later in the same manner, if occasion rose. For myself, then, I intended after nightfall at the latest to ride back to London and report all that had passed; and, if the King had not come, to lay all in Mr. Chiffinch’s hands for his further protection.

I was left a good deal to myself during the morning—Mr. Rumbald’s powers of dissimulation being, I think, less than his desire for them; and I did not quarrel with that. I was very restless myself, and spent a good deal of time in examining the house and the old arms, used no doubt, forty years ago in the Civil War, that were hung up everywhere. Within, as well as without, it was liker an arsenal or a barracks, than a dwelling-house. Its lonely situation too, and its strength, made it a very suitable place for such a design as that which its owner had for it. The great chamber, at the head of the stairs, and over the archway, where we had our food, was no doubt the room where the conspirators had held their meetings.

A little before eleven o’clock, as I was walking in the open space between the house and the gate, I saw a fellow look in suddenly from the road, and then was away again. Every movement perturbed me, as may be imagined in such suspense; yet anything was better than ignorance, and I called out to let him see that I had observed him. So he came forward again; and I saw him to be the little carpenter, or what not, that had wished to speak to Rumbald yesterday at the inn.

He saluted me very properly.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but is Mr. Rumbald within?”

Now I had seen Mr. Rumbald, not ten minutes ago, slip back into the house from the outhouses where he had pretended to go upon some preparation or other for the reception of the assassins this evening; but he had not known that I saw him.

“He is very busy at present,” said I. “Cannot I do your business for you?”

(I tried to look as if I knew more than I did.)

“Why, sir,” he said, “I think not.”

He seemed, I thought, in a very pitiable state. (I learned some months later that he was come down expressly to dissuade Rumbald from any attempt at that time; but I did not know that then.) Here, only, thought I, is one of the chicken-hearted ones. I determined to play upon his fears, if I could, and at the same time, perhaps, upon his hopes.

“I think I can, however,” I said. “You would be out of the business, if you could, would you not?”

He turned so white that I thought he would have fallen. I saw that my shot had told; but it was not a hard one to make.

“Hold up, man,” I said. “Why, what do you suppose I am here for?”

“What business, sir?” he said. “I do not know what you mean.”

I smiled; so that he could see me do it.

“Very good, then,” I said. “I will leave you to Mr. Rumbald;” and I made as if I would pass on.

“Sir,” he said, “can you give me any assurance?… I am terrified.” And indeed he looked it; so I supposed that he thought that the attempt was indeed to be made to-day. I determined on a bold stroke.

“My man!” I said. “If you will tell me your name, and then begone at once, back to town, I will tell you something that will be of service to you. If not—” and I broke off.

He looked at me piteously. I think my air frightened him. He drew back a little from the house, though we were in a place where we could not be seen from the windows.

“My name is Keeling, sir. You will not betray me? What is it, sir?”

“Well,” said I, “I can give you an assurance that what you fear will not take place. There is not a man here beyond myself and Mr. Rumbald and old Alick. Now begone at once. Stay; where do you live?”

He shook his head. A little colour had come back to his face again at the news.

“No, sir; that was not in the bargain. I will begone, sir, as you said; and thank you, sir.”

He slipped back again very quickly, and was vanished. I suppose that he had ridden down in some cart all night, and that he went back in the same way, for I saw no more of him.

Well; I had gained two little points—I had kept him from Mr. Rumbald, which was one—(for I did not want my host to consult with any if I could help it)—and I had learned what perhaps was his name. This, however, I would test for myself presently.

At noon we dined; and having observed no difference in my host’s manner, that might shew that he had any idea I had met with anyone, I made two remarks.

“I talked with a fellow at the gate this morning,” I said; “he seemed to know nothing of the King’s coming.”

Rumbald jerked his head impatiently; and I perceived that we had not been seen. Presently I said:

“Who was that pale-looking fellow who wished to speak with you yesterday, Mr. Rumbald, at the Mitre?”

He looked sharply at me for an instant.

“His name is Thompson,” said he. “He is one of my malting-men.”

Then I knew that he had lied. A man does not invent the name of Keeling, but very easily the name of Thompson. So I saw that Rumbald had not yet lost all discretion; and indeed, for all his talk, he had hardly spoken a name that I could get hold of.

After a while I ventured on another sentence which suited my purpose, and at the same time confirmed him in his own view.

“If by any chance His Majesty should not come to-day—will it be done, do you think, to-morrow? Shall you wait till he does come?”

He shook his head and lied again very promptly.

“If it is not done to-day, it will never be done.”

Looking back on the affair now, I truly do wonder at the adroitness with which we both talked. There was scarcely a slip on either side, though we were at cross-purposes if ever men were. But I suppose that in both of us there was a very great tension of mind—as of men walking on the edge of a precipice; and it was the knowledge of that which saved us both. After dinner I said I would walk again out of doors; and he thought it was mere affectation, since I must know by now that His Majesty was not coming.

“Well,” I said, “if by any mischance His Majesty doth not come to-day, I will get back to town.”

He looked at me; but he kept any kind of irony out of his face.

“You had best do that,” he said.

Now it must have been forty miles from Newmarket to the Rye; and I had calculated that His Majesty would not start till nine o’clock at the earliest. He would have four horses and would change them at least three times; but they would not be able to go out of a trot for most of the way, so that I need not look for any news of him till three o’clock at the earliest. From then till five o’clock would be the time. If he were not come by five, or at the very latest half-past, I should know that my design had miscarried.

It is very difficult for me to describe at all the state I was in—all the more as I dared not shew it. It was not merely that my Sovereign was at stake, but a great deal more than that. My religion too was in some peril, for if, by any mischance things should not go as I expected; if, as certainly occurred to my mind as one possibility in ten, I had completely mistaken Rumbald, and he had spoken the truth for once—it was not the King only who would perish, but the Catholic heir also, and then good-bye to all our hopes. Yet, I declare that even this did not affect me so much as the thought that it was the man whom I had learned to love that was in peril—to love, in spite of his selfishness and his indolence and his sins. It was all but an intolerable thought to me that that melancholy fiery man who had so scolded me—whom, to tell the truth, I had scolded back—that this man might, even in imagination, be mixed up with the horror of the firing of guns and the plunging of the wounded horses—should himself be shot at and murdered, there in the lonely Hertfordshire lane.

At about three o’clock I could bear it no more. God knows how many prayers I had said; for I think I prayed all the time, as even careless men will do at such crises. There was the grim house behind me, the leafless trees overhead, the lane stretching up northwards beyond the gate. All was very silent, except for the barking of a dog now and again. It was a very solitary place—the very place for a murder; there were no meadows near us, where men might be working, but only the deep woods. It was a clearish kind of day, with clouds in the west.

At about three o’clock then I went to the stables to see my horse. These were behind the house. There was no one about, and no other horse in the stables but Rumbald’s own black mare that had carried him yesterday.

It came to me as I looked at my horse that no harm would be done if I put the saddle on him. Rumbald would but think me a little foolish for so confessing in action that I knew the King would not come; and for myself it would be some relief to my feelings to know that if by any mischance I did hear the sound of shots, I could at least ride up and do my best, though I knew it would be too late.

I saddled my horse then, and put on the bridle, as quickly as I could. Then, again, I thought there would be no harm done if I led him out to the gate and fastened him there. I looked out of the stable door, but there was no one in sight. So I led my horse out, as quietly as I could, yet openly, and brought him round past the front of the house and so towards the gate. I thought nothing of my valise; for at that time I intended no more than what I had said. I was uneasy, and had no determined plans. I would tell Rumbald, if he came out, that I was but holding myself ready to ride out if I were needed.

Then, as I came past the front of the house, I heard, very distinctly in the still air, the tramp of horses far away on the hill to the north; and I knew enough of that sound to tell me that there were at least eight or nine coming, and coming fast.

Now it might have been the coach of anyone coming that way. The races were at Newmarket, and plenty went to and fro, though it is true that none had come this way all day. Yet at that sound my heart leapt up, both in excitement and terror. What if I had made any mistake, and enticed the King to his death? Well, it would be my death too—but I swear I did not think of that! All I know is that I broke into a run, and the horse into a trot after me; and as I reached the gate heard Rumbald run out of the house behind me.

I paid him no attention at all, though I heard his breathing at my shoulder. I was listening for the tramp and rattle of the hoofs again, for the sound had died away in a hollow of the road I suppose. Then again they rang out; and I thought they must be coming very near the place he had told me of; and I turned and looked at him; but I think he did not see me. He too was staring out, his face gone pale under its ruddiness, listening for what very well might be the end of all his hopes.

Then the distant hoofs grew muffled once more, though not altogether; and, at that, Rumbald ran out into the road as he was, bareheaded; and I saw that he carried a cleaver in his hand, caught up, I suppose, at random; for it was of no use to him.

Then, loud and clear not a hundred yards away I heard the rattle and roar of a coach coming down the hill and the tramp of the hoofs.

“Back, you fool,” I screamed, “back!” for I dared not pull my horse out into the road. “Throw it away!”

He turned on me with the face of a devil. Though he must have seen the liveries and the guardsmen from where he stood, I think not even yet did he take in how he had been deceived; but that he began to suspect it, I have no doubt.

He came back at my cry, as if unwillingly, and stood by my side; but never a word did he say: and together we waited.

Then, past the gate on the left, over the hedge, I caught a flash of colour, and another, come and gone again; and then the gleam of a coach-roof; and, though I had no certainty from my senses, I was as sure it was the King, as if I had seen him.

So we waited still. I drew up in my hands my horse’s bridle, not knowing what I did, and moved round to where I could mount, if there were any road; and, as I did it, past the gate, full in view there swept at a gallop, first three guards riding abreast, a brave blaze of colour in the dusky lane; then the four grey horses, with their postilions cracking their whips; then the coach; and, as this passed, as plain as a picture I saw the King lean forward and look—his great hat and periwig thrust forward—and behind him another man. Then the coach was gone; and two more guards flew by and were gone too.

I lost my head completely for the single time, I think, in all this affair; now that I knew that the King was safe. There, standing where I was, I lifted my hat, and shouted with my full voice:

“God save the King!”

I turned as I shouted; and, as the last word left my lips, I saw Rumbald, his face afire with anger, coming at me, round my horse from behind, with the cleaver upraised. If he had not been near mad with disappointment, he would have struck at my horse; but he was too intent on me for that.

I leapt forward, for I had no time to do anything else, dragging my horse’s haunches forward again and round; and with the next movement I was across my saddle, all-asprawl, as my horse started and plunged. I was ten yards away before the man could do anything, and struggling to my seat; but, as I rose and gripped the reins, something flew over my head, scarce missing it by six inches; and I saw the blade of the cleaver flash into the ditch beyond.

At that, I turned and lifted my hat, reining in my horse; for I was as mad with success as the other man with failure.

“God save the King!” I cried again. “Ah! Mr. Rumbald, if only you had learned to speak the truth!”

Then I put in my spurs and was gone, hearing before me, the hollow tramp and rumble of the great coach in front, as the King’s party went across the bridge.

CHAPTER XI

It was three months later that I sat once more, though not for the first time since my adventure at the Rye in Mr. Chiffinch’s parlour.

Of those three months I need not say very much; especially of the beginning of them, since I received then, I think, more compliments than ever in my life before. My interviews had been very many; not with Mr. Chiffinch only, but with two other personages whose lives, they were pleased to say, I had saved.

His Majesty had laughed very heartily indeed at the tale of my adventures.

“Odds-fish!” said he. “We had all been done, but for you, Mr. Mallock. It was three or four days after, at the least, that I had intended returning; and by that time, no doubt, our friends would have had their ambushment complete. But when your man came, all a-sweat, into my very bed-chamber, telling me to fly for my life—well; there was no more to be said. There was a fire too at my lodgings that same morning;—and poor Sir Christopher’s low ceilings all ruined with the smoke—but that would not have brought me, though I suppose we must give out that it did. No; Mr. Mallock, ‘twas you, and no other. Odds-fish! I did not think I had such an accomplished liar in my service!”

His Royal Highness, too, was no less gracious; though he talked in a very different fashion.

To him there was no humour in the matter at all; ‘twas all God’s Providence; and I am not sure but that he was not more right than his brother; though indeed there are always two sides to a thing. His talk was less of myself, and more of the interests I had served; and there too he was right; for, as I have said, if there had been any mistake in the matter, good-bye to Catholic hopes.

My first interview with Mr. Chiffinch astonished me most. When he had finished paying compliments, I began on business.

“You will hardly catch Rumbald,” said I, “unless you take him pretty soon. He too will be off to Holland, I think.”

He shook his head, smiling.

“I am sorry not to be able to give you vengeance for that cleaver-throwing; but you must wait awhile.”

“Wait?” cried I.

“What single name do you know besides that of Rumbald, which was certainly involved in this affair? Why, Mr. Mallock, you yourself have told me that he observed discretion so far; and did not name a single man.”

“Well; there is Keeling,” I said.

“And what is Keeling?” he asked with some contempt. “A maltster, and a carpenter: a fine bag of assassins! And how can you prove anything but treasonable talk? Where were the ‘swan-quills’ and the ‘sand and the ink’? Did you set eyes on any of them?”

I was silent.

“No, no, Mr. Mallock; we must wait awhile. I have even talked to Jeffreys, and he says the same. We must lime more birds before we pull our twig down. Now, if you could lay your hand on Keeling!”

He was right: I saw that well enough.

“And meantime,” said I, smiling, “I must go in peril of my life. They surely know now what part I have played?”

“They must be fools if they do not. But there will be no more cleaver-throwing for the present, if you take but reasonable care. Meanwhile, you may go to Hare Street, if you will; though I cannot say I should advise it. And I will look for Keeling.”

Well; I did not take his advice. That was too much to expect. I went to Hare Street in April and remained there a couple of months; but I do not propose to discourse on that beyond saying that I was very well satisfied, and even with Cousin Tom himself, who appeared to me more resigned to have me as a son-in-law. To neither of them could I say a word of what had passed, except to tell Dolly that my peril was over for the present, and to thank her for her prayers. During those two months I had no word of Rumbald at all; and I suspect that he lay very quiet, knowing, after all, how little I knew. If he went to Holland, he certainly came back again. Then, in June, once more a man came from Mr. Chiffinch, to call me to town. So here I sat once more, with the birds singing their vespers, in the Privy Garden, a hundred yards away, and the river flowing without the windows, as if no blood had ever flowed with it.

“Well,” said Chiffinch, when I was down in a chair, “the first news is that we have found Keeling. You were right, or very nearly. He is a joiner, and lives in the City. He hath been to the Secretary of the Council, and will go to him again to-morrow.”

“How was that done?” I asked.

“Why, I sent a couple of men to him,” said the page, “when we had marked him down; who so worked on his fears that he went straight to my Lord Dartmouth; and my Lord Dartmouth carried him to Sir Leoline Jenkins. The Secretary very properly remarked that he was but one witness; and Keeling went away again, to see if he can find another. Well; the tale is that he hath found another—his own brother—and that both will go again to the Secretary to-morrow. So I thought it best that you should see him first here, to-night, to identify him for certain.”

“That is very good,” I said. “But, Mr. Chaffinch, if I appear too publicly in this matter, I shall be of very little service to the King hereafter.”

“I know that very well,” said the page. “And you shall not appear publicly at all, neither shall your name. Indeed, the King hath a little more business for you at last, in France; and you will wish perhaps to go to Rome. So the best thing that you can do, when we have seen that all is in order, is to wait no longer, but be off, and for a good while too. Your life may be in some peril for the very particular part that you played, for though we shall catch, I think, all the principal men in the affair, we shall not catch all the underlings; and even a joiner or a scavenger for that matter, if he be angry enough, is enough to let the life out of a man. And we cannot spare you yet, Mr. Mallock.”

This seemed to me both reasonable and thoughtful; and it was not altogether a surprise to me. Indeed I had prepared Dolly for a long absence, thinking that I might go to Rome again, as I had not been there for a long while. Besides, waiting in England for the time laid down by Tom and agreed to by both of us, would make that time come no swifter; and, if there were work to be done, I had best do it, before I had a wife to engage my attention.

But I sighed a little.

“Well,” said I; “and where is Keeling?”

“I have been expecting him this last ten minutes,” said he.

Even as he spoke, a knock came upon the door. The page cried to come in; and there entered, first a servant holding the door, and then the little joiner himself, flushed in his face, I supposed with the excitement. He was dressed in his Sunday clothes, rather ill-fitting. He did not know me, I think, for he made no movement of surprise. I caught Mr. Chiffinch’s look of inquiry, and nodded very slightly.

“Well, sir,” began the page in a very severe tone, “so you have made up your mind to evade the charge of misprision of treason—that, at the least!”

“Yes, sir,” said the man in a very timid way. (He must have heard that phrase pretty often lately.)

“Well; and you have found your other witness?”

“Yes, sir; my own brother, sir.”

“Ah! Was he too in this detestable affair?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then; how do you bring him in?”

“Sir,” said the man, seeming to recover himself a little, “I put my brother in a secret place; and then caused him to overhear a conversation between myself and another.”

“Very pretty! very pretty!” cried the page. “And who was this other?”

“Sir; it was a Mr. Goodenough—under-sheriff once of—”

I could not restrain a start; for I had not thought Mr. Goodenough, the friend of my Lord Essex, to be so deep in the affair as this. Keeling saw me start, I suppose; for he looked at me, and himself showed sudden agitation.

“Good evening, Keeling,” said I. “We have had a little conversation once before.”

“Oh! for God’s sake, gentlemen! for God’s sake! I am already within an inch of my life.”

“I know you are,” said Mr. Chiffinch severely, “and you will be nearer even than that, if you do not speak the whole truth.”

“Sir; it is not that I mean,” cried the man, in a very panic of terror.

“Rumbald hath been—”

“Eh? What is that?” said Mr. Chiffinch.

“Rumbald, sir, the old Colonel, of the Rye—”

“God, man! We know all about Rumbald,” said the page contemptuously.

“What hath he been at now?”

“Sir; he and some of the others caught me but yesterday. They had heard some tale of my having been to Mr. Secretary, and—”

“And you swore you had not, I suppose,” snarled the other.

“Sir; what could I do? Rumbald was all for despatching me then and there. They caught me at Wapping. I prayed them for God’s love not to believe such things: I entreated: I wept—”

“I’ll be bound you did,” said Mr. Chiffinch. “Well? And what then?”

“Sir! they let me go again.”

“They did? The damned fools!” cried Chiffinch.

I was astonished at his vehemence. But, like his master, if there was one thing that the page could not bear, it was a fool. I made him a little sign.

“Keeling,” said I, “you remember me well enough. Well; I need not say that we know pretty near everything that there is to know. But we must have it from you, too. Tell us both now, as near as you can recollect, every name to which you can speak with certainty. Remember, we want no lies. We had enough of them a while back in another plot.” (I could not resist that; though Mr. Chiffinch snapped his lips together.) “Well, now, take your time. No, do not speak. Consider yourself carefully.”

It was, indeed, a miserable sight to see this poor wretch so hemmed in. The sweet evening light fell full upon his terrified eyes and his working lips, as he sought to gather up the names. He was persuaded, I am sure, that we were as gods, knowing all things—above all, he feared myself, as I could see, having met me first at the very house of Rumbald, as if I were his friend, and now again in the chamber of his accuser. It was piteous to see how he sought to be very exact in his memories, and not go by a hair’s breadth beyond the truth.

At last I let him speak.

“Now then,” I said, “tell us the names.” (I saw as I spoke that Mr.

Chiffinch held a note-book below the table to take them down.)

“Sir, these for certain. Rumbald; West; Rumsey—”

“Slowly, man, slowly,” I cried.

“Rumsey; Goodenough; Burton; Thompson; Barber—those last three all of Wapping, sir. Then, sir, there is Wade, Nelthrop, West, Walcot—” he hesitated.

“Well, sir,” demanded Mr. Chiffinch very fiercely. “That is not all.”

“No, sir, no no…. There is Hone, a joiner like myself.”

“Man,” cried the page, “we want better names than snivelling tradesmen like yourself.”

The fellow turned even paler.

“Well, sir; but how can I tell that—”

“Sir,” said the page to me sharply, “call the guard!”

“Sir,” cried the poor wretch, “I will tell all; indeed I will tell.”

“Well?”

“Sir, the Duke of Monmouth was in it—at least we heard so. He was certainly in the former plot!”

“And what was that?” asked the other very quietly.

“Why, sir; the plot to assault Whitehall; it is all one in reality; but—”

“We know all about that,” snapped the page sharply. “Well; and what other names?”

“Sir; there was my Lord Russell.”

I moved in my chair. Even to this day I cannot believe that that peer was guilty; though indeed he was found so to be. Mr. Chiffinch cast me a look.

“Proceed, sir,” he said.

“And there was Mr. Ferguson, a minister; and Mr. Wildman; and my Lord Argyle in Scotland; and my Lord Howard of Escrick; and Mr. Sidney; and my Lord Essex. I do not say, sir, that all those—”

“There! there: go on. We shall test every word you say; you may depend upon it. What other names have you?”

“There was my Lord Grey, sir; and Sir Thomas Armstrong … Sir; I can remember no more!”

“And a pretty load on any man’s conscience!” cried the virtuous Mr.

Chiffinch. “And so all this nest of assassins—”

“Sir; I did not say that. I said—”

“That is enough; we want no comments and glosses, but the bare truth. Well, Keeling, if this tale be true, you have saved your own life—that is, if your fellow murderers do not get at you again. You have been in trouble before, I hear, too.”

“Sir; it was on the matter of the Lord Mayor—”

“I know that well enough. Well, sir; so this is the tale you will tell to-morrow to Mr. Secretary.”

“Yes, sir, if I can remember it all.”

“You will remember it, I’ll warrant. Well, sir; I think I have no more questions for the present. Sir, have you any questions to ask this man?”

I shook my head. I was near sick at the torture the man was in.

“Well, sir; you may go,” said the page. “And I would recommend you and your brother to lie very private to-night. There must be no more evasion.”

When he was gone, Mr. Chiffinch turned to me.

“Well?” he said. “What do you think?”

“Oh! I think he speaks the truth, in the main,” I said wearily. “Shall I be needed any more; or when may I leave town?”

“You must wait, Mr. Mallock, until we have laid hands on them.”

It was not until the middle of July that I was able to leave. On the eighteenth of June a proclamation was issued, with the names of some of the conspirators; and numerous arrests were made. One matter pleased me a little, and that was that Keeling had been man enough after all, to warn some of the humbler folk, who had been led into the affair, of what he had done; and the most of these got clean away. Then Sheppard came forward and betrayed three or four who had met in his house, as I had seen for myself: and West added many details. A second proclamation containing the names, and offering rewards for the arrest of Monmouth, my Lord Grey, Sir Thomas Armstrong and the Reverend Robert Ferguson, was made after my Lord Russell’s arrest; but all four of them escaped. My Lords Howard and Essex were taken on the tenth of July; and two days later Walcot, Hone and Rouse were convicted.

As soon as my Lord Russell’s trial was begun, and the certainty that he would be convicted was made plain by my Lord Howard turning King’s evidence, I left London with my man James. And before we were at Dover the news came to us that my Lord Essex, in despair, had cut his throat in the Tower. As for myself, I was glad enough to leave; for I was both sick and weary of intrigue. It would be of a very different sort in France; and of a kind that a gentleman may undertake without misgivings: so, though I was loth to leave the land where Dolly was, the balance altogether left me refreshed rather than saddened.

It was a clear day as the packet put out from Dover; and, as I stood on deck, watching the cliffs recede as we went, there came on me again that same mood that had fallen on me as I went up the river so long ago from Wapping. Once more it appeared to me as if I were in somewhat of a dream. Those men I had left behind, awaiting trial and death; Mr. Chiffinch; the King, the Court, even Dolly herself, appeared to have something phantom-like about them. Once more the realities seemed to close about me and envelop me—or rather that great Reality whom we name God; and all else seemed but very little and trifling.

PART IV

CHAPTER I

Once more it was high summer, a year afterwards, as I rode in, still with James, thank God! and three other men, over London Bridge.

My life abroad once more must remain undescribed. There is plenty of reason against the telling of it; and nothing at all for it. One thing only may I say, that I came last from Rome, having stayed over for the Feast of the Apostles, and carried with me, though verbally only, some very particular instructions for His Royal Highness the Duke of York from personages whom he should respect, if he did not. And what those counsels were will appear in the proper place. By those same personages I had been complimented very considerably, and urged to yet greater efforts. Briefly with regard to the two Royal Brothers, I was urged to press on the one, and to restrain the other; for I heard in Rome that it was said that they would listen to me, if I observed discretion.

As to what had passed in England, a very short account will suffice.

First, with regard to the conspirators, a number had been executed, among whom I suppose must be reckoned my Lord Russell—an upright man, I think; yet one who had at least played with very hot fire. Frankly, I do not believe that he aimed ever at the King’s life, but that my Lord Howard witnessed that he did, in order to save himself. Of the others that were executed, I think all deserved it; and the principal, I suppose, was Mr. Sidney, that ancient Republican and Commonwealth man, who was undoubtedly guilty. Besides him, my Lord Essex had killed himself in prison—for I never believed the ugly story of the bloody razor having been thrown out of his window—and Sir Thomas Armstrong was executed—and richly he had earned it by a thousand crimes and debaucheries—and old Colonel Rumbald; whose fate, I must allow, caused me a little sorrow (even though he had flung a sharp cleaver at my head), for he was very much more of a man than that puling treacherous hound my Lord Howard, who was taken hiding in his shirt, up his own chimney, and turned traitor to his friends. Holloway too—a merchant of Bristol, and a friend of Mr. Ferguson—was executed, and several in Edinburgh, of the Scottish plotters under Argyle, among whom the principal was Baillie of Jerviswood. The torture of the boot and the thumbscrews was used there, I am sorry to say; for they had plenty of evidence without it. Of the others some evaded altogether, of whom a good number went to Holland, which was their great refuge at this time, and others again saved their lives by turning King’s evidence. The Reverend Mr. Ferguson proved himself a clever fellow, as indeed I had thought him, and a courageous one too, for after attending my Lord Shaftesbury upon his deathbed, he returned again to Edinburgh, and there, upon search being made for him, hid himself in the very prison to which they wished to consign him, and so escaped the death he had earned.

With regard to the Duke of Monmouth, affairs had taken a very strange course; and His Majesty, as I think, had behaved with less than his usual wisdom. Before even Mr. Sidney’s death, the Duke had made his peace, both with the King and the Duke of York, and had, after expressing extraordinary contrition, and yet denying that he had been in any way privy to any attempt on the King’s life, received a pardon. But he had not been content with that; and so soon as the Gazette announced that it was so, and had given men to understand that Monmouth had made his peace by turning King’s evidence, what must His Grace do, but deny it again, and cause it to be denied too in all the coffee-houses in town? The King was thrown into a passion by this; and once again His Grace had to sign and read aloud a paper, in the presence of witnesses and of the King, in the private parlour of the Duchess of Portsmouth’s lodgings—(where, it must be confessed, His Majesty did much of his business at this time). But the paper was not explicit enough, and must be re-written: and so the foolish shilly-shally went on—and he guilty all the time—and at last he evaded them all, and went back again to Holland.

There was another piece of news that had come to me lately that pleased me better; and that was of the trial of Oates, for treasonous speaking, and his condemnation in one hundred thousand pounds, which caused him to be shut up in prison without more ado, where he could do no more mischief. Indeed his credit was all gone now, thank God! and all that he had to do in prison was to prepare himself for his whippings which he got a year later. A few months earlier too, the four Popish lords that had been left in the Tower were released again, which I was very glad to hear of.

Other matters too had passed; but I think I have said enough to shew how affairs stood in the month of July when I came back to England—with the exception of what I shall relate presently as of my own experience.

The evening was as bright and fair as that on which I had come back to London near two years and a half ago, with so heavy a heart, to find Dolly at Court; but this time the heaviness was all gone. I had had letters from her continually, and all those I carried with me. She told me that her father seemed a little moody, now and again; but I did not care very greatly about that. He could be as moody as he liked, if he but let her and me alone. It was less than a year now from my twenty-eighth birthday, which was the period that had been fixed.

Now a piece of news had reached me at Dover that made me pretty content; and that was that His Majesty desired me to have lodgings now in Whitehall. These were very hard to come by, except a man had great influence; and I was happy to think that such as I had was from the King himself. So I did not return northwards this time from the Strand, but held on, and so to the gate of Whitehall. Here I was stopped and asked my name.

I gave it; and the officer saluted me very civilly.

“Your lodgings are ready, sir,” said he. “Mr. Chiffinch was very urgent about them. And he bade me tell you you would find visitors there, if you came before eight o’clock.”

It was now scarcely gone seven; but I thought very little of my visitors, supposing they might perhaps be Mr. Chiffinch himself and a friend: so I inquired very, leisurely where the lodgings were situate.

“They are my Lord Peterborough’s old lodgings, sir,” said the man. “He hath moved elsewhere. They look out upon the Privy Garden and the bowling-green; or, to be more close, on the trees between them.”

This was a fine piece of news indeed; for these lodgings were among the best. I was indeed become a person of importance.

There were two entrances to these lodgings—one from the Stone Gallery, and the other from the garden; but that into the garden was only a little door, whose use was not greatly encouraged, because of the personages that walked there; so I went up the Stone Gallery, between all the books and the cabinets, and so to my own door; with my James behind me. My other men I bade follow when they had bestowed the horses and found their own quarters.

It was a fine entrance, with a new shield over the door; lately scraped white, for the reception of my own arms. I knocked upon it, and a fellow opened; and when I had told him my name, he let me through; and I went upstairs to the parlour that looked over the garden; and there, to my happiness were my visitors. For they were none other than my dear love herself and her maid.

I cannot tell what that was to me, to find her there…. The maid was sent into the little writing-room, next door, into which my visitors would usually be shewn; and we two sat down on the window-seat. Dolly looked not a day older: she was in a fine dress.

“See,” she said, “you have caught me again at Court? Will you send me away again this time?”

She told me presently that she and her father were come up to town for a few days; but must be gone again directly. They had written to Mr. Chiffinch demanding news of me, and when should I be at liberty to come to Hare Street; and he had told them that at anyrate not yet for a while, and that they had best come and see me in my new lodgings. I was sorry that he had said I could not go to Hare Street for the present—though I had expected no less; but I soon forgot it again in her dear presence.

“You are a great man, now, I suppose,” she said presently, “too great to see to the pigs any longer. We have no such rooms as this at Hare Street.”

They were indeed fine; and we went through them together. They were all furnished from roof to floor; there were some good tapestries and pictures; and the windows, as the officer had said, looked out for the most part upon the trees beneath which so long ago I had watched ladies walking. But I told her that I loved my panelled chamber at Hare Street, and the little parlour, with the poor Knights of the Grail, who rode there for ever and never attained their quest, more than all Whitehall. Then I kissed her again, for perhaps the thirtieth time; and, as I was doing so Cousin Tom came in.

“Ah!” said he, “I have caught you then!” But he said it without much merriment.

If Dolly was no older, her father was. There were grey hairs in his eyebrows, for that was all that I could see of his hair, since he wore a periwig; and his face appeared a little blotchy.

I met him however with cordiality, and congratulated him on his looks. He sat down, and presently, to my astonishment, he too opened out upon my prospects, though in a very different manner from Dolly.

“You are a great man now,” he said, “in these fine lodgings. I wonder

His Majesty hath not made you at least a knight.”

I was a little angry at his manner. He said it not pleasantly at all; but as if he found fault. I determined I would not meet his ambitions at all.

“My dear Cousin,” said I, “indeed I am not a knight; and have no hope of being so. His Majesty hath a thousand men more competent than I.”

“Then why hath he given you these lodgings?” said he, with a sharp look.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I am of some convenience to His Majesty; and the more so if I am near him. I suppose that these lodgings fell vacant in the nick of time.”

He looked at me very earnestly. He had, of course, no idea of in what matters I was engaged: I might have been a mere valet for all he knew.

“That is so?” he said.

“I have no reason to think otherwise,” I answered him.

Well; it was growing late; and I had not supped, as Dolly presently remembered; it was near eight o’clock, and after that time there would be formalities at the gate as they went out. So they took their leave at last; and I kissed Dolly for the thirty-first time, and went downstairs with them, and watched them down the gallery; they having promised to come again next day.

I had scarcely done supper and looked about me a little, when Mr. Chiffinch’s name was brought to me; and I went to see him in the little parlour and bring him through to what would be my private closet—so great was I become! He looked older; and I told him so.

“Well; so I am,” said he. “And so are we all. You will be astonished when you see His Majesty.”

“Is he so much older?” I asked.

“He has aged five years in one,” said he.

We talked presently (after looking through my lodgings again, to see if all were as it should be, and after my thanking Mr. Chiffinch for the pains he had put himself to), first of France and then of Rome. He shewed himself very astute when we spoke of Rome.

“I do not wish to pry,” he said, “but I hope to God’s sake that the Holy Father hath given you a commission to His Royal Highness, to bid him hold himself more quiet. He will ruin all, if he be not careful.”

“Why; how is that?” said I.

“Ah! you ecclesiastics,” he cried—”for I count you half an one at least, in spite of your pretty cousin—you are more close than any of us! Well; I will tell you as if you did not know.”

He put his fingers together, in his old manner.

“First,” said he, “he is Lord High Admiral again. I count that very rash. We are Protestants, we English, you know; and we like not a Papist to be our guard-in-chief.”

“You will have to put up with a Papist as a King, some day,” said I.

“Why I suppose so—though I would not have been so sure two years ago.

But a King is another matter from an High Admiral.”

“Well; what else has he done?” I asked.

“He hath been readmitted to the Council, in the very face of the Test Act too. But it is how he bears himself and speaks that is the worst of all. He carries himself and his religion as openly as he can; and does all that is in His power to relieve the Papists of disabilities. That is very courageous, I know; but it is not very shrewd. God knows where he will stop if once he is on the throne. I think he will not be there long.”

I said nothing; for indeed my instructions were on those very points; and I knew them all as well as Chiffinch, and, I think, better.

He spoke, presently, of myself.

“As for you, Mr. Mallock, I need not tell you how high you are in favour here. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice”; and he waved his hands at the rich rooms.

“His Majesty is very good,” I said.

“His Majesty hath a peerage for you, if you want it. He said he had made too many grocers and lickspittles into knights, to make you one.”

I cannot deny that to hear that news pleased me. Yet even then I hesitated.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I at last, “if you mean what you say, I have something to answer to that.”

“Well?” said he.

“Let me have one year more of obscurity. I may be able to do much more that way. In one year from now I shall be married, as I told you. Well, when I have a wife she must come to town, and make acquaintances; and so I shall be known in any case. Let me have it then, if I want it—as a wedding gift; so that she shall come as My Lady. And I will do what I can then, in His Majesty’s service, more publicly.”

“What if His Majesty is dead before that?” said he, regarding me closely.

“Then we will go without,” said I.

He nodded; and said no more.

It was strange to lie down that night in a great room, with four posts and all their hangings about me, with my Lord Peterborough’s arms emblazoned on the ceiling; and to know that it was indeed I, Roger Mallock, who lay there, with a man within call; and a coronet, if I would have it, within reach. It was not till then, I think, that I understood how swift had been my rise; for here was I, but just twenty-seven years old, and in England but the better part of six years. Yet, even then, more than half my thoughts were of Dolly, and of how she would look in a peeress’ robes. I even determined what my title should be—taken from my French estates in the village of Malmaison, in Normandy, so foolish and trifling are a man’s thoughts at such a time. One thing, however, I resolved; and that was to say nothing at all of all this either to Dolly or her father. It should be a wedding gift to the one, and a consolation to the other; for dearly would my Cousin Tom love to speak of his son-in-law the Viscount, or even the plain Lord Malmaison. As for His Majesty’s death before another year, I thought nothing of that; for what young man of twenty-seven years of age thinks ever that anyone will die? Even should he die too—which I prayed God might not be yet!—there was His Royal Highness to follow; and I had served him, all things considered, pretty near as well as his brother.

So, then, I lay in thought, hearing a fountain play somewhere without my windows, and the rustle of the wind in the limes that stood along the Privy Garden. I heard midnight strike from the Clock-Tower at the further end of the palace, before I slept; and presently after the cry of the watchman that “all was well, and a fair night.”

CHAPTER II

It was not until the third day after my coming to town that I had audience of the Duke—in the evening after supper, having bidden good-bye that morning, with a very heavy heart, to my cousins, at Aldgate, whither I had escorted them. I had promised Dolly I would come when I could; but God knew when that would be!

Even by then, I think, I had become accustomed to my new surroundings. I had made no friends indeed, for that was expressly contrary to my desires, since a man on secret service must be very slow to do so; but I had made a number of acquaintances even in that short time, and had renewed some others. I had had a word or two with Sir George Jeffreys, now a long time Lord Chief Justice, in Scroggs’ old place; and found him a very brilliant kind of man, of an extraordinary handsomeness, and no less extraordinary power—not at all brutal in manner, as I had thought, but liker to a very bright sword, at once sharp and heavy: and sharp and heavy indeed men found him when they looked at him from the dock. It was in Mr. Chiffinch’s closet that I was made known to him. I had spoken too with my Lord Halifax—another brilliant fellow, very satirical and witty, for which the King loved him, though all the world guessed, and the King, I think knew, that his opposition to our cause was so hot as even to keep him in correspondence with the Duke of Monmouth, safe away in Holland. At least that was the talk in the coffee-houses. He, like the Lord Keeper North, hated a Papist like the Devil, and all his ways and wishes. He said of my Lord Rochester, now made president of the Council—a post of immense dignity and no power at all—that “he was kicked upstairs,” which was a very precise description of the matter.

I was taken straight through into the Duke’s private closet, where he awaited me; and, by the rarest chance His Majesty was just about to take his leave, and they had me in before he was gone.

I was very deeply shocked by His Majesty’s appearance. He was standing below a pair of candles when I came in, and his face was all in shadow; but when, after I had saluted the two, he moved out presently, I could see how fallen his face was, and how heavily lined. Since it was evening too, and he had not shaved since morning I could see a little frostiness, as it were, upon his chin. He dyed his eyebrows and moustaches, I suppose, for these were as black as ever. His melancholy eyes had a twinkle in them, as he looked at me.

“Well,” said he, “so here is our hero back again—come to pay his respects to the rising sun, I suppose.” (But he said it very pleasantly, without any irony.)

“Why, Sir,” said I, “I have always understood that there is neither rising nor setting with England’s sun; but that it is always in mid-heaven. The King never dies; and the King can do no wrong.”

(Such was the manner in which we spoke at Court in those days—very foolish and bombastic, no doubt.)

“Hark to that, brother,” said the King; “there is a pretty compliment to us both! It is to neither of us that Mr. Mallock is loyal; but to the Crown only.”

“It is that which we all serve, Sir,” said I; “even Your Majesty.”

The King smiled.

“Well,” he said, “I must be off while you two plot, I suppose. Come and see me too, Mr. Mallock; when you have done all your duties.”

I took him to the door of the closet where the servants were waiting for him; and even his gait seemed to me older.

Now James had very little—(though no Stuart could have none)—of his family’s charm. He looked no older, no sharper and no lighter than a year ago; and he had learned nothing from adversity, as I presently understood. He very graciously made me sit down; but in even that the condescension was evident—not as his brother did it.

“You have been to Rome, again,” he said pretty soon, when he had told me how he did, and how the King was not so well as he had been. “And what news do you bring with you?”

I told him first of the Holy Father’s health, and delivered a few compliments from one or two of the Cardinals, and spoke of three or four general matters of the Court there. He nodded and asked some questions; but I could see that he was thinking of something else.

“But you have more to say to me, have you not?” said he. “I had a letter from the Cardinal Secretary—” he paused.

“Yes, Sir,” said I. “The Holy Father was graciously pleased to put me at Your Royal Highness’ disposal, if you should wish to know His Holiness’ mind on one or two affairs.”

I put it like this, as gently as I could; for indeed I had something very like a scolding, in my pocket, for him. He saw through it, however, for he lowered his eyelids a little sullenly as his way was, when he was displeased.

“Well; let us hear it,” said he. “What have I done wrong now?”

This would never do. His Royal Highness resembled a mule in this, at least, that the harder he was pushed, the more he kicked and jibbed. He must be drawn forward by some kind of a carrot, if he were to be moved. I made haste to draw out my finest.

“His Holiness is inexpressibly consoled,” I said, “by Your Royal Highness’ zeal for religion, and courage too, in that course. He bade me tell you that he could say his Nunc Dimittis, if he could but see such zeal and obedience in the rest of Europe.”

The Duke smiled a little; and I could see that he was pleased. (It was really necessary to speak to him in this manner; he would have resented any such freedom or informality as I used towards the King.)

“These are the sweets before the medicine,” he said. “And now for the draught.”

“Sir,” I said, “there is no draught. There is but a word of warning His

Holiness—”

“Well; call it what you will. What is it, Mr. Mallock?”

I told him then, as gently as I could (interlarding all with a great many compliments) that His Holiness was anxious that matters should not go too fast; that there was still a great deal of disaffection in England, and that, though the pendulum had swung it would surely swing back again, though, please God! never so far as it had been; and that meantime a great deal of caution should be used. For example, it was a wonderful thing that His Royal Highness should be Lord High Admiral of the Fleet again; but that great care should be observed lest the people should be frightened that a Papist should have the guarding of them; or again, that the Test Act should be set aside in His Royal Highness’ case, yet the exception should not be pressed too far. All this my Lord Cardinal Howard had expressly told me; but there was one yet more difficult matter to speak of; and this I reserved for the moment.

“Well,” said the Duke, when I had got so far, “I am obliged to His Holiness for his solicitude; and I shall give the advice my closest attention. Was there anything more, Mr. Mallock?”

He had received it, I thought, with unusual humility; so I made haste to bring out the last of what I had to say.

“There is no more, Sir,” I said, “in substance. There was only that His

Eminence thought perhaps that the extraordinary courage and fervour of

Your Royal Highness’ Jesuit advisers led them to neglect discretion a

little.”

“Ah! His Eminence thought that, did he?” said James meditatively.

His Eminence had said it a great deal more strongly than that; but I dared not put it as he had.

“Yes, Sir,” I said. “They are largely under French influence; and French circumstances are not at all as in England. The Society is a little apt at present—”

Then the Duke lost his self-command; and his heavy face lightened with a kind of anger.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “you have said enough. I do not blame you at all; but His Eminence (with all possible respect to him!) does not know what he is talking about. These good Fathers have imperilled their lives for England; if any have a right to speak, it is they; and I would sooner listen to their counsel than to all the Cardinals in Christendom. They know England, as Rome cannot; and, while I allow myself to be led by the nose by no man living, I would sooner do what they advise than what a Roman Cardinal advises. It is not by subtlety or plotting that the Faith will be commended in this country; but by courageous action; and since God has placed me here in the position that I hold, it is to Him alone that I must answer. You can send that message back to Rome, sir, as soon as you like.”

Now there was James, true to himself; and I could see that further words would be wasted. I smoothed him down as well as I could; and I was happy to see that it was not with myself that he was angry—(for he made that very plain)—for that I still might hope he would listen to me later on. But anything further at that time was useless; so I prepared to take my leave; and he made no opposition.

“Well, sir,” he said, “you have given your message very well; and I thank you for not wrapping it up. You have done very well in France, I hear.”

“His Majesty hath been pleased to think so,” I said. Then his face lightened again.

“Ah!” said he, “when the time comes, we shall shew Europe what England can do. We shall astonish even Rome itself, I think. We have long been without the light; but it is dawning once more, and when the sun is indeed risen, as His Majesty said, men will be amazed at us. We shall need no more help from France then. The whole land will be a garden of the Lord.”

His face itself was alight with enthusiasm; and I wondered how, once more in this man, as in many others, the Church shewed itself able to inspire and warm, yet without that full moral conversion that she desires. He was not yet by any means free from the sins of the flesh and from pride—(which two things so commonly go together)—he could not be released from these until humiliation should come on him—as it did, and made him very like a Saint before the end. Meanwhile it was something to thank God for that he should be so whole-hearted and zealous, even though he lacked discretion.

As I was going down the stairs whom should I run into, coming up, but Father Huddleston, who stopped to speak with me. I did not know him very well; though I had talked with him once or twice. He was the one priest of English blood who was tolerated openly and legally in England, and who had leave to wear his habit, for his saving of the King’s life after the battle of Worcester.

“So you are home again, Mr. Mallock,” he said in his cheery voice.

I told him Yes; and that I was come for a good time.

“And His Majesty?” he said. “Have you seen him? He is terribly aged, is he not, this last year.”

This priest was a very pleasant-looking fellow, going on for sixty years old, I would say; and, except for his dress, resembled some fine old country-squire. He wore a great brown periwig that set off his rosy face. He was not, I think, a very spiritual man, though good and conscientious, and he meddled not at all with politics or even with religion. He went his way, and let men alone, which, though not very apostolic, is at least very prudent and peaceful. He was fond of country sports, I had heard, and of the classics; and spent his time pretty equally in them both.

“Yes,” said I; “the King is a year older since this time twelvemonth.”

He laughed loudly.

“There speaks the courtier,” he said. “And you come from the Duke?”

I told him Yes.

“And I go to him. Well; good day to you, Mr. Mallock.”

It was very pleasant to me, this new air in which I lived. Here was I, come from the Duke who had received me as never before, with a deference—(if the Duke’s behaviour to any man could be called that)—such as he had never shewn me, being greeted too by this priest who up to this time had never manifested much interest in me, going back to my fine lodgings and my half-dozen servants. Indeed it was a great change. As I went past the sentry a minute or two later, he saluted me, and I returned it, feeling very happy that I was come to be of some consideration at last, with do much more, too, in the background of which others never dreamed.

I had my first audience of His Majesty a week later, and confirmed my impressions of his ageing very rapidly. He received me with extraordinary kindness; but, as to the first part of the interview, since this concerned private affairs in France, I shall give no description. It was the end only that was of general interest; and one part of it very particular, since I was able to speak my mind to him again.

He was standing looking out of the window when he said his last word on France, and kept silent a little. He stood as upright as ever, but there was an air in him as if he felt the weight of his years, though they were scarcely fifty-four in number. His hand nearest to me hung down listlessly, with the lace over it. When he spoke, he put into words the very thing that I was thinking.

“I am getting an old man, Mr. Mallock,” he said, suddenly turning on me; “and I would that affairs were better settled than they are. They are better than they were—I do not dispute that—but these endless little matters distress me. Why cannot folk be at peace and charitable one with another?”

I said nothing; but I knew of what he was thinking. It was the old business of religion which so much entered into everything and distorted men’s judgments: for he had just been speaking of His Grace of Monmouth.

“Why cannot men serve God according to their own conscience?” he said, “and leave others to do the same.”

“Sir,” I said, “there is but one Church of God where men are at unity with one another.”

He paid no attention to that; and his face suddenly contracted strangely.

“Did you hear any gossip—I mean about myself—after the death of the

Jesuit Fathers?”

I told him No; for I had heard nothing of it at that time.

He came and sat down, motioning me too to a seat; for I had stood up when he did.

“Well,” he said, “it is certainly strange enough, and I should not have believed it, if it had not happened to myself.”

Again he stopped with an odd look.

“Well,” he said, “here is the tale; and I will swear to it. You know how unwilling I was to sign the death-warrants.”

“Yes, Sir; all the world knows that.”

“And all the world knows that I did it,” he said with a vehement kind of bitterness. “Yes; I did it, for there was no way out of it that I could see. It was they or the Crown must go. But I never intended it; and I swore I would not.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said quietly, “you said so to me.”

“Did I? Well, I said so to many. I even swore that my right hand might rot off if I did it.”

His heavy face was all working. I had seldom seen him so much moved.

“Yes,” he said, “that was what I swore. Well, Mr. Mallock, did you ever hear what followed?”

“No, Sir,” I said again.

“It was within that week, that when I awakened one morning I felt my right hand to be all stiff. I thought nothing of it at the first; I believed I must have strained it at tennis. Well; that day I said nothing to anyone; but I rubbed some ointment on my hand that night.”

He stopped again, lifted his right hand a little and looked at it, as if meditating on it. It was a square strong man’s hand, but very well shaped and very brown; it had a couple of great rings on the fingers.

“Well,” he said, “the next morning a sore had broken out on it; and I sent for a physician. He told me it was nothing but a little humour in the blood, and he bade me take care of my diet. I said nothing to anyone else, and bade him not speak of it; and that night I put on some more ointment; and the next morning another sore was broken out, between the finger and the thumb, so that I could not hold a pen without pain; and it was then, for the first time, that I remembered what I had sworn.”

He had his features under command again, but I could see, as he looked at me, that his eyes were still full of emotion.

“Well, Mr. Mallock; I was in a great way at that; but yet I dared tell nobody. I wore my glove all day, so that no one should see my hand; and that evening when I went in to see Her Majesty, what should I see hanging up on the wall of the chamber but the pictures of the five men whose warrants I had signed!”

Once more he stopped.

Now I remembered that I had heard a little gossip as to the King’s hand about that time; but it had been so little that I had thought nothing of it. It was very strange to hear it all now from himself.

“Well, sir,” he said, “I am not ashamed to say what I did. I kissed their pictures one by one, and I begged them to intercede for me. The next morning, Mr. Mallock, the sores were healed up; and, the morning after, the stiffness was all gone.”

I said nothing; for what could I say? It is true enough that many might say that it had all fallen out so, by chance, that it was no more than a strain at tennis, or a humour in the blood, as the physician had thought. But I did not think so, nor, I think, would many Catholics.

“You say nothing, Mr. Mallock,” said the King.

“What is there to say, Sir?” asked I.

“What indeed?” he cried, again with the greatest emotion. “There is nothing at all to say. The facts are as I have said.”

Then there came upon me once more that passionate desire to see this strange and restless soul at peace. Of those who have never received the gift of faith I say nothing: God will be their Judge, and, I doubt not, their Saviour if they have but been faithful to what they know; but for those who have received the knowledge of the truth and have drawn back from it I have always feared very greatly. Now that His Majesty had received this light long before this time, I had never had any doubt; indeed it had been reported, though I knew falsely, that he had submitted to the Church and been taken into her Communion while he was yet a young man in France. Yet here he was still, holding back from what he knew to be true—and growing old too, as he had said. All this went through my mind; but before I could speak he was up again.

“An instant, Mr. Mallock,” he said, as I rose up with him; and he turned swiftly towards the door that was behind him, and was out through it, leaving it open behind him. From where I stood I could see what he did. There was a great press in the little chamber next door, and he flung the doors of this open so that I could see him pull forward his strong-box that lay within. This he opened with a key that he carried hung on a chain, and fumbled in it a minute or two, drawing out at last a paper; and so, bearing this, and leaving the strong-box open just as it was, he came back to me.

“Look at that, Mr. Mallock,” said he.

It was a sheet of paper, written very closely in His Majesty’s own hand, and was headed in capital letters.

Then there followed a set of reasons, all numbered, shewing that the Holy Roman Church was none other than the very Church of Christ outside of which there is no salvation. (It was made public later, as all the world knows, so I need not set it out here in full.)

“There, sir,” he said when I had done reading it. “What do you think of that?”

I shall never forget how he looked, when I lifted my eyes and regarded him. He was standing by the window, with the light on his face, and there was an extraordinary earnestness and purpose in his features. It was near incredible that this could be the man whom I had seen so careless with his ladies—so light and indolent. But there are many sides to every man, as I have learned in a very long life.

“Sir,” I cried, “what am I to say? There is nothing that I can add. This is Your Majesty’s own conscience, written out in ink.” (I tapped the paper with my finger, still holding it.)

“Eh?” said he.

“And by conscience God judges us all,” I cried. Again I stared into his eyes, and he into mine.

“Your Majesty will have to answer to this,” said I, “on Judgment Day.”

I could say no more, so great was my emotion; and, as I hesitated a change went over his face. His brows came down as if he were angry, but his lips twitched a little as if in humour.

“There! there!” he said. “Give me the paper, Mr. Mallock.”

I gave it back to him; and he stood running his eyes down it.

“Why, this is damned good!” he murmured. “I should have made a theologian.”

And with that I knew that his mood was changed again, and that I could say no more.

CHAPTER III

I do not know which is the more strange that, when a great time of trial approaches a man, either he has some kind of a premonition that trouble is coming upon him, or that he has not. Certainly it is strange enough that some sense, of which we know nothing, should scent danger when there are no outward signs that any is near; but it appears even more strange to me that the storm should break all of a sudden without any cloud in the sky to shew its coming. It was the latter case with me; and the storm came upon me as I shall now relate.

It was now for the first time that I began to see something of the way the Court lived—I mean as one who was himself a part of it. I had looked on it before rather as a spectator at a show, observing the pageants pass before me, but myself, from the nature of my employment, taking no part in it from within.

A great deal that I saw was very dreadful and unchristian. Many of the persons resembled hogs and monkeys more than human beings; and a great deal of what passed for wit and merriment was nothing other than pure evil. Virtue was very little reckoned of; or, rather reckoned only as giving additional zest to its own corruption. I do not mean that there were no virtuous people at all—(there were virtuous people in Sodom and Gomorrah themselves)—but they were unusual, and were looked upon as a little freakish or mad. Yet, for all that, side by side with the evil, there went on a great deal of seemliness and religion: sermons were preached before the Court every Sunday; and His Majesty, who by his own life was greatly responsible for the wickedness around him, went to morning-prayers at least three or four times in the week; though I cannot say that his behaviour there accorded very well with the business he was engaged upon. Some blamed the Bishops and other ministers for their laxity and the flattery that they shewed to His Majesty: but I do not think that charge is a fair one; for they were very bold indeed upon occasion. Dr. Ken, who preached pretty often, was as outspoken as a preacher well could be, denouncing the sins of the Court in unmeasured language, even in His Majesty’s presence: and a certain Bishop, whose name I forget, observing on one occasion during sermon-time that the King was fast asleep, turned and rebuked in a loud voice some other gentleman who was asleep too.

“You snore so loudly, sir,” he cried, “that you will awake His Majesty, if you do not have a care.”

I went sometimes to the chapel, with the crowd, to hear the anthem, as the custom was; for the music was extraordinary good, and no expense spared; and I heard there some very fine motets, the most of which were adapted from the old Catholic music and set to new words taken from the Protestant Scripture.

I went one night in August to the Duke’s Theatre, as it was called, to see a play of Sir Charles Sedley, called The Mulberry Garden.

This extraordinary man, with whom I had already talked on more than one occasion, was, according to one account, the loosest man that ever lived; and indeed the tales related of him are such that I could not even hint at them in such a work as this. But he was now about forty-five years old; and a thought steadier. It chanced that he and my Lord Dorset—(who was of the same reputation, but had fought too both by land and sea)—were present with ladies, of whom the Duchess of Cleveland was one, in one of the boxes that looked upon the stage; and I was astonished at the behaviour of them all. Sedley himself, who appeared pretty drunk, was the noisiest person in the house; he laughed loudly at any of his own lines that took his fancy, and conversed equally loudly with his friends when they did not. As for the play it was of a very poor kind, and gave me no pleasure at all; for there was but one subject in it from beginning to end, and that was the passion which the author would call love. There were lines too in it of the greatest coarseness, and at these he laughed the loudest. He had a sharp bold face, of an extraordinary insolence; and he appeared to take the highest delight in the theme of his play—(which he had written for the King’s Theatre a good while before)—and which concerned nothing else but the love-adventures of two maids that had an over-youthful fop for a father.

When the play was over, and I going out to my little coach that I used, I found that the Duchess of Cleveland’s coach stopped the way, in spite of the others waiting behind, and Her Grace not come. However there was nothing to be done: and I waited. Presently out they came, Sedley leading the way with great solemnity, who knocked against me as I stood there, and asked what the devil I did in his road.

I saluted them as ironically as I could; and begged his pardon.

“I had no idea, Sir Charles,” said I, “that the theatre and street were yours as well as the play.”

He looked at me as if he could not believe his ears; but my Lord Dorset who was just behind came up and took him by the arm.

“He is right,” he said. “Mr. Mallock is quite right. Beg his pardon, I tell you.”

“Why the devil—” began Sir Charles again, still not recognizing me.

My Lord clapped him sharply on his hat, driving it over his eyes.

“He is blind now, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “in every sense. You would not be angry with a blind man!”

When Sir Charles had got his hat straight again he was now angry with my Lord Dorset, and very friendly and apologetic to myself, whom I suppose he had remembered by now; so the two drove away presently, after the ladies, still disputing loudly. But I think my Lord’s behaviour shewed me more than ever that I was become a person of some consequence. Yet this kind of manners, in the midst of the crowd, though it commended gentlemen as well known as were those two—to the ruder elements among the spectators, who laughed and shouted—did a great deal of harm in those days to the Court and the King, among the more serious and sober persons of the country; and it is these who, in the long run, always have the ordering of things. God knows I would not live in a puritanical country if I could help it; yet decent breeding is surely due from gentlemen.

A week or two later I was at a levée in Her Majesty’s apartments; and had a clearer sight than ever of the relations between the King and Queen.

Now His Majesty had behaved himself very ill to the Queen; he had flaunted his mistresses everywhere, and had even compelled her to receive them; he had neglected her very grossly; yet I must say in his defence that there was one line he would not pass: he would not on any account listen to those advisers of his who from time to time had urged him to put her away by divorce, and marry a Protestant who might bear him children. Even my Lord Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Burnet, had, thirteen or fourteen years ago given as his opinion that a barren wife might be divorced, and even that polygamy was not contrary to the New Testament! This, however, Charles had flatly refused to countenance; and, when he thought of it, now and again, shewed her a sort of compassionate kindness, in spite of his distaste for her company. Yet his very compassionateness proved his distaste.

It was on occasion of a reception by Her Majesty of some Moorish deputation or embassage from Tangier, that I was present in her apartments; and it was immediately after this, too—(so that I have good cause to remember it)—that the first completely unexpected reverse came to my fortunes.

I arrived at Her Majesty’s lodgings about nine o’clock in the evening; and was pleased to see that the Yeomen of the Guard lined the staircase up to the great gallery. This was an honour which the Queen did not very often enjoy; and very fine they looked in their scarlet and gold, with their halberds, all the way up from the bottom to the top.

The Great Gallery, when I came into it, was tolerably full of people, of whom I spoke to a good number, among whom again were Sir Charles Sedley and my Lord Dorset, as usual inseparable. But I was very much astonished at the manner in which the Moors were treated, for they were seated on couches, on one side of the state under which Her Majesty sat, as if they were some kind of raree-show, set there to be looked at. They were extraordinary rich and barbaric in their appearance; and when I had kissed Her Majesty’s hand, I too went and looked with the rest of the crowd who jostled all together to stare at them. They were in very gorgeous silks, and wore turbans; and their jewels were beyond anything that I had ever seen—great uncut emeralds, and red stones of which I did not know the name, and ropes of pearls. The folks about me bore themselves with an amazing insolence, regarding them as if they had been monsters, and freely making comments on them which their interpreter, at least, must have understood. The Moors themselves behaved with great dignity; and it was impossible not to reflect that these shewed a far higher degree of dignity and civilization than did my own countrymen. They were very dark-skinned, and three or four of them of a wonderful handsomeness. They sat there almost in silence, looking gravely at the crowd, and observing, I thought, with surprise the bare shoulders and bosoms of the ladies who stared and screamed as much as any. It appeared to me that these poor Moors, too, thought that the civilization lay principally upon their own side. I presently felt ashamed of myself for looking at them; and turned away.

The gallery and the antechambers had some fine furniture in them, pushed against the walls that the crowd might circulate; but all was not near so fine as the Duchess of Portsmouth’s apartments, nor even as the King’s. The cressets, I saw, most of them, were of brass, not silver; the brocades, which were Portuguese, were a little faded here and there; and there was not near the show of gold and silver plate that I had expected. But of all the sights there, I think Her Majesty was the most melancholy. She was dressed very splendid; and her skirt was so stiff with bullion that it scarce fell in folds at all. Her pearls were magnificent, but too many of them; for her coiffure was full of them. She resembled, to my mind, a sorrowful child dressed up for a play. Her complexion was very dark and faded, though her features were well-formed, all except her mouth. She was a little like a very pretty monkey, if such a thing can be conceived. She sat under her state, with an empty chair beside her—very upright, with the Countess of Suffolk and her other ladies round about her and behind her. She appeared altogether ill at ease, and eyed continually down the length of the gallery along which His Majesty would come, if indeed he came at all; for he had a way of sending a sudden message that he could not; and all the world knew where he would be instead.

To-night, however, he kept his word and came.

I was in one of the antechambers at the time, talking to a couple of gentlemen and to one of the Queen’s Portuguese chaplains who knew a little Italian, when I heard the music playing, and ran out in time to see him go past from the way that led from his own lodgings. He seemed in a very merry mood this evening, and was smiling as he walked, very fast, as usual. He was in a dark yellow and gold brocade that set off the darkness of his complexion wonderful well, and a dark brown periwig with his hat upon it; and he wore his Garter and Star. The crowd closed in behind his gentlemen so that I could not get near him; and when I came up he was on his chair by Her Majesty, and she smiling and tremulous with happiness, and the Moors coming up one by one to kiss his hand.

I could not hear very well what the interpreter was saying, when all this was done; but I heard him speak of a gift of thirty ostriches that this Moorish mission had brought as a gift to him.

His Majesty laughed loud when he heard that.

“I can send nothing more proper back again,” said he, “than a flock of geese. I have enough and to spare of them.”

Then, when all about were laughing, he turned very solemn. “You had best not tell them that,” he said; “or they might take some of my friends away with them in mistake.”

(This was pretty fooling; but it scarce struck me as suited to the dignity of the occasion.)

Presently the interpreter was saying how consumed with loyal envy were these Moors at all the splendour that they saw about them.

“It is better to be envied than pitied,” observed His Majesty, with a very serious look.

At first be bore himself with extraordinary geniality this evening. He had been drinking a little, I think, yet not at all to excess, for this he never did, though he had no objection to others doing so in his company. There was related of him, I remember, how the Lord Mayor once, after a City Banquet, pressed His Majesty very unduly to remain a little longer after he had risen up to go. His Majesty was already at the door when the Mayor did this, even venturing—(for he was pretty far gone in wine)—to lay his fingers on the King’s arm.

His Majesty looked at him for an instant, and then burst out laughing.

“Ah well!” he said, quoting the old song, “‘He that is drunk is as great as a King.’”

And he went back and drank another bottle.

He was in that merry kind of mood, then, this evening: but such moods have their reactions; and half an hour later he was beginning first to yawn behind his hand and then to wear a heavy look on his face. Her Majesty observed it, too, as I could see: for she fell silent (which was the worst thing in the world to do), and began to eye him sidelong with a kind of dismay. (It was wonderful how little knowledge she had of how to manage him; and how she shewed to all present what she was feeling.)

Presently he was paying no more attention to her at all, but was leaning back in his chair, listening to my Lord Dorset who was talking in his ear; and nodding and smiling rather heavily sometimes. I felt very sorry for the Queen; but I had best have been feeling sorry for myself, for it was now, that, all unknown to me, a design was maturing against me, though not from my Lord Dorset.

As I was about to turn away, to go once more through the rooms before taking my leave, I observed Mr. Chiffinch coming through very fast from the direction of the King’s apartments, as if he had some message. He did not observe me, as I was within the crowd; but I saw him go up, threading his way as well as he could, and touching one or two to make them move out of his way, straight up to the King’s side of the state. I thought he would pause then; but he did not. He put his hand on my Lord Dorset’s shoulder from behind, and made him give way; and then he took his place and began to whisper to His Majesty. I saw His Majesty frown once or twice, as if he were displeased, and then glance quickly up at the faces before him, and down again, as if he looked to see if someone were there. But I did not know that it was for me that he looked. Then the King nodded thrice, sharply—Mr. Chiffinch whispering all the while—and then he leaned over and whispered to the Queen. Then both of them stood up, the King looking heavier than ever, and the Queen very near fit to cry, and both came down front the dais together, all the company saluting them and making way. And so they went down the gallery together.

I was still staring after him, wondering what was the matter, when I felt myself touched, and turned to find Mr. Chiffinch at my elbow. He looked very serious.

“Come this way, sir,” said he. “I must speak with you instantly.”

I went after him, down the gallery; and he led me into the little empty chamber where I had been talking with the priest half an hour ago. He closed the door carefully behind him; and turned to me again.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “I have very serious news for you.”

“Yes,” said I, never dreaming what the matter was.

“It touches yourself very closely,” he said, searching my face with his eyes.

“Well; what is it?” asked I—my heart beginning to beat a little.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, very gravely, “there is an order for your arrest. If you will come back with me quietly to my lodgings we can effect all that is necessary without scandal.”

CHAPTER IV

I said never a word as we went back, first downstairs between the Yeomen, then to the right, and so round through the little familiar passage and up the stairs. I could hear the tramp of guards behind, and knew that they had followed us from the Queen’s lodgings and would be at the doors after we were within. I was completely stunned, except, I think, for a little glimmer of sense still left which told me that the least said in any public place, the better. Mr. Chiffinch, too, I could see very well, was as bewildered as myself—for, so far as I was concerned, there was not yet the faintest suspicion in my mind as to what was the matter. At least, I told myself, my conscience was clear.

So soon as we were within the closet, the page, having again shut the door carefully behind me came forward to where I stood.

“Sit down, Mr. Mallock,” said he, in a low voice, but very kindly.

I could see that his face was very pale and that he seemed greatly agitated. When I was seated, he sat himself down at his table a little way off.

“This is a terrible affair,” he said, “and I do not know—”

“For God’s sake,” I whispered suddenly, “tell me what I am charged with.”

He looked up at me sharply.

“You do not know, Mr. Mallock?”

“Before God,” I said, “I have no more idea what the pother is about than—”

“Well, shortly,” he said, “it is treason.”

“Treason! Why—”

He leaned forward and took up a pen, to play with as be talked.

“I will tell you the whole thing from the beginning,” he said. “You must have patience. An hour ago a clerk came to me here from the Board of the Green Cloth to tell me that the magistrates desired my presence there immediately on a matter of the highest importance. I went there directly and found three or four of them there, with Sir George Jeffreys whom they had sent for, it seemed, as they did not know what course to pursue, and had thought perhaps that I might throw some light upon it. They were very grave indeed, and presently mentioned your name, saying that a charge had been laid against you before one of the Westminster magistrates, of having been privy to the Ryehouse Plot.”

“Why—” cried I, with sudden relief.

He held up his hand.

“Wait,” he said, “I too laughed when I heard that; and gave them to understand on what side you had been throughout that matter, and how you had been in His Majesty’s service and that I myself was privy to every detail of the affair. They looked more easy at that; and I thought that all was over. But they asked me to look at papers they had of yours—”

“Papers! Of mine!” I cried.

“Yes, Mr. Mallock. Papers of yours. I will tell you presently how they came by them. Well; there were about a dozen, I suppose, altogether; and some of them I knew all about, and said so. These were notes and reports that you had shewed to me: and there were three or four more which, though I had not seen them I could answer for. But there was one, Mr. Mallock, that I could not understand at all.”

He paused and looked at me; and I could see that he was uneasy.

Now it may appear incredible; but even then I could not think of what paper he meant. To the best of my belief I had shewn him everything that I thought to be of the least importance—notes and reports, as he had said, such as was that which I had made in the wherry on my way up from Wapping one night.

I shook my head.

“I do not know what you mean,” I said. “Where did they get the papers from?”

“Think again, Mr. Mallock. I said it was on a charge of treason just now. Well: I will say now that it may be no more than misprision of treason.”

Still I had no suspicion. I was thinking still, I suppose, of my lodgings here in Whitehall and of a few papers I had there.

“You must tell me,” I said.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said, “this paper I speak of was in cypher. It contained—”

“Lord!” I cried. “Cousin Tom!—”

Then I bit my lip; but it was too late.

“Yes,” said the other, very gravely. “I can see that you remember. It was your cousin who brought them up from Hare Street. He found them all in a little hiding-hole: and conceived it to be his duty—”

“His duty!” I cried. “Good God! why—”

Then again I checked myself.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I, “I remember the paper perfectly: at least I remember that I had it, though I have never read it or thought anything of it.”

“It is in very easy cypher, sir,” said he, with some severity.

“Well; it was too hard for me,” I said.

“Then why did you not shew it to me?” he asked.

“Lord! man,” I said, “I tell you it was gone clean from my memory. I got it from Rumbald a great while ago—a year or two at the least before the Plot. It was on my mind to send it to you; but I did not. I had no idea that it was of the least importance.”

“A letter, in cypher, and from Rumbald! And you thought it of no importance—even though the names of my Lord Shaftesbury and half a dozen others are written in full!”

“I tell you I forgot it,” I said sullenly, for I had not looked for suspicion from this man.

He still looked at me, as if searching my face: and I suppose that I presented the very picture of an unmasked villain; for the whole affair was so surprising and unexpected that I was completely taken aback.

“Well,” he said, “if you had but shewn me that paper, we could have forestalled the whole affair.”

“What was in it?” I asked, striving to control myself.

“You tell me you do not know?” he asked.

Then indeed I lost control of myself. I stood up.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” I said, “I see that you do not believe a word that I say. It will be best if you take me straight to those who have authority to question me.”

He did not move.

“You had best sit down again, Mr. Mallock. I do not say that I do not believe you. But I will allow that I do not know what to think. You are a very shrewd man, sir; and it truly is beyond my understanding that you should have forgotten so completely this most vital matter. I wish to be your friend; but I confess I do not understand. Oh! sit down, man!” he cried suddenly. “Do not playact with me. Just answer my questions.”

I sat down again. I saw that he was sincere and that indeed he was puzzled; and my anger went.

“Well,” I said, “I suppose it may be difficult. Let me tell you the whole affair.”

So I told him. I related the whole of my adventure in the inn, and how I got the paper, and tried to read it, and could not: then, how I took it to Hare Street and put it where he had described: then how I very nearly had asked a Jesuit priest if he had any skill in cypher; and then how, once more, it had all slipped my mind, and that, a long time having elapsed, even when Rumbald became prominent again, even then I had not remembered it.

“That is absolutely the whole tale,” I said; “and I know no more than the dead what it is all about. What is it all about, Mr. Chiffinch?”

He drew a breath and then expelled it again, and, at the same time stood up, withdrawing his eyes from my face. I think it was then for the first time that he put away his doubts; for I had got my wits back again and could talk reasonably.

“Well,” he said, “we had best be off at once, and see what they say.”

“Where to?” asked I.

“Why to His Majesty’s lodgings,” he said. “I fetched him out to tell him. Did you not see me?”

“His Majesty!” I cried.

“Why yes; I thought it best. Else it would have meant your arrest, Mr.

Mallock.”

I must confess that my uneasiness came back—(which had left me just now)—as I went with the page to the King’s lodgings, more especially when I saw again how the guards fell in behind us and followed us every step of the way. It was very well to say that I “should have been arrested” if such and such a thing had not happened: the truth was, I was already under arrest, as I should soon have found if I had attempted to run away. It seemed to me somewhat portentous too that His Majesty was so ready to see us, instead of mocking at the whole tale at once.

Mr. Chiffinch said nothing to me as we went. I think he himself was fully convinced of my innocence—at least of any deliberate treachery—but not so convinced that others would be; and that he was considering how he should put my case. It was a sad humiliation for me—this trudging along like a schoolboy going to be whipped, with a couple of guards following to see that I did not evade it.

We went straight upstairs, through the antechamber, and to the door of the private closet. I heard voices talking there—one of which cried to come in as the page knocked. Then we entered.

I had thought to find His Majesty alone, or very nearly so; and I was astonished and disconcerted at the number of persons that were there. The King himself was seated beyond his great table, with the rest standing about him, five in number. On his right was Sir George Jeffreys in his rich suit, just as he had come from some entertainment, his handsome face flushed with wine, yet none the less full of wit and attention. The officer of the Green Cloth was on the other side—(it was this gentleman’s business to deal with all cases, within his jurisdiction, that took their rise in Whitehall itself); and a couple of magistrates beside him, with neither of whom I had any acquaintance. An officer, whose face again was new to me—named Colonel Hoskyns—a truculent-looking fellow, in the dress of His Majesty’s Lifeguards, stood very upright beside Sir George Jeffreys, with his hat in his hand. A sheaf of papers lay before the King on the table.

I was even more disconcerted to see how His Majesty looked. An hour or two ago he had been smiling and gracious: now he wore a very stern look on his face; he made no sign of recognition as I came in after Mr. Chiffinch, but, so soon as the door was shut, spoke immediately to the page.

“Well?” he said. “What have you got from him?”

Chiffinch advanced a step nearer, glancing at the faces that all looked on him.

“Sir,” he said, “I am convinced there has been nothing more than an indiscretion—”

Then the King shewed how angry he was. He threw himself back in his chair.

“Bah!” he cried—”an indiscretion indeed! With his guilt staring him in the face!”

There was a murmur from the others: and Colonel Hoskyns gave me a look of very high disdain, as if I had been a toad or a serpent. For myself I said nothing: I remained with my eyes down. Once or twice before I had seen His Majesty in this very mood. For the most part he was the least suspicious man I had ever encountered; but once his suspicion was awake there was none harder to persuade. So he had been with His Grace of Monmouth on two or three occasions; so, it appeared, he was to be with me now.

“Sir,” said Mr. Chiffinch again, “I have examined Mr. Mallock very closely: but I have told him very little. Will Your Majesty allow him to hear what the case is against him?”

The King, who was frowning and pursing his lips, raised his eyes; and immediately I dropped my own. He was in a black mood indeed, and all the blacker for his past kindness to me.

“Tell him, Hoskyns,” he said; and then, before the Colonel could speak he addressed me directly.

“Mr. Mallock,” he said sharply, “I will tell you plainly why I have you here, and why you are not in ward. You have been of service to me; I do not deny that. And I have never known you yet to betray your trust. Well, then, I do not wish to disgrace you publicly without allowing you an opportunity of speaking and clearing yourself if that is possible. I tell you frankly, I do not think you will. I see no loophole anywhere. But—well there it is. Tell him, Hoskyns.”

I will not deny that I was terrified. This was so wholly unlike all I had ever known of His Majesty. What in the world could be the case against me? (For I now saw that Mr. Chiffinch had not told me the whole, but only a part of the charge.) I fixed my eyes upon Mr. Hoskyns for whom I had conceived, so soon as I had set eyes on him, an extreme repulsion.

He made a kind of apologetic cringing movement towards the papers. The King made no movement, but rested heavily in his chair, with his hat forward, his elbows on the arms of his chair and his fingers knit beneath his chin. The Colonel took the papers up, shuffled them for a minute, and then began. There was an extraordinary malice in his manner which I could not understand.

“The charge against the—the gentleman—whose name, I understand, is

Roger Mallock, consists of two distinct points:

“The first is that he has received and concealed a paper, containing an account of a debate held between certain of His Majesty’s enemies, five years ago, in November of sixteen hundred and seventy-nine, with the list of the persons present and the votes that they gave as regards compassing the King’s death. The first point to which Mr. Mallock has to answer is, How he came to be in possession of this paper at all?”

I made a movement to speak, as his voice ceased; but the King held up his hand. Then, as if by an afterthought he dropped it again.

“Well; speak if you like—point by point. But I would recommend you to hear it all first.”

“Sir,” I said, “I have no reserves, and nothing to conceal. I will answer point by point if Your Majesty will give me leave.”

He said nothing. I turned back to the other.

“Well, sir,” I said, “I had that paper from one Rumbald, in a private parlour in the Mitre inn, without Aldgate. He gave it me with some others, and forgot to ask for it again.”

No one moved a finger or a feature, except the Colonel, who glanced at me, and then down again.

“The second point is, Why Mr. Mallock did not hand over the paper to the proper authorities.” Again he paused.

“It was in cypher,” said I, “and I could not read it.”

“Then why did you preserve it so carefully, sir?” asked the Colonel angrily, speaking direct to me for the first time.

“I preserved it because it might be of interest, seeing from whom I received it.”

“You preserved it then, because it might be of interest; and you did not hand it over because it might not,” sneered the Colonel.

“Come! come!” said the King sharply. “We must have a better answer than that, Mr. Mallock.”

Then my heart blazed at the injustice.

“Sir,” I said, “I am telling the naked truth. If I were a liar and a knave I could make up a very plausible tale, no doubt. But I am not. The naked truth is that I preserved the paper for what it might contain; and then—”

I paused then; for I saw plainly what a very poor defence I had.

“And then—” sneered the Colonel softly.

“If you must have the truth,” I said, “I forgot all about it.”

Well; it was as I thought. Sir George Jeffreys threw back his head and laughed aloud—(he was a man of extraordinary freedom with the King)—a great grin appeared on the Colonel’s face; and His Majesty, as I saw in the shadow beneath his hat, smiled bitterly, showing his white teeth. Even the magistrates chuckled together.

“Ah, sir,” said Jeffreys, “for a clever man that is truly a little dull.

You might have done better than that.”

Then desperation seized me; and I flung all prudence to the winds.

“I thought you wanted the truth,” said I. “I will lie if you drive me much further. Go on, sir,” I cried to Hoskyns. “Let us have the rest.”

The King stared at me, and his face was terrible.

“A word more like that in my presence, sir—”

“Sir,” I cried, “I mean no disrespect. But I am hard put to it—”

“You are indeed,” said Jeffreys. “Go on, Colonel Hoskyns.”

The Colonel sniffled through his nose, lifting his papers once more.

“The next main charge against Mr. Mallock is even more grave. It is to the effect that when His Majesty and His Royal Highness were together at Newmarket, Mr. Mallock, knowing that there was a plot against their lives—of which the Rye was the centre—despatched a messenger to His Majesty bidding him come immediately, by the road that leads past the Rye, instead of directing him by Royston.”

At that monstrous charge my spirit almost went from me. That it should be this thing, above all others that should be brought against me! I glanced this way and that; and saw how even Chiffinch, who had fallen back a little as I advanced, was looking askance at me!

“That is perfectly true,” I said. “What of it?”

“Mr. Mallock does not seem to perceive,” snarled the Colonel, “that the fact itself is enough. It is true that no harm came of it; but Mr. Mallock will scarcely deny that an armed man stood by him, waiting for the coach.”

“Armed with a cleaver,” said I, “which he presently flung at my head.”

“So Mr. Mallock says,” observed the Colonel.

“You say I am a liar?” I cried.

The King struck suddenly upon the table.

“Silence, sir!” he said. “Mr. Chiffinch, you told me before that you had something to say. You had best say it now.”

I fell back, for I saw that my bolt was shot. If Chiffinch could not save me, no man could. It was gone clean beyond mere misprision of treason now: I saw that plain enough.

Then Mr. Chiffinch began; and I am bound to say that he shewed himself a better pleader than myself. I thanked God, as he spoke, that I had treated him with patience just now in his lodgings.

First, he remarked that I had been in His Majesty’s service now for near six years, and that in all that time I had proved myself loyal and faithful. Then he proceeded to deal with the charges.

First, he said that the very weakness of my excuse with regard to the paper was my strength. If I were indeed the villain that I seemed, why in God’s name had I not destroyed the paper? I had had near five years to do it in! Was not that an additional sign that I had, as I said, merely forgotten it? (As be said this I marvelled that I had not thought of that answer myself.) It was true that the paper was of the highest importance, but, as my story stood, I had not known that. Should not my word then be taken, considering all the other services I had done to His Majesty?

With regard to the second point, first let them divest their minds of any prejudice caused by the first; for the first was not proved. Having done that, it was necessary to remember how carefully I had reported every movement of the King’s enemies to himself—Mr. Chiffinch. It was true that there had been found other papers in the hiding-hole which he himself had not seen, but he had at least known the substance of them—except of course of the cypher of which he had already treated. With regard to the affair at the Rye it was necessary to remember that my policy throughout had been to report all that I had learned and to interpret it as directly contrary to the truth; and that this policy had proved successful. (I saw the Colonel give a very odd look as this was said; and I saw that Mr. Chiffinch had seen it too.) At the worst it had been an error of judgment on my part that I had recommended the road by the Rye; but it was an error that had had no bad consequences; and to have recommended it was only in accordance with all my policy of taking as true the precise opposite to all that the conspirators had told me. So far as my policy was sound, all that I knew was that the Rye road would be safe on that one day; of the Royston road I knew little or nothing. As regards the incident of the cleaver, I had spoken of that to him immediately I returned to town; and, surely, it was true that a single man with a cleaver could do very little damage to a galloping coach. In short, though the evidence might be interpreted as against me—(here he shot a look at the Colonel)—it might also be interpreted for me, and, that this was the fairer interpretation, he pleaded my record of other services done to the King.

When he ended, there was a dead silence; and I think I knew even at that moment that the worst at any rate had been averted. But I was not sure: and I waited.

Sir George Jeffreys was the first to move. He had remained motionless, smiling a little, while the page had been speaking, watching him as a man may watch an actor who pleases him. At the end, after a little pause, he jerked his head a little, as if to throw off the situation. I think he had had no malice to me, but had watched the whole affair as a kind of sport, which was what he did upon the Bench too. He made a movement as if to move away, but remembered where he was, and stood still.

The two magistrates began to move also; and one nodded at the other.

Colonel Hoskyns shook his head sharply, and began to speak.

“Sir-” he began in his harsh voice.

The King held up his hand; and all was dead still again.

It was strange to me to watch the King, or rather to shoot a glance at him now and again; for I saw presently, in spite of the shadow of his hat and his dusky face, that he was looking from one to the other of us, as if appraising what had been said. I heard a fellow cough somewhere, not in the chamber, and knew by that that it was the guards, most likely, who were waiting for the verdict. Truly, during those moments all my confidence left me again; for this was a mood of the King that I never understood and had never seen so clearly as I saw it now. It was a sort of heaviness of mind, I think, that fell on him sometimes and obscured his clear wit, for to my mind nothing could be more plain than Mr. Chiffinch’s argument. Yet I depended now, not only for my liberty, but for my very life, on the King’s judgment. As a Catholic and a member of the secret service I could look for no hope at all if I were sent for trial. I looked at Mr. Ramsden, the Officer of the Green Cloth; for I had scarcely noticed him before, so quiet was he. It was through his hands first, I supposed, that the case would pass. He was still motionless, looking down upon the table.

Then the King spoke, not moving at all.

“Go into the antechamber, Mr. Mallock,” he said dully, “and wait there till you be sent for.”

I suppose that that waiting was the hardest I have ever done. Again my suspense came down on me, and I had no idea as to which way the matter would go. I sat very still there, hearing again one of the men hemming without the door on the one side: and very low voices talking in the chamber I had come from.

Then all of a sudden the door opened sharply, and Mr. Chiffinch came through. He smiled and nodded, though a little doubtfully, as he came through; and my heart gave a great leap, for I knew that the worst would not happen to me.

He said nothing, but beckoned me to follow, and we went straight through to where the guards wailed.

“You can go,” he said; “this gentleman is no longer under arrest.”

Still, all the way as we went, he said nothing; neither did I. He said nothing at all till we were back again in his closet, and the door shut. Then he faced me, smiling.

“Well, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “His Majesty has determined to do nothing. You may even keep your lodgings for the present; but you will be watched, I need not tell you, very closely indeed: and you must expect no more employment for a while.”

“But—”

“Wait,” said he. “That black mood is on His Majesty; and you are very fortunate indeed to have come out of it so well. It was a very clever little design—”

“Design!” cried I.

“Why, of course,” he said. “Did you not see that? I should have thought anyone—”

“Design,” I said again. “Of whom? And why?”

He smiled.

“You are a very innocent young gentleman,” he said, “in spite of your dexterity. Of course it was a design; and it nearly deceived even me—”

“My Cousin Tom—” I began.

“Your Cousin Tom is an ass,” he said, “a malicious one, no doubt; but a mere tool. I have no doubt he intended to injure you; but he could have done nothing if he had not met with the right man. I have no doubt that he came up with the papers, and gossiped in the coffee-houses till he met other of your enemies: and they have done the rest. But it was Colonel Hoskyns no doubt who manipulated the affair.”

“Colonel Hoskyns!” I said. “Why, I have never set eyes on the man before.”

“I daresay not,” said the page, still smiling. “But I have had his name in my books for a great while.”

“Who is he?” I cried. “And what reason had he—”

Mr. Chiffinch shook his head at me lamentably.

“Why he is one of the party,” he said, “though I can get no evidence that would hang a cat. I have no doubt whatever that he has been in the whole Shaftesbury affair from the beginning, and knows that they made shipwreck principally upon yourself. It is sheer revenge now, no doubt; for they cannot hope to make any further attempts upon His Majesty.”

“But he is in the Guards!” I said, all in amazement.

The page shrugged his shoulders.

“What would you have?” he said. “I can get no evidence, even to warn His Majesty, though I have told him what I think. And, to tell the truth, I believe His Majesty to be safe enough. But that does not hinder them from wishing to have their revenge. Mr. Mallock—”

“Yes,” I said, still all bewildered.

“I wonder what he will attempt next,” said Mr. Chiffinch.

CHAPTER V

The dreariness of the time that followed is beyond my power of description. I besought Mr. Chiffinch to let me go abroad again, but he forbade me very emphatically; and I owed so much to him that I could not find it in my heart to disobey. For so desperate was I, at the ruin of all my hopes, that the thought even came to me that I would go back and try to be a monk again; for how, thought I, can I keep my word even to Dolly herself? Every prospect I had was ruined; my coronet was gone like the dream which it had always been; I had failed lamentably and hopelessly; and it was through her father’s treachery and malice that all had come about. This I felt in my heaviest moods; but Mr. Chiffinch would hear none of it. He said that it was but a question of time, and His Majesty would come round once more; that he would never be content until I was reinstated; that he had not for an instant lost heart. Besides, he said, I was of use in another way, and that was to make Hoskyns disclose himself. Hoskyns would never rest, he said, till he had made at least one more attempt upon me; and next time, he hoped, he would catch him at it, and get rid of the fellow once and for all.

Neither could I even go to Hare Street; for how could I live again even for an hour in the house of my Cousin who had betrayed me? I could not even tell Dolly all that had fallen; for I was as sure as of anything in the world that her father would tell her nothing, and I did not have the heart to disgrace him in her eyes. I but wrote to her that I was a little out of favour with His Majesty at present, though I kept my lodgings, and that I must not stir from Court till I had regained my position. Meanwhile I reserved what I had to say to my Cousin Tom, until I should meet with him alone. I had no doubt whatever that he had done what he had, thinking to get rid of me as his daughter’s lover.

The time dragged then very heavily; for I did not care to go much into the society of others, and had nowhere else to go, since I must not leave Whitehall; for it soon became known that I was out of favour, though I do not suppose that the reason was ever named. I spent my days principally in my own lodgings, and did a good deal of private work for Mr. Chiffinch, which occupied me. I went to the play sometimes, taking my man James with me; and I rode out with him usually, down Chelsea way, or to the north, coming back for dinner or supper. I never went alone, by Mr. Chiffinch’s urgent desire.

It was after Christmas that matters were brought to a head, and that the last great adventures of my life came about that closed all that I thought to be life at that time. Even now, so many years after, I can scarce bear to write them down, though, as I look back upon them now, there were at least two matters for which I should have thanked God even then. I thank Him now.

It was on the last Thursday but one, in January, to be precise, that I was coming back from a ride, having been down the river-bank past Chelsea, where I had seen, I remember, Winchester House—that great place with all its courts—and my Lord Bishop returning in his coach: I do not remember anything else that I saw, for I was very heavy indeed and more than ever determined that, if matters did not mend very soon, I would be off to France (where, six months later, I should be obliged to go in any case when my estates would come to me), if not to Rome. It was near five months now that I had lived in disgrace, His Majesty not speaking to me above three or four times all that while, and then only to avoid incivility.

I could not understand why it was that he behaved so to me. He must know by now, surely, that I had never been anything but faithful to him; and I strove to put away the thought that it was mere caprice, and that he often behaved so to others. But I am afraid that such was the case. There were plenty of folks at Court, or who had left it, who had once been in high favour and had ceased to be, through no fault of their own. Neither would I seek consolation from any other source. The Duke was civil to me whenever we met, and I suppose he knew that I was in trouble, but he never spoke of it. Indeed it was a sad change from the time when I had returned so joyfully, and found my new lodgings waiting for me.

As we came up through Westminster I was riding alone, for I had bidden my man James to go aside to a little shop that was almost on our route, behind the abbey, to buy me something that I needed—I think it was a pair of cuffs; but I am not sure. It was very near dark, and the lamps were not yet lighted.

As I came towards the gate of Whitehall, I was riding very carelessly and heavily, paying little attention to anything, for I was thinking, as it happened, of Dolly, with an extraordinary misery in my heart, and of how I should ever tell her (unless matters mended soon) of what her father had done; and whether in some manner he would not yet contrive to separate us. My horse swerved a little, and I pulled him up, for there were a couple of fellows immediately crossing before me. I saw that they looked hard at me; but I noticed no more, for at that instant I heard a horse coming up behind me, and turned to see that it was James. He looked a little strange, thought I, but he said nothing: only he came up, right beside me, and so rode with me through the gate.

He said nothing then, nor did I; and it was not until I was dismounted and a fellow had run out to take the horses that he asked if he might speak with me.

“Why, certainly,” said I; and we turned together into the Court.

“Sir,” he said, so soon as we were out of earshot of the guard, “did you see those two fellows without the gate?” I said that I had.

“Sir,” he said, “they were following you all the way from Chelsea. I saw them at Winchester House; and I have seen them before to-day, too.”

“Eh?” said I, a little startled.

Then he told me he had seen them for the last fortnight, three or four times at least, and that he was sure they were after some mischief. Once before to-day too, as we were riding in Southwark, and he had delayed for a stone in his horse’s foot, he had seen them run out from behind a wall, but that they had made off when they saw him coming.

Now I knew very well what he meant. London was very far from being a safe place in those days for a man that had enemies. There was scarcely a week passed but there was some outrage, in broad daylight too, in less populated parts, and in the various Fields, and after dark men were not very safe in the City itself.

A year ago I should have thought nothing of it; but I was down in the world now, I knew very well, and I had enemies who would stick at nothing. It was true that they had let me alone for a while—no doubt lest any suspicion should attach to them—but the winter was on us now, and the mornings and evenings were dark; and, too, a good deal of time had elapsed. I remembered what Mr. Chiffinch had said to me at the beginning of the trouble.

“You did very well to tell me,” I said. “Would you know them again if you saw them?”

“I think so, sir,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I have no doubt that they are after me. You will tell my other men, will you not?”

“I told them a week ago,” he said.

I said no more to him then; but instead of going immediately to my lodgings, I went first to see Mr. Chiffinch, and found him just come in. I told him very briefly what James had told me; but made no comment. He whistled, and bade me sit down.

“They are after you then,” he said. “I thought they would be.”

“But who are they?” said I, a little peevishly.

“If I knew their names,” said the page, “I could put my hands on them on some excuse or other. But I do not know. It is the dregs of the old country-party no doubt.”

“And what good do they think to get out of me?”

“Why, it is revenge no doubt,” he said. “They know that you are down with the king and have not many friends; and they suspect that you are still in with the secret service, no doubt.”

“They are after my life, then?” I asked.

“I should suppose so.”

He considered a minute or two in silence. At last he spoke again.

“I will have a word with His Majesty. He is treating you shamefully, Mr.

Mallock; and I will tell him so. And I will take other measures also.”

I asked what those might be.

“I will have my men to look out closely when you go about. You had best not go alone at all. Within Whitehall you are safe enough; but I would not go out except with a couple of men, if I were you.”

I told him I always took one, at least.

“Well; I would take two,” he observed. “There was that murder last week, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields—put down to the Mohocks. Well; it was a gentleman of my own who was killed, though that is not known; and it was no more Mohocks than it was you or I.”

As we were still talking my man James came up to seek me, with a letter that he had found in my lodgings, waiting for me. I knew the hand well enough; and I suppose that I shewed it; for when I looked up from reading it, Mr. Chiffinch was looking at me with a quizzical face.

“That is good news, Mr. Mallock, is it not?”

I could not refrain from smiling; for indeed it was as if the sun had risen on my dreariness.

“It is very good news,” I said. “It is from my cousin—the ‘pretty cousin,’ Mr. Chiffinch. She is come to town with her maid; and asks me to sup with her.”

“Well; take your two men when you go to see her,” said he, laughing a little. “They can entertain the maid, and you the mistress.”

I cannot say how wonderfully the whole aspect of the world was changed to me, as I set out in a little hired coach I used sometimes, with my two men, half an hour later, for my old lodgings in Covent Garden where, she said, she had come that evening. It was a very short letter; but it was very sweet to me. She said only that she could wait no more; that she knew how ill things must be going with me, and that she must see with her own eyes that I was not dead altogether. I had striven in my letters to her to make as light as I could of my troubles; but I suppose that her woman’s wit and her love had pierced my poor disguises. At least here she was.

She was standing, all ready to greet me, in that old parlour of mine where I had first met her six years ago; and she was more beautiful now, a thousand times, in my eyes, than even then. The candles were lighted all round the walls, and the curtains across the windows; and her maid was not there. She had already changed her riding dress, and was in her evening gown with her string of little pearls. As I close my eyes now I can see her still, as if she stood before me. Her lips were a little parted, and her flushed cheeks and her bright eyes made all the room heaven for me. I had not seen her for six months.

“Well, Cousin Roger,” she said—no more.

Presently, even before supper came in, she had begun her questioning.

“Cousin Roger,” she said—(we two were by the fire, she on a couch and I in a great chair)—”Cousin Roger, you have treated me shamefully. You have told me nothing, except that you were in trouble; and that I could have guessed for myself. I am come to town for three days—no more: my father for a long time forbade me even to do that. If he were not gone to Stortford for the horse-fair I should not be here now.”

“He does not know you are come to town!” I cried.

She shook her head, like a child, and her eyes twinkled with merriment.

“He thinks I am still minding the sheep,” she said. “But that is not the point. Cousin Roger, I care nothing whatever for His Majesty’s affairs, nor for secret service, nor for anything else of that kind. But I care very much that you should be in trouble and not tell me what it is.”

Now I had not had much time to think what I should say, if she questioned me, as I knew she would; for it would not be an easy thing to tell her that her father was at the root of my troubles and had behaved like a treacherous hound. Yet sooner or later she must be told, unless I lost heart altogether. I might soften it and soften it—pretend that her father owed a greater duty to the King than to me, and must have thought it right to do as he had done. But she would see through it all: that I knew very well.

“Dolly,” said I, very slowly, “I have not told you yet, because there was nothing in the world that you could do to help me. I have waited, thinking that matters might come straight again; but they have not. I will tell you, then, before you go home again. I promise you that. And on my side I ask you not to question me this evening. Let us have this one evening without any troubles at all.”

She looked at me very earnestly for a moment without speaking; and I could see that her lightness of manner had been but put on to disguise how anxious she was. It is wonderful how a woman—in spite of her foolishness at other times—can read the heart of a man. I had said very little to her in my letters; and yet I could see now how she had suffered all the while. I had thought myself to have been alone in my unhappiness; now I understood that never for an instant had I been so; and my whole heart rose up in a kind of exultation and longing. Then she swallowed down her anxiety.

“I take you at your word, Cousin Roger,” she said lightly. “I will ask no question at all.”

Then Anne and my man James came in with the supper.

I think there is not one moment of that evening in my old lodgings that I have forgotten. As now I look back upon it it seems to me to have that kind of brightness which a garden has when a storm is coming up very quickly, and the clouds are very black, and yet the shadow has not yet reached it. I remember how the curtains hung across the windows; they were my own old curtains of blue stuff, a little faded but still rich and good; how the fire glowed in the wide chimney; how Dolly looked across the table, in her blue sac, with lace, and her wide sleeves, and her little pearls. She had dressed up, all for me, as indeed I had for her, for I was in my maroon suit, with my silver-handled sword and my black periwig. Ah! and above all I remember the very look in her eyes as she suddenly clapped her hands together. (The servants were out of the room at that instant.)

“Cousin Roger!” she said, “I shall never keep my promise unless I am distracted. We will go to the play: you and I and Anne, all together: and your man James shall wait upon us with oranges.”

Well; she had said it; and I laughed at her merriment: she was so like a child on her holiday, and a stolen holiday too. The ways of God are very strange—that so much should hang upon so little! It was upon that sudden thought of hers that the whole of my life turned; and hers too! As it was, I said nothing but that it should be as she wished; and that my coach should set us down there and come again when the play was over. So the threads are caught up in those great unseen shuttles that are guided by God’s Hand, and the whole pattern changed, it would appear, by a moment’s whim. And yet I cannot doubt—for if I did, my whole faith would be shattered—that even those whims are part of the Divine design, and that all is done according to His Holy Will.

The rest of supper was hastened, lest we should be late for the play; and then, when James came up to tell us that the coach was waiting—though it was scarcely a hundred yards to the King’s Theatre—and Dolly was gone for her hood and cloak, I stood, with a glass of wine in my hand, on the hearth, looking down at the fire.

Now I cannot tell how it was; but I suppose that the shadow that I spoke of just now, began to touch that little garden of love in which I stood; for a kind of melancholy came on me again. While she had been with cue, it had all seemed gone; we had been as merry at supper as if nothing at all were the matter; but now, even while she was in the next chamber with her maid, I fell a-brooding once more. I thought—God knows why!—of the little parlour at Hare Street which I had not seen for so long, and of the fire that burned there, upon that hearth too—the hearth on which I had stood in my foolish patronizing pride when I had first asked her to be my wife and she had treated me as I deserved. I did not think then of how we had sat there together afterwards so often; and of the happiness I had had there, but only of that miserable Christmas night when I thought I had lost her. The mood came on me suddenly; and I was still brooding when she came in again, alone. She was in her hood, and her face looked out of it like a flower.

“Cousin Roger,” she said, “I have never told you why I came up to-day.”

“My dear; you did,” I said. “It was your father who—”

“No; no; but this day in particular. Cousin Roger, the woman came again last night.”

“The woman! What woman?” I asked.

“Why—the tall old woman—to my chamber, up the stairs. You remember?

She came the night before you were sent for—why—six years ago.”

I stared on her; and a kind of horror came on me.

“Ah! do not look like that,” she said. “It is nothing.” She smiled full at me, putting her hand on my arm.

“You saw her!” I said.

“No; no. I heard her only. It was just as it was before. But I came up to town to—to see if all were well with you. And it is: or will be. Kiss me, Roger, before we go.”

CHAPTER VI

I cannot think without horror, even now, of that play we saw on that night in the King’s Theatre. It was Mrs. Aphra Behn’s tragedy, called Abdelazar, or The Moor’s Revenge, and Mrs. Lee acted the principal part of Isabella, the Spanish Queen. We sat in a little box next the stage, which we had to ourselves; and in the box opposite was my Lord the Earl of Bath with a couple of his ladies. He was a pompous-looking fellow, and a hot Protestant, and he looked very disdainfully at the company. In the box over him was Mistress Gwyn herself, and the people cried at her good-humouredly when she came in, at which she bowed very merrily as if she were royal, this way and that, so that the whole play-house was full of laughter. It was turned very cold, with a frost, and before the play was half done the whole house was in a steam under the glass cupola. Folks were eating oranges everywhere in the higher seats, and throwing the peel down upon the heads of the people below. The stage was lighted, as always, with wax candles burning on cressets; and the orange girls were standing in the front row of the pit with their backs to the stage.

Dolly, who was a little quiet at first, got very merry and excited presently at all the good-humour, as well as at the actors. She had thrown her hood back, so that her head came out of it very sweet and pretty; and a spot of colour burned on each cheek. I saw her watching Mistress Nell once or twice with a look of amazement—for she knew who she was—for Nell, though she was not on the stage, bore herself as though she were, and never ceased for an instant, though full of merriment and good humour, to turn herself this way and that, and bow to her friends, some of whom relished it very little; and to applaud very heartily, and then, immediately to throw a great piece of orange peel at Mr. Harris, who played the King. She had her boy with her—whom His Majesty had made Duke of St. Albans—and two or three gentlemen whom I did not know.

Dolly whispered to me once, to know who the boy was.

“That is her boy,” I said.

Dolly said nothing; but I understood the kind of terror that she had to see them both there, so outrageous and bold; but she presently turned back again to the stage to observe the play.

I said just now that the play which we saw has very dreadful memories for me; but I do not know that more than once or twice at the time I had any such feeling. There were some pretty passages in the play that distracted me altogether, and a song or two, of which I remember very well one sung by a Nymph, and answered by her swain with his shepherds, of which the refrain was:

The Sun is up and will not stay; And oh! how very short’s a lover’s day!

For the rest there was a quantity of bloodshed and intrigue and false accusation, but I was surprised, considering the subject, how little was against Popery; but Mrs. Behn was content at the end of it to make the Cardinal beg pardon of King Philip.

For the most part then I attended to the action—(and to Dolly, of course, all the while). Yet certainly there were other moments for me, when the shadow came down again, and I saw the actors and the whole house as if in a kind of bloody mist, though I had at that time no reason for it at all, and do not think that I shewed any sign of it. Two or three times before, as I have related, there came on me a strange mood—once when I came up from Wapping, and once as I put out from Dover in the packet. But it was not that kind of mood this time. Then it was as if all the world of sense were but a very thin veil, and all that was happening a kind of dream, or play. Now it was as if the play had a shocking kind of reality, as if the audience and the actors were monstrous devils in hell; and the paint on Mrs. Lee’s cheeks her true colour, and her gestures great symbols, and the noise of the people the roar of hell. This came and went once or twice; and at the time I thought it to be my own humour only; but now I know that it was something other than this. When I looked at Dolly it went again in an instant, and she and I seemed to me the heart of everything, and all else but our circumstances and for our pleasure.

Well; it ended at last, and there was a great deal of applauding, and Mrs. Lee came on to the stage again to bow and smile. It was then, for the third time, I think, that my horror fell on me. As I stared at her, all else seemed to turn dim and vanish. She was in her costume with the blood on her arm and breast, and her great billowy skirts about her, and her stage-jewels, and she was smiling; and I, as I looked at her, seemed to see the folly and the shame of her like fire; and yet that folly and shame had a power that nothing else had. Her smile seemed to me like the grin of a devil; and her colour to be daubs upon her bare cheek-bones, and she herself like some rotten thing with a semblance of life that was not life at all. I cannot put it into words at all: I know only that I ceased applauding, and stared on her as if I were bewitched.

Then I saw my dear love’s fingers on my arm, and her face looking at me as if she were frightened.

“What is the matter, Cousin Roger?” she whispered; and then: “Come,

Cousin Roger; it is late.”

Then my mood passed, or I shook myself clear of it.

“Yes; yes,” I said. “It is nothing. Come, my dear.”

The little passage by which we went out was crammed full of folk, talking and whistling and laughing; some imitating the cries of the actors, some, both men and women, looking about them freely with bold eyes. I saw presently that Dolly did not like it, and that we should be a great while getting out that way; and then I saw a little door beside me that might very well lead out to the air. I pushed upon this, and saw another little passage.

“James,” said I, for he was close behind me, “go out and bring the coach round to this side if there is a way out.” (And then to Dolly.) “Come, sweetheart, we will find a way out here.”

I pushed my way behind a fellow who was just in front, and got through the door, and Dolly and her maid followed me.

It was a little passage with doors on the right which I think led to the actors’ rooms and the stage, for I heard talking and laughing behind; but I made nothing of that, and we went on. As we went past one of the doors it opened all of a sudden and Mrs. Lee herself came out, still in her dress and her jewels, and her face all a-daub with paint, and the blood on her arm and dress, and ran through another door further along, leaving behind her a great whiff of coarse perfume. It was but for an instant that we saw her; yet, even in that instant, a sort of horror came on me again as if she were something monstrous and ominous, though—poor woman!—I have never heard anything against her more than was said at that time against all women that were actresses—all, that is, except Mrs. Betterton. She appeared more dreadful even than in the play, or than when she had spoken those terrible words as she sat in her chair, all bloody, as she died—stabbed by the mock Friar:

—but ‘tis too late—

And Life and Love must yield to Death and Fate.

I looked at Dolly; but she was laughing, though with a kind of terror in her eyes too at that sudden apparition.

“Oh, Roger!” she said, “and now she will go and wash it all off, will she not?”

“Yes, yes,” I said. “She will wash it all off.” And I looked at her, and made myself laugh too. She said nothing, but took my arm a little closer.

I was right about the passage, that it led out to the air, yet not into Little Russell Street, but to a little yard by which, I suppose, the players came to their rooms. The frost had fallen very sharp while we had been in the theatre; overhead the stars tingled as if they shook, beyond the chimneys, and there were little pools of ice between the stones.

I stayed an instant when we came down the three steps that led into the yard, to pull Dolly’s hood more closely about her head, for it was bitter cold, and to gather up my own cloak, and, as I did this, I saw that three men had followed us out, and were coming down the steps behind us. There was no one else in the yard. There was one little oil-lamp burning near one of the two entrances to shew the players the way, I suppose.

Then, when I had arranged my cloak, I gave Dolly my arm once more, and, as I did so, heard Anne, who was behind us, suddenly give a great scream; and, at the sound, whisked about to see what was the matter.

There was a man coming at me from behind with a dagger, and the two other fellows were behind him.

Now I had not an instant in which to think what to do, though I knew well enough what they were and whom they were after. What I did, I did, I suppose, by a kind of instinct. I tore my arm free from Dolly’s hand, pushing her behind me with my left hand, and at the same time dashed my cloak away as well as I could, to draw out my sword. The fellow was a little on my right when I was so turned about, but appeared a little confounded by my quickness, for he hesitated.

“Back to the wall, Dolly!” I shouted. “Back to the wall”; and, at the same time I began to back myself, with her still behind me, to the wall that was opposite to the steps we had just come down. My cloak was sadly in my way; but, as I reached the wall, still going backwards, I had my sword out just in time to keep off, by a flourish of it, the fellow who had recovered himself, and was coming at me again.

So for a moment, we stood; and in that moment I heard Anne screaming somewhere for help.

Then I saw how the two other men, at a swift sign from their leader, spread out on this side and that, so as to come at me from three directions together; and, at that saw that I must delay no longer. Before, I think, they saw what I intended, I leapt forward at the fellow in front, and lunged with all my force; and though he threw up his arms, with the dagger in one of his bands, and tried to evade a parry all at once, he was too late; my point went clean through his throat, and he fell backwards with a dreadful cry. And, at the same moment his two companions ran in on me from either side.

Now I do not even now see what else I could have done. I felt sure that one of them would have me, for I could not properly deal with them both; but I turned and stabbed quickly, with a short arm, at the face of the one on my right, missing him altogether, and, at the same time strove to strike with my left elbow the face of the other.

But, ah! Dolly was too quick for me. She must have run forward on my left to keep the fellow off, for I heard a swift dreadful sound as I shortened my right arm to stab at the other again; and I felt something fall about my feet.

I turned like a madman, screaming aloud with anger, careless of all else, or of whether or no anyone ran at me again, for I knew, in part at least what had happened; and, at the same moment the yard seemed all alive with folks running and crying out. The door at the head of the steps was open, and three or four players ran out and down; while from Little Russell Street on the right, where the coaches were, a great number ran in.

But I cared nothing for that at that instant. I had flung away my sword on to the stones and was stooping to pick up my dear love who had saved my life. There was already a great puddle of blood, and I felt it run hot over my left hand that was about her—hot, for it flowed straight from her heart that had been stabbed through by the knife that was aimed at me.

When I looked up again, I saw, standing against the light in the door opposite, at the head of the steps, the woman that had played the Queen with that mock-blood still on her arm and breast.

CHAPTER VII

“Mr. Mallock,” said the page, “the King is heartily sorry, and wishes to tell you so himself.”

I said nothing.

Of all that happened, after Dolly’s death in the theatre-yard, I think now as of a kind of dream, though it changed my whole life and has made me what I am. I have, too, scarcely the heart to write of it; and what I say of it now is gathered partly from what I can remember and partly from what other folks told me.

It must have been a terrible sight that they all saw as they ran in from the lane, my man James first among them all. There lay, bloodying all the ice about him, the fellow whom I had run through the throat, as dead as the rat he was, but still jerking blood from beneath his ear; and there in my arms, as I kneeled on the stones, lay Dolly, her head fallen back and out of her hood, as white as a lily, dead too in an instant, for she was stabbed through her heart, with her life-blood in a great smear down her side, and all over my hands and clothes.

My man James proved again as faithful a friend as he had always been to me; for the affair had been no fault of his: I had sent him for the coach, and he was bringing it up to the yard-entrance from the lane, as Anne had run out screaming. Then he had run in, and my other man with him, and the crowd after him, in time to see the two living assassins make off into the dark entrance on the other side. A number had run after them, but to no purpose, for we never heard of them again; and my Dolly’s murderer, I suppose, is still breathing God’s air, unless he has been hanged long ago for some other crime.

The next matter was to get us home again; for James has told me that I would allow no one to touch either her or me, until a physician came out of the crowd and told me the truth. Then I had gathered her up in my arms like a child without a word to any; and went out, the crowd falling back as I came, to where the coach waited in Little Russell Street. Still carrying her I went into the coach, and would allow no one else within; and so we drove back to Covent Garden.

When we came there a part of the crowd had already run on before and was waiting. When the coach drew up, I came out of the coach, with my dear love still in my arms, and went upstairs with her to her own chamber and laid her on her bed; and it was a great while before I would let the women come at her to wash her and make all sweet and clean again. I lay all that night in the outer parlour that had been my own so long ago, or, rather, I went up and down it till daybreak; and no one dared to speak to me or to move away the supper-things from the table where she and I had supped the night before.

The inquest was held that day, but nothing came of it. I related my story in the barest words, saying that I knew nothing of the three men, and leaving it to Mr. Chiffinch to whisper in the officer’s ear to prevent him asking what he should not. Of the man I had killed nothing was ever made public, except that he was a tanner’s man and lived in Wapping, and that his name was Belton.

On the Saturday we went down to Hare Street, all together, with the body of the little maid in a coach by itself. I rode my horse behind, but would speak never a word to my Cousin Tom who went in a coach, neither then nor at any other time; neither would I lie in Hare Street House, nor even enter it; but I lay in the house of a farmer at Hormead; and waited outside the house for the funeral to come out next day, after the Morning Prayer had been said in the church. She lies now in the churchyard of Hormead Parva, where we laid her on that windy Sunday, in the shadow of the little Saxon church. I rode straight away again with my men from the churchyard gate, and came to London very late that night. I went straight to my lodgings, and refused myself to everyone for three days, writing letters here and there, and giving orders as to the packing of all my effects. On the Thursday, a week after my Cousin Dolly had come to town, I went to Mr. Chiffinch to take my leave.

Now of those days I dare say no more than that; and even if I would I could add very little. My mind throughout was in a kind of dark tumult, until, after my three days of solitude, I had determined what to do. There were hours, I will not deny, in which my very faith in God Himself seemed wholly gone; in which it was merely incredible to me that if He were in Heaven such things could happen on earth. But sorrow of such a dreadful kind as this is, in truth, if we will but yield to it, a sort of initiation or revelation, rather than an obscurer of truth; and, by the time that my three days were over I thought I saw where my duty lay, and to what all those events tended. I had come from a monk’s life that I might taste what the world was like; I had tasted and found it very bitter; there was not one affair—(for so it appeared to me then)—that had not failure written all over it. Very well then; I would go back to the monk’s life once more if they would have me. On the third day, then, I had written to my Lord Abbot at St. Paul’s-without-the-Walls, telling him that I was coming back again, and had thrown up my affairs here.

“You were right, my Lord,” I wrote at the end of it, “and I was wrong. My Vocation seems very plain to me now; and I would to God that I had seen it sooner, or at the least been more humble to Your Lordship’s opinion.”

At first I had thought that I would take no leave of the King; and had told Mr. Chiffinch so, after I had announced to him what my intentions were, and announced them too in such a manner that he scarcely even attempted to dissuade me from them. But he had begged me to take my leave in proper form; no harm would be done by that; and then he had told me that His Majesty knew all that had passed and was very sorry for it.

I sat silent when he said that.

“Yes, Mr. Mallock,” he said again, “and I mean not only for your own sorrow, but for his own treatment of you. It hath been a whim with him: he treats often so those whom he loves. His Majesty hath something of a woman in him, in that matter. His suspicions were real enough, at least for a time.”

“I had done better if I had been one of his enemies, then,” said I.

“It is of no use to be bitter, sir,” said the page. “Men are what they are. We would all be otherwise, no doubt, if we could. See the King, Mr. Mallock, I beg of you: and appear once at least at Court, publicly. You should allow him at least to make amends.”

I gave a great sigh.

“Well: it shall be so,” I said. “But I must leave town on Tuesday.”

It was with a very strange sense of detachment that I went about my affairs all Friday and Saturday; for I had still plenty to do, and was not to see His Majesty till the Saturday night after supper. The weather was turned soft again, and we had sunshine for an hour or two. On one day I watched His Majesty go to dinner, with his guards about him, and his gentlemen; but I did not see it with the pleasure I had once had in such brave sights. It was with me, during those days, as it had been with me for those two or three moments during the play, though in a gentler manner; for I thought more of the humanity beneath than of the show above; and a rotten humanity most of it seemed to me. These were but men like myself, and some pretty evil too. Those gentlemen that were with the King—there was scarcely one of them about whom I did not know something considerably to his discredit: there was my Lord Ailesbury in strict attendance on him; and Killigrew—he that had the theatre—and the less said of him the better: and there were three or four more like him; the Earl of Craven was there, colonel of the foot-guards; and Lord Keeper Guildford; and the Earl of Bath; and there, in the midst, the King himself, with his blue silk cloak over his shoulders, and his princely walk, going fast as he always did, and smiling-well, what of those thirteen known mistresses of his that he had had, as well as of those other—God knows how many!—poor maids, who must look upon him as their ruin? It was a brave sight enough, there in the sunshine—I will not deny that—with the sun on the jewels and the silks, and on the buff and steel of the guards, with that swift kingly figure going in the midst; and it was a brave noise that the music made as they went within the Banqueting-Hall; but how, thought I, does God see it all? And for what do such things count before His Holy Presence?

I had not rehearsed what I should say to His Majesty when I saw him; for indeed it was of no further moment to me what either I or he should say. I should be gone for ever in three days to the secret service of another King than him—to that secret service where men need not lie and cheat and spy and get their hearts broken after all and no gratitude for it; but to that service which is called Opus Dei in the choir, and is prayer and study and contemplation in the cloister and the cell. There I should sing, week by week:

“Oh! put not your trust in princes nor in any child of man: for there is no help in them.”

In such a mood then—not wholly Christian, I will admit!—I came into the King’s closet, to take my leave of him, on that Saturday night, the last day of January, in the year of Salvation sixteen hundred and eighty-five.

He was standing up when I entered his private closet, with a very serious look on his face; and, to my astonishment, took a step towards me, holding out both his hands. I will not deny that I was moved; but I had determined to be very stiff. So I saluted him in the proper manner, very carefully and punctually, kneeling to kiss his hand, and then standing upright again. A little spaniel barked at me all the time.

“There! there! Mr. Mallock,” he said. “Sit you down! sit you down!

There are some amends due to you.”

I seated myself as he bade me; and he leaned towards me a little from his own chair, with one leg across the other. I saw that he limped a little as he went to his chair; and learned afterwards that he had a sore on his heel from walking in the Park.

“There are some amends due to you,” he said again: “but first I wish to tell you how very truly I grieve at the sorrow that has come on you, and in my service too, as I understand.”

(Ah! thought I: then Mr. Chiffinch has made that plain enough.) He spoke with the greatest feeling and gravity; but the next moment he near ruined it all.

“Ah! these ladies!” he said. “How they can torment a man’s heart to be sure! How they can torture us and yet send us into a kind of ecstasy all at once! We hate them one day, and vow never to see them again, and yet when they die or leave us we would give the world to get them back again!”

For the moment I felt myself all stiff with anger at such a manner of speaking, and then once more a great pity came on me. What, after all, does this man, thought I, know of love as God meant it to be?

“Well, well!” he said. “It is of no use speaking. I know that well enough. And it was that very cousin, I hear, that was Maid to Her Majesty!”

“Yes, Sir,” said I, very short.

I wondered if he would say next that that circumstance made it all the sadder; but he was not gross enough for that.

“Well,” he said, “I will say no more on that point. I am only grieved that it should have come upon you in my service; and I wish to make amends. I already owed you a heavy debt, Mr. Mallock; and this has made it the heavier; and before saying any more I wish to tell you that I am heartily sorry for my suspicions of you. They were real enough, I am ashamed to say: I should have known better. But at least I have got rid of Hoskyns; and he hath gone to the devil altogether, I hear. He had a cunning way with him, you know, Mr. Mallock.”

He spoke almost as if he pleaded; and I was amazed at his condescension.

It is not the way of Kings to ask pardon very often.

“Well, Mr. Mallock,” he said next; “and I hear that you wish to leave my service?”

“If Your Majesty pleases,” said I.

“My Majesty doth not please at all; but he will submit, I suppose. Tell me, sir, why it is that you wish to leave.”

“Sir,” I said, “the reasons are pretty plain. I have displeased Your Majesty for the past half-year; and I cannot forget that, even though, Sir, you are graciously pleased to compliment me now. Then I have quarrelled with my Cousin Jermyn, so that I have not a kinsman left in England; and—and I have lost her whom I was to make my wife this year. Finally, if more reasons are wanting, I am weary of a world in which I have failed so greatly; and I must go back again to the cloister, if they will have me there.”

All came with a rush when I began to speak, for His Majesty’s presence had always an extraordinary effect upon me, as upon so many others. I had determined to say very little; yet here I had said it all, and I felt the blood in my face. He listened very patiently to me, with his head a little on one side, and his underlip thrust out, and his great melancholy eyes searching my face.

“Well! well! well,” he said again, “if you must be a monk there is no more to be said. But what of your apostleship in the world?”

“Sir,” I cried—for I knew what he meant—”my apostleship as you name it has been a greater disaster than all the rest: and God knows that is great enough.”

He was silent a full half minute, I should think, still looking on me earnestly.

“Are you so sure of that?” said he.

My heart gave a leap; but he held up his hand before I could speak.

“Wait, sir,” he said. “I will tell you this. You have said very little to me; but I vow to you that what you have said I have remembered. It is not argument that a man needs—at least after the first—but example. That you have given me.”

Then I flushed up scarlet; for I was sure he was mocking me.

“Sir,” I cried, “you might have spared—”

He lifted his eyes a little.

“I assure you, Mr. Mallock,” he said, “that I mean what I say. You have been very faithful; you have ventured your life again and again for me; you have refused rewards, except the very smallest; you have lost even your sweetheart in my service; and now, when all is within your reach again, you fling it back at me. It is not very gracious; but it is very Christian, as I understand Christianity.”

I said nothing. What was there to say? I seemed a very poor Christian to myself.

“Come! come, Mr. Mallock,” pursued the King very gently and kindly. “Think of it once again. You shall have what you please—your Viscounty or anything else of that sort; and you shall keep your lodgings and remain here as my friend. What do you say to that?”

For a moment again I hesitated; for it is not to everyone that a King offers his friendship. If it had been that alone I think I might have yielded, for I knew that I loved this man in spite of all his wickedness and his treatment of me—for that, and for my “apostleship” as he called it, I might have stayed. But at the word Viscounty all turned to bitterness: I remembered my childish dreams and the sweetness of them, and the sweetness of my dear love who was to have shared them; and all turned to bitterness and vanity.

“No, Sir,” said I—and I felt my lips tremble. “No, Sir. I will be ungracious and—and Christian to the end. I am resolved to go; and nothing in this world shall keep me from it.”

The King stood up abruptly; and I rose with him. I did not know whether he were angry or not; and I did not greatly care. He stepped away from me, and began to walk up and down. One of his bitch-spaniels whined at him from her basket, lifting her great liquid eyes that were not unlike his own; and he stooped and caressed her for a moment. Then the clocks began to chime, one after the other, for it was eight o’clock, and I heard them at it, too, in the bed-chamber beyond. There would be thirty or forty of them, I daresay, in the two chambers. So for a minute or two he went up and down; and I have but to close my eyes now, to see him again. He was limping a little from the sore on his heel; but he carried himself very kingly, his swarthy face looking straight before him, and his lips pursed. I think that indeed he was a little angry, but that he was resolved not to shew it.

Suddenly he wheeled on me, and held out his hand.

“Well, Mr. Mallock; there is no more to be said; and I must honour you for it whatever else I do. I would that all my servants were as disinterested.”

I knelt to kiss his hand. I think I could not have spoken at that moment. As I stood up, he spoke again.

“When do you leave town?” he said.

“On Tuesday, Sir.”

“Well, come and see me again before you go. No, not in private: you need not fear for that. Come to-morrow night, to the levée after supper.”

“I will do so, Sir,” said I.

On the following night then, which was Sunday, I presented myself for the last time, I thought, to His Majesty.

I need not say that half a dozen times since I had left him, my resolution had faltered; though, it had never broken down. I heard mass in Weld Street; and there again I wondered whether I had decided rightly, and again as I burned all my papers after dinner—(for when a man begins afresh he had best make a clean sweep of the past). I went to take the air a little, before sunset, in St. James’ Park, and from a good distance saw His Majesty going to feed the ducks, with a dozen spaniels, I daresay going after him, and a couple of gentlemen with him, but no guards at all. The King walked much more slowly that day than was his wont—I suppose because of the sore on his heel. But I did not go near enough for him to see me; for I would trouble him now no further than I need. All this time—or at least now and again—I wondered a little as to whether I was right to go. I will not deny that the prospect of remaining had a little allurement in it; but it was truly not more than a little; and as evening fell and my heart went inwards again, as hearts do when the curtains are drawn, I wondered that it had been any allurement at all: for my life lay buried in the churchyard of Hormead Parva, and I had best bury the rest of me in the place where at least I had a few friends left. After supper, about ten o’clock, I put on my cloak and went across to the Duchess of Portsmouth’s lodgings, where the levée was held usually on such evenings. My man James went with me to light me there.

I do not think I have seen a more splendid sight, very often, than that great gallery, when I came into it that night, passing on my way through the closet where I had once talked with Her Grace. It was all alight from end to end with candles in cressets, and on the great round table at the further end where the company was playing basset, stood tall candlesticks amidst all the gold. I had not seen this great gallery before; and it was beyond everything, and far beyond Her Majesty’s own great chamber. If I had thought the closet fine, this was a thousand times more. There were great French tapestries on the walls, and between them paintings that had been once Her Majesty’s, and those not the worst of them. The quantity of silver in the room astonished me: there were whole tables of it, and braziers and sconces and cressets beyond reckoning; and there were at least five or six chiming clocks that the King had given to Her Grace; and tall Japanese presses and cabinets of lacquer which she loved especially.

There was a fire of Scotch coal burning on the hearth, as in His Majesty’s own bedchamber; and on a great silver couch, beside this, covered with silk tapestry, sat the King, smiling to himself, with two or three dogs beside him, and Her Grace of Portsmouth on the same couch. The Duchesses of Cleveland and Mazarin were on chairs very near the couch.

There was a great clamour of voices from the basset-table as I came in and the King looked up; and, as I went across to pay my respects to His Majesty, he said something to the Duchess, very merrily. She too glanced up at me; and indeed she was a splendid sight in her silks and in the jewels she had had from him.

“Why; here is my friend!” said the King, as he put out his hand to me; and once more the dogs yapped at me from his side. He put his left hand out over their heads and pressed them down.

“You must not bark at my friend Mr. Mallock,” he said. “He is off to be a holy monk.”

For a moment I thought the King was making a mock of me; but it was not so. He was smiling at me very friendly.

He was in wonderful good humour that evening; and I heard more of his public talk than ever before; for he made me draw up a stool presently upon the hearth. Now and again a gentleman came across to be presented to him; and others came and looked in for a while and away again. There were constant comings and goings; and once, as a French boy was singing songs to a spinet, near the door, I saw the serious face of Mr. Evelyn, with two of his friends, look in upon the scene.

I cannot remember one quarter of all the things that were said. Now the King was silent, playing with the ears of his dogs and smiling to himself; now he would say little things that stuck in the memory, God knows why! For example, he said that he had eaten two goose’s eggs for supper, which shewed what a strong stomach he had; and he described to us a very fierce duck that had snapped his hand that afternoon in the park. History is not made of these things; and yet sometimes I think that it should be; for those be the matters that interest little folk; and most of us are no more than that. I do not suppose that in all the world there is one person except myself who knows that His Sacred Majesty ate two goose’s eggs to his supper on that Sunday night.

He spoke presently of his new palace at Winchester that he was a-building, and that was near finished.

“I shall be very happy this week,” said he, “for my building will be all covered in with lead.” (He said the same thing again, later, to my Lord Ailesbury, who remembered it when it was fulfilled, though in another manner than the King had meant.)

He talked too of “little Ken,” as he named him (who had been made Bishop last week), and of the story that so many told—(for the King told his stories several times over when he was in a good humour)—and the way he told it to-night was this.

“Ah! that little Ken!” said he. “Little black Ken! He is the man to

tell me my sins! Your Grace should hear him”—(added he)—”upon the

Seventh Commandment! And such lessons drawn from Scripture too-from the

Old Testament!”

He looked up sharply and merrily at Her Grace of Portsmouth as he said this.

“Well; when poor Nell and I went down to Winchester a good while ago,” he went on, “what must little Ken do but refuse her a lodging! This is a man to be a Bishop, thought I. And so poor Nell had to sleep where she could.”

Her Grace of Portsmouth looked very glum while this tale was told; for she hated Mrs. Nelly with all her heart. She flounced a little in her seat; and one of the dogs barked at her for it.

“First a monk and then a Duchess!” said the King. “Did you ever hear of the good man of Salisbury who put his hand into my carriage to greet me, and was bitten for his pains? ‘God bless Your Majesty,’ said he, ‘and God damn Your Majesty’s dogs!’—Eh, Fubbs?”—(for so he called the Duchess).

So he discoursed this evening, very freely indeed, and there was a number of men presently behind his couch, listening to what he said. A great deal of what he said cannot be set down here, for it was extraordinary indecent as well as profane. Yet there was a wonderful charm about his manner, and there is no denying it; and in this, I suppose, lay a great deal of the injury he did to innocent souls, for it all seemed nothing but merriment and good-humour. His quickness of conception, his pleasantness of wit, his variety of knowledge, his tales, his judgment of men—all these were beyond anything that I have ever met in any other man.

There was silence made every now and then for the French boy to sing another song; and this singing affected me very deeply, so long as I did not look at the lad; for he was a silly-looking creature all dressed up like a doll; but he sang wonderfully clear and sweet, and one of the King’s chapel-gentlemen played for him. His songs were all in French, and the substance of some of them was scarcely decent; but I had not the pain of hearing any that I had heard in Hare Street. During the singing of the last of these songs, near midnight, again that mood fell on me that all was but a painted show on a stage, and that reality was somewhere else. The great chamber was pretty hot by now, with the roaring fire and all the folks, and a kind of steam was in the air, as it had been in the theatre ten days ago; and the faces were some of them flushed and some of them pale with the heat. The Duchess of Cleveland was walking up and down before the fire, with her hands clasped as if she were restless; for she spoke scarce a word all the evening.

When the song was done the King clapped his hands to applaud and stood up; and all stood with him.

“Odd’s fish!” said he, “that is a pretty boy and a pretty song.” Then he gave a great yawn. “It is time to go to bed,” said he.

As he said that the door from the outer gallery opened; and I saw my Lord Ailesbury there—a young man, very languid and handsome who was Gentleman of the Bed chamber this week, though his turn ended to-morrow; and behind him Sir Thomas Killigrew who was Groom—(these two slept in the King’s bedchamber all night)—and two or three pages, one of them of the Backstairs. My Lord Ailesbury carried a tall silver candlestick in his hand with the candle burning in it. He bowed to His Majesty.

“Did I not say so?” said the king.

He did not give his hand to anyone when he said good-night, but turned and bowed a little to the company about him on the hearth, and they back to him, the three duchesses curtseying very low. But to me he gave his hand to kiss.

“Good-night, Mr. Mallock,” said he, in a loud voice; then, raising it—

“Mr. Mallock goes abroad to-morrow; or is it Tuesday?”

“It is Tuesday, Sir,” said I.

“Then God go with you,” he said very kindly.

I watched him go out to the door with his hat on, all the other gentlemen uncovered and bowing to him, and him nodding and smiling in very good humour, though still limping a little. And my heart seemed to go with him. At the door however he stopped; for a strange thing had happened. As my Lord Ailesbury had given the candle to the page who was to go before them, it had suddenly gone out, though there was no draught to blow it. The page looked very startled and afraid, and shook his head a little. Then one of the gentlemen sprang forward and took a candle from one of the cressets to light the other with. His Majesty stood smiling while this was done; but he said nothing. When it was lighted, he turned again, and waved his hand to the company. Then he went out after his gentlemen.

CHAPTER VIII

It was a little after eight o’clock next morning that I heard first of

His Majesty’s seizure.

I had drunk my morning and was on the point of going out with my man—indeed I was descending the stairs—when I heard steps run past in the gallery outside; and then another man also running. I came out as he went past and saw that he was one of Mr. Chiffinch’s men, very disordered-looking and excited. I cried out to know what was the matter, but he shook his head and flapped his hand at me as if he could not stay, and immediately turned off from the gallery and ran out to the right in the direction of the King’s lodgings.

I turned to my man James who was just behind me.

“Go and see what the matter is,” I said; for after seeing the King so well and cheerful last night, I never thought of any illness.

While he was gone, I waited just within my door, observing one of my engravings, with my hat on. It was a very bitter morning. In less than five minutes James was back again, very white and breathing fast.

“His Majesty is ill,” said he. “Mr. Chiffinch—”

I heard no more, for I ran out past him at a great pace, and so to the

King’s lodgings.

When I came to the door of them, all was in confusion. There was but one guard here—(for the other was within with the Earl of Craven)—and a little crowd was pestering him with questions. I made no bones with him, but slipped in, and ran upstairs as fast as I could. There was no one in the first antechamber at all, and the door was open into the private closet beyond. It was contrary to all etiquette to enter this unbidden, but I cared nothing for that, and ran through; and this again was empty; so I passed out at the further door and found myself at the head of a little stair leading down into a wide lobby, from which opened out two or three chambers, with the King’s bedchamber at the further end. And here, in the lobby, I ran into the company.

There was above a dozen persons there, at least, all talking together in low voices; but I saw no one I cared to speak with, since I had no business in the place at all. But no one paid any attention to me. It was yet pretty dark here, for there were no candles; so I waited, leaning against the wall at the head of the stairs.

Then the voices grew louder; and the crowd opened out a little to let someone through; and there came, walking very quickly, and talking together, my Lord Craven leaning on the arm of my Lord Ailesbury. My Lord Craven—near ninety years old at this time—was in his full-dress as colonel of the foot-guards, for he had attended a few minutes before to receive from His Majesty the pass-word of the day: and my Lord Ailesbury was but half dressed with his points hanging loose; for he had been all undressed just now, when the King had been taken ill.

After they had passed by me I stood again to wait; but, almost immediately, across the further end of the lobby I saw Mr. Chiffinch pass swiftly from a door on the left to a door on the right. At that sight I determined to wait no longer: for there was but one thought in my mind, all this while.

I said nothing, but I came down the stairs and laid my hand on the shoulder of a physician (I think he was), who stood in front of me, and pushed him aside, as if I had a right to be there; and so I went through them very quickly, and into the room where I had seen Mr. Chiffinch go. The door was ajar: I pushed it open and went in.

It was a pretty small room, and there were no beds in it; it had presses round the walls: a coal fire burned in the hearth in a brazier, and a round table was in the midst, lit by a single candle, and near the candle stood a heap of surgical instruments and a roll of bandages. (This was the room, I learned later, next to the Royal Bedchamber, where the surgeons had attended half an hour ago to dress the King’s heel.) There were three persons in the room beyond the table, talking very earnestly together. Two of them I did not know; but the third was Mr. Chiffinch. They all three turned when I came in, and stared at me.

“Why—” began the page—”Mr. Mallock, what do you—”

He came towards me with an air of impatience.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I, in a low voice—”how is His Majesty. I—”

The further door which stood at the head of three or four steps leading up to it opened sharply, and the page whisked round to see what it was. A face looked out, very peaked-looking and white, and nodded briskly at the bandages and the instruments; the two other men darted at those, seized them, ran up the stairs and vanished, leaving the door but a crack open behind them.

Then Mr. Chiffinch turned and stared at me again. He appeared very pale and agitated.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I, “I will take no refusal at all. How is His

Majesty?”

His lips worked a little, and I could see that he was thinking more of what was passing in the chamber beyond than of my presence here.

“They are blooding him again,” he said; and then—”What are you doing here?”

I took him by the lapel of his coat to make him attend to me; for his eyes were wandering back like a mule’s, at every sound behind.

“See here,” said I. “If His Majesty is ill, it is time to send for a priest. I tell you—”

“Priest!” snapped the page in a whisper. “What the devil—”

I shook him gently by his coat.

“Mr. Chiffinch; I will have the truth. Is the King dying?”

“No, he is not then!” he whispered angrily. “Hark—”

He tore himself free, darted back to the further door, and stood there, at the foot of the stairs, with his head lowered, listening. Even from where I was I could hear a gentle sort of sound as of moaning or very heavy breathing, and then a sharp whisper or two; and then the noise of something trickling into a basin. Presently all was quiet again; and the page lifted his head. I stood where I was; for I know how it is with men in a sudden anxiety: they will snap and snarl, and then all at once turn confidential. I was not disappointed.

After he had waited a moment or two he came towards me once more.

“Mr. Mallock,” he whispered, “the King needs no priest. He is not so ill as that; and he is unconscious too at present.”

“Tell me,” I said.

Again he glanced behind him; but there was no further sound. He came a little nearer.

“His Majesty was taken with a fit soon after he awakened. Mr. King was here, by good fortune, and blooded him at once. Now they are blooding him again. Her Majesty hath been sent for.”

“He is not dying? You will swear that to me?”

He nodded: and again he appeared to listen. I took him by his button again.

“Mr. Chiffinch,” said I, “you must attend to me. This is the very thing I have waited for. If there is any imminent danger you must send for a priest. You promise me that?”

He shook his head violently: so I tried another attack.

“Well,” I said, “then you will allow me to remain here? Is the Duke come?”

“Not yet,” said he. “Ailesbury is gone for him.”

“Well—I may remain then?”

There came a knock on the inner side of the further door; and he tore himself free again. But I was after him, and seized him once more.

“I may remain?”

“Yes, yes,” he snapped, “as you will! Let me go, sir.” He whisked himself out of my hold, and went swiftly up the stairs and through the door, shutting it behind him, giving me but the smallest glimpse of a vast candle-lit room and men’s heads all together and the curtains of a great bed near the door. But I was content: I had got my way.

As I walked up and down the antechamber, very softly, on tip-toe, it appeared to me that I was, as it were, two persons in one. On the one side there was the conviction and the determination that, come what would, I must get a priest to the King if he took a turn at all for the worse—since, for the present, I believed Mr. Chiffinch’s word that His Majesty was not actually dying. (This was not at all what the physicians thought at that time; but I did not know that.) This conviction, I suppose, had always been with me that it was for this that in God’s Providence I had been sent to England; at least, seven in the moment that I had left my house and run down the gallery, there it was, all full-formed and mature. As to how it was to be done I had no idea at all; yet that it would be done I had no doubt. On the other side, however, every faculty of observation that I had, was alert and tight-stretched. I remember the very pattern of the carpet I walked on; the pictures on the walls; and the carving on the presses. Above all I remember the little door in the corner of the chamber—the third; and how I opened it, and peeped down the winding staircase that led from it. (I did not know then what part that little door and winding staircase was to play in my great design!) Now and again I looked out of the single window at the river beneath in the early morning sunshine; now I paced the floor again. It seemed to me that I had found a very pretty post of observation, as this appeared a very private little room, and that I should not be troubled here. The great anterooms, I knew, where the company would be, must lie on the further side of the bedchamber.

I suppose it would be about five minutes after Mr. Chiffinch had left me that Her Majesty came. The first I knew of it was a great murmur of voices and footsteps without the door. I went to the door and pulled it a little open so that I could see without being seen, and looked up the lobby beyond the King’s chamber; for in that direction, I knew, lay Her Majesty’s apartments. A couple of pages came first, very hastily, with rods; and then immediately after them Her Majesty herself, hurrying as fast as she could, scarce decently dressed, with a cloak flung over all, with a hood. Behind her came two or three of her ladies. I saw the poor woman’s face very plain for a moment, since there was no one between me and her; and even at that distance I could see her miserable agitation; her brown face was all sallow and her mouth hung open. Then she whisked after the pages through the door into the great antechamber that lay beyond the bedroom. I went back again, to shut the door and listen at the other; for I knew that the King’s bed was close to it (though he was not in it at this time, but still in the barber’s chair where he had been blooded); and presently I heard the poor soul begin to wail aloud. I heard voices too, as if soothing her, for all the physicians were there, and half a dozen others; but the wailing grew, as she saw, I suppose, in what condition His Majesty was—(for he still seemed all unconscious)—till she began to shriek. That was a terrible sound, for she laughed and sobbed too, all at once, in a kind of fit. I could hear the tone very plain through the door, though I could not hear what she said; and the voices of Mr. King and others who endeavoured to quiet her. Gradually the wailing and shrieking grew less as they forced her away and out again; till I heard it, as she went back again to her own apartments, die away in spasms. Poor soul indeed! she was nothing accounted of in that Court, yet she loved the King very dearly in spite of his neglect towards her. She could not even speak to him (I heard afterwards), though he had spoken her name and asked for her, after his first blooding.

Half an hour later—(in the meantime no one had come in to me, and I could only walk up and down and listen as well as I could)—I heard again the murmur of voices in the lobby, and steps coming swiftly down from the private closet. Again I was in time at the door to see who it was that went by; and it was the Duke of York, with my Lord Ailesbury who had gone to fetch him from St. James’. He went by me so near that I could hear his quick breathing from his run upstairs; and he had come in such a hurry that he had only one shoe on, and on the other foot a slipper. He went very near at a run up the lobby, and up a step or two, and into the great antechamber and so round to the Bedchamber; and I presently heard him enter it. Indeed I was very favourably placed for observing all that went on.

It was about eleven o’clock, as I suppose, when I first heard His

Majesty’s voice; and the relief of it to me was extraordinary.

I had ventured up the stair or two that led from this room into the Bedchamber, and had, very delicately, opened the door a crack so as to hear more plainly; but I dared not look through for fear that I should be seen.

For a long while I had heard nothing but whispers; and once the yapping of a little dog, very sharp and startling, but the noise was stifled almost immediately, and the dog, I suppose, taken out at the other door. Once or twice too had come the sudden chiming of all the clocks that were in the Bedchamber.

I heard first a great groan from the bed, to which by now they had moved him from the chair, and then Ailesbury’s name spoken in a very broken voice. (My own heart beat so loud when I heard that, that I could scarce listen to what followed.)

“Yes, Sir,” came Ailesbury’s voice; and then a broken murmur again. (He was thanking him, I heard afterwards from Mr. Chiffinch, for his affection to him, and for having caused him to be bled so promptly by Mr. King, and for having sent Chiffinch to him to bring him back from his private closet.)

Presently he grew stronger; and I could hear what he said.

“I went there,” he said, “for the King’s Drops…. I felt very ailing when I rose…. I walked about there; but felt no better. I nearly fell from giddiness as I came down again.”

He spoke very slowly, but strongly enough; and he gave a great sigh at the end.

Presently he spoke again.

“Why, brother,” he said. “So there you are.”

I heard the Duke’s voice answer him, but so brokenly and confusedly that

I could hear no words.

“No, no,” said His Majesty, “I do very well now.”

I came down the stairs again, shaking all over. I cannot say how affected I was to hear his voice again; and I think there could scarce be a man in the place any less affected. He was a man who compelled love in an extraordinary fashion. I felt that if he died I could bear no more at all.

I was walking up and down again very softly, when the door into the Bedchamber was noiselessly pulled open, and Mr. Chiffinch came down the stairs. That dreadful look of tightness and pain was gone from his face: he was almost smiling. He nodded at me, very cheerful.

“He is better. The King’s Majesty is much better,” he whispered. Then his face twitched with emotion; and I saw that he was very near crying. I was not far from it myself.

CHAPTER IX

How the hours of that day went by I scarcely know at all. I went back to dine in my lodgings, and to counter-order all preparations for my going on the morrow, so soon as I knew that His Majesty was out of any immediate danger; for I could not find it in my heart to leave town until he was altogether recovered. In the afternoon, before going back to inquire how he was, I walked a good while in the court and the Privy Garden, though the day was very raw and cold.

Whitehall had been put as in a state of siege from the first moment that the King’s illness was known. The gates were closed to all but those who had lodgings in the Palace, and those who were allowed special entry by His Royal Highness. The sentries everywhere were greatly augmented; both horse and foot were placed at every entrance; and the greatest strictness was observed that no letter should pass out either to His Grace of Monmouth or to the Prince of Orange: even M. Barillon had but permission to send one letter to the French King as to His Majesty’s state. All this was to hinder any rising or invasion that might be made either within or without the kingdom. I was in the court when the couriers rode out with despatches to the Lords Lieutenant of the Counties with advices as to what to do should His Majesty die; and I was there too when the deputies came from the Lord Mayor and Aldermen and Lieutenants of the City to inquire for the King and to assure His Royal Highness of their loyalty and support. This was of the greatest satisfaction to the Duke; for I suppose that he did not feel very secure.

A little before supper I went round to Mr. Chiffinch’s; and, by the greatest good fortune found him on the point of returning to His Majesty’s lodgings. He gave me an excellent account as we went together.

“The physicians declare,” said he, “that His Majesty is out of danger: and bath permitted the Duke to tell the foreign ministers so. They have had another consultation on him; and have prescribed God knows what! Cowslip and Sal of Ammoniac, sneezing mixtures, plasters for his feet; and he is to have broth and ale to his supper. They are determined to catch hold of his disorder somehow, if not by one thing then by another. To tell the truth I think they know not at all what is the matter with him. They have taken near thirty ounces of blood from him too, to-day. If the King were not a giant for health he would have died of his remedies, I think!”

He talked so; but he was in very cheerful spirits; and before he left me at the door of the lodgings I had got an order from him to admit me everywhere within reason. It was something of a surprise to me to see how dearly this man—whose name was so evil spoken of, and, I fear with good cause enough—yet loved his master.

On Tuesday morning I was up again very early, and round at His Majesty’s lodgings. I went up by the other way and into the great antechamber; and there I met with one of the physicians who was just come from the consultation that twelve of them had held together. He was a very communicative fellow and told me that six of them had been with His Majesty all night, and that His Majesty had slept pretty well; and that—to encourage him, I suppose!—ten more ounces of blood had been taken from his neck. He was proceeding to speak of some new remedies—and mentioned an anti-spasmodic julep of Black Cherry Water that had been prescribed, when another put out his head and called to him from the Bedchamber; and he went away back into it with an important air.

All that day too I never left Whitehall. There were great crowds in all the streets and outside the gates, I heard, but their demeanour was very quiet and sorrowful; and prayers were said all day long in the churches. When I went back to the antechamber in the evening I saw my Lord Bishop of Ely there, and heard from one of the pages that he was to spend that night in His Majesty’s room. So I gathered from that that the physicians were not very confident even yet, though couriers had been sent out again to-day to bear the news of the King’s happy recovery; and I was, besides, in two minds, when I saw the Bishop there, as to what I should do about a Catholic priest. If I had seen His Royal Highness then, I think I should have said something to him upon it; but the Duke was in the Bedchamber; and there I dared not yet penetrate.

On the Wednesday morning, when I went early to inquire, I heard that again His Majesty had slept well, and that the physicians were well satisfied; I saw no one but a man of Mr. Chiffinch’s, who told me that; and that Dr. Ken, my Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, was with the King; and I went away content: but when I went back again, for the third time that day, just before supper-time, I saw from the faces in the antechamber that all was not so well. Yet I could get nothing out of anyone, and did not wish to press too hard lest I should be turned out altogether. I saw my friend of yesterday, whose name I have never yet learned, hurrying across the end of the chamber into another little room where the physicians had their consultations—(it was, I think, my Lord Ailesbury’s dressing-room)—but I was not in time to catch him; so I went away again in some little dismay, yet not greatly alarmed even now. The Bishop, I thought, could at least do him no great harm.

On the Thursday morning, before I was dressed, my man brought me the London Gazette that had been printed about six o’clock the evening before. The announcement as to the King’s health ran as follows. (I cut out the passage then and there and put it in my diary.)

“At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 4th of February, 1684 [1685 N.

S.], at five in the afternoon.

“The Lords of His Majesty’s most Honourable Privy Council have thought fit, for preventing false reports, I make known that His Majesty, upon Monday morning last, was seized with a violent fit that gave great cause to fear the issue of it; but after some hours an amendment appeared, which with the blessing of God being improved by the application of proper and seasonable remedies, is now so advanced, that the physicians have this day as well as yesterday given this account to the Council, viz.—That they conceive His Majesty to be in a condition of safety, and that he will in a few days be freed from his distemper.

“JOHN NICHOLAS.”

Yes, thought I, that is all very well; but what of yesterday after five o’clock, and what of this morning?

As I went to His Majesty’s lodgings an hour afterwards I heard the bells from the churches beginning to peal, to call the folks to give thanks; yet the faces within the Palace were very different. When I went up into the great antechamber, the physicians were just dispersing; and, by good fortune I was at hand when my Lord Keeper North questioned Sir Charles Scarburgh as he went back to His Majesty’s chamber.

“Well?” said he, very short. “What do you say to-day?”

“My Lord!” said Sir Charles, “we conclude that His Majesty hath an intermittent fever.”

“And what the devil of that?” asked my Lord. “Could anything be worse?”

(There was a little group round them by now; and I could see one of the

Bishops listening a little way off.)

“My Lord,” said the other, “at least we know now what to do.”

“And what is that?” snapped my Lord who seemed in a very ill humour.

“To give the Cortex, my Lord,” said Sir Charles with great dignity; for indeed the manner of my Lord was most insolent.

My Lord grunted at that.

“Peruvian Bark, my Lord,” said the physician, as if speaking to a child.

Well; there was no more to be got that morning. I was in and out for a little, again in two minds as to what to do. His Royal Highness went through the antechamber at one time (to meet M. Barillon, as I saw presently, and conduct him to the King’s chamber), a little before dinner, but at such a quickness, and with such sorrow in his face that I dared not speak to him. I went back to dinner; and fell asleep afterwards in my chair, so greatly was I wearied out with anxiety; and did not wake till near four o’clock. Then, thank God! I did awake; and, with all speed went again to His Majesty’s lodgings; and this time, guided, I suppose, by Divine Providence, for I had no clear intention in what I did, I went up the private way, through the King’s closet where I found no one, down the steps, and so into the little chamber where I had talked with Mr. Chiffinch on the first morning of His Majesty’s distemper.

The chamber was empty; but immediately after I had entered—first knocking, and getting no answer—who should come through, his face all distorted with sorrow, but Mr. Chiffinch himself! There was but one candle on the table, but by its light, I saw how it was with him.

I went up immediately, and took him by the arms; he stared at me like a terrified child.

“My friend,” said I, “I must have no further delay. You must take me to

His Majesty.”

He shook his head violently; but he could not speak. As for me, all my resolution rose up as never before.

I gripped him tighter.

“I ask but five minutes,” I said. “But that I must have!”

“I—I cannot,” said he, very low.

I let go of him, and went straight towards the steps that led up into His Majesty’s room. As I reached the foot of them, he had seized my arm from behind.

“Where are you going?” he whispered sharply. “That is the way to the

King’s room.”

I turned and looked at him.

“Yes,” I said very slowly, “I know that.”

“Well—well, you cannot,” he stammered.

“Then you must take me,” I said.

He still stared at me as if either he or I were mad. Then, of a sudden his face changed; and he nodded. I could see how distraught he was, and unsettled.

“I will take you,” he whispered, “I will take you, Mr. Mallock. For

God’s sake, Mr. Mallock—”

He went up the steps before me, in his soft shoes; and I went after, as quietly as I could. As he put his hand on the handle he turned again.

“For Christ’s sake!” he whispered in a terrible soft voice. “For

Christ’s sake! It must be but five minutes. I am sent to fetch the

Bishops, Mr. Mallock.”

He opened the door a little, and peered in. I could see nothing, so dark was the chamber within—but the candles at the further end and a few faces far away. A great curtain, as a wall, shut off all view to my left.

“Quick, Mr. Mallock,” he whispered, turning back to me. “This side of the bed is clear. Go in quick; he is turned on this side. I will fetch you out this way again.”

He was his own man again, swift and prompt and steady. As for me, the beating of my heart made me near sick. Then I felt myself pushed within the chamber; and heard the door close softly behind me.

At first I could see nothing on this side, as I had been staring over the candle just now, except a group of persons at the further end of the great room, and among them the white of a Bishop’s rochet; and the candlelight and firelight on the roof. The clocks were all chiming four as I came in, and drowned, I suppose, the sounds of my coming.

Then, almost immediately I saw that the curtains were drawn back on this side of the great bed that stood in this end of the room, and that they were partly drawn forward on the other side, so as to shroud from the candlelight him who lay within them, and beneath the Royal Arms of England emblazoned on the state.

And then I saw him.

He was lying over on this side of the bed, propped on high pillows, but leaning all over, and breathing loudly. His left, arm was flung over the coverlet; and his fingers contracted and opened and contracted again. I went forward swiftly and noiselessly, threw myself on my knees, laid my hand softly beneath his, and kissed it.

“Eh? eh?” murmured the heavy voice. “Who is it?”

I saw the curtain on the other side pulled a little, and the face of Sir Charles Scarburgh all in shadow peer in: it looked very lean and sharp and high-browed. The King flapped his hand in a gesture of dismissal, and the face vanished again.

“Sir,” whispered I, very earnestly, yet so low that I think none but he could have heard me. “Sir: it is Roger Mallock—”

“Mallock,” repeated the voice; yet so low that it could not have been understood by any but me. His face was very near to me; and it was shockingly lined and patched, and the eyes terribly hollow and languid: but there was intelligence in them.

“Sir,” said I, “you spoke to me once of an apostleship.”

“So I did,” murmured the voice. “So I—”

“Sir: I am come to fulfill it. It is not too late. Sir; the Bishops are sent for. Have nothing to say to them! Sir, let me get you a true priest—For Christ’s sake!”

The cold fingers that I yet held, twitched and pressed on mine. I was sure that he understood.

He drew a long breath.

“And what of poor little Ken?” he murmured. “Poor little Ken: he will break his heart—if he may not say his prayers.”

“Let him say what he will, Sir. But no sacrament! Let me send for a priest!”

There was a long silence. He sighed once or twice. His fingers all the while twitched in mine, pressing on them, and opening again. Ah! how I prayed in my heart; to Mary conceived without sin to pray for this poor soul that had such a load on him. The minutes were passing. I thought, maybe, he was unconscious again. And the Bishops, if they were in the Palace, might be here at any instant, and all undone. I am not ashamed to say that I entreated even my own dear love to pray for us. She had laid down her life in his service and mine. Might it not be, thought I, even in this agony, that by God’s permission, she were near to help me?

He stirred again at last.

“Going to be a monk,” said he, “going to be a monk, Roger Mallock. Pray for me, Roger Mallock, when you be a monk.”

“Sir—”

He went on as if he had not heard me.

“Yes,” murmured he. “A very good idea. But you will never do it. Go to

Fubbs, Roger Mallock. Fubbs will do it.”

“For a priest, Sir?” whispered I, scarcely able to believe that he meant it.

“Yes,” he murmured again, “for a priest. Yes: for God’s sake. Fubbs will do it. Fubbs is always—”

His voice trailed off into silence once more; and his fingers relaxed. At the same instant I heard the door open softly behind, and, turning, I saw the page’s face again, lean and anxious, peering in at me. Then his finger appeared in the line of light, beckoning.

I kissed the loose cold fingers once again; rose up and went out on tip-toe.

CHAPTER X

Then began for me the most amazing adventure of all. My adventures had indeed been very surprising—some of them; and my last I had thought to be the greatest of all, and the most heart-breaking, in the yard of the Theatre Royal. I had thought that that had drained the last energy from me and that I had no desires left except of the peace of the cloister and death itself. Yet after my words with the King and his to me, there awakened that in me which I had thought already dead—a fierce overmastering ambition to accomplish one more task that was the greatest of them all and to get salvation to the man who had again and again flouted and neglected me, whom yet I loved as I had never yet loved any man. As I went to and fro, as I shall now relate, until I saw him again, there went with me the vision of him and of his fallen death-stricken face there in the shadow of the great bed; and there went with me too, I think, the eager presence of my own love, near as warm as in life.

“What shall we do next? What shall we do next, Dolly?” I caught myself murmuring more than once as I ran here and there; and I had almost sworn that she whispered back to me, and that her breath was in my hair.

Within five minutes of my having left the King’s bedchamber, I was running up the stairs to Her Grace of Portsmouth’s lodgings. I had said scarce a word to Mr. Chiffinch when I came out into the little anteroom, except that I was sent on a message by His Majesty; and he stared on me as if I were mad. Then I was out again by the private way, through the closet and the rooms beyond, and down the staircase.

At the door of Her Grace’s lodgings there stood a sentry who lowered his pike as I came up, to bar my way.

“Out of the way, man!” I cried at him. “I am on His Majesty’s business.”

He too stared on me, and faltered, lifting his pike a little. All were distraught by the news that was run like fire about the place that the King was dying, or he would never have let me through. But I was past him before he could change his mind again, and through a compile of antechambers in one of which a page started up to know my business, but I was past him as if he were no more than a shadow.

Then I was in the great gallery, where I had sat with the King and his company but four days ago.

It presented a very different appearance now. Then it had been all ablaze with lights and merry with laughter and music. Now it was lit by but a pair of candles over the hearth and, the glow of a dying fire. Overhead the high roof glimmered into darkness, and the gorgeous furniture was no more than dimness. I stopped short on the threshold, bewildered at the gloom, thinking that the chamber was empty; then I saw that a woman had raised herself from the great couch on which the King had lolled with his little dogs last Sunday night, and was staring at me like a ghost.

At that sight I ran forward and kneeled down on one knee.

“Madame,” I said in French, “His Majesty hath sent me—”

At that she was up, and had me by the shoulders. Her face was ghastly, all slobbered over with crying, and her eyes sunken and her lips pale as wax. God knows what she was dressed in; for I do not.

“His Majesty,” she cried, “His Majesty! He is not dead! For the love of

God—”

I stood up; she still gripped me like a fury.

“No, Madame,” said I, “His Majesty is not dead. He hath sent me. I spoke with him not five minutes ago. But he is very near death.”

“He hath sent for me! He hath sent for me!” she screamed, as if in mingled joy and terror.

“No, Madame; but he hath sent to you. His Majesty desires you to get him a priest.”

Her hands relaxed and fell to her side. I do not know what she thought. I do not judge her. But I thought that she hesitated. I fell on my knees again; and seized her hand. I would have kneeled to the Devil, if he could have helped me then.

“Madame—for the love of Christ do as the King asks! He desires a priest. For the love of Christ, Madame!”

She was still silent for an instant, staring down on me. Then she tore her hand free, and I thought she would refuse me. But she caught me again by the shoulders.

“Stand up, sir; stand up. I—I will do whatever the King desires. But what can I do? God! there is someone coming!”

There came very plainly, through the antechambers I had just run through, the tramp of feet. I stood, as in a paralysis, not knowing what to do next. Then she seized on me again as the steps came near.

“Stand back,” she said, “stand back, sir. I must see—”

There came a knocking on the door as I sprang back away from the hearth, and stood out of the firelight. Then the door opened, as Her Grace made no answer, and the page whom I had seen just now stood bowing upon the threshold.

“Madame,” said he. “M. Barillon, the French ambassador—”

She made a swift gesture, and he fell back. There was a pause; and then, through the door came M. Barillon, very upright and lean, walking quickly, all alone. He stopped short when he saw Her Grace, put his heels together and bowed very low.

She was at him in an instant.

“Monsieur!” she cried. “Yon are come in the very nick of time. How is

His Majesty?”

He said nothing as he walked with her towards the hearth. She stood, waiting, with her hands clasped, and a face of extraordinary anguish.

“Madame,” he said, “there is very bad news. I am come on behalf of His

Majesty King Louis—”

“Sh!” she hissed at him, with a quick gesture to where I stood. He had not observed me. He straightened himself, as he saw me, and then bowed a little.

The Duchess went on with extraordinary rapidity, still talking in

French.

“This is Mr. Mallock,” said she, “Mr. Mallock—but just now come from His Majesty. He brings me very grave news. Monsieur Barillon, you will help us, will you not? You will help us, surely?”

All her anguish had passed into an extraordinary pleading: she was as a child begging for life.

“Madame—” began the ambassador.

“Ah! listen, Monsieur, the king desires a priest. He is a Catholic at heart, you know. He hath been a Catholic at heart a long time, ever since—” she broke off. “You will help us, will you not, Monsieur?”

He threw out his hands: but she paid no attention.

“Monsieur, I swear to you that it is so. Yet what can I do? I cannot go to him, with decency. The Queen is there continually, I hear. The Duke is taken up with a thousand affairs and does not think of it. Go to the Duke, I entreat you, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur; go to the Duke and tell him what I say. Mr. Mallock shall go with you. He is a friend of the Duke. He will bear me out. Monsieur, for the love of God lose no time. Come and see me again; but go now, or it may be too late. Monsieur, I entreat you.”

She had seized him by the arm as she spoke. Even his rigid face twitched a little at the violence of her pleading. I knew well what was in his mind, and how he wondered whether he dared do as she asked him. God knew what complications might follow!

“Monsieur—”

He nodded suddenly and sharply.

“Madame,” said he, “I will go. Mr. Mallock—”

He bowed to me.

“Ah! God bless you, sir—”

He stooped suddenly to her hand, lifted it and kissed it. I think in that moment something of the compassion of the Saviour Himself fell on him for this poor woman who yet might be forgiven much, for indeed, under all her foolishness and sin, she loved very ardently. Then he wheeled and went out of the room again; and I followed. No sound came from the Duchess as we left her there in the half lit twilight. She was standing with her hands clasped, staring after us as we went out.

He said nothing as we passed again through the anterooms and down the stairs. Then, as we went on through the next gallery he spoke to me. His men were a good way behind us, and another in front.

“Mr. Mallock,” said he—(for he had known me well enough in

France)—”His Majesty told you this himself?”

“Yes, sir,” said I, “not a quarter of an hour ago.”

“Then the Duke is our only chance,” he said.

He said no more till we came to the great antechamber by the King’s bedroom. It was half full of people; but the Duke was nowhere to be seen. I waited by the door as M. Barillon went forward and spoke to someone. Then he came back to me.

“The Duke is with the Queen,” he said. “We must go to him there.”

It was enough to send a man mad so to seek person after person in such a simple matter as this. Why in God’s name, I wondered, might not even a King die in what religion he liked, without all this plotting and conspiring? Was I never to be free from these things?

At the door to the Queen’s apartments M. Barillon turned to me.

“You had best wait here, sir,” he said. “I will speak with the Duke privately first.”

He was admitted instantly so soon as he knocked; and went through leaving me in a little gallery.

Of all that went through my mind as I walked up and down, with a page watching me from the door, I can give no account at all. Again one half of my attention was fixed, though with out any coherency, on the business I was at; the other half observed the carpet under my feet, the cabinets along the wall, and the pictures. It was not near as splendid as were the rooms I had left so short a while ago.

I had not to wait long. There was a sudden talking of voices beyond the door that the Ambassador had just passed through; and I heard the Duke’s tones very plain. Then the page stiffened to attention, the door was flung open suddenly, and the Duke came out alone at a great pace, leaving the door open behind him. He never saw me at all. The page darted after him, and the two disappeared together round the corner in the direction of the King’s rooms. As soon as they were gone, M. Barillon came out and beckoned to me; and together we went up and down the gallery.

“You are perfectly right, sir,” he said. “His Royal Highness shewed great sorrow for not leaving thought of it. He is gone instantly to His Majesty.”

“He will fetch a priest?”

“He will speak to His Majesty first. He will find out, at least, what he thinks.”

“But, good God!” said I. “His Majesty hath told me himself what he wishes.”

“You must let His Royal Highness do it in his own way,” he said. “He must not be pushed. But I think you have done the trick, Mr. Mallock.”

“How is Her Majesty?” I asked abruptly.

“The physicians have been at her too,” he said dryly. “She had a fainting-fit just now in His Majesty’s presence; and they have been blooding her.”

“What priest can be got?” I asked next.

He made a gesture towards the chamber he had just come out of.

“There is a pack of them in there,” he said, “next to Her Majesty’s private closet. They have been praying all day in the oratory.”

It was fallen dark by now; for it was long after five o’clock; and there were no candles lighted here. We went up and down a good while longer, for the most part in silence, speaking of this and that; and I will not deny that we talked a little of French affairs, though God knows I was in no heart for that, and answered very indifferently. It appeared to me extraordinary that a man could think of such little things as the affairs of kingdoms when an immortal soul was at stake.

A little before six o’clock, when at last the servants brought lights, the Ambassador left me again to go in to see the Queen, leaving me to watch for the Duke; and I had not very long to wait, for soon after I had heard a clock chime the hour, His Royal Highness came again, walking very quickly as before; and, when he saw me waiting there, beckoned me to follow him. We went through two or three rooms, all lighted up and empty—the Duke sending a page to fetch M. Barillon out of the Queen’s private closet where he was talking with her—into a little chamber that looked out upon the court, where there was a fire lighted. We had hardly got there before the Ambassador came, all in haste, to hear what had been done.

“I have spoken with His Majesty,” said the Duke, looking very white and drawn in the face. “He is in most excellent dispositions. He tells me that he hath put off the Bishops and has not received the sacrament from them and will not.”

“And what of a priest, Sir?” asked the Ambassador sharply.

“I did not speak to him of that,” answered the Duke so pompously that I raged to hear him. “He said that Dr. Ken hath read prayers over him, and told him that he need make no confession unless he willed; and that he willed not, and did not; but that Dr. Ken read an absolution over him which he values not at a straw.”

“Sir,” said I, very boldly, “this is very pretty talk; but it is not a priest. His Majesty wishes for a priest; he told me so himself.”

The Duke turned on me very hotly.

“Eh, sir?”

I made haste to swallow down my wrath.

“Sir,” I said, “I did not mean to be discourteous. But I assure Your Royal Highness that the King said so to me expressly. It is his immortal soul that is at stake.”

Then I understood what was the matter. The Duke flung out his hands as if in despair.

“But what can I do?” he cried. “I am watched every instant. They will not leave me alone with him. Dr. Ken eyed me very sharply. They suspect something—I know they do—from my brother’s having refused their ministrations. How can I get a priest to him?”

Then again, by God’s inspiration as I truly believe, a thought came to me.

“Sir,” I said, “I myself spoke with the King a while ago: and I do not think that a soul saw who I was. I came through the little door at the back of the bed. Why should not—”

The Ambassador struck his hands together.

“Bon Dieu!” he said. “I believe Mr. Mallock hath hit it again.”

The Duke turned and eyed me very sternly.

“Well, sir, what is your plan?”

“Sir,” I said, “let the chamber be cleared, or almost. Then let M. Barillon here go in as if he had a message from the French King. While he is there let a priest be brought by the back way, not through the antechamber at all—”

M. Barillon held up his hand.

“There would not be time,” he said. “It does not take half an hour to deliver a message; and the priest’s business would take full half an hour?”

“No! no!” cried James. “They would suspect something. Let Her Majesty come again to take her leave of the King; and then I will go in after for the same thing. While we are there, let the priest come, as Mr. Mallock has said—”

“Sir,” said the Ambassador, “we must not have too many folks in this business—”

All this bargaining drove me near mad. Once more I broke in; and this time with more effect.

“Sir,” I said to the Duke, “I entreat you to hear me. There is the little room at the back of His Majesty’s bed, all ready, and empty too. We do not need all these devices. If you, Sir, will go to the King and prepare him for it, I will find a priest and bring him up the other way. I do not believe that even if there were folks in the bedchamber they would hear what passed.”

“Which way would the priest come?” asked the Duke.

“There is a little stair in the corner of the room—”

“God! There is,” cried the Duke. “I had forgotten it.”

We stared on one another in silence. My mind raced like a mill. Then once more the Duke near ruined the whole design by his diplomacy.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “we are too precipitate. His Majesty hath not yet told me that he wishes for a priest—”

“Sir—” I began in desperation.

He looked at me so fiercely that I stopped.

“Listen to me,” said he very imperiously. “I will have it my own way. M. Barillon, do you come with me now to His Majesty. I will bid the company withdraw into the antechamber—Bishops and all—on the pretext that I wish to consult with my brother privately. M. Barillon shall be in the doorway that none may come through. Mr. Mallock shall be with the company and hear what they say. Then, if the King wishes for a priest, we will consult again here, and see if Mr. Mallock’s plan is a possible one.”

He strode towards the door. There was no more to be said. It was a dreadful risk that we ran in so long delaying; but there was no gainsaying James when he had made up his mind.

The great antechamber was near full of folks of all kinds when we three came to it again. They fell back as they saw the Duke; and he passed straight through, as was arranged, with M. Barillon, leaving me behind, near the door. The King’s bedchamber was pretty dark, and I could see no more of the bed at the far distant end than its curtains.

Presently I heard the Duke in a low voice saying something to the company that was within: and immediately they began to come out, three or four Bishops, among them, my Lord Halifax, Lord Keeper North, and my Lord Craven; I noticed that M. Barillon was very careful to let all in the antechamber have a clear view of the bed, at which, by now the Duke was kneeling down, having drawn back the curtains a little, yet not so much as to shew us the King lying there.

Round about me they talked very little, though I saw the Bishops whispering together. The two brothers spoke together, very low, for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour; and I could hear the murmur of the Duke’s voice. Of His Majesty’s I heard nothing except that twice he said, very clear:

“Yes…. Yes, with all my heart.”

And I thanked God when I heard that.

Yet, even so, all was not yet done.

So soon as I saw the Duke stand up again from his kneeling, and coming down the chamber, I slipped away to the door that leads out towards Her Majesty’s apartments, that I might be ready for him. I saw him come through, all the people standing and bowing to him, and M. Barillon following him; and I noticed in particular a young gentleman whose name I did not know at that time—(it was the Comte de Castelmelhor, a very good Catholic)—standing out, a little by himself. I noticed this man because I saw that the Duke looked at him as he came and presently signed to him very slightly, with his head, to follow. So all four of us passed through the door into the long gallery that unites their Majesties’ apartments and found ourselves alone in it. The Count was a little behind.

“He has consented,” said the Duke in a low voice, “to my bringing him a priest. We must send for one. But I dare not bring one of the Duchess’: they are too well-known.”

“Sir,” said Monsieur Barillon, “I will do so with pleasure. Why not one of Her Majesty’s priests?”

The Duke nodded. We three were all standing together about the middle of the gallery. The Comte de Castelmelhor was halted, uncovered, a little behind us. The Duke turned to him.

“Count,” said he, speaking in French, “we are on a very urgent business. His Majesty hath consented that a priest should come to him. Will you go for us to the Queen and ask for one of her chaplains?”

The young man flushed up with pleasure.

“With all my heart, Sir,” he said. “Which priest shall I ask for? Is there one that can speak English?”

The Duke struck his forehead with his open hand.

“Lord!” he said. “I never thought of that. We must have an Englishman.

Where shall we send?”

“Sir,” said the Ambassador; “there is one at least at the Venetian

Resident’s.”

Again I broke in. (My impatience drove me near mad. Time was passing quickly. I could have fetched a priest myself ten times over if the Duke had but allowed me to go in the beginning.)

“Sir,” said I, “for God’s sake let me go first to Her Majesty’s apartments. I’ll be bound there’s one at least there that knows English. Let this gentleman come with me.”

The Duke stared at me as if bewildered. I think he saw that he had done little but hinder the business, so far.

“Go,” he said suddenly. “Go both of you together—Stay. Bring a priest with you, if you can find one, to the little room behind the King’s bed; but bring him up the stairs the other way. Bid him stay till I send Chiffinch to him.”

Then we were gone at full speed.

CHAPTER XI

It was eight o’clock at night; and the priest and I were still waiting in the little room; and no word was come through from the Bedchamber, beyond that Mr. Chiffinch had come through once to bid us be ready.

Once again God had favoured us in spite of all our blunders. The Count and I had run together through to Her Majesty’s lodging and there we had found, as I knew we should, a priest that knew English. But I had not thought that God’s Hand should be so visible in the matter as that we should find none other but Mr. Huddleston himself, the Scotsman, that had saved the King’s life after the battle of Worcester. There was a very particular seemliness in this—though I had not much time to think of it then. But our difficulties were not all over.

First, Mr. Huddleston declared that he had never reconciled a convert in his life; and did not know how to set about it. Next he said that he was the worst man in the world to do it, as his face was very well known, and that he would surely be suspected if he were seen: and third that the Most Holy Sacrament was not in Whitehall at all, and that therefore he could not give Viaticum. He looked very agitated, in spite of his ruddy face.

I was amazed at the man; but I forced myself to treat him with patience, for he was the only priest we could get.

First I told him that nothing was needed but to hear the King’s confession, give him absolution and anoint him: next, that we would disguise him in a great periwig and a gown, such as the Protestant Divines wore—(for, as I spoke, I actually spied such a gown hanging on the wall of the chamber in which I was speaking with him). Third, that another priest could go to St. James’ and bring the Most Holy Sacrament to him from there.

At that point Father Bento de Lemoz, who was listening to our talk, came forward and interposed. He would get a little Ritual directly, he said (in very poor English)—that had in it all that was necessary: and he would go himself, not to St. James’, for that was too far off, but to Somerset House, and get the Holy Sacrament from the royal chapel there. Mr. Huddleston had nothing to say to that; and in five minutes we had him in his periwig and gown, with the book in his pocket, with the holy oils, and away downstairs, and along the passage beneath, and up again by the little winding stair into the chamber beyond the King’s bed. I gave him no time to think of any more objections.

That was a very strange vigil that we held for very near, I should think, twenty minutes or half an hour. We both sat there together without speaking. For the most of the time Mr. Huddleston was reading in his Ritual, and I could see his brow furrowed and his lips moving, as be conned over all that he would have to do and say to His Majesty. He was a man, as he had said, completely unaccustomed to such ministrations, though he was a very good man and a good priest too, in other matters. After a while he laid aside his book, and prayed, I think, for he covered his face with his hands.

A minute or two later I could bear the delay no longer. I rose and went up the three or four steps that led to the King’s Bedchamber, and listened. There was a low murmur of voices within; so that it seemed to me that the room was not yet cleared. I put my hand upon the door and pushed it a little; and to my satisfaction it was not latched, but opened an inch or two. But someone was standing immediately on the other side of it. I stepped back, and the door opened again just enough for me to see the face of Mr. Chiffinch. He looked past me quickly to see that the priest was there, I suppose, and then nodded at me two or three times. Then he pushed the door almost to, again. A moment after I heard the Duke’s voice within, a little unsteady, but very clear and distinct. He was standing up, I think, on the far side of the bed.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “the King wishes all to retire excepting the

Earls of Bath and Feversham.”

(Bath and Feversham! thought I. Why those two, in God’s name, that were such a pair of Protestants? But, indeed, it was the one good stroke that the Duke made, for the names reassured, as I heard afterwards, all that had any suspicions, and even the Bishops themselves.)

There was a rustle of footsteps, very plain, that followed the Duke’s words. I turned to the room behind me, again, and saw that Mr. Huddleston too had heard what had passed. He was standing up, very pale and agitated, with the book clasped in his hands. I moved down the steps again so as not to block the way; and again there followed a silence, in the midst of which I heard a door latched somewhere in the Bedchamber.

Then, suddenly, the door opened at the head of the stairs; and the Duke stood there, he too as pale as death. He nodded once, very emphatically, and disappeared again. Then the priest went by me without a word, up the steps and so through. The door, as before, remained a crack open. I went up to it, and put my eye to the crack.

On the left was the end of the bed, with the curtains drawn across it; and beyond the bed I could see the whole room down to the end, for the candles were burning everywhere, as well as the fire. I could see the great table before the hearth, the physician’s instruments and bottles and cupping-glasses upon it, the chairs about it; the tall furniture against the walls, and at least half a dozen clocks, whose ticking was very plain in the silence. Three figures only were visible there. That nearest, standing very rigid by the table, was Mr. Chiffinch: of the two beyond I could recognize only my Lord Bath whose face looked this way: the other I supposed to be my Lord Feversham. The Duke was not within sight. He was kneeling, I suppose, out of my sight, beyond the bed.

Then I heard His Majesty’s voice very plain, though very weak and slow.

“Ah!” said he, “you that saved my body is now come to save my soul.”

There was the murmur of the priest’s voice in answer. (The two of them were not more than three or four yards away from me, at the most.) Then again I heard the King, very clear and continuous, though still weak, and not so loud as he had first spoken.

“Yes,” said he, “I desire to die in the Faith and Communion of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I am sorry with all my heart that I have deferred it for so long; and for all my sins.”

(He said it quite distinctly, as if he had rehearsed it beforehand.)

Then the priest and he spoke together—the King repeating the priest’s words sometimes, and sometimes volunteering word or two of his own.

He said that through Christ’s Passion he hoped to be saved; that he was in charity with all the world; that he pardoned his enemies most heartily, and desired pardon of all whom he had offended; that if God would yet spare him, he would amend his life in every particular.

All that I heard with my own ears, and with inexpressible comfort. His Majesty’s voice was low, but very distinct, though sometimes he spoke scarce above a whisper; and I do not think that any man who heard him could doubt his sincerity—however late it was to shew it. But he was not altogether too late, thank God!

So soon as His Majesty began his confession, after Mr. Huddleston’s moving him to it, I slipped away from the door and began, as softly as I could to walk up and down the little chamber again. I was satisfied beyond measure: yet it seemed to me sometimes near incredible that I should in very truth, be here at such a time, and that I should have been, under God’s merciful Providence, the instrument in such an affair. My life was ended, I knew well enough now, in all matters that the world counts life to consist of; yet was there ever such an ending? I had seen all else go from me—my natural activities of every kind, my ambitions, even the most sacred thing that the world can give, after the Love of God, and that is the love of a woman! Yet the one purely supernatural end that I had set before me—that end to which, four days ago, I had said, as I thought, good-bye for ever in the Duchess of Portsmouth’s gallery—this was the one single thing that was mine after all. I could take that at least with me into the cloister, and could praise God for it all my life long—I mean the conversion of the man that was called King of England, the man who, for all his sins and his treatment of me, I yet loved as I have never loved any other man on earth. I think that in those minutes of sorrow and joy as I paced up and down the little room, my dearest Dolly was not very far away from me and that she knew all that I felt.

Once—in a loud broken voice through the door—I heard these words:

—”Sweet Jesus. Amen…. Mercy, Sweet Jesus, Mercy!”

That was the King’s voice that I heard: and I kneeled down when I heard them.

It would be about ten minutes later, as I still kneeled, that I heard, upon the outside of the door that led down the winding stairs, a very small tapping.

I ran to the door to open it, wondering who it could be; for I had forgotten all about the Portuguese priest, though I had set the candles ready burning, with a napkin on the table between them, in readiness for his coming. And there he stood, with his eyes cast down, and his hands clasped upon his breast.

I beckoned him forward, pointing to the table, and kneeled down again.

He went past me without a word, kneeled himself before the table and then, unbuttoning his cloak he drew from round his neck the chain and the Pyx from his breast, and laid it all upon the table, continuing himself to kneel.

Presently he turned and looked at me, lifting his brows.

I knew what he wished; rose from my knees and went up the stairs, but very cautiously, lest I should hear anything that I should not. There was but a very faint murmur of the priest’s voice, so I took courage and pushed the door a little open so that I could see the King.

It was very dark within the curtains, for they were drawn against the candlelight; but I could see what was passing. His Majesty was lying flat upon his back, with his hands clasped beneath his chin, and Mr. Huddleston was in the very act of arranging the coverlet over him again, after the last Anointing. As I looked the priest turned and caught my eyes, as he put the oil-stock and the wool away again in his cassock breast. I nodded three times very emphatically—(His Majesty did not see me at all, for his eyes were closed)—and went back again down the stairs and kneeled once more. A few moments later Mr. Huddleston came through.

I have never seen so swift a change in any man’s face. He had been terrified as he had gone in—all pale and shaking. Now he was still pale, but his eyes shone, and there was a look of great assurance in his face. He came straight down the steps without speaking, kneeled, rose again, took up the Pyx and the corporal which Father de Lemoz had spread beneath it, and passed up and out again. His priesthood, I suppose, had risen in him like a great tide, and driven out all other emotions.

Again I followed him to the door, and kneeled there where I could see; and then there followed such a scene as I had never dreamed of.

The curtains on the other side of the bed had been drawn back just enough to admit the face of the Duke who now kneeled there, yet not so much that any of the three others at the further end of the chamber could see into the bed. The candlelight streamed in through the opening above the Duke’s head; and in it, I saw His Majesty, all weak as he was, striving to rise, with his eyes fixed on That which the priest was holding in his right hand. I saw the priest’s left hand go out to restrain him; but I heard the King’s voice distinctly.

“Father,” he said very brokenly, “let me receive my Heavenly Saviour in a better posture than lying on my bed.”

“Sir,” said Mr. Huddleston with great firmness, “lie down again, if you please. God Almighty who sees your heart will accept your good intention.”

(But neither of them spoke loud enough to be heard at the further end of the great chamber.)

And so he was persuaded to lie down again.

Then the priest repeated again, still holding the Blessed Sacrament before the King’s eyes, the Act of Contrition of which I had heard a word or two a while ago; and His Majesty repeated it after him, word for word, very devoutly.

Then, as the time was short Mr. Huddleston omitted several of the proper prayers, and proceeded at once to the Communion, saying but the Agnus Dei three times, and then communicating him immediately. With my own eyes I saw that holy act which sealed all and admitted the dying man to sacramental union with his God. His eyes were closed throughout; and when it was done he lay as still as a stone, his poor wasted face all dark against the white pillows. I caught a glimpse too of the Duke: his face was bowed in his hands, and he was weeping so that his shoulders shook with it.

Presently the priest was reading again as well as he could in a very low whisper the prayers for the Recommendation of a Departing Soul, down to the very end. His Majesty lay motionless throughout. At the end he opened his eyes.

“Father,” he whispered, “the Act of Contrition once more, if you please. I have sinned, I have sinned very—” He could speak no more for weeping.

Then, once more, very slowly and tenderly, the priest repeated it; down to Mercy, Sweet Jesus, Mercy! My own eyes were all dim with tears, and as fast as I brushed them away, they came again. When at last I could see plainly once more, the priest was holding up a little crucifix before the King’s eyes; and he made him a short address, very Christian and forcible. I remember near every word of it, as he said it.

“Lift up the eyes of your soul, Sir,” he said, “and represent to yourself your sweet Saviour here crucified, bowing down His Head to kiss you; His Arms stretched out to embrace you; His Body and members all bloody and pale with death to redeem you. Beseech Him, Sir, with all humility that His most Precious Blood may not be shed in vain for you; and that it will please Him, by the merits of His bitter Death and Passion, to pardon and forgive you all your offences; and, finally, to receive your soul into His Blessed Hands; and, when it shall please Him to take it out of this transitory world, to grant you a joyful resurrection, and an eternal crown of glory in the next.”

He bent lower, making a great sign of the cross with his right hand—(and the King too tried to bless himself in response).

“In the Name,” said he, “of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy

Ghost. Amen.”

One more joy and sorrow all in one was yet to be mine before the end. As I opened the door for the priest to come back, His Majesty lifted his eyes and saw me there; and I perceived that he recognized me. The Duke had already risen up and gone down the room to bid them, I suppose, to open the door and let the folks in again. Then, as the King’s eyes met my own he made a sign with his head that I should come near. I think that if the chamber had been filled with but one mob of priest-hunters and Protestants, I should have obeyed him then, even though I should have been torn to pieces the next instant.

I went forward without a word, leaving the door open behind me, and flung myself on my knees at the bedside.

His Majesty was too weary to speak, but, as I kneeled there, with my face in my hands on the bedclothes, and my tears raining down, he lifted his right hand and put it on my head, leaving it there for an instant. It was all he could do to thank me; and I value that blessing from him, a penitent sinner as he was, with the Body of our Saviour still in his breast, as much as any blessing I have ever had from any man, priest or bishop or Pope.

As he lifted his hand off again, I caught at it, and kissed it three or four times, careless whether or no my tears poured down upon it.

As I passed back again through the door to where Mr. Huddleston was waiting for me, I heard the doors at the further end of the chamber unlatched and the footsteps of the folks—physicians, courtiers, Bishops and the rest—that poured in to see the end.

EPILOGUE

I have said again and again how strange this or that moment or incident appeared to me as I experienced it; yet as I sit here now in my cell, thirty years later, looking out upon the cloister-garth with its twisted columns, and the cypresses and the grass, it is not so much this or that thing that appears to me strange, but the whole of my experiences and indeed human life altogether. For what can be more extraordinary than a life which began as mine did, when I first went to England in sixteen hundred and seventy-eight, should be ending as mine will end presently, if God will, as a monk of St. Paul’s-Without-the-Walls, in Holy Rome? To what purpose, I ask myself, was that part of my life designed by Divine Providence? For what did I labour so long, when all was to come to nothing? For what was I to learn the passion of human love; if but to lose it again? For what was I to intrigue and spy and labour and adventure my life, for the cause of England and the Catholic Church, when all a year or two later was to fall back, and further than it had ever fallen before, into the darkness of heresy? There is but one effort in all those years of which I saw the fruition, and that was the conversion of my master upon his deathbed.

However, I have not yet related what passed after I had gone from the

King again, and took Mr. Huddleston downstairs. I will relate that very

shortly; and make an end. I had it all from Mr. Chiffinch before I left

London.

His Majesty, after we were gone from him, rallied a little, in so far as to make some think that he would recover altogether; but the physicians said No; and they were right for near the first time in all their diagnosis of his state. But they continued to give him their remedies of Sal Ammoniac and Peruvian Bark, and later the Oriental Bezoar Stone, which is a pebble, I understand, taken from the stomach of a goat. Also they blooded him again, twelve ounces more, and all to no purpose.

His Majesty said a number of things that night that were very characteristic of him; for God gave him back his gift of merriment, now that he had the Gift of Faith as well: and he shewed a great tenderness too from time to time and a very Christian appreciation of his own condition.

For example, he said that he was suffering very much, but he thanked God for it and that he was able to bear it with patience, as indeed he did.

Two or three times however he seemed to sigh for death to come quickly; and once he looked round with his old laughter at the solemn faces round his bed, and begged their pardon that he was “such an unconscionable time in dying.” “My work in this world seems over,” he said—”such as it has been. I pray God I may be at a better occupation presently.”

