ifs Fy ome Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from - Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/oywhatauthorityOObens BY WHAT AUTHORITY? BY WHAT AUTHORS Yr By Robert Hugh Benen Author of “Come Rack! Come Rope!”’, “Oddsfish!”’, “Loneliness?”, “Initiation,” ete. NEW YORK P. J. KENEDY & SONS 1925 Printep 1n U. S. A. P. J. Kenepy & Sons New YorK PENATIBVS - FOCISQVE - CARIS NECNON - TRIBVS - CARIORIBVS APVD - QVAS - SCRIPSI IN - QVARVM - AVRES - LEGI A - QVIBVS - ADMONITVS - EMENDAVI HVNC - LIBRVM D. al ocd Lees i eS | ee afi I wish to acknowledge a great debi of gratitude to the Reverend Dom Bede Camm., O.S.B., who kindly read this book in proof, and made many valuable correc- tions and suggestions. ROBERT HUGH BENSON. Tremans Horsted Keynes October 27, 1904 CONTENTS PAR Pl CHAPTER PAGE PP LATE COT LUATION Wiel ee pra le ek ome Lm eM eI ecu hep eing due eel atm es I Lie Lae ELALYY ANDATHE LLLOUSE ey not cdi eben Rechte Mie ne le ig 8 III. 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THE ROLLING OF THE STONE!) (06 00), SU 0/0) we beh ne Sa BY WHAT AUTHORITY P PART I CHAPTER I THE SITUATION To the casual Londoner who lounged, intolerant and impatient, at the blacksmith’s door while a horse was shod, or a cracked spoke mended, Great Keynes seemed but a poor backwater of a place, compared with the rush of the Brighton road eight miles to the east from which he had turned off, or the whirling cauldron of London City, twenty miles to the north, towards which he was travelling. The triangular green, with its stocks and horse-pond, over- looked by the grey benignant church-tower, seemed a tame exchange for seething Cheapside and the crowded ways about the Temple or Whitehall; and it was strange to think that the solemn-faced rustics who stared respectfully at the gorgeous stranger were of the same human race as the quick-eyed, voluble townsmen who chattered and laughed and grimaced over the news that came up daily from the Continent or the North, and was tossed to and fro, embroidered and discredited alternately, all day long. And yet the great waves and movements that, rising in the hearts of kings and politicians, or in the sudden strokes of Divine Providence, swept over Europe and England, eventually always rippled up into this placid country village; and the lives of Master Musgrave, who had retired upon his earnings, and of old Martin, who cobbled the ploughmen’s shoes, were definitely affected and changed by the plans of far-away Scottish gentle- men, and the hopes and fears of the inhabitants of South Europe. Through all the earlier part of Elizabeth’s reign, the menace of the Spanish Empire brooded low on the southern horizon, and a I 2 BY WHAT AUTHORITY responsive mutter of storm sounded now and again from the north, where Mary Stuart reigned over men’s hearts, if not their homes; and lovers of secular England shook their heads and were silent as they thought of their tiny country, so rent with internal strife, and ringed with danger. For Great Keynes, however, as for most English villages and towns at this time, secular affairs were so deeply and intricately interwoven with ecclesiastical matters that none dared decide on the one question without considering its relation to the other; and ecclesiastical affairs, too, touched them more personally than any other, since every religious change scored a record of itself presently within the church that was as familiar to them as their own cottages. | On none had the religious changes fallen with more severity than on the Maxwell family that lived in the Hall, at the upper and southern end of the green. Old Sir Nicholas, though his con- victions had survived the tempest of unrest and trouble that had swept over England, and he had remained a convinced and a stub- born Catholic, yet his spiritual system was sore and inflamed within him. To his simple and obstinate soul it was an irritating puzzle as to how any man could pass from the old to a new faith, and he had been known to lay his whip across the back of a servant who had professed a desire to try the new religion. His wife, a stately lady, a few years younger than himself, did what she could to keep her lord quiet, and to save him from incur- ring by his indiscretion any further penalties beyond the enforced journeys before the Commission, and the fines inflicted on all who refused to attend their parish church. So the old man devoted himself to his estates and the further improvement of the house and gardens, and to the inculcation of sound religious principles into the minds of his two sons who were living at home with their parents; and strove to hold his tongue, and his hand, in public. The elder of these two, Mr. James as he was commonly called, was rather a mysterious personage to the village, and to such neighbours as they had. He was often in town, and when at home, although extremely pleasant and courteous, never talked about himself and seemed to be only very moderately interested in the estate and the country-life generally. This, coupled with the fact that he would presumably succeed his father, gave rise to a good deal of gossip, and even some suspicion. His younger brother Hubert was very different; passionately THE SITUATION 3 attached to sport and to outdoor occupations, a fearless rider, and in every way a kindly, frank lad of about eighteen years old. The fifth member of the family, Lady Maxwell’s sister, Mistress Margaret Torridon, was a quiet-faced old lady, seldom seen abroad, and round whom, as round her eldest nephew, hung a certain air of mystery. The difficulties of this Catholic family were considerable. Sir Nicholas’ religious sympathies were, of course, wholly with the spiritual side of Spain, and all that that involved, while his intense love of England gave him a horror of the Southern Empire that the sturdiest patriot might have envied. And so with his attitude towards Mary Stuart and her French background. While his whole soul rose in loathing against the crime of Darnley’s murder, to which many of her enemies proclaimed her accessory, it was kindled at the thought that in her or her child, lately crowned as James VI. of Scotland, lay the hope of a future Catholic succes- sion; and this religious sympathy was impassioned by the memory of an interview