He thanked His Royal Highness the Duke of York (who was by his bed all that night, weeping and kissing his hand repeatedly) for all his attention and love for him, and asked his pardon for any hardship that had been done to his brother, through his fault. He gave him his clothes and his keys; telling him that all was now his; and that he prayed God to give him a prosperous reign.

To Her Majesty who came to see him again about midnight, he shewed the tenderest consideration and love: but the Queen, who swooned again and again at the sight of him, and had to be carried back to her apartments, sent him a message later begging his pardon for any offence that she had ever done to him.

“What!” whispered the King. “What! She beg my pardon, poor woman! Rather

I beg hers with all my heart. Carry that message back to Her Majesty.”

No less than twice did the King commend the Duchess of Portsmouth to the Duke’s care—poor “Fubbs” as he had called her to me. Some blamed him for thinking of her at all at such a time; as also for bidding his brother “not to let poor Nell starve”; but for myself I cannot understand such blame at all. If ever there were two poor souls who needed care and forgiveness it was those two women, Mrs. Nell and Her Grace.

All his natural sons were there—all except the Duke of Monmouth whose name never passed his lips from the beginning of his sickness to the end—and these too he recommended to his brother—the three sons of the Duchess of Cleveland, and the rest. I do not wonder that he left out His Grace of Monmouth: it seems to me very near prophetical of what was to fall presently, when the Duke was to revolt against his new Sovereign and suffer the last penalty for it, at his hands. But His Majesty blessed all the rest of his children one by one, drawing them down to him upon the bed—they weeping aloud, as I heard.

A very strange scene followed this. One of the Bishops fell down upon his knees, and begged him, who was the “Lord’s Anointed”—(and anointed too, lately, in a fashion the Bishop never dreamed of!)—to bless all that were there, since they were all his children, and all his subjects too. The Bedchamber was now full from end to end; and all the company fell together upon their knees. His Majesty, raising himself in bed, first begged the pardon of all in a loud voice for anything in which he had acted contrary to the interests of his country or the principles of good government; and then, still in a loud voice, pronounced a blessing on them all. Then he fell back again upon his pillows.

So that night went slowly by. The dogs were still in the room, whining from time to time, as Mr. Chiffinch told me afterwards—(for it was thought better that I myself, as one so deeply involved in what had lately passed should not be present)—and one of the little dogs sought repeatedly to leap upon the bed, but was prevented; and at last was carried away, crying. Again and again first one Bishop and then another begged him to receive the sacrament; but he would not: so they prayed by him instead, which was all they could do.

At about six o’clock, when dawn came, he begged that the curtains of his bed might be drawn back yet further, and the windows opened, that he might see daylight again and breathe the fresh air: and this was done. Then, at the chiming of the hour by the clocks in the room, he remembered that one of them, which was an eight-day one, should be wound up, for it was a Friday on which it was always wound. And this too was done.

At seven o’clock breathlessness came on him again, and he was compelled to sit up in bed, with his brother’s arm about him on one side, and a physician’s upon the other. They blooded him again, to twelve ounces more, which I suppose took his last remnant of strength from him; for in spite of their remedies, he sank very rapidly; and about half-past eight lost all power of speech. He kept his consciousness, however, moving his eyes and shewing that he understood what was said to him till ten o’clock; and then he became unconscious altogether.

At a little before noon, without a struggle or agony of any kind, His

Sacred Majesty ceased to breathe.

Of all that followed, there is no need that I should write; for I remained in England only till after the funeral in Westminster Abbey—which was very poorly done—eight days later; and I left on the Sunday morning, for Dover, after being present first, for a remembrance, at the first mass celebrated publicly in England, with open doors, in the presence of the Sovereign, since over a hundred and thirty years. I had audience with King James on the night before, when I went to take my leave of him; and he renewed to me the offer of the Viscounty, of which I think Mr. Chiffinch had spoken to him. But I refused it as courteously as I could, telling him that I was for Rome and the cloister.

All the rest, however, is known by others better than by myself; and the events that followed. His Majesty shewed himself as he had always been—courageous, obstinate, well-intentioned and entirely without understanding. He was profuse in his promises of religious equality; but slow to observe them. He shewed ruthlessness where he should have shewn tenderness, and tenderness where he should have shewn ruthlessness. So, once more, all our labours went for nothing; and William came in; and the Catholic cause vanished clean out of England until it shall please God to bring it back again.

So here I sit near sixty years old, a monk of the Order of Saint Benet, in my cell at St. Paul’s-Without-the-Walls. I have been Novice Master three times; but I shall never be more than that; for governmental affairs and I have said farewell to one another a long while ago. It was through my telling of my adventures to my Novices at recreation-time that the writing of them down came about; for my Lord Abbot heard of them, and put me under obedience to write them down. He did this when he heard one of my Novices name me to another as Father Viscount! I have written them, then, down all in full, leaving nothing out except the French affairs on which I was put under oath by His Majesty never to reveal anything: I have left out not even the tale of my Cousin Dolly; for I hold that in such a love as was ours there is nothing that a monk need be ashamed of. I will venture even further than that, and will say that I am a better monk than I should have been without it; and as one last piece of rashness I will say that amongst “those good things which God hath prepared for them that love Him” in that world which is beyond this (if I ever come at it by His Grace), will be, I think, the look on my Cousin Dolly’s face when I see her again.

Of other personages whose acquaintance I made in England—excepting always His Majesty, and my master, Charles the Second—I neither speak nor think very much now. My Cousin Tom died of an apoplexy three years after I left England, and God knows who hath Hare Street House to-day! His Majesty James the Second, as all the world knows, made a most excellent end of it in France, dying as he had never lived till after his coming to France, a very humble and Christian soul. In regard to Mr. Chiffinch, I think of him sometimes and wonder what kind of an end he made. He was very reprobate while I knew him; yet he had the gift of fidelity, and that, I think, must count for something before God who gave it him. Of the ladies of the Court I know nothing at all, nor how they fared nor how they ended, nor even if they are all dead yet—I mean such ladies as was Her Grace of Portsmouth.

But all of them I commend to God every day in my mass living or dead; and trust that all may have found the mercy of God, or may yet find it. But most of all I remember at the altar the names of two persons, than between whom there could be no greater difference in this world—the names of Dorothy Mary Jermyn, the least of all sinners; and of Charles Stuart, King of England, the greatest of all sinners, yet a penitent one. For these are the two whom I have loved as I can never love any others.

PARADOXES OF

CATHOLICISM

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

CONTENTS

PARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM

PREFACE

BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON

INTRODUCTORY

(I) JESUS CHRIST, GOD AND MAN

I.

II.

(II) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, DIVINE AND HUMAN

I.

II.

I

PEACE AND WAR

II

WEALTH AND POVERTY

III

SANCTITY AND SIN

IV

JOY AND SORROW

V

LOVE OF GOD AND LOVE OF MAN

VI

FAITH AND REASON

VII

AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY

VIII

CORPORATENESS AND INDIVIDUALISM

IX

MEEKNESS AND VIOLENCE

X

THE SEVEN WORDS

THE “THREE HOURS”

INTRODUCTION

THE FIRST WORD

FATHER FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO

THE SECOND WORD

AMEN I SAY TO THEE, TO-DAY THOU SHALT BE WITH ME IN PARADISE

THE THIRD WORD

WOMAN, BEHOLD THY SON. BEHOLD THY MOTHER

THE FOURTH WORD

MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?

THE FIFTH WORD

I THIRST

THE SIXTH WORD

IT IS CONSUMMATED

THE SEVENTH WORD

FATHER, INTO THY HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT

XI

LIFE AND DEATH

PARADOXES OF CATHOLICISM

PREFACE

BY ROBERT HUGH BENSON

These sermons (which the following pages contain in a much abbreviated form) were delivered, partly in England in various places and at various times, partly in New York in the Lent of 1912, and finally, as a complete course, in the church of S. Silvestro-in-Capite, in Rome, in the Lent of 1913. Some of the ideas presented in this book have already been set out in a former volume entitled “Christ in the Church” and a few in the meditations upon the Seven Words, in another volume, but in altogether other connexions. The author thought it better, therefore, to risk repetition rather than incoherency in the present set of considerations. It is hoped that the repetitions are comparatively few.

Robert hugh benson hare street house, buntingford easter, 1913

INTRODUCTORY

(I) JESUS CHRIST, GOD AND MAN

I and my father are one.—JOHN X. 30.

My father is greater than i.—JOHN XIV. 20.

The mysteries of the Church, a materialistic scientist once announced to an astonished world, are child’s play compared with the mysteries of nature. He was completely wrong, of course, yet there was every excuse for his mistake. For, as he himself tells us in effect, he found everywhere in that created nature which he knew so well, anomaly piled on anomaly and paradox on paradox, and he knew no more of theology than its simpler and more explicit statements.

We can be certain therefore—we who understand that the mysteries of nature are, after all, within the limited circle of created life, while the mysteries of grace run up into the supreme Mystery of the eternal and uncreated Life of God—we can be certain that, if nature is mysterious and paradoxical, grace will be incalculably more mysterious. For every paradox in the world of matter, in whose environment our bodies are confined, we shall find a hundred in that atmosphere of spirit in which our spirits breathe and move—those spirits of ours which, themselves, paradoxically enough, are forced to energize under material limitations.

We need look no further, then, to find these mysteries than to that tiny mirror of the Supernatural which we call our self, to that little thread of experience which we name the “spiritual life.” How is it, for example, that while in one mood our religion is the lamp of our shadowy existence, in another it is the single dark spot upon a world of pleasure—in one mood the single thing that makes life worth living at all, and in another the one obstacle to our contentment? What are those sorrowful and joyful mysteries of human life, mutually contradictory yet together resultant (as in the Rosary itself) in others that are glorious? Turn to that master passion that underlies these mysteries—the passion that is called love—and see if there be anything more inexplicable than such an explanation. What is this passion, then, that turns joy to sorrow and sorrow to joy—this motive that drives a man to lose his life that he may save it, that turns bitter to sweet and makes the cross but a light yoke after all, that causes him to find his centre outside his own circle, and to please himself best by depriving himself of pleasure? What is that power that so often fills us with delights before we have begun to labour, and rewards our labour with the darkness of dereliction?

I.

If our interior life, then, is full of paradox and apparent contradiction—and there is no soul that has made any progress that does not find it so—we should naturally expect that the Divine Life of Jesus Christ on earth, which is the central Objective Light of the World reflected in ourselves, should be full of yet more amazing anomalies. Let us examine the records of that Life and see if it be not so. And let us for that purpose begin by imagining such an examination to be made by an inquirer who has never received the Christian tradition.

(i) He begins to read, of course, with the assumption that this Life is as others and this Man as other men; and as he reads he finds a hundred corroborations of the theory. Here is one, born of a woman, hungry and thirsty by the wayside, increasing in wisdom; one who works in a carpenter’s shop; rejoices and sorrows; one who has friends and enemies; who is forsaken by the one and insulted by the other—who passes, in fact, through all those experiences of human life to which mankind is subject—one who dies like other men and is laid in a grave.

Even the very marvels of that Life he seeks to explain by the marvellous humanity of its hero. He can imagine, as one such inquirer has said, how the magic of His presence was so great—the magic of His simple yet perfect humanity—that the blind opened their eyes to see the beauty of His face and the deaf their ears to hear Him.

Yet, as he reads further, he begins to meet his problems. If this Man were man only, however perfect and sublime, how is it that His sanctity appears to run by other lines than those of other saints? Other perfect men as they approached perfection were most conscious of imperfection; other saints as they were nearer God lamented their distance from Him; other teachers of the spiritual life pointed always away from themselves and their shortcomings to that Eternal Law to which they too aspired. Yet with this Man all seems reversed. He, as He stood before the world, called on men to imitate Him; not, as other leaders have done, to avoid His sins: this Man, so far from pointing forward and up, pointed to Himself as the Way to the Father; so far from adoring a Truth to which He strove, named Himself its very incarnation; so far from describing a Life to which He too one day hoped to rise, bade His hearers look on Himself Who was their Life; so far from deploring to His friends the sins under which He laboured, challenged His enemies to find within Him any sin at all. There is an extraordinary Self-consciousness in Him that has in it nothing of “self” as usually understood.

Then it may be, at last, that our inquirer approaches the Gospel with a new assumption. He has been wrong, he thinks, in his interpretation that such a Life as this was human at all. “Never man spake like this man.” He echoes from the Gospel, “What manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey Him? How, after all,” he asks himself, “could a man be born without a human father, how rise again from the dead upon the third day?” Or, “How even could such marvels be related at all of one who was no more than other men?”

So once more he begins. Here, he tells himself, is the old fairy story come true; here is a God come down to dwell among men; here is the solution of all his problems. And once more he finds himself bewildered. For how can God be weary by the wayside, labour in a shop, and die upon a cross? How can the Eternal Word be silent for thirty years? How can the Infinite lie in a manger? How can the Source of Life be subject to death?

He turns in despair, flinging himself from theory to theory—turns to the words of Christ Himself, and the perplexity deepens with every utterance. If Christ be man, how can He say, My Father and I are one? If Christ be God, how can He proclaim that His Father is greater than He? If Christ be Man, how can He say, Before Abraham was, I am? If Christ be God, how can He name Himself the Son of Man.

(ii) Turn to the spiritual teaching of Jesus Christ, and once more problem follows problem, and paradox, paradox.

Here is He Who came to soothe men’s sorrows and to give rest to the weary, He Who offers a sweet yoke and a light burden, telling them that no man can be His disciple who will not take up the heaviest of all burdens and follow Him uphill. Here is one, the Physician of souls and bodies, Who went about doing good, Who set the example of activity in God’s service, pronouncing the silent passivity of Mary as the better part that shall not be taken away from her. Here at one moment He turns with the light of battle in His eyes, bidding His friends who have not swords to sell their cloaks and buy them; and at another bids those swords to be sheathed, since His Kingdom is not of this world. Here is the Peacemaker, at one time pronouncing His benediction on those who make peace, and at another crying that He came to bring not peace but a sword. Here is He Who names as blessed those that mourn bidding His disciples to rejoice and be exceeding glad. Was there ever such a Paradox, such perplexity, and such problems? In His Person and His teaching alike there seems no rest and no solution—What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?

II.

(i) The Catholic teaching alone, of course, offers a key to these questions; yet it is a key that is itself, like all keys, as complicated as the wards which it alone can unlock. Heretic after heretic has sought for simplification, and heretic after heretic has therefore come to confusion. Christ is God, cried the Docetic; therefore cut out from the Gospels all that speaks of the reality of His Manhood! God cannot bleed and suffer and die; God cannot weary; God cannot feel the sorrows of man. Christ is Man, cries the modern critic; therefore tear out from the Gospels His Virgin Birth and His Resurrection! For none but a Catholic can receive the Gospels as they were written; none but a man who believes that Christ is both God and Man, who is content to believe that and to bow before the Paradox of paradoxes that we call the Incarnation, to accept the blinding mystery that Infinite and Finite Natures were united in one Person, that the Eternal expresses Himself in Time, and that the Uncreated Creator united to Himself Creation—none but a Catholic, in a word, can meet, without exception, the mysterious phenomena of Christ’s Life.

(ii) Turn now again to the mysteries of our own limited life and, as in a far-off phantom parallel, we begin to understand.

For we too, in our measure, have a double nature. As God and Man make one Christ, so soul and body make one man: and, as the two natures of Christ—as His Perfect Godhead united to His Perfect Manhood—lie at the heart of the problems which His Life presents, so too our affinities with the clay from which our bodies came, and with the Father of Spirits Who inbreathed into us living souls, explain the contradictions of our own experience.

If we were but irrational beasts, we could be as happy as the beasts; if we were but discarnate spirits that look on God, the joy of the angels would be ours. Yet if we assume either of these two truths as if it were the only truth, we come certainly to confusion. If we live as the beasts, we cannot sink to their contentment, for our immortal part will not let us be; if we neglect or dispute the rightful claims of the body, that very outraged body drags our immortal spirit down. The acceptance of the two natures of Christ alone solves the problems of the Gospel; the acceptance of the two parts of our own nature alone enables us to live as God intends. Our spiritual and physical moods, then, rise and fall as the one side or the other gains the upper hand: now our religion is a burden to the flesh, now it is the exercise in which our soul delights; now it is the one thing that makes life worth living, now the one thing that checks our enjoyment of life. These moods alternate, inevitably and irresistibly, according as we allow the balance of our parts to be disturbed and set swaying. And so, ultimately, there is reserved for us the joy neither of beasts nor of angels, but the joy of humanity. We are higher than the one, we are lower than the other, that we may be crowned by Him Who in that same Humanity sits on the Throne of God.

So much, then, for our introduction. We have seen how the Paradox of the Incarnation alone is adequate to the phenomena recorded in the Gospel—how that supreme paradox is the key to all the rest. We will proceed to see how it is also the key to other paradoxes of religion, to the difficulties which the history of Catholicism presents. For the Catholic Church is the extension of Christ’s Life on earth; the Catholic Church, therefore, that strange mingling of mystery and common-sense, that union of earth and heaven, of clay and fire, can alone be understood by him who accepts her as both Divine and Human, since she is nothing else but the mystical presentment, in human terms, of Him Who, though the Infinite God and the Eternal Creator, was found in the form of a servant, of Him Who, dwelling always in the Bosom of the Father, for our sakes came down from heaven.

(II) THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, DIVINE AND HUMAN

Blessed art thou simon bar-jona; because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my father who is in heaven…. Go behind me, satan, for thou savourest not the things that are of god, but the things that are of men.—MATT. XVI. 17, 23.

We have seen how the only reconciliation of the paradoxes of the Gospel lies in the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation. It is only to him who believes that Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect Man that the Gospel record is coherent and intelligible. The heretics—men who for the most part either rejected or added to the inspired record—were those who, on the one side, accepted Christ’s Divinity and rejected the proofs of His Humanity, or accepted His Humanity and rejected the proofs of His Divinity. In the early ages, for the most part, these accepted His Divinity and, rejecting His Humanity, invented childish miracles which they thought appropriate to a God dwelling on earth in a phantom manhood; at the present day, rejecting His Divinity, they reject also those miracles for which His Divinity alone is an adequate explanation.

Now the Catholic Church is an extension of the Incarnation. She too (though, as we shall see, the parallel is not perfect) has her Divine and Human Nature, which alone can account for the paradoxes of her history; and these paradoxes are either predicted by Christ—asserted, that is, as part of His spiritual teaching—or actually manifested in His own life. (We may take them as symbolised, so to speak, in those words of our Lord to St. Peter in which He first commends him as a man inspired by God and then, almost simultaneously, rebukes him as one who can rise no further than an earthly ideal at the best.)

I.

(i) Just as we have already imagined a well-disposed inquirer approaching for the first time the problems of the Gospel, so let us now again imagine such a man, in whom the dawn of faith has begun, encountering the record of Catholicism.

At first all seems to him Divine. He sees, for example, how singularly unique she is, how unlike to all other human societies. Other societies depend for their very existence upon a congenial human environment; she flourishes in the most uncongenial. Other societies have their day and pass down to dissolution and corruption; she alone knows no corruption. Other dynasties rise and fall; the dynasty of Peter the Fisherman remains unmoved. Other causes wax and wane with the worldly influence which they can command; she is usually most effective when her earthly interest is at the lowest ebb.

Or again, he falls in love with her Divine beauty and perceives even in her meanest acts a grace which he cannot understand. He notices with wonder how she takes human mortal things—a perishing pagan language, a debased architecture, an infant science or philosophy—and infuses into them her own immortality. She takes the superstitions of a country-side and, retaining their “accidents,” transubstantiates them into truth; the customs or rites of a pagan society, and makes them the symbols of a living worship. And into all she infuses a spirit that is all her own—a spirit of delicate grace and beauty of which she alone has the secret.

It is her Divinity, then, that he sees, and rightly. But, wrongly, he draws certain one-sided conclusions. If she is so perfect, he argues (at least subconsciously), she can be nothing else than perfect; if she is so Divine she can be in no sense human. Her pontiffs must all be saints, her priests shining lights, her people stars in her firmament. If she is Divine, her policy must be unerring, her acts all gracious, her lightest movements inspired. There must be no brutality anywhere, no self-seeking, no ambition, no instability. How should there be, since she is Divine?

Such are his first instincts. And then, little by little, his disillusionment begins.

For, as he studies her record more deeply, he begins to encounter evidences of her Humanity. He reads history, and he discovers here and there a pontiff who but little in his moral character resembles Him Whose Vicar he is. He meets an apostate priest; he hears of some savagery committed in Christ’s name; he talks with a convert who has returned complacently to the City of Confusion; there is gleefully related to him the history of a family who has kept the faith all through the period of persecution and lost it in the era of toleration. And he is shaken and dismayed. “How can these be in a Society that is Divine? I had trusted that it had been_ She who should have redeemed Israel; and now—!”

(ii) Another man approaches the record of Catholicism from the opposite direction. To him she is a human society and nothing more; and he finds, indeed, a thousand corroborations of his theory. He views her amazing success in the first ages of Christianity—the rapid propagation of her tenets and the growth of her influence—and sees behind these things nothing more than the fortunate circumstance of the existence of the Roman Empire. Or he notices the sudden and rapid rise of the power of the Roman pontiff and explains this by the happy chance that moved the centre of empire to the east and left in Rome an old prestige and an empty throne. He sees how the Church has profited by the divisions in Europe; how she has inherited the old Latin genius for law and order; and he finds in these things an explanation of her unity and of her claim to rule princes and kings. She is to him just human, and no more. There is not, at first sight, a phenomenon of her life for which he cannot find a human explanation. She is interesting, as a result of innumerable complicated forces; she is venerable, as the oldest coherent society in Europe; she has the advantage of Italian diplomacy; she has been shrewd, unweary, and persevering. But she is no more.

And then, as he goes deeper, he begins to encounter phenomena which do not fall so easily under his compact little theories. If she is merely human, why do not the laws of all other human societies appear to affect her too? Why is it that she alone shows no incline towards dissolution and decay? Why has not she too split up into the component parts of which she is welded? How is it that she has preserved a unity of which all earthly unities are but shadows? Or he meets with the phenomena of her sanctity and begins to perceive that the difference between the character she produces in her saints and the character of the noblest of those who do not submit to her is one of kind and not merely of degree. If she is merely mediaeval, how is it that she commands such allegiance as that which is paid to her in modern America? If she is merely European, how is it that she alone can deal with the Oriental on his own terms? If she is merely the result of temporal circumstances, how is it that her spiritual influence shows no sign of waning when the forces that helped to build her are dispersed?

His theory too, then, becomes less confident. If she is Human, why is she so evidently Divine? If she is Divine, whence comes her obvious Humanity? So years ago men asked, If Christ be God, how could He be weary by the wayside and die upon the Cross? So men ask now, If Christ be Man, how could He cast out devils and rise from the dead?

II.

We come back, then, to the Catholic answer. Treat the Catholic Church as Divine only and you will stumble over her scandals, her failures, and her shortcomings. Treat her as Human only and you will be silenced by her miracles, her sanctity, and her eternal resurrections.

(i) Of course the Catholic Church is Human. She consists of fallible men, and her Humanity is not even safeguarded as was that of Christ against the incursions of sin. Always, therefore, there have been scandals, and always will be. Popes may betray their trust, in all human matters; priests their flocks; laymen their faith. No man is secure. And, again, since she is human it is perfectly true that she has profited by human circumstances for the increase of her power. Undoubtedly it was the existence of the Roman Empire, with its roads, its rapid means of transit, and its organization, that made possible the swift propagation of the Gospel in the first centuries. Undoubtedly it was the empty throne of Caesar and the prestige of Rome that developed the world’s acceptance of the authority of Peter’s Chair. Undoubtedly it was the divisions of Europe that cemented the Church’s unity and led men to look to a Supreme Authority that might compose their differences. There is scarcely an opening in human affairs into which she has not plunged; hardly an opportunity she has missed. Human affairs, human sins and weaknesses as well as human virtues, have all contributed to her power. So grows a tree, even in uncongenial soil. The rocks that impede the roots later become their support; the rich soil, waiting for an occupant, has been drawn up into the life of the leaves; the very winds that imperilled the young sapling have developed too its power of resistance. Yet these things do not make the tree.

(ii) For her Humanity, though it is the body in which her Divinity dwells, does not create that Divinity. Certainly human circumstances have developed her, yet what but Divine Providence ordered and developed those human circumstances? What but that same power, which indwells in the Church, dwelt without her too and caused her to take root at that time and in that place which most favored her growth? Certainly she is Human. It may well be that her rulers have contradicted one another in human matters—in science, in policy, and in discipline; but how is it, then, that they have not contradicted one another in matters that are Divine? Granted that one Pope has reversed the policy of his predecessor, then what has saved him from reversing his theology also? Certainly there have been appalling scandals, outrageous sinners, blaspheming apostates—but what of her saints?

And, above all, she gives proof of her Divinity by that very sign to which Christ Himself pointed as a proof of His own. Granted that she dies daily—that her cause fails in this century and in that country; that her science is discredited in this generation and her active morality in that and her ideals in a third—how comes it that she also rises daily from the dead; that her old symbols rise again from their ruins; that her virtues are acclaimed by the children of the men who renounced her; that her bells and her music sound again where once her churches and houses were laid waste?

Here, then, is the Catholic answer and it is this alone that makes sense of history, as it is Catholic doctrine which alone makes sense of the Gospel record. The answer is identical in both cases alike, and it is this—that the only explanation of the phenomena of the Gospels and of Church history is that the Life which produces them is both Human and Divine.

I

PEACE AND WAR

Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of god.—MATT. V. 9.

Do not think that i am come to send peace on earth; i came not to send peace but the sword.—MATT. X. 34.

We have considered how the key to the Paradoxes of the Gospel and the key to the Paradoxes of Catholicism is one and the same—that the Life that produces them is at once Divine and Human. Let us go on to consider how this resolves those of Catholicism, especially those charged against us by our adversaries.

For we live in a day when Catholicism is no longer considered by intelligent men to be too evidently absurd to be argued with. Definite reasons are given by those who stand outside our borders for the attitude they maintain; definite accusations are made which must either be allowed or refuted.

Now those who stand without the walls of the City of Peace know nothing, it is true, of the life that its citizens lead within, nothing of the harmony and consolation that Catholicism alone can give. Yet of certain points, it may be, in the large outlines of that city against the sky, of the place it occupies in the world, of its wide effect upon human life in general, it may very well be that these detached observers may know more than the devout who dwell at peace within. Let us, then, consider their reflections not necessarily as wholly false; it may be that they have caught glimpses which we have missed and relations which either we take too much for granted or have failed altogether to see. It may be that these accusations will turn out to be our credentials in disguise.

I. Every world-religion, we are told, worthy of the name has as its principal object and its chief claim to consideration its establishing or its fostering of peace among men. Supremely this was so in the first days of Christianity. It was this that its great prophet predicted of its work when its Divine Founder should come on earth. Nature shall recover its lost harmony and the dissensions of men shall cease when He, the Prince of Peace, shall approach. The very beasts shall lie down together in amity, the lion and the lamb and the leopard and the kid. Further, it was the Message of Peace that the angels proclaimed over His cradle in Bethlehem; it was the Gift of Peace which He Himself promised to His disciples; it was the Peace of God which passeth knowledge to which the great Apostle commended his converts. This then, we are told, is of the very essence of Christianity; this is the supreme benediction on the peacemakers that they shall be called the children of God.

Yet, when we turn to Catholicism, we are bidden to see in it not a gatherer but a scatterer, not the daughter of peace but the mother of disunion. Is there a single tormented country in Europe to-day, it is rhetorically demanded, that does not owe at least part of its misery to the claims of Catholicism? What is it but Catholicism that lies at the heart of the divided allegiance of France, of the miseries of Portugal, and of the dissensions of Italy? Look back through history and you will find the same tale everywhere. What was it that disturbed the politics of England so often from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, and tore her in two in the sixteenth, but the determined resistance of an adolescent nation to the tyranny of Rome? What lay behind the religious wars of Europe, behind the fires of Smithfield, the rack of Elizabeth, and the blood of St. Bartholomew’s Day but this intolerant and intolerable religion which would come to no terms even with the most reasonable of its adversaries? It is impossible, of course, altogether to apportion blame, to say that in each several instance it was the Catholic that was the aggressor; but at least it is true to say that it was Catholic principles that were the occasion and Catholic claims the unhappy cause of all this incalculable flood of human misery.

How singularly unlike, then, we are told, is this religion of dissension to the religion of Jesus Christ, of all these dogmatic and disciplinary claims and assertions to the meekness of the Poor Man of Nazareth! If true Christianity is anywhere in the world to-day it is not among such as these that it lies hid; rather it must be sought among the gentle humanitarians of our own and every country—men who strive for peace at all cost, men whose principal virtues are those of toleration and charity, men who, if any, have earned the beatitude of being called the children of God.

II. We turn to the Life of Jesus Christ from the Life of Catholicism, and at first indeed it does seem as if the contrast were justified. We cannot deny our critic’s charges; every one of his historical assertions is true: it is indeed true that Catholicism has been the occasion of more bloodshedding than has any of the ambitions or jealousies of man.

And it is, further, true that Jesus Christ pronounced this benediction; that He bade His followers seek after peace, and that He commended them, in the very climax of His exaltation, to the Peace which He alone could bestow.

Yet, when we look closer, the case is not so simple. For, first, what was, as a matter of fact, the direct immediate effect of the Life and Personality of Jesus Christ upon the society in which He lived but this very dissension, this very bloodshedding and misery that are charged against His Church? It was precisely on this account that He was given into the hands of Pilate. He stirreth up the people. He makes Himself a King. He is a contentious demagogue, a disloyal citizen, a danger to the Roman Peace.

And indeed there seem to have been excuses for these charges. It was not the language of a modern “humanitarian,” of the modern tolerant “Christian,” that fell from the Divine Lips of Jesus Christ. Go and tell that fox, He cries of the ruler of His people. O you whited sepulchres full of dead men’s bones! You vipers! You hypocrites! This is the language He uses to the representatives of Israel’s religion. Is this the kind of talk that we hear from modern leaders of religious thought? Would such language as this be tolerated for a moment from the humanitarian Christian pulpits of to-day? Is it possible to imagine more inflammatory speech, more “unchristian sentiments,” as they would be called to-day, than those words uttered by none other but the Divine Founder of Christianity? What of that amazing scene when He threw the furniture about the temple courts?

And as for the effect of such words and methods, our Lord Himself is quite explicit. “Make no mistake,” He cries to the modern humanitarian who claims alone to represent Him. “Make no mistake. I am not come to bring peace at any price; there are worse things than war and bloodshed. I am come to bring not peace but a sword. I am come to divide families, not to unite them; to rend kingdoms, not to knit them up; I am come to set mother against daughter and daughter against mother; I am come not to establish universal toleration, but universal Truth.”

What, then, is the reconciliation of the Paradox? In what sense can it be possible that the effect of the Personality of the Prince of Peace, and therefore the effect of His Church, in spite of their claims to be the friends of peace, should be not peace, but the sword?

III. Now (1) the Catholic Church is a Human Society. She is constituted, that is to say, of human beings; she depends, humanly speaking, upon human circumstances; she can be assaulted, weakened, and disarmed by human enemies. She dwells in the midst of human society, and it is with human society that she has to deal.

Now if she were not human—if she were merely a Divine Society, a far-off city in the heavens, a future distant ideal to which human society is approximating, there would be no conflict at all. She would never meet in a face-to-face shock the passions and antagonisms of men; she could suppress, now and again, her Counsels of Perfection, her calls to a higher life, if it were not that these are vital and present principles which she is bound to propagate among men.

And again, if she were merely human, there would be no conflict. If she were merely ascended from below, merely the result of the finest religious thought of the world, the high-water mark of spiritual attainment, again she could compromise, could suppress, could be silent.

But she is both human and divine, and therefore her warfare is certain and inevitable. For she dwells in the midst of the kingdoms of this world, and these are constituted, at any rate at the present day, on wholly human bases. Statesmen and kings, at the present day, do not found their policies upon supernatural considerations; their object is to govern their subjects, to promote the peace and union of their subjects, to make war, if need be, on behalf of the peace of their subjects, wholly on natural grounds. Commerce, finance, agriculture, education in the things of this world, science, art, exploration—human activities generally—these, in their purely natural aspect, are the objects of nearly all modern statesmanship. Our rulers are professedly, in their public capacity, neither for religion nor against it; religion is a private matter for the individual, and governments stand aside—or at any rate profess to do so.

And it is in this kind of world, in this fashion of human society, that the Catholic Church, in virtue of her humanity, is bound to dwell. She too is a kingdom, though not of this world, yet in it.

(2) For she is also Divine. Her message contains, that is to say, a number of supernatural principles revealed to her by God; she is supernaturally constituted; she rests on a supernatural basis; she is not organized as if this world were all. On the contrary she puts the kingdom of God definitely first and the kingdoms of the world definitely second; the Peace of God first and the harmony of men second.

Therefore she is bound, when her supernatural principles clash with human natural principles, to be the occasion of disunion. Her marriage laws, as a single example, are at conflict with the marriage laws of the majority of modern States. It is of no use to tell her to modify these principles; it would be to tell her to cease to be supernatural, to cease to be herself. How can she modify what she believes to be her Divine Message?

Again, since she is organized on a supernatural basis, there are supernatural elements in her own constitution which she can no more modify than her dogmas. Recently, in France, she was offered the kingdom of this world if she would do so; it was proposed to her that she actually retain her own wealth, her churches and her houses, and yield up her principle of spiritual appeal to the Vicar of Christ. If she had been but human, how evident would have been her duty! How inevitable that she should modify her constitution in accordance with human ideas and preserve her property intact! And how entirely impossible such a bargain must be for a Society that is divine as well as human!

Take courage then! We desire peace above all things—that is to say, the Peace of God, not that peace which the world, since it can give it, can also take away; not that peace which depends on the harmony of nature with nature, but of nature with grace.

Yet, so long as the world is divided in allegiance; so long as the world, or a country, or a family, or even an individual soul bases itself upon natural principles divorced from divine, so long to that world, that country, that family, and that human heart will the supernatural religion of Catholicism bring not peace, but a sword. And it will do so to the end, up to the final world-shattering catastrophe of Armageddon itself.

“I come,” cries the Rider on the White Horse, “to bring Peace indeed, but a peace of which the world cannot even dream; a peace built upon the eternal foundations of God Himself, not upon the shifting sands of human agreement. And until that Vision dawns there must be war; until God’s Peace descends indeed and is accepted, till then My Garments must be splashed in blood and from My Mouth comes forth not peace, but a two-edged sword.”

II

WEALTH AND POVERTY

Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity.

You cannot serve god and mammon.-LUKE XVI. 9, 13.

We have seen how the Church of the Prince of Peace must continually be the centre of war. Let us go on to consider how, as a Human Society dwelling in this world, she must continually have her eyes fixed upon the next, and how, as a Divine Society, she must be open to the charge of worldliness.

I. (i) The charge is a very common one: “Look at the extraordinary wealth and splendour that this Church of the Poor Man of Nazareth constantly gathers around her and ask yourself how she can dare to claim to represent Him! Go through Holy Rome and see how the richest and most elaborate buildings bear over their gateways the heraldic emblems of Christ’s Vicar! Go through any country which has not risen in disgust and cast off the sham that calls herself ‘Christ’s Church’ and you will find that no worldly official is so splendid as these heavenly delegates of Jesus Christ, no palaces more glorious than those in which they dwell who pretend to preach Him who had not where to lay His head!

“Above all, turn from that simple poverty-stricken figure that the Gospels present to us, to the man who claims to be His Vicegerent on earth. See him go, crowned three times over, on a throne borne on men’s shoulders, with the silver trumpets shrilling before him and the ostrich fans coming on behind, and you will understand why the world cannot take the Church seriously. Look at the court that is about him, all purple and scarlet, and set by that the little band of weather-beaten fishermen!

“No; if this Church were truly of Christ, she would imitate Him better. It was His supreme mission to point to things that are above; to lift men’s thoughts above dross and gold and jewels and worldly influence and high places and power; to point to a Heavenly Jerusalem, not made with hands; to comfort the sorrowful with a vision of future peace, not to dabble with temporal matters; to speak of grace and heaven and things to come, and to let the dead bury their dead! The best we can do for her, then, is to disembarrass her of her riches; to turn her temporal possessions to frankly temporal ends; to release her from the slavery of her own ambition into the liberty of the poor and the children of God!”

(ii) In a word, then, the Church is too worldly to be the Church of Christ! You cannot serve God and Mammon. Yet in another mood our critic will tell us that we are too otherworldly to be the Church of Christ. “The chief charge I have against Catholicism,” says such a man, “is that the Church is too unpractical. If she were truly the Church of Jesus Christ, she would surely imitate Him better in that which, after all, was the mark of His highest Divinity—namely in His Humanity towards men. Christ did not come into the world to preach metaphysics and talk forever of a heaven that is to come; He came rather to attend to men’s simplest needs, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to reform society on better lines. It was not by His dogma that He won men’s hearts; it was by His simple, natural sympathy with their common needs. He came, in a word, to make the best of this world, to use the elements that lay ready to His hand, to sanctify all the plain things of earth with which He came in contact.

“These otherworldly Catholics, then, are too much apart from common life and common needs. Their dogmas and their aspirations and their metaphysics are useless to a world which wants bread. Let them act more and dream less! Let them show, for example, by the prosperity of Catholic countries that Catholicism is practical and not a vision. Let them preach less and philanthropize more. Let them show that they have the key to this world’s progress, and perhaps we will listen more patiently to their claim to hold the key to the world that is to come!”

But, surely, this is a little hard upon Catholics! When we make ourselves at home in this world, we are informed that Jesus Christ had not where to lay His Head. When we preach the world that is to come, we are reminded that Jesus Christ after all came down from that world into this to make it better. When we build a comfortable church, we are told that we are too luxurious. When we build an uncomfortable one we are asked how we expect to do any good unless we are practical.

II. Now, of course, both these charges were also objected against our Blessed Lord. For He too had His double activities. It is true that there were times when He gave men earthly bread; it is also true that He offered them heavenly bread. There were times when He cared for men’s bodies; there were other times when He bade them sacrifice all that makes bodily life worth living; times when He sat at meat in the house of a rich man, and times when He starved, voluntarily, in the desert.

And the world found Him wrong whichever He did. He was too worldly when He healed men on the Sabbath; for is not the Law of God of more value than a man’s bodily ease? Why can He not wait till to-morrow? He was too worldly when He allowed His disciples to rub corn in their hands; for does not the Law of God forbid a man to make bread on the Sabbath? He was too worldly, too unpractical, too sense-loving when He permitted the precious ointment to be spilled on His feet; for might not this ointment have been sold for much and given to the poor? Is not spirituality enough, and the incense of adoration?

And He was too otherworldly when He preached the Sermon on the Mount. What is the use of saying, Blessed are the Meek, when the whole world knows that “Blessed are the Self-Assertive”? He was too otherworldly when He spoke of Heavenly Bread. What is the use of speaking of Heavenly Bread when it is earthly food that men need first of all? He was too otherworldly when He remained in the country on the feast day. If He be the Christ, let Him be practical and say so!

It was, in fact, on these very two charges that He was arraigned for death. He was too worldly for Pilate, in that He was Son of Man and therefore a rival to Caesar; and too otherworldly for Caiphas, since He made Himself Son of God and therefore a rival to Jehovah.

III. The solution, then, of this Catholic Paradox is very simple. (i) First, the Church is a Heavenly Society come down from above—heavenly in her origin and her birth. She is the kingdom of God, first and foremost, and exists for His glory solely and entirely. She seeks, then, first the extension of His kingdom; and compared with this, nothing is of any value in her eyes. Never, then, must she sacrifice God to Mammon; never hesitate for one instant if the choice lies between them. For she considers that eternity is greater than time and the soul of man of more value than his body. The sacraments therefore, in her eyes, come before an adequate tram-service; and that a man’s soul should be in grace is, to her, of more importance than that his body should be in health—if the choice is between them. She prefers, therefore, the priest to the doctor, if there is not time for both, and Holy Communion to a good breakfast.

Therefore, of course, she appears too otherworldly to the stockbroker and the provincial mayor, since she actually places the things of God before the things of man and “seeks first His Kingdom.”

(ii) “And all these things shall be added” to her. For she is Human also, in that she dwells in this world where God has placed her, and uses therefore the things with which He has surrounded her. To say that she is supernatural is not to deny her humanity any more than to assert that man has an immortal soul is to exclude the truth that he also has a body. It is this Body of hers, then—this humanity of hers which enshrines her Divinity—that claims and uses earthly things; it is this Body that dwells in houses made with hands and that claims too, in honour to herself and her Bridegroom, that, so long as her spirituality is not tarnished, these houses shall be as splendid as art can make them. For she is not a Puritan nor a Manichee; she does not say that any single thing which God has made can conceivably be of itself evil, however grievously it may have been abused; on the contrary, she has His own authority for saying that all is very good.

She uses, then, every earthly beauty that the world will yield to her, to honour her own Majesty. It may be right to set diamonds round the neck of a woman, but it is certainly right to set them round the Chalice of the Blood of God. If an earthly king wears vestments of cloth of gold, must not a heavenly King yet more wear them? If music is used by the world to destroy men’s souls, may not she use it to save their souls? If a marble palace is fit for the President of the French Republic, by what right do men withhold it from the King of kings?

But the world does withhold its wealth sometimes? Very well then, she can serve God without it, in spite of her rights. If men whine and cringe, or bully and shout, for the jewels with which their forefathers honoured God, she will fling them back again down her altar stairs and worship God in a barn or a catacomb without them. For, though she does not serve God and Mammon, she yet makes to herself friends of the Mammon of iniquity. Though she does not and never can serve God and Mammon, she will and can, when the world permits it, make Mammon serve her. For the Church is the Majesty of God dwelling on earth. She is there, in herself, utterly independent of her reception. If it is her own to whom she comes, and her own do not receive her, they are none the less hers by every right. For, though she will use every earthly thing to her honour, though she considers no ointment wasted, however precious, that is spilled by love over her feet, yet her essential glory does not lie in these things. She is all glorious within, whether or not her vesture is of gold, for she is a King’s Daughter. She is, essentially, as glorious in the Catacombs as in the Roman basilicas; as lovely in the barefooted friar as in the robed and sceptred Vicar of Christ; as majestic in Christ naked on the Cross as in Christ ascended and enthroned in heaven.

Yet, since she is His Majesty on earth, she has a right to all that earth can give. All the beasts of the field are hers, and the cattle on a thousand hills, all the stars of heaven and the jewels of earth; all the things in the world are hers by Divine right.

All things are hers, for she is Christ’s. Yet, nevertheless, she will suffer the loss of all things sooner than lose Him.

III

SANCTITY AND SIN

Holy, holy, holy!—IS. VI. 3.

Christ jesus came into this world to save sinners_. I TIM. I. 15.

A very different pair of charges—and far more vital—than those more or less economic accusations of worldliness and otherworldliness which we have just considered, concern the standards of goodness preached by the Church and her own alleged incapacity to live up to them. These may be briefly summed up by saying that one-half the world considers the Church too holy for human life, and the other half, not holy enough. We may name these critics, respectively, the Pagan and the Puritan.

I. It is the Pagan who charges her with excessive Holiness.

“You Catholics,” he tells us, “are far too hard on sin and not nearly indulgent enough towards poor human nature. Let me take as an instance the sins of the flesh. Now here is a set of desires implanted by God or Nature (as you choose to name the Power behind life) for wise and indeed essential purposes. These desires are probably the very fiercest known to man and certainly the most alluring; and human nature is, as we know, an extraordinarily inconsistent and vacillating thing. Now I am aware that the abuse of these passions leads to disaster and that Nature has her inexorable laws and penalties; but you Catholics add a new horror to life by an absurd and irrational insistence on the offence that this abuse causes before God. For not only do you fiercely denounce the “acts of sin,” as you name them, but you presume to go deeper still to the very desire itself, as it would seem. You are unpractical and cruel enough to say that the very thought of sin deliberately entertained can cut off the soul that indulges in it from the favour of God.

“Or, to go further, consider the impossible ideals which you hold up with regard to matrimony. These ideals have a certain beauty of their own to persons who can embrace them; they may perhaps be, to use a Catholic phrase, Counsels of Perfection; but it is merely ludicrous to insist upon them as rules of conduct for all mankind. Human Nature is human nature. You cannot bind the many by the dreams of the few.

“Or, to take a wider view altogether, consider the general standards you hold up to us in the lives of your saints. These saints appear to the ordinary common-place man as simply not admirable at all. It does not seem to us admirable that St. Aloysius should scarcely lift his eyes from the ground, or that St. Teresa should shut herself up in a cell, or that St. Francis should scourge himself with briers for fear of committing sin. That kind of attitude is too fantastically fastidious altogether. You Catholics seem to aim at a standard that is simply not desirable; both your ends and your methods are equally inhuman and equally unsuitable for the world we have to live in. True religion is surely something far more sensible than this; true religion should not strain and strive after the impossible, should not seek to improve human nature by a process of mutilation. You have excellent aims in some respects and excellent methods in others, but in supreme demands you go beyond the mark altogether. We Pagans neither agree with your morality nor admire those whom you claim as your successes. If you were less holy and more natural, less idealistic and more practical, you would be of a greater service to the world which you desire to help. Religion should be a sturdy, virile growth; not the delicate hot-house blossom which you make it.”

The second charge comes from the Puritan. “Catholicism is not holy enough to be the Church of Jesus Christ; for see how terribly easy she is to those who outrage and crucify Him afresh! Perhaps it may not be true after all, as we used to think, that the Catholic priest actually gives leave to his penitents to commit sin; but the extraordinary ease with which absolution is given comes very nearly to the same thing. So far from this Church having elevated the human race, she has actually lowered its standards by her attitude towards those of her children who disobey God’s Laws.

“And consider what some of these children of hers have been! Are there any criminals in history so monumental as Catholic criminals? Have any men ever fallen so low as, let us say, the Borgia family of the Middle Ages, as Gilles de Rais and a score of others, as men and women who were perhaps in their faith ‘good Catholics’ enough, yet in their lives a mere disgrace to humanity? Look at the Latin countries with their passionate records of crime, at the sexual immorality of France or Spain; the turbulence and thriftlessness of Ireland, the ignorant brutality of Catholic England. Are there any other denominations of Christendom that exhibit such deplorable specimens as the runaway nuns, the apostate priests, the vicious Popes of Catholicism? How is it that tales are told of the iniquities of Catholicism such as are told of no other of the sects of Christendom? Allow for all the exaggeration you like, all the prejudice of historians, all the spitefulness of enemies, yet there surely remains sufficient Catholic criminality to show that at the best the Church is no better than any other religious body, and at the worst, infinitely worse. The Catholic Church, then, is not holy enough to be the Church of Jesus Christ.”

II. When we turn to the Gospels we find that these two charges are, as a matter of fact, precisely among those which were brought against our Divine Lord.

First, undoubtedly, He was hated for His Holiness. Who can doubt that the terrific standard of morality which He preached—the Catholic preaching of which also is one of the charges of the Pagan—was a principal cause of His rejection. For it was He, after all, who first proclaimed that the laws of God bind not only action but thought; it was He who first pronounced that man to be a murderer and an adulterer who in his heart willed these sins; it was He who summed up the standard of Christianity as a standard of perfection, Be you perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect; who bade men aspire to be as good as God!

It was His Holiness, then, that first drew on Him the hostility of the world—that radiant white-hot sanctity in which His Sacred Humanity went clothed. Which of you convinceth me of sin?… Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the first stone at her! These were words that pierced the smooth formalism of the Scribe and the Pharisee and awoke an undying hatred. It was this, surely, that led up irresistibly to the final rejection of Him at the bar of Pilate and the choice of Barabbas in His place. “Not this man! not this piece of stainless Perfection! Not this Sanctity that reveals all hearts, but Barabbas, that comfortable sinner so like ourselves! This robber in whose company we feel at ease! This murderer whose life, at any rate, is in no reproachful contrast to our own!” Jesus Christ was found too holy for the world.

But He was found, too, not holy enough. And it is this explicit charge that is brought against Him again and again. It was dreadful to those keepers of the Law that this Preacher of Righteousness should sit with publicans and sinners; that this Prophet should allow such a woman as Magdalen to touch Him. If this man were indeed a Prophet, He could not bear the contact of sinners; if He were indeed zealous for God’s Kingdom, He could not suffer the presence of so many who were its enemies. Yet He sits there at Zacchaeus’ table, silent and smiling, instead of crying on the roof to fall in; He calls Matthew from the tax-office instead of blasting him and it together; He handles the leper whom God’s own Law pronounces unclean.

III. These, then, are the charges brought against the disciples of Christ, as against the Master, and it is undeniable that there is truth in them both.

It is true that the Catholic Church preaches a morality that is utterly beyond the reach of human nature left to itself; that her standards are standards of perfection, and that she prefers even the lowest rung of the supernatural ladder to the highest rung of the natural.

And it is also true, without doubt, that the fallen or the unfaithful Catholic is an infinitely more degraded member of humanity than the fallen Pagan or Protestant; that the monumental criminals of history are Catholic criminals, and that the monsters of the world—Henry VIII for example, sacrilegious, murderer, and adulterer; Martin Luther, whose printed table-talk is unfit for any respectable house; Queen Elizabeth, perjurer, tyrant, and unchaste—were persons who had had all that the Catholic Church could give them: the standards of her teaching, the guidance of her discipline, and the grace of her sacraments. What, then, is the reconciliation of this Paradox?

(1) First the Catholic Church is Divine. She dwells, that is to say, in heavenly places; she looks always upon the Face of God; she holds enshrined in her heart the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ and the stainless perfection of that Immaculate Mother from whom that Humanity was drawn. How is it conceivable, then, that she should be content with any standard short of perfection? If she were a Society evolved from below—a merely human Society that is to say—she could never advance beyond those standards to which in the past her noblest children have climbed. But since there dwells in her the Supernatural—since Mary was endowed from on high with a gift to which no human being could ascend, since the Sun of Justice Himself came down from the heavens to lead a human life under human terms—how can she ever again be content with anything short of that height from which these came?

(2) But she is also human, dwelling herself in the midst of humanity, placed here in the world for the express object of gathering into herself and of sanctifying by her graces that very world which has fallen from God. These outcasts and these sinners are the very material on which she has to work; these waste products of human life, these marred types and specimens of humanity have no hope at all except in her.

For, first, she desires if she can—and she has often been able—actually to raise these, first to sanctity and then to her own altars; it is for her and her only to raise the poor from the dunghill and to set them with the princes. She sets before the Magdalen and the thief, then, nothing less but her own standard of perfection.

Yet though in one sense she is satisfied with nothing lower than this, in another sense she is satisfied with almost infinitely nothing. If she can but bring the sinner within the very edge of grace; if she can but draw from the dying murderer one cry of contrition; if she can but turn his eyes with one look of love to the crucifix, her labours are a thousand times repaid; for, if she has not brought him to the head of sanctity, she has at least brought him to its foot and set him there beneath that ladder of the supernatural which reaches from hell to heaven.

For she alone has this power. She alone is so utterly confident in the presence of the sinner because she alone has the secret of his cure. There in her confessional is the Blood of Christ that can make his soul clean again, and in her Tabernacle the Body of Christ that will be his food of eternal life. She alone dares be his friend because she alone can be his Saviour. If, then, her saints are one sign of her identity, no less are her sinners another.

For not only is she the Majesty of God dwelling on earth, she is also His Love; and therefore its limitations, and they only, are hers. That Sun of mercy that shines and that Rain of charity that streams, on just and unjust alike, are the very Sun and Rain that give her life. If I go up to Heaven she is there, enthroned in Christ, on the Right Hand of God; if I go down to Hell she is there also, drawing back souls from the brink from which she alone can rescue them. For she is that very ladder which Jacob saw so long ago, that staircase planted here in the blood and the slime of earth, rising there into the stainless Light of the Lamb. Holiness and unholiness are both alike hers and she is ashamed of neither—the holiness of her own Divinity which is Christ’s and the unholiness of those outcast members of her Humanity to whom she ministers.

By her power, then, which again is Christ’s, the Magdalen becomes the Penitent; the thief the first of the redeemed; and Peter, the yielding sand of humanity, the Rock on which Herself is built.

IV

JOY AND SORROW

Rejoice and be exceeding glad…. Blessed are they that mourn.— MATT. V. 12, 5.

The Catholic Church, as has been seen, is always too “extreme” for the world. She is content with nothing but a Divine Peace, and in its cause is the occasion of bloodier wars than any waged from merely human motives. She is not content with mere goodness, but urges always Sanctity upon her children; yet simultaneously tolerates sinners whom even the world casts out. Let us consider now how, in fulfilling these two apparently mutually contradictory precepts of our Lord, to rejoice and to mourn, once more she appears to the world extravagant in both directions at once.

I. It is a common charge against her that she rejoices too exceedingly; is arrogant, confident, and optimistic where she ought to be quiet, subdued, and tender.

“This world,” exclaims her critic, “is on the whole a very sad and uncertain place. There is no silver lining that has not a cloud before it; there is no hope that may not, after all, be disappointed. Any religion, then, that claims to be adequate to human nature must always have something of sadness and even hesitancy about it. Religion must walk softly all her days if she is to walk hand in hand with experience. Death is certain; is life as certain? The function of religion, then, is certainly to help to lighten this darkness, yet not by too great a blaze of light. She may hope and aspire and guess and hint; in fact, that is her duty. But she must not proclaim and denounce and command. She must be suggestive rather than exhaustive; tender rather than virile; hopeful rather than positive; experimental rather than dogmatic.

“Now Catholicism is too noisy and confident altogether. See a Catholic liturgical function on some high day! Was there ever anything more arrogant? What has this blaze of colour, this shouting of voices, this blowing of trumpets to do with the soft half-lights of the world and the mystery of the darkness from which we came and to which we return? What has this clearcut dogma to do with the gentle guesses of philosophy, this optimism with the uncertainty of life and the future—above all, what sympathy has this preposterous exultation with the misery of the world?

“And how unlike, too, all this is to the spirit of the Man of Sorrows! We read that Jesus wept, but never that He laughed. His was a sad life, from the dark stable of Bethlehem to the darker hill of Calvary. He was what He was because He knew what sorrow meant; it was in His sorrows that He has touched the heart of humanity. ‘Blessed,’ he says, ‘are those that mourn.’ Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.”

In another mood, however, our critic will find fault with our sadness.

“Why is not the religion of you Catholics more in accord with the happy world in which we live? Surely the supreme function of religion is to hearten and encourage and lay stress on the bright side of life! It should be brief, bright, and brotherly. For, after all, this is a lovely world and full of gaiety. It is true that it has its shadows, yet there can be no shadows without a sun; there is death, but see how life continually springs again from the grave. Since all things, therefore, work together for good; since God has taken pains to make the world so sweet, it is but a poor compliment to the Creator to treat it as a vale of misery. Let us, then, make the best of things and forget the worst. Let us leave the things that are behind and press forward to the things that are before. Let us insist that the world is white with a few black spots upon it, be optimistic, happy, and confident.

“You Catholics, however, are but a poor-spirited, miserable race. While other denominations are, little by little, eliminating melancholy, you are insisting upon it. While the rest of us are agreeing that Hell is but a bogy, and sin a mistake, and suffering no more than remedial, you Catholics are still insisting upon their reality—that Hell is eternal, that sin is the deliberate opposition of the human will to the Divine, and that suffering therefore is judicial. Sin, Penance, Sacrifice, Purgatory, and Hell—these are the old nightmares of dogma; and their fruits are tears, pain, and terror. What is wrong with Catholicism, then, is its gloom and its sorrow; for this is surely not the Christianity of Christ as we are now learning to understand it. Christ, rightly understood, is the Man of joy, not of Grief. He is more characteristic of Himself, so to speak, as the smiling shepherd of Galilee, surrounded by His sheep; as the lover of children and flowers and birds; as the Preacher of Life and Resurrection—He is more characteristic of Himself as crowned, ascended, and glorified, than as the blood-stained martyr of the Cross whom you set above your altars. Rejoice, then, and be exceeding glad, and you will please Him best.”

Once more, then, we appear to be in the wrong, to whatever side we turn. The happy red-faced monk with his barrel of beer is a caricature of our joy. Can this, it is asked, be a follower of the Man of Sorrows? And the long-faced ascetic with his eyes turned up to heaven is the world’s conception of our sorrow. Catholic joy and Catholic sorrow are alike too ardent and extreme for a world that delights in moderation in both sorrow and joy—a little melancholy, but not too much; a little cheerfulness, but not excessive.

II. First, then, it is interesting to remember that these charges are not now being made against us for the first time. In the days even of the Roman Empire they were thought to be signs of Christian inhumanity. “These Christians,” it was said, “must surely be bewitched. See how they laugh at the rack and the whip and go to the arena as to a bridal bed! See how Lawrence jests upon his gridiron.” And yet again, “They must be bewitched, because of their morbidity and their love of darkness, the enemies of joy and human mirth and common pleasure. In either case they are not true men at all.” Their extravagance of joy when others would be weeping, and their extravagance of sorrow when all the world is glad—these are the very signs to which their enemies appealed as proofs that a power other than that of this world was inspiring them, as proofs that they could not be the simple friends of the human race that they dared to pretend.

It is even more interesting to remember that our Divine Lord Himself calls attention to these charges. “The Son of Man comes eating and drinking. The Son of Man sits at the wedding feast at Cana and at meat in the rich man’s house and you say, Behold a glutton and a winebibber! The Son of Man comes rejoicing and you bid Him to be sad. And John the Baptist came neither eating nor drinking. John the Baptist comes from the desert, an ascetic with his camel-hair about him and words of penance and wrath in his mouth, and you say, He hath a devil…. We have piped unto you and you have not danced. We have played at weddings like children in a market-place, and you have told us to be quiet and think about our sins. We have mourned unto you, we have asked you to play at funerals instead, and you have told us that it was morbid to think about death. We have mourned and you would not lament.”

III. The fact is, of course, that both joy and sorrow must be an element in all religion, since joy and sorrow together make up experience. The world is neither white with black spots nor black with white spots; it is black and white. It is quite as true that autumn follows summer as that spring follows winter. It is no less true that life arises out of death than that death follows life.

Religion then cannot, if it is to be adequate to experience, be a passionless thing. On the contrary it must be passionate, since human nature is passionate too; and it must be a great deal more passionate. It must not moderate grief, but deepen it; not banish joy, but exalt it. It must weep—and bitterer tears than any that the world can shed—with them that weep; and rejoice too—with a joy which no man can take away—with them that rejoice. It must sink deeper and rise higher, it must feel more acutely, it must agonize and triumph more abundantly, if it truly comes from God and is to minister to men, since His thoughts are higher than ours and His Love more burning.

For so did Christ live on earth. At one hour He rejoiced greatly in spirit so that those that watched Him were astonished; at another He sweated blood for anguish. In one hour He is exalted high on the blazing Mount of Transfiguration; in another He is plunged deeper than any human heart can fathom in the low-lying garden of Gethsemane. Behold and see if there be any sorrow like to My Sorrow.

III. For, again, the Church, like her Lord, is both Divine and Human.

She is Divine and therefore she rejoices—so filled with the New Wine of the Kingdom of her Father that men stare at her in contempt.

It is true enough that the world is unhappy; that hearts are broken; that families, countries, and centuries are laid waste by sin. Yet since the Church is Divine, she knows, not merely guesses or hopes or desires, but knows, that although all things come to an end, God’s commandment is exceeding broad. Years ago, she knows—and therefore not all the criticism in the world can shake her—that her Lord came down from heaven, was born, died, rose, and ascended, and that He reigns in unconquerable power. She knows that He will return again and take the kingdom and reign; she knows, because she is Divine, that in every tabernacle of hers on earth the Lord of joy lies hidden; that Mary intercedes; that the saints are with God; that the Blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. Look round her earthly buildings, then, and there are the symbols and images of these things. There is the merry light before her altar; there are the saints stiff with gold and gems; there is Mary, “Cause of our Joy,” radiant, with her radiant Child in her arms. If she were but human, she would dare but to shadow these things forth—shadows of her own desires; she would whisper her creed; murmur her prayers; darken her windows. But she is Divine and has herself come down from heaven; so she does not guess, or think, or hope—she knows.

But she is human too and dwells in the midst of a human race that does not know and therefore will not wholly take her at her word, and the very height of her exaltation must also be, then, the measure of her despair. The fact that she knows so certainly intensifies a thousandfold her human sorrow, as she, who has come that they may have life, sees how they will not come to her and find it, as she sees how long the triumph which is certain is yet delayed through their faithlessness. “If thou hadst known,” she cries in the heart-broken words of Jesus Himself over Jerusalem, “if thou hadst but known the things that belong to thy peace! Behold and see, then, if there be any sorrow like to mine, if there be any grief so profound and so piercing as mine, who hold the Keys of Heaven and watch men turn away from the Door.”

So, then, in church after church stand symbolic groups of statuary, representing joy and tragedy, compared with which Venus and Adonis are but childish and half-civilized images—Mary as triumphant Queen, with the gold-crowned Child in her arms, and Mary the tormented Mother, with her dead Son across her knees. For she who is both Divine and Human alone understands what it is that Humanity has done to Divinity.

Is it any wonder, then, that the world thinks her extravagant in both directions at once; that the world turns away on Good Friday from the unutterable depths of her sorrow, and on Easter Day from the unscalable heights of her joy, calling the one morbid and the other hysterical? For what does the world know of such passions as these? What, after all, can the sensualist know of joy, or the ruined financier of sorrow? And what can the moderate, self-controlled, self-respecting man of the world know of either?

Lastly, then, in the Paradox of Love, the Church holds both these passions, at full blast, both at once. As human love turns joy into pain and suffers in the midst of ecstasy, so Divine Love turns pain into joy and exults and reigns upon the Cross. For the Church is more than the Majesty of God reigning on earth, more than the passionless love of the Eternal; she is the Very Sacred Heart of Christ Himself, the Eternal united with Man, and both suffering and rejoicing through that union. It is His bliss which she at once experiences and extends, in virtue of her identity with Him; and in the midst of a fallen world it is the supremest bliss of that Sacred Heart to suffer pain.

V

LOVE OF GOD AND LOVE OF MAN

Thou shalt love the lord thy god with thy whole heart … and thy neighbour as thyself.—LUKE X. 27.

We have already considered two charges brought against Catholicism from opposite quarters; namely, that we are too worldly and too otherworldly, too much busied with temporal concerns to be truly spiritual, and too metaphysical and remote and dogmatic to be truly practical. Let us go on to consider these same two charges produced, so to speak, a little further into a more definitely spiritual plane; charges that now accuse us of too great activities in our ministry to men and too many attentions paid to God.

I. (i) It is a very common complaint against Catholics, laymen as well as clergy, that they are overzealous in their attempts to proselytize. True and spiritual religion, we are told, is as intimate and personal an affair as the love between husband and wife; it is essentially private and individual. “The religion of all sensible men,” it has been said, “is precisely that which they always keep to themselves.” Tolerance, therefore, is a mark of spirituality, for if I am truly religious I shall have as much respect for the religion of my neighbour as for my own. I shall no more seek to interfere in his relations with God than I shall allow him to interfere with mine.

Now Catholics are notoriously intolerant. It is not merely that there are intolerant Catholics, for intolerance is of course to be found in all narrow-minded persons, but it is Catholic principles themselves that are intolerant; and every Catholic who lives up to them is bound to be so also. And we can see this illustrated every day.

First, there is the matter of Catholic missions to the heathen. There are no missionaries, we are told, so untiring and so devoted as those of the Church. Their zeal, of course, is a proof of their sincerity; but it is also a proof of their intolerance: for why, after all, cannot they leave the heathen alone, since religion is, in its essence, a private and individual matter? Beautiful pictures, accordingly, are suggested to us of the domestic peace and happiness reigning amongst the tribes of Central Africa until the arrival of the Preaching Friar with his destructive dogmas. We are bidden to observe the high doctrines and the ascetic life of the Brahmin, the significant symbolism of the Hindu, and the philosophical attitudes of the Confucian. All these various relationships to God are, we are informed, entirely the private affairs of those who live by them; and if Catholics were truly spiritual they would understand that this was so and not seek to supplant by a system which is now, at any rate, become an essentially European way of looking at things, these ancient creeds and philosophies that are far better suited to the Oriental temperament.

But the matter is worse, even, than this. It may conceivably be argued, says the modern man of the world, that after all those Oriental religions have not developed such virtues and graces as has Christianity. It may perhaps be argued that in time the religion of the West, if missionaries will persevere, will raise the Hindu higher than his own obscenities have succeeded in doing, and that the civilization produced by Christianity is actually of a higher type, in spite of its evil by-products, than that of the head-hunters of Borneo and the bloody savages of Africa. But at any rate there is no excuse whatever for the intolerant Catholic proselytizer in English homes. For, roughly speaking, it is only the Catholic whom you cannot trust in your own home circle; sooner or later you will find him, if he at all lives up to his principles, insinuating the praises of his own faith and the weaknesses of your own; your sons and daughters he considers to be fair game; he thinks nothing of your domestic peace in comparison with the propagation of his own tenets. He is characterized, first and last, by that dogmatic and intolerant spirit that is the exact contrary of all that the modern world deems to be the spirit of true Christianity. True Christianity, then, as has been said, is essentially a private, personal, and individual matter between each soul and her God.

(ii) The second charge brought against Catholics is that they make religion far too personal, too private, and too intimate for it to be considered the religion of Jesus Christ. And this is illustrated by the supreme value which the Church places upon what is known as the Contemplative Life.

For if there is one element in Catholicism that the man-in-the-street especially selects for reprobation it is the life of the Enclosed Religious. It is supposed to be selfish, morbid, introspective, unreal; it is set in violent dramatic contrast with the ministerial Life of Jesus Christ. A quantity of familiar eloquence is solemnly poured out upon it as if nothing of the kind had ever been said before: it is said that “a man cannot get away from the world by shutting himself up in a monastery”; that “a man should not think about his own soul so much, but rather of what good he can do in the world in which God has placed him”; that “four whitewashed walls” are not the proper environment for a philanthropic Christian.

And yet, after all, what is the Contemplative Life except precisely that which the world just now recommended? And could religion possibly be made a more intimate, private, and personal matter between the soul and God than the Carthusian or Carmelite makes it?

The fact is, of course, that Catholics are wrong whatever they do—too extreme in everything which they undertake. They are too active and not retired enough in their proselytism; too retired and not active enough in their Contemplation.

II. Now the Life of our Divine Lord exhibits, of course, both the Active and the Contemplative elements that have always distinguished the Life of His Church.

For three years He set Himself to the work of preaching His Revelation and establishing the Church that was to be its organ through all the centuries. He went about, therefore, freely and swiftly, now in town, now in country. He laid down His Divine principles and presented His Divine credentials, at marriage feasts, in market-places, in country roads, in crowded streets, and in private houses. He wrought the works of mercy, spiritual and corporal, that were to be the types of all works of mercy ever afterwards. He gave spiritual and ascetic teaching on the Mount of Beatitudes, dogmatic instructions in Capharnaum and the wilderness to the east of Galilee, and mystical discourses in the Upper Chamber of Jerusalem and the temple courts. His activities and His proselytisms were unbounded. He broke up domestic circles and the routine of offices. He called the young man from his estates and Matthew from custom-house and James and John from their father’s fishing business. He made a final demonstration of His unlimited claim on humanity in His Procession on Palm Sunday, and on Ascension Day ratified and commissioned the proselytizing activities of His Church for ever in His tremendous charge to the Apostolic band. Going, therefore, teach ye all nations … teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all the days, even to the consummation of the world.

Yet this, it must be remembered, was not only not the whole of His Life on earth, it was not even a very considerable part of it, if reckoned by years. For three years He was active, but for thirty He was retired in the house of Nazareth; and even those three years are again and again broken by retirement. He is now in the wilderness for forty days, now on the mountain all night in prayer, now bidding His disciples come apart and rest themselves. The very climax of His ministry too was wrought in silence and solitude. He removed Himself about a stone’s throw in the garden of Gethsemane from those who loved Him best; He broke His silence on the Cross to bid farewell even to His holy Mother herself. Above all, he explicitly and emphatically commended the Life of Contemplative Prayer as the highest that can be lived on earth, telling Martha that activity, even in the most necessary duties, was not after all the best use to which time and love could be put, but rather that Mary had chosen the best part … the one thing that is necessary, and that it shall not be taken away from her even by a sister’s loving zeal.

Finally, fault was found with Jesus Christ, as with His Church, on precisely these two points. When He was living the life of retirement in the country He was rebuked that He did not go up to the feast and state His claims plainly—justify, that is, by activity, His pretensions to the Messiahship; and when He did so, He was entreated to bid his acclaimants to hold their peace—to justify, that is, by humility and retirement, His pretensions to spirituality.

III. The reconciliation, therefore, of these two elements in the

Catholic system is very easy to find.

(i) First, it is the Church’s Divinity that accounts for her passion for God. To her as to none else on earth is the very face of God revealed as the Absolute and Final Beauty that lies beyond the limits of all Creation. She in her Divinity enjoys it may be said, even in her sojourn on earth, that very Beatific Vision that enraptured always the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ. With all the company of heaven then, with Mary Immaculate, with the Seraphim and with the glorified saints of God, she endures, seeing Him Who is invisible. Even while the eyes of her humanity are held, while her human members walk by faith and not by sight, she, in her Divinity, which is the guaranteed Presence of Jesus Christ in her midst, already dwells in heavenly places and is already come to Mount Zion and the City of the living God and to God Himself, Who is the Light in which all fair things are seen to be fair.

Is it any wonder then that, now and again, some chosen child of hers catches a mirrored glimpse of what she herself beholds with unveiled face; that some Catholic soul, now and again, chosen and called by God to this amazing privilege, should suddenly perceive, as never before, that God is the one and only Absolute Beauty, and that, compared with the contemplation of this Beauty—which contemplation is, after all, the final life of Eternity to which every redeemed soul shall come—all the activities of earthly life are nothing; and that, in her passion for this adorable God, she should run into a secret room and shut the door and pray to her Father Who is in secret, and so remain praying, a hidden channel of life to the whole of that Body of which she is a member, an intercessor for the whole of that Society of which she is one unit? There in silence, then, she sits at Jesus’ feet and listens to the Voice which is as the sound of many waters; in the whiteness of her cell watches Him Whose Face is as a Flame of Fire, and in austerity and fasting tastes and finds that the Lord is gracious.

Of course this is but madness and folly to those who know God only in His Creation, who imagine Him merely as the Soul of the World and the Vitality of Created Life. To such as these earth is His highest Heaven and the beauty of the world the noblest vision that can be conceived. Yet to that soul that is Catholic, who understands that the Eternal Throne is indeed above the stars and that the Transcendence of God is as fully a truth as His Immanence—that God in Himself, apart from all that He has made, is all-fair and all-sufficient in His own Beauty—to such a soul as this, if called to such a life, there is no need that the Church should declare explicitly that the Contemplative Life is the highest. She knows it already.

(ii) The First Great Commandment of the Law, then, is inevitably followed by the Second, and the Catholic interpretation of the Second is thought by the world, which understands neither, to be as extravagant as her interpretation of the First.

For this Divine Church that knows God is also a Human Society that dwells among men, and since she in herself unites Divinity and Humanity, she cannot rest until she has united them everywhere else.

For, as she turns her eyes from God to men, she sees there immortal souls, made in the image of God and made for Him and Him alone, seeking to satisfy themselves with Creation instead of with the Creator. She hears how the world preaches the sanctity of the temperament, and the holiness of the individual point of view, as if there were no Transcendent God at all and no objective external Revelation ever made by Him. She sees how men, instead of seeking to conform themselves to God’s Revelation of Himself, attempt rather to conform such fragments of that Revelation as have reached them to their own points of view; she listens to talk about “aspects of truth” and “schools of thought” and the “values of experience” as if God had never spoken either in the thunders of Sinai or the still voice of Galilee.

Is it any wonder, then, that her Proselytism appears to such a world as extravagant as her Contemplation, her passion for men as unreasonable as her passion for God, when that world sees her bring herself from her cloisters and her secret places to proclaim as with a trumpet those demands of God which He has made known, those Laws which He has promulgated, and those rewards which He has promised? For how can she do otherwise who has looked on the all-glorious Face of God and then on the vacant and complacent faces of men—she who knows God’s infinite capacity for satisfying men and men’s all but infinite incapacity for seeking God—when she sees some poor soul shutting herself up indeed within the deadly and chilly walls of her own “temperament” and “individual point of view,” when earth and heaven and the Lord of them both is waiting for her outside?

The Church, then, is too much interested in men and too much absorbed in God. Of course she is too much interested and too much absorbed, for she alone knows the value and capacity of both; she who is herself both Divine and Human. For Religion, to her, is not an elegant accomplishment or a graceful philosophy or a pleasing scheme of conjectures. It is the fiery bond between God and man, neither of whom can be satisfied without the other, the One in virtue of His Love and the other in virtue of his createdness. She alone, then, understands and reconciles the tremendous Paradox of the Law that is Old as well as New. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart … and thy neighbour as thyself .

VI

FAITH AND REASON

Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of god as a little child shall not enter into it.—MARK X. 15.

Some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as also the other scriptures, to their own perdition.— II PET. III. 16.

There are two great gifts, or faculties, by which men attain to truth: faith and reason. From these two sides, therefore, come two more assaults upon the Catholic position, a position which itself faces in both these directions. On the one side we are told that we believe too simply, on the other that we do not believe simply enough; on the one side that we reason too little, on the other that we do not reason enough. Let us set out these attacks in order.

I. (i) “You Catholics,” says one critic, “are far too credulous in matters of religion. You believe, not as reasonable men believe, because you have verified or experienced the truths you profess, but simply because these dogmas are presented to you by the Church. If reason and common-sense are gifts of God and intended for use, surely it is very strange to silence them in your search for the supreme truth. Faith, of course, has its place, but it must not be blind faith. Reason must test, verify, and interpret, or faith is mere credulity.

“Consider, for example, the words of Christ, This is My Body. Now the words as they stand may certainly be supposed to mean what you say they mean; yet, interpreted by Reason, they cannot possibly mean anything of the kind. Did not Christ Himself sit in bodily form at the table as He spoke them? How then could He hold Himself in His hand? Did He not speak in metaphors and images continually? Did He not call Himself a Door and a Vine? Using Reason, then, to interpret these words, it is evident that He meant no more than that He was instituting a memorial feast, in which the bread should symbolize His Body and the wine His Blood. So too with many other distinctively Catholic doctrines—with the Petrine claims, with the authority ‘to bind and loose,’ and the rest. Catholic belief on these points exhibits not faith properly so-called—that is, Faith tested by Reason—but mere credulity. God gave us all Reason! Then in His Name let us use it!”

(ii) From the other side comes precisely the opposite charge.

“You Catholics,” cries the other critic, “are far too argumentative and deductive and logical in your Faith. True Religion is a very simple thing; it is the attitude of a child who trusts and does not question. But with you Catholics Religion has degenerated into Theology. Jesus Christ did not write a Summa; He made a few plain statements which comprise, as they stand, the whole Christian Religion; they are full of mystery, no doubt, but it is He who left them mysterious. Why, then, should your theologians seek to penetrate into regions which He did not reveal and to elaborate what He left unelaborated?

“Take, for example, Christ’s words, This is My Body. Now of course these words are mysterious, and if Christ had meant that they should be otherwise, He would Himself have given the necessary comment upon them. Yet He did not; He left them in an awful and deep simplicity into which no human logic ought even to seek to penetrate. Yet see the vast and complicated theology that the traditions have either piled upon them or attempted to extract out of them; the philosophical theories by which it has been sought to elucidate them; the intricate and wide-reaching devotions that have been founded upon them! What have words like ‘Transubstantiation’ and ‘Concomitance,’ devotions like ‘Benediction,’ gatherings like Eucharistic Congresses to do with the august simplicity of Christ’s own institution? You Catholics argue too much—deduce, syllogize, and explain—until the simple splendour of Christ’s mysterious act is altogether overlaid and hidden. Be more simple! It is better to ‘love God than to discourse learnedly about the Blessed Trinity.’ It has not pleased God to save His people through dialectics. Believe more, argue less!”

Once more, then, the double charge is brought. We believe, it seems, where we ought to reason. We reason where we ought to believe. We believe too blindly and not blindly enough. We reason too closely and not closely enough.

Here, then, is a vast subject—the relations of Faith and Reason and the place of each in man’s attitude towards Truth. It is, of course, possible only to glance at these things in outline.

II. First, let us consider, as a kind of illustration, the relations of these things in ordinary human science. Neither Faith nor Reason will, of course, be precisely the same as in supernatural matters; yet there will be a sufficient parallel for our purpose.

A scientist, let us say, proposes to make observations upon the structure of a fly’s leg. He catches his fly, dissects, prepares, places it in his microscope, observes, and records. Now here, it would seem, is Pure Science at its purest and Reason in its most reasonable aspect. Yet the acts of faith in this very simple process are, if we consider closely, simply numberless. The scientist must make acts of faith, certainly reasonable acts, yet none the less of faith, for all that: first, that his fly is not a freak of nature; next, that his lens is symmetrically ground; then that his observation is adequate; then that his memory has not played him false between his observing and his recording that which he has seen. These acts are so reasonable that we forget that they are acts of faith. They are justified by reason before they are made, and they are usually, though not invariably, verified by Reason afterwards. Yet they are, in their essence, Faith and not Reason.

So, too, when a child learns a foreign language. Reason justifies him in making one act of faith that his teacher is competent, another that his grammar is correct, a third that he hears and sees and understands correctly the information given him, a fourth that such a language actually exists. And when he visits France afterwards he can, within limits, again verify by his reason the acts of faith which he has previously made. Yet none the less they were acts of faith, though they were reasonable. In a word, then, no acquirement of or progress in any branch of human knowledge is possible without the exercise of faith. I cannot walk downstairs in the dark without at least as many acts of faith as there are steps in the staircase. Society could not hold together another day if mutual faith were wholly wanting among its units. Certainly we use reason first to justify our faith, and we reason later to verify it. Yet none the less the middle step is faith. Columbus reasoned first that there must be a land beyond the Atlantic, and he used that same reason later to verify his discovery. Yet without a sublime act of faith between these processes, without that almost reckless moment in which he first weighed anchor from Europe, reason would never have gone beyond speculative theorizing. Faith made real for him what Reason suggested. Faith actually accomplished that of which Reason could only dream.

III. Turn now to the coming of Jesus Christ on earth. He came, as we know now, a Divine Teacher from heaven to make a Revelation from God; He came, that is, to demand from men a sublime Act of Faith in Himself. For He Himself was Incarnate Wisdom, and He demanded, therefore, as none else can demand it, a supreme acceptance of His claim. No progress in Divine knowledge, as He Himself tells us, is possible, then, without this initial act. Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter into it. Every soul that is to receive this teaching in its entirety must first accept the Teacher and sit at His feet.

Yet He did not make this claim merely on His own unsupported word. He presented His credentials, so to say; He fulfilled prophecy; He wrought miracles; He satisfied the moral sense. Believe Me, He says, for the very works’ sake. Before, then, demanding the fundamental act of Faith on which the reception of Revelation must depend, He took pains to make this Act of Faith reasonable. “You see what I do,” He said in effect, “you have observed My life, My words, My actions. Now is it not in accordance with Reason that you should grant My claims? Can you explain away, reasonably, on any other grounds than those which I state, the phenomena of My life?”

Certainly, then, He appealed to Reason; He appealed to Private Judgment, since that, up to that moment, was all that His hearers possessed. But, in demanding an Act of Faith, He appealed to Private Judgment to set itself aside; He appealed to Reason as to whether it were not Reasonable to stand aside for the moment and let Faith take its place. And we know how His disciples responded. Whom do you say that I am?… Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

At that instant, then, a new stage was begun. They had used their Reason and their Private Judgment, and, aided by His grace, had concluded that the next reasonable step was that of Faith. Up to that point they had observed, dissected, criticized, and analyzed His words; they had examined, that is, His credentials. And now it was Reason itself that urged them towards Faith, Reason that abdicated what had hitherto been, its right and its duty, that Faith might assume her proper place. Henceforth, then, their attitude must be a different one. Up to now they had used their Reason to examine His claim; now it was Faith, aided and urged by Reason, which accepted it.

Yet even now Reason’s work is not done, though its scope in future is changed. Reason no longer examines whether He be God; Faith has accepted it: yet Reason has to be as active as ever; for Reason now must begin with all its might the task of understanding His Revelation. Faith has given them, so to speak, casket after casket of jewels; every word that Jesus Christ henceforth speaks to them is a very mine of treasure, absolutely true since He is known to be a Divine Teacher Who has given it. And Reason now begins her new work, not of justifying Faith, but, so to say, of interpreting it; not of examining His claims, since these have been once for all accepted, but of examining, understanding, and assimilating all that He reveals.

III. Turn now to Catholicism.

It is the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church only, that acts as did Jesus Christ and offers an adequate object to Reason and Faith alike. For, first, it is evident that if Christ intended His Revelation to last through all time, He must have designed a means by which it should last, an Authority that should declare and preserve it as He Himself delivered it. And next, it is evident that since the Catholic Church alone even claims that prerogative, clearly and coherently, her right to represent that Authority is in proportion to the clearness and coherence of her claim. Or, again, she advances in support of that claim precisely those same credentials as did He: she points to her miracles, her achievements, the fulfilment of prophecy, the unity of her teaching, the appeal to men’s moral sense—all of them appeals to Reason, and appeals which lead up, as did His, to the supreme claim, which He also made, to demand an Act of Faith in herself as a Divine Teacher.

For she alone demands it. Other denominations of Christendom point to a Book, or to the writings of Fathers, or to the example of their members, and she too does these things. But it is she alone who appeals to these things not as final in themselves, not as constituting in themselves a final court of appeal, but as indicating as that court of appeal her own Living Voice. Believe me, for the works’ sake, she too says. “Use your reason to the full to examine my credentials; study prophecy, history, the Fathers—study my claims in any realm in which your intellect is competent—and then see if it is not after all supremely reasonable for Reason to abdicate that particular throne on which she has sat so long and to seat Faith there instead? Certainly follow your Reason and use your private judgment, for at present you have no other guide; and then, please God, aided by Faith, Reason will itself bow before Faith, and take her own place henceforth, not on the throne, but on the steps that lead to it.”

Is Reason, then, to be silent henceforth? Why, the whole of theology gives the answer. Did Newman cease to think when he became a Catholic? Did Thomas Aquinas resign his intellect when he devoted himself to study? Not for one instant is Reason silent. On the contrary, she is active as never before. Certainly she is no longer occupied in examining as to whether the Church is divine, but instead she is busied, with incredible labours, in examining what follows from that fact, in sorting the new treasures that are opened to her with the dawn of Revelation upon her eyes, in arranging, deducting, and understanding the details and structure of the astonishing Vision of Truth. And more, she is as inviolate as ever. For never can there be presented to her one article of Faith that gives the lie to her own nature, since Revelation and Reason cannot contradict one the other. She has learned, indeed, that the mysteries of God often transcend her powers, that she cannot fathom the infinite with the finite; yet never for one moment is she bidden to evacuate her own position or believe that which she perceives to be untrue. She has learned her limitations, and with that has come to understand her inviolable rights.

See, then, how the features of Christ look out through the lineaments of His Church. She alone dares to claim an act of Divine Faith in herself, since it is He Who speaks in her Voice. She alone, since she is Divine, bids the wisest men become as little children at her feet and endows little children with the wisdom of the ancients. Yet, on the other hand, in her magnificent Humanity, she has produced through the exercise of illuminated human Reason such a wealth of theology as the world has never seen. Is it any wonder that the world thinks both her Faith and Reason alike too extreme? For her Faith rises from her Divinity and her Reason from her Humanity; and such an outpouring of Divinity and such an emphatic Humanity, such a superb confidence in God’s revelation and such untiring labours upon the contents of that Revelation, are altogether beyond the imagination of a world that in reality, fears both Faith and Reason alike.

At her feet, and hers only, then, do the wisest and the simple kneel together—St. Thomas and the child, St. Augustine and the “charcoal burner”; as diverse, in their humanity, as men can be; as united in the light of Divinity as only those can be who have found it.

So, then, she goes forward to victory. “First use your reason,” she cries to the world, “to see whether I be not Divine! Then, impelled by Reason and aided by Grace, rise to Faith. Then once more call up your Reason, to verify and understand those mysteries which you accept as true. And so, little by little, vistas of truth will open about you and doctrines glow with an undreamed-of light. So Faith will be interpreted by Reason and Reason hold up the hands of Faith, until you come indeed to the unveiled vision of the Truth whose feet already you grasp in love and adoration; until you see, face to face in Heaven, Him Who is at once the Giver of Reason and the Author of Faith.”

VII

AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY

The truth shall make you free.—JOHN VIII. 32.

Bringing into captivity every understanding to the obedience of christ.—II COR. X. 5.

We have already considered in outline the relations between Faith and Reason; how each, in its own province, is supreme and how each, in its turn, supports and ratifies the other. We pass on to a development of that theme, springing almost immediately out of it, namely, the relations between Authority and Liberty. And we will begin that consideration, as before, as it is illustrated by the accusations of the world against the Church. Briefly they are stated as follows.

I. Freedom, we are told, is the note of Christianity as laid down in the Gospels, in both discipline and doctrine. Jesus Christ came into the world largely for this very purpose, to substitute the New Law for the Old and thereby to free men from the complicated theology and the minutia of religious routine which characterized men’s attempts to reduce that Old Law to practice. The Old Law may or may not have been perfectly adapted, when first it was given, to the needs of God’s people in the early stages of Jewish civilization; but at any rate it is certain, from a hundred texts in the Gospel, that Jesus Christ in His day found it an intolerable slavery laid upon the religious life of the people. Theology had degenerated into an incredible hair-splitting system of dogma, and discipline had degenerated into a multitude of irritating observances.

Jesus Christ, then, in the place of all this, preached a Creed that was essentially simple, and simultaneously substituted for the elaborate ceremonialism of the Pharisees the spirit of liberty. The dogma that He preached was little more than that God is the Father of all and that all men therefore are brothers; “discipline” in the ordinary sense of the word is practically absent from the Gospel, and as for ceremonial there is none, except such as is necessary for the performance of the two extremely simple rites that He instituted, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Now this supposed spirit of liberty, we are informed, is to-day to be found only in Protestantism. In that system, if it can strictly be called one, and in that system only, may a man exercise that freedom which was secured to him by Jesus Christ. First, in doctrine, he may choose, weigh, and examine for himself, within the wide limits which alone Christ laid down, those doctrines or hopes which commend themselves to his intellect; and next, in matters of discipline, again, he may choose for himself those ways of life and action that he may find helpful to his spiritual development. He may worship, for example, in any church that he prefers, attend those services and those only which commend themselves to his taste; he may eat or not eat this or that food, as he likes, and order his day, generally, as it pleases him. And all this, we are informed, is of the very spirit of New Testament Christianity. The Truth has made him free, as Christ Himself promised.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is essentially a Church of slavery. First, in discipline, an enormous weight of observances and duties is laid upon her children, comparable only to the Pharisaic system. The Catholic must worship in this church and not in that, in this manner and not in the other. He must observe places and days and times, and that not only in religious matters but in secular. He must eat this food on this day and that on the other; he must frequent the sacraments at specified periods; he must perform certain actions and refrain from others, and that in matters in themselves indifferent.

In dogma, too, no less is the burden that he must bear. Not only are the simple words of Christ developed into a vast theological system by the Church’s officials, but the whole of this system is laid, as of faith, down to its minutest details, on the shoulders of the unhappy believer. He may not choose between this or that theory of the mode of Christ’s Presence in the Eucharist; he must accept precisely that, and no other, which his Church has elaborated.

In fact, in doctrine and in discipline alike, the Church has gone back to precisely that old reign of tyranny which Christ abolished. The Catholic, unlike the Protestant who has retained the spirit of liberty, finds himself in the same case as that under which Israel itself once groaned. He is a slave and not a child; he binds his own limbs, as the old phrase says, by his act of faith and puts the other end of the chain into the hands of the priest. Such, in outline, is the charge against us.

Now much of it is so false that it needs no refutation. It is, for example, entirely false that New Testament theology is simple. It is far more true to say that, compared with the systematized theology of the Church, it is bewilderingly complex and puzzling, and how complex and puzzling it is, is indicated by the hundreds of creeds which Protestants have made out of it, each creed claiming, respectively, to be its one and only proper interpretation. Men have only come to think it “simple” in modern days by desperately eliminating from it every element on which all Protestants are not agreed. The residuum is indeed “simple.” Only it is not the New Testament theology! Dogmas such as that of the Blessed Trinity, of the Procession of the Holy Ghost, of the nature of grace and of sin—these, whether as held by orthodox or unorthodox, are at any rate not simple, and it is merely untrue to say that Christ made no statements on these points, however they may be understood. Further, it is merely untrue to say that Protestant theology is “simple”; it is every whit as elaborate as Catholic theology and considerably more complex in those points in which Protestant divines are not agreed. The controversies on Justification in which such men as Calvin and Luther, with their disciples, continually engaged are fully as complicated as any disputations on Grace between Jesuits and Dominicans.

Yet the general contention is plain enough—that on the whole the Catholic is bound to believe a certain set of dogmas, while the Protestant is free to accept or reject them. Therefore, it is argued, the Protestant is “free” and the Catholic is not. And this brings us straight to the consideration of the relations between Authority and Liberty.

II. What, then, is Religious Liberty? It is necessary to begin by forming some idea as to what it is that is meant by the word in other than religious matters.

Very briefly it may be said that an individual enjoys social liberty when he is able to obey and to use the laws and powers of his true nature, and that a community enjoys it when all its members are able to do so without interfering unduly one with the other. The more complete is this ability, the more perfect is Liberty.

A remarkable paradox at once presents itself—that Liberty can only be secured by Laws. Where there are no laws, or too few, to secure it, slavery immediately appears, no less surely than when there are too many; for the stronger individuals are, by the absence of law, enabled to tyrannize over the weaker. Even the vast and complex legislation of our own days is designed to increase and not to fetter liberty, and its greater complexity is necessitated by the greater complexity and the more numerous interrelationships of modern society. Laws, of course, may be unwise or excessively minute or deliberately enslaving; yet this does not affect the point that for all that Laws are necessary to the preservation of Liberty. Merchants, women and children, and citizens generally, can only enjoy rightful liberty if they are protected by laws. Only that man is free, then, who is most carefully guarded.

In the same manner Scientific Liberty does not consist in the absence of knowledge, or of scientific dogmas, but in their presence. We are surrounded by innumerable facts of nature, and that man is free who is fully aware of those which affect his own life. It is true, for example, that two and two make four, and that heavy bodies tend to fall towards the centre of the earth; and it can only be a very superficial thinker who considers that to be ignorant of these facts is to be free from the enslaving dogmas of them. If I am ignorant of them I am, of course, in a sense at liberty to believe that two and two make five, and to jump off the roof of my house; yet this is not Liberty at all in the sense in which reasonable people use the word, since my knowledge of the laws enables me to be effective and, in fact, to survive in the midst of a world where they happen to be true. That man, then, is more truly “free” whose intellect is informed of and submits to these laws, than is the man whose intellect is unaware of them. Marconi’s intellect submits to the laws of lightning and he is thereby enabled to avail himself of them. Ajax is unaware of them and is accordingly destroyed by their action.

The Truth, then, makes us free. The State which controls men’s actions and educates their intellects, which, in a word, enforces the knowledge of truth and compels obedience to it, is actually freeing its citizens by that process. It is only by a misuse of words or a failure to grasp ideas that I can maintain that an ignorant savage is more free than an educated man. It is true that I am, in a sense, “free” to think that two and two make five, if I have not learned arithmetic; on the other hand, when I learn that they make four I rise into that higher and more real liberty which a knowledge of arithmetic bestows. I am more effective, not less so; I am more free to exercise my powers and use the forces of the world in which I live, and not less free, when I have submitted my intellect to facts.

III. (i) Now the soul too has an environment. Men may differ as to its nature and its conditions, but all who believe in the soul at all believe also that it has an environment, and that this environment is as much in the realm of Law as is the natural world itself. Prayer, for example, elevates the soul, base thinking degrades it.

Now the laws of this environment were true even before Christ came. David knew, at any rate, something of penitence and of the guilt of sin, and Nathan knew something, at least, of the forgiveness of sins and of their temporal punishment. Christ came, then, with this object amongst others: that He might reveal the laws of Grace and convey to men’s minds some at least of the facts of the spiritual life amongst which they lived. He came, moreover, partly to modify the workings of these laws, to release some more fully, and to restrain others; in a word, to be the Revealer of Truth and the Administrator of Grace.

He came then, to increase men’s liberty by increasing their knowledge, as, in another sphere, the scientist comes to us with the same purpose. Here, for example, is the law that murder is a sin before God and brings its consequences with it, a law stated briefly in the commandment Thou shall not kill. But our Divine Lord revealed more of the workings of this law than men had hitherto recognized. I say unto you, declared Christ, that whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. He revealed, that is to say, the fact that this law runs even in the realm of thought, that the hating spirit incurs the guilt and punishment of murder, and not merely the murderous action. Were men less free when they learned that fact? Not unless I am less free than I was before, when I learn for the first time that lightning kills. Christ came, then, to reveal the Truth that makes us free, and He does so by informing our intellects and enabling us to _bring into captivity every understanding to His obedience.

(ii) Turn now to the Catholic Church. Here is a Society whose function it is to preserve and apply the teaching of Christ; to analyze it and to state it in forms or systems which every generation can receive. For this purpose, then, she draws up not merely a Creed—which is the systematic statement of the Christian Revelation—but disciplinary rules and regulations that will make this Creed and the life that is conformable to it more easy of realization, and all this she does with the express object of enabling the individual soul to respond to her spiritual environment and to rise to the full exercise of her powers and rights. As the scientist and the statesmen take, respectively, the great laws of nature and society and reduce them to rules and codes, yet without adding or taking away from these facts, that are true whether they are popularly recognized or not—and all with the purpose not of diminishing but of increasing the general liberty—so the Church, divinely safeguarded too in the process, takes the Revelation of Christ and by her dogma and her discipline popularizes it, so to speak, and makes it at once comprehensible and effective.

What, then, is this foolish cry about the slavery of dogma? How can Truth make men anything except more free? Unless a man is prepared to say that the scientist enslaves his intellect by telling him facts, he dare not say that the Church fetters his intellect by defining dogma. Christ did not condemn the Pharisaic system because it was a system, but because it was Pharisaic; because, that is, it was not true; because it obscured instead of revealing the true relations between God and man; because it made the Word of God of none effect through its traditions.

But the Catholic system has the appearance of enslaving men? Why yes; for the only way of aiming at and using effectively the truth that makes us free is by bringing into captivity every understanding to the obedience of Christ.

VIII

CORPORATENESS AND INDIVIDUALISM

He that shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?—MATT. XVI. 25, 26.

No recorded word of our Lord better illustrates than does this the startling and paradoxical manner of His teaching. For He Who knew what was in man, Who spoke always down to man’s deepest interests, dwelt and spoke therefore in that realm of truth where man’s own paradoxical nature is most manifest; where his interests appear to flourish only by being ruthlessly pruned; where he rises to the highest development of self only by self-mortification. This is, in fact, the very lesson Christ teaches in these words. To find the life is the highest object of every man and the end for which he was created; yet this can be attained only by the losing of it for Christ’s sake. Individuality can be preserved only by the sacrifice of Individualism. Let us break up this thought and consider it more in detail.

I. (i) Catholics, it is said, are the most fundamentally selfish people in the whole world, since all that they do and say and think is directed and calculated, so far as they are “good Catholics,” to the salvation of their own souls. It is this that continually crops up in their conversation, and this that presumably is their chief pre-occupation. Yet surely this, above all methods, is the very worst for achieving such an end. One does not pull up flowers to see how they are growing. The very secret of health is to be unconscious of it. Catholics, on the other hand, scarcely ever do anything else; they are for ever examining themselves, for ever going to confession, for ever developing and cultivating the narrowest virtues. The whole science of Casuistry, for example, is directed to nothing else but this—the exact definition of those limits within which the salvation of the soul is secure and beyond which it is imperilled; and Casuistry, as we all know, has a stifling and deadening influence upon all who study it.

Again, see how the true development and expansion of the soul must necessarily be hindered by such an ideal. “I must not read this book, however brilliant, since it might be dangerous to my faith. I must not mix in this company, however charming, since evil communications corrupt good manners.” What kind of life is that which must always be checked and stunted in this fashion? What kind of salvation can there be that can only be purchased by the sacrifice of so much that is noble and inspiring? True life consists in experience, not in introspection; in going out from self into the world, not in retiring from the world inwards. Let us therefore live our life without fear, lose ourselves in humanity, forget self in experience, and leave the rest to God!

(ii) So much for the one side, while from the other comes almost precisely the opposite criticism. Catholics, it is said, are not nearly individualistic enough; on the contrary they are for ever sinking themselves and their personalities in the corporate life of the Church. Not only are their outward actions checked and their words guarded, but even their very consciences and thoughts are informed and made by the collective conscience and mind of others. It is the highest ambition of every good Catholic sentire cum ecclesia; not merely to act and speak but even to think in obedience to others. Now a man’s true life, we are told, consists in an assertion of his own individuality. God has made no two men the same; the mould was made and broken in each several case. If, therefore, we are to be what He meant us to be, we must make the most of our own personalities; we must think our own thoughts, not other people’s, direct our own lives, speak our own minds—so far, of course, as we can do so without interfering with our neighbour’s equal liberty. Once more, therefore, we are bidden to live our life to the full; not in this case, however, because we all share in a common humanity, but because we do not!

We Catholics are wrong, therefore, for both reasons and in both directions. We are wrong when we put self first and we are wrong when we do not. We are wrong when we launch out into the current of life, and wrong when we withdraw ourselves from its waters. We are wrong when we insist upon our personal responsibility, and wrong when we look to the Church to undertake it.

II. (i) Here then, indeed, is a Paradox; but it is one which our Lord Himself expressly emphasizes. For, first, there is nothing on which He so repeatedly insists as the supreme and singular value of every soul’s salvation. If this is not attained, all is lost. What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul? All else, then, must be sacrificed if this is in peril. No human possession, however great, can be weighed against this. No human tie, however sacred, can hold against its claim. Not only must houses and lands, but father and mother and wives and children must take second place, so soon as eternal life is at stake. And yet, somehow or another, this salvation can only be attained by loss; self can only live if it be mortified, can only be saved by its own denial. Individuality, as has been said, can only be preserved by the loss of Individualism.

(ii) But this is not peculiar to the spiritual sphere; it is a paradox that is true, in some sense, of life on every plane—civic, intellectual, artistic, human. The man that desires to bring his intellectual and personal powers to their highest pitch must continually be sinking them, so to speak, in the current of his fellows, continually exhausting, using, and wearing them out. He must risk, and indeed inevitably lose, in a very real sense, his personal point of view, if he is to have a point of view that is worth possessing; he must be content to see his theories and his thoughts modified, merged, changed, and destroyed, if his thought is to be of value. For, so far as he withdraws himself from his fellows into a physical or mental isolation, so far he approaches egotistic madness. He cannot grow unless he decreases; he cannot remain himself unless he ceases to be himself.

So, too, is it in civic and artistic life. The citizen who truly lives to the State of which he is a member—the man to whom his country raises a monument, for example—is one, always, who has lost himself for his nation, whether he has died in battle or sacrificed himself in politics or philanthropy. And the citizen who has merely hugged his citizenship to himself, who has enjoyed all the privileges he can get and paid nothing for them,—least of all himself—who has, so to say, gained the whole world, has simultaneously lost himself indeed and is forgotten within a year of his death. So with the artist. The man who has made his art serve him, who has employed it, let us say, purely for the sake of the money he could get out of it, who has kept it within severe limits, who has been merely prudent and orderly and restrained, this man has, in a sense, saved his own life; yet simultaneously he has lost it. But the man to whom art is a passion, to whom nothing else is comparatively of any value, who has plunged himself in his art, has dedicated to it his days and his nights, has sacrificed to it every power of his being and every energy of his mind and body, this man has indeed lost himself. Yet he lives in his art as the other has not, he has saved himself in a sense of which the other knows nothing; and exactly in proportion as he has succeeded in his self-abnegation, so far has he attained, as we say, immortality. There is not, then, one sphere of life in which the paradox is not true. The great historical lovers in romance, the pioneers of science, the immortals in every plane, are precisely those that have fulfilled on lower levels the spiritual aphorism of Jesus Christ.

(iii) Turn, then, once more to the Catholic Church and see how in the Life which she offers, as in none other, there is presented to us a means of fulfilling our end.

For it is she alone who even demands in the spiritual sphere a complete and entire abnegation of self. From every other Christian body comes the cry, Save your soul, assert your individuality, follow your conscience, form your opinions; while she, and she alone, demands from her children the sacrifice of their intellect, the submitting of their judgment, the informing of their conscience by hers, and the obedience of their will to her lightest command. For she, and she alone, is conscious of possessing that Divinity, in complete submission to which lies the salvation of Humanity. For she, as the coherent and organic mystical Body of Christ, calls upon those who look to her to become, not merely her children, but her very members; not to obey her as soldiers obey a leader or citizens a Government, but as the hands and eyes and feet obey a brain. Once, therefore, I understand this, I understand too how it is that by being lost in her I save myself; that I lose only that which hinders my activity, not that which fosters it. For when is my hand most itself? When separated from the body, by paralysis or amputation? Or when, in vital union with the brain, with every fibre alert and every nerve alive, it obeys in every gesture and receives in every sensation a life infinitely vaster and higher than any which it might, temporarily, enjoy in independence? It is true that its capacity for pain is the greater when it is so united, and that it would cease to suffer if once its separation were accomplished; yet, simultaneously, it would lose all that for which God made it and, saving itself, would be lost indeed.

I live, then, the perfect Catholic may say, as none other can say, when I have ceased to be myself. And yet not I, since I have lost my Individualism. No longer do I claim any activity at all on my own behalf; no longer do I demand to form my opinions, to follow my own conscience apart from that informing of it that comes from God, or to live my own life. Yet in losing my Individualism I have won my Individuality, for I have found my true place at last. I have lost the whole world? Yes, so far as that world is separate from or antagonistic to God’s will; but I have gained my own soul and attained immortality. For it is not I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.

IX

MEEKNESS AND VIOLENCE

Blessed are the meek.—MATT. V. 4.

The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away.—MATT. XI. 12.

We have already considered the Church’s relations towards such things as wealth and human influence and power, how she will sometimes use and sometimes disdain them. Let us now penetrate a little deeper and understand the spirit that underlies and explains this varying attitude of hers.

I. (i) It has been charged against Christianity in general, and therefore implicitly and supremely against the Church that was for so long its sole embodiment and is still, alone, its adequate representative, that it has fostered virtues which retard progress. Progress, in the view of the German philosopher who explicitly made this charge, is merely natural both in its action and its end; and Nature, as we are well aware, knows nothing of forgiveness or compassion or tenderness: on the contrary she moves from lower to higher forms by forces that are their precise opposite. The wounded stag is not protected by his fellows, but gored to death; the old wolf is torn to pieces, the sick lion wanders away to die of starvation, and all these instincts, we are informed, have for their object the gradual improvement of the breed by the elimination of the weak and ineffective. So should it be, he tells us, with man, and the extreme Eugenists echo his teaching. Christianity, on the other hand, deliberately protects the weak and teaches that the sacrifice of the strong is supreme heroism. Christianity has raised hospitals and refuges for the infirm, seeking to preserve those very types which Nature, if she had her way, would eliminate. Christianity, then, is the enemy of the human race and not its friend, since Christianity has retarded, as no other religion has ever succeeded in retarding, the appearance of that superman whom Nature seeks to evolve…. It is scarcely to be wondered at that the teacher of such a doctrine himself died insane.

A parallel doctrine is taught largely to-day by persons who call themselves practical and businesslike. Meekness and gentleness and compassion, they tell their sons, are very elegant and graceful virtues for those who can afford them, for women and children who are more or less sheltered from the struggle of life, and for feeble and ineffective people who are capable of nothing else. But for men who have to make their own way in the world and intend to win success there, a more stern code is necessary; from these there is demanded such a rule of action as Nature herself dictates. Be self-confident and self-assertive then, not meek. Remember that the weakness of your neighbour is your own opportunity. Take care of number one and let the rest take care of themselves. A man does not go into the stock-exchange or into commerce in order to exhibit Christian virtues there, but business qualities. In a word, Christianity, so far as it affects material or commercial or political progress, is a weakness rather than a strength, an enemy rather than a friend.

(ii) But if, on the one side, the gentleness and non-resistance inculcated by Christianity form the material of one charge against the Church, on the other side, no less, she is blamed for her violence and intransigeance. Catholics are not yielding enough, we are told, to be true followers of the meek Prophet of Galilee, not gentle enough to inherit the blessing which He pronounced. On the contrary there are no people so tenacious, so obstinate, and even so violent as these professed disciples of Jesus Christ. See the way, for example, in which they cling to and insist upon their rights; the obstacles they raise, for example, to reasonable national schemes of education or to a sensible system in the divorce courts. And above all, consider their appalling and brutal violence as exhibited in such institutions as that of the Index and Excommunication, the fierceness with which they insist upon absolute and detailed obedience to authority, the ruthlessness with which they cast out from their company those who will not pronounce their shibboleths. It is true that in these days they can only enforce their claims by spiritual threatenings and penalties, but history shows us that they would do more if they could. The story of the racks and the fires of the Inquisition shows plainly enough that the Church once used, and therefore, presumably, would use again if she could, carnal weapons in her spiritual warfare. Can anything be more unlike the gentle Spirit of Him Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; of Him Who bade men to learn of Him, for He was meek and lowly of heart, and so find rest to their souls?

Here, then, is the Paradox, and here are two characteristics of the Catholic Church: that she is at once too meek and too self-assertive, too gentle and too violent. It is a paradox exactly echoed by our Divine Lord Himself, Who in the Upper Chamber bade His disciples who had no sword to sell their cloaks and buy them, and Who yet, in the garden of Gethsemane, commanded the one disciple who had taken Him at His word to put up the sword into its sheath, telling him that they who took the sword should perish by it. It is echoed yet again in His action, first in taking the scourge into His own Hand, in the temple courts, and then in baring His shoulders to that same scourge in the hands of others. How, then, is this Paradox to be reconciled?

II. The Church, let us remind ourselves again, is both Human and Divine.

(i) She consists of human persons, and those persons are attached both to one another and to the world outside by a perfectly balanced system of human rights known as the Law of Justice. This Law of Justice, though coming indeed from God, is, in a sense, natural and human; it exists to some extent in all societies, as well as being closely defined and worked out in the Old Law given on Sinai. It is a Law which men could have worked out, at any rate in its main principles, by the light of reason only, unaided by Revelation, and it is a Law, further, so fundamental that no Revelation could conceivably ever outrage or set it aside.

At the coming of Christ into the world, however, Supernatural Charity came with Him. The Law of Justice still remained; men still had their rights on which they might insist, still had their rights which no Christian may refuse to recognize. But such was the torrent of Divine generosity which Christ exhibited, so overwhelming was the Vision which He revealed of the supernatural charity of God towards men, that a set of ideals sprang into life such as the world had never dreamed of; more, Charity came with such power that her commands actually overruled in many instances the feeble claims of Justice, so that she bade men henceforward to forgive, for example, not merely according to Justice, but according to her own Divine nature, to forgive unto seventy times seven, to give good measure, heaped up and running over, and not the bare minimum which men had merely earned.

It was from this advent of Charity, then, that all these essentially Christian virtues of generosity and meekness and self-sacrifice sprang which Nietsche condemned as hostile to material progress.

For, from henceforth, if a man take thy coat, let him take thy cloak also; if he will compel thee to go with him one mile, go two; if he strike thee on one cheek, turn to him the other also. The Law of Natural justice is transcended and the Law of Charity and Sacrifice reigns instead. Resist not evil; do not insist always, that is to say, on your natural rights; give men more than their due, and be yourself content with less. Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and find rest to your souls. Forgive one another your trespasses with the same generous charity with which God has forgiven and will forgive you yours. Judge not and you shall not be judged. Do not, in personal matters, insist upon bare justice for yourself, but act on that scale and by those principles by which God Himself has dealt with you.

Meekness, then, is undoubtedly a Christian virtue. Sometimes it is obligatory, sometimes it is but a Counsel of Perfection; it stands, in any case, high among those ideals which it has been the glory of Christianity to create.

(ii) But there are other elements in life besides the human and the natural, beyond those personal rights and claims which a Christian may, if he is aiming at perfection, set aside out of charity. The Church is Divine as well as Human.

For the Church has entrusted to her, besides the rights of men, which may be sacrificed by their possessors, the rights and claims of God, which none but He can set aside. He has given into her keeping, for example, a Revelation of truths and principles which, springing out of His own Nature or of His Will, are as immutable and eternal as Himself. And it is precisely in defence of these truths and principles that the Church exhibits that which the world calls intransigeance and Jesus Christ violence.

Here, for example, is the right of a baptized Catholic child to be educated in his religion, or rather, the right of God Himself to teach that child in the manner He has ordained. Here is the revealed truth that marriage is indissoluble; here that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Now these are not human rights or opinions at all—rights and opinions which men, urged by charity or humility, can set aside or waive in the face of opposition. They rest on an entirely different basis; they are, so to speak, the inalienable possessions of God; and it would neither be charity nor humility, but sheer treachery, for the Church to exhibit meekness or pliancy in matters such as these, given to her as they are, not to dispose of, but to guard intact. On the contrary here, exactly, comes the command, He that hath not, let him sell his cloak and buy a sword,, for here comes the line between the Divine and the Human; let all personal possessions go, all merely natural rights and claims be yielded, and let a sword take their place. For here is a matter that must be resisted, even unto blood.

The Catholic Church then is, and always will be, violent and intransigeant when the rights of God are in question. She will be absolutely ruthless, for example, towards heresy, for heresy affects not personal matters on which Charity may yield, but a Divine right on which there must be no yielding. Yet, simultaneously, she will be infinitely kind towards the heretic, since a thousand human motives and circumstances may come in and modify his responsibility. At a word of repentance she will readmit his person into her treasury of souls, but not his heresy into her treasury of wisdom; she will strike his name eagerly and freely from her black list of the rebellious, but not his book from the pages of her Index. She exhibits meekness towards him and violence towards his error; since he is human, but her Truth is Divine.

It is, then, from a modern confusion of thought with regard to the realms of the Divine and the Human that the amazing inability arises, on the world’s part, to understand the respective principles on which the Catholic Church acts in these two and utterly separate departments. The world considers it reasonable for a country to defend its material possessions by the sword, but intolerant and unreasonable for the Church to condemn, resisting even unto blood, principles which she considers erroneous or false. The Church, on the other hand, urges her children again and again to yield rather than to fight when merely material possessions are at stake, since Charity permits and sometimes even commands men to be content with less than their own rights, and yet again, when a Divine truth or right is at stake, here she will resist unfaltering and undismayed, since she cannot be “charitable” with what is not her own; here she will sell her cloak and buy that sword which, when the dispute was on merely temporal matters, she thrust back again into its sheath.

To-day as Christ rides into Jerusalem we see, as in a mirror, this Paradox made plain. Thy King cometh to thee, meek. Was there ever so mean a Procession as this? Was there ever such meekness and charity? He Who, as His personal right, is attended in heaven by a multitude on white horses, now, in virtue of His Humanity, is content with a few fishermen and a crowd of children. He to Whom, in His personal right, the harpers and the angels make eternal music is content, since He has been made Man for our sakes, with the discordant shoutings of this crowd. He Who rode on the Seraphim and came flying on the wings of the wind sits on the colt of an ass. He comes, meek indeed, from the golden streets of the Heavenly Jerusalem to the foul roads of the Earthly, laying aside His personal rights since He is that very Fire of Charity by which Christians relinquish theirs.

But, for all that, it is riding that thy King cometh to thee…. He will not relinquish His inalienable claim and He will have nothing essential left out. He has His royal escort, even though a ragged one; He will have His spearmen, even though their spears be only of palm; He will have His heralds to proclaim Him, however much the devout Pharisees may be offended by their proclamation; He will ride into His own Royal City, even though that City casts Him out, and He will have His Coronation, even though it be with thorns. So, too, the Catholic Church advances through the ages.

In merely human rights and personal matters again and again she will yield up all that she has, making, it may be, but one protest for Justice’ sake and then no more. And she will urge her children to do the same. If the world will let her have no jewels, then she will put glass beads in her monstrance, and for marble she will use plaster, and tinsel for gold.

But she will have her Procession and insist upon her Royalty. It may seem as poor and as mean and as tawdry as the entrance of Christ Himself through the royal gate; for she will yield up all that the world demands of her, so long as her Divine Right itself remains intact. She will issue her orders, though few be found to obey them; she will cast out from her the rebellious who question her authority, and cleanse her Temple Courts even though with a scourge at which men mock. She will give up all that is merely human, if the world will have it so, and will resist not evil if it merely concerns herself. But there is one thing which she will not renounce, one thing she will claim, even with violence and “intransigeance,” and that is the Royalty with which God Himself has crowned her.

X

THE SEVEN WORDS

THE “THREE HOURS”

INTRODUCTION

The value, to the worshippers, of the Devotion of the Three Hours’ Agony is in proportion to the degree in which they understand that they are watching not so much the tragedy of nineteen hundred years ago as the tragedy of their own lives and times. Merely to dwell on the Death of Christ on Calvary would scarcely avail them more than to study the details of the assassination of Caesar at the foot of Pompey’s statue. Such considerations might indeed be interesting, exciting, and even a little instructive or inspiring; but they could not be better than this, and they might be no better than morbid and harmful.

The Death of Christ, however, is unique because it is, so to say, universal. It is more than the crowning horror of all murderous histories; it is more even than the type of all the outrages that men have ever committed against God. For it is just the very enactment, upon the historical stage of the world, of those repeated interior tragedies that take place in every soul that rejects or insults Him; since the God whom we crucify within is the same God that was once crucified without. There is not an exterior detail in the Gospel which may not be interiorly repeated in the spiritual life of a sinner; the process recorded by the Evangelists must be more or less identical with the process of all apostasy from God.

For, first, there is the Betrayal of Conscience, as a beginning of the tragedy; its betrayal by those elements of our nature that are intended as its friends and protectors—by Emotion or Forethought, for example. Then Conscience is led away, bound, to be judged; for there can be no mortal sin without deliberation, and no man ever yet fell into it without conducting first a sort of hasty mock-trial or two in which a sham Prudence or a false idea of Liberty solemnly decide that Conscience is in the wrong. Yet even then Conscience persists, and so He is made to appear absurd and ridiculous, and set beside the Barabbas of a coarse and sturdy lower nature that makes no high pretensions and boasts of it. And so the drama proceeds and Conscience is crucified: Conscience begins to be silent, breaking the deepening gloom now and again with protests that grow weaker every time, and at last Conscience dies indeed. And thenceforward there can be no hope, save in the miracle of Resurrection.

This Cross of Calvary, then, is not a mere type or picture; it is a fact identical with that so dreadfully familiar to us in spiritual life. For Christ is not one Person, and Conscience something else, but it is actually Christ who speaks in Conscience and Christ, therefore, Who is crucified in mortal sin.

Let us, then, be plain with ourselves. We are watching not only Christ’s

Death but our own, since we are watching the Death of Christ Who is our

Life.

THE FIRST WORD

FATHER FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO

In previous considerations we have studied the Life of Christ in His Mystical Body from an angle at which the strange and innumerable paradoxes which abound in all forms of life at a certain depth become visible. And we have seen how these paradoxes lie in those strata, so to say, where the Divinity and the Humanity meet. Christ is God and God cannot die; therefore Christ became man in order to be able to do so. The Church is Divine and therefore all-holy, but she dwells in a Body of sinful Humanity and reckons her sinners to be her children and members no less than her saints.

We will continue to regard the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the Words which He spoke from the Cross from the same angle, and to find, therefore, the same characteristic paradoxes and mysteries in all that we see. In the First Word we meet the Paradox of Divine Forgiveness.

I. Ordinary human forgiveness is no more than a natural virtue, resulting from a natural sense of justice, and if a man is normal, his forgiveness will be a natural and inevitable part of the process of reconciliation so soon as a certain kind of restitution has been made. For example, a friend of mine sins against me—he injures, perhaps, my good name; and my natural answer is the emotion of resentment towards him and, perhaps, of actual revenge. But what I chiefly resent is my friend’s stupidity and his ignorance of my real character. “I am angry,” I say, with perfect sincerity, “not so much at the thing he has said of me, as at this proof of his incapacity to understand me. I thought he was my friend, that he was in sympathy with my character or, at least, that he understood it sufficiently to do me justice. But now, from what he has just said of me, I see that he does not. If the thing he said were true of me, the most of my anger would be gone. But I see that he does not know me, after all.”

And then, presently, my friend does understand that he has wronged me; that the gossip he repeated or the construction he put upon my actions was not fair or true. And immediately that I become aware of this, from him or from another, my resentment goes, if I have any natural virtue at all; it goes because my wounded pride is healed. I forgive him easily and naturally because he knows now what he has done.

II. How entirely different from this easy, self-loving, human forgiveness is the Divine Forgiveness of Christ! Now it is true that in the conscience of Pilate, the unjust representative of justice, and in that thing that called itself conscience in Herod, and in the hearts of the priests who denounced their God, and of the soldiers who executed their overlord, and of Judas who betrayed his friend, in all these there was surely a certain uneasiness—such an uneasiness is actually recorded of the first and the last of the list—a certain faint shadow of perception and knowledge of what it was that they had done and were doing. And, for the natural man, it would have been comparatively easy to forgive such injuries on that account. “I forgive them,” such a man might have said from his cross, “because there is just a glimmer of knowledge left; there is just one spark in their hearts that still does me justice, and for the sake of that I can try, at least, to put away my resentment and ask God to forgive them.”

But Jesus Christ cries, “Forgive them because they do not know what they do! Forgive them because they need it so terribly, since they do not even know that they need it! Forgive in them that which is unforgivable!”

III. Two obvious points present themselves in conclusion.

(1) First, it is Divine Forgiveness that we need, since no sinner of us all knows the full malice of sin. One man is a slave, let us say, to a sin of the flesh, and seeks to reassure himself by the reflection that he injures no one but himself; ignorant as he is of the outrage to God the Holy Ghost Whose temple he is ruining. Or a woman repeats again every piece of slanderous gossip that comes her way and comforts herself in moments of compunction by reflecting that she “means no harm”; ignorant as she is of the discouragement of souls of which she is the cause and of the seeds of distrust and enmity sown among friends. In fact it is incredible that any sinner ever knows what it is that he does by sin. We need, therefore, the Divine Forgiveness and not the human, the pardon that descends when we are unaware that we must have it or die; the love of the Father Who, while we are yet a great way off, runs to meet us, and Who teaches us for the first time, by the warmth of His welcome, the icy distances to which we had wandered. If we knew, anyone could forgive us. It is because we do not that only God, Who knows all things, can forgive us effectively.

(2) And it is this Divine Forgiveness that we ourselves have to extend to those that sin against us, since only those who so forgive can be forgiven. We must not wait until wounded pride is made whole by the conscious shame of our enemy; until the debt is paid by acknowledgment and we are complacent once more in the knowledge that justice has been done to us at last. On the contrary, the only forgiveness that is supernatural, and which, therefore, alone is meritorious, is that which reach out to men’s ignorance and not their knowledge of their need.

THE SECOND WORD

AMEN I SAY TO THEE, TO-DAY THOU SHALT BE WITH ME IN PARADISE

Our Divine Lord, in this Second Word, immediately applies and illustrates the First and drives its lesson home. He shows us how the rain of mercy that poured out of heaven in answer to the prayer He made just now enlightens the man who, above all others present on Calvary, was the most abjectly ignorant of all; the man who, himself at the very heart of the tragedy, understood it less, probably, than the smallest child on the outskirts of the crowd.

His life had been one long defiance of the laws of both God and man. He had been a member of one of those troops of human vermin that crawl round Jerusalem, raiding solitary houses, attacking solitary travellers, guilty of sins at once the bloodiest and the meanest, comparable only to the French apaches of our own day. Well, he had been gripped at last by the Roman machine, caught in some sordid adventure, and here, resentful and furious and contemptuous, full of bravado and terror, he snarled like a polecat at every human face he saw, snarled and spat at the Divine Face Itself that looked at him from a cross that was like his own; and, since he had not even a spark of the honour that is reputed to exist “among thieves,” taunted his “fellow criminal” for the folly of His “crime.”

“If thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us.”

Again, then, the Paradox is plain enough. Surely an educated priest, or a timid disciple, or a good-hearted dutiful soldier who hated the work he was at, surely one of these will be the first object of Christ’s pardon; and so one of these would have been, if one of ourselves had hung there. But when God forgives, He forgives the most ignorant first—that is, the most remote from forgiveness—and makes, not Peter or Caiphas or the Centurion, but Dismas the thief, the firstfruits of Redemption.

I. The first effect of the Divine Mercy is Enlightenment. Before they call, I will answer. Before the thief feels the first pang of sorrow Grace is at work on him, and for the first time in his dreary life he begins to understand. And an extraordinary illumination shines in his soul. For no expert penitent after years of spirituality, no sorrowful saint, could have prayed more perfectly than this outcast. His intellect, perhaps, took in little or nothing of the great forces that were active about him and within him; he knew, perhaps, explicitly little or nothing of Who this was that hung beside him; yet his soul’s intuition pierces to the very heart of the mystery and expresses itself in a prayer that combines at once a perfect love, an exquisite humility, an entire confidence, a resolute hope, a clear-sighted faith, and an unutterable patience; his soul blossoms all in a moment: Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom. He saw the glory behind the shame, the Eternal Throne behind the Cross, and the future behind the present; and he asked only to be remembered when the glory should transfigure the shame and the Cross be transformed into the Throne; for he understood what that remembrance would mean: “Remember, Lord, that I suffered at Thy side.”

II. So perfect, then, are the dispositions formed in him by grace that at one bound the last is first. Not even Mary and John shall have the instant reward that shall be his; for them there are other gifts, and the first are those of separation and exile. For the moment, then, this man steps into the foremost place and they who have hung side by side on Calvary shall walk side by side to meet those waiting souls beyond the veil who will run so eagerly to welcome them. To-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.

III. Now this Paradox, the last shall be first, is an old doctrine of Christ, so startling and bewildering that He has been forced to repeat it again and again. He taught it in at least four parables: in the parables of the Lost Piece of Silver, the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son, and the Vineyard. The Nine Pieces lie neglected on the table, the Ninety-nine sheep are exiled in the Fold, the Elder Son is, he thinks, overlooked and slighted, and the Labourers complain of favouritism. Yet still, even after all this teaching, the complaint goes up from Christians that God is too loving to be quite just. A convert, perhaps, comes into the Church in middle age and in a few months develops the graces of Saint Teresa and becomes one of her daughters. A careless black-guard is condemned to death for murder and three weeks later dies upon the scaffold the death of a saint, at the very head of the line. And the complaints seem natural enough. Thou hast made them equal unto us who have borne the burden and heat of the day.

Yet look again, you Elder Sons. Have your religious, careful, timid lives ever exhibited anything resembling that depth of self-abjection to which the Younger Son has attained? Certainly you have been virtuous and conscientious; after all, it would be a shame if you had not been so, considering the wealth of grace you have always enjoyed. But have you ever even striven seriously after the one single moral quality which Christ holds up in His own character as the point of imitation: Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart? It is surely significant that He does not say, expressly, Learn of Me to be pure, or courageous, or fervent; but Learn to be humble, for in this, above all, you shall find rest to your souls. Instead, have you not had a kind of gentle pride in your religion or your virtue or your fastidiousness? In a word, you have not been as excellent an Elder Son as your brother has been a Younger. You have not corresponded with your graces as he has corresponded with his. You have never yet been capable of sufficient lowliness to come home (which is so much harder than to remain there), or of sufficient humility to begin for the first time to work with all your heart only an hour before sunset.

Begin, then, at the beginning, not half-way up the line. Go down to the church door and beat your breast and say not, God reward me who have done so much for Him, but God be merciful to me who have done so little. Get off your seat amongst the Pharisees and go down on your knees and weep behind Christ’s couch, if perhaps He may at last say to you, Friend, come up higher.

THE THIRD WORD

WOMAN, BEHOLD THY SON. BEHOLD THY MOTHER

Our Divine Lord now turns, from the soul who at one bound has sprung into the front rank, to those two souls who have never left it, and supremely to that Mother on whose soul sin has never yet breathed, on whose breast Incarnate God had rested as inviolate and secure as on the Bosom of the Eternal Father, that Mother who was His Heaven on earth. Standing beside her is the one human being who is least unworthy to be there, now that Joseph has passed to his reward and John the Baptist has gone to join the Prophets—the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had lain on the breast of Jesus as Jesus had lain on the breast of Mary.

Our Lord has just shown how He deals with His dear sinners; now He shows how He will be glorified with His Saints. The Paradox of this Word is that Death, the divider of those who are separated from God, is the bond of union between those that are united to Him.

I. Death is the one inexorable enemy of human society as constituted apart from God. A king dies and his kingdom is at once in danger of disruption. A child dies and his mother prays that she may bear another, lest his father and she should drift apart. Death is the supreme sower of discord and disunion, then, in the natural order, since he is the one supreme enemy of natural life. He is the noonday terror of the Rich Fool of the parable and the nightmare of the Poor Fool, since those who place their hope in this life see that death is the end of their hope. For these there is no appeal beyond the grave.

II. Now precisely the opposite of all this is true in the supernatural order, since the gate of death, viewed from the supernatural side, is an entrance and not an ending, a beginning and not a close. This may be seen to be so even in a united human family in this world, the members of whom are living the supernatural life; for where such a family is living in the love of God, Death, when he comes, draws not only the survivors closer together, but even those whom he seems to have separated. He does not bring consternation and terror and disunion, but he awakens hope and tenderness, he smooths away old differences, he explains old misunderstandings.

Our Blessed Lord has already, over the grave of Lazarus, hinted that this shall be so, so soon as He has consecrated death by His own dying. He that believeth in Me shall never die. He, that is to say, who has died with Christ, whose centre henceforward is in the supernatural, simply no longer finds death to be what nature finds it. It no longer makes for division but for union; it no longer imperils or ends life and interest and possession, but releases them from risk and mortality.

Here, then, He deliberately and explicitly acts upon this truth. He once raised Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus and the Widow’s Son from the dead, for death’s sting could, at that time, be drawn in no other way; but now that He Himself is tasting death for every man, He performs an even more emphatically supernatural act and conquers death by submitting to it instead of by commanding it. Life had already united, so far as mortal life can unite, those two souls who loved Him and one another so well. These two, since they knew Him so perfectly, knew each the other too as perfectly as knowledge and sympathy can unite souls in this life. But now the whole is to be raised a stage higher. They had already been united on the living breast of Jesus; now, over His dead body, they were to be made yet more one.

It is marvellous that, after so long, our imaginations should still be so tormented and oppressed by the thought of death; that we should still be so without understanding that we think it morbid to be in love with death, for it is far more morbid to be in fear of it. It is not that our reason or our faith are at fault; it is only that that most active and untamable faculty of ours, which we call imagination, has not yet assimilated the truth, accepted by both our faith and our reason, that for those who are in the friendship of God death is simply not that at all which it is to others. It does not, as has been said, end our lives or our interests: on the contrary it liberates and fulfils them.

And all this it does because Jesus Christ has Himself plunged into the heart of Death and put out his fires. Henceforth we are one family in Him if we do His will—his brother and sister and mother; and Mary is our Mother, not by nature, which is accidental, but by supernature, which is essential. Mary is my Mother and John is my brother, since, if I have died with Christ, it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me. In a word, it is the Communion of Saints which He inaugurates by this utterance and seals by His dying.

THE FOURTH WORD

MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?

Our Blessed Lord in the revelation He makes from the Cross passes gradually inwards to Himself Who is its centre. He begins in the outermost circle of all, with the ignorant sinners. He next deals with the one sinner who ceased to be ignorant, and next with those who were always nearest to Himself, and now at last He reveals the deepest secret of all. This is the central Word of the Seven in every sense. There is no need to draw attention to the Paradox it expresses.

I. First, then, let us remind ourselves of the revealed dogma that Jesus Christ was the Eternal Son of the Father; that He dwelt always in the Bosom of that Father; that when He left heaven He did not leave the Father’s side; that at Bethlehem and Nazareth and Galilee and Jerusalem and Gethsemane and Calvary He was always the Word that was with God and the Word that was God. Next, that the eyes even of His Sacred Humanity looked always and continuously upon the Face of God, since His union with God was entire and complete: as He looked up into His Mother’s face from the manger, He saw behind it the Face of His Father; as He cried in Gethsemane, If it be possible, even in His Sacred Humanity He knew that it could not be; as He groaned out on Calvary that God had forsaken Him, He yet looked without one instant’s intermission into the glory of heaven and saw His Father there.

Yet simultaneously with these truths it is also true that His cry of dereliction was incalculably more of a reality than when first uttered by David or, since, by any desolate sinner in the thickest spiritual darkness. All the miseries of holy and sinful souls, heaped together, could not approach even afar off the intolerable misery of Christ. For of His own will He refused to be consoled at all by that Presence which He could never lack, and of His own will He chose to be pierced and saturated and tormented by the sorrow He could never deserve. He held firm against the touch of consolation every power of His Divine and Human Being and, simultaneously, flung them open to the assaults of every pain. And if the psychology of this state is altogether beyond our power to understand, we may remind ourselves that it is the psychology of the Word made Flesh that is confronting us…. Do we expect to understand that?…

II. There is a human phrase, however, itself a paradox, yet corresponding to something which we know to be true, which throws some faint glimmer of light upon this impenetrable darkness and seems to extend Christ’s experience upon the Cross so as to touch our own human life. It is a phrase that describes a condition well known to spiritual persons: “To leave God for God.” (1) The simplest and lowest form of this state is that condition in which we acquiesce with our will in the withdrawal of ordinary spiritual consolation. Certainly it is an inexplicable state, since both the ordinary aids to our will—our understanding and our emotion—are, by the very nature of the case, useless to it. Our heart revolts from that dereliction and our understanding fails to comprehend the reasons for it. Yet we acquiesce, or at least perceive that we ought to do so; and that by doing so—by ceasing, that is, to grasp God’s Presence any longer—we find it as never before. We leave God in order to find Him.

(2) The second state is that in which we find ourselves when not only do all consolations leave us, but the very grip of intelligent faith goes too; when the very reasons for faithfulness appear to vanish. It is an incalculably more bitter trial, and soul after soul fails under it and must be comforted again by God in less august ways or perish altogether. And yet this is not the extremest pitch even of human desolation.

(3) For there is a third of which the saints tell us in broken words and images….

III. Our final point, for application to ourselves, is that dereliction in some form or another is as much a stage in spiritual progress as autumn and winter are seasons of the year. The beginners have to suffer one degree, the illuminated another, and those that have approached a real Union with God a third. But all must suffer it, and each in his own degree, or progress is impossible.

Let us take courage therefore and face it, in the light of this Word. For, as we can sanctify bodily pain by the memory of the nails, so too can we sanctify spiritual pain by the memory of this darkness. If He Who never left the Father’s side can suffer this in an unique and supreme sense, how much more should we be content to suffer it in lower degrees, who have so continually, since we came to the age of reason, been leaving not His side only, but His very house.

THE FIFTH WORD

I THIRST

Our Lord continues to reveal His own condition, since He, after all, is the key to all Humanity. If we understand anything of Him, simultaneously we shall understand ourselves far better.

He has shown us that He can truly be deprived of spiritual consolation; and the value of this deprivation; now He shows us the value of bodily deprivation also. And the Paradox for our consideration is that the Source of all can lose all; that the Creator needs His creation; that He Who offers us the water springing up into Life Eternal can lack the water of human life—the simplest element of all. In His Divine Dereliction He yet continues to be Human.

I. It is very usual, under this Word, to meditate on Christ’s thirst for souls; and this is, of course, a legitimate thought, since it is true that His whole Being, and not merely one part of it, longed and panted on the Cross for every object of His desire. Certainly He desired souls! When does He not?

But it is easy to lose the proportion of truth, if we spiritualize everything, and pass over, as if unworthy of consideration, His bodily pain. For this Thirst of the Crucified is the final sum of all the pains of crucifixion: the physical agony, the fever produced by it, the torrential sweat, the burning of the sun—all these culminated in the torment of which this Cry is His expression.

Bodily pain, then, since Jesus not only deigned to suffer it, but to speak of it, is as much a part of the Divine process as the most spiritual of derelictions: it is an intense and a vital reality in life. It is the fashion, at present, to pose as if we were superior to such things; as if either it were too coarse for our high natures or even actually in itself evil. The truth is that we are terrified of its reality and its sting, and seek, therefore, to evade it by every means in our power. We affect to smile at the old penances of the saints and ascetics as if we ourselves had risen into a higher state of development and needed no longer such elementary aids to piety!

Let this Word, then, bring us back to our senses and to the due proportions of truth. We are body as well as soul; we are incomplete without the body. The soul is insufficient to itself, the body has as real a part to play in Redemption as the soul which is its inmate and should be its mistress. We look for the redemption of our body and the Resurrection of the Flesh, we merit or demerit before God in our soul for the deeds done in our body.

So was it too with our Lord of His infinite compassion. The Word was made Flesh, dwelt in the Flesh, has assumed that Flesh into heaven. Further, He suffered in the Flesh and deigned to tell us so; and that He found that suffering all but intolerable.

II. In a well-known book a Catholic poet describes with a great deal of power the development of men’s nervous systems in these later days, and warns his readers against a scrupulous terror lest they, who no longer scourge themselves with briers, should be neglecting a means of sanctification. He points out, with perfect justice, that men, in these days, suffer instead in more subtle manners than did those of the Middle Ages, yet none the less physical; and puts us on our guard lest we should afflict ourselves too much. Yet we must take care, also, that we do not fall into the opposite extreme and come to regard bodily pain, (as has been said) as if it were altogether too elementary for our refined natures and as if it must have no place in the alchemy of the spirit. This would be both dangerous and false. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder! For, if we once treat body and soul as ill-matched companions and seek to deal with them apart, instantly the door is flung open to the old Gnostic horrors of sensualism on the one side or inhuman mutilation or neglect on the other.

The Church, on the other hand, is very clear and insistent that body and soul make one man as fully as God and Man make one Christ; and she illustrates and directs these strange co-relations and mutual effects of these two partners by her steady insistence on such things as Fasting and Abstinence. And the saints are equally clear and insistent. There never yet has been a single soul whom the Church has raised to her altars in whose life bodily austerity in some form has not played a considerable part. It is true that some have warned us against excess; but what warnings and what excess! “Be moderate,” advises St. Ignatius, that most reasonable and moderate of all the saints. “Take care that you do not break any bones with your iron scourge. God does not wish that!”

Pain, then, has a real place in our progress. Who that has suffered can ever doubt it again?

Let us consider, therefore, under this Word of Christ, whether our attitude to bodily pain is what God would have it to be. There are two mistakes that we may be committing. Either we may fear it too little—meet it, that is to say, with Pagan stoicism instead of with Christianity—or we may fear it too much. Despise not the chastening, on one side, or faint on the other. It is surely the second warning that is most needed now. For pain had a real place in Christ’s programme of life. He fasted for forty days at the beginning of His Ministry, and He willed every shocking detail of the Praetorium and Calvary at the end. He told us that His Spirit willed it and, yet more kindly, that His Flesh was weak. He revealed, then, that He really suffered and that He willed it so…. I thirst.

THE SIXTH WORD

IT IS CONSUMMATED

He has finished His Father’s business, He has dealt with sinners and saints, and has finally disclosed to us the secrets of the Soul and the Body of His that are the hope of both sinners and saints alike. And there is no more for Him to do.

An entirely new Beginning, then, is at hand, now that the Last Sabbath is come—the Last Sabbath, so much greater than the First as Redemption is greater than Creation. For Creation is a mere introduction to the Book of Life; it is the arrangement of materials that are to be thrown instantly into confusion again by man, who should be its crown and master. The Old Testament is one medley of mistakes and fragments and broken promises and violated treaties, to reach its climax in the capital Mistake of Calvary, when men indeed knew not what they did. And even God Himself in the New Testament, as man in the Old, has gone down in the catastrophe and hangs here mutilated and broken. Real life, then, is now to begin.

Yet, strangely enough, He calls it an End rather than a Beginning. Consummatum est!

I. The one and only thing in human life that God desires to end is Sin. There is not a pure joy or a sweet human relationship or a selfless ambition or a divine hope which He does not desire to continue and to be crowned and transfigured beyond all ambition and all hope. On the contrary, He desires only to end that one single thing which ruins relationships and spoils joy and poisons aspirations. For up to the present there is not one page of history which has not this blot upon it.

God has had to tolerate, for lack of better, such miserable specimens of humanity! Jacob have I loved! … David a man after my heart; the one a poor, mean, calculating man, who had, however, that single glimmer of the supernatural which Esau, for all his genial sturdiness, was without; the other an adulterous murderer, who yet had grace enough for real contrition. Hitherto He has been content with so little. He has accepted vinegar for want of wine.

Next, God has had to tolerate, and indeed to sanction—such an unworthy worship of Himself—all the blood of the temple and the spilled entrails and the nameless horrors. And yet this was all to which men could rise; for without it, they never could have learned the more nameless horror of sin.

Last, for His worshippers He has had to content Himself with but one People instead of all peoples and nations and languages. And what a People,—whom even Moses could not bear for their treachery and instability! And all this wretched record ends in the Crime of Calvary, at which the very earth revolts and the sun grows dark with shame. Is it any wonder that Christ cried, Thank God that is all done with at last!

II. Instead of this miserable past, then, what is to come? What is that New Wine He would drink with us in His Father’s Kingdom? First; real and complete saints of God are to take the place of the fragmentary saints of the Old Dispensation, saints with heads of gold and feet of clay. Souls are to be born again in Baptism, not merely sealed by circumcision, and to be purified before they can contract any actual guilt of their own. And, of these, many shall keep their baptismal innocence and shall go, wearing that white robe, before God Who gave it them. Others again shall lose it, but regain it once more, and, through the power of the Precious Blood, shall rise to heights of which Jacob and David never even dreamed. To awake in His likeness was the highest ambition of the man after God’s Heart; but to be not merely like Christ, but one with Him, is the hope of the Christian. I live, the new saints shall say with truth, yet now not I, but Christ liveth in me.

Next, instead of the old worship of blood and pain there shall be an Unbloody Sacrifice and a Pure Offering in which shall be all the power and propitiation of Calvary without its pain, all the glory without the degradation. And last, in place of the old enclosed Race of Israel shall be a Church of all nations and tongues, one vast Society, with all walls thrown down and all divisions done away, one Jerusalem from above, that shall be the Mother of us all.

III. That, then, is what Christ intended as He cried, It is consummated. Behold the old things are passed away! Behold, I make all things new!

And now let us see how far that is fulfilled. Where is there, in me, the

New Wine of the Gospel?

I have all that God can give me from His Throne on Calvary. I have the truth that He proclaimed and the grace that He released. Yet is there in me, up to the present, even one glimmer of what is meant by Sanctity? Am I even within an appreciable distance of the saints who knew not Christ? Have I ever wrestled like Jacob or wept like David? Has my religion, that is to say, ever inspired me beyond the low elevation of joy into the august altitudes of pain? Is it possible that with me the old is not put away, the old man is not yet dead, and the new man not yet put on? Is that New Sacrifice the light of my daily life? Have I done anything except hinder the growth of Christ’s Church, anything except drag down her standards, so far as I am able, to my own low level? Is there a single soul now in the world who owes, under God, her conversion to my efforts?

Why, as I watch my life and review it in His Presence it would seem as if I had done nothing but disappoint Him all my days! He cried, like the deacon of His own Sacrifice, Go! it is done! Ite; missa est! The Sacrifice is finished here; go out in its strength to live the life which it makes possible!

Let me at least begin to-day, have done with my old compromises and shifts and evasions. Ite; missa est!

THE SEVENTH WORD

FATHER, INTO THY HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT

He has cried with a loud voice, and the rocks have rent to its echo, and the earth is shaken, and the Veil of the Old Testament is torn from top to bottom as the Old Covenant passes into the New and the enclosed sanctity of the Most Holy Place breaks out into the world. And now, as the level sun shines out again beneath the pall of clouds, He whispers, as at Mary’s knee in Nazareth, the old childish prayer and yields up His spirit into His Father’s hands.

The last Paradox, then, is uttered. He Who saves others cannot save Himself! The Shepherd of souls relinquishes His own. For, as we cannot save our lives unless we lose them for His sake, so He too cannot save them unless He loses His for our sake.

I. This, then, is merely the summary of all that has gone before; it is the word Finis written at the end of this new Book of Life which He has written in His Blood. It is the silence of the white space at the close of the last page. Yet it is, too, the final act that gives value to all that have preceded it. If Christ had not died, our faith would be vain.

Oh! these New Theologies that see in Christ’s Death merely the end of His Life! Why, it is the very point and climax of His Life that He should lay it down! Like Samson himself, that strange prototype of the Strong Man armed, he slew more of the enemies of our souls by His Death than by all His gracious Life. For this cause He came into the world. For Sacrifice, which is the very heart of man’s instinctive worship of God, was set there, imperishably, in order to witness to and be ratified by His One Offering which alone could truly take away sins; and to deny it or to obscure it is to deny or to obscure the whole history of the human race, from the Death of Abel to the Death of Christ, to deny or obscure the significance of every lamb that bled in the Temple and of every wine-offering poured out before the Holy Place, to deny or to obscure (if we will but penetrate to the roots of things) the free will of Man and the Love of God. If Christ had not died, our faith would be vain.

II. Once again, then, let us turn to the event in our own lives that closes them; that death which, united to Christ’s, is our entrance into liberty and, disunited, the supreme horror of existence.

(1) For without Christ death is a violent interruption to life, introducing us to a new existence of which we know nothing, or to no existence at all. Without Christ, however great our hopes, it is abrupt, appalling, stunning, and shattering. It is this at the best, and, at the worst, it is peaceful only as the death of a beast is peaceful.

(2) Yet, with Christ, it is harmonious and continuous with all that has gone before, since it is the final movement of a life that is already dead with Christ, the last stage of a process of mortality, and the stage that ends its pain. It is just one more passing phase, by which is changed the key of that music that every holy life makes always before God.

There is, then, the choice. We may, if we will, die fighting to the end a force that must conquer us however we may fight, resisting the irresistible. Or we may die, in lethargic resignation, as dogs die, without hopes or regrets, since the past, without Christ, is as meaningless as the future. Or we may die, like Christ, and with Him, yielding up a spirit that came from the Father back again into His Fatherly hands, content that He Who brought us into the world should receive us when we go out again, confident that, as the thread of His purpose is plain in earthly life, it shall shine yet more plainly in the life beyond.

One last look, then, at Jesus shows us the lines smoothed from His face and the agony washed from His eyes. May our souls and the souls of all the faithful departed, through His Mercy, rest in Him!

XI

LIFE AND DEATH

As dying, and behold we live.—II COR. VI. 9.

We have considered, so far, a number of paradoxical phenomena exhibited in the life of Catholicism and have attempted to find their reconciliation in the fact that the Catholic Church is at once Human and Divine. In her striving, for example, after a Divine and supernatural Peace, of which she alone possesses the secret, she resists even unto blood all human attempts to supplant this by another. As a human society, again, she avails herself freely of human opportunities and aids, of earthly and created beauty, for the setting forth of her message; yet she can survive, as can no human society, when she is deprived of her human rights and her acquired wealth. As human she numbers the great multitude of the world’s sinners among her children, yet as Divine she has produced the saints. As Divine she bases all her gospel on a Revelation which can be apprehended only by Faith, yet as human she employs the keenest and most profound intellects for its analysis and its propagation. In these and in many other similar points it has been attempted to show why she offers now one aspect and now another to human criticism, and how it is that the very charges made against her become, when viewed in the light of her double claim, actual credentials and arguments on behalf of that claim. Finally, in the meditations upon the Seven Words of Christ, we considered very briefly how, in the hours of the deepest humiliation of His Humanity, He revealed again and again the characteristics of His Divinity.

It now remains to consider that point in which she most manifests that double nature of hers and, simultaneously therefore, presents, as in a kind of climax, her identity, under human terms, with Him Who, Himself the Lord of Life, conquered death by submitting to it and, by His Resurrection from the dead, showed Himself the Son of God with power.

I. Death, the world tells us, is the final end of all things, and is the one universal law of which evasion is impossible; and this is true, not of the individual only, but of society, of nations, of civilization, and even, it would seem, ultimately of physical life itself. Every vital energy therefore that we possess can be directed not to the abolition, but only to the postponement of this final full close to which the most ecstatic created harmony must come at last.

Our physicians cannot heal us, they can merely ward off death for a little. Our statesmen cannot establish an eternal federation, they can but help to hold a crumbling society together for a little longer. Our civilization cannot really evolve an immortal superman, it can but render ordinary humanity a little less mortal, temporarily and in outward appearance. Death, then, in the world’s opinion, is the duellist who is bound to win. We may parry, evade, leap aside for a little; we may even advance upon him and seem to threaten his very existence; our energies, in fact, must be concentrated upon this conflict if we are to survive at all. But it is only in seeming, at the best. The moment must come when, driven back to the last barrier, our last defence falters … and Death has only to wipe his sword.

Now the attitude of the Catholic Church towards Death is not only the most violent reversal of the world’s policy, but the most paradoxical, too, of all her methods. For, while the world attempts to keep Death at arm’s length, the Church strives to embrace him. Where the world draws his sword to meet Death’s assault, the Church spreads her heart only to receive it. She is in love with Death, she pursues him, honours him, extols Him. She places over her altars not a Risen Christ, but a dying One.

If thou wilt be perfect, she cries to the individual soul, give up all that thou hast and follow me. “Give up all that makes life worth living, strip thyself of every advantage that sustains thy life, of all that makes thee effective.” It is this that is her supreme appeal, not indeed uttered, with all its corollaries, to all her children, but to those only that desire perfection. Yet to all, in a sense, the appeal is there. Die daily, die to self, mortify, yield, give in. If any man will save his life, he must lose it.

So too, in her dealings with society, is her policy judged suicidal by a world that is in love with its own kind of life. It is suicidal, cries that world, to relinquish in France all on which the temporal life of the Church depends; for how can that society survive which renounces the very means of existence? It is suicidal to demand the virgin life of the noblest of her children, suicidal to desert the monarchical cause of one country, and to set herself in opposition to the Republican ideals of another. For even she, after all, is human and must conform to human conditions. Even she, however august her claims, must make terms with the world if she desires to live in it.

And this comment has been made upon her actions in every age. She condemned Arius, when a little compromise might surely have been found; and lost half her children. She condemned Luther and lost Germany; Elizabeth, and lost England. At every crisis she has made the wrong choice, she has yielded when she should have resisted, resisted when she should have yielded. The wonder is that she survives at all.

Yes, that is the wonder. As dying, behold she lives!

II. The answer of course is easy. It is that she simply does not desire the kind of life which the world reckons alone to be life. To her that is not life at all. She desires of course to survive as a human society, and she is assured that she always shall so survive. Yet it is not on the ordinary terms of ordinary society that she desires survival. It is not a natural life of which she is ambitious, a life that draws its strength from human conditions and human environment, a life, therefore, that waxes and wanes with those human conditions and ultimately meets their fate, but a supernatural life that draws its strength from God. And she recognizes, as one of the most fundamental paradoxes of all, that such a life can be gained and held only through what the world calls “death.”

She does not, then, want merely the life of a prosperous human state, whether monarchy or republic. There are times indeed in her history when such an accompaniment to her real existence is useful to her effectiveness; and she has, of course, the right, as have other societies, to earthly dominions that may have been won and presented to her by her children. Or through her ministers, as in Paraguay, she may administer for a while the ordinary civil affairs of men who choose to be loyal to her government. Yet if, for one instant, such a responsibility were really to threaten her spiritual effectiveness—if, that is, the choice were really presented to her between spiritual and temporal dominion—she would let all the kingdoms of the world go in an instant, to retain her kingdom from God; she would gladly suffer the loss of all things to retain Christ.

And how is it possible to deny for one instant that her success has been startling and overwhelming—this fructification of Life by Death.

Are there any human beings, for example, who have been more effective and influential than her saints—men and women, that is to say, who have died daily, in order to live indeed? They have not, it is true, prospered, let us say, as business men, directors of companies, or government officials, but such a success is simply not her ideal for them, not their own ideal for themselves. That is precisely the kind of life to which they have, as a rule, determinedly and perseveringly died. Yet their effectiveness in this world has been none the less. Are any kings remembered as is the beggar Labré who gnawed cabbage stalks in the gutters of Rome? Are the names of any statesmen of, let us say, even a hundred years ago, reverenced and repeated as is the name of the woman of Spain called Teresa of Jesus who, four hundred years ago, ruled a few nuns within the enclosure of a convent? Are any musicians or artists loved to-day with such rapture as is God’s little troubadour, called Francis, who made music for himself and the angels by rubbing one stick across another?

Or, again, is any empire that the world has ever seen so great, so loyally united in itself, so universal and yet so rigorous as is that spiritual empire whose capital is Rome? Is there any nation with so fierce a patriotism as she who is Supernational? Earthly kings speak from their thrones and what happens? And an old man in Rome who wears three crowns on his head speaks from his prison in the Vatican and all the earth rings with it.

Has her policy, then, been so suicidal after all? From the world’s point of view it has never been anything else. Her history is but one long example of the sacrifice of human activities and earthly opportunities; she has expelled from her pulpits the most brilliant of her children, she has silenced or alienated the most eloquent of her defenders. She has cut off from herself all that she should have kept, and hugged to her arms all that she should have relinquished! She has never done anything but die! She never does anything but live!

III. Turn, then, to the life of her Lord for the solution of this riddle. Last week He was going to His Death. He was losing, little by little, all that bound Him to Life. The multitudes that had followed Him hitherto were leaving Him by units and groups, they who might have formed His armies to seat Him on the throne of His father David. Disloyalty had made its way even among His chosen body-guard, and already Judas is bargaining for the price of His Master’s blood. Even the most loyal of all are dismayed, and presently will forsake Him and flee when the swords flash out in the garden of Gethsemane. A few weeks ago in Galilee thousands were leaving Him for the last time; and when, once again, a company seemed to rally, He wept! And so at last the sacrifice was complete and, one by one, He laid down of His own will every tie that kept Him in life. And then on Good Friday itself He suffered that beauty of His Face to be marred so that no man would ever desire Him any more, silenced the melody of the Voice that had broken so many hearts and made them whole again; He stretched out His Shepherd’s Hands with which alone He could gather His sheep to His Breast, and the Feet that alone could bear Him into the wilderness to seek after that which was lost. Was there ever a Suicide such as this, such a despair of high hopes, such a ruin of all ambition, a dying so complete and irremediable as the Dying of Jesus Christ?

And now on Easter Day look at Him again and see how He lives as never before. See how the Life that has been His for thirty years—the Life of God made Man—itself pales almost to a phantom before the glory of that same Life transfigured by Death. Three days ago He fainted beneath the scourge and nails; now He shows the very scars of His Passion to be the emblems of immortal strength. Three days ago He spoke in human words to those only that were near Him, and limited Himself under human terms of space and time; He speaks now in every heart. Three days ago He gave His Body to the few who knelt at His Table; to-day in ten thousand tabernacles that same Body may be worshipped by all who come.

In a word, He has exchanged a Natural Life for a Supernatural in every plane at once. He has laid down the Natural Life of His Body to take it back again supernaturalized for ever. He has died that His Life may be released; He has finished in order to begin.

It is easy, then, to see why it is that the Church dies daily, why it is that she is content to be stripped of all that makes her life effective, why she too permits her hands to be bound and her feet fettered and her beauty marred and her voice silenced so far as men can do those things. She is human? Yes; she dwells in a body that is prepared for her, but prepared chiefly that she may suffer in it. Her far-reaching hands are not hers merely that she may bind up with them the broken-hearted, nor her swift feet hers merely that she may run on them to succour the perishing, nor her head and heart hers merely that she may ponder and love. But all this sensitive human organism is hers that at last she may agonize in it, bleed from it from a thousand wounds, be lifted up in it to draw all men to her cross.

She does not desire, then, in this world, the throne of her Father David, nor the kind of triumph which is the only kind that the world understands to be so. She desires one life and one triumph only—the Risen Life of her Saviour. And this, at last, is the transfiguration of her Humanity by the power of her Divinity and the vindication of them both.

THE HISTORY OF RICHARD

RAYNAL SOLITARY

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

PATRI.REVERENDISSIMO

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CVIDAM.NESCIENTI

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CONTENTS

THE HISTORY OF RICHARD RAYNAL SOLITARY

INTRODUCTION

I

HOW SIR JOHN VISITED MASTER HERMIT: AND FOUND HIM IN CONTEMPLATION

II

OF THE WORD FROM GOD THAT CAME TO MASTER HERMIT: AND OF HIS SETTING OUT

III

HOW MASTER RICHARD FARED: HOW HE HEARD MASS IN SAINT PANCRAS’ CHURCH: HOW HE CAME TO WESTMINSTER: AND OF HIS COLLOQUY WITH THE ANKRET

IV

HOW MASTER RICHARD SAW THE KING IN WESTMINSTER HALL: AND OF THE MASS AT SAINT EDWARD’S ALTAR

V

HOW MASTER RICHARD CRIED OUT IN WESTMINSTER HALL: AND OF HIS COMING TO A PRIVY PARLOUR

VI

OF MASTER RICHARD’S SPEAKING WITH THE KING’S GRACE: AND HOW HE WAS TAKEN FOR IT

VII

OF MASTER RICHARD’S SECOND SPEAKING WITH HIS GRACE: AND OF HIS DETENTION

VIII

OF THE PARSON’S DISQUISITION ON THE WHOLE MATTER

IX

HOW MASTER RICHARD TOOK HIS MEAT: AND OF MASTER LIEUTENANT’S WHIPPING OF HIM

X

OF THE SECOND TEMPTATION OF MASTER RICHARD: AND HOW HE OVERCAME IT

XI

OF THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

XII

HOW SIR JOHN WENT AGAIN TO THE CELL: AND OF WHAT HE SAW THERE

XIII

HOW ONE CAME TO MASTER PRIEST: HOW MASTER PRIEST CAME TO THE KING’S

XIV

OF SIR JOHN’S MEDITATIONS IN WESTMINSTER PALACE

XV

HOW MASTER RICHARD WENT TO GOD

XVI

OF HIS BURYING

THE HISTORY OF RICHARD RAYNAL SOLITARY

INTRODUCTION

In the winter of 1903-4 I had occasion to pass several months in Rome.

Among other Religious Houses, lately bought back from the Government by their proper owners, was one (whose Order, for selfish reasons, I prefer not to specify), situated in the maze of narrow streets between the Piazza Navona and the Piazza Colonna; this, however, may be said of the Order, that it is one which, although little known in Italy, had several houses in England up to the reign of Henry VIII. Like so many other Orders at that time, its members moved first to France and then to Italy, where it has survived in penurious dignity ever since.

The Religious were able to take with them at the time of exodus, three and a half centuries ago, a part of the small library that existed at the English mother-house, and some few of these MSS. have survived to the present day; many others, however, have certainly perished; for in the list of books that I was looking over there one day in March, 1904, I observed several titles, of which, the priest-librarian told me, the corresponding volumes have disappeared. To some half-dozen of these titles, however, there was appended a star, and on enquiring the meaning of this symbol, I was informed that it denoted that a translation had been made into French and preserved in the library.

One of these titles especially attracted my attention. It ran as follows: VITA ET OBITUS DNI RICARDI RAYNAL HEREMITAE.

Upon my asking to see this and its companions, I was conducted to a dusty shelf in the little upstairs book-room, and was informed that I might do as I pleased there for two hours, until the Ave Maria rang, and the doors would be locked.

When the librarian had gone with many nods and smiles, I took down these half dozen books and carried them to the table by the window, and until Ave Maria rang I turned their pages.

The volume whose title had especially attracted my attention was a quarto MS., written, I should suppose from the caligraphy, about the end of the sixteenth century; a later hand had appended a summary to each chapter with an appropriate quotation from a psalm. But the book was in a shocking condition, without binding, and contained no more than a fragment. The last page was numbered “341,” and the first page+ “129.” One hundred and twenty-eight pages, therefore, were certainly lost at the beginning, and I know not how many at the end; but what was left was sufficiently engrossing to hold me standing by the window, until the wrinkled face of the priest looked in again to inform me that unless I wished to sleep in the library, I must be gone at once.

On the following morning by nine o’clock I was there again; and, after an interview with the Superior, went up again with the keys in my own possession, a quantity of foolscap and a fountain-pen in my hand, and sandwiches in my pocket, to the dusty little room beneath the roof.

I repeated this series of actions, with the exception of the interview, every day for a fortnight, and when I returned to England in April I took with me a complete re-translation into English of the “Vita et obitus Dni Ricardi Raynal Heremitae,” and it is this re-translation that is now given to the public, with the correction of many words and the addition of notes, carried out during the last eighteen months.

It is necessary to give some account of the book itself, but I will not trouble my readers with an exhaustive survey of the reasons that have led me to my opinions on the subject: it is enough to say that most of them are to be found in the text.

It is the story of the life of one of that large body of English hermits who flourished from about the beginning of the fourteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth; and was written, apparently for the sake of the villagers, by his parish-priest, Sir John Chaldfield, who seems to have been an amiable, devout, and wordy man, who long outlived his spiritual son. Of all the early part of Master Richard Raynal’s life we are entirely ignorant, except of the facts that his parents died in his youth, and that he himself was educated at Cambridge. No doubt his early history was recorded in the one hundred and twenty-nine pages that are missing at the beginning. It is annoying also that the last pages are gone, for thereby we have lost what would probably have been a very full and exhaustive list of the funeral furniture of the sixteenth century, as well as an account of the procession into the country and the ceremonies observed at the burial. We might have heard, too, with some exactness (for Sir John resembles a journalist in his love of detail) about the way in which his friend’s fame began to spread, and the pilgrims to journey to his shrine. It would have been of interest to trace the first stages in the unauthorised cult of one as yet uncanonised. What is left of the book is the record of only the last week in Master Richard’s life and of his death under peculiar circumstances at Westminster in the bed-chamber of the King.

It is impossible to know for certain who was this king, but I am inclined to believe that it was Henry VI., the founder of Eton College and King’s College, Cambridge, whose life ended in such tragedy towards the close of the fifteenth century. His Queen is not mentioned from beginning to end, and for this and other reasons I am inclined to particularise still more, and conjecture that the period of which the book treats must be prior to the year 1445 A.D., when the King married at the age of twenty-three.

Supposing that these conjectures are right, the cardinal spoken of in the book would be Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, and cousin of the King.

All this, however, must be doubtful, since the translator of the original English or Latin appears to have omitted with scrupulous care the names of all personages occurring in the narrative, with one or two unimportant exceptions. We do not even know in what part of the country Sir John Chaldfield held his living, but it appears to have been within thirty or forty miles of London. We must excuse the foreign scribe, however; probably the English names were unintelligible and barbarous to his perceptions; and appeared unimportant, too, compared to the interest of the mystical and spiritual experiences recorded in the book.

Of these experiences it is difficult to write judiciously in this practical age.

Master Richard Raynal appears to have been a very curious young man, of great personal beauty, extreme simplicity, and a certain magnetic attractiveness. He believed himself, further, to be in direct and constant communication with supernatural things, and would be set down now as a religious fanatic, deeply tinged with superstition. His parson, too, in these days, would be thought little better, but at the time in which they lived both would probably be regarded with considerable veneration. We hear, in fact, that a chapel was finally erected over Master Raynal’s body, and that pilgrimages were made there; and probably, if the rest of the work had been preserved to us, we should have found a record of miracles wrought at his shrine. All traces, however, of that shrine have now disappeared—most likely under the stern action of Henry VIII.—and Richard’s name is unknown to hagiology, in spite of his parson’s confidence as regarded his future beatification.

It is, however, interesting to notice that in Master Raynal’s religion, as in Richard Rolle’s, hermit of Hampole, there appears to have been some of that inchoate Quietism which was apt to tinge the faith of a few of the English solitaries. He was accustomed to attend mass devoutly and to receive the sacraments, and on his death-bed was speeded into the next world, at his own desire, by all the observances prescribed by the Catholic Church. His attitude, too, towards the priesthood, is somewhat uncharacteristic of his fellows, who were apt to boast with apparent complacency that they were neither “monk, friar, nor clerk.” In other matters he is a good type of that strange race of solitaries who swarmed in England at that time, who were under no vows, but served God as it pleased them, not hesitating to go among their fellows from time to time if they thought themselves called to it, who were looked upon with veneration or contempt, according to the opinion formed of them by their observers, but who, at any rate, lived a simple and wholesome life, and were to some extent witnesses to the existence of a supernatural Power at whose bidding (so they believed) they were summoned to celibacy, seclusion, labour, and prayer.

It is curious also to trace through Sir John’s fanciful eyes the parallels between the sufferings of Master Richard and those of Christ. Of course, no irreverence is intended. I should imagine that, if Sir John were put on his defence, he would say that the life of every true Christian must approximate to the life of Christ so far as his spirit is identified with the Divine Spirit, and that this is occasionally fulfilled even in minute details.

It is unnecessary to add much more in this introduction—(for the story will tell its own tale)—beyond saying that the re-translation of the French fragment into English has been to me a source of considerable pleasure. I have done my best to render it into the English of its proper period, including even its alliterations, while avoiding needless archaisms and above all arbitrary spelling. But no doubt I am guilty of many solecisms. I have attempted also to elucidate the text by a number of footnotes, in which I have explained whatever seemed to call for it, and have appended translations to the numerous Latin quotations in which Sir John indulges after the manner of his time. I must apologise for these footnotes—(such are always tiresome)—but I could think of no other way by which the text could be made clear. They can always be omitted without much loss by the reader who has no taste for them.

Sir John’s style is a little difficult sometimes, especially when he treats in detail of his friend’s mystical experience, but he has a certain power of word-painting (unusual at his date) in matters both of nature and of grace, and it is only when he has been unduly trite or obscure that I have ventured, with a good deal of regret, to omit his observations. All such omissions, however, as well as peculiar difficulties of statement or allusion, have been dealt with in foot-notes.

With regard to the function of the book, at any rate since its first translation into French, it is probably safe to conjecture that it may have been used at one time for reading aloud in the refectory. I am led to make this guess from observing its division into chapters, and the quasi-texts appended to each. These texts are of all sorts, though all are taken from the Book of Psalms; but their application to the matter that follows is sometimes fanciful, frequently mystical, and occasionally trite.

If the book receives any sympathy from English readers—(an eventuality about which I have my doubts)—I shall hope, at some future date, to edit others of the MSS. still reposing in the little room under the roof between the Piazza Navona and the Piazza Colonna in Rome, to which I have been generously promised free access.

I must express my gratitude to the Superior of the Order of —— (to whose genius, coupled with that of another, I dedicate this book), for giving me permission to edit his MS.; to Dom Robert Maple, O.S.B., for much useful information and help in regard to the English mystics; and to Mme. Germain who has verified references, interpreted difficulties, and assisted me by her encouragement.

Robert benson.

Cambridge,

Feast of ss. Peter and paul, 1905.

I

HOW SIR JOHN VISITED MASTER HERMIT: AND FOUND HIM IN CONTEMPLATION

Protexit me in abscondito tabernaculi sui.

He hath protected me in the secret place of his tabernacle.

—Ps. Xxvi. 5.

[The Ms. begins abruptly at the top of the page.]

… It was at vespers on the fourth day afterwards, being Corpus Christi, that saint Giles, as I suppose, moved me to visit Master Richard. So I put on my cap again, and took my furred gown, for I thought it would be cold before I came home; and set out through the wood. I was greatly encouraged by the beauty of the light as I went down; the sun shone through the hazels on my right, and the roof of leaves was a fair green over my head; and to right and left lay a carpet of flowers as blue as the Flanders’ glass above the altar. I had learnt from Master Richard, though he was thirty years my younger, many beautiful lessons, and one of them that God’s Majesty speaks to us by the works of His almighty hands. So when I saw the green light and the gold and the blue, and the little flies that made merry in the way, I took courage.

At the lower end of the wood, as you know, the path falls down steeply towards the stream, and when it has left the wood there are meadows to right and left, that were bright with yellow flowers at this time. In front the stream runs across the road under hazels, and where the chapel is still a-building over his body, on the left side, with its back against the wood stood his little house.

I will tell you of all this, as I saw it then; for the pilgrims have trampled it all about now, and the stream is all befouled and the banks broken, and the trees cut down by the masons that came to make the second chapel where Master Richard was wont to bathe himself, against the fiend’s temptations at first, and afterwards for cleanness’ sake, too—(for I never heard of a hermit as cleanly as was this young man, soon, and in spite of his washings, by the prayers of our Lady and saint Giles, to be declared among the blessed servants of God.)

The meadow was a fair circle of grass; with trees on every side but on this where the gate stood. It sloped to the stream that ran shallow over the stones, and down across it from the cell to the pool lay the path trampled hard by Master Richard’s feet; for he had lived there four years at this time since his coming from Cambridge. Besides this path there was another that circled the meadow, and it was on this that he walked with God. I have seen him there sometimes from the gate, with his hands clasped, fingers to fingers, and his eyes open but seeing nothing; and if it had not been for the sin in my soul (on which God have pity!) I might have seen, too, the heavenly company that often went with him and of which he told me.

Before the hut lay a long garden-bed, in which the holy youth grew beans in their season, and other vegetables at other times; for it was on these, with nuts from the hazelwood, and grasses of which I know not the names (though he has told me of them many times), with water from the stream, that he sustained his life.

On either side of the hut stood a great may-tree; it was on account of these that he had built his little house here, for he knew the properties and divine significations of such things.

The house itself was of wattles, plastered with mud from the brook, and thatched with straw. There was a door of wood that he leaned against the opening on this side when he prayed, but not when he slept, and a little square window high up upon the other side that looked into the green wood. It is of that same door that saint Giles’ new altar was made, for the house fell down after his going, and the wind blew about the mud and the sticks, and the pilgrims have now carried all away. I took the door myself, when I came back and had seen him go through the heavenly door to our Lord.

The house within was a circle, three strides across, with a domed roof like a bee-hive as high as a man at the sides and half as high again in the centre. On the left lay his straw for a bed, and above it on the wall the little square of linen that he took afterwards with him to London, worked with the five precious wounds of our Saviour. On the right hand side was a wooden stool where he sat sometimes to pray and on the wall against it a little press that held some bottles within, and in another shelf some holy relics that are now in the church, and in another his six books; and above, upon the top, a little cross with our Lord upon it, very rude; for he said that the eyes of the soul should not be hindered by the eyes of the body, and that our Lord showed Himself often to him more clearly and truly than a craftsman could make Him. Above the window was a little figure of the Mother of God, set there, he told me, above the sight of the green wood, because she was the mother of all living, and had restored what Eve had spoiled.

I cannot tell you, my children, of the peace of this place. The little house, and indeed the whole circle of the meadow set about with trees, was always to me as a mansion in paradise. There were no sounds here but the song of the birds and the running of the water and the wind in the trees; and no sight of any other world but this, except in winter when the hill over against the hut showed itself through the branches not three hundred paces away. On all other sides the woods rose to the sky. I think that the beasts knew the peace of the place. I have seen often a stag unafraid watching Master Richard as he dug or walked on his path; the robins would follow him, and the little furry creatures sit round him with ears on end. And he told me, too, that never since he had come to the place had blood fallen on the ground except his own when he scourged himself. The hunting-weasel never came here, though the conies were abundant; the stags never fought here though there was a fair ground for a battlefield. It was a peace that passed understanding, and what that peace is the apostle tells us.

Here I came then on Corpus Christi evening, thirty years ago, as the sun was near its setting behind the gate through which I came, and my shadow lay half-across the meadow before me.

It appeared to me that somewhat was amiss, but I knew not what it was: I was a little afraid. Master Richard was not to be seen, but his door was wide, so I thought he would not be praying. As I came up the path I saw something that astonished me. There was a circle of beasts about the hut, little conies that sat in the sunlight and shadow, without feeding, though it was the time for it; and as I came nearer I saw other beasts. There was a wild cat crouched in the shadow of the hazels moving his tail from side to side; a stag with his two does stood beneath a beech-tree, and a boar looked over the bank against which stood the hut.

They did not move as I came up and looked in at the door.

This is what I saw within.

The holy youth was seated on his stool with his hands gripping the sides and his eyes open, and he was looking towards the image of our Saviour on the right-hand side.

You have seen his holy and uncorrupt body, but in life he was different to that. He was not above twenty years old at this time, and of a beauty that drew men’s eyes to him. [This is the exact phrase used of Richard Rolle, hermit of Hampole.] His hair was as you know it; a straight, tawny, nut-brown head of hair that fell to his shoulders; and he had the cleanest line of face that ever I have seen.

His hair came low upon his straight forehead; his nose was straight, with fine nostrils; he had a little upper lip on which grew no hair, a full lip beneath very short, and a round cleft chin; his eyebrows were dark and arched; his whole face smooth and thin, and of an extraordinary clean paleness; he had a curved throat turned to a pale brown by the sun, though the colour of his body, I have heard it said, was as white as milk. He was dressed always in a white kirtle beneath, and a brown sleeveless frock over it of the colour of his hair, that came to his ankles, and was girt with a leather band. He went barefoot, but carried a great hat on his shoulders when he walked. He moved slowly at such times, and bore himself upright. His hands were fine and slender, and were burned brown like his face and his throat.

I tell you that I have never seen such a wonderful beauty in mortal man; and his soul was yet more lovely. It is no wonder that God’s Majesty delighted in him, and that the saints came to walk with him. He was like neither man nor woman. He had the grey eyes of a woman, the mouth and chin of a man, the hands of a matron, and the figure of a strong virgin. I was always a little man, as you know, and when I walked with him, as I did sometimes, the top of my cap came just beneath his ear.

Master Richard, as I have said, was seated now on his stool, with his knees together, and his hands gripping the sides of his seat. His chin was a little thrust out, and he was as still as a stock. This I knew, was the manner in which sometimes he entered into strong contemplation; and I knew, too, that he would neither hear me nor see me till he moved. So I watched him a moment or two, and I grew yet more afraid as I watched; for this is what I saw:

Down from his temples across his cheeks ran little drops of sweat on to his brown frock, and that though it was a cool evening, and his spade was hung on its peg beneath the window. (It was the spade that you have seen in the church with a cross-handle polished by his holy hands.)

I looked for a while, and I grew yet more afraid. It seemed to me that there was somewhat in the cell that I could not see. I looked up at the window but there was nothing there but the still green hazel leaves; I looked at his bed, at the smooth mud walls and floor, at the domed roof, and, through the hole in the centre, where the smoke escaped when he made a fire, I could see leaves again and the evening sky. Yet the place was full of something; there was something of energy or conflict, I knew not which: some person was striving there.

Then I was suddenly so much afraid that I dared not stay, and I went back again along the path, and walked at the lower end of the meadow beside the stream.

II

OF THE WORD FROM GOD THAT CAME TO MASTER HERMIT: AND OF HIS SETTING OUT

Vias tuas, domine, demonstra mihi: et semitas tuas educe me.

Shew, o lord, thy ways to me: and teach me thy paths.—ps. Xxiv. 4.

There are, as you have learned from me, and I from Master Richard Raynal, a trinity of natures in man. There is that by which he has to do with the things of matter—his five wits; that by which he has to do with God Almighty and the saints—his immortal soul and her powers; and, for the last, that by which he has to do with men—his lower understanding, his mind, his power of speech, and the like. Each nature has its proper end, though each ministers to the other. With his ears he hears God’s Word, with his immortal soul he perceives God Almighty in what is seen with the eyes; with his understanding he comprehends the nature of flowers and the proper time to sow or reap. This trinity may be devoted to God or the fiend…. It is not true, as some have said, that it is only with the soul that God is perceived or served, and that the other two are unclean. We may serve God by digging with the hands, by talking friendly with our neighbour, and by the highest of all which is contemplation.

This is what Master Richard did, following the Victorines but not altogether. He strove to serve God alike in all, and I count his life, therefore, the highest that I have ever known. He said that to dig, to talk over the gate with a neighbour, and to contemplate the Divine Essence, were all alike to serve God. He counted none wasted, for God Almighty had made the trinity of natures in His own image, and intended, therefore, a proper occupation for each. To refuse to dig or to talk was not to honour contemplation; and this he said, though he said besides that some could not do this through reason of finding that one distracted the other. I count, however, that his own life was the hardest, for he did all three, and did not suffer one to distract another.

The most difficulty of such a life is to know when to follow one and when the other, when to dig, when to speak, and when to contemplate; and he would tell me that for this there are two guides that God Almighty sends—the one is that of exterior circumstance, and the other that of an interior knowledge, and he would follow that which cried the louder. If he desired to contemplate and a neighbour came to talk with him; if he perceived the neighbour clearly he would give over his contemplation; if not he would continue to contemplate. Again, if the imagination of a spade came mightily before him, or if he remembered that the sun would soon be up and his beans not watered, again he would give over his contemplation and dig or carry water.

For this there is needed one thing, and that a firm and quiet simplicity. He would do nothing till his mind was quiet. The friend of God must be as a little child, as the gospel tells us, and when the soul is quiet there is no difficulty in knowing what must be done. The first business then of a solitary’s life is to preserve this quiet against the fiend’s assaults and disquiet. And, I think, of all that I have ever known, Master Richard’s soul was the most quiet, and most like to the soul of a little child.

As I walked now beside the stream I knew very well that it was for this that he was striving in contemplation: the sweat that ran down his cheeks was the sign of the fiend’s assault, and I knew that I had done well to come. I had followed, as Master Richard himself had taught me, that loud interior voice.

So I strove to become quiet myself; I signed myself with the cross, and cried softly upon saint Giles to pray for me to God’s Majesty that I might know what to say and do. Then I placed myself, as I had learned, at the divine feet; I looked at the yellow flowers and the clear running water and the open sky, and presently I was aware that all was silence within and without me. So I waited and walked softly to and fro, until Master Richard came to the door of his hut.

He stood there for a full minute, I suppose, with the sun on his face and his brown frock and broad white sleeves, before he saw me; for I was in the shadow of the hazels. Then he waved his hands a little, and came slowly and very upright down the path in the middle, and as I went towards him I saw the beasts had gone. They were content, I suppose, now that their master was come out.

He came down the path, very pale and grave, and knelt as usual for my blessing, which I gave; then he kissed my skirt as he always did with a priest, and stood up.

Now I will try to tell you all that he said as he said it.

We went together without speaking, to the hut, and he brought out the stool into the sunlight and made me sit upon it, and sat himself upon the ground beneath me, with his hands clasped about his knee, and his bare feet drawn beneath him. I could see no more of him but his brown hair and his throat, and his strong shoulders bent forward. Then he began to speak. His voice was always grave and steady.

“I am glad you are come, Sir John; I have something to ask you. I do not know what to do. I will tell you all.”

I said nothing, for I knew what he wished; so I looked down across the meadow at the hazels and the pigeons that were coming down to the wood, and desired saint Giles to tell me what to say.

“It is this,” he said. “Four days ago I was in contemplation, down there by the stream. The sensible warmth of which I have told you was in my heart; as it has been for over one year now, ever since I passed from the way of illumination. I think that it had never been so clear and strong. It was our Lord who was with me, and I perceived Him within as He always shows Himself to me; I cannot tell you what He is like, but there were roses on His hands and feet, and above His heart and about His head. I have not often perceived Him so clearly. His Mother, I knew, was a little distance away, behind me, and I wondered why it was so, and the divine John was with her. Then I understood that He was lonely, but no more than that: I did not know why. I said what I could, and then I listened, but He said nothing to me, and then, after a while, I understood that it was under another aspect that He was there; that there was one in his place, crowned with gold instead of roses, and I could not understand it. I was astonished and troubled by that, and the warmth was not so strong at my heart.

“Then He was gone; and I saw the stream again beneath me, and the leaves overhead, and there was sweat on my forehead.

“When I stood up there was a knowledge in my heart—I do not know whether from our Lord or the fiend—that I must leave this place, and go to one whom I thought must be the King with some message; but I do not know the message.”

My children, it was a dreadful thing to hear that. He had never spoken so since his coming four years before, except once when he was in the purgative way, and the fiend came to him under aspect of a woman. But he had been in agony then, and he was quiet now. Before I could speak he spoke again.

“I said that I could not go; that God Almighty had brought me here and caused me to build my house and given me the meadow and the water and the beasts as my friends—that I was neither monk nor friar nor priest to be sent hither and thither—that I could not go. I cried on Him to help me and shew me His will; and then I went to dinner.

“Since that time, Sir John, the warmth has left me. I see the flowers, but there is nothing behind them; and the sunlight, but there is no heavenly colour in it. My mind is disquiet; I cannot rest nor contemplate as I should. I have been up the stairs that I have told you of a thousand times; I have set myself apart from the world, which is the first step, until all things visible have gone; then I have set myself apart from my body and my understanding so that I was conscious of neither hands nor heart nor head, nor of aught but my naked soul; then I have left that, which is the third step; but the gate is always shut, and our Lord will not speak or answer. Tell me what I must do, Sir John. Is it true that this is from our Lord, and that I must go to see the King?”

I was sick at heart when I heard that, and I strove to silence what my soul told me must be my answer.

“It has persevered ever since, my son Richard,” I said?

He bowed his head.

“There is no savour in anything to me until I go,” he answered. “This morning as I looked from over the wall upon the sacrament, my eyes were blinded: I saw nothing but the species of bread. I was forced to rest upon the assent of my faith.”

Again I attempted to silence what my soul told me. It was the very power that Master Richard had taught me to use that was turning against what I desired. I had not known until then how much I loved this quiet holy lad with grave eyes—not until I thought I should lose him.

“There is no sin,” I said, “that has darkened your eyes?”

I saw him smile sideways at that, and he turned his head a little.

“My sins are neither blacker nor whiter than they have always been,” he said; “you know them all, my father.”

“And you wish to leave us?” I cried.

He unclasped his hands and laid one on my knee. I was terrified at its purity, but his face was turned away, and he said nothing.

I had never heard the wood at that time of the evening so silent as it was then. It was the time when, as the lax monks say, the birds say mattins (but the strict observants call it compline), but there was neither mattins nor compline then in the green wood. It was all in a great hush, and the shadows from the trees fifty paces away had crept up and were at our feet.

Then he spoke again.

“Tell me what your soul tells you,” he said.

I put my hand on his brown head; I could not speak. Then he rose at once, and stood smiling and looking on me, and the sunlight made a splendour in his hair, as it were his heavenly crown.

“Thank you, my father,” he said, though I had not spoken one word.

Then he turned and went into the hut, and left me to look upon the green woods through my tears, and to listen to a mavis that had begun to sing in one of the may-trees. I knew he was gone to make ready.

The sun had quite gone down before he came out again, and the shadows were like a veil over the land; only the yellow flowers burned hot like candle flames before me.

He had four books in his hand and a little bottle, his hat on his shoulders, and the wooden sandals on his feet that he had worn to walk in four years before when he came to us. His little linen picture of the five wounds was fastened over his breast with thorns. He carried across his arm the second white-sleeved kirtle that he had, and his burse was on his girdle. He held out two of the books to me.

“These are for you, my father,” he said; “the book of hours and the Regula Heremitarum I shall take with me, and all the rest of the mobills and the two other books I shall leave at our Lord’s disposal, except the bottle of Quintessence.”

I took the two books and looked at them.

There was Master Hoveden’s Philomela, and a little book he had made on

Quinte Essence.

“But you will need them!” I cried.

“I carry Philomela in my heart,” he said, “and as for the Quinte Essence I shall have enough if I need it, and here is the bottle that holds that that has been made of blood.—The fifth—being of gold and silver I have not. Argentum et aurum non est mihi.” [“Silver and gold I have none.” (Acts iii. 6.)]

(That was the little bottle that I have told you of before. It was distilled of his own blood, according to the method of Hermes Trismegistus.)

“If I do not return,” he said, “I bequeath all to you; and I wish six masses to be said; the first to be sung, of Requiem; the second of the five wounds; the third of the assumption; the fourth of all martyrs with a special memory of saint Christopher; the fifth of all confessors with a special memory of saint Anthony, hermit, and saint Giles, abbot; the sixth of all virgins with a special memory of saint Agnes.”

You understand, my children, that he knew what would come to him, and that he had foreseen all; he spoke as simply as one who was going to another village only, looking away from me upon the ground. (I was glad of that.)

I begged of him to bid good-bye to his meadow.

“I will not;” he said, “I bear it with me wherever I go.”

Then he took me by the arm, carrying his shod staff in his other hand, and led me to the gate, for I was so blinded that I stumbled as I went.

Once only did I speak as we passed upwards through the dark wood.

“And what will be your message,” I asked, “when you come to the King?”

“Our Lord will tell it me when I come thither,” he said.

We went through the village that lay dark and fast asleep. I wished him to go to some of the houses, and bid the folks good-bye, but he would not.

“I bear them, too, wherever I go,” he said.

After we had adored God Almighty in the church, [That is, God present in the Blessed Sacrament.] and I had shriven the young man and blessed him, we went out and stood under the lychgate where his body afterwards rested.

It was a clear night of stars and as silent as was once heaven for the space of half-an-hour. The philomels had given over their singing near a month before, and it was not the season for stags to bray; and those, as you know, are the principal sounds that we hear at night.

We stood a long time listening to the silence. I knew well what was in my heart, and I knew presently what was in his. He was thinking on his soul.

He turned to me after a while, and I could see the clear pallour of his face and the line of his lips and eyes all set in his heavy hair.

“Do you know the tale of the Persian king, Sir John?”

I told him No; he had many of such tales. I do not know where he had read them.

“There was once a king who had the open eyes, and he looked into heaven and hell. He saw there two friends whom he had known in the flesh; the one was a hermit, and the other another king. The hermit was in hell, and the king in heaven. When he asked the reason of this, one told him that the hermit was in hell because of his consorting with the king, and the king in heaven because of his consorting with the hermit.”

I understood him, but I said nothing.

“Pray for me then, Sir John,” said Master Richard.

Then we kissed one another, and he was gone without another word along the white road.

III

HOW MASTER RICHARD FARED: HOW HE HEARD MASS IN SAINT PANCRAS’ CHURCH: HOW HE CAME TO WESTMINSTER: AND OF HIS COLLOQUY WITH THE ANKRET

Abyssus abyssum invocat: in voce cataractarum tuarum.

Deep calleth on deep: at the noise of thy flood-gates.—ps. Xli. 8.

The tale of his journey and of his coming to London he told me when I saw him again at the end. He spoke to me for over an hour, and I think that I have remembered near every word, but I cannot write down the laughter and the tears that were in his voice as he told me.

As he went along the road beneath the trees and the stars, carrying his kirtle, with his books and other things in his burse, and his hat on his shoulders, he was both happy and sorry.

There are two kinds of happiness for mortal men: there is that which is carnal and imperfect and hangs on circumstances and the health of the body and such like things; and there is that which is spiritual and perfect, which hangs on nothing else than the doing of the will of God Almighty so far as it is known, so that a man may have both at once, or either without the other. Master Richard had the one without the other.

At first he could not bear to think of what he had left behind him—his little quiet house and meadow and the stream where he washed, and the beasts and men that loved him; and he threw himself upon the other happiness for strength. By the time that he had arrived at the ford he was so much penetrated by this better joy that he was able to look back, and tell himself, as he had told me, that he bore with him always wherever he went all that he had left behind him. It was ever his doctrine that we lose nothing of what is good and sweet in the past, and that we suck out of all things a kind of essence that abides with us always, and that every soul that loves is a treasure-house of all that she has ever loved. It is only the souls that do not love that go empty in this world and in saecula saeculorum. He thought much of this on his road, and by the time that he had come so far that he thought it best to sleep by the wayside, the warmth had come back that had left him for four days.

He went aside then out of the road to find a hazel thicket, and by the special guidance of God found one with a may-tree beside it. There he groped together the dead leaves, took off his burse and his hat and his girdle and his brown habit, and laid the habit upon the leaves, unpinning the five wounds, and fastening them again upon his white kirtle. Then he knelt down by the may-tree, and said his prayers, beginning as he always did:

“Totiens glorior, quotiens nominis tui, JESU, recordor.” [“I glory, so often as I remember Thy Name, JESU.”]

Then he repeated the Name an hundred times, and his heart grew so hot and the sweetness in his month so piercing that he could scarce go on. Then he committed himself to the tuition of the glorious Mother of Christ, and to that of saint Christopher, saint Anthony, hermit, and saint Agnes, virgin, and lastly to that of saint Giles and saint Denis, remembering me. Then he said compline with paternoster, avemaria, and credo, signed himself with the cross, and lay down on his kirtle—specialissimus, darling of God—and drew the second kirtle over his body for fear of the dews and the night vapours; and so went to sleep, striving not to think of where he had slept last night. (He told me all this, as I have told you.)

He awoke at dawn in an extraordinary sweetness within and without, and as he walked in his white habit beneath the solemn beech-trees, his soul opened wide to salute the light that rose little by little, pouring down on him through the green roof. The air was like clear water, he said, running over stories, brightening without concealing their colours; and he drank it like wine. He had that morning in his contemplation what came to him very seldom, and I do not know if I can describe it, but he said it was the sense that the air he breathed was the essence of God, that ran shivering through his veins, and dropped like sweet myrrh from his fingers. There was the savour of it on his lips, piercing and delicate, and in his nostrils.

He set out a little later after he had washed, following the road, and came to a timber chapel standing by itself. I do not know which it is, but I think it must have been the church of saint Pancras that was burned down six years after. The door was locked, but he sat to wait, and after an hour came a priest in his gown to say mass. The priest looked at him, but answered nothing to his good-day (there be so many of these idle solitaries about that feign to serve God, but their heart is in the belly). I do not blame the priest; it may be he had been deceived often before.

There was a fellow who answered the mass, and Master Richard knelt by himself at the end of the church.

When mass was over the two others went out without a word, leaving him there. He said ad sextam then, and was setting out once more when the priest came back with a jug of ale and a piece of meat and bread which he offered him, telling him he would have given him nothing if he had begged.

Master Richard refused the meat and the ale, and took the bread.

The priest asked him his business, and he said he was for London to see the King.

The priest asked him whether he would speak with the King, and he told him Yes if our Lord willed.

“And what have you to say to him?” asked the priest.

“I do not know,” said Master Richard.

The priest looked at him, and said something about a pair of fools, but Master Richard did not understand him then, for he had not heard yet the tale that the King was mad or near it.

So he kissed the priest’s skirt, and asked his blessing; then he went down the steps to the little holy well (which makes me think it to be saint Pancras’s church) and drank a little water after signing himself with it and commending himself to the saint, and went on his way. The sun was now high and hot, but he told me that when he looked back at the turn of the path the priest was at the gate in the full sun staring after him.

Of his journey that day there is not much to relate. He went by unfrequented ways, walking sedately as his manner was, with devotion in his heart. An hour before noon a woman gave him dinner as she came back from taking it to her husband who burned charcoal in the forest, and asked him a kiss for payment when he had done his meal, sitting on a tree, with her standing by and looking upon him all the while. But he told her that he was a solitary, and that he had kissed no woman but his mother, who had died ten years before, so she appeared content, though she still looked upon him. Then as he stood up, thanking her for the dinner, she caught his hand and kissed that, and he reproved her gently and went on his way again.

For many miles after that it was the same; he saw no man, but only the beasts now and then, walking beneath the high branches in the sylvan twilight, over the dead leaves and the fern, and seeing now and again, as he expressly told me, for it seemed he had some lesson from it, the hot light that danced in the open spaces to right and left.

He saw one strange sight, which I should not have believed if he had not told me, and that was a ring of bulls in a clearing that tossed something this way and that, one to the other: he drove them off, and found that it was a hare, not yet dead, but it died in his hands. He told me that this verse came to his mind as he laid the poor beast down under a tree; Circumdederunt me vituli multi: tauri pingues obsederunt me, [“Many calves have surrounded me: fat bulls have besieged me” (Ps. xxi. 13)] and there is no wonder in that, for it is from a psalm of the passion, and it was what befell him afterwards, as you shall hear.

Soon after that he bathed himself in a pool, for he was hot with walking, and desired to be at his ease when he saw folk again; and he dipped his sandals, too, to cool them.

Then he went in his white kirtle a little, until his hair was dried, and when the heat of the day began to turn he was aware that he was coming near to a village, for there was a herd of pigs that looked on him without fear.

The village was a very little one, but it stood upon a road, and here he had his first sight of the town-folks, for as he rested by a gate a company of fellows went by from the wars. I suppose that they were lately come from France (maybe from Arfleet [that is, Harfleur]), for he told me that there were pavissors among them—the men with the great shields called pavices which are used only in sieges from the wooden castles that they push against the walls of the town. They were stained with travel, too, and were very silent and peevish. There were all sorts there besides the pavissors—the men-at-arms in their plate and mail-shirts, the archers in their body-armour and aprons, and the glaivemen [Glaives were a kind of pike, but with long carved cutting-blades. Bills had straight blades.] with the rest. He said that one company that rode in front had the sign of the Ragged Staff upon their breasts, by which he learned afterwards that they were my lord Warwick’s men. [The Ragged Staff was the emblem of Lord Warwick.]

One cried out to him to know how far was it to London, but he shook his head and said that he was a stranger. The fellow jeered and named him bumpkin, but the rest said nothing, and looked on him as they passed, and two at the end doffed their caps. They were about two hundred, and one rode in front with a banner borne before him; but it was a still hot day, and Master Richard could not see the device, for the folds hung about the staff.

He saw other folks after that here and there, although he avoided the villages where he could; but he got no supper, and an hour before sunset he came to the ferry over against Westminster. The wherries were drawn up on the beach, and he came down to these past Lambeth House, wondering how he was to get over.

He besought one man for the love of Jesu to take him over, but he would not; and another for the love of Mary, and a third for the sake of the Rood of Bromholm, [a famous relic of the True Cross.] and a fourth for the love of saint Anthony. And at that they laughed at him, coming round him and looking on him curiously, and crying that they would have all the saints out of him before Avemaria, and asking to know his business. When he told them in his simplicity that he was to see the King, they laughed the more, and said that the King was gone to be a monk at saint Edmond’s, and that he had best look for him there.

Then he asked yet another, a great fellow with a hairy face and chest, to take him over for the love of saint Denis and saint Giles, and the fellow swore a great oath, elbowed his way out of the press that were all staring and laughing, and bade him follow.

So he got into the boat and sat there while the man carried down the oars, and all the rest crowded to look and question and mock. He told me that he supposed at the time that all the folks looked at him for that they were not used to see solitaries, but I do not think it was that. I tell you that one who looked a little on Master Richard would look long, and that one who looked long must either laugh or weep, so surprising was his beauty and his simplicity.

When they were half-way over the fellow told him which was the abbey church, and Master Richard said that he knew it, for that he had seen it four years before when he came under our Lord’s hand from Cambridge, and that he would ask shelter from the monks.

“And there is an ankret [an ankret was a solitary, confined to one cell with episcopal ceremonies.], is there not?” asked Master Richard.

The man told him Yes, looking upon him curiously, and he told him, too, where was his cell. Then he put him on shore without a word, save asking for his prayers.

I cannot tell you how Master Richard came to the ankret’s cell, for I was only at Westminster once when Master Richard went to his reward, but he found his way there, marvelling at the filth of the ways, and looked in through the little window, drawing himself up to it by the strength of his arms.

It was all dark within, he told me, and a stench as of a kennel came up from the darkness.

He called out to the holy man, holding his nostrils with one hand, and with the other gripping the bars and sitting sideways on the sill of the window. He got no answer at first, and cried again.

Then there came an answer.

There rose out of the darkness a face hung all over with hair and near as black as the hair, with red-rimmed eyes that oozed salt rheum. The holy man asked him what he wished, and why did he hold his nostrils.

“I wish to speak with your reverence,” said Master Richard, “of high things. I hold my nostrils for that I cannot abide a stench.”

The red eyes winked at that.

“I find no stench,” said the holy man.

“For that you are the origin of its propagation,” said Master Richard, “and dwell in the midst of it.”

It was foolish, I think, of the sweet lad to speak like that, but he was an-angered that a man should live so. But the holy solitary was not an-angered.

“And in God’s Majesty is the origin of my propagation,” he said. “Ergo.”

Master Richard could think of no seemly answer to that, and he desired, too, to speak of high matters; so he let it alone, and told the holy man his business, and where he lived.

“Tell me, my father,” he said, “what is the message that I bear to the King. It may be that our Lord has revealed it to you: He has not yet revealed it to me.”

“Are you willing to go dumb before the King?”

“I am willing if God will,” said Master Richard.

“Are you willing that the King should be deaf and dumb to your message?”

“If God will,” said Master Richard again.

“What is that which you bear on your breast?”

“It is the five wounds, my father.”

“Tell me of your life. Are you yet in the way of perfection?”

Then the two solitaries talked together a long while; I could not understand all that Master Richard told to me; and I think there was much that he did not tell me, but it was of matters that I am scarce worthy to name, of open visions and desolations, and the darkness of the fourth Word of our Saviour on the rood; and again of scents and sounds and melodies such as those of which Master Rolle has written; and above all of charity and its degrees, for without charity all the rest is counted as dung.

Avemaria rang at sunset, but they did not hear it, and at the end the holy man within crept nearer and raised himself.

“I must see your face, brother,” he said. “It may be then that I shall know the message that your soul bears to the King.”

Master Richard came out of his heavenly swoon then, and saw the face close to his own, and what he said of it to me I dare not tell you, but he bitterly reproached himself that he had ever doubted whether this were a man of God or no.

As he turned his own face this way and that, that the failing light might fall upon it, he said that beneath him in the little street there was a crowd assembled, all silent and watching the heavenly colloquy.

When he looked again, questioning, at the holy old man, he saw that the other’s face was puckered with thought and that his lips pouted through the long-falling hair. Then it disappeared, and a grunting voice came out of the dark, but the sound of it was as if the old man wept.

“I do not know the message, brother. Our Lord has not shewed it to me, but He has shewed me this—that soon you will not need to wear His wounds. That I have to say. Oremus pro invicem.” [“Let us pray for one another.”]

The crowd pressed close upon Master Richard as he came down from the window, and, going in the midst of them in silence, he came to saint Peter’s gate where the black monks dwell, and was admitted by the porter.

IV

HOW MASTER RICHARD SAW THE KING IN WESTMINSTER HALL: AND OF THE MASS AT SAINT EDWARD’S ALTAR

Revelabit condensa: et in templo ejus omnes dicent gloriam.

He will discover the thick woods: and in his temple all shall speak his glory.—ps. Xxviii. 9.

Master Richard did not tell me a great deal of his welcome in the monastery: I think that he was hardly treated and flouted, for the professed monks like not solitaries except those that be established in reputation; they call them self-willed and lawless and pretending to a sanctity that is none of theirs. Such as be under obedience think that virtue the highest of all and essential to the way of perfection. And I think, perhaps, they were encouraged in this by what had been said of themselves by our holy lord ten years before, for he was ever a favourer of monks. [This may have been Eugenius IV., called Gloriosus. If so, it would fix the date of Richard at about 1444.] But Master Richard did not blame them, so I will not, but I know that he was given no cell to be private in, but was sent to mix with the other guests in the common guest-house. I know not what happened there, but I think there was an uproar; there was a wound upon his head, the first wound that he received in the house of his friends, that I saw on him a little later, and he told me he had had it on his first coming to London. It was such a wound as a flung bone or billet of wood might make. He had now the caput vulneratum, as well as the cor vulneratum [wounded head … wounded heart.] of the true lover of Jesus Christ.

He desired, after his simplicity, on the following morning, to speak with my lord abbot, but that could not be, and he only saw my lord at terce before mass, afar off sitting in his stall, a great prelate with his chain, and with one who bore a silver wand to go before him and do him service.

He prayed long in the church and at the shrine, and heard four or five masses, and saw the new grave of the Queen in the midst of the lady-chapel [This may have been Queen Katharine, whose body was afterwards moved.], and did his devotions, hoping that our Lord would show him what to speak to the King, and then went to dinner, and after dinner set out to Westminster Hall, where he was told that the King could be seen that day.

He passed through the little streets that lay very nastily, no better than great gutters with all the filth of the houses poured out there, but he said that the folks there were yet more surprising, for these were they who had taken sanctuary here, and were dwelling round the monastery with their wives and children. There were all sorts there, slayers of men and deer, thieves, strikers of the clergy suadente diabolo [“at the devil’s persuasion”—a technical phrase], false-coiners, harlots, and rioters; all under the defence of Religion, and not suffered to go out but on peril of being taken. He had a little company following him by the time that he came to the gate, some mocking and some silent, and all looking on him as he went.

When he came to the door of the hall the men that stood there would not let him in until he entreated them. They told him that the King was now going to dinner, and that the time was past, so he knew that it was not yet his hour to give the message that he knew not. But they let him in at last, and he stood in the crowd to see the King go by.

There was a great company there, and a vast deal of noise, for the audiences were done, and the bill-men were pushing the folks with their weapons to make room for the great men to go by, and the heralds were crying out. Master Richard stood as well as he could, but he was pushed and trampled about, and he could not see very well. They went by in great numbers; he saw their hats and caps and their furred shoulders between the crooked glaives that were gilded to do honour to the King, but there was such a crying out on all sides that he could not ask which was the King.

At last the shouting grew loud and then quiet, and men bowed down on all sides; and he saw the man whom he knew must be the King.

He had a long face (as I saw for myself afterwards), rather sallow, with a long straight nose and small, full mouth; his eyebrows were black and arched high, and beneath them his sorrowful eyes looked out on the people; he was bowing his head courteously as he came. On his head he wore a black peaked cap of velvet; there was ermine at his collar and a gold chain lay across his shoulders.

Now this is what Master Richard saw with the eyes of his body, but with the eyes of his soul he saw something so strange that I know not how to name or explain it. He told me that it was our Saviour whom he saw go by between the gilded glaives, as He was when He went from Herod’s hall. I do not understand how this may be. The King wore no beard as did our Saviour, he was full fourteen years younger at that time than was Jesu Christ when He suffered His bitter passion. They were of a height, I suppose, and perhaps the purple that the King wore was of the same colour as that which our Lord had put on him, but that was all the likeness that ever I could see, for the King’s hair was black and his complexion sallow, but our Lord’s was corn colour, and His face white and ruddy. [A reference, I suppose, to Cant. Cant. v. 10.] And, again, the one was but a holy man, and the other God Almighty although made man for our salvation.

Yet perhaps I did not understand Master Richard aright, and that he meant something else and that it was only to the eyes of the soul that the resemblance lay. If this is so, then I think I understand what it was that he saw, though I cannot explain it to you, any more than could he to me. There be some matters so high that no mouth can tell them, heart only can speak to heart, but I can tell you this, that Master Richard did not mean that our Lord was in the hall that day as He is in heaven and in the sacrament of the altar; it was something else that he meant…. [There follows a doctrinal disquisition.]

When Master Richard came out from the hall, he told me that he was in a kind of swoon, but having his eyes open, and that he knew not how he came back to the guest-house. It was not until he knocked upon the door that he saw that the crowd was about him again, staring on him silently.

The porter was peevish as he pulled him in, and bade him go and cut wood in the wood-house for his keep, so all that afternoon he toiled in his white kirtle at the cutting with another fellow who cursed as he cut, but was silent after a while.

Yet, when supper and bed-time came and Master Richard had assisted at compline in the abbey-church, still he knew not what the message was to be on Monday, when he would see the King and speak with him.

On Sunday he did no servile work, except that he waited upon the guests, girt with an apron, and washed the dishes afterwards. He heard four masses that day, as well as all the hours, and prayed by himself a long while at saint Edward’s shrine, hearing the folks go by to the tilting, and that night he went to bed with the servants, still ignorant of what he should say on the next day.

I am sure that he was not at all disquieted by his treatment, for he did not speak of it to me, except what was necessary, and he blamed no one. When I saw the porter afterwards he told me nothing except that Master Richard had worked well and willingly, and had asked for other tasks when his were done. He had asked, too, for a plenty of water to bathe himself, which he did not get. But whether he were disquieted or no on that Sunday, at least he was content next day, for it was on the next day at mass that our Lord told him what was the message that he was to deliver to the King.

There was a Cluniac monk from France who had obtained leave to say mass at the shrine of the Confessor, and Master Richard followed him and his fellow to the altar at five o’clock in the morning to hear mass there and see his Maker. [This is the common mediaeval phrase. Men did not then bow their heads at the Elevation.]

He knelt down against the wall behind the high altar, and began to address himself to devotion, but he was distracted at first by the splendour of the tomb, the porphyry and the glass-work below, that Master Peter the Roman had made, and the precious shrine of gold above where the body lay, and the golden statues of the saints on either side. All about him, too, were such marvels that there is little wonder that he could not pray well for thinking on them—the kings that lay here and there and their effigies, and the paved steps on this side and that, and the fair painted glass and the high dark roof. Near where he knelt, too, he could see the great relic-chest, and knew what lay therein—the girdle of our Blessed Lady herself, mirror of chastity; the piece of stone marked by Christ’s foot as He went up to heaven; a piece of the Very Rood on which He hanged; the precious blood that He shed there, in a crystal vase; the head of saint Benet, father of monks. [Surely not!] All these things have I seen, too, myself, so I know that they are truly there.

Behind him, as he kneeled on the stones, sounded the singing of the monks, and the noise of so much praise delighted him, but they ended soon, and at Sanctus his spirit began to be rapt into silence, and the holy things to make heaven about him.

He told me that he did not know what befell him until it came to the elevation of the sacring: only he knew that his soul was filled with lightness and joyousness, as when he had walked in the wood at dawn three days before.

But as he lifted up his hands to see his God and to beat upon his breast, it appeared to him, he said, as if his feet rested again on some higher place: until then he had been neither on earth nor in heaven.

Now there was no visible imagination that came to him then; he said expressly that it was not so. There was none to be seen there but the priest in the vestment with his hood on his shoulders, and the frater conversus [that is, the lay brother.] who held the skirt and shook the bell. Only it appeared to him that the priest held up the Body for a great space, and in that long time Master Richard understood many things that had been dark to him before. Of some of the things I have neither room nor wit to write; but they were such as these.

He understood how it was that souls might go to hell, and yet that it was good that they should go; how it was that our Saviour was born of His blessed Mother without any breaking of her virginity; how it is that all things subsist in God; in what manner it is that God comes into the species of the bread. But he could not tell me how these things were so, nor what it was that was shewed him…. [There follow a few confused remarks on the relations of faith to spiritual sight.]

There were two more things that were shewed him: the first, that he should not return home alive, but that his dead corpse should be carried there, and the second, what was the tidings that he should bear to the King.

Then he fell forward on his face, and so lay until the ending of the mass.

V

HOW MASTER RICHARD CRIED OUT IN WESTMINSTER HALL: AND OF HIS COMING TO A PRIVY PARLOUR

Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum: dico ego opera mea regi.

My heart hath uttered a good word: i speak my works to the king.—ps. Xliv. 1.

It would be about half an hour before the King’s dinner-time, which was ten o’clock, that Master Richard came again to the hall.

There was not so great a press that day, and the holy youth was able to make his way near to the barrier that held back the common folk, and to see the King plainly. He was upon his seat beneath the cloth-of-estate that was quartered with the leopards and lilies, and had his hat upon his head. About him, beneath the scaffold on which he sat were the great nobles, and my lord cardinal had a chair set for him upon the right-hand side, on the step below the King’s.

All was very fair and fine, said Master Richard, with pieces of rich stuff hanging upon the walls on this side and that beneath the windows, and, finest of all were the colours of the robes, and the steel and the gold and the white fur and the feathers, and the gilded glaives and trumpets, and coat-armour of the heralds.

There was a matter about to be concluded, but Master Richard could not tell what it was, for there was a din of talking all about him, and he saw many clerks and Religious very busy together in the crowd, shaking their fingers, lifting their brows, and clacking like rooks at sunset—so the young man related it. There were two fellows with their backs to him, standing in an open space before the scaffold with guards about them. One of the two was a clerk, and wore his square cap upon his head, and the other was not.

The King looked sick; he was but a young man at that time, not two years older than Master Richard. He was listening with his head down, to a clerk who whispered in his ear, kneeling by his side with papers and a great quill in his hand, and the King’s eyes roved as he listened, now up, now down, and his fingers with rings upon them were arched at his ear. My lord cardinal had a ruddy face and bright holy eyes, and sat in his sanguine robes with his cap on his head, looking out with his lips pursed at the clerks and monks that babbled together beyond the barrier. He was an old man at this time, but wondrous strong and hearty.

At the end the King sat up, and there was a silence, but he spoke so low and quick, with his eyes cast down, and the shouting followed so hard upon his words, that Master Richard could not hear what was said. But it seemed to content the clerks and the Religious [King Henry VI. was a great favourer of ecclesiastics.], for they roared and clamoured and one flung up his cap so that it fell beyond the barrier and he could not come at it again. Then the two prisoners louted to the King, and went away with their guards about them; and the King stood up, and the cardinal.

Now this was the time on which Master Richard had determined for himself, but for a moment he could not cry out: it seemed as if the fiend had gripped him by the throat and were hammering in his bowels. The King turned to the steps, and at that sight Master Richard was enabled to speak.

He had not resolved what to say, but to leave that to what God should put in his mouth, and this is what he cried, in a voice that all could hear.

“News from our Lord! News from our Lord, your grace.”

He said that when he cried that, that was first silence, and then such a clamour as he had never heard nor thought to hear. He was pushed this way and that; one tore at his shoulder from behind; one struck him on the head: he heard himself named madman, feeble-wit, knave, fond fellow. The guards in front turned themselves about, and made as though they would run at the crowd with their weapons, and at that the men left off heaving at Master Richard, and went back, babbling and crying out.

Then he cried out again with all his might.

“I bring tidings from my Lord God to my lord the King,” and went forward to the barrier, still looking at the King who had turned and looked back at him with sick, troubled eyes, not knowing what to do.

A fellow seized Master Richard by the throat and pulled him against the barrier, menacing him with his glaive, but the King said something, raising his hand, and there fell a silence.

“What is your business, sir?” asked the King.

The fellow released Master Richard and stood aside.

“I bring tidings from our Lord,” said the young man. He was all out of breath, he told me, with the pushing and striking, and held on to the red-painted barrier with both hands.

The King stooped and whispered with at cardinal, who was plucking him by the sleeve, for the space of a paternoster, and the murmuring began to break out again. Then he turned, and lifted his hand once more for silence.

“What are the tidings, sir?”

“They are for your private ear, your grace.”

“Nay,” said the King, “we have no private ear but for God’s Word.”

“This is God’s Word,” said Master Richard.

There was laughter at that, and the crowd came nearer again, but the

King did not laugh. He stood still, looking this way and that, now on

Master Richard, and now on the cardinal, who was pulling again at

sleeve. It seemed as if he could not determine what to do.

Then he spoke again.

“Who are you, sir?”

“I am a solitary, named Richard Raynal,” said the young man. “I come from the country, from … [It is most annoying that the name of the village is wanting.] Sir John Chaldfield, the parson, will undertake for me, your grace.”

“Is Sir John here?” asked my lord cardinal, smiling at the clerks.

“No, my lord,” said Master Richard, “he has his sheep in the wilderness.

He cannot run about to Court.”

There was again a noise of laughter and dissent from the crowd of clerks, and my lord cardinal smiled more than ever, shewing his white teeth in the midst of his ruddy face.

“This is a witty fellow, your grace,” said my lord cardinal aloud to the

King. “Will your grace be pleased to hear him in private?”

The King looked at Master Richard again, as if he knew not what to do.

“Will you not tell us here, sir?” he asked.

“I will not, your grace.”

“Have you weapons upon you?” said my lord cardinal, still smiling.

Master Richard pointed to the linen upon his breast.

“I bear wounds, not weapons,” he answered; which was a brave and shrewd answer, and one that would please the King.

His grace smiled a little at that, but the smile passed again like the sunshine between clouds on a dark and windy day, and the crowd crept up nearer, so that Master Richard could feel hot breath upon his bare neck behind. He committed his soul again to our Lady’s tuition, for he knew not what might be the end if he were not heard out.

Well, the end of it was as you know, it was not possible for any man with a heart in his body to look long upon Master Richard and not love him, and the King’s face grew softer as he looked upon that fair young man with his nut-brown hair and the clear pallour of his face and his pure simple eyes, and then at the coarse red faces behind him that crept up like devils after holy Job. It was not hard to know which was in the right, and besides the brave words that had stung the clerks to anger had stung the King to pity and pleasure; so the end was that the guards were bidden to let Master Richard through, and that he was to follow on in the procession, and be gently treated, and admitted to see the King when dinner was done.

So that, my children, is the manner in which it came about that my name was cried aloud before the King’s presence, and the cardinals and the nobles, in Westminster Hall on the Monday after Deus qui nobis. [So the collect of Corpus Christi begins. It was a common method, even among the laity, of defining dates.]

VI

OF MASTER RICHARD’S SPEAKING WITH THE KING’S GRACE: AND HOW HE WAS TAKEN FOR IT

Et nunc reges intelligite: erudimini qui judicatis terram.

And now, o ye kings, understand: receive instruction, ye that judge the earth.—ps. Ii. 10.

They searched Master Richard for weapons, in spite of what he had said, when they had him alone in a little chamber off the King’s closet, but not unkindly, after what had been ordered, but they found nothing beneath the white kirtle save the white skin, and nothing in the burse but the book of hours and a little pen-knife, and the bottle of Quinte Essence. One of them held that up, and demanded what it was.

“That is the cordial called Quinte Essence,” said Master Richard, smiling.

They thought it to be a poison, so he was forced to explain that it was not.

“It is made from man’s blood,” he said, “which is the most perfect part of our being, and does miracles if it is used aright.”

They would know more than that, so he told them how it was made, with salt, and set in the body of a horse, and afterwards distilled, and he told them what marvels it wrought by God’s grace; how it would draw out the virtues and properties of things, and could be mixed with medicines, and the rest, as I have told to you before. That is the bottle you have seen at the parsonage.

But they would not give it back to him at that time, and said that he should have it when the King had done talking with him. Then they went out and left him alone, but one stood at the door to keep him until dinner was over.

It was a little room, Master Richard said, and looked on to the river. It was hung with green saye, and was laid with rushes. There was a round table in the midst of the floor, and a chair on this side and that; and there was an image of Christ upon the rood that stood upon the table. There was another door than that through which he had been brought from the hall.

Master Richard, when he was left alone, tried to compose himself to devotion, but he was too much distracted by all that he had seen, until he had said ad sextam, and then he was quieter, and sat down before the table, looking upon the rood, and he did not know how long had passed before the King came in.

My children, I like to think of Master Richard then; it was his last peaceful hour that he spent until near the end when I came to him. But the peace of his heart did not leave him (except at one time), in spite of all that happened to him, for he told me so himself. Yet, save for the little wound upon his head, he was clean of all injury at this time, and I like to think of him in his strength and loveliness as he was then, content to give his tidings from our Lord to the King, and to abide what was to follow.

As the clock beat eleven, the King came suddenly through from his parlour, but he was not alone: my lord cardinal was with him.

As Master Richard knelt down on the floor to do them homage, he observed the King’s dress: it was not as that of the other great men, for the King loved plain dress, and folks said that the clothing he would have liked best to wear was a monk’s cowl or a friar’s frock (and I doubt not that there be many a monk and friar, and clerk too, who would have been glad to change with him, for not every Religious man has a Religious heart!)…. [There follows a little sermon on Vocation.]

The King’s dress was a plain doublet with a collar of ermine, and over it a cloak of royal purple lined and trimmed with fur, but cut very plainly with a round cape such as priests wear. He had the collar of Sanctus Spiritus over his shoulders, his cap on his head, with a peak to it, and little plain round shoes (not like those pointed follies that some wear, and that make a man’s foot twice as long as God made it by His wisdom). My lord cardinal was in his proper dress, and bore himself very stately.

The King bade Master Richard stand up, and himself and my lord sat down in the two chairs beside one another, so that half their faces were in shadow and half in light. Master Richard saw again that the King looked somewhat sick, and very melancholy.

Then the King addressed himself to Master Richard, speaking softly, but with an appearance of observing him very closely. My lord, too, watched him, folding his hands in his lap.

“Now tell me, sir,” said the King, “what is this tidings that you bear?”

Master Richard was a little dismayed at my lord’s coming: he had thought it was to be in private.

“It was to your ear alone, your grace, that I was bidden to deliver the message,” he said.

“My lord here is ears and eyes to me,” said the King, a little stiffly, and my lord smiled to hear him, and laid his hand on the King’s knee.

That was answer enough for the holy youth, who was attendant only for God’s will; so he began straightway, and told the King of his contemplation of eight days before, and of the dryness that fell on him when he strove to put away his thoughts, and of his words with me who was his priest, and his coming to London and an the rest. Then he told him of how he heard mass at saint Edward’s altar, and how at the elevation of the sacring our Lord had told him what tidings he was to take.

The King observed him very closely, leaning his head on his hand and his elbow on the table, and my lord, who had begun by playing with his chain, ceased, and watched him too.

Master Richard told me that there was a great silence everywhere when he had come to the matter of saint Edward’s altar; it was such an exterior silence as is the interior silence that came to him in contemplation. There appeared no movement anywhere, neither in the room, nor the palace, nor the world, nor in the three hearts that were beating there. There was only the great presence of God’s Majesty enfolding all.

When he ceased speaking, the King stared on him for a full minute without any words, then he took his arm off the table and clasped his hands.

“And what was it that our Lord said to you, sir?” he asked softly, and leaned forward to listen.

Master Richard looked on the sick eyes, and then at the ruddy prelate’s face that seemed very stern beside it. But he dared not be silent now.

“It is this, your grace, that our Lord shewed to me,” he began slowly, “that your grace is not as other men are, neither in soul nor in life. You walk apart from all, even as our Saviour Christ did, when He was upon earth. When you speak, men do not understand you; they take it amiss. They would have you make your kingdom to be of this world, and God will not have it so. Regnum Dei intra te est. [‘The kingdom of God is within thee’ (from Luke xvii. 21.)] It is that kingdom which shall be yours. But to gain that kingdom you must suffer a passion, such as that which Jesu suffered, and this is the tidings that He sends to you. He bids you make ready for it. It shall be a longer passion than His, but I know not how long. Yet you must not go apart, as you desire. You must go this way and that at all men’s will, ever within your portans stigmata Domini Jesu. [‘Bearing the marks of the Lord Jesu’ (from Gal. vi. 17.)] And the end of it shall be even as His, and as His apostles’ was who now rules Christendom. Cum senueris, extendes manus tuas, et alius te cinget, et ducet quo tu non vis. [‘When thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands; and another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst not’ (John xxi. 18.)] And when you come before the heavenly glory, and the blessed saints shall ask you of your wounds, you shall answer them as our Lord answered, ‘His plagatus sum in domo eorum qui diligebant me.’” [“With these I was wounded in the house of them that loved me” (Zach. xiii. 6.)]

When Master Richard had finished speaking, his head and body shook so much that he could scarce stand, or see the King plainly, and by this he perceived for a certainty that God was speaking by him. But he was aware that my lord cardinal was standing up with his hand outstretched and an appearance of great anger on his face. For indeed those were terrible things that Master Richard had said—that he should foretell the King’s death in this manner, and all the sorrows that he should go through, for, as you know, all these words came about.

Yet it seemed that something restrained my lord from speaking till the other was done; but when Master Richard went back a step, shaking under the spirit of God, my lord burst out into words.

Master Richard could not understand him; there was drumming in his ears, and the sweat poured from him, but when sight came back he observed my lord’s face, red with passion, turning now to him, now to the King, who sat still in his place; his white eyebrows went up and down, and his scarlet cape and his rochet flapped this way and that as he shook his arms and cried out.

When he had done there was silence again for a full minute. Master

Richard could hear the breathing of one in the gallery without.

Then the King rose up without speaking, but looking intently upon the young man, and still without speaking, went out from the room, and my lord went after him.

When Master Richard had stood a little while waiting, and there was no sound (for the door into the King’s parlour was now shut again), he turned to the other door to go out; for he had delivered his message, and there was no more to be said.

The man that kept the door, and whose breathing Master Richard had heard just now, barred the way, and asked him his business.

“My business is done,” said Master Richard, “I must go home again.”

“And the King?” asked the fellow.

“The King and my lord are gone back into the parlour.”

There was no cause to keep Master Richard any longer, so the fellow let him past, and he went down the gallery and the stairs towards the court that opened upon the hall.

But before he reached the door, there was a great tumult overhead, and a noise of men moving and crying, and Master Richard stayed to listen. (I had almost said that it had been better if he had not stayed, but made his way out quickly and escaped perhaps; but it is not so, as I now believe, for our Lord had determined what should be the end.)

Two fellows came running presently down the stairs up which Master Richard was looking. One of them was a page of my lord’s, a lad dressed all in purple with the pointed shoes of which I have written before, and the other the man-at-arms that had kept the door. The lad cried out shrilly when he saw him standing there, and came down the steps four at a leap, with his hands outstretched to either wall. Master Richard thought that he would fall, and stepped forward to catch him, but the lad recovered himself on the rushes, and then, screaming with anger, sprang at the young man’s throat, seizing it with one hand, and striking him in the face again and again with the other.

For an instant Master Richard stood amazed, then he caught the lad’s hands without a word and held them so, looking at the man-at-arms who was now half-way down the stairs in his plate and mail, and at others who were following as swiftly as they could. In the court outside, too, there were footsteps and the sound of talking, and presently the door was darkened by half a dozen others, who ran up at the tumult, and all in a moment Master Richard found himself caught from behind and his hands pulled away, so that the lad was able to strike him again, which he did, three or four times.

So he was taken by the men and held.

Master Richard could not understand what the matter was, as he looked at the press that gathered every moment on the stairs and in the court. So he asked one that held him, and the page screamed out his answer above the tumult of voices and weapons.

So Master Richard understood, and went upstairs under guard, with the blood staining his brown and white dress, and his face bruised and torn, to await when the King should come out of the fit into which he had fallen, and judge him for the message which he had brought.

VII

OF MASTER RICHARD’S SECOND SPEAKING WITH HIS GRACE: AND OF HIS DETENTION

Abscondes eos in abscondito faciei tuae: a conturbatione hominum.

Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy face: from the disturbance of men.—ps. Xxx. 21.

I scarcely have the heart to write down all that befell Master Richard; and yet what it pleased God’s Majesty that he should suffer, cannot displease Him to write down nor to think upon…. [There follows a curiously modern discussion on what I may call the gospel of Pleasure, which is a very different thing from the gospel of Joy. The former, as Sir John points out, disregards and avoids pain, the latter deals with it. He points out acutely that this difference is the characteristic difference between Greek and Christian philosophy.]

Master Richard was taken back again by two of the men-at-arms into the parlour where he had lately seen the King, and was allowed to stand by the window, looking out upon the river, while one fellow kept one door, and one the other.

He strove to keep quiet interiorly, keeping his eyes fixed upon the broad river in the sunshine and the trees on the other side, and his heart established on God’s Will. He did not know then what kind of a fit it was into which the King had fallen, nor why it was that himself should be blamed for it; and when he spoke to the men they gave him nothing but black looks, and one blessed himself repeatedly, with his lips moving.

There came the sound of talking from the inner room, and once or twice the sound of glass on glass. Without it was a fair day, very hot and with no clouds.

Master Richard told me that he had no fear, neither now nor afterwards; it seemed to him as if all had been done before; he said it was as if he were one in a play, whose part and words are all assigned beforehand, as well as the parts and words of the others, by the will of the writer; so that when violence is done, or injustice, or hard words spoken, or death suffered, it is all part of the agreed plan and must not be resisted nor questioned, else all will be spoiled. It appeared to him too as if the ankret in the cell were privy to it all, and were standing, observing and approving; for Master Richard remembered what the holy man had said as to the five wounds marked upon the linen, and how he would not need to wear them much longer.

After about half-an-hour, as he supposed, the voices waxed louder in the other room; and presently one came out from it in the black dress of a physician. He was a pale man, shaven clean, a little bald, and very thin. It was that physician that died last year.

He said nothing, though his face worked, and he beckoned sharply to

Master Richard.

Master Richard went immediately across the floor and through into the further room.

There were a dozen persons gathered there, all staring upon the King, who sat in a great chair by the table. Two or three of these were servants, and the rest of them, with my lord cardinal, the nobles that had been in the palace at the time of the King’s seizure. My lord cardinal was standing by the chair, very stern and anxious-looking; and all turned their faces, and there was an angry whisper from their mouths, as the young man came forward and halted; and the physician shut to the door.

But Master Richard did not observe them closely at that time; for he was looking upon the King.

The King sat very upright in his chair; his hands rested on the carved arms; and his face and eyes were as if made of Caen stone, chalky and hard. He was looking out from the room, Master Richard said; and Master Richard knew at once what it was that he was seeing. It was that of which the holy youth had spoken; and was nothing else than the passion and death that came upon him afterwards. The words that the King had heard had opened the eyes of his soul, and he was now seeing for himself.

Before that any could speak or hinder, Master Richard was on his knees by the King, and had laid his lips to the white right-hand, seeing as he did so the red ring on the first finger. My lord cardinal sprang forward to tear him off, but the King turned his stony eyes; and my lord fell back.

Then Master Richard knew that he had not given the whole message; and that our Lord had not intended it at first. The message of the passion and death was to be first; and the second, second—first the wound, and then the balm.

So he began to speak; and these were the words as he told them to me.

“My lord King,” he said, “Our Lord does not leave us comfortless when He sends us sorrow. This is a great honour, greater than the crown that you bear, to bear the crown of thorns. That bitter passion of Christ that He bore for our salvation is wrought out in the Body which is His Church, and especially in those members, which, like His sacred hands and feet, receive the nails into themselves. Happy are those members that receive the nails; they are the more honourable; it was on His feet that He went about to do good; and with His hands that He healed and blessed and gave His precious body; and with His burning heart that He loves us.

“My lord King; men will name you fool and madman and crowned calf; it is to their shame that they do so, and to your honour. For so they named our Saviour. All who set not their minds on this world are accounted fools; but who will be the merrier in the world that is to come?

“And, last, our Lord has bestowed on your highness an honour that He bestows upon few, but which Himself suffered; and that, the knowledge of what is to be. In this manner the passion is borne a thousand times a day, by foreknowledge; and for every such pain there is a joy awarded. It is for this reason that you may bear yourself rightly, and that He may crown you more richly that our Lord has sent me to you, and bidden me tell you this.”

All this while Master Richard was looking upon the King’s face, but there was no alteration in his aspect. It was as the colour of ashes, and his eyes like stone; and yet Master Richard knew very well that his grace heard what was said, but could not answer it. (It was so with him often afterwards: he would sit thus without speaking or answering what was said to him: he would go thus to mass and dinner and to bed, as pale as a spirit: he would even ride thus among his army, with his crown on his head, and his sword in his hand, dumb but not deaf; and looking upon what others could not see: and all, as those about him knew very well, began from the hearing of the message that Master Richard Raynal brought to him from God’s Majesty).

While Master Richard was speaking the rest kept silence: for I think that somewhat held them for pity of those two young men—for the one that sat in such stiff agony, and for the other near as pale, and red with his own blood, that spoke so eloquently. But when he had done and had kissed the white hand again, my lord cardinal came forward, pushed him aside, and himself began to speak in a voice that was at once pitiful and angry, crying upon the King to answer, telling him that he was bewitched and under the power of Satan through the machinations of Master Richard, and blessing him again and again.

Master Richard stood aside watching, and wondering that my lord could speak so, and not understand the truth; and he looked round at the others to see if any there understood. But they were all dumb, except for muttering, and gave him black looks, and blessed themselves as their eyes met his; so he committed himself to prayer. [Sir John preaches a little sermon here on internal recollection, and the advantages of the practice.]

It was of no avail; the King could not speak; and presently the physician, Master Blytchett, [this is an extraordinary name, and is obviously a corruption of some English name, but I do not know what it can be, nor why it was retained, when all others were erased.] came and whispered in my lord’s ear as he knelt at the King’s knees. My lord turned his head and nodded, and Master Richard was seized from behind and pulled through the door. The man who had pulled him was one of the servants. I saw him afterwards and spoke with him, when he was sorry for what he had done; but now he spat on Master Richard fiercely, for the door was shut; and blessed himself mightily meanwhile.

Then he spoke to the man that kept the door; and said that Master Richard was to be taken down and kept close, until there was need of him again; for that the King was no better.

So Master Richard was brought downstairs, and through the guard-room into one of the little cells: and as he went he was thinking on the words of our Saviour.

Si male locutus sum, testimonium perhibe de malo: si autem bene, quid me caedis? [“If I have spoken ill, give testimony of the evil, but if well, why strikest thou me?” (John xviii. 23.)]

VIII

OF THE PARSON’S DISQUISITION ON THE WHOLE MATTER

In columna nubis loquebatur ad eos.

He spoke to them in the pillar of the cloud.—ps. Xcviii. 7.

{At this point of the narrative, in consideration of what has preceded and what is yet to follow, Sir John Chaldfield thinks it proper to enlarge at great length upon the threefold nature of man, and the various characters and functions that emerge from the development of each part.

For the sake of those who are more interested in the adventures of Master Richard and the King than in a medieval priest’s surmises as to their respective psychological states, I shall take leave to summarise a few of his remarks and omit the rest. The whole section, in fact, might be omitted without any detriment to the history; and may be ignored by those who have arrived as far as this point in the reading of the book.

Sir John is somewhat obscure; and I suspect that he does not fully understand the theory that he attempts to state, which I suppose was taught him originally by Richard Raynal himself, and subsequently illustrated by the priest’s own studies. He instances several cases as examples of the classes of persons to which he refers; but his obscurity is further deepened by the action of the zealous and discreet scribe, who, as I have said in the preface, has been careful to omit nearly all the names in Sir John’s original manuscript.

Briefly, his theory is as follows—at least so far as I can understand him.

It is at once man’s glory and penalty that he is a mixed being. By the possession of his complex nature he is capable of both height and depth. He can devote himself to God or Satan; and there are two methods by which he can attain to proficiency in either of those services. He can issue forth through his highest or lowest self, according to his own will and predispositions.

Most men are predisposed to act through the lower or physical self; and by an interior intention direct their actions towards good or evil. Those that serve God in this manner are often incapable of high mystical acts; but they refrain generally from sin; and when they sin return through Penance. Those who so serve Satan sin freely, and make no efforts at reformation. A few of these, by a wholehearted devotion to evil, succeed in establishing a relation between themselves and physical nature, and gain a certain control over the lower powers inherent in it. To this class belong the less important magicians and witches; and even some good Christians possess such powers (which we now call psychical) which, generally speaking, they are at a loss to understand. Such persons can blast or wither by the eye; they have a strange authority over animals; [I append a form of words which Sir John quotes, and which, he says, may be used sometimes lawfully even by christened men. It is to be addressed in necessity to a troublesome snake. “By Him who created thee I adjure thee that thou remain in the spot where thou art, whether it be thy will to do so or otherwise. And I curse thee with the curse wherewith the Lord hath cursed thee.”] and are able to set up a connection between inanimate material objects and organic beings. [He instances the wasting of an enemy by melting a representation of him fashioned in wax.] But such magic, even when malevolent, need not be greatly feared by Christian men living in grace: its physical or psychical influence can be counteracted by corresponding physical acts: such things as the sign of the cross, the use of sacramentals, the avoidance of notoriously injurious follies such as beginning work on Friday, the observance of such matters as wearing Principium Evangelii secundum Joannem on the person, and the paying of ocular deference to Saint Christopher on rising—these precautions and others like them are usually a sufficient safeguard. [I am afraid it is impossible to clear Sir John wholly of the charge of superstition. The “Beginning of the Gospel according to John” was the fourteen verses read as the last Gospel after mass. A copy of this passage was often carried, sewn into the clothes, to protect from various ills. The image of St. Christopher usually stood near the door of the church to ensure against violent death all who looked on it in the morning.]

But all this is a very different matter from the high mysticism of contemplatives, ascetics, and Satanic adepts.

These are persons endowed with extraordinary dispositions, who have resolved to deal with invisible things through the highest faculty of their nature. The Satanic adepts are greatly to be feared, even in matters pertaining to salvation, for, although their power has been vastly restricted by the union of the divine and human natures in the Incarnation of the Son of God, yet they are capable by the exercise of their power, of obscuring spiritual faculties, and bringing to bear grievous temptations, as well as of afflicting by sickness, misfortune and death.

These select souls are the great mages of all time; and their leader, since the year of redemption, Simon Magus himself, could be dealt with by none other than the Vicar of Christ and prince of apostles.

It is not every man, even with the worst will in the world, who is capable of rising to this sinister position: for it is not enough to renounce the faith, to make a league with Satan, to insult the cross and to commit other enormities: there must also be resident in the aspirant a peculiar faculty, corresponding to, if not identical with, the glorious endowment of the contemplative. If, however, all these and other conditions are fulfilled, the initiated person is severed finally from the Body of Christ and incorporated into that of Satan, through which mysterious regeneration it receives supernatural powers corresponding to those of the baptised soul.

Finally Sir John considers those whom he calls “God’s adepts,” and among those, though in different classes, he places Richard Raynal and the King. [A little later on he also mentions King Solomon as an eminent pre-Christian adept, and Enoch.] These adepts, he says, are of every condition and character, but that which binds them together is the fact that they all alike deal directly with invisible things, and not, as others do, through veils and symbols. Since the Incarnation, however, all baptized persons who frequent the sacraments are in a certain degree adepts, for in those sacraments they may be truly said to see, handle, hear and taste the Word of Life. Other powers, however, are still reserved to those who are the masters of the spiritual life;—for not all persons, however holy, are contemplatives, ecstatics, or seers.

Now contemplation is an arduous labour; it is not, as some ignorant persons think, a process of idle absorption; it is rather a state of strenuous endeavour, aided at any rate in its first stages by acts of steady detachment from the world of sense. Richard Raynal had passed through the first rigour of that purgative stage in the short period of one year, and although he still lived a detached life, and practised various austerities, he was so far free of danger that he was able, as has been already remarked, to dig and talk without interrupting the exercise of his higher faculties. He had then passed to the illuminative stage, and had remained, again for one year, in the process of being informed, taught and kindled in preparation for the third and last stage of union with the Divine—elsewhere named the Way of Perfection. He had been rewarded by various sensible gifts, particularly by that of Ecstasy, by which the soul passes, as fully as an embodied soul can pass, into the state of eternity. Here mysteries are seen plainly, though they seldom can be declared in words, or at least only haltingly and under physical images that are not really adequate to that which they represent. [That which Richard calls Calor, or Warmth, appears to be one of these.]

With the King, however, it was different. By the exigencies of his vocation he was unable to live the properly contemplative life; solitude, an essential to that life, was impossible to him: but he had done what he could by asceticism and the habit of recollection; and, further, his soul had been naturally one of those which had the necessary endowments of the contemplative.

The purgative, illuminative and unitive stages had therefore been confused, and had come upon him simultaneously, though gradually; and this as was to be expected, had resulted in intense suffering. There was for him no gradation by which he passed slowly upwards from detachment to union. Richard Raynal’s words to him had coincided with the struggling emergence of his own soul on to the higher plane; and he had opened his spiritual eyes on to a terrible future for which he had had but little preparation. The result had been a kind of paralysis of his whole nature, and henceforward the rest of his life, Sir John maintains, had been darkened by his first definite experience in the mystical region. If indeed this King was none other than Henry the Sixth, Sir John’s explanation is an interesting commentary on that melancholy personage. Richard then, according to this hypothesis, found joy in his contemplation because he had been trained to look for it; and Henry had found sorrow because he had been overwhelmed by the suddenness of the revelation and his men unpreparedness. Sir John adds that it is difficult to know which of the two lives would be more pleasing to God Almighty.

As regards his whole statement I feel it is impossible to say more than to quote the opinion of a modern mystic to whom I submitted the original; which was to the effect that it contains a little nonsense, a good deal of truth, and a not intolerable admixture of superstition. He added further that Sir John must not be judged hardly; for he was limited by an inadequate vocabulary and an ignorance of many of the terms that his scanty reading enabled him to employ.}

IX

HOW MASTER RICHARD TOOK HIS MEAT: AND OF MASTER LIEUTENANT’S WHIPPING OF HIM

Domine, ante te omne desiderium meum; et gemitus meus a te non est absconditus.

Lord, all my desire is before thee: and my groaning is not hidden from

Thee.—ps. Xxxvii. 10.

It was a little cell in which Master Richard found himself that afternoon, after he had passed through the guardroom and heard the anger and laughter of the men-at-arms, and sustained their blows, and when he had looked about it, at the little narrow window high up upon the wall, and the water that dripped here and there from the stones, and the strong door shut upon him, the first thing that he did was to go down upon his knees in the puddle, and thank God for solitude.

(There be two kinds of men in the world, those that love solitude, and those that hate it; for there be two kinds of souls, the full and the empty. Those that be full have enough to occupy them with, and those that be empty are for ever seeking somewhat wherewith to occupy them.)

When he had done that he looked round again upon the walls and the ceiling and the floor, and sitting down upon the wood that was to be his pillow, first girding up his kirtle that it might not be fouled, he sought to unite himself with all that he saw, that it might be his friend and not his foe. So he told me when I asked him, but I do not know if I understood him aright.

There he sat then a great while, communing with God, and the saints, with his cell and with his soul, and after a little time his interior quiet was again restored. Then, as he knew he would have no light that night, and that the cell would grow dark early, for his window looked eastwards, and was a very little one, he made haste to say the rest of his office from the book that he had with him. But he said it slowly, as the Carthusians use, sucking the sweetness out of every word, and saying Jesu or Mary at every star [the break in each verse of the psalter is marked with an asterisk], and after a while the sweetness was so piercing that he could scarcely refrain from crying out.

When he had done he looked again at his window, and saw that the strip of sky was becoming green with evening light, and he thought upon his hazels at home.

Half an hour afterwards a fellow came with his bread and water for supper, on a wooden plate and in a great jug, set them down and went out without speaking.

Now I will tell you all that Master Richard did; it was his custom when he was at home, and he observed it here too.

He first poured water upon his hands, saying the psalm lavabo, and he dried them upon the sleeves of his habit, for he had no napkin; then he set the second stool before him, and broke the bread upon it into five parts, in memory of the five wounds, setting two portions here and two there, and the fifth in the middle. Then he blessed the food, looking upon it a great while, and seeing with the eyes of his soul his Saviour’s body stretched upon the rood. Then he began to eat, dipping each morsel into its proper wound, so that it tasted to him sweet as wine, and last of all he ate that which lay in the middle, thinking on the heart that was pierced for love of him. Then he drank water, blessed himself, and gave thanks to God, and last of all poured water once more upon his hands.

Master Richard has often told me that there is no such sweet food to be found anywhere—(save only the sacrament of the altar)—as that which is so blessed and so eaten, and indeed I have found it so myself, when I have had patience to do so with it. [Sir John makes here a few rather trite remarks upon holy bread and ashes and upon various methods of devotion. His words are quite irrelevant, therefore I omit them. He is careful, however, to warn his flock that not every form of devotion is equally suitable for every soul.]….

Now God was preparing three trials for Master Richard, and the first came on the following morning very early.

He had not slept very well; the noise from the guard-room without was too great, and when that was quiet there was still the foulness of the place to keep him awake, for all the floor was strewn with rotten rags and straw and bones, as it were a kennel. His wounds, besides, had not been tended, and he was very sick when he awoke, and for a while scarce knew where he was. I think, perhaps, he had taken the fever then.

He heard presently steps in the way that led to his cell, and talking, and immediately his door was unlocked and opened. There came in a lieutenant of the King’s guard, richly dressed, and in half-armour, with his sword at his side. He had a heavy, hairy face, and as Master Richard sat up on his blanket he perceived that the man was little better than an animal—gross-bodied and gross-souled. I saw the fellow later, though I did not speak with him, and I judge as Master Richard judged. There were four men behind him.

Master Richard stood up immediately to salute the King’s officer, and stood awaiting what should follow, but he swayed with sickness as he stood.

The officer said a word to his men, and they haled Master Richard forth, pulling him roughly, although he went willingly, as well he was able for his sickness, through the passage and into the guard-room.

There was a table set there on a step at the upper end with a chair behind it; and at the lower end was a couple of men cleaning their harness beneath a gallery that was held up by posts; the rest were out changing guard. The door into the court was wide at first, and the sweet air streamed in, refreshing Master Richard like wine after the stench that was in his nostrils, and making him think upon the country again and running water and birds, but Master-Lieutenant, when he had taken his seat, bade them close it, and to set Master Richard before him; all of which they did, and so held him.

Then he began to speak.

“Now, sir,” he said roughly, “my lord King is at the point of death, and

I am here to examine you. What is it that you have done to his grace?”

Now Master Richard knew that the King could not die, else where were the passion he was to undergo? And if the officer could lie in this matter, why should he not lie in other matters?

“Where is your authority,” he said “to examine me?”

“What sir! do you question that? You shall see my authority by and bye.”

“I am willing to answer you as one man to another” said Master Richard softly, “but not to plead, until I have seen your authority.”

“Oh! you are willing to answer!” said the officer, smiling like an angry dog. “Very well, then. What have you done to his grace?”

“I have done nothing,” said Master Richard, “save give the message that our Lord bade me give.”

Master-Lieutenant laughed short and sharp at that, and the two men that held Master Richard laughed with him. (The other two men were gone to the other end of the hall, and Master Richard could not see what they were doing.)

“Oho!” said the officer, “that is all that you have done to his grace! I would advise you, sir, not to play the fool with me. We know very well what you have done; but we would know from you how and when you did it.”

Master Richard said nothing to that. He felt very light in the head, what with his wounds and the bad air, and the strangeness of the position. He knew that he was smiling, but he could not prevent it. His smiling angered the man.

“You dare smile at me, sir!” he cried. “I will teach you to smile!”—and he struck the table with his hand, so that the ink-horn danced upon it.

“I cannot help smiling,” said Master Richard. “I think I am faint, sir.”

One of the men shook him by the arm, and Master Richard’s sense came back a little.

When he could see again clearly (for just now the face of the officer

and the woodwork behind him swam like images seen in water),

Master-Lieutenant had a little bottle in his hand. He bade Master

Richard look upon it and asked him what it was.

“I think it to be my Quinte Essence” said Master Richard.

“You acknowledge that then!” cries the man. “And what is Quinte

Essence?”

“It is distilled of blood” said Master Richard.

The officer set the bottle down again upon the table.

“Now sir” he said, “that is enough to cast you. None who was a Christian man would have such a thing. Say paternoster.” [This seems to have been one of the tests in trials for witchcraft.]

“Paternoster …” began Master Richard.

Now, my children, I cannot explain what this signified, but Master Richard could get no further than that. I know that I myself cannot say any of the prayers of mass when I am away from the altar, and other priests have told me the same of themselves, but it seems to me very strange that a man should not at any time be able to say paternoster. Whether it was that Master Richard was sick, or that the officer’s face troubled him, or whether that God Almighty desired to put him to a grievous test, I know not. But he could not say it. He repeated over and over again, Paternoster … Paternoster, and swayed as he stood.

The officer’s face grew dark and a little afraid; he blessed himself three or four times, and breathed through his nostrils heavily. Master Richard felt himself smiling again, and presently fell to laughing, and as he laughed he perceived that the men who held him drew away from him a little, and blessed themselves too.

“I cannot help it,” sobbed Master Richard presently, “to think that I cannot say paternoster!”

When he had recovered himself somewhat, he perceived that the two other men were come up behind him.

Then the officer bade him turn and look, and he did so, with the tears of that dreadful laughter still upon his cheeks.

The two men were standing there; one had a great hangman’s whip of leather in his hand, and the other a rope.

“Now, sir;” said the officer behind him, “here is enough authority for you and me. Shall I bid them begin, or will you tell us what it is that you have done to the King?”

Now, Master Richard had nothing to tell, as you know; he could not have saved himself in any case from the torment, but our Lord allowed him to have this trial, to see how he would bear himself. He might have cried out for mercy, or told a false tale as men so often have done, but he did neither of these things. The laughter again rose in his throat, but he drove it down, and after looking upon the men’s faces and the arms of the man that held the whip, he turned once more to the officer.

“I have scourged myself too often,” he said, “to fear such pain; and our

Saviour bore stripes for me.”

Then (for the men had released him that he might turn round) he undid the button at his throat, and threw back the kirtle, knotting the sleeves about his waist, and so stood, naked to his middle, awaiting the punishment.

He told me afterwards that never had he felt such lightness and freedom as he felt at this time. His body yearned for the pain, as it yearned for the sting and thrill of cold water on a cold day. When he was telling me, I understood better how it was that the holy martyrs were so merry in the midst of their torments. [Sir John relates at considerable length the Acts of St. Laurence and St. Sebastian.]….

When the officer had looked on him a moment, he bade him turn round, and so, I suppose, sat staring upon the youth’s holy shoulders that were covered with the old stripes that he had given himself. At last Master Richard faced about again; and again, as he looked upon the solemn face of the man, he began to laugh. It seemed a marvellous jest, he thought, that so long a consideration should be given to so small a matter as a whipping. I am glad I was not there to bear that laughter; I think it would quite have broken my heart.

Well, my children, I cannot write what followed, but the end of it was that the post to which Master Richard’s hands were tied, and the face of Master-Lieutenant standing behind it, and the wall behind him with the weapons upon it, grew white and frosted to the young man’s eyes, and began to toss up and down, and a great roaring sounded in his ears. He thought, he told me afterwards, that he was on Calvary beneath the rood, and that the rocks were rending about him.

So he swooned clean away, and was carried back again to his prison.

Now I learned afterwards that the officer had no authority such as he pretended, but that he had sworn to his fellows that he could find out the truth by a pretence of it, thinking Master Richard to be a poor crazed fool who would cry out and confess at the touch of the whip.

But Master Richard did not cry out for mercy. And I hold that he passed this first trial bravely.

X

OF THE SECOND TEMPTATION OF MASTER RICHARD: AND HOW HE OVERCAME IT

Exacuerunt ut gladium linguas suas: interderunt arcum rem amaram: ut sagittent in occultis immaculatum.

They have whetted their tongues like a sword: they have bent their bow a bitter thing, to shoot in secret the undefiled.—ps. Lxiii, 4, 5.

As Master Richard had striven to serve God in the trinity of his nature, so was he to be tried in the trinity of his nature. It was first in his body that he was tempted, by pain and the fear of it; and his second trial came later in the same day—which was in his mind.

He lay abed that morning till his dinner was brought to him, knowing sometimes what passed—how a rat came out and looked on him awhile, moving its whiskers; how the patch of sunlight upon the wall darkened and passed; and how a bee came in and hummed a great while in the room; and sometimes conscious of nothing but his own soul. He could make no effort, he told me, and he did not attempt it. He only lay still, committing himself to God Almighty.

He could not eat the meat, even had he wished it, but he drank a little broth and ate some bread, and then slept again.

He did not know what time it was when he awoke and found one by his bed, looking down on him, he thought, compassionately. It was growing towards evening, for it way darker, or else his eyes were heavy and confused with sickness, but he could not see very clearly the face of the man who stood by him.

The man presently kneeled down by the bed, murmuring with pity as it seemed, and Master Richard felt himself raised a little, and then laid down again, and there was something soft at the nape of his neck over the wooden pillow and against his torn shoulders. There was something, too, laid across his body and legs, as if to keep him from chill.

He said nothing for a while; he did not know what to say, but he looked steadily at the face that looked on him, and saw that it was that of a young man, not five years older than himself, shaven clean like a clerk, and the eyes of him seemed pitiful and loving.

“Laudetur Jesus Christus!” said Master Richard presently, as his custom was when he awoke.

“Amen,” said the man beside the bed.

That comforted Master Richard a little—that the man should say Amen to his praise of Jesu Christ, so he asked him who he was and what he did there.

The young man said nothing to that, but asked him instead how he did, and his voice was so smooth and tender that Master Richard was further encouraged.

“I do far better than our Lord did,” he answered. “He had none to minister to Him.”

It seemed that the young man was moved at that, for he hid his face in his hands a moment.

Then he began to pity Master Richard, saying that it was a shame that he had been so evilly treated, and that Master-Lieutenant should smart for it if it ever came to his grace’s ears. But he said this so strangely that Master Richard was astonished.

“And how does the King do?” he asked.

“The King is at the point of death,” said the young man solemnly.

“It is no more than the point then,” said Master Richard confidently, “and a point that will not pierce him, else what of the passion that he must suffer?”

The young man seemed to look on him very steadily and earnestly at that.

“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked him. “I have done nothing to his grace save give my tidings.”

“Master Hermit,” said the young man very gravely, “I entreat you not to speak like that.”

“How should I speak then?” he asked.

The young man did not answer immediately, but he moved on his knees a little closer to the bed, and took Master Richard’s hand softly between his own, and so held it, caressing it. Master Richard told me that this action moved him more than all else; he felt the tears rise to his eyes, and he gave a sob or two. It is always so with noble natures after great pain. [Sir John relates here the curious history of a girl who was nearly burned as a witch, and that when she was reprieved she yielded at once to the solicitations of marriage from a man whom she had always hated, but who was the first to congratulate her on her escape. But the story sadly interrupts the drama of the main narrative, and therefore I omit it.]….

Then the young man spoke very sweetly and kindly.

“Master Hermit,” he said, “you must bear with me for bringing sad tidings to you. But will you hear them now or to-morrow?”

“I will hear them now,” said Master Richard.

So the young man proceeded.

“One came back to-day from your home in the country. He was sent there yesterday night by my lord cardinal. He spoke with your parson, Sir John, and what he heard from him he has told to my lord, and I heard it.”

(This was a lie, my children. No man from London had spoken with me. But you shall see what follows.)

“And what did Sir John tell him,” asked Master Richard quietly. “Did he say he knew nothing of me?”

Now he asked this, thinking that perhaps this was a method of tempting him. And so it was, but worse than he thought it.

“No, poor lad,” said the young man very pitifully, “Sir John knew you well enough. The messenger saw your little house, too, and the hazels about it; and the stream, and the path that you have made; and there were beasts there, he said, a stag and pig that looked lamentably out from the thicket.”

Now observe the Satanic guile of this! For at the mention of all his little things, and his creatures that loved him, Master Richard could not hold back his tears, for he had thought so often upon them, and desired to see them again. So the young man stayed in his talk, and caressed his hand again, and murmured compassionately.

Presently Master Richard was quiet, and asked the young man to tell him what the parson had said.

“To-morrow,” said the young man, making as if to rise.

“To-day,” said Master Richard.

So the young man went on.

“He went to the parsonage with Sir John, and talked with him there a long while—”

“Did he see my books?” said Master Richard in his simplicity.

“Yes, poor lad; he saw your books. And then Sir John told him what he thought.”

“And what was that?” said Master Richard, faint with the thought of the answer.

The young man caressed his hand again, and then pressed it as if to give him courage.

“Sir John told him that you were a good fellow; that you injured neither man nor beast; and that all spoke well of you.”

Then the young man stayed again.

“Ah! tell me,” cried Master Richard.

“Well, poor lad; as God sees us now, Sir John told the messenger that he thought you to be deluded; that you deemed yourself holy when you were not, and that you talked with the saints and our Lord, but that these appearances were no more than the creations of your own sick brain. He said that he humoured you; for that he feared you would be troublesome if he did not, and that all the folk of the village said the same thing to you, to please you and keep you quiet.—Ah! poor child!”

The young man cried out as if in sorrow, and lifted Master Richard’s hand and kissed it.

Master Richard told me that when he heard that it was as a blow in the face to him. He could not answer, nor even think clearly. It was as if a gross darkness, full of wings and eyes and mocking faces pressed upon him, and he believed that he cried out, and that he must have swooned, for when he came to himself again his face was all wet with water that the young man had thrown upon it.

It was a minute or two more before he could speak, and during that time it appeared to him that he did not think himself, but that ideas moved before his eyes, manifesting themselves. At first there was a doubt as to whether the young man had spoken the truth, and whether any messenger had been to the village at all, but the mention of the hazels, the stag and the pig, and his books, dispelled that thought.

Again it did not seem possible that the young man should have lied as to what it was that I was said to have answered; if they had wished to lie, surely they would have lied more entirely, and related that I had denied all knowledge of him. But the falsehood was so subtle an one; it was so well interwoven with truth that I count it to have been impossible for Master Richard in his sickness and confusion to have disentangled the one from the other. I have heard a physician say, too, that the surest manner to perplex a man is to suggest to him that his brain is clouded; at such words he often loses all knowledge of self; he doubts his own thoughts, and even his senses.

This, then, was Master Richard’s temptation—that he should doubt himself, his friends, and even our Lord who had manifested Himself so often and so kindly to the eyes of his soul.

Yet he did not yield to it, although he could not repel it. He cried upon Jesu in his heart, and then set the puzzle by.

He looked at the young man once more.

“And why do you tell me this?” he asked.

The clerk (if he were a clerk) answered him first by another

Judas-caress or two, and then by Judas-words.

“Master Hermit,” he said, “I am but a poor priest, but my words have some weight with two or three persons of the court; and these again have some weight with my lord cardinal. I asked leave to come and tell you this as kindly as I could, and to see what you would say. I observed you in the hall the other day, and I have a good report of your reasonableness from the monastery. I conceived, too, a great love for you when I saw you, and wish you well; and I think I can do you a great service, and get you forth from this place that you may go whither you will,—to your house by the stream or to some other place where none know you. Would it not be pleasant to you to be in the country again, and to serve God with all your might in some sweet and secret place where men are not?”

“I can serve God here as there,” answered Master Richard.

“Well—let that be. But what if God Almighty wishes you to be at peace?

We must not rush foolishly upon death. That is forbidden to us.”

“I do not seek death,” said Master Richard.

The clerk leaned over him a little, and Master Richard saw his eyes bent upon him with great tenderness.

“Master Hermit,” he said, “I entreat you not to be your own enemy. You see that those that know you best love you, but they do not think you to be what you think you are—-”

“I am nothing but God’s man, and a sinner,” said the lad.

“Well, they think your visions and the rest to be but delusions. And if they be delusions, why should not other matters be delusions too?”

“What matters?” asked Master Richard.

“Such matters as the tidings that you brought to the King.”

“And what is it you would have me to do?” asked Master Richard again after a silence.

“It is only a little thing, poor lad—such a little thing! and then you will be able to go whither you will.”

“And what is that little thing?”

“It is to tell me that you think them delusions too.”

“But I do not think them so,” said Master Richard.

“Think as you will then, Master Hermit; but, you know, when folks are sick we may tell them anything without sin. And the King is sick to death. I do not believe that you have bewitched him: you have too good a face and air for that—and for the matter of the paternoster I do not value it at a straw. The King is sick with agony at what he thinks will come upon him after your words. He will not listen to my lord cardinal: he sits silent and terrified, and has taken no food to-day. But if you will but tell him, Master Hermit, that you were mistaken in your tidings—that it was but a fancy, and that you know better now—all will be well with him and with you, and with us all who love you both.”

So the clerk spoke, tempting him, and leaned back again on his heels; and Master Richard lay a great while silent.

Now, I do not know who was this young man, whether he were a clerk or whether he were not a devil in form of a man. I could hear nothing of him at Court when I went there. It may be that he was one of those idle fellows that had come to Master Richard from time to time to ask him to make them hermits with him, else how did he know the matters of the stag and the pig and the stream and the rest? But it does not greatly matter whether his soul were a devil’s or a man’s, for in any case his words were Satan’s. If I had not heard what came after I should have believed this temptation to be the most subtle ever devised in hell and permitted from heaven. He spoke so tenderly and so sweetly; he commanded his features so perfectly; he seemed to speak with such love and reasonableness.

Yet I would have you know that Master Richard did not yield by a hair’s breadth in thought. He examined the temptation carefully, setting aside altogether the question as to whether I had spoken as this young man had said that I had. Whether I had spoken so or not made no difference. It was this that he was bidden to do, to say that he had erred in his tidings, to confess that they were not from God; to be a faithless messenger to our Lord.

He examined this, then, looking carefully at all parts of the temptation. [Sir John appends at this point two or three paragraphs, distinguishing between the observing of a temptation of thought and the yielding to it. He instances Christ’s temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane.]….

At the end Master Richard opened his eyes and looked steadily upon the young man’s face.

“Take this answer,” he said, “to those that sent you. I will neither hear nor consider such words any more. If I yield in this matter, and say one word to the King or to any other, by which any may understand that my message was a delusion, or that I spoke of myself and not from our Lord, then I pray that our Lord may blot my name out of the Book of Life.”

So Master Richard answered and closed his eyes to commune with God. And the young man went away sighing but speaking no word.

XI

OF THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

De profundis clamavi ad te, domine: domine exaudi vocem meam.

Out of the depths i have cried to thee, o lord: lord, hear my voice.—ps. Cxxix. 1, 2.

The third temptation was so fierce and subtle, that I doubt whether I wholly understood it when Master Richard tried to tell it to me. He did not tell me all, and he could answer but few questions, and I fear that I am not able to tell even all that I heard from him. It was built up like a house, he said, stone by stone, till it fenced him in, but he did not know what was all its nature till he saw my lord cardinal.

A soul such as was Master Richard’s must have temptations that seem as nothing to coarser beings such as myself: as a bird that lives in the air has dangers that a crawling beast cannot have. There are perils in the height that are not perils on the earth. A bird may strike a tree or a tower; his wings may fail him; he may fly too near the sun till he faint in its heat; he cannot rest; if he is overtaken by darkness he cannot lie still. [Sir John enumerates at some length other such dangers to bird life.]….

Now Master Richard described the state into which he fell under a curious name that I cannot altogether understand. He said that there be three nights through which the contemplative soul must pass or ever it come to the dawn. The first two he had gone through during his life in the country; the first is a kind of long-continued dryness, when spiritual things have no savour; the second is an affection of the mind, when not even meditation [This is an exercise distinct from contemplation apparently. I include this passage, in spite of its technicalities, for obvious reasons.] appears possible; the mind is like a restless fly that is at once weary and active. This second is not often attained to by ordinary souls, though all men who serve God have a shadow of it. It is a very terrible state. Master Richard told me that before he suffered it he had not conceived that such conflict was possible to man. It was during this time that the fiend came to him in form of a woman. The imagination that cannot fix itself upon the things of God is wide-awake to all other impressions of sense. [I do not think that Sir John understands what he is writing about, though he does his best to appear as if he did. I have omitted a couple of incoherent paragraphs.]….

Now, these two first nights I think I understand, for he told me that what he suffered during his whipping in the hall and the strife of his mind with the clerk were each a kind of symbol of them. But the third, which he called the Night of the Soul I do not understand at all. [It is remarkable that this phrase frequently occurs in the writings of St. John of the Cross, though he treats it differently. Until I came across it in this MS. I had always thought that the Spanish mystic was the first to use it.] This only can I say of the state itself: that Master Richard said that it was in a manner what our Lord suffered upon the rood when he cried to His Father Eloi, Eloi, etc.

But I can tell you something of the signs of that affliction, as they shewed themselves to Master Richard. Of the interior state of his soul I cannot even think without terror and confusion. Compared with the darkness of it, the other nights, he said, are but as clouds across the sun on a summer’s day compared with a moonless midnight in winter. He had suffered a shadow of it before, when he was entering the contemplative state, or the prefect Way of Union. Now it fell upon him. Before I tell you how it came, I must tell you that this night, as he explained it, takes its occasion from some particular thought, and the thought from which it sprang you shall hear presently.

When the clerk had left him, sighing, as I said, as if with a kindly weariness (to encourage the other to call for him, I suppose), Master Richard committed himself again to God and lay still.

A fellow came in soon with his supper (for it was now growing dark), set it by him and went out. Master Richard took a little food, and after a while, as his custom was after repeating the name of Jesu, began to think on God, on the Blessed and Holy Trinity, and on His Attributes, numbering them one by one and giving thanks for each, and marking the colour and place of each in the glory of the throne. He was too weary to say vespers or compline, and presently he fell asleep, but whether it was common sleep or not I do not know.

In his sleep it seemed to him that he was walking along a path beneath trees, as he had walked on his way to London; but it was twilight, and he could not see clearly. There was none with him, and he was afraid, and did not know what he feared. He was afraid of what lay behind, and on all sides, and he was yet more afraid of what lay before him, but he knew that he could not stay nor turn. He went swiftly, he thought, and with no sound, towards some appointed place, and the twilight darkened as he went; when he looked up there was no star nor moon to be seen, and what had been branches when he set out seemed now to be a roof, so thick they were. There was no bray of stag, nor rustle of breeze, nor cry of night-bird. He tried to pray, but he could remember no prayer, and not even the healthful name of Jesu came to his mind. He could do nought but look outwards with his straining eyes, and inwards at his soul; and the one was now as dark as the other. He thought of me then, my children, and longed to have me there, but he knew that I was asleep in my bed and far away. He thought of his mother whom he had loved so much, but he knew that she was gone to God and had left him alone. And still, through all, his feet bore him on swiftly without sound or fatigue, though the terror and the darkness were now black as ink. He felt his hair rising upon his head, and his skin prickle, and the warmth was altogether gone from his heart, but he could not stay.

And at the last his feet ceased to move, and he stood still, knowing that he was come to the place.

Now, I do not understand what he said to me of that place. He told me that he could see nothing; it was as if his eyes were put out, yet he knew what it was like.

It was a little round place in the forest, with trees standing about it, and it was trampled hard with the footsteps of those who had come there before him. But that was no comfort to him now; for he did not know how these persons had fared, nor where were their souls.

So he stood in the black darkness, knowing that he could not turn, with the horror on him so heavy that he sweated as he told me of it, and with the knowledge that something was approaching under the trees without sound of step or breathing—he did not know whether it was man or beast or fiend, he only knew that it was approaching. Yet he could not pray or cry out.

Then he was aware that it had entered the little space where he stood, and was even now within a hand’s grasp. Yet he could not lift his hands to ward it off, or to pray to God, or to bless himself.

Then he perceived that the thing—negotium perambulans in tenebris [“the Business that walketh about in the dark” (Ps. xc. 6.)]—was formless, without hands to strike or mouth to bite him with, and that it was all about him now, closing upon him. If there had been aught to touch his body, wet lips to kiss his face, or fiery eyes to look into his own, he would not have feared it with a thousandth part of the fear that he had. It was that there was no shape or face, and that it sought not his body but his soul. And when he understood that he gave a loud cry and awoke, and knew, as in a mystery, that it was no dream, but that he was indeed come to the place that he had seen, and that this negotium was at his soul’s heart. [There is either an omission here in the translation of Sir John’s original MS., or else the transcriber has dashed his pen down in horror, or sought to produce an impression of it.]….

I find it impossible, my children, to make you understand in what state he was; he could not make even me understand. I can only set down a little of what he said.

First, he knew that he had lost God. It was not that there was no God, but that he had lost Him of his own fault and sin. He was aware that in all other places there was God and that the blessed reigned with Him, but not in the place where he was, nor in his heart. In all men that ever I have met there was a certain presence of God. As the apostle told the men of Athens, Ipsius enim et genus suum; [“For we are also His offspring” (Acts xvii. 28.)] and, again, Non longe est ab unoquoque nostrum; [“He is not far from every one of us” (Acts xvii. 27.)] and again, In ipso vivimus, et movemur, et sumus. [“In Him we live, and we move, and we are” (Acts xvii. 28.)] I have not seen a man who had not this knowledge, though maybe some, such as Turks and pagans, may call it by another name. But until death, I think, all men, whatever their sins or ignorance, live and move in God’s Majesty. Hell, Master Richard told me, is nothing less than the withdrawal of that presence, with other torments superadded, but this is chief. Master Richard told me that that black fire of hell rages wherever God is not; and that the worm gnaws in all hearts that have lost Him, and know it to be by their own fault—maxima culpa. [“the very great fault.”]

There be a few men in this world—the Son of God derelict is their prince—who are called to this supreme torment while they yet live—if indeed that man may be said to live who is without God—and of this company Master Richard was now made one.

It was with him now as he had dreamed. Where God is not, there can be no communion with man, for the only reason by which one perceives another’s soul, or understands that it is the soul of a man and has a likeness to his own, is that both are, in some measure, in God. If we were more holy and wise we should understand for ourselves that this is so, and see, too, why it is so, for He is eyes to the blind and ears to the deaf. [I do not understand this at all. I wonder whether Sir John did as he wrote it; I am quite sure that his flock did not.]

For Master Richard, then, there was no other person in the world. There was that that fenced him from all living. Our Saviour Christ upon the rood spoke to His Blessed Mother before His dereliction, but not again afterwards. There was no more that He might say to her, or to His cousin, John.

This, then, was the state in which Master Richard lay—that specialissimus of God Almighty, to whom the Divine Love and Majesty was as breath to his nostrils, meat to his mouth, and water to his body. I an say no more on that point.

As to the fault by which it seemed that he had come to that state, it was the most terrible of all sins, which is Presumption. Holy Church sets before us Humility as the chief of virtues, to shew us that Presumption is the chief of vices. A man may be an adulterer or a murderer or a sacrilegious person, and yet by Humility may find mercy. But a man may be chaste and stainless in all his works, and a worshipper of God, but without Humility he cannot come to glory. [Sir John proceeds in this strain for several pages, illustrating his point by the cases of Lucifer, Nabuchodonosor, Judas Iscariot, King Herod, and others.]….

Now the matter in which it seemed to Master Richard that he had sinned the sin of Presumption was the old matter of the tidings he had borne to the King. It was not that the tidings were false, for he knew them for true; but yet that he had been presumptuous in bearing them. It was as though a stander-by had overheard tidings given by a king to his servant, and had presumed to hear them himself, as it were Achimaas the son of Sadoc. [I supposed that this obscure reference is to 2 Kings xviii. 19.] And more than that, that he had presumed in thinking that he could be such a man as our Lord would call to such an office. He had set himself, it appeared, far above his fellows in even listening to our Saviour’s voice; he should rather have cried with saint Peter, Exi a me quia homo peccator sum Domine. [“Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke v. 8.)]

It was this sin that had driven him from God’s Presence. Our Lord had bestowed on him wonderful gifts of grace. He had visited him as He visits few others and had led him in the Way of Union, and he had followed, triumphing in this, giving God the glory in words only, until he had fallen as it seemed from the height of presumption to the depth of despair, and lay here now, excluded from the Majesty that he desired.

Now, here is a very wonderful thing, and I know not if I can make it clear.

You understand, my children, a little of what I heard from Master Richard’s lips—of what it was that he suffered. But although all this was upon him, he perceived afterwards, though not at the time, that there was something in him that had not yielded to the agony. His body was broken, and his mind amazed, and his soul obscured in this Night, yet there was one power more, that we name the Will (and that is the very essence of man, by which he shall be judged), that had not yet sunk or cried out that it was so as the fiend suggested.

There was within him, he perceived afterwards, a conflict without movement. It was as when two men wrestle, their limbs are locked, they are motionless, they appear to be at rest, but in truth they are striving with might and main.

So he remained all that night in this agony, not knowing that he did aught but suffer; he saw the light on the wall, and heard the cocks crow—at least he remembered these things afterwards. But his release did not come until the morning; and of that release, and its event, and how it came about, I will now tell you.

XII

HOW SIR JOHN WENT AGAIN TO THE CELL: AND OF WHAT HE SAW THERE

Ecce audivimus eam in ephrata: invenimus eam in campis silvae.

Behold we have heard of it in euphrata: we have found it in the fields of the wood.—ps. Cxxxi. 6.

It is strange to think that other men went about their business in the palace, and knew nothing of what was passing. It is more strange that that morning I said mass in the country and did not faint for fear or sorrow. But it is always so, by God’s loving-kindness, for no man could bear to live if he knew all that was happening in the world at one time. [Sir John adds some trite reflections of an obvious character.]….

There was a little heaviness upon me that morning, but I think no more than there had been every day since Master Richard had left us. It was not until noon that a strange event happened to me. This day was Wednesday after Corpus Christi, the sixth day since he was gone.

There was only one man that knew aught of what was passing in the interior world, and that was the ankret in the cell against the abbey, but of that you shall hear in the proper place.

Of what fell on that day I heard from an old priest whom I saw afterwards, and who was in the palace at that time. He was chaplain to my lord cardinal and his name was….

He told me that very early in the morning my lord sent for him and told him that he would hold an examination of Master Richard that day after dinner, to see if he should be put on his trial for bewitching the King. There were none who doubted that he had bewitched the King, for his grace had sat in a stupor for two days, ever since he had heard the tidings from the holy youth. He heard his masses each morning with a fallen countenance, and took a little food in private, and slept in his clothes sitting in his chair; and spoke to none, and, it seemed, heard none. Though he had been always of a serious and quiet mind, loving to pray and to hear preaching more than to talk, yet this was the first of those strange visitations of God that fell upon him so frequently in his later years. Those then (and especially my lord cardinal) who now saw him in such a state, did not doubt that there was sorcery in the matter, and that Master Richard was the sorcerer; for the tale of the Quinte Essence—of which at that time men knew nothing—and how that he could not say paternoster when it was put to him;—all this was run about the court like fire.

But the tale of the clerk who went to him and sought to shake him, I heard nothing of, save from Master Richard’s own lips. None knew of what had happened, and some afterwards thought that it was the fiend who went to Master Richard, but some others that it was indeed one of the clerks of the court who had perhaps stolen the keys, and gone in to get credit to himself by persuading Master Richard to confess that all was a delusion. For myself, I do not know what to think. [I suspect that Sir John was inclined to think it was the devil, for at this point he discusses at some length various cases in which Satan so acted. He seems to imply that it was a peculiar and cynical pleasure to the Lord of Evil to disguise himself as an ecclesiastic.]….

Now, old Master … said mass before my lord cardinal at seven o’clock, and then went to his own chamber, but he was immediately sent for again to my lord, who appeared to be in a great agitation. My lord told him that one had come from the ankret to bid him let Master Richard go, for that it was not the young man who was afflicting the King, but God Almighty.

“But he shall not play Pilate’s wife with me,” said my lord in a great fury, “I shall go through with this matter. See that you be with me, Master Priest, at noon, and we will see justice done. I doubt not that the young man must go for his trial.”

He told the clerk, too, that Master Blytchett was greatly concerned about his grace, and that the court would be in an uproar if somewhat were not done at once. He had sat three hours last night with … and … and … and …, [It would be interesting to know who were these persons.] and they had all declared the same thing. But he said nothing of the whipping of Master Richard, and I truly believe that he knew nothing of it.

So the hour for the questioning was fixed at noon, and the place to be in my lord cardinal’s privy parlour.

Now that morning, as I told you, I was no more than usually heavy. I remembered Master Richard’s name before God upon the altar, and at ten o’clock I went to dinner in the parsonage. It was a very bright hot day, and I had the windows wide, and listened to the bees that were very busy in the garden. I remember that I wondered whether they knew aught of my dear lad, for I hold that they are very near to God, more so than perhaps any of His senseless creatures, and that is why Holy Church on Easter Eve says such wonderful things about them, and the work that they do. [This refers to the Exultet sung by the deacon in the Roman rite on Holy Saturday.]

For they fashion first wax and then honey. It is the wax that in the church gives light and honour to God, and it is to the honey-comb that God’s Word is compared by David. [Sir John continues in this strain for a page or two.]….

It is not strange then that I thought about the bees, and the knowledge that they have.

After I had done dinner, I slept a little as my custom is, and the last sound that I heard, and the first upon awaking, was the drone of the bees. When I awakened I thought that I would walk down to Master Richard’s house and see how all fared. So I took my staff and set out.

It was very cool and dark in the wood, through which I had come up six days before walking in the summer night with the young man, and all was very quiet. I could hear only the hum of the flies, and, as I drew nearer, the running of the water over the stones of the road, where it crosses it beside the little bridge.

Then I came out beside the gate into the meadow, and my eyes were dazzled by the hot light of the sun after the darkness of the wood.

I stood by the gate a good while, leaning my arms upon it (for I felt very heavy and weary), and looking across the meadow yellow with flowers to the green hazels beyond, and between me and the wood the air shook as if in terror or joy, I knew not which. I could see, too, the open door of the hut, and its domed roof of straw, and the wicket leaning against the wall as he had left it, and on either side the may-trees lifted their bright heads.

My children, I am not ashamed to tell you that I could not see all this very clearly, for my eyes were dim at the thought that the master of it was not here, and that I knew not where he was nor how he fared. I prayed saint Giles with all my might that I might see him here again, and walk with him as I had walked so often. And then at the end, a little after I had heard the Angelus ring from over the wood, and had saluted our Lady and entreated her for Master Richard, I thought that I would go up and see the hut.

As I went I perceived that here, too, the bees were busy in the noon of the day, going to and fro intently, but I was to see yet more of them, for I heard a great droning about me. At first I could not perceive whence it came, but presently I saw a great ball of them gathering on the doorway of the hut, as their custom is in summer-time. I was astonished at that, I do not know why, but it seemed to me that bees were all about me, semitam meam et funiculum meum investigantes; omnes vias meas praevidentes. [“searching out my path and my line; foreseeing all my ways” (from Ps. cxxxviii. 3,4.)] Well, I looked on them awhile, but they seemed as if they would do me no harm, yet I did not wish to go into the house while they hung there, so I was content with looking in from where I stood. I could not see very much, my eyes were too weary with the sunshine that beat on my head, and it was, perhaps, God’s purpose that I should not go in to see what I was not worthy to see.

I had, too, something of fear in my heart; it was like the fear that I had had when I looked on Master Richard six days before as he prayed. So I stood a little distance from the door and observed it and the bees. Of the inside of the but I could see no more than the beaten mud floor for a little space within, and through the veil of bees that swung this way and that working their mysteries, the green light of the window looking upon the hazel wood, above which was the image of the Mother of God.

Then on a sudden my fear came on me strongly, and I cried out what I think was Master Richard’s name for I thought that he was near me, but there was no answer, and after I had looked a little more, I turned back by the way I had come.

Now, here, my children, happened a marvellous thing.

When I reached the gate and had gone through it, I turned round again towards the hut, ashamed of the terror that had lain on me as I walked down, for I had walked like one in a nightmare, not daring to turn my head.

And as I turned, for one instant I saw Master Richard himself, in his brown kirtle and white sleeves standing at the door of his hut, with his arms out as if to stretch himself, or else as our Saviour stretched them on the rood. I could not observe his face, for in an instant he was gone, before I had time to see him clearly, but I am sure that his face was merry, for it was at this hour that he found his release before my lord cardinal, and cried out, as you shall hear in the proper place.

I stood there a long while, stretching out my own hands and crying on him by name, but there was no more to be seen but the hut and its open door, and the may-trees on either side, and the wood behind, and the yellow-flowered meadow before me, and no sound but the drone of the bees and the running of the water. And I dared not go up again, or set foot in the meadow.

So I went home again, and told no man, for I thought that the vision was for myself alone, and as night fell the messenger came to bid me come to town, and to deliver to me the letter from the old priest of whom I have spoken.

XIII

HOW ONE CAME TO MASTER PRIEST: HOW MASTER PRIEST CAME TO THE KING’S

Bedchamber: and of what he heard of the name of jesus

Dum anxiaretur cor meum: in petra exaltasti me.

When my heart was in anguish: thou hast exalted me on a rock. —ps. Lx. 3.

This was the letter that I read in my parlour that night, as the man in his livery stood beside me, dusty with riding. I have it still (it is in the mass-book that stands beside my desk; you can find it there after I am gone to give my account.)….

“REVEREND AND RIGHT WORSHIPFUL SIR JOHN CHALDFIELD,—

“There is a young man here named Master Richard Raynal, who tells us that you are his friend. He desires to see you before his death, for he has been set upon and will not live many days. His grace has ordered that you shall be brought with speed, for he loves this young man and counts him a servant of God. He is with Master Raynal as I write. I fear this may be heavy news for you, Sir John, so I will write no more, but I recommend myself to you, and pray that you may be comforted and speeded here by the grace of God, which ever have you in His keeping.

“Written at Westminster, the Wednesday after Corpus Xti.

“Yours,

“…….”

I asked the fellow who brought the letter whether he could tell me any more, but all that he could say was that he was in the court outside my lord cardinal’s privy stairs—where the people were assembled to see Master Richard come out, and that he had seen a confusion, and blows struck, and the glaivemen run in to help him. Then he had seen no more, but he thought Master Richard had been taken back again to the palace, and heard that he had been sore wounded and beaten, and was not like to live.

I will not tell you, my children, of my ride to London that night, save that I do not think I ceased praying from the instant that I set out to the instant when I came up as the dawn began behind Lambeth House, and we went over in the ferry. I cried in my heart with David, Fili mi, Fili mi; quis mihi tribuat ut ego moriar pro te, fili mi, fili mi? [“My son, my son! Who would grant that I might die for thee, my son, my son?”—2 Kings xviii. 33.] And I prayed two things—that God might forgive me for having allowed the lad to go, and that I might find him alive. More than that I dared not pray, and I know not even now if I should have prayed the first.

It was a wonderful dawn that I saw as I crossed over, with a mist coming up from the water as a promise of great heat, and above it the high roofs and towers like the lovely city of God, and over all the sky was of a golden colour with lines of pearl across it. It comforted me a little that I should come to Master Richard so.

Even at that hour there were many awake. There was one great fellow by the ferry, that was looking across towards the palace; and I think it must have been he who had taken Master Richard over for love of saint Giles and saint Denis, but I did not know that part of the tale at that time, and I never saw him again.

In the court and passages, too, that we went along there were persons going to and fro. One told me afterwards that never had he seen such a movement at that hour since the night that the King’s mother died. They were all waiting for tidings of the lad, and they eyed me very narrowly, and I heard my name run before me as I went.

At the last we came to a great door, and we were let through, and I was in the King’s bed-chamber.

It was a quiet room, and I will describe it to you now, although I saw little of it at that time.

In the centre, with its head against the wall, stood a tall bed, with a canopy over it, and four posts of twisted wood, carved very cunningly with little shields that bore the instruments of our Saviour’s passion. On the tapestry beneath the canopy, above the pillow, were the arms of the King, wrought in blue and red and gold. The hangings on the walls were all of a dark blue, wrought with devices of all kinds, and they were hanged from a ledge of wood beneath the ceiling such as I have never seen before or since. The ceiling was of painted wood, divided into deep squares, and in the centre of each was a coat. The floor was all over rushes, the cleanest and the most fragrant that I have ever smelled. I think that there must have been herbs and bay leaves mixed with them.

I saw all this afterwards, for when I came in the curtains were all drawn against the windows, save against one that let in the cool air from the river and a little pale light of morning, and two candles burned on a table beside the bed. The room was very dark, but I could see that a dozen persons stood against the walls, and one by every door.

But I had no eyes for them, and went quickly across the rushes, and as I came round the foot of the bed, I heard my name whispered again, and the King stood up from where he had been kneeling.

I have already described to you his appearance at that time, so I will say no more here than that he was in all his clothes which were a little disordered, and that his head was bare. He had been weeping, too, for his eyes were red and swollen, and his lips shook as he put out his hand. But he could not speak.

I kneeled down and kissed his hand quickly and stood up immediately. Master Richard who was lying on his left side, turned away from me, so that I could not see his face, but I knew he was not yet dead, else he would have been laid upon his back, but he was as still as death. His head was all in a bandage, except on this side where his long hair hung across his cheek, and his bare arm lay across the rich coverlet, brown to the elbow with his digging, and white as milk at the shoulder.

When I saw that I kneeled down too, and hid my face in my hands, and although I felt the King lay his fingers on my shoulder I could not look up. But it was not all for sorrow that I wept; I was thanking God Almighty who permitted me to see Master Richard alive once more.

I do not know how long it was before I looked up, but all the folks were gone from the room save the King, and Master Blytchett, the physician, who sat on the other side of the bed.

I went round presently to the other side, the King going with me, and there I saw Master Richard’s face. I cannot tell you all that I saw in it, for there are no words that can tell of its peace; his eyes were closed below the little healed scar that he had taken in the monastery, and his lips were open and smiling; they moved two or three times as I looked, as if he were talking with some man, and then they ceased and smiled again. But all was very little, as if the soul were far down in some secret chamber with company that it loved.

I asked presently if he had received his Maker, and the King told me Yes, and shrift too, and anointing—all the night before when he had come to himself for a while and called for a priest. He had spoken my name, too, at that time and they had told him that one was gone to bring me and at that he seemed content.

Master Blytchett told me soon that I could be gone for a while, to take some meat, and that he would send for me if Master Richard awoke. But I said No to that; until the King bade me go, saying that he, too, would remain, and pledging his word that I should be called.

So I went away into a parlour, and washed myself, and took some food, and after a while the old clerk that had written the letter to me, came in and saluted me.

I was desirous to know how all had come about, so we sat there a great while in the window seat, with the door a little open into the bed-chamber, and he told me the tale. I did not speak one word till he had done.

This was how it came about.

Master Richard was sent for from his cell to the parlour of my lord cardinal, but my lord was not ready for him, and he had to stand a great while in the court to wait his pleasure. The rumour ran about as to who it was, and a great number of persons assembled from all parts, some from the palace, and some from the streets. These had so cried out against the young man, that the billmen were sent for from the guard-room to keep him from their violence. This priest had looked out from a window at the noise, and seeing the crowd, had entreated my lord to have the prisoner in without any more delay. So he was brought in, and one was left to keep the little door that led to the privy stairs up which he came.

It was then that this priest had seen him face to face, and I will try to write down his words as he told them me.

“I came into the parlour,” he said, “through the door behind my lord’s chair, as Master Raynal was brought in by the other door.

“I have never seen such a sight, Sir John, as I saw then. He was in his white kirtle only, with the five wounds upon his breast, and he had on his sandals. But his face was as that of a dead man: his eyelids were sunk upon his cheek, and his lips hung open so that I could see his bare teeth.

“There were two men who led him by the arms, and he would have fallen but for their assistance, and I immediately whispered to my lord to let him sit down. But my lord was busy and anxious at that time, for he had but just come from the King, who was no better and would take no meat nor speak at all. So he paid no heed to me, and presently began to ask questions of Master Raynal, urging him to confess what it was that he had done, and threatening him with this and that if he would not speak.

“But Master Raynal did not speak or lift his eyes; it seemed as if he did not hear one word.

“My lord told him presently that if temporal pains did not move him, perhaps, it was that he desired spiritual—for my lord was very angry, and scarce knew what he was saying. But Master Richard made no answer. I will tell you, Sir John, plainly, that I thought he was but a fool to anger my lord so by his silence, for it could not be that he did not hear: my lord bawled loud enough to awaken the dead, and I saw the folk behind, some laughing and some grave.

“It would be full half an hour after noon before my lord had done his questions, and lay back in his chair wrathful at getting no answer, though the men that held Master Raynal shook him from side to side.

“Then it was that the end came.

“I was observing Master Raynal very closely, wondering whether he were mad or deaf, and on a sudden he lifted his eyes, and his lips closed. He appeared to be looking at my lord, but it was another that he saw.

“I cannot describe to you, Sir John, what that change was that came to him, save by saying that I think Lazarus must have looked like that, as he heard our Saviour Christ’s voice calling to him as he lay in the tomb. It was no longer the face of a dead man, but of a living one, and as that change came, I perceived that my lord cardinal had raised himself in his chair, and was staring, I suppose, at the young man too. But I could not take my eyes off Master Raynal’s face.

“Then on a sudden Master Raynal smiled and drew a great breath and cried out. It was but one word; it was the holy Name of JESUS.

“I perceived immediately that my lord cardinal had stood up at that cry, but then he sat down again, and he made a motion with his hand, and the men that held Master Raynal wheeled him about, and they went through the crowd towards the door.

“My lord cardinal turned to me, and I have never seen him so moved, but still he could not speak, and while we looked upon one another there was a great uproar everywhere—in the court and in the palace.

“I stood there, not knowing what to do, and my lord pushed past to the window. He, too, cried out as he looked down, and then ran from the room, and as I was following there broke in one by the door behind the chair.

“‘Where is my lord cardinal?’ he cried; ‘The King has sent for him.’

“Well, the end of the matter was that they brought Master Raynal back again, wounded and battered near to death. The crowd that had been attendant for him had set on him as he came out—they should have sent more bill-men before to keep the road, and the King met him in the way (for he had come to his senses again), and turned as white as ashes once more, crying out that his own craven heart had slain one more [If this king was Henry VI, the reference may be to Joan of Arc. But Henry was only a child at the time of her death. At the best this can be only conjecture.] servant of God, but I know not what he meant by that. Master Raynal was taken to the King’s bed-chamber, and my lord came after. And the King has been with him, praying and moaning ever since.”

Then I put one question to the priest.

“My lord cardinal?” I said.

“No man but the King has seen my lord cardinal since yesterday.”

We sat a while longer in silence, and then Master Blytchett came in to see me.

XIV

OF SIR JOHN’S MEDITATIONS IN WESTMINSTER PALACE

Et existimabam cognoscere hoc: labor est ante me

And i desired that i might know this thing: labour in my sight.-ps. Lxxii. 16.

Master Blytchett told me that Master Richard was still asleep. He had blooded him last night, and reduced the fever, but God only could save his life. For himself, he thought that the young man would die before night, and he did not know whether he would speak again.

I was drawn towards Master Blytchett; he seemed a sour fellow with sweetness beneath; and I love such souls as that. I loved him more than I did the King either at that time or afterward. The King appeared to me at that time a foolish fellow—God forgive me!—for I had not then heard what Master Richard had to say of him; nor that such opinion was to be all part of his passion.

I thanked Master Blytchett for what he had done for my lad; but he burst out upon me.

“I was all against him,” he said, “at the beginning. I thought him a crack-brained fool, and a meddler. But now—” And he would say no more.

It seemed that many were like that at the Court. They were near all against him at first; but when they knew that he was wounded to death; and had heard what the King had said of him; and seen my lord cardinal’s rosy face running with tears of pity and anger as he tore the lad out of their hands; and gossipped a little with the porter of the monastery; and listened to the holy ankret roaring out in his cell against Hierusalem that slew the prophets;—and, most of all, remembered, or told one another of Master Richard’s face as he came out from the privy staircase before he was struck down—like the Melitenses—convertentes se dicebant eum esse deum. [“Changing their minds, they said he was a god” (Acts xxviii. 6.)]

I talked with many that morning (for I could do nothing for my lad), who came in to see one who knew him so well, and had been his friend in the country.

And after dinner my lord cardinal came in to see me, and I was brought back to the parlour.

His ruddy face was all blotched and lined with sorrow or age, and for a while he could say nothing. He went up and down with his sanguine robes flying behind him, and stayed to look out of the window at the boats that went by until I thought that he had forgotten me. And at the last he spoke.

“I do not know what to say to you, Sir John, or what to say to God Almighty on this matter. It appears to me that we have all been blind and deaf adders, and with the venom of adders, too, beneath our tongues—except one or two rude fellows, and my lord King who knew him for a prophet, and the ankret, who tells us we shall all be damned for what we have done, and yourself. There be so many of these wild asses that bray and kick, that when he came we did not distinguish him to be the colt on which our Lord came to town—and now, as it was then, Dominus eum necessarium habet.” [“The Lord hath need of him” (Luke xix. 34.)]

“But I know what I wish to be said to him, though I dare not say it myself, or set eyes on him—and that is that I pray him to forgive us, and to speak our names before the Lord God when he comes before His Majesty.”

“I will tell him that, my lord,” I said softly, for I did not doubt that

Master Richard would speak before he died.

After a while longer my lord cardinal asked how he did, and I told him that he had lain very quiet all day without speaking or moving, and then, for I knew what my lord wanted, I bade him in Jesu’s name to come in and look on him. For a while he would not, and then he came, and knelt down beside the King.

Master Richard was lying now upon his back, with his hands hidden and clasped upon his breast, and his lips were moving a little without sound. I think that he had never had so long and so heavenly a colloquy as he was enjoying then. I do not know whether it were the cardinal’s presence that disturbed him, or whether in that secret place where his soul was retired he heard what had been said by us, but he spoke aloud for the first time that day, and this is what he said:—

“Et dimitte nobis debita nostra; sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.” [“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.”]

I saw my lord’s face go down upon his hands, and the King’s face rise and look at him. And presently my lord went out.

I cannot tell you, my children, how that day passed, for it was like no day that I have ever spent. It appeared to me that there was no time, but that all stood still. Without, the palace was as still as death on the one side—for the King had ordered it so—and on the other there was the noise from the river, little and clear and distinct, of the water washing in the sedges and against the stones, and the cries of the boatmen on the further shore, and the rattle of their oars as they took men across.

Once, as I stood by the window saying my office, a boat went by with folk talking in it, and I heard enough of what they said to know that they were speaking of Master Richard, and I heard one telling the tale to another, and saw him point to the windows of the palace. But when they saw me look out they gave over talking.

A little after the evening bell Master Blytchett took the King out to his supper, and I was left alone with Master Richard, but I knew that there were servants in the passage whom I might call if I needed them.

So I sat down by the pillow and looked at him a great while.

I will tell you, my children, something of what I thought at this time, for it is at such times when the eyes are washed clean by tears that the soul looks out upon truth and sees it as it is. [I have omitted a great number of Sir John’s reflections. Many of them are too trite even for this work, and others are so much confused that it is useless to transcribe them. Sir John seems to have been dearly fond of sermonizing. Even these that I have retained and set within brackets can be omitted in reading by those who prefer to supply their own comment.]….

{I thought of the ironia that marks our Lord’s dealings. Master Richard had come to bring tidings of another’s passion, and he found his own in the bringing of it. It was as when children play at the hanging of a murderer or a thief, and one is set to play the part of prisoner and another to hang him, and then at the end when all is prepared they turn upon the hangman and bid him prepare himself for whipping and death instead of the other, or maybe both are to be hanged. But our Lord is not cruel, like such children, but kind, and I think that He acts so to shew us that life is nothing but a play and a pretence, and that His will must be done, however much we rebel at it. He teaches us, too, that the blows we receive and even death itself are only seeming, though they hurt us at the time, but that we must play in a gallant and merry spirit, and be tender, too, and forgive one another easily, and that He will set all right and allot to each his reward at the end of the playing. And, since it is but a play, we are none of us kings or cardinals or poor men in reality; we are all of us mere children of our Father, and upon one is set a crown for a jest, and another is robed in sanguine, and another in a brown kirtle or a white; and at the end the trinkets are all put back again in the press, ready for another day and other children, and we all go to bed as God made us.

But you must not think, my children, that our life is a little thing because of this; I only mean that one thing is as little and as great as another, and that maids maying in the country are as much about God’s business as kings and cardinals who strive in palaces, and who give to this man a collar of Saint Spirit, and to that man a collar of hemp. It was for this reason, maybe, that our Lord did all things when He was upon earth. He rode upon His colt as a King; He reigned upon the rood; He sat at meat with sinners; He wrought tables and chairs at the carpenter’s; He fashioned sparrows, as some relate, out of clay, and made them fly; and He said that not a sparrow falls without His love and intention; and He did all and said all in the same spirit and mind, and at the end He smiled and put on His crown again, and sat down for ever ad dexteram Dei, that He might let us do the same, and help us by His grace, especially in the sacraments, to be merry and confident. [This is a very puzzling philosophy. It is surely either very profound or very shallow. But it certainly is not cynical. Sir John is incapable of such a feeble emotion as that.]….

This then, too, I thought at that time.

It is marvellous how our Lord sets His seal upon all that we do, if we will but attend to His working, and not think too highly upon what we do ourselves. He had caused Master Richard to wear His five wounds until he loved them, and to set his meat, too, in their order, and then He had bidden His servant tell him that he did not need the piece of linen, for that he should bear the wounds upon his body. And this He fulfilled; for, as Master Blytchett told me, there were neither more nor less than five wounds upon the young man’s body, which he had received from the crowd that set on him, besides the bruises and the stripes. He had caused Master Richard, too, to be haled from judge to judge, as Himself was haled; to be deemed Master by some, and named fool by others; to be borne in a boat by one who loved him; to be arrayed in a white robe to be judged without justice; to be dumb sicut ovis ad occisionem … et quasi agnus coram tondente se [“as a sheep to the slaughter … as a lamb before his shearer” (Is. liii. 7.)], with many other points and marks, besides that which fell afterwards, when a rich man, like him of Arimathy, cared for his burying, and strewed herbs and bay leaves and myrtle upon his body.

There was the matter, too, of the bees that I had seen. [Sir John lays great stress upon the bees; I cannot understand why. He says that they betokened great wealth and happiness.]….

And again there was the matter of the seven days that Master Richard fulfilled from the time of his setting out from his house, to the time that he entered into his heavenly mansion. Seven days are the time of perfection; it was in seven days that God Almighty made the world and all that is in it; there were seven years of famine in Egypt in which Joseph gathered store, and seven years of plenty. [I cannot bring myself to follow Sir John through the whole of the Old and New Testaments.]…. And it was in seven days that Master Richard Raynal completed his course, from the sowing of the wheat and wine on Corpus Xti, to his joyful harvest in heaven….}

I thought, too, at this time of many other things, such as you may suppose—of Master Richard’s little cell in the country which would never see him again (for I did not know at this time what the King intended of his grace), and of the beasts that awaited him so lamentably, and then of this great room hung all over with royalty whither it had pleased God that his darling should come to die. I looked, too, very often upon Master Richard as he lay before me, upon his clean pallour, paler than I had ever seen it, and his slender fingers roughened by the spade, and his strong arm, and his smiling lips, and his closed eyes that looked within upon what I was not worthy to see, and I wondered often what it was that he was saying to our Lord and the blessed, and what they were saying to him, and I prayed that my name might be mentioned amongst them, lest I should be a castaway after all that I had heard and seen.

When it was dark (for I dared not kindle the candles) the King came in again, and as he came in Master Richard spoke my name, and moved his hand towards me on the coverlet.

XV

HOW MASTER RICHARD WENT TO GOD

Transivimus per ignem et aquam: et eduxisti nos in refrigerium.

We have passed through fire and water: and thou hast brought us out into a refreshment.—ps. Lxv. 12.

The King presently kissed Master Richard’s hand and asked his pardon and his prayers, saying that he had known nothing of what went forward during those two days, until the crying of Jesus’ name by Master Richard before the cardinal, but blaming his own craven heart, as he called it.

And when Master Richard had spoken awhile, he asked the King to go out, for that he had much to say to me in secret.

So the King went out very softly, and set other guards at the doors, and we two sat there a long while.

I was astonished at Master Richard’s strength and courage, for he had spoken aloud to the King, but when the King was gone out, he spoke in a lower voice, holding my hand. It was very dark, for he would have no lights, and I could see no more of him but a little of his hair, and the pallour of his face beneath it, until the morn came and the end came.

He told me first of what he had done, and what had been done to him since a week ago, when we had kissed one another at the lych-gate—all as I have told it to you. He talked quietly, as I have said, but he laughed a little now and again, and once or twice his voice trembled with tears as he related our Lord’s loving-kindness to him. (I have never known any man who loved Jesu Christ more than this man loved Him.)

I asked him a few questions, and he answered them, but the effect of all that he said was what I have written down here, and sometimes I have his very words as he spoke them.

At last he came to the end of what he had to say, and began to tell me of the Night of the Soul, and here he talked in a very low voice so that I could scarcely hear what he said, and of what he said I did not understand one half, [I am thankful that Sir John recognized his own limitations.] for it was full of mysteries such as other contemplative souls alone would recognise—for all contemplatives, as you know, relate the same things to one another which they have seen and heard, and the words that each uses the other understands, but other men do not; for they speak of things that they have seen indeed, but for which there are no proper human words, so that they have to do the best that they can.

He told me that the state that I have described to you continued until he came before my lord cardinal, so that although he saw men’s faces and heard their words they were no more to him than shadows and whisperings; for since (as it appeared to him) he had lost God by his own fault there was no longer anything by which he might communicate with man.

Yet all this while there was the conflict of which I have spoken. There was that in him, which we name the Will, which continued tense and strong, striving against despair. Neither his mind nor his heart could help him in that Night; his mind informed him that he had sinned deadly by presumption, his heart found nowhere God to love; and all that, though he told himself that God was loveable, and adorable, and that he could not fall into hell save by his own purpose and intention.

Yet, in spite of all, and when all had failed him, his will strove against despair (which is the antichrist of humility [A curious phrase, and, I think, rather a good one. I suspect it was originally Master Richard’s.]), though he did not recognise until afterwards that he was striving, for he thought himself lost, as I have said.

Then a little after noon, at the time when I saw his image at the door of his cell, stretching himself as if after labour or sleep, he had his release.

Now this is the one matter of which he did not tell me fully, nor would he answer when I asked him except by the words, “Secretum meum mihi.” [“My secret is mine.”] But this I know, that he saw our Lord.

And this I know, too, that with that sight his understanding came back to him, and he perceived for himself that Charity was all. He perceived, also, that he had been striving, and amiss. He had striven to bear his own sins, and for those few hours our Lord had permitted him to bear the weight. He who bears heaven and earth upon His shoulders, and who bore the burden of the sins of the world in the garden and upon the rood, had allowed this sweet soul to feel the weight of his own few little sins for those few hours.

When he saw that he made haste to cast them off again upon Him who alone can carry them and live, and to cry upon His Name; and he understood in that moment, he said, as never before, something of that passion and of the meaning of those five wounds that he had adored so long in ignorance.

But what it was that he saw, and how it was that our Lord shewed Himself, whether on the rood, or as a child with the world in His hands, or as crowned with sharp-thorned roses, or who was with Him, if any were; I do not know. It was then that he said “Secretum mihi.” And when Master Richard had said that, he added “Vere languores nostros ipse tulit; et dolores nostros ipse portavit.” [“Surely He hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows” (Is. liii. 4.)]

He lay silent a good while after that, and I did not speak to him. When he spoke again, it was to bring to my mind the masses that were to be said, and then he spoke of the Quinte Essence, and said that it was to be mine if I wished for it; and all other things of his were to be mine to do as I pleased with them, for he had no kin in the world.

And after he had spoken of these things the King came in timidly from the parlour, and stood by the door; I could see the pallour of his face against the hangings.

“Come in, my lord King,” said Master Richard very faintly. “I have done what was to be done, and there now is nothing but to make an end.”

The King knelt down at the further side of the bed.

“Is it the priest you want, Master Hermit?” he asked.

“Sir John will read the prayers presently,” said Master Richard.

I heard the King swallow in his throat before he spoke again.

“And you will remember us all,” he said, “before God’s Majesty, and in particular my poor soul in its passion.”

“How could I forget that?” asked Master Richard, and by his voice I knew that he laughed merrily to himself.

I asked him whether he would have lights.

“No, my father,” he said, “there will be light enough.”

It would be an hour later, I should suppose, after Master Blytchett was come back, when he put out his hand again, and I knew that he wished for the prayers.

Now there was only starlight, for he would have no candles, and the moon was not yet risen. So I went across to the parlour door, and as I went through I could see that the chamber was full of persons all silent, but it was too dark to see who they were. I asked one for a candle, and presently one was brought, and I saw that my lord cardinal was there, and … and … [The names are omitted as usual. This discreet scribe is very tiresome.] and many others. It was such a death-bed as a king might have.

So I read the appointed prayers, kneeling on my knees in the doorway, and I was answered by those behind me.

When I had done that, I stood up to go back, and my lord cardinal caught me by the sleeve.

“For the love of Jesu,” he said, “ask if we may come in.”

I went back and leaned over Master Richard, taking his hand in my own.

“My lord and the rest desire to come in, my son,” I said. “If they may come, press my hand.”

He pressed my hand, and I spoke in a low voice, bidding them to come in.

So they came in noiselessly, one after another; I could see their faces moving, but no more—my lord cardinal and the great nobles and the grooms and the rest—till the room was half full of them.

The door was put to behind them, but I could see the line of light that shewed it, where the candle burned in the parlour beyond; and I could hear the sound of their breathing and the rustle once and again of their feet upon the rushes.

Then I knelt down, when the others had knelt, and waited for the agony to begin, when I should begin the last commendation.

My children, I have prayed by many death-beds, but I have never seen one like this.

The curtains were wide, and the windows, behind me, that he might have breath to send out his spirit; and without, as I saw when I turned to kneel, the heavens were bright with stars. This was all the light that was in the room; it was no more than dark twilight, and I could see no more of him than what I saw before, the glimmer of his face upon the pillow and his long hair beside it. His fingers were in mine, but they were very cold by now.

But he had said that there would be light enough, and so there was.

It may have been half an hour afterwards that the room began to lighten softly, as the sky brightened at moonrise, and I could see a little more plainly. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be breathing very softly through his lips.

Then the moon rose, and the light lay upon the floor at my side. Then a little after it was upon the fringes of the coverlet, and it crept up moment by moment across the leopards and lilies that were broidered in gold and blue.

At last it lay half across the bed, and I could see the King’s face very pale and melancholy upon the other side, and Master Blytchett a little behind him.

And presently it reached Master Richard’s hand and my own that lay together, but my arm was so numbed that I could feel nothing in it; I could see only that his fingers were in mine.

So the light crept up his arm to the shoulder, and when it reached his face we saw that he was gone to his reward.

XVI

OF HIS BURYING

Quam dilecta tabernacula tua: domine virtutum.

How lovely are thy tabernacles: o lord of

Hosts.—ps. Lxxxiii. 1.

It was upon the next day that we took Master Richard’s body down again to the country, and there was such an attendant company as I should not have thought that all London held.

The King had ordered a great plenty of tapers and hangings and a herse such as is used….

[The MS. ends abruptly at the foot of the page.]

THE KING’S

TRIUMPH

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

AUTHOR OF “BY WHAT AUTHORITY?” “THE LIGHT INVISIBLE,” “A BOOK OF THE LOVE OF JESUS,” ETC.

NON MINUS PRINCIPI TURPIA SUNT MULTA SUPPLICIA, QUAM MEDICO MULTA FUNERA. (SEN. DE CLEM. 1, 24, 1.)

THE CATHOLIC RECTORY, CAMBRIDGE, JULY 14, 1905.

CONTENTS

THE KING’S TRIUMPH

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

A DECISION

CHAPTER II

A FORETASTE OF PEACE

CHAPTER III

THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES

CHAPTER IV

A COMMISSION

CHAPTER V

MASTER MORE

CHAPTER VI

RALPH’S INTERCESSION

CHAPTER VII

A MERRY PRISONER

CHAPTER VIII

A HIGHER STEP

CHAPTER IX

LIFE AT LEWES

CHAPTER X

THE ARENA

CHAPTER XI

A CLOSING-IN

CHAPTER XII

A RECOVERY

CHAPTER XIII

PRISONER AND PRINCE

CHAPTER XIV

THE SACRED PURPLE

CHAPTER XV

THE KING’S FRIEND

BOOK II

PART I

THE SMALLER HOUSES

CHAPTER I

AN ACT OF FAITH

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION

CHAPTER III

A HOUSE OF LADIES

CHAPTER IV

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

CHAPTER V

FATHER AND SON

CHAPTER VI

A NUN’S DEFIANCE

CHAPTER VII

ST PANCRAS PRIORY

CHAPTER VIII

RALPH’S RETURN

CHAPTER IX

RALPH’S WELCOME

PART II

THE FALL OF LEWES

CHAPTER I

INTERNAL DISSENSION

CHAPTER II

SACERDOS IN AETERNUM

CHAPTER III

THE NORTHERN RISING

CHAPTER IV

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL

CHAPTER V

THE SINKING SHIP

CHAPTER VI

THE LAST STAND

CHAPTER VII

AXES AND HAMMERS

BOOK III

THE KING’S GRATITUDE

CHAPTER I

A SCHEME

CHAPTER II

A DUEL

CHAPTER III

A PEACE-MAKER

CHAPTER IV

THE ELDER SON

CHAPTER V

THE MUMMERS

CHAPTER VI

A CATASTROPHE

CHAPTER VII

A QUESTION OF LOYALTY

CHAPTER VIII

TO CHARING

CHAPTER IX

A RELIEF-PARTY

CHAPTER X

PLACENTIA

CHAPTER XI

THE KING’S HIGHNESS

CHAPTER XII

THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER

CHAPTER XIII

THE RELEASE

THE END.

THE KING’S TRIUMPH

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

A DECISION

Overfield Court lay basking in warm June sunshine. The western side of the great house with its new timber and plaster faced the evening sun across the square lawns and high terrace; and the woods a couple of hundred yards away cast long shadows over the gardens that lay beyond the moat. The lawns, in their broad plateaux on the eastern side descended by steps, in cool shadow to the lake that formed a quarter-circle below the south-eastern angle of the house; and the mirrored trees and reeds on the other side were broken, circle after circle, by the great trout that were rising for their evening meal. The tall front of the house on the north, formed by the hall in the centre with the kitchen at its eastern end and the master’s chamber on the western, was faced by a square-towered gatehouse through which the straight drive leading into the main road approached the house under a lime-avenue; and on the south side the ground fell away again rapidly below the chapel and the morning-room, in copse and garden and wild meadow bright with buttercups and ox-eye daisies, down to the lake again and the moat that ran out of it round the entire domain.

The cobbled courtyard in the centre of the house, where the tall leaded pump stood, was full of movement. Half a dozen trunks lay there that had just been carried in from the luggage-horses that were now being led away with patient hanging heads towards the stables that stood outside the gatehouse on the right, and three or four dusty men in livery were talking to the house-servants who had come out of their quarters on the left. From the kitchen corner came a clamour of tongues and dishes, and smoke was rising steadily from the huge outside chimney that rose beyond the roofs.

Presently there came clear and distinct from the direction of the village the throb of hoofs on the hard road; and the men shouldered the trunks, and disappeared, staggering, under the low archway on the right, beside which the lamp extinguisher hung, grimy with smoke and grease. The yard dog came out at the sound of the hoofs, dragging his chain after him, from his kennel beneath the little cloister outside the chapel, barked solemnly once or twice, and having done his duty lay down on the cool stones, head on paws, watching with bright eyes the door that led from the hall into the Court. A moment later the little door from the masters chamber opened; and Sir James Torridon came out and, giving a glance at the disappearing servants, said a word or two to the others, and turned again through the hall to meet his sons.

The coach was coming up the drive round toward the gatehouse, as he came out on the wide paved terrace; and he stood watching the glitter of brasswork through the dust, the four plumed cantering horses in front, and the bobbing heads of the men that rode behind; and there was a grave pleased expectancy on his bearded face and in his bright grey eyes as he looked. His two sons had met at Begham, and were coming home, Ralph from town sites a six months’ absence, and Christopher from Canterbury, where he had been spending a week or two in company with Mr. Carleton, the chaplain of the Court. He was the more pleased as the house had been rather lonely in their absence, since the two daughters were both from home, Mary with her husband, Sir Nicholas Maxwell, over at Great Keynes, and Margaret at her convent education at Rusper: and he himself had had for company his wife alone.

She came out presently as the carriage rolled through the archway, a tall dignified figure of a woman, finely dressed in purple and black, and stood by him, silently, a yard or two away, watching the carriage out of steady black eyes. A moment later the carriage drew up at the steps, and a couple of servants ran down to open the door.

Ralph stepped out first, a tall man like both his parents, with a face and slow gait extraordinarily like his mother’s, and dressed in the same kind of rich splendour, with a short silver-clasped travelling cloak, crimson hose, and plumed felt cap; and his face with its pointed black beard had something of the same steady impassivity in it; he was flicking the dust from his shoulder as he came up the steps on to the terrace.

Christopher followed him, not quite so tall as the other, and a good ten years younger, with the grey eyes of his father, and a little brown beard beginning to sprout on his cheeks and chin.

Ralph turned at the top of the steps

“The bag,” he said shortly; and then turned again to kiss his parents’ hands; as Christopher went back to the carriage, from which the priest was just stepping out. Sir James asked his son about the journey.

“Oh, yes,” he said; and then added, “Christopher was late at Begham.”

“And you are well, my son?” asked his mother, as they turned to walk up to the house.

“Oh, yes!” he said again.

Sir James waited for Christopher and Mr. Carleton, and the three followed the others a few yards behind.

“You saw her?” said his father.

Christopher nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “I must speak to you, sir, before I tell the others.”

“Come to me when you are dressed, then. Supper will be in an hour from now;” and he looked at his son with a kind of sharp expectancy.

The courtyard was empty as they passed through, but half a dozen servants stood crowded in the little flagged passage that led from it into the kitchen, and watched Ralph and his mother with an awed interest as they came out from the hall. Mr. Ralph had come down from the heart of life, as they knew; had been present at the crowning of Anne Boleyn a week before, had mixed with great folks; and what secrets of State might there not be in that little strapped bag that his brother carried behind him?

When the two first had disappeared, the servants broke into talk, and went back to the kitchen.

Lady Torridon, with her elder son and the chaplain, had to wait a few minutes on the dais in the hall an hour later, before the door under the musicians’ gallery opened, and the other two came in from the master’s chamber. Sir James looked a little anxious as he came across the clean strewed rushes, past the table at the lower end where the household sat, but Christopher’s face was bright with excitement. After a word or two of apology they moved to their places. Mr. Carleton said grace, and as they sat down the door behind from the kitchen opened, and the servants came through with the pewter dishes.

Ralph was very silent at first; his mother sat by him almost as silent as himself; the servants sprang about noiseless and eager to wait on him; and Sir James and the chaplain did most of the conversation, pleasant harmless talk about the estate and the tenants; but as supper went on, and the weariness of the hot journey faded, and the talk from the lower tables grew louder, Ralph began to talk a little more freely.

“Yes,” he said, “the crowning went well enough. The people were quiet enough. She looked very pretty in her robes; she was in purple velvet, and her gentlemen in scarlet. We shall have news of her soon.”

Sir James looked up sharply at his son. They were all listening intently; and even a servant behind Ralph’s chair paused with a silver jug.

“Yes,” said Ralph again with a tranquil air, setting down his Venetian glass; “God has blessed the union already.”

“And the King?” asked his father, from his black velvet chair in the centre.

There fell a deeper silence yet as that name was mentioned. Henry dominated the imagination of his subjects to an extraordinary degree, no less in his heavy middle-age than in the magnificent strength and capacity of his youth.

But Ralph answered carelessly enough. He had seen the King too often.

“The King looked pleased enough; he was in his throne. He is stouter than when I saw him last. My Lord of Canterbury did the crowning; Te Deum was sung after, and then solemn mass. There was a dozen abbots, I should think, and my Lords of York and London and Winchester with two or three more. My Lord of Suffolk bore the crown.”

“And the procession?” asked his father again.

“That, too, was well enough. There came four chariots after the Queen, full of ancient old ladies, at which some of the folks laughed. And then the rest of them.”

They talked a few minutes about the coronation, Sir James asking most of the questions and Ralph answering shortly; and presently Christopher broke in—

“And the Lady Katharine—” he began.

“Hush, my son,” said his father, glancing at Ralph, who sat perfectly still a moment before answering.

“Chris is always eager about the wrong thing,” he said evenly; “he is late at Begham, and then asks me about the Princess Dowager. She is still alive, if you mean that.”

Lady Torridon looked from one to the other.

“And Master Cromwell?” she asked.

“Master Cromwell is well enough. He asked me to give you both his respects. I left him at Hackney.”

The tall southern windows of the hall, above the pargetted plaster, had faded through glowing ruby and blue to dusk before they rose from the table and went down and through the passage into the little parlour next the master’s chamber, where they usually took their dessert. This part of the house had been lately re-built, but the old woodwork had been re-used, and the pale oak panels, each crowned by an elaborate foliated head, gave back the pleasant flicker of the fire that burned between the polished sheets of Flemish tiles on either side of the hearth. A great globe stood in the corner furthest from the door, with a map of England hanging above it. A piece of tapestry hung over the mantelpiece, representing Diana bending over Endymion, and two tall candles in brass stands burned beneath. The floor was covered with rushes.

Mr. Carleton, who had come with them as far as the door, according to custom, was on the point of saying-good-night, when Sir James called him back.

“Come in, father,” he said, “we want you to-night. Chris has something to tell us.”

The priest came in and sat down with the others, his face in shadow, at the corner of the hearth.

Sir James looked across at his younger son and nodded; and Chris, his chin on his hand, and sitting very upright on the long-backed settle beside the chaplain, began rather nervously and abruptly.

“I—I have told Ralph,” he said, “on the way here and you, sir; but I will tell you again. You know I was questioning whether I had a vocation to the religious life; and I went, with that in my mind, to see the Holy Maid. We saw her, Mr. Carleton and I; and—and I have made up my mind I must go.”

He stopped, hesitating a little, Ralph and his mother sat perfectly still, without a word or sign of either sympathy or disapproval. His father leaned forward a little, and smiled encouragingly.

“Go on, my son.”

Chris drew a breath and leaned back more easily.

“Well, we went to St. Sepulchre’s; and she could not see us for a day or two. There were several others staying with us at the monastery; there was a Carthusian from Sheen—I forget his name.”

“Henry Man,” put in the chaplain.

“—And some others,” went on Chris, “all waiting to see her. Dr. Bocking promised to tell us when we could see her; and he came to us one morning after mass, and told us that she was in ecstasy, and that we were to come at once. So we all went to the nuns’ chapel, and there she was on her knees, with her arms across her breast.”

He stopped again. Ralph cleared his throat, crossed his legs, and drank a little wine.

“Yes?” said the knight questioningly.

“Well—she said a great deal,” went on Chris hurriedly.

“About the King?” put in his mother who was looking at the fire.

“A little about the King,” said Chris, “and about holy things as well. She spoke about heaven; it was wonderful to hear her; with her eyes burning, and such a voice; and then she spoke low and deep and told us about hell, and the devil and his torments; and I could hardly bear to listen; and she told us about shrift, and what it did for the soul; and the blessed sacrament. The Carthusian put a question or two to her, and she answered them: and all the while she was speaking her voice seemed to come from her body, and not from her mouth; and it was terrible to see her when she spoke of hell; her tongue lay out on her cheek, and her eyes grew little and afraid.”

“Her tongue in her cheek, did you say?” asked Ralph politely, without moving.

Chris flushed, and sat back silent. His father glanced quickly from one to the other.

“Tell us more, Chris,” he said. “What did she say to you?”

The young man leaned forward again.

“I wish, Ralph—” he began.

“I was asking—” began the other.

“There, there,” said Sir James. “Go on, Chris.”

“Well, after a while Dr. Bocking brought me forward; and told her to look at me; and her eyes seemed to see something beyond me; and I was afraid. But he told me to ask her, and I did. She said nothing for a while; and then she began to speak of a great church, as if she saw it; and she saw there was a tower in the middle, and chapels on either side, and tombs beside the high altar; and an image, and then she stopped, and cried out aloud ‘Saint Pancras pray for us’—and then I knew.”

Chris was trembling violently with excitement as he turned to the priest for corroboration. Mr. Carleton nodded once or twice without speaking.

“Then I knew,” went on Chris. “You know it was what I had in my mind; and I had not spoken a word of Lewes, or of my thought of going there.”

“Had you told any?” asked his father.

“Only Dr. Bocking. Then I asked her, was I to go there; but she said nothing for a while; and her eyes wandered about; and she began to speak of black monks going this way and that; and she spoke of a prior, and of his ring; it was of gold, she said, with figures engraved on it. You know the ring the Prior wears?” he added, looking eagerly at his father.

Sir James nodded.

“I know it,” he said. “Well?”

“Well, I asked her again, was I to go there; and then she looked at me up and down; I was in my travelling suit; but she said she saw my cowl and its hanging sleeves, and an antiphoner in my hands; and then her face grew dreadful and afraid again, and she cried out and fell forward; and Dr. Bocking led us out from the chapel.”

There was a long silence as Chris ended and leaned back again, taking up a bunch of raisins. Ralph sighed once as if wearied out, and his mother put her hand on his sleeve. Then at last Sir James spoke.

“You have heard the story,” he said, and then paused; but there was no answer. At last the chaplain spoke from his place.

“It is all as Chris said,” he began, “I was there and heard it. If the woman is not from God, she is one of Satan’s own; and it is hard to think that Satan would tell us of the sacraments and bid us use them greedily, and if she is from God—” he stopped again.

The knight nodded at him.

“And you, sweetheart?” he said to his wife.

She turned to him slowly.

“You know what I think,” she said. “If Chris believes it, he must go, I suppose.”

“And you, Ralph?”

Ralph raised himself in his chair.

“Do you wish me to say what I think?” he asked deliberately, “or what

Chris wishes me to say? I will do either.”

Chris made a quick movement of his head; but his father answered for him.

“We wish you to say what you think,” he said quietly.

“Well, then,” said Ralph, “it is this. I cannot agree with the father. I think the woman is neither of God nor Satan; but that she speaks of her own heart, and of Dr. Bocking’s. I believe they are a couple of knaves—clever knaves, I will grant, though perhaps the woman is something of a fool too; for she deceives persons as wise even as Mr. Carleton here by speaking of shrift and the like; and so she does the priests’ will, and hopes to get gain for them and herself. I am not alone in thinking this—there are many in town who think with me, and holy persons too.”

“Is Master Cromwell one of them?” put in Chris bitterly.

Ralph raised his eyebrows a little.

“There is no use in sneering,” he said, “but Master Cromwell is one of them. I suppose I ought not to speak of this; but I know you will not speak of it again; and I can tell you of my own knowledge that the Holy Maid will not be at St. Sepulchre’s much longer.”

His father leaned forward.

“Do you mean—” he began.

“I mean that His Grace is weary of her prophesyings. It was all very well till she began to meddle with matters of State; but His Grace will have none of that. I can tell you no more. On the other hand if Chris thinks he must be a monk, well and good; I do not think so myself; but that is not my affair; but I hope he will not be a monk only because a knavish woman has put out her tongue at him, and repeated what a knavish priest has put into her mouth. But I suppose he had made up his mind before he asked me.”

“He has made up his mind,” said his father, “and will hold to it unless reason is shown to the contrary; and for myself I think he is right.”

“Very well, then,” said Ralph; and leaned back once more.

The minutes passed away in silence for a while; and then Ralph asked a question or two about his sisters.

“Mary is coming over to hunt to-morrow with her husband,” said Sir James. “I have told Forrest to be here by nine o’clock. Shall you come with us?”

Ralph yawned, and sipped his Bordeaux.

“I do not know,” he said, “I suppose so.”

“And Margaret is at Rusper still,” went on the other. “She will not be here until August.”

“She, too, is thinking of Religion,” put in Lady Torridon impassively.

Ralph looked up lazily.

“Indeed,” he said, “then Mary and I will be the only worldlings.”

“She is very happy with the nuns,” said his father, smiling, “and a worldling can be no more than that; and perhaps not always as much.”

Ralph smiled with one corner of his mouth.

“You are quite right, sir,” he said.

The bell for evening prayers sounded out presently from the turret in the chapel-corner, and the chaplain rose and went out.

“Will you forgive me, sir,” said Ralph, “if I do not come this evening?

I am worn out with travelling. The stay at Begham was very troublesome.”

“Good-night, then, my son. I will send Morris to you immediately.”

“Oh, after prayers,” said Ralph. “I need not deprive God of his prayers too.”

Lady Torridon had gone out silently after the chaplain, and Sir James and Chris walked across the Court together. Overhead the summer night sky was clear and luminous with stars, and the air still and fragrant. There were a few lights here and there round the Court, and the tall chapel windows shone dimly above the little cloister. A link flared steadily on its iron bracket by the door into the hall, and threw waves of flickering ruddy light across the cobble-stones, and the shadow of the tall pump wavered on the further side.

Sir James put his hand tenderly on Chris’ shoulder.

“You must not be angry at Ralph, my son,” he said. “Remember he does not understand.”

“He should not speak like that,” said Chris fiercely. “How dare he do so?”

“Of course he should not; but he does not know that. He thinks he is advising you well. You must let him alone, Chris. You must remember he is almost mad with business. Master Cromwell works him hard.”

The chapel was but dimly lighted as Chris made his way up to the high gallery at the west where he usually knelt. The altar glimmered in the dusk at the further end, and only a couple of candles burned on the priest’s kneeling stool on the south side. The rest was dark, for the house hold knew compline by heart; and even before Chris reached his seat he heard the blessing asked for a quiet night and a perfect end. It was very soothing to him as he leaned over the oak rail and looked down on the dim figures of his parents in their seat at the front, and the heads of the servants below, and listened to the quiet pulsation of those waves of prayer going to and fro in the dusk, beating, as a summer tide at the foot of a cliff against those white steps that rose up to the altar where a single spark winked against the leaded window beneath the silk-shrouded pyx. He had come home full of excitement and joy at his first sight of an ecstatic, and at the message that she had seemed to have for him, and across these heightened perceptions had jarred the impatience of his brother in the inn at Begham and in the carriage on their way home, and above all his sharp criticism and aloofness in the parlour just now. But he became quieter as he knelt now; the bitterness seamed to sink beneath him and to leave him alone in a world of peaceful glory—the world of mystic life to which his face was now set, illuminated by the words of the nun. He had seen one who could see further than he himself; he had looked upon eyes that were fixed on mysteries and realms in which he indeed passionately believed, but which were apt to be faint and formless sometimes to the weary eyes of faith alone; and as a proof that these were more than fancies she had told him too of what he could verify—of the priory at Lewes which she had never visited, and even the details of the ring on the Prior’s finger which he alone of the two had seen. And then lastly she had encouraged him in his desires, had seen him with those same wide eyes in the habit that he longed to wear, going about the psalmody—the great Opus Dei—to which he longed to consecrate his life. If such were not a message from God to him for what further revelation could he hope?

And as for Ralph’s news and interests, of what value were they? Of what importance was it to ask who sat on the Consort’s throne, or whether she wore purple velvet or red? These were little matters compared with those high affairs of the soul and the Eternal God, of which he was already beginning to catch glimpses, and even the whispers that ran about the country places and of which Ralph no doubt could tell him much if he chose, of the danger that threatened the religious houses, and of Henry’s intentions towards them—even these were but impotent cries of the people raging round the throne of the Anointed.

So he knelt here now, pacified and content again, and thought with something of pity of his brother dozing now no doubt before the parlour fire, cramped by his poor ideals and dismally happy in his limitations.

His father, too, was content down below in the chapel. He himself had at one time before his marriage looked towards the religious life; and now that it had turned out otherwise had desired nothing more than that he should be represented in that inner world of God’s favourites by at least one of his children. His daughter Margaret had written a week earlier to say that her mind was turning that way, and now Christopher’s decision had filled up the cup of his desires. To have a priest for a son, and above all one who was a monk as well was more than he had dared to hope, though not to pray for; if he could not be one himself, at least he had begotten one—one who would represent him before God, bring a blessing on the house, and pray and offer sacrifice for his soul until his time should be run out and he see God face to face. And Ralph would represent him before men and carry on the line, and hand on the house to a third generation—Ralph, at whom he had felt so sorely puzzled of late, for he seemed full of objects and ambitions for which the father had very little sympathy, and to have lost almost entirely that delicate relation with home that was at once so indefinable and so real. But he comforted himself by the thought that his elder son was not wholly wasting time as so many of the country squires were doing round about, absorbed in work that a brainless yeoman could do with better success. Ralph at least was occupied with grave matters, in Cromwell’s service and the King’s, and entrusted with high secrets the issue of which both temporal and eternal it was hard to predict. And, no doubt, the knight thought, in time he would come back and pick up the strands he had dropped; for when a man had wife and children of his own to care for, other businesses must seem secondary; and questions that could be ignored before must be faced then.

But he thought with a little anxiety of his wife, and wondered whether his elder son had not after all inherited that kind of dry rot of the soul, in which the sap and vigour disappear little by little, leaving the shape indeed intact but not the powers. When he had married her, thirty-five years before, she had seemed to him an incarnate mystery of whose key he was taking possession—her silence had seemed pregnant with knowledge, and her words precious pieces from an immeasurable treasury; and then little by little he had found that the wide treasury was empty, clean indeed and capacious, but no more, and above all with no promise of any riches as yet unperceived. Those great black eyes, that high forehead, those stately movements, meant nothing; it was a splendid figure with no soul within. She did her duty admirably, she said her prayers, she entertained her guests with the proper conversation, she could be trusted to behave well in any circumstances that called for tact or strength; and that was all. But Ralph would not be like that; he was intensely devoted to his work, and from all accounts able in its performance; and more than that, with all his impassivity he was capable of passion; for his employer Sir Thomas Cromwell was to Ralph’s eyes, his father had begun to see, something almost more than human. A word against that master of his would set his eyes blazing and his voice trembling; and this showed that at least the soul was not more than sleeping, or its powers more than misdirected.

And meanwhile there was Chris; and at the thought the father lifted his eyes to the gallery, and saw the faint outline of his son’s brown head against the whitewash.

CHAPTER II

A FORETASTE OF PEACE

It was not until the party was riding home the next day that Sir

Nicholas Maxwell and his wife were informed of Chris’ decision.

They had had a fair day’s sport in the two estates that marched with one another between Overfield and Great Keynes, and about fifteen stags had been killed as well as a quantity of smaller game.

Ralph had ridden out after the party had left, and had found Sir Nicholas at the close of the afternoon just as the last drive was about to take place; and had stepped into his shelter to watch the finish. It was a still, hot afternoon, and the air over the open space between the copse in which they stood and the dense forest eighty yards away danced in the heat.

Ralph nodded to his brother-in-law, who was flushed and sunburnt, and then stood behind, running his eyes up and down that sturdy figure with the tightly-gaitered legs set well apart and the little feathered cap that moved this way and that as the sportsman peered through the branches before him. Once he turned fierce eyes backwards at the whine of one of the hounds, and then again thrust his hot dripping face into the greenery.

Then very far away came a shout, and a chorus of taps and cries followed it, sounding from a couple of miles away as the beaters after sweeping a wide circle entered the thick undergrowth on the opposite side of the wood. Sir Nicholas’ legs trembled, and he shifted his position a little, half lifting his strong spliced hunting bow as he did so.

For a few minutes there was silence about them except for the distant cries, and once for the stamp of a horse behind them. Then Sir Nicholas made a quick movement, and dropped his hands again; a single rabbit had cantered out from the growth opposite, and sat up with cocked ears staring straight at the deadly shelter. Then another followed; and again in a sudden panic the two little furry bodies whisked back into cover.

Ralph marvelled at this strange passion that could set a reasonable man twitching and panting like the figure in front of him. He himself was a good rider, and a sufficiently keen hunter when his blood was up; but this brother-in-law of his seemed to live for little else. Day after day, as Ralph knew, from the beginning of the season to the end he was out with his men and hounds, and the rest of the year he seemed to spend in talking about the sport, fingering and oiling his weapons through long mornings, and elaborating future campaigns, in which the quarries’ chances should be reduced to a minimum.

On a sudden Sir Nicholas’s figure stiffened and then relaxed. A doe had stepped out noiselessly from the cover, head up and feet close together, sniffing up wind—and they were shooting no does this month. Then again she moved along against the thick undergrowth, stepping delicately and silently, and vanished without a sound a hundred yards along to the left.

The cries and taps were sounding nearer now, and at any moment the game might appear. Sir Nicholas shifted his position again a little, and simultaneously the scolding voice of a blackbird rang out in front, and he stopped again. At the same moment a hare, mad with fright, burst out of the cover, making straight for the shelter. Sir Nicholas’ hands rose, steady now the crisis had come; and Ralph leaning forward touched him on the shoulder and pointed.

A great stag was standing in the green gloom within the wood eighty yards away, with a couple of does at his flank. Then as a shout sounded out near at hand, he bolted towards the shelter in a line that would bring him close to it. Ralph crouched down, for he had left his bow with his man an hour earlier, and one of the hounds gave a stifled yelp as Nicholas straightened himself and threw out his left foot. Either the sound or the movement startled the great brown beast in front, and as the arrow twanged from the string he checked and wheeled round, and went off like the wind, untouched. A furious hiss of the breath broke from Nicholas, and he made a swift sign as he turned to his horse; and in a moment the two lithe hounds had leapt from the shelter and were flying in long noiseless leaps after the disappearing quarry; the does, confused by the change of direction, had whisked back into cover. A moment later Nicholas too was after the hounds, his shoulders working and his head thrust forward, and a stirrup clashed and jingled against the saddle.

Ralph sat down on the ground smiling. It gave him a certain pleasure to see such a complete discomfiture; Nicholas was always so amusingly angry when he failed, and so full of reasons.

The forest was full of noises now; a crowd of starlings were protesting wildly overhead, there were shouts far away and the throb of hoofs, and the ground game was pouring out of the undergrowth and dispersing in all directions. Once a boar ran past, grumbling as he went, turning a wicked and resentful eye on the placid gentleman in green who sat on the ground, but who felt for his long dirk as he saw the fury on the brute’s face and the foam on the tusks. But the pig thought discretion was best, and hurried on complaining. More than one troop of deer flew past, the does gathered round their lord to protect him, all swerving together like a string of geese as they turned the corner of the shelter and caught sight of Ralph; but the beaters were coming out now, whistling and talking as they came, and gathering into groups of two or three on the ground, for the work was done, and it had been hot going.

Mary Maxwell appeared presently on her grey horse, looking slender and dignified in her green riding-suit with the great plume shading her face, and rode up to Ralph whom she had seen earlier in the afternoon.

“My husband?” she enquired looking down at Ralph who was lying with his hat over his eyes.

“He left me just now,” said her brother, “very hot and red, after a stag which he missed. That will mean some conversation to-night, Minnie.”

She smiled down at him.

“I shall agree with him, you know,” she said.

“Of course you will; it is but right. And I suppose I shall too.”

“Will you wait for him? Tell him we are going home by the mill. It is all over now.”

Ralph nodded, and Mary moved off down the glade to join the others.

Ralph began to wonder how Nicholas would take the news of Chris’ decision. Mary, he knew very well, would assent to it quietly as she did to all normal events, even though they were not what she would have wished; and probably her husband would assent too, for he had a great respect for a churchman. For himself his opinions were divided and he scarcely knew what he thought. From the temporal point of view Chris’ step would be an advantage to him, for the vow of poverty would put an end to any claims upon the estate on the part of the younger son; but Ralph was sufficiently generous not to pay much attention to this. From the social point of view, no great difference would be made; it was as respectable to have a monk for a brother as a small squire, and Chris could never be more than this unless he made a good marriage. From the spiritual point of view—and here Ralph stopped and wondered whether it was very seriously worth considering. It was the normal thing of course to believe in the sublimity of the religious life and its peculiar dignity; but the new learning was beginning to put questions on the subject that had very considerably affected the normal view in Ralph’s eyes. In that section of society where new ideas are generated and to which Ralph himself belonged, there were very odd tales being told; and it was beginning to be thought possible that monasticism had over-reached itself, and that in trying to convert the world it had itself been converted by the world. Ralph was proud enough of the honour of his family to wonder whether it was an unmixed gain that his own brother should join such ranks as these. And lastly there were the facts that he had learnt from his association with Cromwell that made him hesitate more than ever in giving Chris his sympathy. He had been thinking these points over in the parlour the night before when the others had left him, and during the day in the intervals of the sport; and he was beginning to come to the conclusion that all things considered he had better just acquiesce in the situation, and neither praise nor blame overmuch.

It was a sleepy afternoon. The servants had all gone by now, and the horn-blowings and noises had died away in the direction of the mill; there was no leisure for stags to bray, as they crouched now far away in the bracken, listening large-eyed and trumpet-eared for the sounds of pursuit; only the hum of insect life in the hot evening sunshine filled the air; and Ralph began to fall asleep, his back against a fallen trunk.

Then he suddenly awakened and saw his brother-in-law, black against the sky, looking down at him, from the saddle.

“Well?” said Ralph, not moving.

Nicholas began to explain. There were a hundred reasons, it seemed, for his coming home empty-handed; and where were his men?

“They are all gone home,” said Ralph, getting up and stretching himself.

“I waited for you It is all over.”

“You understand,” said Nicholas, putting his horse into motion, and beginning to explain all over again, “you understand that it had not been for that foul hound yelping, I should have had him here. I never miss such a shot; and then when we went after him—”

“I understand perfectly, Nick,” said Ralph. “You missed him because you did not shoot straight, and you did not catch him because you did not go fast enough. A lawyer could say no more.”

Nicholas threw back his head and laughed loudly, for the two were good friends.

“Well, if you will have it,” he said, “I was a damned fool. There! A lawyer dare not say as much—not to me, at any rate.”

Ralph found his man half a mile further on coming to meet him with his horse, and he mounted and rode on with Nicholas towards the mill.

“I have something to tell you,” he said presently. “Chris is to be a monk.”

“Mother of God!” cried Nicholas, half checking his horse, “and when was that arranged?”

“Last night,” went on Ralph. “He went to see the Holy Maid at St. Sepulchre’s, and it seems that she told him he had a vocation; so there is an end of it.”

“And what do you all think of it?” asked the other.

“Oh! I suppose he knows his business.”

Nicholas asked a number of questions, and was informed that Chris proposed to go to Lewes in a month’s time. He was already twenty-three, the Prior had given his conditional consent before, and there was no need for waiting. Yes, they were Cluniacs; but Ralph believed that they were far from strict just at present. It need not be the end of Chris so far as this world was concerned.

“But you must not say that to him,” he went on, “he thinks it is heaven itself between four walls, and we shall have a great scene of farewell. I think I must go back to town before it takes place: I cannot do that kind of thing.”

Nicholas was not attending, and rode on in silence for a few yards, sucking in his lower lip.

“We are lucky fellows, you and I,” he said at last, “to have a monk to pray for us.”

Ralph glanced at him, for he was perfectly grave, and a rather intent and awed look was in his eyes.

“I think a deal of that,” he went on, “though I cannot talk to a churchman as I should. I had a terrible time with my Lord of Canterbury last year, at Otford. He was not a hunter like this one, and I knew not what else to speak of.”

Ralph’s eyes narrowed with amusement.

“What did you say to him?” he asked.

“I forget,” said Nicholas, “and I hope my lord did. Mary told me I behaved like a fool. But this one is better. I hear. He is at Ashford now with his hounds.”

They talked a little more about Chris, and Ralph soon saw on which side Nicholas ranged himself. It was an unfeigned pleasure to this hunting squire to have a monk for a brother-in-law; there was no knowing how short purgatory might not be for them all under the circumstances.

It was evident, too, when they came up with the others a couple of miles further on, that Nicholas’s attitude towards the young man had undergone a change. He looked at him with a deep respect, refrained from criticising his bloodless hands, and was soon riding on in front beside him, talking eagerly and deferentially, while Ralph followed with Mary and his father.

“You have heard?” he said to her presently.

“Father has just told me,” she said. “We are very much pleased—dear

Chris!”

“And then there is Meg,” put in her father.

“Oh! Meg; yes, I knew she would. She is made for a nun.”

Sir James edged his horse in presently close to Ralph, as Mary went in front through a narrow opening in the wood.

“Be good to him,” he said. “He thinks so much of you.”

Ralph glanced up and smiled into the tender keen eyes that were looking into his own.

“Why, of course, sir,” he said.

It was an immense pleasure to Chris to notice the difference in Nicholas’s behaviour towards him. There was none of that loud and cheerful rallying that stood for humour, no criticisms of his riding or his costume. The squire asked him a hundred questions, almost nervously, about the Holy Maid and himself, and what had passed between them.

“They say the Host was carried to her through the air from Calais,

Chris, when the King was there. Did you hear her speak of that?”

Chris shook his head.

“There was not time,” he said.

“And then there was the matter of the divorce—” Nicholas turned his head slightly; “Ralph cannot hear us, can he? Well—the matter of the divorce—I hear she denounced that, and would have none of it, and has written to the Pope, too.”

“They were saying something of the kind,” said Chris, “but I thought it best not to meddle.”

“And what did she say to you?”

Chris told him the story, and Nicholas’s eyes grew round and fixed as he listened; his mouth was a little open, and he murmured inarticulate comments as they rode together up from the mill.

“Lord!” he said at last, “and she said all that about hell. God save us! And her tongue out of her mouth all the while! And did you see anything yourself? No devils or angels?”

“I saw nothing,” said Chris. “I just listened, but she saw them.”

“Lord!” said Nicholas again, and rode on in profound silence.

The Maxwells were to stay to supper at the Court; and drive home afterwards; so there was no opportunity for Chris to go down and bathe in the lake as he usually did in summer after a day’s hunting, for supper was at seven o’clock, and he had scarcely more than time to dress.

Nicholas was very talkative at supper, and poured out all that Chris had told him, with his usual lack of discretion; for the other had already told the others once all the details that he thought would interest them.

“They were talking about the divorce,” he broke out, and then stopped and eyed Ralph craftily; “but I had better not speak of that here—eh, Chris?”

Ralph looked blandly at his plate.

“Chris did not mention that,” he said. “Tell us, Nick.”

“No, no,” cried Nicholas. “I do not want you to go with tales to town. Your ears are too quick, my friend. Then there was that about the Host flying from Calais, eh, Chris? No, no; you said you had heard nothing of that.”

Chris looked up and his face was a little flushed.

“No, Nick,” he said.

“There seems to have been a great deal that Chris did not tell us—” began Ralph.

Sir James glanced swiftly from his seat under the canopy.

“He told us all that was needed,” he said.

“Aha!” broke out Nicholas again, “but the Holy Maid said that the King would not live six months if he—”

Chris’s face was full of despair and misery, and his father interrupted once more.

“We had better not speak of that, my son,” he said to Nicholas. “It is best to leave such things alone.”

Ralph was smiling broadly with tight lips by now.

“By my soul, Nick, you are the maddest wind-bag I have ever heard. All our heads might go for what you have said to-night. Thank God the servants are gone.”

“Nick,” cried Mary imploringly, “do hold your tongue.”

Lady Torridon looked from one to the other with serene amusement, and there was an odd pause such as generally fell when she showed signs of speaking. Her lips moved but she said nothing, and ran her eyes over the silver flagons before her.

When the Maxwells had gone at last, and prayers were over, Chris slipped across the Court with a towel, and went up to the priest’s room over the sacristy. Mr. Carleton looked up from his lamp and rose.

“Yes, Chris,” he said, “I will come. The moon will be up soon.”

They went down together through the sacristy door on to the level plateaux of lawns that stretched step after step down to the dark lake. The sky was ablaze with stars, and in the East there was a growing light in the quarter where the moon was at its rising. The woods beyond the water were blotted masses against the sky; and the air was full of the rich fragrance of the summer night. The two said very little, and the priest stopped on the bank as Chris stepped out along the little boarded pier that ran out among the rushes into deep water. There was a scurry and a cry, and a moor-hen dashed out from under cover, and sped across the pond, scattering the silver points that hung there motionless, reflected from the heaven overhead.

Chris was soon ready, and stood there a moment, a pale figure in the gloom, watching the shining dots rock back again in the ripples to motionlessness. Then he lifted his hands and plunged.

It seemed to him, as he rose to the surface again, as if he were swimming between two sides. As he moved softly out across the middle, and a little ripple moved before him, the water was invisible. There was only a fathomless gulf, as deep below as the sky was high above, pricked with stars. As he turned his head this way and that the great trees, high overhead, seemed less real than those two immeasurable spaces above and beneath. There was a dead silence everywhere, only broken by the faint suck of the water over his shoulder, and an indescribably sweet coolness that thrilled him like a strain of music. Under its influence, again, as last night, the tangible, irritating world seemed to sink out of his soul; here he was, a living creature alone in a great silence with God, and nothing else was of any importance.

He turned on his back, and there was the dark figure on the bank watching him, and above it the great towered house, with its half-dozen lighted windows along its eastern side, telling him of the world of men and passion.

“Look,” came the priest’s voice, and he turned again, and over the further bank, between two tall trees, shone a great silver rim of the rising moon. A path of glory was struck now across the black water, and he pleased himself by travelling up it towards the remote splendour, noticing as he went how shadows had sprung into being in that moment, and how the same light that made the glory made the dark as well. His soul seemed to emerge a stage higher yet from the limits in which the hot day and the shouting and the horns and the crowded woods had fettered it. How remote and little seemed Ralph’s sneers and Nicholas’s indiscretions and Mary’s pity! Here he moved round in a cooler and serener mood. That keen mood, whether physical or spiritual he did not care to ask, made him inarticulate as he walked up with the priest ten minutes later. But Mr. Carleton seemed to understand.

“There are some things besides the divorce best not talked about,” he said, “and I think bathing by starlight is one of them.”

They passed under the chapel window presently, and Chris noticed with an odd sensation of pleasure the little translucent patch of colour between the slender mullions thrown by the lamp within—a kind of reflex or anti-type of the broad light shining over the water.

“Come up for a while,” went on the priest, as they reached the side-entrance, “if you are not too tired.”

The two went through the sacristy-door, locking it behind them, and up the winding stairs in the turret at the corner to the priest’s chamber. Chris threw himself down, relaxed and happy, in the tall chair by the window, where he could look out and see the moon, clear of the trees now, riding high in heaven.

“That was a pity at supper,” said the priest presently, as he sat at the table. “I love Sir Nicholas and think him a good Christian, but he is scarcely a discreet one.”

“Tell me, father,” broke out Chris, “what is going to happen?”

Mr. Carleton looked at him smiling. He had a pleasant ugly face, with little kind eyes and sensitive mouth.

“You must ask Mr. Ralph,” he said, “or rather you must not. But he knows more than any of us.”

“I wish he would not speak like that.”

“Dear lad,” said the priest, “you must not feel it like that. Remember our Lord bore contempt as well as pain.”

There was silence a moment, and then Chris began again. “Tell me about

Lewes, father. What will it be like?”

“It will be bitterly hard,” said the priest deliberately. “Christ Church was too bitter for me, as you know. I came out after six months, and the Cluniacs are harder. I do not know if I lost my vocation or found it; but I am not the man to advise you in either case.”

“Ralph thinks it is easy enough. He told me last night in the carriage that I need not trouble myself, and that monks had a very pleasant time. He began to tell me some tale about Glastonbury, but I would not hear it.”

“Ah,” said the chaplain regretfully, “the world’s standard for monks is always high. But you will find it hard enough, especially in the first year. But, as I said, I am not the man to advise you—I failed.”

Chris looked at him with something of pity in his heart, as the priest fingered the iron pen on the table, and stared with pursed lips and frowning forehead. The chaplain was extraordinarily silent in public, just carrying on sufficient conversation not to be peculiar or to seem morose, but he spoke more freely to Chris, and would often spend an hour or two in mysterious talk with Sir James. Chris’s father had a very marked respect for the priest, and had had more than one sharp word with his wife, ten years before when he had first come to the house, and had found Lady Torridon prepared to treat her chaplain with the kind of respect that she gave to her butler. But the chaplain’s position was secured by now, owing in a large measure to his own tact and unobtrusiveness, and he went about the house a quiet, sedate figure of considerable dignity and impressiveness, performing his duties punctually and keeping his counsel. He had been tutor to both the sons for a while, to Ralph only for a few months, but to Chris since his twelfth birthday, and the latter had formed with him a kind of peaceful confederacy, often looking in on him at unusual hours, always finding him genial, although very rarely confidential. It was to Mr. Carleton, too, that Chris owed his first drawings to the mystical life of prayer; there was a shelf of little books in the corner by the window of the priest’s room, from which he would read to the boy aloud, first translating them into English as he went, and then, as studies progressed, reading the Latin as it stood; and that mysteriously fascinating world in which great souls saw and heard eternal things and talked familiarly with the Saviour and His Blessed Mother had first dawned on the boy there. New little books, too, appeared from time to time, and the volumes had overflowed their original home; and from that fact Christopher gathered that the priest, though he had left the external life of Religion, still followed after the elusive spirit that was its soul.

“But tell me,” he said again, as the priest laid the pen down and sat back in his chair, crossing his buckled feet beneath the cassock; “tell me, why is it so hard? I am not afraid of the discipline or the food.”

“It is the silence,” said the priest, looking at him.

“I love silence,” said Chris eagerly.

“Yes, you love an hour or two, or there would be no hope of a vocation for you. But I do not think you will love a year. However, I may be wrong. But it is the day after day that is difficult. And there is no relaxation; not even in the infirmary. You will have to learn signs in your novitiate; that is almost the first exercise.”

The priest got up and fetched a little book from the corner cupboard.

“Listen,” he said, and then began to read aloud the instructions laid down for the sign-language of novices; how they were to make a circle in the air for bread since it was round, a motion of drinking for water, and so forth.

“You see,” he said, “you are not even allowed to speak when you ask for necessaries. And, you know, silence has its peculiar temptations as well as its joys. There is accidie and scrupulousness and contempt of others, and a host of snares that you know little of now.”

“But—” began Chris.

“Oh, yes; it has its joys, and gives a peculiar strength.”

Chris knew, of course, well enough by now in an abstract way what the Religious discipline would mean, but he wished to have it made more concrete by examples, and he sat long with the chaplain asking him questions. Mr. Carleton had been, as he said, in the novitiate at Canterbury for a few months, and was able to tell him a good deal about the life there; but the differences between the Augustinians and the Cluniacs made it impossible for him to go with any minuteness into the life of the Priory at Lewes. He warned him, however, of the tendency that every soul found in silence to think itself different from others, and of so peculiar a constitution that ordinary rules did not apply to it. He laid so much stress on this that the other was astonished.

“But it is true,” said Chris, “no two souls are the same.”

The priest smiled.

“Yes, that is true, too; no two sheep are the same, but the sheep nature is one, and you will have to learn that for yourself. A Religious rule is drawn up for many, not for one; and each must learn to conform himself. It was through that I failed myself; I remembered that I was different from others, and forgot that I was the same.”

Mr. Carleton seemed to take a kind of melancholy pleasure in returning to what he considered his own failure, and Chris began to wonder whether the thought of it was not the secret of that slight indication to moroseness that he had noticed in him.

The moon was high and clear by now, and Chris often leaned his cheek on the sash as the priest talked, and watched that steady shining shield go up the sky, and the familiar view of lawns and water and trees, ghostly and mystical now in the pale light.

The Court was silent as he passed through it near midnight, as the household had been long in bed; the flaring link had been extinguished two hours before, and the shadows of the tall chimneys lay black and precise at his feet across the great whiteness on the western side of the yard. Again the sense of the smallness of himself and his surroundings, of the vastness of all else, poured over his soul; these little piled bricks and stones, the lawns and woods round about, even England and the world itself, he thought, as his mind shot out towards the stars and the unfathomable spaces—all these were but very tiny things, negligeable quantities, when he looked at them in the eternal light. It was this thought, after all, that was calling him out of the world, and had been calling him fitfully ever since his soul awoke eight years ago, and knew herself and her God: and his heart expanded and grew tremulous as he remembered once more that his vocation had been sealed by a divine messenger, and that he would soon be gone out of this little cell into the wide silent liberty of the most dear children of God.

CHAPTER III

THE ARRIVAL AT LEWES

Ralph relented as the month drew on, and was among those who wished Chris good-bye on the afternoon of the July day on which he was to present himself at Lewes. The servants were all drawn up at the back of the terrace against the hall, watching Ralph, even more than his departing brother, with the fascinated interest that the discreet and dignified friend of Cromwell always commanded. Ralph was at his best on such occasions, genial and natural, and showed a pleasing interest in the girths of the two horses, and the exact strapping of the couple of bags that Chris was to take with him. His own man, too, Mr. Morris, who had been with him ever since he had come to London, was to ride with Chris, at his master’s express wish; stay with him in the guest-house that night, and return with the two horses and a precise report the next morning.

“You have the hares for my Lord Prior,” he said impressively, looking at the game that was hanging head downwards from the servant’s saddle. “Tell him that they were killed on Tuesday.”

Sir James and his younger son were walking together a few yards away in deep talk; and Lady Torridon had caused a chair to be set for her at the top of the terrace steps where she could at once do her duty as a mother, and be moderately comfortable at the same time. She hardly spoke at all, but looked gravely with her enigmatic black eyes at the horses’ legs and the luggage, and once held up her hand to silence a small dog that had begun to yelp with excitement.

“They must be going,” said Ralph, when all was ready; and at the same moment Chris and his father came up, Sir James’s arm thrown over his son’s shoulders.

The farewells were very short; it was impossible to indulge in sentiment in the genial business-atmosphere generated by Ralph, and a minute later Chris was mounted. Sir James said no more, but stood a little apart looking at his son. Lady Torridon smiled rather pleasantly and nodded her head two or three times, and Ralph, with Mr. Carleton, stood on the gravel below, his hand on Chris’s crupper, smiling up at him.

“Good-bye, Chris,” he said, and added with an unusual piety, “God keep you!”

As the two horses passed through the gatehouse, Chris turned once again with swimming eyes, and saw the group a little re-arranged. Sir James and Ralph were standing together, Ralph’s arm thrust through his father’s; Mr. Carleton was still on the gravel, and Lady Torridon was walking very deliberately back to the house.

The distance to Lewes was about fourteen miles, and it was not until they had travelled some two of them, and had struck off towards Burgess Hill that Chris turned his head for Mr. Morris to come up.

It was very strange to him to ride through that familiar country, where he had ridden hundreds of times before, and to know that this was probably the last time that he would pass along those lanes, at least under the same circumstances. It had the same effect on him, as a death in the house would have; the familiar things were the same, but they wore a new and strange significance. The few men and children he passed saluted him deferentially as usual, and then turned fifty yards further on and stared at the young gentleman who, as they knew, was riding off on such an errand, and with such grave looks.

Mr. Morris came up with an eager respectfulness at Chris’s sign, keeping a yard or two away lest the swinging luggage on his own horse should discompose the master, and answered a formal question or two about the roads and the bags, which Chris put to him as a gambit of conversation. The servant was clever and well trained, and knew how to modulate his attitude to the precise degree of deference due to his master and his master’s relations; he had entered Ralph’s service from Cromwell’s own eight years before. He liked nothing better than to talk of London and his experiences there, and selected with considerable skill the topics that he knew would please in each case. Now he was soon deep on the subject of Wolsey, pausing respectfully now and again for corroboration, or to ask a question the answer to which he knew a good deal better than Chris himself.

“I understand, sir, that the Lord Cardinal had a wonderful deal of furniture at York House: I saw some of it at Master Cromwell’s; his grace sent it to him, at least, so I heard. Is that so, sir?”

Chris said he did not know.

“Well, I believe it was so, sir; there was a chair there, set with agates and pearl, that I think I heard Mr. Ralph say had come from there. Did you ever see my lord, sir?”

Chris said he had seen him once in a narrow street at Westminster, but the crowd was so great he could not get near.

“Ah! sir; then you never saw him go in state. I remember once seeing him, sir, going down to Hampton Court, with his gentlemen bearing the silver pillars before him, and the two priests with crosses. What might the pillars mean, sir?”

Again Chris confessed he did not know.

“Ah, sir!” said Morris reflectively, as if he had received a satisfactory answer. “And there was his saddle, Mr. Christopher, with silver-gilt stirrups, and red velvet, set on my lord’s mule. And there was the Red Hat borne in front by another gentleman. At mass, too, he would be served by none under the rank of an earl; and I heard that he would have a duke sometimes for his lavabo. I heard Mr. Ralph say that there was more than a hundred and fifty carts that went with the Lord Cardinal up to Cawood, and that was after the King’s grace had broken with him, sir; and he was counted a poor man.”

Chris asked what was in the carts.

“Just his stuff, sir,” said Mr. Morris reverentially.

The servant seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in recounting these glories, but was most discreet about the political aspects of Wolsey, although Chris tried hard to get him to speak, and he would neither praise nor blame the fallen prelate; he was more frank, however, about Campeggio, who as an Italian, was a less dangerous target.

“He was not a good man, I fear, Mr. Christopher. They told some very queer tales of him when he was over here. But he could ride, sir, Master Maxwell’s man told me, near as well as my Lord of Canterbury himself. You know they say, sir, that the Archbishop can ride horses that none of his grooms can manage. But I never liked to think that a foreigner was to be sent over to do our business for us, and more than ever not such an one as that.”

He proceeded to talk a good deal about Campeggio; his red silk and his lace, his gout, his servants, his un-English ways; but it began to get a little tiresome to Chris, and soon after passing through Ditchling, Mr. Morris, having pointed across the country towards Fatton Hovel, and having spoken of the ghost of a cow that was seen there with two heads, one black and one white, fell gradually behind again, and Chris rode alone.

They were coming up now towards the downs, and the great rounded green shoulders heaved high against the sky, gashed here and there by white strips and patches where the chalk glared in the bright afternoon sun. Ditchling beacon rose to their right, a hundred feet higher than the surrounding hills, and the high country sloped away from it parallel with their road, down to Lewes. The shadows were beginning to lie eastwards and to lengthen in long blue hollows and streaks against the clear green turf.

Chris wondered when he would see that side of the downs again; his ride was like a kind of farewell progress, and all that he looked on was dearer than it had ever been before, but he comforted himself by the thought of that larger world, so bright with revelation and so enchanting in its mystery that lay before him. He pleased himself by picturing this last journey as a ride through an overhung lane, beautiful indeed, but dusky, towards shining gates beyond which lay great tracts of country set with palaces alive with wonderful presences, and watered by the very river of life.

He did not catch sight of Lewes until he was close upon it, and it suddenly opened out beneath him, with its crowded roofs pricked by a dozen spires, the Norman castle on its twin mounds towering to his left, a silver gleam of the Ouse here and there between the plaster and timber houses as the river wound beneath its bridges, and beyond all the vast masses of the Priory straight in front of him to the South of the town, the church in front with its tall central tower, a huddle of convent roofs behind, all white against the rich meadows that lay beyond the stream.

Mr. Morris came up as Chris checked his horse here.

“See, Mr. Christopher,” he said, and the other turned to see the town gallows on the right of the road, not fifty yards away, with a ragged shape or two hanging there, and a great bird rising heavily and winging its way into the west. Mr. Morris’s face bore a look of judicial satisfaction.

“We are making a sweep of them,” he said, and as a terrible figure, all rags and sores, with blind red eyes and toothless mouth rose croaking and entreating from the ditch by the road, the servant pointed with tight lips and solemn eyes to Hangman’s Acre. Chris fumbled in his purse, threw a couple of groats on to the ground, and rode on down the hill.

His heart was beating fast as he went down Westgate Lane into the High Street, and it quickened yet further as the great bells in the Priory church began to jangle; for it was close on vesper time, and instinctively he shook his reins to hasten his beast, who was picking his way delicately through the filth and tumbled stones that lay everywhere, for the melodious roar seemed to be bidding him haste and be welcome. Mr. Morris was close beside him, and remarked on this and that as they went, the spire of St. Ann’s away to the right, with St. Pancras’s Bridge, a swinging sign over an inn with Queen Katharine’s face erased, but plainly visible under Ann Boleyn’s, the tall mound beyond the Priory crowned by a Calvary, and the roof of the famous dove-cote of the Priory, a great cruciform structure with over two thousand cells. But Christopher knew it all better than the servant, and paid little attention, and besides, his excitement was running too high. They came down at last through Antioch Street, Puddingbag Lane, and across the dry bed of the Winterbourne, and the gateway was before them.

The bells had ceased by now, after a final stroke. Mr. Morris sprang off his horse, and drew on the chain that hung by the smaller of the two doors. There was a sound of footsteps and a face looked out from the grating. The servant said a word or two; the face disappeared, and a moment later there was the turning of a key, and one leaf of the horse-entrance rolled back. Chris touched his beast with his heel, passed through on to the paved floor, and sat smiling and flushed, looking down at the old lay-brother, who beamed up at him pleasantly and told him he was expected.

Chris dismounted at once, telling the servant to take the horses round to the stables on the right, and himself went across the open court towards the west end of the church, that rose above him fifty feet into the clear evening air, faced with marble about the two doors, and crowned by the western tower and the high central spire beyond where the bells hung. On the right lay the long low wall of the Cellarer’s offices, with the kitchen jutting out at the lower end, and the high-pitched refectory roof above and beyond it. The church was full of golden light as he entered, darkening to dusk in the chapels on either side, pricked with lights here and there that burned before the images, and giving an impression of immense height owing to its narrowness and its length. The air was full of rolling sound, sonorous and full, that echoed in the two high vaults on this side and that of the high altar, was caught in the double transepts, and lost in the chapels that opened in a corona of carved work at the further end, for the monks were busy at the Opus Dei, and the psalms rocked from side to side, as if the nave were indeed a great ship ploughing its way to the kingdom of heaven.

There were a few seats at the western end, and into one of these Christopher found his way, signing himself first from the stoup at the door, and inclining before he went in. Then he leaned his chin on his hands and looked eagerly.

It was difficult to make out details clearly at the further end, for the church was poorly lighted, and there was no western window; the glare from the white roads, too, along which he had come still dazzled him, but little by little, helped by his own knowledge of the place, he began to see more clearly.

High above him ran the lines of the clerestory, resting on the rounded Norman arches, broken by the beam that held the mighty rood, with the figures of St. Mary and St. John on either side; and beyond, yet higher, on this side of the high altar, rose the lofty air of the vault ninety feet above the pavement. To left and right opened the two western transepts, and from where he knelt he could make out the altar of St. Martin in the further one, with its apse behind. The image of St. Pancras himself stood against a pillar with the light from the lamp beneath flickering against his feet. But Christopher’s eyes soon came back to the centre, beyond the screen, where a row of blackness on either side in the stalls, marked where the monks rested back, and where he would soon be resting with them. There were candles lighted at sparse intervals along the book-rests, that shone up into the faces bent down over the wide pages beneath; and beyond all rose the altar with two steady flames crowning it against the shining halpas behind that cut it off from the four groups of slender carved columns that divided the five chapels at the extreme east. Half-a-dozen figures sat about the nave, and Christopher noticed an old man, his white hair falling to his shoulders, two seats in front, beginning to nod gently with sleep as the soft heavy waves of melody poured down, lulling him.

He began now to catch the words, as his ears grew accustomed to the sound, and he, too, sat back to listen.

“Fiat pax in virtute tua: et abundantia in turribus tuis;” “Propter fratres meos et proximos meos:” came back the answer, “loquebar pacem de te.” And once more: “Propter domum Domini Dei nostri: quaesivi bona tibi.”

Then there was a soft clattering roar as the monks rose to their feet, and in double volume from the bent heads sounded out the Gloria Patri.

It was overwhelming to the young man to hear the melodious tumult of praise, and to remember that in less than a week he would be standing there among the novices and adding his voice. It seemed to him as if he had already come into the heart of life that he had felt pulsating round him as he swam in the starlight a month before. It was this that was reality, and the rest illusion. Here was the end for which man was made, the direct praise of God; here were living souls eager and alert on the business of their existence, building up with vibration after vibration the eternal temple of glory in which God dwelt. Once he began to sing, and then stopped. He would be silent here until his voice had been authorized to join in that consecrated offering.

He waited until all was over, and the two lines of black figures had passed out southwards, and the sacristan was going round putting out the lights; and then he too rose and went out, thrilled and excited, into the gathering twilight, as the bell for supper began to sound out from the refectory tower.

He found Mr. Morris waiting for him at the entrance to the guest-house, and the two went up the stairs at the porter’s directions into the parlour that looked out over the irregular court towards the church and convent.

Christopher sat down in the window seat.

Over the roofs opposite the sky was still tender and luminous, with rosy light from the west, and a little troop of pigeons were wheeling over the church in their last flight before returning home to their huge dwelling down by the stream. The porter had gone a few minutes before, and Christopher presently saw him returning with Dom Anthony Marks, the guest-master, whom he had got to know very well on former visits. In a fit of shyness he drew back from the window, and stood up, nervous and trembling, and a moment later heard steps on the stairs. Mr. Morris had slipped out, and now stood in the passage, and Chris saw him bowing with a nicely calculated mixture of humility and independence. Then a black figure appeared in the doorway, and came briskly through.

“My dear Chris,” he said warmly, holding out his hands, and Chris took them, still trembling and excited.

They sat down together in the window-seat, and the monk opened the casement and threw it open, for the atmosphere was a little heavy, and then flung his arm out over the sill and crossed his feet, as if he had an hour at his disposal. Chris had noticed before that extraordinary appearance of ease and leisure in such monks, and it imperceptibly soothed him. Neither would Dom Anthony speak on technical matters, but discoursed pleasantly about the party at Overfield Court and the beauty of the roads between there and Lewes, as if Chris were only come to pay a passing visit.

“Your horses are happy enough,” he said. “We had a load of fresh beans sent in to-day. And you, Chris, are you hungry? Supper will be here immediately. Brother James told the guest-cook as soon as you came.”

He seemed to want no answer, but talked on genially and restfully about the commissioners who had come from Cluny to see after their possessions in England, and their queer French ways.

“Dom Philippe would not touch the muscadel at first, and now he cannot have too much. He clamoured for claret at first, and we had to give him some. But he knows better now. But he says mass like a holy angel of God, and is a very devout man in all ways. But they are going soon.”

Dom Anthony fulfilled to perfection the ideal laid down for a guest-master in the Custumal. He showed, indeed, the “cheerful hospitality to guests” by which “the good name of the monastery was enhanced, friendships multiplied, enmities lessened, God honoured, and charity increased.” He recognised perfectly well the confused terror in Christopher’s mind and his anxiety to make a good beginning, and smoothed down the tendency to awkwardness that would otherwise have shown itself. He had a happy tranquil face, with wide friendly eyes that almost disappeared when he laughed, and a row of even white teeth.

As he talked on, Christopher furtively examined his habit, though he knew every detail of it well enough already. He had, of course, left his cowl, or ample-sleeved singing gown, in the sacristy on leaving the church, and was in his black frock girded with the leather belt, and the scapular over it, hanging to the ground before and behind. His hood, Christopher noticed, was creased and flat as if he were accustomed to sit back at his ease. He wore strong black leather boots that just showed beneath his habit, and a bunch of keys, duplicates of those of the camerarius and cook, hung on his right side. He was tonsured according to the Benedictine pattern, and his lips and cheeks were clean-shaven.

He noticed presently that Christopher was eyeing hum, and put his hand in friendly fashion on the young man’s knee.

“Yes,” he said, smiling, “yours is ready too. Dom Franklin looked it out to-day, and asked me whether it would be the right size. But of the boots I am not so sure.”

There was a clink and a footstep outside, and the monk glanced out.

“Supper is here,” he said, and stood up to look at the table—the polished clothless top laid ready with a couple of wooden plates and knives, a pewter tankard, salt-cellar and bread. There was a plain chair with arms drawn up to it. The rest of the room, which Christopher had scarcely noticed before, was furnished plainly and efficiently, and had just that touch of ornament that was intended to distinguish it from a cell. The floor was strewn with clean rushes; a couple of iron candlesticks stood on the mantelpiece, and the white walls had one or two religious objects hanging on them—a wooden crucifix opposite the table, a framed card bearing an “Image of Pity” with an indulgenced prayer illuminated beneath, a little statue of St. Pancras on a bracket over the fire, and a clear-written copy of rules for guests hung by the low oak door.

Dom Anthony nodded approvingly at the table, took up a knife and rubbed it delicately on the napkin, and turned round.

“We will look here,” he said, and went towards the second door by the fire. Christopher followed him, and found himself in the bedroom, furnished with the same simplicity as the other; but with an iron bedstead in the corner, a kneeling stool beside it, with a little French silver image of St. Mary over it, and a sprig of dried yew tucked in behind. A thin leather-bound copy of the Little Office of Our Lady lay on the sloping desk, with another book or two on the upper slab. Dom Anthony went to the window and threw that open too.

“Your luggage is unpacked, I see,” he said, nodding to the press beside which lay the two trunks, emptied now by Mr. Morris’s careful hands.

“There are some hares, too,” said Christopher. “Ralph has sent them to my Lord Prior.”

“The porter has them,” said the monk, “they look strangely like a bribe.” And he nodded again with a beaming face, and his eyes grew little and bright at his own humour.

He examined the bed before he left the room again, turned back the sheets and pressed them down, and the straw rustled drily beneath; glanced into the sweating earthenware jug, refolded the coarse towel on its wooden peg, and then smiled again at the young man.

“Supper,” he said briefly.

Christopher stayed a moment with a word of excuse to wash off the dust of his ride from his hands and face, and when he came back into the sitting-room found the candles lighted, the wooden shutters folded over the windows, and a basin of soup with a roast pigeon steaming on the table. The monk was standing, waiting for him by the door.

“I must be gone, Chris,” he said, “but I shall be back before compline. My Lord Prior will see you to-morrow. There is nothing more? Remember you are at home now.”

And on Christopher’s assurances that he had all he could need, he was gone, leisurely and cheerfully, and his footsteps sounded on the stairs.

Mr. Morris came up before Chris had finished supper, and as he silently slipped away his plate and set another for the cheese, Chris remembered with a nervous exultation that this would be probably the last time that he would have a servant to wait on him. He was beginning to feel strangely at home already; the bean soup was strong and savoury, the beer cool; and he was pleasantly exercised by his ride. Mr. Morris, too, in answer to his enquiries, said that he had been well looked after in the servants’ quarters of the guest-house, and had had an entertaining supper with an agreeable Frenchman who, it seemed, had come with the Cluniac commissioners. Respect for his master and a sense of the ludicrous struggled in Mr. Morris’s voice as he described the foreigner’s pronunciation and his eloquent gestures.

“He’s not like a man, sir,” he said, and shook with reminiscent laughter.

It was half an hour before Dom Anthony returned, and after hospitable enquiries, sat down by Chris again in the wide window-seat and began to talk.

He told him that guests were not expected to attend the night-offices, and that indeed he strongly recommended Chris doing nothing of the kind at any rate that night; that masses were said at all hours from five o’clock onwards; that prime was said at seven, and was followed by the Missa familiaris for the servants and work-people of the house. Breakfast would be ready in the guest-house at eight; the chapter-mass would be said at the half-hour and after the daily chapter which followed it had taken place, the Prior wished to see Christopher. The high mass was sung at ten, and dinner would be served at eleven. He directed his attention, too, to the card that hung by the door on which these hours were notified.

Christopher already knew that for the first three or four days he would have to remain in the guest-house before any formal step was taken with regard to him, but he said a word to Father Anthony about this.

“Yes,” said the monk, “my Lord Prior will tell you about that. But you will be here as a guest until Sunday, and on that day you will come to the morning chapter to beg for admission. You will do that for three days, and then, please God, you will be clothed as a novice.”

And once more he looked at him with deep smiling eyes.

Chris asked him a few more questions, and Dom Anthony told him what he wished to know, though protesting with monastic etiquette that it was not his province.

“Dom James Berkely is the novice-master,” he said, “you will find him very holy and careful. The first matter you will have to learn is how to wear the habit, carry your hands, and to walk with gravity. Then you will learn how to bow, with the hands crossed on the knees, so—” and he illustrated it by a gesture—”if it is a profound inclination; and when and where the inclinations are to be made. Then you will learn of the custody of the eyes. It is these little things that help the soul at first, as you will find, like—like—the bindings of a peach-tree, that it may learn how to grow and bear its fruit. And the Rule will be given you, and what a monk must have by rote, and how to sing. You will not be idle, Chris.”

It was no surprise to Christopher to hear how much of the lessons at first were concerned with external behaviour. In his visits to Lewes before, as well as from the books that Mr. Carleton had lent him, he had learnt that the perfection of the Religious Life depended to a considerable extent upon minutiæ that were both aids to, and the result of, a tranquil and recollected mind, the acquirement of which was part of the object of the monk’s ambition. The ideal, he knew, was the perfect direction of every part of his being, of hands and eyes, as well as of the great powers of the soul; what God had joined together man must not put asunder, and the man who had every physical movement under control, and never erred through forgetfulness or impulse in these little matters, presumably also was master of his will, and retained internal as well as external equanimity.

The great bell began to toll presently for compline, and the guest-master rose in the midst of his explanations.

“My Lord Prior bade me thank you for the hares,” he said. “Perhaps your servant will take the message back to Mr. Ralph to-morrow. Come.”

They went down the stairs together and out into the summer twilight, the great strokes sounding overhead in the gloom as they walked. Over the high wall to the left shone a light or two from Lewes town, and beyond rose up the shadowy masses of the downs over which Christopher had ridden that afternoon. Over those hills, too, he knew, lay his old home. As they walked together in silence up the paved walk to the west end of the church, a vivid picture rose before the young man’s eyes of the little parlour where he had sat last night—of his silent mother in her black satin; his father in the tall chair, Ralph in an unwontedly easy and genial mood lounging on the other side and telling stories of town, of the chaplain with his homely, pleasant face, slipping silently out at the door. That was the last time that all that was his,—that he had a right and a place there. If he ever saw it again it would be as a guest who had become the son of another home, with new rights and relations, and at the thought a pang of uncontrollable shrinking pricked at his heart.

But at the door of the church the monk drew his arm within his own for a moment and held it, and Chris saw the shadowed eyes under his brows rest on him tenderly.

“God bless you, Chris!” he said.

CHAPTER IV

A COMMISSION

Within a few days of Christopher’s departure to Lewes, Ralph also left

Overfield and went back to London.

He was always a little intolerant at home, and generally appeared there at his worst—caustic, silent, and unsympathetic. It seemed to him that the simple country life was unbearably insipid; he found there neither wit nor affairs: to see day after day the same faces, to listen to the same talk either on country subjects that were distasteful to him, or, out of compliment to himself, political subjects that were unfamiliar to the conversationalists, was a very hard burden, and he counted such things as the price he must pay for his occasional duty visits to his parents. He could not help respecting the piety of his father, but he was none the less bored by it; and the atmosphere of silent cynicism that seemed to hang round his mother was his only relief. He thought he understood her, and it pleased him sometimes to watch her, to calculate how she would behave in any little domestic crisis or incident that affected her, to notice the slight movement of her lips and her eyelids gently lowering and rising again in movements of extreme annoyance. But even this was not sufficient compensation for the other drawbacks of life at Overfield Court, and it was with a very considerable relief that he stepped into his carriage at last towards the end of July, nodded and smiled once more to his father who was watching him from the terrace steps with a wistful and puzzled face, anxious to please, and heard the first crack of the whip of his return journey.

He had, indeed, a certain excuse for going, for a despatch-rider had come down from London with papers for him from Sir Thomas Cromwell, and it was not hard to assume a serious face and announce that he was recalled by affairs; and there was sufficient truth in it, too, for one of the memoranda bore on the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of Kent, and announced her apprehension. Cromwell however, did not actually recall him, but mentioned the fact of her arrest, and asked if he had heard much said of her in the country, and what the opinion of her was in that district.

The drive up to London seemed very short to him now; he went slowly through the bundle of papers on which he had to report, annotating them in order here and there, and staring out of the window now and again with unseeing eyes. There were a dozen cases on which he was engaged, which had been forwarded to him during his absence in the country—the priest at High Hatch was reported to have taken a wife, and Cromwell desired information about this; Ralph had ridden out there one day and gossipped a little outside the parsonage; an inn-keeper a few miles to the north of Cuckfield had talked against the divorce and the reigning Consort; a mistake had been made in the matter of a preaching license, and Cranmer had desired Cromwell to look into it; a house had been sold in Cheapside on which Ralph had been told to keep a suspicious eye, and he was asked his opinion on the matter; and such things as these occupied his time fully, until towards four o’clock in the afternoon his carriage rolled up to the horse-ferry at Lambeth, and he thrust the papers back into his bag before stepping out.

On arriving at his own little house in Westminster, the rent of which was paid by his master, he left his other servants to carry up the luggage, and set out himself again immediately with Morris in a hackney carriage for Chancery Lane.

As he went, he found himself for the hundredth time thinking of the history of the man to whom he was going.

Sir Thomas Cromwell was beginning to rise rapidly from a life of adventure and obscurity abroad. He had passed straight from the Cardinal’s service to the King’s three years before, and had since then been knighted, appointed privy-councillor, Master of the Jewel-house, and Clerk of the Hanaper in the Court of Chancery. At the same time he was actively engaged on his amazing system of espionage through which he was able to detect disaffection in all parts of the country, and thereby render himself invaluable to the King, who, like all the Tudors, while perfectly fearless in the face of open danger was pitiably terrified of secret schemes.

And it was to this man that he was confidential agent! Was there any limit to the possibilities of his future?

Ralph found a carriage drawn up at the door and, on enquiry, heard that his master was on the point of leaving; and even as he hesitated in the entrance, Cromwell shambled down the stairs with a few papers in his hand, his long sleeveless cloak flapping on each step behind him, and his felt plumed cap on his head in which shone a yellow jewel.

His large dull face, clean shaven like a priest’s, lighted up briskly as he saw Ralph standing there, and he thrust his arm pleasantly through his agent’s.

“Come home to supper,” he said, and the two wheeled round and went out and into the carriage. Mr. Morris handed the bag through the window to his master, and stood bare-headed as the carriage moved off over the newly laid road.

It would have been a very surprising sight to Sir James Torridon to see his impassive son’s attitude towards Cromwell. He was deferential, eager to please, nervous of rebuke, and almost servile, for he had found his hero in that tremendous personality. He pulled out his papers now, shook them out briskly, and was soon explaining, marking and erasing. Cromwell leaned back in his corner and listened, putting in a word of comment now and again, or dotting down a note on the back of a letter, and watching Ralph with a pleasant, oblique look, for he liked to see his people alert and busy. But he knew very well what his demeanour was like at other times, and had at first indeed been drawn to the young man by his surprising insolence of manner and impressive observant silences.

“That is very well, Mr. Torridon,” he said. “I will see to the license.

Put them all away.”

Ralph obeyed, and then sat back too, silent indeed, but with a kind of side-long readiness for the next subject; but Cromwell spoke no more of business for the present, only uttering short sentences about current affairs, and telling his friend the news.

“Frith has been burned,” he said. “Perhaps you knew it. He was obstinate to the end, my Lord Bishop reported. He threw Saint Chrysostom and Saint Augustine back into their teeth. He gave great occasion to the funny fellows. There was one who said that since Frith would have no purgatory, he was sent there by my Lord to find out for himself whether there be such a place or not. There was a word more about his manner of going there, ‘Frith frieth,’ but ‘twas not good. Those funny fellows over-reach themselves. Hewet went with him to Smithfield and hell.”

Ralph smiled, and asked how they took it.

“Oh, very well. A priest bade the folk pray no more for Frith than for a dog, but Frith smiled on him and begged the Lord to forgive him his unkind words.”

He was going on to tell him a little more about the talk of the Court, when the carriage drove up to the house in Throgmorton Street, near Austin Friars, which Cromwell had lately built for himself.

“My wife and children are at Hackney,” he said as he stepped out. “We shall sup alone.”

It was a great house, built out of an older one, superbly furnished with Italian things, and had a large garden at the back on to which looked the windows of the hall. Supper was brought up almost immediately—a couple of woodcocks and a salad—and the two sat down, with a pair of servants in blue and silver to wait on them. Cromwell spoke no more word of business until the bottle of wine had been set on the table, and the servants were gone. And then he began again, immediately.

“And what of the country?” he said. “What do they say there?” He took a peach from the carved roundel in the centre of the table, and seemed absorbed in its contemplation.

Ralph had had some scruples at first about reporting private conversations, but Cromwell had quieted them long since, chiefly by the force of his personality, and partly by the argument that a man’s duty to the State over-rode his duty to his friends, and that since only talk that was treasonable would be punished, it was simpler to report all conversations in general that had any suspicious bearing, and that he himself was most competent to judge whether or no they should be followed up. Ralph, too, had become completely reassured by now that no injury would be done to his own status among his friends, since his master had never yet made direct use of any of his information in such a manner as that it was necessary for Ralph to appear as a public witness. And again, too, he had pointed out that the work had to be done, and that was better for the cause of justice and mercy that it should be done by conscientious rather than by unscrupulous persons.

He talked to him now very freely about the conversations in his father’s house, knowing that Cromwell did not want more than a general specimen sketch of public feeling in matters at issue.

“They have great faith in the Maid of Kent, sir,” he said. “My brother-in-law, Nicholas, spoke of her prophecy of his Grace’s death. It is the devout that believe in her; the ungodly know her for a fool or a knave.”

“Filii hujus saeculi prudentiores sunt,”—quoted Cromwell gravely. “Your brother-in-law, I should think, was a child of light.”

“He is, sir.”

“I should have thought so. And what else did you hear?”

“There is a good deal of memory of the Lady Katharine, sir. I heard the foresters talking one day.”

“What of the Religious houses?”

Ralph hesitated.

“My brother Christopher has just gone to Lewes,” he said. “So I heard more of the favourable side, but I heard a good deal against them, too. There was a secular priest talking against them one day, with our chaplain, who is a defender of them.”

“Who was he?” asked Cromwell, with the same sharp, oblique glance.

“A man of no importance, sir; the parson of Great Keynes.”

“The Holy Maid is in trouble,” went on the other after a minute’s silence. “She is in my Lord of Canterbury’s hands, and we can leave her there. I suppose she will be hanged.”

Ralph waited. He knew it was no good asking too much.

“What she said of the King’s death and the pestilence is enough to cast her,” went on Cromwell presently. “And Bocking and Hadleigh will be in his hands soon, too. They do not know their peril yet.”

They went on to talk of the friars, and of the disfavour that they were in with the King after the unfortunate occurrences of the previous spring, when Father Peto had preached at Greenwich before Henry on the subject of Naboth’s vineyard and the end of Ahab the oppressor. There had been a dramatic scene, Cromwell said, when on the following Sunday a canon of Hereford, Dr. Curwin, had preached against Peto from the same pulpit, and had been rebuked from the rood-loft by another of the brethren, Father Elstow, who had continued declaiming until the King himself had fiercely intervened from the royal pew and bade him be silent.

“The two are banished,” said Cromwell, “but that is not the end of it. Their brethren will hear of it again. I have never seen the King so wrathful. I suppose it was partly because the Lady Katharine so cossetted them. She was always in the church at the night-office when the Court was at Greenwich, and Friar Forrest, you know, was her confessor. There is a rod in pickle.”

Ralph listened with all his ears. Cromwell was not very communicative on the subject of the Religious houses, but Ralph had gathered from hints of this kind that something was preparing.

When supper was over and the servants were clearing away, Cromwell went to the window where the glass glowed overhead with his new arms and scrolls—a blue coat with Cornish choughs and a rose on a fess between three rampant lions—and stood there, a steady formidable figure, with his cropped head and great jowl, looking out on to the garden.

When the men had gone he turned again to Ralph.

“I have something for you,” he said, “but it is greater than those other matters—a fool could not do it. Sit down.”

He came across the room to the fireplace, as Ralph sat down, and himself took a chair by the table, lifting the baudkin cushion and settling it again comfortably behind him.

“It is this,” he said abruptly. “You know that Master More has been in trouble. There was the matter of the gilt flagon which Powell said he had taken as a bribe, and the gloves lined with forty pound. Well, he disproved that, and I am glad of it, glad of it,” he repeated steadily, looking down at his ring and turning it to catch the light. “But there is now another matter—I hear he has been practising with the Holy Maid and hearkening to her ravings, and that my Lord of Rochester is in it too. But I am not sure of it.”

Cromwell stopped, glanced up at Ralph a moment, and then down again.

“I am not sure of it,” he said again, “and I wish to be. And I think you can help me.”

Ralph waited patiently, his heart beginning to quicken. This was a great matter.

“I wish you to go to him,” said his master, “and to get him into talk.

But I do not see how it can be managed.”

“He knows I am in your service, sir,” suggested Ralph.

“Yes, yes,” said Cromwell a little impatiently, “that is it. He is no fool, and will not talk. This is what I thought of. That you should go to him from me, and feign that you are on his side in the matter. But will he believe that?” he ended gloomily, looking at the other curiously.

There was silence for a minute, while Cromwell drummed his fingers softly on the table. Then presently Ralph spoke.

“There is this, sir,” he said. “I might speak to him about my brother Chris who, as I told you, has gone to Lewes at the Maid’s advice, and then see what Master More has to say.”

Cromwell still looked at him.

“Yes,” he said, “that seems reasonable. And for the rest—well, I will leave that in your hands.”

They talked a few minutes longer about Sir Thomas More, and Cromwell told the other what a quiet life the ex-Chancellor had led since his resignation of office, of his house at Chelsea, and the like, and of the decision that he had apparently come to not to mix any further in public affairs.

“There is thunder in the air,” he said, “as you know very well, and

Master More is no mean weather-prophet. He mis-liked the matter of the

Lady Katharine, and Queen Anne is no friend of his. I think he is wise

to be quiet.”

Ralph knew perfectly well that this tolerant language did not represent Cromwell’s true attitude towards the man of whom they were speaking, but he assented to all that was said, and added a word or two about Sir Thomas More’s learning, and of the pleasant manner in which he himself had been received when he had once had had occasion to see him before.

“He was throwing Horace at me,” said the other, with a touch of bitterness, “the last time that I was there. I do not know which he loves best, that or his prayers.”

Again Ralph recognised an animus. Cromwell had suffered somewhat from lack of a classical education.

“But it is a good thing to love the classics and devotion,” he went on presently with a sententious air, “they are solaces in time of trouble. I have found that myself.”

He glanced up at the other and down again.

“I was caught saying our Lady matins one day,” he said, “when the

Cardinal was in trouble. I remember I was very devout that morning.”

He went on to talk of Wolsey and of his relations with him, and Ralph watched that heavy smooth face become reminiscent and almost sentimental.

“If he had but been wiser;” he said. “I have noticed again and again the folly of wise men. There is always clay mixed with gold. I suppose nothing but the fire that Fryth denied can purge it out; and my lord’s was ambition.”

He wagged his head in solemn reprobation, and Ralph did not know whether to laugh or to look grave. Then there fell a long silence, and Cromwell again fell to fingering his signet-ring, taking it off his thumb and rolling it on the smooth oak, and at last stood up with a brisker air.

“Welt,” he said, “I have a thousand affairs, and my son Gregory is coming here soon. Then you will see about that matter. Remember I wish to know what Master More thinks of her, that—that I may know what to think.”

Ralph understood sufficiently clearly, as he walked home in the evening light, what it was that his master wanted. It was no less than to catch some handle against the ex-chancellor, though he had carefully abstained from saying so. Ralph recognised the adroitness, and saw that while the directions had been plain and easy to understand, yet that not one word had been spoken that could by any means be used as a handle against Cromwell. If anyone in England at that time knew how to wield speech it was his master; it was by that weapon that he had prevailed with the King, and still kept him in check; it was that weapon rashly used by his enemies that he was continually turning against them, and under his tutoring Ralph himself had begun to be practised in the same art.

Among other causes, too, of his admiration for Cromwell, was the latter’s extraordinary business capacity. There was hardly an affair of any importance in which he did not have a finger at least, and most of them he held in the palm of his hand, and that, not only in the mass but in their minutest details. Ralph had marvelled more than once at the minutiæ that he had seen dotted down on the backs of old letters lying on his master’s table. Matters of Church and State, inextricably confused to other eyes, was simple to this man; he understood intuitively where the key of each situation lay, and dealt with them one after another briefly and effectively. And yet with all this no man wore an appearance of greater leisure; he would gossip harmlessly for an hour, and yet by the end had said all that he wished to say, and generally learnt, too, from his companion whoever he might be, all he wished to learn. Ralph had watched him more than once at this business; had seen delicate subjects introduced in a deft unsuspicious sentence that roused no alarm, and had marvelled at his power to play with men without their dreaming of what was going forward.

And now it was Master More that was threatened. Ralph knew well that there was far more behind the scenes than he could understand or even perceive, and recognised that the position of Sir Thomas was more significant than would appear, and that developments might be expected to follow soon.

For himself he had no shrinking from his task. He understood that government was carried on by such methods, and that More himself would be the first to acknowledge that in war many things were permissible that would be outrageous in times of peace, and that these were times of war. To call upon a friend, to eat his bread and salt, and talk familiarly with him, and to be on the watch all the while for a weak spot through which that friend might be wounded, seemed to Ralph, trained now and perfected in Cromwell’s school, a perfectly legitimate policy, and he walked homewards this summer evening, pleased with this new mark of confidence, and anxious to acquit himself well in his task.

The house that Ralph occupied in Westminster was in a street to the west of the Abbey, and stood back a little between its neighbours. It was a very small one, of only two rooms in width and one in depth, and three stories high; but it had been well furnished, chiefly with things brought up from Overfield Court, to which Ralph had taken a fancy, and which his father had not denied him. He lived almost entirely in the first floor, his bedroom and sitting-room being divided by the narrow landing at the head of the stairs that led up to the storey above, which was occupied by Mr. Morris and a couple of other servants. The lower storey Ralph used chiefly for purposes of business, and for interviews which were sufficiently numerous for one engaged in so many affairs. Cromwell had learnt by now that he could be trusted to say little and to learn much, and the early acts of many little dramas that had ended in tragedy had been performed in the two gravely-furnished rooms on the ground floor. A good deal of the law-business, in its early stages, connected with the annulling of the King’s marriage with Queen Katharine had been done there; a great canonist from a foreign university had explained there his views in broken English, helped out with Latin, to a couple of shrewd-faced men, while Ralph watched the case for his master; and Cromwell himself had found the little retired house a convenience for meeting with persons whom he did not wish to frighten over much, while Ralph and Mr. Morris sat alert and expectant on the other side of the hall, with the door open, listening for raised voices or other signs of a quarrel.

The rooms upstairs had been furnished with considerable care. The floors of both were matted, for the plan involved less trouble than the continual laying of clean rushes. The sitting-room was panelled up six feet from the floor, and the three feet of wall above were covered with really beautiful tapestry that Ralph had brought up from Overfield. There was a great table in the centre, along one side of which rested a set of drawers with brass handles, and in the centre of the table was a deep well, covered by a flap that lay level with the rest of the top. Another table stood against the wall, on which his meals were served, and the door of a cupboard in which his plate and knives were kept opened immediately above it, designed in the thickness of the wall. There were half-a-dozen chairs, two or three other pieces of furniture, a backed settle by the fire and a row of bookshelves opposite the windows; and over the mantelpiece, against the tapestry, hung a picture of Cromwell, painted by Holbein, and rejected by him before it was finished. Ralph had begged it from the artist who was on the point of destroying it. It represented the sitter’s head and shoulders in three-quarter face, showing his short hair, his shrewd heavy face, with its double chin, and the furred gown below.

Mr. Morris was ready for his master and opened the door to him.

“There are some letters come, Mr. Ralph, sir,” he said. “I have laid them on your table.”

Ralph nodded, slipped off his thin cloak into his servant’s hands without speaking, laid down his cane and went upstairs.

The letters were very much what he expected, and dealt with cases on which he was engaged. There was an entreaty from a country squire near Epping Forest, whose hounds had got into trouble with the King’s foresters that he would intercede for him to Cromwell. A begging letter from a monk who had been ejected from his monastery for repeated misconduct, and who represented himself as starving; Ralph lifted this to his nostrils and it smelt powerfully of spirits, and he laid it down again, smiling to himself. A torrent of explanation from a schoolmaster who had been reported for speaking against the sacrament of the altar, calling the saints to witness that he was no follower of Fryth in such detestable heresy. A dignified protest from a Justice of the Peace in Kent who had been reproved by Cromwell, through Ralph’s agency, for acquitting a sturdy beggar, and who begged that he might in future deal with a responsible person; and this Ralph laid aside, smiling again and promising himself that he would have the pleasure of granting the request. An offer, written in a clerkly hand, from a fellow who could not sign his name but had appended a cross, to submit some important evidence of a treasonable plot, on the consideration of secrecy and a suitable reward.

A year ago such a budget would have given Ralph considerable pleasure, and a sense of his own importance; but business had been growing on him rapidly of late, as his master perceived his competence, and it gave him no thrill to docket this one, write a refusal to that, a guarded answer to another, and finally to open the well of his table and drop the bundle in.

Then he turned round his chair, blew out one candle carefully, and set to thinking about Master Thomas More.

CHAPTER V

MASTER MORE

It was not until nearly a month later that Ralph made an opportunity to call upon Sir Thomas More. Cromwell had given him to understand that there was no immediate reason for haste; his own time was tolerably occupied, and he thought it as well not to make a show of over-great hurry. He wrote to Sir Thomas, explaining that he wished to see him on a matter connected with his brother Christopher, and received a courteous reply begging him to come to dinner on the following Thursday, the octave of the Assumption, as Sir Thomas thought it proper to add.

It was a wonderfully pleasant house, Ralph thought, as his wherry came up to the foot of the garden stairs that led down from the lawn to the river. It stood well back in its own grounds, divided from the river by a wall with a wicket gate in it. There was a little grove of trees on either side of it; a flock of pigeons were wheeling about the bell-turret that rose into the clear blue sky, and from which came a stroke or two, announcing the approach of dinner-time as he went up the steps.

There was a figure lying on its face in the shadow by the house, as Ralph came up the path, and a small dog, that seemed to be trying to dig the head out from the hands in which it was buried, ceased his excavations and set up a shrill barking. The figure rolled over, and sat up; the pleasant brown face was all creased with laughter; small pieces of grass were clinging to the long hair, and Ralph, to his amazement, recognised the ex-Lord Chancellor of England.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said More, rising and shaking himself. “I had no idea—you take me at a disadvantage; it is scarcely dignified”—and he stopped, smiling and holding out one hand, while he stretched the other deprecatingly, to quiet that insistent barking.

Ralph had a sensation of mingled contempt and sympathy as he took his hand.

“I had the honour of seeing you once before, Master More,” he said.

“Why, yes,” said More, “and I hope I cut a better figure last time, but Anubis would take no refusal. But I am ashamed, and beg you will not speak of it to Mrs. More. She is putting on a new coif in your honour.”

“I will be discreet,” said Ralph, smiling.

They went indoors almost immediately, when Sir Thomas had flicked the grass sufficiently off his gown to escape detection, and straight through to the hall where the table was laid, and three or four girls were waiting.

“Your mother is not here yet, I see,” said Sir Thomas, when he had made Ralph known to his daughters, and the young man had kissed them deferentially, according to the proper etiquette—”I will tell you somewhat—hush—” and he broke off again sharply as the door from the stairs opened, and a stately lady, with a rather solemn and uninteresting face, sailed in, her silk skirts rustling behind her, and her fresh coif stiff and white on her head. A middle-aged man followed her in, looking a little dejected, and made straight across to where the ladies were standing with an eagerness that seemed to hint at a sense of escape.

“Mrs. Alice,” said Sir Thomas, “this is Mr. Ralph Torridon, of whom you have heard me speak. I was fortunate enough to welcome him on the lawn just now.”

“I saw you, Mr. More,” said his wife with dignity, as she took Ralph’s hand and said a word about the weather.

“Then I will confess,” said Sir Thomas, smiling genially round, “I welcomed Mr. Torridon with the back of my head, and with Anubis biting my ears.”

Ralph felt strangely drawn to this schoolboy kind of man, who romped with dogs and lay on his stomach, and was so charmingly afraid of his wife. His contempt began to melt as he looked at him and saw those wise twinkling eyes, and strong humorous mouth, and remembered once more who he was, and his reputation.

Sir Thomas said grace with great gravity and signed himself reverently before he sat down. There was a little reading first of the Scriptures and a commentary on it, and then as dinner went on Ralph began to attend less and less to his hostess, who, indeed appeared wholly absorbed in domestic details of the table and with whispering severely to the servants behind her hand, and to listen and look towards the further end where Sir Thomas sat in his tall chair, his flapped cap on his head, and talked to his daughters on either side. Mr. Roper, the man who had come in with Mrs. More, was sitting opposite Ralph, and seemed to be chiefly occupied in listening too. A bright-looking tall girl, whom her father had introduced by the name of Cecily, sat between Ralph and her father.

“Not at all,” cried Sir Thomas, in answer to something that Ralph did not catch, “nothing of the kind! It was Juno that screamed. Argus would not condescend to it. He was occupied in dancing before the bantams.”

Ralph lost one of the few remarks that Mrs. More addressed to him, in wondering what this meant, and the conversation at the other end swept round a corner while he was apologising. When he again caught the current Sir Thomas was speaking of wherries.

“I would love to row a wherry,” he said. “The fellows do not know their fortune; they might lead such sweet meditative lives; they do not, I am well aware, for I have never heard such blasphemy as I have heard from wherrymen. But what opportunities are theirs! If I were not your father, my darling, I would be a wherryman. Si cognovisses et tu quae ad pacem tibi! Mr. Torridon, would you not be a wherryman if you were not Mr. Torridon?”

“I thought not this morning,” said Ralph, “as I came here. It seemed hot rowing against the stream.”

“It is part of the day’s work,” said More. “When I was Chancellor I loved nothing more than a hot summer’s day in Court, for I thought of my cool garden where I should soon be walking. I must show you the New Building after dinner, Mr. Torridon.”

Cecily and Margaret presently had a short encounter across the table on some subject that Ralph did not catch, but he saw Margaret on the other side flush up and bring her lips sharply together. Sir Thomas leapt into the breach.

“Unde leves animae tanto caluere furore?” he cried, and glanced up at Ralph to see if he understood the quotation, as the two girls dropped their eyes ashamed.

“Pugnavare pares, succubuere pares,” said Ralph by a flash of inspiration, and looking at the girls.

Sir Thomas’s eyes shone with pleasure.

“I did not know you were such a treasure, Mr. Torridon. Now, Master

Cromwell could not have done that.”

There fell a silence as that name was spoken, and all at the table eyed

Ralph.

“He was saying as much to me the other day,” went on Ralph, excited by his success. “He told me you knew Horace too well.”

“And that my morals were corrupted by him,” went on More. “I know he thinks that, but I had the honour of confuting him the other day with regard to the flagon and gloves. Now, there is a subject for Martial, Mr. Torridon. A corrupt statesman who has retired on his ill-gotten gains disproves an accusation of bribery. Let us call him Atticus ‘Attice … Attice’ …—We might say that he put on the gloves lest his forgers should be soiled while he drank from the flagon, or something of the kind.”

Sir Thomas’s eyes beamed with delight as he talked. To make an apt classical quotation was like wine to him, but to have it capped appropriately was like drunkenness. Ralph blessed his stars that he had been so lucky, for he was no great scholar, and he guessed he had won his host’s confidence.

Dinner passed on quietly, and as they rose from table More came round and took his guest by the arm.

“You must come with me and see my New Building,” he said, “you are worthy of it, Mr. Torridon.”

He still held his arm affectionately as they walked out into the garden behind the house, and as he discoursed on the joys of a country life.

“What more can I ask of God?” he said. “He has given me means and tastes to correspond, and what man can say more. I see visions, and am able to make them realities. I dream of a dovecote with a tiled roof, and straightway build it; I picture a gallery and a chapel and a library away from the clack of tongues, and behold there it is. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of thee.’ To see and dream without the power of performance is heart-breaking. To perform without the gift of imagination is soul-slaying. The man is blessed that hath both eye and hand, tastes and means alike.”

It was a very pleasant retreat that Sir Thomas More had built for himself at the end of his garden, where he might retire when he wanted solitude. There was a little entrance hall with a door at one corner into the chapel, and a long low gallery running out from it, lined with bookshelves on one side, and with an open space on the other lighted by square windows looking into the garden. The polished boards were bare, and there was a path marked on them by footsteps going from end to end.

“Here I walk,” said More, “and my friends look at me from those shelves, ready to converse but never to interrupt. Shall we walk here, Mr. Torridon, while you tell me your business?”

Ralph had, indeed, a touch of scrupulousness as he thought of his host’s confidence, but he had learnt the habit of silencing impulses and of only acting on plans deliberately formed; so he was soon laying bare his anxiety about Chris, and his fear that he had been misled by the Holy Maid.

“I am very willing, Mr. More,” he said, “that my brother should be a monk if it is right, but I could not bear he should be so against God’s leading. How am I to know whether the maid’s words are of God or no?”

Sir Thomas was silent a moment.

“But he had thoughts of it before, I suppose,” he said, “or he would not have gone to her. In fact, you said so.”

Ralph acknowledged that this was so.

“—And for several years,” went on the other.

Again Ralph assented.

“And his tastes and habits are those of a monk, I suppose. He is long at his prayers, given to silence, and of a tranquil spirit?”

“He is not always tranquil,” said Ralph. “He is impertinent sometimes.”

“Yes, yes; we all are that. I was very impertinent to you at dinner in trying to catch you with Martial his epigram, though I shall not offend again. But his humour may be generally tranquil in spite of it. Well, if that is so, I do not see why you need trouble about the Holy Maid. He would likely have been a monk without that. She only confirmed him.”

“But,” went on Ralph, fighting to get back to the point, “if I thought she was trustworthy I should be the more happy.”

“There must always be doubtfulness,” said More, “in such matters. That is why the novitiate is so severe; it is to show the young men the worst at once. I do not think you need be unhappy about your brother.”

“And what is your view about the Holy Maid?” asked Ralph, suddenly delivering his point.

More stopped in his walk, cocked his head a little on one side like a clever dog, and looked at his companion with twinkling eyes.

“It is a delicate subject,” he said, and went on again.

“That is what puzzles me,” said Ralph. “Will you not tell me your opinion, Mr. More?”

There was again a silence, and they reached the further end of the gallery and turned again before Sir Thomas answered.

“If you had not answered me so briskly at dinner, Mr. Torridon, do you know that I should have suspected you of coming to search me out. But such a good head, I think, cannot be allied with a bad heart, and I will tell you.”

Ralph felt a prick of triumph but none of remorse.

“I will tell you,” went on More, “and I am sure you will keep it private. I think the Holy Maid is a good woman who has a maggot.”

Ralph’s spirits sank again. This was a very non-committing answer.

“I do not think her a knave as some do, but I think, to refer to what we said just now, that she has a large and luminous eye, and no hand worth mentioning. She sees many visions, but few facts. That tale about the Host being borne by angels from Calais to my mind is nonsense. Almighty God does not work miracles without reason, and there is none for that. The blessed sacrament is the same at Dover as at Calais. And a woman who can dream that can dream anything, for I am sure she did not invent it. On other matters, therefore, she may be dreaming too, and that is why once more I tell you that to my mind you can leave her out of your thoughts with regard to your brother. She is neither prophetess nor pythoness.”

This was very unsatisfactory, and Ralph strove to remedy it.

“And in the matter of the King’s death, Mr. More?” he said.

Again Sir Thomas stopped in his walk.

“Do you know, Mr. Torridon, I think we may leave that alone,” he said a little abruptly. And Ralph sucked in his lip and bit it sharply at the consciousness of his own folly.

“I hope your brother will be very happy,” went on the other after a moment, “and I am sure he will be, if his call is from God, as I think likely. I was with the Carthusians myself, you know, for four years, and sometimes I think I should have stayed there. It is a blessed life. I do not envy many folks, but I do those. To live in the daily companionship of our blessed Lord and of his saints as those do, and to know His secrets—secreta Domini—even the secrets of His Passion and its ineffable joys of pain—that is a very fortunate lot, Mr. Torridon. I sometimes think that as it was with Christ’s natural body so it is with His mystical body: there be some members, His hands and feet and side, through which the nails are thrust, though indeed there is not one whole spot in His body—inglorious erit inter viros aspectus ejus—nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum—but those parts of His body that are especially pained are at once more honourable and more happy than those that are not. And the monks are those happy members.”

He was speaking very solemnly, his voice a little tremulous, and his kindly eyes were cast down, and Ralph watched him sidelong with a little awe and pity mingled. He seemed so natural too, that Ralph thought that he must have over-rated his own indiscretion.

A shadow fell across the door into the garden as they came near it, and one of the girls appeared in the opening.

“Why, Meg,” cried her father, “what is it, my darling?”

“Beatrice has come, sir,” said the girl. “I thought you would wish to know.”

More put out his arm and laid it round his daughter’s waist as she turned with him.

“Come, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “if you have no more to say, let us go and see Beatrice.”

There was a group on the lawn under one of the lime trees, two or three girls and Mr. Roper, who all rose to their feet as the three came up. More immediately sat down on the grass, putting his feet delicately together before him.

“Will, fetch this gentleman a chair. It is not fit for Master

Cromwell’s friend to sit on the grass like you and me.”

Ralph threw himself down on the lawn instantly, entreating Mr. Roper not to move.

“Well, well,” said Sir Thomas, “let be. Sit down too, Will, et cubito remanete presso. Mr. Torridon understands that, I know, even if Master Cromwell’s friend does not. Why, tillie-vallie, as Mrs. More says, I have not said a word to Beatrice. Beatrice, this is Mr. Ralph Torridon, and this, Mr. Torridon, is Beatrice. Her other name is Atherton, but to me she is a feminine benediction, and nought else.”

Ralph rose swiftly and looked across at a tall slender girl that was sitting contentedly on an outlying root of the lime tree, beside of Sir Thomas, and who rose with him.

“Mr. More cannot let my name alone, Mr. Torridon,” she said tranquilly, as she drew back after the salute. “He made a play upon it the other day.”

“And have been ashamed of it ever since,” said More; “it was sacrilege with such a name. Now, I am plain Thomas, and more besides. Why did you send for me, Beatrice?”

“I have no defence,” said the girl, “save that I wanted to see you.”

“And that is the prettiest defence you could have made—if it does not amount to corruption. Mr. Torridon, what is the repartee to that?”

“I need no advocate,” said the girl; “I can plead well enough.”

Ralph looked up at her again with a certain interest. She seemed on marvellously good terms with the whole family, and had an air of being entirely at her ease. She had her black eyes bent down on to a piece of grass that she was twisting into a ring between her slender jewelled fingers, and her white teeth wore closed firmly on her lower lip as she worked. Her long silk skirts lay out unregarded on the grass, and her buckles gleamed beneath. Her voice was pleasant and rather deep, and Ralph found himself wondering who she was, and why he had not seen her before, for she evidently belonged to his class, and London was a small place.

“I see you are making one more chain to bind me to you,” said More presently, watching her.

She held it up.

“A ring only,” she said.

“Then it is not for me,” said More, “for I do not hold with Dr. Melanchthon, nor yet Solomon in the matter of wives. Now, Mr. Torridon, tell us all some secrets. Betray your master. We are all agog. Leave off that ring, Beatrice, and attend.”

“I am listening,” said the girl as serenely as before, still intent on her weaving.

“The King breakfasted this morning at eight of the clock,” said Ralph gravely. “It is an undoubted fact, I had it on the highest authority.”

“This is excellent,” said Sir Thomas. “Let us all talk treason. I can add to that. His Grace had a fall last night and lay senseless for several hours.”

He spoke with such gravity that Ralph glanced up. At the same moment

Beatrice looked up from her work and their eyes met.

“He fell asleep,” added Sir Thomas.

It was very pleasant to lie there in the shadow of the lime that afternoon, and listen to the mild fooling, and Ralph forgot his manners, and almost his errand too, and never offered to move. The grass began to turn golden as the sun slanted to the West, and the birds began to stir after the heat of the day, and to chirp from tree to tree. A hundred yards away the river twinkled in the sun, seen beyond the trees and the house, and the voices of the boatmen came, softened by distance and water, as they plied up and down the flowing highway. Once a barge went past under the Battersea bank, with music playing in the stern, and Ralph raised himself on his elbow to watch it as it went down the stream with flags flying behind, and the rhythmical throb of the row-locks sounding time to the dancing melody.

Ralph did his best to fall in with the humour of the day, and told a good story or two in his slow voice—among them one of his mother exercising her gift of impressive silence towards a tiresome chatterbox of a man, with such effect that the conversationalist’s words died on his lips, after the third or fourth pause made for applause and comment. He told the story well, and Lady Torridon seemed to move among them, her skirts dragging majestically on the grass, and her steady, sombre face looking down on them all beneath half-closed languid eye-lids.

“He has never been near us again,” said Ralph, “but he never fails to ask after my mother’s distressing illness when I meet him in town.”

He was a little astonished at himself as he talked, for he was not accustomed to take such pains to please, but he was conscious that though he looked round at the faces, and addressed himself to More, he was really watching for the effect on the girl who sat behind. He was aware of every movement that she made; he knew when she tossed the ring on the little sleeping brown body of the dog that had barked at him earlier in the day, and set to work upon another. She slipped that on her finger when she had done, and turned her hand this way and that, her fingers bent back, a ruby catching the light as she did so, looking at the effect of the green circle against the whiteness. But he never looked at her again, except once when she asked him some question, and then he looked her straight in her black eyes as he answered.

A bell sounded out at last again from the tower, and startled him. He got up quickly.

“I am ashamed,” he said smiling, “how dare I stay so long? It is your kindness, Mr. More.”

“Nay, nay,” said Sir Thomas, rising too and stretching himself. “You have helped us to lose another day in the pleasantest manner possible—you must come again, Mr. Torridon.”

He walked down with Ralph to the garden steps, and stood by him talking, while the wherry that had been hailed from the other side made its way across.

“Beatrice is like one of my own daughters,” he said, “and I cannot give her better praise than that. She is always here, and always as you saw her today. I think she is one of the strongest spirits I know. What did you think of her, Mr. Torridon?”

“She did not talk much,” said Ralph.

“She talks when she has aught to say,” went on More, “and otherwise is silent. It is a good rule, sir; I would I observed it myself.”

“Who is she?” asked Ralph.

“She is the daughter of a friend I had, and she lives just now with my wife’s sisters, Nan and Fan. She is often in town with one of them. I am astonished you have not met her before.”

The wherry slid up to the steps and the man in his great boots slipped over the side to steady it.

“Now is the time to begin your philosophy,” said More as Ralph stepped in, “and a Socrates is ready. Talk it over, Mr. Torridon.”

CHAPTER VI

RALPH’S INTERCESSION

Ralph was astonished to find how the thought of the tall girl he had met at Sir Thomas More’s house remained with him. He had reported the result of his interview with More himself to his master; and Cromwell had received it rather coldly. He had sniffed once or twice.

“That was not very well done, Mr. Torridon. I fear that you have frightened him, and gained nothing by it.”

Ralph stood silent.

“But I see you make no excuses,” went on Cromwell, “so I will make them for you. I daresay he was frightened already; and knew all about what had passed between her and the Archbishop. You must try again, sir.”

Ralph felt his heart stir with pleasure.

“I may say I have made friends with Mr. More, sir,” he said. “I had good fortune in the matter of a quotation, and he received me kindly. I can go there again without excusing my presence, as often as you will.”

Cromwell looked at him.

“There is not much to be gained now,” he said, “but you can go if you will; and you may perhaps pick up something here and there. The more friends you make the better.”

Ralph went away delighted; he had not wholly failed then in his master’s business, and he seemed to have set on foot a business of his own; and he contemplated with some excitement his future visits to Chelsea.

He had his first word with the King a couple of months later. He had often, of course, seen him before, once or twice in the House of Lords, formidable and frowning on his throne, his gross chin on his hand, barking out a word or two to his subjects, or instructing them in theology, for which indeed he was very competent; and several times in processions, riding among his gentlemen on his great horse, splendid in velvet and gems; and he had always wondered what it was that gave him his power. It could not be mere despotism, he thought, or his burly English nature; and it was not until he had seen him near at hand, and come within range of his personality that he understood why it was that men bore such things from him.

He was sent for one afternoon by Cromwell to bring a paper and was taken up at once by a servant into the gallery where the minister and the King were walking together. They were at the further end from that at which he entered, and he stood, a little nervous at his heart, but with his usual appearance of self-possession, watching the two great backs turned to him, and waiting to be called.

They turned again in a moment, and Cromwell saw him and beckoned, himself coming a few steps to meet him. The King waited, and Ralph was aware of, rather than saw, that wide, coarse, strong face, and the long narrow eyes, with the feathered cap atop, and the rich jewelled dress beneath. The King stood with his hands behind his back and his legs well apart.

Cromwell took the paper from Ralph, who stepped back, hesitating what to do.

“This is it, your Grace,” said the minister going back again. “Your

Grace will see that it is as I said.”

Ralph perceived a new tone of deference in his master’s voice that he had never noticed before, except once when Cromwell was ironically bullying a culprit who was giving trouble.

The King said nothing, took the paper and glanced over it, standing a little aside to let the light fall on it.

“Your Grace will understand—” began Cromwell again.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said the harsh voice impatiently. “Let the fellow take it back,” and he thrust the paper into Cromwell’s hand, who turned once more to Ralph.

“Who is he?” said the King. “I have seen his face. Who are you?”

“This is Mr. Ralph Torridon,” said Cromwell; “a very useful friend to me, your Grace.”

“The Torridons of Overfield?” questioned Henry once more, who never forgot a face or a name.

“Yes, your Grace,” said Cromwell.

“You are tall enough, sir,” said the King, running his narrow eyes up and down Ralph’s figure;—”a strong friend.”

“I hope so, your Grace,” said Ralph.

The King again looked at him, and Ralph dropped his eyes in the glare of that mighty personality. Then Henry abruptly thrust out his hand to be kissed, and as Ralph bent over it he was aware of the thick straight fingers, the creased wrist, and the growth of hair on the back of the hand.

Ralph was astonished, and a little ashamed at his own excitement as he passed down the stairs again. It was so little that had happened; his own part had been so insignificant; and yet he was tingling from head to foot. He felt he knew now a little better how it was that the King’s will, however outrageous in its purposes, was done so quickly. It was the sheer natural genius of authority and royalty that forced it through; he had felt himself dominated and subdued in those few moments, so that he was not his own master. As he went home through the street or two that separated the Palace gate from his own house, he found himself analysing the effect of that presence, and, in spite of its repellence, its suggestion of coarseness, and its almost irritating imperiousness, he was conscious that there was a very strong element of attractiveness in it too. It seemed to him the kind of attractiveness that there is for a beaten dog in the chastising hand: the personality was so overwhelming that it compelled allegiance, and that not wholly one of fear. He found himself thinking of Queen Katharine and understanding a little better how it was that the refined, delicately nurtured and devout woman, so constant in her prayers, so full of the peculiar fineness of character that gentle birth and religion alone confer, could so cling to this fierce lord of hers, throw herself at his feet with tears before all the company, and entreat not to be separated from him, calling him her “dear lord,” her “love,” and her most “merciful and gracious prince.”

The transition from this train of thought to that bearing on Beatrice was not a difficult one; for the memory of the girl was continually in his mind. He had seen her half a dozen times now since their first meeting; for he had availed himself to the full of Cromwell’s encouragement to make himself at home at Chelsea; and he found that his interest in her deepened every time. With a touch of amusement he found himself studying Horace and Terence again, not only for Sir Thomas More’s benefit, but in order to win his approval and his good report to his household, among whom Beatrice was practically to be reckoned.

He was pleased too by More’s account of Beatrice.

“She is nearly as good a scholar as my dear Meg,” he had said one day.

“Try her, Mr. Torridon.”

Ralph had carefully prepared an apt quotation that day, and fired it off presently, not at Beatrice, but, as it were, across her; but there was not the faintest response or the quiver of an eyelid.

There was silence a moment; and then Sir Thomas burst out—

“You need not look so demure, my child; we all know that you understand.”

Beatrice had given him a look of tranquil amusement in return.

“I will not be made a show of,” she said.

Ralph went away that day more engrossed than ever. He began to ask himself where his interest in her would end; and wondered at its intensity.

As he questioned himself about it, it seemed that to him it was to a great extent her appearance of detached self-possession that attracted him. It was the quality that he most desired for himself, and one which he had in measure attained; but he was aware that in the presence of Cromwell at least it deserted him. He knew well that he had found his master there, and that he himself was nothing more than a hero-worshipper before a shrine; but it provoked him to feel that there was no one who seemed to occupy the place of a similar divinity with regard to this girl. Obviously she admired and loved Sir Thomas More—Ralph soon found out how deeply in the course of his visits—but she was not in the least afraid of her friend. She serenely contradicted him when she disagreed with what he said, would fail to keep her appointments at his house with the same equanimity, and in spite of Sir Thomas’s personality never appeared to give him more than a friendly and affectionate homage. With regard to Ralph himself, it was the same. She was not in the least awed by him, or apparently impressed by his reputation which at this time was growing rapidly as that of a capable and daring agent of Cromwell’s; and even once or twice when he condescended to hint at the vastness of the affairs on which he was engaged, in a desperate endeavour to rouse her admiration, she only looked at him steadily a moment with very penetrating eyes, and began to speak of something else. He began to feel discouraged.

The first hint that Ralph had that he had been making a mistake in his estimate of her, came from Margaret Roper, who was still living at Chelsea with her husband Will.

Ralph had walked up to the house one bleak afternoon in early spring along the river-bank from Westminster, and had found Margaret alone in the dining-hall, seated by the window with her embroidery in her hand, and a Terence propped open on the sill to catch the last gleams of light from the darkening afternoon. She greeted Ralph warmly, for he was a very familiar figure to them all by now, and soon began to talk, when he had taken a seat by the wide open fireplace whence the flames flickered out, casting shadows and lights round the high room, across the high-hung tapestries and in the gloomy corners.

“Beatrice is here,” she said presently, “upstairs with father. I think she is doing some copying for him.”

“She is a great deal with him,” observed Ralph.

“Why, yes; father thinks so much of her. He says that none can write so well as she, or has such a quick brain. And then she does not talk, he says, nor ask foolish woman-questions like the rest of us.” And Margaret glanced up a moment, smiling.

“I suppose I must not go up,” said Ralph, a little peevishly; for he was tired with his long day.

“Why, no, you must not,” said Margaret, “but she will be down soon, Mr.

Torridon.”

There was silence for a moment or two; and then Margaret spoke again.

“Mr. Torridon,” she said, “may I say something?” Ralph made a little sound of assent. The warmth of the fire was making him sleepy.

“Well, it is this,” said Margaret slowly, “I think you believe that Beatrice does not like you. That is not true. She is very fond of you; she thinks a great deal of you,” she added, rather hastily.

Ralph sat up; his drowsiness was gone.

“How do you know that, Mrs. Roper?” he asked. His voice sounded perfectly natural, and Margaret was reassured at the tone of it. She could not see Ralph well; it was getting dark now.

“I know it well,” she said. “Of course we talk of you when you are gone.”

“And does Mrs. Beatrice talk of me?”

“Not so much,” said Margaret, “but she listens very closely; and asks us questions sometimes.” The girl’s heart was beating with excitement as she spoke; but she had made up her mind to seek this opportunity. It seemed a pity, she thought, that two friends of hers should so misunderstood one another.

“And what kind of questions?” asked Ralph again.

“She wonders—what you really think—” went on Margaret slowly, bending down over her embroidery, and punctuating her words with stitches—”about—about affairs—and—and she said one day that—”

“Well?” said Ralph in the same tone.

“That she thought you were not so severe as you seemed,” ended Margaret, her voice a little tremulous with amusement.

Ralph sat perfectly still, staring at the great fire-plate on which a smoky Phoebus in relief drove the chariot of the sun behind the tall wavering flames that rose from the burning logs. He knew very well why Margaret had spoken, and that she would not speak without reason; but the fact revealed was so bewilderingly new to him that he could not take it in. Margaret looked at him once or twice a little uneasily; and at last sighed.

“It is too dark,” she said, “I must fetch candles.”

She slipped out of the side-door that led to the servants’ quarters, and Ralph was left alone. All his weariness was gone now; the whirl of images and schemes with which his brain had been seething as he walked up the river-bank half-an-hour before, had receded into obscurity; and one dominating thought filled their place: What if Margaret were right? And what did he mean to do himself? Surely he was not—

The door from the entrance passage opened, and a tall slender figure stood there, now in light, now in shadow, as the flames rose and fell.

“Meg,” said a voice.

Ralph sat still a moment longer.

“Meg,” said Beatrice again, “how dark you are.”

Ralph stood up.

“Mrs Roper has just gone,” he said, “you must put up with me, Mrs.

Beatrice.”

“Who is it?” said the girl advancing. “Mr. Torridon?”

She had a paper in her hand as she came across the floor, and Ralph drew out a chair for her on the other side of the hearth.

“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Roper has gone for lights. She will be back immediately.”

Beatrice sat down.

“It is a troublesome word,” she said. “Master More cannot read it himself, and has sent me to ask Meg. He says that every dutiful daughter should be able to read her father’s hand.”

And Ralph could see a faint amused smile in her black eyes, as the firelight shone on them.

“Master More always has an escape ready,” he said, as he too sat down.

The girl’s hand holding the paper suddenly dropped on to her knee, and the man saw she was looking at him oddly.

“Yes?” he said interrogatively; and then—

“Why do you look at me like that, Mrs. Beatrice?”

“It is what you said. Do you really think that, Mr. Torridon?”

Ralph was bewildered for a moment.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Do you truly think he always has an escape ready?” repeated the girl.

Then Ralph understood.

“You mean he is in danger,” he said steadily. “Well, of course he is. There is no great man that is not. But I do not see why he should not escape as he has always done.”

“You think that, Mr. Torridon?”

“Why, yes;” went on Ralph, a little hastily. “You remember the matter of the bribe. See how he cleared himself. Surely, Mrs. Beatrice—”

“And you really think so,” said the girl. “I know that you know what we do not; and I shall believe what you say.”

“How can I tell?” remonstrated Ralph. “I can only tell you that in this matter I know nothing that you do not. Master More is under no suspicion.”

Beatrice drew a breath of relief.

“I am glad I spoke to you, sir,” she said. “It has been on my mind. And something that he said a few minutes ago frightened me.”

“What did he say?” asked Ralph curiously.

“Ah! it was not much. It was that no man knew what might come next; that matters were very strange and dismaying—and—and that he wanted this paper copied quickly, for fear—”

The girl stopped again, abruptly.

“I know what you feel, Mrs. Beatrice,” said Ralph gently. “I know how you love Master More, and how terrified we may become for our friends.”

“What do you think yourself, Mr. Torridon,” she said suddenly, almost interrupting him.

He looked at her doubtfully a moment, and half wished that Margaret would come back.

“That is a wide question,” he said.

“Well, you know what I mean,” she said coolly, completely herself again. She was sitting back in her chair now, drawing the paper serenely to and fro between her fingers; and he could see the firelight on her chin and brows, and those steady eyes watching him. He had an impulse of confidence.

“I do think changes are coming,” he said. “I suppose we all do.”

“And you approve?”

“Oh! how can I say off-hand?—But I think changes are needed.”

She was looking down at the fire again now, and did not speak for a moment.

“Master More said you were of the new school,” she said meditatively.

Ralph felt a curious thrill of exultation. Margaret was right then; this girl had been thinking about him.

“There is certainly a stirring,” he said; and his voice was a little restrained.

“Oh, I am not blind or deaf,” said the girl. “Of course, there is a stirring—but I wondered—”

Then Margaret came in with the candles.

Ralph went away that evening more excited than he liked. It seemed as if Mistress Roper’s words had set light to a fire ready laid, and he could perceive the warmth beginning to move about his heart and odd wavering lights flickering on his circumstances and business that had not been there before.

He received his first letter from Beatrice a few weeks later, and it threw him into a strait between his personal and official claims.

Cromwell at this time was exceedingly occupied with quelling the ardour of the House of Lords, who were requesting that the Holy Maid of Kent and her companions might have an opportunity of defending themselves before the Act of Attainder ordered by the King was passed against them; but he found time to tell his agent that trouble was impending over More and Fisher; and to request him to hand in any evidence that he might have against the former.

“I suppose we shall have to let the Bishop off with a fine,” said the minister, “in regard to the Maid’s affair; but we shall catch him presently over the Act; and Mr. More is clear of it. But we shall have him too in a few days. Put down what you have to say, Mr. Torridon, and let me have it this evening.”

And then he rustled off down the staircase to where his carriage was waiting to take him to Westminster, where he proposed to tell the scrupulous peers that the King was not accustomed to command twice, and that to suspect his Grace of wishing them to do an injustice was a piece of insolence that neither himself nor his royal master had expected of them.

Ralph was actually engaged in putting down his very scanty accusations against Sir Thomas More when the letter from Beatrice was brought up to him. He read it through twice in silence; and then ordered the courier to wait below. When the servant had left the room, he read it through a third time.

It was not long; but it was pregnant.

“I entreat you, sir,” wrote the girl, “for the love of Jesu, to let us know if anything is designed against our friend. Three weeks ago you told me it was not so; I pray God that may be true still. I know that you would not lift a finger against him yourself—” (Ralph glanced at his own neat little list at these words, and bit his pen)—”but I wish you to do what you can for him and for us all.” Then followed an erasure.

Ralph carried the paper to the window, flattened it against the panes and read clearly the words, “If my” under the scratching lines, and smiled to himself as he guessed what the sentence was that she was beginning.

Then the letter continued.

“I hear on good authority that there is something against him. He will not escape; and will do nothing on such hearsay, but only tells us to trust God, and laughs at us all. Good Mr. Torridon, do what you can. Your loving friend, B.A.”

Ralph went back from the window where he was still standing, and sat down again, bending his head into his hands. He had no sort of scruples against lying as such or betraying Mr. More’s private conversation; his whole training was directed against such foolishness, and he had learnt at last from Cromwell’s incessant precept and example that the good of the State over-rode all private interests. But he had a disinclination to lie to Beatrice; and he felt simply unable to lose her friendship by telling her the truth.

As he sat there perfectly still, the servant peeped in once softly to see if the answer was ready, and noiselessly withdrew. Ralph did not stir; but still sat on, pressing his eyeballs till they ached and fiery rings twisted before him in the darkness. Then he abruptly sat up, blinked a moment or two, took up a pen, bit it again, and laid it down and sat eyeing the two papers that lay side by side on his desk.

He took up his own list, and read it through. After all, it was very insignificant, and contained no more than minute scraps of conversation that Sir Thomas More had let drop. He had called Queen Katharine “poor woman” three or four times; had expressed a reverence for the Pope of Rome half a dozen times, and had once called him the Vicar of Christ. He had been silent when someone had mentioned Anne Boleyn’s name; he had praised the Carthusians and the Religious Life generally, at some length.

They were the kind of remarks that might mean nothing or a great deal; they were consistent with loyalty; they were not inconsistent with treason; in fact they were exactly the kind of material out of which serious accusations might be manufactured by a skilled hand, though as they stood they proved nothing.

A further consideration to Ralph was his duty to Cromwell; he scarcely felt it seemly to lie whole-heartedly to him; and on the other hand he felt now simply unable to lie to Beatrice. There was only one way out of it,—to prevaricate to them both.

He took up his own paper, glanced at it once more; and then with a slightly dramatic gesture tore it across and across, and threw it on the ground. Then he took up his pen and wrote to Beatrice.

“I have only had access to one paper against our friend—that I have destroyed, though I do not know what Master Cromwell will say. But I tell you this to show at what a price I value your friendship.

“Of course our friend is threatened. Who is not in these days? But I swear to you that I do not know what is the design.”

He added a word or two more for politeness’ sake, prayed that “God might have her in His keeping,” and signed himself as she had done, her “loving friend.”

Then he dried the ink with his pounce box, sealed the letter with great care, and took it down to the courier himself.

He faced Cromwell in the evening with a good deal of terror, but with great adroitness; swore positively that More had said nothing actually treasonable, and had found, on putting pen to paper, that the accusations were flimsier than he thought.

“But it is your business to see that they be not so,” stormed his master. Ralph paused a moment respectfully.

“I cannot make a purse out of a sow’s ear, sir. I must have at least some sort of silk.”

When Cromwell had ceased to walk up and down, Ralph pointed out with considerable shrewdness that he did not suppose that his evidence was going to form the main ground of the attack on More; and that it would merely weaken the position to bring such feeble arguments to bear.

“Why he would tear them to shreds, sir, in five minutes; he would make out that they were our principal grounds—he is a skilled lawyer. If I may dare to say so, Master Cromwell, let your words against Mr. More be few and choice.”

This was bolder speaking than he had ever ventured on before; but Cromwell was in a good humour. The peers had proved tractable and had agreed to pass the attainder against Elizabeth Barton without any more talk of justice and the accused’s right of defence; and he looked now at Ralph with a grim approval.

“I believe you are right, Mr. Torridon. I will think, over it.”

A week later the blow fell.

Cromwell looked up at him one Sunday evening as he came into the room, with his papers, and without any greeting spoke at once.

“I wish you to go to Lambeth House to-morrow morning early, Mr. Torridon. Master More is to be there to have the Oath of Succession tendered to him with the others. Do your best to persuade him to take it; be his true friend.”

A little grim amusement shone in his eyes as he spoke. Ralph looked at him a moment.

“I mean it, Mr. Torridon: do your best. I wish him to think you his friend.”

As Ralph went across the Thames in a wherry the following morning, he was still thinking out the situation. Apparently Cromwell wished to keep in friendly touch with More; and this now, of course, was only possible through Ralph, and would have been impossible if the latter’s evidence had been used, or were going to be used. It was a relief to him to know that the consummation of his treachery was postponed at least for the present; (but he would not have called it treachery).

As Lambeth towers began to loom ahead, Ralph took out Beatrice’s letter that had come in answer to his own a few days before, and ran his eyes over it. It was a line of passionate thanks and blessing. Surely he had reached her hidden heart at last. He put the letter back in his inner pocket, just before he stepped ashore. It no doubt would be a useful evidence of his own sincerity in his interview with More.

There was a great crowd in the court as he passed through, for many were being called to take the oath, which, however, was not made strictly legal until the following Second Act in the autumn. Several carriages were drawn up near the house door, and among them Ralph recognised the liveries of his master and of Lord Chancellor Audley. A number of horses and mules too were tethered to rings in the wall on the other side with grooms beside them, and ecclesiastics and secretaries were coming and going, disputing in groups, calling to one another, in the pleasant April sunshine.

On enquiry he found that the Commissioners were sitting in one of the downstair parlours; but one of Cromwell’s servants at the door told him that he was not to go in there, but that Mr. More was upstairs by himself, and that if he pleased he would show him the way.

It was an old room looking on to the garden, scantily furnished, with a patch of carpet by the window and a table and chair set upon it. More turned round from the window-seat on which he was kneeling to look out, and smiled genially as Ralph heard the servant close the door.

“Why, Mr. Torridon, are you in trouble too? This is the detention-room whither I am sent to consider myself.”

He led Ralph, still holding his hand, to the window-seat, where he leaned again looking eagerly into the garden.

“There go the good boys,” he said, “to and fro in the playground; and here sit I. I suppose I have nothing but the rod to look for.”

Ralph felt a little awkward in the presence of this gaiety; and for a minute or two leaned out beside More, staring mechanically at the figures that passed up and down. He had expected almost to find him at his prayers, or at least thoughtfully considering himself.

More commented agreeably on the passers-by.

“Dr. Wilson was here a moment ago; but he is off now, with a man on either side. He too is a naughty fellow like myself, and will not listen to reason. There is the Vicar of Croydon, good man, coming out of the buttery wiping his mouth.”

Ralph looked down at the priest’s flushed excited face; he was talking with a kind of reckless gaiety to a friend who walked beside him.

“He was sad enough just now,” went on the other, “while he was still obstinate; but his master hath patted him on the head now and given him cake and wine. He was calling out for a drink just now (which he hath got, I see) either for gladness or for dryness, or else that we might know quod ille notus erat pontifici.”

Dr. Latimer passed presently, his arms on either side flung round a priest’s neck; he too was talking volubly and laughing; and the skirts of his habit wagged behind him.

“He is in high feather,” said More, “and I have no doubt that his conscience is as clear as his eyes. Come, Mr. Torridon; sit you down. What have you come for?”

Ralph sat back on the window-seat with his back to the light, and his hat between his knees.

“I came to see you, sir; I have not been to the Commissioners. I heard you were here.”

“Why, yes,” said More, “here I am.”

“I came to see if I could be of any use to you, Master More; I know a friend’s face is a good councillor sometimes, even though that friend be a fool.”

More patted him softly on the knee.

“No fool,” he said, “far from it.”

He looked at him so oddly that Ralph feared that he suspected him; so he made haste to bring out Beatrice’s letter.

“Mistress Atherton has written me this,” he said. “I was able to do her a little service—at least I thought it so then.”

More took the letter and glanced at it.

“A very pretty letter,” he said, “and why do you show it me?”

Ralph looked at him steadily.

“Because I am Master Cromwell’s servant; and you never forget it.”

More burst into a fit of laughter; and then took Ralph kindly by the hand.

“You are either very innocent or very deep,” he said. “And what have you come to ask me?”

“I have come to ask nothing, Master More,” said Ralph indignantly, withdrawing his hand—”except to be of service to you.”

“To talk about the oath,” corrected the other placidly. “Very well then.

Do you begin, Mr. Torridon.”

Ralph made a great effort, for he was sorely perplexed by Sir Thomas’ attitude, and began to talk, putting all the reasons forward that he could think of for the accepting of the oath. He pointed out that government and allegiance would be impossible things if every man had to examine for himself the claims of his rulers; when vexed and elaborate questions arose—and this certainly was one such—was it not safer to follow the decrees of the King and Parliament, rather than to take up a position of private judgment, and decide upon details of which a subject could have no knowledge? How, too, could More, under the circumstances, take upon himself to condemn those who had subscribed the oath?—he named a few eminent prelates, the Abbot of Westminster and others.

“I do not condemn them,” put in More, who was looking interested.

“Then you are uncertain of the matter?” went on Ralph who had thought out his line of argument with some care.

More assented.

“But your duty to the King’s grace is certain; therefore it should outweigh a thing that is doubtful.”

Sir Thomas sucked in his lower lip, and stared gravely on the young man.

“You are very shrewd, sir,” he said. “I do not know how to answer that at this moment; but I have no reasonable doubt but that there is an answer.”

Ralph was delighted with his advantage, and pursued it eagerly; and after a few minutes had won from More an acknowledgment that he might be willing to consider the taking of the oath itself; it was the other clauses that touched his conscience more. He could swear to be loyal to Anne’s children; but he could not assent to the denunciation of the Pope contained in the preamble of the Act, and the oath would commit him to that.

“But you will tell that to the Commissioners, sir?” asked Ralph eagerly.

“I will tell them all that I have told you,” said More smiling.

Ralph himself was somewhat doubtful as to whether the concession would be accepted; but he professed great confidence, and secretly congratulated himself with having made so much way. But presently a remark of More’s showed that he appreciated the situation.

“I am very grateful to you, Mr. Torridon, for coming and talking to me; and I shall tell my wife and children so. But it is of no use. They are resolved to catch me. First there was the bribe; then the matter of the Maid; then this; and if I took a hundred oaths they would find one more that I could not, without losing my soul; and that indeed I do not propose to do. Quid enim proficit homo?”

There was a knock at the door a moment later, and a servant came in to beg Mr. More to come downstairs again; the Commissioners were ready for him.

“Then good-day, Mr. Torridon. You will come and see me sometimes, even if not at Chelsea. Wherever I may be it will be as nigh heaven as Chelsea.”

Ralph went down with him, and parted from him at the door of the Commissioner’s room; and half-an-hour later a message was sent out to him by Cromwell that he need wait no longer; Mr. More had refused the oath, and had been handed over to the custody of the Abbot of Westminster.

CHAPTER VII

A MERRY PRISONER

The arrest of Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher and their committal to the Tower a few days later caused nothing less than consternation in England and of furious indignation on the Continent. It was evident that greatness would save no man; the best hope lay in obscurity, and men who had been loud in self-assertion now grew timorous and silent.

Ralph was now in the thick of events. Besides his connection with More, he had been present at one of the examinations of the Maid of Kent and her admirers; had formed one of the congregation at Paul’s Cross when the confession drawn up for her had been read aloud in her name by Dr. Capon, who from the pulpit opposite the platform where the penitents were set, preached a vigorous sermon against credulity and superstition. Ralph had read the confession over a couple of days before in Cromwell’s room, and had suggested a few verbal alterations; and he had been finally present, a few days after More’s arrest, at the last scene of the drama, when Elizabeth Barton, with six priests, suffered, under the provisions of an act of attainder, on Tyburn gallows.

All these events were indications of the course that things were taking in regard to greater matters. Parliament had now advanced further than ever in the direction of a breach with Rome, and had transferred the power of nomination to bishoprics from the Holy See to the Crown, and, what was as least as significant, had dealt in a similar manner with the authority over Religious houses.

On the other side, Rome had declared definitely against the annulling of Queen Katharine’s marriage, and to this the King had retorted by turning the pulpits against the Pope, and in the course of this had found himself compelled to deal sharply with the Franciscans, who were at the same time the most popular and the most papal of all preachers. In the following out of this policy, first several notable friars were imprisoned, and next a couple of subservient Religious, a Dominican and an Augustinian, were appointed grand visitors of the rebellious Order.

A cloud of terror now began to brood over the Religious houses in England, as the news of these proceedings became known, and Ralph had a piteous letter from his father, entreating him to give some explanation of the course of affairs so far as was compatible with loyalty to his master, and at least his advice as to Christopher’s profession.

“We hear sad tales, dear son,” wrote Sir James, “on all sides are fears, and no man knows what the end will be. Some even say that the Orders will be reduced in number. And who knows what may be toward now that the Bishop and Mr. More are in trouble. I know not what is all this that Parliament has been doing about the Holy Father his authority; but I am sure that it cannot be more than what other reigns have brought about in declaring that the Prince is temporal lord of his land. But, however that may be, what do you advise that your brother should do? He is to be professed in August, unless it is prevented, and I dare not put out my hand to hinder it, until I know more. I do not ask you, dear son, to tell me what you should not; I know my duty and yours too well for that. But I entreat you to tell me what you can, that I may not consent to your brother’s profession if it is better that it should not take place until affairs are quieter. Your mother would send you her dear love, I know, if she knew I were writing, but she is in her chamber, and the messenger must go with this. Jesu have you in His blessed keeping!”

Ralph wrote back that he knew no reason against Christopher’s profession, except what might arise from the exposure of the Holy Maid on whose advice he had gone to Lewes, and that if his father and brother were satisfied on that score, he hoped that Christopher would follow God’s leading.

At the same time that he wrote this he was engaged, under Cromwell’s directions, in sifting the evidence offered by the grand visitors to show that the friars refused to accept the new enactments on the subject of the papal jurisdiction.

On the other hand, the Carthusians in London had proved more submissive. There had been a struggle at first when the oath of the succession had been tendered to them, and Prior Houghton, with the Procurator, Humphrey Middlemore, had been committed to the Tower. The oath affirmed the nullity of Queen Katharine’s marriage with the King on the alleged ground of her consummated marriage with Henry’s elder brother, and involved, though the Carthusians did not clearly understand it so at the time, a rejection of the Pope’s authority as connected with the dispensation for Katharine’s union with Henry. In May their scruples were removed by the efforts of some who had influence with them, and the whole community took the oath as required of them, though with the pathetic addition of a clause that they only submitted “so far as it was lawful for them so to do.” This actual submission, to Cromwell’s mind and therefore to Ralph’s, was at first of more significance than was the uneasy temper of the community, as reported to them, which followed their compliance; but as the autumn drew on this opinion was modified.

It was in connection with this that Ralph became aware for the first time of what was finally impending with regard to the King’s supremacy over the Church.

He had been sitting in Cromwell’s room in the Chancery all through one morning, working at the evidence that was flowing in from all sides of disaffection to Henry’s policy, sifting out worthless and frivolous charges from serious ones. Every day a flood of such testimony poured in from the spies in all parts of the country, relating to the deepening dissatisfaction with the method of government; and Cromwell, as the King’s adviser, came in for much abuse. Every kind of manifestation of this was reported, the talk in the ale-houses and at gentlemen’s tables alike, words dropped in the hunting-field or over a game of cards; and the offenders were dealt with in various ways, some by a sharp rebuke or warning, others by a sudden visit of a pursuivant and his men.

Ralph made his report as usual at the end of the morning, and was on the point of leaving, when his master called him back from the door.

“A moment,” he said, “I have something to say. Sit down.”

When Ralph had taken the chair again that he had just left, Cromwell took up a pen, and began to play with it delicately as he talked.

“You will have noticed,” he began, “how hot the feeling runs in the country, and I am sure you will also have understood why it is so. It is not so much what has happened,—I mean in the matter of the marriage and of the friars,—but what folk fear is going to happen. It seems to the people that security is disappearing; they do not understand that their best security lies in obedience. And, above all, they think that matters are dangerous with regard to the Church. They know now that the Pope has spoken, and that the King pays no heed, but, on the other hand, waxes more bold. And that because his conscience bids him. Remember that, sir, when you have to do with his Highness.”

He glanced at Ralph again, but there was no mockery in his solemn eyes.

Then he went on.

“I am going to tell you, Mr. Torridon, that these folks are partly right, and that his Grace has not yet done all that he intends. There is yet one more step to take—and that is to declare the King supreme over the Church of England.”

Ralph felt those strong eyes bent upon him, and he nodded, making no sign of approval or otherwise.

“This is no new thing, Mr. Torridon,” went on Cromwell, after a moment’s silence. “The King of England has always been supreme, though I will acknowledge that this has become obscured of late. But it is time that it be re-affirmed. The Popes have waxed presumptuous, and have laid claim to titles that Christ never gave them, and it is time that they be reminded that England is free, and will not suffer their domination. As for the unity of the Catholic Church, that can be attended to later on, and on firmer ground; when the Pope has been taught not to wax so proud. There will be an Act passed by Parliament presently, perhaps next year, to do this business, and then we shall know better what to do. Until that, it is very necessary, as you have already seen, to keep the folks quiet, and not to suffer any contradiction of his Grace’s rights. Do you understand me, Mr. Torridon?”

Cromwell laid the pen clown and leaned back in his chair, with his fingers together.

“I understand, sir,” said Ralph, in a perfectly even tone.

“Well, that is all that I have to say,” ended his master, still watching him. “I need not tell you how necessary secrecy is in the matter.”

Ralph was considerably startled as he went home, and realized better what it was that he had heard. While prudent persons were already trembling at the King’s effrontery and daring in the past, Henry was meditating a yet further step. He began to see now that the instinct of the country was, as always, sharper than that of the individual, and that these uneasy strivings everywhere rose from a very definite perception of danger. The idea of the King’s supremacy, as represented by Cromwell, would not seem to be a very startling departure; similar protests of freedom had been made in previous reigns, but now, following as it did upon overt acts of disobedience to the Sovereign Pontiff, and of disregard of his authority in matters of church-law and even of the status of Religious houses, it seemed to have a significance that previous protests had lacked.

And behind it all was the King’s conscience! This was a new thought to Ralph, but the more he considered it the more it convinced him. It was a curious conscience, but a mighty one, and it was backed by an indomitable will. For the first time there opened out to Ralph’s mind a glimpse of the possibility that he had scarcely dreamed of hitherto—of a Nationalism in Church affairs that was a reality rather than a theory—in which the Bishop of Rome while yet the foremost bishop of Christendom and endowed with special prerogatives, yet should have no finger in national affairs, which should be settled by the home authorities without reference to him. No doubt, he told himself, a readjustment was needed—visions and fancies had encrusted themselves so quickly round the religion credible by a practical man that a scouring was called for. How if this should be the method by which not only such accretions should be done away, but yet more practical matters should be arranged, and steps taken to amend the unwarranted interferences and pecuniary demands of this foreign bishop?

He had had more than one interview with Sir Thomas More in the Tower, and once was able to take him news of his own household at Chelsea. For a month none of his own people, except his servant, was allowed to visit him, and Ralph, calling on him about three weeks after the beginning of his imprisonment, found him eager for news.

He was in a sufficiently pleasant cell in the Beauchamp Tower, furnished with straw mats underfoot, and straw hangings in place of a wainscot; his bed stood in one corner, with his crucifix and beads on a little table beside it, and his narrow window looked out through eleven feet of wall towards the Court and the White Tower. His books, too, which his servant, John Wood, had brought from Chelsea, and which had not yet been taken from him, stood about the room, and several lay on the table among his papers, at which he was writing when Ralph was admitted by the warder.

“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “I knew you would not forget an old friend, even though he could not take your counsel. I daresay you have come to give it me again, however.”

“If I thought you would take it,” began Ralph.

“But I will not,” said More smiling, “no more than before. Sit down, Mr.

Torridon.”

Ralph had come at Cromwell’s suggestion, and with a very great willingness of his own, too. He knew he could not please Beatrice more than by visiting her friend, and he himself was pleased and amused to think that he could serve his master’s interests from one side and his own from another by one action.

He talked a little about the oath again, and mentioned how many had taken it during the last week or two.

“I am pleased that they can do it with a good conscience,” observed More. “And now let us talk of other matters. If I would not do it for my daughter’s sake, who begged me, I would not do it for the sake of both the Houses of Parliament, nor even, dear Mr. Torridon, for yours and Master Cromwell’s.”

Ralph saw that it was of no use, and began to speak of other things. He gave him news of Chelsea.

“They are not very merry there,” he said, “and I hardly suppose you would wish them to be.”

“Why not?” cried More, with a beaming face, “I am merry enough. I would not be a monk; so God hath compelled me to be one, and treats me as one of His own spoilt children. He setteth me on His lap and dandleth me. I have never been so happy.”

He told Ralph presently that his chief sorrow was that he could not go to mass or receive the sacraments. The Lieutenant, Sir Edward Walsingham, who had been his friend, had told him that he would very gladly have given him liberties of this kind, but that he dared not, for fear of the King’s displeasure.

“But I told him,” said More, “not to trouble himself that I liked his cheer well enough as it was, and if ever I did not he was to put me out of his doors.”

After a little more talk he showed Ralph what he was writing. It was a treatise called a “Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation.”

“It is to persuade myself,” he said, “that I am no more a prisoner than I was before; I know I am, but sometimes forget it. We are all God’s prisoners.”

Ralph glanced down the page just written and was astonished at its good humour.

“Some prisoner of another gaol,” he read, “singeth, danceth in his two fetters, and feareth not his feet for stumbling at a stone; while God’s prisoner, that hath but his one foot fettered by the gout, lieth groaning on a couch, and quaketh and crieth out if he fear there would fall on his foot no more than a cushion.”

Ralph went straight up the river from the Tower to Chelsea to take them news of the prisoner, and was silent and moody as he went. He had been half touched and half enraged by More’s bearing—touched by his simplicity and cheerfulness and enraged by his confidence in a bad cause.

Mrs. Alice More behaved as usual when he got there: she had a genius for the obvious; commented on the weariness of living in one room, the distress at the thought that one was fastened in at the will of another; deplored the plainness of the prison fare, and the folly of her husband in refusing an oath that she herself and her children and the vast majority of the prominent persons in England had found so simple in accepting. She left nothing unsaid.

Finally, she apologized for the plainness of her dress.

“You must think me a slattern, Mr. Torridon, but I cannot help it. I have not the heart nor the means, now that my man is in prison, to do better.”

And her solemn eyes filled with tears.

When he had given the news to the family he went aside from the group in the garden to where Beatrice Atherton was sitting below the Jesu tree, with work on her lap.

He had noticed as he talked that she was sitting there, and had raised his voice for her benefit. He fancied, and with a pleasure at the delicate instinct, that she did not wish to appear as intimately interested in the news from the Tower as those who had a better right to be. He was always detecting now faint shades in her character, as he knew her better, that charmed and delighted him.

She was doing some mending, and only glanced up and down again without ceasing or moving, as Ralph stood by her.

“I thought you never used the needle,” he began in a moment.

“It is never too late to mend,” she said, without the faintest movement.

Ralph felt again an odd prick of happiness. It gave him a distinct thrill of delight that she would make such an answer and so swiftly; and at such a time, when tragedy was round her and in her heart, for he knew how much she loved the man from whom he had just come.

He sat down on the garden chair opposite, and watched her fingers and the movements of her wrist as she passed the needle in and out, and neither spoke again till the others had dispersed.

“You heard all I said?” said Ralph at last.

She bowed her head without answering.

“Shall I go and bring you news again presently?”

“If you please,” she said.

“I hope to be able to do some little things for him,” went on Ralph, dropping his eyes, and he was conscious that she momentarily looked up.

—”But I am afraid there is not much. I shall speak for him to Master

Cromwell and the Lieutenant.”

The needle paused and then went on again.

Ralph was conscious of an extraordinary momentousness in every word that he said. He was well aware that this girl was not to be wooed by violence, but that he must insinuate his mind and sympathies delicately with hers, watching for every movement and ripple of thought. He had known ever since his talk with Margaret Roper that Beatrice was, as it were, turned towards him and scrutinising him, and that any mistake on his part, however slight, might finally alienate her. Even his gestures, the tones of his voice, his manner of walking, were important elements. He knew now that he was the kind of person who might be acceptable to her—or rather that his personality contained one facet that pleased her, and that he must be careful now to keep that facet turned towards her continually at such an angle that she caught the flash. He had sufficient sense, not to act a part, for that, he knew, she would soon discover, but to be natural in his best way, and to use the fine instincts that he was aware of possessing to tell him exactly how she would wish him to express himself. It would be a long time yet, he recognised, before he could attain his final object; in fact he was not perfectly certain what he wanted; but meanwhile he availed himself of every possible opportunity to get nearer, and was content with his progress.

He was sorely tempted now to discuss Sir Thomas’s position and to describe his own, but he perceived from her own aloofness just now that it would seem a profanity, so he preserved silence instead, knowing that it would be eloquent to her. At last she spoke again, and there was a suggestion of a tremor in her voice.

“I suppose you can do nothing for him really? He must stay in the

Tower?”

Ralph threw out his hands, silently, expostulating.

“Nothing?” she said again, bending over her work.

Ralph stood up, looking down at her, but made no answer.

“I—I would do anything,” she said deliberately, “anything, I think, for the man—” and then broke off abruptly.

Ralph went away from Chelsea that afternoon with a whirling head and dancing heart. She had said no more than that, but he knew what she had meant, and knew, too that she would not have said as much to anyone to whom she was indifferent. Of course, it was hopeless to think of bringing about More’s release, but he could at least pretend to try, and Ralph was aware that to chivalrous souls a pathetic failure often appeals more than an excellent success.

Folks turned to look after him more than once as he strode home.

CHAPTER VIII

A HIGHER STEP

As Chris, on the eve of his profession, looked back over the year that had passed since his reception at the guest-house, he scarcely knew whether it seemed like a week or a century. At times it appeared as if the old life in the world were a kind of far-away picture in which he saw himself as one detached from his present personality, moving among curious scenes in which now he had no part; at other times the familiar past rushed on him fiercely, deafened him with its appeal, and claimed him as its own. In such moods the monastery was an intolerable prison, the day’s round an empty heart-breaking formality in which his soul was being stifled, and even his habit, which he had once touched so reverently, the badge of a fool.

The life of the world at such times seemed to him the only sanity; these men used the powers that God had given them, were content with simple and unostentatious doings and interests, reached the higher vocation by their very naiveté, and did not seek to fly on wings that were not meant to bear them. How sensible, Christopher told himself, was Ralph’s ideal! God had made the world, so Ralph lived in it—a world in which great and small affairs were carried on, and in which he interested himself. God had made horses and hawks, had provided materials for carriages and fine clothes and cross-bows, had formed the sexes and allowed for love and domestic matters, had created brains with their capacities of passion and intellect; and so Ralph had taken these things as he found them, hunted, dressed, lived, managed and mixed with men. At times in his cell Chris saw that imposing figure in all its quiet bravery of dress, that sane, clever face, those pitying and contemptuous eyes looking at him, and heard the well-bred voice asking and commenting and wondering at the misguided zeal of a brother who could give all this up, and seek to live a life that was built on and sustained by illusions.

One event during his first six months of the novitiate helped to solemnise him and to clear the confusion.

Old Dom Augustine was taken sick and died, and Chris for the first time in his life watched the melting tragedy of death. The old monk had been moved from the dortor to the sick-room when the end seemed imminent, and one afternoon Chris noticed the little table set outside the door, with its candles and crucifix, the basin of cotton-wool, and the other signs that the last sacraments were to be administered. He knew little of the old man, except his bleared face and shaking hands as he had seen them in choir, and had never been greatly impressed by him; but it was another matter when in the evening of the same day, at his master’s order he passed into the cell and knelt down with the others to see the end.

The old monk was lying now on the cross of ashes that had been spread on the floor; his features looked pinched and white in the candlelight; his old mouth moved incessantly, and opened now and again to gasp; but there was an august dignity on his face that Chris had never seen there before.

Outside the night was still and frosty; only now and again the heavy stroke of the bell told the town that a soul was passing.

Dom Augustine had received Viaticum an hour before. Chris had heard the steady tinkle of the bell, like the sound of Aaron’s garments, as the priest who had brought him Communion passed back with his sacred burden, and Chris had fallen on his knees where he stood as he caught a glimpse of the white procession passing back to the church, their frosty breath going up together in the winter night air, the wheeling shadows, and the glare of the torches giving a pleasant warm light in the dull cloister.

But all that was over now, and the end was at hand.

As Chris knelt there, mechanically responding to the prayers on which the monk’s soul was beginning to lift itself and flutter for escape, there fell a great solemnity on his spirit. The thought, as old as death, made itself real to him, that this was the end of every man and of himself too. Where Dom Augustine lay, he would lie, with his past behind him, of which every detail would be instinct with eternal import. All the tiny things of the monastic life—the rising in time for the night office, attention during it, the responses to grace, the little movements prescribed by etiquette, the invisible motions of a soul that had or had not acted for the love of God, those stirrings, falls, aspirations, that incessant activity of eighty years—all so incredibly minute from one point of view, so incredibly weighty from another—the account of all those things was to be handed in now, and an eternal judgment given.

He looked at the wearied, pained old face again, at the tight-shut eyes, the jerking movements of the unshaven lips, and wondered what was passing behind;—what strange colloquy of the soul with itself or its Master or great personages of the Court of Heaven. And all was set in this little bare setting of white walls, a tumbled bed, a shuttered window, a guttering candle or two, a cross of ashes on boards, a ring of faces, and a murmur of prayers!

The solemnity rose and fell in Chris’s soul like a deep organ-note sounding and waning. How homely and tender were these last rites, this accompaniment of the departing soul to the edge of eternity with all that was dear and familiar to it—the drops of holy water, the mellow light of candles, and the sonorous soothing Latin! And yet—and yet—how powerless to save a soul that had not troubled to make the necessary efforts during life, and had lost the power of making them now!

When all was over he went out of the cell with an indescribable gravity at his heart.

When the great events in the spring of ‘34 began to take place, Chris was in a period of abstracted peace, and the rumours of them came to him as cries from another planet.

Dom Anthony Marks came into the cloister one day from the guest-house with a great excitement in his face,

“Here is news!” he said, joining himself to Chris and another young monk with whom the lonely novice was sometimes allowed to walk. “Master Humphreys, from London, tells me they are all in a ferment there.”

Chris looked at him with a deferential coldness, and waited for more.

“They say that Master More hath refused the oath, and that he is lodged in the Tower, and my Lord of Rochester too.”

The young monk burst into exclamations and questions, but Chris was silent. It was sad enough, but what did it matter to him? What did it really matter to anyone? God was King.

Dom Anthony was in a hurry, and scuffled off presently to tell the Prior, and in an hour or two there was an air of excitement through the house. Chris, however, heard nothing more except the little that the novice-master chose to tell him, and felt a certain contempt for the anxious-eyed monks who broke the silence by whispers behind doors, and the peace of the monastery by their perturbed looks.

Even when a little later in the summer the commissioner came down to tender the oath of succession Chris heard little and cared less. He was aware of a fine gentleman striding through the cloister, lolling in the garth, and occupying a prominent seat in the church; he noticed that his master was long in coming to him after the protracted chapter-meetings, but it appeared to him all rather an irrelevant matter. These things were surely quite apart from the business for which they were all gathered in the house—the opus Dei and the salvation of souls; this or that legal document did not seriously affect such high matters.

The novice-master told him presently that the community had signed the oath, as all others were doing, and that there was no need for anxiety: they were in the hands of their Religious Superiors.

“I was not anxious,” said Chris abruptly, and Dom James hastened to snub him, and to tell him that he ought to have been, but that novices always thought they knew everything, and were the chief troubles that Religious houses had to put up with.

Chris courteously begged pardon, and went to his lessons wondering what in the world all the pother was about.

But such moods of detachment were not continuous they visited him for weeks at a time, when his soul was full of consolation, and he was amazed that any other life seemed possible to anyone. He seemed to himself to have reached the very heart and secret of existence—surely it was plain enough; God and eternity were the only things worth considering; a life passed in an ecstasy, if such were possible, was surely more consonant with reality than one of ordinary activities. Activities were, after all, but concessions to human weakness and desire for variety; contemplation was the simple and natural attitude of a soul that knew herself and God.

But he was a man as well as a novice, and when these moods ebbed from his soul they left him strangely bitter and dry: the clouds would gather; the wind of discontent would begin to shrill about the angles of his spirit, and presently the storm of desolation would be up.

He had one such tempestuous mood immediately before his profession.

During its stress he had received a letter from his father which he was allowed to read, in which Sir James half hinted at the advisability of postponing the irrevocable step until things were quieter, and his heart had leaped at the possibility of escape. He did not know till then how strong had grown the motive of appearing well in the eyes of his relatives and of fearing to lose their respect by drawing back; and now that his father, too, seemed to suggest that he had better re-consider himself, it appeared that a door was opened in the high monastery wall through which he might go through and take his honour with him.

He passed through a terrible struggle that night.

Never had the night-office seemed so wearisomely barren. The glamour that had lighted those dark walls and the double row of cowls and down-bent faces, the mystical beauty of the single flames here and there that threw patches of light on the carving of the stalls and the sombre habits, and gave visibility and significance to what without them was obscure, the strange suggestiveness of the high-groined roof and the higher vault glimmering through the summer darkness—all this had faded and left him, as it seemed, sane and perceptive of facts at last. Out there through those transepts lay the town where reasonable folk slept, husband and wife together, and the children in the great bed next door, with the tranquil ordinary day behind them and its fellow before; there were the streets, still now and dark and empty but for the sleeping dogs, where the signs swung and the upper stories leaned together, and where the common life had been transacted since the birth of the town and would continue till its decay. And beyond lay the cool round hills, with their dark dewy slopes, over which he had ridden a year ago, and all England beyond them again, with its human life and affairs and interests; and over all hung the serene stars whence God looked down well pleased with all that He had made.

And, meanwhile, here he stood in his stall in his night shoes and black habit and cropped head, propped on his misericorde, with the great pages open before him, thumbed and greasy at their corners, from which he was repeating in a loud monotone formula after formula that had had time to grow familiar from repetition, but not yet sweet from associations—here he stood with heavy eyelids after his short sleep, his feet aching and hot, and his whole soul rebellious.

He was sent by his novice-master next day to the Prior, with his father’s letter in his hand, and stood humbly by the door while the Prior read it. Chris watched him under half-raised eye-lids; saw the clean-cut profile with its delicate mouth bent over the paper, and the hand with the enamelled ring turn the page. Prior Crowham was a cultivated, well-bred man, not over strong-willed, but courteous and sympathetic. He turned a little to Chris in his carved chair, as he laid the letter down.

“Well,” he said, smiling, “it is for you to choose whether you will offer yourself. Of course, there is uneasiness abroad, as this letter says, but what then?”

He smiled pleasantly at the young man, and Chris felt a little ashamed.

There was silence for a moment.

“It is for you to choose,” said the Prior again, “you have been happy with us, I think?”

Chris pressed his lips together and looked down.

“Of course Satan will not leave you alone,” went on the monk presently. “He will suggest many reasons against your profession. If he did not, I should be afraid that you had no vocation.”

Again he waited for an answer, and again Chris was silent. His soul was so desolate that he could not trust himself to say all that he felt.

“You must wait a little,” went on the Prior, “recommend yourself to our Lady and our Patron, and then leave yourself in their hands. You will know better when you have had a few days. Will you do this, and then come to me again?”

“Yes, my Lord Prior,” said Chris, and he took up the letter, bowed, and went out.

Within the week relief and knowledge came to him. He had done what the monk had told him, and it had been followed by a curious sense of relief at the thought suggested to him that the responsibility of decision did not rest on him but on his heavenly helpers. And then as he served mass the answer came.

It was in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin, a little building entered from the north transept, with its windows opening directly on to the road leading up into the town; there was no one there but the two. It was about seven o’clock on the feast of the Seven Martyrs, and the chapel was full of a diffused tender morning light, for the chapel was sheltered from the direct sunshine by the tall church on its south.

As they went up to the altar the bell sounded for the Elevation at the high-altar of the church, at the missa familiaris, and the footstep of someone passing through the north transept ceased instantly at the sound. The priest ascended the steps, set down the vessels, spread the corporal, opened the book, and came down again for the preparation. There was no one else in the chapel, and the peace of the place in the summer light, only vitalized by the brisk chirping of a sparrow under the eaves, entered into Christopher’s soul.

As the mass went on it seemed as if a veil were lifting from his spirit, and leaving it free and sensible again. The things around him fell into their proper relationships, and there was no doubt in his mind that this newly restored significance of theirs was their true interpretation. They seemed penetrated and suffused by the light of the inner world; the red-brocaded chasuble moving on a level with his eyes, stirring with the shifting of the priest’s elbows, was more than a piece of rich stuff, the white alb beneath more than mere linen, the hood thrown back in the amice a sacramental thing. He looked up at the smoky yellow flames against the painted woodwork at the back of the altar, at the discoloured stones beside the grey window-mouldings still with the slanting marks of the chisel upon them, at the black rafters overhead, and last out through the shafted window at the heavy July foliage of the elm that stood by the road and the brilliant morning sky beyond; and once more he saw what these things meant and conveyed to an immortal soul. The words that he had said during these last weeks so mechanically were now rich and alive again, and as he answered the priest he perceived the spiritual vibration of them in the inner world of which his own soul was but a part. And then the climax was reached, and he lifted the skirt of the vestment with his left hand and shook the bell in his right; the last shreds of confusion were gone, and his spirit basked tranquil and content and certain again in the light that was newly risen on him.

He went to the novice-master after the morning-chapter, and told him that he had made up his mind to offer himself for profession if it was thought advisable by the authorities.

Towards the end of August he presented himself once more before the chapter to make his solemn demand; his petition was granted, and a day appointed for his profession.

Then he withdrew into yet stricter seclusion to prepare for the step.

CHAPTER IX

LIFE AT LEWES

Under the direction of the junior-master who overlooked the young monks for some years after their profession, Chris continued his work of illumination, for which he had shown great aptitude during his year of noviceship.

The art was beginning to disappear, since the introduction of printing had superseded the need of manuscript, but in some Religious Houses it was still thought a suitable exercise during the hours appointed for manual labour.

It was soon after the beginning of the new year that Chris was entrusted with a printed antiphonary that had its borders and initials left white; and he carried the great loose sheets with a great deal of pride to the little carrel or wooden stall assigned to him in the northern cloister.

It was a tiny room, scarcely six feet square, lighted by the window into the cloister-garth, and was almost entirely filled by the chair, the sloping desk against the wall, and the table where the pigments and brushes lay ready to the hand. The door opened on to the cloister itself where the professed monks were at liberty to walk, and on the opposite side stood the broad aumbries that held the library of the house; and it was from the books here that Chris was allowed to draw ideas for his designs. It was a great step in that life of minute details when now for the first time he was permitted to follow his own views, instead of merely filling in with colour outlines already drawn for him; and he found his scheme for the decoration a serious temptation to distraction during the office. As he stood among the professed monks, in his own stall at last, he found his eyes wandering away to the capitals of the round pillars, the stone foliage and fruit that burst out of the slender shafts, the grim heads that strained forward in mitre and crown overhead, and even the living faces of his brethren and superiors, clear against the dark woodwork. When he bent his eyes resolutely on his book he found his mind still intent on his more secular business; he mentally corrected this awkward curve of the initial, substituted an oak spray with acorns for that stiff monstrosity, and set my Lord Prior’s face grinning among griffins at the foot of the page where humour was more readily admitted.

It was an immense joy when he closed his carrel-door, after his hour’s siesta in the dormitory, and sat down to his work. He was still warm with sleep, and the piercing cold of the unwarmed cloister did not affect him, but he set his feet on the sloping wooden footstool that rested on the straw for fear they should get cold, and turned smiling to his side-table.

There were all the precious things laid out; the crow’s quills sharpened to an almost invisible point for the finer lines, the two sets of pencils, one of silver-point that left a faint grey line, and the other of haematite for the burnishing of the gold, the badger and minever brushes, the sponge and pumice-stone for erasures; the horns for black and red ink lay with the scissors and rulers on the little upper shelf of his desk. There were the pigments also there, which he had learnt to grind and prepare, the crushed lapis lazuli first calcined by heat according to the modern degenerate practice, with the cheap German blue beside it, and the indigo beyond; the prasinum; the vermilion and red lead ready mixed, and the rubrica beside it; the yellow orpiment, and, most important of all, the white pigments, powdered chalk and egg shells, lying by the biacca. In a separate compartment covered carefully from chance draughts or dust lay the precious gold leaf, and a little vessel of the inferior fluid gold used for narrow lines.

His first business was to rule the thick red lines down the side of the text, using a special metal pen for it; and then to begin to sketch in his initials and decorations. For this latter part of the work he had decided to follow the lines of Foucquet from a Book of the Hours that he had taken out of its aumbry; a mass of delicate foliage and leaves, with medallions set in it united by twisted thorn-branches twining upwards through the broad border. These medallions on the first sheet he purposed to fill with miniatures of the famous relics kept at Lewes, the hanging sleeve of the Blessed Virgin in its crystal case, the drinking-cup of Cana, the rod of Moses, and the Magdalene’s box of ointment. In the later pages which would be less elaborate he would introduce the other relics, and allow his humour free play in designing for the scrolls at the foot tiny portraits of his brethren; the Prior should be in a mitre and have the legs and tail of a lion, the novice-master, with a fox’s brush emerging from his flying cowl, should be running from a hound who carried a discipline in his near paw. But there was time yet to think of these things; it would be weeks before that page could be reached, and meanwhile there was the foliage to be done, and the rose leaf that lay on his desk to be copied minutely from a hundred angles.

His distractions at mass and office were worse than ever now that the great work was begun, and week after week in confession there was the same tale. The mere process was so absorbing, apart from the joy of creation and design. More than once he woke from a sweating nightmare in the long dormitory, believing that he had laid on gold-leaf without first painting the surface with the necessary mordant, or had run his stilus through his most delicate miniature. But he made extraordinary progress in the art; and the Prior more than once stepped into his carrel and looked over his shoulder, watching the slender fingers with the bone pen between them polishing the gold till it shone like a mirror, or the steady lead pencil moving over the white page in faultless curve. Then he would pat him on the shoulder, and go out in approving silence.

Chris was supremely content that he had done right in asking for profession. It appeared to him that he had found a life that was above all others worthy of an immortal soul. The whole day’s routine was directed to one end, the performance of the Opus Dei, the uttering of praises to Him who had made and was sustaining and would receive again all things to Himself.

They rose at midnight for the night-office that the sleeping world might not be wholly dumb to God; went to rest again; rose once more with the world, and set about a yet sublimer worship. A stream of sacrifice poured up to the Throne through the mellow summer morning, or the cold winter darkness and gloom, from altar after altar in the great church. Christopher remembered pleasantly a morning soon after the beginning of his novitiate when he had been in the church as a set of priests came in and began mass simultaneously; the mystical fancy suggested itself as the hum of voices began that he was in a garden, warm and bright with grace, and that bees were about him making honey—that fragrant sweetness of which it had been said long ago that God should eat—and as the tinkle of the Elevation sounded out here and there, it seemed to him as a signal that the mysterious confection was done, and that every altar sprang into perfume from those silver vessels set with jewel and crystal.

When the first masses were over, there was a pause in which the mixtum was taken—bread and wine or beer—standing in the refectory, after a short prayer that the Giver of all good gifts might bless the food and drink of His servants, and was closed again by another prayer said privately for all benefactors. Meanwhile the bell was ringing for the Lady mass, to remind the monks that the interval was only as it were a parenthetical concession; and after Terce and the Lady Mass followed the Chapter, in which faults were confessed and penances inflicted, and the living instruments of God’s work were examined and scoured for use. The martyrology was read at this time, as well as some morning prayers, to keep before the monks’ minds the remembrance of those great vessels of God’s household called to so high an employment. It was then, too, that other business of the house was done, and the seal affixed to any necessary documents. Christopher had an opportunity once of examining this seal when it had been given him to clean, and he looked with awe on the figures of his four new patrons, St. Peter, St. Pancras, St. Paul and Our Lady, set in niches above a cliff with the running water of the Ouse beneath, and read the petition that ran round the circle—

“Dulcis agonista tibi convertit domus ista Pancrati memorum precibus memor esto tuorum.”

When the chapter was over, and the deaths of any brethren of the order had been announced, and their souls prayed for, there was a pause for recreation in the cloister and the finishing of further business before they assembled again in time to go into church for the high mass, at which the work and prayers of the day were gathered up and consecrated in a supreme offering. Even the dinner that followed was a religious ceremony; it began by a salutation of the Christ in glory that was on the wall over the Prior’s table, and then a long grace was sung before they took their seats. The reader in the stone-pulpit on the south wall of the refectory began his business on the sounding of a bell; and at a second stroke there was a hum and clash of dishes from the kitchen end, and the aproned servers entered in line bearing the dishes. Immediately the meal was begun the drink destined for the poor at the gate was set aside, and a little later a representative of them was brought into the refectory to receive his portion; at the close again what was left over was collected for charity; while the community after singing part of the grace after meat went to finish it in the church.

Chris learned to love the quiet religious graciousness of the refectory. The taking of food here was a consecrated action; it seemed a sacramental thing. He loved the restraint and preciseness of it, ensured by the solemn crucifix over the door with its pathetic inscription “SITIO,” the polished oak tables, solid and narrow, the shining pewter dishes, the folded napkins, the cleanly-served plentiful food, to each man his portion, the indescribable dignity of the prior’s little table, the bowing of the servers before it, the mellow grace ringing out in its monotone that broke into minor thirds and octaves of melody, like a grave line of woodwork on the panelling bursting into a stiff leaf or two at its ends. There was a strange and wonderful romance it about on early autumn evenings as the light died out behind the stained windows and the reader’s face glowed homely and strong between his two candles on the pulpit. And surely these tales of saints, the extract from the Rule, these portions of Scripture sung with long pauses and on a monotone for fear that the reader’s personality should obscure the message of what he read—surely this was a better accompaniment to the taking of food, in itself so gross a thing, than the feverish chatter of a secular hall and the bustling and officiousness of paid servants.

After a general washing of hands the monks dispersed to their work, and the novices to bowls or other games; the Prior first distributing the garden instruments, and then beginning the labour with a commendation of it to God; and after finishing the manual work and a short time of study, they re-assembled in the cloister to go to Vespers. This, like the high mass, was performed with the ceremonial proper to the day, and was followed by supper, at which the same kind of ceremonies were observed as at dinner. When this was over, after a further short interval the evening reading or Collation took place in the chapter-house, after which the monks were at liberty to go and warm themselves at the one great fire kept up for the purpose in the calefactory; and then compline was sung, followed by Our Lady’s Anthem.

This for Chris was one of the climaxes of the day’s emotions. He was always tired out by now with the day’s work, and longing for bed, and this approach to the great Mother of Monks soothed and quieted him. It was sung in almost complete darkness, except for a light or two in the long nave where a dark figure or two would be kneeling, and the pleasant familiar melody, accompanied softly by the organ overhead after the bare singing of Compline, seemed like a kind of good-night kiss. The infinite pathos of the words never failed to touch him, the cry of the banished children of Eve, weeping and mourning in this vale of tears to Mary whose obedience had restored what Eve’s self-will had ruined, and the last threefold sob of endearment to the “kindly, loving, sweet, Virgin Mary.” After the high agonisings and aspirations of the day’s prayer, the awfulness of the holy Sacrifice, the tramping monotony of the Psalter, the sting of the discipline, the aches and sweats of the manual labour, the intent strain of the illuminating, this song to Mary was a running into Mother’s arms and finding compensation there for all toils and burdens.

Finally in complete silence the monks passed along the dark cloister, sprinkled with holy water as they left the church, up to the dormitory which ran over the whole length of the chapter house, the bridges and other offices, to sleep till midnight.

The effect of this life, unbroken by external distractions, was to make Chris’s soul alert and perceptive to the inner world, and careless or even contemptuous of the ordinary world of men. This spiritual realm began for the first time to disclose its details to him, and to show itself to some extent a replica of nature. It too had its varying climate, its long summer of warmth and light, its winter of dark discontent, its strange and bewildering sunrises of Christ upon the soul, when He rose and went about His garden with perfume and music, or stayed and greeted His creature with the message of His eyes. Chris began to learn that these spiritual changes were in a sense independent of him, that they were not in his soul, but rather that his soul was in them. He could be happy and content when the winds of God were cold and His light darkened, or sad and comfortless when the flowers of grace were apparent and the river of life bright and shining.

And meanwhile the ordinary world went on, but far away and dimly heard and seen; as when one looks down from a castle-garden on to humming streets five hundred feet below; and the old life at Overfield, and Ralph’s doings in London seemed unreal and fantastic activities, purposeless and empty.

Little by little, however, as the point of view shifted, Chris began to find that the external world could not be banished, and that the annoyances from the clash of characters discordant with his own were as positive as those which had distressed him before. Dom Anselm Bowden’s way of walking and the patch of grease at the shoulder of his cowl, never removed, and visible as he went before him into the church was as distractingly irritating as Ralph’s contempt; the buzz in the voice of a cantor who seemed always to sing on great days was as distressing as his own dog’s perversity at Overfield, or the snapping of a bow-string.

When accidie fell upon Chris it seemed as if this particular house was entirely ruined by such incidents; the Prior was finickin, the junior-master tyrannical, the paints for illumination inferior in quality, the straw of his bed peculiarly sharp, the chapter-house unnecessarily draughty. And until he learnt from his confessor that this spiritual ailment was a perfectly familiar one, and that its symptoms and effects had been diagnosed centuries before, and had taken him at his word and practised the remedies he enjoined, Chris suffered considerably from discontent and despair alternately. At times others were intolerable, at times he was intolerable to himself, reproaching himself for having attempted so high a life, criticising his fellows for so lowering it to a poor standard.

The first time that he was accused in chapter of a fault against the

Rule was a very great and shocking humiliation.

He had accused himself as usual on his knees of his own remissions, of making an unnecessarily loud noise in drinking, of intoning a wrong antiphon as cantor, of spilling crumbs in the refectory; and then leaned back on his heels well content with the insignificance of his list, to listen with a discreet complacency to old Dom Adrian, who had overslept himself once, spilled his beer twice, criticised his superior, and talked aloud to himself four times during the Greater Silence, and who now mumbled out his crimes hastily and unconcernedly.

When the self-accusations were done, the others began, and to his horror

Chris heard his own name spoken.

“I accuse Dom Christopher Torridon of not keeping the guard of the eyes at Terce this morning.”

It was perfectly true; Chris had been so much absorbed in noticing an effect of shade thrown by a corbel, and in plans for incorporating it into his illumination that he had let a verse pass as far as the star that marked the pause. He felt his heart leap with resentment. Then a flash of retort came to him, and he waited his turn.

“I accuse Dom Bernard Parr of not keeping the guard of the eyes at Terce this morning. He was observing me.”

Just the faintest ripple passed round the line; and then the Prior spoke with a tinge of sharpness, inflicting the penances, and giving Chris a heavy sentence of twenty strokes with the discipline.

When Chris’s turn came he threw back his habit petulantly, and administered his own punishment as the custom was, with angry fervour.

As he was going out the Prior made him a sign, and took him through into his own cell.

“Counter-accusations are contrary to the Rule,” he said. “It must not happen again,” and dismissed him sternly.

And then Chris for a couple of days had a fierce struggle against uncharitableness, asking himself whether he had not eyed Dom Bernard with resentment, and then eyeing him again. It seemed too as if a fiend suggested bitter sentences of reproach, that he rehearsed to himself, and then repented. But on the third morning there came one of those strange breezes of grace that he was beginning to experience more and more frequently, and his sore soul grew warm and peaceful again.

It was in those kinds of temptation now that he found his warfare to lie; internal assaults so fierce that it was terribly difficult to know whether he had yielded or not, sudden images of pride and anger and lust that presented themselves so vividly and attractively that it seemed he must have willed them; it was not often that he was tempted to sin in word or deed—such, when they came, rushed on him suddenly; but in the realm of thought and imagination and motive he would often find himself, as it were, entering a swarm of such things, that hovered round him, impeding his prayer, blinding his insight, and seeking to sting the very heart of his spiritual life. Then once more he would fight himself free by despising and rejecting them, or would emerge without conscious will of his own into clearness and serenity.

But as he looked back he regretted nothing. It was true that the warfare was more subtle and internal, but it was more honourable too; for to conquer a motive or tame an imagination was at once more arduous and more far-reaching in its effects than a victory in merely outward matters, and he seldom failed to thank God half-a-dozen times a day for having given him the vocation of a monk.

There was one danger, however, that he did not realise, and his confessor failed to point it out to him; and that was the danger of the wrong kind of detachment. As has been already seen the theory of the Religious Life was that men sought it not merely for the salvation of their own souls, but for that of the world. A monastery was a place where in a special sense the spiritual commerce of the world was carried on: as a workman’s shed is the place deputed and used by the world for the manufacture of certain articles. It was the manufactory of grace where skilled persons were at work, busy at a task of prayer and sacrament which was to be at other men’s service. If the father of a family had a piece of spiritual work to be done, he went to the monastery and arranged for it, and paid a fee for the sustenance of those he employed, as he might go to a merchant’s to order a cargo and settle for its delivery.

Since this was so then, it was necessary that the spiritual workmen should be in a certain touch with those for whom they worked. It was true that they must be out of the world, undominated by its principles and out of love with its spirit; but in another sense they must live in its heart. To use another analogy they were as windmills, lifted up from the earth into the high airs of grace, but their base must be on the ground or their labour would be ill-spent. They must be mystically one with the world that they had resigned.

Chris forgot this; and laboured, and to a large extent succeeded, in detaching himself wholly; and symptoms of this mistake showed themselves in such things as tending to despise secular life, feeling impatient with the poor to whom he had to minister, in sneering in his heart at least at anxious fussy men who came to arrange for masses, at troublesome women who haunted the sacristy door in a passion of elaborateness, and at comfortable families who stamped into high mass and filled a seat and a half, but who had yet their spiritual burdens and their claims to honour.

But he was to be brought rudely down to facts again. He was beginning to forget that England was about him and stirring in her agony; and he was reminded of it with some force in the winter after his profession.

He was going out to the gate-house one day on an errand from the junior-master when he became aware of an unusual stir in the court. There were a couple of palfreys there, and half-a-dozen mules behind, whilst three or four strange monks with a servant or two stood at their bridles.

Chris stopped to consider, for he had no business with guests; and as he hesitated the door of the guest-house opened, and two prelates came out with Dom Anthony behind them—tall, stately men in monks’ habits with furred cloaks and crosses. Chris slipped back at once into the cloister from which he had just come out, and watched them go past to the Prior’s lodging.

They appeared at Vespers that afternoon again, sitting in the first returned stalls near the Prior, and Chris recognised one of them as the great Abbot of Colchester. He looked at him now and again during Vespers with a reverential awe, for the Abbot was a great man, a spiritual peer of immense influence and reputation, and watched that fatherly face, his dignified bows and stately movements, and the great sapphire that shone on his hand as he turned the leaves of his illuminated book.

The two prelates were at supper, sitting on either side of the Prior on the dais; and afterwards the monks were called earlier than usual from recreation into the chapter-house.

The Prior made them a little speech saying that the Abbot had something to say to them, and then sat down; his troubled eyes ran over the faces of his subjects, and his fingers twitched and fidgetted on his knees.

The Abbot did not make them a long discourse; but told them briefly that there was trouble coming; he spoke in veiled terms of the Act of Supremacy, and the serious prayer that was needed; he said that a time of testing was close at hand, and that every man must scrutinise his own conscience and examine his motives; and that the unlearned had better follow the advice and example of their superiors.

It was all very vague and unsatisfactory; but Chris became aware of three things. First, that the world was very much alive and could not be dismissed by a pious aspiration or two; second, that the world was about to make some demand that would have to be seriously dealt with, and third, that there was nothing really to fear so long as their souls were clean and courageous. The Abbot was a melting speaker, full at once of a fatherly tenderness and vehemence, and as Chris looked at him he felt that indeed there was nothing to fear so long as monks had such representatives and protectors as these, and that the world had better look to itself for fear it should dash itself to ruin against such rocks of faith and holiness.

But as the spring drew on, an air of suspense and anxiety made itself evident in the house. News came down that More and Fisher were still in prison, that the oath was being administered right and left, that the King had thrown aside all restraints, and that the civil breach with Rome seemed in no prospect of healing. As for the spiritual breach the monks did not seriously consider it yet; they regarded themselves as still in union with the Holy See whatever their rulers might say or do, and only prayed for the time when things might be as before and there should be no longer any doubt or hesitation in the minds of weak brethren.

But the Prior’s face grew more white and troubled, and his temper uncertain.

Now and again he would make them speeches assuring them fiercely that all was well, and that all they had to do was to be quiet and obedient; and now he would give way to a kind of angry despair, tell them that all was lost, that every man would have to save himself; and then for days after such an exhibition he would be silent and morose, rapping his fingers softly as he sat at his little raised table in the refectory, walking with downcast eyes up and down the cloister muttering and staring.

Towards the end of April he sent abruptly for Chris, told him that he had news from London that made his presence there necessary, and ordered him to be ready to ride with him in a week or two.

CHAPTER X

THE ARENA

It was in the evening of a warm May day that the Prior and Chris arrived at the hostelry in Southwark, which belonged to Lewes Priory.

It was on the south side of Kater Lane, opposite St. Olave’s church, a great house built of stone with arched gates, with a large porch opening straight into the hall, which was high and vaulted with a frieze of grotesque animals and foliage running round it. There were a few servants there, and one or two friends of the Prior waiting at the porch as they arrived; and one of them, a monk himself from the cell at Farley, stepped up to the Prior’s stirrup and whispered to him.

Chris heard an exclamation and a sharp indrawing of breath, but was too well trained to ask; so he too dismounted and followed the others into the hall, leaving his beast in the hands of a servant.

The Prior was already standing by the monk at the upper end, questioning him closely, and glancing nervously this way and that.

“To-day?” he asked sharply, and looked at the other horrified.

The monk nodded, pale-faced and anxious, his lower lip sucked in.

The Prior turned to Chris.

“They have suffered to-day,” he said.

News had reached Lewes nearly a week before that the Carthusians had been condemned, for refusing to acknowledge the King as head of the English Church, but it had been scarcely possible to believe that the sentence would be carried out, and Chris felt the blood beat in his temples and his lips turn suddenly dry as he heard the news.

“I was there, my Lord Prior,” said the monk.

He was a middle-aged man, genial and plump, but his face was white and anxious now, and his mouth worked. “They were hanged in their habits,” he went on. “Prior Houghton was the first despatched;” and he added a terrible detail or two.

“Will you see the place, my Lord Prior?” he said, “You can ride there.

Your palfrey is still at the door.”

Prior Robert Crowham looked at him a moment with pursed lips; and then shook his head violently.

“No, no,” he said. “I—I must see to the house.” The monk looked at

Chris.

“May I go, my Lord Prior?” he asked.

The Prior stared at him a moment, in a desperate effort to fix his attention; then nodded sharply and wheeled round to the door that led to the upper rooms.

“Mother of God!” he said. “Mother of God!” and went out.

Chris went through with the strange priest, down the hall and out into the porch again. The others were standing there, fearful and whispering, and opened out to let the two monks pass through.

Chris had been tired and hot when he arrived, but he was conscious now of no sensation but of an overmastering desire to see the place; he passed straight by his horse that still stood with a servant at his head, and turned up instinctively toward the river.

The monk called after him.

“There, there,” he cried, “not so fast—we have plenty of time.”

They took a wherry at the stairs and pushed out with the stream. The waterman was a merry-looking man who spoke no word but whistled to himself cheerfully as he laid himself to the oars, and the boat began to move slantingly across the flowing tide. He looked at the monks now and again; but Chris was seated, staring out with eyes that saw nothing down the broad stream away to where the cathedral rose gigantic and graceful on the other side. It was the first time he had been in London since a couple of years before his profession, but the splendour and strength of the city was nothing to him now. It only had one significance to his mind, and that that it had been this day the scene of a martyrdom. His mind that had so long lived in the inner world, moving among supernatural things, was struggling desperately to adjust itself.

Once or twice his lips moved, and his hands clenched themselves under his scapular; but he saw and heard nothing; and did not even turn his head when a barge swept past them, and a richly dressed man leaned from the stem and shouted something mockingly. The other monk looked nervously and deprecatingly up, for he heard the taunting threat across the water that the Carthusians were a good riddance, and that there would be more to follow.

They landed at the Blackfriars stairs, paid the man, who was still whistling as he took the money, and passed up by the little stream that flowed into the river, striking off to the left presently, and leaving the city behind them. They were soon out again on the long straight road that led to Tyburn, for Chris walked desperately fast, paying little heed to his companion except at the corners when he had to wait to know the way; and presently Tyburn-gate began to raise its head high against the sky.

Once the strange monk, whose name Chris had not even troubled to ask, plucked him by his hanging sleeve.

“The hurdles came along here,” he said; and Chris looked at him vacantly as if he did not understand.

Then they were under Tyburn-gate, and the clump of elms stood before them.

It was a wide open space, dusty now and trampled.

What grass there had been in patches by the two little streams that flowed together here, was crushed and flat under foot. The elms cast long shadows from the west, and birds were chirping in the branches; there was a group or two of people here and there looking curiously about them. A man’s voice came across the open space, explaining; and his arm rose and wheeled and pointed and paused—three or four children hung together, frightened and interested.

But Chris saw little of all this. He had no eyes for the passing details; they were fixed on the low mound that rose fifty yards away, and the three tall posts, placed in a triangle and united by cross-beams, that stood on it, gaunt against the sky.

As he came nearer to it, walking as one in a dream across the dusty ground and trampled grass, and paying no heed to the priest behind him who whispered with an angry nervousness, he was aware of the ends of three or four ropes that hung motionless from the beams in the still evening air; and with his eyes fixed on these in exaltation and terror he stumbled up the sloping ground and came beneath them.

There was a great peace round him as he stood there, stroking one of the uprights with a kind of mechanical tenderness; the men were silent as they saw the two monks there, and watched to see what they would do.

The towers of Tyburn-gate rose a hundred yards away, empty now, but crowded this morning; and behind them the long road with the fields and great mansions on this side and that, leading down to the city in front and Westminster on the right, those two dens of the tiger that had snarled so fiercely a few hours before, as she licked her lips red with martyrs’ blood. It was indescribably peaceful now; there was no sound but the birds overhead, and the soft breeze in the young leaves, and the trickle of the streams defiled to-day, but running clean and guiltless now; and the level sunlight lay across the wide flat ground and threw the shadow of the mound and gallows nearly to the foot of the gate.

But to Chris the place was alive with phantoms; the empty space had vanished, and a sea of faces seemed turned up to him; he fancied that there were figures about him, watching him too, brushing his sleeve, faces looking into his eyes, waiting for some action or word from him. For a moment his sense of identity was lost; the violence of the associations, and perhaps even the power of the emotions that had been wrought there that day, crushed out his personality; it was surely he who was here to suffer; all else was a dream and an illusion. From his very effort of living in eternity, a habit had been formed that now asserted itself; the laws of time and space and circumstance for the moment ceased to exist; and he found himself for an eternal instant facing his own agony and death.

Then with a rush facts re-asserted themselves, and he started and looked round as the monk touched him on the arm.

“You have seen it,” he said in a sharp undertone, “it is enough. We shall be attacked.” Chris paid him no heed beyond a look, and turned once more.

It was here that they had suffered, these gallant knights of God; they had stood below these beams, their feet on the cart that was their chariot of glory, their necks in the rope that would be their heavenly badge; they had looked out where he was looking as they made their little speeches, over the faces to Tyburn-gate, with the same sun that was now behind him, shining into their eyes.

He still stroked the rough beam; and as the details came home, and he remembered that it was this that had borne their weight, he leaned and kissed it; and a flood of tears blinded him.

Again the priest pulled his sleeve sharply.

“For God’s sake, brother!” he said.

Chris turned to him.

“The cauldron,” he said; “where was that?”

The priest made an impatient movement, but pointed to one side, away from where the men were standing still watching them; and Chris saw below, by the side of one of the streams a great blackened patch of ground, and a heap of ashes.

The two went down there, for the other monk was thankful to get to any less conspicuous place; and Chris presently found himself standing on the edge of the black patch, with the trampled mud and grass beyond it beside the stream. The grey wood ashes had drifted by now far across the ground, but the heavy logs still lay there, charred and smoked, that had blazed beneath the cauldron where the limbs of the monks had been seethed; and he stared down at them, numbed and fascinated by the horror of the thought. His mind, now in a violent reaction, seemed unable to cope with its own knowledge, crushed beneath its weight; and his friend heard him repeating with a low monotonous insistence—

“Here it was,” he said, “here; here was the cauldron; it was here.”

Then he turned and looked into his friend’s eyes.

“It was here,” he said; “are you sure it was here?”

The other made an impatient sound.

“Where else?” he said sharply. “Come, brother, you have seen enough.”

He told him more details as they walked home; as to what each had said, and how each had borne himself. Father Reynolds, the Syon monk, had looked gaily about him, it seemed, as he walked up from the hurdle; the secular priest had turned pale and shut his eyes more than once; the three Carthusian priors had been unmoved throughout, showing neither carelessness nor fear; Prior Houghton’s arm had been taken off to the London Charterhouse as a terror to the others; their heads, he had heard, were on London Bridge.

Chris walked slowly as he listened, holding tight under his scapular the scrap of rough white cloth he had picked up near the cauldron, drinking in every detail, and painting it into the mental picture that was forming in his mind; but there was much more in the picture than the other guessed.

The priest was a plain man, with a talent for the practical, and knew nothing of the vision that the young monk beside him was seeing—of the air about the gallows crowded with the angels of the Agony and Passion, waiting to bear off the straggling souls in their tender experienced hands; of the celestial faces looking down, the scarred and glorious arms stretched out in welcome; of Mary with her mother’s eyes, and her virgins about her—all ring above ring in deepening splendour up to the white blinding light above, where the Everlasting Trinity lay poised in love and glory to receive and crown the stalwart soldiers of God.

CHAPTER XI

A CLOSING-IN

Ralph kept his resolution to pretend to try and save Sir Thomas More, and salved his own conscience by protesting to Beatrice that his efforts were bound to fail, and that he had no influence such as she imagined. He did certainly more than once remark to Cromwell that Sir Thomas was a pleasant and learned man, and had treated him kindly, and once had gone so far as to say that he did not see that any good would be served by his death; but he had been sharply rebuked, and told to mind his own business; then, softening, Cromwell had explained that there was no question of death for the present; but that More’s persistent refusal to yield to the pressure of events was a standing peril to the King’s policy.

This policy had now shaped itself more clearly. In the autumn of ‘34 the bill for the King’s supremacy over the Church of England began to take form; and Ralph had several sights of the documents as all business of this kind now flowed through Cromwell’s hands, and he was filled with admiration and at the same time with perplexity at the adroitness of the wording. It was very short, and affected to assume rather than to enact its object.

“Albeit the King’s Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be,” it began, “the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognised by the clergy of this realm in their Convocations, yet, nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof … and to repress and extirp all errors, heresies and other enormities … be it enacted by authority of this present Parliament that the King our sovereign lord … shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicans Ecclesia.” The bill then proceeded to confer on him a plenitude of authority over both temporal and spiritual causes.

There was here considerable skill in the manner of its drawing up, which it owed chiefly to Cromwell; for it professed only to re-state a matter that had slipped out of notice, and appealed to the authority of Convocation which had, truly, under Warham allowed a resolution to the same effect, though qualified by the clause, “as far as God’s law permits,” to pass in silence.

Ralph was puzzled by it: he was led to believe that it could contain no very radical change from the old belief, since the clergy had in a sense already submitted to it; and, on the other hand, the word “the only supreme head in earth” seemed not only to assert the Crown’s civil authority over the temporalities of the Church, but to exclude definitely all jurisdiction on the part of the Pope.

“It is the assertion of a principle,” Cromwell said to him when he asked one day for an explanation; “a principle that has always been held in England; it is not intended to be precise or detailed: that will follow later.”

Ralph was no theologian, and did not greatly care what the bill did or did not involve. He was, too, in that temper of inchoate agnosticism that was sweeping England at the time, and any scruples that he had in his more superstitious moments were lulled by the knowledge that the clergy had acquiesced. What appeared more important to him than any hair-splittings on the exact provinces of the various authorities in question, was the necessity of some step towards the crippling of the spiritual empire whose hands were so heavy, and whose demands so imperious. He felt, as an Englishman, resentful of the leading strings in which, so it seemed to him, Rome wished to fetter his country.

The bill passed through parliament on November the eighteenth.

Ralph lost no opportunity of impressing upon Beatrice how much he had risked for the sake of her friend in the Tower, and drew very moving sketches of his own peril.

The two were sitting together in the hall at Chelsea one winters evening soon after Christmas. The high panelling was relieved by lines of greenery, with red berries here and there; a bunch of mistletoe leaned forward over the sloping mantelpiece, and there was an acrid smell of holly and laurel in the air. It was a little piteous, Ralph thought, under the circumstances.

Another stage had been passed in More’s journey towards death, in the previous month, when he had been attainted of misprision of treason by an act designed to make good the illegality of his former conviction, and the end was beginning to loom clear.

“I said it would be no use, Mistress Beatrice, and it is none—Master

Cromwell will not hear a word.”

Beatrice looked up at Ralph, and down again, as her manner was. Her hands were lying on her lap perfectly still as she sat upright in her tall chair.

“You have done what you could, I know,” she said, softly.

“Master Cromwell did not take it very well,” went on Ralph with an appearance of resolute composure, “but that was to be expected.”

Again she looked up, and Ralph once more was seized with the desire to precipitate matters and tell her what was in his heart, but he repressed it, knowing it was useless to speak yet.

It was a very stately and slow wooing, like the movement of a minuet; each postured to each, not from any insincerity, except perhaps a little now and then on Ralph’s side, but because for both it was a natural mode of self-expression. It was an age of dignity abruptly broken here and there by violence. There were slow and gorgeous pageants followed by brutal and bestial scenes, like the life of a peacock who paces composedly in the sun and then scuttles and screams in the evening. But with these two at present there was no occasion for abruptness, and Ralph, at any rate, contemplated with complacency his own graciousness and grandeur, and the skilfully posed tableaux in which he took such a sedate part.

As the spring drew on and the crocuses began to star the grass along the river and the sun to wheel wider and wider, the chill and the darkness began to fall more heavily on the household at Chelsea. They were growing very poor by now; most of Sir Thomas’s possessions elsewhere had been confiscated by the King, though by his clemency Chelsea was still left to Mrs. Alice for the present; and one by one the precious things began to disappear from the house as they were sold to obtain necessaries. All the private fortune of Mrs. More had gone by the end of the winter, and her son still owed great sums to the Government on behalf of his father.

At the beginning of May she told Ralph that she was making another appeal to Cromwell for help, and begged him to forward her petition.

“My silks are all gone,” she said, “and the little gold chain and cross that you may remember, Mr. Torridon, went last month, too—I cannot tell what we shall do. Mr. More is so obstinate”—and her eyes filled with tears—”and we have to pay fifteen shillings every week for him and John a’ Wood.”

She looked so helpless and feeble as she sat in the window seat, stripped now of its tapestry cushions, with the roofs of the New Building rising among its trees at the back, where her husband had walked a year ago with such delight, that Ralph felt a touch of compunction, and promised to do his best.

He said a word to Cromwell that evening as he supped with him at Hackney, and his master looked at him curiously, sitting forward in the carved chair he had had from Wolsey, in his satin gown, twisting the stem of his German glass in his ringed fingers.

“And what do you wish me to do, sir?” he asked Ralph with a kind of pungent irony.

Ralph explained that he scarcely knew himself; perhaps a word to his

Grace—

“I will tell you what it is, Mr. Torridon,” broke in his master, “you have made another mistake. I did not intend you to be their friend, but to seem so.”

“I can scarcely seem so,” said Ralph quietly, but with a certain indignation at his heart, “unless I do them little favours sometimes.”

“You need not seem so any longer,” said Cromwell drily, “the time is past.”

And he set his glass down and sat back.

Yet Ralph’s respect and admiration for his master became no less. He had the attractiveness of extreme and unscrupulous capability. It gave Ralph the same joy to watch him as he found in looking on at an expert fencer; he was so adroit and strong and ready; mighty and patient in defence, watchful for opportunities of attack and merciless when they came. His admirers scarcely gave a thought to the piteousness of the adversary; they were absorbed in the scheme and proud to be included in it; and men of heart and sensibility were as hard as their master when they carried out his plans.

The fate of the Carthusians would have touched Ralph if he had been a mere onlooker, as it touched so many others, but he had to play his part in the tragedy, and was astonished at the quick perceptions of Cromwell and his determined brutality towards these peaceful contemplatives whom he recognised as a danger-centre against the King’s policy.

He was present first in Cromwell’s house when the three Carthusian priors of Beauvale, Axholme and London called upon him of their own accord to put their questions on the meaning of the King’s supremacy: but their first question, as to how was it possible for a layman to hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven was enough, and without any further evidence they were sent to the Tower.

Then, again, he was present in the Court of the Rolls a few days later when Dom Laurence, of Beauvale, and Dom Webster, of Axholme, were examined once more. There were seven or eight others present, laymen and ecclesiastics, and the priors were once more sent back to the Tower.

And so examination after examination went on, and no answer could be got out of the monks, but that they could never reconcile it with their conscience to accept the King to be what the Act of Supremacy declared that he was.

Ralph’s curiosity took him down to the Charterhouse one day shortly before the execution of the priors; he had with him an order from Cromwell that carried him everywhere he wished to go; but he did not penetrate too deeply. He was astonished at the impression that the place made on him.

As he passed up the Great Cloister there was no sound but from a bird or two singing in the afternoon sunlight of the garth; each cell-door, with its hatch for the passage of food, was closed and silent; and Ralph felt a curious quickening of his heart as he thought of the human life passed in the little houses, each with its tiny garden, its workshop, its two rooms, and its paved ambulatory, in which each solitary lived. How strangely apart this place was from the buzz of business from which he had come! And yet he knew very well that the whole was as good as condemned already.

He wondered to himself how they had taken the news of the tragedy that was beginning—those white, demure men with shaved heads and faces, and downcast eyes. He reflected what the effect of that news must be; as it penetrated each day, like a stone dropped softly into a pool, leaving no ripple. There, behind each brown door, he fancied to himself, a strange alchemy was proceeding, in which each new terror and threat from outside was received into the crucible of a beating heart and transmuted by prayer and welcome into some wonderful jewel of glory—at least so these poor men believed; and Ralph indignantly told himself it was nonsense; they were idlers and dreamers. He reminded himself of a sneer he had heard against the barrels of Spanish wine that were taken in week by week at the monastery door; if these men ate no flesh too, at least they had excellent omelettes.

But as he passed at last through the lay-brothers’ choir and stood looking through the gates of the Fathers’ choir up to the rich altar with its hangings and its posts on either side crowned with gilded angels bearing candles, to the splendid window overhead, against which, as in a glory, hung the motionless silk-draped pyx, the awe fell on him again.

This was the place where they met, these strange, silent men; every panel and stone was saturated with the prayers of experts, offered three times a day—in the night-office of two or three hours when the world was asleep; at the chapter-mass; and at Vespers in the afternoon.

His heart again stirred a little, superstitiously he angrily told himself, at the memory of the stories that were whispered about in town.

Two years ago, men said, a comet had been seen shining over the house. As the monks went back from matins, each with his lantern in his hand, along the dark cloister, a ray had shot out from the comet, had glowed upon the church and bell-tower, and died again into darkness. Again, a little later, two monks, one in his cell-garden and the other in the cemetery, had seen a blood-red globe, high and menacing, hanging in the air over the house.

Lastly, at Pentecost, at the mass of the Holy Ghost, offered at the end of a triduum with the intention of winning grace to meet any sacrifice that might be demanded, not one nor two, but the whole community, including the lay-brothers outside the Fathers’ Choir, had perceived a soft whisper of music of inexpressible sweetness that came and went overhead at the Elevation. The celebrant bowed forward in silence over the altar, unable to continue the mass, the monks remained petrified with joy and awe in their stalls.

Ralph stared once more at the altar as he remembered this tale; at the row of stalls on either side, the dark roof overhead, the glowing glass on either side and in front—and asked himself whether it was true, whether God had spoken, whether a chink of the heavenly gate had been opened here to let the music escape.

It was not true, he told himself; it was the dream of a man mad with sleeplessness, foolish with fasting and discipline and vigils: one had dreamed it and babbled of it to the rest and none had liked to be less spiritual or perceptive of divine manifestations.

A brown figure was by the altar now to light the candles for Vespers; a taper was in his hand, and the spot of light at the end moved like a star against the gilding and carving. Ralph turned and went out.

Then on the fourth of May he was present at the execution of the three priors and the two other priests at Tyburn. There was an immense crowd there, nearly the whole Court being present; and it was reported here and there afterwards that the King himself was there in a group of five horsemen, who came in the accoutrements of Borderers, vizored and armed, and took up their position close to the scaffold. There fell a terrible silence as the monks were dragged up on the hurdles, in their habits, all three together behind one horse. They were cut down almost at once, and the butchery was performed on them while they were still alive.

Ralph went home in a glow of resolution against them. A tragedy such as that which he had seen was of necessity a violent motive one way or the other, and it found him determined that the sufferers were in the wrong, and left him confirmed in his determination. Their very passivity enraged him.

Meanwhile, he had of course heard nothing of his brother’s presence in London, and it was with something of a shock that on the next afternoon he heard the news from Mr. Morris that Mr. Christopher was below and waiting for him in the parlour.

As he went down he wondered what Chris was doing in London, and what he himself could say to him. He was expecting Beatrice, too, to call upon him presently with her maid to give him a message and a bundle of letters which he had promised to convey to Sir Thomas More. But he was determined to be kind to his brother.

Chris was standing in his black monk’s habit on the other side of the walnut table, beside the fire-place, and made no movement as Ralph came forward smiling and composed. His face was thinner than his brother remembered it, clean-shaven now, with hollows in the checks, and his eyes were strangely light.

“Why, Chris!” said Ralph, and stopped, astonished at the other’s motionlessness.

Then Chris came round the table with a couple of swift steps, his hands raised a little from the wide, drooping sleeves.

“Ah! brother,” he said, “I have come to bring you away: this is a wicked place.”

Ralph was so amazed that he fell back a step.

“Are you mad?” he said coldly enough, but he felt a twitch of superstitious fear at his heart.

Chris seized the rich silk sleeve in both his hands, and Ralph felt them trembling and nervous.

“You must come away,” he said, “for Jesu’s sake, brother! You must not lose your soul.”

Ralph felt the old contempt surge up and drown his fear. The familiarity of his brother’s presence weighed down the religious suggestion of his habit and office. This is what he had feared and almost expected;—that the cloister would make a fanatic of this fantastic brother of his.

He glanced round at the door that he had left open, but the house was silent. Then he turned again.

“Sit down, Chris,” he said, with a strong effort at self-command, and he pulled his sleeve away, went back and shut the door, and then came forward past where his brother was standing, to the chair that stood with its back to the window.

“You must not be fond and wild,” he said decidedly. “Sit down, Chris.”

The monk came past him to the other side of the hearth, and faced him again, but did not sit down. He remained standing by the fire-place, looking down at Ralph, who was in his chair with crossed legs.

“What is this folly?” said Ralph again.

Chris stared down at him a moment in silence.

“Why, why—” he began, and ceased.

Ralph felt himself the master of the situation, and determined to be paternal.

“My dear lad,” he said, “you have dreamed yourself mad at Lewes. When did you come to London?”

“Yesterday,” said Chris, still with that strange stare.

“Why, then—” began Ralph.

“Yes—you think I was too late, but I saw it,” said Chris; “I was there in the evening and saw it all again.”

All his nervous tension seemed relaxed by the warm common-sense atmosphere of this trim little room, and his brother’s composure. His lips were beginning to tremble, and he half turned and gripped the mantel-shelf with his right hand. Ralph noticed with a kind of contemptuous pity how the heavy girded folds of the frock seemed to contain nothing, and that the wrist from which the sleeve had fallen back was slender as a reed. Ralph felt himself so infinitely his brother’s superior that he could afford to be generous and kindly.

“Dear Chris,” he said, smiling, “you look starved and miserable. Shall I tell Morris to bring you something? I thought you monks fared better than that.”

In a moment Chris was on his knees on the rushes; his hands gripped his brother’s arms, and his wild eyes were staring up with a fanatical fire of entreaty in them. His words broke out like a torrent.

“Ralph,” he said, “dear brother! for Jesu’s sake, come away! I have heard everything. I know that these streets are red with blood, and that your hands have been dipped in it. You must not lose your soul. I know everything; you must come away. For Jesu’s sake!”

Ralph tore himself free and stood up, pushing back his chair.

“Godbody!” he said, “I have a fool for a brother. Stand up, sir. I will have no mumming in my house.”

He rapped his foot fiercely on the floor, staring down at Chris who had thrown himself back on his heels.

“Stand up, sir,” he said again.

“Will you hear me, brother?”

Ralph hesitated.

“I will hear you if you will talk reason. I think you are mad.”

Chris got up again. He was trembling violently, and his hands twitched and clenched by his sides.

“Then you shall hear me,” he said, and his voice shook as he spoke. “It is this—”

“You must sit down,” interrupted Ralph, and he pointed to the chair behind.

Chris went to it and sat down. Ralph took a step across to the door and opened it.

“Morris,” he called, and came back to his chair.

There was silence a moment or two, till the servant’s step sounded in the hall, and the door opened. Mr. Morris’s discreet face looked steadily and composedly at his master.

“Bring the pasty,” said Ralph, “and the wine.”

He gave the servant a sharp look, seemed to glance out across the hall for a moment and back again. There was no answering look on Mr. Morris’s face, but he slipped out softly, leaving the door just ajar.

Then Ralph turned to Chris again.

Chris had had time to recover himself by now, and was sitting very pale and composed after his dramatic outburst, his hands hidden under his scapular, and his fingers gripped together.

“Now tell me,” said Ralph, with his former kindly contempt. He had begun to understand now what his brother had come about, and was determined to be at once fatherly and decisive. This young fool must be taught his place.

“It is this,” said Chris, still in a trembling voice, but it grew steadier as he went on. “God’s people are being persecuted—there is no longer any doubt. They were saints who died yesterday, and Master Cromwell is behind it all; and—and you serve him.”

Ralph jerked his head to speak, but his brother went on.

“I know you think me a fool, and I daresay you an right. But this I know, I would sooner be a fool than—than—”

—”than a knave” ended Ralph. “I thank you for your good opinion, my brother. However, let that pass. You have come to teach me my business, then?”

“I have come to save your soul,” said Chris, grasping the arms of his chair, and eyeing him steadily.

“You are very good to me,” said Ralph bitterly. “Now, I do not want any more play-acting—” He broke off suddenly as the door opened. “And here is the food. Chris, you are not yourself”—he gave a swift look at his servant again—”and I suppose you have had no food to-day.”

Again he glanced out through the open door as Mr. Morris turned to go.

Chris paid no sort of attention to the food. He seemed not to have seen the servant’s entrance and departure.

“I tell you,” he said again steadily, with his wide bright eyes fixed on his brother, “I tell you, you are persecuting God’s people, and I am come, not as your brother only, but as a monk, to warn you.”

Ralph waved his hand, smiling, towards the dish and the bottle. It seemed to sting Chris with a kind of fury, for his eyes blazed and his mouth tightened as he stood up abruptly.

“I tell you that if I were starving I would not break bread in this house: it is the house of God’s enemy.”

He dashed out his left hand nervously, and struck the bottle spinning across the table; it crashed over on to the floor, and the red wine poured on to the boards.

“Why, there is blood before your eyes,” he screamed, mad with hunger and sleeplessness, and the horrors he had seen; “the ground cries out.”

Ralph had sprung up as the bottle fell, and stood trembling and glaring across at the monk; the door opened softly, and Mr. Morris stood alert and discreet on the threshold, but neither saw him.

“And if you were ten times my brother,” cried Chris, “I would not touch your hand.”

There came a knocking at the door, and the servant disappeared.

“Let him come, if it be the King himself,” shouted the monk, “and hear the truth for once.”

The servant was pushed aside protesting, and Beatrice came straight forward into the room.

CHAPTER XII

A RECOVERY

There was a moment of intense silence, only emphasized by the settling rustle of the girl’s dress. The door had closed softly, and Mr. Morris stood within, in the shadow by the window, ready to give help if it were needed. Beatrice remained a yard inside the room, very upright and dignified, a little pale, looking from one to the other of the two brothers, who stared back at her as at a ghost.

Ralph spoke first, swallowing once or twice in his throat before speaking, and trying to smile.

“It is you then,” he said.

Beatrice moved a step nearer, looking at Chris, who stood white and tense, his eyes wide and burning.

“Mr. Torridon,” said Beatrice softly, “I have brought the bundle. My woman has it.”

Still she looked, as she spoke, questioningly at Chris.

“Oh! this is my brother, the monk,” snapped Ralph bitterly, glancing at him. “Indeed, he is.”

Then Chris lost his self-control again.

“And this is my brother, the murderer; indeed, he is.”

Beatrice’s lips parted, and her eyes winced. She put out her hand hesitatingly towards Ralph, and dropped it again as he moved a little towards her.

“You hear him?” said Ralph.

“I do not understand,” said the girl, “your brother—”

“Yes, I am his brother, God help me,” snarled Chris.

Beatrice’s lips closed again, and a look of contempt came into her face.

“I have heard enough, Mr. Torridon. Will you come with me?”

Chris moved forward a step.

“I do not know who you are, madam,” he said, “but do you understand what this gentleman is? Do you know that he is a creature of Master Cromwell’s?”

“I know everything,” said Beatrice.

“And you were at Tyburn, too?” questioned Chris bitterly, “perhaps with this brother of mine?”

Beatrice faced him defiantly.

“What have you to say against him, sir?”

Ralph made a movement to speak, but the girl checked him.

“I wish to hear it. What have you to say?”

“He is a creature of Cromwell’s who plotted the death of God’s saints. This brother of mine was at the examinations, I hear, and at the scaffold. Is that enough?”

Chris had himself under control again by now, but his words seemed to burn with vitriol. His lips writhed as he spoke.

“Well?” said Beatrice.

“Well, if that is not enough; how of More and my Lord of Rochester?”

“He has been a good friend to Mr. More,” said Beatrice, “that I know.”

“He will get him the martyr’s crown, surely,” sneered Chris.

“And you have no more to say?” asked the girl quietly.

A shudder ran over the monk’s body; his mouth opened and closed, and the fire in his eyes flared up and died; his clenched hands rose and fell. Then he spoke quietly.

“I have no more to say, madam.”

Beatrice moved across to Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, looking steadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, then raised it, and made an abrupt motion towards the door.

Chris went round the table; Mr. Morris opened the door with an impassive face, and followed him out, leaving Beatrice and Ralph alone.

Chris had come back the previous evening from Tyburn distracted almost to madness. He had sat heavily all the evening by himself, brooding and miserable, and had not slept all night, but waking visions had moved continually before his eyes, as he turned to and fro on his narrow bed in the unfamiliar room. Again and again Tyburn was before him, peopled with phantoms; he had seen the thick ropes, and heard their creaking, and the murmur of the multitude; had smelt the pungent wood-smoke and the thick drifting vapour from the cauldron. Once it seemed to him that the very room was full of figures, white-clad and silent, who watched him with impassive pale faces, remote and unconcerned. He had flung himself on his knees again and again, had lashed himself with the discipline that he, too, might taste of pain; but all the serenity of divine things was gone. There was no heaven, no Saviour, no love. He was bound down here, crushed and stifled in this apostate city whose sounds and cries came up into his cell. He had lost the fiery vision of the conqueror’s welcome; it was like a tale heard long ago. Now he was beaten down by physical facts, by the gross details of the tragedy, the strangling, the blood, the smoke, the acrid smell of the crowd, and heaven was darkened by the vapour.

It was not until the next day, as he sat with the Prior and a stranger or two, and heard the tale once more, and the predictions about More and Fisher, that the significance of Ralph’s position appeared to him clearly. He knew no more than before, but he suddenly understood what he knew.

A monk had said a word of Cromwell’s share in the matters, and the Prior had glanced moodily at Chris for a moment, turning his eyes only as he sat with his chin in his hand; and in a moment Chris understood.

This was the work that his brother was doing. He sat now more distracted than ever: mental pictures moved before him of strange council-rooms with great men in silk on raised seats, and Ralph was among them. He seemed to hear his bitter questions that pierced to the root of the faith of the accused, and exposed it to the world, of their adherence to the Vicar of Christ, their uncompromising convictions.

He had sat through dinner with burning eyes, but the Prior noticed nothing, for he himself was in a passion of absorption, and gave Chris a hasty leave as he rose from table to go and see his brother if he wished.

Chris had walked up and down his room that afternoon, framing sentences of appeal and pity and terror, but it was useless: he could not fix his mind; and he had gone off at last to Westminster at once terrified for Ralph’s soul, and blazing with indignation against him.

And now he was walking down to the river again, in the cool of the evening, knowing that he had ruined his own cause and his right to speak by his intemperate fury.

It was another strange evening that he passed in the Prior’s chamber after supper. The same monk, Dom Odo, who had taken him to Tyburn the day before, was there again; and Chris sat in a corner, with the reaction of his fury on him, spent and feverish, now rehearsing the scene he had gone through with Ralph, and framing new sentences that he might have used, now listening to the talk, and vaguely gathering its meaning.

It seemed that the tale of blood was only begun.

Bedale, the Archdeacon of Cornwall, had gone that day to the Charterhouse; he had been seen driving there, and getting out at the door with a bundle of books under his arm, and he had passed in through the gate over which Prior Houghton’s arm had been hung on the previous evening. It was expected that some more arrests would be made immediately.

“As for my Lord of Rochester,” said the monk, who seemed to revel in the business of bearing bad news, “and Master More, I make no doubt they will be cast. They are utterly fixed in their opinions. I hear that my lord is very sick, and I pray that God may take him to Himself. He is made Cardinal in Rome, I hear; but his Grace has sworn that he shall have no head to wear the hat upon.”

Then he went off into talk upon the bishop, describing his sufferings in the Tower, for he was over eighty years old, and had scarcely sufficient clothes to cover him.

Now and again Chris looked across at his Superior. The Prior sat there in his great chair, his head on his hand, silent and absorbed; it was only when Dom Odo stopped for a moment that he glanced up impatiently and nodded for him to go on. It seemed as if he could not hear enough, and yet Chris saw him wince, and heard him breathe sharply as each new detail came out.

The monk told them, too, of Prior Houghton’s speech upon the cart.

“They asked him whether even then he would submit to the King’s laws, and he called God to witness that it was not for obstinacy or perversity that he refused, but that the King and the Parliament had decreed otherwise than our Holy Mother enjoins; and that for himself he would sooner suffer every kind of pain than deny a doctrine of the Church. And when he had prayed from the thirtieth Psalm, he was turned off.”

The Prior stared almost vacantly at the monk who told his story with a kind of terrified gusto, and once or twice his lips moved to speak; but he was silent, and dropped his chin upon his hand again when the other had done.

Chris scarcely knew how the days passed away that followed his arrival in London. He spent them for the most part within doors, writing for the Prior in the mornings, or keeping watch over the door as his Superior talked with prelates and churchmen within, for ecclesiastical London was as busy as a broken ant-hill, and men came and went continually—scared, furtive monks, who looked this way and that, an abbot or two up for the House of Lords, priors and procurators on business. There were continual communications going to and fro among the religious houses, for the prince of them, the contemplative Carthusian, had been struck at, and no one knew where the assault would end.

Meanwhile, Chris had heard no further news from Ralph.` He thought of writing to him, and even of visiting him again, but his heart sickened at the thought of it. It was impossible, he told himself, that any communication should pass between them until his brother had forsaken his horrible business; the first sign of regret must come from the one who had sinned. He wondered sometimes who the girl was, and, as a hot-headed monk, suspected the worst. A man who could live as Ralph was living could have no morals left. She had been so friendly with him, so ready to defend him, so impatient, Chris thought, of any possibility of wrong. No doubt she, too, was one of the corrupt band, one of the great ladies that buzzed round the Court, and sucked the blood of God’s people.

His own interior life, however, so roughly broken by his new experiences, began to mend slowly as the days went on.

He had begun, like a cat in a new house, to make himself slowly at home in the hostel, and to set up that relation between outward objects and his own self that is so necessary to interior souls not yet living in detachment. He arranged his little room next the Prior’s to be as much as possible like his cell, got rid of one or two pieces of furniture that distracted him, set his bed in another corner, and hung up his beads in the same position that they used to occupy at Lewes. Each morning he served the Prior’s mass in the tiny chapel attached to the house, and did his best both then and at his meditation to draw in the torn fibres of his spirit. At moments of worship the supernatural world began to appear again, like points of living rock emerging through sand, detached and half stifled by external details, but real and abiding. Little by little his serenity came back, and the old atmosphere reasserted itself. After all, God was here as there; grace, penance, the guardianship of the angels and the sacrament of the altar was the same at Southwark as at Lewes. These things remained; while all else was accidental—the different height of his room, the unfamiliar angles in the passages, the new noises of London, the street cries, the clash of music, the disordered routine of dally life.

Half-way through June, after a long morning’s conversation with a stranger, the Prior sent for him.

He was standing by the tall carved fire-place with his back to the door, his head and one hand leaning against the stone, and he turned round despondently as Chris came in. Chris could see he was deadly pale and that his lips twitched with nervousness.

“Brother,” he said, “I have a perilous matter to go through, and you must come with me.”

Chris felt his heart begin to labour with heavy sick beats.

“I am to see my Lord of Rochester. A friend hath obtained the order. We are to go at five o’clock. See that you be ready. We shall take boat at the stairs.”

Chris waited, with his eyes deferentially cast down.

“He is to be tried again on Thursday,” went on the Prior, “and my friends wish me to see him, God knows—”

He stopped abruptly, made a sign with his hand, and as Chris left the room he saw that he was leaning once more against the stone-work, and that his head was buried in his arms.

Three more Carthusians had been condemned in the previous week, but the Bishop’s trial, though his name was in the first indictment, was postponed a few days.

He too, like Sir Thomas More, had been over a year in the Tower; he had been deprived of his see by an Act of Parliament, his palace had been broken into and spoiled, and he himself, it was reported, was being treated with the greatest rigour in the Tower.

Chris was overcome with excitement at the thought that he was to see this man. He had heard of his learning, his holiness, and his austerities on all hands since his coming to London. When the bishop had left Rochester at his summons to London a year before there had been a wonderful scene of farewell, of which the story was still told in town. The streets had been thronged with a vast crowd weeping and praying, as he rode among them bare-headed, giving his blessing as he went. He had checked his horse by the city-gate, and with a loud voice had bidden them all stand by the old religion, and let no man take it from them. And now here he lay himself in prison for the Faith, a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, with scarcely clothes to cover him or food to eat. At the sacking of his palace, too, as the men ran from room to room tearing down the tapestries, and piling the plate together, a monk had found a great iron box hidden in a corner. They cried to one another that it held gold “for the bloody Pope”; and burst it open to find a hair shirt, and a pair of disciplines.

It was a long row down to the Tower from Southwark against the in-flowing tide. As they passed beneath the bridge Chris stared up at the crowding houses, the great gates at either end, and the faces craning down; and he caught one glimpse as they shot through the narrow passage between the piers, of the tall wall above the gate, the poles rising from it, and the severed heads that crowned them. Somewhere among that forest of grim stems the Carthusian priors looked down.

As he turned in his seat he saw the boatman grinning to himself, and following his eyes observed the Prior beside him with a white fixed face looking steadily downwards towards his feet.

They found no difficulty when they landed at the stairs, and showed the order at the gate. The warder called to a man within the guard-room who came out and went before them along the walled way that led to the inner ward. They turned up to the left presently and found themselves in the great court that surrounded the White Tower.

The Prior walked heavily with his face downcast as if he wished to avoid notice, and Chris saw that he paid no attention to the men-at-arms and other persons here and there who saluted his prelate’s insignia. There were plenty of people going about in the evening sunshine, soldiers and attendants, and here and there at the foot of a tower stood a halberdier in his buff jacket leaning on his weapon. There were many distinguished persons in the Tower now, both ecclesiastics and laymen who had refused to take one or both of the oaths, and Chris eyed the windows wonderingly, picturing to himself where each lay, and with what courage.

But more and more as he went he wondered why the Prior and he were here, and who had obtained the order of admittance, for he had not had a sight of it.

When they reached the foot of the prison-tower the warder said a word to the sentry, and took the two monks straight past, preceding them up the narrow stairs that wound into darkness. There were windows here and there, slits in the heavy masonry, through which Chris caught glimpses, now of the moat on the west, now of the inner ward with the White Tower huge and massive on the east.

The Prior, who went behind the warder and in front of Chris, stopped suddenly, and Chris could hear him whispering to himself; and at the same time there sounded the creaking of a key in front.

As the young monk stood there waiting, grasping the stone-work on his right, again the excitement surged up; and with it was mingled something of terror. It had been a formidable experience even to walk those few hundred yards from the outer gate, and the obvious apprehensiveness of the Prior who had spoken no audible word since they had landed, was far from reassuring.

Here he stood now for the first time in his life within those terrible walls; he had seen the low Traitor’s Gate on his way that was for so many the gate of death. Even now as he gripped the stone he could see out to the left through the narrow slit a streak of open land beyond the moat and the wall, and somewhere there he knew lay the little rising ground, that reddened week after week in an ooze of blood and slime. And now he was at the door of one who without doubt would die there soon for the Faith that they both professed.

The Prior turned sharply round.

“You!” he said, “I had forgotten: you must wait here till I call you in.”

There was a sounding of an opening door above; the Prior went up and forward, leaving him standing there; the door closed, but not before Chris had caught a glimpse of a vaulted roof; and then the warder stood by him again, waiting with his keys in his hand.

CHAPTER XIII

PRISONER AND PRINCE

The sun sank lower and had begun to throw long shadows before the door opened again and the Prior beckoned. As Chris had stood there staring out of the window at the green water of the moat and the shadowed wall beyond, with the warder standing a few steps below, now sighing at the delay, now humming a line or two, he had heard voices now and again from the room above, but it had been no more than a murmur that died once more into silence.

Chris was aware of a dusty room as he stepped over the threshold, bare walls, one or two solid pieces of furniture, and of the Prior’s figure very upright in the light from the tiny window at one side; and then he forgot everything as he looked at the man that was standing smiling by the table.

It was a very tall slender figure, dressed in a ragged black gown turning green with age; a little bent now, but still dignified; the face was incredibly lean, with great brown eyes surrounded by wrinkles, and a little white hair, ragged, too, and long, hung down under the old flapped cap. The hand that Chris kissed seemed a bundle of reeds bound with parchment, and above the wrist bones the arm grew thinner still under the loose, torn sleeve.

Then the monk stood up and saw those kindly proud eyes looking into his own.

The Prior made a deferential movement and said a word or two, and the bishop answered him.

“Yes, yes, my Lord Prior; I understand—God bless you, my son.”

The bishop moved across to the chair, and sat down, panting a little, for he was torn by sickness and deprivation, and laid his long hands together.

“Sit down, brother,” he said, “and you too, my Lord Prior.”

Chris saw the Prior move across to an old broken stool, but he himself remained standing, awed and almost terrified at that worn face in which the eyes alone seemed living; so thin that the cheekbones stood out hideously, and the line of the square jaw. But the voice was wonderfully sweet and penetrating.

“My Lord Prior and I have been talking of the times, and what is best to be done, and how we must all be faithful. You will be faithful, brother?”

Chris made an effort against the absorbing fascination of that face and voice.

“I will, my lord.”

“That is good; you must follow your prior and be obedient to him. You will find him wise and courageous.”

The bishop nodded gently towards the Prior, and Chris heard a sobbing indrawn breath from the corner where the broken stool stood.

“It is a time of great moment,” went on the bishop; “much hangs on how we carry ourselves. His Grace has evil counsellors about him.”

There was silence for a moment or two; Chris could not take his eyes from the bishop’s face. The frightful framework of skin and bones seemed luminous from within, and there was an extraordinary sweetness on those tightly drawn lips, and in the large bright eyes.

“His Grace has been to the Tower lately, I hear, and once to the Marshalsea, to see Dom Sebastian Newdegate, who, as you know, was at Court for many years till he entered the Charterhouse; but I have had no visit from him, nor yet, I should think, Master More—you must not judge his Grace too hardly, my son; he was a good lad, as I knew very well—a very gallant and brave lad. A Frenchman said that he seemed to have come down from heaven. And he has always had a great faith and devotion, and a very strange and delicate conscience that has cost him much pain. But he has been counselled evilly.”

Chris remembered as in a dream that the bishop had been the King’s tutor years before.

“He is a good theologian too,” went on the bishop, “and that is his misfortune now, though I never thought to say such a thing. Perhaps he will become a better one still, if God has mercy on him, and he will come back to his first faith. But we must be good Catholics ourselves, and be ready to die for our Religion, before we can teach him.”

Again, after another silence, he went on.

“You are to be a priest, I hear, my son, and to take Christ’s yoke more closely upon you. It is no easy one in these days, though love will make it so, as Himself said. I suppose it will be soon now?”

“We are to get a dispensation, my lord, for the interstices,” said the

Prior.

Chris had heard that this would be done, before he left Lewes, and he was astonished now, not at the news, but at the strange softness of the Prior’s voice.

“That is very well,” went on the bishop. “We want all the faithful priests possible. There is a great darkness in the land, and we need lights to lighten it. You have a brother in Master Cromwell’s service, sir, I hear?”

Chris was silent.

“You must not grieve too much. God Almighty can set all right. It may be he thinks he is serving Him. We are not here to judge, but to give our own account.”

The bishop went on presently to ask a few questions and to talk of Master More, saying that he had managed to correspond with him for a while, but that now all the means for doing so had been taken away from them both, as well as his own books.

“It is a great grief to me that I cannot say my office, nor say nor hear mass: I must trust now to the Holy Sacrifice offered by others.”

He spoke so tenderly and tranquilly that Chris was hardly able to keep back his tears. It seemed that the soul still kept its serene poise in that wasted body, and was independent of it. There was no weakness nor peevishness anywhere. The very room with its rough walls, its cobwebbed roof, its uneven flooring, its dreadful chill and gloom, seemed alive with a warm, redolent, spiritual atmosphere generated by this keen, pure soul. Chris had never been near so real a sanctity before.

“You have seen nothing of my Rochester folk, I suppose?” went on the bishop to the Prior.

The Prior shook his head.

“I am very downcast about them sometimes; I saw many of them at the court the other day. I forget that the Good Shepherd can guard His own sheep. And they were so faithful to me that I know they will be faithful to Him.”

There came a sound of a key being knocked upon the door outside, and the bishop stood up, slowly and painfully.

“That will be Mr. Giles,” he said, “hungry for supper.”

The two monks sank down on their knees, and as Chris closed his eyes he heard a soft murmur of blessing over his head.

Then each kissed his hand and Chris went to the door, half blind with tears.

He heard a whisper from the bishop to the Prior, who still lingered a moment, and a half sob—

“God helping me!”—said the Prior.

There was no more spoken, and the two went down the stairs together into the golden sunshine with the warder behind them.

Chris dared not look at the other. He had had a glimpse of his face as he stood aside on the stairs to let him pass, and what he saw there told him enough.

There were plenty of boats rocking on the tide at the foot of the river stairs outside the Tower, and they stepped into one, telling the man to row to Southwark.

It was a glorious summer evening now. The river lay bathed in the level sunshine that turned it to molten gold, and it was covered with boats plying in all directions. There were single wherries going to and from the stairs that led down on all sides into the water, and barges here and there, of the great merchants or nobles going home to supper, with a line of oars on each side, and a glow of colour gilding in the stem and prow, were moving up stream towards the City. London Bridge stood out before them presently, like a palace in a fairy-tale, blue and romantic against the western glow, and above it and beyond rose up the tall spire of the Cathedral. On the other side a fringe of houses began a little to the east of the bridge, and ran up to the spires of Southwark on the other side, and on them lay a glory of sunset with deep shadows barring them where the alleys ran down to the water’s edge. Here and there behind rose up the heavy masses of the June foliage. A troop of swans, white patches on the splendour, were breasting up against the out-flowing tide.

The air was full of sound; the rattle and dash of oars, men’s voices coming clear and minute across the water; and as they got out near mid-stream the bell of St. Paul’s boomed far from away, indescribably solemn and melodious; another church took it up, and a chorus of mellow voices tolled out the Angelus.

Chris was half through saying it to himself, when across the soft murmur sounded the clash of brass far away beyond the bridge.

The boatman paused at his oars, turned round a moment, grasping them in one hand, and stared up-stream under the other. Chris could see a movement among the boats higher up, and there seemed to break out a commotion at the foot of the houses on London Bridge, and then far away came the sound of cheering.

“What is it?” asked the Prior sharply, lifting his head, as the boatman gave an exclamation and laid furiously to his oars again.

The man jerked his head backwards.

“The King’s Grace,” he said.

For a minute or two nothing more was to be seen. A boat or two near them was seen making off to the side from mid-stream, to leave a clear passage, and there were cries from the direction of the bridge where someone seemed to be in difficulties with the strong stream and the piers. A wherry that was directly between them and the bridge moved off, and the shining water-way was left for the King’s Grace to come down.

Then, again, the brass horns sounded nearer.

Chris was conscious of an immense excitement. The dramatic contrast of the scene he had just left with that which he was witnessing overpowered him. He had seen one end of the chain of life, the dying bishop in the Tower, in his rags; now he was to see the other end, the Sovereign at whose will he was there, in all the magnificence of a pageant. The Prior was sitting bolt upright on the seat beside him; one hand lay on his knee, the knuckles white with clenching, the other gripped the side of the boat.

Then, again, the fierce music sounded, and the first boat appeared under one of the wider spans of the bridge, a couple of hundred yards away.

The stream was running out strongly by now, and the boatman tugged to get out of it into the quieter water at the side, and as he pulled an oar snapped. The Prior half started up as the man burst out into an exclamation, and began to paddle furiously with the other oar, but the boat revolved helplessly, and he was forced to change it to the opposite side.

Meanwhile the boats were beginning to stream under the bridge, and Chris, seeing that the boat in which he sat was sufficiently out of the way to allow a clear passage in mid-stream even if not far enough removed for proper deference, gave himself up to watching the splendid sight.

The sun had now dropped behind the high houses by the bridge, and a shadow lay across the water, but nearer at hand the way was clear, and in a moment more the leading boat had entered the sunlight.

There was no possibility of mistake as to whether this were the royal barge or no. It was a great craft, seventy feet from prow to stem at the very least, and magnificent with colour. As it burst out into the sun, it blazed blindingly with gold; the prow shone with blue and crimson; the stern, roofed in with a crimson canopy with flying tassels, trailed brilliant coarse tapestries on either side; and the Royal Standard streamed out behind.

Chris tried to count the oars, as they swept into the water with a rhythmical throb and out again, flashing a fringe of drops and showing a coat painted on each blade. There seemed to be eight or ten a side. A couple of trumpeters stood in the bows, behind the gilded carved figurehead, their trumpets held out symmetrically with the square hangings flapping as they came.

He could see now the heads of the watermen who rowed, with the caps of the royal livery moving together like clockwork at the swing of the oars.

Behind followed the other boats, some half dozen in all; and as each pair burst out into the level sunlight with a splendour of gold and colour, and the roar from London Bridge swelled louder and louder, for a moment the young monk forgot the bitter underlying tragedy of all that he had seen and knew—forgot oozy Tower-hill and trampled Tyburn and the loaded gallows—forgot even the grim heads that stared out with dead tortured eyes from the sheaves of pikes rising high above him at this moment against the rosy sky—forgot the monks of the Charterhouse and their mourning hearts; the insulted queen, repudiated and declared a concubine—forgot all that made life so hard to live and understand at this time—as this splendid vision of the lust of the eyes broke out in pulsating sound and colour before him.

But it was only for a moment.

There was a group of half-a-dozen persons under the canopy of the seat-of-state of the leading boat; the splendid centre of the splendid show, brilliant in crimson and gold and jewels.

On the further side sat two men. Chris did not know their faces, but as his eyes rested on them a moment he noticed that one was burly and clean-shaven, and wore some insignia across his shoulders. At the near side were the backs of two ladies, silken clad and slashed with crimson, their white jewelled necks visible under their coiled hair and tight square cut caps. And in the centre sat a pair, a man and a woman; and on these he fixed his eyes as the boat swept up not twenty yards away, for he knew who they must be.

The man was leaning back, looking gigantic in his puffed sleeves and wide mantle; one great arm was flung along the back of the tapestried seat, and his large head, capped with purple and feathers, was bending towards the woman who sat beyond. Chris could make out a fringe of reddish hair beneath his ear and at the back of the flat head between the high collar and the cap. He caught a glimpse, too, of a sedate face beyond, set on a slender neck, with downcast eyes and red lips. And then as the boat came opposite, and the trumpeters sent out a brazen crash from the trumpets at their lips, the man turned his head and stared straight at the boat.

It was an immensely wide face, fringed with reddish hair, scanty about the lips and more full below; and it looked the wider from the narrow drooping eyes set near together and the small pursed mouth. Below, his chin swelled down fold after fold into his collar, and the cheeks were wide and heavy on either side.

It was the most powerful face that Chris had ever seen or dreamed of—the animal brooded in every line and curve of it—it would have been brutish but for the steady pale stare of the eyes and the tight little lips. It fascinated and terrified him.

The flourish ended, the roar of the rowlocks sounded out again like the beating of a furious heart; the King turned his head again and said something, and the boat swept past.

Chris found that he had started to his feet, and sat down again, breathing quickly and heavily, with a kind of indignant loathing that was new to him.

This then was the master of England, the heart of all their troubles—that gorgeous fat man with the broad pulpy face, in his crimson and jewels; and that was his concubine who sat demure beside him, with her white folded ringed hands on her lap, her beautiful eyes cast down, and her lord’s hot breath in her ear! It was these that were purifying the Church of God of such men as the Cardinal-bishop in the Tower, and the witty holy lawyer! It was by the will of such as these that the heads of the Carthusian Fathers, bound brow and chin with linen, stared up and down with dead eyes from the pikes overhead.

He sat panting and unseeing as the other boats swept past, full of the

King’s friends all going down to Greenwich.

There broke out a roar from the Tower behind, and he started and turned round to see the white smoke eddying up from the edge of the wall beside the Traitor’s gate; a shrill cheer or two, far away and thin, sounded from the figures on the wharf and the boatmen about the stairs.

The wherryman sat down again and put on his cap.

“Body of God!” he said, “there was but just time.”

And he began to pull again with his single oar towards the shore.

Chris looked at the Prior a moment and down again. He was sitting with tight lips, and hands clasped in his lap, and his eyes were wild and piteous.

They borrowed an oar presently from another boat, and went on up towards Southwark. The wherryman pawed once to spit on his hands as they neared the rush of the current below the bridge.

“That was Master Cromwell with His Grace,” he said.

Chris looked at him questioningly.

“Him with the gold collar,” he added, “and that was Audley by him.”

The Prior had glanced at Chris as Cromwell’s name was mentioned; but said nothing for the present. And Chris himself was lost again in musing. That was Ralph’s master then, the King’s right-hand man, feared next in England after the King himself—and Chancellor Audley, too, and Anne, all in one wooden boat. How easy for God to put out His hand and finish them! And then he was ashamed at his own thought, so faithless and timid; and he remembered Fisher once more and his gallant spirit in that broken body.

A minute or two later they had landed at the stairs, and were making their way up to the hostel.

The Prior put out his hand and checked him as he stepped ahead to knock.

“Wait,” he said. “Do you know who signed the order we used at the

Tower?”

Chris shook his head.

“Master Cromwell,” said the Prior. “And do you know by whose hand it came?”

Chris stared in astonishment.

“It was by your brother,” he said.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SACRED PURPLE

It was a bright morning a few days later when the Bishop of Rochester suffered on Tower Hill.

Chris was there early, and took up his position at the outskirts of the little crowd, facing towards the Tower itself; and for a couple of hours watched the shadows creep round the piles of masonry, and the light deepen and mellow between him and the great mass of the White Tower a few hundred yards away. There was a large crowd there a good while before nine o’clock, and Chris found himself at the hour no longer on the outskirts but in the centre of the people.

He had served the Prior’s mass at six o’clock, and had obtained leave from him the night before to be present at the execution; but the Prior himself had given no suggestion of coming. Chris had begun to see that his superior was going through a conflict, and that he wished to spare himself any further motives of terror; he began too to understand that the visit to the bishop had had the effect of strengthening the Prior’s courage, whatever had been the intention on the part of the authorities in allowing him to go. He was still wondering why Ralph had lent himself to the scheme; but had not dared to press his superior further.

The bishop had made a magnificent speech at his trial, and had protested with an extraordinary pathos, that called out a demonstration from the crowd in court, against Master Rich’s betrayal of his confidence. Under promise of the King that nothing that he said to his friend should be used against him, the bishop had shown his mind in a private conversation on the subject of the Supremacy Act, and now this had been brought against him by Rich himself at the trial.

“Seeing it pleased the King’s Highness,” said the bishop, “to send to me thus secretly to know my poor advice and opinion, which I most gladly was, and ever will be, ready to offer to him when so commanded, methinks it very hard to allow the same as sufficient testimony against me, to prove me guilty of high treason.”

Rich excused himself by affirming that he said or did nothing more than what the King commanded him to do; and the trial ended by the bishop’s condemnation.

As Chris waited by the scaffold he prayed almost incessantly. There was sufficient spur for prayer in the menacing fortress before him with its hundred tiny windows, and the new scaffold, some five or six feet high, that stood in the foreground. He wondered how the bishop was passing his time and thought he knew. The long grey wall beyond the moat, and the towers that rose above it, were suggestive in their silent strength. From where he stood too he could catch a glimpse of the shining reaches of the river with the green slopes on the further side; and the freedom and beauty of the sight, the delicate haze that hung over the water, the birds winging their way across, the boats plying to and fro, struck a vivid contrast to the grim fatality of the prison and the scaffold.

A bell sounded out somewhere from the Tower, and a ripple ran through the crowd. There was an immensely tall man a few yards from Chris, and Chris could see his face turn suddenly towards the lower ground by the river where the gateway rose up dark against the bright water. The man’s face suddenly lighted with interest, and Chris saw his lips move and his eyes become intent. Then a surging movement began, and the monk was swept away to the left by the packed crowd round him. There were faces lining the wall and opposite, and all were turned one way. A great murmur began to swell up, and a woman beside him turned white and began to sob quietly.

His eyes caught a bright point of light that died again, flashed out, and resolved itself into a gleaming line of halberds, moving on towards the right above the heads, up the slope to the scaffold. He saw a horse toss his head; and then a feathered cap or two swaying behind.

Then for one instant between the shifting heads in front he caught sight of a lean face framed in a flapped cap swaying rhythmically as if borne on a chair. It vanished again.

The flashing line of halberds elongated itself, divided, and came between the scaffold and him; and the murmur of the crowd died to a heart-shaking silence. A solemn bell clanged out again from the interior of the prison, and Chris, his wet hands knit together, began to count the strokes mechanically, staring at the narrow rail of the scaffold, and waiting for the sight that he knew would come. Then again he was swept along a yard or two to the right, and when he had recovered his feet a man was on the scaffold, bending forwards and gesticulating. Another head rose into the line of vision, and this man too turned towards the steps up which he had come, and stood, one hand outstretched.

Again a murmur and movement began; Chris had to look to his foothold, and when he raised his head again a solemn low roar was rising up and swelling, of pity and excitement, for, silhouetted against the sunlit Tower behind, stood the man for whose sake all were there.

He was in a black gown and tippet, and carried his two hands clasped to his breast; and in them was a book and a crucifix. His cap was on his head, and the white face, incredibly thin, looked out over the heads of the crowd.

Chris hardly noticed that the scaffold was filling with people, until a figure came forward, in black, with a masked face, and bowed deferentially to the bishop; and in an instant silence fell again.

He saw the bishop turn and bow slightly in return, and in the stillness that wonderful voice sounded out, with the clear minuteness of words spoken in the open air, clear and penetrating over the whole ground.

“I forgive you very heartily; and I hope you will see me overcome this storm lustily.”

The black figure fell back, and the bishop stood hesitating, looking this way and that as if for direction.

The Lieutenant of the Tower came forward; but Chris could only see his lips move, as a murmur had broken out again at the bishop’s answer; but he signed with his hand and stepped behind the prisoner.

The bishop nodded, lifted his hand and took off his cap; and his white hair appeared; then he fumbled at his throat, holding the book and crucifix in his other hand; and, with the Lieutenant’s help, slipped off his tippet and loose gown; and as he freed himself, and stood in his doublet and hose, a great sobbing cry of horror and compassion rose from the straining faces, for he seemed scarcely to be a living man, so dreadful was his emaciation. Above that lean figure of death looked out the worn old face, serene and confident. He was again holding the book and crucifix clasped to his breast, as he stepped to the edge of the scaffold.

The cry died to a murmur and ceased abruptly as he began his speech, every word of which was audible.

“Christian people,” he began, “I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ’s holy Catholic Church.” He raised his voice a little, and it rang out confidently. “And I thank God that hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death. Wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of death’s stroke I may in that very moment stand steadfast, without fainting in any one point of the Catholic Faith, free from any fear.”

He paused again; his hands closed one on the other. He glanced up.

“And I beseech the Almighty God of His infinite goodness and mercy, to save the King and this realm; and that it may please Him to hold His hand over it, and send the King’s Highness good counsel.”

He ceased abruptly; and dropped his head.

A gentle groan ran through the crowd.

Chris felt his throat contract, and a mist blinded his eyes for a moment.

Then he saw the bishop slip the crucifix into his other hand, and open the book, apparently at random. His lean finger dropped upon the page; and he read aloud softly, as if to himself.

“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.”

Again there was silence, for it seemed as if he was going to make a sermon, but he looked down at the book a moment or two. Then he closed it gently.

“Here is learning enough for me,” he said, “to my life’s end.”

There was a movement among the silent figures at the back of the scaffold; and the Lieutenant stepped forward once more. The bishop turned to meet him and nodded; handing him the book; and then with the crucifix still in his hands, and with the officers help, sank on to his knees.

It seemed to Chris as if he waited an eternity; but he could not take his eyes off him. Round about was the breathing mass of the crowd, overhead the clear summer sky; up from the river came the sounds of cries and the pulse of oars, and from the Tower now and again the call of a horn and the stroke of a bell; but all this was external, and seemed to have no effect upon the intense silence of the heart that radiated from the scaffold, and in which the monk felt himself enveloped. The space between himself and the bishop seemed annihilated; and Chris found himself in company with a thousand others close beside the man’s soul that was to leave the world so soon. He could not pray; but he had the sensation of gripping that imploring spirit, pulsating with it, furthering with his own strained will that stream of effort that he knew was going forth.

Meanwhile his eyes stared at him; and saw without seeing how the old man now leaned back with closed eyes and moving lips; now he bent forward, and looked at the crucified figure that he held between his hands, now lifted it and lingeringly kissed the pierced feet. Behind stood the stiff line of officers, and in front below the rail rose the glitter of the halberds.

The minutes went by and there was no change. The world seemed to have grown rigid with expectancy; it was as if time stood still. There fell upon the monk’s soul, not suddenly but imperceptibly, something of that sense of the unseen that he had experienced at Tyburn. For a certain space all sorrow and terror left him; he knew tangibly now that to which at other times his mere faith assented; he knew that the world of spirit was the real one; that the Tower, the axe, the imminent shadow of death, were little more than illusions; they were part of the staging, significant and necessary, but with no substance of reality. The eternal world in which God was all, alone was a fact. He felt no longer pity or regret. Nothing but the sheer existence of a Being of which all persons there were sharers, poised in an eternal instant, remained with him.

This strange sensation was scarcely disturbed by the rising of the lean black figure from its knees; Chris watched him as he might have watched the inevitable movement of an actor performing his pre-arranged part. The bishop turned eastward, to where the sun was now high above the Tower gate, and spoke once more.

“Accedite ad eum, et illuminamini; et facies vestræ non confundentur.”

Then once more in the deathly stillness he turned round; and his eyes ran over the countless faces turned up to his own. But there was a certain tranquil severity in his face—the severity of one who has taken a bitter cup firmly into his hand; his lips were tightly compressed, and his eyes were deep and steady.

Then very slowly he lifted his right hand, touched his forehead, and enveloped himself in a great sign of the cross, still looking out unwaveringly over the faces; and immediately, without any hesitation, sank down on his knees, put his hands before him on to the scaffold, and stretched himself flat.

He was now invisible to Chris; for the low block on which he had laid his neck was only a few inches high.

There was again a surge and a murmur as the headsman stepped forward with the huge-headed axe over his shoulder, and stood waiting.

Then again the moments began to pass.

Chris lost all consciousness of his own being; he was aware of nothing but the objective presence of the scaffold, of an overpowering expectancy. It seemed as if something were stretched taut in his brain, at breaking point; as if some vast thing were on the point of revelation. All else had vanished,—the scene round him, the sense of the invisible; there was but the point of space left, waiting for an explosion.

There was a sense of wrenching torture as the headsman lifted the axe, bringing it high round behind him; the motion seemed shockingly slow, and to wring the strained nerves to agony….

Then in a blinding climax the axe fell.

CHAPTER XV

THE KING’S FRIEND

Overfield Court was mildly stirred at the news that Master Christopher would stay there a few days on his way back from London to Lewes. It was not so exciting as when Master Ralph was to come, as the latter made more demands than a mere monk; for the one the horses must be in the pink of condition, the game neither too wild nor too tame, his rooms must be speckless, neither too full nor too empty of furniture; for the other it did not matter so much, for he was now not only a younger brother, but a monk, and therefore accustomed to contradiction and desirous to acquiesce in arrangements.

Lady Torridon indeed took no steps at all when she heard that Chris was coming, beyond expressing a desire that she might not be called upon to discuss the ecclesiastical situation at every meal; and when Chris finally arrived a week after Bishop Fisher’s execution, having parted with the Prior at Cuckfield, she was walking in her private garden beyond the moat.

Sir James was in a very different state. He had caused two rooms to be prepared, that his son might take his choice, one next to Mr. Carleton’s and therefore close to the chapel, and the other the old chamber that Chris had occupied before he went to Lewes; and when the monk at last rode up on alone on his tired mule with his little bag strapped to the crupper, an hour before sunset, his father was out at the gatehouse to meet him, and walked up beside him to the house, with his hand laid on his son’s knee.

They hardly spoke a word as they went; Sir James had looked up at Chris’s white strained face, and had put one question; and the other had nodded; and the hearts of both were full as they went together to the house.

The father and son supped together alone that night in the private parlour, for no one had dared to ask Lady Torridon to postpone her usual supper hour; and as soon as that was over and Chris had told what he had seen, with many silences, they went into the oak-room where Lady Torridon and Mr. Carleton were awaiting them by the hearth with the Flemish tiles.

The mother was sitting as usual in her tall chair, with her beautiful hands on her lap, and smiled with a genial contempt as she ran her eyes up and down her son’s figure.

“The habit suits you very well, my son—in every way,” she added, looking at him curiously.

Chris had greeted her an hour before at his arrival, so there was no ceremony of salute to be gone through now. He sat down by his father.

“You have seen Ralph, I hear,” observed Lady Torridon.

Chris did not know how much she knew, and simply assented. He had told his father everything.

“I have some news,” she went on in an unusually talkative mood, “for you both. Ralph is to marry Beatrice Atherton—the girl you saw in his rooms, Christopher.”

Sir James gave an exclamation and leant forward; and Chris tightened his lips.

“She is a friend of Mr. More’s,” went on Lady Torridon, apparently unconscious of the sensation she was making, “but that is Ralph’s business, I suppose.”

“Why did Ralph not write to me?” asked his father, with a touch of sternness.

Lady Torridon answered him by a short pregnant silence, and then went on—

“I suppose he wished me to break it to you. It will not be for two or three years. She says she cannot leave Mrs. More for the present.”

Chris’s brain was confused by the news, and yet it all seemed external to him. As he had ridden up to the house in the evening he had recognised for the first time how he no longer belonged to the place; his two years at Lewes had done their work, and he came to his home now not as a son but as a guest. He had even begun to perceive the difference after his quarrel with Ralph, for he had not been conscious of the same personal sting at his brother’s sins that he would have felt five years ago. And now this news, while it affected him, did not penetrate to the still sanctuary that he had hewn out of his heart during those months of discipline.

But his father was roused.

“He should have written to me,” he said sternly. “And, my wife, I will beg you to remember that I have a right to my son’s business.”

Lady Torridon did not move or answer. He leaned back again, and passed his hand tenderly through Chris’s arm.

It was very strange to the younger son to find himself a few minutes later up again in the west gallery of the chapel, where he had knelt two years before; and for a few moments he almost felt himself at home. But the mechanical shifting of his scapular aside as he sat down for the psalms, recalled facts. Then he had been in his silk suit, his hands had been rough with his cross-bow, his beard had been soft on his chin, and the blood hot in his cheeks. Now he was in his habit, smooth-faced and shaven, tired and oppressed, still weak from the pangs of soul-birth. He was further from human love, but nearer the Divine, he thought.

He sat with his father a few minutes after compline; and Sir James spoke more frankly of the news that they had heard.

“If she is really a friend of Mr. More’s,” he said, “she may be his salvation. I am sorely disappointed in him. I did not know Master Cromwell when I sent him to him, as I do now. Is it my fault, Chris?”

Chris told his father presently of what the Prior had said as to Ralph’s assistance in the matter of the visit that the two monks had paid to the Tower; and asked an interpretation.

Sir James sat quiet a minute or two, stroking his pointed grey beard softly, and looking into the hearth.

“God forgive me if I am wrong, my son,” he said at last, “but I wonder whether they let the my Lord Prior go to the Tower in order to shake the confidence of both. Do you think so, Chris?”

Chris too was silent a moment; he knew he must not speak evil of dignities.

“It may be so. I know that my Lord Prior—”

“Well, my son?”

“My Lord Prior has been very anxious—”

Sir James patted his son on the knee, and reassured him.

“Prior Crowham is a very holy man, I think; but—but somewhat delicate. However their designs have come to nothing. The bishop is in glory; and the other more courageous than he was.”

Chris also had a few words with Mr. Carleton before he went to bed, sitting where he had sat in the moonlight two years before.

“If they have done so much,” said the priest, “they will do more. When a man has slipped over a precipice he cannot save his fall. Master More will be the next to go; I make no doubt of that. You are to be a priest soon, Chris?”

“They have applied for leave,” said the monk shortly. “In two years I shall be a priest, no doubt, if God wills.”

“You are happy?” asked the other.

Chris made a little gesture.

“I do not know what that means,” he said, “but I know I have done right.

I feel nothing. God’s ways and His world are too strange.”

The priest looked at him oddly, without speaking.

“Well, father?” asked Chris, smiling.

“You are right,” said the chaplain brusquely. “You have done well. You have crossed the border.”

Chris felt the blood surge in his temples.

“The border?” he asked.

“The border of dreams. They surround the Religious Life; and you have passed through them.”

Chris still looked at him with parted lips. This praise was sweet, after the bitterness of his failure with Ralph. The priest seemed to know what was passing in his mind.

“Oh! you will fail sometimes,” he said, “but not finally. You are a monk, my son, and a man.”

Lady Torridon retired into her impregnable silence again after her sallies of speech on the previous evening; but as the few days went on that Chris had been allowed to spend with his parents he was none the less aware that her attitude towards him was one of contempt. She showed it in a hundred ways—by not appearing to see him, by refusing to modify her habits in the smallest particular for his convenience, by a rigid silence on the subject that was in the hearts of both him and his father. She performed her duties as punctually and efficiently as ever, dealt dispassionately and justly with an old servant who had been troublesome, and with regard to whom her husband was both afraid and tender; but never asked for confidences or manifested the minutest detail of her own accord.

On the fourth day after Chris’s arrival news came that Sir Thomas More had been condemned, but it roused no more excitement than the fall of a threatening rod. It had been known to be inevitable. And then on Chris’s last evening at home came the last details.

Sir James and Chris had been out for a long ride up the estate, talking but little, for each knew what was in the heart of the other; and they were just dismounting at the terrace-steps when there was a sound of furious galloping; and a couple of riders burst through the gateway a hundred yards away.

Chris felt his heart leap and hammer in his throat, but stood passively awaiting what he knew was coming; and a few seconds later, Nicholas Maxwell checked his horse passionately at the steps.

“God damn them!” he cried, with a crimson quivering face.

Sir James stepped up at once and took him by the arm.

“Nick,” he said, and glanced at the staring grooms.

Nicholas showed his teeth like a dog.

“God damn them!” he said again.

The other rider had come up by now; he was dusty and seemed spent. He was a stranger to the father and son who waited on the steps; but he looked like a groom, and slipped off his horse deftly and took Sir Nicholas’s bridle.

“Come in Nick,” said Sir James. “We can talk in the house.”

As the three went up together, with the strange rider at a respectful distance behind, Nicholas broke out again in one sentence.

“They have done it,” he said, “he is dead. Mother of God!”

His whip twitched in his clenching hand. He turned and jerked his head beckoningly to the man who followed; and the four went on together, through the hall and into Sir James’s parlour. Sir James shut the door.

“Tell us, Nick.”

Nicholas stood at the hearth, glaring and shifting.

“This fellow knows—he saw it; tell them, Dick.”

The man gave his account. He was one of the servants of Sir Nicholas’ younger brother, who lived in town, and had been sent down to Great Keynes immediately after the execution that had taken place that morning. He was a man of tolerable education, and told his story well.

Sir James sat as he listened, with his hand shading his eyes; Nicholas was fidgetting at the hearth, interrupting the servant now and again with questions and reminders; and Chris leaned in the dark corner by the window. There floated vividly before his mind as he listened the setting of the scene that he had looked upon a few days ago, though there were new actors in it now.

“It was this morning, sir, on Tower Hill. There was a great company there long before the time. He came out bravely enough, walking with the Lieutenant that was his friend, and with a red cross in his hand.”

“You were close by,” put in Nicholas

“Yes, sir; I was beside the stairs. They shook as he went up; they were crazy steps, and he told the Lieutenant to have a care to him.”

“The words, man, the words!”

“I am not sure, sir; but they were after this fashion: ‘See me safe up, Master Lieutenant; I will shift for myself at the coming down.’ So he got up safe, and stamped once or twice merrily to see if all were firm. Then he made a speech, sir, and begged all there to pray for him. He told them that he was to die for the faith of the Catholic Church, as my Lord of Rochester did.”

“Have you heard of my lord’s head being taken to Nan Boleyn?” put in

Nicholas fiercely.

Sir James looked up.

“Presently, Nick,” he said.

The man went on.

“Master More kneeled down presently at his prayers; and all the folk kept very quiet. There was not one that cried against him. Then he stood up again, put off his gown, so that his neck was bare; and passed his hand over it smiling. Then he told the headsman that it was but a short one, and bade him be brave and strike straight, lest his good name should suffer. Then he laid himself down to the block, and put his neck on it; but he moved again before he gave the sign, and put his beard out in front—for he had grown one in prison”—

“Give us the words,” snarled Nicholas.

“He said, sir, that his beard had done no treason, and need not therefore suffer as he had to do. And then he thrust out his hand for a sign—and ‘twas done at a stroke.”

“God damn them!” hissed Nicholas again as a kind of Amen, turning swiftly to the fire-place so that his face could not be seen.

There was complete silence for a few seconds. The groom had his eyes cast down, and stood there—then again he spoke.

“As to my Lord of Rochester’s head, that was taken off to the—the

Queen, they say, in a white bag, and she struck it on the mouth.”

Nicholas dropped his head against his hand that rested on the wood-work.

“And the body rested naked all day on the scaffold, with the halberd-men drinking round about; and ‘twas tumbled into a hole in Barking Churchyard that night.”

“At whose orders?”

“At Master Cromwell’s, sir.”

Again there was silence; and again the groom broke it.

“There was more said, sir—” and hesitated.

The old man signed to him to go on.

“They say that my lord’s head shone with light each night on the bridge,” said the man reverently; “there was a great press there, I know, all day, so that the streets were blocked, and none could come or go. And so they tumbled that into the river at last; at least ‘tis supposed so—for ‘twas gone when I looked.”

Nicholas turned round; and his eyes were bright and his face fiery and discoloured.

Sir James stood up, and his voice was broken as he spoke.

“Thank you, my man. You have told your story well.”

As the groom turned to go out, Sir Nicholas wheeled round swiftly to the hearth, and buried his face on his arm; and Chris saw a great heaving begin to shake his broad shoulders.

BOOK II

PART I

THE SMALLER HOUSES

CHAPTER I

AN ACT OF FAITH

Towards the end of August Beatrice Atherton was walking up the north bank of the river from Charing to Westminster to announce to Ralph her arrival in town on the previous night.

She had gone through horrors since the June day on which she had seen the two brothers together. With Margaret beside her she had watched Master More in court, in his frieze gown, leaning on his stick, bent and grey with imprisonment, had heard his clear answers, his searching questions, and his merry conclusion after sentence had been pronounced; she had stayed at home with the stricken family on the morning of the sixth of July, kneeling with them at her prayers in the chapel of the New Building, during the hours until Mr. Roper looked in grey-faced and trembling, and they knew that all was over. She went with them to the burial in St. Peter’s Chapel in the Tower; and last, which was the most dreadful ordeal of all, she had stood in the summer darkness by the wicket-gate, had heard the cautious stroke of oars, and the footsteps coming up the path, and had let Margaret in bearing her precious burden robbed from the spike on London Bridge.

Then for a while she had gone down to the country with Mrs. More and her daughters; and now she was back once more, in a kind of psychical convalescence, at her aunt’s new house on the river-bank at Charing.

Her face was a little paler than it used to be, but there was a quickening brightness in her eyes as she swept along in her blue mantle, with her maid beside her, in the rear of the liveried servant, who carried a silver-headed wand a few yards in front.

She was rehearsing to herself the scene in which Ralph had asked her to be his wife.

Where Chris had left the room the two had remained perfectly still until the street-door had closed; and then Ralph had turned to her with a question in his steady eyes.

She had told him then that she did not believe one word of what the monk had insinuated; but she had been conscious even at the time that she was making what theologians call an act of faith. It was not that there were not difficulties to her in Ralph’s position—there were plenty—but she had determined by a final and swift decision to disregard them and believe in him. It was a last step in a process that continued ever since she had become interested by this strong brusque man; and it had been precipitated by the fanatical attack to which she had just been a witness. The discord, as she thought it, of Ralph’s character and actions had not been resolved; yet she had decided in that moment that it need not be; that her data as concerned those actions were insufficient; and that if she could not explain, at least she could trust.

Ralph had been very honest, she told herself now. He had reminded her that he was a servant of Cromwell’s whom many believed to be an enemy of Church and State. She had nodded back to him steadily and silently, knowing what would follow from the paleness of his face, and his bright eyes beneath their wide lids. She had felt her own breast rise and fall and a pulse begin to hammer at the spring of her throat. Even now as she thought of it her heart quickened, and her hands clenched themselves.

And then in one swift moment it had come. She had found her hands caught fiercely, and her eyes imprisoned by his; and then all was over, and she had given him an answer in a word.

It had not been easy even after that. Cecily had questioned her more than once. Mrs. More had said a few indiscreet things that had been hard to bear; her own aunt had received the news in silence.

But that was over now. The necessary consent on both sides had been given; and here she was once more walking up the road to Westminster with Ralph’s image before her eyes, and Ralph himself a hundred yards away.

She turned the last corner from the alley, passed up the little street, and turned again across the little cobbled yard that lay before the house.

Mr. Morris was at the door as she came up, and he now stood aside. He seemed doubtful.

“Mr. Torridon has gentlemen with him, madam.”

“Then I will wait,” said Beatrice serenely, and made a motion to come in. The servant still half-hesitating opened the door wider; and Beatrice and her maid went through into the little parlour on the right.

As she passed in she heard voices from the other door. Mr. Morris’s footsteps went down the passage.

She had not very long to wait. There was the sound of a carriage driving up to the door presently, and her maid who sat in view of the window glanced out. Her face grew solemn.

“It is Master Cromwell’s carriage,” she said.

Beatrice was conscious of a vague discomfort; Master Cromwell, in spite of her efforts, was the shadowed side of Ralph’s life.

“Is he coming in?” she said.

The maid peeped again.

“No, madam.”

The door of the room they were in was not quite shut, and there was still a faint murmur of voices from across the hall; but almost immediately there was the sound of a lifted latch, and then Ralph’s voice clear and distinct.

“I will see to it, my lord.”

Beatrice stood up, feeling a little uneasy. She fancied that perhaps she ought not to be here; she remembered now the servant’s slight air of unwillingness to let her in. There was a footfall in the hall, and the sound of talking; and as Mr. Morris’s hasty step came up the passage, the door was pushed abruptly open, and Ralph was looking into the room, with one or two others beyond him.

“I did not know,” he began, and flushed a little, smiling and making as if to close the door. But Cromwell’s face, with its long upper lip and close-set grey eyes, appeared over his shoulder, and Ralph turned round, almost deprecatingly.

“I beg your pardon, sir; this is Mistress Atherton, and her woman.”

Cromwell came forward into the room, with a kind of keen smile, in his rich dress and chain.

“Mistress Beatrice Atherton?” he said with a questioning deference; and Ralph introduced them to one another. Beatrice was conscious of a good deal of awkwardness. It was uncomfortable to be caught here, as if she had come to spy out something. She felt herself flushing as she explained that she had had no idea who was there.

Cromwell looked at her very pleasantly.

“There is nothing to ask pardon for, Mistress,” he said. “I knew you were a friend of Mr. Torridon. He has told me everything.”

Ralph seemed strangely ill-at-case, Beatrice thought, as Cromwell congratulated them both with a very kindly air, and then turned towards the hall again.

“My lord,” he called, “my lord—”

Then Beatrice saw a tall ecclesiastic, clean-shaven, with a strangely insignificant but kindly face, with square drooping lip and narrow hazel eyes, come forward in his prelate’s dress; and at the sight of him her eyes grew hard and her lips tight.

“My lord,” said Cromwell, “this is Mistress Beatrice Torridon.”

The prelate put out his hand, smiling faintly, with the ring uppermost to be kissed. Beatrice stood perfectly still. She could see Ralph at an angle looking at her imploringly.

“You know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Cromwell, in an explanatory voice.

“I know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Beatrice.

There was a dead silence for a moment, and then a faint whimper from the maid.

Cranmer dropped his hand, but still smiled, turning to Ralph.

“We must be gone, Mr. Torridon. Master Cromwell has very kindly—”

Cromwell who had stood amazed for a moment, turned round at his name.

“Yes,” he said to Ralph, “my lord is to come with me. And you will be at my house to-morrow.”

He said good-day to the girl, looking at her with an amused interest that made her flush; and as Dr. Cranmer passed out of the street-door to the carriage with Ralph bare-headed beside him, he spoke very softly.

“You are like the others, mistress,” he said; and shook his heavy head at her like an indulgent father. Then he too turned and went out.

Beatrice went across at once to the other room, leaving her maid behind, and stood by the hearth as Ralph came in. She heard the door close and his footstep come across the floor beside her.

“Beatrice,” said Ralph.

She turned round and looked at him.

“You must not scold me,” she said with great serenity. “You must leave me my conscience.” Ralph’s face cleared instantly.

“No, no,” he said. “I feared it would be the other way.”

“A married priest, they say!” remarked the girl, but without bitterness.

“I daresay, my darling,—but—but I have more tenderness for marriage than I had.”

Beatrice’s black eyes just flickered with amusement.

“Yes; but priests!” she said.

“Yes—even priests—” said Ralph, smiling back.

Beatrice turned to a chair and sat down.

“I suppose I must not ask any questions,” she said, glancing up for a moment at Ralph’s steady eyes. She thought he looked a little uneasy still.

“Oh! I scarcely know,” said Ralph; and he took a turn across the room and came back. She waited, knowing that she had already put her question, and secretly pleased that he knew it, and was perplexed by it.

“I scarcely know,” he said again, standing opposite her.

“Well,—yes—all will know it soon.”

“Oh! I can wait till then,” said Beatrice quickly, not sure whether she were annoyed or not by being told a secret of such a common nature. Ralph glanced at her, not sure either.

“I am afraid—” he began.

“No—no,” she said, ashamed of her doubt. “I do not wish to know; I can wait.”

“I will tell you,” said Ralph. He went and sat down in the chair opposite, crossing his legs.

“It is about the Visitation of the Religious Houses. I am to go with the

Visitors in September.”

Beatrice felt a sudden and rather distressed interest; but she showed no sign of it.

“Ah, yes!” she said softly, “and what will be your work?”

Ralph was reassured by her tone.

“We are to go to the southern province. I am with Dr. Layton’s party. We shall make enquiries of the state of Religion, how it is observed and so forth; and report to Master Cromwell.”

Beatrice looked down in a slightly side-long way.

“I know what you are thinking,” said Ralph, his tone a mixture of amusement and pride. She looked up silently.

“Yes I knew it was so,” he went on, smiling straight at her. “You are wondering what in the world I know about Religious Houses. But I have a brother—”

A shadow went over her face; Ralph saw she did not like the allusion.

“Besides,” he went on again, “they need intelligent men, not ecclesiastics, for this business.”

“But Dr. Layton?” questioned Beatrice.

“Well, you might call him an ecclesiastic; but you would scarcely guess it from himself. And no man could call him a partisan on that side.”

“He would do better in one of his rectories, I should think,” said

Beatrice.

“Well, that is not my business,” observed Ralph.

“And what is your business?”

“Well, to ride round the country; examine the Religious, and make enquiries of the country folk.”

Beatrice began to tap her foot very softly. Ralph glanced down at the bright buckle and smiled in spite of himself.

The girl went on.

“And by whose authority?”

“By his Grace’s authority.”

“And Dr. Cranmer’s?”

“Well, yes; so far as he has any.”

“I see,” said Beatrice; and cast her eyes down again.

There was silence for a moment or two.

“You see too that I cannot withdraw,” explained Ralph, a little distressed at her air. “It is part of my duty.”

“Oh! I understand that,” said Beatrice.

“And so long as I act justly, there is no harm done.”

The girl was silent.

“You understand that?” he asked.

“I suppose I do,” said Beatrice slowly.

Ralph made a slight impatient movement.

“No—wait,” said the girl, “I do understand. If I cannot trust you, I had better never have known you. I do understand that I can trust you; though I cannot understand how you can do such work.”

She raised her eyes slowly to his; and Ralph as he looked into them saw that she was perfectly sincere, and speaking without bitterness.

“Sweetheart,” he said. “I could not have taken that from any but you; but I know that you are true, and mean no more nor less than your words. You do trust me?”

“Why, yes,” said the girl; and smiled at him as he took her in his arms.

When she had gone again Ralph had a difficult quarter of an hour.

He knew that she trusted him, but was it not simply because she did not know? He sat and pondered the talk he had had with Cromwell and the Archbishop. Neither had expressly said that what was wanted was adverse testimony against the Religious Houses; but that, Ralph knew very well, was what was asked of him. They had talked a great deal about the corruptions that the Visitors would no doubt find, and Cranmer had told a story or two, with an appearance of great distress, of scandalous cases that had come under his own notice. Cromwell too had pointed out that such corruptions did incalculable evil; and that an immoral monk did far more harm in a countryside than his holy brethren could do of good. Both had said a word too about the luxury and riches to be found in the houses of those who professed poverty, and of the injury done to Christ’s holy religion by such insincere pretences.

Ralph knew too, from previous meetings with the other Visitors, the kind of work for which such men would be likely to be selected.

There was Dr. Richard Layton first, whom Ralph was to join in Sussex at the end of September, a priest who had two or three preferments and notoriously neglected them; Ralph had taken a serious dislike to him. He was a coarse man who knew how to cringe effectively; and Ralph had listened to him talking to Cromwell, with some dismay. But he would be to a large extent independent of him, and only in his company at some of the larger houses that needed more than one Visitor. Thomas Legh, too, a young doctor of civil law, was scarcely more attractive. He was a man of an extraordinary arrogance, carrying his head high, and looking about him with insolently drooping eyes. Ralph had been at once amused and angry to see him go out into the street after his interview with Cromwell, where his horse and half-a-dozen footmen awaited him, and to watch him ride off with the airs of a vulgar prince. The Welshman Ap Rice too, and the red-faced bully, Dr. London, were hardly persons whom he desired as associates, and the others were not much better; and Ralph found himself feeling a little thankful that none of these men had been in his house just now, when Cromwell and the Archbishop had called in the former’s carriage, and when Beatrice had met them there.

Ralph had a moment, ten minutes after Beatrice had left, when he was inclined to snatch up his hat and go after Cromwell to tell him to do his own dirty work; but his training had told, and he had laughed at the folly of the thought. Why, of course, the work had to be done! England was rotten with dreams and superstition. Ecclesiasticism had corrupted genuine human life, and national sanity could not be restored except by a violent process. Innocent persons would no doubt suffer—innocent according to conscience, but guilty against the commonwealth. Every great movement towards good was bound to be attended by individual catastrophes; but it was the part of a strong man to carry out principles and despise details.

The work had to be done; it was better then that there should be at least one respectable workman. Of course such a work needed coarse men to carry it out; it was bound to be accompanied by some brutality; and his own presence there might do something to keep the brutality within limits.

And as for Beatrice—well, Beatrice did not yet understand. If she understood all as he did, she would sympathise, for she was strong too. Besides—he had held her in his arms just now, and he knew that love was king.

But he sat for ten minutes more in silence, staring with unseeing eyes at the huddled roofs opposite and the clear sky over them; and the point of the quill in his fingers was split and cracked when Mr. Morris looked in to see if his master wanted anything.

CHAPTER II

THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION

It was on a wet foggy morning in October that Ralph set out with Mr. Morris and a couple more servants to join Dr. Layton in the Sussex visitation. He rode alone in front; and considered as he went.

The Visitation itself, Cromwell had told him almost explicitly, was in pursuance of the King’s policy to get the Religious Houses, which were considered to be the strongholds of the papal power in England, under the authority of the Crown; and also to obtain from them reinforcements of the royal funds which were running sorely low. The crops were most disappointing this year, and the King’s tenants were wholly unable to pay their rents; and it had been thought wiser to make up the deficit from ecclesiastical wealth rather than to exasperate the Commons by a direct call upon their resources.

So far, he knew very well, the attempt to get the Religious Houses into the King’s power had only partially succeeded. Bishop Fisher’s influence had availed to stave off the fulfilment of the royal intentions up to the present; and the oath of supremacy, in which to a large extent the key of the situation lay, had been by no means universally accepted. Now, however, the scheme was to be pushed forward; and as a preparation for it, it was proposed to visit every monastery and convent in the kingdom, and to render account first of the temporal wealth of each, and then of the submissiveness of its inmates; and, as Cromwell had hinted to Ralph, anything that could damage the character of the Religious would not be unacceptable evidence.

Ralph was aware that the scheme in which he was engaged was supported in two ways; first, by the suspension of episcopal authority during the course of the visitation, and secondly by the vast powers committed to the visitors. In one of the saddle-bags strapped on to Mr. Morris’s horse was a sheaf of papers, containing eighty-six articles of enquiry, and twenty-five injunctions, as well as certificates from the King endowing Ralph with what was practically papal jurisdiction. He was authorised to release from their vows all Religious who desired it, and ordered to dismiss all who had been professed under twenty years of age, or who were at the present date under twenty-four years old. Besides this he was commissioned to enforce the enclosure with the utmost rigour, to set porters at the doors to see that it was observed, and to encourage all who had any grievance against their superiors to forward complaints through himself to Cromwell.

Ralph understood well enough the first object of these regulations, namely to make monastic life impossible. It was pretty evident that a rigorous confinement would breed discontent; which in its turn would be bound to escape through the vent-hole which the power of appeal provided; thus bringing about a state of anarchy within the house, and the tightening of the hold of the civil authority upon the Religious.

Lastly the Visitors were authorised to seize any church furniture or jewels that they might judge would be better in secular custody.

Once more, he had learned both from Cromwell, and from his own experience at Paul’s Cross, how the laity itself was being carefully prepared for the blow that was impending, by an army of selected preachers who could be trusted to say what they were told. Only a few days before Ralph had halted his horse at the outskirts of a huge crowd gathered round Paul’s Cross, and had listened to a torrent of vituperation poured out by a famous orator against the mendicant friars; and from the faces and exclamations of the people round him he had learned once more that greed was awake in England.

It was a somewhat dismal ride that he had this day. The sky was heavy and overcast, it rained constantly, and the roads were in a more dreary condition even than usual. He splashed along through the mud with his servants behind him, wrapped in his cloak; and his own thoughts were not of a sufficient cheerfulness to compensate for the external discomforts. His political plane of thought was shot by a personal idea. He guessed that he would have to commit himself in a manner that he had never done before; and was not wholly confident that he would be able to explain matters satisfactorily to Beatrice. Besides, the particular district to which he was appointed included first Lewes, where Chris would have an eye on his doings, and secondly the little Benedictine house of Rusper, where his sister Margaret had been lately professed; and he wondered what exactly would be his relation with his own family when his work was done.

But for the main object of his visitation he had little but sympathy. It was good, he thought, that a scouring should be made of these idle houses, and their inmates made more profitable to the commonwealth. And lastly, whether or no he sympathised, it would be fatal to his career to refuse the work offered to him.

As he did not feel very confident at first, he had arranged to meet with Dr. Layton’s party at the Premonstratension Abbey of Durford, situated at the borders of Sussex and Hampshire, and there learn the exact methods to be employed in the visitation; but it was a long ride, and he took two days over it, sleeping on the way at Waverly in the Cistercian House. This had not yet been visited, as Dr. Layton was riding up gradually from the west country, but the rumour of his intentions had already reached there, and Ralph was received with a pathetic deference as one of the representatives of the Royal Commission.

The Abbot was a kindly nervous man, and welcomed Ralph with every sign of respect at the gate of the abbey, giving contradictory orders about the horses and the entertainment of the guests to his servants who seemed in very little awe of him.

After mass and breakfast on the following morning the Abbot came into the guest-house and begged for a short interview.

He apologised first for the poorness of the entertainment, saying that he had done his best. Ralph answered courteously; and the other went on immediately, standing deferentially before the chair where Ralph was seated, and fingering his cross.

“I hope, Mr. Torridon, that it will be you who will visit us; you have found us all unprepared, and you know that we are doing our best to keep our Rule. I hope you found nothing that was not to your liking.”

Ralph bowed and smiled.

“I would sooner that it were you,” went on the Abbot, “and not another that visited us. Dr. Layton—”

He stopped abruptly, embarrassed.

“You have heard something of him?” questioned Ralph.

“I know nothing against him,” said the other hastily, “except that they say that he is sharp with us poor monks. I fear he would find a great deal here not to his taste. My authority has been so much weakened of late; I have some discontented brethren—not more than one or two, Mr. Torridon—and they have learned that they will be able to appeal now to the King’s Grace, and get themselves set free; and they have ruined the discipline of the house. I do not wish to hide anything, sir, you see; but I am terribly afraid that Dr. Layton may be displeased.”

“I am very sorry, my lord,” said Ralph, “but I fear I shall not be coming here again.”

The Abbot’s face fell.

“But you will speak for us, sir, to Dr. Layton? I heard you say you would be seeing him to-night.”

Ralph promised to do his best, and was overwhelmed with thanks.

He could not help realising some of the pathos of the situation as he rode on through the rain to Durford. It was plain that a wave of terror and apprehensiveness was running through the Religious Houses, and that it brought with it inevitable disorder. Lives that would have been serene and contented under other circumstances were thrown off their balance by the rumours of disturbance, and authority was weakened. If the Rule was hard of observance in tranquil times, it was infinitely harder when doors of escape presented themselves on all sides.

And yet he was impatient too. Passive or wavering characters irritated his own strong temperament, and he felt a kind of anger against the Abbot and his feeble appeal. Surely men who had nothing else to do might manage to keep their own subjects in order, and a weak crying for pity was in itself an argument against their competence. And meanwhile, if he had known it, he would have been still more incensed, for as he rode on down towards the south west, the Abbot and his monks in the house he had left were prostrate before the high altar in the dark church, each in his stall, praying for mercy.

“O God, the heathens are come into thine inheritance,” they murmured, “they have defiled thy holy temple.”

It was not until the sun was going down in the stormy west that Ralph rode up to Durford abbey. The rain had ceased an hour before sunset, and the wet roofs shone in the evening light.

There were certain signs of stir as he came up. One or two idlers were standing outside the gate-house; the door was wide open, and a couple of horses were being led away round the corner.

Inside the court as he rode through he saw further signs of confusion. Half a dozen packhorses were waiting with hanging heads outside the stable door, and an agitated lay brother was explaining to a canon in his white habit, rochet and cap, that there was no more room. He threw out his hands with a gesture of despair towards Ralph as he came in.

“Mother of God!” he said, “here is another of them.”

The priest frowned at him, and hurried up to Ralph.

“Yes, father,” said Ralph, “I am another of them.”

The canon explained that the stable was full, that they were exceedingly sorry, but that they were but a poor house; and that he was glad to say there was an outhouse round the corner outside where the beasts could be lodged.

“But as for yourself, sir,” he said, “I know not what to do. We have every room full. You are a friend of Dr. Layton’s, sir?”

“I am one of the Visitors,” said Ralph. “You must make room.”

The priest sucked his lips in.

“I see nothing for it,” he said, “Dr. Layton and you, sir, must share a room.”

Ralph threw a leg over the saddle and slipped to the ground.

“Where is he?” he asked.

“He is with my Lord Abbot, sir,” he said. “Will you come with me?”

The canon led the way across the court, his white fur tails swinging as he went, and took Ralph through the cloister into one of the parlours. There was a sound of a high scolding voice as he threw open the door.

“What in God’s name are ye for then, if ye have not hospitality?”

Dr. Layton turned round as Ralph came in. He was flushed with passion; his mouth worked, and his eyes were brutal.

“See this, Mr. Torridon,” he said. “There is neither room for man or beast in this damned abbey. The guest house has no more than half a dozen rooms, and the stable—why, it is not fit for pigs, let alone the horses of the King’s Visitors.”

The Abbot, a young man with a delicate face, very pale now and trembling, broke in deprecatingly.

“I am very sorry, gentlemen,” he said, looking from one to the other, “but it is not my fault. It is in better repair than when I came to it. I have done my best with my Lord Abbot of Welbeck; but we are very poor, and he can give me no more.”

Layton growled at him.

“I don’t say it’s you, man; we shall know better when we have looked into your accounts; but I’ll have a word to say at Welbeck.”

“We are to share a room, Dr. Layton,” put in Ralph “At least—”

The doctor turned round again at that, and stormed once more.

“I cannot help it, gentlemen,” retorted the Abbot desperately. “I have given up my own chamber already. I can but do my best.”

Ralph hastened to interpose. His mind revolted at this coarse bullying, in spite of his contempt at this patient tolerance on the part of the Abbot.

“I shall do very well, my Lord Abbot,” he said. “I shall give no trouble. You may put me where you please.”

The young prelate looked at him gratefully.

“We will do our best, sir,” he said. “Will you come, gentlemen, and see your chambers?”

Layton explained to Ralph as they went along the poor little cloister that he himself had only arrived an hour before.

“I had a rare time among the monks,” he whispered, “and have some tales to make you laugh.”

He grew impatient again presently at the poor furnishing of the rooms, and kicked over a broken chair.

“I will have something better than that,” he said. “Get me one from the church.”

The young Abbot faced him.

“What do you want of us, Dr. Layton? Is it riches or poverty? Which think you that Religious ought to have?”

The priest gave a bark of laughter.

“You have me there, my lord,” he said; and nudged Ralph.

They sat down to supper presently in the parlour downstairs, a couple of dishes of meat, and a bottle of Spanish wine. Dr. Layton grew voluble.

“I have a deal to tell you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “and not a few things to show you,—silver crosses and such like; but those we will look at to-morrow. I doubt whether we shall add much to it here, though there is a relic-case that would look well on Master Cromwell’s table; it is all set with agates. But the tales you shall have now. My servant will be here directly with the papers.”

A man came in presently with a bag of documents, and Layton seized them eagerly.

“See here, Mr. Torridon,” he said, shaking the papers on to the table, “here is a story-box for the ladies. Draw your chair to the fire.”

Ralph felt an increasing repugnance for the man; but he said nothing; and brought up his seat to the wide hearth on which the logs burned pleasantly in the cold little room.

The priest lifted the bundle on to his lap, crossed his legs comfortably, with a glass of wine at his elbow, and began to read.

For a while Ralph wondered how the man could have the effrontery to call his notes by the name of evidence. They consisted of a string of obscene guesses, founded upon circumstances that were certainly compatible with guilt, but no less compatible with innocence. There was a quantity of gossip gathered from country-people and coloured by the most flagrant animus, and even so the witnesses did not agree. Such sentences as “It is reported in the country round that the prior is a lewd man” were frequent in the course of the reading, and were often the chief evidence offered in a case.

In one of the most categorical stories, Ralph leaned forward and interrupted.

“Forgive me, Master Layton,” he said, “but who is Master What’s-his-name who says all this?”

The priest waved the paper in the air.

“A monk himself,” he said, “a monk himself! That is the cream of it.”

“A monk!” exclaimed Ralph.

“He was one till last year,” explained the priest.

“And then?” said the other.

“He was expelled the monastery. He knew too much, you see.”

Ralph leaned back.

Half an hour later there was a change in his attitude: his doubts were almost gone; the flood of detail was too vast to be dismissed as wholly irrelevant; his imagination was affected by the evidence from without and his will from within, and he listened without hostility, telling himself that he desired only truth and justice.

There were at least half a dozen stories in the mass of filthy suspicion that the priest exultingly poured out which appeared convincing; particularly one about which Ralph put a number of questions.

In this there was first a quantity of vague evidence gathered from the country-folk, who were, unless Layton lied quite unrestrainedly, convinced of the immoral life of a certain monk. The report of his sin had penetrated ten miles from the house where he lived. There was besides definite testimony from one of his fellows, precise and detailed; and there was lastly a half admission from the culprit himself. All this was worked up with great skill—suggestive epithets were plastered over the weak spots in the evidence; clever theories put forward to account for certain incompatibilities; and to Ralph at least it was convincing.

He found himself growing hot with anger at the thought of the hypocrisy of this monk’s life. Here the fellow had been living in gross sin month after month, and all the while standing at the altar morning by morning, and going about in the habit of a professed servant of Jesus Christ!

“But I have kept the cream till the last,” put in Dr. Layton. And he read out a few more hideous sentences, that set Ralph’s heart heaving with disgust.

He began now to feel the beginnings of that fury against white-washed vice with which worldly souls are so quick to burn. He would have said that he himself professed no holiness beyond the average, and would have acknowledged privately at least that he was at any rate uncertain of the whole dogmatic scheme of religion; but that he could not tolerate a man whose whole life was on the outside confessedly devoted to both sides of religion, faith and morals, and who claimed the world’s reverence for himself on the score of it. He knit his forehead in a righteous fury, and his fingers began to drum softly on his chair-arms.

Dr. Layton now began to recur to some of the first stories he had told, and to build up their weak places; and now that Ralph was roused his critical faculty subsided. They appeared more convincing than before in the light of this later evidence. Ex pede Herculem—from the fellow who had confessed he interpreted the guilt of those who had not. The seed of suspicion sprang quickly in the soil that hungered for it.

This then was the fair religious system that was dispersed over England; and this the interior life of those holy looking roofs and buildings surmounted by the sign of the Crucified, visible in every town to point men to God. When he saw a serene monk’s face again he would know what kind of soul it covered; he would understand as never before how vice could wear a mask of virtue.

The whole of that flimsy evidence that he had heard before took a new colour; those hints and suspicions and guesses grew from shadow to substance. Those dark spots were not casual filth dropped from above, they were the symptoms of a deep internal infection.

As Dr. Layton went on with his tales, gathered and garnered with devilish adroitness, and presented as convincingly as a clever brain could do it, the black certainty fell deeper and deeper on Ralph’s soul, and by the time that the priest chuckled for the last time that evening, and gathered up his papers from the boards where they had fallen one by one, he had done his work in another soul.

CHAPTER III

A HOUSE OF LADIES

They parted the next day, Dr. Layton to Waverly, where he proposed to sleep on Saturday night, and Ralph to the convent at Rusper.

He had learnt now how the work was to be done; and he had been equipped for it in a way that not even Dr. Layton himself suspected; for he had been set aflame with that filth-fed fire with which so many hearts were burning at this time. He had all the saint’s passion for purity, without the charity of his holiness.

He had learnt too the technical details of his work—those rough methods by which men might be coerced, and the high-sounding phrases with which to gild the coercion. All that morning he had sat side by side with Dr. Layton in the chapter-house, inspecting the books, comparing the possessions of the monastery with the inventories of them, examining witnesses as to the credibility of the lists offered, and making searching enquiries as to whether any land or plate had been sold. After that, when a silver relic-case had been added to Dr. Layton’s collection, the Religious and servants and all else who cared to offer evidence on other matters, were questioned one by one and their answers entered in a book. Lastly, when the fees for the Visitation had been collected, arrangements had been made, which in the Visitors’ opinion, would be most serviceable to the carrying out of the injunctions; fresh officials were appointed to various posts, and the Abbot himself ordered to go up to London and present himself to Master Cromwell; but he was furnished with a letter commending his zeal and discretion, for the Visitors had found that he had done his duty to the buildings and lands; and stated that they had nothing to complain of except the poverty of the house.

“And so much for Durford,” said Layton genially, as he closed the last book just before dinner-time, “though it had been better called Dirtyford.” And he chuckled at his humour.

After dinner he had gone out with Ralph to see him mount; had thanked him for his assistance, and had reminded him that they would meet again at Lewes in the course of a month or so.

“God speed you!” he cried as the party rode off.

Ralph’s fury had died to a glow, but it was red within him; the reading last night had done its work well, driven home by the shrewd conviction of a man of the world, experienced in the ways of vice. It had not died with the dark. He could not say that he was attracted to Dr. Layton; the priest’s shocking familiarity with the more revolting forms of sin, as well as his under-breeding and brutality, made him a disagreeable character; but Ralph had very little doubt now that his judgment on the religious houses was a right one. Even the nunneries, it seemed, were not free from taint; there had been one or two terrible tales on the previous evening; and Ralph was determined to spare them nothing, and at any rate to remove his sister from their power. He remembered with satisfaction that she was below the age specified, and that he would have authority to dismiss her from the home.

He knew very little of Margaret; and had scarcely seen her once in two years. He had been already out in the world before she had ceased to be a child, and from what little he had seen of her he had thought of her but as little more than a milk-and-water creature, very delicate and shy, always at her prayers, or trailing about after nuns with a pale radiant face. She had been sent to Rusper for her education, and he never saw her except now and then when they chanced to be at home together for a few days. She used to look at him, he remembered, with awe-stricken eyes and parted lips, hardly daring to speak when he was in the room, continually to be met with going from or to the tall quiet chapel.

He had always supposed that she would be a nun, and had acquiesced in it in a cynical sort of way; but he was going to acquiesce no longer now. Of course she would sob, but equally of course she would not dare to resist.

He called Morris up to him presently as they emerged from one of the bridle paths on to a kind of lane where two could ride abreast. The servant had seemed oddly silent that morning.

“We are going to Rusper,” said Ralph.

“Yes, sir.”

“Mistress Margaret is there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She will come away with us. I may have to send you on to Overfield with her. You must find a horse for her somehow.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was silence between the two for a minute or two. Mr. Morris had answered with as much composure as if he had been told to brush a coat. Ralph began to wonder what he really felt.

“What do you think of all this, Morris?” he asked in a moment or two.

The servant was silent, till Ralph glanced at him impatiently.

“It is not for me to have an opinion, sir,” said Mr Morris.

Ralph gave a very short laugh.

“You haven’t heard what I have,” he said, “or you would soon have an opinion.”

“Yes, sir,” said Morris as impassively as before.

“I tell you—” and then Ralph broke off, and rode on silent and moody.

Mr. Morris gradually let his horse fall back behind his master.

They began to come towards Rusper as the evening drew in, by a bridle path that led from the west, and on arriving at the village found that they had overshot their mark, and ought to have turned sooner. The nunnery, a man told them, was a mile away to the south-west. Ralph made a few enquiries, and learnt that it was a smallish house, and that it was scarcely likely that room could be found for his party of four; so he left Morris to make enquiries for lodgings in the village, and himself rode on alone to the nunnery, past the church and the timberhouses.

It was a bad road, and his tired horse had to pick his way very slowly, so that it was nearly dark before he came to his destination, and the pointed roofs rose before him against the faintly luminous western sky. There were lights in one or two windows as he came up that looked warm and homely in the chill darkness; and as he sat on his horse listening to the jangle of the bell within, just a breath of doubtfulness touched his heart for a moment as he thought of the peaceful home-life that lay packed within those walls, and of the errand on which he had come.

But the memory of the tales he had heard, haunted him still; and he spoke in a harsh voice as the shutter slid back, and a little criss-crossed square of light appeared in the black doorway.

“I am one of the King’s Visitors,” he said. “Let my Lady Abbess know I am here. I must speak with her.”

There was a stifled sound behind the grating; and Ralph caught a glimpse of a pair of eyes looking at him. Then the square grew dark again. It was a minute or two before anything further happened, and Ralph as he sat cold and hungry on his horse, began to grow impatient. His hand was on the twisted iron handle to ring again fiercely, when there was a step within, and a light once more shone out.

“Who is it?” said an old woman’s voice, with a note of anxiety in it.

“I have sent word in,” said Ralph peevishly, “that I am one of the King’s Visitors. I should be obliged if I might not be kept here all night.”

There was a moment’s silence; the horse sighed sonorously.

“How am I to know, sir?” said the voice again.

“Because I tell you so,” snapped Ralph. “And if more is wanted, my name is Torridon. You have a sister of mine in there.”

There was an exclamation from within; and the sound of whispering; and then hasty footsteps went softly across the paved court inside.

The voice spoke again.

“I ask your pardon, sir; but have you any paper—or—”

Ralph snatched out a document of identification, and leaned forward from his horse to pass it through the opening. He felt trembling fingers take it from him; and a moment later heard returning footsteps.

There was a rustle of paper, and then a whisper within.

“Well, my dear?”

Something shifted in the bright square, and it grew gloomy as a face pressed up against the bars. Then again it shifted and the light shone out, and a flutter of whispers followed.

“Really, madam—” began Ralph; but there was the jingle of keys, and the sound of panting, and almost immediately a bolt shot back, followed by the noise of a key turning. A chorus of whispers broke out and a scurry of footsteps, and then the door opened inwards and a little old woman stood there in a black habit, her face swathed in white above and below. The others had vanished.

“I am very sorry, Mr. Torridon, to have kept you at the door; but we have to be very careful. Will you bring your horse in, sir?”

Ralph was a little abashed by the sudden development of the situation, and explained that he had only come to announce his arrival; he had supposed that there would not be room at the nunnery.

“But we have a little guest-house here,” announced the old lady with a dignified air, “and room for your horse.”

Ralph hesitated; but he was tired and hungry.

“Come in, Mr. Torridon. You had better dismount and lead your horse in.

Sister Anne will see to it.”

“Well, if you are sure—” began Ralph again, slipping a foot out of the stirrup.

“I am sure,” said the Abbess; and stood aside for him and his beast to pass.

There was a little court, lighted by a single lamp burning within a window, with the nunnery itself on one side, and a small cottage on the other. Beyond the latter rose the roofs of an outhouse.

As Ralph came in, the door from the nunnery opened again, and a lay sister came out hastily; she moved straight across and took the horse by the bridle.

“Give him a good meal, sister,” said the Abbess; and went past Ralph to the door of the guest-house.

“Come in, Mr. Torridon; there will be lights immediately.”

In half an hour Ralph found himself at supper in the guest-parlour; a bright fire crackled on the hearth, a couple of candles burned on the table, and a pair of old darned green curtains hung across the low window.

The Abbess came in when he had finished, dismissed the lay-sister who had waited on him, and sat down herself.

“You shall see your sister to-morrow, Mr. Torridon,” she said, “it is a little late now. I have sent the boy up to the village for your servant; he can sleep in this room if you wish. I fear we have no room for more.”

Ralph watched her as she talked. She was very old, with hanging cheeks, and solemn little short-sighted eyes, for she peered at him now and again across the candles. Her upper lip was covered with a slight growth of dark hair. She seemed strangely harmless; and Ralph had another prick of compunction as he thought of the news he had to give her on the morrow. He wondered how much she knew.

“We are so glad it is you, Mr. Torridon, that have come to visit us. We feared it might be Dr. Layton; we have heard sad stories of him.”

Ralph hardened his heart.

“He has only done his duty, Reverend Mother,” he said.

“Oh! but you cannot have heard,” exclaimed the old lady. “He has robbed several of our houses we hear—even the altar itself. And he has turned away some of our nuns.”

Ralph was silent; he thought he would at least leave the old lady in peace for this last night. She seemed to want no answer; but went on expatiating on the horrors that were happening round them, the wicked accusations brought against the Religious, and the Divine vengeance that would surely fall on those who were responsible.

Finally she turned and questioned him, with a mingling of deference and dignity.

“What do you wish from us. Mr. Torridon? You must tell me, that I may see that everything is in order.”

Ralph was secretly amused by her air of innocent assurance.

“That is my business, Reverend Mother. I must ask for all the books of the house, with the account of any sales you may have effected, properly recorded. I must have a list of the inmates of the house, with a statement of any corrodies attached; and the names and ages and dates of profession of all the Religious.”

The Abbess blinked for a moment.

“Yes, Mr. Torridon. You will allow me of course to see all your papers to-morrow; it is necessary for me to be certified that all your part is in order.”

Ralph smiled a little grimly.

“You shall see all that,” he said. “And then there is more that I must ask; but that will do for a beginning. When I have shown you my papers you will see what it is that I want.”

There was a peal at the bell outside; the Abbess turned her head and waited till there was a noise of bolts and unlocking.

“That will be your man, sir. Will you have him in now, Mr. Torridon?”

Ralph assented.

“And then he must look at the horses to see that all is as you wish.”

Mr. Morris came in a moment later, and bowed with great deference to the little old lady, who enquired his name.

“When you have finished with your man, Mr. Torridon, perhaps you will allow him to ring for me at the door opposite. I will go with him to see the horses.”

Mr. Morris had brought with him the mass of his master’s papers, and when he had set these out and prepared the bedroom that opened out of the guest-parlour, he asked leave to go across and fetch the Abbess.

Ralph busied himself for half-an-hour or so in running over the Articles and Injunctions once more, and satisfying himself that he was perfect in his business; and he was just beginning to wonder why his servant had not reappeared when the door opened once more, and Mr. Morris slipped in.

“My horse is a little lame, sir,” he said. “I have been putting on a poultice.”

Ralph glanced up.

“He will be fit to travel, I suppose?”

“In a day or two, Mr. Ralph.”

“Well; that will do. We shall be here till Monday at least.”

Ralph could not sleep very well that night. The thought of his business troubled him a little. It would have been easier if the Abbess had been either more submissive or more defiant; but her air of mingled courtesy and dignity affected him. Her innocence too had something touching in it, and her apparent ignorance of what his visit meant. He had supped excellently at her expense, waited on by a cheerful sister, and well served from the kitchen and cellar; and the Reverend Mother herself had come in and talked sensibly and bravely. He pictured to himself what life must be like through the nunnery wall opposite—how brisk and punctual it must be, and at the same time homely and caressing.

And it was his hand that was to pull down the first prop. There would no doubt be three or four nuns below age who must be dismissed, and probably there would be a few treasures to be carried off, a processional crucifix perhaps, such as he had seen in Dr. Layton’s collection, and a rich chalice or two, used on great days. His own sister too must be one of those who must go. How would the little old Abbess behave herself then? What would she say? Yet he comforted himself, as he lay there in the clean, low-ceilinged room, staring at the tiny crockery stoup gleaming against the door-post, by recollecting the principle on which he had come. Possibly a few innocents would have to suffer, a few old hearts be broken; but it was for a man to take such things in his day’s work.

And then as he remembered Dr. Layton’s tales, his heart grew hot and hard again.

CHAPTER IV

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

The enquiry was to be made in the guest-parlour on the next morning.

Ralph went to mass first at nine o’clock, which was said by a priest from the parish church who acted as chaplain to the convent; and had a chair set for him outside the nuns’ choir from which he could see the altar and the tall pointed window; and then, after some refreshment in the guest-parlour, spread out his papers, and sat enthroned behind a couple of tables, as at a tribunal. Mr. Morris stood deferentially by his chair as the examination was conducted.

Ralph was a little taken aback by the bearing of the Abbess. In the course of the enquiry, when he was perplexed by one or two of the records, she rose from her chair before the table, and came round to his side, drawing up a seat as she did so; Ralph could hardly tell her to go back, but his magisterial air was a little affected by having one whom he almost considered as a culprit sitting judicially beside him.

“It is better for me to be here,” she said. “I can explain more easily so.”

There was a little orchard that the nuns had sold in the previous year; and Ralph asked for an explanation.

“It came from the Kingsford family,” she said serenely; “it was useless to us.”

“But—” began the inquisitor.

“We needed some new vestments,” she went on. “You will understand, Mr. Torridon, that it was necessary for for us to sell it. We are not rich at all.”

There was nothing else that called for comment; except the manner in which the books were kept. Ralph suggested some other method.

“Dame Agnes has her own ways,” said the old lady. “We must not disturb her.”

And Dame Agnes assumed a profound and financial air on the other side of the table.

Presently Ralph put a mark in the inventory against a “cope of gold bawdekin,” and requested that it might be brought.

The sister-sacristan rose at a word from the Abbess and went out, returning presently with the vestment. She unfolded the coverings and spread it out on the table before Ralph.

It was a magnificent piece of work, of shimmering gold, with orphreys embroidered with arms; and she stroked out its folds with obvious pride.

“These are Warham’s arms,” observed the Abbess. “You know them, Mr.

Torridon? We worked these the month before his death.”

Ralph nodded briskly.

“Will you kindly leave it here, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I wish to see it again presently.”

The Abbess gave no hint of discomposure, but signed to the sacristan to place it over a chair at one side.

There were a couple of other things that Ralph presently caused to be fetched and laid aside—a precious mitre with a couple of cameos in front, and bordered with emeralds, and a censer with silver filigree work.

Then came a more difficult business.

“I wish to see the nuns one by one, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I must ask you to withdraw.”

The Abbess gave him a quick look, and then rose.

“Very well, sir, I will send them in.” And she went out with Mr. Morris behind her.

They came in one by one, and sat down before the table, with downcast eyes, and hands hidden beneath their scapulars; and all told the same tale, except one. They had nothing to complain of; they were happy; the Rule was carefully observed; there were no scandals to be revealed; they asked nothing but to be left in peace. But there was one who came in nervously and anxiously towards the end, a woman with quick black eyes, who glanced up and down and at the door as she sat down. Ralph put the usual questions.

“I wish to be released, sir,” she said. “I am weary of the life, and the—” she stopped and glanced swiftly up again at the commissioner.

“Well?” said Ralph.

“The papistical ways,” she said.

Ralph felt a sudden distrust of the woman; but he hardened his heart. He set a mark opposite her name; she had been professed ten years, he saw by the list.

“Very well,” he said; “I will tell my Lady Abbess.” She still hesitated a moment.

“There will be a provision for me?” she asked

“There will be a provision,” said Ralph a little grimly. He was authorised to offer in such cases a secular dress and a sum of five shillings.

Lastly came in Margaret herself.

Ralph hardly knew her. He had been unable to distinguish her at mass, and even now as she faced him in her black habit and white head-dress it was hard to be certain of her identity. But memory and sight were gradually reconciled; he remembered her delicate eyebrows and thin straight lips; and when she spoke he knew her voice.

They talked a minute or two about their home; but Ralph did not dare to say too much, considering what he had yet to say.

“I must ask you the questions,” he said at last, smiling at her.

She looked up at him nervously, and dropped her eyes once more.

She nodded or shook her head in silence at each enquiry, until at last one bearing upon the morals of the house came up; then she looked swiftly up once more, and Ralph saw that her grey eyes were terrified.

“You must tell me,” he said; and put the question again.

“I do not know what you mean,” she answered, staring at him bewildered.

Ralph went on immediately to the next.

At last he reached the crisis.

“Margaret,” he said, “I have something to tell you.” He stopped and began to play with his pen. He had seldom felt so embarrassed as now in the presence of this shy sister of his of whom he knew so little. He could not look at her.

“Margaret, you know, you—you are under age. The King’s Grace has ordered that all under twenty years of age are to leave their convents.”

There was a dead silence.

Ralph was enraged with his own weakness. He had begun the morning’s work with such determination; but the strange sweet atmosphere of the house, the file of women coming in one by one with their air of innocence and defencelessness had affected him. In spite of himself his religious side had asserted itself, and he found himself almost tremulous now.

He made a great effort at self-repression, and looked up with hard bright eyes at his sister.

“There must be no crying or rebellion,” he said. “You must come with me to-morrow. I shall send you to Overfield.”

Still Margaret said nothing. She was staring at him now, white-faced with parted lips.

“You are the last?” he said with a touch of harshness, standing up with his hands on the table. “Tell the Reverend Mother I have done.”

Then she rose too.

“Ralph,” she cried, “my brother! For Jesu’s sake—”

“Tell the Reverend Mother,” he said again, his eyes hard with decision.

She turned and went out without a word.

Ralph found the interview with the Abbess even more difficult than he had expected.

Once her face twitched with tears; but she drove them back bravely and faced him again.

“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Torridon, that you intend to take your sister away?”

Ralph bowed.

“And that Dame Martha has asked to be released?”

Again he bowed.

“Are you not afraid, sir, to do such work?”

Ralph smiled bitterly.

“I am not, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I know too much.”

“From whom?”

“Oh! not from your nuns,” he said sharply, “they of course know nothing, or at least will tell me nothing. It was from Dr. Layton.”

“And what did Dr. Layton tell you?”

“I can hardly tell you that, Reverend Mother; it is not fit for your ears.”

She looked at him steadily.

“And you believe it?”

Ralph smiled.

“That makes no difference,” he said. “I am acting by his Grace’s orders.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Then may our Lord have mercy on you!” she said.

She turned to where the gold cope gleamed over the chair, with the mitre and censer lying on its folds.

“And those too?” she asked.

“Those too,” said Ralph.

She turned towards the door without a word.

“There are the fees as well,” remarked Ralph. “We can arrange those this evening, Reverend Mother.”

The little stiff figure turned and waited at the door. “And at what time will you dine, sir?”

“Immediately,” said Ralph.

He was served at dinner with the same courtesy as before; but the lay sister’s eyes were red, and her hands shook as she shifted the plates. Neither spoke a word till towards the end of the meal.

“Where is my man?” asked Ralph, who had not seen him since he had gone out with the Abbess a couple of hours before.

The sister shook her head.

“Where is the Reverend Mother?”

Again she shook her head.

Ralph enquired the hour of Vespers, and when he had learnt it, took his cap and went out to look for Mr. Morris. He went first to the little dark outhouse, and peered in over the bottom half of the door, but there was no sign of him there. He could see a horse standing in a stall opposite, and tried to make out the second horse that he knew was there; but it was too dark, and he turned away.

It was a warm October afternoon as he went out through the gatehouse, still and bright, with the mellow smell of dying leaves in the air; the fields stretched away beyond the road into the blue distance as he went along, and were backed by the thinning woods, still ruddy with the last flames of autumn. Overhead the blue sky, washed with recent rains, arched itself in a great transparent vault, and a stream of birds crossed it from east to west.

He went round the corner of the convent buildings and turned up into a meadow beside a thick privet hedge that divided it from the garden, and as he moved along he heard a low humming noise sounding from the other side.

There was a door in the hedge at the point, and at either side the growth was a little thin, and he could look through without being himself seen.

The grass was trim and smooth inside; there was a mass of autumn flowers, grown no doubt for the altar, running in a broad bed across the nearer side of the garden, and beyond it rose a grey dial, round which sat a circle of nuns.

Ralph pressed his face to the hedge and watched.

There they were, each with her wheel before her, spinning in silence. The Abbess sat in the centre, immediately below the dial, with a book in her hand, and was turning the pages.

He could see a nun’s face steadily bent on her wheel—that was Dame Agnes who had fetched the cope for him in the morning. She seemed perfectly quiet and unaffected, watching her thread, and putting out a deft hand now and again to the machinery. Beside her sat another, whose face he remembered well; she had stammered a little as she gave her answers in the morning, and even as he looked the face twitched suddenly, and broke into tears. He saw the Abbess turn from her book and lay her hand, with a kind of tender decision on the nun’s arm, and saw her lips move, but the hum and rattle of the spinning-wheels was too loud to let him hear what she said; he saw now the other nun lift her face again from her hands, and wink away her tears as she laid hold of the thread once more.

Ralph had a strange struggle with himself that afternoon as he walked on in the pleasant autumn weather through meadow and copse. The sight of the patient women had touched him profoundly. Surely it was almost too much to ask him to turn away his own sister from the place she loved! If he relented, it was certain that no other Visitor would come that way for the present; she might at least have another year or two of peace. Was it too late?

He reminded himself again how such things were bound to happen; how every change, however beneficial, must bring sorrow with it, and that to turn back on such work because a few women suffered was not worthy of a man. It was long before he could come to any decision, and the evening was drawing on, and the time for Vespers come and gone before he turned at last into the village to enquire for his servant.

The other men had seen nothing of Mr. Morris that day; he had not been back to the village.

A group or two stared awefully at the fine gentleman with the strong face and steady intolerant eyes, as he strode down the tiny street in his rich dress, swinging his long silver-headed cane. They had learnt who he was now, but were so overcome by seeing the King’s Commissioner that they forgot to salute him. As he turned the corner again he looked round once more, and there they were still watching him. A few women had come to the doors as well, and dropped their arched hands hastily and disappeared as he turned.

The convent seemed all as he had left it earlier in the afternoon, as he came in sight of it again. The high chapel roof rose clear against the reddening sky, with the bell framed in its turret distinct as if carved out of cardboard against the splendour.

He was admitted instantly when he rang on the bell, but the portress seemed to look at him with a strange air of expectancy, and stood looking after him as he went across the paved court to the door of the guest-house.

There was a murmur of voices in the parlour as he paused in the entry, and he wondered who was within, but as his foot rang out the sound ceased.

He opened the door and went in; and then stopped bewildered.

In the dim light that passed through the window stood his father and

Mary Maxwell, his sister.

CHAPTER V

FATHER AND SON

None of the three spoke for a moment.

Then Mary drew her breath sharply as she saw Ralph’s face, for it had hardened during that moment into a kind of blind obstinacy which she had only seen once or twice in her life before.

As he stood there he seemed to stiffen into resistance. His eyelids drooped, and little lines showed themselves suddenly at either side of his thin mouth. His father saw it too, for the hand that he had lifted entreatingly sank again, and his voice was tremulous as he spoke.

“Ralph—Ralph, my son!” he said.

Still the man said nothing; but stood frozen, his face half-turned to the windows.

“Ralph, my son,” said the other again, “you know why we have come.”

“You have come to hinder my business.”

His voice was thin and metallic, as rigid as steel.

“We have come to hinder a great sin against God,” said Sir James.

Ralph opened his eyes wide with a sort of fury, and thrust his chin out.

“She should pack a thousand times more now than before,” he said.

The father’s face too deepened into strength now, and he drew himself up.

“Do you know what you are doing?” he said.

“I do, sir.”

There was an extraordinary insolence in his voice, and Mary took a step forward.

“Oh! Ralph,” she said, “at least do it like a gentleman!”

Ralph turned on her sharply, and the obstinacy vanished in anger.

“I will not be pushed like this,” he snarled. “What right is it of yours to come between me and my work?”

Sir James made a quick imperious gesture, and his air of entreaty fell from him like a cloak.

“Sit down, sir,” he said, and his voice rang strongly. “We have a right in Margaret’s affairs. We will say what we wish.”

Mary glanced at him: she had never seen her father like this before as he stood in three quarter profile, rigid with decision. When she looked at Ralph again, his face had tightened once more into obstinacy. He answered Sir James with a kind of silky deference.

“Of course, I will sit down, sir, and you shall say what you will.”

He went across the room and drew out a couple of chairs before the cold hearth where the white ashes and logs of last night’s fire still rested. Sir James sat down with his back to the window so that Mary could not see his face, and Ralph stood by the other chair a moment, facing her.

“Sit down, Mary,” he said. “Wait, I will have candles.”

He stepped back to the door and called to the portress, and then returned, and seated himself deliberately, setting his cane in the corner beside him.

None of the three spoke again until the nun had come in with a couple of candles that she set in the stands and lighted; then she went out without glancing at anyone. Mary was sitting in the window seat, so the curtains remained undrawn, and there was a mystical compound of twilight and candle-light in the room.

She had a flash of metaphor, and saw in it the meeting of the old and new religions; the type of these two men, of whom the light of one was fading, and the other waxing. The candlelight fell full on Ralph’s face that stood out against the whitewashed wall behind.

Then she listened and watched with an intent interest.

“It is this,” said Sir James, “we heard you were here—”

Ralph smiled with one side of his mouth, so that his father could see it.

“I do not wish to do anything I should not,” went on the old man, “or to meddle in his Grace’s matters—”

“And you wish me not to meddle either, sir,” put in Ralph.

“Yes,” said his father. “I am very willing to receive you and your wife at home; to make any suitable provision; to give you half the house if you wish for it; if you will only give up this accursed work.”

He was speaking with a tranquil deliberation; all the emotion and passion seemed to have left his voice; but Mary, from behind, could see his right hand clenched like a vice upon the knob of his chair-arm. It seemed to her as if the two men had suddenly frozen into self-repression. Their air was one of two acquaintances talking, not of father and son.

“And if not, sir?” asked Ralph with the same courtesy.

“Wait,” said his father, and he lifted his hand a moment and dropped it again. He was speaking in short, sharp sentences. “I know that you have great things before you, and that I am asking much from you. I do not wish you to think that I am ignorant of that. If nothing else will do I am willing to give up the house altogether to you and your wife. I do not know about your mother.”

Mary drew her breath hard. The words were like an explosion in her soul, and opened up unsuspected gulfs. Things must be desperate if her father could speak like that. He had not hinted a word of this during that silent strenuous ride they had had together when he had called for her suddenly at Great Keynes earlier in the afternoon. She saw Ralph give a quick stare at his father, and drop his eyes again.

“You are very generous, sir,” he said almost immediately, “but I do not ask for a bribe.”

“You—you are unlike your master in that, then,” said Sir James by an irresistible impulse.

Ralph’s face stiffened yet more.

“Then that is all, sir?” he asked.

“I beg your pardon for saying that,” added his father courteously. “It should not have been said. It is not a bribe, however; it is an offer to compensate for any loss you may incur.”

“Have you finished, sir?”

“That is all I have to say on that point,” said Sir James, “except—”

“Well, sir?”

“Except that I do not know how Mistress Atherton will take this story.”

Ralph’s face grew a shade paler yet. But his lips snapped together, though his eyes flinched.

“That is a threat, sir.”

“That is as you please.”

A little pulse beat sharply in Ralph’s cheek. He was looking with a kind of steady fury at his father. But Mary thought she saw indecision too in his eye-lids, which were quivering almost imperceptibly.

“You have offered me a bribe and a threat, sir. Two insults. Have you a third ready?”

Mary heard a swift-drawn breath from her father, but he spoke quietly.

“I have no more to say on that point,” he said.

“Then I must refuse,” said Ralph instantly. “I see no reason to give up my work. I have very hearty sympathy with it.”

The old man’s hand twitched uncontrollably on his chair-arm for a moment; he half lifted his hand, but he dropped it again.

“Then as to Margaret,” he went on in a moment. “I understand you had intended to dismiss her from the convent?”

Ralph bowed.

“And where do you suggest that she should go?”

“She must go home,” said Ralph.

“To Overfield?”

Ralph assented.

“Then I will not receive her,” said Sir James.

Mary started up.

“Nor will Mary receive her,” he added, half turning towards her.

Mary Maxwell sat back at once. She thought she understood what he meant now.

Ralph stared at his father a moment before he too understood. Then he saw the point, and riposted deftly. He shrugged his shoulders ostentatiously as if to shake off responsibility.

“Well, then, that is not my business; I shall give her a gown and five shillings to-morrow, with the other one.”

The extraordinary brutality of the words struck Mary like a whip, but

Sir James met it.

“That is for you to settle then,” he said. “Only you need not send her to Overfield or Great Keynes, for she will be sent back here at once.”

Ralph smiled with an air of tolerant incredulity. Sir James rose briskly.

“Come, Mary,” he said, and turned his back abruptly on Ralph, “we must find lodgings for to-night. The good nuns will not have room.”

As Mary looked at his face in the candlelight she was astonished by its decision; there was not the smallest hint of yielding. It was very pale but absolutely determined, and for the fast time in her life she noticed how like it was to Ralph’s. The line of the lips was identical, and his eyelids drooped now like his son’s.

Ralph too rose and then on a sudden she saw the resolute obstinacy fade from his eyes and mouth. It was as if the spirit of one man had passed into the other.

“Father—” he said.

She expected a rush of emotion into the old man’s face, but there was not a ripple. He paused a moment, but Ralph was silent.

“I have no more to say to you, sir. And I beg that you will not come home again.”

As they passed out into the entrance passage she turned again and saw Ralph dazed and trembling at the table. Then they were out in the road through the open gate and a long moan broke from her father.

“Oh! God forgive me,” he said, “have I failed?”

CHAPTER VI

A NUN’S DEFIANCE

It was a very strange evening that Mary and her father passed in the little upstairs room looking on to the street at Rusper.

Sir James had hardly spoken, and after supper had sat near the window, with a curious alertness in his face. Mary knew that Chris was expected, and that Mr. Morris had ridden on to fetch him after he had called at Overfield, but from her short interview with Margaret she had seen that his presence would not be required. The young nun, though bewildered and stunned by the news that she must go, had not wavered for a moment as regards her intention to follow out her Religious vocation in some manner; and it was to confirm her in it, in case she hesitated, that Sir James had sent on the servant to fetch Chris.

It was all like a dreadful dream to Mary.

She had gone out from dinner at her own house into the pleasant October sunshine with her cheerful husband beside her, when her father had come out through the house with his riding-whip in his hand; and in a few seconds she had found herself plunged into new and passionate relations, first with him, for she had never seen him so stirred, and then with her brothers and sister. Ralph, that dignified man of affairs, suddenly stepped into her mind as a formidable enemy of God and man; Chris appeared as a spiritual power, and the quiet Margaret as the very centre of the sudden storm.

She sat here now by the fire, shading her face with her hand and watching that familiar face set in hard and undreamed lines of passion and resolution and expectancy.

Once as footsteps came up the street he had started up and sat down trembling.

She waited till the steps went past, and then spoke.

“Chris will be riding, father.”

He nodded abruptly, and she saw by his manner that it was not Chris he was expecting. She understood then that he still had hopes of his other son, but they sat on into the night in the deep stillness, till the fire burned low and red, and the stars she had seen at the horizon wheeled up and out of sight above the window-frame.

Then he suddenly turned to her.

“You must go to bed, Mary,” he said. “I will wait for Chris.”

She lay long awake in the tiny cupboard-room that the labourer and his wife had given up to her, hearing the horses stamp in the cold shed at the back of the house, and the faces moved and turned like the colours of a kaleidoscope. Now her father’s eyes and mouth hung like a mask before her, with that terrible look that had been on them as he faced Ralph at the end; now Ralph’s own face, defiant, icy, melting in turns; now Margaret’s with wide terrified eyes, as she had seen it in the parlour that afternoon; now her own husband’s. And the sweet autumn woods and meadows lay before her as she had seen them during that silent ride; the convent, the village, her own home with its square windows and yew hedge—a hundred images.

There was a talking when she awoke for the last time and through the crazy door glimmered a crack of grey dawn, and as she listened she knew that Chris was come.

It was a strange meeting when she came out a few minutes later. There was the monk, unshaven and pale under the eyes, with his thinned face that gave no smile as she came in; her father desperately white and resolved; Mr. Morris, spruce and grave as usual sitting with his hat between his knees behind the others;—he rose deferentially as she came in and remained standing.

Her father began abruptly as she appeared.

“He can do nothing,” he said, “he can but turn her on to the road. And I do not think he will dare.”

“Ah! Beatrice Atherton?” questioned Mary, who had a clearer view of the situation now.

“Yes—Beatrice Atherton. He fears that we shall tell her. He cannot send

Margaret to Overfield or Great Keynes now.”

“And if he turns her out after all?”

Sir James looked at her keenly.

“We must leave the rest to God,” he said.

The village was well awake by the time that they had finished their talk and had had something to eat. The drama at the convent had leaked out through the boy who served the altar there, and a little group was assembled opposite the windows of the cottage to which the monk had been seen to ride up an hour or two before. It seemed strange that no priest had been near them, but it was fairly evident that the terror was too great.

As the four came out on to the road, a clerical cap peeped for a moment from the churchyard wall and disappeared again.

They went down towards the convent along the grey road, in the pale autumn morning air. Mary still seemed to herself to walk in a dream, with her father and brother on either side masquerading in strange character; the familiar atmosphere had been swept from them, the background of association was gone, and they moved now in a new scene with new parts to play that were bringing out powers which she had never suspected in them. It seemed as if their essential souls had been laid bare by a catastrophe, and that she had never known them before.

For herself, she felt helpless and dazed; her own independence seemed gone, and she was aware that her soul was leaning on those of the two who walked beside her, and who were masculine and capable beyond all her previous knowledge of them.

Behind she heard a murmur of voices and footsteps of three or four villagers who followed to see what would happen.

She had no idea of what her father meant to do; it was incredible that he should leave Margaret in the road with her gown and five shillings; but it was yet more incredible that all his threats should be idle. Only one thing emerged clearly, that he had thrown a heavier responsibility upon Ralph than the latter had foreseen. Perhaps the rest must indeed be left to God. She did not even know what he meant to do now, whether to make one last effort with Ralph, or to leave him to himself; and she had not dared to ask.

They passed straight down together in silence to the convent-gate; and were admitted immediately by the portress whose face was convulsed and swollen.

“They are to go,” she sobbed.

Sir James made a gesture, and passed in to the tiny lodge on the left where the portress usually sat; Chris and Mary followed him in, and Mr. Morris went across to the guest-house.

The bell sounded out overhead for mass as they sat there in the dim morning light, twenty or thirty strokes, and ceased; but there was no movement from the little door of the guest-house across the court. The portress had disappeared through the second door that led from the tiny room in which they sat, into the precincts of the convent itself.

Mary looked distractedly round her; at the little hatch that gave on to the entrance gate, and the chain hanging by it that communicated with one of the bolts, at the little crucifix that hung beside it, the devotional book that lay on the shelf, the door into the convent with the title “Clausura” inscribed above it. She glanced at her father and brother.

Sir James was sitting with his grey head in his hands, motionless and soundless; Chris was standing upright and rigid, staring steadily out through the window into the court.

Then through the window she too saw Mr. Morris come out from the guest-house and pass along to the stable.

Again there was silence.

The minutes went by, and the Saunce bell sounded three strokes from the turret. Chris sank on to his knees, and a moment later Mary and her father followed his example, and so the three remained in the dark silent lodge, with no sound but their breathing, and once a sharp whispered word of prayer from the old man.

As the sacring bell sounded there was a sudden noise in the court, and

Mary lifted her head.

From where she knelt she could see the two doors across the court, those of the guest-house and the stable beyond, and simultaneously, out of the one came Ralph, gloved and booted, with his cap on his head, and Mr. Morris leading his horse out of the other.

The servant lifted his cap at the sound of the bell, and dropped on to his knees, still holding the bridle; his master stood as he was, and looked at him. Mary could only see the latter’s profile, but even that was scornful and hard.

Again the bell sounded; the mystery was done; and the servant stood up.

As her father and Chris rose, Mary rose with them; and the three remained in complete silence, watching the little scene in the court.

Ralph made a sign; and the servant attached the bridle of the horse to a ring beside the stable-door, and went past his master into the guest-house with a deferential stoop of the shoulders. Ralph stood a moment longer, and then followed him in.

Then again the minutes went by.

There was a sound of horse-hoofs on the road presently, and of talking that grew louder. The hoofs ceased; there was a sharp peal on the bell; and the talking began again.

Chris glanced across at his father; but the old man shook his head; and the three remained as they were, watching and listening. As the bell rang out again impatiently, the door behind opened, and the portress came swiftly through, followed by the Abbess.

“Come quickly,” the old lady whispered. “Sister Susan is going to let them in.”

She stood aside, and made a motion to them to come through, and a moment late the four were in the convent, and the door was shut behind them.

“They are Mr. Torridon’s men,” whispered the Abbess, her eyes round with excitement; “they are come to pack the things.”

She led them on through the narrow passage, up a stone flight of stairs to the corridor that ran over the little cloister, and pushed open the door of a cell.

“Wait here,” she said. “You can do no more. I will go down to them. You are in the enclosure, but I cannot help it.”

And she had whisked out again, with an air of extraordinary composure, shutting the door behind her.

The three went across to the window, still speaking no word, and looked down.

The tiny court seemed half full of people now. There were three horses there, besides Ralph’s own marked by its rich saddle, and still attached to the ring by the stable door, and a couple of men were busy loading one of them with bundles. From one of these, which was badly packed, a shimmering corner of gold cloth projected.

Ralph was standing by the door of the guest-house watching, and making a sign now and again with his whip. They could not see his face as he stood so directly below them, only his rich cap and feather, and his strong figure beneath. Mr. Morris was waiting now by his master’s horse; the portress was by her door.

As they looked the little black and white figure of the Abbess came out beneath them, and stood by the portress.

The packing went on in silence. It was terrible to Mary to stand there and watch the dumb-show tragedy, the wrecking and robbing of this peaceful house; and yet there was nothing to be done. She knew that the issues were in stronger hands than hers; she glanced piteously at her father and brother on either side, but their faces were set and white, and they did not turn at her movement.

There was the sound of an opening door, and two women came out from the convent at one side and stood waiting. One was in secular dress; the other was still in her habit, but carried a long dark mantle across her arm, and Mary caught her breath and bit her lip fiercely as she recognised the second to be her sister.

She felt she must cry out, and denounce the sacrilege, and made an instinctive movement nearer the window, but in a moment her father’s hand was on her arm.

“Be still, Mary: it is all well.”

One of the horses was being led away by now through the open door; and the two others followed almost immediately; but the principal actors were still in their places; the Abbess and the portress together on this side; Ralph on that; and the two other women, a little apart from one another, at the further end of the court.

Then Ralph beckoned abruptly with his whip, and Mary saw her sister move out towards the gate; she caught a glance of her face, and saw that her lips were white and trembling, and her eyes full of agony. The other woman followed briskly, and the two disappeared through to the road outside.

Again Ralph beckoned, and Mr. Morris brought up the horse that he had now detached from the ring, and stood by its head, holding the off-stirrup for his master to mount. Ralph gathered the reins into his left hand, and for a moment they saw his face across the back of the horse fierce and white; then he was up, and settling his right foot into the stirrup.

Mr. Morris let go, and stood back; and simultaneously Ralph struck him with his riding-whip across the face, a furious back-handed slash.

Mary cried out uncontrollably and shrank back; and a moment later her father was leaning from the window, and she beside him.

“You damned coward!” he shouted. “Morris, you are my servant now.”

Ralph did not turn his head an inch, and a moment later disappeared on horse-back through the gate, and the portress had closed it behind him.

The little court was silent now, and empty except for the Abbess’ motionless figure behind, with Mr. Morris beside her, and the lay sister by the gate, her hand still on the key that she had turned, and her eyes intent and expectant fixed on her superior. Mr. Morris lifted a handkerchief now and again gently to his face, and Mary as she leaned half sobbing from above saw that there were spots of crimson on the white.

“Oh! Morris!” she whispered.

The servant looked up, with a great weal across one cheek, and bowed a little, but he could not speak yet. Outside they could hear the jingle of bridle-chains; and then a voice begin; but they could not distinguish the words.

It was Ralph speaking; but they could only guess what it was that he was saying. Overhead the autumn sky was a vault of pale blue; and a bird or two chirped briskly from the roof opposite.

The voice outside grew louder, and ceased, and the noise of horse hoofs broke out.

Still there was no movement from any within. The Abbess was standing now with one hand uplifted as if for silence, and Mary heard the hoofs sound fainter up the road; they grew louder again as they reached higher ground; and then ceased altogether.

The old man touched Mary on the arm, and the three went out along the little corridor, and down the stone stairs.

As they passed through the lodge and came into the court Mary saw that the Abbess had moved from her place, and was standing with the portress close by the gate; her face was towards them, a little on one side, and she seemed to be listening intently, her ear against the door, her lower lip sucked in, and her eyes bright and vacant; she still held one hand up for silence.

Then there came a tiny tapping on the wood-work, and she instantly turned and snatched at the key, and a moment later the door was wide.

“Come in, my poor child,” she said.

CHAPTER VII

ST PANCRAS PRIORY

It was a little more than a month later that Ralph met his fellow-Visitor at Lewes Priory.

He had left Rusper in a storm of angry obstinacy, compelled by sheer pride to do what he had not intended. The arrival of his father and Mary there had had exactly the opposite effect to that which they hoped, and Ralph had turned Margaret out of the convent simply because he could not bear that they should think that he could be frightened from his purpose.

As he had ridden off on that October morning, leaving Margaret standing outside with her cloak over her arm he had had a very sharp suspicion that she would be received back again; but he had not felt himself strong enough to take any further steps; so he contented himself with sending in his report to Dr. Layton, knowing well that heavy punishment would fall on the convent if it was discovered that the Abbess had disobeyed the Visitors’ injunctions.

Then for a month or so he had ridden about the county, carrying off spoils, appointing new officials, and doing the other duties assigned to him; he was offered bribes again and again by superiors of Religious Houses, but unlike his fellow-Visitors always refused them, and fell the more hardly on those that offered them; he turned out numbers of young Religious and released elder ones who desired it, and by the time that he reached Lewes was fairly practised in the duties of his position.

But the thought of the consequences of his action with regard to his future seldom left him. He had alienated his family, and perhaps Beatrice. As he rode once through Cuckfield, and caught a glimpse of the woods above Overfield, glorious in their autumn livery, he wondered whether he would ever find himself at home there again. It was a good deal to give up; but he comforted himself with the thought of his own career, and with the pleasant prospect of possessing some such house in his own right when the work that he now understood had been accomplished, and the monastic buildings were empty of occupants.

He had received one letter, to his surprise, from his mother; that was brought to him by a messenger in one of the houses where he stayed. It informed him that he had the writer’s approval, and that she was thankful to have one son at least who was a man, and described further how his father and Mary had come back, and without Margaret, and that she supposed that the Abbess of Rusper had taken her back.

“Go on, my son,” she ended, “it will be all well. You cannot come home,

I know, while your father is in his present mind; but it is a dull place

and you lose nothing. When you are married it will be different. Mr.

Carleton is very tiresome, but it does not matter.”

Ralph smiled to himself as he thought of the life that must now be proceeding at his home.

He had written once to Beatrice, in a rather tentative tone, assuring her that he was doing his best to be just and merciful, and professing to take it for granted that she knew how to discount any exaggerated stories of the Visitors’ doings that might come to her ears. But he had received no answer, and indeed had told her that he did not expect one, for he was continually on the move and could give no fixed address.

As he came up over the downs above Lewes he was conscious of a keen excitement; this would be the biggest work he had undertaken, and it had the additional zest of being a means of annoying his brother who had provoked him so often. Since his quarrel with Chris in his own rooms in the summer he had retained an angry contempt towards him. Chris had been insolent and theatrical, he told himself, and had thrown off all claims to tenderness, and Ralph’s feelings towards him were not improved by the information given him by one of his men that his brother had been present at the scene at Rusper, no doubt summoned there by Morris, who had proved such a desperate traitor to his master by slipping off to Overfield on the morning of the Sunday.

Ralph was very much puzzled at first by Morris’s behaviour; the man had always been respectful and obedient, but it was now evident to him that he had been half-hearted all along, and still retained a superstitious reverence for ecclesiastical things and persons; and although it was very inconvenient and tiresome to lose him, yet it was better to be inadequately than treacherously served.

Lewes Priory was a magnificent sight as Ralph came up on to the top of the last shoulder below Mount Harry. The town lay below him in the deep, cup-like hollow, piled house above house along the sides. Beyond it in the evening light, against the rich autumn fields and the gleam of water, towered up the tall church with the monastic buildings nestling behind.

The thought crossed his mind that it would do very well for himself; the town was conveniently placed between London and the sea, within a day’s ride from either; there would be shops and company there, and the priory itself would be a dignified and suitable house, when it had been properly re-arranged. The only drawback would be Beatrice’s scrupulousness; but he had little doubt that ultimately that could be overcome. It would be ridiculous for a single girl to set herself up against the conviction of a country, and refuse to avail herself of the advantages of a reform that was so sorely needed. She trusted him already; and it would not need much persuasion he thought to convince her mind as well as her heart.

Of course Lewes Priory would be a great prize, and there would be many applicants for it, and he realized that more than ever as he came up to its splendid gateway and saw the high tower overhead, and the long tiled roofs to the right; but his own relations with Cromwell were of the best, and he decided that at least no harm could result from asking.

It was with considerable excitement that he dismounted in the court, and saw the throng of Dr. Layton’s men going to and fro. As at Durford, so here, his superior had arrived before him, and the place was already astir. The riding-horses had been bestowed in the stables, and the baggage-beasts were being now unloaded before the door of the guest-house; there were servants going to and fro in Dr. Layton’s livery, with an anxious-faced monk or two here and there among them, and a buzz and clatter rose on all sides. One of Dr. Layton’s secretaries who had been at Durford, recognised Ralph and came up immediately, saluting him deferentially.

“The doctor is with the Sub-Prior, sir,” he said. “He gave orders that you were to be brought to him as soon as you arrived, Mr. Torridon.”

Ralph followed him into the guest-house, and up the stairs up which

Chris had come at his first arrival, and was shown into the parlour.

There was a sound of voices as they approached the door, and as Ralph

entered he saw at once that Dr. Layton was busy at his work.

“Come in, sir,” he cried cheerfully from behind the table at which he sat. “Here is desperate work for you and me. No less than rank treason, Mr. Torridon.”

A monk was standing before the table, who turned nervously as Ralph came in; he was a middle-aged man, grey-haired and brown-faced like a foreigner, but his eyes were full of terror now, and his lips trembling piteously.

Ralph greeted Dr. Layton shortly, and sat down beside him.

“Now, sir,” went on the other, “your only hope is to submit yourself to the King’s clemency. You have confessed yourself to treason in your preaching, and even if you did not, it would not signify, for I have the accusation from the young man at Farley in my bag. You tell me you did not know it was treason; but are you ready, sir, to tell the King’s Grace that?”

The monk’s eyes glanced from one to the other anxiously. Ralph could see that he was desperately afraid.

“Tell me that, sir,” cried the doctor again, rapping the table with his open hand.

“I—I—what shall I do, sir?” stammered the monk.

“You must throw yourself on the King’s mercy, reverend father. And as a beginning you must throw yourself on mine and Mr. Torridon’s here. Now, listen to this.”

Dr. Layton lifted one of the papers that lay before him and rend it aloud, looking severely at the monk over the top of it between the sentences. It was in the form of a confession, and declared that on such a date in the Priory Church of St Pancras at Lewes the undersigned had preached treason, although ignorant that it was so, in the presence of the Prior and community; and that the Prior, although he knew what was to be said, and had heard the sermon in question, had neither forbidden it beforehand nor denounced it afterwards, and that the undersigned entreated the King’s clemency for the fault and submitted himself entirely to his Grace’s judgment.

“I—I dare not accuse my superior,” stammered the monk.

Dr. Layton glared at him, laying the paper down.

“The question is,” he cried, “which would you sooner offend—your Prior, who will be prior no longer presently, or the King’s Grace, who will remain the King’s Grace for many years yet, by the favour of God, and who has moreover supreme rights of life and death. That is your choice, reverend father.”—He lifted the paper by the corners.—”You have only to say the word, sir, and I tear up this paper, and write my own report of the matter.”

The monk again glanced helplessly at the two men. Ralph had a touch of contentment at the thought that this was Christopher’s superior, ranged like a naughty boy at the table, and looked at him coldly. Dr. Layton made a swift gesture as if to tear the paper, and the Sub-Prior threw out his hands.

“I will sign it, sir,” he said, “I will sign it.”

When the monk had left the room, leaving his signed confession behind him, Dr. Layton turned beaming to Ralph.

“Thank God!” he said piously. “I do not know what we should have done if he had refused; but now we hold him and his prior too. How have you fared, Mr. Torridon?”

Ralph told him a little of his experiences since his last report, of a nunnery where all but three had been either dismissed or released; of a monastery where he had actually caught a drunken cellarer unconscious by a barrel, and of another where he had reason to fear even worse crimes.

“Write it all down, Mr. Torridon,” cried the priest, “and do not spare the adjectives. I have some fine tales for you myself. But we must despatch this place first. We shall have grand sport in the chapter-house to-morrow. This prior is a poor timid fellow, and we can do what we will with him. Concealed treason is a sharp sword to threaten him with.”

Ralph remarked presently that he had a brother a monk here.

“But you can do what you like to him,” he said. “I have no love for him.

He is an insolent fellow.”

Dr. Layton smiled pleasantly.

“We will see what can be done,” he said.

Ralph slept that night in the guest-house, in the same room that Chris had occupied on his first coming. He awoke once at the sound of the great bell from the tower calling the monks to the night-office, and smiled at the fantastic folly of it all. His work during the last month had erased the last remnants of superstitious fear, and to him now more than ever the Religious Houses were but noisy rookeries, clamant with bells and chanting, and foul with the refuse of idleness. The sooner they were silenced and purged the better.

He did not trouble to go to mass in the morning, but lay awake in the white-washed room, hearing footsteps and voices below, and watching the morning light brighten on the wall. He found himself wondering once or twice what Chris was doing, and how he felt; he did not rise till one of his men looked in to tell him that Dr. Layton would be ready for him in half-an-hour, if he pleased.

The chapter-house was a strange sight as he entered it from the cloister. It was a high oblong chamber some fifty feet long, with arched roof like a chapel, and a paved floor. On a dozen stones or so were cut inscriptions recording the presence of bodies entombed below, among them those of Earl William de Warenne and Gundrada, his wife, founders of the priory five centuries ago. Ralph caught sight of the names as he strode through the silent monks at the door and entered the chamber, talking loudly with his fellow-Visitor. The tall vaulted room looked bare and severe; the seats ran round it, raised on a step, and before the Prior’s chair beneath the crucifix stood a large table covered with papers. Beneath it, and emerging on to the floor lay a great heap of vestments and precious things which Dr. Layton had ordered to be piled there for his inspection, and on the table itself for greater dignity burned two tapers in massive silver candlesticks.

“Sit here, Mr. Torridon,” said the priest, himself taking the Prior’s chair, “we represent the supreme head of the Church of England now, you must remember.”

And he smiled at the other with a solemn joy.

He glanced over his papers, settled himself judicially, and then signed to one of his men to call the monks in. His two secretaries seated themselves at either end of the table that stood before their master.

Then the two lines began to file in, in reverse order, as the doctor had commanded; black silent figures with bowed heads buried in their hoods, and their hands invisible in the great sleeves of their cowls.

Ralph ran his eyes over them; there were men of all ages there, old wrinkled faces, and smooth ones; but it was not until they were all standing in their places that he recognised Chris.

There stood the young man, at a stall near the door, his eyes bent down, and his face deadly pale, his figure thin and rigid against the pale oak panelling that rose up some eight feet from the floor. Ralph’s heart quickened with triumph. Ah! it was good to be here as judge, with that brother of his as culprit!

The Prior and Sub-prior, whose places were occupied, stood together in the centre of the room, as the doctor had ordered. It was their case that was to come first.

There was an impressive silence; the two Visitors sat motionless, looking severely round them; the secretaries had their clean paper before them, and their pens, ready dipped, poised in their fingers.

Then Dr. Layton began.

It was an inexpressibly painful task, he said, that he had before him; the monks were not to think that he gloried in it, or loved to find fault and impose punishments; and, in fact, nothing but the knowledge that he was there as the representative of the supreme authority in Church and State could have supplied to him the fortitude necessary for the performance of so sad a task.

Ralph marvelled at him as he listened. There was a solemn sound in the man’s face and voice, and dignity in his few and impressive gestures. It could hardly be believed that he was not in earnest; and yet Ralph remembered too the relish with which the man had dispersed his foul tales the evening before, and the cackling laughter with which their recital was accompanied. But it was all very wholesome for Chris, he thought.

“And now,” said Dr. Layton, “I must lay before you this grievous matter.

It is one of whose end I dare not think, if it should come before the

King’s Grace; and yet so it must come. It is no less a matter than

treason.”

His voice rang out with a melancholy triumph, and Ralph, looking at the two monks who stood in the centre of the room, saw that they were both as white as paper. The lips of the Prior were moving in a kind of agonised entreaty, and his eyes rolled round.

“You, sir,” cried the doctor, glaring at the Sub-Prior, who dropped his beseeching eyes at the fierce look, “you, sir, have committed the crime—in ignorance, you tell me—but at least the crime of preaching in this priory-church in the presence of his Grace’s faithful subjects a sermon attacking the King’s most certain prerogatives. I can make perhaps allowances for this—though I do not know whether his Grace will do so—but I can make allowances for one so foolish as yourself carried away by the drunkenness of words; but I can make none—none—” he shouted, crashing his hand upon the table, “none for your superior who stands beside you, and who forebore either to protest at the treason at the time or to rebuke it afterwards.”

The Prior’s hands rose and clasped themselves convulsively, but he made no answer.

Dr. Layton proceeded to read out the confession that he had wrung from the monk the night before, down to the signature; then he called upon him to come up.

“Is this your name, sir?” he asked slowly.

The Sub-Prior took the paper in his trembling hands.

“It is sir,” he said.

“You hear it,” cried the doctor, staring fiercely round the faces, “he tells you he has subscribed it himself. Go back to your place, reverend father, and thank our Lord that you had courage to do so.

“And now, you, sir, Master Prior, what have you to say?”

Dr. Layton dropped his voice as he spoke, and laid his fat hands together on the table. The Prior looked up with the same dreadful entreaty as before; his lips moved, but no sound came from them. The monks round were deadly still; Ralph saw a swift glance or two exchanged beneath the shrouding hoods, but no one moved.

“I am waiting, my Lord Prior,” cried Layton in a loud terrible voice.

Again the Prior writhed his lips to speak.

Dr. Layton rose abruptly and made a violent gesture.

“Down on your knees, Master Prior, if you need mercy.”

There was a quick murmur and ripple along the two lines as the Prior dropped suddenly on to his knees and covered his face with his hands.

Dr. Layton threw out his hand with a passionate gesture and began to speak—.

“There, reverend fathers and brethren,” he cried, “you see how low sin brings a man. This fellow who calls himself prior was bold enough, I daresay, in the church when treason was preached; and, I doubt not, has been bold enough in private too when he thought none heard him but his friends. But you see how treachery,—heinous treachery,—plucks the spirit from him, and how lowly he carries himself when he knows that true men are sitting in judgment over him. Take example from that, you who have served him in the past; you need never fear him more now.”

Dr. Layton dropped his hand and sat down. For one moment Ralph saw the kneeling man lift that white face again, but the doctor was at him instantly.

“Do not dare to rise, sir, till I give you leave,” he roared. “You had best be a penitent. Now tell me, sir, what you have to say. It shall not be said that we condemned a man unheard. Eh! Mr. Torridon?”

Ralph nodded sharply, and glanced at Chris; but his brother was staring at the Prior.

“Now then, sir,” cried the doctor again.

“I entreat you, Master Layton—”

The Prior’s voice was convulsed with terror as he cried this with outstretched hands.

“Yes, sir, I will hear you.”

“I entreat you, sir, not to tell his Grace. Indeed I am innocent”—his voice rose thin and high in his panic—indeed, I did not know it was treason that was preached.”

“Did not know?” sneered the doctor, leaning forward over the table.

“Why, you know your Faith, man—”

“Master Layton, Master Layton; there be so many changes in these days—”

“Changes!” shouted the priest; “there be no changes, except of such knaves as you, Master-Prior; it is the old Faith now as ever. Do you dare to call his Grace a heretic? Must that too go down in the charges?”

“No, no, Master Layton,” screamed the Prior, with his hands strained forward and twitching fingers. “I did not mean that—Christ is my witness!”

“Is it not the same Faith, sir?”

“Yes, Master Layton—yes—indeed, it is. But I did not know—how could I know?”

“Then why are you Prior,” cried the doctor with a dramatic gesture, “if it is not to keep your subjects true and obedient? Do you mean to tell me—?”

“I entreat you, sir, for the love of Mary, not to tell his Grace—”

“Bah!” shouted Dr. Layton, “you may keep your breath till you tell his Grace that himself. There is enough of this.” Again he rose, and swept his eyes round the white-faced monks. “I am weary of this work. The fellow has not a word to say—”

“Master Layton, Master Layton,” cried the kneeling man once more, lifting his hands on one of which gleamed the prelatical ring.

“Silence, sir,” roared the doctor. “It is I who am speaking now. We have had enough of this work. It seems that there be no true men left, except in the world; these houses are rotten with crime. Is it not so, Master Torridon?—rotten with crime! But of all the knaves that I did ever meet, and they are many and strong ones, I do believe Master Prior, that you are the worst. Here is my sentence, and see that it be carried out. You, Master Prior, and you Master Sub-Prior, are to appear before Master Cromwell in his court on All-Hallows’ Eve, and tell your tales to him. You shall see if he be so soft as I; it may be that he will send you before the King’s Grace—that I know not—but at least he will know how to get the truth out of you, if I cannot—”

Once more the Prior broke in, in an agony of terror; but the doctor silenced him in a moment.

“Have I not given my sentence, sir? How dare you speak?”

A murmur again ran round the room, and he lifted his hand furiously.

“Silence,” he shouted, “not one word from a mother’s son of you. I have had enough of sedition already. Clear the room, officer, and let not one shaveling monk put his nose within again, until I send for him. I am weary of them all—weary and broken-hearted.”

The doctor dropped back into his seat, with a face of profound disgust, and passed his hand over his forehead.

The monks turned at the signal from the door, and Ralph watched the black lines once more file out.

“There, Mr. Torridon,” whispered the doctor behind his hand. “Did I not tell you so? Master Cromwell will be able to do what he will with him.”

CHAPTER VIII

RALPH’S RETURN

The Visitation of Lewes Priory occupied a couple of days, as the estates were so vast, and the account-books so numerous.

In the afternoon following the scene in the chapter-house, Dr. Layton and Ralph rode out to inspect some of the farms that were at hand, leaving orders that the stock was to be driven up into the court the next day, and did not return till dusk. The excitement in the town was tremendous as they rode back through the ill-lighted streets, and as the rumour ran along who the great gentlemen were that went along so gaily with their servants behind them; and by the time that they reached the priory-gate there was a considerable mob following in their train, singing and shouting, in the highest spirits at the thought of the plunder that would probably fall into their hands.

Layton turned in his saddle at the door, and made them a little speech, telling them how he was there with the authority of the King’s Grace, and would soon make a sweep of the place.

“And there will be pickings,” he cried, “pickings for us all! The widow and the orphan have been robbed long enough; it is time to spoil the fathers.”

There was a roar of amusement from the mob; and a shout or two was raised for the King’s Grace.

“You must be patient,” cried Dr. Layton, “and then no more taxes. You can trust us, gentlemen, to do the King’s work as it should be done.”

As he passed in through the lamp-lit entrance he turned to Ralph again.

“You see, Mr. Torridon, we have the country behind us.”

It was that evening that Ralph for the first time since the quarrel met his brother face to face.

He was passing through the cloister on his way to Dr. Layton’s room, and came past the refectory door just as the monks were gathering for supper. He glanced in as he went, and had a glimpse of the clean solemn hall, lighted with candles along the panelling, the long bare tables laid ready, the Prior’s chair and table at the further end and the great fresco over it. A lay brother or two in aprons were going about their business silently, and three or four black figures, who had already entered, stood motionless along the raised dais on which the tables stood.

The monks had all stopped instantly as Ralph came among them, and had lowered their hoods with their accustomed courtly deference to a guest; and as he turned from his momentary pause at the refectory door in the full blaze of light that shone from it, he met Chris face to face.

The young monk had come up that instant, not noticing who was there, and his hood was still over his head. There was a second’s pause, and then he lifted his hand and threw the hood back in salutation; and as Ralph bowed and passed on he had a moment’s sight of that thin face and the large grey eyes in which there was not the faintest sign of recognition.

Ralph’s heart was hot with mingled emotion as he went up the cloister. He was more disturbed by the sudden meeting, the act of courtesy, and the cold steady eyes of this young fool of a brother than he cared to recognise.

He saw no more of him, except in the distance among his fellows; and he left the house the next day when the business was done.

Matters in the rest of England were going forward with the same promptitude as in Sussex. Dr. Layton himself had visited the West earlier in the autumn, and the other Visitors were busy in other parts of the country. The report was current now that the resources of all the Religious Houses were to be certainly confiscated, and that those of the inmates who still persisted in their vocation would have to do so under the most rigorous conditions imaginable. The results were to be seen in the enormous increase of beggars, deprived now of the hospitality they were accustomed to receive; and the roads everywhere were thronged with those who had been holders of corrodies, or daily sustenance in the houses; as well as with the evicted Religious, some of whom, dismissed against their will, were on their way to the universities, where, in spite of the Visitation, it was thought that support was still to be had; and others, less reputable, who preferred freedom to monastic discipline. Yet others were to be met with, though not many in number, who were on their way to London to lay complaints of various kinds against their superiors.

From these and like events the whole country was astir. Men gathered in groups outside the village inns and discussed the situation, and feeling ran high on the movements of the day. What chiefly encouraged the malcontents was the fact that the benefits to be gained by the dissolution of the monasteries were evident and present, while the ill-results lay in the future. The great Religious Houses, their farms and stock, the jewels of the treasury, were visible objects; men actually laid eyes on them as they went to and from their work or knelt at mass on Sundays; it was all so much wealth that did not belong to them, and that might do so, while the corrodies, the daily hospitality, the employment of labour, and such things, lay either out of sight, or affected only certain individuals. Characters too that were chiefly stirred by such arguments, were those of the noisy and self-assertive faction; while those who saw a little deeper into things, and understood the enormous charities of the Religious Houses and the manner in which extreme poverty was kept in check by them,—even more, those who valued the spiritual benefits that flowed from the fact of their existence, and saw how life was kindled and inspired by these vast homes of prayer—such, then as always, were those who would not voluntarily put themselves forward in debate, or be able, when they did so, to use arguments that would appeal to the village gatherings. Their natural leaders too, the country clergy, who alone might have pointed out effectively the considerations that lay beneath the surface had been skilfully and peremptorily silenced by the episcopal withdrawing of all preaching licenses.

In the course of Ralph’s travels he came across, more than once, a hot scene in the village inn, and was able to use his own personality and prestige as a King’s Visitor in the direction that he wished.

He came for example one Saturday night to the little village of Maresfield, near Fletching, and after seeing his horses and servants bestowed, came into the parlour, where the magnates were assembled. There were half a dozen there, sitting round the fire, who rose respectfully as the great gentleman strode in, and eyed him with a sudden awe as they realised from the landlord’s winks and whispers that he was of a very considerable importance.

From the nature of his training Ralph had learnt how to deal with all conditions of men; and by the time that he had finished supper, and drawn his chair to the fire, they were talking freely again, as indeed he had encouraged them to do, for they did not of course, any more than the landlord, guess at his identity or his business there.

Ralph soon brought the talk round again to the old subject, and asked the opinions of the company as to the King’s policy in the visitation of the Religious Houses There was a general silence when he first opened the debate, for they were dangerous times; but the gentleman’s own imperturbable air, his evident importance, and his friendliness, conspired with the strong beer to open their mouths, and in five minutes they were at it.

One, a little old man in the corner who sat with crossed legs, nursing his mug, declared that to his mind the whole thing was sacrilege; the houses, he said, had been endowed to God’s glory and service, and that to turn them to other uses must bring a curse on the country. He went on to remark—for Ralph deftly silenced the chorus of protest—that his own people had been buried in the church of the Dominican friars at Arundel for three generations, and that he was sorry for the man who laid hands on the tomb of his grandfather—known as Uncle John—for the old man had been a desperate churchman in his day, and would undoubtedly revenge himself for any indignity offered to his bones.

Ralph pointed out, with a considerate self-repression, that the illustration was scarcely to the point, for the King’s Grace had no intention, he believed, of disturbing any one’s bones; the question at issue rather regarded flesh and blood. Then a chorus broke out, and the hunt was up.

One, the butcher, with many blessings invoked on King Harry’s head, declared that the country was being sucked dry by these rapacious ecclesiastics; that the monks encroached every year on the common land, absorbed the little farms, paid inadequate wages, and—which appeared his principal grievance—killed their own meat.

Ralph, with praiseworthy tolerance, pushed this last argument aside, but appeared to reflect on the others as if they were new to him, though he had heard them a hundred times, and used them fifty; and while he weighed them, another took up the tale; told a scandalous story or two, and asked how men who lived such lives as these which he related, could be examples of chastity.

Once more the little old man burst into the fray, and waving his pot in an access of religious enthusiasm, rebuked the last speaker for his readiness to pick up dirt, and himself instanced five or six Religious known to him, whose lives were no less spotless than his own.

Again Ralph interposed in his slow voice, and told them that that too was not the point at issue. The question was not as to whether here and there monks lived good lives or bad, for no one was compelled to imitate either, but as to whether on the whole the existence of the Religious Houses was profitable in such practical matters as agriculture, trade, and the relief of the destitute.

And so it went on, and Ralph began to grow weary of the inconsequence of the debaters, and their entire inability to hold to the salient points; but he still kept his hand on the rudder of the discussion, avoided the fogs of the supernatural and religious on the one side towards which the little old man persisted in pushing, and, on the other, the blunt views of the butcher and the man who had told the foul stories; and contented himself with watching and learning the opinion of the company rather than contributing his own.

Towards the end of the evening he observed two of his men, who had slipped in and were sitting at the back of the little stifling room, hugely enjoying the irony of the situation, and determined on ending the discussion with an announcement of his own identity.

Presently an opportunity occurred. The little old man had shown a dangerous tendency to discourse on the suffering souls in purgatory, and on the miseries inflicted on them by the cessation of masses and suffrages for their welfare; and an uncomfortable awe-stricken silence had fallen on the others.

Ralph stood up abruptly, and began to speak, his bright tired eyes shining down on the solemn faces, and his mouth set and precise.

“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “your talk has pleased me very much. I have learned a great deal, and I hope shall profit by it. Some of you have talked a quantity of nonsense; and you, Mr. Miggers, have talked the most, about your uncle John’s soul and bones.”

A deadly silence fell as these startling words were pronounced; for his manner up to now had been conciliatory and almost apologetic. But he went on imperturbably.

“I am quite sure that Almighty God knows His business better than you or I, Mr. Miggers; and if He cannot take care of Uncle John without the aid of masses or dirges sung by fat-bellied monks—”

He stopped abruptly, and a squirt of laughter burst from the butcher.

“Well, this is my opinion,” went on Ralph, “if you wish to know it. I do not think, or suspect, as some of you do—but I know—as you will allow presently that I do, when I tell you who I am—I know that these houses of which we have been speaking, are nothing better than wasps’-nests. The fellows look holy enough in their liveries, they make a deal of buzz, they go to and fro as if on business; but they make no honey that is worth your while or mine to take. There is but one thing that they have in their holes that is worth anything: and that is their jewels and their gold, and the lead on their churches and the bells in their towers. And all that, by the Grace of God we will soon have out of them.”

There was a faint murmur of mingled applause and dissent. Mr. Miggers stared vacant-faced at this preposterous stranger, and set his mug resolutely down as a preparation for addressing him, but he had no opportunity. Ralph was warmed now by his own eloquence, and swept on.

“You think I do not know of what I am speaking? Well, I have a brother a monk at Lewes, and a sister a nun at Rusper; and I have been brought up in this religion until I am weary of it. My sister—well, she is like other maidens of her kind—not a word to speak of any matter but our Lady and the Saints and how many candles Saint Christopher likes. And my brother!—Well, we can leave that.

“I know these houses as none of you know them; I know how much wine they drink, how much they charge for their masses, how much treasonable chatter they carry on in private—I know their lives as I know my own; and I know that they are rotten and useless altogether. They may give a plateful or two in charity and a mug of beer; they gorge ten dishes themselves, and swill a hogshead. They give a penny to the poor man, and keep twenty nobles for themselves. They take field after field, house after house; turn the farmer into the beggar, and the beggar into their bedesman. And, by God! I say that the sooner King Henry gets rid of the crew, the better for you and me!”

Ralph snapped out the last words, and stared insolently down on the gaping faces. Then he finished, standing by the door as he did so, with his hand on the latch.

“If you would know how I know all this, I will tell you. My name is Torridon, of Overfield; and I am one of the King’s Visitors. Good-night, gentlemen.”

There was the silence of the grave within, as Ralph went upstairs smiling to himself.

Ralph had intended returning home a week or two after the Lewes visitation, but there was a good deal to be done, and Layton had pointed out to him that even if some houses were visited twice over it would do no harm to the rich monks to pay double fees; so it was not till Christmas was a week away that he rode at last up to his house-door at Westminster.

His train had swelled to near a dozen men and horses by now, for he had accumulated a good deal of treasure beside that which he had left in Layton’s hands, and it would not have been safe to travel with a smaller escort; so it was a gay and imposing cavalcade that clattered through the narrow streets. Ralph himself rode in front, in solitary dignity, his weapon jingling at his stirrup, his feather spruce and bright above his spare keen face; a couple of servants rode behind, fully armed and formidable looking, and then the train came behind—beasts piled with bundles that rustled and clinked suggestively, and the men who guarded them gay with scraps of embroidery and a cheap jewel or two here and there in their dress.

But Ralph did not feel so gallant as he looked. During these long country rides he had had too much time to think, and the thought of Beatrice and of what she would say seldom left him. The very harshness of his experiences, the rough faces round him, the dialect of the stable and the inn, the coarse conversation—all served to make her image the more gracious and alluring. It was a kind of worship, shot with passion, that he felt for her. Her grave silences coincided with his own, her tenderness yielded deliciously to his strength.

As he sat over his fire with his men whispering behind him, planning as they thought new assaults on the rich nests that they all hated and coveted together, again and again it was Beatrice’s face, and not that of a shrewd or anxious monk, that burned in the red heart of the hearth. He had seen it with downcast eyes, with the long lashes lying on the cheek, and the curved red lips discreetly shut beneath; the masses of black hair shadowed the forehead and darkened the secret that he wished to read. Or he had watched her, like a jewel in a pig-sty, looking across the foul-littered farm where he had had to sleep more than once with his men about him; her black eyes looking into his own with tender gravity, and her mouth trembling with speech. Or best of all, as he rode along the bitter cold lanes at the fall of the day, the crowding yews above him had parted and let her stand there, with her long skirts rustling in the dry leaves, her slender figure blending with the darkness, and her sweet face trusting and loving him out of the gloom.

And then again, like the prick of a wound, the question had touched him, how would she receive him when he came back with the monastic spoils on his beasts’ shoulders, and the wail of the nuns shrilling like the wind behind?

But by the time that he came back to London he had thought out his method of meeting her. Probably she had had news of the doings of the Visitors, perhaps of his own in particular; it was hardly possible that his father had not written; she would ask for an explanation, and she should have instead an appeal to her confidence. He would tell her that sad things had indeed happened, that he had been forced to be present at and even to carry out incidents which he deplored; but that he had done his utmost to be merciful. It was rough work, he would say; but it was work that had to be done; and since that was so—and this was Cromwell’s teaching—it was better that honourable gentlemen should do it. He had not been able always to restrain the violence of his men—and for that he needed forgiveness from her dear lips; and it would be easy enough to tell stories against him that it would be hard to disprove; but if she loved and trusted him, and he knew that she did, let her take his word for it that no injustice had been deliberately done, that on the other hand he had been the means under God of restraining many such acts, and that his conscience was clear.

It was a moving appeal, Ralph thought, and it almost convinced himself. He was not conscious of any gross insincerity in the defence; of course it was shaded artistically, and the more brutal details kept out of sight, but in the main it was surely true. And, as he rehearsed its points to himself once more in the streets of Westminster, he felt that though there might be a painful moment or two, yet it would do his work.

He had sent a message home that he was coming, and the door of his home was wide as he dismounted, and the pleasant light of candles shone out, for the evening was smouldering to dark in the west.

A crowd had collected as he went along; from every window faces were leaning; and as he stood on the steps directing the removal of the treasure into the house, he saw that the mob filled the tiny street, and the cobbled space, from side to side. They were chiefly of the idling class, folks who had little to do but to follow up excitements and shout; and there were a good many cries raised for the King’s Grace and his Visitors, for such people as these were greedy for any movement that might bring them gain, and the Religious Houses were beginning to be more unpopular in town than ever.

One of the bundles slipped as it was shifted, the cord came off, and in a moment the little space beyond the mule before the door was covered with gleaming stuff and jewels.

There was a fierce scuffle and a cry, and Ralph was in a moment beyond the mule with his sword out. He said nothing but stood there fierce and alert as the crowd sucked back, and the servant gathered up the things. There was no more trouble, for it had only been a spasmodic snatch at the wealth, and a cheer or two was raised again among the grimy faces that stared at the fine gentleman and the shining treasure.

Ralph thought it better, however, to say a conciliatory word when the things had been bestowed in the house, and the mules led away; and he stood on the steps a moment alone before entering himself.

The crowd listened complacently enough to the statements which they had begun to believe from the fact of the incessant dinning of them into their ears by the selected preachers at Paul’s Cross and elsewhere; and there was loud groan at the Pope’s name.

Ralph was ending with an incise peroration that he had delivered more than once before.

“You know all this, good people; and you shall know it better when the work is done. Instead of the rich friars and monks we will have godly citizens, each with his house and land. The King’s Grace has promised it, and you know that he keeps his word. We have had enough of the jackdaws and their stolen goods; we will have honest birds instead. Only be patient a little longer—”

The listening silence was broken by a loud cry—

“You damned plundering hound—”

A stone suddenly out of the gloom whizzed past Ralph and crashed through the window behind. A great roaring rose in a moment, and the crowd swayed and turned.

Ralph felt his heart suddenly quicken, and his hand flew to his hilt again, but there was no need for him to act. There were terrible screams already rising from the seething twilight in front, as the stone-thrower was seized and trampled. He stayed a moment longer, dropped his hilt and went into the house.

CHAPTER IX

RALPH’S WELCOME

“You will show Mistress Atherton into the room below,” said Ralph to his man, “as soon as she comes.”

He was sitting on the morning following his arrival in his own chamber upstairs. His table was a mass of papers, account-books, reckonings, reports bearing on his Visitation journey, and he had been working at them ever since he was dressed; for he had to present himself before Cromwell in the course of a day or two, and the labour would be enormous.

The room below, opposite that in which he intended to see Beatrice and where she had waited herself a few months before while he talked with Cromwell and the Archbishop, was now occupied by his collection of plate and vestments, and the key was in his own pocket.

He had heard from his housekeeper on the previous evening that Beatrice had called at the house during the afternoon, and had seemed surprised to hear that he was to return that night; but she had said very little, it appeared, and had only begged the woman to inform her master that she would present herself at his house the next morning.

And now Ralph was waiting for her.

He was more ill-at-ease than he had expected to be. The events of the evening before had given him a curious shock; and he cursed the whole business—the snapping of the cord round the bundle, his own action and words, the outrage that followed, and the death of the fellow that had thrown the stone—for the body had been rescued by the watch a few minutes later, a tattered crushed thing, beaten out of all likeness to a man. One of the watch had stepped in to see Ralph as he sat at supper, and had gone again saying the dog deserved it for daring to lift his voice against the King and his will.

But above all Ralph repented of his own words. There was no harm in saying such things in the country; but it was foolish and rash to do so in town. Cromwell’s men should be silent and discreet, he knew, not street-orators; and if he had had time to think he would not have spoken. However the crowd was with him; there was plainly no one of any importance there; it was unlikely that Cromwell himself would hear of the incident; and perhaps after all no harm was done.

Meanwhile there was Beatrice to reckon with, and Ralph laid down his pen a dozen times that morning and rehearsed once more what he would have to say to her.

He was shrewd enough to know that it was his personality and not his virtues or his views that had laid hold of this girl’s soul. As it was with him, so it was with her; each was far enough apart from the other in all external matters; such things had been left behind a year ago; it was not an affair of consonant tastes, but of passion. From each there had looked deep inner eyes; there had been on either side a steady and fearless scrutiny, and then the two souls had leapt together in a bright flame of desire, knowing that each was made for the other. There had been so little love-making, so few speeches after the first meeting or two, so few letters exchanged, and fewer embraces. The last veils had fallen at the fury of Chris’s intervention, and they had known then what had been inevitable all along.

Ralph smiled to himself as he remembered how little he had said or she had answered; there had been no need to say anything. And then his eyes grew wide and passionate, and his hands gripped one another fiercely, as the memory died, and the burning flame of desire flared within him again from the deep well he bore in his heart. The world of affairs and explanations and evasions faded into twilight, and there was but one thing left, his love and hers. It was to that that he would appeal.

He sat so a moment longer, and then took up his pen again, though it shook in his hand, and went on with his reckonings.

He was perfectly composed half an hour later as he went downstairs to meet her. He had finished his line of figures sedately when the man looked in to say that she was below; and had sat yet a moment longer, trying to remember mechanically what it was he had determined to tell her. Bah! it was trifling and unimportant; words did not affect the question; all the wrecked convents in the world could not touch the one fact that lay in fire at his heart. He would say nothing; she would understand.

In the tiny entrance hall there was a whiff of fragrance where she had passed through; and his heart stirred in answer. Then he opened the door, stepped through and closed it behind him.

She was standing upright by the hearth, and faced him as he entered. He was aware of her blue mantle, her white, jewelled head-dress, one hand gripping the mantel-shelf, her pale steady face and bright eyes. Behind there was the warm rich panelling, and the leaping glow of the wood fire.

She made no movement.

Outside the lane was filled with street noises, the cries of children, the voices of men who went by talking, the rumble of a waggon coming with the crack of whips and jingle of bells from the river. The wheels came up and went past into silence again before either spoke or moved.

Then Ralph lifted his hands a little and let them drop, as he stared at her face. From her eyes looked out her will, tense as steel; and his own shook to meet it.

“Well?” she said at last; and her voice was perfectly steady.

“Beatrice,” cried Ralph; and the agony of it tore his heart.

She dropped her hand to her side and still looked at him without flinching.

“Beatrice,” cried Ralph once more.

“Then you have no more to say—after last night?”

A torrent of thoughts broke loose in his brain, and he tried to snatch one as they fled past—to say one word. His excuses went by him like phantoms; they bewildered and dazed him. Why, there were a thousand things to say, and each was convincing if he could but say it. The cloud passed and there were her eyes watching him still.

“Then that is all?” she said.

Again the cloud fell on him; little scenes piteously clear rose before him, of the road by Rusper convent, Layton’s leering face, a stripped altar; and for each there was a tale if he could but tell it. And still the bright eyes never flinched.

It seemed to him as if she was watching him curiously; her lips were parted, and her head was a little on one side; her face interested and impersonal.

“Why, Beatrice—” he cried again.

Then her love shook her like a storm; he had never dreamed she could look like that; her mouth shook; he could see her white teeth clenched; and a shiver went over her. He took one step forward, but stopped again, for the black eyes shone through the passion that swayed her, as keen and remorseless as ever.

He dropped on to his knees at the table and buried his face in his hands. He knew nothing now but that he had lost her.

That was her voice speaking now, as steady as her eyes; but he did not hear a word she said. Words were nothing; they were not so much as those cries from the street, that shrill boy’s voice over the way; not so much as the sighing crackle from the hearth where he had caused a fire to be lighted lest she should feel cold.

She was still speaking, but her voice had moved; she was no longer by the fire. He could feel the warmth of the fire now on his hands. But he dared not move nor look up; there was but one thing left for him—that he had lost her!

That was her hand on the latch; a breath of cold air stirred his hair; and still she was speaking. He understood a little more now; she knew it all—his doings—what he had said last night—and there was not one word to say in answer. Her short lashing sentences fell on his defenceless soul, but all sense was dead, and he watched with a dazed impersonalness how each stroke went home, and yet he felt no pain or shame.

She was going now; a picture stirred on the wall by the fire as the wind rushed in through the open street door.

Then the door closed.

PART II

THE FALL OF LEWES

CHAPTER I

INTERNAL DISSENSION

The peace was gone from Lewes Priory. A wave had broken in through the high wall from the world outside with the coming of the Visitors, and had left wreckage behind, and swept out security as it went. The monks knew now that their old privileges were gone with the treasures that Layton had taken with him, and that although the wave had recoiled, it would return again and sweep them all away.

Upon none of them had the blow fallen more fiercely than on Chris; he had tried to find peace, and instead was in the midst of storm. The high barriers had gone, and with them the security of his own soul, and the world that he thought he had left was grinning at the breach.

It was piteous to him to see the Prior—that delicate, quiet prelate who had held himself aloof in his dignities—now humbled by the shame of his exposure in the chapter-house. The courage that Bishop Fisher had restored to him in some measure was gone again; and it was miserable to look at that white downcast face in the church and refectory, and to recognise that all self-respect was gone. After his return from his appearance before Cromwell he was more wretched than ever; it was known that he had been sent back in contemptuous disgrace; but it was not known how much he had promised in his terror for life.

The house had lost too some half-dozen of its inmates. Two had petitioned for release; three professed monks had been dismissed, and a recent novice had been sent back to his home. Their places in the stately choir were empty, and eloquent with warning; and in their stead was a fantastic secular priest, appointed by the Visitors’ authority, who seldom said mass, and never attended choir; but was regular in the refectory, and the chapter-house where he thundered St. Paul’s epistles at the monks, and commentaries of his own, in the hopes of turning them from papistry to a purer faith.

The news from outside echoed their own misery. Week after week the tales poured in, of young and old dismissed back to the world whose ways they had forgotten, of the rape of treasures priceless not only for their intrinsic worth but for the love that had given and consecrated them through years of devout service. There was not a house that had not lost something; the King himself had sanctioned the work by taking precious horns and a jewelled cross from Winchester. And worse than all that had gone was the terror of what was yet to come. The world, which had been creeping nearer, pausing and creeping on again, had at last passed the boundaries and leapt to sacrilege.

It was this terror that poisoned life. The sacristan who polished the jewels that were left, handled them doubtfully now; the monk who superintended the farm sickened as he made his plans for another year; the scribe who sat in the carrel lost enthusiasm for his work; for the jewels in a few months might be on royal fingers, the beasts in strangers’ sheds, and the illuminated leaves blowing over the cobbled court, or wrapped round grocers’ stores.

Dom Anthony preached a sermon on patience one day in Christmastide, telling his fellows that a man’s life, and still less a monk’s, consisted not in the abundance of things that he possessed; and that corporate, as well as individual, poverty, had been the ideal of the monastic houses in earlier days. He was no great preacher, but the people loved to hear his homely remarks, and there was a murmur of sympathy as he pointed with a clumsy gesture to the lighted Crib that had been erected at the foot of one of the great pillars in the nave.

“Our Lady wore no cloth of gold,” he said, “nor Saint Joseph a precious mitre; and the blessed Redeemer Himself who made all things had but straw to His bed. And if our new cope is gone, we can make our processions in the old one, and please God no less. Nay, we may please Him more perhaps, for He knows that it is by no will of ours that we do so.”

But there had been a dismal scene at the chapter next morning. The Prior had made them a speech, with a passionate white face and hands that shook, and declared that the sermon would be their ruin yet if the King’s Grace heard of it.

“There was a fellow that went out half-way through,” he cried in panic, “how do we know whether he is not talking with his Grace even now? I will not have such sermons; and you shall be my witnesses that I said so.”

The monks eyed one another miserably. How could they prosper under such a prior as this?

But worse was to follow, though it did not directly affect this house. The bill, so long threatened, dissolving the smaller houses, was passed in February by a Parliament carefully packed to carry out the King’s wishes, and from which the spiritual peers were excluded by his “permission to them to absent themselves.” Lewes Priory, of course, exceeded the limit of revenue under which other houses were suppressed, and even received one monk who had obtained permission to go there when his community fell; but in spite of the apparent encouragement from the preamble of the bill which stated that “in the great solemn monasteries … religion was right well kept,” it was felt that this act was but the herald of another which should make an end of Religious Houses altogether.

But there was a breath of better news later on, when tidings came in the early summer that Anne was in disgrace. It was well known that it was her influence that egged the King on, and that there was none so fierce against the old ways. Was it not possible that Henry might even yet repent himself, if she were out of the way?

Then the tidings were confirmed, and for a while there was hope.

Sir Nicholas Maxwell rode over to see Chris, and was admitted into one of the parlours to talk with him.

He seemed furiously excited, and hardly saluted his brother-in-law.

“Chris,” he said, “I have come straight from London with great news. The

King’s harlot is fallen.”

Chris stared.

“Dead?” he said.

“Dead in a day or two, thank God!”

He spat furiously.

“God strike her!” he cried. “She has wrought all the mischief, I believe. They told me so a year back, but I did not believe it.”

“And where is she?”

Then Nicholas told his story, his ruddy comely face bright with exultation, for he had no room for pity left. The rumours that had come to Lewes were true. Anne had been arrested suddenly at Greenwich during the sports, and had been sent straight to the Tower. The King was weary of her, though she had borne him a child; and did not scruple to bring the most odious charges against her. She had denied, and denied; but it was useless. She had wept and laughed in prison, and called on God to vindicate her; but the process went on none the less. The marriage had been declared null and void by Dr. Cranmer who had blessed it; and now she was condemned for sinning against it.

“But she is either his wife,” said Chris amazed, “or else she is not guilty of adultery.”

Nicholas chuckled.

“God save us, Chris; do you think Henry can’t manage it?”

Then he grew white with passion, and beat the table and damned the King and Anne and Cranmer to hell together.

Chris glanced up, drumming his fingers softly on the table.

“Nick,” he said, “there is no use in that. When is she to die?”

The knight’s face flushed again with pleasure, and he showed his teeth set together.

“Two days,” he said, “please God, or three at the most. And she will not meet those she has sent before her, or John Fisher whose head she had brought to her—the bloody Herodias!”

“Pray God that she will!” said Chris softly. “They will pray for her at least.”

“Pah!” shouted Nicholas, “an eye for an eye for me!”

Chris said nothing. He was thinking of all that this might mean. Who could know what might not happen? Nicholas broke in again presently.

“I heard a fine tale,” he said, “do you know that the woman is in the very room where she slept the night before the crowning? Last time it was for the crown to be put on; now it is for the head to be taken off. And it is true that she weeps and laughs. They can hear her laugh two storeys away, I hear.”

“Nick,” said Chris suddenly, “I am weary of that. Let her alone. Pray

God she may turn!”

Nicholas stared astonished, and a little awed too. Chris used not to be like this; he seemed quieter and stronger; he had never dared to speak so before.

“Yes; I am weary of this,” said Chris again. “I stormed once at Ralph, and gained nothing. We do not win by those weapons. Where is Ralph?”

Nicholas knit his lips to keep in the fury that urged him.

“He is with Cromwell still,” he said venomously, “and very busy, I hear.

They will be making him a lord soon—but there will be no lady.”

Chris had heard of Beatrice’s rejection of Ralph.

“He is still busy?”

“Why, yes; he worked long at this bill, I hear.”

Chris asked a few more questions, and learned that Ralph seemed fiercer than ever since the Visitation. He was well-known at Court; had been seen riding with the King; and it was supposed that he was rising rapidly in favour every day.

“God help him!” sighed Chris.

The change that had come over Chris was very much marked. Neither a life in the world would have done it, nor one in the peace of the cloister; but an alternation of the two. He had been melted by the fire of the inner life, and braced by the external bitterness of adversity. Ralph’s visit to the priory, culminating in the passionless salutation of him in the cloister as being a guest and therefore a representative of Christ, had ended that stage in the development of the monk’s character. Chris was disappointed in his brother, fearful for him and stern in his attitude towards him; but he was not resentful. He was sincere when he prayed God to help him.

When Nicholas had eaten and gone, carrying messages to Mary, Chris told the others, and there was a revival of hope in the house.

Then a few days later came the news of Anne’s death and of the marriage of the King with Jane Seymour on the following day. At least Jane was a lawful wife and queen in the Catholics’ eyes, for Katharine too was dead.

Chris had now passed through the minor orders, the sub-diaconate and the diaconate, and was looking forward to priesthood. It had been thought advisable by his superiors, in view of the troubled state of the times, to apply for the necessary dispensations, and they had been granted without difficulty. So many monks who were not priests had been turned into the world resourceless, since they could not be appointed to benefices, that it was thought only fair to one who was already bound by vows of religion and sacred orders not to hold him back from an opportunity to make his living, should affairs be pushed further in the direction of dissolution.

He was looking forward with an extraordinary zeal to the crown of priesthood. It seemed to him a possession that would compensate for all other losses. If he could but make the Body of the Lord, lift It before the Throne, and hold It in his hands, all else was trifling.

There were waves of ecstatic peace again breaking over his soul as he thought of it; as he moved behind the celebrant at high mass, lifted the pall of the chalice, and sang the exultant Ite missa est when all was done. What a power would be his on that day! He would have his finger then on the huge engine of grace, and could turn it whither he would, spraying infinite force on this and that soul, on Ralph stubbornly fighting against God in London, on his mother silent and bitter at home, on his father anxious and courageous, waiting for disaster, on Margaret trembling in Rusper nunnery as she contemplated the defiance she had flung in the King’s face.

The Prior had given him but little encouragement; he had sent for him one day, and told him that he might prepare himself for priesthood by Michaelmas, for a foreign bishop was coming to them, and leave would be obtained for him to administer the rite. But he had not said a word of counsel or congratulation; but had nodded to the young monk, and turned his sickly face to the papers again on his table.

Dom Anthony, the pleasant stout guest-master, who had preached the sermon in Christmastide, said a word of comfort, as they walked in the cloister together.

“You must not take it amiss, brother,” he said, “my Lord Prior is beside himself with terror. He does not know how to act.”

Chris asked whether there were any new reason for alarm.

“Oh, no!” said the monk, “but the people are getting cold towards us here. You have seen how few come to mass here now, or to confession. They are going to the secular priests instead.”

Chris remembered one or two other instances of this growing coldness. The poor folks who came for food complained of its quality two or three times; and one fellow, an old pensioner of the house, who had lost a leg, threw his portion down on the doorstep.

“I will have better than that some day,” he had said, as he limped off. Chris had gathered up the cold lentils patiently and carried them back to the kitchen.

On another day a farmer had flatly refused a favour to the monk who superintended the priory-farm.

“I will not have your beasts in my orchard,” he had said roughly. “You are not my masters.”

The congregations too were visibly declining, as the guest-master had said. The great nave beyond the screen looked desolate in the summer-mornings, as the sunlight lay in coloured patches on the wide empty pavement between the few faithful gathered in front, and the half dozen loungers who leaned in the shadow of the west wall—men who fulfilled their obligation of hearing mass, with a determination to do so with the least inconvenience to themselves, and who scuffled out before the blessing.

It was evident that the tide of faith and reverence was beginning to ebb even in the quiet country towns.

As the summer drew on the wider world too had its storms. A fierce sermon was preached at the opening of Convocation, by Dr. Latimer, now Bishop of Worcester, at the express desire of the Archbishop, that scourged not only the regular but the secular clergy as well. The sermon too was more furiously Protestant than any previously preached on such an occasion; pilgrimages, the stipends for masses, image-worship, and the use of an unknown tongue in divine service, were alike denounced as contrary to the “pure gospel.” The phrases of Luther were abundantly used in the discourse; and it was evident, from the fact that no public censure fell upon the preacher, that Henry’s own religious views had developed since the day that he had published his attack on the foreign reformers.

The proceedings of Convocation confirmed the suspicion that the sermon aroused. With an astonishing compliance the clergy first ratified the decree of nullity in the matter of Anne’s marriage with the King, disclaimed obedience to Rome, and presented a list of matters for which they requested reform. In answer to this last point the King, assisted by a couple of bishops, sent down to the houses, a month later, a paper of articles to which the clergy instantly agreed. These articles proceeded in the direction of Protestantism through omission rather than affirmation. Baptism, Penance and the Sacrament of the Altar were spoken of in Catholic terms; the other four sacraments were omitted altogether; on the other hand, again, devotion to saints, image-worship, and prayers for the departed were enjoined with important qualifications.

Finally it was agreed to support the King in his refusal to be represented at the proposed General Council at Mantua.

The tidings of all this, filtering in to the house at Lewes by priests and Religious who stayed there from time to time, did not tend to reassure those who looked for peace. The assault was not going to stop at matters of discipline; it was dogma that was aimed at, and, worse even than that, the foundation on which dogma rested. It was not an affair of Religious Houses, or even of morality; there was concerned the very Rock itself on which Christendom based all faith and morals. If it was once admitted that a National Church, apart from the See of Rome, could in the smallest degree adjudicate on a point of doctrine, the unity of the Catholic Church as understood by every monk in the house, was immediately ruptured.

Again and again in chapter there were terrible scenes. The Prior raved weakly, crying that it was not the part of a good Catholic to resist his prince, that the Apostle himself enjoined obedience to those in authority; that the new light of learning had illuminated perplexing problems; and that in the uncertainty it was safer to follow the certain duty of civil obedience. Dom Anthony answered that a greater than St. Paul had bidden His followers to render to God the things that were God’s; that St. Peter was crucified sooner than obey Nero—and the Prior cried out for silence; and that he could not hear his Christian King likened to the heathen emperor. Monk after monk would rise; one following his Prior, and disclaiming personal learning and responsibility; another with ironic deference saying that a man’s soul was his own, and that not even a Religious Superior could release from the biddings of conscience; another would balance himself between the parties, declaring that the distinction of duties was insoluble; that in such a case as this it was impossible to know what was due to God and what to man. Yet another voice would rise from time to time declaring that the tales that they heard were incredible; that it was impossible that the King should intend such evil against the Church; he still heard his three masses a day as he had always done; there was no more ardent defender of the Sacrament of the Altar.

Chris used to steady himself in this storm of words as well as he could, by reflecting that he probably would not have to make a decision, for it would be done for him, at least as regarded his life in the convent or out, by his superiors. Or again he would fix his mind resolutely on his approaching priesthood; while the Prior sat gnawing his lips, playing with his cross and rapping his foot, before bursting out again and bidding them all be silent, for they knew not what they were meddling with.

The misery rose to its climax when the Injunctions arrived; and the chapter sat far into the morning, meeting again after dinner to consider them.

These were directions, issued to the clergy throughout the country, by the authority of the King alone; and this very fact was significant of what the Royal Supremacy meant. Some of them did not touch the Religious, and were intended only for parish-priests; but others were bitterly hard to receive.

The community was informed that in future, once in every quarter, a sermon was to be preached against the Bishop of Rome’s usurped power; the Ten Articles, previously issued, were to be brought before the notice of the congregation; and careful instructions were to be given as regards superstition in the matter of praying to the saints. It was the first of these that caused the most strife.

Dom Anthony, who was becoming more and more the leader of the conservative party, pointed out that the See of Peter was to every Catholic the root of authority and unity, and that Christianity itself was imperilled if this rock were touched.

The Prior angrily retorted that it was not the Holy See that was to be assaulted, but the erection falsely raised upon it; it was the abuse of power, not the use of it that had to be denounced.

Dom Anthony requested the Prior to inform him where the line of distinction lay; and the Prior in answer burst into angry explanations, instancing the pecuniary demands of the Pope, the appointment of foreigners to English benefices, and all the rest of the accusations that were playing such a part now in the religious controversy of the country.

Dom Anthony replied that those were not the matters principally aimed at by the Injunction; it concerned rather the whole constitution of Christ’s Church, and was a question of the Pope’s or the King’s supremacy over that part of it that lay in England.

Finally the debate was ended by the Prior’s declaration that he could trust no one to preach the enjoined sermon but himself, and that he would see to it on his own responsibility.

It was scarcely an inspiring atmosphere for one who was preparing to take on him the burden of priesthood in the Catholic Church.

CHAPTER II

SACERDOS IN AETERNUM

It was a day of wonderful autumn peace when Chris first sang mass in the presence of the Community.

The previous day he had received priesthood from the hands of the little old French bishop in the priory church; one by one strange mystical ceremonies had been performed; the stole had been shifted and crossed on the breast, the token of Christ’s yoke; the chasuble had been placed over his head, looped behind; then the rolling cry to the Spirit of God who alone seals to salvation and office had pealed round the high roof and down the long nave that stretched away westwards in sunlit gloom; while across the outstretched hands of the monk had been streaked the sacred oil, giving him the power to bless the things of God. The hands were bound up, as if to heal the indelible wound of love that had been inflicted on them; and, before they were unbound, into the hampered fingers were slid the sacred vessels of the altar, occupied now by the elements of bread and wine; while the awful power to offer sacrifice for the quick and the dead was committed to him in one tremendous phrase.

Then the mass went on; and the new priest, kneeling with Dom Anthony at a little bench set at the foot of the altar steps, repeated aloud with the bishop the words of the liturgy from the great painted missal lying before him.

How strange it had been too when all was over! He stood by a pillar in the nave, beneath St. Pancras’s image, while all came to receive his blessing. First, the Prior, pale and sullen, as always now; then the Community, some smiling and looking into his eyes before they knelt, some perfunctory, some solemn and sedate with downcast faces; each kissed the fragrant hands, and stood aside, while the laity came up; and first among them his father and Mary.

His place too in the refectory had a flower or two laid beside it; and the day had gone by in a bewildering dream. He had walked with his father and sister a little, and had found himself smiling and silent in their company.

In the evening he had once more gone through the ceremonies of mass, Dom Anthony stood by, and watched and reminded and criticised. And now the morning was come, and he stood at the altar.

The little wind had dropped last night, and the hills round Lewes stood in mellow sunlight; the atmosphere was full of light and warmth, that tender glow that falls on autumn days; the trees in the court outside stood, poised on the brink of sleep, with a yellow pallor tinging their leaves; the thousand pigeons exulted and wheeled in the intoxicating air.

The shadowy church was alight with sunshine that streamed through the clerestory windows on to the heavy pillars, the unevenly paved floor, and crept down the recumbent figures of noble and bishop from head to foot. There were a few people present beyond the screen, Sir James and his daughter in front, watching with a tender reverence the harvesting of the new priest, as he prepared to gather under his hands the mystical wheat and grapes of God.

Chris was perfectly practised in his ceremonies; and there was no anxiety to dissipate the overpowering awe that lay on his soul. He felt at once natural and unreal; it was supremely natural that he should be here; he could not conceive being other than a priest; there was in him a sense of a relaxed rather than an intensified strain; and yet the whole matter was strange and intangible, as he felt the supernatural forces gathering round, and surging through his soul.

He was aware of a dusky sunlit space about him, of the glimmer of the high candles; and nearer of the white cloth, the shining vessels, the gorgeous missal, and the rustle of the ministers’ vestments. But the whole was shot with an inner life, each detail was significant and sacramental; and he wondered sometimes at the inaudible vibration that stirred the silent air round him, as he spoke the familiar words to which he had listened so often.

He kept his eyes resolutely down as he turned from time to time, spreading his hands to the people, and was only partly conscious of the faces watching him from the dark stalls in front and the sunlit nave beyond. Even the sacred ministers, Dom Anthony and another, seemed to be little more than crimson impersonal figures that moved and went about their stately business with deft and gracious hands.

As he began to penetrate more nearly to the heart of the mystery, and the angels’ song before the throne rolled up from the choir, there was an experience of a yet further retirement from the things of sense. Even the glittering halpas, and the gleams of light above it where the five chapels branched behind—even these things became shrouded; there was just a sheet of white beneath him, the glow of a chalice, and the pale disc of the sacrificial bread.

Then, as he paused, with hands together—”famulorum famularumque tuarum”—there opened out the world where his spirit was bending its intention. Figure after figure came up and passed before his closed eyes, and on each he turned the beam of God’s grace. First Ralph, sneering and aloof in his rich dress, intent on some Satanic business;—Chris seized as it were the power of God, and enveloped and penetrated him with it. Then Margaret, waiting terrified on the divine will; his mother in her complacent bitterness; Mary; his father—and as he thought of him it seemed as if all God’s blessings were not too great; Nicholas; his own brethren in religion, his Prior, contracted and paralysed with terror; Dom Anthony, with his pathetic geniality….

Ah! how short was the time; and yet so long that the Prior looked up sharply, and the deacon shifted in his rustling silk.

Then again the hands opened, and the stately flood of petition poured on, as through open gates to the boundless sea that awaited it, where the very heart of God was to absorb it into Itself.

The great names began to flit past, like palaces on a river-brink, their bases washed by the pouring liturgy—Peter and Paul, Simon and Thaddeus, Cosmas and Damian—vast pleasure houses alight with God, while near at hand now gleamed the line of the infinite ocean.

The hands came together, arched in blessing; and it marked the first sting of the healing water, as the Divine Essence pushed forward to meet man’s need.

“Hanc igitur oblatianem …”

Then followed the swift silent signs, as if the pilot were ordering sails out to meet the breeze.

The muttering voice sank to a deliberate whisper, the ripples ceased to leap as the river widened, and Chris was delicately fingering the white linen before taking the Host into his hands.

There was a swift glance up, as to the great Sun that burned overhead, one more noiseless sign, and he sank forward in unutterable awe, with his arms on the altar, and the white disc, hovering on the brink of non-existence, beneath his eyes.

The faintest whisper rose from behind as the people shifted their constrained attitudes. Sir James glanced up, his eyes full of tears, at the distant crimson figure beneath the steady row of lights, motionless with outspread hands, poised over the bosom of God’s Love.

The first murmured words broke the silence; as if next to the Infinite Pity rose up the infinite need of man—Nobis quoque peccatoribus—and sank to silence again.

Then loud and clear rang out Per omnia saecula saeculorum; and the choir of monks sang Amen.

So the great mystery moved on, but upborne now by the very Presence itself that sustained all things. From the limitless sea of mercy, the children cried through the priest’s lips to their Father who was in heaven, and entreated the Lamb of God who takes away sin to have mercy on them and give them peace.

Then from far beyond the screen Mary could see how the priest leaning a little forward towards That which he bore in his hands, looked on what he bore in them; and she whispered softly with him the words that he was speaking. Ave in aeternum sanctissima caro Christi …

Again she hid her face; and when she raised it once, all was over, and the Lord had entered and sanctified the body and soul of the man at whose words He had entered the creature of bread.

The father and daughter stood together silently in the sunshine outside the west end of the church, waiting for Chris. He had promised to come to them there for a moment when his thanksgiving was done.

Beyond the wall, and the guest-house where the Visitors had lived those two disastrous days, rose up the far sunlit downs, shadowed here and there with cup-like hollows, standing like the walls about Jerusalem.

As they turned, on the right above the red roofs of the town, rose the downs again, vast slopes and shoulders, over which Chris had ridden so short a while ago bearded and brown with hunting. It was over there that Ralph had come, through that dip, which seemed against the skyline a breach in a high wall.

Ah! surely God would spare this place; so stately and quiet, so graciously sheltered by the defences that He Himself had raised! If all England tottered and fell, this at least might stand, this vast home of prayer that stirred day and night with the praises of the Eternal and the petitions of the mortal—this glorious house where a priest so dear to them had brought forth from his mystical paternity the very Son of God!

The door opened behind them, and Chris came out pale and smiling with a little anxious-eyed monk beside him. His eyes lightened as he saw them standing there; but he turned again for a moment.

“Yes—father,” he said. “What was it?”

“You stayed too long,” said the other, “at the famularumque tuarum; the rubric says nullus nimis immoretur, you know;—nimis immoretur.”

“Yes,” said Chris.

CHAPTER III

THE NORTHERN RISING

A few of the smaller Religious houses had surrendered themselves to the King before the passing of the bill in the early spring; and the rest of them were gradually yielded up after its enactment during the summer of the same year; and among them was Rusper. Chris heard that his sister Margaret had returned to Overfield, and would stay there for the present.

Throughout the whole of England there were the same scenes to be witnessed. A troop of men, headed by a Commissioner, would ride up one evening to some village where a little convent stood, demand entrance at the gate, pass through, and disappear from the eyes of the watching crowd. Then the next day the work would begin; the lead would be stripped from the church and buildings; the treasures corded in bundles; the woodwork of the interior put up to auction on the village green; and a few days later the troop would disappear again, heavily laden, leaving behind roofless walls, and bewildered Religious in their new secular dress with a few shillings in their pockets, staring after the rich cavalcade and wondering what was best to do.

It had been hoped that the King would stay his hand at the death of Anne, and even yet return to the obedience of the Holy See. The Pope was encouraged to think so by the authorities on the continent, and in England itself there prevailed even confidence that a return to the old ways would be effected. But Henry had gone too far; he had drunk too deeply of the wealth that lay waiting for him in the treasuries of the Religious houses, and after a pause of expectation he set his hand to the cup again. It was but natural too, and for more noble motives, to such a character as his. As he had aimed in his youth at nothing less than supremacy in tennis, hunting and tourney, and later in architecture, music and theological reputation; as, for the same reason Wolsey had fallen, when the King looked away from girls and sports to the fiercer game of politics; so now it was intolerable to Henry that there should be even the shadow of a spiritual independence within his domain.

A glow of resentful disappointment swept through the North of England at the news. It burst out into flame in Lincolnshire, and was not finally quenched until the early summer of the following year.

The news that reached Lewes from time to time during the winter and spring sent the hearts of all that heard it through the whole gamut of emotions. At one time fierce hope, then despair, then rising confidence, then again blank hopelessness—each in turn tore the souls of the monks; and misery reached its climax in the summer at the news of the execution at Tyburn of the Abbots of Jervaulx and Fountains, with other monks and gentlemen.

The final recital of the whole tragedy was delivered to them at the mouth of a Religious from the Benedictine cell at Middlesborough who had been released by the Visitors at his own request, but who had afterwards repented and joined the rising soon after the outset; he had been through most of the incidents, and then when failure was assured had fled south in terror for his life, and was now on his way to the Continent to take up his monastic vocation once more.

The Prior was away on one of the journeys that he so frequently undertook at this time, no man knew whither, or the ex-monk and rebel would have been refused admittance; but the sub-Prior was persuaded to take him in for a night, and he sat long in one of the parlours that evening telling his story.

Chris leaned against the wall and watched him as he talked with the candle-light on his face. He was a stout middle-aged man in layman’s dress, for he was not yet out of peril; he sat forward in his chair, making preacher’s gestures as he spoke, and using well-chosen vivid words.

“They were gathered already when I joined them on their way to York; there were nearly ten thousand of them on the road, with Aske at their head. I have never set eyes on such a company! There was a troop of gentlemen and their sons riding with Aske in front, all in armour; and then the rabble behind with gentlemen again to their officers. The common folk had pikes and hooks only; and some were in leather harness, and some without; but they marched well and kept good order. They were of all sorts: hairy men and boys; and miners from the North. There were monks, too, and friars, I know not how many, that went with the army to encourage them; and everywhere we went the women ran out of their homes with food and drink, and prayed God to bless us; and the bells were rung in the village churches. We slept as we could, some in houses, some in churchyards and by the wayside, and as many of us as could get into the churches heard mass each day. As many too as could make them, wore the Five Wounds on a piece of stuff sewn on the arm. You would have said that none could stand against us, so eager we were and full of faith.”

“There was a song, was there not?” began one of the monks.

“Yes, father. We sang it as we went.

“Christ crucified!

For thy wounds wide

Us commons guide

Which pilgrims be!

Through God his grace

For to purchase

Old wealth and peace

Of the spiritualty!

“You could hear it up and down the lines, sung with weeping and shouting.”

He described how they came to York, and how the Mayor was forced to admit them. They stayed there a couple of days; and Aske published his directions for all the ejected Religious to return to their houses.

“I went to a little cell near by—I forget its name—to help some canons to settle in again, whose friendship I had made. I had told them then that my mind was to enter Religion once more, and they took me very willingly. We got there at night. The roof was gone from the dormitory, but we slept there for all that—such of us as could sleep—for I heard one of them sobbing for joy as he lay there in his old corner under the stars; and we sang mass in the morning, as well as we could. The priest had an old tattered vestment that hardly hung on his shoulders; and there was no cross but one that came from a pair of beads, and that we hung over the altar. When I left them again, they were at their office as before, and busy roofing the house with old timbers; for my lord Cromwell had all the lead. And all their garden was trampled; but they said they would do very well. The village-folk were their good friends, and would bring them what they needed.”

He described his journey to Doncaster; the furious excitement of the villages he passed through, and the news that reached him hour after hour as to the growing vastness of Aske’s forces.

“There were thirty thousand, I heard, on the banks of the Don on one side; for my lords Nevill and Lumley and others had ridden in with St. Cuthbert his banner and arms, and five thousand men, besides those that came in from all the country. And on the further side was my Lord Shrewsbury for the King, with the Duke and his men. Master Aske had all he could do to keep his men back from being at them. Some of the young sparks were as terriers at a rat-hole. There was a parley held on the bridge, for Norfolk knew well that he must gain time; and Aske sent his demands to his Grace, and that was the mistake—”

The man beat one hand into the other and looked round with a kindling force—

“That was the mistake! He was too loyal for such work, and did not guess at their craft. Well, while we waited there, our men began to make off; their farms were wanting them, and their wives and the rest, and we melted. Master Aske had to be everywhere at once, it was no fault of his. My Lord Derby was marching up upon the houses again, and seeking to drive the monks out once more. But there was not an act of violence done by our men; not a penny-piece taken or a house burned. They were peaceable folk, and asked no more than that their old religion should be given back to them, and that they might worship God as they had always done.”

He went on to explain how the time had been wasted in those fruitless negotiations, and how the force dwindled day by day. Various answers were attempted by the King, containing both threats and promises, and in these, as in all else the hand of Cromwell was evident. Finally, towards the end of November, the insurgents gathered again for another meeting with the King’s representatives at Doncaster, summoned by beacons on the top of the high Yorkshire moors, and by the reversed pealing of the church bells.

“We had a parley among ourselves at Pomfret first, and had a great to-do, though I saw little of it; and drew up our demands; and then set out for Doncaster again. The duke was there, with the King’s pardon in his hand, in the Whitefriars; and a promise that all should be as we asked. So we went back to Pomfret, well-pleased, and the next day on St. Thomas’ hill the herald read the pardon to us all; and we, poor fools, thought that his Grace meant to keep his word—”

The monk looked bitterly round, sneering with his white strong teeth set together like a savage dog’s; and there was silence for a moment. The Sub-Prior looked nervously round the faces of his subjects, for this was treasonable talk to hear.

Then the man went on. He himself it seemed had retired again to the little cell where he had seen the canons settled in a few weeks previously; and heard nothing of what was going forward; except that the heralds were going about the country, publishing the King’s pardon to all who had taken part in the Rebellion, and affixing it to the market-cross in each town and village, with touching messages from the King relating to the grief which he had felt on hearing that his dear children believed such tales about him.

Little by little, however, the discontent began to smoulder once more, for the King’s pledges of restoration were not fulfilled; and Cromwell, who was now recognised to be the inspirer of all the evil done against Religion, remained as high as ever in the royal favour. Aske, who had been to the King in person, and given him an account of all that had taken place, now wrote to him that there was a danger of a further rising if the delay continued, for there were no signs yet of the promised free parliament being called at York.

Then again disturbances had broken out.

“I was at Hull,” said the monk, “with Sir Francis Bygod in January; but we did nothing, and only lost our leader, and all the while Norfolk was creeping up with his army. It was piteous to think what might not have been done if we had not trusted his Grace; but ‘twas no good, and I was back again in the dales here and there, hiding for my life by April. Everywhere ‘twas the same; the monks were haled out again from their houses, and men were hanged by the score. I cut down four myself near Meux, and gave them Christian burial at night. One was a monk, and hanged in his habit. But the worst of all was at York.”

The man’s face twitched with emotion, and he passed his hand over his mouth once or twice before continuing.

“I did not dare to go into the court for fear I should be known; but I stood outside in the crowd and watched them go in. There was a fellow riding with Norfolk—a false knave of a man whom we had all learnt to hate at Doncaster—for he was always jeering at us secretly and making mischief when he could. I saw him with the duke before, when we went into the Whitefriars for the pardon; and he stood there behind with the look of a devil on his face; and now here he was again—”

“His name, sir?” put in Dom Adrian.

“Torridon, father, Torridon! He was a—”

There was a sharp movement in the room, so that the monk stopped and looked round him amazed. Chris felt the blood ebb from his heart and din in his ears, and he swayed a little as he leaned against the wall. He saw Dom Anthony lean forward and whisper to the stranger; and through the haze that was before his eyes saw the other look at him sharply, with a fallen jaw.

Then the monk rose and made a little stiff inclination to Chris, deferential and courteous, but with a kind of determined dignity in it too.

When Chris had recovered himself, the monk was deep in his story, but

Ralph had fallen out of it.

“You would not believe it,” he was saying, “but on the very jury that was to try Master Aske and Constable, there were empanelled their own blood-relations; and that by the express intention of Norfolk. John Aske was one of them, and some others who had to wives the sons of my Lord Darcy and Sir Robert Constable. You see how it would be. If the prisoners were found guilty, men would say that it must be so, for that their own kin had condemned them; and if they were to be acquitted, then these men themselves would be cast.”

There again broke out a murmur from the listening faces, as the man paused.

“Well, they were cast, as you know, for not taking the King to be the supreme head of the Church, and for endeavouring to force the King to hold a parliament that he willed not. And I was at York again when Master Aske was brought back from London to be hanged, and I saw it!”

Again an uncontrollable emotion shook him; and he propped his face on his hand as he ended his tale.

“There were many of his friends there in the crowd, and scarcely one dared to cry out, God save you, sir…. I dared not….”

He gave one rending sob, and Chris felt his eyes prick with tears at the sight of so much sorrow. It was piteous to see a brave man thinking himself a coward.

Dom Anthony leaned forward.

“Thank you, father,” he said, though his voice was a little husky, “and thank God that he died well. You have touched all our hearts.”

“I was a hound,” sobbed the man, “a hound, that I did not cry out to him and tell him that I loved him.”

“No, no, father,” said the other tenderly, “you must not think so. You must serve God well now, and pray for his soul.”

The bell sounded out for Compline as he spoke, and the monks rose.

“You will come into choir, father,” said the Sub-Prior.

The man nodded, stood up, and followed him out.

Chris was in a strange ferment as he stood in his stall that night. It had been sad enough to hear of that gallant attempt to win back the old liberties and the old Faith—that attempt that had been a success except for the insurgents’ trust in their King—and of the death of the leaders.

But across the misery had pierced a more poignant grief, as he had learnt how Ralph’s hand was in this too and had taken once more the wrong side in God’s quarrel. But still he had no resentment; the conflict had passed out of the personal plane into an higher, and he thought of his brother as God’s enemy rather than his own. Would his prayers then never prevail—the prayers that he speeded up in the smoke of the great Sacrifice morning by morning for that zealous mistaken soul? Or was it perhaps that that brother of his must go deeper yet, before coming out to knowledge and pardon?

CHAPTER IV

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SEAL

The autumn drew in swiftly. The wet south-west wind blew over the downs that lay between Lewes and the sea, and beat down the loose browning leaves of the trees about the Priory. The grass in the cloister-garth grew rank and dark with the constant rain that drove and dropped over the high roofs.

And meanwhile the tidings grew heavier still.

After Michaelmas the King set to work in earnest. He had been checked by the northern risings, and still paused to see whether the embers had been wholly quenched; and then when it was evident that the North was as submissive as the South, began again his business of gathering in the wealth that was waiting.

He started first in the North, under show of inflicting punishment for the encouragement that the Religious had given to the late rebellions; and one by one the great abbeys were tottering. Furness and Sawley had already fallen, with Jervaulx and the other houses, and Holme Cultram was placed under the care of a superior who could be trusted to hand over his charge when called upon.

But up to the present not many great houses had actually fallen, except those which were supposed to have taken a share in the revolt; and owing to the pains taken by the Visitors to contradict the report that the King intended to lay his hands on the whole monastic property of England, it was even hoped by a few sanguine souls that the large houses might yet survive.

There were hot discussions in the chapter at Lewes from time to time during the year. The “Bishops’ Book,” issued by a committee of divines and approved by the King, and containing a digest of the new Faith that was being promulgated, arrived during the summer and was fiercely debated; but so high ran the feeling that the Prior dropped the matter, and the book was put away with other papers of the kind on an honourable but little-used shelf.

The acrimony in domestic affairs began to reach its climax in October, when the prospects of the Priory’s own policy came up for discussion.

Some maintained that they were safe, and that quietness and confidence were their best security, and these had the support of the Prior; others declared that the best hope lay in selling the possessions of the house at a low price to some trustworthy man who would undertake to sell then back again at only a small profit to himself when the storm was passed.

The Prior rose in wrath when this suggestion was made.

“Would you have me betray my King?” he cried. “I tell you I will have none of it. It is not worthy of a monk to have such thoughts.”

And he sat down and would hear no more, nor speak.

There were whispered conferences after that among the others, as to what his words meant. Surely there was nothing dishonourable in the device; they only sought to save what was their own! And how would the King be “betrayed” by such an action?

They had an answer a fortnight later; and it took them wholly by surprise.

During the second week in November the Prior had held himself more aloof than ever; only three or four of the monks, with the Sub-Prior among them, were admitted to his cell, and they were there at all hours. Two or three strangers too arrived on horseback, and were entertained by the Prior in a private parlour. And then on the morning of the fourteenth the explanation came.

When the usual business of the chapter was done, the faults confessed and penances given, and one or two small matters settled, the Prior, instead of rising to give the signal to go, remained in his chair, his head bent on to his hand.

It was a dark morning, heavy and lowering; and from where Chris sat at the lower end of the great chamber he could scarcely make out the features of those who sat under the high window at the east; but as soon as the Prior lifted his face and spoke, he knew by that tense strain of the voice that something impended.

“There is another matter,” said the Prior; and paused again.

For a moment there was complete silence. The Sub-Prior leant a little forward and was on the point of speaking, when his superior lifted his head again and straightened himself in his chair.

“It is this,” he said, and his voice rang hard and defiant, “it is this. It is useless to think we can save ourselves. We are under suspicion, and worse than suspicion. I have hoped, and prayed, and striven to know God’s will; and I have talked with my Lord Cromwell not once or twice, but often. And it is useless to resist any further.”

His voice cracked with misery; but Chris saw him grip the bosses of his chair-arms in an effort for self-control. His own heart began to sicken; this was not frightened raving such as he had listened to before; it was the speech of one who had been driven into decision, as a rat into a corner.

“I have talked with the Sub-Prior, and others; and they think with me in this. I have kept it back from the rest, that they might serve God in peace so long as was possible. But now I must tell you all, my sons, that we must leave this place.”

There was a hush of terrible tension. The monks had known that they were threatened; they could not think otherwise with the news that came from all parts, but they had not known that catastrophe was so imminent. An old monk opposite Chris began to moan and mutter; but the Prior went on immediately.

“At least I think that we must leave. It may be otherwise, if God has pity on us; I do not know; but we must be ready to leave, if it be His will, and,—and to say so.”

He was speaking in abrupt sentences, with pauses between, in which he appeared to summon his resolution to speak again, and force out his tale. There was plainly more behind too; and his ill-ease seemed to deepen on him.

“I wish no one to speak now,” he said, “Instead of the Lady-mass to-morrow we shall sing mass of the Holy Ghost; and afterwards I shall have more to say to you again. I do not desire any to hold speech with any other, but to look into their own hearts and seek counsel of God there.”

He still sat a moment silent, then rose and gave the signal.

It was a strange day for Chris. He did not know what to think, but he was certain that they had not yet been told all. The Prior’s silences had been as pregnant as his words. There was something very close now that would be revealed immediately, and meanwhile he must think out how to meet it.

The atmosphere seemed charged all day; the very buildings wore a strange air, unfamiliar and menacing. The intimate bond between his soul and them, knit by associations of prayer and effort, appeared unreal and flimsy. He was tormented by doubtfulness; he could not understand on the one side how it was possible to yield to the King, on the other how it was possible to resist. No final decision could be made by him until he had heard the minds of his fellows; and fortunately they would all speak before him. He busied himself then with disentangling the strands of motive, desire, fear and hope, and waited for the shaking loose of the knot until he knew more.

Mass of the Holy Ghost was sung next morning by the Prior himself in red vestments; and Chris waited with expectant awe, remembering how the Carthusians under like circumstances had been visited by God; but the Host was uplifted and the bell rang; and there was nothing but the candle-lit gloom of the choir about the altar, and the sigh of the wind in the chapels behind.

Then in the chapter-meeting the Prior told them all.

He reminded them how they had prayed that morning for guidance, and that they must be fearless now in following it out. It was easy to be reckless and call it faith, but prudence and reasonable common-sense were attributes of the Christian no less than trust in God. They had not to consider now what they would wish for themselves, but what God intended for them so far as they could read it in the signs of the times.

“For myself,” he cried,—and Chris almost thought him sincere as he spoke, so kindled was his face—”for myself I should ask no more than to live and die in this place, as I had hoped. Every stone here is as dear to me as to you, and I think more dear, for I have been in a special sense the lord of it all; but I dare not think of that. We must be ready to leave all willingly if God wills. We thought that we had yielded all to follow Christ when we first set our necks here under His sweet yoke; but I think He asks of us even more now; and that we should go out from here even as we went out from our homes ten or twenty years ago. We shall be no further from our God outside this place; and we may be even nearer if we go out according to His will.”

He seemed on fire with zeal and truth. His timid peevish air was gone, and his delicate scholarly face was flushed as he spoke. Chris was astonished, and more perplexed than ever. Was it then possible that God’s will might lie in the direction he feared?

“Now this is the matter which we have to consider,” went on the Prior more quietly. “His Grace has sent to ask, through a private messenger from my Lord Cromwell, whether we will yield up the priory. There is no compulsion in the matter—” he paused significantly—”and his Grace desires each to act according to his judgment and conscience, of—of his own free will.”

There was a dead silence.

The news was almost expected by now. Through the months of anxiety each monk had faced the probability of such tidings coming to him sooner or later; and the last few days had brought expectation to its climax. Yet it was hard to see the enemy face to face, and to know that there was no possibility of resisting him finally.

The Sub-Prior rose to his feet and began to speak, glancing as if for corroboration to his superior from time to time. His mouth worked a little at the close of each sentence.

“My Lord Prior has shown us his own mind, and I am with him in the matter. His Grace treats us like his own children; he wishes us to be loving and obedient. But, as a father too, he has authority behind to compel us to his will if we will not submit. And, as my Lord Prior said yesterday, we do not know whether or no his Grace will not permit us to remain here after all, if we are docile; or perhaps refound the priory out of his own bounty. There is talk of the Chertsey monks going to the London Charterhouse from Bisham where the King set them last year. But we may be sure he will not do so with us if we resist his will now. I on my part then am in favour of yielding up the house willingly, and trusting ourselves to his Grace’s clemency.”

There was again silence as he sat down; and a pause of a minute or two before Dom Anthony rose. His ruddy face was troubled and perplexed; but he spoke resolutely enough.

He said that he could not understand why the matter had not been laid before them earlier, that they might have had time to consider it. The question was an extremely difficult one to the consciences of some of them. On the one hand there was the peril of acquiescing in sacrilege—the Prior twisted in his seat as he heard this—and on the other of wilfully and petulantly throwing away their only opportunity of saving their priory. He asked for time.

Several more made speeches, some in favour of the proposal, and some asking, as Dom Anthony had done, for further tine for consideration. They had no precedents, they said, on which to decide such a question, for they understood that it was not on account of treason that they were required to surrender the house and property.

The Prior rose with a white face.

“No, no,” he cried. “God forbid! That is over and done with. I—we have made our peace with my Lord Cromwell in that affair.”

“Then why,” asked Dom Anthony, “are we required to yield it?”

The Prior glanced helplessly at him.

“I—it is as a sign that the King is temporal lord of the land.”

“We do not deny that,” said the other.

“Some do,” said the Prior feebly.

There was a little more discussion. Dom Anthony remarked that it was not a matter of temporal but spiritual headship that was in question. To meddle with the Religious Orders was to meddle with the Vicar of Christ under whose special protection they were; and it seemed to him at least a probable opinion, so far as he had had time to consider it, that to yield, even in the hopes of saving their property ultimately, was to acquiesce in the repudiation of the authority of Rome.

And so it went on for an hour; and then as it grew late, the Prior rose once more, and asked if any one had a word to say who had not yet spoken.

Chris had intended to speak, but all that he wished to ask had already been stated by others; and he sat now silent, staring up at the Prior, and down at the smooth boarded floor at his feet. He had not an idea what to do. He was no theologian.

Then the Prior unmasked his last gun.

“As regards the matter of time for consideration, that is now passed. In spite of what some have said we have had sufficient warning. All here must have known that the choice would be laid before them, for months past; it is now an answer that is required of us.”

He paused a moment longer. His lips began to tremble, but he made a strong effort and finished.

“Master Petre will be here to-night, as my lord Cromwell’s representative, and will sit in the chapter-house to-morrow to receive the surrender.”

Dom Anthony started to his feet. The Prior made a violent gesture for silence, and then gave the signal to break up.

Again the bewildering day went past. The very discipline of the house was a weakness in the defence of the surprised party. It was impossible for them to meet and discuss the situation as they wished; and even the small times of leisure seemed unusually occupied. Dom Anthony was busy at the guest-house; one of the others who had spoken against the proposal was sent off on a message by the Prior, and another was ordered to assist the sacristan to clean the treasures in view of the Visitor’s coming.

Chris was not able to ask a word of advice from any of those whom he thought to be in sympathy with him.

He sat all day over his antiphonary, in the little carrel off the cloister, and as he worked his mind toiled like a mill.

He had progressed a long way with the work now, and was engaged on the pages that contained the antiphons for Lent. The design was soberer here; the angels that had rested among the green branches and early roses of Septuagesima, thrusting here a trumpet and there a harp among the leaves, had taken flight, and grave menacing creatures were in their place. A jackal looked from behind the leafless trunk, a lion lifted his toothed mouth to roar from a thicket of thorns, as they had lurked and bellowed in the bleak wilderness above the Jordan fifteen hundred years ago. They were gravely significant now, he thought; and scarcely knowing what he did he set narrow human eyes in the lion’s face (for he knew no better) and broadened the hanging jaws with a delicate line or two.

Then with a fierce impulse he crowned him, and surmounted the crown with a cross.

And all the while his mind toiled at the problem. There were three things open to him on the morrow. Either he might refuse to sign the surrender, and take whatever consequences might follow; or he might sign it; and there were two processes of thought by which he might take that action. By the first he would simply make an act of faith in his superiors, and do what they did because they did it; by the second he would sign it of his own responsibility because he decided to think that by doing so he would be taking the best action for securing his own monastic life.

He considered these three. To refuse to sign almost inevitably involved his ruin, and that not only, and not necessarily, in the worldly sense; about that he sincerely believed he did not care; but it would mean his exclusion from any concession that the King might afterwards make. He certainly would not be allowed under any circumstances, to remain in the home of his profession; and if the community was shifted he would not be allowed to go with them. As regards the second alternative he wondered whether it was possible to shift responsibility in that manner; as regards the third, he knew that he had very little capability in any case of foreseeing the course that events would take.

Then he turned it all over again, and considered the arguments for each course. His superiors were set over him by God; it was rash to set himself against them except in matters of the plainest conscience. Again it was cowardly to shelter himself behind this plea and so avoid responsibility. Lastly, he was bound to judge for himself.

The arguments twisted and turned as bewilderingly as the twining branches of his design; and behind each by which he might climb to decision lurked a beast. He felt helpless and dazed by the storm of conflicting motives.

As he bent over his work he prayed for light, but the question seemed more tangled than before; the hours were creeping in; by to-morrow he must decide.

Then the memory of the Prior’s advice to him once before came back to his mind; this was the kind of thing, he told himself, that he must leave to God, his own judgment was too coarse an instrument; he must wait for a clear supernatural impulse; and as he thought of it he laid his pencil down, dropped on to his knees, and commended it all to God, to the Mother of God, St. Pancras, St. Peter and St. Paul. Even as he did it, the burden lifted and he knew that he would know, when the time came.

Dr. Petre came that night, but Chris saw no more of him than his back as he went up the cloister with Dom Anthony to the Prior’s chamber. The Prior was not at supper, and his seat was empty in the dim refectory.

Neither was he at Compline; and it was with the knowledge that Cromwell’s man and their own Superior were together in conference, that the monks went up the dormitory stairs that night.

But he was in his place at the chapter-mass next morning, though he spoke to no one, and disappeared immediately afterwards.

Then at the appointed time the monks assembled in the chapter-house.

As Chris came in he lifted his eyes, and saw that the room was arrayed much as it had been at the visit of Dr. Layton and Ralph. A great table, heaped with books and papers, stood at the upper end immediately below the dais, and a couple of secretaries were there, sharp-looking men, seated at either end and busy with documents.

The Prior was in his place in the shadow and was leaning over and talking to a man who sat beside him. Chris could make out little of the latter except that he seemed to be a sort of lawyer or clerk, and was dressed in a dark gown and cap. He was turning over the leaves of a book as the Prior talked, and nodded his head assentingly from time to time.

When all the monks were seated, there was still a pause. It was strangely unlike the scene of a tragedy, there in that dark grave room with the quiet faces downcast round the walls, and the hands hidden in the cowl-sleeves. And even on the deeper plane it all seemed very correct and legal. There was the representative of the King, a capable learned man, with all the indications of law and order round him, and his two secretaries to endorse or check his actions. There too was the Community, gathered to do business in the manner prescribed by the Rule, with the deeds of foundation before their eyes, and the great brass convent seal on the table. There was not a hint of bullying or compulsion; these monks were asked merely to sign a paper if they so desired it. Each was to act for himself; there was to be no over-riding of individual privileges, or signing away another’s conscience.

Nothing could have been arranged more peaceably.

And yet to every man’s mind that was present the sedate room was black with horror. The majesty and terror of the King’s will brooded in the air; nameless dangers looked in at the high windows and into every man’s face; the quiet lawyer-like men were ministers of fearful vengeance; the very pens, ink and paper that lay there so innocently were sacraments of death or life.

The Prior ceased his whispering presently, glanced round to see if all were in their places, and then stood up.

His voice was perfectly natural as he told them that this was Dr. Petre, come down from Lord Cromwell to offer them an opportunity of showing their trust and love towards their King by surrendering to his discretion the buildings and property that they held. No man was to be compelled to sign; it must be perfectly voluntary on their part; his Grace wished to force no conscience to do that which it repudiated. For his own part, he said, he was going to sign with a glad heart. The King had shown his clemency in a hundred ways, and to that clemency he trusted.

Then he sat down; and Chris marvelled at his self-control.

Dr. Petre stood up, and looked round for a moment before opening his mouth; then he put his two hands on the table before him, dropped his eyes and began his speech.

He endorsed first what the Prior had said, and congratulated all there on possessing such a superior. It was a great happiness, he said, to deal with men who showed themselves so reasonable and so loyal. Some he had had to do with had not been so—and—and of course their stubbornness had brought its own penalty. But of that he did not wish to speak. On the other hand those who had shown themselves true subjects of his Grace had already found their reward. He had great pleasure in announcing to them that what the Prior had said to them a day or two before was true; and that their brethren in religion of Chertsey Abbey, who had been moved to Bisham last year, were to go to the London Charterhouse in less than a month. The papers were made out; he had assisted in their drawing up.

He spoke in a quiet restrained voice, and with an appearance of great deference; there was not the shadow of a bluster even when he referred to the penalties of stubbornness; it was very unlike the hot bullying arrogance of Dr. Layton. Then he ended—

“And so, reverend fathers, the choice is in your hands. His Grace will use no compulsion. You will hear presently that the terms of surrender are explicit in that point. He will not force one man to sign who is not convinced that he can best serve his King and himself by doing so. It would go sorely against his heart if he thought that he had been the means of making the lowest of his subjects to act contrary to the conscience that God has given him. My Lord Prior, I will beg of you to read the terms of surrender.”

The paper was read, and it was as it had been described. Again and again it was repeated in various phrases that the property was yielded of free-will. It was impossible to find in it even the hint of a threat. The properties in question were enumerated in the minutest manner, and the list included all the rights of the priory over the Cluniac cell of Castleacre.

The Prior laid the paper down, and looked at Dr. Petre.

The Commissioner rose from his seat, taking the paper as he did so, and so stood a moment.

“You see, reverend fathers, that it is as I told you. I understand that you have already considered the matter, so that there is no more to be said.”

He stepped down from the dais and passed round to the further side of the table. One of the secretaries pushed an ink-horn and a couple of quills across to him.

“My Lord Prior,” said Dr. Petre, with a slight bow. “If you are willing to sign this, I will beg of you to do so; and after that to call up your subjects.”

He laid the paper down. The Prior stepped briskly out of his seat, and passed round the table.

Chris watched his back, the thin lawyer beside him indicating the place for the name; and listened as in a dream to the scratching of the pen. He himself still did not know what he would do. If all signed—?

The Prior stepped back, and Chris caught a glimpse of a white face that smiled terribly.

The Sub-Prior stepped down at a sign from his Superior; and then one by one the monks came out.

Chris’s heart sickened as he watched; and then stood still on a sudden in desperate hope, for opposite to him Dom Anthony sat steady, his head on his hand, and made no movement when it was his turn to come out. Chris saw the Prior look at the monk, and a spasm of emotion went over his face.

“Dom Anthony,” he said.

The monk lifted his face, and it was smiling too.

“I cannot sign, My Lord Prior.”

Then the veils fell, and decision flashed on Chris’ soul.

He heard the pulse drumming in his ears, and his wet hands slipped one in the other as he gripped them together, but he made no sign till all the others had gone up. Then he looked up at the Prior.

It seemed an eternity before the Prior looked at him and nodded; and he could make no answering sign.

Then he heard his name called, and with a great effort he answered; his voice seemed not his own in his ears. He repeated Dom Anthony’s words.

“I cannot sign, My Lord Prior.”

Then he sat back with closed eyes and waited.

He heard movements about him, steps, the crackle of parchment, and at last Dr. Petre’s voice; but he scarcely understood what was said. There was but one thought dinning in his brain, and that was that he had refused, and thrown his defiance down before the King—that terrible man whom he had seen in his barge on the river, with the narrow eyes, the pursed mouth and the great jowl, as he sat by the woman he called his wife—that woman who now—

Chris shivered, opened his eyes, and sense came back.

Dr. Petre was just ending his speech. He was congratulating the Community on their reasonableness and loyalty. By an overwhelming majority they had decided to trust the King, and they would not find his grace unmindful of that. As for those who had not signed he could say nothing but that they had used the liberty that his Grace had given them. Whether they had used it rightly was no business of his.

Then he turned to the Prior.

“The seal then, My Lord Prior. I think that is the next matter.”

The Prior rose and lifted it from the table. Chris caught the gleam of the brass and silver of the ponderous precious thing in his hand—the symbol of their corporate existence—engraved, as he knew, with the four patrons of the house, the cliff, the running water of the Ouse, and the rhyming prayer to St. Pancras.

The Prior handed it to the Commissioner, who took it, and stood there a moment weighing it in his hand.

“A hammer,” he said.

One of the secretaries rose, and drew from beneath the table a sheet of metal and a sharp hammer; he handed both to Dr. Petre.

Chris watched, fascinated with something very like terror, his throat contracted in a sudden spasm, as he saw the Commissioner place the metal in the solid table before him, and then, holding the seal sideways, lift the hammer in his right hand.

Then blow after blow began to echo in the rafters overhead.

CHAPTER V

THE SINKING SHIP

Dr. Petre had come and gone, and to all appearance the priory was as before. He had not taken a jewel or a fragment of stuff; he had congratulated the sacristan on the beauty and order of his treasures, and had bidden him guard them carefully, for that there were knaves abroad who professed themselves as authorised by the King to seize monastic possessions, which they sold for their own profit. The offices continued to be sung day and night, and the masses every morning; and the poor were fed regularly at the gate.

But across the corporate life had passed a subtle change, analogous to that which comes to the body of a man. Legal death had taken place already; the unity of life and consciousness existed no more; the seal was defaced; they could no longer sign a document except as individuals. Now the rigor mortis would set in little by little until somatic death too had been consummated, and the units which had made up the organism had ceased to bear any relation one to the other.

But until after Christmas there was no further development; and the Feast was observed as usual, and with the full complement of monks. At the midnight mass there was a larger congregation than for many months, and the confessions and communions also slightly increased. It was a symptom, as Chris very plainly perceived, of the manner in which the shadow of the King reached even to the remotest details of the life of the country. The priory was now, as it were, enveloped in the royal protection, and the people responded accordingly.

There had come no hint from headquarters as to the ultimate fate of the house; and some even began to hope that the half-promise of a re-foundation would be fulfilled. Neither had any mark of disapproval arrived as to the refusal to sign on the part of the two monks; but although nothing further was said in conversation or at chapter, there was a consciousness in the minds of both Dom Anthony and Chris that a wall had arisen between them and the rest. Talk in the cloister was apt to flag when either approached; and the Prior never spoke a word to them beyond what was absolutely necessary.

Then, about the middle of January the last process began to be enacted.

One morning the Prior’s place in church was empty.

He was accustomed to disappear silently, and no astonishment was caused on this occasion; but at Compline the same night the Sub-Prior too was gone.

This was an unheard-of state of things, but all except the guest-master and Chris seemed to take it as a matter of course; and no word was spoken.

After the chapter on the next morning Dom Anthony made a sign to Chris as he passed him in the cloister, and the two went out together into the clear morning-sunshine of the outer court.

Dom Anthony glanced behind him to see that no one was following, and then turned to the other.

“They are both gone,” he said, “and others are going. Dom Bernard is getting his things together. I saw them under his bed last night.”

Chris stared at him, mute and terrified.

“What are we to do, Dom Anthony?”

“We can do nothing. We must stay. Remember that we are the only two who have any rights here now, before God.”

There was silence a moment. Chris glanced at the other, and was reassured by the steady look on his ruddy face.

“I will stay, Dom Anthony,” he said softly.

The other looked at him tenderly.

“God bless you, brother!” he said.

That night Dom Bernard and another were gone. And still the others made no sign or comment; and it was not until yet another pair had gone that Dom Anthony spoke plainly.

He was now the senior monk in the house; and it was his place to direct the business of the chapter. When the formal proceedings were over he stood up fearlessly.

“You cannot hide it longer,” he said. “I have known for some while what was impending.” He glanced round at the empty stalls, and his face flushed with sudden anger: “For God’s sake, get you gone, you who mean to go; and let us who are steadfast serve our Lord in peace.”

Chris looked along the few faces that were left; but they were downcast and sedate, and showed no sign of emotion.

Dom Anthony waited a moment longer, and then gave the signal to depart.

By a week later the two were left alone.

It was very strange to be there, in the vast house and church, and to live the old life now stripped of three-fourths of its meaning; but they did not allow one detail to suffer that it was possible to preserve. The opus Dei was punctually done, and God was served in psalmody. At the proper hours the two priests met in the cloister, cowled and in their choir-shoes, and walked through to the empty stalls; and there, one on either side, each answered the other, bowed together at the Gloria, confessed and absolved alternately. Two masses were said each day in the huge lonely church, one at the high altar and the other at our Lady’s, and each monk served the other. In the refectory one read from the pulpit as the other sat at the table; and the usual forms were observed with the minutest care. In the chapter each morning they met for mutual confession and accusation; and in the times between the exercises and meals each worked feverishly at the details that alone made the life possible.

They were assisted in this by two paid servants, who were sent to them by Chris’s father, for both the lay-brothers and the servants had gone with the rest; and the treasurer had disappeared with the money.

Chris had written to Sir James the day that the last monk had gone, telling him the state of affairs, and how the larder was almost empty; and by the next evening the servants had arrived with money and provisions; and a letter from Sir James written from a sick-bed, saying that he was unable to come for the present, for he had taken the fever, and that Morris would not leave him, but expressing a hope that he would come soon in person, and that Morris should be sent in a few days. The latter ended with passionate approval of his son’s action.

“God bless and reward you, dear lad!” he had written. “I cannot tell you the joy that it is to my heart to know that you are faithful. It cannot be for long; but whether it is for long and short, you shall have my prayers and blessings; and please God, my poor presence too after a few days. May our Lady and your holy patron intercede for you both who are so worthy of their protection!”

At the end of the second week in March Mr. Morris arrived.

Chris was taking the air in the court shortly before sunset, after a hard day’s work in church. The land was beginning to stir with the resurrection-life of spring; and the hills set round the town had that faint flush of indescribable colour that tinges slopes of grass as the sleeping sap begins to stir. The elm-trees in the court were hazy with growth as the buds fattened at the end of every twig, and a group of daffodils here and there were beginning to burst their sheaths of gold. There on the little lawn before the guest-house were half a dozen white and lavender patches of colour that showed where the crocuses would star the grass presently; and from the high west front of the immense church, and from beneath the eaves of the offices to the right the birds were practising the snatches of song that would break out with full melody a month or two later.

In spite of all that threatened, Chris was in an ecstasy of happiness. It rushed down on him, overwhelmed and enveloped him; for he knew now that he had been faithful. The flood of praise in the church had dwindled to a thread; but it was still the opus Dei, though it flowed but from two hearts; and the pulse of the heavenly sacrifice still throbbed morning by morning, and the Divine Presence still burned as unceasingly as the lamp that beaconed it, in the church that was now all but empty of its ministers. There were times when the joy that was in his heart trembled into tears, as when last night he and his friend had sung the song to Mary; and the contrast between the two poor voices, and the roar of petition that had filled the great vaulting a year before, had suddenly torn his heart in two.

But now the poignant sorrow had gone again; and as he walked here alone on this March evening, with the steady hills about him and the flushing sky overhead, and the sweet life quickening in the grass at his feet, an extraordinary peace flooded his soul.

There came a knocking at the gate, and the jangle of a bell; and he went across quickly and unbarred the door.

Mr. Morris was there on horseback, a couple of saddlebags strapped to his beast; and a little group of loungers stood behind.

Chris smiled with delight, and threw the door wide.

The servant saluted him and then turned to the group behind.

“You have no authority,” he said, “as to my going in.”

Then he rode through; and Chris barred the gate behind him, glancing as he did so at the curious faces that stared silently.

Mr. Morris said nothing till he had led his horse into the stable. Then he explained.

“One of the fellows told me, sir, that this was the King’s house now; and that I had no business here.”

Chris smiled again.

“I know we are watched,” he said, “the servants are questioned each time they set foot outside.”

Mr. Morris pursed his lips.

“How long shall you be here, sir?” he asked.

“Until we are turned out,” said Chris.

It was true, as he had said, that the house was watched. Ever since the last monk had left there had been a man or two at the gate, another outside the church-door that opened towards the town; and another yet again beyond the stream to the south of the priory-buildings. Dom Anthony had told him what it meant. It was that the authorities had no objection to the two monks keeping the place until it could be dealt with, but were determined that nothing should pass out. It had not been worthwhile to send in a caretaker, for all the valuables had been removed either by the Visitors or by the Prior when he went at night. There were only two sets of second-best altar vessels left, and a few other comparatively worthless utensils for the use of the church and kitchen. The great relics and the jewelled treasures had gone long before. Chris had wondered a little at the house being disregarded for so long; but the other monk had reminded him that such things as lead and brass and bells were beyond the power of two men to move, and could keep very well until other more pressing business had been despatched elsewhere.

Mr. Morris gave him news of his father. It had not been the true fever after all, and he would soon be here; in at any rate a week or two. As regarded other news, there was no tidings of Mr. Ralph except that he was very busy. Mistress Margaret was at home; no notice seemed to have been taken of her when she had been turned out with the rest at the dissolution of her convent.

It was very pleasant to see that familiar face about the cloister and refectory; or now and again, when work was done, looking up from beyond the screen as the monks came in by the sacristy door. Once or twice on dark evenings when terror began to push through the rampart of the will that Chris had raised up, it was reassuring too to know that Morris was there, for he bore with him, as old servants do, an atmosphere of home and security, and he carried himself as well with a wonderful naturalness, as if the relief of beleaguered monks were as ordinary a duty as the cleaning of plate.

March was half over now; and still no sign had come from the world outside. There were no guests either to bring tidings, for the priory was a marked place and it was well not to show or receive kindliness in its regard.

Within, the tension of nerves grew acute. Chris was conscious of a deepening exaltation, but it was backed by horror. He found himself now smiling with an irrepressible internal joy, now twitching with apprehension, starting at sudden noises, and terrified at loneliness. Dom Anthony too grew graver still; and would take his arm sometimes and walk with him, and tell him tales, and watch him with tender eyes. But in him, as in the younger monk, the strain tightened every day.

They were singing Compline together one evening with tired, overstrained voices, for they had determined not to relax any of the chant until it was necessary. Mr. Morris was behind them at a chair set beyond the screen; and there were no others present in church.

The choir was perfectly dark (for they knew the office by heart) except for a glimmer from the sacristy door where a lamp burned within to light them to bed. Chris’s thoughts had fled back to that summer evening long ago when he had knelt far down in the nave and watched the serried line of the black-hooded soldiers of God, and listened to the tramp of the psalmody, and longed to be of their company. Now the gallant regiment had dwindled to two, of which he was one, and the guest-master that had received him and encouraged him, the other.

Dom Anthony was the officiant this evening, and had just sung lustily out in the dark that God was about them with His shield, that they need fear no nightly terror.

The movement flagged for a moment, for Chris was not attending; Mr. Morris’s voice began alone, A sagitta volante—and then stopped abruptly as he realised that he was singing by himself; and simultaneously came a sharp little crash from the dark altar that rose up in the gloom in front.

A sort of sobbing breath broke from Chris at the sudden noise, and he gripped his hands together.

In a moment Dom Anthony had taken up the verse.

A sagitta volante—”From the arrow that flieth by day, from the thing that walketh in darkness—” Chris recovered himself; and the office passed on.

As the two passed out together towards the door, Dom Anthony went forward up the steps; and Chris waited, and watched him stoop and pass his hands over the floor. Then he straightened himself, came down the steps and went before Chris into the sacristy.

Under the lamp he stopped, and lifted what he carried to the light. It was the little ivory crucifix that he had hung there a few weeks ago when the last cross of precious metal had disappeared with the Sub-Prior. It was cracked across the body of the figure now, and one of the arms was detached at the shoulder and swung free on the nail through the hand.

Dom Anthony looked at it, turned and looked at Chris; and without a word the two passed out into the cloister and turned up the dormitory stairs. To both of them it was a sign that the end was at hand.

On the following afternoon Mr. Morris ran in to Chris’s carrel, and found him putting the antiphonary and his implements up into a parcel.

“Master Christopher,” he said, “Sir James and Sir Nicholas are come.”

As he hurried out of the cloister he saw the horses standing there, spent with fast travelling, and the two riders at their heads, with the dust on their boots, and their clothes disordered. They remained motionless as the monk came towards them; but he saw that his father’s face was working and that his eyes were wide and anxious.

“Thank God,” said the old man softly. “I am in time. They are coming to-night, Chris.” But there was a questioning look on his face.

Chris looked at him.

“Will you take the horses?” said his father again. “Nick and I are safe.”

Chris still stared bewildered. Then he understood; and with understanding came decision.

“No, father,” he said.

The old man’s face broke up into lines of emotion.

“Are you sure, my son?”

Chris nodded steadily.

“Then we will all be together,” said Sir James; and he turned to lead his horse to the stable.

There was a little council held in the guest-house a few minutes later. Dom Anthony hurried to it, his habit splashed with whitewash, for he had been cleaning the dormitory, and the four sat down together.

It seemed that Nicholas had ridden over from Great Keynes to Overfield earlier in the afternoon, and had brought the news that a company of men had passed through the village an hour before, and that one of them had asked which turn to take to Lewes. Sir Nicholas had ridden after them and enquired their business, and had gathered that they were bound for the priory, and he then turned his horse and made off to Overfield. His horse was spent when he arrived there; but he had changed horses and came on immediately with Sir James, to warn the monks of the approach of the men, and to give them an opportunity of making their escape if they thought it necessary.

“Who were the leaders?” asked the elder monk.

Nicholas shook his head.

“They were in front; I dared not ride up.”

But his sturdy face looked troubled as he answered, and Chris saw his father’s lips tighten. Dom Anthony drummed softly on the table.

“There is nothing to be done,” he said. “We wait till we are cast out.”

“You cannot refuse admittance?” questioned Sir James.

“But we shall do so,” said the other tranquilly; “at least we shall not open.”

“But they will batter the door down.”

“Certainly,” said the monk.

“And then?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I suppose they will put us out.”

There was absolutely nothing to be done. It was absurd to dream of more than formal resistance. Up in the North in more than one abbey the inmates had armed themselves, and faced the spoilers grimly on the village green; but that was where the whole country side was with them, and here it was otherwise.

They talked a few minutes longer, and decided that they would neither open nor resist. The monks two were determined to remain there until they were actually cast out; and then the responsibility would rest on other shoulders than theirs.

It was certain of course that by this time to-morrow at the latest they would have been expelled; and it was arranged that the two monks should ride back to Overfield, if they were personally unmolested, and remain there until further plans were decided upon.

The four knew of course that there was a grave risk in provoking the authorities any further, but it was a risk that the two Religious were determined to run.

They broke up presently; Mr. Morris came upstairs to tell them that food was ready in one of the parlours off the cloister; and the two laymen went off with him, while the monks went to sing vespers for the last time.

An hour or two later the two were in the refectory at supper. The evening was drawing in, and the light in the tall windows was fading. Opposite where Chris sat (for Dom Anthony was reading aloud from the pulpit), a row of coats burned in the glass, and he ran his eyes over them. They had been set there, he remembered, soon after his own coming to the place; the records had been searched, and the arms of every prior copied and emblazoned in the panes. There they all were; from Lanzo of five centuries ago, whose arms were conjectural, down to Robert Crowham, who had forsaken his trust; telling the long tale of prelates and monastic life, from the beginning to the close. He looked round beyond the circle of light cast by his own candle, and the place seemed full of ghosts and presences to his fancy. The pale oak panelling glimmered along the walls above the empty seats, from the Prior’s to the left, over which the dusky fresco of the Majesty of Christ grew darker still as the light faded, down to the pulpit opposite where Dom Anthony’s grave ruddy face with downcast eyes stood out vivid in the candlelight. Ah! surely there was a cloud of witnesses now, a host of faces looking down from the black rafters overhead, and through the glimmering panes,—the faces of those who had eaten here with the same sacramental dignity and graciousness that these two survivors used. It was impossible to feel lonely in this stately house, saturated with holy life; and with a thrill at his heart he remembered how Dom Anthony had once whispered to him at the beginning of the troubles, that if others held their peace the very stones should cry out; and that God was able of those stones to raise up children to His praise….

There was a sound of brisk, hurrying footsteps in the cloister outside, Dom Anthony ceased his reading with his finger on the place, and the eyes of the two monks met.

The door was opened abruptly, and Morris stood there.

“My master has sent me, sir,” he said. “They are coming.”

CHAPTER VI

THE LAST STAND

The court outside had deepened into shadows as they came out; but overhead the sky still glowed faintly luminous in a tender translucent green. The evening star shone out clear and tranquil opposite them in the west.

There were three figures standing at the foot of the steps that led down from the cloister; one of the servants with the two gentlemen; and as Chris pushed forward quickly his father turned and lifted his finger for silence.

The town lay away to the right; and over the wall that joined the west end of the church to the gatehouse, there were a few lights visible—windows here and there just illuminated.

For the first moment Chris thought there had been a mistake; he had expected a clamour at the gate, a jangling of the bell. Then as he listened he knew that it was no false alarm.

Across the wall, from the direction of the hills that showed dimly against the evening sky, there came a murmur, growing as he listened. The roads were hard from lack of rain, and he could distinguish the sound of horses, a great company; but rising above this was a dull roar of voices. Every moment it waxed, died once or twice, then sounded out nearer and louder. There was a barking of dogs, the cries of children, and now and again the snatch of a song or a shouted word or two.

Of the group on the steps within not one stirred, except when Sir James slowly lowered his upraised hand; and so they waited.

The company was drawing nearer now; and Chris calculated that they must be coming down the steep road that led from the town; and even as he thought it he heard the sound of hoofs on the bridge that crossed the Winterbourne.

Dom Anthony pushed by him.

“To the gate,” he said, and went down the step and across the court followed by the others. As they went the clamour grew loud and near in the road outside; and a ruddy light shone on the projecting turret of the gateway.

Chris was conscious of extraordinary coolness now that the peril was on him; and he stared up at the studded oak doors, at the wicket cut in one of the leaves, and the sliding panel that covered the grill, with little thought but that of conjecture as to how long the destruction of the gate would take. The others, too, though he was scarcely aware of their presence, were silent and rigid at his side, as Dom Anthony stepped up to the closed grill and waited there for the summons.

It came almost immediately.

There was a great crescendo of sound as the party turned the corner, and a flare of light shone under the gate; then the sound of loud talking, a silence of the hoofs; and a sudden jangle on the bell overhead.

The monk turned from the grill and lifted his hand.

Then again the talking grew loud, as the mob swept round the corner after the horses.

Still all was silent within. Chris felt his father’s hand seek his own a moment, and grip it; and then above the gabbling clamour a voice spoke distinctly outside.

“Have the rats run, then?”

The bell danced again over their heads; and there was a clatter of raps on the huge door.

Dom Anthony slid back the shutter.

For a moment it was not noticed outside, for the entry was dark. Chris could catch a glimpse on either side of the monk’s head of a flare of light, but no more.

Then the same voice spoke again, and with something of a foreign accent.

“You are there, then; make haste and open.”

Another voice shouted authoritatively for silence; and the clamour of tongues died.

Dom Anthony waited until all was quiet, and then answered steadily.

“Who are you?”

There was an oath; the tumult began again, but hushed immediately, as the same voice that had called for admittance shouted aloud—

“Open, I tell you, you bloody monk! We come from the King.”

“Why do you come?”

A gabble of fierce tongues broke out; Chris pressed up to Dom Anthony’s back, and looked out. The space was very narrow, and he could not see much more than a man’s leg across a saddle, the brown shoulder of a horse in front, and a smoky haze beyond and over the horse’s back. The leg shifted a little as he watched, as if the rider turned; and then again the voice pealed out above the tumult.

“Will you open, sir, for the last time?”

“I will not,” shouted the monk through the grill. “You are nothing but—” then he dashed the shutter into its place as a stick struck fiercely at the bars.

“Back to the cloister,” he said.

The roar outside was tremendous as the six went back across the empty court; but it fell to a sinister silence as an order or two was shouted outside; and then again swelled with an excited note in it, as the first crash sounded on the panels.

Chris looked at his father as they stood again on the steps fifty yards away. The old man was standing rigid, his hands at his sides, staring out towards the arch of the gateway that now thundered like a drum; and his lips were moving. Once he caught his breath as a voice shouted above the din outside, and half turned to his son, his hand uplifted as if for silence. Then again the voice pealed, and Sir James faced round and stared into Chris’s eyes. But neither spoke a word.

Dom Anthony, who was standing a yard or two in front, turned presently as the sound of splintering began to be mingled with the reverberations, and came towards them. His square, full face was steady and alert, and he spoke with a sharp decision.

“You and Sir Nicholas, sir, had best be within. My place will be here; they will be in immediately.”

His words were perfectly distinct here in the open air in spite of the uproar from the gate.

There was an indignant burst from the young squire.

“No, no, father; I shall not stir from here.”

The monk looked at him; but said no more and turned round.

A sedate voice spoke from the dark doorway behind.

“John and I have fetched out a table or two, father; we can brace this door—”

Dom Anthony turned again.

“We shall not resist further,” he said.

Then they were silent, for they were helpless. There was nothing to be done but to stand there and listen to the din, to the crash that splintered more every moment in the cracked woodwork, and to watch the high wall and turret solemn and strong against the stars, and bright here and there at the edges with the light from the torches beneath. The guest-house opposite them was dark, except for one window in the upper floor that glowed and faded with the light of the fire that had been kindled within an hour or two before.

Sir James took his son suddenly by the arm.

“And you, Chris—” he said.

“I shall stay here, father.”

There was a rending thunder from the gate; the wicket reeled in and fell, and in a moment through the flimsy opening had sprung the figure of a man. They could see him plainly as he stood there in the light of the torches, a tall upright figure, a feathered hat on his head, and a riding cane in his hand.

The noise was indescribable outside as men fought to get through; there was one scream of pain, the plunging of a horse, and then a loud steady roar drowning all else.

The oblong patch of light was darkened immediately, as another man sprang through, and then another and another; then a pause—then the bright flare of a torch shone in the opening; and a moment later a fellow carrying a flambeau had made his way through.

The whole space under the arch was now illuminated. Overhead the plain mouldings shone out and faded as the torch swayed; every brick of the walls was visible, and the studs and bars of the huge doors.

Chris had sprung forward by an uncontrollable impulse as the wicket fell in; and the two monks were now standing motionless on the floor of the court, side by side, in their black habits and scapulars, hooded and girded, with the two gentlemen and the servants on the steps behind.

Chris saw the leaders come together under the arch, as the whole gate began to groan and bulge under the pressure of the crowd; and a moment later he caught the flash of steel as the long rapiers whisked out.

Then above the baying he heard a fierce authoritative voice scream out an order, and saw that one of the gentlemen in front was at the door, his rapier protruded before him; and understood the man[oe]uvre. It was necessary that the mad crowd should be kept back.

The tumult died and became a murmur; and then one by one a file of figures came through. In the hand of each was an instrument of some kind, a pick or a bludgeon; and it was evident that it was these who had broken in the gate.

Chris counted them mechanically as they streamed through. There seemed to be a dozen or so.

Then again the man who had guarded the door as they came through slipped back through the opening; and they heard his voice beginning to harangue the mob.

But a moment later they had ceased to regard him; for from the archway, with the torch-bearer beside him, advanced the tall man with the riding-cane who had been the first to enter; and as he emerged into the court Chris recognised his brother.

He was in a plain rich riding-suit with great boots and plumed hat. He walked with an easy air as if certain of himself, and neither quickened nor decreased his pace as he saw the monks and the gentlemen standing there.

He halted a couple of yards from them, and Chris saw that his face was as assured as his gait. His thin lips were tight and firm, and his eyes with a kind of insolent irony looked up and down the figures of the monks. There was not the faintest sign of recognition in them.

“You have given us a great deal of labour,” he said, “and to no purpose. We shall have to report it all to my Lord Cromwell. I understand that you were the two who refused to sign the surrender. It was the act of fools, like this last. I have no authority to take you, so you had best be gone.”

Dom Anthony answered him in an equally steady voice.

“We are ready to go now,” he said. “You understand we have yielded to nothing but force.”

Ralph’s lips writhed in a smile.

“Oh! if that pleases you,” he said. “Well, then—”

He took a little step aside, and made a movement towards the gate where there sounded out still an angry hum beneath the shouting voice that was addressing them.

Chris turned to his father behind, and the voice died in his throat, so dreadful was that face that was looking at Ralph. He was standing as before, rigid it seemed with grief or anger; and his grey eyes were bright with a tense emotion; his lips too were as firm as his son’s. But he spoke no word. Sir Nicholas was at his side, with one foot advanced, and in attitude as if to spring; and Morris’s face looked like a mask over his shoulder.

“Well, then—” said Ralph once more.

“Ah! you damned hound!” roared the young squire’s voice; and his hand went up with the whip in it.

Ralph did not move a muscle. He seemed cut in steel.

“Let us go,” said Dom Anthony again, to Chris, almost tenderly; “it is enough that we are turned out by force.”

“You can go by the church, if you will,” said Ralph composedly. “In fact—” He stopped as the murmur howled up again from the gate—”In fact you had better go that way. They do not seem to be your friends out there.”

“We will go whichever way you wish,” remarked the elder monk.

“Then the church,” said Ralph, “or some other private door. I suppose you have one. Most of your houses have one, I believe.”

The sneer snapped the tension.

Dom Anthony turned his back on him instantly.

“Come, brother,” he said.

Chris took his father by the arm as he went up the steps.

“Come, sir,” he said, “we are to go this way.”

There was a moment’s pause. The old man still stared down at his elder son, who was standing below in the same position. Chris heard a deep breath, and thought he was on the point of speaking; but there was silence. Then the two turned and followed the others into the cloister.

CHAPTER VII

AXES AND HAMMERS

Chris sat next morning at a high window of a house near Saint Michael’s looking down towards the south of the town.

They had escaped without difficulty the night before through the church-entrance, with a man whom Ralph sent after them to see that they carried nothing away, leaving the crowd roaring round the corner of the gate, and though people looked curiously at the monks, the five laymen with them protected them from assault. Mr. Morris had found a lodging a couple of days before, unknown to Chris, in the house of a woman who was favourable to the Religious, and had guided the party straight there on the previous evening.

The two monks had said mass in Saint Michael’s that morning before the town was awake; and were now keeping within doors at Sir James’s earnest request, while the two gentlemen with one of the servants had gone to see what was being done at the priory.

From where Chris sat in his black habit at the leaded window he could see straight down the opening of the steep street, across the lower roofs below, to where the great pile of the Priory church less than half-a-mile away soared up in the sunlight against the water-meadows where the Ouse ran to the south of the town.

The street was very empty below him, for every human being that could do so had gone down to the sacking of the priory. There might be pickings, scraps gathered from the hoards that the monks were supposed to have gathered; there would probably be an auction; and there would certainly be plenty of excitement and pleasure.

Chris was himself almost numb to sensation. The coolness that had condensed round his soul last night had hardened into ice; he scarcely realised what was going on, or how great was the catastrophe into which his life was plunged. There lay the roofs before him—he ran his eye from the west tower past the high lantern to the delicate tracery of the eastern apse and chapels—in the hands of the spoilers; and here he sat dry-eyed and steady-mouthed looking down on it, as a man looks at a wound not yet begun to smart.

It was piteously clear and still. Smoke was rising from a fire somewhere behind the church, a noise as of metal on stone chinked steadily, and the voices of men calling one to another sounded continually from the enclosure. Now and again the tiny figure of a workman showed clear on the roof, pick in hand; or leaning to call directions down to his fellows beneath.

Dom Anthony looked in presently, breviary in hand, and knelt by Chris on the window-step, watching too; but he spoke no word, glanced at the white face and sunken eyes of the other, sighed once or twice, and went out again.

The morning passed on and still Chris watched. By eleven o’clock the men were gone from the roof; half an hour had passed, and no further figure had appeared.

There were footsteps on the stairs; and Sir James came in.

He came straight across to his son and sat down by him. Chris looked at him. The old man nodded.

“Yes, my son,” he said, “they are at it. Nothing is to be left, but the cloister and guest-house. The church is to be down in a week they say.”

Chris looked at him dully.

“All?” he said.

“All the church, my son.”

Sir James gave an account of what he had seen. He had made his way in with Nicholas and a few other persons, into the court; but had not been allowed to enter the cloister. There was a furnace being made ready in the calefactorium for the melting of the lead, he had been told by one of the men; and the church, as he had seen for himself, was full of workmen.

“And the Blessed Sacrament?” asked Chris.

“A priest was sent for this morning to carry It away to a church; I know not which.”

Sir James described the method of destruction.

They were beginning with the apse and the chapels behind the high altar. The ornaments had been removed, the images piled in a great heap in the outer court, and the brasses had been torn up. There were half a dozen masons busy at undercutting the pillars and walls; and as they excavated the carpenters made wooden insertions to prop up the weight. The men had been brought down from London, as the commissioners were not certain of the temper of the Lewes people. Two of the four great pillars behind the high altar were already cut half through.

“And Ralph?”

The old man’s face grew tense and bitter.

“I saw him in the roof,” he said; “he made as if he did not see me.”

They were half-through dinner before Nicholas joined them. He was flushed and dusty and furious.

“Ah! the hounds!” he said, as he stood at the door, trembling. “They say they will have the chapels down before night. They have stripped the lead.”

Sir James looked up and motioned him to sit down.

“We will go down again presently,” he said.

“But we have saved our luggage,” went on Nicholas, taking his seat; “and there was a parcel of yours, Chris, that I put with it. It is all to be sent up with the horses to-night.”

“Did you speak with Mr. Ralph?” asked Dom Anthony.

“Ah! I did; the dog! and I told him what I thought. But he dared not refuse me the luggage. John is to go for it all to-night.”

He told them during dinner another fact that he had learned.

“You know who is to have it all?” he said fiercely, his fingers twitching with emotion.

“It is Master Gregory Cromwell, and his wife, and his baby. A fine nursery!”

As the evening drew on, Chris was again at the window alone. He had said his office earlier in the afternoon, and sat here again now, with his hands before him, staring down at the church.

One of the servants had come up with a message from Sir James an hour before telling him not to expect them before dusk; and that they would send up news of any further developments. The whole town was there, said the man: it had been found impossible to keep them out. Dom Anthony presently came again and sat with Chris; and Mr. Morris, who had been left as a safeguard to the monks, slipped in soon after and stood behind the two; and so the three waited.

The sky was beginning to glow again as it had done last night with the clear radiance of a cloudless sunset; and the tall west tower stood up bright in the glory. How infinitely far away last night seemed now, little and yet distinct as a landscape seen through a reversed telescope! How far away that silent waiting at the cloister door, the clamour at the gate, the forced entrance, the slipping away through the church!

The smoke was rising faster than ever now from the great chimney, and hung in a cloud above the buildings. Perhaps even now the lead was being cast.

There was a clatter at the corner of the cobbled street below, and Dom

Anthony leaned from the window. He drew back.

“It is the horses,” he said.

The servant presently came up to announce that the two gentlemen were following immediately, and that he had had orders to procure horses and saddle them at once. He had understood Sir James to say that they must leave that night.

Mr. Morris hurried out to see to the packing.

In five minutes the gentlemen themselves appeared.

Sir James came quickly across to the two monks.

“We must go to-night, Chris,” he said. “We had words with Portinari. You must not remain longer in the town.”

Chris looked at him.

“Yes?” he said.

“And the chapels will be down immediately. Oh! dear God!”

Dom Anthony made room for the old man to sit down in the window-seat; and himself stood behind the two with Nicholas; and so again they watched.

The light was fading fast now, and in the windows below lights were beginning to shine. The square western tower that dominated the whole priory had lost its splendour, and stood up strong and pale against the meadows. There was a red flare of light somewhere over the wall of the court, and the inner side of the gate-turret was illuminated by it.

A tense excitement lay on the watchers; and no sound came from them but that of quick breathing as they waited for what they knew was imminent.

Outside the evening was wonderfully still; they could hear two men talking somewhere in the street below; but from the priory came no sound. The chink of the picks was still, and the cries of the workmen. Far away beyond the castle on their left came an insistent barking of a dog; and once, when a horseman rode by below Chris bit his lip with vexation, for it seemed to him like the disturbing of a death bed. A star or two looked out, vanished, and peeped again from the luminous sky, to the south, and the downs beneath were grey and hazy.

All the watchers now had their eyes on the eastern end of the church that lay in dim shadow; they could see the roof of the vault behind where the high altar lay beneath; the flying buttress of a chapel below; and, nearer, the low roof of the Lady-chapel.

Chris kept his eyes strained on the upper vault, for there, he knew the first movement would show itself.

The time seemed interminable. He moistened his dry lips from time to time, shifted his position a little, and moved his elbow from the sharp moulding of the window-frame.

Then he caught his breath.

From where he sat, in the direct line of his eyes, the top of a patch of evergreen copse was visible just beyond the roof of the vault; and as he looked he saw that a patch of paler green had appeared below it. All in a moment he saw too the flying buttress crook itself like an elbow and disappear. Then the vault was gone and the roof beyond; the walls sank with incredible slowness and vanished.

A cloud of white dust puffed up like smoke.

Then through the open window came the roar of the tumbling masonry; and shrill above it the clamour of a great crowd.

BOOK III

THE KING’S GRATITUDE

CHAPTER I

A SCHEME

The period that followed the destruction of Lewes Priory held very strange months for Chris. He had slipped out of the stream into a back-water, from which he could watch the swift movements of the time, while himself undisturbed by them; for no further notice was taken of his refusal to sign the surrender or of his resistance to the Commissioners. The hands of the authorities were so full of business that apparently it was not worth their while to trouble about an inoffensive monk of no particular notoriety, who after all had done little except in a negative way, and who appeared now to acquiesce in silence and seclusion.

The household at Overfield was of a very mixed nature. Dom Anthony after a month or two had left for the Continent to take up his vocation in a Benedictine house; and Sir James and his wife, Chris, Margaret, and Mr. Carleton remained together. For the present Chris and Margaret were determined to wait, for a hundred things might intervene—Henry’s death, a changing of his mind, a foreign invasion on the part of the Catholic powers, an internal revolt in England, and such things—and set the clock back again, and, unlike Dom Anthony, they had a home where they could follow their Rules in tolerable comfort.

The country was indeed very deeply stirred by the events that were taking place; but for the present, partly from terror and partly from the great forces that were brought to bear upon English convictions, it gave no expression to its emotion. The methods that Cromwell had employed with such skill in the past were still active. On the worldly side there was held out to the people the hope of relieved taxation, of the distribution of monastic wealth and lands; on the spiritual side the bishops under Cranmer were zealous in controverting the old principles and throwing doubt upon the authority of the Pope. It was impossible for the unlearned to know what to believe; new manifestoes were issued continually by the King and clergy, full of learned arguments and persuasive appeals; and the professors of the old religion were continually discredited by accusations of fraud, avarice, immorality, hypocrisy and the like. They were silenced, too; while active and eloquent preachers like Latimer raged from pulpit to pulpit, denouncing, expounding, convincing.

Meanwhile the work went on rapidly. The summer and autumn of ‘38 saw again destruction after destruction of Religious Houses and objects of veneration; and the intimidation of the most influential personages on the Catholic side.

In February, for example, the rood of Boxley was brought up to London with every indignity, and after being exhibited with shouts of laughter at Whitehall, and preached against at Paul’s Cross, it was tossed down among the zealous citizens and smashed to pieces. In the summer, among others, the shrine of St. Swithun at Winchester was defaced and robbed; and in the autumn that followed the friaries which had stood out so long began to fall right and left. In October the Holy Blood of Hayles, a relic brought from the East in the thirteenth century and preserved with great love and honour ever since, was taken from its resting place and exposed to ridicule in London. Finally in the same month, after St. Thomas of Canterbury had been solemnly declared a traitor to his prince, his name, images and pictures ordered to be erased and destroyed out of every book, window and wall, and he himself summoned with grotesque solemnity to answer the charges brought against him, his relics were seized and burned, and—which was more to the point in the King’s view, his shrine was stripped of its gold and jewels and vestments, which were conveyed in a string of twenty-six carts to the King’s treasury. The following year events were yet more terrible. The few great houses that survived were one by one brought within reach of the King’s hand; and those that did not voluntarily surrender fell under the heavier penalties of attainder. Abbot Whiting of Glastonbury was sent up to London in September, and two months later suffered on Tor hill within sight of the monastery he had ruled so long and so justly; and on the same day the Abbot of Reading suffered too outside his own gateway. Six weeks afterwards Abbot Marshall, of Colchester, was also put to death.

It was a piteous life that devout persons led at this time; and few were more unhappy than the household at Overfield. It was the more miserable because Lady Torridon herself was so entirely out of sympathy with the others. While she was not often the actual bearer of ill news—for she had neither sufficient strenuousness nor opportunity for it—it was impossible to doubt that she enjoyed its arrival.

They were all together at supper one warm summer evening when a servant came in to announce that a monk of St. Swithun’s was asking hospitality. Sir James glanced at his wife who sat with passive downcast face; and then ordered the priest to be brought in.

He was a timid, tactless man who failed to grasp the situation, and when the wine and food had warmed his heart he began to talk a great deal too freely, taking it for granted that all there were in sympathy with him. He addressed himself chiefly to Chris, who answered courteously; and described the sacking of the shrine at some length.

“He had already set aside our cross called Hierusalem,” cried the monk, his weak face looking infinitely pathetic with its mingled sorrow and anger, “and two of our gold chalices, to take them with him when he went; and then with his knives and hammers, as the psalmist tells us, he hacked off the silver plates from the shrine. There was a fellow I knew very well—he had been to me to confession two days before—who held a candle and laughed. And then when all was done; and that was not till three o’clock in the morning, one of the smiths tested the metal and cried out that there was not one piece of true gold in it all. And Mr. Pollard raged at us for it, and told us that our gold was as counterfeit as the rotten bones that we worshipped. But indeed there was plenty of gold; and the man lied; for it was a very rich shrine. God’s vengeance will fall on them for their lies and their robbery. Is it not so, mistress?”

Lady Torridon lifted her eyes and looked at him. Her husband hastened to interpose.

“Have you finished your wine, father?”

The monk seemed not to hear him; and his talk flowed on about the destruction of the high altar and the spoiling of the reredos, which had taken place on the following days; and as he talked he filled his Venetian glass more than once and drank it off; and his lantern face grew flushed and his eyes animated. Chris saw that his mother was watching the monk shrewdly and narrowly, and feared what might come. But it was unavoidable.

“We poor monks,” the priest cried presently, “shall soon be cast out to beg our bread. The King’s Grace—”

“Is not poverty one of the monastic vows?” put in Lady Torridon suddenly, still looking steadily at his half-drunk glass.

“Why, yes, mistress; and the King’s Grace is determined to make us keep it, it seems.”

He lifted his glass and finished it; and put out his hand again to the bottle.

“But that is a good work, surely,” smiled the other. “It will be surely a safeguard against surfeiting and drunkenness.”

Sir James rose instantly.

“Come, father,” he said to the staring monk, “you will be tired out, and will want your bed.”

A slow smile shone and laded on his wife’s face as she rose and rustled down the long hall.

Such incidents as this made life at Overfield very difficult for them all; it was hard for these sore hearts to be continually on the watch for dangerous subjects, and only to be able to comfort one another when the mistress of the house was absent; but above all it was difficult for Margaret. She was nearly as silent as her mother, but infinitely more tender; and since the two were naturally together for the most part, except when the nun was at her long prayers, there were often very difficult and painful incidents.

For the first eighteen months after her return her mother let her alone; but as time went on and the girl’s resolution persevered, she began to be subjected to a distressing form of slight persecution.

For example: Chris and his father came in one day in the autumn from a walk through the priory garden that lay beyond the western moat. As they passed in the level sunshine along the prim box-lined paths, and had reached the centre where the dial stood, they heard voices in the summer-house that stood on the right behind a yew hedge.

Sir James hesitated a moment; and as he waited heard Margaret’s voice with a thrill of passion in it.

“I cannot listen to that, mother. It is wicked to say such things.”

The two turned instantly, passed along the path and came round the corner.

Margaret was standing with one hand on the little table, half-turned to go. Her eyes were alight with indignation, and her lips trembled. Her mother sat on the other side, her silver-handled stick beside her, and her hands folded serenely together.

Sir James looked from one to the other; and there fell a silence.

“Are you coming with us, Margaret?” he said.

The girl still hesitated a moment, glancing at her mother, and then stepped out of the summer-house. Chris saw that bitter smile writhe and die on the elder woman’s face, but she said nothing.

Margaret burst out presently when they had crossed the moat and were coming up to the long grey-towered house.

“I cannot bear such talk, father,” she said, with her eyes bright with angry tears, “she was saying such things about Rusper, and how idle we all were there, and how foolish.”

“You must not mind it, my darling. Your mother does not—does not understand.”

“There was never any one like Mother Abbess,” went on the girl. “I never saw her idle or out of humour; and—and we were all so busy and happy.”

Her eyes overflowed a moment; her father put his arm tenderly round her shoulders, and they went in together.

It was a terrible thing for Margaret to be thrown like this out of the one life that was a reality to her. As she looked back now it seemed as if the convent shone glorified and beautiful in a haze of grace. The discipline of the house had ordered and inspired the associations on which memories afterwards depend, and had excluded the discordant notes that spoil the harmonies of secular life. The chapel, with its delicate windows, its oak rails, its scent of flowers and incense, its tiled floor, its single row of carved woodwork and the crosier by the Abbess’s seat, was a place of silence instinct with a Divine Presence that radiated from the hanging pyx; it was these particular things, and not others like them, that had been the scene of her romance with God, her aspirations, tendernesses, tears and joys. She had walked in the tiny cloister with her Lover in her heart, and the glazed laurel-leaves that rattled in the garth had been musical with His voice; it was in her little white cell that she had learned to sleep in His arms and to wake to the brightness of His Face. And now all this was dissipated. There were other associations with her home, of childish sorrows and passions before she had known God, of hunting-parties and genial ruddy men who smelt of fur and blood, of her mother’s chilly steady presence— associations that jarred with the inner life; whereas in the convent there had been nothing that was not redolent with efforts and rewards of the soul. Even without her mother life would have been hard enough now at Overfield; with her it was nearly intolerable.

Chris, however, was able to do a good deal for the girl; for he had suffered in the same way; and had the advantage of a man’s strength. She could talk to him as to no one else of the knowledge of the interior vocation in both of them that persevered in spite of their ejection from the cloister; and he was able to remind her that the essence of the enclosure, under these circumstances, lay in the spirit and not in material stones.

It was an advantage for Chris too to have her under his protection. The fact that he had to teach her and remind her of facts that they both knew, made them more real to himself; and to him as to her there came gradually a kind of sorrow-shot contentment that deepened month by month in spite of their strange and distracting surroundings.

But he was not wholly happy about her; she was silent and lonely sometimes; he began to see what an immense advantage it would be to her in the peculiarly difficult circumstances of the time, to have some one of her own sex and sympathies at hand. But he did not see how it could be arranged. For the present it was impossible for her to enter the Religious Life, except by going abroad; and so long as there was the faintest hope of the convents being restored in England, both she and her father and brother shrank from the step. And the hope was increased by the issue of the Six Articles in the following May, by which Transubstantiation was declared to be a revealed dogma, to be held on penalty of death by burning; and communion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, the perpetuity of the vow of chastity, private masses, and auricular confession were alike ratified as parts of the Faith held by the Church of which Henry had made himself head.

Yet as time went on, and there were no signs of the restoration of the Religious Houses, Chris began to wonder again as to what was best for Margaret. Perhaps until matters developed it would be well for her to have some friend in whom she could confide, even if only to relax the strain for a few weeks. He went to his father one day in the autumn and laid his views before him.

Sir James nodded and seemed to understand.

“Do you think Mary would be of any service?”

Chris hesitated.

“Yes, sir, I think so—but—”

His father looked at him.

“It is a stranger I think that would help her more. Perhaps another nun—?”

“My dear lad, I dare not ask another nun. Your mother—”

“I know,” said Chris.

“Well, I will think of it,” said the other.

A couple of days later Sir James took him aside after supper into his own private room.

“Chris,” he said, “I have been thinking of what you said. And Mary shall certainly come here for Christmas, with Nick; but—but there is someone else too I would like to ask.”

He looked at his son with an odd expression.

Chris could not imagine what this meant.

“It is Mistress Atherton,” went on the other. “You see you know her a little—at least you have seen her; and there is Ralph. And from all that I have heard of her—her friendship with Master More and the rest, I think she might be the very friend for poor Meg. Do you think she would come, Chris?”

Chris was silent. He could not yet fully dissociate the thought of

Beatrice from the memory of the time when she had taken Ralph’s part.

Besides, was it possible to ask her under the circumstances?

“Then there was one more thing that I never told you;” went on his father, “there was no use in it. But I went to see Mistress Atherton when she was betrothed to Ralph. I saw her in London; and I think I may say we made friends. And she has very few now; she keeps herself aloof. Folks are afraid of her too. I think it would be a kindness to her. I could not understand how she could marry Ralph; and now that is explained.”

Chris was startled by this news. His father had not breathed a word of it before.

“She made me promise,” went on Sir James, “to tell her if Ralph did anything unworthy. It was after the first news had reached her of what the Visitors were doing. And I told her, of course, about Rusper. I think we owe her something. And I think too from what I saw of her that she might make her way with your mother.”

“It might succeed,” said Chris doubtfully, “but it is surely difficult for her to come—”

“I know—yes—with Ralph and her betrothal. But if we can ask her, surely she can come. I can tell her how much we need her. I would send Meg to Great Keynes, if I dared, but I dare not. It is not so safe there as here; she had best keep quiet.”

They talked about it a few minutes more, and Chris became more inclined to it. From what he remembered of Beatrice and the impression that she had made on him in those few fierce minutes in Ralph’s house he began to see that she would probably be able to hold her own; and if only Margaret would take to her, the elder girl might be of great service in establishing the younger. It was an odd and rather piquant idea, and gradually took hold of his imagination. It was a very extreme step to take, considering that she had broken off her betrothal to the eldest son of the house; but against that was set the fact that she would not meet him there; and that her presence would be really valued by at least four-fifths of the household.

It was decided that Lady Torridon should be told immediately; and a day or two later Sir James came to Chris in the garden to tell him that she had consented.

“I do not understand it at all,” said the old man, “but your mother seemed very willing. I wonder—”

And then he stopped abruptly.

The letter was sent. Chris saw it and the strong appeal it contained that Beatrice should come to the aid of a nun who was pining for want of companionship. A day or two later brought down the answer that Mistress Atherton would have great pleasure in coming a week before Christmas.

Margaret had a fit of shyness when the day came for her arrival. It was a clear frosty afternoon, with a keen turquoise sky overhead, and she wandered out in her habit down the slope to the moat, crossed the bridge, glancing at the thin ice and the sedge that pierced it, and came up into the private garden. She knew she could hear the sounds of wheels from there, and had an instinctive shrinking from being at the house when the stranger arrived.

The grass walks were crisp to the foot; the plants in the deep beds rested in a rigid stillness with a black blossom or two drooping here and there; and the hollies beyond the yew hedge lifted masses of green lit by scarlet against the pale sky. Her breath went up like smoke as she walked softly up and down.

There was no sound to disturb her. Once she heard the clink of the blacksmith’s forge half a mile away in the village; once a blackbird dashed chattering from a hedge, scudded in a long dip, and rose again over it; a robin followed her in brisk hops, with a kind of pathetic impertinence in his round eye, as he wondered whether this human creature’s footsteps would not break the iron armour of the ground and give him a chance to live.

She wondered a thousand things as she went; what kind of a woman this was that was coming, how she would look, why she had not married Ralph, and above all, whether she understood—whether she understood!

A kind of frost had fallen on her own soul; she could find no sustenance there; it was all there, she knew, all the mysterious life that had rioted within her like spring, in the convent, breathing its fragrances, bewildering in its wealth of shape and colour. But an icy breath had petrified it all; it had sunk down out of sight; it needed a soul like her own, feminine and sympathetic, a soul that had experienced the same things as her own, that knew the tenderness and love of the Saviour, to melt that frigid covering and draw out the essences and sweetness again, that lay there paralysed by this icy environment….

There were wheels at last.

She gathered up her black skirt, and ran to the edge of the low yews that bounded the garden on the north; and as she caught a glimpse of the nodding heads of the postilions, the plumes of their mounts, and the great carriage-roof swaying in the iron ruts, she shrank back again, in an agony of shyness, terrified of being seen.

The sky had deepened to flaming orange in the west, barred by the tall pines, before she unlatched the garden-gate to go back to the house.

The windows shone out bright and inviting from the parlour on the ground-floor and from beneath the high gable of the hall as she came up the slope. Mistress Atherton, she knew, would be in one of these rooms if she had not already gone up stairs; and with an instinct of shyness still strong within her the girl slipped round to the back, and passed in through the chapel.

The court was lighted by a link that flared beside one of the doorways on the left, and a couple of great trunks lay below it. A servant came out as she stood there hesitating, and she called to him softly to know where was Mistress Atherton.

“She is in the parlour, Mistress Margaret,” said the man.

The girl went slowly across to the corner doorway, glancing at the parlour windows as she passed; but the curtains were drawn on this side, and she could catch no glimpse of the party within.

The little entrance passage was dark; but she could hear a murmur of voices as she stood there, still hesitating. Then she opened the door suddenly, and went into the room.

Her mother was speaking; and the girl heard those icy detached tones as she looked round the group.

“It must be very difficult for you, Mistress Atherton, in these days.”

Margaret saw her father standing at the window-seat, and Chris beside him; and in a moment saw that the faces of both were troubled and uneasy.

A tall girl was in the chair opposite, her hands lying easily on the arms and her head thrown back almost negligently. She was well dressed, with furs about her throat; her buckled feet were crossed before the blaze, and her fingers shone with jewels. Her face was pale; her scarlet lips were smiling, and there was a certain keen and genial amusement in her black eyes.

She looked magnificent, thought Margaret, still standing with her hand on the door—too magnificent.

Her father made a movement, it seemed of relief, as his daughter came in; but Lady Torridon, very upright in her chair on this side, went on immediately.

—”With your opinions, Mistress Atherton, I mean. I suppose all that you consider sacred is being insulted, in your eyes.”

The tall girl glanced at Margaret with the amusement still in her face, and then answered with a deliberate incisiveness that equalled Lady Torridon’s own.

“Not so difficult,” she said, “as for those who have no opinions.”

There was a momentary pause; and then she added, as she stood up and Sir

James came forward.

“I am very sorry for them, Mistress Torridon.”

Before Lady Torridon could answer, Sir James had broken in.

“This is my daughter Margaret, Mistress Atherton.”

The two ladies saluted one another.

CHAPTER II

A DUEL

Margaret watched Beatrice with growing excitement that evening, in which was mingled something of awe and some thing of attraction. She had never seen anyone so serenely self-possessed.

It became evident during supper, beyond the possibility of mistake, that Lady Torridon had planned war against the guest, who was a representative in her eyes of all that was narrow-minded and contemptible. Here was a girl, she seemed to tell herself, who had had every opportunity of emancipation, who had been singularly favoured in being noticed by Ralph, and who had audaciously thrown him over for the sake of some ridiculous scruples worthy only of idiots and nuns. Indeed to Chris it was fairly plain that his mother had consented so willingly to Beatrice’s visit with the express purpose of punishing her.

But Beatrice held her own triumphantly.

They had not sat down three minutes before Lady Torridon opened the assault, with grave downcast face and in her silkiest manner. She went abruptly back to the point where the conversation had been interrupted in the parlour by Margaret’s entrance.

“Mistress Atherton,” she observed, playing delicately with her spoon, “I think you said that to your mind the times were difficult for those who had no opinions.”

Beatrice looked at her pleasantly.

“Yes, Mistress Torridon; at least more difficult for those, than for the others who know their own mind.”

The other waited a moment, expecting the girl to justify herself, but she was forced to go on.

“Abbot Marshall knew his mind, but it was not easy for him.”

(The news had just arrived of the Abbot’s execution).

“Do you think not, mistress? I fear I still hold my opinion.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“I mean that unless we have something to hold to, in these troublesome times, we shall drift. That is all.”

“Ah! and drift whither?”

Beatrice smiled so genially as she answered, that the other had no excuse for taking offence.

“Well, it might be better not to answer that.”

Lady Torridon looked at her with an impassive face.

“To hell, then?” she said.

“Well, yes: to hell,” said Beatrice.

There was a profound silence; broken by the stifled merriment of a servant behind the chairs, who transformed it hastily into a cough. Sir James glanced across in great distress at his son; but Chris’ eyes twinkled at him.

Lady Torridon was silent a moment, completely taken aback by the suddenness with which the battle had broken, and amazed by the girl’s audacity. She herself was accustomed to use brutality, but not to meet it. She laid her spoon carefully down.

“Ah!” she said, “and you believe that? And for those who hold wrong opinions, I suppose you would believe the same?”

“If they were wrong enough,” said Beatrice, “and through their fault.

Surely we are taught to believe that, Mistress Torridon?”

The elder woman said nothing at all, and went on with her soup. Her silence was almost more formidable than her speech, and she knew that, and contrived to make it offensive. Beatrice paid no sort of attention to it, however; and without looking at her again began to talk cheerfully to Sir James about her journey from town. Margaret watched her, fascinated; her sedate beautiful face, her lace and jewels, her white fingers, long and straight, that seemed to endorse the impression of strength that her carriage and manner of speaking suggested; as one might watch a swordsman between the rounds of a duel and calculate his chances. She knew very well that her mother would not take her first repulse easily; and waited in anxiety for the next clash of swords.

Beatrice seemed perfectly fearless, and was talking about the King with complete freedom, and yet with a certain discretion too.

“He will have his way,” she said. “Who can doubt that?”

Lady Torridon saw an opening for a wound, and leapt at it.

“As he had with Master More,” she put in.

Beatrice turned her head a little, but made no answer; and there was not the shadow of wincing on her steady face.

“As he had with Master More,” said Lady Torridon a little louder.

“We must remember that he has my Lord Cromwell to help him,” observed

Beatrice tranquilly.

Lady Torridon looked at her again. Even now she could scarcely believe that this stranger could treat her with such a supreme indifference. And there was a further sting, too, in the girl’s answer, for all there understood the reference to Ralph; and yet again it was impossible to take offence.

Margaret looked at her father, half-frightened, and saw again a look of anxiety in his eyes; he was crumbling his bread nervously as he answered Beatrice.

“My Lord Cromwell—” he began.

“My Lord Cromwell has my son Ralph under him,” interrupted his wife.

“Perhaps you did not know that, Mistress Atherton.”

Margaret again looked quickly up; but there was still no sign of wincing on those scarlet lips, or beneath the black eyebrows.

“Why, of course, I knew it,” said Beatrice, looking straight at her with large, innocent eyes, “that was why—”

She stopped; and Lady Torridon really roused now, made a false step.

“Yes?” she said. “You did not end your sentence?”

Beatrice cast an ironically despairing look behind her at the servants.

“Well,” she said, “if you will have it: that was why I would not marry him. Did you not know that, Mistress?”

It was so daring that Margaret caught her breath suddenly; and looked hopelessly round. Her father and brother had their eyes steadily bent on the table; and the priest was looking oddly at the quiet angry woman opposite him.

Then Sir James slid deftly in, after a sufficient pause to let the lesson sink home; and began to talk of indifferent things; and Beatrice answered him with the same ease.

Lady Torridon made one more attempt just before the end of supper, when the servants had left the room.

“You are living on—” she corrected herself ostentatiously—”you are living with any other family now, Mistress Atherton? I remember my son Ralph telling me you were almost one of Master More’s household.”

Beatrice met her eyes with a delightful smile.

“I am living on—with your family at this time, Mistress Torridon.”

There was no more to be said just then. The girl had not only turned her hostess’ point, but had pricked her shrewdly in riposte, three times; and the last was the sharpest of all.

Lady Torridon led the way to the oak parlour in silence.

She made no more assaults that night; but sat in dignified aloofness, her hands on her lap, with an air of being unconscious of the presence of the others. Beatrice sat with Margaret on the long oak settle; and talked genially to the company at large.

When compline had been said, Sir James drew Chris aside into the star-lit court as the others went on in front.

“Dear lad,” he said, “what are we to do? This cannot go on. Your mother—”

Chris smiled at him, and took his arm a moment.

“Why, father,” he said, “what more do we want? Mistress Atherton can hold her own.”

“But your mother will insult her.”

“She will not be able,” said Chris. “Mistress Atherton will not have it.

Did you not see how she enjoyed it?”

“Enjoyed it?”

“Why, yes; her eyes shone.”

“Well, I must speak to her,” said Sir James, still perplexed. “Come with me, Chris.”

Mr. Carleton was just leaving the parlour as they came up to its outside door. Sir James drew him into the yard. There were no secrets between these two.

“Father,” he said, “did you notice? Do you think Mistress Atherton will be able to stay here?”

He saw to his astonishment that the priest’s melancholy face, as the starlight fell on it, was smiling.

“Why, yes, Sir James. She is happy enough.”

“But my wife—”

“Sir James, I think Mistress Atherton may do her good. She—” he hesitated.

“Well?” said the old man.

“She—Lady Torridon has met her match,” said the chaplain, still smiling.

Sir James made a little gesture of bewilderment.

“Well, come in, Chris. I do not understand; but if you both think so—”

He broke off and opened the door.

Lady Torridon was gone to her room; and the two girls were alone. Beatrice was standing before the hearth with her hands behind her back—a gallant upright figure; as they came in, she turned a cheerful face to them.

“Your daughter has been apologising, Sir James,” she said; and there was a ripple of amusement in her voice. “She thinks I have been hardly treated.”

She glanced at the bewildered Margaret, who was staring at her under her delicate eyebrows with wide eyes of amazement and admiration.

Sir James looked confused.

“The truth is, Mistress Atherton, that I too—and my son—”

“Well, not your son,” said Chris smiling.

“You too!” cried Beatrice. “And how have I been hardly treated?”

“Well, I thought perhaps, that what was said at supper—” began the old man, beginning to smile too.

“Lady Torridon, and every one, has been all that is hospitable,” said Beatrice. “It is like old days at Chelsea. I love word-fencing; and there are so few who practise it.”

Sir James was still a little perplexed.

“You assure me, Mistress, that you are not distressed by—by anything that has passed?”

“Distressed!” she cried. “Why, it is a real happiness!”

But he was not yet satisfied.

“You will engage to tell me then, if you think you are improperly treated by—by anyone—?”

“Why, yes,” said the girl, smiling into his eyes. “But there is no need to promise that. I am really happy; and I am sure your daughter and I will be good friends.”

She turned a little towards Margaret; and Chris saw a curious emotion of awe and astonishment and affection in his sister’s eyes.

“Come, my dear,” said Beatrice. “You said you would take me to my room.”

Sir James hastened to push open the further door that led to the stairs; and the two girls passed out together.

Then he shut the door, and turned to his son. Chris had begun to laugh.

CHAPTER III

A PEACE-MAKER

It was a very strange household that Christmas at Overfield. Mary and her husband came over with their child, and the entire party, with the exception of the duellists themselves, settled down to watch the conflict between Lady Torridon and Beatrice Atherton. Its prolongation was possible because for days together the hostess retired into a fortress of silence, whence she looked out cynically, shrugged her shoulders, smiled almost imperceptibly, and only sallied when she found she could not provoke an attack. Beatrice never made an assault; was always ready for the least hint of peace; but guarded deftly and struck hard when she was directly threatened. Neither would she ever take an insult; the bitterest dart fell innocuous on her bright shield before she struck back smiling; but there were some sharp moments of anxiety now and again as she hesitated how to guard.

A silence would fall suddenly in the midst of the talk and clatter at table; there would be a momentary kindling of glances, as from the tall chair opposite the chaplain a psychological atmosphere of peril made itself felt; then the blow would be delivered; the weapons clashed; and once more the talk rose high and genial over the battlefield.

The moment when Beatrice’s position in the house came nearest to being untenable, was one morning in January, when the whole party were assembled on the steps to see the sportsmen off for the day.

Sir James was down with the foresters and hounds at the further end of the terrace, arranging the details of the day; Margaret had not yet come out of chapel, and Lady Torridon, who had had a long fit of silence, was standing with Mary and Nicholas at the head of the central stairs that led down from the terrace to the gravel.

Christopher and Beatrice came out of the house behind, talking cheerfully; for the two had become great friends since they had learnt to understand one another, and Beatrice had confessed to him frankly that she had been wrong and he right in the matter of Ralph. She had told him this a couple of days after her arrival; but there had been a certain constraint in her manner that forbade his saying much in answer. Here they came then, now, in the frosty sunshine; he in his habit and she in her morning house-dress of silk and lace, talking briskly.

“I was sure you would understand, father,” she said, as they came up behind the group.

Then Lady Torridon turned and delivered her point, suddenly and brutally.

“Of course he will,” she said. “I suppose then you are not going out, Mistress Atherton.” And she glanced with an offensive contempt at the girl and the monk. Beatrice’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and opened again.

“Why, no, Lady Torridon.”

“I thought not,” said the other; and again she glanced at the two—”for

I see the priest is not.”

There was a moment’s silence. Nick was looking at his wife with a face of dismay. Then Beatrice answered smiling.

“Neither are you, dear Lady Torridon. Is not that enough to keep me?”

A short yelp of laughter broke from Nicholas; and he stooped to examine his boot.

Lady Torridon opened her lips, closed them again, and turned her back on the girl.

“But you are cruel,” said Beatrice’s voice from behind, “and—”

The woman turned once more venomously.

“You do not want me,” she said. “You have taken one son of mine, and now you would take the other. Is not my daughter enough?”

Beatrice instantly stepped up, and put her hand on the other’s arm.

“Dear Mistress,” she said; and her voice broke into tenderness; “she is not enough—”

Lady Torridon jerked her arm away.

“Come, Mary,” she said.

Matters were a little better after that. Sir James was not told of the incident; because his son knew very well that he would not allow Beatrice to stay another day after the insult; but Chris felt himself bound to consult those who had heard what had passed as to whether indeed it was possible for her to remain. Nicholas grew crimson with indignation and vowed it was impossible. Mary hesitated; and Chris himself was doubtful. He went at last to Beatrice that same evening; and found her alone in the oak parlour, before supper. The sportsmen had not yet come back; and the other ladies were upstairs.

Beatrice affected to treat it as nothing; and it was not till Chris threatened to tell his father, that she told him all she thought.

“I must seem a vain fool to say so;” she said, leaning back in her chair, and looking up at him, “and perhaps insolent too; yet I must say it. It is this: I believe that Lady Torridon—Ah! how can I say it?”

“Tell me,” said Chris steadily, looking away from her.

Beatrice shifted a little in her seat; and then stood up.

“Well, it is this. I do not believe your mother is so—so—is what she sometimes seems. I think she is very sore and angry; there are a hundred reasons. I think no one has—has faced her before. She has been obeyed too much. And—and I think that if I stay I may be able—I may be some good,” she ended lamely.

Chris nodded.

“I understand,” he said softly.

“Give me another week or two,” said Beatrice, “I will do my best.”

“You have worked a miracle with Meg,” said Chris. “I believe you can work another. I will not tell my father; and the others shall not either.”

A wonderful change had indeed come to Margaret during the last month. Her whole soul, so cramped now by circumstances, had gone out in adoration towards this stranger. Chris found it almost piteous to watch her—her shy looks, the shiver that went over her, when the brilliant figure rustled into the room, or the brisk sentences were delivered from those smiling lips. He would see too how their hands met as they sat together; how Margaret would sit distracted and hungering for attention, eyeing the ceiling, the carpet, her embroidery; and how her eyes would leap to meet a glance, and her face flush up, as Beatrice throw her a soft word or look.

And it was the right love, too, to the monk’s eyes; not a rival flame, but fuel for divine ardour. Margaret spent longer, not shorter, time at her prayers; was more, not less, devout at mass and communion; and her whole sore soul became sensitive and alive again. The winter had passed for her; the time of the singing-birds was come.

She was fascinated by the other’s gallant brilliance. Religion for the nun had up to the present appeared a delicate thing that grew in the shadow or in the warm shelter of the cloister; now it blossomed out in Beatrice as a hardy bright plant that tossed its leaves in the wind and exulted in sun and cold. Yet it had its evening tendernesses too, its subtle fragrance when the breeze fell, its sweet colours and outlines—Beatrice too could pray; and Margaret’s spiritual instinct, as she knelt by her at the altar-rail or glanced at the other’s face as she came down fresh with absolution from the chair in the sanctuary where the chaplain sat, detected a glow of faith at least as warm as her own.

She was astonished too at her friend’s gaiety; for she had expected, so far as her knowledge of human souls led to expect anything, a quiet convalescent spirit, recovering but slowly from the tragedy through which Margaret knew she had passed. It seemed to her at first as if Beatrice must be almost heartless, so little did she flinch when Lady Torridon darted Ralph’s name at her, or Master More’s, or flicked her suddenly where the wound ought to be; and it was not until the guest had been a month in the house that the nun understood.

They were together one evening in Margaret’s own white little room above the oak parlour. Beatrice was sitting before the fire with her arms clasped behind her head, waiting till the other had finished her office, and looking round pleased in her heart, at the walls that told their tale so plainly. It was almost exactly like a cell. A low oak bed, red-blanketted, stood under the sloping roof, a prie-dieu beside it, and a cheap little French image of St. Scholastica over it. There was a table, with a sheet of white paper, a little ink-horn and two quills primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and furniture were speckless and precise.

Margaret made the sign of the cross, closed her book, and smiled at

Beatrice.

“You dear child!” she answered.

Margaret’s face shone with pleasure; and she put out her hand softly to the other’s knee, and laid it there.

“Talk to me,” said the nun.

“Well?” said Beatrice.

“Tell me about your life in London. You never have yet, you know.”

An odd look passed over the others face, and she dropped her eyes and laid her hands together in her lap.

“Oh, Meg,” she said, “I should love to tell you if I could. What would you like to hear?”

The nun looked at her wondering.

“Why—everything,” she said.

“Shall I tell you of Chelsea and Master More?”

Margaret nodded, still looking at her; and Beatrice began.

It was an extraordinary experience for the nun to sit there and hear that wonderful tale poured out. Beatrice for the first time threw open her defences—those protections of the sensitive inner life that she had raised by sheer will—and showed her heart. She told her first of her life in the country before she had known anything of the world; of her father’s friendship with More when she was still a child, and of his death when she was about sixteen. She had had money of her own, and had come up to live with Mrs. More’s sisters; and so had gradually slipped into intimacy at Chelsea. Then she described the life there—the ordered beauty of it all—and the marvellous soul that was its centre and sun. She told her of More’s humour, his unfailing gaiety, his sweet cynicism that shot through his talk, his tender affections, and above all—for she knew this would most interest the nun—his deep and resolute devotion to God. She described how he had at one time lived at the Charterhouse, and had seemed to regret, before the end of his life, that he had not become a Carthusian; she told her of the precious parcel that had been sent from the Tower to Chelsea the day before his death, and how she had helped Margaret Roper to unfasten it and disclose the hair-shirt that he had worn secretly for years, and which now he had sent back for fear that it should be seen by unfriendly eyes or praised by flattering tongues.

Her face grew inexpressibly soft and loving as she talked; more than once her black eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered; and the nun sat almost terrified at the emotion she had called up. It was hardly possible that this tender feminine creature who talked so softly of divine and human things and of the strange ardent lawyer in whom both were so manifest, could be the same stately lady of downstairs who fenced so gallantly, who never winced at a wound and trod so bravely over sharp perilous ground.

“They killed him,” said Beatrice. “King Henry killed him; for that he could not bear an honest, kindly, holy soul so near his own. And we are left to weep for him, of whom—of whom the world was not worthy.”

Margaret felt her hand caught and caressed; and the two sat in silence a moment.

“But—but—” began the nun softly, bewildered by this revelation.

“Yes, my dear; you did not know—how should you?—what a wound I carry here—what a wound we all carry who knew him.”

Again there was a short silence. Margaret was searching for some word of comfort.

“But you did what you could for him, did you not? And—and even Ralph, I think I heard—”

Beatrice turned and looked at her steadily. Margaret read in her face something she could not understand.

“Yes—Ralph?” said Beatrice questioningly.

“You told father so, did you not? He did what he could for Master More?”

Beatrice laid her other hand too over Margaret’s.

“My dear; I do not know. I cannot speak of that.”

“But you said—”

“Margaret, my pet; you would not hurt me, would you? I do not think I can bear to speak of that.”

The nun gripped the other’s two hands passionately, and laid her cheek against them.

“Beatrice, I did not know—I forgot.”

Beatrice stooped and kissed her gently.

The nun loved her tenfold more after that. It had been before a kind of passionate admiration, such as a subject might feel for a splendid queen; but the queen had taken this timid soul in through the palace-gates now, into a little inner chamber intimate and apart, and had sat with her there and shown her everything, her broken toys, her failures; and more than all her own broken heart. And as, after that evening, Margaret watched Beatrice again in public, heard her retorts and marked her bearing, she knew that she knew something that the others did not; she had the joy of sharing a secret of pain. But there was one wound that Beatrice did not show her; that secret was reserved for one who had more claim to it, and could understand. The nun could not have interpreted it rightly.

Mary and Nicholas went back to Great Keynes at the end of January; and Beatrice was out on the terrace with the others to see them go. Jim, the little seven-year-old boy, had fallen in love with her, ever since he had found that she treated him like a man, with deference and courtesy, and did not talk about him in his presence and over his head. He was walking with her now, a little apart, as the horses came round, and explaining to her how it was that he only rode a pony at present, and not a horse.

“My legs would not reach, Mistress Atherton,” he said, protruding a small leather boot. “It is not because I am afraid, or father either. I rode Jess, the other day, but not astride.”

“I quite understand,” said Beatrice respectfully, without the shadow of laughter in her face.

“You see—” began the boy.

Then his mother came up.

“Run, Jim, and hold my horse. Mistress Beatrice, may I have a word with you?”

The two turned and walked down to the end of the terrace again.

“It is this,” said Mary, looking at the other from under her plumed hat, with her skirt gathered up with her whip in her gloved hand. “I wished to tell you about my mother. I have not dared till now. I have never seen her so stirred in my life, as she is now. I—I think she will do anything you wish in time. It is useless to feign that we do not understand one another—anything you wish—come back to her Faith perhaps; treat my father better. She—she loves you, I think; and yet dare not—”

“On Ralph’s account,” put in Beatrice serenely.

“Yes; how did you know? It is on Ralph’s account. She cannot forgive that. Can you say anything to her, do you think? Anything to explain? You understand—”

“I understand.”

“I do not know how I dare say all this,” went on Mary blushing furiously, “but I must thank you too for what you have done for my sister. It is wonderful. I could have done nothing.”

“My dear,” said Beatrice. “I love your sister. There is no need for thanks.”

A loud voice hailed them.

“Sweetheart,” shouted Sir Nicholas, standing with his legs apart at the mounting steps. “The horses are fretted to death.”

“You will remember,” said Mary hurriedly, as they turned. “And—God bless you, Beatrice!”

Lady Torridon was indeed very quiet now. It was strange for the others to see the difference. It seemed as if she had been conquered by the one weapon that she could wield, which was brutality. As Mr. Carleton had said, she had never been faced before; she had been accustomed to regard devoutness as incompatible with strong character; she had never been resisted. Both her husband and children had thought to conquer by yielding; it was easier to do so, and appeared more Christian; and she herself, like Ralph, was only provoked further by passivity. And now she had met one of the old school, who was as ready in the use of worldly weapons as herself; she had been ignored and pricked alternately, and with astonishing grace too, by one who was certainly of that tone of mind that she had gradually learnt to despise and hate.

Chris saw this before his father; but he saw too that the conquest was not yet complete. His mother had been cowed with respect, as a dog that is broken in; she had not yet been melted with love. He had spoken to Mary the day before the Maxwells’ departure, and tried to put this into words; and Mary had seen where the opening for love lay, through which the work could be done; and the result had been the interview with Beatrice, and the mention of Ralph’s name. But Mary had not a notion how Beatrice could act; she only saw that Ralph was the one chink in her mother’s armour, and she left it to this girl who had been so adroit up to the present, to find how to pierce it.

Sir James had given up trying to understand the situation. He had for so long regarded his wife as an irreconcilable that he hoped for nothing better than to be able to keep her pacified; anything in the nature of a conversion seemed an idle dream. But he had noticed the change in her manner, and wondered what it meant; he hoped that the pendulum had not swung too far, and that it was not she who was being bullied now by this imperious girl from town.

He said a word to Mr. Carleton one day about it, as they walked in the garden.

“Father,” he said, “I am puzzled. What has come to my wife? Have you not noticed how she has not spoken for three days. Do you think she dislikes Mistress Atherton. If I thought that—”

“No, sir,” said the priest. “I do not think it is that. I think it is the other way about. She did dislike her—but not now.”

“You do not think, Mistress Atherton is—is a little—discourteous and sharp sometimes. I have wondered whether that was so. Chris thinks not, however.”

“Neither do I, sir. I think—I think it is all very well as it is. I hope Mistress Atherton is to stay yet a while.”

“She speaks of going in a week or two,” said the old man. “She has been here six weeks now.”

“I hope not,” said the priest, “since you have asked my opinion, sir.”

Sir James sighed, looked at the other, and then left him, to search for his wife and see if she wanted him. He was feeling a little sorry for her.

A week later the truth began to come out, and Beatrice had the opportunity for which she was waiting.

They were all gathered before the hall-fire expecting supper; the painted windows had died with the daylight, and the deep tones of the woodwork in gallery and floor and walls had crept out from the gloom into the dancing flare of the fire and the steady glow of the sconces. The weather had broken a day or two before; all the afternoon sheets of rain had swept across the fields and gardens, and heavy cheerless clouds marched over the sky. The wind was shrilling now against the north side of the hall, and one window dripped a little inside on to the matting below it. The supper-table shone with silver and crockery, and the napkins by each place; and the door from the kitchen was set wide for the passage of the servants, one of whom waited discreetly in the opening for the coming of the lady of the house. They were all there but she; and the minutes went by and she did not come.

Sir James turned enquiringly as the door from the court opened, but it was only a wet shivering dog who had nosed it open, and now crept deprecatingly towards the blaze.

“You poor beast,” said Beatrice, drawing her skirts aside. “Take my place,” and she stepped away to allow him to come. He looked gratefully up, wagged his rat-tail, and lay down comfortably at the edge of the tiles.

“My wife is very late,” said Sir James. “Chris—”

He stopped as footsteps sounded in the flagged passage leading from the living rooms; and the next moment the door was flung open, and a woman ran forward with outstretched hands.

“O! mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” she cried. “My lady is ill. Come, sir, come!”

CHAPTER IV

THE ELDER SON

Ralph had prospered exceedingly since his return from the Sussex Visitation. He had been sent on mission after mission by Cromwell, who had learnt at last how wholly he could be trusted; and with each success his reputation increased. It seemed to Cromwell that his man was more whole-hearted than he had been at first; and when he was told abruptly by Ralph that his relations with Mistress Atherton had come to an end, the politician was not slow to connect cause and effect. He had always regretted the friendship; it seemed to him that his servant’s character was sure to be weakened by his alliance with a friend of Master More; and though he had said nothing—for Ralph’s manner did not encourage questions—he had secretly congratulated both himself and his agent for so happy a termination to an unfortunate incident.

For the meantime Ralph’s fortunes rose with his master’s; Lord Cromwell now reigned in England next after the King in both Church and State. He held a number of offices, each of which would have been sufficient for an ordinary man, but all of which did not overtax his amazing energy. He stood absolutely alone, with all the power in his hands; President of the Star Chamber, Foreign Minister, Home-Minister, and the Vicar-General of the Church; feared by Churchmen, distrusted by statesmen and nobles; and hated by all except his own few personal friends—an unique figure that had grown to gigantic stature through sheer effort and adroitness.

And beneath his formidable shadow Ralph was waxing great. He had failed to get Lewes for himself, for Cromwell designed it for Gregory his son; but he was offered his choice among several other great houses. For the present he hesitated to choose; uncertain of his future. If his father died there would be Overfield waiting for him, so he did not wish to tie himself to one of the far-away Yorkshire houses; if his father lived, he did not wish to be too near him. There was no hurry, said Cromwell; there would be houses and to spare for the King’s faithful servants; and meantime it would be better for Mr. Torridon to remain in Westminster, and lay his foundations of prosperity deeper and wider yet before building. The title too that Cromwell dangled before him sometimes—that too could wait until he had chosen his place of abode.

Ralph felt that he was being magnificently treated by his master; and his gratitude and admiration grew side by side with his rising fortune. There was no niggardliness, now that Cromwell had learnt to trust in him; he could draw as much money as he wished for the payment of his under-agents, or for any other purpose; and no questions were asked.

The little house at Westminster grew rich in treasures; his bed-coverlet was the very cope he had taken from Rusper; his table was heavy with chalices beaten into secular shape; his fire-screen was a Spanish chasuble taken in the North. His servants were no longer three or four sleeping in the house; there was a brigade of them, some that attended for orders morning by morning, some that skirmished for him in the country and returned rich in documents and hearsay; and a dozen waited on his personal wants.

He dealt too with great folks. Half a dozen abbots had been to see him in the last year or two, stately prelates that treated him as an equal and pleaded for his intercession; the great nobles, enemies of his master and himself, eyed him with respectful suspicion as he walked with Cromwell in Westminster Hall. The King had pulled his ears and praised him; Ralph had stayed at Greenwich a week at a time when the execution of the Benedictine abbots was under discussion; he had ridden down Cheapside with Henry on his right and Cromwell beyond, between the shouting crowds and beneath the wild tossing of gold-cloth and tapestry and the windy pealing of a hundred brazen bells. He had gone up with Norfolk to Doncaster, a mouth through which the King might promise and threaten, and had strode up the steps beside the Duke to make an end of the insurgent-leaders of the northern rebellion.

He did not lack a goad, beside that of his own ambition, to drive him through this desperate stir; he found a sufficient one in his memory. He did not think much of his own family, except with sharp contempt. He did not even trouble to make any special report about Chris or Margaret; but it was impossible to remember Beatrice with contempt. When she had left him kneeling at his table, she had left something besides—the sting of her words, and the bitter coldness of her eyes.

As he looked back he did not know whether he loathed her or loved her; he only knew that she affected him profoundly. Again and again as he dealt brutally with some timid culprit, or stood with his hand on his hip to direct the destruction of a shrine, the memory whipped him on his raw soul. He would show her whether he were a man or no; whether he depended on her or no; whether her woman’s tongue could turn him or no.

He was exercised now with very different matters. Religious affairs for the present had fallen into a secondary place, and home and foreign politics absorbed most of Cromwell’s energies and time. Forces were gathering once more against England, and the Catholic powers were coming to an understanding with one another against the country that had thrown off allegiance to the Pope and the Empire. There was an opportunity, however, for Henry’s propensity to marriage once more to play a part in politics; he had been three years without a wife; and Cromwell had hastened for the third time to avail himself of the King’s passions as an instrument in politics. He had understood that a union between England and the Lutheran princes would cause a formidable obstacle to Catholic machinations; and with this in view had excited Henry by a description and a picture of the Lady Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. He had been perfectly successful in the first stages; the stout duchess had landed at Deal at the end of December; and the marriage had been solemnised a few days later. But unpleasant rumour had been busy ever since; it was whispered far and wide that the King loathed his wife, and complained that he had been deceived as to her charms; and Ralph, who was more behind the scenes than most men, knew that the rumour was only too true. He had been present at an abominable incident the day after the marriage had taken place, when the King had stormed and raved about the council-room, crying out that he had been deceived, and adding many gross details for the benefit of his friends.

Cromwell had been strangely moody ever since. Ralph had watched his heavy face day after day staring vacantly across the room, and his hand that held the pen dig and prick at the paper beneath it.

Even that was not all. The Anglo-German alliance had provoked opposition on the continent instead of quelling it; and Ralph saw more than one threatening piece of news from abroad that hinted at a probable invasion of England should Cromwell’s schemes take effect. These too, however, had proved deceptive, and the Lutheran princes whom he had desired to conciliate were even already beginning to draw back from the consequences of their action.

Ralph was in Cromwell’s room one day towards the end of January, when a courier arrived with despatches from an agent who had been following the Spanish Emperor’s pacific progress through France, undertaken as a kind of demonstration against England.

Cromwell tore open the papers, and glanced at them, running his quick attentive eye over this page and that; and Ralph saw his face grow stern and white. He tossed the papers on to the table, and nodded to the courier to leave the room.

Then he took up a pen, examined it; dashed it point down against the table; gnawed his nails a moment, and then caught Ralph’s eye.

“We are failing,” he said abruptly. “Mr. Torridon, if you are a rat you had better run.”

“I shall not run, sir,” said Ralph.

“God’s Body!” said his master, “we shall all run together, I think;—but not yet.”

Then he took up the papers again, and began to read.

It was a few days later that Ralph received the news of his mother’s illness.

She had written to him occasionally, telling him of his father’s tiresome ways, his brother’s arrogance, his sister’s feeble piety, and finally she had told him of Beatrice’s arrival.

“I consented very gladly,” she had written, “for I thought to teach my lady a lesson or two; but I find her very pert and obstinate. I do not understand, my dear son, how you could have wished to make her your wife; and yet I will grant that she has a taking way with her; she seems to fear nothing but her own superstitions and folly, but I am very happy to think that all is over between you. She never loved you, my Ralph; for she cares nothing when I speak your name, as I have done two or three times; nor yet Master More either. I think she has no heart.”

Ralph had wondered a little as he read this, at his mother’s curious interest in the girl; and he wondered too at the report of Beatrice’s callousness. It was her damned pride, he assured himself.

Then, one evening as he arrived home from Hackney where he had slept the previous night; he found a messenger waiting for him. The letter had not been sent on to him, as he had not left word where he was going.

It contained a single line from his father.

“Your mother is ill. Come at once. She wishes for you.”

It was in the stormy blackness of a February midnight that he rode up through the lighted gatehouse to his home. Above the terrace as he came up the road the tall hall-window glimmered faintly like a gigantic luminous door hung in space; and the lower window of his father’s room shone and faded as the fire leapt within.

A figure rose up suddenly from before the hall-fire as he came in, bringing with him a fierce gust of wet wind through the opened door; and when he had slipped off his dripping cloak into his servant’s hands, he saw that his father was there two yards away, very stern and white, with outstretched hands.

“My son,” said the old man, “you are too late. She died two hours ago.”

It was a fierce shock, and for a moment he stood dazed, blinking at the light, holding his father’s warm slender hands in his own, and trying to assimilate the news. He had been driven inwards, and his obstinacy weakened, during that long ride from town through the stormy sunset into the black, howling night; memories had reasserted themselves on the strength of his anxiety; and the past year or two slipped from him, and left him again the eldest son of the house and of his two parents.

Then as he looked into the pale bearded face before him, and the eyes which had looked into his own a few months ago with such passionate anger, he remembered all that was between them, dropped the hands and went forward to the fire.

His father followed him and stood by him there as he spread his fingers to the blaze, and told him the details, in short detached sentences.

She had been seized with pain and vomiting on the previous night at supper time; the doctor had been sent for, and had declared the illness to be an internal inflammation. She had grown steadily worse on the following day, with periods of unconsciousness; she had asked for Ralph an hour after she had been taken ill; the pain had seemed to become fiercer as the hours went on; she had died at ten o’clock that night.

Ralph stood there and listened, his head pressed against the high mantelpiece, and his fingers stretching and closing mechanically to supple the stiffened joints.

“Mistress Atherton was with her all the while,” said his father; “she asked for her.”

Ralph shot a glance sideways, and down again.

“And—” he began.

“Yes; she was shriven and anointed, thank God; she could not receive

Viaticum.”

Ralph did not know whether he was glad or sorry at that news. It was a proper proceeding at any rate; as proper as the candles and the shroud and the funeral rites. As regards grief, he did not feel it yet; but he was aware of a profound sensation in his soul, as of a bruise.

There was silence for a moment or two; then the wind bellowed suddenly in the chimney, the tall window gave a crack of sound, and the smoke eddied out into the room. Ralph turned round.

“They are with her still,” said Sir James; “we can go up presently.”

The other shook his head abruptly.

“No,” he said, “I will wait until to-morrow. Which is my room?”

“Your old room,” said his father. “I have had a truckle-bed set there for your man. Will you find your way? I must stay here for Mistress Atherton.”

Ralph nodded sharply, and went out, down the hill.

It was half an hour more before Beatrice appeared; and then Sir James looked up from his chair at the sound of a footstep and saw her coming up the matted floor. Her face was steady and resolute, but there were dark patches under her eyes, for she had not slept for two nights.

Sir James stood up, and held out his hands.

“Ralph has come,” he said. “He is gone to his room. Where are the others?”

“The priests are at prayers and Meg too,” she said, “It is all ready, sir. You may go up when you please.”

“I must say a word first,” said Sir James. “Sit down, Mistress

Atherton.”

He drew forward his chair for her; and himself stood up on the hearth, leaning his head on his hand and looking down into the fire.

“It is this,” he said: “May our Lord reward you for what you have done for us.”

Beatrice was silent.

“You know she asked my pardon,” he said, “when we were left alone together. You do not know what that means. And she gave me her forgiveness for all my folly—”

Beatrice drew a sharp breath in spite of herself.

“We have both sinned,” he went on; “we did not understand one another; and I feared we should part so. That we have not, we have to thank you—”

His old voice broke suddenly; and Beatrice heard him draw a long sobbing breath. She knew she ought to speak, but her brain was bewildered with the want of sleep and the long struggle; she could not think of a word to say; she felt herself on the verge of hysteria.

“You have done it all,” he said again presently. “She took all that Mr.

Carleton said patiently enough, he told me. It is all your work.

Mistress Atherton—”

She looked up questioningly with her bright tired eyes.

“Mistress Atherton; may I know what you said to her?”

Beatrice made a great effort and recovered her self-control.

“I answered her questions,” she said.

“Questions? Did she ask you of the Faith? Did she speak of me? Am I asking too much?”

Beatrice shook her head. For a moment again she could not speak.

“I am asking what I should not,” said the old man.

“No, no,” cried the girl, “you have a right to know. Wait, I will tell you—”

Again she broke off, and felt her own breath begin to sob in her throat.

She buried her face in her hands a moment.

“God forgive me,” said the other. “I—”

“It was about your son Ralph,” said Beatrice bravely, though her lips shook.

“She—she asked whether I had ever loved him at all—and—”

“Mistress Beatrice, Mistress Beatrice, I entreat you not to say more.”

“And I told her—yes; and, yes—still.”

CHAPTER V

THE MUMMERS

It was a strange meeting for Beatrice and Ralph the next morning. She saw him first from the gallery in chapel at mass, kneeling by his father, motionless and upright, and watched him go down the aisle when it was over. She waited a few minutes longer, quieting herself, marshalling her forces, running her attention over each movement or word that might prove unruly in his presence; and then she got up from her knees and went down.

It had been an intolerable pain to tell the dying woman that she loved her son; it tore open the wound again, for she had never yet spoken that secret aloud to any living soul, not even to her own. When the question came, as she knew it would, she had not hesitated an instant as to the answer, and yet the answer had materialised what had been impalpable before.

As she had looked down from the gallery this morning she knew that she hated, in theory, every detail of his outlook on life; he was brutal, insincere; he had lied to her; he was living on the fruits of sacrilege; he had outraged every human tie he possessed; and yet she loved every hair of his dark head, every movement of his strong hands. It was that that had broken down the mother’s reserve; she had been beaten by the girl’s insolence, as a dog is beaten into respect; she had only one thing that she had not been able to forgive, and that was that this girl had tossed aside her son’s love; then the question had been asked and answered; and the work had been done. The dying woman had surrendered wholly to the superior personality; and had obeyed like a child.

She had a sense of terrible guilt as she went downstairs into the passage that opened on the court; the fact that she had put into words what had lain in her heart, made her fancy that the secret was written on her face. Then again she drove the imagination down by sheer will; she knew that she had won back her self-control, and could trust her own discretion.

Their greeting was that of two acquaintances. There was not the tremor of an eyelid of either, or a note in either voice, that betrayed that their relations had once been different. Ralph thanked her courteously for her attention to his mother; and she made a proper reply. Then they all sat down to breakfast.

Then Margaret had to be attended to, for she was half-wild with remorse; she declared to Beatrice when they went upstairs together that she had been a wicked daughter, that she had resented her mother’s words again and again, had behaved insolently, and so forth. Beatrice took her in her arms.

“My dear,” she said, “indeed you must leave all that now. Come and see her; she is at peace, and you must be.”

The bedroom where Lady Torridon had died was arranged as a chapelle ardente; the great bed had been moved out into the centre of the room. Six tall candlesticks with escutcheons and yellow tapers formed a slender mystical wall of fire and light about it; the windows were draped a couple of kneeling desks were set at the foot of the bed. Chris was kneeling at one beside his father as they went in, and Mary Maxwell, who had arrived a few hours before death had taken place, was by herself in a corner.

Beatrice drew Margaret to the second desk, pushed the book to her, and knelt by her. There lay the body of the strange, fierce, lonely woman, with her beautiful hands crossed, pale as wax, with a crucifix between them; and those great black eyebrows beyond, below which lay the double reverse curve of the lashes. It seemed as if she was watching them both, as her manner had been in life, with a tranquil cynicism.

And was she at peace, thought Beatrice, as she had told her daughter just now? Was it possible to believe that that stormy, vicious spirit had been quieted so suddenly? And yet that would be no greater miracle than that which death had wrought to the body. If the one was so still, why not the other? At least she had asked pardon of her husband for those years of alienation; she had demanded the sacraments of the Church!

Beatrice bowed her head, and prayed for the departed soul.

She was disturbed by the soft opening of a door, and lifted her eyes to see Ralph stand a moment by the head of the bed, before he sank on his knees. She could watch every detail of his face in the candlelight; his thin tight lips, his heavy eyebrows so like his mother’s, his curved nostrils, the clean sharp line of his jaw.

She found herself analysing his processes of thought. His mother had been the one member of his family with whom he had had sympathy; they understood one another, these two bitter souls, as no one else did, except perhaps Beatrice herself. How aloof they had stood from all ordinary affections; how keen must have been their dual loneliness! And what did this snapped thread mean to him now? To what, in his opinion, did the broken end lead that had passed out from the visible world to the invisible? Did he think that all was over, and that the one soul that had understood his own had passed like a candle flame into the dark? And she too—was she crying for her son, a thin soundless sobbing in the world beyond sight? Above all, did he understand how alone he was now—how utterly, eternally alone, unless he turned his course?

A great well of pity broke up and surged in her heart, flooding her eyes with tears, as she looked at the living son and the dead mother; and she dropped her head on her hands again, and prayed for his soul as well as for hers.

It was a very strange atmosphere in the house during the day or two that passed before the funeral. The household met at meals and in the parlour and chapel, but seldom at other times. Ralph was almost invisible; and silent when he appeared. There were no explanations on either side; he behaved with a kind of distant courtesy to the others, answered their questions, volunteered a word or two sometimes; made himself useful in small ways as regarded giving orders to the servants, inspecting the funeral standard and scutcheons, and making one or two arrangements which fell to him naturally; and went out by himself on horseback or on foot during the afternoon. His contempt seemed to have fallen from him; he was as courteous to Chris as to the others; but no word was spoken on either side as regarded either the past and the great gulf that separated him from the others, or the future relations between him and his home.

The funeral took place three days after death, on the Saturday morning; a requiem was sung in the presence of the body in the parish church; and Beatrice sat with the mourners in the Torridon chapel behind the black hearse set with lights, before the open vault in the centre of the pavement. Ralph sat two places beyond her, with Sir James between; and she was again vividly conscious of his presence, of his movements as he knelt and sat; and again she wondered what all the solemn ceremonies meant to him, the yellow candles, the black vestments, the mysterious hallowing of the body with incense and water—counteracting, as it were, with fragrance and brightness, the corruption and darkness of the grave.

She walked back with Margaret, who clung to her now, almost desperately, finding in her sane serenity an antidote to her own remorse; and as she walked through the garden and across the moat, with Nicholas and Mary coming behind, she watched the three men going in front, Sir James in the middle, the monk on his left, and the slow-stepping Ralph on his right, and marvelled at the grim acting.

There they went, the father and his two sons, side by side in courteous silence—she noticed Ralph step forward to lift the latch of the garden-gate for the others to pass through—and between them lay an impassable gulf; she found herself wondering whether the other gulf that they had looked into half an hour before were so deep or wide.

She was out again with Sir James alone in the evening before supper, and learnt from him then that Ralph was to stay till Monday.

“He has not spoken to me of returning again,” said the old man, “Of course it is impossible. Do you not think so, Mistress Atherton.”

“It is impossible,” she said. “What good would be served?”

“What good?” repeated the other.

The evening was falling swiftly, layer on layer of twilight, as they turned to come back to the house. The steeple of the church rose up on their left, slender and ghostly against the yellow sky, out of the black yews and cypresses that lay banked below it. They stopped and looked at it a moment, as it aspired to heaven from the bones that lay about its base, like an eternal resurrection wrought in stone. There all about it were the mortal and the dead; the stones and iron slabs leaned, as they knew, in hundreds about the grass; and round them again stood the roofs, beginning now to kindle under the eaves, where the living slept and ate. There was a rumbling of heavy carts somewhere beyond the village, a crack or two of a whip, the barking of a dog.

Then they turned again and went up to the house.

It was the chaplain who was late this evening for supper. The others waited a few minutes by the fire, but there was no sign of him. A servant was sent up to his room and came back to report that he had changed his cassock and gone out; a boy had come from the parish-priest, said the man, ten minutes before, and Mr. Carleton had probably been sent for.

They waited yet five minutes, but the priest did not appear, and they sat down. Supper was nearly over before before he came. He came in by the side-door from the court, splashed with mud, and looking pale and concerned. He went straight up to Sir James.

“May I speak with you, sir?” he said.

The old man got up at once, and went down the hall with him.

The rest waited, expecting them to return, but there was no sign of them; and Ralph at last rose and led the way to the oak-parlour. As they passed the door of Sir James’s room they heard the sound of voices within.

Conversation was a very difficult matter that evening. Ralph had behaved with considerable grace and tact, but Nicholas had not responded. Ever since his arrival on the day before the funeral he had eyed Ralph like a strange dog intruded into a house; Mary had hovered round her husband, watchful and anxious, stepping hastily into gaps in the conversation, sliding in a sentence or two as Nicholas licked his lips in preparation for a snarl; once even putting her hand swiftly on his and drowning a growl with a word of her own. Ralph had been wonderfully self-controlled; only once had Beatrice seen him show his teeth for a moment as his brother-in-law had scowled more plainly than usual.

The atmosphere was charged to-night, now that the master of the house was away; and as Ralph took his seat in his father’s chair, Beatrice had caught her breath for a moment as she saw the look on Nicholas’s face. It seemed as if the funeral had lifted a stone that had hitherto held the two angry spirits down; Nicholas, after all, was but a son-in-law, and Ralph, to his view at least, a bad son. She feared that both might think that a quarrel did not outrage decency; but she feared for Nicholas more than for Ralph.

Ralph appeared not to notice the other’s scowl, and leaned easily back, his head against the carved heraldry, and rapped his fingers softly and rhythmically on the bosses of the arms.

Then she heard Nicholas draw a slow venomous breath; and the talk died on Mary’s lips. Beatrice stood up abruptly, in desperation; she did not know what to say; but the movement checked Nicholas, and he glanced at her a moment. Then Mary recovered herself, put her hand sharply on her husband’s, and slid out an indifferent sentence. Beatrice saw Ralph’s eyes move swiftly and sideways and down again, and a tiny wrinkle of a smile show itself at the corners of his mouth. But that danger was passed; and a minute later they heard the door of Sir James’s room opposite open, and the footsteps of the two men come out.

Ralph stood up at once as his father came in, followed by the priest, and stepped back to the window-seat; there was the faintest hint in the slight motion of his hands to the effect that he had held his post as the eldest son until the rightful owner came. But the consciousness of it in Beatrice’s mind was swept away as she looked at the old man, standing with a white stern face and his hands clenched at his sides. She could see that something impended, and stood up quickly.

“Mr. Carleton has brought shocking news,” he said abruptly; and his eyes wandered to his eldest son standing in the shadow of the curtain. “A company of mummers has arrived in the village—they—they are to give their piece to-morrow.”

There was a dead silence for a moment, for all knew what this meant.

Nicholas sprang to his feet.

“By God, they shall not!” he said.

Sir James lifted his hand sharply.

“We cannot hinder it,” he said. “The priests have done what they can.

The fellow tells them—” he paused, and again his eyes wandered to

Ralph—”the fellow tells them he is under the protection of my Lord

Cromwell.”

There was a swift rustle in the room. Nicholas faced sharply round to the window-seat, his hands clenched and his face quivering. Ralph did not move.

“Tell them, father,” said Sir James.

The chaplain gave his account. He had been sent for by the parish priest just before supper, and had gone with him to the barn that had been hired for the performance. The carts had arrived that evening from Maidstone; and were being unpacked. He had seen the properties; they were of the usual kind—all the paraphernalia for the parody of the Mass that was usually given by such actors. He had seen the vestments, the friar’s habit, the red-nosed mask, the woman’s costume and wig—all the regular articles. The manager had tried to protest against the priests’ entrance; had denied at first that any insult was intended to the Catholic Religion; and had finally taken refuge in defiance; he had flung out the properties before their eyes; had declared that no one could hinder him from doing as he pleased, since the Archbishop had not protested; and Lord Cromwell had given him his express sanction.

“We did all we were able,” said the priest. “Master Rector said he would put all the parishioners who came, under the ban of the Church; the fellow snapped his fingers in his face. I told them of Sir James’s wishes; the death of my Lady—it was of no avail. We can do nothing.”

The priest’s sallow face was flushed with fury as he spoke; and his lips trembled piteously with horror and pain. It was the first time that the mummers had been near Overfield; they had heard tales of them from other parts of the country, but had hoped that their own village would escape the corruption. And now it had come.

He stood shaking, as he ended his account.

“Mr. Carleton says it would be of no avail for me to go down myself. I wished to. We can do nothing.”

Again he glanced at Ralph, who had sat down silently in the shadow while the priest talked.

Nicholas could be restrained no longer. He shook off his wife’s hand and took a step across the room.

“And you—you sit there, you devil!” he shouted.

Sir James was with him in a moment, so swiftly that Beatrice did not see him move. Margaret was clinging to her now, whispering and sobbing.

“Nick,” snapped out the old man, “hold your tongue, sir. Sit down.”

“God’s Blood!” bellowed the squire. “You bid me sit down.”

Sir James gripped him so fiercely that he stepped back.

“I bid you sit down,” he said. “Ralph, will you help us?”

Ralph stood up instantly. He had not stirred a muscle as Nick shouted at him.

“I waited for that, sir,” he said. “What is it you would have me do?”

Beatrice saw that his face was quite quiet as he spoke; his eyelids drooped a little; and his mouth was tight and firm. He seemed not to be aware of Nicholas’s presence.

“To hinder the play-acting,” said his father.

There fell a dead silence again.

“I will do it, sir,” said his son. “It—it is but decent.”

And in the moment of profound astonishment that fell, he came straight across the room, passed by them all without turning his head, and went out.

Beatrice felt a fierce emotion grip her throat as she looked after him, and saw the door close. Then Margaret seized her again, and she turned to quiet her.

She was aware that Sir James had gone out after his son, after a moment of silence, and she heard his footsteps pass along the flags outside.

“Oh! God bless him!” sobbed Margaret.

Sir James came back immediately, shook his head, went across the room, and sat down in the seat that Ralph had left. A dreadful stillness fell. Margaret was quiet now. Mary was sitting with her husband on the other side of the hearth. Chris rose presently and sat down by his father, but no one spoke a word.

Then Nicholas got up uneasily, came across the room, and stood with his back to the hearth warming himself. Beatrice saw him glance now and again to the shadowed window-seat where the two men sat; he hummed a note or two to himself softly; then turned round and stared at the fire with outstretched hands.

The bell rang for prayers, and still without a word being spoken they all got up and went out.

In the same silence they came back. Ralph’s servant was standing by the door as they entered.

“If you please, sir, Mr. Ralph is come in. He bade me tell you that all is arranged.”

The old man looked at him, swallowed once in his throat; and at last spoke.

“It is arranged, you say? It will not take place?”

“It will not take place, sir.”

“Where is Mr. Ralph?”

“He is gone to his room, sir. He bade me tell you he would be leaving early for London.”

CHAPTER VI

A CATASTROPHE

Ralph rode away early next morning, yet not so early as to escape an interview with his father. They met in the hall, Sir James in his loose morning gown and Ralph booted and spurred with his short cloak and tight cap. The old man took him by the sleeve, drawing him to the fire that burned day and night in winter.

“Ralph—Ralph, my son,” he said, “I must thank you for last night.”

“You have to thank yourself only, sir, and my mother. I could do no otherwise.”

“It is you—” began his father.

“It is certainly not Nick, sir. The hot fool nearly provoked me.”

“But you hate such mummery yourself, my son?”

Ralph hesitated.

“It is not seemly—” began his father again.

“It is certainly not seemly; but neither are the common folk seemly.”

“Did you have much business with them, my son?” Ralph smiled in the firelight.

“Why, no, sir. I told them who I was. I charged myself with the burden.”

“And you will not be in trouble with my Lord?”

“My Lord has other matters to think of than a parcel of mummers.”

Then they separated; and Ralph rode down the drive with his servants behind him. Neither father nor son had said a word of any return. Neither had Ralph had one private word with Beatrice during his three days’ stay. Once he had come into the parlour to find her going out at the other door; and he had wondered whether she had heard his step and gone out on purpose. But he knew very well that under the superficial courtesy between him and her there lay something deeper—some passionate emotion vibrated like a beam between them; but he did not know, even on his side and still less on hers, whether that emotion were one of love or loathing. It was partly from the discomfort of the charged atmosphere, partly from a shrinking from thanks and explanations that he had determined to go up to London a day earlier than he had intended; he had a hatred of personal elaborateness.

He found Cromwell, on his arrival in London, a little less moody than he had been in the previous week; for he was busy with preparations for the Parliament that was to meet in April; and to the occupation that this gave him there was added a good deal of business connected with Henry’s negotiations with the Emperor. The dispute, that at present centred round the treatment of Englishmen in Spain, and other similar matters, in reality ran its roots far deeper; and there were a hundred details which occupied the minister. But there was still a hint of storm in the air; Cromwell spoke brusquely once or twice without cause, and Ralph refrained from saying anything about the affair at Overfield, but took up his own work again quietly.

A fortnight later, however, he heard of it once more.

He was sitting at a second table in Cromwell’s own room in the Rolls House, when one of the secretaries came up with a bundle of reports, and laid them as usual before Ralph.

Ralph finished the letter he was engaged on—one to Dr. Barnes who had preached a Protestant sermon at Paul’s Cross, and who now challenged Bishop Gardiner to a public disputation. Ralph was telling him to keep his pugnacity to himself; and when he had done took up the reports and ran his eyes over them.

They were of the usual nature—complaints, informations, protests, appeals from men of every rank of life; agents, farm-labourers, priests, ex-Religious, fanatics—and he read them quickly through, docketing their contents at the head of each that his master might be saved trouble.

At one, however, he stopped, glanced momentarily at Cromwell, and then read on.

It was an illiterate letter, ill-spelt and smudged, and consisted of a complaint from a man who signed himself Robert Benham, against “Mr. Ralph Torridon, as he named himself,” for hindering the performance of a piece entitled “The Jolly Friar” in the parish of Overfield, on Sunday, February the first. Mr. Torridon, the writer stated, had used my Lord Cromwell’s name and authority in stopping the play; expenses had been incurred in connection with it, for a barn had been hired, and the transport of the properties had cost money; and Mr. Benham desired to know whether these expenses would be made good to him, and if Mr. Torridon had acted in accordance with my Lord’s wishes.

Ralph bit his pen in some perplexity, when he had finished making out the document. He wondered whether he had better show it to Cromwell; it might irritate him or not, according to his mood. If it was destroyed surely no harm would be done; and yet Ralph had a disinclination to destroy it. He sat a moment or two longer considering; once he took the paper by the corners to tear it; then laid it down again; glanced once more at the heavy intent face a couple of yards away, and then by a sudden impulse took up his pen and wrote a line on the corner explaining the purport of the paper, initialled it, and laid it with the rest.

Cromwell was so busy during the rest of the day that there was no opportunity to explain the circumstances to him; indeed he was hardly in the room again, so great was the crowd that waited on him continually for interviews, and Ralph went away, leaving the reports for his chief to examine at his leisure.

The next morning there was a storm.

Cromwell burst out on him as soon as he came in.

“Shut the door, Mr. Torridon,” he snapped. “I must have a word with you.”

Ralph closed the door and came across to Cromwell’s table and stood there, apparently imperturbable, but with a certain quickening of his pulse.

“What is this, sir?” snarled the other, taking up the letter that was laid at his hand. “Is it true?”

Ralph looked at him coolly.

“What is it, my Lord? Mr. Robert Benham?”

“Yes, Mr. Robert Benham. Is it true? I wish an answer.”

“Certainly, my Lord. It is true.”

“You hindered this piece being played? And you used my name?”

“I told them who I was—yes.”

Cromwell slapped the paper down.

“Well, that is to use my name, is it not, Mr. Torridon?”

“I suppose it is.”

“You suppose it is! And tell me, if you please, why you hindered it.”

“I hindered it because it was not decent. My mother had been buried that day. My father asked me to do so.”

“Not decent! When the mummers have my authority!

“If your Lordship does not understand the indecency, I cannot explain it.”

Ralph was growing angry now. It was not often that Cromwell treated him like a naughty boy; and he was beginning to resent it.

The other stared at him under black brows.

“You are insolent, sir.”

Ralph bowed.

“See here,” said Cromwell, “my men must have no master but me. They must leave houses and brethren and sisters for my sake. You should understand that by now; and that I repay them a hundredfold. You have been long enough in my service to know it. I have said enough. You can sit down, Mr. Torridon.”

Ralph went to his seat in a storm of fury. He felt he was supremely in the right—in the right in stopping the play, and still more so for not destroying the complaint when it was in his hands. He had been scolded like a school-child, insulted and shouted down. His hand shook as he took up his pen, and he kept his back resolutely turned to his master. Once he was obliged to ask him a question, and he did so with an icy aloofness. Cromwell answered him curtly, but not unkindly, and he went to his seat again still angry.

When dinner-time came near, he rose, bowed slightly to Cromwell and went towards the door. As his fingers touched the handle he heard his name called; and turned round to see the other looking at him oddly.

“Mr. Torridon—you will dine with me?”

“I regret I cannot, my Lord,” said Ralph; and went out of the room.

There were no explanations or apologies on either side when they met again; but in a few days their behaviour to one another was as usual. Yet underneath the smooth surface Ralph’s heart rankled and pricked with resentment.

At the meeting of Parliament in April, the business in Cromwell’s hands grow more and more heavy and distracting.

Ralph went with him to Westminster, and heard him deliver his eloquent little speech on the discord that prevailed in England, and the King’s determination to restore peace and concord.

“On the Word of God,” cried the statesman, speaking with extraordinary fervour, his eyes kindling as he looked round the silent crowded benches, and his left hand playing with his chain, “On the Word of God His Highness’ princely mind is fixed; on this Word he depends for his sole support; and with all his might his Majesty will labour that error shall be taken away, and true doctrines be taught to his people, modelled by the rule of the Gospel.”

Three days later when Ralph came into his master’s room, Cromwell looked up at him with a strange animation in his dark eyes.

“Good-day, sir,” he said; “I have news that I hope will please you. His

Grace intends to confer on me one more mark of his favour. I am to be

Earl of Essex.”

It was startling news. Ralph had supposed that the minister was not standing so high with the King as formerly, since the unfortunate incident of the Cleves marriage. He congratulated him warmly.

“It is a happy omen,” said the other. “Let us pray that it be a constellation and not a single star. There are others of my friends, Mr. Torridon, who have claim to His Highness’ gratitude.”

He looked at him smiling; and Ralph felt his heart quicken once more, as it always did, at the hint of an honour for himself.

The business of Parliament went on; and several important bills became law. A land-act was followed by one that withdrew from most of the towns of England the protection of a sanctuary in the case of certain specified crimes; the navy was dealt with; and then in spite of the promises of the previous years a heavy money-bill was passed. Finally five more Catholics, four priests and a woman, were attainted for high treason on various charges.

Ralph was not altogether happy as May drew on. There began to be signs that his master’s policy with regard to the Cleves alliance was losing ground in the councils of the State; but Cromwell himself seemed to acquiesce, so it appeared as if his own mind was beginning to change. There was a letter to Pate, the ambassador to the Emperor, that Ralph had to copy one day, and he gathered from it that conciliation was to be used towards Charles in place of the old defiance.

But he did not see much of Parliament affairs this month.

Cromwell had told him to sort a large quantity of private papers that had gradually accumulated in Ralph’s own house at Westminster; for that he desired the removal of most of them to his own keeping.

They were an enormous mass of documents, dealing with every sort and kind of the huge affairs that had passed through Cromwell’s hands for the last five years. They concerned hundreds of persons, living and dead—statesmen, nobles, the foreign Courts, priests, Religious, farmers, tradesmen—there was scarcely a class that was not represented there.

Ralph sat hour after hour in his chair with locked doors, sorting, docketting, and destroying; and amazed by this startling object-lesson of the vast work in which he had had a hand. There were secrets there that would burst like a bomb if they were made public—intrigues, bribes, threats, revelations; and little by little a bundle of the most important documents accumulated on the table before him. The rest lay in heaps on the floor.

Those that he had set aside beneath his own eye were a miscellaneous set as regarded their contents; the only unity between them lay in the fact that they were especially perilous to Cromwell. Ralph felt as if he were handling gunpowder as he took them up one by one or added to the heap.

The new coronet that my Lord of Essex had lately put upon his head would not be there another day, if these were made public. There would not be left even a head to put it upon. Ralph knew that a great minister like his master was bound to have a finger in very curious affairs; but he had not recognised how exceptional these were, nor how many, until he had the bundle of papers before him. There were cases in which persons accused and even convicted of high treason had been set at liberty on Cromwell’s sole authority without reference to the King; there were commissions issued in his name under similar conditions; there were papers containing drafts, in Cromwell’s own hand of statements of doctrine declared heretical by the Six Articles, and of which copies had been distributed through the country at his express order; there were copies of letters to country-sheriffs ordering the release of convicted heretics and the imprisonment of their accusers; there were evidences of enormous bribes received by him for the perversion of justice.

Ralph finished his task one June evening, and sat dazed with work and excitement, his fingers soiled with ink, his tired eyes staring at the neat bundle before him.

The Privy Council, he knew, was sitting that afternoon. Even at this moment, probably, my Lord of Essex was laying down the law, speaking in the King’s name, silencing his opponents by sheer force of will, but with the Royal power behind him. And here lay the papers.

He imagined to himself with a fanciful recklessness what would happen if he made his way into the Council-room, and laid them on the table. It would be just the end of all things for his master. There would be no more bullying and denouncing then on that side; it would be a matter of a fight for life.

The memory of his own grudge, only five months old, rose before his mind; and his tired brain grew hot and cloudy with resentment. He took up the bundle in his hand and wielded it a moment, as a man might test a sword. Here was a headsman’s axe, ground and sharp.

Then he was ashamed; set the bundle down again, leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms, yawning.

What a glorious evening it was! He must go out and take the air for a little by the river; he would walk down towards Chelsea.

He rose up from his chair and went to the window, threw it open and leaned out. His house stood back a little from the street; and there was a space of cobbled ground between his front-door and the uneven stones of the thorough fare. Opposite rose up one of the tall Westminster houses, pushing forward in its upper stories, with a hundred diamond panes bright in the slanting sunshine that poured down the street from the west. Overhead rose up the fantastic stately chimneys, against the brilliant evening sky, and to right and left the street passed out of sight in a haze of sunlight.

It was a very quiet evening; the men had not yet begun to stream homewards from their occupations; and the women were busy within. A chorus of birds sounded somewhere overhead; but there was not a living creature to be seen except a dog asleep in the sunshine at the corner of the gravel.

It was delicious to lean out here, away from the fire that burned hot and red in the grate under its black mass of papers that had been destroyed,—out in the light and air. Ralph determined that he would let the fire die now; it would not be needed again.

He must go out, he told himself, and not linger here. He could lock up the papers for the present in readiness for their transport next day; and he wondered vaguely whether his hat and cane were in the entrance-hall below.

He straightened himself, and turned away from the window, noticing as he did so the dog at the corner of the street sit up with cocked ears. He hesitated and turned back.

There was a sound of furious running coming up the street. He would just see who the madman was who ran like this on a hot evening, and then go out himself.

As he leaned again the pulsating steps came nearer; they were coming from the left, the direction of the Palace.

A moment later a figure burst into sight, crimson-faced and hatless, with arms gathered to the sides and head thrown back; it appeared to be a gentleman by the dress—but why should he run like that? He dashed across the opening and disappeared.

Ralph was interested. He waited a minute longer; but the footsteps had ceased; and he was just turning once more from the window, when another sound made him stand and listen again.

It came from the same direction as before; and at first he could not make out what it was. There was a murmur and a pattering.

It came nearer and louder; and he could distinguish once more running footsteps. Were they after a thief? he wondered. The murmur and clatter grew louder yet; and a second or two later two men burst into sight; one, an apprentice with his leather apron flapping as he ran, the other a stoutish man like a merchant. They talked and gesticulated as they went.

The murmur behind swelled up. There were the voices of many people, men and women, talking, screaming, questioning. The dog was on his feet by now, looking intently down the street.

Then the first group appeared; half a dozen men walking fast or trotting, talking eagerly. Ralph could not hear what they said.

Then a number surged into sight all at once, jostling round a centre, and a clamour went up to heaven. The dog trotted up suspiciously as if to enquire.

Ralph grew excited; he scarcely knew why. He had seen hundreds of such crowds; it might mean anything, from a rise in butter to a declaration of war. But there was something fiercely earnest about this mob. Was the King ill?

He leaned further from the window and shouted; but no one paid him the slightest attention. The crowd shifted up the street, the din growing as they went; there was a sound of slammed doors; windows opened opposite and heads craned out. Something was shouted up and the heads disappeared.

Ralph sprang back from the window, as more and more surged into sight; he went to his door, glancing at his papers as he ran across; unlocked the door; listened a moment; went on to the landing and shouted for a servant.

There was a sound of footsteps and voices below; the men were already alert, but no answer came to his call. He shouted again.

“Who is there? Find out what the disturbance means.”

There was an answer from one of his men; and the street door opened and closed. Again he ran to the window, and saw his man run out without his doublet across the court, and seize a woman by the arm.

He waited in passionate expectancy; saw him drop the woman’s arm and turn to another; and then run swiftly back to the house.

There was something sinister in the man’s very movements across that little space; he ran desperately, with his head craning forward; once he stumbled; once he glanced up at his master; and Ralph caught a sight of his face.

Ralph was on the landing as the steps thundered upstairs, and met him at the head of the flight.

“Speak man; what is it?”

The servant lifted a face stamped with terror, a couple of feet below

Ralph’s.

“They—they say—”

“What is it?”

“They say that the King’s archers are about my Lord Essex’s house.”

Ralph drew a swift breath.

“Well?”

“And that my Lord was arrested at the Council to-day.”

Ralph turned, and in three steps was in his room again. The key clacked in the lock.

CHAPTER VII

A QUESTION OF LOYALTY

He did not know how long he stood there, with the bundle of papers gripped in his two hands; and the thoughts racing through his brain.

The noises in the street outside waned and waxed again, as the news swept down the lanes, and recoiled with a wave of excited crowds following it. Then again they died to a steady far-off murmur as the mob surged and clamoured round the Palace and Abbey a couple of hundred yards away.

At last Ralph sat down; still holding the papers. He must clear his brain; and how was that possible with the images flashing through it in endless and vivid succession? For a while he could not steady himself; the shock was bewildering; he could think of nothing but the appalling drama. Essex was fallen!

Then little by little the muddy current of thought began to run clear. He began to understand what lay before him; and the question that still awaited decision.

His first instinct had been to dash the papers on to the fire and grind them into the red heart of the wood; but something had checked him. Very slowly he began to analyse that instinct.

First, was it not useless? He knew he did not possess one hundredth part of the incriminating evidence that was in existence. Of what service would it be to his master to destroy that one small bundle?

Next, what would be the result to himself if he did? It was known that he was a trusted agent of the minister’s; his house would be searched; papers would be found; it would be certainly known that he had made away with evidence. There would be records of what he had, in the other houses. And what then?

On the other hand if he willingly gave up all that was in his possession, it would go far to free him from complicity.

Lastly, like a venomous snake lifting its head, his own private resentment looked him in the eyes, and there was a new sting added to it now. He had lost all, he knew well enough; wealth, honour and position had in a moment shrunk to cinders with Cromwell’s fall, and for these cinders he had lost Beatrice too. He had sacrificed her to his master; and his master had failed him. A kind of fury succeeded to his dismay.

Oh, would it not be sweet to add even one more stone to the mass that was tottering over the head of that mighty bully, that had promised and not performed?

He blinked his eyes, shocked by the horror of the thought, and gripped the bundle yet more firmly. The memories of a thousand kindnesses received from his master cried at the door of his heart. The sweat dropped from his forehead; he lifted a stiff hand to wipe it away, and dropped it again into its grip on the papers.

Then he slowly recapitulated to himself the reasons for not destroying them. They were overwhelming, convincing! What was there to set against them? One slender instinct only, that cried shrill and thin that in honour he must burn that damning evidence—burn it—burn it—whether or no it would help or hinder, it must be burnt!

Then again he recurred to the other side; told himself that his instinct was no more than a ludicrous sentimentality; he must be guided by reason, not impulse. Then he glanced at the impulse again. Then the two sides rushed together, locked in conflict. He moaned a little, and lay back in his chair.

The bright sunlight outside had faded to a mellow evening atmosphere before he moved again; and the fire had died to one dull core of incandescence.

As he stirred, he became aware that bells were pealing outside; a melodious roar filled the air. Somewhere behind the house five brazen voices, shouting all together, bellowed the exultation of the city over the great minister’s fall.

He was weary and stiff as he stood up; but the fever had left his brain; and the decision had been made. He relaxed his fingers and laid the bundle softly down on the table from which he had snatched it a couple of hours before.

They would be here soon, he knew; he wondered they had not come already.

Leaving his papers there, he went out, taking the key with him, and locking the door after him. He called up one of his men, telling him he would be ready for supper immediately in the parlour downstairs, and that any visitors who came for him were to be admitted at once.

Then he passed into his bedroom to wash and change his clothes.

Half an hour later he came upstairs again.

He had supped alone, listening and watching the window as he ate; but no sign had come of any arrival. He had dressed with particular care, intending to be found at his ease when the searchers did arrive; there must be no sign of panic or anxiety. He had told his man as he rose from table, to say to any that came for him that they were expected, and to bring them immediately upstairs.

He unlocked the door of his private room, and went in. All was as he had left it; the floor between the window and table was white with ordered heaps of papers; the bundle on the table itself glimmered where he had laid it.

The fire had sunk to a spark. He tenderly lifted off the masses of black sheets that crackled as he touched them; it had not occurred to him before that these evidences of even a harmless destruction had better be removed; and he slid them carefully on to a broad sheet of paper, folded it, shaking the ashes together as he did so, and stood a moment, wondering where he should hide it.

The room was growing dark now; he put the package down; went to the fire and blew it up a little, added some wood, and presently the flames were dancing on the broad hearth.

As he stood up again he heard the knocker rap on his street-door. For a moment he had an instinct to run to the window and see who was there; but he put it aside; there was scarcely time to hide the ashes; and it was best too to give no hint of anxiety. He lifted the package of burnt papers once more, and stood hesitating; a press would be worse than useless as a hiding-place; all such would of course be searched. Then a thought struck him; he stood up noiselessly on his chair. The Holbein portrait of Cromwell in his furred gown and chain leaned forward from the tapestry over the mantelpiece. Ralph set one hand against the wall at the side; and then tenderly let the package fall behind the portrait. As he did so the painted and living eyes were on a level; it seemed strange to him that the faces were so near together at that moment; and it struck him with a grim irony that the master should be so protecting the servant under these circumstances.

Then he dropped lightly to the ground, and sat quickly in the chair, snatching up the bundle of papers from the table as he did so.

The steps were on the landing now; he heard the crack of the balustrade; but it seemed they were coming very quietly.

There was a moment’s silence; the muscles of his throat contracted sharply, then there came the servant’s tap; the handle was turned.

Ralph stood up quickly, still holding the papers, as the door opened, and Beatrice stepped forward into the room. The door shut noiselessly behind her.

She stood there, with the firelight playing on her dark loose-sleeved mantle, the hood that surrounded her head, her pale face a little flushed, and her black steady eyes. Her breath came quickly between her parted lips.

Ralph stared at her, dazed by the shock, still gripping the bundle of papers. She moved forward a step; and the spell snapped.

“Mistress Beatrice,” he said.

“I have come,” she said; “what is it? You want me?”

She came round the table, with an air of eager expectancy.

“I—I did not know,” said Ralph.

“But you wanted me. What is the matter? I heard you call.”

Ralph stared again, bewildered.

“Call?” he said.

“Yes, I heard you. I was in my room at my aunt’s house—ah! a couple of hours ago. You called me twice. ‘Beatrice! Beatrice!’ Then—then they told me what had happened about my Lord Essex.”

“I called you?” repeated Ralph.

“Yes—you called me. Your voice was quite close to me, at my ear; I thought you were in the room. Tell me what it is.”

She loosened her hold of her mantle as she stood there by the table; and it dropped open, showing a sparkle of jewels at her throat. She threw back her hood, and it dropped on to her shoulders, leaving visible the coiled masses of her black hair set with knots of ribbon.

“I did not call,” said Ralph dully. “I do not know what you mean,

Mistress Atherton.”

She made a little impatient gesture.

“Ah! yes,” she said, “it is something. Tell me quickly. I suppose it has to do with my Lord. What is it?”

“It is nothing,” said Ralph again.

They stood looking at one another in silence. Beatrice’s eyes ran a moment up and down his rich dress, the papers in his hands, then wandered to the heaped floor, the table, and returned to the papers in his hands.

“You must tell me,” she said. “What is that you are holding?”

An angry terror seized Ralph.

“That is my affair, Mistress Atherton. What is your business with me?”

She came a step nearer, and leant her left hand on his table. He could see those steady eyes on his face; she looked terribly strong and controlled.

“Indeed you must tell me, Mr. Torridon. I am come here to do something.

I do not know what. What are those papers?”

He turned and dropped them on to the chair behind him.

“I tell you again, I do not know what you mean.”

“It is useless,” she said. “Have they been to you yet? What do you mean to do about my Lord? You know he is in the Tower?”

“I suppose so,” said Ralph, “but my counsel is my own.”

“Mr. Torridon, let us have an end of this. I know well that you must have many secrets against my lord—”

“I tell you that what I know is nothing. I have not a hundredth part of his papers.”

He felt himself desperate and bewildered, like a man being pushed to the edge of a precipice, step by step. But those black eyes held and compelled him on. He scarcely knew what he was saying.

“And are these papers all his? What have you been doing with them?”

“My Lord told me to sort them.”

The words were drawn out against his own will.

“And those in your hand—on the chair. What are they?”

Ralph made one more violent effort to regain the mastery.

“If you were not a woman, Mistress Atherton, I should tell you you were insolent.”

Not a ripple troubled those strong eyes.

“Tell me, Mr. Torridon, what are they?”

He stood silent and furious.

“I will tell you what they are,” she said; “they are my Lord’s secrets.

Is it not so? And you were about to burn them. Oh! Ralph, is it not so?”

Her voice had a tone of entreaty in it. He dropped his eyes, overcome by the passion that streamed from her.

“Is it not so?” she cried again.

“Do you wish me to do so?” he said amazed. His voice seemed not his own; it was as if another spoke for him. He had the same sensation of powerlessness as once before when she had lashed him with her tongue in the room downstairs.

“Wish you?” she cried. “Why, yes; what else?”

He lifted his eyes to hers; the room seemed to have grown darker yet in those few minutes. He could only see now a shadowed face looking at him; but her bright passionate eyes shone out from it and dominated him.

Again he spoke, in spite of himself.

“I shall not burn them,” he said.

“Shall not? shall not?”

“I shall not,” he said again.

There was silence. Ralph’s soul was struggling desperately within him. He put out his hand mechanically and took up the papers once more, as if to guard them from this fierce, imperious woman. Beatrice’s eyes followed the movement; and then rested once more on his face. Then she spoke again, with a tense deliberateness that drove every word home, piercing and sharp to the very centre of his spirit.

“Listen,” she said, “for this is what I came to say. I know what you are thinking—I know every thought as if it were my own. You tell yourself that it is useless to burn those secrets; that there are ten thousand more—enough to cast my lord. I make no answer to that.”

“You tell yourself that you can only save yourself by giving them up to his enemies. I make no answer to that.”

“You tell yourself that it will be known if you destroy them—that you will be counted as one of His Highness’s enemies. I make no answer to that. And I tell you to burn them.”

She came a step nearer. There was not a yard between them now; and the fire of her words caught and scorched him with their bitterness.

“You have been false to every high and noble thing. You have been false to your own conscience—to your father—your brother—your sister—your Church—your King and your God. You have been false to love and honour. You have been false to yourself. And now Almighty God of His courtesy gives you one more opportunity—an opportunity to be true to your master. I say nothing of him. God is his judge. You know what that verdict will be. And yet I bid you be true to him. He has a thousand claims on you. You have served him, though it be but Satan’s service; yet it is the highest that you know—God help you! He is called friendless now. Shall that be wholly true of him? You will be called a traitor presently—shall that be wholly true of you? Or shall there be one tiny point in which you are not false and treacherous as you have been in all other points?”

She stopped again, looking him fiercely in the eyes.

From the street outside there came the sound of footsteps; the ring of steel on stone. Ralph heard it, and his eyes rolled round to the window; but he did not move.

Beatrice was almost touching him now. He felt the fragrance that hung about her envelop him for a moment. Then he felt a touch on the papers; and his fingers closed more tightly.

The steps outside grew louder and ceased; and the house suddenly reverberated with a thunder of knocking.

Beatrice sprang back.

“Nay, you shall give me them,” she said; and stood waiting with outstretched hand.

Ralph lifted the papers slowly, stared at them, and at her.

Then he held them out.

In a moment she had snatched them; and was on her knees by the hearth. Ralph watched her, and listened to the steps coming up the stairs. The papers were alight now. The girl dashed her fingers among them, grinding, tearing, separating the heavy pages.

They were almost gone by now; the thick smoke poured up the chimney; and still Beatrice tore and dashed the ashes about.

There was a knocking at the door; and the handle turned. The girl rose from her knees and smiled at Ralph as the door opened, and the pursuivants stood there in the opening.

CHAPTER VIII

TO CHARING

Chris had something very like remorse after Ralph had left Overfield, and no words of explanation or regret had been spoken on either side. He recognised that he had not been blameless at the beginning of their estrangement—if, indeed, there ever had been a beginning—for their inflamed relations had existed to some extent back into boyhood as far as he could remember; but he had been responsible for at least a share in the fierce words in Ralph’s house after the death of the Carthusians. He had been hot-headed, insolent, theatrical; and he had not written to acknowledge it. He had missed another opportunity at Lewes—at least one—when pride had held him back from speaking, for fear that he should be thought to be currying favour. And now this last opportunity, the best of all—when Ralph had been accessible and courteous, affected, Chris imagined, by the death of his mother—this too had been missed; and he had allowed his brother to ride away without a word of regret or more than formal affection.

He was troubled at mass, an hour after Ralph had gone; the distraction came between him and the sweet solemnity upon which he was engaged. His soul was dry and moody. He showed it in his voice. As a younger brother in past years; as a monk and a priest now, he knew that the duty of the first step to a reconciliation had lain with him; and that he had not taken it.

It had been a troubled household altogether when Ralph had gone. There was first the shock of Lady Torridon’s death, and the hundred regrets that it had left behind. Then Beatrice too, who had helped them all so much, had told them that she must go back to town—her aunt was alone in the little house at Charing, for the friend who had spent Christmas there was gone back to the country; and Margaret, consequently, had been almost in despair. Lastly Sir James himself had been troubled; wondering whether he might not have been warmer with Ralph, more outspoken in his gratitude for the affair of the mummers, more ready to welcome an explanation from his son. The shadow of Ralph then rested on the household, and there was something of pathos in it. He was so much detached now, so lonely, and it seemed that he was content it should be so.

There were pressing matters too to be arranged; and, weightiest of all, those relating to Margaret’s future. She would now be the only woman besides the servants, in the house; and it was growing less and less likely that she would be ever able to take up the Religious Life again in England. There seemed little reason for her remaining in the country, unless indeed she threw aside the Religious habit altogether, and went to live at Great Keynes as Mary preferred. Beatrice made an offer to receive her in London for a while, but in this case again she would have to wear secular dress.

The evening before Beatrice left, the two sat and talked for a couple of hours. Margaret was miserable; she cried a little, clung to Beatrice, and then was ashamed of herself.

“My dear child,” said the other. “It is in your hands. You can do as you please.”

“But I cannot,” sobbed the nun. “I cannot; I do not know. Let me come with you, Beatrice.”

Beatrice then settled down and talked to her. She told her of her duty to her father for the present; she must remember that he was lonely now. In any case she must not think of leaving home for another six months. In the meantime she had to consider two points. First, did she consider herself in conscience bound to Religion? What did the priest tell her? If she did so consider herself, then there was no question; she must go to Bruges and join the others. Secondly, if not, did she think herself justified in leaving her father in the summer? If so, she might either go to Great Keynes, or come up for at least a long visit to Charing.

“And what do you think?” asked the girl piteously.

“Do you wish me to tell you!” said Beatrice.

Margaret nodded.

“Then I think you should go to Bruges in July or August.”

Margaret stared at her; the tears were very near her eyes again.

“My darling; I should love to have you in London,” went on the other caressing her. “Of course I should. But I cannot see that King Henry his notions make any difference to your vows. They surely stand. Is it not so, my dear?”

And so after a little more talk Margaret consented. Her mind had told her that all along; it was her heart only that protested against this final separation from her friend.

Chris too agreed when she spoke to him a day or two later when Beatrice had gone back. He said he had been considering his own case too; and that unless something very marked intervened he proposed to follow Dom Anthony abroad. They could travel together, he said. Finally, when the matter was laid before their father he also consented.

“I shall do very well,” he said. “Mary spoke to me of it; and Nicholas has asked me to make my home at Great Keynes; so if you go, my son, with Meg in the summer, I shall finish matters here, lease out the estate, and Mr. Carleton and I shall betake ourselves there. Unless”—he said—”unless Ralph should come to another mind.”

As the spring and early summer drew on, the news, as has been seen, was not reassuring.

In spite of the Six Articles of the previous year by which all vows of chastity were declared binding before God, there was no hint of making it possible for the thousands of Religious in England still compelled by them to return to the Life in which such vows were tolerable. The Religious were indeed dispensed from obedience and poverty by the civil authority; it was possible for them to buy, inherit, and occupy property; but a recognition of their corporate life was as far as ever away. It was becoming plainer every day that those who wished to pursue their vocation must do so in voluntary exile; and letters were already being exchanged between the brother and sister at home and the representatives of their respective communities on the Continent.

Then suddenly on the eleventh of June there arrived the news of

Cromwell’s fall and of all that it involved to Ralph.

They were at dinner when it came.

There was a door suddenly thrust open at the lower end of the hall; and a courier, white with dust and stiff with riding, limped up the matting and delivered Beatrice’s letter. It was very short.

“Come,” she had written. “My Lord of Essex is arrested. He is in the Tower. Mr. Ralph, too, is there for refusing to inform against him. He has behaved gallantly.”

There followed a line from Mistress Jane Atherton, her aunt, offering rooms in her own house.

A wild confusion fell upon the household. Men ran to and fro, women whispered and sobbed in corners under shadow of the King’s displeasure that lay on the house, the road between the terrace and the stable buzzed with messengers, ordering and counter-ordering, for it was not certain at first that Margaret would not go. A mounted groom dashed up for instructions and was met by Sir James in his riding-cloak on the terrace who bade him ride to Great Keynes with the news, and entreat Sir Nicholas Maxwell to come up to London and his wife to Overfield; there was not time to write. Sir James’s own room was in confusion; his clothes lay tumbled on the ground and a distraught servant tossed them this way and that; Chris was changing his habit upstairs, for it would mean disaster to go to town as a monk. Margaret was on her knees in chapel, silent and self-controlled, but staring piteously at the compassionate figure of the great Mother who looked down on her with Her Son in Her arms. The huge dog under the chapel-cloister lifted his head and bayed in answer, as frantic figures fled across the court before him. And over all lay the hot June sky, and round about the deep peaceful woods.

A start was made at three o’clock.

Sir James was already in his saddle, as Chris ran out; an unfamiliar figure in his plain priest’s cloak and cap and great riding boots beneath. A couple of grooms waited behind, and another held the monk’s horse. Margaret was on the steps, white and steadied by prayer; and the chaplain stood behind with a strong look in his eyes as they met those of his patron.

“Take care of her, father; take care of her. Her sister will be here to-night, please God. Oh! God bless you, my dear! Pray for us all. Jesu keep us all! Chris, are you mounted?”

Then they were off; and the white dust rose in clouds about them.

It was between eight and nine as they rode up the north bank of the river from London Bridge to Charing.

It had been a terrible ride, with but few words between the two, and long silences that were the worst of all; as, blotting out the rich country and the deep woods and the meadows and heathery hills on either side of the road through Surrey, visions moved and burned before them, such as the King’s vengeance had made possible to the imagination. From far away across the Southwark fields Chris had seen the huddled buildings of the City, the princely spire that marked them, and had heard the sweet jangling of the thousand bells that told the Angelus; but he had thought of little but of that high gateway under which they must soon pass, where the pikes against the sky made palpable the horrors of his thought. He had given one swift glance up as he went beneath; and then his heart sickened as they went on, past the houses and St. Thomas’s chapel with gleams of the river seen beneath. Then as he looked his breath came sharp; far down there eastwards, seen for a moment, rose up the sombre towers where Ralph lay, and the saints had suffered.

The old Religious Houses, stretching in a splendid line upwards, from the Augustinian priory near the river-bank, along the stream that flowed down from Ludgate, caught the last rays of sunlight high against the rich sky as the riders went along towards Charing between the sedge-brinked tide and the slope of grass on their right; and the monk’s sorrowful heart was overlaid again with sorrow as he looked at them, empty now and desolate where once the praises of God had sounded day and night.

They stopped beneath the swinging sign of an inn, with Westminister towers blue and magical before them, to ask for Mistress Atherton’s house, and were directed a little further along and nearer to the water’s edge.

It was a little old house when they came to it, built on a tiny private embankment that jutted out over the flats of the river-bank; of plaster and timber with overhanging storeys and windows beneath the roof. It stood by itself, east of the village, and almost before the jangle of the bell had died away, Beatrice herself was at the door, in her house-dress, bare-headed; with a face at once radiant and constrained.

She took them upstairs immediately, after directing the men to take the horses, when they had unloaded the luggage, back to the inn where they had enquired the way: for there was no stable, she said, attached to the house.

Chris came behind his father as if in a dream through the dark little hall and up the two flights on to the first landing. Beatrice stopped at a door.

“You can say what you will,” she said, “before my aunt. She is of our mind in these matters.”

Then they were in the room; a couple of candles burned on a table before the curtained window; and an old lady with a wrinkled kindly face hobbled over from her chair and greeted the two travellers.

“I welcome you, gentlemen,” she said, “if a sore heart may say so to sore hearts.”

There was no news of Nicholas, they were told; he had not been heard of.

They heard the story so far as Beatrice knew it; but it was softened for their ears. She had found Ralph, she said, hesitating what to do. He had been plainly bewildered by the sudden news; they had talked a while; and then he had handed her the papers to burn. The magistrate sent by the Council had arrived to find the ashes still smoking. He had questioned Ralph sharply, for he had come with authority behind him; and Ralph had refused to speak beyond telling him that the bundles lying on the floor were all the papers of my Lord Essex that were in his possession. They had laid hands on these, and then searched the room. A quantity of ashes, Beatrice said, had fallen from behind a portrait over the hearth when they had shifted it. Then the magistrate had questioned her too, enquired where she lived, and let her go. She had waited at the corner of the street, and watched the men come out. Ralph walked in the centre as a prisoner. She had followed them to the river; had mixed with the crowd that gathered there; and had heard the order given to the wherryman to pull to the Tower. That was all that she knew.

“Thank God for your son, sir. He bore himself gallantly.”

There was a silence as she ended. The old man looked at her wondering and dazed. It was so sad, that the news scarcely yet conveyed its message.

“And my Lord Essex?” he said.

“My Lord is in the Tower too. He was arrested at the Council by the Duke of Norfolk.”

The old lady intervened then, and insisted on their going down to supper. It would be ready by now, she said, in the parlour downstairs.

They supped, themselves silent, with Beatrice leaning her arms on the table, and talking to them in a low voice, telling them all that was said. She did not attempt to prophesy smoothly. The feeling against Cromwell, she said, passed all belief. The streets had been filled with a roaring crowd last night. She had heard them bellowing till long after dark. The bells were pealed in the City churches hour after hour, in triumph over the minister’s fall.

“The dogs!” she said fiercely. “I never thought to say it, but my heart goes out to him.”

Her spirit was infections. Chris felt a kind of half-joyful recklessness tingle in his veins, as he listened to her talk, and watched her black eyes hot with indignation and firm with purpose. What if Ralph were cast? At least it was for faithfulness—of a kind. Even the father’s face grew steadier; that piteous trembling of the lower lip ceased, and the horror left his eyes. It was hard to remain in panic with that girl beside them.

They had scarcely done supper when the bell of the outer door rang again, and a moment later Nicholas was with them, flushed with hard riding. He strode into the room, blinking at the lights, and tossed his riding whip on to the table.

“I have been to the Lieutenant of the Tower,” he said; “I know him of old. He promises nothing. He tells me that Ralph is well-lodged. Mary is gone to Overfield. God damn the King!”

He had no more news to give. He had sent off his wife at once on receiving the tidings, and had started half an hour later for London. He had been ahead of them all the way, it seemed; but had spent a couple of hours first in trying to get admittance to the Tower, and then in interviewing the Lieutenant; but there was no satisfaction to be gained there. The utmost he had wrung from him was a promise that he would see him again, and hear what he had to say.

Then Nicholas had to sup and hear the whole story from the beginning; and Chris left his father to tell it, and went up with Beatrice to arrange about rooms.

Matters were soon settled with the old lady; Nicholas and Chris were to sleep in one room, and Sir James in an another. Two servants only could be accommodated in the house; the rest were to put up at the inn. Beatrice went off to give the necessary orders.

Mistress Jane Atherton and Chris had a few moments together before the others came up.

“A sore heart,” said the old lady again, “but a glad one too. Beatrice has told me everything.”

“I am thankful too,” said Chris softly. “I wonder if my father understands.”

“He will, father, he will. But even if he does not—well, God knows all.”

It was evident when Sir James came upstairs presently that he did not understand anything yet, except that Beatrice thought that Ralph had behaved well.

“But it is to my Lord Essex—who has been the worker of all the mischief—that my son is faithful. Is that a good thing then?”

“Why, yes,” said Chris. “You would not have him faithless there too?”

“But would he not be on God’s side at last, if he were against

Cromwell?”

The old man was still too much bewildered to understand explanations, and his son was silent.

Chris could not sleep that night, and long after Nicholas lay deep in his pillow, with open mouth and tight eyes, the priest was at the window looking out over the river where the moon hung like a silver shield above Southwark. The meadows beyond the stream were dim and colourless; here and there a roof rose among trees; and straight across the broad water to his feet ran a path of heaving glory, where the strong ripple tossed the silver surface that streamed down upon it from the moon.

London lay round him as quiet as Overfield, and Chris remembered with a stir at his heart his moonlight bathe all those years ago in the lake at home, when he had come back hot from hunting and had slipped down with the chaplain after supper. Then the water had seemed like a cool restful gulf in the world of sensation; the moon had not been risen at first; only the stars pricked above and below in air and water. Then the moon had come up, and a path of splendour had smitten the surface into sight. He had swum up it, he remembered, the silver ripple washing over his shoulders as he went.

And now those years of monastic peace and storm had come and gone, sifting and penetrating his soul, washing out from it little by little the heats and passions with which he had plunged. As he looked back on himself he was astonished at his old complacent smallness. His figure appeared down that avenue of years, a tiny passionate thing, gesticulating, feverish, self-conscious. He remembered his serene certainty that he was right and Ralph wrong in every touch of friction between them, his own furious and theatrical outburst at the death of the Carthusians, his absurd dignity on later occasions. Even in those first beginnings of peace when the inner life had begun to well up and envelop him he had been narrow and self-centred; he had despised the common human life, not understanding that God’s Will was as energetic in the bewildering rush of the current as in the quiet sheltered back-waters to which he himself had been called. He had been awakened from that dream by the fall of the Priory, and that to which he opened his eyes had been forced into his consciousness by the months at home, when he had had that astringent mingling of the world and the spirit, of the interpenetration of the inner by the outer. And now for the first time he stood as a balanced soul between the two, alight with a tranquil grace within, and not afraid to look at the darkness without. He was ready now for either life, to go back to the cloister and labour there for the world at the springs of energy, or to take his place in the new England and struggle at the tossing surface.

He stood here now by the hurrying turbulent stream, a wider and more perilous gulf than that that had lain before him as he looked at the moonlit lake at Overfield and yet over it brooded the same quiet shield of heaven, gilding the black swift flowing forces with the promise of a Presence greater than them all.

He stood there long, staring and thinking.

CHAPTER IX

A RELIEF-PARTY

The days that followed were very anxious and troubled ones for Ralph’s friends at Charing. They were dreadful too from their very uneventfulness.

On the morning following their arrival Chris went off to the Temple to consult a lawyer that the Lieutenant had recommended to Nicholas, and brought him back with him an hour later. The first need to be supplied was their lack of knowledge as to procedure; and the four men sat together until dinner, in the parlour on the first floor looking over the sunlit river; and discussed the entire situation.

The lawyer, Mr. Herries, a shrewd-faced Northerner, sat with his back to the window, fingering a quill horizontally in his lean brown fingers and talking in short sentences, glancing up between them, with patient silences as the others talked. He seemed the very incarnation of the slow inaction that was so infinitely trying to these anxious souls.

The three laymen did not even know the crime with which Ralph was charged, but they soon learnt that the technical phrase for it was misprision of treason.

“Mr. Torridon was arrested, I understand,” said the lawyer, “by order of Council. He would have been arrested in any case. He was known to be privy to my Lord Essex’s schemes. You inform me that he destroyed evidence. That will go against him if they can prove it.”

He drew the quill softly through his lips, and then fell to fingering it again, as the others stared at him.

“However,” went on Mr. Herries, “that is not our affair now. There will be time for that. Our question is, when will he be charged, and how? My Lord Essex may be tried by a court, or attainted in Parliament. I should suppose the latter. Mr. Torridon will be treated in the same way. If it be the former, we can do nothing but wait and prepare our case. If it be the latter, we must do our utmost to keep his name out of the bill.”

He went on to explain his reasons for thinking that a bill of attainder would be brought against Cromwell. It was the customary method, he said, for dealing with eminent culprits, and its range had been greatly extended by Cromwell himself. At this moment three Catholics lay in the Tower, attainted through the statesman’s own efforts, for their supposed share in a conspiracy to deliver up Calais to the invaders who had threatened England in the previous year. Feeling, too, ran very high against Cromwell; the public would be impatient of a long trial; and a bill of attainder would give a readier outlet to the fury against him.

This then was the danger; but they could do nothing, said the lawyer, to avert it, until they could get information. He would charge himself with that business, and communicate with them as soon as he knew.

“And then?” asked Chris, looking at him desperately, for the cold deliberate air of Mr. Herries gave him a terrible sense of the passionless process of the law.

“I was about to speak of that,” said the lawyer. “If it goes as I think it will, and Mr. Torridon’s name is suggested for the bill, we must approach the most powerful friends we can lay hold on, to use their influence against his inclusion. Have you any such, sir?” he added, looking at Sir James sharply over the quill.

The old man shook his head.

“I know no one,” he said.

The lawyer pursed his lips.

“Then we must do the best we can. We can set aside at once all of my Lord Essex’s enemies—and—and he has many now. Two names come to my mind. Master Ralph Sadler—the comptroller; and my Lord of Canterbury.”

“Ah!” cried Chris, dropping his hand, “my Lord of Canterbury! My brother has had dealings with him.”

Sir James straightened himself in his chair.

“I will ask no favour of that fellow,” he said sternly.

The lawyer looked at him with a cocked eyebrow.

“Well, sir,” he said, “if you will not you will not. But I cannot suggest a better. He is in high favour with his Grace; they say he has already said a word for my Lord Essex—not much—much would be too much, I think; but still ‘twas something. And what of Master Sadler?”

“I know nothing of him,” faltered the old man.

There was silence a moment.

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Herries, “you can think the matter over. I am for my Lord of Canterbury; for the reasons I have named to you. But we can wait a few days. We can do nothing until the method of procedure is known.”

Then he went; promising to let them know as soon as he had information.

Rumours began to run swiftly through the City. It was said, though untruly at that time, that Cromwell had addressed a letter to the King at Henry’s own request, explaining his conduct, utterly denying that he had said certain rash words attributed to him, and that His Majesty was greatly affected by it. There was immense excitement everywhere; a crowd assembled daily outside Westminster Hall; groups at every corner of the streets discussed the fallen minister’s chances; and shouts were raised for those who were known to be his enemies, the Duke of Norfolk, Rich, and others—as they rode through to the Palace.

Meanwhile Ralph’s friends could do little. Nicholas rode down once or twice to see the Lieutenant of The Tower, and managed to extract a promise that Ralph should hear of their presence in London; but he could not get to see him, or hear any news except that he was in good health and spirits, and was lodged in a private cell.

Then suddenly one afternoon a small piece of news arrived from Mr. Herries to the effect that Cromwell was to be attainted; and anxiety became intense as to whether Ralph would be included. Sir James could eat nothing at supper, but sat crumbling his bread, while Beatrice talked almost feverishly in an attempt to distract him. Finally he rose and went out, and the others sat on, eyeing one another, anxious and miserable.

In desperation Nicholas began to talk of his visit to the Tower, of the Lieutenant’s timidity, and his own insistence; and they noticed nothing, till the door was flung open, and the old man stood there, his eyes bright and his lips trembling with hope. He held a scrap of paper in his hand.

“Listen,” he cried as the others sprang to their feet.

“A fellow has just come from Mr. Herries with this”—he lifted the paper and read,—”Mr. Torridon’s name is not in the bill. I will be with you to-morrow.”

“Thank God!” said Chris.

There was another long discussion the following morning. Mr. Herries arrived about ten o’clock to certify his news; and the four sat till dinner once again, talking and planning. There was not the same desperate hurry now; the first danger was passed.

There was only one thing that the lawyer could do, and that was to repeat his advice to seek the intercession of the Archbishop. He observed again that while Cranmer had the friendship of the fallen minister, he had not in any sense been involved in his fall; he was still powerful with the King, and of considerable weight with the Council in consequence. He was likely therefore to be both able and willing to speak on behalf of Cromwell’s agent.

“But I would advise nothing to be done until the bill of attainder has come before Parliament. We do not know yet how far Mr. Torridon’s action has affected the evidence. From what you say, gentlemen, and from what I have heard elsewhere, I should think that the papers Mr. Torridon destroyed are not essential to a conviction. My Lord’s papers at his own house are sufficient.”

But they had some difficulty in persuading Sir James to consent to ask a favour of the Archbishop. In his eyes, Cranmer was beyond the pale of decency; he had lived with two women, said the old man, whom he called his wives, although as a priest he was incapable of marriage; he had violated his consecration oath; he had blessed and annulled the frequent marriages of the King with equal readiness; he was a heretic confessed and open on numberless points of the Catholic Faith.

Mr. Herries pointed out with laborious minuteness that this was beside the question altogether. He did not propose that Sir James Torridon should go to the Archbishop as to a spiritual superior, but as to one who chanced to have great influence;—if he were a murderer it would make no difference to his advice.

Chris broke in with troubled eyes.

“Indeed, sir,” he said to his father, “you know how I am with you in all that you say; and yet I am with Mr. Herries too. I do not understand—”

“God help us,” cried the old man. “I do not know what to do.”

“Will you talk with Mistress Beatrice?” asked Chris.

Sir James nodded.

“I will do that,” he said.

The next day the bill was passed; and the party in the house at Charing sat sick at heart within doors, hearing the crowds roaring down the street, singing and shouting in triumph. Every cry tore their hearts; for was it not against Ralph’s master and friend that they rejoiced? As they sat at supper a great battering broke out at the door that looked on to the lane; and they sprang up to hear a drunken voice bellowing at them to come out and shout for liberty. Nicholas went crimson with anger; and he made a movement towards the hall, his hand on his hilt.

“Ah! sit down, Nick,” said the monk. “The drunken fool is away again.”

And they heard the steps reel on towards Westminster.

It was not until a fortnight later that they went at last to Lambeth.

Sir James had been hard to persuade; but Beatrice had succeeded at last. Nicholas had professed himself ready to ask a favour of the devil himself under the circumstances; and Chris himself continued to support the lawyer’s opinion. He repeated his arguments again and again.

Then it was necessary to make an appointment with the Archbishop; and a day was fixed at last. My Lord would see them, wrote a secretary, at two o’clock on the afternoon of July the third.

Beatrice sat through that long hot afternoon in the window-seat of the upstairs parlour, looking out over the wide river below, conscious perhaps for the first time of the vast weight of responsibility that rested on her.

She had seen them go off in a wherry, the father and son with Nicholas in the stern, and the lawyer facing them on the cross-bench; they had been terribly silent as they walked down to the stairs; had stood waiting there without a word being spoken but by herself, as the wherry made ready; and she had talked hopelessly, desperately, to relieve the tension. Then they had gone off. Sir James had looked back at her over his shoulder as the boat put out; and she had seen his lips move. She had watched them grow smaller and smaller as they went, and then when a barge had come between her and them, she had gone home alone to wait for their return, and the tidings that they would bring.

And she, in a sense was responsible for it all. If it had not been for her visit to Ralph, he would have handed the papers over to the authorities; he would be at liberty now, no doubt, as were Cromwell’s other agents; and, as she thought of it, her tortured heart asked again and again whether after all she had done right.

She went over the whole question, as she sat there, looking out over the river towards Lambeth, fingering the shutter, glancing now and again at the bent old figure of her aunt in her tall chair, and listening to the rip of the needle through the silk. Could she have done otherwise? Was her interference and advice after all but a piece of mad chivalry, unnecessary and unpractical?

And yet she knew that she would do it again, if the same circumstances arose. It would be impossible to do otherwise. Reason was against it; Mr. Herries had hinted as much with a quick lifting of his bushy eyebrows as she had told him the story. It would have made no difference to Cromwell—ah! but she had not done it for that; it was for the sake of Ralph himself; that he might not lose the one opportunity that came to him of making a movement back towards the honour he had forfeited.

But it was no less torture to think of it all, as she sat here. She had faced the question before; but now the misery she had watched during these last three weeks had driven it home. Day by day she had seen the old father’s face grow lined and haggard as the suspense gnawed at his heart; she had watched him at meals—had seen him sit in bewildered grief, striving for self-control and hope—had seen him, as the light faded in the parlour upstairs, sink deeper into himself; his eyes hidden by his hand, and his grey pointed beard twitching at the trembling of his mouth. Once or twice she had met his eyes fixed on hers, in a questioning stare, and had known what was in his heart—a simple, unreproachful wonder at the strange events that had made her so intimately responsible for his son’s happiness.

She thought of Margaret too, as she sat there; of the poor girl who had so rested on her, believed in her, loved her. There she was now at Overfield, living in a nightmare of suspense, watching so eagerly for the scanty letters, disappointed every time of the good news for which she hoped….

The burden was an intolerable one. Beatrice was scarcely conscious of where she sat or for what she waited. She was living over again every detail of her relations with Ralph. She remembered how she had seen him at first at Chelsea; how he had come out with Master More from the door of the New Building and across the grass. She had been twisting a grass-ring then as she listened to the talk, and had tossed it on to the dog’s back. Then, day by day she had met him; he had come at all hours; and she had watched him, for she thought she had found a man. She remembered how her interest had deepened; how suddenly her heart had leapt that evening when she came into the hall and found him sitting in the dark. Then, step by step, the friendship had grown till it had revealed its radiant face at the bitterness of Chris’s words in the house at Westminster. Then her life had become magical; all the world cried “Ralph” to her; the trumpets she heard sounded to his praise; the sunsets had shone for him and her. Then came the news of the Visitors’ work; and her heart had begun to question her insistently; the questions had become affirmation; and in one passionate hour she had gone to him, scourged him with her tongue, and left him. She had seen him again once or twice in the years that followed; had watched him from a window hung with tapestries in Cheapside, as he rode down beside the King; and had not dared to ask herself what her heart so longed to tell her. Then had come the mother’s question; and the falling of the veils.

Then he had called her; she never doubted that; as she sat alone in her room one evening. It had come, thin and piteous;—”Beatrice, Beatrice.” He needed her, and she had gone, and meddled with his life once more.

And he lay in the Tower….

“Beatrice, my child.”

She turned from the window, her eyes blind with tears; and in a moment was kneeling at her aunt’s side, her face buried in her lap, and felt those kindly old hands passing over her hair. She heard a murmur over her head, but scarcely caught a word. There was but one thing she needed, and that—

Then she knelt suddenly upright listening, and the caressing hand was still.

“Beatrice, my dear, Beatrice.”

There were footsteps on the stairs outside, eager and urgent. The girl rose to her feet, and stood there, swaying a little with a restrained expectation.

Then the door was open, and Chris was there, flushed and radiant, with the level evening light full on his face.

“It is all well,” he cried, “my Lord will take us to the King.”

CHAPTER X

PLACENTIA

The river-front of Greenwich House was a magnificent sight as the four men came up to it one morning nearly three weeks later. The long two-storied row of brick buildings which Henry had named Placentia, with their lines of windows broken by the two clusters of slender towers, and porticos beneath, were fronted by broad platforms and a strip of turf with steps leading down to the water, and at each of these entrances there continually moved brilliant figures, sentries with the sunlight flashing on their steel caps and pike-points, servants in the royal livery, watermen in their blue and badges.

Here and there at the foot of the steps rocked gaudy barges, a mass of gilding and colour, with broad low canopies at the stern, and flags drooping at the prow; wherries moved to and fro, like water-beetles, shooting across from bank to bank with passengers, above and below the palace, or pausing with uplifted oars as the stream swept them down, for the visitors to stare and marvel at the great buildings. Behind rose up the green masses of trees against the sloping park. And over all lay the July sky, solemn flakes of cloud drifting across a field of intense blue.

There had been a delay in the fulfilment of the Archbishop’s promise; at one time he himself was away in the country on affairs, at another time the King was too much pressed, Cranmer reported, to have such a matter brought before him; and then suddenly a messenger had come across from Lambeth with a letter, bidding them present themselves at Greenwich on the following morning; for the day following that had been fixed for Cromwell’s execution, and the Archbishop hoped that the King would be ready to hear a word on behalf of the agent whose loyalty had failed to save his master.

The boatman suddenly backed water with his left-hand oar, took a stroke or two with his right, glancing over his shoulder; and the boat slid up to the foot of the steps.

A couple of watermen were already waiting there, in the Archbishop’s livery, and steadied the boat for the four gentlemen to step out; and a moment later the four were standing on the platform, looking about them.

They were at one of the smaller entrances to the palace, up-stream. A hundred yards further down was the royal entrance, canopied and carpeted, with the King’s barge rocking at the foot, a number of servants coming and going on the platform, and the great state windows overlooking all; but here they were in comparative quiet. A small doorway with its buff and steel-clad sentry before it opened on their right into the interior of the palace.

One of the watermen saluted the party.

“Master Torridon?” he said.

Chris assented.

“My Lord bade me take you through to him, sir, as soon as you arrived.”

He went before them to the door, said a word to the guard, and then the party passed on through the little entrance-hall into the interior. The corridor was plainly and severely furnished with matting under-foot, chairs here and there set along the wainscot, pieces of stuff with crossed pikes between hanging on the walls; through the bow windows they caught a glimpse now and again of a little court or two, a shrubbery and a piece of lawn, and once a vista of the park where Henry in his younger days used to hold his May-revels, a gallant and princely figure all in green from cap to shoes, breakfasting beneath the trees.

Continually, as they went, first in the corridor and then through the waiting rooms at the end, they passed others going to and fro, servants hurrying on messages, leisurely and magnificent persons with their hats on, pages standing outside closed doors; and twice they were asked their business.

“For my Lord of Canterbury,” answered the waterman each time.

It seemed to Chris that they must have gone an immense distance before the waterman at last stopped, motioning them to go on, and a page in purple livery stepped forward from a door.

“For my Lord of Canterbury,” said the waterman for the last time.

The page bowed, turned, and threw open the door.

They found themselves in a square parlour, carpeted and hung with tapestries from floor to ceiling. A second door opened beyond, in the window side, into another room. A round table stood in the centre, with brocaded chairs about it, and a long couch by the fireplace. Opposite rose up the tall windows through which shone the bright river with the trees and buildings on the north bank beyond.

They had hardly spoken a word to one another since they had left Charing, for all that was possible had been said during the weeks of waiting for the Archbishop’s summons.

Cranmer had received them kindly, though he had not committed himself beyond promising to introduce them to the King, and had expressed no opinion on the case.

He had listened to them courteously, had nodded quietly as Chris explained what it was that Ralph had done, and then almost without comment had given his promise. It seemed as if the Archbishop could not even form an opinion, and still less express one, until he had heard what his Highness had to say.

Chris walked to the window and the lawyer followed him.

“Placentia!” said Mr. Herries, “I do not wonder at it. It is even more pleasing from within.”

He stood, a prim, black figure, looking out at the glorious view, the shining waterway studded with spots of colour, the long bank of the river opposite, and the spires of London city lying in a blue heat-haze far away to the left.

Chris stared at it too, but with unseeing eyes. It seemed as if all power of sensation had left him. The suspense of the last weeks had corroded the surfaces of his soul, and the intensity to which it was now rising seemed to have paralysed what was left. He found himself picturing the little house at Charing where Beatrice was waiting, and, he knew, praying; and he reminded himself that the next time he saw her he would know all, whether death or life was to be Ralph’s sentence. The solemn quiet and the air of rich and comfortable tranquillity which the palace wore, and which had impressed itself on his mind even in the hundred yards he had walked in it, gave him an added sense of what it was that lay over his brother, the huge passionless forces with which he had become entangled.

Then he turned round. His father was sitting at the table, his head on his hand; and Nicholas was staring round the grave room with the solemnity of a child, looking strangely rustic and out of place in these surroundings.

It was very quiet as Chris leaned against the window-shutter, in his secular habit, with his hands clasped behind his back, and looked. Once a footstep passed in the corridor outside, and the floor vibrated slightly to the tread; once a horn blew somewhere far away; and from the river now and again came the cry of a waterman, or the throb of oars in rowlocks.

Sir James looked up once, opened his lips as if to speak; and then dropped his head on to his hand again.

The waiting seemed interminable.

Chris turned round to the window once more, slipped his breviary out of his pocket, and opened it. He made the sign of the cross and began—

“In nomine Patris et Filii….”

Then the second door opened; he turned back abruptly; there was a rustle of silk, and the Archbishop came through in his habit and gown.

Chris bowed slightly as the prelate went past him briskly towards the table where Sir James was now standing up, and searched his features eagerly for an omen. There was nothing to be read there; his smooth large-eyed face was smiling quietly as its manner was, and his wide lips were slightly parted.

“Good-day, Master Torridon; you are in good time. I am just come from

His Highness, and will take you to him directly.”

Chris saw his father’s face blanch a little as he bowed in return.

Nicholas merely stared.

“But we have a few minutes,” went on the Archbishop. “Sir Thomas

Wriothesly is with him. Tell me again sir, what you wish me to say.”

Sir James looked hesitatingly to the lawyer.

“Mr. Herries,” he said.

Cranmer turned round, and again made that little half-deprecating bow to the priest and the lawyer. Mr. Herries stepped forward as Cranmer sat down, clasping his hands so that the great amethyst showed on his slender finger.

“It is this, my Lord,” he said, “it is as we told your Lordship at Lambeth. This gentleman desires the King’s clemency towards Mr. Ralph Torridon, now in the Tower. Mr. Torridon has served—er—Mr. Cromwell very faithfully. We wish to make no secret of that. He destroyed certain private papers—though that cannot be proved against him, and you will remember that we were doubtful whether his Highness should be informed of that—”

Sir James broke in suddenly.

“I have been thinking of that, my Lord. I would sooner that the King’s Grace knew everything. I have no wish that that should be kept from him.”

The Archbishop who had been looking with smiling attention from one to the other, now himself broke in.

“I am glad you think that, sir. I think so myself. Though it cannot be proved as you say, it is far best that His Grace should know all. Indeed I think I should have told him in any case.”

“Then, my Lord, if you think well,” went on Mr. Herries, “you might lay before his Grace that this is a free and open confession. Mr. Torridon did burn papers, and important ones; but they would not have served anything. Master Cromwell was cast without them.”

“But Mr. Torridon did not know that?” questioned the Archbishop blandly.

“Yes, my Lord,” cried Sir James, “he must have known—that my Lord

Cromwell—”

The Archbishop lifted his hand delicately.

“Master Cromwell,” he corrected.

“Master Cromwell,” went on the old man, “he must have known that Mr. Cromwell had others, more important, that would be certainly found and used against him.”

“Then why did he burn them? You understand, sir, that I only wish to know what I have to say to his Grace.”

“He burned them, my Lord, because he could not bear that his hand should be lifted against his master. Surely that is but loyal and good!”

The Archbishop nodded quietly three or four times.

“And you desire that his Grace will take order to have Mr. Torridon released?”

“That is it, my Lord,” said the lawyer.

“Yes, I understand. And can you give any pledge for Mr. Torridon’s good behaviour?”

“He has served Mr. Cromwell,” answered the lawyer, “very well for many years. He has been with him in the matter of the Religious Houses; he was one of the King’s Visitors, and assisted in the—the destruction of Lewes priory; and that, my Lord, is a sufficient—”

Sir James gave a sudden sob.

“Mr. Herries, Mr. Herries—”

Cranmer turned to him smiling.

“I know what you feel, sir,” he said. “But if this is true—”

“Why, it is true! God help him,” cried the old man.

“Then that is what we need, sir; as you said just now. Yes, Mr.

Herries?”

The lawyer glanced at the old man again.

“That is sufficient guarantee, my Lord, that Mr. Ralph Torridon is no enemy of his Grace’s projects.”

“I cannot bear that!” cried Sir James.

Nicholas, who had been looking awed and open-mouthed from one to the other, took him by the arm.

“You must, father,” he said. “It—it is devilish; but it is true. Chris, have you nothing?”

The monk came forward a step.

“It is true, my Lord,” he said. “I was a monk of Lewes myself.”

“And you have conformed,” put in the Archbishop swiftly.

“I am living at home peaceably,” said Chris; “it is true that my brother did all this, but—but my father wishes that it should not be used in his cause.”

“If it is true,” said the Archbishop, “it is best to say it. We want nothing but the bare truth.”

“But I cannot bear it,” cried the old man again.

Chris came round behind the Archbishop to his father.

“Will you leave it, father, to my Lord Archbishop? My Lord understands what we think.”

Sir James looked at him, dazed and bewildered.

“God help us! Do you think so, Chris.”

“I think so, father. My Lord, you understand all?”

The Archbishop’s bowed again slightly.

“Then, my Lord, we will leave it all in your hands.”

There was a tap at the door.

The Archbishop rose.

“That is our signal,” he said. “Come, gentlemen, his Grace will be ready immediately.”

Mr. Herries sprang to the door and opened it, bowing as the Archbishop went through, followed by Sir James and Nicholas. He and Chris followed after.

There was a kind of dull recklessness in the monk’s heart as he went through. He knew that he was in more peril than any of the others, and yet he did not fear it. The faculty of fear had been blunted, not sharpened, by his experiences; and he passed on towards the King’s presence, almost without a tremor.

The room was empty, except for a page by the further door, who opened it as the party advanced; and beyond was a wide lobby, with doors all round, and a staircase on the right as they came out. The Archbishop made a little motion to the others as he went up, gathering his skirts about him, and acknowledging with his disengaged hand the salute of the sentry that stood in the lobby.

At the top of the stairs was a broad landing; then a corridor through which they passed, and on. They turned to the left, and as they went it was apparent that they were near the royal apartments. There were thick leather rugs lying here and there; along the walls stood magnificent pieces of furniture, inlaid tables with tall dragon-jars upon them, suits of Venetian armour elaborately worked in silver, and at the door of every room that opened on the corridor there was standing a sentry or a servant, who straightened themselves at the sight of the Archbishop. He carefully acknowledged each salutation, and nodded kindly once or twice.

There was a heavy odour in the air, warm and fragrant, as of mingled stuffs and musk, which even the wide windows set open towards the garden on the right hand did not wholly obliterate.

For the first time since leaving Charing, Chris’s heart quickened. The slow stages of approach to the formidable presence had begun to do their work; if he had seen the King at once he would not have been moved; if he had had an hour longer, he would have recovered from his emotion; but this swift ordered approach, the suggestiveness of the thick carpets and furniture, the sight of the silent figures waiting, the musky smell in the air, all combined now to work upon him; he began to fancy that he was drawing nearer the presence of some great carrion-beast that had made its den here, that was guarded by these discreet servitors, and to which this smooth prelate, in the rôle of the principal keeper, was guiding him. Any of these before him might mark the sanctuary of the labyrinth, where the creature lurked; one might open, and a savage face look out, dripping blood and slaver.

A page threw back a door at last, and they passed through; but again there was a check. It was but one more waiting room. The dozen persons, folks of all sorts, a lawyer, a soldier, and others stood up and bowed to the prelate.

Then the party sat down near the further door in dead silence, and the minutes began to pass.

There were cries from the river once or twice as they waited; once a footstep vibrated through the door, and twice a murmur of voices sounded and died again.

Then suddenly a hand was laid on the handle from the other side, and the

Archbishop rose, with Sir James beside him.

There was still a pause. Then a voice sounded loud and near, and there was a general movement in the room as all rose to their feet. The door swung open and the Garter King-at-Arms came through, bland and smiling, his puffed silk sleeves brushing against the doorpost as he passed. A face like a mask, smooth and expressionless, followed him, and nodded to the Archbishop.

Cranmer turned slightly to his party, again made that little movement, and went straight through.

Chris followed with Mr. Herries.

CHAPTER XI

THE KING’S HIGHNESS

As Chris knelt with the others, and the door closed behind him, he was aware of a great room with a tall window looking on to the river on his left, tapestry-hung walls, a broad table heaped with papers in the centre, a high beamed ceiling, and the thick carpet under his knees.

For a moment he did not see the King. The page who had beckoned them in had passed across the room, and Chris’s eyes followed him out through an inner door in the corner.

Then, still on his knees, he turned his eyes to see the Archbishop going towards the window, and up the step that led on to the dais that occupied the floor of the oriel.

Then he saw the King.

A great figure was seated opposite the side door at which they had entered on the broad seat that ran round the three sides of the window. The puffed sleeves made the shoulders look enormous; a gold chain lay across them, with which the gross fingers were playing. Beneath, the vast stomach swelled out into the slashed trunks, and the scarlet legs were crossed one over the other. On the head lay a broad plumed velvet cap, and beneath it was the wide square face, at once jovial and solemn, with the narrow slits of eyes above, and the little pursed mouth fringed by reddish hair below, that Chris remembered in the barge years before. The smell of musk lay heavy in the air.

Here was the monstrous carrion-beast then at last, sunning himself and waiting.

So the party rested a moment or two, while the Archbishop went across to the dais; he knelt again and then stood up and said a word or two rapidly that Chris could not hear.

Henry nodded, and turned his bright narrow eyes on to them; and then made a motion with his hand. The Archbishop turned round and repeated the gesture; and Chris rose in his place as did the others.

“Master Torridon, your Grace,” explained the Archbishop, with a deferential stoop of his shoulders. “Your Grace will remember—”

The King nodded abruptly, and thrust his hand out.

Chris touched his father behind.

“Go forward,” he whispered; “kiss hands.”

The old man went forward a hesitating step or two. The Archbishop motioned sharply, and Sir James advanced again up to the dais, sank down, and lifted the hand to his lips, and fell back for the others.

When Chris’s turn came, and he lifted the heavy fingers, he noticed for a moment a wonderful red stone on the thumb, and recognised it. It was the Regal of France that he had seen years before at his visit to St. Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury. In a flash, too, he remembered Cromwell’s crest as he had seen it on the papers at Lewes—the demi-lion holding up the red-gemmed ring.

Then he too had fallen back, and the Archbishop was speaking.

“Your Grace will remember that there is a Mr. Ralph Torridon in the

Tower—an agent of Mr. Cromwell’s—”

The King’s face moved slightly, but he said nothing.

—”Who is awaiting trial for destroying evidence. It is that, at least, your Grace, that is asserted against him. But it has not been proved. Master Torridon here tells me, your Highness, that it cannot be proved, but that he wishes to acknowledge it freely on his son’s behalf.”

Henry’s eyes shot back again at the old man, ran over the others, and settled again on Cranmer’s face, who was standing beside him with his back to the window.

“He is here to plead for your Grace’s clemency. He wishes to lay before your Grace that his son erred through over-faithfulness to Mr. Cromwell’s cause; and above all that the evidence so destroyed has not affected the course of justice—”

“God’s Body!” jarred in the harsh voice suddenly, “it has not. Nor shall it.”

Cranmer waited a moment with downcast eyes; but the King was silent again.

“Master Torridon has persuaded me to come with him to your Grace to speak for him. He is not accustomed—”

“And who are these fellows?”

Chris felt those keen eyes running over him.

“This is Master Nicholas Maxwell,” explained the Archbishop, indicating him. “Master Torridon’s son-in-law; and this, Mr. Herries—”

“And the priest?” asked the King.

“The priest is Sir Christopher Torridon, living with his father at

Overfield.”

“Ha! has he always lived there then?”

“No, your Grace,” said Cranmer smoothly, “he was a monk at Lewes until the dissolution of the house.”

“I have heard somewhat of his name,” mused Henry. “What is it, sir, that

I have beard of you?”

“It was perhaps Mr. Ralph Torridon’s name that your Grace—” began

Cranmer.

“Nay, nay, it was not. What was it, sir?”

Chris’s heart was beating in his ears like a drum now. It had come, then, that peril that had always been brooding on the horizon, and which he had begun to despise. He had thought that there could be no danger in his going to the King; it was so long since Lewes had fallen, and his own part had been so small. But his Grace’s memory was good, it seemed! Danger was close to him, incarnate in that overwhelming presence. He said nothing, but stood awaiting detection.

“It is strange,” said Henry. “I have forgot. Well, my Lord?”

“I have told your Grace all,” explained the Archbishop. “Mr. Ralph Torridon has not yet been brought to trial, and his father hopes that your Grace will take into consideration these two things: that it was a mistake of over-faithfulness that his son committed; and that it has not hindered the course of justice.”

“Well, well,” said Henry, “and that sounds to be in reason. We have none too much of either faithfulness or justice in these days. And there is no other charge against the fellow?”

“There is no other charge, your Grace.”

There fell a complete silence for a moment or two.

Chris glanced up at his father, his own heart uplifted by hope, and saw the old man’s face trembling with it too. The wrinkled eyes were full of tears, and his lips quivered; and Chris could feel the short cloak that hung against him shaking at his hand. Nicholas’s crimson face showed a mingling of such emotion and solemnity that Chris was seized with an internal hysterical spasm; but it suddenly died within him as he brought his eyes round, and saw that the King was staring at him moodily….

The Archbishop’s voice broke in again.

“Are we to understand, your Grace, that your Grace’s clemency is extended to Mr. Ralph Torridon?”

“Eh! then,” said the King peevishly, “hold your tongue, my Lord. I am trying to remember. Where is Michael?”

“Shall I call him, your Grace?”

“Nay, then; let the lawyer ring the bell!”

Mr. Herries sprang to the table at the King’s gesture, and struck the little hand-bell that stood there. The door where the page had disappeared five minutes before opened silently, and the servant stood there.

“Michael,” said the King, and the page vanished.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Cranmer stood back a little with an air of patient deference, and his quick eyes glanced up now and again at the party before him. There was a certain uneasiness in his manner, as Chris could see; but the monk presently dropped his eyes again, as he saw that the King was once more looking at him keenly, with tight pursed lips, and a puzzled look on his forehead.

The thoughts began to race through Chris’s brain. He found himself praying with desperate speed that Michael, whoever he was, might not know; and that the King might not remember; and meanwhile through another part of his being ran the thought of the irony of his situation. Here he was, come to plead for his brother’s life, and on the brink of having to plead for his own. The quiet room increased his sense of the irony. It seemed so safe and strong and comfortable, up here in the rich room, with the tall window looking on to the sunlit river, in a palace girt about with guards; and yet the very security of it was his danger. He had penetrated into the stronghold of the great beast that ruled England: he was within striking distance of those red-stained claws and teeth.

Then suddenly the creature stirred and snarled.

“I know it now, sir. You were one of the knaves that would not sign the surrender of Lewes.”

Chris lifted his eyes and dropped them again.

“God’s Body,” said the King, “and you come here!”

Again there was silence.

Chris saw his father half turn towards him with a piteous face, and perceived that the lawyer had drawn a little away.

The King turned abruptly to Cranmer.

“Did you know this, my Lord?”

“Before God, I did not!”—but his voice shook as he answered.

Chris was gripping his courage, and at last spoke.

“We were told it was a free-will act, your Grace.”

Henry said nothing to this. His eyes were rolling up and down the monk’s figure, with tight, thoughtful lips. Cranmer looked desperately at Sir James.

“I did not know that, your Grace,” he said again. “I only knew that this priest’s brother had been very active in your Grace’s business.”

Henry turned sharply.

“Eh?” he said.

Sir James’s hands rose and clasped themselves instinctively. Cranmer again looked at him almost fiercely.

“Mr. Ralph Torridon was one of the Visitors,” explained the Archbishop nervously.

“And this fellow a monk!” cried the King.

“They must have met at Lewes, your Grace.”

“Ah! my Lord,” cried Sir James suddenly. “I entreated you—”

Henry turned on him suddenly.

“Tell us the tale, sir. What is all this?”

Sir James took a faltering step forward, and then suddenly threw out his hands.

“Ah! your Grace, it is a bitter tale for a father to tell. It is true, all of it. My son here was a monk at Lewes. He would not sign the surrender. I—I approved him for it. I—I was there when my son Ralph cast him out—”

“God’s blood!” cried the King with a beaming face. “The one brother cast the other out!”

Chris saw the Archbishop’s face suddenly lighten as he watched the King sideways.

“But I cannot bear that he should be saved for that!” went on the old man piteously. “He was a good servant to your Grace, but a bad one to our Lord—”

The Archbishop drew a swift breath of horror, and his hands jerked. But Henry seemed not to hear; his little mouth had opened in a round hole of amazed laughter, and he was staring at the old man without hearing him.

“And you were there?” he said. “And your wife? And your aunts and sisters?”

“My wife is dead,” cried the old man. “Your Grace—”

“And on which side was she?”

“She was—was on your Grace’s side.”

Henry threw himself back in his chair.

For one moment Chris did not know whether it was wrath or laughter that shook him. His face grew crimson, and his narrow eyes disappeared into shining slits; his fat hands were on his knees, and his great body shook. From his round open mouth came silent gusts of quick breath, and he began to sway a little from side to side.

Across the Archbishop’s face came a deferential and sympathetic smile, and he looked quickly and nervously from the King to the group and back again. Sir James had fallen back a pace at the King’s laughter, and stood rigid and staring. Chris took a step close to him and gripped his hand firmly.

There was a footstep behind, and the King leaned forward again, wiping the tears away with his sleeve.

“Oh, Michael, Michael!” he sobbed, “here is a fine tale.”

A dark-dressed man stepped forward from behind, and stood expectant.

“God! What a happy family!” said the King. “And this fellow here?”

He motioned towards Nicholas, with a feeble gesture. He was still weak with laughter.

The young squire moved forward a step, rigid and indignant.

“I am against your Grace,” he said sharply.

Henry grew suddenly grave.

“Eh! that is no way to speak,” he said.

“It is the only way I can speak,” said Nicholas, “if your Grace desires the truth.”

The King looked at him a moment; but the humour still shone in his eyes.

“Well, well. It is the truth I want. Michael, I sent for you to know about the priest here; but I know now. And is it true that his brother in the Tower—Ralph Torridon—was one of the Visitors?”

The man pursed his lips a moment. He was standing close to Chris, a little in front of him.

“Yes, your Majesty.”

“Oh! well. We must let him out, I suppose—if there is nothing more against him. You shall tell me presently, Michael.”

The Archbishop looked swiftly across at the party.

“Then your Grace extends—”

“Well, Michael, what is it?” interrupted the King.

“It is a matter your Majesty might wish to hear in private,” said the stranger.

“Oh, step aside, my Lord. And you, gentlemen.”

The King motioned down to the further end of the room, as Michael came forward.

The Archbishop stepped off the low platform, and led the way down the floor; and the others followed.

Chris was in a whirl of bewilderment. He could see the King’s great face interested and attentive as the secretary said something in his ear, and then suddenly light up with amusement again.

“Not a word, not a word,” whispered Henry harshly. “Very good, Michael.”

The secretary then whispered once more. Chris could hear the sharp sibilants, but no word. The King nodded once more, and the man stepped down off the dais.

“Prepare the admission, then,” said the King after him.

The secretary bowed as he turned and went out of the room once more.

Henry beckoned.

“Come, gentlemen.”

He watched them with a solemn joviality as they came up, the Archbishop in front, the father and son together, and the two others behind.

“You are a sad crew,” began the King, eyeing them pleasantly, and sitting forward with a hand on either knee, “and I am astonished, my Lord of Canterbury, at your companying with them. But we will have mercy, and remember your son’s services, Master Torridon, in the past. That alone will excuse him. Remember that. That alone. He is the stronger man, if he turned out the priest there. And I remember your son very well, too; and will forgive him. But I shall not employ him again. And his forgiveness shall cover yours, Master Priest; but you must be off—you must be off, sir,” he barked suddenly, “out of these realms in a week. We will have no more treason from you.”

The fierce overpowering personality flared out as he spoke, and Chris felt his heart beat sick at the force of it.

“And you two gentlemen,” went on the King, still smouldering, “you two had best hold your tongues. We will not hear such talk in our presence or out of it. But we will excuse it now. There, sir, have I said enough?”

Sir James dropped abruptly on his knees.

“Oh! God bless your Grace!” he began, with the tears running down.

Henry made an abrupt gesture.

“You shall go to your son,” he said, “and see how he fares, and tell him this. And she shall have the order of release presently, from me or another.”

Again the little mouth creased and twitched with amusement.

“And I hope he will be happy with his mother. You may tell him that from me.”

The Archbishop looked up.

“Mistress Torridon is dead, your Grace,” he said softly and questioningly.

“Oh, well,” said the King; and thrust out his hand to be kissed.

Chris did not know how they got out of the room. They kissed hands again; the old man muttered out his thanks; but he seemed bewildered by the rush of events, and the supreme surprise. Chris, as he backed away from the presence, saw for the last time those narrow royal eyes fixed on him, still bright with amusement and expectancy, and the great red-fringed cheeks creased about the tiny mouth with an effort to keep back laughter. Why was the King laughing, he wondered?

They waited a few minutes in the ante-room for the order that the Archbishop had whispered to them should be sent out immediately. They said nothing to one another—but the three sat close, looking into one another’s eyes now and again in astonishment and joy, while Mr. Herries stood a little apart solemn and happy at the importance of the rôle he had played in the whole affair, and disdaining even to look at the rest of the company who sat on chairs and watched the party.

The secretary came to them in a few minutes, and handed them the order.

“My Lord of Canterbury is detained,” he said; “he bade me tell you gentlemen that he could not see you again.”

Sir James was standing up and examining the order.

“For four?” he said.

“Why, yes,” said the secretary, and glanced at the four men.

Chris put his hand on his father’s arm.

“It is all well,” he whispered, “say nothing more. It will do for

Beatrice.”

CHAPTER XII

THE TIDINGS AT THE TOWER

They debated as they stood on the steps in the sunlight five minutes later, as to whether they should go straight to the Tower, or back to Charing and take Beatrice with them. They spoke softly to one another, as men that have come out from darkness to light, bewildered by the sense of freedom and freshness that lay round them. Instead of the musk-scented rooms, the formidable dominating presence, the suspense and the terror, the river laughed before them, the fresh summer breeze blew up it, and above all Ralph was free, and that, not only of his prison, but of his hateful work. It had all been done in those few sentences; but as yet they could not realise it; and they regarded it, as they regarded the ripples at their feet, the lapping wherry, and far-off London city, as a kind of dazzling picture which would by and bye be found to move and live.

The lawyer congratulated them, and they smiled back and thanked him.

“If you will put me to shore at London Bridge,” said Mr. Herries—”I have a little business I might do there—that is, if you will be going so far.”

Chris looked at his father, whose arm he was holding.

“We must take her with us,” he said. “She has earned it.”

Sir James nodded, dreamily, and turned to the boat.

“To the London Bridge Stairs first,” he said.

There was a kind of piquant joy in their hearts as they crept up past the Tower, and saw its mighty walls and guns across the water. He was there, but it was not for long. They would see him that day, and to-morrow—to-morrow at the latest, they would all leave it together.

There were a hundred plans in the old man’s mind, as he leaned gently forward and back to the motion of the boat and stared at the bright water. Ralph and he should live at Overfield again; his son would surely be changed by all that had come to him, and above all by his own response to the demands of loyalty. They should learn to understand one another better now—better than ever before. The hateful life lay behind them of distrust and contempt; Ralph would come back to his old self, and be again as he had been ten years back before he had been dazzled and drugged by the man who was to die next day. Then he thought of that man, and half-pitied him even then; those strong walls held nothing but terror for him—terror and despair; the scaffold was already going up on Tower Hill—and as the old man thought of it he leaned forward and tried to see over the wharf and under the trees where the rising ground lay; but there was nothing to be seen—the foliage hid it.

Chris, also silent beside him, was full of thoughts. He would go abroad now, he knew, with Margaret, as they had intended. The King’s order was the last sign of God’s intention for him. He would place Margaret with her own sisters at Bruges, and then himself go on to Dom Anthony and take up the life again. He knew he would meet some of his old brethren in Religion—Dom Anthony had written to say that three or four had already joined him at Cluny; the Prior—he knew—had turned his back for ever on the monastic life, and had been put into a prebendal stall at Lincoln.

And meanwhile he would have the joy of knowing that Ralph was free of his hateful business; the King would not employ him again; he would live at home now, and rule Overfield well: he and his father together. Ah! and what if Beatrice consented to rule it with him! Surely now—He turned and looked at his father as he thought of it, and their eyes met.

Chris leaned a little closer.

“Beatrice!” he said. “What if she—?”

The old man nodded tenderly, and his drawn eyes shone in his face.

“Oh! Chris—I was thinking that—”

Then Nicholas came out of his maze.

Ever since his entrance into the palace, except when he had flared out at the King, he had moved and stood and sat in a solemn bewilderment. The effect of the changed atmosphere had been to paralyse his simple and sturdy faculties; and his face had grown unintelligent during the process. More than once Chris had been seized with internal laughter, in spite of the tragedy; the rustic squire was so strangely incongruous with the situation. But he awoke now.

“God bless me!” he said wonderingly. “It is all over and done. God—”

Chris gave a short yelp of laughter.

“Dear Nick,” he said, “yes. God bless you indeed! You spoke up well!”

“Did I do right, sir,” said the other to Sir James, “I could not help it. I—”

“Oh! Nick,” said the old man, and leaned forward and put his hand on his knee.

Nicholas preened himself as he sat there; he would tell Mary how he had bearded his Majesty, and what a diplomatist was her husband.

“You did very well, sir,” put in Mr. Herries ironically. “You terrified his Grace, I think.”

Chris glanced at the lawyer; but Nicholas took it all with the greatest complacency; tilted his hilt a little forward, smoothed his doublet, and sat smiling and well-pleased.

They reached the Stairs presently and put Mr. Herries ashore.

“I will be at your house to-morrow, sir,” he said, “when you go to take Mr. Ralph out of prison. The order will be there by the morning, I make no doubt.”

He bowed and smiled and moved off, a stiff figure deliberately picking its way up the oozy steps to the crowded street overhead.

Beatrice’s face was at the window as they came up the tide half-an-hour later. Chris stood up in the wherry, when he saw it, and waved his cap furiously, and the face disappeared.

She was at the landing stage before they reached it, a slender brilliant figure in her hood and mantle, with her aunt beside her. Chris stood up again and cried between his hands across the narrowing space that all was well; and her face was radiant as the boat slipped up to the side, and balanced there with the boatman’s hand on the stone edging.

“It is all well,” said Chris again as he stood by her a moment later.

“He is to go free, and we are to tell him.”

He dared not look at her; but he was aware that she stood very still and rigid, and that her eyes were on his father’s.

“Oh! Mistress Beatrice—”

Chris began to understand it all a little better, a few minutes later, as the boat was once again on its way downstream. He and Nicholas had moved to the bows of the wherry, and the girl and the old man sat alone in the stern.

They were all very silent at first; Chris leaned on his elbow and stared out at the sliding banks, the trees on this side and that, the great houses with their high roofs and towers behind, and their stone steps in front, the brilliant glare on the water, the hundreds of boats—great barges flashing jewels from their dozen blades, spidery wherries making this way and that; and his mind was busy weaving pictures. He saw it all now; there had been that in Beatrice’s face during the moment he had looked at her, that was more than sympathy. In the shock of that great joy the veils had fallen, and her soul had looked out through her black tearful eyes.

There was little doubt now as to what would happen. It was not for their sake alone, or for Ralph’s, that she had looked like that; she had not said one word, but he knew what was unspoken.

As they passed under London Bridge he turned a little and looked across the boatmen’s shoulder at the two as they sat there in the stern, and what he saw confirmed him. The old man had flung an arm along the back of the seat, and was leaning a little forward, talking in a low voice, his face showing indeed the lines and wrinkles that had deepened more than ever during these last weeks, but irradiated with an extraordinary joy. And the girl was beside him, smiling with downcast eyes, turning a quick look now and again as she sat there. Chris could see her scarlet lips trembling, and her hands clasped on her knee, shifting a little now and again as she listened. It was a strange wooing; the father courting for the son, and the woman answering the son through the father; and Chris understood what was the answer that she was giving.

Nicholas was watching it too; and presently the two in the stern looked up suddenly; first Beatrice and then Sir James, and their eyes flashed joy across and across as the four souls met.

Five minutes later again they were at the Tower Stairs.

Mr. Morris, who had been sent on by Mistress Jane Atherton when she had heard the news, was there holding his horse by the bridle; and behind him had collected a little crowd of idlers. He gave the bridle to one of them, and came down the steps to help them out of the boat.

“You have heard?” said Chris as he stepped out last.

“Yes, father,” said the servant.

Chris looked at him; and his mask-like face too seemed strangely lighted up. There was still across his cheek the shadow of a mark as of an old whip-cut.

As they passed up the steps they became aware that the little crowd that had waited at the top was only the detached fringe of a multitude that had assembled further up the slope. It stretched under the trees as far as they could see to right and left, from the outer wall of the Tower on the one side, to where the rising ground on the left was hidden under the thick foliage in the foreground. There was a murmur of talking and laughter, the ringing of hand-bells, the cracking of whips and the cries of children. The backs of the crowd were turned to the steps: there was plainly something going on higher up the slope, and it seemed somewhat away to the left.

For a moment Chris did not understand, and he turned to Morris.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The scaffold,” said the servant tersely.

At the same moment high above the murmur of the crowd came the sound of heavy resounding blows, as of wood on wood.

Then Chris remembered; and for one moment he sickened as he walked. His father turned and looked over his shoulder as he went with Beatrice in front, and his eyes were eloquent.

“I had forgotten,” said Chris softly. “God help him!”

They turned in towards the right almost immediately to the low outer gate of the fortress; and those for the first time remembered that the order they carried was for four only.

Nicholas instantly offered to wait outside and let Morris go in. Morris flatly refused. There was a short consultation, and then Nicholas went up to the sentry on guard with the order in his hand.

The man looked at it, glanced at the party, and then turned and knocked with his halberd on the great door behind, and in a minute or two an officer came out in his buff and feathers. He took the order and ran his eyes over it.

Nicholas explained.

The officer looked at him a moment without answering.

“And the lady too?” he said.

“Why, yes,” said Nicholas.

“The lady wishes—” then he broke off. “You will have to see the

Lieutenant,” he went on. “I can let you all through to his lodgings.”

They passed in with a yeoman to conduct them under the low heavy vaulting and through to the open way beyond. On their right was the wall between them and the river, and on their left the enormous towers and battlements of the inner court.

Chris walked with Morris behind, remembering the last time he was here with the Prior all those years before. They had walked silently then, too, but for another reason.

They passed the low Traitor’s Gate on their right; Chris glanced at the green lapping water beneath it as he went—Ralph had landed there—and turned up the steep slope to the left under the gateway of the inner court; and in a minute or two more were at the door of the Lieutenant’s lodgings.

There seemed a strange suggestiveness in the silence and order of the wide ward that lay before them. The great White Tower dominated the whole place on the further side, huge and menacing, pierced by its narrow windows set at wide intervals; on the left, the row of towers used as prisons diminished in perspective down to where the wall turned at right angles and ran in behind the keep; and the great space enclosed by the whole was almost empty. There were soldiers on guard here and there at the doorways; a servant hurried across the wide sunlit ground, and once, as they waited, a doctor in his short gown came out of one door and disappeared into another.

And here they waited for an answer to their summons, silent and happy in their knowledge. The place held no terrors for them.

The soldier knocked again impatiently, and again stood aside.

Chris saw Nicholas sidle up to the man with something of the same awe on his face that had been there an hour ago.

“My Lord—Master Cromwell?” he heard him whisper, correcting himself.

The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

“There,” he said.

There were three soldiers, Chris noticed, standing at the foot of one of the Towers a little distance off. It was there, then, that Thomas Cromwell, wool-carder, waited for death, hearing, perhaps, from his window the murmur of the crowd beyond the moat, and the blows of mallet on wood as his scaffold went up.

Then the door opened, and after a word or two the soldier motioned them in.

Again they had to wait.

The Lieutenant, they were told, had been called away. He was expected back presently.

They sat down, still in silence, in the little ground-floor parlour. It was a pleasant little room, with a wide hearth, and two windows looking on to the court.

But the suspense was not like that of the morning. Now they knew how it must end. There would be a few minutes more, long perhaps to Ralph, as he sat in his cell somewhere not far from them, knowing nothing of the pardon that was on its way; and then the door would open, where day by day for the last six weeks the gaoler had come and gone; and the faces he knew would be there, and it would be from their lips that he would hear the message.

The old man and the girl still sat together in the window-seat, silent now like the others. They had had their explanations in the boat, and each knew what was in the other’s heart. Chris and Nicholas stood by the hearth, Mr. Morris by the door; and there was not the tremor of a doubt in any of them as to what the future held.

Chris looked tranquilly round the room, at the little square table in the centre, the four chairs drawn close to it, with their brocade panels stained and well-worn showing at the back, the dark ceiling, the piece of tapestry that hung over the side-table between the doors—it was a martial scene, faded and discoloured, with ghostly bare-legged knights on fat prancing horses all in inextricable conflict, a great battleaxe stood out against the dusky foliage of an autumn tree; and a stag with his fore feet in the air, ramped in the foreground, looking over his shoulder. It was a ludicrously bad piece of work, picked up no doubt by some former Lieutenant who knew more of military than artistic matters, and had hung there—how long? Chris wondered.

He found himself criticising it detail by detail, comparing it with his own designs in the antiphonary; he had that antiphonary still at home; he had carried it off from Lewes, when Ralph—Ralph!—had turned him out. He had put it up into a parcel on the afternoon of the spoilers’ arrival. He would show it to Ralph again now—in a day or two at Overfield; they would laugh over it together; and he would take it with him abroad, and perhaps finish it there. God’s work is not so easily hindered after all.

But all the while, the wandering stream of his thought was lighted and penetrated by the radiant joy of his heart. It was all true, not a dream!

He glanced again at the two in the window-seat.

His father was looking out of the lattice; but Beatrice raised her eyes to his, and smiled at him.

Sir James stood up.

“The Lieutenant is coming,” he said.

A moment later there were steps in the flagged passage; and a murmur of voices. The soldier who had brought them to the lodgings was waiting there with the order of admission, and was no doubt explaining the circumstances.

Then the door opened suddenly; and a tall soldierly-looking man, grey-haired and clean-shaven, in an officer’s dress, stood there, with the order in his hand, as the two in the window-seat rose to meet him.

“Master Torridon,” he said abruptly.

Sir James stepped forward.

“Yes, sir.”

“You have come to see Mr. Ralph Torridon whom we have here?”

“Yes, sir—my son.”

Nicholas stepped forward, and the Lieutenant nodded at him.

“Yes, sir,” said the officer to him, “I could not admit you before—” he stopped, as if embarrassed, and turned to Beatrice.

“And this lady too?”

“Yes, Master Lieutenant,” said the old man.

“But—but—I do not understand—”

He looked at the radiant faces before him, and then dropped his eyes.

“I suppose—you have not heard then?”

Chris felt his heart leap, and then begin to throb furiously and insistently. What had happened? Why did the man look like that? Why did he not speak?

The Lieutenant came a step forward and put his hand on the table. He was looking strangely from face to face.

Outside the court was very still. The footstep that had passed on the flagstones a minute before had ceased; and there was no sound but the chirp of a bird under the eaves.

“You have not heard then?” said the Lieutenant again.

“Oh! for God’s sake—” cried the old man suddenly.

“I have just come from your son,” said the other steadily. “You are only just in time. He is at the point of death.”

CHAPTER XIII

THE RELEASE

It was morning, and they still sat in Ralph’s cell.

The attendant had brought in stools and a tall chair with a broken back, and these were grouped round the low wooden bed; the old man in the chair on one side, from where he could look down on his son’s face, with Beatrice beside him, Chris and Nicholas on the other side. Mr. Morris was everywhere, sitting on a form by the door, in and out with food and medicine, at his old master’s bedside, lifting his pillow, turning him in bed, holding his convulsive hands.

He had been ill six days, the Lieutenant told them. The doctor who had been called in from outside named the disease phrenitis. It was certain that he would not recover; and a message to that effect had been sent across on the morning before, with the usual reports to Greenwich.

They had supped as they sat—silently—on what the gaoler brought; and had slept by turns in the tall chair, wakening at a sound from the bed; at the movement of the light across the floor as Morris slipped to and fro noiselessly; at the chirp of the birds and the noises of the stirring City as the daylight broadened on the wall, and the narrow window grew bright and luminous.

And now the morning was high, and they were waiting for the end.

A little table stood by the door, white-covered, with two candles, guttering now in their sockets, and a tall crucifix, ivory and black, lifting its arms in the midst. Before it stood two veiled vessels.

“He will speak before he passes,” the doctor had told them the evening before; “I do not know whether he will be able to receive Viaticum.”

Chris raised himself a little in his chair—he was stiff with leaning elbows on knees; and he stretched out his feet softly; looking down still at the bed.

His brother lay with his back to him; the priest could see the black hair, longer than Court fashion allowed now, the brown sinewy neck beneath; and one arm outlined over his hip beneath the piled clothes. The fingers were moving a little, contracting and loosening, contracting and loosening; and he could hear the long slow breaths.

Beyond sat Beatrice, upright and quiet, one hand in her lap, and the other holding the father’s. The old man was bowed with his head on his other hand, as he had been for the last hour, his back bent forward with the burden, and his feet crossed before him.

From outside the noises grew louder as the morning advanced. There had been the sound of continual coming and going since it was light. Wheels had groaned and rattled up out of the distance and ceased abruptly; and the noise of hoofs had been like an endless patter over the stone-paving. And now, as the hours passed a murmur had been increasing, a strange sound like the wind in dry trees, as the huge crowd gathered.

Beatrice raised her eyes suddenly.

The fortress itself which had been quiet till now seemed to awaken abruptly.

The sound seemed to come to them up the stairs, but they had learnt during those hours that all sounds from within came that way. There was a trumpet-note or two, short and brazen; a tramp of feet for a moment, the throb of drums; then silence again; then the noise of moving footsteps that came and went in an instant. And as the sound came, Ralph stirred.

He swayed slowly over on to his back; his breath came in little groans that died to silence again as he subsided, and his arm drew out and lay on the bedclothes. Chris could see his face now in sharp profile against Beatrice’s dark skirt, white and sharp; the skin was tightly stretched over the nose and cheekbones, his long thin lips were slightly open, there was a painful frown on his forehead, and his eyes squinted terribly at the ceiling.

A contraction seized the priest’s throat as he watched; the face was at once so august and so pitiable.

The lips began to move again, as they had moved during the night; it seemed as if the dying man were talking and listening. The eyelids twitched a little; and once he made a movement as if to rise up. Chris was down on his knees in a moment, holding him tenderly down; he felt the thin hands come up and fumble with his own, and noticed lines deepen between the flickering eyelids. Then the hands lay quiet.

Chris lifted his eyes and saw his father’s face and Beatrice’s watching. Something of the augustness of the dying man seemed to rest on the grey bearded lips and solemn eyes that looked down. Beatrice’s face was steady and tender, and as the priest’s eyes met hers, she nodded.

“Yes, speak to him,” she said.

Chris threw a hand across the bed and rested it on the wooden frame, and then lowered himself softly till his mouth was at the other’s ear.

“Ralph,” he said, “Ralph, do you hear me?”

Then he raised his face a little and watched.

The eyelids were rising slowly; but they dropped again; and there came a little faint babbling from the writhing lips; but no words were intelligible. Then they were silent.

“He hears,” said Beatrice softly.

The priest bent low again; and as he did so, from outside came a strange sound, as of a long monstrous groan from a thousand throats. Again the dying man stirred; his hand sought his brother’s arm and gripped it with a kind of feeble strength; then dropped again on to the coverlet.

Chris hesitated a moment, and again glanced up; and as he did so, there was a sound on the stairs. He threw himself back on his heels and looked round, as the doctor came in with Morris behind him.

He was a stout ruddy man, and moved heavily across the floor; but Ralph seemed not to hear it.

The doctor came to the end of the bed, and stood staring down at the dying man’s face, frowning and pursing his lips; Chris watched him intently for some sign. Then he came round by Beatrice, leaned over the bed, and took Ralph’s wrist softly into his fingers. He suddenly seemed to remember himself, and turned his face abruptly over his shoulder to Sir James.

“There is a man come from the palace,” he whispered harshly. “I suppose it is the pardon.” And Chris saw him arch his eyebrows and purse his lips again. Then he bent over Ralph once more.

Then again the doctor jerked his head towards the window behind and spoke across to Chris.

“They have him out there,” he said; “Master Cromwell, I mean.”

Then he rose abruptly.

“He cannot receive Viaticum; and he will not be able to make his confession. I should shrive him at once, sir, and anoint him.”

“At once?” whispered Chris.

“The sooner the better,” said the doctor; “there is no telling.”

Chris rose swiftly from his knees, and made a sharp sign to Morris. Then he sank down once more, looking round, and lifted the purple stole from the floor where he had laid it the evening before; and even as he did so his soul revolted.

He looked up at Beatrice. Would not she understand the unchivalry of the act? But the will in her eyes compelled him.—Yes, yes! Who could set a limit to mercy?

He slipped the strip over his shoulders, and again bent down over his brother, with one arm across the motionless body. Beatrice and Sir James were on their knees by now. Nicholas was busy with Morris at the further end of the room. The doctor was gone.

There was a profound silence now outside as the priest bent lower and lower till his lips almost touched the ear of the dying man; and every word of the broken abrupt sentences was audible to all in the room.

“Ralph—Ralph—dear brother. You are at the point of death. I must shrive you. You have sinned very deeply against God and man. I shall anoint you afterwards. Make an act of sorrow in your heart for all your sins; it will stand for confession. Think of Jesu’s love, and of His death on the bitter cross—the wounds that He bore for us in love. Give me a sign if you can that you repent.”

Chris spoke rapidly, and leaned back a moment. Now he was terrified of waiting—he did not know how long it would be; but for an intent instant he stared down on the shadowed face.

Again the eyelids flickered; the lips formed words, and ceased again.

The priest glanced up, scarcely knowing why; and then again lowered himself that if it were possible Ralph might hear.

Then he spoke, with a tense internal effort as if to drive the grace home….

“Ego te absolvo ab omnibus censuris et peccatis, in nomine Patris—” He raised himself a little and lifted his hand, moving it sideways across and down as he ended—”et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”

The priest rose up once more, his duty driving his emotion down; he did not dare to look across at the two figures beyond the bed, or even to question himself again as to what he was doing.

The two men at the further end of the room were waiting now; they had lifted the candles and crucifix off the table, and set them on the bench by the side.

Chris went swiftly across the room, dropped on one knee, rose again, lifted the veiled vessel that stood in the centre, with the little linen cloth beneath, and set it all down on the bench. He knelt again, went a step aside back to the table, lifted the other vessel, and signed with his head.

The two men grasped the ends of the table, and carried it across the floor to the end of the bed. Chris followed and set down the sacred oils upon it.

“The cross and one candle,” he whispered sharply.

A minute later he was standing by the bed once more.

“Oremus—” he began, reading rapidly off the book that Beatrice held steadily beneath his eyes.

“Almighty Everlasting God, who through blessed James Thy Apostle, hast spoken, saying, Is any sick among you, let him call the priests of the Church—” (The lips of the dying man were moving again at the sound of the words; was it in protest or in faith?)—” … that is what is done without through our ministry, may be wrought within spiritually by Thy divine power, and invisibly by Thy healing; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

The lips were moving faster than ever on the pillow; the head was beginning to turn from side to side, and the mouth lay open.

“Usquequo, Domine” … began Beatrice.

Chris dipped his thumb in the vessel, and sank swiftly on to his knees.

“Per istam sanctam Unctionem”—”through this holy unction….”

(The old man leaned suddenly forward on to his knees, and steadied that rolling head in his two hands; and Chris signed firmly on the eyelids, pressing them down and feeling the fluttering beneath his thumb as he did so.)

“ … And His most loving mercy, may the Lord forgive thee whatsoever thou hast sinned through sight.”

Ah! that was done—dear God! those eyes that had drooped and sneered, that had looked so greedily on treasure—their lids shone now with the loving-kindness of God.

Chris snatched a morsel of wool that Morris put forward from behind, wiped the eyelids, and dropped the fragment into the earthen basin at his side.

“Per istam sanctam Unctionem….”

And the ears were anointed—the ears that had listened to Layton’s filth, to Cromwell’s plotting; and to the cries of the oppressed.

The nostrils; the lips that had lied and stormed and accused against God’s people, compressed now in his father’s fingers—they seemed to sneer even now, and to writhe under the soft oil; the hands that had been laid on God’s portion, that had torn the vessels from the altar and the cloth of gold from the treasury—those too were signed now, and lay twitching on the coverlet.

The bed clothes at the foot of the wooden framework were lifted and laid back as Chris passed round to the end, and the long feet, icy cold, were lying exposed side by side.

Per Istam sanctam Unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Domimus quidquid peccasti per incessum pedum. Amen.

Then they too were sealed with pardon, the feet that had been so swift and unwearied in the war with God, that had trodden the sanctuary in His despite, and trampled down the hearts of His saints—they too were signed now with the mark of Redemption and lay again under the folded coverlet at the end of their last journey.

A convulsion tore at the priest’s heart.

Then suddenly in the profound silence outside there broke out an indescribable clamour, drowning in an instant the murmur of prayers within. It seemed as if the whole world of men were there, and roaring. The sound poured up through the window, across the moat; the boards of the flooring vibrated with the sound. There was the throb of drums pulsating through the long-drawn yell, the screams of women, the barking of dogs; and a moment later, like some devilish benediction, the bells of Barking Church pealed out, mellow and jangling, in an exultation of blood.

Ralph struggled in his bed; his hands rose clutching at his throat, tearing open his shirt before Beatrice’s fingers could reach them. The breath came swift and hoarse through his open teeth, and his eyelids flickered furiously. Then they opened, and his face grew quiet, as he looked out across the room.

“My—my Lord!” he said.

THE END.

THE NECROMANCERS

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY AETERNA PRESS.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1909.

WILDSIDE PRESS DOYLESTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

THE NECROMANCERS A PUBLICATION OF WILDSIDE PRESS P.O. BOX 301 HOLICONG, PA 18928-0301

I MUST EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE TO THE REV. FATHER AUGUSTINE HOWARD, O.P., WHO HAS KINDLY READ THIS BOOK IN MANUSCRIPT AND FAVORED ME WITH HIS CRITICISMS.

—ROBERT HUGH BENSON.

CONTENTS

THE NECROMANCERS

Chapter I

I

Chapter II

I

II

III

IV

Chapter III

I

Chapter IV

I

II

Chapter V

I

II

Chapter VI

I

II

III

Chapter VII

I

II

III

IV

Chapter VIII

I

II

Chapter IX

I

II

Chapter X

I

II

III

Chapter XI

I

II

III

Chapter XII

I

II

III

Chapter XIII

I

II

Chapter XIV

I

II

III

Chapter XV

I

II

Chapter XVI

I

II

III

IV

IV

Chapter XVII

I

II

III

Chapter XVIII

I

THE NECROMANCERS

Chapter I

I

“I am very much distressed about it all,” murmured Mrs. Baxter.

She was a small, delicate-looking old lady, very true to type indeed, with the silvery hair of the devout widow crowned with an exquisite lace cap, in a filmy black dress, with a complexion of precious china, kind shortsighted blue eyes, and white blue-veined hands busy now upon needlework. She bore about with her always an atmosphere of piety, humble, tender, and sincere, but as persistent as the gentle sandalwood aroma which breathed from her dress. Her theory of the universe, as the girl who watched her now was beginning to find out, was impregnable and unapproachable. Events which conflicted with it were either not events, or they were so exceptional as to be negligible. If she were hard pressed she emitted a pathetic peevishness that rendered further argument impossible.

The room in which she sat reflected perfectly her personality. In spite of the early Victorian date of the furniture, there was in its arrangement and selection a taste so exquisite as to deprive it of even a suspicion of Philistinism. Somehow the rosewood table on which the September morning sun fell with serene beauty did not conflict as it ought to have done with the Tudor paneling of the room. A tapestry screen veiled the door into the hall, and soft curtains of velvety gold hung on either side of the tall, modern windows leading to the garden. For the rest, the furniture was charming and suitable—low chairs, a tapestry couch, a multitude of little leather-covered books on every table, and two low carved bookshelves on either side of the door filled with poetry and devotion.

The girl who sat upright with her hands on her lap was of another type altogether—of that type of which it is impossible to predicate anything except that it makes itself felt in every company. Any respectable astrologer would have had no difficulty in assigning her birth to the sign of the Scorpion. In outward appearance she was not remarkable, though extremely pleasing, and it was a pleasingness that grew upon acquaintance. Her beauty, such as it was, was based upon a good foundation: upon regular features, a slightly cleft rounded chin, a quantity of dark coiled hair, and large, steady, serene brown eyes. Her hands were not small, but beautifully shaped; her figure slender, well made, and always at its ease in any attitude. In fact, she had an air of repose, strength, and all-round competence; and, contrasted with the other, she resembled a well-bred sheep-dog eyeing an Angora cat.

They were talking now about Laurie Baxter.

“Dear Laurie is so impetuous and sensitive,” murmured his mother, drawing her needle softly through the silk, and then patting her material, “and it is all terribly sad.”

This was undeniable, and Maggie said nothing, though her lips opened as if for speech. Then she closed them again, and sat watching the twinkling fire of logs upon the hearth. Then once more Mrs. Baxter took up the tale.

“When I first heard of the poor girl’s death,” she said, “it seemed to me so providential. It would have been too dreadful if he had married her. He was away from home, you know, on Thursday, when it happened; but he was back here on Friday, and has been like—like a madman ever since. I have done what I could, but—”

“Was she quite impossible?” asked the girl in her slow voice. “I never saw her, you know.”

Mrs. Baxter laid down her embroidery.

“My dear, she was. Well, I have not a word against her character, of course. She was all that was good, I believe. But, you know, her home, her father—well, what can you expect from a grocer—and a Baptist,” she added, with a touch of vindictiveness.

“What was she like?” asked the girl, still with that meditative air.

“My dear, she was like—like a picture on a chocolate-box. I can say no more than that. She was little and fair-haired, with a very pretty complexion, and a ribbon in her hair always. Laurie brought her up here to see me, you know—in the garden; I felt I could not bear to have her in the house just yet, though, of course, it would have had to have come. She spoke very carefully, but there was an unmistakable accent. Once she left out an aitch, and then she said the word over again quite right.”

Maggie nodded gently, with a certain air of pity, and Mrs. Baxter went on encouraged.

“She had a little stammer that—that Laurie thought very pretty, and she had a restless little way of playing with her fingers as if on a piano. Oh, my dear, it would have been too dreadful; and now, my poor boy—”

The old lady’s eyes filled with compassionate tears, and she laid her sewing down to fetch out a little lace-fringed pocket-handkerchief.

Maggie leaned back with one easy movement in her low chair, clasping her hands behind her head; but she still said nothing. Mrs. Baxter finished the little ceremony of wiping her eyes, and, still winking a little, bending over her needlework, continued the commentary.

“Do try to help him, my dear. That was why I asked you to come back yesterday. I wanted you to be in the house for the funeral. You see, Laurie’s becoming a Catholic at Oxford has brought you two together. It’s no good my talking to him about the religious side of it all; he thinks I know nothing at all about the next world, though I’m sure—”

“Tell me,” said the girl suddenly, still in the same attitude, “has he been practicing his religion? You see, I haven’t seen much of him this year, and—”

“I’m afraid not very well,” said the old lady tolerantly. “He thought he was going to be a priest at first, you remember, and I’m sure I should have made no objection; and then in the spring he seemed to be getting rather tired of it all. I don’t think he gets on with Father Mahon very well. I don’t think Father Mahon understands him quite. It was he, you know, who told him not to be a priest, and I think that discouraged poor Laurie.”

“I see,” said the girl shortly. And Mrs. Baxter applied herself again to her sewing.

It was indeed a rather trying time for the old lady. She was a tranquil and serene soul; and it seemed as if she were doomed to live over a perpetual volcano. It was as pathetic as an amiable cat trying to go to sleep on a rifle range; she was developing the jumps. The first serious explosion had taken place two years before, when her son, then in his third year at Oxford, had come back with the announcement that Rome was the only home worthy to shelter his aspiring soul, and that he must be received into the Church in six weeks’ time. She had produced little books for his edification, as in duty bound, she had summoned Anglican divines to the rescue; but all had been useless, and Laurie had gone back to Oxford as an avowed proselyte.

She had soon become accustomed to the idea, and indeed, when the first shock was over had not greatly disliked it, since her own adopted daughter, of half French parentage, Margaret Marie Deronnais, had been educated in the same faith, and was an eminently satisfactory person. The next shock was Laurie’s announcement of his intention to enter the priesthood, and perhaps the Religious Life as well; but this too had been tempered by the reflection that in that case Maggie would inherit this house and carry on its traditions in a suitable manner. Maggie had come to her, upon leaving her convent school three years before, with a pleasant little income of her own—had come to her by an arrangement made previously to her mother’s death—and her manner of life, her reasonableness, her adaptability, her presentableness had reassured the old lady considerably as to the tolerableness of the Roman Catholic religion. Indeed, once she had hoped that Laurie and Maggie might come to an understanding that would prevent all possible difficulty as to the future of his house and estate; but the fourth volcanic storm had once more sent the world flying in pieces about Mrs. Baxter’s delicate ears; and, during the last three months she had had to face the prospect of Laurie’s bringing home as a bride the rather underbred, pretty, stammering, pink and white daughter of a Baptist grocer of the village.

This had been a terrible affair altogether; Laurie, as is the custom of a certain kind of young male, had met, spoken to, and ultimately kissed this Amy Nugent, on a certain summer evening as the stars came out; but, with a chivalry not so common in such cases, had also sincerely and simply fallen in love with her, with a romance usually reserved for better-matched affections. It seemed, from Laurie’s conversation, that Amy was possessed of every grace of body, mind, and soul required in one who was to be mistress of the great house; it was not, so Laurie explained, at all a milkmaid kind of affair; he was not the man, he said, to make a fool of himself over a pretty face. No, Amy was a rare soul, a flower growing on stony soil—sandy perhaps would be the better word—and it was his deliberate intention to make her his wife.

Then had followed every argument known to mothers, for it was not likely that even Mrs. Baxter would accept without a struggle a daughter-in-law who, five years before, had bobbed to her, wearing a pinafore, and carrying in a pair of rather large hands a basket of eggs to her back door. Then she had consented to see the girl, and the interview in the garden had left her more distressed than ever. (It was there that the aitch incident had taken place.) And so the struggle had gone on; Laurie had protested, stormed, sulked, taken refuge in rhetoric and dignity alternately; and his mother had with gentle persistence objected, held her peace, argued, and resisted, conflicting step by step against the inevitable, seeking to reconcile her son by pathos and her God by petition; and then in an instant, only four days ago, it seemed that the latter had prevailed; and today Laurie, in a black suit, rent by sorrow, at this very hour at which the two ladies sat and talked in the drawing-room, was standing by an open grave in the village churchyard, seeing the last of his love, under a pile of blossoms as pink and white as her own complexion, within four elm-boards with a brass plate upon the cover.

Now, therefore, there was a new situation to face, and Mrs. Baxter was regarding it with apprehension.

It is true that mothers know sometimes more of their sons than their sons know of themselves, but there are certain elements of character that sometimes neither mothers nor sons appreciate. It was one or two of those elements that Maggie Deronnais, with her hands behind her head, was now considering. It seemed to her very odd that neither the boy himself nor Mrs. Baxter in the least seemed to realize the astonishing selfishness of this very boy’s actions.

She had known him now for three years, though owing to her own absence in France a part of the time, and his absence in London for the rest, she had seen nothing of this last affair. At first she had liked him exceedingly; he had seemed to her ardent, natural, and generous. She had liked his affection for his mother and his demonstrativeness in showing it; she had liked his well-bred swagger, his manner with servants, his impulsive courtesy to herself. It was a real pleasure to her to see him, morning by morning, in his knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket, or his tweed suit; and evening by evening in his swallow-tail coat and white shirt, and the knee breeches and buckled shoes that he wore by reason of the touch of picturesque and defiant romanticism that was so obvious a part of his nature. Then she had begun, little by little, to perceive the egotism that was even more apparent; his self-will, his moodiness, and his persistence.

Though, naturally, she had approved of his conversion to Catholicism, yet she was not sure that his motives were pure. She had hoped indeed that the Church, with its astonishing peremptoriness, might do something towards a moral conversion, as well as an artistic and intellectual change of view. But this, it seemed, had not happened; and this final mad episode of Amy Nugent had fanned her criticism to indignation. She did not disapprove of romance—in fact she largely lived by it—but there were things even more important, and she was as angry as she could be, with decency, at this last manifestation of selfishness.

For the worst of it was that, as she knew perfectly well, Laurie was rather an exceptional person. He was not at all the Young Fool of Fiction. There was a remarkable virility about him, he was tender-hearted to a degree, he had more than his share of brains. It was intolerable that such a person should be so silly.

She wondered what sorrow would do for him. She had come down from Scotland the night before, and down here to Herefordshire this morning; she had not then yet seen him; and he was now at the funeral....

Well, sorrow would be his test. How would he take it?

Mrs. Baxter broke in on her meditations.

“Maggy, darling ... do you think you can do anything? You know I once hoped....”

The girl looked up suddenly, with so vivid an air that it was an interruption. The old lady broke off.

“Well, well,” she said. “But is it quite impossible that—”

“Please, don’t. I—I can’t talk about that. It’s impossible—utterly impossible.”

The old lady sighed; then she said suddenly, looking at the clock above the oak mantelshelf, “It is half-past. I expect—”

She broke off as the front door was heard to open and close beyond the hall, and waited, paling a little, as steps sounded on the flags; but the steps went up the stairs outside, and there was silence again.

“He has come back,” she said. “Oh! my dear.”

“How shall you treat him?” asked the girl curiously.

The old lady bent again over her embroidery.

“I think I shall just say nothing. I hope he will ride this afternoon. Will you go with him?”

“I think not. He won’t want anyone. I know Laurie.”

The other looked up at her sideways in a questioning way, and Maggie went on with a kind of slow decisiveness.

“He will be queer at lunch. Then he will probably ride alone and be late for tea. Then tomorrow—”

“Oh! my dear, Mrs. Stapleton is coming to lunch tomorrow. Do you think he’ll mind?”

“Who is Mrs. Stapleton?”

The old lady hesitated.

“She’s—she’s the wife of Colonel Stapleton. She goes in for what I think is called New Thought; at least, so somebody told me last month. I’m afraid she’s not a very steady person. She was a vegetarian last year; now I believe she’s given that up again.”

Maggie smiled slowly, showing a row of very white, strong teeth.

“I know, auntie,” she said. “No; I shouldn’t think Laurie’ll mind much. Perhaps he’ll go back to town in the morning, too.”

“No, my dear, he’s staying till Thursday.”

There fell again one of those pleasant silences that are possible in the country. Outside the garden, with the meadows beyond the village road, lay in that sweet September hush of sunlight and mellow color that seemed to embalm the house in peace. From the farm beyond the stable-yard came the crowing of a cock, followed by the liquid chuckle of a pigeon perched somewhere overhead among the twisted chimneys. And within this room all was equally at peace. The sunshine lay on table and polished floor, barred by the mullions of the windows, and stained here and there by the little Flemish emblems and coats that hung across the glass; while those two figures, so perfectly in place in their serenity and leisure, sat before the open fire-place and contemplated the very unpeaceful element that had just walked upstairs incarnate in a pale, drawn-eyed young man in black.

The house, in fact, was one of those that have a personality as marked and as mysterious as of a human character. It affected people in quite an extraordinary way. It took charge of the casual guest, entertained and soothed and sometimes silenced him; and it cast upon all who lived in it an enchantment at once inexplicable and delightful. Externally it was nothing remarkable.

It was a large, square-built house, close indeed to the road, but separated from it by a high wrought-iron gate in an oak paling, and a short, straight garden-path; originally even ante-Tudor, but matured through centuries, with a Queen Anne front of mellow red brick, and back premises of tile, oak, and modern rough-cast, with old brew-houses that almost enclosed a graveled court behind. Behind this again lay a great kitchen garden with box-lined paths dividing it all into a dozen rectangles, separated from the orchard and yew walk by a broad double hedge down the center of which ran a sheltered path. Round the south of the house and in the narrow strip westwards lay broad lawns surrounded by high trees completely shading it from all view of the houses that formed the tiny hamlet fifty yards away.

Within, the house had been modernized almost to a commonplace level. A little hall gave entrance to the drawing-room on the right where these two women now sat, a large, stately room, paneled from floor to ceiling, and to the dining-room on the left; and, again, through to the back, where a smoking room, an inner hall, and the big kitchens and back premises concluded the ground floor. The two more stories above consisted, on the first floor, of a row of large rooms, airy, high, and dignified, and in the attics of a series of low-pitched chambers, whitewashed, oak-floored, and dormer-windowed, where one or two of the servants slept in splendid isolation. A little flight of irregular steps leading out of the big room on to the first floor, where the housekeeper lived in state, gave access to the further rooms near the kitchen and sculleries.

Maggie had fallen in love with the place from the instant that she had entered it. She had been warned in her French convent of the giddy gaieties of the world and its temptations; and yet it seemed to her after a week in her new home that the world was very much maligned. There was here a sense of peace and sheltered security that she had hardly known even at school; and little by little she had settled down here, with the mother and the son, until it had begun to seem to her that days spent in London or in other friends’ houses were no better than interruptions and failures compared with the leisurely, tender life of this place, where it was so easy to read and pray and possess her soul in peace. This affair of Laurie’s was almost the first reminder of what she had known by hearsay, that Love and Death and Pain were the bones on which life was modeled.

With a sudden movement she leaned forward, took up the bellows, and began to blow the smoldering logs into flame.

Meanwhile, upstairs on a long couch beside the fire in his big bed-sitting-room lay a young man on his face motionless.

A week ago he had been one of those men who in almost any company appear easy and satisfactory, and, above all, are satisfactory to themselves. His life was a very pleasant one indeed.

He had come down from Oxford just a year ago, and had determined to take things as they came, to foster acquaintanceships, to travel a little with a congenial friend, to stay about in other people’s houses, and, in fact, to enjoy himself entirely before settling down to read law. He had done this most successfully, and had crowned all, as has been related, by falling in love on a July evening with one who, he was quite certain, was the mate designed for him for Time and Eternity. His life, in fact, up to three days ago had developed along exactly those lines along which his temperament traveled with the greatest ease. He was the only son of a widow, he had an excellent income, he made friends wherever he went, and he had just secured the most charming rooms close to the Temple. He had plenty of brains, an exceedingly warm heart, and had lately embraced a religion that satisfied every instinct of his nature. It was the best of all possible worlds, and fitted him like his own well-cut clothes. It consisted of privileges without responsibilities.

And now the crash had come, and all was over.

As the gong sounded for luncheon he turned over and lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

It should have been a very attractive face under other circumstances. Beneath his brown curls, just touched with gold, there looked out a pair of grey eyes, bright a week ago, now dimmed with tears, and patched beneath with lines of sorrow. His clean-cut, rather passionate lips were set now, with down-turned corners, in a line of angry self-control piteous to see; and his clear skin seemed stained and dull. He had never dreamt of such misery in all his days.

As he lay now, with lax hands at his side, tightening at times in an agony of remembrance, he was seeing vision after vision, turning now and again to the contemplation of a dark future without life or love or hope. Again he saw Amy, as he had first seen her under the luminous July evening, jeweled overhead with peeping stars, amber to the westwards, where the sun had gone down in glory. She was in her sun-bonnet and print dress, stepping towards him across the fresh-scented meadow grass lately shorn of its flowers and growth, looking at him with that curious awed admiration that delighted him with its flattery. Her face was to the west, the reflected glory lay on it as delicate as the light on a flower, and her blue eyes regarded him beneath a halo of golden hair.

He saw her again as she had been one moonlight evening as the two stood together by the sluice of the stream, among the stillness of the woods below the village, with all fairyland about them and in their hearts. She had thrown a wrap about her head and stolen down there by devious ways, according to the appointment, meeting him, as was arranged, as he came out from dinner with all the glamour of the Great House about him, in his evening dress, buckled shoes, and knee-breeches all complete. How marvelous she had been then—a sweet nymph of flesh and blood, glorified by the moon to an ethereal delicacy, with the living pallor of sun-kissed skin, her eyes looking at him like stars beneath her shawl. They had said very little; they had stood there at the sluice gate, with his arm about her, and herself willingly nestling against him, trembling now and again; looking out at the sheeny surface of the slow flowing stream from which, in the imperceptible night breeze, stole away wraith after wraith of water mist to float and lose themselves in the sleeping woods.

Or, once more, clearer than all else he remembered how he had watched her, himself unseen, delaying the delight of revealing himself, one August morning, scarcely three weeks ago, as she had come down the road that ran past the house, again in her sun-bonnet and print dress, with the dew shining about her on grass and hedge, and the haze of a summer morning veiling the intensity of the blue sky above. He had called her then gently by name, and she had turned her face to him, alight with love and fear and sudden wonder.... He remembered even now with a reflection of memory that was nearly an illusion the smell of yew and garden flowers.

This, then, had been the dream; and today the awakening and the end.

That end was even more terrible than he had conceived possible on that horrible Friday morning last week, when he had opened the telegram from her father.

He had never before understood the sordidness of her surroundings, as when, an hour ago, he had stood at the grave-side, his eyes wandering from that long elm box with the silver plate and the wreath of flowers, to the mourners on the other side—her father in his broadcloth, his heavy, smooth face pulled in lines of grotesque sorrow; her mother, with her crimson, tear-stained cheeks, her elaborate black, her intolerable crape, and her jet-hung mantle. Even these people had been seen by him up to then through a haze of love; he had thought them simple honest folk, creatures of the soil, yet wholesome, natural, and sturdy. And now that the jewel was lost the setting was worse than empty. There in the elm box lay the remnants of the shattered gem.... He had seen her in her bed on the Sunday, her fallen face, her sunken eyes, all framed in the detestable whiteness of linen and waxen flowers, yet as pathetic and as appealing as ever, and as necessary to his life. It was then that the supreme fact had first penetrated to his consciousness, that he had lost her—the fact which, driven home by the funeral scene this morning, the rustling crowd come to see the young Squire, the elm box, the heap of flowers—had now flung him down on this couch, crushed, broken, and hopeless, like young ivy after a thunderstorm.

His moods alternated with the rapidity of flying clouds. At one instant he was furious with pain, at the next broken and lax from the same cause. At one moment he cursed God and desired to die, defiant and raging; at the next he sank down into himself as weak as a tortured child, while tears ran down his cheeks and little moans as of an animal murmured in his throat. God was a hated adversary, a merciless Judge ... a Blind Fate ... there was no God ... He was a Fiend.... there was nothing anywhere in the whole universe but Pain and Vanity....

Yet, through it all, like a throbbing pedal note, ran his need of this girl. He would do anything, suffer anything, make any sacrifice, momentary or lifelong, if he could but see her again, hold her hand for one instant, look into her eyes mysterious with the secret of death. He had but three or four words to say to her, just to secure himself that she lived and was still his, and then ... then he would say good-bye to her, content and happy to wait till death should reunite them. Ah! he asked so little, and God would not give it him.

All, then, was a mockery. It was only this past summer that he had begun to fancy himself in love with Maggie Deronnais. It had been an emotion of very quiet growth, developing gently, week by week, feeding on her wholesomeness, her serenity, her quiet power, her cool, capable hands, and the look in her direct eyes; it resembled respect rather than passion, and need rather than desire; it was a hunger rather than a thirst. Then had risen up this other, blinding and bewildering; and, he told himself, he now knew the difference. His lips curled into bitter and resentful lines as he contemplated the contrast. And all was gone, shattered and vanished; and even Maggie was now impossible.

Again he writhed over, sick with pain and longing; and so lay.

It was ten minutes before he moved again, and then he only roused himself as he heard a foot on the stairs. Perhaps it was his mother. He slipped off the couch and stood up, his face lined and creased with the pressure with which he had lain just now, and smoothed his tumbled clothes. Yes, he must go down.

He stepped to the door and opened it.

“I am coming immediately,” he said to the servant.

He bore himself at lunch with a respectable self-control, though he said little or nothing. His mother’s attitude he found hard to bear, as he caught her eyes once or twice looking at him with sympathy; and he allowed himself internally to turn to Maggie with relief in spite of his meditations just now. She at least respected his sorrow, he told himself. She bore herself very naturally, though with long silences, and never once met his eyes with her own. He made his excuses as soon as he could and slipped across to the stable yard. At least he would be alone this afternoon. Only, as he rode away half an hour later, he caught a sight of the slender little figure of his mother waiting to have one word with him if she could, beyond the hall-door. But he set his lips and would not see her.

It was one of those perfect September days that fall sometimes as a gift from heaven after the bargain of summer has been more or less concluded. As he rode all that afternoon through lanes and across uplands, his view barred always to the north by the great downs above Royston, grey-blue against the radiant sky, there was scarcely a hint in earth or heaven of any emotion except prevailing peace. Yet the very serenity tortured him the more by its mockery. The birds babbled in the deep woods, the cheerful noise of children reached him now and again from a cottage garden, the mellow light smiled unending benediction, and yet his subconsciousness let go for never an instant of the long elm box six feet below ground, and of its contents lying there in the stifling dark, in the long-grassed churchyard on the hill above his home.

He wondered now and again as to the fate of the spirit that had informed the body and made it what it was; but his imagination refused to work. After all, he asked himself, what were all the teachings of theology but words gabbled to break the appalling silence? Heaven ... Purgatory ... Hell. What was known of these things? The very soul itself—what was that? What was the inconceivable environment, after all, for so inconceivable a thing...?

He did not need these things, he said—certainly not now—nor those labels and signposts to a doubtful, unimaginable land. He needed Amy herself, or, at least, some hint or sound or glimpse to show him that she indeed was as she had always been; whether in earth or heaven, he did not care; that there was somewhere something that was herself, some definite personal being of a continuous consciousness with that which he had known, characterized still by those graces which he thought he had recognized and certainly loved. Ah! he did not ask much. It would be so easy to God! Here out in this lonely lane where he rode beneath the branches, his reins loose on his horse’s neck, his eyes, unseeing, roving over copse and meadow across to the eternal hills—a face, seen for an instant, smiling and gone again; a whisper in his ear, with that dear stammer of shyness; a touch on his knee of those rippling fingers that he had watched in the moonlight playing gently on the sluice-gate above the moonlit stream.... He would tell no one if God wished it to be a secret; he would keep it wholly to himself. He did not ask now to possess her; only to be certain that she lived, and that death was not what it seemed to be.

“Is Father Mahon at home?” he asked, as he halted a mile from his own house in the village, where stood the little tin church, not a hundred yards from its elder alienated sister, to which he and Maggie went on Sundays.

The housekeeper turned from her vegetable-gathering beyond the fence, and told him yes. He dismounted, hitched the reins round the gatepost, and went in.

Ah! what an antipathetic little room this was in which he waited while the priest was being fetched from upstairs!

Over the mantelpiece hung a large oleograph of Leo XIII, in cope and tiara, blessing with upraised hand and that eternal, wide-lipped smile; a couple of jars stood beneath filled with dyed grasses; a briar pipe, redolent and foul, lay between them. The rest of the room was in the same key: a bright Brussels carpet, pale and worn by the door, covered the floor; cheap lace curtains were pinned across the windows; and over the littered table a painted deal bookshelf held a dozen volumes, devotional, moral, and dogmatic theology; and by the side of that an illuminated address framed in gilt, and so on.

Laurie looked at it all in dumb dismay. He had seen it before, again and again, but had never realized its horror as he realized it now from the depths of his own misery. Was it really true that his religion could emit such results?

There was a step on the stairs—a very heavy one—and Father Mahon came in, a large, crimson-faced man, who seemed to fill the room with a completely unethereal presence, and held out his hand with a certain gravity. Laurie took it and dropped it.

“Sit down, my dear boy,” said the priest, and he impelled him gently to a horsehair-covered arm-chair.

Laurie stiffened.

“Thank you, father; but I mustn’t stay.”

He fumbled in his pocket, and fetched out a little paper-covered packet.

“Will you say Mass for my intention, please?” And he laid the packet on the mantelshelf.

The priest took up the coins and slipped them into his waistcoat pocket.

“Certainly,” he said. “I think I know—”

Laurie turned away with a little jerk.

“I must be going,” he said. “I only looked in—”

“Mr. Baxter,” said the other, “I hope you will allow me to say how much—”

Laurie drew his breath swiftly, with a hiss as of pain, and glanced at the priest.

“You understand, then, what my intention is?”

“Why, surely. It is for her soul, is it not?”

“I suppose so,” said the boy, and went out.

Chapter II

I

“I have told him,” said Mrs. Baxter, as the two women walked beneath the yews that morning after breakfast. “He said he didn’t mind.”

Maggie did not speak. She had come out just as she was, hatless, but had caught up a spud that stood in the hall, and at that instant had stopped to destroy a youthful plantain that had established himself with infinite pains on the slope of the path. She attacked for a few seconds, extricated what was possible of the root with her strong fingers, tossed the corpse among the ivy, and then moved on.

“I don’t know whether to say anything to Mrs. Stapleton or not,” pursued the old lady.

“I think I shouldn’t, auntie,” said the girl slowly.

They spoke of it for a minute or two as they passed up and down, but Maggie only attended with one superficies of her mind.

She had gone up as usual to Mass that morning, and had been astonished to find Laurie already in church; they had walked back together, and, to her surprise, he had told her that the Mass had been for his own intention.

She had answered as well as she could; but a sentence or two of his as they came near home had vaguely troubled her.

It was not that he had said anything he ought not, as a Catholic, to have said; yet her instinct told her that something was wrong. It was his manner, his air, that troubled her. What strange people these converts were! There was so much ardor at one time, so much chilliness at another; there was so little of that steady workaday acceptance of religious facts that marked the born Catholic.

“Mrs. Stapleton is a New Thought kind of person,” she said presently.

“So I understand,” said the old lady, with a touch of peevishness. “A vegetarian last year. And I believe she was a sort of Buddhist five or six years ago. And then she nearly became a Christian Scientist a little while ago.”

Maggie smiled.

“I wonder what she’ll talk about,” she said.

“I hope she won’t be very advanced,” went on the old lady. “And you think I’d better not tell her about Laurie?”

“I’m sure it’s best not,” said the girl, “or she’ll tell him about Deep Breathing, or saying Om, or something. No; I should let Laurie alone.”

It was a little before one o’clock that the motor arrived, and that there descended from it at the iron gate a tall, slender woman, hooded and veiled, who walked up the little path, observed by Maggie from her bedroom, with a kind of whisking step. The motor moved on, wheeled in through the gates at the left, and sank into silence in the stable-yard.

“It’s too charming of you, dear Mrs. Baxter,” Maggie heard as she came into the drawing-room a minute or two later, “to let me come over like this. I’ve heard so much about this house. Lady Laura was telling me how very psychical it all was.”

“My adopted daughter, Miss Deronnais,” observed the old lady.

Maggie saw a rather pretty, passé face, triangular in shape, with small red lips, looking at her, as she made her greetings.

“Ah! how perfect all this is,” went on the guest presently, looking about her, “how suggestive, how full of meaning!”

She threw back her cloak presently, and Maggie observed that she was busy with various very beautiful little emblems—a scarab, a snake swallowing its tail, and so forth—all exquisitely made, and hung upon a slender chain of some green enamel-like material. Certainly she was true to type. As the full light fell upon her it became plain that this other-worldly soul did not disdain to use certain toilet requisites upon her face; and a curious Eastern odor exhaled from her dress.

Fortunately, Maggie had a very deep sense of humor, and she hardly resented all this at all, nor even the tactful hints dropped from time to time, after the conventional part of the conversation was over, to the effect that Christianity was, of course, played out, and that a Higher Light had dawned. Mrs. Stapleton did not quite say this outright, but it amounted to as much. Even before Laurie came downstairs it appeared that the lady did not go to church, yet that, such was her broad-mindedness, she did not at all object to do so. It was all one, it seemed, in the Deeper Unity. Nothing particular was true; but all was very suggestive and significant and symbolical of something else to which Mrs. Stapleton and a few friends had the key.

Mrs. Baxter made more than one attempt to get back to more mundane subjects, but it was useless. When even the weather serves as a symbol, the plain man is done for.

Then Laurie came in.

He looked very self-contained and rather pinched this morning, and shook hands with the lady without a word. Then they moved across presently to the green-hung dining-room across the hall, and the exquisite symbol of Luncheon made its appearance.

Lady Laura, it appeared, was one of those who had felt the charm of Stantons; only for her it was psychical rather than physical, and all this was passed on by her friend. It seemed that the psychical atmosphere of most modern houses was of a yellow tint, but that this one emanated a brown-gold radiance which was very peculiar and exceptional. Indeed, it was this singularity that had caused Mrs. Stapleton to apply for an invitation to the house. More than once during lunch, in a pause of the conversation, Maggie saw her throw back her head slightly as if to appreciate some odor or color not experienced by coarser-nerved persons. Once, indeed, she actually put this into words.

“Dear Laura was quite right,” cried the lady; “there is something very unique about this place. How fortunate you are, dear Mrs. Baxter!”

“My dear husband’s grandfather bought the place,” observed the mistress plaintively. “We have always found it very soothing and pleasant.”

“How right you are! And—and have you had any experiences here?” Mrs. Baxter eyed her in alarm. Maggie had an irrepressible burst of internal laughter, which, however, gave no hint of its presence in her steady features. She glanced at Laurie, who was eating mutton with a depressed air.

“I was talking to Mr. Vincent, the great spiritualist,” went on the other vivaciously, “only last week. You have heard of him, Mrs. Baxter? I was suggesting to him that any place where great emotions have been felt is colored and stained by them as objectively as old walls are weather-beaten. I had such an interesting conversation, too, with Cardinal Newman on the subject”—she smiled brilliantly at Maggie, as if to reassure her of her own orthodoxy—”scarcely six weeks ago.”

There was a pregnant silence. Mrs. Baxter’s fork sank to her plate.

“I don’t understand,” she said faintly. “Cardinal Newman—surely—”

“Why yes,” said the other gently. “I know it sounds very startling to orthodox ears; but to us of the Higher Thought all these things are quite familiar. Of course, I need hardly say that Cardinal Newman is no longer—but perhaps I had better not go on.”

She glanced archly at Maggie.

“Oh, please go on,” said Maggie genially. “You were saying that Cardinal Newman—”

“Dear Miss Deronnais, are you sure you will not be offended?”

“I am always glad to receive new light,” said Maggie solemnly.

The other looked at her doubtfully; but there was no hint of irony in the girl’s face.

“Well,” she began, “of course on the Other Side they see things very differently. I don’t mean at all that any religion is exactly untrue. Oh no; they tell us that if we cannot welcome the New Light, then the old lights will do very well for the present. Indeed, when there are Catholics present Cardinal Newman does not scruple to give them a Latin blessing—”

“Is it true that he speaks with an American accent?” asked Maggie gravely. The other laughed with a somewhat shrill geniality.

“That is too bad, Miss Deronnais. Well, of course, the personality of the medium affects the vehicle through which the communications come. That is no difficulty at all when once you understand the principle—”

Mrs. Baxter interrupted. She could bear it no longer.

“Mrs. Stapleton. Do you mean that Cardinal Newman really speaks to you?”

“Why yes,” said the other, with a patient indulgence. “That is a very usual experience, but Mr. Vincent does much more than that. It is quite a common experience not only to hear him, but to see him. I have shaken hands with him more than once ... and I have seen a Catholic kiss his ring.”

Mrs. Baxter looked helplessly at the girl; and Maggie came to the rescue once more. “This sounds rather advanced to us,” she said. “Won’t you explain the principles first?”

Mrs. Stapleton laid her knife and fork down, leaned back, and began to discourse. When a little later her plate was removed, she refused sweets with a gesture, and continued.

Altogether she spoke for about ten minutes, uninterrupted, enjoying herself enormously. The others ate food or refused it in attentive silence. Then at last she ended.

“... I know all this must sound quite mad and fanatical to those who have not experienced it; and yet to us who have been disciples it is as natural to meet our friends who have crossed over as to meet those who have not.... Dear Mrs. Baxter, think how all this enlarges life. There is no longer any death to those who understand. All those limitations are removed; it is no more than going into another room. All are together in the Hands of the All-Father”—Maggie recognized the jetsam of Christian Science. “‘O death!’ as Paul says, ‘where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’”

Mrs. Stapleton flashed a radiant look of helpfulness round the faces, lingering for an instant on Laurie’s, and leaned back.

There followed a silence.

“Shall we go into the drawing-room?” suggested Mrs. Baxter, feebly rising. The guest rose too, again with a brilliant patient smile, and swept out. Maggie crossed herself and looked at Laurie. The boy had an expression, half of disgust, half of interest, and his eyelids sank a little and rose again. Then Maggie went out after the others.

II

“A dreadful woman,” observed Mrs. Baxter half an hour later, as the two strolled back up the garden path, after seeing Mrs. Stapleton wave a delicately gloved hand encouragingly to them over the back of the throbbing motor.

“I suppose she thinks she believes it all,” said Maggie.

“My dear, that woman would believe anything. I hope poor Laurie was not too much distressed.”

“Oh! I think Laurie took it all right.”

“It was most unfortunate, all that about death and the rest.... Why, here comes Laurie; I thought he would be gone out by now!”

The boy strolled towards them round the corner of the house, tossing away the fragment of his cigarette. He was still in his dark suit, bareheaded, with no signs of riding about him.

“So you’ve not gone out yet, dear boy?” remarked his mother.

“Not yet,” he said, and hesitated as they went on.

Mrs. Baxter noticed it.

“I’ll go and get ready,” she said. “The carriage will be round at three, Maggie.”

When she was gone the two moved out together on to the lawn.

“What did you think of that woman?” demanded Laurie with a detached air.

Maggie glanced at him. His tone was a little too much detached.

“I thought her quite dreadful,” she said frankly. “Didn’t you?” she added.

“Oh yes, I suppose so,” said Laurie. He drew out a cigarette and lighted it. “You know a lot of people think there’s something in it,” he said.

“In what?”

“Spiritualism.”

“I daresay,” said Maggie.

She perceived out of the corner of her eye that Laurie looked at her suddenly and sharply. For herself, she loathed what little she knew of the subject, so cordially and completely, that she could hardly have put it into words. Nine-tenths of it she believed to be fraud—a matter of wigs and Indian muslin and cross-lights—and the other tenth, by the most generous estimate, an affair of the dingiest and foulest of all the backstairs of life. The prophetic outpourings of Mrs. Stapleton had not altered her opinion.

“Oh! if you feel like that—” went on Laurie.

She turned on him.

“Laurie,” she said, “I think it perfectly detestable. I acknowledge I don’t know much about it; but what little I do know is enough, thank you.”

Laurie smiled in a faintly patronizing way.

“Well,” he said indulgently, “if you think that, it’s not much use discussing it.”

“Indeed it’s not,” said Maggie, with her nose in the air.

There was not much more to be said; and the sounds of stamping and whoaing in the stable-yard presently sent the girl indoors in a hurry.

Mrs. Baxter was still mildly querulous during the drive. It appeared to her, Maggie perceived, a kind of veiled insult that things should be talked about in her house which did not seem to fit in with her own scheme of the universe. Mrs. Baxter knew perfectly well that every soul when it left this world went either to what she called Paradise, or in extremely exceptional cases, to a place she did not name; and that these places, each in its own way, entirely absorbed the attention of its inhabitants. Further, it was established in her view that all the members of the spiritual world, apart from the unhappy ones, were a kind of Anglicans, with their minds no doubt enlarged considerably, but on the original lines.

Tales like this of Cardinal Newman therefore were extremely tiresome and upsetting.

And Maggie had her theology also; to her also it appeared quite impossible that Cardinal Newman should frequent the drawing-room of Mr. Vincent in order to exchange impressions with Mrs. Stapleton; but she was more elementary in her answer. For her the thing was simply untrue; and that was the end of it. She found it difficult therefore to follow her companion’s train of thought.

“What was it she said?” demanded Mrs. Baxter presently. “I didn’t understand her ideas about materialism.”

“I think she called it materialization,” explained Maggie patiently. “She said that when things were very favorable, and the medium a very good one, the soul that wanted to communicate could make a kind of body for itself out of what she called the astral matter of the medium or the sitters.”

“But surely our bodies aren’t like that?”

“No; I can’t say that I think they are. But that’s what she said.”

“My dear, please explain. I want to understand the woman.”

Maggie frowned a little.

“Well, the first thing she said was that those souls want to communicate; and that they begin generally by things like table-rapping, or making blue lights. Then when you know they’re there, they can go further. Sometimes they gain control of the medium who is in a trance, and speak through him, or write with his hand. Then, if things are favorable, they begin to draw out this matter, and make it into a kind of body for themselves, very thin and ethereal, so that you can pass your hand through it. Then, as things get better and better, they go further still, and can make this body so solid that you can touch it; only this is sometimes rather dangerous, as it is still, in a sort of way, connected with the medium. I think that’s the idea.”

“But what’s the good of it all?”

“Well, you see, Mrs. Stapleton thinks that they really are souls from the other world, and that they can tell us all kinds of things about it all, and what’s true, and so on.”

“But you don’t believe that?”

Maggie turned her large eyes on the old lady; and a spark of humor rose and glimmered in them.

“Of course I don’t,” she said.

“Then how do you explain it?”

“I think it’s probably all a fraud. But I really don’t know. It doesn’t seem to me to matter much—”

“But if it should be true?”

Maggie raised her eyebrows, smiling.

“Dear auntie, do put it out of your head. How can it possibly be true?”

Mrs. Baxter set her lips in as much severity as she could.

“I shall ask the Vicar,” she said. “We might stop at the Vicarage on the way back.”

Mrs. Baxter did not often stop at the Vicarage; as she did not altogether approve of the Vicar’s wife. There was a good deal of pride in the old lady, and it seemed to her occasionally as if Mrs. Rymer did not understand the difference between the Hall and the Parsonage. She envied sometimes, secretly, the Romanist idea of celibacy: it was so much easier to get on with your spiritual adviser if you did not have to consider his wife. But here, was a matter which a clergyman must settle for her once and for all; so she put on a slight air of dignity which became her very well, and a little after four o’clock the Victoria turned up the steep little drive that led to the Vicarage.

III

Thee dusk was already fallen before Laurie, strolling vaguely in the garden, heard the carriage wheels draw up at the gate outside.

He had ridden again alone, and his mind had run, to a certain extent, as might be expected, upon the recent guest and her very startling conversation. He was an intelligent young man, and he had not been in the least taken in by her pseudo-mystical remarks. Yet there had been something in her extreme assurance that had affected him, as a man may smile sourly at a good story in bad taste. His attitude, in fact, was that of most Christians under the circumstances. He did not, for an instant, believe that such things really and literally happened, and yet it was difficult to advance any absolutely conclusive argument against them. Merely, they had not come his way; they appeared to conflict with experience, and they usually found as their advocates such persons as Mrs. Stapleton.

Two things, however, prevailed to keep the matter before his mind. The first was his own sense of loss, his own experience, sore and hot within him, of the unapproachable emptiness of death; the second, Maggie’s attitude. When a plainly sensible and controlled young woman takes up a position of superiority, she is apt, unless the young man in her company happens to be in love with her—and sometimes even when he is—to provoke and irritate him into a camp of opposition. She is still more apt to do so if her relations to him have once been in the line of even greater tenderness.

Laurie then was not in the most favorable of moods to receive the dicta of the Vicar.

They were announced to him immediately after Mrs. Baxter had received from Maggie’s hands her first cup of tea.

“Mr. Rymer tells me it’s all nonsense,” she said.

Laurie looked up.

“What?” he said.

“Mr. Rymer tells me Spiritualism is all nonsense. He told me about someone called Eglingham, who kept a beard in his portmanteau.”

“Eglinton, I think, auntie,” put in Maggie.

“I daresay, my dear. Anyhow, it’s all the same. I felt sure it must be so.” Laurie took a bun, with a thoughtful air.

“Does Mr. Rymer know very much about it, do you think, mother?”

“Dear boy, I think he knows all that anyone need know. Besides, if you come to think of it, how could Cardinal Newman possibly appear in a drawing-room? Particularly when Mrs. Stapleton says he isn’t a Christian any longer.”

This had a possible and rather pleasing double interpretation; but Laurie decided it was not worth while to be humorous.

“What about the Witch of Endor?” he asked innocently, instead.

“That was in the Old Testament,” answered his mother rapidly. “Mr. Rymer said something about that too.”

“Oh! wasn’t it really Samuel who appeared?”

“Mr. Rymer thinks that things were permitted then that are not permitted now.”

Laurie drank up his cup of tea. It is a humiliating fact that extreme grief often renders the mourner rather cross. There was a distinct air of crossness about Laurie at this moment. His nerves were very near the top.

“Well, that’s very convenient,” he said. “Maggie, do you know if there’s any book on Spiritualism in the house?”

The girl glanced uneasily near the fire-place.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Yes; I think there’s something up there. I believe I saw it the other day.”

Laurie rose and stood opposite the shelves.

“What color is it? (No, no more tea, thanks.)”

“Er ... black and red, I think,” said the girl. “I forget.”

She looked up at him, faintly uneasy, as he very deliberately drew down a book from the shelf and turned the pages.

“Yes ... this is it,” he said. “Thanks very much.... No, really no more tea, thanks, mother.”

Then he went to the door, with his easy, rather long steps, and disappeared. They heard his steps in the inner hall. Then a door closed overhead.

Mrs. Baxter contentedly poured herself out another cup of tea.

“Poor boy,” she said. “He’s thinking of that girl still. I’m glad he’s got something to occupy his mind.”

The end room, on the first floor, was Laurie’s possession. It was a big place, with two windows, and a large open fire, and he had skillfully masked the fact that it was a bedroom by disposing his furniture, with the help of a screen, in such a manner as completely to hide the bed and the washing arrangements.

The rest of the room he had furnished in a pleasing male kind of fashion, with a big couch drawn across the fire, a writing-table and chairs, a deep easy chair near the door, and a long, high bookcase covering the wall between the door and the windows. His college oar, too, hung here, and there were pleasant groups and pictures scattered on the other walls.

Maggie did not often come in here, except by invitation, but about seven o’clock on this evening, half an hour before she had to go and dress, she thought she would look in on him for a few minutes. She was still a little uncomfortable; she did not quite know why: it was too ridiculous, she told, herself, that a sensible boy like Laurie could be seriously affected by what she considered the wicked nonsense of Spiritualism.

Yet she went, telling herself that Laurie’s grief was an excuse for showing him a little marked friendliness. Besides, she would like to ask him whether he was really going back to town on Thursday.

She tapped twice before an answer came; and then it seemed a rather breathless voice which spoke.

The boy was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the sofa, with a couple of candles at his side, and the book in his hands. There was a strained and intensely interested look in his eyes.

“May I come in for a few minutes? It’s nearly dressing time,” she said.

“Oh—er—certainly.”

He got up, rather stiffly, still keeping his place in the book with one finger, while she sat down. Then he too sat again, and there was silence for a moment.

“Why, you’re not smoking,” she said.

“I forgot. I will now, if you don’t mind!”

She saw his fingers tremble a little as he put out his hand to a box of cigarettes at his side. But he put the book down, after looking at the page.

She could keep her question in no longer.

“What do you think of that,” she said, nodding at the book.

He filled his lungs with smoke and exhaled again slowly.

“I think it’s extraordinary,” he said shortly.

“In what way?”

Again he paused before answering. Then he answered deliberately.

“If human evidence is worth anything, those things happen,” he said.

“What things?”

“The dead return.”

Maggie looked at him, aware of his deliberate attempt at dramatic brevity. He was watching the end of his cigarette with elaborate attention, and his face had that white, rather determined look that she had seen on it once or twice before, in the presence of a domestic crisis.

“Do you really mean you believe that?” she said, with a touch of careful bitterness in her voice.

“I do,” he said, “or else—”

“Well?”

“Or else human evidence is worth nothing at all.”

Maggie understood him perfectly; but she realized that this was not an occasion to force issues. She still put the tone of faint irony into her voice.

“You really believe that Cardinal Newman comes to Mr. Vincent’s drawing room and raps on tables?”

“I really believe that it is possible to get into touch with those whom we call dead. Each instance, of course, depends on its own evidence.”

“And Cardinal Newman?”

“I have not studied the evidence for Cardinal Newman,” remarked Laurie in a head-voice.

“Let’s have a look at that book,” said Maggie impulsively.

He handed it to her; and she began to turn the pages, pausing now and again to read a particular paragraph, and once for nearly a minute while she examined an illustration. Certainly the book seemed interestingly written, and she read an argument or two that appeared reasonably presented. Yet she was extraordinarily repelled even by the dead paper and ink she had in her hands. It was as if it was something obscene. Finally she tossed it back on to the couch.

Laurie waited; but she said nothing.

“Well?” he asked at last, still refraining from looking at her.

“I think it’s horrible,” she said.

Laurie delicately adjusted a little tobacco protruding from his cigarette.

“Isn’t that a little unreasonable?” he asked. “You’ve hardly looked at it yet.”

Maggie knew this mood of his only too well. He reserved it for occasions when he was determined to fight. Argument was a useless weapon against it.

“My dear boy,” she said with an effort, “I’m sorry. I daresay it is unreasonable. But that kind of thing does seem to me so disgusting. That’s all.... I didn’t come to talk about that.... Tell me—”

“Didn’t you?” said Laurie.

Maggie was silent.

“Didn’t you?”

“Well—yes I did. But I don’t want to any more.”

Laurie smiled so that it might be seen.

“Well, what else did you want to say?” He glanced purposely at the book. Maggie ignored his glance.

“I just came to see how you were getting on.”

“How do you mean? With the book?”

“No; in every way.”

He looked up at her swiftly and suddenly, and she saw that his agony of sorrow was acute beneath all his attempts at superiority, his courteous fractiousness, and his set face. She was filled suddenly with an enormous pity.

“Oh! Laurie, I’m so sorry,” she cried out. “Can’t I do anything?”

“Nothing, thanks; nothing at all,” he said quietly.

Again pity and misery surged up within her, and she cast all prudence to the winds. She had not realized how fond she was of this boy till she saw once more that look in his eyes.

“Oh! Laurie, you know I didn’t like it; but—but I don’t know what to do, I’m so sorry. But don’t spoil it all,” she said wildly, hardly knowing what she feared.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You know what I mean. Don’t spoil it, by—by fancying things.”

“Maggie,” said the boy quietly, “you must let me alone. You can’t help.”

“Can’t I?”

“You can’t help,” he repeated. “I must go my own way. Please don’t say any more. I can’t stand it.”

There followed a dead silence. Then Maggie recovered and stood up. He rose with her.

“Forgive me, Laurie, won’t you? I must say this. You’ll remember I’ll always do anything I can, won’t you?”

Then she was gone.

IV

The ladies went to bed early at Stantons. At ten o’clock precisely a clinking of bedroom candlesticks was heard in the hall, followed by the sound of locking doors. This was the signal. Mrs. Baxter laid aside her embroidery with the punctuality of a religious at the sound of a bell, and said two words—

“My dears.”

There were occasionally exclamatory expostulations from the two at the piquet-table, but in nine cases out of ten the game had been designed with an eye upon the clock, and hardly any delay followed. Mrs. Baxter kissed her son, and passed her arm through Maggie’s. Laurie followed; gave them candles, and generally took one himself.

But this evening there was no piquet. Laurie had stayed later than usual in the dining-room, and had wandered rather restlessly about when he had joined the others. He looked at a London evening paper for a little, paced about, vanished again, and only returned as the ladies were making ready to depart. Then he gave them their candlesticks, and himself came back to the drawing room.

He was, in fact, in a far more perturbed and excited mood than even Maggie had had any idea of. She had interrupted him half-way through the book, but he had read again steadily until five minutes before dinner, and had, indeed, gone back again to finish it afterwards. He had now finished it; and he wanted to think.

It had had a surprising effect on him, coming as it did upon a state of mind intensely stirred to its depths by his sorrow. Crossness, as I have said, had been the natural psychological result of his emotions; but his emotions were none the less real. The froth of whipped cream is real cream, after all.

Now Laurie had seen perfectly well the extreme unconvincingness of Mrs. Stapleton, and had been genuine enough in his little shrug of disapproval in answer to Maggie’s, after lunch; yet that lady’s remarks had been sufficient just to ignite the train of thought. This train had smoldered in the afternoon, had been fanned ever so slightly by two breezes—the sense of Maggie’s superiority and the faint rebellious reaction which had come upon him with regard to his personal religion. Certainly he had had Mass said for Amy this morning; but it had been by almost a superstitious rather than a religious instinct. He was, in fact, in that state of religious unreality which occasionally comes upon converts within a year or two of the change of their faith. The impetus of old association is absent, and the force of novelty has died.

Underneath all this then, it must be remembered that the one thing that was intensely real to him was his sense of loss of the one soul in whom his own had been wrapped up. Even this afternoon as yesterday, even this morning as he lay awake, he had been conscious of an irresistible impulse to demand some sign, to catch some glimpse of that which was now denied to him.

It was in this mood that he had read the book; and it is not to be wondered at that he had been excited by it.

For it opened up to him, beneath all its sham mysticism, its intolerable affectations, its grotesque parody of spirituality—of all of which he was largely aware—a glimmering avenue of a faintly possible hope of which he had never dreamed—a hope, at least, of that half self-deception which is so tempting to certain characters.

Here, in this book, written by a living man, whose name and address were given, were stories so startling, and theories so apparently consonant with themselves and with other partly known facts—stories and theories, too, which met so precisely his own overmastering desire, that it is little wonder that he was affected by them.

Naturally, even during his reading, a thousand answers and adverse comments had sprung to his mind—suggestions of fraud, of lying, of hallucination—but yet, here the possibility remained. Here were living men and women who, with the usual complement of senses and reason, declared categorically and in detail, that on this and that date, in this place and the other, after having taken all possible precautions against fraud, they had received messages from the dead—messages of which the purport was understood by none but themselves—that they had seen with their eyes, in sufficient light, the actual features of the dead whom they loved, that they had even clasped their hands, and held for an instant the bodies of those whom they had seen die with their own eyes, and buried.

When the ladies’ footsteps had ceased to sound overhead, Laurie went to the French window, opened it, and passed on to the lawn.

He was astonished at the warmth of the September night. The little wind that had been chilly this afternoon had dropped with the coming of the dark, and high overhead he could see the great masses of the leaves motionless against the sky. He passed round the house, and beneath the yews, and sat down on the garden bench.

It was darker here than outside on the lawn. Beneath his feet were the soft needles from the trees, and above him, as he looked out, still sunk in his thought, he could see the glimmer of a star or two between the branches.

It was a fragrant, kindly night. From the hamlet of half a dozen houses beyond the garden came no sound; and the house, too, was still behind him. An illuminated window somewhere on the first floor went out as he looked at it, like a soul leaving a body; once a sleepy bird somewhere in the shrubbery chirped to its mate and was silent again.

Then as he still labored in argument, putting this against that, and weighing that against the other, his emotion rose up in an irresistible torrent, and all consideration ceased. One thing remained: he must have Amy, or he must die.

It was five or six minutes before he moved again from that attitude of clenched hands and tensely strung muscles into which his sudden passion had cast him.

During those minutes he had willed with his whole power that she should come to him now and here, down in this warm and fragrant darkness, hidden from all eyes—in this sweet silence, round which sleep kept its guard. Such things had happened before; such things must have happened, for the will and the love of man are the mightiest forces in creation. Surely again and again it had happened; there must be somewhere in the world man after man who had so called back the dead—a husband sobbing silently in the dark, a child wailing for his mother; surely that force had before, in the world’s history, willed back again from the mysterious dark of space the dear personality that was all that even heaven could give, had even compelled into a semblance of life some sort of body to clothe it in. These things must have happened—only secrets had been well kept.

So this boy had willed it; yet the dark had remained empty; and no shadow, no faintly outlined face, had even for an instant blotted out the star on which he stared; no touch on his shoulder, no whisper in his ear. It had seemed as he strove there, in the silence, that it must be done; that there was no limit to power concentrated and intense. Yet it had not happened....

Once he had shuddered a little; and the very shudder of fear had had in it a touch of delicious, trembling expectation. Yet it had not happened.

Laurie relaxed his muscles therefore, let his breath exhale in a long sigh, and once more remembered the book he had read and Mrs. Stapleton’s feverish, self-conscious thought.

Half an hour later his mother, listening in her bed, heard his footsteps pass her room.

Chapter III

I

Lady Laura Bethell, spinster, had just returned to her house in Queen’s Gate, with her dearest friend, Mrs. Stapleton, for a few days of psychical orgy. It was in her house, as much as in any in London, that the modern prophets were to be met with—severe-looking women in shapeless dresses, little men and big, with long hair and cloaks; and it was in her drawing-room that tea and Queen cakes were dispensed to inquirers, and papers read and discussed when the revels were over.

Lady Laura herself was not yet completely emancipated from what her friends sometimes called the grave-clothes of so-called Revelation. To her it seemed a profound truth that things could be true and untrue simultaneously—that what might be facts on This Side, as she would have expressed it, might be falsehoods on the Other. She was accustomed, therefore, to attend All Saints’, Carlton Gardens, in the morning, and psychical drawing-rooms or halls in the evening, and to declare to her friends how beautifully the one aspect illuminated and interpreted the other.

For the rest, she was a small, fair-haired woman, with penciled dark eyebrows, a small aquiline nose, gold pince-nez, and an exquisite taste in dress.

The two were seated this Tuesday evening, a week after Mrs. Stapleton’s visit to the Stantons, in the drawing-room of the Queen’s Gate house, over the remnants of what corresponded to five-o’clock tea. I say “corresponded,” since both of them were sufficiently advanced to have renounced actual tea altogether. Mrs. Stapleton partook of a little hot water out of a copper-jacketed jug; her hostess of boiled milk. They shared their Plasmon biscuits together. These things were considered important for those who would successfully find the Higher Light.

At this instant they were discussing Mr. Vincent.

“Dearest, he seems to me so different from the others,” mewed Lady Laura. “He is such a man, you know. So often those others are not quite like men at all; they wear such funny clothes, and their hair always is so queer, somehow.”

“Darling, I know what you mean. Yes, there’s a great deal of that about James Vincent. Even dear Tom was almost polite to him: he couldn’t bear the others: he said that he always thought they were going to paw him.”

“And then his powers,” continued Lady Laura—”his powers always seem to me so much greater. The magnetism is so much more evident.”

Mrs. Stapleton finished her hot water.

“We are going on Sunday?” she said questioningly.

“Yes; just a small party. And he comes here tomorrow, you remember, just for a talk. I have asked a clergyman I know in to meet him. It seems to me such a pity that our religious teachers should know so little of what is going on.”

“Who is he?”

“Oh, Mr. Jamieson ... just a young clergyman I met in the summer. I promised to let him know the next time Mr. Vincent came to me.”

Mrs. Stapleton murmured her gratification.

These two had really a great deal in common besides their faith. It is true that Mrs. Stapleton was forty, and her friend but thirty-one; but the former did all that was possible to compensate for this by adroit toilette tactics. Both, too, were accustomed to dress in soft materials, with long chains bearing various emblems; they did their hair in the same way; they cultivated the same kinds of tones in their voices—a purring, mewing manner—suggestive of intuitive kittens. Both alike had a passion for proselytism. But after that the differences began. There was a deal more in Mrs. Stapleton besides the kittenish qualities. She was perfectly capable of delivering a speech in public; she had written some really well-expressed articles in various Higher periodicals; and she had a will-power beyond the ordinary. At the point where Lady Laura began to deprecate and soothe, Mrs. Stapleton began to clear decks for action, so to speak, to be incisive, to be fervent, even to be rather eloquent. She kept “dear Tom,” the Colonel, not crushed or beaten, for that was beyond the power of man to do, but at least silently acquiescent in her program: he allowed her even to entertain her prophetical friends at his expense, now and then; and, even when among men, refrained from too bitter speech. It was said by the Colonel’s friends that Mrs. Colonel had a tongue of her own. Certainly, she ruled her house well and did her duty; and it was only because of her husband’s absence in Scotland that during this time she was permitting herself the refreshment of a week or two among the Illuminated.

At about six o’clock Lady Laura announced her intention of retiring for her evening meditation. Opening out of her bedroom was a small dressing-room that she had fitted up for this purpose with all the broad suggestiveness that marks the Higher Thought: decked with ornaments emblematical of at least three religions, and provided with a faldstool and an exceedingly easy chair. It was here that she was accustomed to spend an hour before dinner, with closed eyes, emancipating herself from the fetters of sense; and rising to a due appreciation of that Nothingness that was All, from which All came and to which it retired.

“I must go, dearest; it is time.”

A ring at the bell below made her pause.

“Do you think that can be Mr. Vincent?” she said, pleasantly apprehensive. “It’s not the right day, but one never knows.”

A footman’s figure entered.

“Mr. Baxter, my lady.... Is your ladyship at home?”

“Mr. Baxter—”

Mrs. Stapleton rose.

“Let me see him instead, dearest.... You remember ... from Stantons.”

“I wonder what he wants?” murmured the hostess. “Yes, do see him, Maud; you can always fetch me if it’s anything.”

Then she was gone. Mrs. Stapleton sank into a chair again; and in a minute Laurie was shaking hands with her.

Mrs. Stapleton was accustomed to deal with young men, and through long habit had learned how to flatter them without appearing to do so. Laurie’s type, however, was less familiar to her. She preferred the kind that grow their hair rather long and wear turn-down collars, and have just found out the hopeless banality of all orthodoxy whatever. She even bore with them when they called themselves unmoral. But she remembered Laurie, the silent boy at lunch last week, she had even mentioned him to Lady Laura, and received information about the village girl, more or less correct. She was also aware that he was a Catholic.

She gave him her hand without rising.

“Lady Laura asked me to excuse her absence to you, Mr. Baxter. To be quite truthful, she is at home, but had just gone upstairs for her meditation.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, you know; we think that so important, just as you do. Do sit down, Mr. Baxter. You have had tea?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“I hope she will be down before you go. I don’t think she’ll be very long this evening. Can I give her any message, Mr. Baxter, in case you don’t see her?”

Laurie put his hat and stick down carefully, and crossed his legs.

“No; I don’t think so, thanks,” he said. “The fact is, I came partly to find out your address, if I might.”

Mrs. Stapleton rustled and rearranged herself.

“Oh! but that’s charming of you,” she said. “Is there anything particular?”

“Yes,” said Laurie slowly; “at least it seems rather particular to me. It’s what you were talking about the other day.”

“Now how nice of you to say that! Do you know, I was wondering as we talked. Now do tell me exactly what is in your mind, Mr. Baxter.”

Mrs. Stapleton was conscious of a considerable sense of pleasure. Usually she found this kind of man very imperceptive and gross. Laurie seemed perfectly at his ease, dressed quite in the proper way, and had an air of presentableness that usually only went with Philistinism. She determined to do her best.

“May I speak quite freely, please?” he asked, looking straight at her.

“Please, please,” she said, with that touch of childish intensity that her friends thought so innocent and beautiful.

“Well, it’s like this,” said Laurie. “I’ve always rather disliked all that kind of thing, more than I can say. It did seem to me so—well—so feeble, don’t you know; and then I’m a Catholic, you see, and so—”

“Yes; yes?”

“Well, I’ve been reading Mr. Stainton Moses, and one or two other books; and I must say that an awful lot of it seems to me still great rubbish; and then there are any amount of frauds, aren’t there, Mrs. Stapleton, in that line?”

“Alas! Ah, yes!”

“But then I don’t know what to make of some of the evidence that remains. It seems to me that if evidence is worth anything at all, there must be something real at the back of it all. And then, if that is so, if it really is true that it is possible to get into actual touch with people who are dead—I mean really and truly, so that there’s no kind of doubt about it—well, that does seem to me about the most important thing in the world. Do you see?”

She kept her eyes on his face for an instant or two. Plainly he was really moved; his face had gone a little white in the lamplight and his hands were clasped tightly enough over his knee to whiten the knuckles. She remembered Lady Laura’s remarks about the village girl, and understood. But she perceived that she must not attempt intimacy just yet with this young man: he would resent it. Besides, she was shrewd enough to see by his manner that he did not altogether like her.

She nodded pensively once or twice. Then she turned to him with a bright smile. “I understand entirely,” she said. “May I too speak quite freely? Yes? Well, I am so glad you have spoken out. Of course, we are quite accustomed to being distrusted and feared. After all, it is the privilege of all truth-seekers to suffer, is it not? Well, I will say what is in my heart.

“First, you are quite right about some of our workers being dishonest sometimes. They are, Mr. Baxter, I have seen more than one, myself, exposed. But that is natural, is it not? Why, there have been bad Catholics, too, have there not? And, after all, we are only human; and there is a great temptation sometimes not to send people away disappointed. You have heard those stories, I expect, Mr. Baxter?”

“I have heard of Mr. Eglinton.”

“Ah! Poor Willie.... Yes. But he had great powers, for all that.... Well, but the point you want to get at is this, is it not? Is it really true, underneath it all? Is that it?”

Laurie nodded, looking at her steadily. She leaned forward.

“Mr. Baxter, by all that I hold most sacred, I assure you that it is, that I myself have seen and touched ... touched ... my own father, who crossed over twenty years ago. I have received messages from his own lips ... and communications in other ways too, concerning matters only known to him and to myself. Is that sufficient? No”; (she held up a delicate silencing hand) “... no, I will not ask you to take my word. I will ask you to test it for yourself.”

Laurie too leaned forward now in his low chair, his hands clasped between his knees.

“You will—you will let me test it?” he said in a low voice.

She sat back easily, pushing her draperies straight. She was in some fine silk that fell straight from her high slender waist to her copper-colored shoes.

“Listen, Mr. Baxter. Tomorrow there is coming to this house certainly the greatest medium in London, if not in Europe. (Of course we cannot compete with the East. We are only children beside them.) Well, this man, Mr. Vincent—I think I spoke of him to you last week—he is coming here just for a talk to one or two friends. There shall be no difficulty if you wish it. I will speak to Lady Laura before you go.”

Laurie looked at her without moving.

“I shall be very much obliged,” he said. “You will remember that I am not yet in the least convinced? I only want to know.”

“That is exactly the right attitude. That is all we have any right to ask. We do not ask for blind faith, Mr. Baxter—only for believing after having seen.”

Laurie nodded slowly.

“That seems to me reasonable,” he said.

There was silence for a moment. Then she determined on a bold stroke.

“There is someone in particular—Mr. Baxter—forgive me for asking—someone who has passed over—?”

She sank her voice to what she had been informed was a sympathetic tone, and was scarcely prepared for the sudden tightening of that face.

“That is my affair, Mrs. Stapleton.”

Ah well, she had been premature. She would fetch Lady Laura, she said; she thought she might venture for such a purpose. No, she would not be away three minutes. Then she rustled out.

Laurie went to the fire to wait, and stood there, mechanically warming his hands and staring down at that sleeping core of red coal.

He had taken his courage in both hands in coming at all. In spite of his brave words to Maggie, he had been conscious of a curious repulsion with regard to the whole matter—a repulsion not only of contempt towards the elaborate affectations of the woman he had determined to consult. Yet he had come.

What he had said just now had been perfectly true. He was not yet in the least convinced, but he was anxious, intensely and passionately anxious, goaded too by desire.

Ah! surely it was absurd and fantastic—here in London, in this century. He turned and faced the lamp-lit room, letting his eyes wander round the picture-hung walls, the blue stamped paper, the Empire furniture, the general appearance of beautiful comfort and sane modern life. It was absurd and fantastic; he would be disappointed again, as he had been disappointed in everything else. These things did not happen—the dead did not return. Step by step those things that for centuries had been deemed evidence of the supernatural, one by one had been explained and discounted. Hypnotism, water divining, witchcraft, and the rest. All these had once been believed to be indisputable proofs of a life beyond the grave, of strange supernormal personalities, and these, one by one, had been either accounted for or discredited. It was mad of him to be alarmed or excited. No, he would go through with it, expecting nothing, hoping nothing. But he would just go through with it to satisfy himself....

The door opened, and the two ladies came in.

“I am delighted that you called, Mr. Baxter; and on such an errand!”

Lady Laura put out a hand, tremulous with pleasure at welcoming a possible disciple.

“Mrs. Stapleton has explained—” began Laurie.

“I understand everything. You come as a skeptic—no, not as a skeptic, but as an inquirer, that is all that we wish.... Then tomorrow, at about half-past four.”

Chapter IV

I

It was a mellow October afternoon, glowing towards sunset, as Laurie came across the south end of the park to his appointment next day; and the effect of it upon his mind was singularly unsuggestive of supernatural mystery. Instead, the warm sky, the lights beginning to peep here and there, though an hour before sunset, turned him rather in the direction of the natural and the domestic.

He wondered what his mother and Maggie would say if they knew his errand, for he had sufficient self-control not to have told them of his intentions. As regards his mother he did not care very much. Of course she would deprecate it and feebly dissuade; but he recognized that there was no particular principle behind, beyond a sense of discomfort at the unknown. But it was necessary for him to argue with himself about Maggie. The angry kind of contempt that he knew she would feel needed an answer; and he gave it by reminding himself that she had been brought up in a convent-school, that she knew nothing of the world, and that, lastly, he himself did not take the matter seriously. He was aware, too, that the instinctive repulsion that she felt so keenly found a certain echo in his own feelings; but he explained this by the novelty of the thing.

In fact, the attitude of mind in which he more or less succeeded in arraying himself was that of one who goes to see a serious conjurer. It would be rather fun, he thought, to see a table dancing. But there was not wholly wanting that inexplicable tendency of some natures deliberately to deceive themselves on what lies nearest to their hearts.

Mr. Vincent had not yet arrived when he was shown upstairs, even though Laurie himself was late. (This was partly deliberate. He thought it best to show a little nonchalance.) There was only a young clergyman in the room with the ladies; and the two were introduced.

“Mr. Baxter—Mr. Jamieson.”

He seemed a harmless young man, thought Laurie, and plainly a little nervous at the situation in which he found himself, as might a greyhound carry himself in a kennel of well-bred foxhounds. He was very correctly dressed, with Roman collar and stock, and obviously had not long left a theological college. He had an engaging kind of courtesy, ecclesiastically cut features, and curly black hair. He sat balancing a delicate cup adroitly on his knee.

“Mr. Jamieson is so anxious to know all that is going on,” explained Lady Laura, with a voluble frankness. “He thinks it so necessary to be abreast of the times, as he said to me the other day.”

Laurie assented, grimly pitying the young man for his indiscreet confidences. The clergyman looked priggish in his efforts not to do so.

“He has a class of young men on Sundays,” continued the hostess—”(Another biscuit, Maud darling?)—whom he tries to interest in all modern movements. He thinks it so important.”

Mr. Jamieson cleared his throat in a virile manner.

“Just so,” he said; “exactly so.”

“And so I told him he must really come and meet Mr. Vincent.... I can’t think why he is so late; but he has so many calls upon his time, that I am sure I wonder—”

“Mr. Vincent,” announced the footman.

A rather fine figure of a man came forward into the room, dressed in much better taste than Laurie somehow had expected, and not at all like the type of an insane dissenting minister in broadcloth which he had feared. Instead, it was a big man that he saw, stooping a little, inclined to stoutness, with a full curly beard tinged with grey, rather overhung brows, and a high forehead, from which the same kind of curly greyish hair was beginning to retreat. He was in a well-cut frock-coat and dark trousers, with the collar of the period and a dark tie.

Lady Laura was in a flutter of welcome, pouring out little sentences, leading him to a seat, introducing him, and finally pressing refreshments into his hands.

“It is too good of you,” she said; “too good of you, with all your engagements.... These gentlemen are most anxious.... Mrs. Stapleton of course you know.... And you will just sit and talk to us ... like friends ... won’t you.... No, no! no formal speech at all ... just a few words ... and you will allow us to ask you questions....”

And so on.

Meanwhile Laurie observed the high-priest carefully and narrowly, and was quite unable to see any of the unpleasant qualities he had expected. He sat easily, without self-consciousness or arrogance or unpleasant humility. He had a pair of pleasant, shrewd, and rather kind eyes; and his voice, when he said a word or two in answer to Lady Laura’s volubility, was of that resonant softness that is always a delight to hear. In fact, his whole bearing and personality was that of a rather exceptional average man—a publisher, it might be, or a retired lawyer—a family man with a sober round of life and ordinary duties, who brought to their fulfillment a wholesome, kindly, but distinctly strong character of his own. Laurie hardly knew whether he was pleased or disappointed. He would almost have preferred a wild creature with rolling eyes, in a cloak; yet he would have been secretly amused and contemptuous at such a man.

“The sitting is off for Sunday, by the way, Lady Laura,” said the new-comer.

“Indeed! How is that?”

“Oh! there was some mistake about the rooms; it’s the secretary’s fault; you mustn’t blame me.”

Lady Laura cried out her dismay and disappointment, and Mrs. Stapleton played chorus. It was too tiresome, they said, too provoking, particularly just now, when “Annie” was so complacent. (Mrs. Stapleton explained kindly to the two young gentlemen that “Annie” was a spirit who had lately made various very interesting revelations.) What was to be done? Were there no other rooms?

Mr. Vincent shook his head. It was too late, he said, to make arrangements now.

While the ladies continued to buzz, and Mr. Jamieson to listen from the extreme edge of his chair, Laurie continued to make mental comments. He felt distinctly puzzled by the marked difference between the prophet and his disciples. These were so shallow; this so impressive by the most ordinary of all methods, and the most difficult of imitation, that is, by sheer human personality. He could not grasp the least common multiple of the two sides. Yet this man tolerated these women, and, indeed, seemed very kind and friendly towards them. He seemed to possess that sort of competence which rises from the fact of having well-arranged ideas and complete certitude about them.

And at last a pause came. Mr. Vincent set down his cup for the second time, refused buttered bun, and waited.

“Yes, do smoke, Mr. Vincent.”

The man drew out his cigarette-case, smiling, offering it to the two men. Laurie took one; the clergyman refused.

“And now, Mr. Vincent.”

Again he smiled, in a half-embarrassed way.

“But no speeches, I think you said,” he remarked.

“Oh! well, you know what I mean; just like friends, you know. Treat us all like that.”

Mrs. Stapleton rose, came nearer the circle, rustled down again, and sank into an elaborate silence.

“Well, what is it these gentlemen wish to hear?”

“Everything—everything,” cried Lady Laura. “They claim to know nothing at all.”

Laurie thought it time to explain himself a little. He felt he would not like to take this man at an unfair advantage.

“I should just like to say this,” he said. “I have told Mrs. Stapleton already. It is this. I must confess that so far as I am concerned I am not a believer. But neither am I a skeptic. I am just a real agnostic in this matter. I have read several books; and I have been impressed. But there’s a great deal in them that seems to me nonsense; perhaps I had better say which I don’t understand. This materializing business, for instance.... I can understand that the minds of the dead can affect ours; but I don’t see how they can affect matter—in table-rapping, for instance, and still more in appearing, and our being able to touch and see them.... I think that’s my position,” he ended rather lamely.

The fact was that he was a little disconcerted by the other’s eyes. They were, as I have said, kind and shrewd eyes, but they had a good deal of power as well. Mr. Vincent sat motionless during this little speech, just looking at him, not at all offensively, yet with the effect of making the young man feel rather like a defiant and naughty little boy who is trying to explain.

Laurie sat back and drew on his cigarette rather hard.

“I understand perfectly,” said the steady voice. “You are in a very reasonable position. I wish all were as open-minded. May I say a word or two?”

“Please.”

“Well, it is materialization that puzzles you, is it?”

“Exactly,” said Laurie. “Our theologians tell us—by the way, I am a Catholic.” (The other bowed a little.) “Our theologians, I believe, tell us that such a thing cannot be, except under peculiar circumstances, as in the lives of the saints, and so on.”

“Are you bound to believe all that your theologians say?” asked the other quietly.

“Well, it would be very rash indeed—” began Laurie.

“Exactly, I see. But what if you approach it from the other side, and try to find out instead whether these things actually do happen. I do not wish to be rude, Mr. Baxter; but you remember that your theologians—I am not so foolish as to say the Church, for I know that that was not so—but your theologians, you know, made a mistake about Galileo.”

Laurie winced a little. Mr. Jamieson cleared his throat in gentle approval.

“Now I don’t ask you to accept anything contrary to your faith,” went on the other gently; “but if you really wish to look into this matter, you must set aside for the present all other presuppositions. You must not begin by assuming that the theologians are always right, nor even in asking how or why these things should happen. The one point is, Do they happen?”

His last words had a curious little effect as of a sudden flame. He had spoken smoothly and quietly; then he had suddenly put an unexpected emphasis into the little sentence at the end. Laurie jumped, internally. Yes, that was the point, he assented internally.

“Now,” went on the other, again in that slow, reassuring voice, flicking off the ash of his cigarette, “is it possible for you to doubt that these things happen? May I ask you what books you have read?”

Laurie named three or four.

“And they have not convinced you?”

“Not altogether.”

“Yet you accept human evidence for a great many much more remarkable things than these—as a Catholic.”

“That is Divine Revelation,” said Laurie, sure of his ground.

“Pardon me,” said the other. “I do not in the least say it is not Divine Revelation—that is another question—but you receive the statement that it is so, on the word of man. Is that not true?”

Laurie was silent. He did not quite know what to say; and he almost feared the next words. But he was astonished that the other did not press home the point.

“Think over that, Mr. Baxter. That is all I ask. And now for the real thing. You sincerely wish to be convinced?”

“I am ready to be convinced.”

The medium paused an instant, looking intently at the fire. Then he tossed the stump of his cigarette away and lighted another. The two ladies sat motionless.

“You seem fond of a priori arguments, Mr. Baxter,” he began, with a kindly smile. “Let us have one or two, then.

“Consider first the relation of your soul to your body. That is infinitely mysterious, is it not? An emotion rises in your soul, and a flush of blood marks it. That is the subconscious mechanism of your body. But to say that, does not explain it. It is only a label. You follow me? Yes? Or still more mysterious is your conscious power. You will to raise your hand, and it obeys. Muscular action? Oh yes; but that is but another label.” He turned his eyes, suddenly somber, upon the staring, listening young man, and his voice rose a little. “Go right behind all that, Mr. Baxter, down to the mysteries. What is that link between soul and body? You do not know! Nor does the wisest scientist in the world. Nor ever will. Yet there the link is!”

Again he paused.

Laurie was aware of a rising half-excited interest far beyond the power of the words he heard. Yet the manner of these too was striking. It was not the sham mysticism he had expected. There was a certain reverence in them, an admitting of mysteries, that seemed hard to reconcile with the ideas he had formed of the dogmatism of these folk.

“Now begin again,” continued the quiet, virile voice. “You believe, as a Christian, in the immortality of the soul, in the survival of personality after death. Thank God for that! All do not, in these days. Then I need not labor at that.

“Now, Mr. Baxter, imagine to yourself some soul that you have loved passionately, who has crossed over to the other side.” Laurie drew a long, noiseless breath, steadying himself with clenched hands. “She has come to the unimaginable glories, according to her measure; she is at an end of doubts and fears and suspicions. She knows because she sees.... But do you think that she is absorbed in these things? You know nothing of human love, Mr. Baxter” (the voice trembled with genuine emotion) ... “if you can think that...! If you can think that her thought turns only to herself and her joys. Why, her life has been lived in your love by our hypothesis—you were at her bedside when she died, perhaps; and she clung to you as to God Himself, when the shadow deepened. Do you think that her first thought, or at least her second, will not be of you...? In all that she sees, she will desire you to see it also. She will strive, crave, hunger for you—not that she may possess you, but that you may be one with her in her own possession; she will send out vibration after vibration of sympathy and longing; and you, on this side, will be tuned to her as none other can be—you, on this side, will be empty for her love, for the sight and sound of her.... Is death then so strong?—stronger than love? Can a Christian believe that?”

The change in the man was extraordinary. His heavy beard and brows hid half his face, but his whole being glowed passionately in his voice, even in his little trembling gestures, and Laurie sat astonished. Every word uttered seemed to fit his own case, to express by an almost perfect vehicle the vague thoughts that had struggled in his own heart during this last week. It was Amy of whom the man spoke, Amy with her eyes and hair, peering from the glorious gloom to catch some glimpse of her lover in his meaningless light of earthly day.

Mr. Vincent cleared his throat a little, and at the sound the two motionless women stirred and rustled a little. The sound of a hansom, the spanking trot and wintry jingle of bells swelled out of the distance, passed, and went into silence before he spoke again. Then it was in his usual slow voice that he continued.

“Conceive such a soul as that, Mr. Baxter. She desires to communicate with one she loves on earth, with you or me, and it is a human and innocent desire. Yet she has lost that connection, that machinery of which we have spoken—that connection of which we know nothing, between matter and spirit, except that it exists. What is she to do? Well, at least she will do this, she will bend every power that she possesses upon that medium—I mean matter—through which alone the communication can be made; as a man on an island, beyond the power of a human voice, will use any instrument, however grotesque, to signal to a passing ship. Would any decent man, Mr. Baxter, mock at the pathos and effort of that, even if it were some grotesque thing, like a flannel shirt on the end of an oar? Yet men mock at the tapping of a table...!

“Well, then, this longing soul uses every means at her disposal, concentrates every power she possesses. Is it so very unreasonable, so very unchristian, so very dishonoring to the love of God, to think that she sometimes succeeds...? that she is able, under comparatively exceptional circumstances, to re-establish that connection with material things, that was perfectly normal and natural to her during her earthly life.... Tell me, Mr. Baxter.”

Laurie shifted a little in his chair.

“I cannot say that it is,” he said, in a voice that seemed strange in his own ears. The medium smiled a little.

“So much for a priori reasoning,” he said. “There remains only the fact whether such things do happen or not. There I must leave you to yourself, Mr. Baxter.”

Laurie sat forward suddenly.

“But that is exactly where I need your help, sir,” he said.

A murmur broke from the ladies’ lips simultaneously, resembling applause. Mr. Jamieson sat back and swallowed perceptibly in his throat.

“You have said so much, sir,” went on Laurie deliberately, “that you have, so to speak, put yourself in my debt. I must ask you to take me further.”

Mr. Vincent smiled full at him.

“You must take your place with others,” he said. “These ladies—”

“Mr. Vincent, Mr. Vincent,” cried Lady Laura. “He is quite right, you must help him. You must help us all.”

“Well, Sunday week,” he began deprecatingly.

Mrs. Stapleton broke in.

“No, no; now, Mr. Vincent, now. Do something now. Surely the circumstances are favorable.”

“I must be gone again at six-thirty,” said the man hesitatingly.

Laurie broke in. He felt desperate.

“If you can show me anything of this, sir, you can surely show it now. If you do not show it now—”

“Well, Mr. Baxter?” put in the voice, sharp and incisive, as if expecting an insult and challenging it.

Laurie broke down.

“I can only say,” he cried, “that I beg and entreat of you to do what you can—now and here.”

There was a silence.

“And you, Mr. Jamieson?”

The young clergyman started, as if from a daze. Then he rose abruptly.

“I—I must be going, Lady Laura,” he said. “I had no idea it was so late. I—I have a confirmation class.”

An instant later he was gone.

“That is as well,” observed the medium. “And you are sure, Mr. Baxter, that you wish me to try? You must remember that I promise nothing.”

“I wish you to try.”

“And if nothing happens?”

“If nothing happens, I will promise to—to continue my search. I shall know then that—that it is at least sincere.”

Mr. Vincent rose to his feet.

“A little table just here, Lady Laura, if you please, and a pencil and paper.... Will you kindly take your seats...? Yes, Mr. Baxter, draw up your chair ... here. Now, please, we must have complete silence, and, so far as possible, silence of thought.”

II

The table, a small, round rosewood one, stood, bare of any cloth, upon the hearthrug. The two ladies sat, motionless statues once more, upon the side furthest from the fire, with their hands resting lightly upon the surface. Laurie sat on one side and the medium on the other. Mr. Vincent had received his paper and pencil almost immediately, and now sat resting his right hand with the pencil upon the paper as if to write, his left hand upon his knee as he sat, turned away slightly from the center.

Laurie looked at him closely....

And now he began to be aware of a certain quite indefinable change in the face at which he looked. The eyes were open—no, it was not in them that the change lay, nor in the lines about the mouth, so far as he could see them, nor in any detail, anywhere. Neither was it the face of a dreamer or a sleepwalker, or of the dead, when the lines disappear and life retires. It was a living, conscious face, yet it was changed. The lips were slightly parted, and the breath came evenly between them. It was more like the face of one lost in deep, absorbed, introspective thought. Laurie decided that this was the explanation.

He looked at the hand on the paper—well shaped, brownish, capable—perfectly motionless, the pencil held lightly between the finger and thumb.

Then he glanced up at the two ladies.

They too were perfectly motionless, but there was no change in them. The eyes of both were downcast, fixed steadily upon the paper. And as he looked he saw Lady Laura begin to lift her lids slowly as if to glance at him. He looked himself upon the paper and the motionless fingers.

He was astonished at the speed with which the situation had developed. Five minutes ago he had been listening to talk, and joining in it. The clergyman had been here; he himself had been sitting a yard further back. Now they sat here as if they had sat for an hour. It seemed that the progress of events had stopped....

Then he began to listen for the sounds of the world outside, for within here it seemed as if a silence of a very strange quality had suddenly descended and enveloped them. It was as if a section—that place in which he sat—had been cut out of time and space. It was apart here, it was different altogether....

He began to be intensely and minutely conscious of the world outside—so entirely conscious that he lost all perception of that at which he stared; whether it was the paper, or the strong, motionless hand, or the introspective face, he was afterwards unaware. But he heard all the quiet roar of the London evening, and was able to distinguish even the note of each instrument that helped to make up that untiring, inconclusive orchestra. Far away to the northwards sounded a great thoroughfare, the rolling of wheels, a myriad hoofs, the pulse of motor vehicles, and the cries of street boys; upon all these his attention dwelt as they came up through the outward windows into that dead silent, lamp-lit room of which he had lost consciousness. Again a hansom came up the street, with the rap of hoofs, the swish of a whip, the wintry jingle of bells....

He began gently to consider these things, to perceive, rather than to form, little inward pictures of what they signified; he saw the lighted omnibus, the little swirl of faces round a news-board.

Then he began to consider what had brought him here; it seemed that he saw himself, coming in his dark suit across the park, turning into the thoroughfare and across it. He began to consider Amy; and it seemed to him that in this intense and living silence he was conscious of her for the first time without sorrow since ten days ago. He began to consider.

Something brought him back in an instant to the room and his perception of it, but he had not an idea what this was, whether a movement or a sound. But on considering it afterwards he remembered that it was as that sound is that wakes a man at the very instant of his falling asleep, a sharp momentary tick, as of a clock. Yet he had not been in the least sleepy.

On the contrary, he perceived now with an extreme and alert attention the hand on the paper; he even turned his head slightly to see if the pencil had moved. It was as motionless as at the beginning. He glanced up, with a touch of surprise, at his hostess’s face, and caught her in the very act of turning her eyes from his. There was no impatience in her movement: rather her face was of one absorbed, listening intently, not like the bearded face opposite, introspective and intuitive, but eagerly, though motionlessly, observant of the objective world. He looked at Mrs. Stapleton. She too bore the same expression of intent regarding thought on her usually rather tiresome face.

Then once again the silence began to come down, like a long, noiseless hush.

This time, however, his progress was swifter and more sure. He passed with the speed of thought through those processes that had been measurable before, faintly conscious of the words spoken before the sitting began—

“... If possible, the silence of thought.”

He thought he understood now what this signified, and that he was experiencing it. No longer did he dwell upon, or consider, with any voluntary activity, the images that passed before him. Rather they moved past him while he simply regarded them without understanding. His perception ran swiftly outwards, as through concentric circles, yet he was not sure whether it were outwards or inwards that he went. The roar of London, with its flight of ocular visions, sank behind him, and without any further sense of mental travel, he found himself perceiving his own home, whether in memory, imagination, or fact he did not know. But he perceived his mother, in the familiar lamp-lit room, over her needlework, and Maggie—Maggie looking at him with a strange, almost terrified expression in her great eyes. Then these too were gone; and he was out in some warm silence, filled with a single presence—that which he desired; and there he stopped.

He was not in the least aware of how long this lasted. But he found himself at a certain moment in time, looking steadily at the white paper on the table, from which the hand had gone, again conscious of the sudden passing of some clear sound that left no echo—as sharp as the crack of a whip. Oh! the paper—that was the important point! He bent a little closer, and was aware of a sharp disappointment as he saw it was stainless of writing. Then he was astonished that the hand and pencil had gone from it, and looked up quickly.

Mr. Vincent was looking at him with a strange expression.

At first he thought he might have interrupted, and wondered with dismay whether this were so. But there was no sign of anger in those eyes—nothing but a curious and kindly interest.

“Nothing happened?” he exclaimed hastily. “You have written nothing?”

He looked at the ladies.

Lady Laura too was looking at him with the same strange interest as the medium. Mrs. Stapleton, he noticed, was just folding up, in an unobtrusive manner, several sheets of paper that he had not noticed before.

He felt a little stiff, and moved as if to stand up but, to his astonishment, the big man was up in an instant, laying his hands on his shoulders.

“Just sit still quietly for a few minutes,” said the kindly voice. “Just sit still.”

“Why—why—” began Laurie, bewildered.

“Yes, just sit still quietly,” went on the voice; “you feel a little tired.”

“Just a little,” said Laurie. “But—”

“Yes, yes; just sit still. No; don’t speak.”

Then a silence fell again.

Laurie began to wonder what this was all about. Certainly he felt tired, yet strangely elated. But he felt no inclination to move; and sat back, passive, looking at his own hands on his knees. But he was disappointed that nothing had happened.

Then the thought of time came into his mind. He supposed that it would be about ten minutes past six. The sitting had begun a little before six. He glanced up at the clock on the mantelpiece; but it was one of those bulgy-faced Empire gilt affairs that display everything except the hour. He still waited a moment, feeling all this to be very unusual and unconventional. Why should he sit here like an invalid, and why should these three sit here and watch him so closely?

He shifted a little in his chair, feeling that an effort was due from him. The question of the time of day struck him as a suitably conventional remark with which to break the embarrassing silence.

“What is the time?” he said. “I am afraid I ought to be—”

“There is plenty of time,” said the grave voice across the table.

With a sudden movement Laurie was on his feet, peering at the clock, knowing that something was wrong somewhere. Then he turned to the company bewildered and suspicious.

“Why, it is nearly eight,” he cried.

Mr. Vincent smiled reassuringly.

“It is about that,” he said. “Please sit down again, Mr. Baxter.”

“But—but—” began Laurie.

“Please sit down again, Mr. Baxter,” repeated the voice, with a touch of imperiousness that there was no resisting.

Laurie sat down again; but he was alert, suspicious, and intensely puzzled.

“Will you kindly tell me what has happened?” he asked sharply.

“You feel tired?”

“No; I am all right. Kindly tell me what has happened.”

He saw Lady Laura whisper something in an undertone he could not hear. Mr. Vincent stood up with a nod and leaned himself against the mantelpiece, looking down at the rather indignant young man.

“Certainly,” he said. “You are sure you are not exhausted, Mr. Baxter?”

“Not in the least,” said Laurie.

“Well, then, you passed into trance about five minutes—”

“What?”

“You passed into trance about five minutes past six; you came out of it five minutes ago.”

“Trance?” gasped Laurie.

“Certainly. A very deep and satisfactory trance. There is nothing to be frightened of, Mr. Baxter. It is an unusual gift, that is all. I have seldom seen a more satisfactory instance. May I ask you a question or two, sir?”

Laurie nodded vaguely. He was still trying hopelessly to take in what had been said.

“You nearly passed into trance a little earlier. May I ask whether you heard or saw anything that recalled you?”

Laurie shut his eyes tight in an effort to think. He felt dimly rather proud of himself.

“It was quite short. Then you came back and looked at Lady Laura. Try to remember.”

“I remember thinking I had heard a sound.”

The medium nodded.

“Just so,” he said.

“That would be the third,” said Lady Laura, nodding sagely.

“Third what?” said Laurie rather rudely.

No one paid any attention to him.

“Now can you give any account of the last hour and a half?” continued the medium tranquilly.

Laurie considered again. He was still a little confused.

“I remember thinking about the streets,” he said, “and then of my own home, and then...” He stopped.

“Yes; and then?”

“Then of a certain private matter.”

“Ah! We must not pry then. But can you answer one question more? Was it connected with any person who has crossed over?”

“It was,” said Laurie shortly.

“Just so,” said the medium.

Laurie felt suspicious.

“Why do you ask that?” he said.

Mr. Vincent looked at him steadily.

“I think I had better tell you, Mr. Baxter; it is more straightforward, though you will not like it. You will be surprised to hear that you talked very considerably during this hour and a half; and from all that you said I should suppose you were controlled by a spirit recently crossed over—a young girl who on being questioned gave the name of Amy Nugent—”

Laurie sprang to his feet, furious.

“You have been spying, sir. How dare you—”

“Sit down, Mr. Baxter, or you shall not hear a word more,” rang out the imperious, unruffled voice. “Sit down this instant.”

Laurie shot a look at the two ladies. Then he remembered himself. He sat down.

“I am not at all angry, Mr. Baxter,” came the voice, suave and kindly again. “Your thought was very natural. But I think I can prove to you that you are mistaken.”

Mr. Vincent glanced at Mrs. Stapleton with an almost imperceptible frown, then back at Laurie.

“Let me see, Mr. Baxter.... Is there anyone on earth besides yourself who knew that you had sat out, about ten days ago or so, under some yew trees in your garden at home, and thought of this young girl—that you—”

Laurie looked at him in dumb dismay; some little sound broke from his mouth.

“Well, is that enough, Mr. Baxter?”

Lady Laura slid in a sentence here.

“Dear Mr. Baxter, you need not be in the least alarmed. All that has passed here is, of course, as sacred as in the confessional. We should not dream, without your leave—”

“One moment,” gasped the boy.

He drove his face into his hands and sat overwhelmed.

Presently he looked up.

“But I knew it,” he said. “I knew it. It was just my own self which spoke.”

The medium smiled.

“Yes,” he said, “of course that is the first answer.” He placed one hand on the table, leaning forward, and began to play his fingers as if on a piano. Laurie watched the movement, which seemed vaguely familiar.

“Can you account for that, Mr. Baxter? You did that several times. It seemed uncharacteristic of you, somehow.”

Laurie looked at him, mute. He remembered now. He half raised a hand in protest.

“And ... and do you ever stammer?” went on the man.

Still Laurie was silent. It was beyond belief or imagination.

“Now if those things were characteristic—”

“Stop, sir,” cried the boy; and then, “But those too might be unconscious imitation.”

“They might,” said the other. “But then we had the advantage of watching you. And there were other things.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“There was the loud continuous rapping, at the beginning and the end. You were awakened twice by these.”

Laurie remained perfectly motionless without a word. He was still striving to marshal this flood of mad ideas. It was incredible, amazing.

Then he stood up.

“I must go away,” he said. “I—I don’t know what to think.”

“You had better stay a little longer and rest,” said the medium kindly.

The boy shook his head.

“I must go at once,” he said. “I cannot trust myself.”

He went out without a word, followed by the medium. The two ladies sat eyeing one another.

“It has been astonishing ... astonishing,” sighed Mrs. Stapleton. “What a find!”

There was no more said. Lady Laura sat as one in trance herself.

Then Mr. Vincent returned.

“You must not lose sight of that young man,” he said abruptly. “It is an extraordinary case.”

“I have all the notes here,” remarked Mrs. Stapleton.

“Yes; you had better keep them. He must not see them at present.”

Chapter V

I

As the weeks went by Maggie’s faint uneasiness disappeared. She was one of those fortunate persons who, possessing what are known as nerves, are aware of the possession, and discount their effects accordingly.

That uneasiness had culminated a few days after Laurie’s departure one evening as she sat with the old lady after tea—in a sudden touch of terror at she knew not what.

“What is the matter, my dear?” the old lady had said without warning.

Maggie was reading, but it appeared that Mrs. Baxter had noticed her lower her book suddenly, with an odd expression.

Maggie had blinked a moment.

“Nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking of Laurie; I don’t know why.”

But since then she had been able to reassure herself. Her fancies were but fancies, she told herself; and they had ceased to trouble her. The boy’s letters to his mother were ordinary and natural: he was reading fairly hard; his coach was as pleasant a person as he had seemed; he hoped to run down to Stantons for a few days at Christmas. There was nothing whatever to alarm anyone; plainly his ridiculous attitude about Spiritualism had been laid by; and, better still, he was beginning to recover himself after his sorrow in September.

It was an extraordinarily peaceful and uneventful life that the two led together—the kind of life that strengthens previous proclivities and adds no new ones; that brings out the framework of character and motive as dropping water clears the buried roots of a tree. This was all very well for Mrs. Baxter, whose character was already fully formed, it may be hoped; but not so utterly satisfactory for the girl, though the process was pleasant enough.

After Mass and breakfast she spent the morning as she wished, overseeing little extra details of the house—gardening plans, the poultry, and so forth—and reading what she cared to. The afternoon was devoted to the old lady’s airing; the evening till dinner to anything she wished; and after dinner again to gentle conversation. Very little happened. The Vicar and his wife dined there occasionally, and still more occasionally Father Mahon. Now and then there were vague entertainments to be patronized in the village schoolroom, in an atmosphere of ink and hair-oil, and a mild amount of rather dreary and stately gaiety connected with the big houses round. Mrs. Baxter occasionally put in appearances, a dignified and aristocratic old figure with her gentle eyes and black lace veil; and Maggie went with her.

The pleasure of this life grew steadily upon Maggie. She was one of that fraction of the world that finds entertainment to lie, like the kingdom of God, within. She did not in the least wish to be “amused” or stimulated and distracted. She was perfectly and serenely content with the fowls, the garden, her small selected tasks, her religion, and herself.

The result was, as it always is in such cases, she began to revolve about three or four main lines of thought, and to make a very fair progress in the knowledge of herself. She knew her faults quite well; and she was not unaware of her virtues. She knew perfectly that she was apt to give way to internal irritation, of a strong though invisible kind, when interruptions happened; that she now and then gave way to an unduly fierce contempt of tiresome people, and said little bitter things that she afterwards regretted. She also knew that she was quite courageous, that she had magnificent physical health, and that she could be perfectly content with a life that a good many other people would find narrow and stifling.

Her own character then was one thing that she had studied—not in the least in a morbid way—during her life at Stantons. And another thing she was beginning to study, rather to her own surprise, was the character of Laurie. She began to become a little astonished at the frequency with which, during a silent drive, or some mild mechanical labor in the gardens, the image of that young man would rise before her.

Indeed, as has been said, she had new material to work on. She had not realized till the affaire Amy that boy’s astonishing selfishness; and it became for her a rather pleasant psychological exercise to build up his characteristics into a consistent whole. It had not struck her, till this specimen came before her notice, how generosity and egotism, for example, so far from being mutually exclusive, can very easily be complements, each of the other.

So then she passed her days—exteriorly a capable and occupied person, interested in half a dozen simple things; interiorly rather introspective, rather scrupulous, and intensely interested in the watching of two characters—her own and her adopted brother’s. Mrs. Baxter’s character needed no dissection; it was a consistent whole, clear as crystal and as rigid.

It was still some five weeks before Christmas that Maggie became aware of what, as a British maiden, she ought, of course, to have known long before—namely, that she was thinking just a little too much about a young man who, so far as was apparent, thought nothing at all about her. It was true that once he had passed through a period of sentimentality in her regard; but the extreme discouragement it had met with had been enough.

Her discovery happened in this way.

Mrs. Baxter opened a letter one morning, smiling contentedly to herself.

“From Laurie,” she said. Maggie ceased eating toast for a second, to listen.

Then the old lady uttered a small cry of dismay.

“He thinks he can’t come, after all,” she said.

Maggie had a moment of very acute annoyance.

“What does he say? Why not?” she asked.

There was a pause. She watched Mrs. Baxter’s lips moving slowly, her glasses in place; saw the page turned, and turned again. She took another piece of toast. There are few things more irritating than to have fragments of a letter doled out piecemeal.

“He doesn’t say. He just says he’s very busy indeed, and has a great deal of way to make up.” The old lady continued reading tranquilly, and laid the letter down.

“Nothing more?” asked Maggie, consumed with annoyance.

“He’s been to the theatre once or twice.... Dear Laurie! I’m glad he’s recovering his spirits.”

Maggie was very angry indeed. She thought it abominable of the boy to treat his mother like that. And then there was the shooting—not much, indeed, beyond the rabbits, which the man who acted as occasional keeper told her wanted thinning, and a dozen or two of wild pheasants—yet this shooting had always been done, she understood, at Christmas, ever since Master Laurie had been old enough to hold a gun.

She determined to write him a letter.

When breakfast was over, with a resolved face she went to her room. She would really tell this boy a home-truth or two. It was a—a sister’s place to do so. The mother, she knew well enough, would do no more than send a little wail, and would end by telling the dear boy that, of course, he knew best, and that she was very happy to think that he was taking such pains about his studies. Someone must point out to the boy his overwhelming selfishness, and it seemed that no one was at hand but herself. Therefore she would do it.

She did it, therefore, politely enough but unmistakably; and as it was a fine morning, she thought that she would like to step up to the village and post it. She did not want to relent; and once the letter was in the post-box, the thing would be done.

It was, indeed, a delicious morning. As she passed out through the iron gate the trees overhead, still with a few brown belated leaves, soared up in filigree of exquisite workmanship into a sky of clear November blue, as fresh as a hedge-sparrow’s egg. The genial sound of cock-crowing rose, silver and exultant, from the farm beyond the road, and the tiny street of the hamlet looked as clean as a Dutch picture.

She noticed on the right, just before she turned up to the village on the left, the grocer’s shop, with the name “Nugent” in capitals as bright and flamboyant as on the depot of a merchant king. Mr. Nugent could be faintly descried within, in white shirt-sleeves and an apron, busied at a pile of cheeses. Overhead, three pairs of lace curtains, each decked with a blue bow, denoted the bedrooms. One of them must have been Amy’s. She wondered which....

All up the road to the village, some half-mile in length, she pondered Amy. She had never seen her, to her knowledge; but she had a tolerably accurate mental picture of her from Mrs. Baxter’s account.... Ah! how could Laurie? How could he...? Laurie, of all people! It was just one more example....

After dropping her letter into the box at the corner, she hesitated for an instant. Then, with an odd look on her face, she turned sharply aside to where the church tower pricked above the leafless trees.

It was a typical little country church, with that odor of the respectable and rather stuffy sanctity peculiar to the class; she had wrinkled her nose at it more than once in Laurie’s company. But she passed by the door of it now, and, stepping among the wet grasses, came down the little slope among the headstones to where a very white marble angel clasped an equally white marble cross. She passed to the front of this, and looked, frowning a little over the intolerable taste of the thing.

The cross, she perceived, was wreathed with a spray of white marble ivory; the angel was a German female, with a very rounded leg emerging behind a kind of button; and there, at the foot of the cross, was the inscription, in startling black—

AMY NUGENT

THE DEAR AND ONLY DAUGHTER

OF

AMOS AND MARIA NUGENT

OF STANTONS

DIED SEPTEMBER 21st 1901

RESPECTED BY ALL

“I SHALL SEE HER BUT NOT NOW.”

Below, as vivid as the inscription, there stood out the maker’s name, and of the town where he lived.

So she lay there, reflected Maggie. It had ended in that. A mound of earth, cracking a little, and sunken. She lay there, her nervous fingers motionless and her stammer silent. And could there be a more eloquent monument of what she was...? Then she remembered herself, and signed herself with the cross, while her lips moved an instant for the repose of the poor girlish soul. Then she stepped up again on to the path to go home.

It was as she came near the church gate that she understood herself, that she perceived why she had come, and was conscious for the first time of her real attitude of soul as she had stood there, reading the inscription, and, in a flash, there followed the knowledge of the inevitable meaning of it all.

In a word it was this.

She had come there, she told herself, to triumph, to gloat. Oh! she spared herself nothing, as she stood there, crimson with shame, to gloat over the grave of a rival. Amy was nothing less than that, and she herself—she, Margaret Marie Deronnais—had given way to jealousy of this grocer’s daughter, because ... because ... she had begun to care, really to care, for the man to whom she had written that letter this morning, and this man had scarcely said one word to her, or given her one glance, beyond such as a brother might give to a sister. There was the naked truth.

Her mind fled back. She understood a hundred things now. She perceived that that sudden anger at breakfast had been personal disappointment—not at all that lofty disinterestedness on behalf of the mother that she had pretended. She understood too, now, the meaning of those long contented meditations as she went up and down the garden walks, alert for plantains, the meaning of the zeal she had shown, only a week ago, on behalf of a certain hazel which the gardener wanted to cut down.

“You had better wait till Mr. Laurence comes home,” she had said. “I think he once said he liked the tree to be just there.”

She understood now why she had been so intuitive, so condemnatory, so critical of the boy—it was that she was passionately interested in him, that it was a pleasure even to abuse him to herself, to call him selfish and self-centered, that all this lofty disapproval was just the sop that her subconsciousness had used to quiet her uneasiness.

Little scenes rose before her—all passed almost in a flash of time—as she stood with her hand on the medieval-looking latch of the gate, and she saw herself in them all as a proud, unmaidenly, pharisaical prig, in love with a man who was not in love with her.

She made an effort, unlatched the gate, and moved on, a beautiful, composed figure, with great steady eyes and well-cut profile, a model of dignity and grace, interiorly a raging, self-contemptuous, abject wretch.

It must be remembered that she was convent-bred.

II

By the time that Laurie’s answer came, poor Maggie had arranged her emotions fairly satisfactorily. She came to the conclusion, arrived at after much heart-searching, that after all she was not yet actually in love with Laurie, but was in danger of being so, and that therefore now that she knew the danger, and could guard against it, she need not actually withdraw from her home, and bury herself in a convent or the foreign mission-field.

She arrived at this astonishing conclusion by the following process of thought. It may be presented in the form of a syllogism.

All girls who are in love regard the beloved as a spotless, reproachless hero.

Maggie Deronnais did not regard Laurie Baxter as a spotless, reproachless hero.

Ergo. Maggie Deronnais was not in love with Laurie Baxter.

Strange as it may appear to non-Catholic readers, Maggie did not confide her complications to the ear of Father Mahon. She mentioned, no doubt, on the following Saturday, that she had given way to thoughts of pride and jealousy, that she had deceived herself with regard to a certain action, done really for selfish motives, into thinking she had done it for altruistic motives, and there she left it. And, no doubt, Father Mahon left it there too, and gave her absolution without hesitation.

Then Laurie’s answer arrived, and had to be dealt with, that is, it had to be treated interiorly with a proper restraint of emotions.

“My dear Maggie,” he wrote;

Why all this fury? What have I done? I said to mother that I didn’t know for certain whether I could come or not, as I had a lot to do. I don’t think she can have given you the letter to read, or you wouldn’t have written all that about my being away from home at the one season of the year, etc. Of course I’ll come, if you or anybody feels like that. Does mother feel upset too? Please tell me if she ever feels that, or is in the least unwell, or anything. I’ll come instantly. As it is, shall we say the 20th of December, and I’ll stay at least a week. Will that do?

Yours,

L.B.

This was a little overwhelming, and Maggie wrote off a penitent letter, refraining carefully, however, from any expressions that might have anything of the least warmth, but saying that she was very glad he was coming, and that the shooting should be seen to.

She directed the letter; and then sat for an instant looking at Laurie’s—at the neat Oxford-looking hand, the artistic appearance of the paragraphs, and all the rest of it.

She would have liked to keep it—to put it with half a dozen others she had from him; but it seemed better not.

Then as she tore it up into careful strips, her conscience smote her again, shrewdly; and she drew out the top left-hand drawer of the table at which she sat.

There they were, a little pile of them, neat and orderly. She looked at them an instant; then she took them out, turned them quickly to see if all were there, and then, gathering up the strips of the one she had received that morning, went over to the wood fire and dropped them in.

It was better so, she said to herself.

The days went pleasantly enough after that. She would not for an instant allow to herself that any of their smoothness arose from the fact that this boy would be here again in a few weeks. On the contrary, it was because she had detected a weakness in his regard, she told herself, and had resolutely stamped on it, that she was in so serene a peace. She arranged about the shooting—that is to say, she informed the acting keeper that Master Laurie would be home for Christmas as usual—all in an unemotional manner, and went about her various affairs without effort.

She found Mrs. Baxter just a little trying now and then. That lady had come to the conclusion that Laurie was unhappy in his religion—certainly references to it had dropped out of his letters—and that Mr. Rymer must set it right.

“The Vicar must dine here at least twice while Laurie is here,” she observed at breakfast one morning. “He has a great influence with young men.”

Maggie reflected upon a remark or two, extremely unjust, made by Laurie with regard to the clergyman.

“Do you think—do you think he understands Laurie,” she said.

“He has known him for fifteen years,” remarked Mrs. Baxter.

“Perhaps it’s Laurie that doesn’t understand him then,” said Maggie tranquilly.

“I daresay.”

“And—and what do you think Mr. Rymer will be able to do?” asked the girl.

“Just settle the boy.... I don’t think Laurie’s very happy. Not that I would willingly disturb his mind again; I don’t mean that, my dear. I quite understand that your religion is just the one for certain temperaments, and Laurie’s is one of them; but a few helpful words sometimes—” Mrs. Baxter left it at an aposiopesis, a form of speech she was fond of.

There was a grain of truth, Maggie thought, in the old lady’s hints, and she helped herself in silence to marmalade. Laurie’s letters, which she usually read, did not refer much to religion, or to the Brompton Oratory, as his custom had been at first. She tried to make up her mind that this was a healthy sign; that it showed that Laurie was settling down from that slight feverishness of zeal that seemed the inevitable atmosphere of most converts. Maggie found converts a little trying now and then; they would talk so much about facts, certainly undisputed, and for that very reason not to be talked about. Laurie had been a marked case, she remembered; he wouldn’t let the thing alone, and his contempt of Anglican clergy, whom Maggie herself regarded with respect, was hard to understand. In fact she had remonstrated on the subject of the Vicar....

Maggie perceived that she was letting her thoughts run again on disputable lines; and she made a remark about the Balkan crisis so abruptly that Mrs. Baxter looked at her in bewilderment.

“You do jump about so, my dear. We were speaking of Laurie, were we not?”

“Yes,” said Maggie.

“It’s the twentieth he’s coming on, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Maggie.

“I wonder what train he’ll come by?”

“I don’t know,” said Maggie.

A few days before Laurie’s arrival she went to the greenhouse to see the chrysanthemums. There was an excellent show of them.

“Mrs. Baxter doesn’t like them hairy ones,” said the gardener.

“Oh! I had forgotten. Well, Ferris, on the nineteenth I shall want a big bunch of them. You’d better take those—those hairy ones. And some maidenhair. Is there plenty?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Can you make a wreath, Ferris?”

“Yes, miss.”

“Well, will you make a good wreath of them, please, for a grave? The morning of the twentieth will do. There’ll be plenty left for the church and house?”

“Oh yes, miss.”

“And for Father Mahon?”

“Oh yes, miss.”

“Very well, then. Will you remember that? A good wreath, with fern, on the morning of the twentieth. If you’ll just leave it here I’ll call for it about twelve o’clock. You needn’t send it up to the house.”

Chapter VI

I

Laurie was sitting in his room after breakfast, filling his briar pipe thoughtfully, and contemplating his journey to Stantons.

It was more than six weeks now since his experience in Queen’s Gate, and he had gone through a variety of emotions. Bewildered terror was the first, a nervous interest the next, a truculent skepticism the third; and lately, to his astonishment, the nervous interest had begun to revive.

At first he had been filled with unreasoning fear. He had walked back as far as the gate of the park, hardly knowing where he went, conscious only that he must be in the company of his fellows; upon finding himself on the south side of Hyde Park Corner, where travelers were few, he had crossed over in nervous haste to where he might jostle human beings. Then he had dined in a restaurant, knowing that a band would be playing there, and had drunk a bottle of champagne; he had gone to his rooms, cheered and excited, and had leapt instantly into bed for fear that his courage should evaporate. For he was perfectly aware that fear, and a sickening kind of repulsion, formed a very large element in his emotions. For nearly two hours, unless three persons had lied consummately, he—his essential being, that sleepless self that underlies all—had been in strange company, had become identified in some horrible manner with the soul of a dead person. It was as if he had been informed some morning that he had slept all night with a corpse under his bed. He woke half a dozen times that night in the pleasant curtained bedroom, and each time with the terror upon him. What if stories were true, and this Thing still haunted the air? It was remarkable, he considered afterwards, how the sign which he had demanded had not had the effect for which he had hoped. He was not at all reassured by it.

Then as the days went by, and he was left in peace, his horror began to pass. He turned the thing over in his mind a dozen times a day, and found it absorbing. But he began to reflect that, after all, he had nothing more than he had had before in the way of evidence. An hypnotic sleep might explain the whole thing. That little revelation he had made in his unconsciousness, of his sitting beneath the yews, might easily be accounted for by the fact that he himself knew it, that it had been a deeper element in his experience than he had known, and that he had told it aloud. It was no proof of anything more. There remained the rapping and what the medium had called his “appearance” during the sleep; but of all this he had read before in books. Why should he be convinced any more now than he had been previously? Besides, it was surely doubtful, was it not, whether the rapping, if it had really taken place, might not be the normal cracks and sounds of woodwork, intensified in the attention of the listeners? or if it was more than this, was there any proof that it might not be produced in some way by the intense will-power of some living person present? This was surely conceivable—more conceivable, that is, than any other hypothesis.... Besides, what had it all got to do with Amy?

Within a week of his original experience, skepticism was dominant. These lines of thought did their work by incessant repetition. The normal life he lived, the large, businesslike face of the lawyer whom he faced day by day, a theatre or two, a couple of dinners—even the noise of London streets and the appearance of workaday persons—all these gradually reassured him.

When therefore he received a nervous little note from Lady Laura, reminding him of the séance to be held in Baker Street, and begging his attendance, he wrote a most proper letter back again, thanking her for her kindness, but saying that he had come to the conclusion that this kind of thing was not good for him or his work, and begging her to make his excuses to Mr. Vincent.

A week or two passed, and nothing whatever happened. Then he heard again from Lady Laura, and again he answered by a polite refusal, adding a little more as to his own state of mind; and again silence fell.

Then at last Mr. Vincent called on him in person one evening after dinner.

Laurie’s rooms were in Mitre Court, very convenient to the Temple—two rooms opening into one another, and communicating with the staircase.

He had played a little on his grand piano, that occupied a third of his sitting-room, and had then dropped off to sleep before his fire. He awakened suddenly to see the big man standing almost over him, and sat up confusedly.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Baxter; the porter’s boy told me to come straight up. I found your outer door open.”

Laurie hastened to welcome him, to set him down in a deep chair, to offer whisky and to supply tobacco. There was something about this man that commanded deference.

“You know why I have come, I expect,” said the medium, smiling.

Laurie smiled back, a little nervously.

“I have come to see whether you will not reconsider your decision.”

The boy shook his head.

“I think not,” he said.

“You found no ill effects, I hope, from what happened at Lady Laura’s?”

“Not at all, after the first shock.”

“Doesn’t that reassure you at all, Mr. Baxter?”

Laurie hesitated.

“It’s like this,” he said; “I’m not really convinced. I don’t see anything final in what happened.”

“Will you explain, please?”

Laurie set the results of his meditations forth at length. There was nothing, he said, that could not be accounted for by a very abnormal state of subjectivity. The fact that this ... this young person’s name was in his mind ... and so forth....

“... And I find it rather distracting to my work,” he ended. “Please don’t think me rude or ungrateful, Mr. Vincent.”

He thought he was being very strong and sensible.

The medium was silent for a moment.

“Doesn’t it strike you as odd that I myself was able to get no results that night?” he said presently.

“How? I don’t understand.”

“Why, as a rule, I find no difficulty at all in getting some sort of response by automatic handwriting. Are you aware that I could do nothing at all that night?”

Laurie considered it.

“Well,” he said at last, “this may sound very foolish to you; but granting that I have got unusual gifts that way—they are your own words, Mr. Vincent—if that is so, I don’t see why my own concentration of thought, or hypnotic sleep or trance or whatever it was—might not have been so intense as to—”

“I quite see,” interrupted the other. “That is, of course, conceivable from your point of view. It had occurred to me that you might think that.... Then I take it that your theory is that the subconscious self is sufficient to account for it all—that in this hypnotic sleep, if you care to call it so, you simply uttered what was in your heart, and identified yourself with ... with your memory of that young girl.”

“I suppose so,” said Laurie shortly.

“And the rapping, loud, continuous, unmistakable?”

“That doesn’t seem to me important. I did not actually hear it, you know.”

“Then what you need is some unmistakable sign?”

“Yes ... but I see perfectly that this is impossible. Whatever I said in my sleep, either I can’t identify it as true, in which case it is worthless as evidence, or I can identify it, because I already know it, and in that case it is worthless again.”

The medium smiled, half closing his eyes.

“You must think us very childish, Mr. Baxter,” he said.

He sat up a little in his chair; then, putting his hand into his breast pocket, drew out a note-book, holding it still closed on his knee.

“May I ask you a rather painful question?” he said gently.

Laurie nodded. He felt so secure.

“Would you kindly tell me—first, whether you have seen the grave of this young girl since you left the country; secondly, whether anyone happens to have mentioned it to you?”

Laurie swallowed in his throat.

“Certainly no one has mentioned it to me. And I have not seen it since I left the country.”

“How long ago was that?”

“That was ... about September the twenty-seventh.”

“Thank you...!” He opened the note-book and turned the pages a moment or two. “And will you listen to this, Mr. Baxter?—’Tell Laurie that the ground has sunk a little above my grave; and that cracks are showing at the sides.’”

“What is that book?” said the boy hoarsely.

The medium closed it and returned it to his pocket.

“That book, Mr. Baxter, contains a few extracts from some of the things you said during your trance. The sentence I have read is one of them, an answer given to a demand made by me that the control should give some unmistakable proof of her identity. She ... you hesitated some time before giving that answer.”

“Who took the notes?”

“Mrs. Stapleton. You can see the originals if you wish. I thought it might distress you to know that such notes had been taken; but I have had to risk that. We must not lose you, Mr. Baxter.”

Laurie sat, dumb and bewildered.

“Now all you have to do,” continued the medium serenely, “is to find out whether what has been said is correct or not. If it is not correct, there will be an end of the matter, if you choose. But if it is correct—”

“Stop; let me think!” cried Laurie.

He was back again in the confusion from which he thought he had escaped. Here was a definite test, offered at least in good faith—just such a test as had been lacking before; and he had no doubt whatever that it would be borne out by facts. And if it were—was there any conceivable hypothesis that would explain it except the one offered so confidently by this grave, dignified man who sat and looked at him with something of interested compassion in his heavy eyes? Coincidence? It was absurd. Certainly graves did sink, sometimes—but ... Thought-transference from someone who noticed the grave...? But why that particular thought, so vivid, concise, and pointed...?

If it were true...?

He looked hopelessly at the man, who sat smoking quietly and waiting.

And then again another thought, previously ignored, pierced him like a sword. If it were true; if Amy herself, poor pretty Amy, had indeed been there, were indeed near him now, hammering and crying out like a child shut out at night, against his own skeptical heart ... if it were indeed true that during those two hours she had had her heart’s desire, and had been one with his very soul, in a manner to which no earthly union could aspire ... how had he treated her? Even at this thought a shudder of repulsion ran through him.... It was unnatural, detestable ... yet how sweet...! What did the Church say of such things...? But what if religion were wrong, and this indeed were the satiety of the higher nature of which marriage was but the material expression...?

The thoughts flew swifter than clouds as he sat there, bewildering, torturing, beckoning. He made a violent effort. He must be sane, and face things.

“Mr. Vincent,” he cried.

The kindly face turned to him again.

“Mr. Vincent....”

“Hush, I quite understand,” said the fatherly voice. “It is a shock, I know; but Truth is a little shocking sometimes. Wait. I perfectly understand that you must have time. You must think it all over, and verify this. You must not commit yourself. But I think you had better have my address. The ladies are a little too emotional, are they not? I expect you would sooner come to see me without them.”

He laid his card on the little tea-table and stood up.

“Good-night, Mr. Baxter.”

Laurie took his hand, and looked for a moment into the kind eyes. Then the man was gone.

II

That was a little while ago, now, and Laurie sitting over breakfast had had time to think it out, and by an act of sustained will to suspend his judgment.

He had come back again to the state I have described—to nervous interest—no more than that. The terror seemed gone, and certainly the skepticism seemed gone too. Now he had to face Maggie and his mother, and to see the grave....

Somehow he had become more accustomed to the idea that there might be real and solid truth under it all, and familiarity had bred ease. Yet there was nervousness there too at the thought of going home. There were moods in which, sitting or walking alone, he passionately desired it all to be true; other moods in which he was acquiescent; but in both there was a faint discomfort in the thought of meeting Maggie, and a certain instinct of propitiation towards her. Maggie had begun to stand for him as a kind of embodiment of a view of life which was sane, wholesome, and curiously attractive; there was a largeness about her, a strength, a sense of fresh air that was delightful. It was that kind of thing, he thought, that had attracted him to her during this past summer. The image of Amy, on the other hand, more than ever now since those recent associations, stood for something quite contrary—certainly for attractiveness, but of a feverish and vivid kind, extraordinarily unlike the other. To express it in terms of time, he thought of Maggie in the morning, and of Amy in the evening, particularly after dinner. Maggie was cool and sunny; Amy suited better the evening fever and artificial light.

And now Maggie had to be faced.

First he reflected that he had not breathed a hint, either to her or his mother, as to what had passed. They both would believe that he had dropped all this. There would then be no arguing, that at least was a comfort. But there was a curious sense of isolation and division between him and the girl.

Yet, after all, he asked himself indignantly, what affair was it of hers? She was not his confessor; she was just a convent-bred girl who couldn’t understand. He would be aloof and polite. That was the attitude. And he would manage his own affairs.

He drew a few brisk draughts of smoke from his pipe and stood up. That was settled.

It was in this determined mood then that he stepped out on to the platform at the close of this wintry day, and saw Maggie, radiant in furs, waiting for him, with her back to the orange sunset.

These two did not kiss one another. It was thought better not. But he took her hand with a pleasant sense of welcome and home-coming.

“Auntie’s in the brougham,” she said. “There’s lots of room for the luggage on the top.... Oh! Laurie, how jolly this is!”

It was a pleasant two-mile drive that they had. Laurie sat with his back to the horses. His mother patted his knee once or twice under the fur rug, and looked at him with benevolent pleasure. It seemed at first a very delightful home-coming. Mrs. Baxter asked after Mr. Morton, Laurie’s coach, with proper deference.

But places have as strong a power of retaining associations as persons, and even as they turned down into the hamlet Laurie was aware that this was particularly true just now. He carefully did not glance out at Mr. Nugent’s shop, but it was of no use. The whole place was as full to him of the memory of Amy—and more than the memory, it seemed—as if she was still alive. They drew up at the very gate where he had whispered her name; the end of the yew walk, where he had sat on a certain night, showed beyond the house; and half a mile behind lay the meadows, darkling now, where he had first met her face to face in the sunset, and the sluice of the stream where they had stood together silent. And all was like a landscape seen through colored paper by a child, it was of the uniform tint of death and sorrow.

Laurie was rather quiet all that evening. His mother noticed it, and it produced a remark from her that for an instant brought his heart into his mouth.

“You look a little peaked, dearest,” she said, as she took her bedroom candlestick from him. “You haven’t been thinking any more about that Spiritualism?”

He handed a candlestick to Maggie, avoiding her eyes.

“Oh, for a bit,” he said lightly, “but I haven’t touched the thing for over two months.”

He said it so well that even Maggie was reassured. She had just hesitated for a fraction of a second to hear his answer, and she went to bed well content.

Her contentment was even deeper next morning when Laurie, calling to her through the cheerful frosty air, made her stop at the turning to the village on her way to church.

“I’m coming,” he said virtuously; “I haven’t been on a weekday for ages.”

They talked of this and that for the half-mile before them. At the church door she hesitated again.

“Laurie, I wish you’d come to the Protestant churchyard with me for a moment afterwards, will you?”

He paled so suddenly that she was startled.

“Why?” he said shortly.

“I want you to see something.”

He looked at her still for an instant with an incomprehensible expression. Then he nodded with set lips.

When she came out he was waiting for her. She determined to say something of regret.

“Laurie, I’m dreadfully sorry if I shouldn’t have said that.... I was stupid.... But perhaps—”

“What is it you want me to see?” he said without the faintest expression in his voice.

“Just some flowers,” she said. “You don’t mind, do you?”

She saw him trembling a little.

“Was that all?”

“Why yes.... What else could it be?”

They went on a few steps without another word. At the church gate he spoke again.

“Its awfully good of you, Maggie ... I ... I’m rather upset still, you know; that’s all.”

He hurried, a little in front of her, over the frosty grass beyond the church; and she saw him looking at the grave very earnestly as she came up. He said nothing for a moment.

“I’m afraid the monument’s rather ... rather awful.... Do you like the flowers, Laurie?”

She was noticing that the chrysanthemums were a little blackened by the frost; and hardly attended to the fact that he did not answer.

“Do you like the flowers?” she said again presently.

He started from his prolonged stare downwards.

“Oh yes, yes,” he said; “they’re ... they’re lovely.... Maggie, the grave’s all right, isn’t it: the mound, I mean?”

At first she hardly understood.

“Oh yes ... what do you mean?”

He sighed, whether in relief or not she did not know.

“Only ... only I have heard of mounds sinking sometimes, or cracking at the sides. But this one—”

“Oh yes,” interrupted the girl. “But this was very bad yesterday.... What’s the matter, Laurie?”

He had turned his face with some suddenness, and there was in it a look of such terror that she herself was frightened.

“What were you saying, Maggie?”

“It was nothing of any importance,” said the girl hurriedly. “It wasn’t in the least disfigured, if that—”

“Maggie, will you please tell me exactly in what condition this grave was yesterday? When was it put right?”

“I ... I noticed it when I brought the chrysanthemums up yesterday morning. The ground was sunk a little, and cracks were showing at the sides. I told the sexton to put it right. He seems to have done it.... Laurie, why do you look like that?”

He was staring at her with an expression that might have meant anything. She would not have been surprised if he had burst into a fit of laughter. It was horrible and unnatural.

“Laurie! Laurie! Don’t look like that!”

He turned suddenly away and left her. She hurried after him.

On the way to the house he told her the whole story from beginning to end.

III

The two were sitting together in the little smoking-room at the back of the house on the last night of Laurie’s holidays. He was to go back to town next morning.

Maggie had passed a thoroughly miserable week. She had had to keep her promise not to tell Mrs. Baxter—not that that lady would have been of much service, but the very telling would be a relief—and things really were not serious enough to justify her telling Father Mahon.

To her the misery lay, not in any belief she had that the spiritualistic claim was true, but that the boy could be so horribly excited by it. She had gone over the arguments again and again with him, approving heartily of his suggestions as to the earlier part of the story, and suggesting herself what seemed to her the most sensible explanation of the final detail. Graves did sink, she said, in two cases out of three, and Laurie was as aware of that as herself. Why in the world should not this then be attributed to the same subconscious mind as that which, in the hypnotic sleep—or whatever it was—had given voice to the rest of his imaginations? Laurie had shaken his head. Now they were at it once more. Mrs. Baxter had gone to bed half an hour before.

“It’s too wickedly grotesque,” she said indignantly. “You can’t seriously believe that poor Amy’s soul entered into your mind for an hour and a half in Lady Laura’s drawing-room. Why, what’s purgatory, then, or heaven? It’s so utterly and ridiculously impossible that I can’t speak of it with patience.”

Laurie smiled at her rather wearily and contemptuously.

“The point,” he said, “is this: Which is the simplest hypothesis? You and I both believe that the soul is somewhere; and it’s natural, isn’t it, that she should want—oh! dash it all! Maggie, I think you should remember that she was in love with me—as well as I with her,” he added.

Maggie made a tiny mental note.

“I don’t deny for an instant that it’s a very odd story,” she said. “But this kind of explanation is just—oh, I can’t speak of it. You allowed yourself that up to this last thing you didn’t really believe it; and now because of this coincidence the whole thing’s turned upside down. Laurie, I wish you’d be reasonable.”

Laurie glanced at her.

She was sitting with her back to the curtained and shuttered window, beyond which lay the yew-walk; and the lamplight from the tall stand fell full upon her. She was dressed in some rich darkish material, her breast veiled in filmy white stuff, and her round, strong arms lay, bare to the elbow, along the arms of her chair. She was a very pleasant wholesome sight. But her face was troubled, and her great serene eyes were not so serene as usual. He was astonished at the persistence with which she attacked him. Her whole personality seemed thrown into her eyes and gestures and quick words.

“Maggie,” he said, “please listen. I’ve told you again and again that I’m not actually convinced. What you say is just conceivably possible. But it doesn’t seem to me to be the most natural explanation. The most natural seems to me to be what I have said; and you’re quite right in saying that it’s this last thing that has made the difference. It’s exactly like the grain that turns the whole bottle into solid salt. It needed that.... But, as I’ve said, I can’t be actually and finally convinced until I’ve seen more. I’m going to see more. I wrote to Mr. Vincent this morning.”

“You did?” cried the girl.

“Don’t be silly, please.... Yes, I did. I told him I’d be at his service when I came back to London. Not to have done that would have been cowardly and absurd. I owe him that.”

“Laurie, I wish you wouldn’t,” said the girl pleadingly.

He sat up a little, disturbed by this very unusual air of hers.

“But if it’s all such nonsense,” he said, “what’s there to be afraid of?”

“It’s—it’s morbid,” said Maggie, “morbid and horrible. Of course it’s nonsense; but it’s—it’s wicked nonsense.”

Laurie flushed a little.

“You’re polite,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said penitently. “But you know, really—”

The boy suddenly blazed up a little.

“You seem to think I’ve got no heart,” he cried. “Suppose it was true—suppose really and truly Amy was here, and—”

A sudden clear sharp sound like the crack of a whip sounded from the corner of the room. Even Maggie started and glanced at the boy. He was dead white on the instant; his lips were trembling.

“What was that?” he whispered sharp and loud.

“Just the woodwork,” she said tranquilly; “the thaw has set in tonight.”

Laurie looked at her; his lips still moved nervously.

“But—but—” he began.

“Dear boy, don’t you see the state of nerves—”

Again came the little sharp crack, and she stopped. For an instant she was disturbed; certain possibilities opened before her, and she regarded them. Then she crushed them down, impatiently and half timorously. She stood up abruptly.

“I’m going to bed,” she said. “This is too ridiculous—”

“No, no; don’t leave me ... Maggie ... I don’t like it.”

She sat down again, wondering at his childishness, and yet conscious that her own nerves, too, were ever so slightly on edge. She would not look at him, for fear that the meeting of eyes might hint at more than she meant. She threw her head back on her chair and remained looking at the ceiling. But to think that the souls of the dead—ah, how repulsive!

Outside the night was very still.

The hard frost had kept the world iron-bound in a sprinkle of snow during the last two or three days, but this afternoon the thaw had begun. Twice during dinner there had come the thud of masses of snow falling from the roof on to the lawn outside, and the clear sparkle of the candles had seemed a little dim and hazy. “It would be a comfort to get at the garden again,” she had reflected.

And now that the two sat here in the windless silence the thaw became more apparent every instant. The silence was profound, and the little noises of the night outside, the drip from the eaves slow and deliberate, the rustle of released leaves, and even the gentle thud on the lawn from the yew branches—all these helped to emphasize the stillness. It was not like the murmur of day; it was rather like the gnawing of a mouse in the wainscot of some death chamber.

It requires almost superhumanly strong nerves to sit at night, after a conversation of this kind, opposite an apparently reasonable person who is white and twitching with terror, even though one resolutely refrains from looking at him, without being slightly affected. One may argue with oneself to any extent, tap one’s foot cheerfully on the floor, fill the mind most painstakingly with normal thoughts; yet it is something of a conflict, however victorious one may be.

Even Maggie herself became aware of this.

It was not that now for one single moment she allowed that the two little sudden noises in the room could possibly proceed from any cause whatever except that which she had stated—the relaxation of stiffened wood under the influence of the thaw. Nor had all Laurie’s arguments prevailed to shake in the smallest degree her resolute conviction that there was nothing whatever preternatural in his certainly queer story.

Yet, as she sat there in the lamplight, with Laurie speechless before her, and the great curtained window behind, she became conscious of an uneasiness that she could not entirely repel. It was just physical, she said; it was the result of the change of weather; or, at the most, it was the silence that had now fallen and the proximity of a terrified boy.

She looked across at him again.

He was lying back in the old green arm-chair, his eyes rather shadowed from the lamp overhead, quite still and quiet, his hands still clasping the lion bosses of his chair-arms. Beside him, on the little table, lay his still smoldering cigarette-end in the silver tray....

Maggie suddenly sprang to her feet, slipped round the table, and caught him by the arm.

“Laurie, Laurie, wake up.... What’s the matter?”

A long shudder passed through him. He sat up, with a bewildered look.

“Eh? What is it?” he said. “Was I asleep?”

He rubbed his hands over his eyes and looked round.

“What is it, Maggie? Was I asleep?”

Was the boy acting? Surely it was good acting! Maggie threw herself down on her knees by the chair.

“Laurie! Laurie! I beg you not to go to see Mr. Vincent. It’s bad for you.... I do wish you wouldn’t.”

He still blinked at her a moment.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean, Maggie?”

She stood up, ashamed of her impulsiveness.

“Only I wish you wouldn’t go and see that man. Laurie, please don’t.”

He stood up too, stretching. Every sign of nervousness seemed gone.

“Not see Mr. Vincent? Nonsense; of course I shall. You don’t understand, Maggie.”

Chapter VII

I

“What a relief,” sighed Mrs. Stapleton. “I thought we had lost him.”

The three were sitting once again in Lady Laura’s drawing-room soon after lunch. Mr. Vincent had just looked in with Laurie’s note to give the news. It was a heavy fog outside, woolly in texture and orange in color, and the tall windows seemed opaque in the lamplight; the room, by contrast, appeared a safe and pleasant refuge from the reek and stinging vapor of the street.

Mrs. Stapleton had been lunching with her friend. The Colonel had returned for Christmas, so his wife’s duties had recalled her for the present from those spiritual conversations which she had enjoyed in the autumn. It was such a refreshment, she had said with a patient smile, to slip away sometimes into the purer atmosphere.

Mr. Vincent folded the letter and restored it to his pocket.

“We must be careful with him,” he said. “He is extraordinarily sensitive. I almost wish he were not so developed. Temperaments like his are apt to be thrown off their balance.”

Lady Laura was silent.

For herself she was not perfectly happy. She had lately come across one or two rather deplorable cases. A very promising girl, daughter of a publican in the suburbs, had developed the same kind of powers, and the end of it all had been rather a dreadful scene in Baker Street. She was now in an asylum. A friend of her own, too, had lately taken to lecturing against Christianity in rather painful terms. Lady Laura wondered why people could not be as well balanced as herself.

“I think he had better not come to the public séances at present,” went on the medium. “That, no doubt, will come later; but I was going to ask a great favor from you, Lady Laura.”

She looked up.

“That bother about the rooms is not yet settled, and the Sunday séances will have to cease for the present. I wonder if you would let us come here, just a few of us only, for three or four Sundays, at any rate.”

She brightened up.

“Why, it would be the greatest pleasure,” she said. “But what about the cabinet?”

“If necessary, I would send one across. Will you allow me to make arrangements?”

Mrs. Stapleton beamed.

“What a privilege!” she said. “Dearest, I quite envy you. I am afraid dear Tom would never consent—”

“There are just one or two things on my mind,” went on Mr. Vincent so pleasantly that the interruption seemed almost a compliment, “and the first is this. I want him to see for himself. Of course, for ourselves, his trance is the point; but hardly for him. He is tremendously impressed; I can see that; though he pretends not to be. But I should like him to see something unmistakable as soon as possible. We must prevent his going into trance, if possible.... And the next thing is his religion.”

“Catholics are supposed not to come,” observed Mrs. Stapleton.

“Just so.... Mr. Baxter is a convert, isn’t he...? I thought so.”

He mused for a moment or two.

The ladies had never seen him so interested in an amateur. Usually his manner was remarkable for its detachment and severe assurance; but it seemed that this case excited even him. Lady Laura was filled again with sudden compunction.

“Mr. Vincent,” she said, “do you really think there is no danger for this boy?”

He glanced up at her.

“There is always danger,” he said. “We know that well enough. We can but take precautions. But pioneers always have to risk something.”

She was not reassured.

“But I mean special danger. He is extraordinarily sensitive, you know. There was that girl from Surbiton....”

“Oh! she was exceptionally hysterical. Mr. Baxter’s not like that. I do not see that he runs any greater risk than we run ourselves.”

“You are sure of that?”

He smiled deprecatingly.

“I am sure of nothing,” he said. “But if you feel you would sooner not—”

Mrs. Stapleton rustled excitedly, and Lady Laura grabbed at her retreating opportunity.

“No, no,” she cried. “I didn’t mean that for one moment. Please, please come here. I only wondered whether there was any particular precaution—”

“I will think about it,” said the medium. “But I am sure we must be careful not to shock him. Of course, we don’t all take the same view about religion; but we can leave that for the present. The point is that Mr. Baxter should, if possible, see something unmistakable. The rest can take care of itself.... Then, if you consent, Lady Laura, we might have a little sitting here next Sunday night. Would nine o’clock suit you?”

He glanced at the two ladies.

“That will do very well,” said the mistress of the house. “And, about preparations—”

“I will look in on Saturday afternoon. Is there anyone particular you think of asking?”

“Mr. Jamieson came to see me again a few days ago,” suggested Lady Laura tentatively.

“That will do very well. Then we three and those two. That will be quite enough for the present.”

He stood up—a big, dominating figure—a reassuring man to look at, with his kindly face, his bushy, square beard, and his appearance of physical strength. Lady Laura sat vaguely comforted.

“And about my notes,” asked Maud Stapleton.

“I think they will not be necessary.... Good-day.... Saturday afternoon.”

The two sat on silently for a minute or two after he was gone.

“What is the matter, dearest?”

Lady Laura’s little anxious face did not move. She was staring thoughtfully at the fire. Mrs. Stapleton laid a sympathetic hand on the other’s knee.

“Dearest—” she began.

“No; it is nothing, darling,” said Lady Laura.

Meanwhile the medium was picking his way through the foggy streets. Figures loomed up, sudden and enormous, and vanished again. Smoky flares of flame shone like spots of painted fire, bright and unpenetrating, from windows overhead; and sounds came to him through the woolly atmosphere, dulled and sonorous. It would, so to speak, have been a suitably dramatic setting for his thoughts if he had been thinking in character, vaguely suggestive of presences and hints and peeps into the unknown.

But he was a very practical man. His spiritualistic faith was a reality to him, as unexciting as Christianity to the normal Christian; he entertained no manner of doubt as to its truth.

Beyond all the fraud, the self-deception, the amazing feats of the subconscious self, there remained certain facts beyond doubting—facts which required, he believed, an objective explanation, which none but the spiritualistic thesis offered. He had far more evidence, he considered sincerely enough, for his spiritualism than most Christians for their Christianity.

He had no very definite theory as to the spiritual world beyond thinking that it was rather like this world. For him it was peopled with individualities of various characters and temperaments, of various grades and achievements; and of these a certain number had the power of communicating under great difficulties with persons on this side who were capable of receiving such communications. That there were dangers connected with this process, he was well aware; he had seen often enough the moral sense vanish and the mental powers decay. But these were to him no more than the honorable wounds to which all who struggle are liable. The point for him was that here lay the one certain means of getting into touch with reality. Certainly that reality was sometimes of a disconcerting nature, and seldom of an illuminating one; he hated, as much as anyone, the tambourine business, except so far as it was essential; and he deplored the fact that, as he believed, it was often the most degraded and the least satisfactory of the inhabitants of the other world that most easily got into touch with the inhabitants of this. Yet, for him, the main tenets of spiritualism were as the bones of the universe; it was the only religion which seemed to him in the least worthy of serious attention.

He had not practiced as a medium for longer than ten or a dozen years. He had discovered, by chance as he thought, that he possessed mediumistic powers in an unusual degree, and had begun then to take up the life as a profession. He had suffered, so far as he was aware, no ill effects from this life, though he had seen others suffer; and, as his fame grew, his income grew with it.

It is necessary, then, to understand that he was not a conscious charlatan; he loathed mechanical tricks such as he occasionally came across; he was perfectly and serenely convinced that the powers which he possessed were genuine, and that the personages he seemed to come across in his mediumistic efforts were what they professed to be; that they were not hallucinatory, that they were not the products of fraud, that they were not necessarily evil. He regarded this religion as he regarded science; both were progressive, both liable to error, both capable of abuse. Yet as a scientist did not shrink from experiment for fear of risk, neither must the spiritualist.

As he picked his way to his lodgings on the north of the park, he was thinking about Laurie Baxter. That this boy possessed in an unusual degree what he would have called “occult powers” was very evident to him. That these powers involved a certain risk was evident too. He proposed, therefore, to take all reasonable precautions. All the catastrophes he had witnessed in the past were due, he thought, to a too rapid development of those powers, or to inexperience. He determined, therefore, to go slowly.

First, the boy must be convinced; next, he must be attached to the cause; thirdly, his religion must be knocked out of him; fourthly, he must be trained and developed. But for the present he must not be allowed to go into trance if it could be prevented. It was plain, he thought, that Laurie had a very strong “affinity,” as he would have said, with the disembodied spirit of a certain “Amy Nugent.” His communication with her had been of a very startling nature in its rapidity and perfection. Real progress might be made, then, through this channel.

Yes; I am aware that this sounds grotesque nonsense.

II

Laurie came back to town in a condition of interior quietness that rather astonished him. He had said to Maggie that he was not convinced; and that was true so far as he knew. Intellectually, the spiritualistic theory was at present only the hypothesis that seemed the most reasonable; yet morally he was as convinced of its truth as of anything in the world. And this showed itself by the quietness in which he found his soul plunged.

Moral conviction—that conviction on which a man acts—does not always coincide with the intellectual process. Occasionally it outruns it; occasionally lags behind; and the first sign of its arrival is the cessation of strain. The intellect may still be busy, arranging, sorting, and classifying; but the thing itself is done, and the soul leans back.

A certain amount of excitement made itself felt when he found Mr. Vincent’s letter waiting for his arrival to congratulate him on his decision, and to beg him to be at Queen’s Gate not later than half-past eight o’clock on the following Sunday; but it was not more than momentary. He knew the thing to be inevitably true now; the time and place at which it manifested itself was not supremely important.

Yes, he wrote in answer; he would certainly keep the appointment suggested.

He dined out at a restaurant, returned to his rooms, and sat down to arrange his ideas.

These, to be frank, were not very many, nor very profound.

He had already, in the days that had passed since his shock, no lighter because expected, when he had learned from Maggie that the test was fulfilled, and that a fact known to no one present, not even himself, in Queen’s Gate, had been communicated through his lips—since that time the idea had become familiar that the veil between this world and the next was a very thin one. After all, a large number of persons in the world believe that, as it is; and they are not, in consequence, in a continuous state of exaltation. Laurie had learned this, he thought, experimentally. Very well, then, that was so; there was no more to be said.

Next, the excitement of the thought of communicating with Amy in particular had to a large extent burned itself out. It was nearly four months since her death; and in his very heart of hearts he was beginning to be aware that she had not been so entirely his twin-soul as he would still have maintained. He had reflected a little, in the meantime, upon the grocer’s shop, the dissenting tea-parties, the odor of cheeses. Certainly these things could not destroy an “affinity” if the affinity were robust; but it would need to be....

He was still very tender towards the thought of her; she had gained too, inevitably, by dying, a dignity she had lacked while living, and it might well be that intercourse with her in the manner proposed would be an extraordinarily sweet experience. But he was no longer excited—passionately and overwhelmingly—by the prospect. It would be delightful? Yes. But....

Then Laurie began to look at his religion, and at that view he stopped dead. He had no ideas at all on the subject; he had not a notion where he stood. All he knew was that it had become uninteresting. True? Oh, yes, he supposed so. He retained it still as many retain faith in the supernatural—a reserve that could be drawn upon in extremities.

He had not yet missed hearing Mass on Sunday; in fact, he proposed to go even next Sunday. “A man must have a religion,” he said to himself; and, intellectually, there was at present no other possible religion for him except the Catholic. Yet as he looked into the future he was doubtful.

He drew himself up in his chair and began to fill his pipe.... In three days he would be seated in a room with three or four persons, he supposed. Of these, two—and certainly the two strongest characters—had no religion except that supplied by spiritualism, and he had read enough to know this was, at any rate in the long run, non-Christian. And these three or four persons, moreover, believed with their whole hearts that they were in relations with the invisible world, far more evident and sensible than those claimed by any other believers on the face of the earth. And, after all, Laurie reflected, there seemed to be justice in their claim. He would be seated in that room, he repeated to himself, and it might be that before he left it he would have seen with his own eyes, and possibly handled, living persons who had, in the common phrase, “died” and been buried. Almost certainly, at the very least, he would have received from such intelligences unmistakable messages....

He was astonished that he was not more excited. He asked himself again whether he really believed it; he compared his belief in it with his belief in the existence of New Zealand. Yes, if that were belief, he had it. But the excitement of doubt was gone, as no doubt it was gone when New Zealand became a geographical expression.

He was astonished at its naturalness—at the extraordinary manner in which, when once the evidence had been seen and the point of view grasped, the whole thing fell into place. It seemed to him as if he must have known it all his life; yet, he knew, six months ago he had hardly known more than that there were upon the face of the earth persons called Spiritualists, who believed, or pretended to believe, what he then was quite sure was fantastic nonsense. And now he was, to all intents, one of them....

He was being drawn forward, it seemed, by a process as inevitable as that of spring or autumn; and, once he had yielded to it, the conflict and the excitement were over. Certainly this made very few demands. Christianity said that those were blessed who had not seen and yet believed; Spiritualism said that the only reasonable belief was that which followed seeing.

So then Laurie sat and meditated.

Once or twice that evening he looked round him tranquilly without a touch of that terror that had seized him in the smoking-room at home.

If all this were true—and he repeated to himself that he knew it was true—these presences were about him now, so why was it that he was no longer frightened?

He looked carefully into the dark corner behind him, beyond the low jutting bookshelf, in the angle between the curtained windows, at his piano, glossy and mysterious in the gloom, at the door half-open into his bedroom. All was quiet here, shut off from the hum of Fleet Street; circumstances were propitious. Why was he not frightened...? Why, what was there to frighten him? These presences were natural and normal; even as a Catholic he believed in them. And if they manifested themselves, what was there to fear in that?

He looked steadily and serenely; and as he looked, like the kindling of a fire, there rose within him a sense of strange exaltation.

“Amy,” he whispered.

But there was no movement or hint.

Laurie smiled a little, wearily. He felt tired; he would sleep a little. He beat out his pipe, crossed his feet before the fire, and closed his eyes.

III

There followed that smooth rush into gulfs of sleep that provides perhaps the most exquisite physical sensation known to man, as the veils fall thicker and softer every instant, and the consciousness gathers itself inwards from hands and feet and limbs, like a dog curling himself up for rest; yet retains itself in continuous being, and is able to regard its own comfort. All this he remembered perfectly half an hour later; but there followed in his memory that inevitable gap in which self loses itself before emerging into the phantom land of dreams, or returning to reality.

But that into which he emerged, he remembered afterwards, was a different realm altogether from that which is usual—from that country of grotesque fancy and jumbled thoughts, of thin shadows of truth and echoes from the common world where most of us find ourselves in sleep.

His dream was as follows:—

He was still in his room, he thought, but no longer in his chair. Instead, he stood in the very center of the floor, or at least poised somewhere above it, for he could see at a glance, without turning, all that the room contained. He directed his attention—for it was this, rather than sight, through which he perceived—to the piano, the chiffonier, the chairs, the two doors, the curtained windows; and finally, with scarcely even a touch of surprise, to himself still sunk in the chair before the fire. He regarded himself with pleased interest, remembering even in that instant that he had never before seen himself with closed eyes....

All in the room was extraordinarily vivid and clear-cut. It was true that the firelight still wavered and sank again in billows of soft color about the shadowed walls, but the changing light was no more an interruption to the action of that steady medium through which he perceived than the movement of summer clouds across the full sunlight. It was at that moment that he understood that he saw no longer with eyes, but with that faculty of perception to which sight is only analogous—that faculty which underlies and is common to all the senses alike.

His reasoning powers, too, at this moment, seemed to have gone from him like a husk. He did not argue or deduce; simply he understood. And, in a flash, simultaneous with the whole vision, he perceived that he was behind all the slow processes of the world, by which this is added to that, and a conclusion drawn; by which light travels, and sounds resolve themselves and emotions run their course. He had reached, he thought, the ultimate secret.... It was This that lay behind everything.

Now it is impossible to set down, except progressively, all this sum of experiences that occupied for him one interminable instant. Neither did he remember afterwards the order in which they presented themselves; for it seemed to him that there was no order; all was simultaneous.

But he understood plainly by intuition that all was open to him. Space no longer existed for him; nothing, to his perception, separated this from that. He was able, he saw, without stirring from his attitude to see in an instant any place or person towards which he chose to exercise his attention. It seemed a marvelously simple point, this—that space was little more than an illusion; that it was, after all, nothing else but a translation into rather coarse terms of what may be called “differences.” “Here” and “There” were but relative terms; certainly they corresponded to facts, but they were not those facts themselves.... And since he now stood behind them he saw them on their inner side, as a man standing in the interior of a globe may be said to be equally present to every point upon its surface.

The fascination of the thought was enormous; and, like a child who begins to take notice and to learn the laws of extension and distance, so he began to learn their reverse. He saw, he thought (as he had seen once before, only, this time, without the sense of movement), the interior of the lighted drawing room at home, and his mother nodding in her chair; he directed his attention to Maggie, and perceived her passing across the landing toward the head of the stairs with a candle in her hand. It was this sight that brought him to a further discovery, to the effect that time also was of very nearly no importance either; for he perceived that by bending his attention upon her he could restrain her, so to speak, in her movement. There she stood, one foot outstretched, the candle flame leaning motionless backward; and he knew too that it was not she who was thus restrained, but that it was the intensity and directness of his thought that fixed, so to say, in terms of eternity, that instant of time....

So it went on; or, rather, so it was with him. He pleased himself by contemplating the London streets outside, the darkness of the garden in some square, the interior of the Oratory where a few figures kneeled—all seen beyond the movements of light and shadow in this clear invisible radiance that was to his perception as common light to common eyes. The world of which he had had experience—for he found himself unable to see that which he had never experienced—lay before his will like a movable map: this or that person or place had but to be desired, and it was present.

And then came the return; and the Horror....

He began in this way.

He understood that he wished to awake, or, rather, to be reunited with the body that lay there in deep sleep before the fire. He observed it for a moment or two, interested and pleased, the face sunk a little on the hand, the feet lightly crossed on the fender. He looked at his own profile, the straight nose, the parted lips through which the breath came evenly. He attempted even to touch the face, wondering with gentle pleasure what would be the result....

Then, suddenly, an impulse came to him to enter the body, and with the impulse the process, it seemed, began.

That process was not unlike that of falling asleep. In an instant perception was gone; the lighted room was gone, and that obedient world which he had contemplated just now. Yet self-consciousness for a while remained; he still had the power of perceiving his own personality, though this dwindled every moment down to that same gulf of nothingness through which he had found his way.

But at the very instant in which consciousness was passing there met him an emotion so fierce and overwhelming that he recoiled in terror back from the body once more and earth-perceptions; and a panic seized him.

It was such a panic as seizes a child who, fearfully courageous, has stolen at night from his room, and turning in half-simulated terror finds the door fast against him, or is aware of a malignant presence come suddenly into being, standing between himself and the safety of his own bed.

On the one side his fear drove him onwards; on the other a Horror faced him. He dared not recoil, for he understood where security lay; he longed, like the child screaming in the dark and beating his hands, to get back to the warmth and safety of bed; yet there stood before him a Presence, or at the least an Emotion of some kind, so hostile, so terrible, that he dared not penetrate it. It was not that an actual restraint lay upon him: he knew, that is, that the door was open; yet it needed an effort of the will of which his paralysis of terror rendered him incapable....

The tension became intolerable.

“O God ... God ... God....” he cried.

And in an instant the threshold was vacated; the swift rush asserted itself, and the space was passed.

Laurie sat up abruptly in his chair.

IV

Mr. Vincent was beginning to think about going to bed. He had come in an hour before, had written half a dozen letters, and was smoking peacefully before the fire.

His rooms were not remarkable in any way, except for half a dozen objects standing on the second shelf of his bookcase, and the selection of literature ranged below them. For the rest, all was commonplace enough; a mahogany knee-hold table, a couple of easy chairs, much worn, and a long, extremely comfortable sofa standing by itself against the wall with evident signs, in its tumbled cushions and rubbed fabric, of continual and frequent use. A second door gave entrance to his bedroom.

He beat out his pipe slowly, yawned, and stood up.

It was at this instant that he heard the sudden tinkle of the electric bell in the lobby outside, and, wondering at the interruption at this hour, went quickly out and opened the door on to the stairs.

“Mr. Baxter! Come in, come in; I’m delighted to see you.”

Laurie came in without a word, went straight up to the fire-place, and faced about.

“I’m not going to apologize,” he said, “for coming at this time. You told me to come and see you at any time, and I’ve taken you at your word.”

The young man had an odd embarrassed manner, thought the other; an air of having come in spite of uneasiness; he was almost shamefaced.

The medium impelled him gently into a chair.

“First a cigarette,” he said; “next a little whisky, and then I shall be delighted to listen.... No; please do as I say.”

Laurie permitted himself to be managed; there was a strong, almost paternal air in the other’s manner that was difficult to resist. He lit his cigarette, he sipped his whisky; but his movements were nervously quick.

“Well, then....” and he interrupted himself. “What are those things, Mr. Vincent?” He nodded towards the second shelf in the bookcase.

Mr. Vincent turned on the hearthrug.

“Those? Oh! those are a few rather elementary instruments for my work.”

He lifted down a crystal ball on a small black polished wooden stand and handed it over.

“You have heard of crystal-gazing? Well, that is the article.”

“Is that crystal?”

“Oh no: common glass. Price three shillings and sixpence.”

Laurie turned it over, letting the shining globe run on to his hand.

“And this is—” he began.

“And this,” said the medium, setting a curious windmill-shaped affair, its sails lined with looking-glass, on the little table by the fire, “this is a French toy. Very elementary.”

“What’s that?”

“Look.”

Mr. Vincent wound a small handle at the back of the windmill to a sound of clockwork, set it down again, and released it. Instantly the sails began to revolve, noiseless and swift, producing the effect of a rapidly flashing circle of light across which span lines, waxing and waning with extraordinary speed.

“What the—”

“It’s a little machine for inducing sleep. Oh! I haven’t used that for months. But it’s useful sometimes. The hypnotic subject just stares at that steadily.... Why, you’re looking dazed yourself, already, Mr. Baxter,” smiled the medium.

He stopped the mechanism and pushed it on one side.

“And what’s the other?” asked Laurie, looking again at the shelf.

“Ah!”

The medium, with quite a different air, took down and set before him an object resembling a tiny heart-shaped table on three wheeled legs, perhaps four or five inches across. Through the center ran a pencil perpendicularly of which the point just touched the tablecloth on which the thing rested. Laurie looked at it, and glanced up.

“Yes, that’s Planchette,” said the medium.

“For ... for automatic writing?”

The other nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “The experimenter puts his fingers lightly upon that, and there’s a sheet of paper beneath. That is all.”

Laurie looked at him, half curiously. Then with a sudden movement he stood up.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you. But—”

“Please sit down, Mr. Baxter.... I know you haven’t come about that kind of thing. Will you kindly tell me what you have come about?”

He, too, sat down, and, without looking at the other, began slowly to fill his pipe again, with his strong capable fingers. Laurie stared at the process, unseeing.

“Just tell me simply,” said the medium again, still without looking at him.

Laurie threw himself back.

“Well, I will,” he said. “I know it’s absurdly childish; but I’m a little frightened. It’s about a dream.”

“That’s not necessarily childish.”

“It’s a dream I had tonight—in my chair after dinner.”

“Well?”

Then Laurie began.

For about ten minutes he talked without ceasing. Mr. Vincent smoked tranquilly, putting what seemed to Laurie quite unimportant questions now and again, and nodding gently from time to time.

“And I’m frightened,” ended Laurie; “and I want you to tell me what it all means.”

The other drew a long inhalation through his pipe, expelled it, and leaned back.

“Oh, it’s comparatively common,” he said; “common, that is, with people of your temperament, Mr. Baxter—and mine.... You tell me that it was prayer that enabled you to get through at the end? That is interesting.”

“But—but—was it more than fancy—more, I mean, than an ordinary dream?”

“Oh, yes; it was objective. It was a real experience.”

“You mean—”

“Mr. Baxter, just listen to me for a minute or two. You can ask any questions you like at the end. First, you are a Catholic, you told me; you believe, that is to say, among other things, that the spiritual world is a real thing, always present more or less. Well, of course, I agree with you; though I do not agree with you altogether as to the geography and—and other details of that world. But you believe, I take it, that this world is continually with us—that this room, so to speak, is a great deal more than that of which our senses tell us that there are with us, now and always, a multitude of influences, good, bad, and indifferent, really present to our spirits?”

“I suppose so,” said Laurie.

“Now begin again. There are two kinds of dreams. I am just stating my own belief, Mr. Baxter. You can make what comments you like afterwards. The one kind of dream is entirely unimportant; it is merely a hash, a réchauffée, of our own thoughts, in which little things that we have experienced reappear in a hopeless sort of confusion. It is the kind of dream that we forget altogether, generally, five minutes after waking, if not before. But there is another kind of dream that we do not forget. It leaves as vivid an impression upon us as if it were a waking experience—an actual incident. And that is exactly what it is.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Have you ever heard of the subliminal consciousness, Mr. Baxter?”

“No.”

The medium smiled.

“That is fortunate,” he said. “It’s being run to death just now.... Well, I’ll put it in an untechnical way. There is a part of us, is there not, that lies below our ordinary waking thoughts—that part of us in which our dreams reside, our habits take shape, our instincts, intuitions, and all the rest, are generated. Well, in ordinary dreams, when we are asleep, it is this part that is active. The pot boils, so to speak, all by itself, uncontrolled by reason. A madman is a man in whom this part is supreme in his waking life as well. Well, it is through this part of us that we communicate with the spiritual world. There are, let us say, two doors in it—that which leads up to our senses, through which come down our waking experiences to be stored up; and—and the other door....”

“Yes?”

The medium hesitated.

“Well,” he said, “in some natures—yours, for instance, Mr. Baxter—this door opens rather easily. It was through that door that you went, I think, in what you call your ‘dream.’ You yourself said it was quite unlike ordinary dreams.”

“Yes.”

“And I am the more sure that this is so, since your experience is exactly that of so many others under the same circumstances.”

Laurie moved uncomfortably in his chair.

“I don’t quite understand,” he said sharply. “You mean it was not a dream?”

“Certainly not. At least, not a dream in the ordinary sense. It was an actual experience.”

“But—but I was asleep.”

“Certainly. That is one of the usual conditions—an almost indispensable condition, in fact. The objective self—I mean the ordinary workaday faculties—was lulled; and your subjective self—call it what you like—but it is your real self, the essential self that survives death—this self, simply went through the inner door, and—and saw what was to be seen.”

Laurie looked at him intently. But there was a touch of apprehension in his face, too.

“You mean,” he said slowly, “that—that all I saw—the limitations of space, and so forth—that these were facts and not fancies?”

“Certainly. Doesn’t your theology hint at something of the kind?”

Laurie was silent. He had no idea of what his theology told him on the point.

“But why should I—I of all people—have such an experience?” he asked suddenly.

The medium smiled.

“Who can tell that?” he said. “Why should one man be an artist, and another not? It is a matter of temperament. You see you’ve begun to develop that temperament at last; and it’s a very marked one to begin with. As for—”

Laurie interrupted him.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “But there’s another point. What about that fear I had when I tried to—to awaken?”

There passed over the medium’s face a shade of gravity. It was no more than a shade, but it was there. He reached out rather quickly for his pipe which he had laid aside, and blew through it carefully before answering.

“That?” he said, with what seemed to the boy an affected carelessness. “That? Oh, that’s a common experience. Don’t think about that too much, Mr. Baxter. It’s never very healthy—”

“I am sorry,” said Laurie deliberately. “But I must ask you to tell me what you think. I must know what I’m doing.”

The medium filled his pipe again. Twice he began to speak, and checked himself; and in the long silence Laurie felt his fears gather upon him tenfold.

“Please tell me at once, Mr. Vincent,” he said. “Unless I know everything that is to be known, I will not go another step along this road. I really mean that.”

The medium paused in his pipe-filling.

“And what if I do tell you?” he said in his slow virile voice. “Are you sure you will not be turned back?”

“If it is a well-known danger, and can be avoided with prudence, I certainly shall not turn back.”

“Very well, Mr. Baxter, I will take you at your word.... Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘The Watcher on the Threshold’?”

Laurie shook his head.

“No,” he said. “At least I don’t think so.”

“Well,” said the medium quietly, “that is what we call the Fear you spoke of.... No; don’t interrupt. I’ll tell you all we know. It’s not very much.”

He paused again, stretched his hand for the matches, and took one out. Laurie watched him as if fascinated by the action.

Outside roared Oxford Street in one long rolling sound as of the sea; but within here was that quiet retired silence which the boy had noticed before in the same company. Was that fancy, too, he wondered...?

The medium lit his pipe and leaned back.

“I’ll tell you all we know,” he said again quietly. “It’s not very much. Really the phrase I used just now sums it up pretty well. We who have tried to get beyond this world of sense have become aware of certain facts of which the world generally knows nothing at all. One of these facts is that the door between this life and the other is guarded by a certain being of whom we know really nothing at all, except that his presence causes the most appalling fear in those who experience it. He is set there—God only knows why—and his main business seems to be to restrain, if possible, from re-entering the body those who have left it. Just occasionally his presence is perceived by those on this side, but not often. But I have been present at death-beds where he has been seen—”

“Seen?”

“Oh! yes. Seen by the dying person. It is usually only a glimpse; it might be said to be a mistake. For myself I believe that that appalling terror that now and then shows itself, even in people who do not fear death itself, who are perfectly resigned, who have nothing on their conscience,—well, personally, I believe the fear comes from a sight of this—this Personage.”

Laurie licked his dry lips. He told himself that he did not believe one word of it.

“And ... and he is evil?” he asked.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“Isn’t that a relative term?” he said. “From one point of view, certainly; but not necessarily from all.”

“And ... and what’s the good of it?”

The medium smiled a little.

“That’s a question we soon cease to ask. You must remember that we hardly know anything at all yet. But one thing seems more and more certain the more we investigate, and that is that our point of view is not the only one, nor even the principal one. Christianity, I fancy, says the same thing, does it not? The ‘glory of God,’ whatever that may be, comes before even the ‘salvation of souls.’”

Laurie wrenched his attention once more to a focus.

“Then I was in danger?” he said.

“Certainly. We are always in danger—”

“You mean, if I hadn’t prayed—”

“Ah! that is another question.... But, in short, if you hadn’t succeeded in getting past—well, you’d have failed.”

Again there fell a silence.

It seemed to Laurie as if his world were falling about him. Yet he was far from sure whether it were not all an illusion. But the extreme quietness and confidence of this man in enunciating these startling theories had their effect. It was practically impossible for the boy to sit here, still nervous from his experience, and hear, unmoved, this apparently reasonable and connected account of things that were certainly incomprehensible on any other hypothesis. His remembrance of the very startling uniqueness of his dream was still vivid.... Surely it all fitted in ... yet....

“But there is one thing,” broke in the medium’s quiet voice. “Should you ever experience this kind of thing again, I should recommend you not to pray. Just exercise your own individuality; assert yourself; don’t lean on another. You are quite strong enough.”

“You mean—”

“I mean exactly what I say. What is called Prayer is really an imaginative concession to weakness. Take the short cut, rather. Assert your own—your own individuality.”

Laurie changed his attitude. He uncrossed his feet and sat up a little.

“Oh! pray if you want to,” said the medium. “But you must remember, Mr. Baxter, that you are quite an exceptional person. I assure you that you have no conception of your own powers. I must say that I hope you will take the strong line.” He paused. “These séances, for instance. Now that you know a little more of the dangers, are you going to turn back?”

His overhung kindly eyes looked out keenly for an instant at the boy’s restless face.

“I don’t know,” said Laurie; “I must think....”

He got up.

“Look here, Mr. Vincent,” he said, “it seems to me you’re extraordinarily—er—extraordinarily plausible. But I’m even now not quite sure whether I’m not going mad. It’s like a perfectly mad dream—all these things one on the top of the other.”

He paused, looking sharply at the elder man, and away again.

“Yes?”

Laurie began to finger a pencil that lay on the chimney-shelf.

“You see what I mean, don’t you?” he said. “I’m not disputing—er—your point of view, nor your sincerity. But I do wish you would give me another proof or two.”

“You haven’t had enough?”

“Oh! I suppose I have—if I were reasonable. But, you know, it all seems to me as if you suddenly demonstrated to me that twice two made five.”

“But then, surely no proof—”

“Yes; I know. I quite see that. Yet I want one—something quite absolutely ordinary. If you can do all these things—spirits and all the rest—can’t you do something ever so much simpler, that’s beyond mistake?”

“Oh, I daresay. But wouldn’t you ask yet another after that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Or wouldn’t you think you’d been hypnotized?”

Laurie shook his head.

“I’m not a fool,” he said.

“Then give me that pencil,” said the medium, suddenly extending his hand.

Laurie stared a moment. Then he handed over the pencil.

On the little table by the arm-chair, a couple of feet from Laurie, stood the whisky apparatus and a box of cigarettes. These the medium, without moving from his chair, lifted off and set on the floor beside him, leaving the woven-grass surface of the table entirely bare. He then laid the pencil gently in the center—all without a word. Laurie watched him carefully.

“Now kindly do not speak one word or make one movement,” said the man peremptorily. “Wait! You’re perfectly sure you’re not hypnotized, or any other nonsense?”

“Certainly not.”

“Just go round the room, look out of the window, poke the fire—anything you like.”

“I’m satisfied,” said the boy.

“Very good. Then kindly watch that pencil.”

The medium leaned a little forward in his chair, bending his eyes steadily upon the little wooden cylinder lying, like any other pencil, on the top of the table. Laurie glanced once at him, then back again. There it lay, common and ordinary.

For at least a minute nothing happened at all, except that from the intentness of the elder man there seemed once more to radiate out that curious air of silence that Laurie was beginning to know so well—that silence that seemed impenetrable to the common sounds of the world and to exist altogether independent of them. Once and again he glanced round at the ordinary-looking room, the curtained windows, the dull furniture; and the second time he looked back at the pencil he was almost certain that some movement had just taken place with it. He resolutely fixed his eyes upon it, bending every faculty he possessed into one tense attitude of attention. And a moment later he could not resist a sudden movement and a swift indrawing of breath; for there, before his very eyes, the pencil tilted, very hesitatingly and quiveringly, as if pulled by a spider’s thread. He heard, too, the tiny tap of its fall.

He glanced at the medium, who jerked his head impatiently, as if for silence. Then once more the silence came down.

A minute later there was no longer the possibility of a doubt.

There before the boy’s eyes, as he stared, white-faced, with parted lips, the pencil rose, hesitated, quivered; but, instead of falling back again, hung so for a moment on its point, forming with itself an acute angle with the plane of the table in an entirely impossible position; then, once more rising higher, swung on its point in a quarter circle, and after one more pause and quiver, rose to its full height, remained poised one instant, then fell with a sudden movement, rolled across the table and dropped on the carpet.

The medium leaned back, drawing a long breath.

“There,” he said; and smiled at the bewildered young man.

“But—but—” began the other.

“Yes, I know,” said the man. “It’s startling, isn’t it? and indeed it’s not as easy as it looks. I wasn’t at all sure—”

“But, good Lord, I saw—”

“Of course you did; but how do you know you weren’t hypnotized?”

Laurie sat down suddenly, unconscious that he had done so. The medium put out his hand for his pipe once more.

“Now, I’m going to be quite honest,” he said. “I have quite a quantity of comments to make on that. First, it doesn’t prove anything whatever, even if it really happened—”

“Even if it—!”

“Certainly.... Oh, yes; I saw it too; and there’s the pencil on the floor”—he stooped and picked it up.

“But what if we were both hypnotized—both acted upon by self-suggestion? We can’t prove we weren’t.”

Laurie was dumb.

“Secondly, it doesn’t prove anything, in any case, as regards the other matters we were speaking of. It only shows—if it really happened, as I say—that the mind has extraordinary control over matter. It hasn’t anything to do with immortality, or—or spiritualism.”

“Then why did you do it?” gasped the boy.

“Merely fireworks ... only to show off. People are convinced by such queer things.”

Laurie sat regarding, still with an unusual pallor in his face and brightness in his eyes. He could not in the last degree put into words why it was that the tiny incident of the pencil affected him so profoundly. Vaguely, only, he perceived that it was all connected somehow with the ordinariness of the accessories, and more impressive therefore than all the paraphernalia of planchette, spinning mirrors, or even his own dreams.

He stood up again suddenly.

“It’s no good, Mr. Vincent,” he said, putting out his hand, “I’m knocked over. I can’t imagine why. It’s no use talking now. I must think. Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Baxter,” said the medium serenely.

Chapter VIII

I

“Her ladyship told me to show you in here, sir,” said the footman at half-past eight on Sunday evening.

Laurie put down his hat, slipped off his coat, and went into the dining room.

The table was still littered with dessert-plates and napkins. Two people had dined there he observed. He went round to the fire, wondering vaguely as to why he had not been shown upstairs, and stood, warming his hands behind him, and looking at the pleasant gloom of the high picture-hung walls.

In spite of himself he felt slightly more excited than he had thought he would be; it was one thing to be philosophical at a prospect of three days’ distance; and another when the gates of death actually rise in sight. He wondered in what mood he would see his own rooms again. Then he yawned slightly—and was a little pleased that it was natural to yawn.

There was a rustle outside; the door opened, and Lady Laura slipped in.

“Forgive me, Mr. Baxter,” she said. “I wanted to have just a word with you first. Please sit down a moment.”

She seemed a little anxious and upset, thought Laurie, as he sat down and looked at her in her evening dress with the emblematic chain more apparent than ever. Her frizzed hair sat as usual on the top of her head, and her pince-nez glimmered at him across the hearthrug like the eyes of a cat.

“It is this,” she said hurriedly. “I felt I must just speak to you. I wasn’t sure whether you quite realized the ... the dangers of all this. I didn’t want you to ... to run any risks in my house. I should feel responsible, you know.”

She laughed nervously.

“Risks? Would you mind explaining?” said Laurie.

“There ... there are always risks, you know.”

“What sort?”

“Oh ... you know ... nerves, and so on. I ... I have seen people very much upset at séances, more than once.”

Laurie smiled.

“I don’t think you need be afraid, Lady Laura. It’s awfully kind of you; but, do you know, I’m ashamed to say that, if anything, I’m rather bored.”

The pince-nez gleamed.

“But—but don’t you believe it? I thought Mr. Vincent said—”

“Oh yes, I believe it; but, you know, it seems to me so natural now. Even if nothing happens tonight, I don’t think I shall believe it any the less.”

She was silent an instant.

“You know there are other risks,” she said suddenly.

“What? Are things thrown about?”

“Please don’t laugh at it, Mr. Baxter. I am quite serious.”

“Well—what kind do you mean?”

Again she paused.

“It’s very awful,” she said; “but, you know, people’s nerves do break down entirely sometimes, even though they’re not in the least afraid. I saw a case once—”

She stopped.

“Yes?”

“It—it was a very awful case. A girl—a sensitive—broke down altogether under the strain. She’s in an asylum.”

“I don’t think that’s likely for me,” said Laurie, with a touch of humor in his voice. “And, after all, you run these risks, don’t you—and Mrs. Stapleton?”

“Yes; but you see we’re not sensitives. And even I—”

“Yes?”

“Well, even I feel sometimes rather overcome.... Mr. Baxter, do you quite realize what it all means?”

“I think so. To tell the truth—”

He stopped.

“Yes; but the thing itself is really overwhelming.... There’s—there’s an extraordinary power sometimes. You know I was with Maud Stapleton when she saw her father—”

She stopped again.

“Yes?”

“I saw him too, you know.... Oh! there was no possibility of fraud. It was with Mr. Vincent. It—it was rather terrible.”

“Yes?”

“Maud fainted.... Please don’t tell her I told you, Mr. Baxter; she wouldn’t like you to know that. And then other things happen sometimes which aren’t nice. Do you think me a great coward? I—I think I’ve got a fit of nerves tonight.”

Laurie could see that she was trembling.

“I think you’re very kind,” he said, “to take the trouble to tell me all this. But indeed I was quite ready to be startled. I quite understand what you mean—but—”

“Mr. Baxter, you can’t understand unless you’ve experienced it. And, you know, the other day here you knew nothing at all: you were not conscious. Now tonight you’re to keep awake; Mr. Vincent’s going to arrange to do what he can about that. And—and I don’t quite like it.”

“Why, what on earth can happen?” asked Laurie, bewildered.

“Mr. Baxter, I suppose you realize that it’s you that they—whoever they are—are interested in? There’s no kind of doubt that you’ll be the center tonight. And I did just want you to understand fully that there are risks. I shouldn’t like to think—”

Laurie stood up.

“I understand perfectly,” he said. “Certainly, I always knew there were risks. I hold myself responsible, and no one else. Is that quite clear?”

The wire of the front-door bell suddenly twitched in the hall, and a peal came up the stairs.

“He’s come,” said the other. “Come upstairs, Mr. Baxter. Please don’t say a word of what I’ve said.”

She hurried out, and he after her, as the footman came up from the lower regions.

The drawing-room presented an unusual appearance to Laurie as he came in. All the small furniture had been moved away to the side where the windows looked into the street, and formed there what looked like an amateur barricade. In the center of the room, immediately below the electric light, stood a solid small round table with four chairs set round it as if for Bridge. There was on the side further from the street a kind of ante-room communicating with the main room by a high, wide archway nearly as large as the room to which it gave access; and within this, full in sight, stood a curious erection, not unlike a confessional, seated within for one, roofed, walled, and floored with thin wood. The front of this was open, but screened partly by two curtains that seemed to hang from a rod within. The rest of the little extra room was entirely empty except for the piano that stood closed in the corner.

There were two persons standing rather disconsolately on the vacant hearthrug—Mrs. Stapleton and the clergyman whom Laurie had met on his last visit here. Mr. Jamieson wore an expression usually associated with funerals, and Mrs. Stapleton’s face was full of suppressed excitement.

“Dearest, what a time you’ve been! Was that Mr. Vincent?”

“I think so,” said Lady Laura.

The two men nodded to one another, and an instant later the medium came in.

He was in evening clothes; and, more than ever, Laurie thought how average and conventional he looked. His manner was not in the least pontifical, and he shook hands cordially and naturally, but gave one quick glance of approval at Laurie.

“It struck me as extraordinarily cold,” he said. “I see you have an excellent fire.” And he stooped, rubbing his hands together to warm them.

“We must screen that presently,” he said.

Then he stood up again.

“There’s no use in wasting time. May I say a word first, Lady Laura?”

She nodded, looking at him almost apprehensively.

“First, I must ask you gentlemen to give me your word on a certain point. I have not an idea how things will go, or whether we shall get any results; but we are going to attempt materialization. Probably, in any case, this will not go very far; we may not be able to do more than to see some figure or face. But in any case, I want you two gentlemen to give me your word that you will attempt no violence. Anything in the nature of seizing the figure may have very disastrous results indeed to myself. You understand that what you will see, if you see anything, will not be actual flesh or blood; it will be formed of a certain matter of which we understand very little at present, but which is at any rate intimately connected with myself or with someone present. Really we know no more of it than that. We are all of us inquirers equally. Now will you gentlemen give me your words of honor that you will obey me in this; and that in all other matters you will follow the directions of ...” (he glanced at the two ladies)—”of Mrs. Stapleton, and do nothing without her consent?”

He spoke in a brisk, matter-of-fact way, and looked keenly from face to face of the two men as he ended.

“I give you my word,” said Laurie.

“Yes; just so,” said Mr. Jamieson.

“Now there is one matter more,” went on the medium. “Mr. Baxter, you are aware that you are a sensitive of a very high order. Now I do not wish you to pass into trance tonight. Kindly keep your attention fixed upon me steadily. Watch me closely: you will be able to see me quite well enough, as I shall explain presently. Mrs. Stapleton will sit with her back to the fire. Lady Laura opposite, Mr. Jamieson with his back to the cabinet, and you, Mr. Baxter, facing it. (Yes, Mr. Jamieson, you may turn round freely, so long as you keep your hands upon the table.) Now, if you feel anything resembling sleep or unconsciousness coming upon you irresistibly, Mr. Baxter, I wish you just lightly to tap Mrs. Stapleton’s hand. She will then, if necessary, break up the circle. Give the signal directly you feel the sensation is really coming on, or if you find it very difficult to keep your attention fixed. You will do this?”

“I will do it,” said Laurie.

“Then that is really all.”

He moved a step away from the fire. Then he paused.

“By the way, I may as well just tell you our methods. I shall take my place within the cabinet, drawing the curtains partly across at the top so as to shade my face. But you will be able to see the whole of my body, and probably even my face as well. You four will please to sit at the table in the order I have indicated, with your hands resting upon it. You will not speak unless you are spoken to, or until Mrs. Stapleton gives the signal. That is all. You then wait. Now it may be ten minutes, half an hour, an hour—anything up to two hours before anything happens. If there is no result, Mrs. Stapleton will break up the circle at eleven o’clock, and awaken me if necessary.”

He broke off.

“Kindly just examine the cabinet and the whole room first, gentlemen. We mediums must protect ourselves.”

He smiled genially and nodded to the two.

Laurie went straight across the open floor to the cabinet. It was raised on four feet, about twelve inches from the ground. Heavy green curtains hung from a bar within. Laurie took these, and ran them to and fro; then he went into the cabinet. It was entirely empty except for a single board that formed the seat. As he came out he encountered the awestruck face of the clergyman who had followed him in dead silence, and now went into the cabinet after him. Laurie passed round behind: the little room was empty except for the piano at the back, and two low bookshelves on either side of the fireless hearth. The window looking presumably into the garden was shuttered from top to bottom, and barred, and the curtains were drawn back so that it could be seen. A cat could not have hidden in the place. It was all perfectly satisfactory.

He came back to where the others were standing silent, and the clergyman followed him.

“You are satisfied, gentlemen?” said the medium, smiling.

“Perfectly,” said Laurie, and the clergyman bowed.

“Well, then,” said the other, “it is close upon nine.”

He indicated the chairs, and himself went past towards the cabinet, his heavy step making the room vibrate as he went. As he came near the door, he fumbled with the button, and all the lights but one went out.

The four sat down. Laurie watched Mr. Vincent step up into the cabinet, jerk the curtains this way and that, and at last sit easily back, in such a way that his face could be seen in a kind of twilight, and the rest of his body perfectly visible.

Then silence came down upon the room.

II

The cat of the next house decided to go a-walking after an excellent supper of herring-heads. He had an appointment with a friend. So he cleaned himself carefully on the landing outside the pantry, evaded a couple of caresses from the young footman lately come from the country, and finally leapt on the window-sill, and sat there regarding the back garden, the smoky wall beyond seen in the light of the pantry window, and the chimney-pots high and forbidding against the luminous night sky. His tail moved with a soft ominous sinuousness as he looked.

Presently he climbed cautiously out beneath the sash, gathered himself for a spring, and the next instant was seated on the boundary wall between his own house and that of Lady Laura’s.

Here again he paused. That which served him for a mind, that mysterious bundle of intuitions and instincts by which he reckoned time, exchanged confidences, and arranged experiences, informed him that the night was yet young, and that his friend would not yet be arrived. He sat there so still and so long, that if it had not been for his resolute head and the blunt spires of his ears, he would have appeared to an onlooker below as no more than a humpy finial on an otherwise regularly built wall. Now and again the last inch of his tail twitched slightly, like an independent member, as he contemplated his thoughts.

Overhead the last glimmer of day was utterly gone, and in the place of it the mysterious glow of night over a city hung high and luminous. He, a town-bred cat, descended from generations of town-bred cats, listened passively to the gentle roar of traffic that stood, to him, for the running of brooks and the sighing of forest trees. It was to him the auditory background of adventure, romance, and bitter war.

The energy of life ran strong in his veins and sinews. Once and again as that, which was for him imaginative vision and anticipation, asserted itself, he crisped his strong claws into the crumbling mortar, shooting them, by an unconscious muscular action, from the padded sheaths in which they lay. Once a furious yapping sounded from a lighted window far beneath; but he scorned to do more than turn a slow head in the direction of it: then once more he resumed his watch.

The time came at last, conveyed to him as surely as by a punctual clock, and he rose noiselessly to his feet. Then again he paused, and stretched first one strong foreleg and then the other to its furthest reach, shooting again his claws, conscious with a faint sense of well-being of those tightly-strung muscles rippling beneath his loose striped skin. They would be in action presently. And, as he did so, there looked over the parapet six feet above him, at the top of the trellis up which presently he would ascend, another resolute little head and blunt-spired cars, and a soft indescribable voice spoke a gentle insult. It was his friend ... and, he knew well enough, on some high ridge in the background squatted a young female beauty, with flattened ears and waving tail, awaiting the caresses of the victor.

As he saw the head above him, to human eyes a shapeless silhouette, to his eyes a grey-penciled picture perfect in all its details, he paused in his stretching. Then he sat back, arranged his tail, and lifted his head to answer. The cry that came from him, not yet fortissimo, sounded in human ears beneath no more than a soft broken-hearted wail, but to him who sat above it surpassed in insolence even his own carefully modulated offensiveness.

Again the other answered, this time lifting himself to his full height, sending a message along the nerves of his back that prickled his own skin and passed out along the tail with an exquisite ripple of movement. And once more came the answer from below.

So the preliminary challenge went on. Already in the voice of each there had begun to show itself that faint note of hysteria that culminates presently in a scream of anger and a torrent of spits, leading again in their turn to an ominous silence and the first fierce clawing blows at eyes and ears. In another instant the watcher above would recoil for a moment as the swift rush was made up the trellis, and then the battle would be joined: but that instant never came. There fell a sudden silence; and he, peering down into the grey gloom, chin on paws, and tail twitching eighteen inches behind, saw an astonishing sight. His adversary had broken off in the midst of a long crescendo cry, and was himself crouched flat upon the narrow wall staring now not upwards, but downwards, diagonally, at a certain curtained window eight feet below.

This was all very unusual and contrary to precedent. A dog, a human hand armed with a missile, a furious minatory face—these things were not present to account for the breach of etiquette. Vaguely he perceived this, conscious only of inexplicability; but he himself also ceased, and watched for developments.

Very slowly they came at first. That crouching body beneath was motionless now; even the tail had ceased to twitch and hung limply behind, dripping over the edge of the narrow wall into the unfathomable pit of the garden; and as the watcher stared, he felt himself some communication of the horror so apparent in the other’s attitude. Along his own spine, from neck to flank, ran the paralyzing nervous movement; his own tail ceased to move; his own ears drew back instinctively, flattening themselves at the sides of the square strong head. There was a movement near by, and he turned quick eyes to see the lithe young love of his heart stepping softly into her place beside him. When he turned again his adversary had vanished.

Yet he still watched. Still there was no sound from the window at which the other had stared just now: no oblong of light shone out into the darkness to explain that sudden withdrawal from the fray.

All was as silent as it had been just now; on all sides windows were closed; now and then came a human voice, just a word or two, spoken and answered from one of those pits beneath, and the steady rumble of traffic went on far away across the roofs; but here, in the immediate neighborhood, all was at peace. He knew well enough the window in question; he had leapt himself upon the sill once and again and seen the foodless waste of floor and carpet and furniture within.

Yet as he watched and waited his own horror grew. That for which in men we have as yet no term was strong within him, as in every beast that lives by perception rather than reason; and he too by this strange faculty knew well enough that something was abroad, raying out from that silent curtained unseen window—something of an utterly different order from that of dog or flung shoe and furious vituperation—something that affected certain nerves within his body in a new and awful manner. Once or twice in his life he had been conscious of it before, once in an empty room, once in a room tenanted by a mere outline beneath a sheet and closed by a locked door.

His heart too seemed melted within him; his tail too hung limply behind the stucco parapet, and he made no answering movement to the tiny crooning note that sounded once in his ears.

And still the horror grew....

Presently he withdrew one claw from the crumbling edge, raising his head delicately; and then the other. For an instant longer he waited, feeling his back heave uncontrollably. Then, dropping noiselessly on to the lead, he fled beneath the sheltering parapet, a noiseless shadow in the gloom; and his mate fled with him.

Chapter IX

I

Laurie turned slowly over in bed, drew a long breath, expelled it, and, releasing his arms from the bed-clothes, sat up. He switched on the light by his bed, glanced at his watch, switched off the light, and sank down again into the sheets. He need not get up just yet.

Then he remembered.

When an event of an entirely new order comes into experience, it takes a little time to be assimilated. It is as when a large piece of furniture is brought into a room; all the rest of the furniture takes upon itself a different value. A picture that did very well up to then over the fire-place must perhaps be moved. Values, relations, and balance all require readjustment.

Now up to last night Laurie had indeed been convinced, in one sense, of spiritualistic phenomena; but they had not yet for him reached the point of significance when they affected everything else. The new sideboard, so to speak, had been brought into the room, but it had been put temporarily against the wall in a vacant space to be looked at; the owner of the room had not yet realized the necessity of rearranging the whole. But last night something had happened that changed all this. He was now beginning to perceive the need of a complete review of everything.

As he lay there, quiet indeed, but startlingly alert, he first reviewed the single fact.

About an hour or so had passed away before anything particular happened. They had sat there, those four, in complete silence, their hands upon the table, occasionally shifting a little, hearing the sound of one another’s breathing or the faint rustle of one of the ladies’ dresses, in sufficient light from the screened fire and the single heavily shaded electric burner to recognize faces, and even, after the first few minutes, to distinguish small objects, or to read large print.

For the most part Laurie had kept his eyes upon the medium in the cabinet. There the man had leaned back, plainly visible for the most part, with even the paleness of his face and the dark blot of his beard clearly discernible in the twilight. Now and then the boy’s eyes had wandered to the other faces, to the young clergyman’s opposite downcast and motionless, with a sort of apprehensive look and a determination not to give way—to the three-quarter profiles of the two women, and the gleam of the pince-nez below Lady Laura’s frizzed hair.

So he had sat, the thoughts at first racing through his brain, then, as time went on, moving more and more slowly, with his own brain becoming ever more passive, until at last he had been compelled to make a little effort against the drowsiness that had begun to envelop him. He had had to do this altogether three or four times, and had even begun to wonder whether he should be able to resist much longer, when a sudden trembling of the table had awakened him, alert and conscious in a moment, and he had sat with every faculty violently attentive to what should follow.

That trembling was a curious sensation beneath his hands. At first it was no more than might be caused by the passing of a heavy van in the street; only there was no van. But it had increased, with spasms and recoils, till it resembled a continuous shudder as of a living rigid body. It began also to tilt slightly this way and that.

Now all this, Laurie knew well, meant nothing at all—or rather, it need not. And when the movement passed again through all the reverse motions, sinking at last into complete stillness, he was conscious of disappointment. A moment later, however, as he glanced up again at the medium in the cabinet, he drew his breath sharply, and Mr. Jamieson, at the sound, wheeled his head swiftly to look.

There, in the cabinet, somewhere overhead behind the curtain, a faint but perfectly distinct radiance was visible. It was no more than a diffused glimmer, but it was unmistakable, and it shone out faintly and clearly upon the medium’s face. By its light Laurie could make out every line and every feature, the drooping clipped moustache, the strong jutting nose, the lines from nostril to mouth, and the closed eyes. As he watched the light deepened in intensity, seeming to concentrate itself in the hidden corner at the top. Then, with a smooth, steady motion it emerged into full sight, in appearance like a softly luminous globe of a pale bluish color, undefined at the edges, floating steadily forward with a motion like that of an air balloon, out into the room. Once outside the cabinet it seemed to hesitate, hanging at about the height of a man’s head—then, after an instant, it retired once more, re-entered the cabinet, disappeared in the direction from which it had come, and once more died out.

Well, there it had been; there was no doubt about it.... And Laurie was unacquainted with any mechanism that could produce it.

The clergyman too had seemed affected. He had watched, with turned-back head, the phenomenon from beginning to end, and at the close, with a long indrawing of breath, had looked once at Laurie, licked his dry lips with a motion that was audible in that profound silence, and once more dropped his eyes. The ladies had been silent, and all but motionless throughout.

Well, the rest had happened comparatively quickly.

Once more, after the lapse of a few minutes, the radiance had begun to reform; but this time it had emerged almost immediately, diffused and misty like a nebula; had hung again before the cabinet, and then, with a strange, gently whirling motion, had seemed to arrange itself in lines and curves.

Gradually, as he stared at it, it had begun to take the shape and semblance of a head, swathed in drapery, with that same drapery, hanging, as it appeared in folds, dripping downwards to the ground, where it lost itself in vagueness. Then, as he still stared, conscious of nothing but the amazing fact, features appeared to be forming—first blots and lines as of shadow, finally eyes, nose, mouth, and chin as of a young girl....

A moment later there was no longer a doubt. It was the face of Amy Nugent that was looking at him, grave and steady—as when he had seen it in the moonlight above the sluice—and behind, seen half through the strange drapery, and half apart from it, a couple of feet behind, the face of the sleeping medium.

At that sight he had not moved nor spoken, it was enough that the fact was there. Every power he possessed was concentrated in the one effort of observation....

He heard from somewhere a gasping sigh, and there rose up between him and the face the figure of the clergyman, with his head turned back staring at the apparition, and one hand only on the table, yet with that hand so heavy upon it that the whole table shuddered with his shudder.

There was a movement on the left, and he heard a fierce feminine whisper—

“Sit down, sir; sit down this instant....”

When the clergyman had again sunk down into his seat with that same strong shudder, the luminous face was already incoherent; the features had relapsed again into blots and shadows, the drapery was absorbing itself upwards into the center from which it came. Once more the nebula trembled, moved backwards, and disappeared. The next instant the radiance went out, as if turned off by a switch. The medium groaned gently and awoke.

Well, that had ended it. Laurie scarcely remembered the talking that followed, the explanations, the apologies, the hardly concealed terror of the young clergyman. The medium had come out presently, dazed and confused. They had talked ... and so forth. Then Laurie had come home, still trying to assimilate the amazing fact, of which he said that it could make no difference—that he had seen with his own eyes the face of Amy Nugent four months after her death.

Now here he was in bed on the following morning, trying to assimilate it once more.

It seemed to him as if sleep had done its work—that the subconscious intelligence had been able to take the fact in—and that henceforth it was an established thing in his experience. He was not excited now, but he was intensely and overwhelmingly interested. There the thing was. Now what difference did it make?

First, he understood that it made an enormous difference to the value of the most ordinary things. It really was true—as true as tables and chairs—that there was a life after this, and that personality survived. Never again could he doubt that for one instant, even in the gloomiest mood. So long as a man walks by faith, by the acceptance of authority, human or Divine, there is always psychologically possible the assertion of self, the instinct that what one has not personally experienced may just conceivably be untrue. But when one has seen—so long as memory does not disappear—this agnostic instinct is an impossibility. Every single act therefore has a new significance. There is no venture about it any more; there is, indeed, very little opportunity for heroism. Once it is certain, by the evidence of the senses, that death is just an interlude, this life becomes merely part of a long process....

Now as to the conduct of that life—what of religion? And here, for a moment or two, Laurie was genuinely dismayed. For, as he looked at the Catholic religion, he perceived that the whole thing had changed. It no longer seemed august and dominant. As he contemplated himself as he had been at Mass on the previous morning, he seemed to have been rather absurd. Why all this trouble, all this energy, all these innumerable acts and efforts of faith? It was not that his religion seemed necessarily untrue; it was certainly possible for a man to hold simultaneously Catholic and spiritualistic beliefs; there had not been a hint last night against Christianity, and yet, in the face of this evidence of the senses, Catholicism seemed a very shadowy thing. It might well be true, as any philosophy may be true, but—did it matter very much? To be enthusiastic about it was the frenzy of an artist, who loves the portrait more than the original—and possibly a very misleading and inadequate portrait. Laurie had seen for himself the original last night; he had seen a disembodied soul in a garb assumed for the purpose of identification.... Did he need, then, a “religion?” Was not his experience all-sufficing....?

Then suddenly all speculation fled away in the presence of the personal element.

Three days ago he had contemplated the thought of Amy with comparative indifference. She had been to him lately little more than a “test case” of the spiritual world, clothed about with the memory of sentiment. Now once more she sprang into vivid vital life as a person. She was not lost; his relations with her were not just incidents of the past; they were as much bound up with the present as courtship has a continuity with married life. She existed—her very self—and communication was possible between them....

Laurie rolled over on to his back. The thought was violently overwhelming; there was a furious, absorbing fascination in it. The gulf had been bridged; it could be bridged again. Even if tales were true, it could be bridged far more securely yet. It was possible that the phantom he had seen could be brought yet more forward into the world of sense, that he could touch again with his very hand a tabernacle enclosing her soul. So far spiritualism had not failed him; why should he suspect it of failure in the future? It had been done before; it could, and should, be done again. Besides, there was the pencil incident....

He threw off the clothes and sprang out of bed. It was time to get up; time to begin again this fascinating, absorbingly interesting earthly life, which now had such enormous possibilities.

II

The rooms of Mr. James Morton were conveniently situated up four flights of stairs in one of those blocks of buildings, so mysterious to the layman, that lie not a very long way from Charing Cross. There is a silence always here as of college life, and the place is frequented by the same curious selections from the human race as haunt University courts. Here are to be seen cooks, aged and dignified men, errand-boys, and rather shabby old women.

The interior of the rooms, too, is not unlike that of an ordinary rather second-rate college; and Mr. James Morton’s taste did not redeem the chambers in which he sat. From roof to floor the particular apartment in which he sat was lined with bookshelves filled with unprepossessing volumes and large black tin boxes. A large table stood in the middle of the room, littered with papers, with bulwarks of the same kind of tin boxes rising at either end.

Mr. Morton himself was a square-built man of some forty years, clean-shaven, and rather pale and stout, with strongly marked features, a good loud voice, and the pleasant, brusque manners that befit a University and public school man who has taken seriously to business.

Laurie and he got on excellently together. The younger man had an admiration for the older, whose reputation as a rather distinguished barrister certainly deserved it, and was sufficiently in awe of him to pay attention to his directions in all matters connected with law. But they did not meet much on other planes. Laurie had asked the other down to Stantons once, and had dined with him three or four times in return. And there their acquaintance found its limitations.

This morning, however, the boy’s interested air, with its hints of suppressed excitement and his marked inattention to the books and papers which were his business, at last caused the older man to make a remark. It was in his best manner.

“What’s the matter, eh?” he suddenly shot at him, without prelude of any kind.

Laurie’s attention came back with a jump, and he flushed a little.

“Oh!—er—nothing particular,” he murmured. And he set himself down to his books again in silence, conscious of the watchful roving eye on the other side of the table.

About half-past twelve Mr. Morton shut his own book with a slap, leaned back, and began to fill his pipe.

“Nothing seems very important,” he said.

As the last uttered word had been spoken an hour previously, Laurie was bewildered, and looked it.

“It won’t do, Baxter,” went on the other. “You haven’t turned a page an hour this morning.”

Laurie smiled doubtfully, and leaned back too. Then he had a spasm of confidence.

“Yes. I’m rather upset this morning,” he said. “The fact is, last night...”

Mr. Morton waited.

“Well?” he said. “Oh! don’t tell if me you don’t want to.”

Laurie looked at him.

“I wonder what you’d say,” he said at last.

The other got up with an abrupt movement, pushed his books together, selected a hat, and put it on.

“I’m going to lunch,” he said. “Got to be in the Courts at two; and....”

“Oh! wait a minute,” said Laurie. “I think I want to tell you.”

“Well, make haste.” He stood, in attitude to go.

“What do you think of spiritualism?”

“Blasted rot,” said Mr. Morton. “Anything more I can do for you?”

“Do you know anything about it?”

“No. Don’t want to. Is that all?”

“Well, look here;” said Laurie.... “Oh! sit down for two minutes.”

Then he began. He described carefully his experiences of the night before, explaining so much as was necessary of antecedent events. The other during the course of it tilted his hat back, and half leaned, half sat against a side-table, watching the boy at first with a genial contempt, and finally with the same curious interest that one gives to a man with a new disease.

“Now, what d’you make of that?” ended Laurie, flushed and superb.

“D’you want to know?” came after a short silence.

Laurie nodded.

“What I said at the beginning, then.”

“What?”

“Blasted rot,” said Mr. Morton again.

Laurie frowned sharply, and affected to put his books together.

“Of course, if you take it like that,” he said. “But I don’t know what respect you can possibly have for any evidence, if....”

“My dear chap, that isn’t evidence. No evidence in the world could make me believe that the earth was upside down. These things don’t happen.”

“Then how do you explain...?”

“I don’t explain,” said Mr. Morton. “The thing’s simply not worth looking into. If you really saw that, you’re either mad or else there was a trick.... Now come along to lunch.”

“But I’m not the only one,” cried Laurie hotly.

“No, indeed you’re not.... Look here, Baxter, that sort of thing plays the devil with nerves. Just drop it once and for all. I knew a chap once who went in for all that. Well, the end was what everybody knew would happen....”

“Yes?” said Laurie.

“Went off his chump,” said the other briefly. “Nasty mess all over the floor. Now come to lunch.”

“Wait a second. You can’t argue from particulars to universals. Was he the only one you ever knew?”

The other paused a moment.

“No,” he said. “As it happens, he wasn’t. I knew another chap—he’s a solicitor.... Oh! by the way, he’s one of your people—a Catholic, I mean.”

“Well, what about him?” “Oh! he’s all right,” admitted Mr. Morton, with a grudging air. “But he gave it up and took to religion instead.”

“Yes? What’s his name?”

“Cathcart.”

He glanced up at the clock.

“Good Lord,” he said, “ten to one.”

Then he was gone.

Laurie was far too exalted to be much depressed by this counsel’s opinion; and had, indeed, several minutes of delightful meditation on the crass complacency of a clever man when taken off his ground. It was deplorable, he said to himself, that men should be so content with their limitations. But it was always the way, he reflected. To be a specialist in one point involved the pruning of all growth on every other. Here was Morton, almost in the front rank of his particular subject, and, besides, very far from being a bookworm; yet, when taken an inch out of his rut, he could do nothing but flounder. He wondered what Morton would make of these things if he saw them himself.

In the course of the afternoon Morton himself turned up again. The case had ended unexpectedly soon. Laurie waited till the closing of the shutters offered an opportunity for a break in the work, and once more returned to the charge.

“Morton,” he said, “I wish you’d come with me one day.”

The other looked up.

“Eh?”

“To see for yourself what I told you.”

Mr. Morton snorted abruptly.

“Lord!” he said, “I thought we’d done with that. No, thank you: Egyptian Hall’s all I need.”

Laurie sighed elaborately.

“Oh! of course, if you won’t face facts, one can’t expect....”

“Look here, Baxter,” said the other almost kindly, “I advise you to give this up. It plays the very devil with nerves, as I told you. Why, you’re as jumpy as a cat yourself. And it isn’t worth it. If there was anything in it, why it would be another thing; but....”

“I ... I wouldn’t give it up for all the world,” stammered Laurie in his zeal. “You simply don’t know what you’re talking about. Why ... why, I’m not a fool ... I know that. And do you think I’m ass enough to be taken in by a trick? And as if a trick could be played like that in a drawing-room! I tell you I examined every inch....”

“Look here,” said Morton, looking curiously at the boy—for there was something rather impressive about Laurie’s manner—”look here; you’d better see old Cathcart. Know him...? Well, I’ll introduce you any time. He’ll tell you another tale. Of course, I don’t believe all the rot he talks; but, at any rate, he’s sensible enough to have given it all up. Says he wouldn’t touch it with a pole. And he was rather a big bug at it in his time, I believe.”

Laurie sneered audibly.

“Got frightened, I suppose,” he said. “Of course, I know well enough that it’s rather startling—”

“My dear man, he was in the thick of it for ten years. I’ll acknowledge his stories are hair-raising, if one believed them; but then, you see—”

“What’s his address?”

Morton jerked his head towards the directories in the bookshelf.

“Find him there,” he said. “I’ll give you an introduction if you want it. Though, mind you, I think he talks as much rot as anyone—”

“What does he say?”

“Lord!—I don’t know. Some theory or other. But, at any rate, he’s given it up.”

Laurie pursed his lips.

“I daresay I’ll ask you some time,” he said. “Meanwhile—”

“Meanwhile, for the Lord’s sake, get on with that business you’ve got there.”

Mr. Morton was indeed, as Laurie had reflected, extraordinarily uninterested in things outside his beat; and his beat was not a very extended one. He was a quite admirable barrister, competent, alert, merciless and kindly at the proper times, and, while at his business, thought of hardly anything else at all. And when he was not at his business, he threw himself with equal zest into two or three other occupations—golf, dining out, and the collection of a particular kind of chairs. Beyond these things there was for him really nothing of value.

But, owing to circumstances, his beat had been further extended to include Laurie Baxter, whom he was beginning to like extremely. There was an air of romance about Laurie, a pleasant enthusiasm, excellent manners, and a rather delightful faculty of hero-worship. Mr. Morton himself, too, while possessing nothing even resembling a religion, was, like many other people, not altogether unattracted towards those who had, though he thought religiousness to be a sign of a slightly incompetent character; and he rather liked Laurie’s Catholicism, such as it was. It must be rather pleasant, he considered (when he considered it at all), to believe “all that,” as he would have said.

So this new phase of Laurie’s interested him far more than he would have allowed, so soon as he became aware that it was not merely superficial; and, indeed, Laurie’s constant return to the subject, as well as his air of enthusiastic conviction, soon convinced him that this was so.

Further, after a week or two, he became aware that the young man’s work was suffering; and he heard from his lips the expression of certain views that seemed to the elder man extremely unhealthy.

For example, on a Friday evening, not much afterwards, as Laurie was putting his books together, Mr. Morton asked him where he was going to spend the week-end.

“Stopping in town,” said the boy briefly.

“Oh! I’m going to my brother’s cottage. Care to come? Afraid there’s no Catholic church near.”

Laurie smiled.

“That wouldn’t deter me,” he said. “I’ve made up my mind—”

“Yes?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Laurie. “No—thanks awfully, but I’ve got to stop in town.”

“Lady Laura’s again?”

“Yes.”

“Same old game?”

Laurie sat down.

“Look here,” he said, “I know you don’t mean anything; but I wish you’d understand.”

“Well?”

The boy’s face flushed with sudden nervous enthusiasm.

“Do you understand,” he said, “that this is just everything to me? Do you know it’s beginning to seem to me just the only thing that matters? I’m quite aware that you think it all the most utter bunkum; but, you see, I know it’s true. And the whole thing is just like heaven opening.... Look here ... I didn’t tell you half the other day. The fact is, that I was just as much in love with this girl as—as a man could be. She died; and now—”

“Look here, what were you up to last Sunday?”

Laurie quieted a little.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.

“Have you done any more of that business?”

“What business?”

“Well—thinking you saw her—All right, seeing her, if you like.”

The boy shook his head.

“No. Vincent’s away in Ireland. We’ve been going on other lines.”

“Tell me; I swear I won’t laugh.”

“All right; I don’t care if you do.... Well, automatic handwriting.”

“What’s that?”

Laurie hesitated.

“Well, I go into trance, you see, and—”

“Good Lord, what next?”

“And then this girl writes through my hand,” said Laurie deliberately, “when I’m unconscious. See?”

“I see you’re a damned young fool,” said Morton seriously.

“But if it’s all rot, as you think?”

“Of course it’s all rot! Do you think I believe for one instant—” He broke off. “And so’s a nervous breakdown all rot, isn’t it, and D.T.? They aren’t real snakes, you know.”

Laurie smiled in a superior manner.

“And you’re getting yourself absorbed in all this—”

Laurie looked at him with a sudden flash of fanaticism.

“I tell you,” he said, “that it’s all the world to me. And so would it be to you, if—”

“Oh, Lord! don’t become Salvation Army.... Seen Cathcart yet?”

“No. I haven’t the least wish to see Cathcart.”

Morton rose, put his pens in the drawer, locked it; slid half a dozen papers into a black tin box, locked that too, and went towards his coat and hat, all in silence.

As he went out he turned on the threshold.

“When’s that man coming back from Ireland?” he said.

“Who? Vincent? Oh! another month yet. We’re going to have another try when he comes.”

“Try? What at?”

“Materialization,” said Laurie. “That’s to say—”

“I don’t want to know what the foul thing means.”

He still paused, looking hard at the boy. Then he sniffed.

“A young fool,” he said. “I repeat it.... Lock up when you come.... Good night.”

Chapter X

I

Mrs. Baxter possessed one of the two secrets of serenity. The other need not be specified; but hers arose from the most pleasant and most human form of narrow-mindedness. As has been said before, when things did not fit with her own scheme, either they were not things, but only fancies of somebody inconsiderable, or else she resolutely disregarded them. She had an opportunity of testing her serenity on one day early in February.

She rose as usual at a fixed hour—eight o’clock—and when she was ready knelt down at her prie-Dieu. This was quite an elaborate structure, far more elaborate than the devotions offered there. It was a very beautiful inlaid Florentine affair, and had a little shelf above it filled with a number of the little leather-bound books in which her soul delighted. She did not use these books very much; but she liked to see them there. It would not be decent to enter the sanctuary of Mrs. Baxter’s prayers; it is enough to say that they were not very long. Then she rose from her knees, left her large comfortable bedroom, redolent with soap and hot water, and came downstairs, a beautiful slender little figure in black lace veil and rich dress, through the sunlight of the staircase, into the dining-room.

There she took up her letters and packets. They were not exciting. There was an unimportant note from a friend, a couple of bills, and a Bon Marché catalogue; and she scrutinized these through her spectacles, sitting by the fire. When she had done she noticed a letter lying by Maggie’s place, directed in a masculine hand. An instant later Maggie came in herself, in her hat and furs, a charming picture, fresh from the winter sunlight and air, and kissed her.

While Mrs. Baxter poured out tea she addressed a remark or two to the girl, but only got back those vague inattentive murmurs that are the sign of a distracted mind; and, looking up presently with a sense of injury, noticed that Maggie was reading her letter with extraordinary diligence.

“My dear, I am speaking to you,” said Mrs. Baxter, with an air of slightly humorous dignity.

“Er—I am sorry,” murmured Maggie, and continued reading.

Mrs. Baxter put out her hand for the Bon Marché catalogue in order to drive home her sense of injury, and met Maggie’s eyes, suddenly raised to meet her own, with a curious strained look in them.

“Darling, what is the matter?”

Maggie still stared at her a moment, as if questioning both herself and the other, and finally handed the letter across with an abrupt movement.

“Read it,” she said.

It was rather a business to read it. It involved spectacles, a pushing aside of a plate, and a slight turning to catch the light. Mrs. Baxter read it, and handed it back, making three or four times the sound written as “Tut.”

“The tiresome boy!” she said querulously, but without alarm.

“What are we to do? You see, Mr. Morton thinks we ought to do something. He mentions a Mr. Cathcart.”

Mrs. Baxter reached out for the toast-rack.

“My dear, there’s nothing to be done. You know what Laurie is. It’ll only make him worse.”

Maggie looked at her uneasily.

“I wish we could do something,” she said.

“My dear, he’d have written to me—Mr. Morton, I mean—if Laurie had been really unwell. You see he only says he doesn’t attend to his work as he ought.”

Maggie took up the letter, put it carefully back into the envelope, and went on with breakfast. There was nothing more to be said just then.

But she was uneasy, and after breakfast went out into the garden, spud in hand, to think it all over, with the letter in her pocket.

Certainly the letter was not alarming per se, but per accidens—that is to say, taking into account who it was that had written, she was not so sure. She had met Mr. Morton but once, and had formed of him the kind of impression that a girl would form of such a man in the hours of a week-end—a brusque, ordinary kind of barrister without much imagination and a good deal of shrewd force. It was surely rather an extreme step for a man like this to write to a girl in such a condition of things, asking her to use her influence to dissuade Laurie from his present course of life. Plainly the man meant what he said; he had not written to Mrs. Baxter, as he explained in the letter, for fear of alarming her unduly, and, as he expressly said, there was nothing to be alarmed about. Yet he had written.

Maggie stopped at the lower end of the orchard path, took out the letter, and read the last three or four sentences again:

Please forgive me if you think it was unnecessary to write. Of course I have no doubt whatever that the whole thing is nothing but nonsense; but even nonsense can have a bad effect, and Mr. Baxter seems to me to be far too much wrapped up in it. I enclose the address of a friend of mine in case you would care to write to him on the subject. He was once a Spiritualist, and is now a devout Catholic. He takes a view of it that I do not take; but at any rate his advice could do no harm. You can trust him to be absolutely discreet.

Believe me,

Yours sincerely,

James Morton

It really was very odd and unconventional; and Mr. Morton had not seemed at all an odd or unconventional person. He mentioned, too, a particular date, February 25, as the date by which the medium would have returned, and some sort of further effort was going to be made; but he did not attempt to explain this, nor did Maggie understand it. It only seemed to her rather sinister and unpleasant.

She turned over the page, and there was the address he had mentioned—a Mr. Cathcart. Surely he did not expect her to write to this stranger....

She walked up and down with her spud for another half-hour before she could come to any conclusion. Certainly she agreed with Mr. James Morton that the whole thing was nonsense; yet, further, that this nonsense was capable of doing a good deal of harm to an excitable person. Besides, Laurie obviously had a bad conscience about it, or he would have mentioned it.

She caught sight of Mrs. Baxter presently through the thick hedge, walking with her dainty, dignified step along the paths of the kitchen garden; and a certain impatience seized her at the sight. This boy’s mother was so annoyingly serene. Surely it was her business, rather than Maggie’s own, to look after Laurie; yet the girl knew perfectly well that if Laurie was left to his mother nothing at all would be done. Mrs. Baxter would deplore it all, of course, gently and tranquilly, in Laurie’s absence, and would, perhaps, if she were hard pressed, utter a feeble protest even in his presence; and that was absolutely all....

“Maggie! Maggie!” came the gentle old voice, calling presently; and then to some unseen person, “Have you seen Miss Deronnais anywhere?”

Maggie put the letter in her pocket and hurried through from the orchard.

“Yes?” she said, with a half hope.

“Come in, my dear, and tell me what you think of those new teacups in the Bon Marché catalogue,” said the old lady. “There seem some beautiful new designs, and we want another set.”

Maggie bowed to the inevitable. But as they passed up the garden her resolution was precipitated.

“Can you let me go by twelve,” she said. “I rather want to see Father Mahon about something.”

“My dear, I shall not keep you three minutes,” protested the old lady.

And they went in to talk for an hour and three-quarters.

II

Father Mahon was a conscientious priest. He said his mass at eight o’clock; he breakfasted at nine; he performed certain devotions till half-past ten; read the paper till eleven, and theology till twelve. Then he considered himself at liberty to do what he liked till his dinner at one. (The rest of his day does not concern us just now.)

He, too, was looking round his garden this morning—a fine, solid figure of a man, in rather baggy trousers, short coat, and expansive waistcoat, with every button doing its duty. He too, like Mr. James Morton, had his beat, an even narrower one than the barrister’s, and even better trodden, for he never strayed off it at all, except for four short weeks in the summer, when he hurried across to Ireland and got up late, and went on picnics with other ecclesiastics in straw hats, and joined in cheerful songs in the evening. He was a priest, with perfectly defined duties, and of admirable punctuality and conscientiousness in doing them. He disliked the English quite extraordinarily; but his sense of duty was such that they never suspected it; and his flock of Saxons adored him as people only can adore a brisk, businesslike man with a large heart and peremptory ways, who is their guide and father, and is perfectly aware of it. His sermons consisted of cold-cut blocks of dogma taken perseveringly from sermon outlines and served up Sunday by Sunday with a sauce of a slight and delightful brogue. He could never have kindled the Thames, nor indeed any river at all, but he could bridge them with solid stones; and this is, perhaps, even more desirable.

Maggie had begun by disliking him. She had thought him rather coarse and stupid; but she had changed her mind. He was not what may be called subtle; he had no patience at all with such things as scruples, nuances, and shades of tone and meaning; but if you put a plain question to him plainly, he gave you a plain answer, if he knew it; if not, he looked it up then and there; and that is always a relief in this intricate world. Maggie therefore did not bother him much; she went to him only on plain issues; and he respected and liked her accordingly.

“Good morning, my child,” he said in his loud, breezy voice, as he came in to find her in his hideous little sitting-room. “I hope you don’t mind the smell of tobacco-smoke.”

The room indeed reeked; he had started a cigar, according to rule, as the clock struck twelve, and had left it just now upon a stump outside when his housekeeper had come to announce a visitor.

“Not in the least, thanks, father.... May I sit down? It’s rather a long business, I’m afraid.”

The priest pulled out an arm-chair covered with horsehair and an antimacassar.

“Sit down, my child.”

Then he sat down himself, opposite her, in his trousers at once tight and baggy, with his rather large boots cocked one over the other, and his genial red face smiling at her.

“Now then,” he said.

“It’s not about myself, father,” she began rather hurriedly. “It’s about Laurie Baxter. May I begin at the beginning?”

He nodded. He was not sorry to hear something about this boy, whom he didn’t like at all, but for whom he knew himself at least partly responsible. The English were bad enough, but English converts were indescribably trying; and Laurie had been on his mind lately, he scarcely knew why.

Then Maggie began at the beginning, and told the whole thing, from Amy’s death down to Mr. Morton’s letter. He put a question or two to her during her story, looking at her with pressed lips, and finally put out his hand for the letter itself.

“Mrs. Baxter doesn’t know what I’ve come about,” said the girl. “You won’t give her a hint, will you, father?”

He nodded reassuringly to her, absorbed in the letter, and presently handed it back, with a large smile.

“He seems a sensible fellow,” he said.

“Ah! that’s what I wanted to ask you, father. I don’t know anything at all about spiritualism. Is it—is it really all nonsense? Is there nothing in it at all?”

He laughed aloud.

“I don’t think you need be afraid,” he said. “Of course we know that souls don’t come back like that. They’re somewhere else.”

“Then it’s all fraud?”

“It’s practically all fraud,” he said, “but it’s very superstitious, and is forbidden by the Church.”

This was straight enough. It was at least a clear issue to begin to attack Laurie upon.

“Then—then that’s the evil of it?” she said. “There’s no real power underneath? That’s what Mr. Rymer said to Mrs. Baxter; and it’s what I’ve always thought myself.”

The priest’s face became theological.

“Let’s see what Sabetti says,” he said. “I fancy—”

He turned in his chair and fetched out a volume behind him.

“Here we are....”

He ran his finger down the heavy paragraphs, turned a page or two, and began a running comment and translation: “‘Necromantia ex’.... ‘Necromancy arising from invocation of the dead’.... Let’s see ... yes, ‘Spiritism, or the consulting of spirits in order to know hidden things, especially that pertain to the future life, certainly is divination properly so called, and is ... is full of even more impiety than is magnetism, or the use of turning tables. The reason is, as the Baltimore fathers testify, that such knowledge must necessarily be ascribed to Satanic intervention, since in no other manner can it be explained.’”

“Then—” began Maggie.

“One moment, my child.... Yes ... just so. ‘Express divination’.... No, no. Ah! here we are, ‘Tacit divination, ... even if it is openly protested that no commerce with the Demon is intended, is per se grave sin; but it can sometimes be excused from mortal sin, on account of simplicity or ignorance or a lack of certain faith.’ You see, my child—” he set the book back in its place “—so far as it’s not fraud it’s diabolical. And that’s an end of it.”

“But do you think it’s not all fraud, then?” asked the girl, paling a little.

He laughed again, with a resonance that warmed her heart.

“I should pay just no attention to it all. Tell him, if you like, what I’ve said, and that it’s grave sin for him to play with it; but don’t get thinking that the devil’s in everything.”

Maggie was puzzled.

“Then it’s not the devil?” she asked—”at least not in this case, you think?”

He smiled again reassuringly.

“I should suspect it was a clever trick,” he said. “I don’t think Master Laurie’s likely to get mixed up with the devil in that way. There’s plenty of easier ways than that.”

“Do you think I should write to Mr. Cathcart?”

“Just as you like. He’s a convert, isn’t he? I believe I’ve heard his name.”

“I think so.”

“Well, it wouldn’t do any harm; though I should suspect not much good.”

Maggie was silent.

“Just tell Master Laurie not to play tricks,” said the priest. “He’s got a good, sensible friend in Mr. Morton. I can see that. And don’t trouble your head too much about it, my child.”

When Maggie was gone, he went out to finish his cigar, and found to his pleasure that it was still alight, and after a puff or two it went very well.

He thought about his interview for a few minutes as he walked up and down, taking the bright winter air. It explained a good deal. He had begun to be a little anxious about this boy. It was not that Laurie had actually neglected his religion while at Stantons; he was always in his place at mass on Sundays, and even, very occasionally, on weekdays as well. And he had had a mass said for Amy Nugent. But even as far back as the beginning of the previous year, there had been an air about him not altogether reassuring.

Well, this at any rate was a small commentary on the present situation.... (The priest stopped to look at some bulbs that were coming up in the bed beside him, and stooped, breathing heavily, to smooth the earth round one of them with a large finger.)... And as for this Spiritualistic nonsense—of course the whole thing was a trick. Things did not happen like that. Of course the devil could do extraordinary things: or at any rate had been able to do them in the past; but as for Master Laurie Baxter—whose home was down there in the hamlet, and who had been at Oxford and was now reading law—as for the thought that this rather superior Saxon young man was in direct communication with Satan at the present time—well, that needed no comment but loud laughter.

Yet it was very unwholesome and unhealthy. That was the worst of these converts; they could not be content with the sober workaday facts of the Catholic creed. They must be always running after some novelty or other.... And it was mortal sin anyhow, if the sinner had the faintest idea—

A large dinner-bell pealed from the back door; and the priest went in to roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, apple dumplings, and a single glass of port-wine to end up with.

III

It was strange how Maggie felt steadied and encouraged in the presence of something at least resembling danger. So long as Laurie was merely tiresome and foolish, she distrusted herself, she made little rules and resolutions, and deliberately kept herself interiorly detached from him. But now that there was something definite to look to, her sensitiveness vanished.

As to what that something was, she did not trust herself to decide. Father Mahon had given her a point to work at—the fact that the thing, as a serious pursuit, was forbidden; as to what the reality behind was, whether indeed there were any reality at all, she did not allow herself to consider. Laurie was in a state of nerves sufficiently troublesome to bring a letter from his friend and guide; and he was in that state through playing tricks on forbidden ground; that was enough.

Her interview with Father Mahon precipitated her half-formed resolution; and after tea she went upstairs to write to Mr. Cathcart.

It was an unconventional thing to do, but she was sufficiently perturbed to disregard that drawback, and she wrote a very sensible letter, explaining first who she was; then, without any names being mentioned, she described her adopted brother’s position, and indicated his experiences: she occupied the last page in asking two or three questions, and begging for general advice.

Mrs. Baxter displayed some symptoms after dinner which the girl recognized well enough. They comprised a resolute avoidance of Laurie’s name, a funny stiff little air of dignity, and a touch of patronage. And the interpretation of these things was that the old lady did not wish the subject to be mentioned again, and that, interiorly, she was doing her best ignore and forget it. Maggie felt, again, vaguely comforted; it left her a freer hand.

She lay awake a long time that night.

Her room was a little square one on the top of the stairs, above the smoking-room where she had that odd scene with Laurie a month or so before, and looking out upon the yew walk that led to the orchard. It was a cheerful little place enough, papered in brown, hung all over with water colors, with her bed in one corner; and it looked a reassuring familiar kind of place in the firelight, as she lay open-eyed and thinking.

It was not that she was at all frightened; it was no more than a little natural anxiety; and half a dozen times in the hour or two that she lay thinking, she turned resolutely over in bed, dismissed the little pictures that her mind formed in spite of herself, and began to think of pleasant, sane subjects.

But the images recurred. They were no more than little vignettes—Laurie talking to a severe-looking tall man with a sardonic smile; Laurie having tea with Mrs. Stapleton; Laurie in an empty room, looking at a closed door....

It was this last picture that recurred three or four times at the very instant that the girl was drowsing off into sleep; and it had therefore that particular vividness that characterizes the thoughts when the conscious attention is dormant. It had too a strangely perturbing effect upon her; and she could not imagine why.

After the third return of it her sense of humor came to the rescue: it was too ridiculous, she said, to be alarmed at an empty room and Laurie’s back. Once more she turned on her side, away from the firelight, and resolved, if it recurred again, to examine the details closely.

Again the moments passed: thought followed thought, in those quiet waves that lull the mind towards sleep; finally once more the picture was there, clear and distinct.

Yes; she would look at it this time.

It was a bare room, wainscoted round the walls a few inches up, papered beyond in some common palish pattern. Laurie stood in the center of the uncarpeted boards, with his back turned to her, looking, it seemed, with an intense expectation at the very dull door in the wall opposite him. He was in his evening dress, she saw, knee-breeches and buckles all complete; and his hands were clenched, as they hung held out a little from his sides, as he himself, crouching a little, stared at the door.

She, too, looked at the door, at its conventional panels and its brass handle; and it appeared to her as if both he and she were expectant of some visitor. The door would open presently, she perceived; and the reason why Laurie was so intent upon the entrance, was that he, no more than she, had any idea as to the character of the person who was to come in. She became quite interested as she watched—it was a method she followed sometimes when wooing sleep—and she began, in her fancy, to go past Laurie as if to open the door. But as she passed him she was aware that he put out a hand to check her, as if to hold her back from some danger; and she stopped, hesitating, still looking, not at Laurie, but at the door.

She began then, with the irresponsibility of deepening sleep, to imagine instead what lay beyond the door—to perceive by intuitive vision the character of the house. She got so far as understanding that it was all as unfurnished as this room, that the house stood solitary among trees, and that even these, and the tangled garden that she determined must surround the house, were as listening and as expectant as herself and the waiting figure of the boy. Once more, as if to verify her semi-passive imaginative excursion, she moved to the door....

Ah! what nonsense it was. Here she was, wide awake again, in her own familiar room, with the firelight on the walls.

... Well, well; sleep was a curious thing; and so was imagination....

... At any rate she had written to Mr. Cathcart.

Chapter XI

I

The “Cock Inn” is situated in Fleet Street, not twenty yards from Mitre Court and scarcely fifty from the passage that leads down to the court where Mr. James Morton still has his chambers.

It was a convenient place, therefore, for Laurie to lunch in, and he generally made his appearance there a few minutes before one o’clock to partake of a small rump steak and a pewter mug of beer. Sometimes he came alone, sometimes in company; and by a carefully thought out system of tips he usually managed to have reserved for him at least until one o’clock a particular seat in a particular partition in that row of stable-like shelters that run the length of the room opposite the door on the first floor.

On the twenty-third of February, however—it was a Friday, by the way, and boiled plaice would have to be eaten instead of rump steak—he was a little annoyed to find his seat already occupied by a small, brisk-looking man with a grey beard and spectacles, who, with a newspaper propped in front of him, was also engaged in the consumption of boiled plaice.

The little man looked up at him sharply, like a bird disturbed in a meal, and then down again upon the paper. Laurie noticed that his hat and stick were laid upon the adjoining chair as if to retain it. He hesitated an instant; then he slid in on the other side, opposite the stranger, tapped his glass with his knife, and sat down.

When the waiter came, a familiarly deferential man with whiskers, Laurie, with a slight look of peevishness, gave his order, and glanced reproachfully at the occupied seat. The waiter gave the ghost of a shrug with his shoulders, significant of apologetic helplessness, and went away.

A minute later Mr. Morton entered, glanced this way and that, nodding imperceptibly to Laurie, and was just moving off to a less occupied table when the stranger looked up.

“Mr. Morton,” he cried, “Mr. Morton!” in an odd voice that seemed on the point of cracking into falsetto. Certainly he was very like a portly bird, thought Laurie.

The other turned round, nodded with short geniality, and slid into the chair from which the old man moved his hat and stick with zealous haste.

“And what are you doing here?” said Mr. Morton.

“Just taking a bite like yourself,” said the other. “Friday—worse luck.”

Laurie was conscious of a touch of interest. This man was a Catholic, then, he supposed.

“Oh, by the way,” said Mr. Morton, “have you—er—” and he indicated Laurie. “No...? Baxter, let me introduce Mr. Cathcart.”

For a moment the name meant nothing to Laurie; then he remembered; but his rising suspicions were quelled instantly by his friend’s next remark.

“By the way, Cathcart, we were talking of you a week or two ago.”

“Indeed! I am flattered,” said the old man perkily. Yes, “perky” was the word, thought Laurie.

“Mr. Baxter here is interested in Spiritualism—rump steak, waiter, and pint of bitter—and I told him you were the man for him.”

Laurie interiorly drew in his horns.

“A—er—an experimenter?” asked the old man, with courteous interest, his eyes giving a quick gleam beneath his glasses.

“A little.”

“Yes. Most dangerous—most dangerous.... And any success, Mr. Baxter?”

Laurie felt his annoyance deepen.

“Very considerable success,” he said shortly.

“Ah, yes—you must forgive me, sir; but I have had a good deal of experience, and I must say—You are a Catholic, I see,” he said, interrupting himself. “Or a High Churchman.”

“I am a Catholic,” said Laurie.

“So’m I. But I gave up spiritualism as soon as I became one. Very interesting experiences, too; but—well, I value my soul too much, Mr. Baxter.”

Mr. Morton put a large piece of potato into his mouth with a detached air.

It was really rather trying, thought Laurie, to be catechized in this way; so he determined to show superiority.

“And you think it all superstition and nonsense?” he asked.

“Indeed, no,” said the old man shortly.

Laurie pushed his plate on one side, and drew the cheese towards him. This was a little more interesting, he thought, but he was still far from feeling communicative.

“What then?” he asked.

“Oh, very real indeed,” said the old man. “That is just the danger.”

“The danger?”

“Yes, Mr. Baxter. Of course there’s plenty of fraud and trickery; we all know that. But it’s the part that’s not fraud that’s—May I ask what medium you go to?”

“I know Mr. Vincent. And I’ve been to some public séances, too.”

The old man looked at him with sudden interest, but said nothing.

“You think he’s not honest?” said Laurie, with cool offensiveness.

“Oh, yes; he’s perfectly honest,” said the other deliberately. “I’ll trouble you for the sugar, Mr. Morton.”

Laurie was determined not to begin the subject again. He felt that he was being patronized and lectured, and did not like it. And once again the suspicion crossed his mind that this was an arranged meeting. It was so very neat—two days before the séance—the entry of Morton—his own seat occupied. Yet he did not feel quite courageous enough to challenge either of them. He ate his cheese deliberately and waited, listening to the talk between the two on quite irrelevant subjects, and presently determined on a bit of bravado.

“May I look at the Daily Mirror, Mr. Cathcart?” he asked.

“There is no doubt of his guilt,” the old man said, as he handed the paper across (the two were deep in a law case now). “I said so to Markham a dozen times—” and so on.

But there was no more word of spiritualism. Laurie propped the paper before him as he finished his cheese, and waited for coffee, and read with unseeing eyes. He was resenting as hard as he could the abruptness of the opening and closing of the subject, and the complete disregard now shown to him. He drank his coffee, still leisurely, and lit a cigarette; and still the two talked.

He stood up at last and reached down his hat and stick. The old man looked up.

“You are going, Mr. Baxter...? Good day.... Well then; and as I was waiting in court—”

Laurie passed out indignantly, and went down the stairs.

So that was Mr. Cathcart. Well, he was thankful he hadn’t written to him, after all. He was not his kind in the least.

II

The moment he passed out of the door the old man stopped his fluent talking and waited, looking after the boy. Then he turned again to his friend.

“I’m a blundering idiot,” he said.

Mr. Morton sniffed.

“I’ve put him against me now—Lord knows how; but I’ve done it; and he won’t listen to me.”

“Gad!” said Mr. Morton; “what funny people you all are! And you really meant what you said?”

“Every word,” said the old man cheerfully.... “Well; our little plot’s over.”

“Why don’t you ask him to come and see you?”

“First,” said the old man, with the same unruffled cheerfulness, “he wouldn’t have come. We’ve muddled it. We’d much better have been straightforward. Secondly, he thinks me an old fool—as you do, only more so. No; we must set to work some other way now.... Tell me about Miss Deronnais: I showed you her letter?”

The other nodded, helping himself to cheese.

“I told her that I was at her service, of course; and I haven’t heard again. Sensible girl?”

“Very sensible, I should say.”

“Sort of girl that wouldn’t scream or faint in a crisis?”

“Exactly the opposite, I should say. But I’ve hardly seen her, you know.”

“Well, well.... And the mother?”

“No good at all,” said Mr. Morton.

“Then the girl’s the sheet anchor.... In love with him, do you know?”

“Lord! How d’you expect me to know that?”

The old man pondered in silence, seeming to assimilate the situation.

“He’s in a devil of a mess,” he said, with abrupt cheerfulness. “That man Vincent—”

“Well?”

“He’s the most dangerous of the lot. Just because he’s honest.”

“Good God!” broke in the other again suddenly. “Do all Catholics believe this rubbish?”

“My dear friend, of course they don’t. Not one in a thousand. I wish they did. That’s what’s the matter. But they laugh at it—laugh at it!”... His voice cracked into shrill falsetto.... “Laugh at hell-fire.... Is Sunday the day, did you say?”

“He told me the twenty-fifth.”

“And at that woman’s in Queen’s Gate, I suppose?”

“Expect so. He didn’t say. Or I forget.”

“I heard they were at their games there again,” said Mr. Cathcart with meditative geniality. “I’d like to blow up the stinking hole.”

Mr. Morton chuckled audibly.

“You’re the youngest man of your years I’ve ever come across,” he said. “No wonder you believe all that stuff. When are you going to grow up, Cathcart?”

The old man paid no attention at all.

“Well—that plot’s over,” he said again. “Now for Miss Deronnais. But we can’t stop this Sunday affair; that’s certain. Did he tell you anything about it? Materialization? Automatic—”

“Lord, I don’t know all that jargon....”

“My dear Morton, for a lawyer, you’re the worst witness I’ve ever—Well, I’m off. No more to be done today.”

The other sat on a few minutes over his pipe.

It seemed to him quite amazing that a sensible man like Cathcart could take such rubbish seriously. In every other department of life the solicitor was an eminently shrewd and sane man, with, moreover, a youthful kind of brisk humor that is perhaps the surest symptom of sanity that it is possible to have.

He had seen him in court for years past under every sort of circumstance, and if it had been required of him to select a character with which superstition and morbid humbug could have had nothing in common, he would have laid his hand upon the senior partner of Cathcart and Cathcart. Yet here was this sane man, taking this fantastic nonsense as if there were really something in it. He had first heard him speak of the subject at a small bachelor dinner party of four in the rooms of a mutual friend; and, as he had listened, he had had the same sensation as one would have upon hearing a Cabinet Minister, let us say, discussing stump-cricket with enthusiasm. Cathcart had said all kinds of things when once he was started—all with that air of businesslike briskness that was so characteristic of him and so disconcerting in such a connection. If he had apologized for it as an amiable weakness, if he had been in the least shamefaced or deprecatory, it would have been another matter; one would have forgiven it as one forgives any little exceptional eccentricity. But to hear him speak of materialization as of a process as normal (though unusual) as the production of radium, and of planchette as of wireless telegraphy—as established, indubitable facts, though out of the range of common experience—this had amazed this very practical man. Cathcart had hinted too of other things—things which he would not amplify—of a still more disconcertingly impossible nature—matters which Morton had scarcely thought had been credible even to the darkest medievalists; and all this with that same sharp, sane humor that lent an air of reality to all that he said.

For romantic young asses like Laurie Baxter such things were not so hopelessly incongruous, though obviously they were bad for him; they were all part of the wild credulousness of a religious youth; but for Cathcart, aged sixty-two, a solicitor in good practice, with a wife and two grown-up daughters, and a reputation for exceptionally sound shrewdness—! But it must be remembered he was a Catholic!

So Mr. James Morton sat in the “Cock” and pondered. He was not sorry he had tried to take steps to choke off this young fool, and he was just a little sorry that so far they had failed. He had written to Miss Deronnais in an impulse, after an unusually feverish outburst from the boy; and she, he had learnt later, had written to Mr. Cathcart. The rest had been of the other’s devising.

Well, it had failed so far. Perhaps next week things would be better.

He paid his bill, left two pence for the waiter, and went out. He had a case that afternoon.

III

Laurie left chambers as it was growing dark that afternoon, and went back to his rooms for tea. He had passed, as was usual now, an extremely distracted couple of hours, sitting over his books with spasmodic efforts only to attend to them. He was beginning, in fact, to be not quite sure whether Law after all was his vocation....

His kettle was singing pleasantly on the hob, and a tray glimmered in the firelight on the little table, as the woman had left it; and it was not until he had poured himself out a cup of tea that he saw on the white cloth an envelope, directed to him, inscribed “By hand,” in the usual handwriting of persons engaged in business. Even then he did not open it at once; it was probably only some note connected with his chief’s affairs.

For half an hour more he sat on, smoking after tea, pondering that which was always in his mind now, and dwelling with a vague pleasant expectancy on what Sunday night should bring forth. Mr. Vincent, he knew, was returning to town that afternoon. Perhaps, even, he might look in for a few minutes, if there were any last instructions to be given.

The effect of the medium on the young man’s mind had increased enormously during these past weeks. That air of virile masterfulness, all the more impressive because of its extreme quiet assurance, had proved even more deep than had at first appeared.

It is very hard to analyze the elements of a boy’s adoration for a solid middle-aged gentleman with a “personality”; yet the thing is an enormously potent fact, and plays at least as big a part in the sub-currents that run about the world as any more normal human emotions. Psychologists of the materialistic school would probably say that it was a survival of the tribe-and-war instinct. At any rate, there it is.

Added to all this was the peculiar relation in which the medium stood to the boy; it was he who had first opened the door towards that strange other world that so persistently haunts the imaginations of certain temperaments; it was through him that Laurie had had brought before the evidence of his senses, as he thought, the actuality of the things of which he had dreamed—an actuality which his religion had somehow succeeded in evading. It was not that Laurie had been insincere in his religion; there had been moments, and there still were, occasionally, when the world that the Catholic religion preached by word and symbol and sacrament, became apparent; but the whole thing was upon a different plane. Religion bade him approach in one way, spiritualism in the other. The senses had nothing to do with one; they were the only ultimate channels of the other. And it is extraordinarily easy for human beings to regard as more fundamentally real the evidence of the senses than the evidence of faith....

Here then were the two choices—a world of spirit, to be taken largely on trust, to be discerned only in shadow and outline upon rare and unusual occasions of exaltation, of a particular quality which had almost lost its appeal; and a world of spirit that took shape and form and practical intelligibility, in ordinary rooms and under very nearly ordinary circumstances—a world, in short, not of a transcendent God and the spirits of just men made perfect, of vast dogmas and theories, but of a familiar atmosphere, impregnated with experience, inhabited by known souls who in this method or that made themselves apparent to those senses which, Laurie believed, could not lie.... And the point of contact was Amy Nugent herself....

As regards his exact attitude to this girl it is more difficult to write. On the one side the human element—those associations directly connected with the senses—her actual face and hands, physical atmosphere and surroundings—those had disappeared; they were dispersed, or they lay underground; and it had been with a certain shock of surprise, in spite of the explanations given to him, that he had seen what he believed to be her face in the drawing-room in Queen’s Gate. But he had tried to arrange all this in his imagination, and it had fallen into shape and proportion again. In short, he thought he understood now that it is character which gives unity to the transient qualities of a person on earth, and that, when those qualities disappear, it is as unimportant as the wasting of tissue: when, according to the spiritualists’ gospel that character manifests itself from the other side, it naturally reconstitutes the form by which it had been recognized on earth.

Yet, in spite of this sense of familiarity with what he had seen, there had fallen between Amy and himself that august shadow that is called Death.... And in spite of the assurances he had received, even at the hands of his own senses, that this was indeed the same girl that he had known on earth, there was a strange awe mingled with his old rather shallow passion. There were moments, as he sat alone in his rooms at night, when it rose almost to terror; just as there were other moments when awe vanished for a while, and his whole being was flooded with an extraordinary ecstatic semi-earthly happiness at the thought that he and she could yet speak with one another.... Imagine, if you please, a child who on returning home finds that his mother has become Queen, and meets her in the glory of ermine and diadem....

But the real deciding point—which, somehow, he knew must come—the moment at which these conflicting notes should become a chord, was fixed for Sunday evening next. Up to now he had had evidence of her presence, he had received intelligible messages, though fragmentary and half stammered through the mysterious veil, he had for an instant or two looked upon her face; but the real point, he hoped, would come in two days. The public séances had not impressed him. He had been to three or four of these in a certain road off Baker Street, and had been astonished and disappointed. The kind of people that he had met there—sentimental bourgeois with less power of sifting evidence than the average child, with a credulity that was almost supernatural—the medium, a stout woman who rolled her eyes and had damp fat fingers; the hymn-singing, the wheezy harmonium, the amazing pseudo-mystical oracular messages that revealed nothing which a religiose fool could not invent—in fact the whole affair, from the sham stained-glass lamp-shade to the ghostly tambourines overhead, the puerility of the tricks played on the inquirers, and all the rest of it—this seemed as little connected with what he had experienced with Mr. Vincent as a dervish dance with High Mass. He had reflected with almost ludicrous horror upon the impression it would make on Maggie, and the remarks it would elicit.

But this other engagement was a very different matter.

They were going to attempt a further advance. It had, indeed, been explained to him that these attempts were but tentative and experimental; it was impossible to dictate exactly what should fall; but the object on Sunday night was to go a step further, and to bring about, if possible, the materialization process to such a point that the figure could be handled, and could speak. And it seemed to Laurie as if this would be final indeed....

So he sat this evening, within forty-eight hours of the crisis, thinking steadily. Half a dozen times, perhaps, the thought of Maggie recurred to him; but he was learning how to get rid of that.

Then he took up the note and opened it. It was filled with four pages of writing. He turned to the end and read the signature. Then he turned back and read the whole letter.

It was very quiet as he sat there thinking over what he had read. The noise of Fleet Street came up here only as the soothing murmur of the sea upon a beach; and he himself sat motionless, the firelight falling upwards upon his young face, his eyes, and his curly hair. About him stood his familiar furniture, the grand piano a pool of glimmering dark wood in the background, the tall curtained windows suggestive of shelter and warmth and protection.

Yet, if he had but known it, he was making an enormous choice. The letter was from the man he had met at midday, and he was deciding how to answer it. He was soothed and quieted by his loneliness, and his irritation had disappeared: he regarded the letter from a youthfully philosophical standpoint, pleased with his moderation, as the work of a fanatic; he was considering only whether he would yield, for politeness’ sake, to the importunity, or answer shortly and decisively. It seemed to him remarkable that a mature and experienced man could write such a letter.

At last he got up, went to his writing-table, and sat down. Still he hesitated for a minute; then he dipped his pen and wrote.

When he had finished and directed it, he went back to the fire. He had an hour yet in which to think and think before he need dress. He had promised to dine with Mrs. Stapleton at half-past seven. He had a touch of headache, and perhaps might sleep it off.

Chapter XII

I

Lady Laura crossed the road by Knightsbridge Barracks and turned again homewards through the Park.

It was one of those days that occasionally fall in late February which almost cheer the beholder into a belief that spring has really begun. Overhead the sky was a clear pale blue, flecked with summer-looking clouds, gauzy and white; beneath, the whole earth was waking drowsily from a frost so slight as only to emphasize the essential softness of the day that followed: the crocuses were alight in the grass, and an indescribable tint lay over all that had life, like the flush in the face of an awakening child. But these days are too good to last, and Lady Laura, who had looked at the forecast of a Sunday paper, had determined to take her exercise immediately after church.

She had come out not long before from All Saints’; she had listened to an excellent though unexciting sermon and some extremely beautiful singing; and even now, saturated with that atmosphere and with the soothing physical air in which she walked, her anxieties seemed less acute. There were enough of her acquaintances, too, in groups here and there—she had to bow and smile sufficiently often—to prevent these anxieties from reasserting themselves too forcibly. And it may be supposed that not a creature who observed her, in her exceedingly graceful hat and mantle, with her fair head a little on one side, and her gold-rimmed pince-nez delicately gleaming in the sunlight, had the very faintest suspicion that she had any anxieties at all.

Yet she felt strangely unwilling even to go home.

The men were to set about clearing the drawing-room while she was at church; and somehow the thought that it would be done when she got home, that the temple would, so to speak, be cleared for sacrifice, was a distasteful one.

She did not quite know when the change had begun; in fact, she was scarcely yet aware that there was a change at all. Upon one point only her attention fixed itself, and that was the increasing desire she felt that Laurie Baxter should go no further in his researches under her auspices.

Up to within a few weeks ago she had been all ardor. It had seemed to her, as has been said, that the apparent results of spiritualism were all to the good, that they were in no point contrary to the religion she happened to believe—in fact, that they made real, as does an actual tree in the foreground of a panorama, the rather misty sky and hills of Christianity. She had even called them very “teaching.”

It was about eighteen months since she had first taken this up under the onslaught of Mrs. Stapleton’s enthusiasm; but things had not been as satisfactory as she wished, until Mr. Vincent had appeared. Then indeed matters had moved forward; she had seen extraordinary things, and the effect of them had been doubled by the medium’s obvious honesty and his strong personality. He was to her as a resolute priest to a timid penitent; he had led her forward, supported by his own conviction and his extremely steady will, until she had begun to feel at home in this amazing new world, and eager to make proselytes.

Then Laurie had appeared, and almost immediately a dread had seized her that she could neither explain nor understand. She had attempted a little tentative conversation on the point with dearest Maud, but dearest Maud had appeared so entirely incapable of understanding her scruples that she had said no more. But her inexplicable anxiety had already reached such a point that she had determined to say a word to Laurie on the subject. This had been done, without avail; and now a new step forward was to be made.

As to of what this step consisted she was perfectly aware.

The “controls,” she believed—the spirits that desired to communicate—had a series of graduated steps by which the communications could be made, from mere incoherent noises (as a man may rap a message from one room to another), through appearances, also incoherent and intangible, right up to the final point of assuming visible tangible form, and of speaking in an audible voice. This process, she believed, consisted first in a mere connection between spirit and matter, and finally passed into an actual assumption of matter, molded into the form of the body once worn by the spirit on earth. For nearly all of this process she had had the evidence of her own senses; she had received messages, inexplicable to her except on the hypothesis put forward, from departed relations of her own; she had seen lights, and faces, and even figures formed before her eyes, in her own drawing-room; but she had not as yet, though dearest Maud had been more fortunate, been able to handle and grasp such figures, to satisfy the sense of touch, as well as of sight, in proof of the reality of the phenomenon.

Yes; she was satisfied even with what she had seen; she had no manner of doubt as to the theories put before her by Mr. Vincent; yet she shrank (and she scarcely knew why) from that final consummation which it was proposed to carry out if possible that evening. But the shrinking centered round some half-discerned danger to Laurie Baxter rather than to herself.

It was these kinds of thoughts that beset her as she walked up beneath the trees on her way homewards—checked and soothed now somewhat by the pleasant air and the radiant sunlight, yet perceptible beneath everything. And it was not only of Laurie Baxter that she thought; she spared a little attention for herself.

For she had begun to be aware, for the first time since her initiation, of a very faint distaste—as slight and yet as suggestive as that caused by a half-perceived consciousness of a delicately disagreeable smell. There comes such a moment in the life of cut flowers in water, when the impetus of growing energy ceases, and a new tone makes itself felt in their scent, of which the end is certain. It is not sufficient to cause the flowers to be thrown away; they still possess volumes of fragrance; yet these decrease, and the new scent increases, until it has the victory.

So it was now to the perceptions of this lady. Oh! yes. Spiritualism was very “teaching” and beautiful; it was perfectly compatible with orthodox religion; it was undeniably true. She would not dream of giving it up. Only it would be better if Laurie Baxter did not meddle with it: he was too sensitive.... However, he was coming that evening again.... There was the fact.

As she turned southwards at last, crossing the road again towards her own street, it seemed to her that the day even now was beginning to cloud over. Over the roofs of Kensington a haze was beginning to make itself visible, as impalpable as a skein of smoke; yet there it was. She felt a little languid, too. Perhaps she had walked too far. She would rest a little after lunch, if dearest Maud did not mind; for dearest Maud was to lunch with her, as was usual on Sundays when the Colonel was away.

As she came, slower than ever, down the broad opulent pavement of Queen’s Gate, through the silence and emptiness of Sunday—for the church bells were long ago silent—she noticed coming towards her, with a sauntering step, an old gentleman in frock coat and silk hat of a slightly antique appearance, spatted and gloved, carrying his hands behind his back, as if he were waiting to be joined by some friend from one of the houses. She noticed that he looked at her through his glasses, but thought no more of it till she turned up the steps of her own house. Then she was startled by the sound of quick footsteps and a voice.

“I beg your pardon, madam ...”

She turned, with her key in the door, and there he stood, hat in hand.

“Have I the pleasure of speaking to Lady Laura Bethell?”

There was a pleasant brisk ring about his voice that inclined her rather favorably towards him.

“Is there anything.... Did you want to speak to me...? Yes, I am Lady Laura Bethell.”

“I was told you were at church, madam, and that you were not at home to visitors on Sunday.”

“That is quite right.... May I ask...?”

“Only a few minutes, Lady Laura, I promise you. Will you forgive my persistence?”

Yes; the man was a gentleman; there was no doubt of that.

“Would not tomorrow do? I am rather engaged today.”

He had his card-case ready, and without answering her at once, he came up the steps and handed it to her.

The name meant nothing at all to her.

“Will not tomorrow...?” she began again.

“Tomorrow will be too late,” said the old gentleman. “I beg of you, Lady Laura. It is on an extremely important matter.”

She still hesitated an instant; then she pushed the door open and went in.

“Please come in,” she said.

She was so taken aback by the sudden situation that she forgot completely that the drawing-room would be upside down, and led the way straight upstairs; and it was not till she was actually within the door, with the old gentleman close on her heels, that she saw that, with the exception of three or four chairs about the fire and the table set out near the hearthrug, the room was empty of furniture.

“I forgot,” she said; “but will you mind coming in here.... We ... we have a meeting here this evening.”

She led the way to the fire, and at first did not notice that he was not following her. When she turned round she saw the old gentleman, with his air of antique politeness completely vanished, standing and looking about him with a very peculiar expression. She also noticed, to her annoyance, that the cabinet was already in place in the little ante-room and that his eyes almost immediately rested upon it. Yet there was no look of wonder in his face; rather it was such a look as a man might have on visiting the scene of a well-known crime—interest, knowledge, and loathing.

“So it is here—” he said in quite a low voice.

Then he came across the room towards her.

II

For an instant his bearded face looked so strangely at her that she half moved towards the bell. Then he smiled, with a little reassuring gesture.

“No, no,” he said. “May I sit down a moment?”

She began hastily to cover her confusion.

“It is a meeting,” she said, “for this evening. I am sorry—”

“Just so,” he said. “It is about that that I have come.”

“I beg your pardon...?”

“Please sit down, Lady Laura.... May I say in a sentence what I have come to say?”

This seemed a very odd old man.

“Why, yes—” she said.

“I have come to beg you not to allow Mr. Baxter to enter the house.... No, I have no authority from anyone, least of all from Mr. Baxter. He has no idea that I have come. He would think it an unwarrantable piece of impertinence.”

“Mr. Cathcart ... I—I cannot—”

“Allow me,” he said, with a little compelling gesture that silenced her. “I have been asked to interfere by a couple of people very much interested in Mr. Baxter; one of them, if not both, completely disbelieves in spiritualism.”

“Then you know—”

He waved his hand towards the cabinet.

“Of course I know,” he said. “Why, I was a spiritualist for ten years myself. No, not a medium; not a professional, that is to say. I know all about Mr. Vincent; all about Mrs. Stapleton and yourself, Lady Laura. I still follow the news closely; I know perfectly well—”

“And you have given it up?”

“I have given it up for a long while,” he said quietly. “And I have come to ask you to forbid Mr. Baxter to be present this evening, for—for the same reason for which I have given it up myself.”

“Yes? And that—”

“I don’t think we need go into that,” he said. “It is enough, is it not, for me to say that Mr. Baxter’s work, and, in fact, his whole nervous system, is suffering considerably from the excitement; that one of the persons who have asked me to do what I can is Mr. Baxter’s own law-coach: and that even if he had not asked me, Mr. Baxter’s own appearance—”

“You know him?”

“Practically, no. I lunched at the same table with him on Friday; the symptoms are quite unmistakable.”

“I don’t understand. Symptoms?”

“Well, we will say symptoms of nervous excitement. You are aware, no doubt, that he is exceptionally sensitive. Probably you have seen for yourself—”

“Wait a moment,” said Lady Laura, her own heart beating furiously. “Why do you not go to Mr. Baxter himself?”

“I have done so. I arranged to meet him at lunch, and somehow I took a wrong turn with him: I have no tact whatever, as you perceive. But I wrote to him on Friday night, offering to call upon him, and just giving him a hint. Well, it was useless. He refused to see me.”

“I don’t see what I—”

“Oh yes,” chirped the old gentleman almost gaily. “It would be quite unusual and unconventional. I just ask you to send him a line—I will take it myself, if you wish it—telling him that you think it would be better for him not to come, and saying that you are making other arrangements for tonight.”

He looked at her with that odd little air of birdlike briskness that she had noticed in the street; and it pleasantly affected her even in the midst of the uneasiness that now surged upon her again tenfold more than before. She could see that there was something else behind his manner; it had just looked out in the glance he had given round the room on entering; but she could not trouble at this moment to analyze what it was. She was completely bewildered by the strangeness of the encounter, and the extraordinary coincidence of this man’s judgment with her own. Yet there were a hundred reasons against her taking his advice. What would the others say? What of all the arrangements ... the expectation...?

“I don’t see how it’s possible now,” she began. “I think I know what you mean. But—”

“Indeed, I trust you have no idea,” cried the old gentleman, with a queer little falsetto note coming into his voice—”no idea at all. I come to you merely on the plea of nervous excitement; it is injuring his health, Lady Laura.”

She looked at him curiously.

“But—” she began.

“Oh, I will go further,” he said. “Have you never heard of—of insanity in connection with all this? We will call it insanity, if you wish.”

For a moment her heart stood still. The word had a sinister sound, in view of an incident she had once witnessed; but it seemed to her that some meaning behind, unknown to her, was still more sinister. Why had he said that it might be “called insanity” only...?

“Yes.... I—I have once seen a case,” she stammered.

“Well,” said the old gentleman, “is it not enough when I tell you that I—I who was a spiritualist for ten years—have never seen a more dangerous subject than Mr. Baxter? Is the risk worth it...? Lady Laura, do you quite understand what you are doing?”

He leaned forward a little; and again she felt anxiety, sickening and horrible, surge within her. Yet, on the other hand....

The door opened suddenly, and Mr. Vincent came in.

III

There was silence for a moment; then the old gentleman turned round, and in an instant was on his feet, quiet, but with an air of bristling about his thrust-out chin and his tense attitude.

Mr. Vincent paused, looking from one to the other.

“I beg your pardon, Lady Laura,” he said courteously. “Your man told me to wait here; I think he did not know you had come in.”

“Well—er—this gentleman...” began Lady Laura. “Why, do you know Mr. Vincent?” she asked suddenly, startled by the expression in the old gentleman’s face.

“I used to know Mr. Vincent,” he said shortly.

“You have the advantage of me,” smiled the medium, coming forward to the fire.

“My name is Cathcart, sir.”

The other started, almost imperceptibly.

“Ah! yes,” he said quietly. “We did meet a few times, I remember.”

Lady Laura was conscious of distinct relief at the interruption: it seemed to her a providential escape from a troublesome decision.

“I think there is nothing more to be said, Mr. Cathcart.... No, don’t go, Mr. Vincent. We had finished our talk.”

“Lady Laura,” said the old gentleman with a rather determined air, “I beg of you to give me ten minutes more private conversation.”

She hesitated, clearly foreseeing trouble either way. Then she decided.

“There is no necessity today,” she said. “If you care to make an appointment for one day next week, Mr. Cathcart—”

“I am to understand that you refuse me a few minutes now?”

“There is no necessity that I can see—”

“Then I must say what I have to say before Mr. Vincent—”

“One moment, sir,” put in the medium, with that sudden slight air of imperiousness that Lady Laura knew very well by now. “If Lady Laura consents to hear you, I must take it on myself to see that nothing offensive is said.” He glanced as if for leave towards the woman.

She made an effort.

“If you will say it quickly,” she began. “Otherwise—”

The old gentleman drew a breath as if to steady himself. It was plain that he was very strongly moved beneath his self-command: his air of cheerful geniality was gone.

“I will say it in one sentence,” he said. “It is this: You are ruining that boy between you, body and soul; and you are responsible before his Maker and yours. And if—”

“Lady Laura,” said the medium, “do you wish to hear any more?”

She made a doubtful little gesture of assent.

“And if you wish to know my reasons for saying this,” went on Mr. Cathcart, “you have only to ask for them from Mr. Vincent. He knows well enough why I left spiritualism—if he dares to tell you.”

Lady Laura glanced at the medium. He was perfectly still and quiet—looking, watching the old man curiously and half humorously under his heavy eyebrows.

“And I understand,” went on the other, “that tonight you are to make an attempt at complete materialization. Very good; then after tonight it may be too late. I have tried to appeal to the boy: he will not hear me. And you too have refused to hear me out. I could give you evidence, if you wished. Ask this gentleman how many cases he has known in the last five years, where complete ruin, body and soul—”

The medium turned a little to the fire, sighing as if for weariness: and at the sound the old man stopped, trembling. It was more obvious than ever that he only held himself in restraint by a very violent effort: it was as if the presence of the medium affected him in an extraordinary degree.

Lady Laura glanced again from one to the other.

“That is all, then?” she said.

His lips worked. Then he burst out—

“I am sick of talking,” he cried—”sick of it! I have warned you. That is enough. I cannot do more.”

He wheeled on his heel and went out. A minute later the two heard the front door bang.

She looked at Mr. Vincent. He was twirling softly in his strong fingers a little bronze candlestick that stood on the mantelpiece: his manner was completely unconcerned; he even seemed to be smiling a little.

For herself she felt helpless. She had taken her choice, impelled to it, though she scarcely recognized the fact, by the entrance of this strong personality; and now she needed reassurance once again. But before she had a word to say, he spoke—still in his serene manner.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I remember now. I used to know Mr. Cathcart once. A very violent old gentleman.”

“What did he mean?”

“His reasons for leaving us? Indeed I scarcely remember. I suppose it was because he became a Catholic.”

“Was there nothing more?”

He looked at her pleasantly.

“Why, I daresay there was. I really can’t remember, Lady Laura. I suppose he had his nerves shaken. You can see for yourself what a fanatic he is.”

But in spite of his presence, once more a gust of anxiety shook her.

“Mr. Vincent, are you sure it’s safe—for Mr. Baxter, I mean?”

“Safe? Why, he’s as safe as any of us can be. We all have nervous systems, of course.”

“But he’s particularly sensitive, isn’t he?”

“Indeed, yes. That is why even this evening he must not go into trance. That must come later, after a good training.”

She stood up, and came herself to stand by the mantelpiece.

“Then really there’s no danger?”

He turned straight to her, looking at her with kind, smiling eyes.

“Lady Laura,” he said, “have I ever yet told you that there was no danger? I think not. There is always danger, for every one of us, as there is for the scientist in the laboratory, and the engineer in his machinery. But what we can do is to reduce that danger to a minimum, so that, humanly speaking, we are reasonably and sufficiently safe. No doubt you remember the case of that girl? Well, that was an accident: and accidents will happen; but do me the justice to remember that it was the first time that I had seen her. It was absolutely impossible to foresee. She was on the very edge of a nervous breakdown before she entered the room. But with regard to Mr. Baxter, I have seen him again and again; and I tell you that I consider him to be running a certain risk—but a perfectly justifiable one, and one that is reduced to a minimum, if I did not think that we were taking every precaution, I would not have him in the room for all the world.... Are you satisfied, Lady Laura?”

Every word he said helped her back to assurance. It was all so reasonable and well weighed. If he had said there was no danger, she would have feared the more, but his very recognition of it gave her security. And above all, his tranquility and his strength were enormous assets on his side.

She drew a breath, and decided to go forward.

“And Mr. Cathcart?” she asked.

He smiled again.

“You can see what he is,” he said. “I should advise you not to see him again. It’s of no sort of use.”

Chapter XIII

I

The weather forecasts had been in the right; and the few that struggled homewards that night from church fought against a south-west wind that tore, laden with driving rain, up the streets and across the open spaces, till the very lights were dimmed in the tall street lamps and shone only through streaming panes that seemed half opaque with mist and vapor. In Queen’s Gate hardly one lighted window showed that the houses were inhabited. So fierce was the clamor and storm of the broad street that men made haste to shut out every glimpse of the night, and the fanlights above the doors, or here and there a line of brightness where some draught had tossed the curtains apart, were the only signs of human life. Outside the broad pavements stared like surfaces of some canal, black and mirror-like, empty of passengers, catching every spark or hint of light from house and lamp, transforming it to a tall streak of glimmering wetness.

The housekeeper’s room in this house on the right was the more delightful from the contrast. It was here that the august assembly was held every evening after supper, set about with rigid etiquette and ancient rite. Its windows looked on to the little square garden at the back, but were now tight shuttered and curtained; and the room was a very model of comfort and warmth. Before the fire a square table was drawn up, set out with pudding and fruit, for it was here that the upper servants withdrew after the cold meat and beer of the servants’ hall, to be waited upon by the butler’s boy: and it was round this that the four sat in state—housekeeper, butler, lady’s maid, and cook.

It was already after ten o’clock; and Mr. Parker was permitted to smoke a small cigar. They had discussed the weather, the sermon that Miss Baker had heard in the morning, and the prospects of a Dissolution; and they had once more returned to the mysteries that were being enacted upstairs. They were getting accustomed to them now, and there was not a great deal to say, unless they repeated themselves, which they had no objection to do. Their attitude was one of tolerant skepticism, tempered by an agreeable tendency on the part of Miss Baker to become agitated after a certain point. Mr. Vincent, it was generally conceded, was a respectable sort of man, with an air about him that could hardly be put into words, and it was thought to be a pity that he lent himself to such superstition. Mrs. Stapleton had been long ago dismissed as a silly sort of woman, though with a will of her own; and her ladyship, of course, must have her way; it could not last long, it was thought.

But young Mr. Baxter was another matter, and there was a deal to say about him. He was a gentleman—that was certain; and he seemed to have sense; but it was a pity that he was so often here now on this business. He had not said one word to Mr. Parker this evening as he took off his coat; Mr. Parker had not thought that he looked very well.

“He was too quiet-like,” said the butler.

As to the details of the affair upstairs—these were considered in a purely humorous light. It was understood that tables danced a hornpipe, and that tambourines were beaten by invisible hands; and it was not necessary to go further into principles, particularly since all these things were done by machinery at the Egyptian Hall. Faces also, it was believed, were seen looking out of the cabinet which Mr. Parker had once more helped to erect this morning; but these, it was explained, were “done” by luminous paint. Finally, if people insisted on looking into causes, Electricity was a sufficient answer for all the rest. No one actually suggested water-power.

As for human motives, these were not called in question at all. It appeared to amuse some people to do this kind of thing, as others might collect old china or practice the cotillion. There it was, a fact, and there was no more to be said about it. Old Lady Carraden, where Mr. Parker had once been under-butler, had gone in for pouter pigeons; and Miss Baker had heard tell of a nobleman who had a carpenter’s shop of his own.

These things were so, then; and meantime here was a cigar to be smoked by Mr. Parker, and a little weak tea to be taken by the three ladies.

It was about a quarter-past ten when a reversion was made to the weather. Within here all was supremely comfortable. A black stuff mat, with a red fringed border, lay before the blazing fire, convenient to the feet; the heavy red curtains shut out the darkness, and where the glass cases of china permitted it, large photographs of wedding groups and the houses of the nobility hung upon the walls. A King Charles’ spaniel, in another glass case, looked upon the company with an eternal snarl belied by the mildness of his brown eyes; and, corresponding to him on the other side of the fire, a numerous family of humming-birds, a little dusty and dim, poised perpetually above the flowers of a lichened tree, with a flaming sunset to show them up.

But, without, the wind tore unceasingly, laden with rain, through the gusty darkness of the little garden, and, in the pauses, the swift dripping from the roof splashed and splashed upon the paved walk. It was a very wild night, as Mr. Parker observed four times: he only hoped that no one would require a hansom cab. He had been foolish enough to take the responsibility tonight of letting the guests out himself, and of allowing William to go to bed when he wished. And these were late affairs, seldom over before eleven, and often not till nearly midnight.

Mrs. Martin, in her blouse, moved a little nearer the fire, and said she must be off soon to bed; Mrs. Mayle, in her black silk, added that there was no telling when her ladyship would get to bed, what with Mrs. Stapleton and all, and commiserated Miss Baker; Miss Baker moaned a little in self-pity; and Mr. Parker remarked for the fifth time that it was a wild night. It was an astonishingly serene and domestic atmosphere: no effort of imagination or wit was required from anybody; it was enough to make observations when they occurred to the brain, and they would meet with a tranquil response.

As half-past ten tinkled out from the little yellow marble clock on the mantelpiece—it had been won by Mrs. Mayle’s deceased husband in a horticultural exhibition—Mrs. Martin said that she must go and have a look at the scullery to see that all was as it should be; there was no knowing with these girls nowadays what they might not leave undone; and Mrs. Mayle preened herself gently with the thought that her responsibilities were on a higher plane. Mr. Parker made a courteous movement as if to rise, and remained seated, as the cook rustled out. Miss Baker sighed again as she contemplated the long conversation that might take place between the two ladies upstairs before she could get her mistress to bed.

Once more the tranquil atmosphere settled down on the warm room; the brass lamp burned brightly with a faint and reassuring smell of paraffin; the fire presented a radiant cavern of red coals fringed by dancing flames; and Mr. Parker leaned forwards to shake off the ash of his cigar.

Then, on a sudden, he paused, for from the passage outside came the passionless tinkle of an electric bell—then another, and another, and another, as if some person overhead strove by reiteration on that single note to cry out some overwhelming need.

II

Overhead in the great empty drawing-room the noise of the wind and rain, the almost continuous spatter on the glass, and the long hooting of the gusts, had been far more noticeable than in the basement beneath. Below stairs the company had been natural and normal, talking of this and that, in a brightly lighted room, dwelling only on matters that fell beneath the range of their senses, lulled by warmth and food and cigar-smoke into a kind of rapt self-contemplation. But up here, in the gloom, lighted only on this occasion by a single shaded candle, in a complete interior silence, three persons had sat round a table for more than an hour, striving by passivity and a kind of indescribable concentration to ignore all that was presented by the senses, and to await some movement from that which lies beyond them.

Lady Laura had sat down that night in a state of mind which she could not analyze. It was not that her anxieties had been lulled so much as counterbalanced; they were still there, at once poignant and heavy, but on the other side there had been the assured air of the medium, his reasonableness and his personality, as well as the enthusiasm of her friend, and her astonished remonstrances. She had decided to acquiesce, not because she was satisfied, but because on the whole anxiety was outweighed by confidence. She could not have taken action under such circumstances, but she could at least refrain from it.

Laurie, as Mr. Parker had noticed, had been “quiet-like”; he had said very little indeed, but a nervous strain was evident in the brightness of his eyes; but in answer to a conventional inquiry he had declared himself extremely well. Mr. Vincent had looked at him for just an instant longer than usual as he shook hands, but he said nothing. Mrs. Stapleton had made an ecstatic remark or two on the envy with which she regarded the boy’s sensitive faculties.

At the beginning of the séance the medium had repeated his warnings as to Laurie’s avoiding of trance, and had added one or two other precautions. Then he had gone into the cabinet; the fire had been pressed down under ashes, and a single candle lighted and placed behind the angle of the little adjoining room in such a position that its shaded light fell upon the cabinet only and the figure of the medium within.

When the silence became fixed, Lady Laura for the first time perceived the rage of wind and rain outside. The very intensity of the interior stillness and the rapture of attention emphasized to an extraordinary degree the windy roar without. Yet the silence seemed to her, now as always, to have a peculiar faculty of detaching the psychical from the physical atmosphere. In spite of the batter of rain not ten feet away, the sighing between the shutters, and even the lift now and again of the heavy curtains in the draught, she seemed to herself as remote from it as does a man crouching in the dark under some ruin feel himself at an almost infinite distance from the pick and the hammer of the rescuers. These were in one world, she in another.

For over an hour no movement was made. She herself sat facing the fire, Laurie on her left looking towards the cabinet with his back to the windows, Mrs. Stapleton opposite to her.

An endless procession of thoughts defiled before her as she sat, yet these too were somewhat remote—far up, so to speak, on the superficies of consciousness: they did not approach that realm of the will poised now and attentive on another range of existence. Once and again she glanced up without moving her head at the three-quarter profile on her left, at the somewhat Zulu-like outline opposite to her; then down again at the polished little round table and the six hands laid upon it. And meanwhile her brain revolved images rather than thoughts, memories rather than reflections—vignettes, so to speak,—old Mr. Cathcart in his spats and frock-coat, the look on the medium’s face, there and gone again in an instant as he had heard the stranger’s name; the carved oak stalls of the chancel towards which she had faced this morning, the look of the park, the bloom upon the still leafless trees, the radiance of the blue spring sky....

It must have been, she thought, after a little over an hour that the first expected movement made itself felt—a long trembling shudder through the wood beneath her hands, followed by a strange sensation of lightness, as if the whole table rose a little from the floor. Then, almost before the movement subsided, a torrent of little taps poured itself out, as delicate and as swift and, it seemed, as perfectly calculated, as the rapping of some minute electric hammer. This was new to her, yet not so unlike other experiences as to seem strange or perturbing in any way.... Again she bent her attention to the table as the vibration ceased.

There followed a long silence.

It must have been about ten minutes later that she became aware of the next phenomenon; and her attention had been called to it by a sudden noiseless uplifting of the profile on her left. She turned her face to the cabinet and looked; and there, perfectly discernible, was some movement going on between the curtains. For the moment she could see the medium clearly, his arms folded, indicated by the white lines of his cuffs across his breast, his head sunk forward in deep sleep; and at the next instant the curtains flapped two or three times, as if jerked from within, and finally rested completely closed.

She glanced quickly at the boy on her left, and in the diffused light from the other room could see him distinctly, his eyes open and watching, his lips compressed as if in some tense effort of self-control.

When she looked at the cabinet again she could see that some movement had begun again behind the curtains, for these swayed and jerked convulsively, as if some person with but little room was moving there. And she could hear now, as the gusts outside lulled for a moment, the steady rather stertorous breathing of the medium. Then once again the wind gathered strength outside; the rain tore at the glass like a streaming handful of tiny pebbles, and the great curtains at her side lifted and sighed in the draught through the shutters.

When it quieted again the breathing had become a measured moaning, as that which a dreaming dog emits at the end of each expiration; and she herself drew a long trembling breath, overwhelmed by the sense of some struggle in the room such as she had not experienced before.

It was impossible for her to express this even to herself; yet the perception was clear—as clear as some presentment of the senses. She knew during those moments, as she watched the swaying curtains of the cabinet in the shaded light that fell upon them, and heard now and again that low moan from behind them, that some kind of stress lay upon something that was new to her in this connection. For the time she forgot her undertone of anxiety as to this boy at her side, and a curious terrified excitement took its place. Once, even then, she glanced at him again, and saw the motionless profile watching, always watching....

Then in an instant the climax came, and this is what she saw.

The commotion of the curtains ceased suddenly, and they hung in straight folds from roof to floor of the little cabinet. Then they gently parted—she saw the long fingers that laid hold of them—and the form of a person came out, descended the single step, and stood on the floor before her eyes, in the plain candlelight, not four steps away.

It was the figure of a young girl, perfectly formed in all its parts, swathed in some light stuff resembling muslin that fell almost to the feet and shrouded the upper part of the head. Her hands were clasped across her breast, her bare feet were visible against the dark floor, and her features were unmistakably clear. There was a certain beauty in the face—in the young lips, the open eyes, and the dark lines of the brows over them; and the complexion was waxen, clear as of a blonde. But, as the observer had noticed before on the three or four occasions on which she had seen these phenomena, there was a strange mask-like set of the features, as if the life that lay behind them had not perfectly saturated that which expressed it. It was something utterly different from the face of a dead person, yet also not completely alive, though the eyes turned a little in their sockets, and the young down-curved lips smiled. Behind her, plain between the tossed-back curtains, was the figure of the medium sunk in sleep.

And so for a few seconds the apparition remained.

It seemed to the watcher that during those seconds the whole world was still. Whether in truth the wind had dropped, or whether the absorbed attention perceived nothing but the marvel before it, yet so it seemed. Even the breathing of the medium had stopped; Lady Laura heard only the ticking of the watch upon her own wrist.

Then, as once more a gust tore up from the south-west, the figure moved forward a step nearer the table, coming with a motion as of a living person, causing, it even appeared, that faint vibration on the floor as of a living body.

She stood so near now, though with her back to the diffused light of the ante-room, that her features were more plain than before—the stained lips, the open eyes, the shadow beneath the nostrils and chin, even the white fingers clasped across the breast. There was none of that vague mistiness that had been seen once before in that room; every line was as clear-cut as in the face of a living person; even the swell of the breast beneath the hands, the slender sloping shoulders, the long curved line from hip to ankle, all were real and discernible. And once again the staring eyes of the watcher took in, and her mind perceived, that slight mask-like look on the pretty appealing face.

Once again the figure came forward, straight on to the table; and then, so swift that not a motion or a word could check it, the catastrophe fell.

There was a violent movement on Lady Laura’s left hand, a chair shot back and fell, and with a horrible tearing cry from the throat, the boy dashed himself face forwards across the table, snatched at and for an instant seized something real and concrete that stood there; and as the two women sprang up, losing sight for an instant of the figure that had been there a moment ago, the boy sank forward, moaning and sobbing, and a crash as of a heavy body falling sounded from the cabinet.

For a space of reckonable time there was complete silence. Then once more a blast of wind tore up from the south-west, rain shattered against the window, and the house vibrated to the shock.

Chapter XIV

I

As the date approached Maggie felt her anxieties settle down, like a fire, from turbulence to steady flame. On the Sunday she had with real difficulty kept it to herself, and the fringe of the storm of wind and rain that broke over Herefordshire in the evening had not been reassuring. Yet on one thing her will kept steady hold, and that was that Mrs. Baxter must not be consulted. No conceivable good could result, and there might even be harm: either the old lady would be too much or not enough concerned: she might insist on Laurie’s return to Stantons, or might write him a cheering letter encouraging him to amuse himself in any direction that he pleased. So Maggie passed the evening in fits of alternate silence and small conversation, and succeeded in making Mrs. Baxter recommend a good long night.

Monday morning, however, broke with a cloudless sky, an air like wine, and the chatter of birds; and by the time that Maggie went to look at the crocuses immediately before breakfast, she was all but at her ease again. Enough, however, of anxiety remained to make her hurry out to the stable-yard when she heard the postman on his way to the back door.

There was one letter for her, in Mr. Cathcart’s handwriting; and she opened it rather hastily as she turned in again to the garden.

It was reassuring. It stated that the writer had approached—that was the word—Mr. Baxter, though unfortunately with ill-success, and that he proposed on the following day—the letter was dated on Saturday evening—also to approach Lady Laura Bethell. He felt fairly confident, he said, that his efforts would succeed in postponing, at any rate, Mr. Baxter’s visit to Lady Laura; and in that case he would write further as to what was best to be done. In the meanwhile Miss Deronnais was not to be in the least anxious. Whatever happened, it was extremely improbable that one visit more or less to a séance would carry any great harm: it was the habit, rather than the act, that was usually harmful to the nervous system. And the writer begged to remain her obedient servant.

Maggie’s spirits rose with a bound. How extraordinarily foolish she had been, she told herself, to have been filled with such forebodings last night! It was more than likely that the séance had taken place without Laurie; and, even at the worst, as Mr. Cathcart said, he was probably only a little more excited than usual this morning.

So she began to think about future arrangements; and by the time that Mrs. Baxter looked benignantly out at her from beneath the Queen Anne doorway to tell her that breakfast was waiting, she was conceiving of the possibility of going up herself to London in a week or two on some shopping excuse, and of making one more genial attempt to persuade Laurie to be a sensible boy again.

During her visit to the fowl-yard after breakfast she began to elaborate these plans.

She was clear now, once again, that the whole thing was a fantastic delusion, and that its sole harm was that it was superstitious and nerve-shaking. (She threw a large handful of maize, with a meditative eye.) It was on that ground and that only that she would approach Laurie. Perhaps even it would be better for her not to go and see him; it might appear that she was making too much of it: a good sensible letter might do the work equally well.... Well, she would wait at least to hear from Mr. Cathcart once more. The second post would probably bring a letter from him. (She emptied her bowl.)

She was out again in the spring sunshine, walking up and down before the house with a book, by the time that the second post was due. But this time, through the iron gate, she saw the postman go past the house without stopping. Once more her spirits rose, this time, one might say, to par; and she went indoors.

Her window looked out on to the front; and she moved her writing-table to it to catch as much as possible of the radiant air and light of the spring day. She proposed to begin to sketch out what she would say to Laurie, and suggest, if he wished it, to come up and see him in a week or two. She would apologize for her fussiness, and say that the reason why she was writing was that she did not want his mother to be made anxious.

“My dear Laurie...”

She bit her pen gently, and looked out of the window to catch inspiration for the particular frame of words with which she should begin. And as she looked an old gentleman suddenly appeared beyond the iron gate, shook it gently, glanced up in vain for a name on the stone posts, and stood irresolute. It was an old trap, that of the front gate; there was no bell, and it was necessary for visitors to come straight in to the front door.

Then, so swiftly that she could not formulate it, an anxiety leapt at her, and she laid her pen down, staring. Who was this?

She went quickly to the bell and rang it; standing there waiting, with beating heart and face suddenly gone white....

“Susan,” she said, “there is an old gentleman at the gate. Go out and see who it is.... Stop: if it is anyone for me ... if—if he gives the name of Mr. Cathcart, ask him to be so kind as to go round the turn to the village and wait for me.... Susan, don’t say anything to Mrs. Baxter; it may just possibly be bad news.”

From behind the curtain she watched the maid go down the path, saw a few words pass between her and the stranger, and then the maid come back. She waited breathless.

“Yes, miss. It is a Mr. Cathcart. He said he would wait for you.”

Maggie nodded.

“I will go,” she said. “Remember, please do not say a word to anyone. It may be bad news, as I said.”

As she walked through the hamlet three minutes later, she began to recognize that the news must be really serious; and that beneath all her serenity she had been aware of its possibility. So intense now was that anxiety—though perfectly formless in its details—that all other faculties seemed absorbed into it. She could not frame any imagination as to what it meant; she could form no plan, alternative or absolute, as to what must be done. She was only aware that something had happened, and that she would know the facts in a few seconds.

About fifty yards up the turning she saw the old gentleman waiting. He was in his London clothes, silk-hatted and spatted, and made a curiously incongruous picture there in the deep-banked lane that led upwards to the village. On either side towered the trees, still leafless, yet bursting with life; and overhead chattered the birds against the tender midday sky of spring.

He lifted his hat as she came to him; but they spoke no word of greeting.

“Tell me quickly,” she said. “I am Maggie Deronnais.”

He turned to walk by her side, saying nothing for a moment.

“The facts or the interpretation?” he asked in his brisk manner. “I will just say first that I have seen him this morning.”

“Oh! the facts,” she said. “Quickly, please.”

“Well, he is going to Mr. Morton’s chambers this afternoon; he says...”

“What?”

“One moment, please.... Oh! he is not seriously ill, as the world counts illness. He thought he was just very tired this morning. I went round to call on him. He was in bed at half-past ten when I left him. Then I came straight down here.”

For a moment she thought the old man mad. The relief was so intense that she flushed scarlet, and stopped dead in the middle of the road.

“You came down here,” she repeated. “Why, I thought—”

He looked at her gravely, in spite of the incessant twinkle in his eyes. She perceived that this old man’s eyes would twinkle at a death-bed. He stroked his grey beard smoothly down.

“Yes; you thought that he was dead, perhaps? Oh, no. But for all that, Miss Deronnais, it is just as serious as it can be.”

She did not know what to think. Was the man a madman himself?

“Listen, please. I am telling you simply the facts. I was anxious, and I went round this morning first to Lady Laura Bethell. To my astonishment she saw me. I will not tell you all that she said, just now. She was in a terrible state, though she did not know one-tenth of the harm—Well, after what she told me I went round straight to Mitre Court. The porter was inclined not to let me in. Well, I went in, and straight into Mr. Baxter’s bedroom; and I found there—”

He stopped.

“Yes?”

“I found exactly what I had feared, and expected.”

“Oh! tell me quickly,” she cried, wheeling on him in anger.

He looked at her as if critically for a moment. Then he went on abruptly.

“I found Mr. Baxter in bed. I made no apology at all. I said simply that I had come to see how he was after the séance.”

“It took place, then—”

“Oh! yes.... I forgot to mention that Lady Laura would pay no attention to me yesterday.... Yes, it took place.... Well, Mr. Baxter did not seem surprised to see me. He told me he felt tired. He said that the séance had been a success. And while he talked I watched him. Then I came away and caught the ten-fifty.”

“I don’t understand in the least,” said Maggie.

“So I suppose,” said the other dryly. “I imagine you do not believe in spiritualism at all—I mean that you think that the whole thing is fraud or hysteria?”

“Yes, I do,” said Maggie bravely.

He nodded once or twice.

“So do most sensible people. Well, Miss Deronnais, I have come to warn you. I did not write, because it was impossible to know what to say until I had seen you and heard your answer to that question. At the same time, I wanted to lose no time. Anything may happen now at any moment.... I wanted to tell you this: that I am at your service now altogether. When—” he stopped; then he began again, “If you hear no further news for the present, may I ask when you expect to see Mr. Baxter again?”

“In Easter week.”

“That is a fortnight off.... Do you think you could persuade him to come down here next week instead? I should like you to see him for yourself: or even sooner.”

She was still hopelessly confused with these apparent alternations. She still wondered whether Mr. Cathcart were as mad as he seemed. They turned, as the village came in sight ahead, up the hill.

“Next week? I could try,” she said mechanically. “But I don’t understand—”

He held up a gloved hand.

“Wait till you have seen him,” he said. “For myself, I shall make a point of seeing Mr. Morton every day to hear the news.... Miss Deronnais, I tell you plainly that you alone will have to bear the weight of all this, unless Mrs. Baxter—”

“Oh, do explain,” she said almost irritably.

He looked at her with those irresistibly twinkling eyes, but she perceived a very steady will behind them.

“I will explain nothing at all,” he said, “now that I have seen you, and heard what you think, except this single point. What you have to be prepared for is the news that Mr. Baxter has suddenly gone out of his mind.”

It was said in exactly the same tone as his previous sentences, and for a moment she did not catch the full weight of its meaning. She stopped and looked at him, paling gradually.

“Yes, you took that very well,” he said, still meeting her eyes steadily. “Stop.... Keep a strong hold on yourself. That is the worst you have to hear, for the present. Now tell me immediately whether you think Mrs. Baxter should be informed or not.”

Her leaping heart slowed down into three or four gulping blows at the base of her throat. She swallowed with difficulty.

“How do you know—”

“Kindly answer my question,” he said. “Do you think Mrs. Baxter—”

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” sobbed Maggie.

“Steady, steady,” said the old man. “Take my arm, Miss Deronnais.”

She shook her head, keeping her eyes fixed on his.

He smiled in his grey beard.

“Very good,” he said, “very good. And do you think—”

She shook her head again.

“No: not one word. She is his mother. Besides—she is not the kind—she would be of no use.”

“Yes: it is as I thought. Very well, Miss Deronnais; you will have to be responsible. You can wire for me at any moment. You have my address?”

She nodded.

“Then I have one or two things to add. Whatever happens, do not lose heart for one moment. I have seen these cases again and again.... Whatever happens, too, do not put yourself into a doctor’s hands until I have seen Mr. Baxter for myself. The thing may come suddenly or gradually. And the very instant you are convinced it is coming, telegraph to me. I will be here two hours after.... Do you understand?”

They halted twenty yards from the turning into the hamlet. He looked at her again with his kindly humorous eyes.

She nodded slowly and deliberately, repeating in her own mind his instructions; and beneath, like a whirl of waters, questions surged to and fro, clamoring for answer. But her self-control was coming back each instant.

“You understand, Miss Deronnais?” he said again.

“I understand. Will you write to me?”

“I will write this evening.... Once more, then. Get him down next week. Watch him carefully when he comes. Consult no doctor until you have telegraphed to me, and I have seen him.”

She drew a long breath, nodding almost mechanically.

“Good-bye, Miss Deronnais. Let me tell you that you are taking it magnificently. Fear nothing; pray much.”

He took her hand for a moment. Then he raised his hat and left her standing there.

II

Mrs. Baxter was exceedingly absorbed just now in a new pious book of meditations written by a clergyman. A nicely bound copy of it, which she had ordered specially, had arrived by the parcels post that morning; and she had been sitting in the drawing-room ever since looking through it, and marking it with a small silver pencil. Religion was to this lady what horticulture was to Maggie, except of course that it was really important, while horticulture was not. She often wondered that Maggie did not seem to understand: of course she went to mass every morning, dear girl; but religion surely was much more than that; one should be able to sit for two or three hours over a book in the drawing-room, before the fire, with a silver pencil.

So at lunch she prattled of the book almost continuously, and at the end of it thought Maggie more unsubtle than ever: she looked rather tired and strained, thought the old lady, and she hardly said a word from beginning to end.

The drive in the afternoon was equally unsatisfactory. Mrs. Baxter took the book with her, and the pencil, in order to read aloud a few extracts here and there; and she again seemed to find Maggie rather vacuous and silent.

“Dearest child, you are not very well, I think,” she said at last.

Maggie roused herself suddenly.

“What, Auntie?”

“You are not very well, I think. Did you sleep well?”

“Oh! I slept all right,” said Maggie vaguely.

But after tea Mrs. Baxter did not feel very well herself. She said she thought she must have taken a little chill. Maggie looked at her with unperceptive eyes.

“I am sorry,” she said mechanically.

“Dearest, you don’t seem very overwhelmed. I think perhaps I shall have dinner in bed. Give me my book, child.... Yes, and the pencil-case.”

Mrs. Baxter’s room was so comfortable, and the book so fascinatingly spiritual, that she determined to keep her resolution and go to bed. She felt feverish, just to the extent of being very sleepy and at her ease. She rang her bell and issued her commands.

“A little of the volaille,” she said, “with a spoonful of soup before it.... No, no meat; but a custard or so, and a little fruit. Oh! yes, Charlotte, and tell Miss Maggie not to come and see me after dinner.”

It seemed that the message had roused the dear girl at last, for Maggie appeared ten minutes later in quite a different mood. There was really some animation in her face.

“Dear Auntie, I am so very sorry.... Yes; do go to bed, and breakfast there in the morning too. I’m just writing to Laurie, by the way.”

Mrs. Baxter nodded sleepily from her deep chair.

“He’s coming down in Easter week, isn’t he?”

“So he says, my dear.”

“Why shouldn’t he come next week instead, Auntie, and be with us for Easter? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Very nice indeed, dear child; but don’t bother the boy.”

“And you don’t think it’s influenza?” put in Maggie swiftly, laying a cool hand on the old lady’s.

She maintained it was not. It was just a little chill, such as she had had this time last year: and it became necessary to rouse herself a little to enumerate the symptoms. By the time she had done, Maggie’s attention had begun to wander again: the old lady had never known her so unsympathetic before, and said so with gentle peevishness.

Maggie kissed her quickly.

“I’m sorry, Auntie,” she said. “I was just thinking of something. Sleep well; and don’t get up in the morning.”

Then she left her to a spoonful of soup, a little volaille, a custard, some fruit, her spiritual book and contentment.

Downstairs she dined alone in the green-hung dining-room; and she revolved for the twentieth time the thoughts that had been continuously with her since midday, moving before her like a kaleidoscope, incessantly changing their relations, their shapes, and their suggestions. These tended to form themselves into two main alternative classes. Either Mr. Cathcart was a harmless fanatic, or he was unusually sharp. But these again had almost endless subdivisions, for at present she had no idea of what was really in his mind—as to what his hints meant. Either this curious old gentleman with shrewd, humorous eyes was entirely wrong, and Laurie was just suffering from a nervous strain, not severe enough to hinder him from reading law in Mr. Morton’s chambers; and this was all the substratum of Mr. Cathcart’s mysteries: or else Mr. Cathcart was right, and Laurie was in the presence of some danger called insanity which Mr. Cathcart interpreted in some strange fashion she could not understand. And beneath all this again moved the further questions as to what spiritualism really was—what it professed to be, or mere superstitious nonsense, or something else.

She was amazed that she had not demanded greater explicitness this morning; but the thing had been so startling, so suggestive at first, so insignificant in its substance, that her ordinary common sense had deserted her. The old gentleman had come and gone like a wraith, had uttered a few inconclusive sentences, and promised to write, had been disappointed with her at one moment and enthusiastic the next. Obviously their planes ran neither parallel nor opposing; they cut at unexpected points; and Maggie had no notion as to the direction in which his lay. All she saw plainly was that there was some point of view other than hers.

So, then, she revolved theories, questioned, argued, doubted with herself. One thing only emerged—the old lady’s feverish cold afforded her exactly the opportunity she wished; she could write to Laurie with perfect truthfulness that his mother had taken to her bed, and that she hoped he would come down next week instead of the week after.

After dinner she sat down and wrote it, pausing many times to consider a phrase.

Then she read a little, and soon after ten went upstairs to bed.

III

It was a little before sunset on that day that Mr. James Morton turned down on to the Embankment to walk up to the Westminster underground to take him home. He was a great man on physical exercise, and it was a matter of principle with him to live far from his work. As he came down the little passage he found his friend waiting for him, and together they turned up towards where in the distance the Westminster towers rose high and blue against the evening sky.

“Well?” said the old man.

Mr. Morton looked at him with a humorous eye.

“You are a hopeless case,” he said.

“Kindly tell me what you noticed.”

“My dear man,” he said, “there’s absolutely nothing to say. I did exactly what you said: I hardly spoke to him at all: I watched him very carefully indeed. I really can’t go on doing that day after day. I’ve got my own work to do. It’s the most utter bunkum I ever—”

“Tell me anything odd that you saw.”

“There was nothing odd at all, except that the boy looked tired, as you saw for yourself this morning.”

“Did he behave exactly as usual?”

“Exactly, except that he was quieter. He fidgeted a little with his fingers.”

“Yes?”

“And he seemed very hard at work. I caught him looking at me once or twice.”

“Yes? How did he look?”

“He just looked at me—that was all. Good Lord! what do you want—”

“And there was nothing else—absolutely nothing else?”

“Absolutely nothing else.”

“He didn’t complain of ... of anything?”

“Lord...! Oh, yes; he did say something about a headache.”

“Ah!” The old man leaned forward. “A headache? What kind?”

“Back of his head.”

The old man sat back with pursed lips.

“Did he talk about last night?” he went on again suddenly.

“Not a word.”

“Ah!”

Mr. Morton burst into a rude uproarious laugh.

“Upon my word!” he said. “I think, Cathcart, you’re the most amazingly—”

The other held up a gloved hand in deprecation; but he did not seem at all ruffled.

“Yes, yes; we can take all that as said.... I’m accustomed to it, my dear fellow. Well, I saw Miss Deronnais, as I told you I should in my note.... You’re quite right about her.”

“Pleased to hear it, I’m sure,” said Mr. Morton solemnly.

“She’s one in a thousand. I told her right out, you know, that I feared insanity.”

“Oh! you did! That’s tactful! How did she—”

“She took it admirably.”

“And did you tell her your delightful theories?”

“I did not. She will see all that for herself, I expect. Meantime—”

“Oh, you didn’t tell me about your interview with Lady Laura.”

The old face grew a little grim.

“Ah! that’s not finished yet,” he said. “I’m on my way to her now. I don’t think she’ll play with the thing again just yet.”

“And the others—the medium, and so on?”

“They will have to take their chance. It’s absolutely useless going to them.”

“They’re as bad as I am, I expect.”

The old man turned a sharp face to him.

“Oh! you know nothing whatever about it,” he said. “You don’t count. But they do know quite enough.”

In the underground the two talked no more; but Mr. Morton, affecting to read his paper, glanced up once or twice at the old shrewd face opposite that stared so steadily out of the window into the roaring darkness. And once more he reflected how astonishing it was that anyone in these days—anyone, at least, possessing common sense—and common sense was written all over that old bearded face—could believe such fantastic rubbish as that which had been lately discussed. It was not only the particular points that regarded Laurie Baxter—all these absurd, though disquieting hints about insanity and suicide and the rest of it—but the principles that old Cathcart declared to be beneath—those principles which he had, apparently, not confided to Miss Deronnais. Here was the twentieth century; here was an electric railway, padded seats, and the Pall Mall...! Was further comment required?

The train began to slow up at Gloucester Road; and old Cathcart gathered up his umbrella and gloves.

“Then tomorrow,” he said, “at the same time?”

Mr. Morton made a resigned gesture.

“But why don’t you go and have it out with him yourself?” he asked.

“He would not listen to me—less than ever now. Good night!”

The train slid on again into the darkness; and the lawyer sat for a moment with pursed lips. Yes, of course the boy was overwrought: anyone could see that: he had stammered a little—a sure sign. But why make all this fuss? A week in the country would set him right.

Then he opened the Pall Mall again resolutely.

Chapter XV

I

Mr. and Mrs. Nugent were enjoying their holiday exceedingly. On Good Friday they had driven laboriously in a waggonette to Royston, where they had visited the hermit’s cave in company with other grandees of their village, and held a stately picnic on the downs. They had returned, the gentlemen of the party slightly flushed with brandy and water from the various hostelries on the home journey, and the ladies severe, with watercress on their laps. Accordingly, on the Saturday, Mrs. Nugent had thought it better to stay indoors and dispatch her husband to the scene of the first cricket match of the season, a couple of miles away.

At about five o’clock she made herself a cup of tea, and did not wake up from the sleep which followed until the evening was closing in. She awoke with a start, remembering that she had intended to give a good look between the spare bedroom that had been her daughter’s, and possibly make a change or two of the furniture. There was a mahogany wardrobe ... and so forth.

She had not entered this room very often since the death. It had come to resemble to her mind a sort of melancholy sanctuary, symbolical of glories that might have been; for she and her husband were full of the glorious day that had begun to dawn when Laurie, very constrained though very ardent, had called upon them in state to disclose his intentions. Well, it had been a false dawn; but at least it could be, and was, still talked about in sad and suggestive whispers.

It seemed full then of a mysterious splendor when she entered it this evening, candle in hand, and stood regarding it from the threshold. To the outward eye it was nothing very startling. A shrouded bed protruded from the wall opposite with the words “The Lord preserve thee from all evil” illuminated in pink and gold by the girl’s own hand. An oleograph of Queen Victoria in coronation robes hung on one side and the painted photograph of a Nonconformist divine, Bible in hand, whiskered and cravatted, upon the other. There was a small cloth-covered table at the foot of the bed, adorned with an almost continuous line of brass-headed nails as a kind of beading round the edge, in the center of which rested the plaster image of a young person clasping a cross. A hymn-book and a Bible stood before this, and a small jar of wilted flowers. Against the opposite wall, flanked by dejected-looking wedding-groups, and another text or two, stood the great mahogany wardrobe, whose removal was vaguely in contemplation.

Mrs. Nugent regarded the whole with a tender kind of severity, shaking her head slowly from side to side, with the tin candlestick slightly tilted. She was a full-bodied lady, in clothes rather too tight for her, and she panted a little after the ascent of the stairs. It seemed to her once more a strangely and inexplicably perverse act of Providence, to whom she had always paid deference, by which so incalculable a rise in the social scale had been denied to her.

Then she advanced a step, her eyes straying from the shrouded bed to the wardrobe and back again. Then she set the candlestick upon the table and turned round.

It must now be premised that Mrs. Nugent was utterly without a trace of what is known as superstition; for the whole evidential value of what follows, such as it is, depends upon that fact. She would not, by preference, sleep in a room immediately after a death had taken place in it, but solely for the reason of certain ill-defined physical theories which she would have summed up under the expression that “it was but right that the air should be changed.” Her views on human nature and its component parts were undoubtedly practical and common-sense. To put it brutally, Amy’s body was in the churchyard and Amy’s soul, crowned and robed, in heaven; so there was no more to account for. She knew nothing of modern theories, nothing of the revival of ancient beliefs; she would have regarded with kindly compassion, and met with practical comments, that unwilling shrinking from scenes of death occasionally manifested by certain kind of temperaments.

She turned, then, and looked at the wardrobe, still full of Amy’s belongings, with her back to the bed in which Amy had died, without even the faintest premonitory symptom of the unreasoning terror that presently seized upon her.

It came about in this way.

She kneeled down, after a careful scrutiny of the polished surface of the mahogany, pulled out a drawer filled to brimming over with linen of various kinds and uses, and began to dive among these with careful housewifely hands to discover their tale. Simultaneously, as she remembered afterwards, there came from the hill leading down from the direction of the station, the sound of a trotting horse.

She paused to listen, her mind full of that faint gossipy surmise that surges so quickly up in the thoughts of village dwellers, her hands for an instant motionless among the linen. It might be the doctor, or Mr. Paton, or Mr. Grove. Those names flashed upon her; but an instant later were drowned again in a kind of fear of which she could give afterwards no account.

It seemed to her, she said, that there was something coming towards her that set her a-tremble; and when, a moment later, the trotting hoofs rang out sharp and near, she positively relapsed into a kind of sitting position on the floor, helpless and paralyzed by a furious up-rush of terror.

For it appeared, so far as Mrs. Nugent could afterwards make it out, as if a sort of double process went on. It was not merely that Fear, full-armed, rushed upon with the approaching wheels, outside and therefore harmless; but that the room itself in which she crouched, itself filled with some atmosphere, swift as water in a rising lock, that held her there motionless, blind and dumb with horror, unable to move, even to lift her hands or turn her head. As one approached, the other rose.

Again sounded the hoofs and wheels, near now and imminent. Again they hushed as the corner was approached. Then once more, as they broke out, clear and distinct, not twenty yards away at the turning into the village, Mrs. Nugent, no longer able even to keep that rigid position of fear, sank gently backwards and relapsed in a huddle on the floor.

II

Mr. Nugent was astonished and even a little peevish when, on arriving home after dark, he found the parlor lamp a-smoke and his wife absent.

He inquired for her; the mistress had slipped upstairs scarcely ten minutes ago. He shouted at the bottom of the stairs, but there was no response. And after he had taken his boots off, and his desire for supper had become poignant, he himself stepped upstairs to see into the matter....

It was several minutes, even after the conveyal of an apparently inanimate body downstairs, before his wife first made clear signs of intelligence; and even these were little more than grotesque expressions of fear—rolling eyes and exclamations. It was another quarter of an hour before any kind of connected story could be got out of her. One conclusion only was evident, that Mrs. Nugent did not propose to fetch the forgotten candle still burning on the cloth-covered, brass-nailed table, but that it must be fetched instantly; the door locked on the outside, and the key laid before her on that tablecloth. These were the terms that must be conceded before any further details were gone into.

Plainly there was but one person to carry out these instructions, for the little servant-maid was already all eyes and mouth at the few pregnant sentences that had fallen from her mistress’s lips. So Mr. Nugent himself, cloth cap and all, stepped upstairs once more.

He paused at the door and looked in.

All was entirely as usual. In spite of the unpleasant expectancy roused, in spite of himself and his godliness, by the words of his wife and her awful head-nodding, the room gave back to him no echo or lingering scent of horror. The little bed stood there, white and innocent in the candlelight, the drawer still gaped, showing its pathetic contents; the furniture, pictures, texts, and all the rest remained in their places, harmless and undefiled as when Amy herself had set them there.

He looked carefully round before entering; then, stepping forward, he took the candle, closed the drawer, not without difficulty, glanced round once more, and went out, locking the door behind him.

“A pack of nonsense!” he said, as he tossed the key on to the table before his wife.

The theological discussion waxed late that night, and by ten o’clock Mrs. Nugent, under the influence of an excellent supper and a touch of stimulant, had begun to condemn her own terrors, or rather to cease to protest when her husband condemned them for her. A number of solutions had been proposed for the startling little incident, to none of which did she give an unqualified denial. It was the stooping that had done it; there had been a rush of blood to the head that had emptied the heart and caused the sinking feeling. It was the watercress eaten in such abundance on the previous afternoon. It was the fact that she had passed an unoccupied morning, owing to the closing of the shop. It was one of those things, or all of them, or some other like one of them. Even the little maid was reassured, when she came to take away the supper things, by the cheerful conversation of the couple, though she registered a private vow that for no consideration under heaven would she enter the bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs.

About half-past ten Mrs. Nugent said that she would step up to bed; and in that direction she went, accompanied by her husband, whose program it was presently to step round to the “Wheatsheaf” for an hour with the landlord after the bar was shut up.

At the door on the right hand he hesitated, but his wife passed on sternly; and as she passed into their own bedroom a piece of news came to his mind.

“That was Mr. Laurie you heard, Mary,” said he. “Jim told me he saw him go past just after dark.... Well, I’ll take the house-key with me.”

Chapter XVI

I

“When is he coming?” asked Mrs. Baxter with a touch of peevishness, as she sat propped up in her tall chair before the bedroom fire.

“He will be here about six,” said Maggie. “Are you sure you have finished?”

The old lady turned away her head from the rice pudding in a kind of gesture of repulsion. She was in the fractious period of influenza, and Maggie had had a hard time with her.

Nothing particular had happened for the last ten days. Mrs. Baxter’s feverish cold had developed, and she was but now emerging from the nightdress and flannel-jacket stage to that of the petticoat and dressing-gown. It was all very ordinary and untragic, and Maggie had had but little time to consider the events on which her subconscious attention still dwelt. Mr. Cathcart had had no particular news to give her. Laurie, it seemed, was working silently with his coach, talking little. Yet the old man did not for one instant withdraw one word that he had said. Only, in answer to a series of positive inquiries from the girl two days before, he had told her to wait and see him for herself, warning her at the same time to show no signs of perturbation to the boy.

And now the day was come—Easter Eve, as it happened—and she would see him before night. He had sent no answer to her first letter; then, finally, a telegram had come that morning announcing his train.

She was wondering with all her might that afternoon as to what she would see. In a way she was terrified; in another way she was contemptuous. The evidence was so extraordinarily confused. If he were in danger of insanity, how was it that. Mr. Cathcart advised her to get him down to a house with only two women and a few maids? Who was there besides this old gentleman who ever dreamed that such a danger was possible? How, if it was so obvious that she would see the change for herself, was it that others—Mr. Morton, for example—had not seen it too? More than ever the theory gained force in her mind that the whole thing was grossly exaggerated by this old man, and that all that was the matter with Laurie was a certain nervous strain.

Yet, for all that, as the afternoon closed in, she felt her nerves tightening. She walked a little in the garden while the old lady took her nap; she came in to read to her again from the vellum-bound little book as the afternoon light began to fade. Then, after tea, she went under orders to see for herself whether Laurie’s room was as it should be.

It struck her with an odd sense of strangeness as she went in; she scarcely knew why; she told herself it was because of what she had heard of him lately. But all was as it should be. There were spring flowers on the table and mantelshelf, and a pleasant fire on the hearth. It was even reassuring after she had been there a minute or two.

Then she went to look at the smoking-room where she had sat with him and heard the curious noise of the cracking wood on the night of the thaw, when the boy had behaved so foolishly. Here, too, was a fire, a tall porter’s chair drawn on one side with its back to the door, and a deep leather couch set opposite. There was a box of Laurie’s cigarettes set ready on the table—candles, matches, flowers, the illustrated papers—yes, everything.

But she stood looking on it all for a few moments with an odd emotion. It was familiar, homely, domestic—yet it was strange. There was an air of expectation about it all.... Then on a sudden the emotions precipitated themselves in tenderness.... Ah! poor Laurie....

“It is all perfectly right,” she said to the old lady.

“Are the cigarettes there?”

“Yes: I noticed them particularly.”

“And flowers?”

“Yes, flowers too.”

“What time is it, my dear? I can’t see.”

Maggie peered at the clock.

“It’s just after six, Auntie. Will you have the candles?”

The old lady shook her head.

“No, my dear: my eyes can’t stand the light. Why hasn’t the boy come?”

“Why, it’s hardly time yet. Shall I bring him up at once?”

“Just for two minutes,” sighed the old lady. “My head’s bad again.”

“Poor dear,” said Maggie.

“Sit down, my dearest, for a few minutes. You’ll hear the wheels from here.... No, don’t talk or read.”

There, then, the two women sat waiting.

Outside the twilight was falling, layer on layer, over the spring garden, in a great stillness. The chilly wind of the afternoon had dropped, and there was scarcely a sound to be heard from the living things about the house that once more were renewing their strength. Yet over all, to the Catholic’s mind at least, there lay a shadow of death, from associations with that strange anniversary that was passing, hour by hour....

As to what Maggie thought during those minutes of waiting, she could have given afterwards no coherent description. Matters were too complicated to think clearly; she knew so little; there were so many hypotheses. Yet one emotion dominated the rest—expectancy with a tinge of fear. Here she sat, in this peaceful room, with all the homely paraphernalia of convalescence about her—the fire, the bed laid invitingly open with a couple of books, and a reading-lamp on the little table at the side, the faint smell of sandalwood; and before the fire dozed a peaceful old lady full too of gentle expectation of her son, yet knowing nothing whatever of the vague perils that were about him, that had, indeed, whatever they were, already closed in on him.... And that son was approaching nearer every instant through the country lanes....

She rose at last and went on tiptoe to the window. The curtains had not yet been drawn, and she could see in the fading light the elaborate ironwork of the tall gate in the fence, and the common road outside it, gleaming here and there in puddles that caught the green color from the dying western sky. In front, on the lawn on this side, burned tiny patches of white where the crocuses sprouted.

As she stood there, there came a sound of wheels, and a carriage came in sight. It drew up at the gate, and the door opened.

II

“He is come,” said the girl softly, as she saw the tall ulstered figure appear from the carriage. There was no answer, and as she went on tiptoe to the fire, she saw that the old lady was asleep. She went noiselessly out of the room, and stood for an instant, every pulse racing with horrible excitement, listening to the footsteps and voices in the hall. Then she drew a long trembling breath, steadied herself with a huge effort of the will, and went downstairs.

“Mr. Laurie’s gone into the smoking-room, miss,” said the servant, looking at her oddly.

He was standing by the table as she went in; so much she could see: but the candles were unlighted, and no more was visible of him than his outline against the darkening window.

“Well, Laurie?” she said.

“Well, Maggie,” said his voice in answer. And their hands met.

Then in an instant she knew that something was wrong. Yet at the moment she had not an idea as to what it was that told her that. It was Laurie’s voice surely!

“You’re all in the dark,” she said.

There was no movement or word in answer. She passed her hand along the mantelpiece for the matches she had seen there just before; but her hand shook so much that some little metal ornament fell with a crash as she fumbled there, and she drew a long almost vocal breath of sudden nervous alarm. And still there was no movement in answer. Only the tall figure stood watching her it seemed—a pale luminous patch showing her his face.

Then she found the matches and struck one; and, keeping her face downcast, lighted, with fingers that shook violently, the two candles on the little table by the fire. She must just be natural and ordinary, she kept on telling herself. Then with another fierce effort of will she began to speak, lifting her eyes to his face as she did so.

“Auntie’s just fallen...” (her voice died suddenly for an instant, as she saw him looking at her)—then she finished—”just fallen asleep. Will ... you come up presently ... Laurie?”

Every word was an effort, as she looked steadily into the eyes that looked so steadily into hers.

It was Laurie—yes—but, good God...!

“You must just kiss her and come away,” she said, driving out the words with effort after effort. “She has a bad headache this evening.... Laurie—a bad headache.”

With a sudden twitch she turned away from those eyes.

“Come, Laurie,” she said. And she heard his steps following her.

They passed so through the inner hall and upstairs: and, without turning again, holding herself steady only by the consciousness that some appalling catastrophe was imminent if she did not, she opened the door of the old lady’s room.

“Here he is,” she said. “Now, Laurie, just kiss her and come away.”

“My dearest,” came the old voice from the gloom, and two hands were lifted.

Maggie watched, as the tall figure came obediently forward, in an indescribable terror. It was as when one watches a man in a tiger’s den.... But the figure bent obediently, and kissed.

Maggie instantly stepped forward.

“Not a word,” she said. “Auntie’s got a headache. Yes, Auntie, he’s very well; you’ll see him in the morning. Go out at once, please, Laurie.”

Without a word he passed out, and, as she closed the door after him, she heard him stop irresolute on the landing.

“My dearest child,” came the peevish old voice, “you might have allowed my own son—”

“No, no, Auntie, you really mustn’t. I know how bad your head is ... yes, yes; he’s very well. You’ll see him in the morning.”

And all the while she was conscious of the figure that must be faced again presently, waiting on the landing.

“Shall I go and see that everything’s all right in his room?” she said. “Perhaps they’ve forgotten—”

“Yes, my dearest, go and see. And send Charlotte to me.”

The old voice was growing drowsy again.

Maggie went out swiftly without a word. There again stood the figure waiting. The landing lamp had been forgotten. She led the way to his room.

“Come, Laurie,” she said. “I’ll just see that everything’s all right.”

She found the matches again, lighted the candles, and set them on his table, still without a look at that face that turned always as she went.

“We shall have to dine alone,” she said, striving to make her voice natural, as she reached the door.

Then once more she raised her eyes to his, and looked him bravely in the face as he stood by the fire.

“Do just as you like about dressing,” she said. “I expect you’re tired.”

She could bear it no more. She went out without another word, passed steadily across the length of the landing to her own room, locked the door, and threw herself on her knees.

III

She was roused by a tap on the door—how much later she did not know. But the agony was passed for the present—the repulsion and the horror of what she had seen. Perhaps it was that she did not yet understand the whole truth. But at least her will was dominant; she was as a man who has fought with fear alone, and walks, white and trembling, yet perfectly himself, to the operating table.

She opened the door; and Susan stood there with a candle in one hand and a scrap of white in the other.

“For you, miss,” said the maid.

Maggie took it without a word, and read the name and the penciled message twice.

“Just light the lamp out here,” she said. “Oh ... and, by the way, send Charlotte to Mrs. Baxter at once.”

“Yes, miss...”

The maid still paused, eyeing her, as if with an unspoken question. There was terror too in her eyes.

“Mr. Laurie is not very well,” said Maggie steadily. “Please take no notice of anything. And ... and, Susan, I think I shall dine alone this evening, just a tray up here will do. If Mr. Laurie says anything, just explain that I am looking after Mrs. Baxter. And.... Susan—”

“Yes, miss.”

“Please see that Mrs. Baxter is not told that I am not dining downstairs.”

“Yes, miss.”

Maggie still stood an instant, hesitating. Then a thought recurred again.

“One moment,” she said.

She stepped across the room to her writing-table, beckoning the maid to come inside and shut the door; then she wrote rapidly for a minute or so, enclosed her note, directed it, and gave it to the girl.

“Just send up someone at once, will you, with this to Father Mahon—on a bicycle.”

When the maid was gone, she waited still for an instant looking across the dark landing, expectant of some sound or movement. But all was still. A line of light showed only under the door where the boy who was called Laurie Baxter stood or sat. At least he was not moving about. There in the darkness Maggie tested her power of resisting panic. Panic was the one fatal thing: so much she understood. Even if that silent door had opened, she knew she could stand there still.

She went back, took a wrap from the chair where she had tossed it down on coming in from the garden that afternoon, threw it over her head and shoulders, passed down the stairs and out through the garden once more in the darkness of the spring evening.

All was quiet in the tiny hamlet as she went along the road. A blaze of light shone from the tap-room window where the fathers of families were talking together, and within Mr. Nugent’s shuttered shop she could see through the doorway the grocer himself in his shirt-sleeves, shifting something on the counter. So great was the tension to which she had strung herself that she did not even envy the ordinariness of these people: they appeared to be in some other world, not attainable by herself. These were busied with domestic affairs, with beer or cheese or gossip. Her task was of another kind: so much she knew; and as to what that task was, she was about to learn.

As she turned the corner, the figure she expected was waiting there; and she could see in the deep twilight that he lifted his hat to her. She went straight up to him.

“Yes,” she said, “I have seen for myself. You are right so far. Now tell me what to do.”

It was no time for conventionality. She did not ask why the solicitor was there. It was enough that he had come.

“Walk this way then with me,” he said. “Now tell me what you have seen.”

“I have seen a change I cannot describe at all. It’s just someone else—not Laurie at all. I don’t understand it in the least. But I just want to know what to do. I have written to Father Mahon to come.”

He was silent for a step or two.

“I cannot tell you what to do. I must leave that to yourself. I can only tell you what not to do.”

“Very well.”

“Miss Deronnais, you are magnificent...! There, it is said. Now then. You must not get excited or frightened whatever happens. I do not believe that you are in any danger—not of the ordinary kind, I mean. But if you want me, I shall be at the inn. I have taken rooms there for a night or so. And you must not yield to him interiorly. I wonder if you understand.”

“I think I shall understand soon. At present I understand nothing. I have said I cannot dine with him.”

“But—”

“I cannot ... before the servants. One of them at least suspects something. But I will sit with him afterwards, if that is right.”

“Very good. You must be with him as much as you can. Remember, it is not the worst yet. It is to prevent that worst happening that you must use all the power you’ve got.”

“Am I to speak to him straight out? And what shall I tell Father Mahon?”

“You must use your judgment. Your object is to fight on his side, remember, against this thing that is obsessing him. Miss Deronnais, I must give you another warning.”

She bowed. She did not wish to use more words than were necessary. The strain was frightful.

“It is this: whatever you may see—little tricks of speech or movement—you must not for one instant yield to the thought that the creature that is obsessing him is what he thinks it is. Remember the thing is wholly evil, wholly evil; but it may, perhaps, do its utmost to hide that, and to keep up the illusion. It is intelligent, but not brilliant; it has the intelligence only of some venomous brute in the slime. Or it may try to frighten you. You must not be frightened.”

She understood hints here and there of what the old man said—enough, at any rate, to act.

“And you must keep up to the utmost pitch your sympathy with him himself. You must remember that he is somewhere there, underneath, in chains; and that, probably, he is struggling too, and needs you. It is not Possession yet: he is still partly conscious.... Did he know you?”

“Yes; he just knew me. He was puzzled, I think.”

“Has he seen anyone else he knows?”

“His mother ... yes. He just knew her too. He did not speak to her. I would not let him.”

“Miss Deronnais, you have acted admirably.... What is he doing now?”

“I don’t know. I left him in his room. He was quite quiet.”

“You must go back directly.... Shall we turn? I don’t think there’s much more to say just now.”

Then she noticed that he had said nothing about the priest.

“And what about Father Mahon?” she said.

The old man was silent a moment.

“Well?” she said again.

“Miss Deronnais, I wouldn’t rely on Father Mahon. I’ve hardly ever met a priest who takes these things seriously. In theory—yes, of course; but not in concrete instances. However, Father Mahon may be an exception. And the worst of it is that the priesthood has enormous power, if they only knew it.”

The tinkle of a bicycle bell sounded down the road behind them. Maggie wheeled on the instant, and caught the profile she was expecting.

“Is that you?” she said, as the rider passed.

The man jumped off, touched his hat, and handed her a note. She tore it open, and glanced through it in the light of the bicycle lamp. Then she crumpled it up and threw it into the ditch with a quick, impatient movement.

“All right,” she said. “Good night.”

The gardener mounted his bicycle again and moved off.

“Well?” said the old man.

“Father Mahon’s called away suddenly. It’s from his housekeeper. He’ll only be back in time for the first mass tomorrow.”

The other nodded, three or four times, as if in assent.

“Why do you do that?” asked the girl suddenly.

“It is what I should have expected to happen.”

“What! Father Mahon?—Do you mean it ... it is arranged?”

“I know nothing. It may be coincidence. Speak no more of it. You have the facts to think of.”

About them as they walked back in silence lay the quiet spring night. From the direction of the hamlet came the banging of a door, then voices wishing good night, and the sound of footsteps. The steps passed the end of the lane and died away again. Over the trees to the right were visible the high twisted chimney of the old house where the terror dwelt.

“Two points then to remember,” said the voice in the darkness—”Courage and Love. Can you remember?”

Maggie bowed her head again in answer.

“I will call and ask to see you as soon as the household is up. If you can’t see me, I shall understand that things are going well—or you can send out a note to me. As for Mrs. Baxter—”

“I shall not say one word to her until it becomes absolutely necessary. And if—”

“If it becomes necessary I will wire for a doctor from town. I will undertake all the preliminary arrangements, if you will allow me.”

Ten steps before the corner they stopped.

“God bless you, Miss Deronnais. Remember, I am at the inn if you need me.”

IV

Mrs. Baxter dined placidly in bed at about half-past seven; but she was more sleepy than ever when she had done. She was rash enough to drink a little claret and water.

“It always goes straight to my head, Charlotte,” she explained. “Well, set the book—no, not that one—the one bound in white parchment.... Yes, just so, down here; and turn the reading lamp so that I can read if I want to.... Oh! ask Miss Maggie to tap at my door very softly when she comes out from dinner. Has she gone down yet?”

“I think I heard her step just now, ma’am.”

“Very well; then you can just tell Susan to let her know. How was Mr. Laurie looking, Charlotte?”

“I haven’t seen him, ma’am.”

“Very well. Then that is all, Charlotte. You can just look in here after Miss Maggie and settle me for the night.”

Then the door closed, and Mrs. Baxter instantly began to doze off.

She was one of those persons whose moments between sleeping and waking, especially during a little attack of feverishness, are occupied in contemplating a number of little vivid pictures of all kinds that present themselves to the mental vision; and she saw as usual a quantity of these, made up of tiny details of the day that was gone, and of other details markedly unconnected with it. She saw for example little scenes in which Maggie and Charlotte and medicine bottles and Chinese faces and printed pages of a book all moved together in a sort of convincing incoherence; and she was just beginning to lose herself in the depths of sleep, and to forget her firm resolution of reading another page or so of the book by her side, when a little sound came, and she opened, as she thought, her eyes.

Her reading lamp cast a funnel of light across her bed, and the rest of the room was lit only by the fire dancing in the chimney. Yet this was bright enough, she thought at the time, to show her perfectly distinctly, though with shadows fleeting across it, her son’s face peering in at the door. She thought she said something; but she was not sure afterwards. At any rate, the face did not move; and it seemed to her that it bore an expression of such extraordinary malignity that she would hardly have known it for her son’s. In a sudden panic she raised herself in bed, staring; and as the shadows came and went, as she stared, the face was gone again. Mrs. Baxter drew a quick breath or two as she looked; but there was nothing. Yet again she could have sworn that she heard the faint jar of the closing door.

She reached out and put her hand on the bell-string that hung down over her bed. Then she hesitated. It was too ridiculous, she told herself. Besides, Charlotte would have gone to her room.

But the fear did not go immediately; though she told herself again and again that it was just one of those little waking visions that she knew so well.

She lay back on the pillow, thinking.... Why, they would have reached the fish by now. No; she would tell Maggie when she came up. How Laurie would laugh tomorrow! Then, little by little, she dozed off once more.

The next thing of which she was aware was Maggie bending over her.

“Asleep, Auntie dear?” said the girl softly.

The old lady murmured something. Then she sat up, suddenly.

“No, my dear. Have you finished dinner?”

“Yes, Auntie.”

“Where’s Laurie? I should like to see him for a minute.”

“Not tonight, Auntie; you’re too tired. Besides, I think he’s gone to the smoking-room.”

She acquiesced placidly.

“Very well, dearest.... Oh! Maggie, such a queer thing happened just now—when you were at dinner.”

“Yes?”

“I thought I saw Laurie look in, just for an instant. But he looked awful, somehow. It was just one of my little waking visions I’ve told you of, I suppose.”

The girl was silent; but the old lady saw her suddenly straighten herself.

“Just ask him whether he did look in, after all. It may just have been the shadow on his face.”

“What time was it?”

“About ten past eight, I suppose, dearest. You’ll ask him, won’t you?”

“Yes, Auntie.... I think I’d better lock your door when I go out. You won’t fancy such things then, will you?”

“Very well, dearest. As you think best.”

The old voice was becoming sleepy again: and Maggie stood watching a moment or two longer.

“Send Charlotte to me, dearest.... Good night, my pet.... I’m too sleepy again. My love to Laurie.”

“Yes, Auntie.”

The old lady felt the girl’s warm lips on her forehead. They seemed to linger a little. Then Mrs. Baxter lost herself once more.

IV

The public bar of the Wheatsheaf Inn was the scene this evening of a lively discussion. Some thought the old gentleman, arrived that day from London, to be a new kind of commercial traveler, with designs upon the gardens of the gentry; others that he was a sort of scientific collector; others, again, that he was a private detective; and since there was no evidence at all, good or bad, in support of any one of these suggestions, a very pretty debate became possible.

A silence fell when his step was heard to pass down the stairs and out into the street, and another half an hour later when he returned. Then once more the discussion began.

At ten o’clock the majority of the men moved out into the moonlight to disperse homewards, as the landlord began to put away the glasses and glance at the clock. Overhead the lighted blind showed where the mysterious stranger still kept vigil; and over the way, beyond the still leafless trees, towered up the twisted chimneys of Mrs. Baxter’s house. No word had been spoken connecting the two, yet one or two of the men glanced across the way in vague surmise.

Nearly a couple of hours later the landlord himself came to the door to give the great Mr. Nugent himself, with whom he had been sitting in the inner parlor, a last good-night, and he too noticed that the bedroom window was still lighted up. He jerked his finger in the direction of it.

“A late old party,” he said in an undertone.

Mr. Nugent nodded. He was still a little flushed with whisky and with his previous recountings of what would have happened if his poor daughter had lived to marry the young squire, of his (Mr. Nugent’s) swift social advancement and its outward evidences, and of the hobnobbing with the gentry that would have taken place. He looked reflectively across at the silhouette of the big house, all grey and silver in the full moon. The landlord followed the direction of his eyes; and for some reason unknown to them both, the two stood there silent for a full half-minute. Yet there was nothing exceptional to be seen.

Immediately before them, across the road, rose the high oak paling that enclosed the lawn on this side, and the immense limes that towered, untrimmed and undipped, in delicate soaring filigree against the peacock sky of night. Behind them showed the chimneys, above the dusky front of red-brick and the parapet. The moon was not yet full upon the house, and the windows glimmered only here and there, in lines and sudden patches where they caught the reflected light.

Yet the two looked at it in silence. They had seen such a sight fifty times before, for the landlord and the other at least twice a week spent such an evening together, and usually parted at the door. But they stood here on this evening and looked.

All was as still as a spring night can be. Unseen and unheard the life of the earth streamed upwards in twig and blade and leaf, pushing on to the miracle of the prophet Jonas, to be revealed in wealth of color and scent and sound a fortnight later. The wind had fallen; the last doors were shut, and the two figures standing here were as still as all else. To neither of them occurred even the thinnest shadow of a suspicion as to the cause that held them here—two plain men—in silence, staring at an old house—not a thought of any hidden life beyond that of matter, that life by which most men reckon existence. For them this was but one more night such as they had known for half a century. There was a moon. It was fine. That was Mrs. Baxter’s house. This was the village street:—that was the sum of the situation....

Mr. Nugent moved off presently with a brisk air, bidding his friend good night, and the landlord, after another look, went in. There came the sound of bolts and bars, the light in the window of the parlor beside the bar suddenly went out, footsteps creaked upstairs; a door shut, and all was silence.

Half an hour later a shadow moved across the blind upstairs: an arm appeared to elongate itself; then, up went the blind, the window followed it, and a bearded face looked out into the moonlight. Behind was the table littered with papers, for Mr. Cathcart, laborious even in the midst of anxiety, had brought down with him for the Sunday a quantity of business that could not easily wait; and had sat there patiently docketing, correcting, and writing ever since his interview in the lane nearly five hours before.

Even now his face seemed serene enough; it jerked softly this way and that, up the street and down again; then once more settled down to stare across the road at the grey and silver pile beyond the trees. Yet even he saw nothing there beyond what the landlord had seen. It stood there, uncrossed by lights or footsteps or sounds, keeping its secret well, even from him who knew what it contained.

Yet to the watcher the place was as sinister as a prison. Behind the solemn walls and the superficial flash of the windows, beneath the silence and the serenity, lay a life more terrible than death, engaged now in some drama of which he could not guess the issue. A conflict was proceeding there, more silent than the silence itself. Two souls fought for one against a foe of unknown strength and unguessed possibilities. The servants slept apart, and the old mistress apart, yet in one of those rooms (and he did not know which) a battle was locked of which the issue was more stupendous than that of any struggle with disease. Yet he could do nothing to help, except what he already did, with his fingers twisting and gripping a string of beads beneath the window-sill. Such a battle as this must be fought by picked champions; and since the priesthood in this instance could not help, a girl’s courage and love must take its place.

From the village above the hill came the stroke of a single bell; a bird in the garden-walk beyond the paling chirped softly to his mate; then once more silence came down upon the moonlit street, the striped shadows, the tall house and trees, and the bearded face watching at the window.

Chapter XVII

I

The little inner hall looked very quiet and familiar as Maggie Deronnais stood on the landing, passing through her last struggle with herself before the shock of battle. The stairs went straight down, with the old carpet, up and down which she had gone a thousand times, with every faint patch and line where it was a little worn at the edges, visible in the lamplight from overhead; and she stared at these, standing there silent in her white dress, bare-armed and bare-necked, with her hair in great coils on her head, as upright as a lance. Beneath lay the little hall, with the tiger-skin, the red-papered walls, and a few miscellaneous things—an old cloak of hers she used on rainy days in the garden, a straw hat of Laurie’s, and a cap or two, hanging on the pegs opposite. In front was the door to the outer hall, to the left, that of the smoking-room. The house was perfectly quiet. Dinner had been cleared away already through the hatch into the kitchen passage, and the servants’ quarters were on the other side of the house. No sound of any kind came from the smoking-room; not even the faint whiff of tobacco-smoke that had a way of stealing out when Laurie was smoking really seriously within.

She did not know why, she had stopped there, half-way down the stairs.

She had dined from a tray in her own room, as she had said; and had been there alone ever since, for the most part at her prie-Dieu, in dead silence, conscious of nothing connected, listening to the occasional tread of a maid in the hall beneath, passing to and from the dining-room. There she had tried to face the ordeal that was coming—the ordeal, at the nature of which even now she only half guessed, and she had realized nothing, formed no plan, considered no eventuality. Things were so wholly out of her experience that she had no process whereby to deal with them. Just two words came over and over again before her consciousness—Courage and Love.

She looked again at the door.

Laurie was there, she said. Then she questioned herself. Was it Laurie...?

“He is there, underneath,” she whispered to herself softly; “he is waiting for me to help him.” She remembered that she must make that act of faith. Yet was it Laurie who had looked in at his mother’s door...? Well, the door was locked now. But that secretive visit seemed to her terrible.

What, then, did she believe?

She had put that question to herself fifty times, and found no answer. The old man’s solution was clear enough now: he believed no less than that out of that infinitely mysterious void that lies beyond the veils of sense there had come a Personality, strong, malignant, degraded, and seeking to degrade, seizing upon this lad’s soul, in the disguise of a dead girl, and desiring to possess it. How fantastic that sounded! Did she believe it? She did not know. Then there was the solution of a nervous strain, rising to a climax of insanity. This was the answer of the average doctor. Did she believe that? Was that enough to account for the look in the boy’s eyes? She did not know.

She understood perfectly that the fact of herself living under conditions of matter made the second solution the more natural; yet that did not content her. For her religion informed her emphatically that discarnate Personalities existed which desired the ruin of human souls, and, indeed, forbade the practices of spiritualism for this very reason. Yet there was hardly a Catholic she knew who regarded the possibility in these days as more than a theoretical one. So she hesitated, holding her judgment in suspense. One thing only she saw clearly, and that was that she must act as if she believed the former solution: she must treat the boy as one obsessed, whether indeed he were so or not. There was no other manner in which she could concentrate her force upon the heart of the struggle. If there were no evil Personality in the affair, it was necessary to assume one.

And still she waited.

There came back to her an old childish memory.

Once, as a child of ten, she had had to undergo a small operation. One of the nuns had taken her to the doctor’s house. When she had understood that she must come into the next room and have it done, she had stopped dead. The nun had encouraged her.

“Leave me quite alone, please, Mother, just for one minute. Please don’t speak. I’ll come in a minute.”

After a minute’s waiting, while they looked at her, she had gone forward, sat down in the chair and behaved quite perfectly. Yes; she understood that now. It was necessary first to collect forces, to concentrate energies, to subdue the imagination: after that almost anything could be borne.

So she stood here now, without even the thought of flight, not arguing, not reassuring herself, not analyzing anything; but just gathering strength, screwing the will tight, facing things.

And there was yet another psychological fact that astonished her, though she was only conscious of it in a parenthetical kind of way, and that was the strength of her feeling for Laurie himself. It seemed to her curious, when she considered it, how the horror of that which lay over the boy seemed, like death itself, to throw out as on a clear background the best of himself. His figure appeared to her memory as wholly good and sweet; the shadows on his character seemed absorbed in the darkness that lay over him; and towards this figure she experienced a sense of protective love and energy that astonished her. She desired with all her power to seize and rescue him.

Then she drew a long steady breath, thrust out her strong white hand to see if the fingers trembled; went down the stairs, and, without knocking, opened the smoking-room door and went straight in, closing it behind her. There was a screen to be passed round.

She passed round it.

And he sat there on the couch looking at her.

II

For the first instant she remained there standing motionless; it was like a declaration of war. In one or two of her fragmentary rehearsals upstairs she had supposed she would say something conventional to begin with. But the reality struck conventionality clean out of the realm of the possible. Her silent pause there was as significant as the crouch of a hound; and she perceived that it was recognized to be so by the other that was there. There was in him that quick, silent alertness she had expected: half defiant, half timid, as of a fierce beast that expects a blow.

Then she came a step forward and sideways to a chair, sat down in it with a swift, almost menacing motion, and remained there still looking.

This is what she saw:

There was the familiar background, the dark paneled wall, the engraving, and the shelf of books convenient to the hand; the fire was on her right, and the couch opposite. Upon the couch sat the figure of the boy she knew so well.

He was in the same suit in which he had traveled; he had not even changed his shoes; they were splashed a little with London mud. These things she noticed in the minutes that followed, though she kept her eyes upon his face.

The face itself was beyond her power of analysis. Line for line it was Laurie’s features, mouth, eyes and hair; yet its signification was not Laurie’s. One that was akin looked at her from out of those windows of the soul—scrutinized her cautiously, questioningly, and suspiciously. It was the face of an enemy who waits. And she sat and looked at it.

A full minute must have passed before she spoke. The face had dropped its eyes after the first long look, as if in a kind of relaxation, and remained motionless, staring at the fire in a sort of dejection. Yet beneath, she perceived plainly, there was the same alert hostility; and when she spoke the eyes rose again with a quick furtive attentiveness. The semi-intelligent beast was soothed, but not yet reassured.

“Laurie?” she said.

The lips moved a little in answer; then again the face glanced down sideways at the fire; the hands dangled almost helplessly between the knees.

There was an appearance of weakness about the attitude that astonished and encouraged her; it appeared as if matters were not yet consummated. Yet she had a sense of nausea at the sight....

“Laurie?” she said again suddenly.

Again the lips moved as if speaking rapidly, and the eyes looked up at her quick and suspicious.

“Well?” said the mouth; and still the hands dangled.

“Laurie,” she said steadily, bending all her will at the words, “you’re very unwell. Do you understand that?”

Again the noiseless gabbling of the lips, and again a little commonplace sentence, “I’m all right.”

His voice was unnatural—a little hoarse, and quite toneless. It was as a voice from behind a mask.

“No,” said Maggie carefully, “you’re not all right. Listen, Laurie. I tell you you’re all wrong; and I’ve come to help you as well as I can. Will you do your best? I’m speaking to you, Laurie ... to you.”

Every time he answered, the lips flickered first as in rapid conversation—as of a man seen talking through a window; but this time he stammered a little over his vowels.

“I—I—I’m all right.”

Maggie leaned forward, her hands clasped tightly, and her eyes fixed steadily on that baffling face.

“Laurie; it’s you I’m speaking to—you.... Can you hear me? Do you understand?”

Again the eyes rose quick and suspicious; and her hands knit yet more closely together as she fought down the rising nausea. She drew a long breath first; then she delivered a little speech which she had half rehearsed upstairs. As she spoke he looked at her again.

“Laurie,” she said, “I want you to listen to me very carefully, and to trust me. I know what is the matter with you; and I think you know too. You can’t fight—fight him by yourself.... Just hold on as tightly as you can to me—with your mind, I mean. Do you understand?”

For a moment she thought that he perceived something of what she meant: he looked at her so earnestly with those odd questioning eyes. Then he jerked ever so slightly, as if some string had been suddenly pulled, and glanced down again at the fire....

“I ... I ... I’m all right,” he said.

It was horrible to see that motionlessness of body. He sat there as he had probably sat since entering the room. His eyes moved, but scarcely his head; and his hands hung down helplessly.

“Laurie ... attend ...” she began again. Then she broke off.

“Have you prayed, Laurie...? Do you understand what has happened to you? You aren’t really ill—at least, not exactly, but—”

Again those eyes lifted, looked, and dropped again.

It was piteous. For the instant the sense of nausea vanished, swallowed up in emotion. Why ... why, he was there all the while—Laurie ... dear Laurie....

With one motion, swift and impetuous, she had thrown herself forward on to her knees, and clasped at the hanging hands.

“Laurie! Laurie!” she cried. “You haven’t prayed ... you’ve been playing, and the machinery has caught you. But it isn’t too late! Oh, God! it’s not too late. Pray with me! Say the Our Father....”

Again slowly the eyes moved round. He had started ever so little at her rush, and the seizing of his hands; and now she felt those hands moving weakly in her own, as of a sleeping child who tries to detach himself from his mother’s arms.

“I ... I ... I’m all—”

She grasped his hands more fiercely, staring straight up into those strange piteous eyes that revealed so little, except formless commotion and uneasiness.

“Say the Our Father with me. ‘Our Father—’”

Then his hands tore back, with a movement as fierce as her own, and the eyes blazed with an unreal light. She still clung to his wrists, looking up, struck with a paralysis of fear at the change, and the furious hostility that flamed up in the face. The lips writhed back, half snarling, half smiling....

“Let go! let go!” he hissed at her. “What are you—”

“The Our Father, Laurie ... the Our—”

He wrenched himself backwards, striking her under the chin with his knee. The couch slid backwards a foot against the wall, and he was on his feet. She remained terror-stricken, shocked, looking up at the dully flushed face that glared down on her.

“Laurie! Laurie...! Don’t you understand? Say one prayer—”

“How dare you?” he whispered; “how dare you—”

She stood up suddenly—wrenching her will back to self-command. Her breath still came quick and panting; and she waited until once more she breathed naturally. And all the while he stood looking down at her with eyes of extraordinary malevolence.

“Well, will you sit quietly and listen?” she said. “Will you do that?”

Still he stared at her, with lips closed, breathing rapidly through his nostrils. With a sudden movement she turned and went to her chair, sat down and waited.

He still watched her; then, with his eyes on her, with movements as of a man in the act of self-defense, wheeled out the sofa to its place, and sat down. She waited till the tension of his figure seemed to relax again, till the quick glances at her from beneath drooping eyelids ceased, and once more he settled down with dangling hands to look at the fire. Then she began again, quietly and decisively.

“Your mother isn’t well,” she said. “No ... just listen quietly. What is going to happen tomorrow? I’m speaking to you, Laurie to you. Do you understand?”

“I’m all right,” he said dully.

She disregarded it.

“I want to help you, Laurie. You know that, don’t you? I’m Maggie Deronnais. You remember?”

“Yes—Maggie Deronnais,” said the boy, staring at the fire.

“Yes, I’m Maggie. You trust me, don’t you, Laurie? You can believe what I say? Well, I want you to fight too. You and I together. Will you let me do what I can?”

Again the eyes rose, with that odd questioning look. Maggie thought she perceived something else there too. She gathered her forces quietly in silence an instant or two, feeling her heart quicken like the pulse of a moving engine. Then she sprang to her feet.

“Listen, then—in the name of Jesus of Nazareth—”

He recoiled violently with a movement so fierce that the words died on her lips. For one moment she thought he was going to spring. And again he was on his feet, snarling. There was silence for an interminable instant; then a stream of words, scorching and ferocious, snarled at her like the furious growling of a dog—a string of blasphemies and filth.

Just so much she understood. Yet she held her ground, unable to speak, conscious of the torrent of language that swirled against her from that suffused face opposite, yet not understanding a tenth part of what she heard.

... “In the name of...”

On the instant the words ceased; but so overpowering was the venom and malice of the silence that followed that again she was silent, perceiving that the utmost she could do was to hold her ground. So the two stood. If the words were horrible to hear, the silence was more horrible a thousand times; it was as when a man faces the suddenly opened door of a furnace and sees the white cavern within.

He was the first to speak.

“You had better take care,” he said.

III

She scarcely knew how it was that she found herself again in her chair, with the figure seated opposite.

It seemed that the direct assault was useless. And indeed she was no longer capable of making it. The nausea had returned, and with it a sensation of weakness. Her knees still were lax and useless; and her hand, as she turned it on the chair-arm, shook violently. Yet she had a curious sense of irresponsibility: there was no longer any terror—nothing but an overpowering weakness of reaction.

She sat back in silence for some minutes, looking now at the fire too, now at the figure opposite, noticing, however, that the helplessness seemed gone. His hands dangled no longer; he sat upright, his hands clasped, yet with a curious look of stiffness and unnaturalness.

Once more she began deliberately to attempt to gather her forces; but the will, it appeared, had lost its nervous grasp of the faculties. It had no longer that quick grip and command with which she had begun. Passivity rather than activity seemed her strength....

Then suddenly and, as it appeared, inevitably, without movement or sound, she began internally to pray, closing her eyes, careless, and indeed unfearing. It seemed her one hope. And behind the steady movement of her will—sufficient at least to elicit acts of petition—her intellect observed a thousand images and thoughts. She perceived the silence of the house and of the breathless spring night outside; she considered Mr. Cathcart in the inn across the road, Mrs. Baxter upstairs: she contemplated the future as it would be on the morrow—Easter Day, was it not?—the past, and scarcely at all the present. She relinquished all plans, all intentions and hopes: she leaned simply upon the supernatural, like a tired child, and looked at pictures.

In remembering it all afterwards, she recalled to herself the fact that this process of prayer seemed strangely tranquil; that there had been in her a consciousness of rest and recuperation as marked as that which a traveler feels who turns into a lighted house from a stormy night. The presence of that other in the room was not even an interruption; the nervous force that the other had generated just now seemed harmless and ineffective. For a time, at least, that was so. But there came a moment when it appeared as if her almost mechanical and rhythmical action of internal effort began to grip something. It was as when an engine after running free clenches itself again upon some wheel or cog.

The moment she was aware of this, she opened her eyes; and saw that the other was looking straight at her intently and questioningly. And in that moment she perceived for the first time that her conflict lay, not externally, as she had thought, but in some interior region of which she was wholly ignorant. It was not by word or action, but by something else which she only half understood that she was to struggle....

She closed her eyes again with quite a new kind of determination. It was not self-command that she needed, but a steady interior concentration of forces.

She began again that resolute wordless play of the will—dismissing with a series of efforts the intellectual images of thought—that play of the will which, it seemed, had affected the boy opposite in a new way. She had no idea of what the crisis would be, or how it would come. She only saw that she had struck upon a new path that led somewhere. She must follow it.

Some little sound roused her; she opened her eyes and looked up.

He had shifted his position, and for a moment her heart leapt with hope. For he sat now leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands, and in the shaded lamplight it seemed that he was shaking.

She too moved, and the rustle of her dress seemed to reach him. He glanced up, and before he dropped his head again she caught a clear sight of his face. He was laughing, silently and overpoweringly, without a sound....

For a moment the nausea seized her so fiercely that she gasped, catching at her throat; and she stared at that bowed head and shaking shoulders with a horror that she had not felt before. The laughter was worse than all: and it was a little while before she perceived its unreality. It was like a laughing machine. And the silence of it gave it a peculiar touch.

She wrestled with herself, driving down the despair that was on her. Courage and love.

Again she leaned back without speaking, closing her eyes to shut out the terror, and began desperately and resolutely to bend her will again to the task.

Again a little sound disturbed her.

Once more he had shifted his position, and was looking straight at her with a curious air of detached interest. His face looked almost natural, though it was still flushed with that forced laughter; but the mirth itself was gone. Then he spoke abruptly and sharply, in the tone of a man who speaks to a tiresome child; and a little conversation followed, in which she found herself taking a part, as in an unnatural dream.

“You had better take care,” he said.

“I am not afraid.”

“Well—I have warned you. It is at your own risk. What are you doing?”

“I am praying.”

“I thought so.... Well, you had better take care.”

She nodded at him; closed her eyes once more with new confidence, and set to work.

After that a series of little scenes followed, of which, a few days later, she could only give a disconnected account.

She had heard the locking of the front door a long while ago; and she knew that the household was gone to bed. It was then that she realized how long the struggle would be. But the next incident was marked in her memory by her hearing the tall clock in the silent hall outside beat one. It was immediately after this that he spoke once more.

“I have stood it long enough,” he said, in that same abrupt manner.

She opened her eyes.

“You are still praying?” he said.

She nodded.

He got up without a word and came over to her, leaning forward with his hands on his knees to peer into her face. Again, to her astonishment, she was not terrified. She just waited, looking narrowly at the strange person who looked through Laurie’s eyes and spoke through his mouth. It was all as unreal as a fantastic dream. It seemed like some abominable game or drama that had to be gone through.

“And you mean to go on praying?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think it’s the slightest use?”

“Yes.”

He smiled unnaturally, as if the muscles of his mouth were not perfectly obedient.

“Well, I have warned you,” he said.

Then he turned, went back to his couch, and this time lay down on it flat, turning over on his side, away from her, as if to sleep. He settled himself there like a dog. She looked at him a moment; then closed her eyes and began again.

Five minutes later she understood.

The first symptom of which she was aware was a powerlessness to formulate her prayers. Up to that point she had leaned, as has been said, on an enormous Power external to herself, yet approached by an interior way. Now it required an effort of the will to hold to that Power at all. In terms of space, let it be said that she had rested, like a child in the dark, upon Something that sustained her: now she was aware that it no longer sustained her; but that it needed a strong continuous effort to apprehend it at all. There was still the dark about her; but it was of a different quality—it cannot be expressed otherwise—it was as the darkness of an unknown gulf compared to the darkness of a familiar room. It was of such a nature that space and form seemed meaningless....

The next symptom was a sense of terror, comparable only to that which she had succeeded in crushing down as she stood on the stairs four or five hours before. That, however, had been external to her; she had entered it. Now it had entered her, and lay, heavy as pitch, upon the very springs of her interior life. It was terror of something to come. That which it heralded was not yet come: but it was approaching.

The third symptom was the approach itself—swift and silent, like the running of a bear; so swift that it was upon her through the dark before she could stir or act. It came upon her, in a flash at the last; and she understood the whole secret.

It is possible only to describe it as, afterwards, she described it herself. The powerlessness and the terror were no more than the far-off effect of its approach; the Thing itself was the center.

Of that realm of being from which it came she had no previous conception: she had known evil only in its effects—in sins of herself and others—known it as a man passing through a hospital ward sees flushed or pale faces, or bandaged wounds. Now she caught some glimpse of its essence, in the atmosphere of this bear-like thing that was upon her. As aches and pains are to Death, so were sins to this Personality—symptoms, premonitions, causes, but not Itself. And she was aware that the Thing had come from a spiritual distance so unthinkable and immeasurable, that the very word distance meant little.

Of the Presence itself and its mode she could use nothing better than metaphors. But those to whom she spoke were given to understand that it was not this or that faculty of her being that, so to speak, pushed against it; but that her entire being was saturated so entirely, that it was but just possible to distinguish her inmost self from it. The understanding no longer moved; the emotions no longer rebelled; memory simply ceased. Yet through the worst there remained one minute, infinitesimally small spark of identity that maintained “I am I; and I am not that.” There was no analysis or consideration; scarcely even a sense of disgust. In fact for a while there was a period when to that tiny spot of identity it appeared that it would be an incalculable relief to cease from striving, and to let self itself be merged in that Personality so amazingly strong and compelling, that had precipitated itself upon the rest.... Relief? Certainly. For though emotion as most men know it was crushed out—that emotion stirred by human love or hatred—there remained an instinct which strove, which, by one long continuous tension, maintained itself in being.

For the malignity of the thing was overwhelming. It was not mere pressure; it had a character of its own for which the girl afterwards had no words. She could only say that, so far from being negation, or emptiness, or non-being, it had an air, hot as flame, black as pitch, and hard as iron.

That then was the situation for a time which she could only afterwards reckon by guesswork; there was no development or movement—no measurable incidents; there was but the state that remained poised; below all those comparatively superficial faculties with which men in general carry on their affairs—that state in which two Personalities faced one another, welded together in a grip that lay on the very brink of fusion....

Chapter XVIII

I

The cocks were crowing from the yards behind the village when Maggie opened her eyes, clear shrill music, answered from the hill as by their echoes, and the yews outside were alive with the dawn-chirping of the sparrows.

She lay there quite quietly, watching under her tired eyelids, through the still unshuttered windows, the splendid glow, seen behind the twisted stems in front and the slender fairy forest of birches on the further side of the garden. Immediately outside the window lay the path, deep in yew-needles, the ground-ivy beyond, and the wet lawn glistening in the strange mystical light of morning.

She had no need to remember or consider. She knew every step and process of the night. That was Laurie who lay opposite in a deep sleep, his head on his arm, breathing deeply and regularly; and this was the little smoking-room where she had seen the cigarettes laid ready against his coming, last night.

There was still a log just alight on the hearth, she noticed. She got out of her chair, softly and stiffly, for she felt intolerably languid and tired. Besides, she must not disturb the boy. So she went down on her knees, and, with infinite craft, picked out a coal or two from the fender and dropped them neatly into the core of red-heat that still smoldered. But a fragment of wood detached itself and fell with a sharp sound; and she knew, even without turning her head, that the boy had awakened. There was a faint inarticulate murmur, a rustle and a long sigh.

Then she turned round.

Laurie was lying on his back, his arms clasped behind his head, looking at her with a quiet meditative air. He appeared no more astonished or perplexed than herself. He was a little white-looking and tired in the light of dawn, but his eyes were bright and sure.

She rose from her knees again, still silent, and stood looking down on him, and he looked back at her. There was no need of speech. It was one of those moments in which one does not even say that there are no words to use; one just regards the thing, like a stretch of open country. It is contemplation, not comment, that is needed.

Her eyes wandered away presently, with the same tranquility, to the brightening garden outside; and her slowly awakening mind, expanding within, sent up a little scrap of quotation to be answered.

“While it was yet early ... there came to the sepulcher.” How did it run? “Mary...” Then she spoke.

“It is Easter Day, Laurie.”

The boy nodded gently; and she saw his eyes slowly closing once more; he was not yet half awake. So she went past him on tiptoe to the window, turned the handle, and opened the white tall framework-like door. A gush of air, sweet as wine, laden with the smell of dew and spring flowers and wet lawns, stole in to meet her; and a blackbird, in the shrubbery across the garden, broke into song, interrupted himself, chattered melodiously, and scurried out to vanish in a long curve behind the yews. The very world itself of beast and bird was still but half awake, and from the hamlet outside the fence, beyond the trees, rose as yet no skein of smoke and no sound of feet upon the cobbles.

For the time no future presented itself to her. The minutes that passed were enough. She regarded indeed the fact of the old man asleep in the inn, of the old lady upstairs, but she rehearsed nothing of what should be said to them by and by. She did not even think of the hour, or whether she should go to bed presently for a while. She traced no sequence of thought; she scarcely gave a glance at what was past; it was the present only that absorbed her; and even of the present not more than a fraction lay before her attention—the wet lawn, the brightening east, the cool air—those with the joy that had come with the morning were enough.

Again came the long sigh behind her; and a moment afterwards there was a step upon the floor, and Laurie himself stood by her. She glanced at him sideways, wondering for an instant whether his mood was as hers; and his grave, tired, boyish face was answer enough. He met her eyes, and then again let his own stray out to the garden.

He was the first to speak.

“Maggie,” he said, “I think we had best never speak of this again to one another.” She nodded, but he went on—

“I understand very little. I wish to understand no more. I shall ask no questions, and nothing need be said to anybody. You agree?”

“I agree perfectly,” she said.

“And not a word to my mother, of course.”

“Of course not.”

The two were silent again.

And now reality—or rather, the faculties of memory and consideration by which reality is apprehended—were once more coming back to the girl and beginning to stir in her mind. She began, gently now, and without perturbation, to recall what had passed, the long crescendo of the previous months, the gathering mutter of the spiritual storm that had burst last night—even the roar and flare of the storm itself, and the mad instinctive fight for the conscious life and identity of herself through which she had struggled. And it seemed to her as if the storm, like others in the material plane, had washed things clean again, and discharged an oppression of which she had been but half conscious. Neither was it herself alone who had emerged into this “clear shining after rain”; but the boy that stood by her seemed to her to share in her joy. They stood here together now in a spiritual garden, of which this lovely morning was no more than a clumsy translation into another tongue. There stirred an air about them which was as wine to the soul, a coolness and clearness that was beyond thought, in a radiance that shone through all that was bathed within it, as sunlight that filtered through water. She perceived then that the experience had been an initiation for them both, that here they stood, one by the other, each transparent to the other, or, at least, he transparent to her; and she wondered, not whether he would see it as she did, for of that she was confident, but when. For this space of silence she perceived him through and through, and understood that perception was everything. She saw the flaws in him as plainly as in herself, the cracks in the crystal; yet these did not matter, for the crystal was crystal....

So she waited, confident, until he should understand it too.

“But that is only one fraction of what is in my mind—” He broke off.

Then for the first time since she had opened her eyes just now her heart began to beat. That which had lain hidden for so long—that which she had crushed down under stone and seal and bidden lie still—yet that which had held her resolute, all unknown to herself, through the night that was gone—once more asserted itself and waited for liberation.

“Yet how dare I—” began Laurie.

Again she glanced at him, terrified lest that which was in her heart should declare itself too plainly by eyes and lips; and she saw how he still looked across the garden, yet seeing nothing but his own thought written there against the glory of sky and leaf and grass. His face caught the splendor from the east, and she saw in it the lines that would tell always of the anguish through which he was come; and again the terror in her heart leapt to the other side, in spite of her confidence, and bade her fear lest through some mistake, some conventional shame, he should say no more.

Then he turned his troubled eyes and looked her in the face, and as he looked the trouble cleared.

“Why—Maggie!” he said.

Epilogue

“The worst of it all is,” said Maggie, four months later, to a very patient female friend who adored her, and was her confidante just then—”the worst of it is that I’m not in the least sure of what it is that I believe even now.”

“Tell me, dear,” said the girl.

The two were sitting out in a delightfully contrived retreat cut out at the lower end of the double hedge. Above them and on two sides rose masses of August greenery, hazel and beech, as close as the roof and walls of a summer-house: the long path ran in green gloom up to the old brick steps beneath the yews: and before the two girls rested the pleasant apparatus of tea—silver, china and damask, all the more delightful from its barbaric contrast with its surroundings.

Maggie looked marvelously well, considering the nervous strain that had come upon her about Easter-time. She had collapsed altogether, it seemed, in Easter week itself, and had been for a long rest—one at her own dear French convent until a week ago, being entirely forbidden by the nuns to speak of her experiences at all, so soon as they had heard the rough outline. Mrs. Baxter had spent the time in rather melancholy travel on the Continent, and was coming back this evening.

“It seems to me now exactly like a very bad dream,” said Maggie pensively, beginning to measure in the tea with a small silver scoop. “Oh! Mabel; may I tell you exactly what is in my mind: and then we won’t talk of it any more at all?”

“Oh! do,” said the girl, with a little comfortable movement.

When the tea had been poured out and the plates set ready to hand, Maggie began.

“It seems perfectly dreadful of me to have any doubts at all, after all this; but ... but you don’t know how queer it seems. There’s a kind of thick hedge—” she waved a hand illustratively to the hazels beside her—”a kind of thick hedge between me and Easter—I suppose it’s the illness: the nuns tell me so. Well, it’s like that. I can see myself, and Laurie, and Mr. Cathcart, and all the rest of them, like figures moving beyond; and they all seem to me to be behaving rather madly, as if they saw something that I can’t see.... Oh! it’s hopeless....

“Well, the first theory I have is that these little figures, myself included, really see something that I can’t now: that there really was something or somebody, which makes them dance about like that. (Yes: that’s not grammar; but you understand, don’t you?) Well, I’ll come back to that presently.

“And my next theory is this ... is this”—Maggie sipped her tea meditatively—”my next theory is that the whole thing was simple imagination, or, rather, imagination acting upon a few little facts and coincidences, and perhaps a little fraud too. Do you know the way, if you’re jealous or irritable, the way in which everything seems to fit in? Every single word the person you’re suspicious of utters all fits in and corroborates your idea. It isn’t mere imagination: you have real facts, of a kind; but what’s the matter is that you choose to take the facts in one way and not another. You select and arrange until the thing is perfectly convincing. And yet, you know, in nine cases out of ten it’s simply a lie...! Oh! I can’t explain all the things, certainly. I can’t explain, for instance, the pencil affair—when it stood up on end before Laurie’s eyes; that is, if it did really stand up at all. He says himself that the whole thing seems rather dim now, as if he had seen it in a very vivid dream. (Have one of these sugar things?)

“Then there are the appearances Laurie saw; and the extraordinary effect they finally had upon him. Oh! yes; at the time, on the night of Easter Eve, I mean, I was absolutely certain that the thing was real, that he was actually obsessed, that the thing—the Personality, I mean—came at me instead, and that somehow I won. Mr. Cathcart tells me I’m right—Well; I’ll come to that presently. But if it didn’t happen, I certainly can’t explain what did; but there are a good many things one can’t explain; and yet one doesn’t instantly rush to the conclusion that they’re done by the devil. People say that we know very little indeed about the inner working of our own selves. There’s instinct, for instance. We know nothing about that except that it is so. ‘Inherited experience’ is only rather a clumsy phrase—a piece of paper gummed up to cover a crack in the wall.

“And that brings me to my third theory.”

Maggie poured out for herself a second cup of tea.

“My third theory I’m rather vague about, altogether. And yet I see quite well that it may be the true one. (Please don’t interrupt till I’ve quite done.)

“We’ve got in us certain powers that we don’t understand at all. For instance, there’s thought-projection. There’s not a shadow of doubt that that is so. I can sit here and send you a message of what I’m thinking about—oh! vaguely, of course. It’s another form of what we mean by Sympathy and Intuition. Well, you know, some people think that haunted houses can be explained by this. When the murder is going on, the murderer and the murdered person are probably fearfully excited—anger, fear, and so on. That means that their whole being is stirred up right to the bottom, and that their hidden powers are frightfully active. Well, the idea is that these hidden powers are almost like acids, or gas—Hudson tells us all about that—and that they can actually stamp themselves upon the room to such a degree that when a sympathetic person comes in, years afterwards, perhaps, he sees the whole thing just as it happened. It acts upon his mind first, of course, and then outwards through the senses—just the reverse order to that in which we generally see things.

“Well—that’s only an illustration. Now my idea is this: How do we know whether all the things that happened, from the pencil and the rappings and the automatic writing, right up to the appearances Laurie saw, were not just the result of these inner powers.... Look here. When one person projects his thought to another it arrives generally like a very faint phantom of the thing he’s thinking about. If I’m thinking of the ace of hearts, you see a white rectangle with a red spot in the middle. See? Well, multiply all that a hundred times, and one can just see how it might be possible that the thought of ... of Mr. Vincent and Laurie together might produce a kind of unreal phantom that could even be touched, perhaps.... Oh! I don’t know.”

Maggie paused. The girl at her side gave an encouraging murmur.

“Well—that’s about all,” said Maggie slowly.

“But you haven’t—”

“Why, how stupid! Yes: the first theory.... Now that just shows how unreal it is to me now. I’d forgotten it.

“Well, the first theory, my dear brethren, divides itself into two heads—first the theory of the spiritualists, secondly the theory of Mr. Cathcart. (He’s a dear, Mabel, even though I don’t believe one word he says.)

“Well, the spiritualist theory seems to me simple R.-O.-T.—rot. Mr. Vincent, Mrs. Stapleton, and the rest, really think that the souls of people actually come back and do these things; that it was, really and truly, poor dear Amy Nugent who led Laurie such a dance. I’m quite, quite certain that that’s not true whatever else is.... Yes, I’ll come to the coincidences presently. But how can it possibly be that Amy should come back and do these things, and hurt Laurie so horribly? Why, she couldn’t if she tried. My dear, to be quite frank, she was a very common little thing: and, besides, she wouldn’t have hurt a hair of his head.

“Now for Mr. Cathcart.”

There was a long pause. A small cat stepped out suddenly from the hazel tangle behind and eyed the two girls. Then, quite noiselessly, as it caught Maggie’s eye, it opened its mouth in a pathetic curve intended to represent, an appeal.

“You darling!” cried Maggie suddenly; seized a saucer, filled it with milk, and set it on the ground. The small cat stepped daintily down, and set to work.

“Yes?” said the other girl tentatively.

“Oh! Mr. Cathcart.... Well, I must say that his theory fits in with what Father Mahon says. But, you know, theology doesn’t say that this or that particular thing is the devil, or has actually happened in any given instance—only that, if it really does happen, it is the devil. Well, this is Mr. Cathcart’s idea. It’s a long story: you mustn’t mind.

“First, he believes in the devil in quite an extraordinary way.... Oh! yes, I know we do too; but it’s so very real indeed with him. He believes that the air is simply thick with them, all doing their very utmost to get hold of human beings. Yes, I suppose we do believe that too; but I expect that since there are such a quantity of things—like bad dreams—that we used to think were the devil, and now only turn out to be indigestion, that we’re rather too skeptical. Well, Mr. Cathcart believes both in indigestion, so to speak, and the devil. He believes that those evil spirits are at us all the time, trying to get in at any crack they can find—that in one person they produce lunacy—I must say it seems to me rather odd the way in which lunatics so very often become horribly blasphemous and things like that—and in another just shattered nerves, and so on. They take advantage, he says, of any weak spot anywhere.

“Now one of the easiest ways of all is through spiritualism. Spiritualism is wrong—we know that well enough; it is wrong because it’s trying to live a life and find out things that are beyond us at present. It’s ‘wrong’ on the very lowest estimate, because it’s outraging our human nature. Yes, Mabel, that’s his phrase. Good intentions, therefore, don’t protect us in the least. To go to séances with good intentions is like ... like ... holding a smoking-concert in a powder-magazine on behalf of an orphan asylum. It’s not the least protection—I’m not being profane, my dear—it’s not the least protection to open the concert with prayer. We’ve got no business there at all. So we’re blown up just the same.

“The danger...? Oh! the danger’s this, Mr. Cathcart says. At séances, if they’re genuine, and with automatic handwriting and all the rest, you deliberately approach those powers in a friendly way, and by the sort of passivity which you’ve got to get yourself into, you open yourself as widely as possible to their entrance. Very often they can’t get in; and then you’re only bothered. But sometimes they can, and then you’re done. It’s particularly hard to get them out again.

“Now, of course, no one in his senses—especially decent people—would dream of doing all this if he knew what it all meant. So these creatures, whatever they may be, always pretend to be somebody else. They’re very sharp: they can pick up all kinds of odds and ends, little tricks, and little facts; and so, with these, they impersonate someone whom the inquirer’s very fond of; and they say all sorts of pious, happy little things at first in order to lead them on. So they go on for a long time saying that religion’s quite true. (By the way, it’s rather too odd the way in which the Catholic Church seems the one thing they don’t like! You can be almost anything else, if you’re a spiritualist; but you can’t be a Catholic.) Generally, though, they tell you to say your prayers and sing hymns. (Father Mahon the other day, when I was arguing with him about having some hymns in church, said that heretics always went in for hymns!) And so you go on. Then they begin to hint that religion’s not worth much; and then they attack morals. Mr. Cathcart wouldn’t tell me about that; but he said it got just as bad as it could be, if you didn’t take care.”

Maggie paused again, looking rather serious. Her voice had risen a little, and a new color had come to her face as she talked. She stooped to pick up the saucer.

“Dearest, had you better—”

“Oh! yes: I’ve just about done,” said Maggie briskly. “There’s hardly any more. Well, there’s the idea. They want to get possession of human beings and move them, so they start like that.

“Well; that’s what Mr. Cathcart says happened to Laurie. One of those Beasts came and impersonated poor Amy. He picked up certain things about her—her appearance, her trick of stammering, and of playing with her fingers, and about her grave and so on: and then, finally, made his appearance in her shape.”

“I don’t understand about that,” murmured the girl.

“Oh! my dear, I can’t bother about that now. There’s a lot about astral substance, and so on. Besides, this is only what Mr. Cathcart says. As I told you, I’m not at all sure that I believe one word of it. But that’s his idea.”

Maggie stopped again suddenly, and leaned back, staring out at the luminous green roof of hazels above her. The small cat could be discerned half-way up the leafy tunnel swaying its body in preparation for a pounce, while overhead sounded an agitated twittering. Mabel seized a pebble, and threw it with such success that the swaying stopped, and a reproachful cat-face looked round at her.

“There!” said Mabel comfortably; and then, “Well, what do you really think?”

Maggie smiled reflectively.

“That’s exactly what I don’t know myself in the very least. As I said, all this seems to me more like a dream—and a very bad one. I think it’s the ... the nastiest thing,” she added vindictively, “that I’ve ever come across; I don’t want to hear one word more about it as long as I live.”

“But—”

“Oh, my dear, why can’t we be all just sensible and normal? I love doing just ordinary little things—the garden, and the chickens, and the cat and dog and complaining to the butcher. I cannot imagine what anybody wants with anything else. Yes; I suppose I do, in a sort of way, believe Mr. Cathcart. It seems to me, granted the spiritual world at all—which, naturally, I do grant—far the most intelligent explanation. It seems to me, intellectually, far the most broad-minded explanation; because it really does take in all the facts—if they are facts—and accounts for them reasonably. Whereas the subjective—self business—oh, it’s frightfully clever and ingenious—but it does assume such a very great deal. It seems to me rather like the people who say that electricity accounts for everything—electricity! And as for the imagination theory—well, that’s what appeals to me now, emotionally—because I happen to be in the chickens and butcher mood; but it doesn’t in the least convince me. Yes; I suppose Mr. Cathcart’s theory is the one I ought to believe, and, in a way, the one I do believe; but that doesn’t in the least prevent me from feeling it extraordinarily unreal and impossible. Anyhow, it doesn’t matter much.”

Again she leaned back comfortably, smiling to herself, and there was a long silence.

It was a divinely beautiful August evening. From where they sat little could be seen except the long vista of the path, arched with hazels, whence the cat had now disappeared, ending in three old brick steps, wide and flat, lichened and mossed, set about with flower-pots and leading up to the yew walk. But the whole air was full of summer sound and life and scent, heavy and redolent, streaming in from the old box-lined kitchen-garden on their right beyond the hedge and from the orchard on the left. It was the kind of atmosphere suggesting Nature in her most sensible mood, full-blooded, normal, perfectly fulfilling her own vocation; utterly unmystical, except by very subtle interpretation; unsuggestive, since she was already saying all that could be said, and following out every principle by which she lived to the furthest confine of its contents. It presented the same kind of rounded-off completion and satisfactoriness as that suggested by an entirely sensuous and comfortable person. There were no corners in it, no vistas hinting at anything except at some perfectly normal lawn or set garden, no mystery, no implication of any other theory or glimpse of theory except that which itself proclaimed.

Something of its air seemed now to breathe in Maggie’s expression of contentment, as she smiled softly and happily, clasping her arms behind her head. She looked perfectly charming, thought Mabel; and she laid a hand delicately on her friend’s knee, as if to share in the satisfaction—to verify it by participation, so to speak.

“It doesn’t seem to have done you much harm,” she said.

“No, thank you; I’m extremely well and very content. I’ve looked through the door once, without in the least wishing to; and I don’t in the least want to look again. It’s not a nice view.”

“But about—er—religion,” said the younger girl rather awkwardly.

“Oh! religion’s all right,” said Maggie. “The Church gives me just as much of all that as is good for me; and, for the rest, just tells me to be quiet and not bother—above all, not to peep or pry. Listeners hear no good of themselves: and I suppose that’s true of the other senses too. At any rate, I’m going to do my best to mind nothing except my own business.”

“Isn’t that rather unenterprising?”

“Certainly it is; that’s why I like it.... Oh! Mabel, I do want to be so absolutely ordinary all the rest of my life. It’s so extremely rare and original, you know. Didn’t somebody say that there was nothing so uncommon as common sense? Well, that’s what I’m going to be. A genius! Don’t you understand?—the kind that is an infinite capacity for taking pains, not the other sort.”

“What is the other sort?”

“Why, an infinite capacity for doing without them. Like Wagner, you know. Well, I wish to be the Bach sort—the kind of thing that anyone ought to be able to do—only they can’t.”

Mabel smiled doubtfully.

“Lady Laura was saying—” she began presently.

Maggie’s face turned suddenly severe.

“I don’t wish to hear one word.”

“But she’s given it up,” cried the girl. “She’s given it up.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Maggie judicially. “And I hope now that she’ll spend the rest of her days in sackcloth—with a scourge,” she added. “Oh, did I tell you about Mrs. Nugent?”

“About the evening Laurie came home? Yes.”

“Well, that’s all right. The poor old dear got all sorts of things on her mind, when it leaked out. But I talked to her, and we went up together and put flowers on the grave, and I said I’d have a mass said for Amy, though I’m sure she doesn’t require one. The poor darling! But ... but ... (don’t think me brutal, please) how providential her death was! Just think!”

“Mrs. Baxter’s coming home by the 6.10, isn’t she?”

Maggie nodded.

“Yes; but you know you mustn’t say a word to her about all this. In fact she won’t have it. She’s perfectly convinced that Laurie overworked himself—Laurie, overworked!—and that that was just all that was the matter with him. Auntie’s what’s called a sensible woman, you know, and I must say it’s rather restful. It’s what I want to be; but it’s a far-off aspiration, I’m afraid, though I’m nearer it than I was.”

“You mean she doesn’t think anything odd happened at all?”

“Just so. Nothing at all odd. All very natural. Oh, by the way, Laurie swears he never put his nose inside her room that night, but I’m absolutely certain he did, and didn’t know it.”

“Where is Mr. Lawrence?”

“Auntie made him go abroad.”

“And when does he come back?”

There was a perceptible pause.

“Mr. Lawrence comes back on Saturday evening,” said Maggie deliberately.

ILLUSTRATIONS

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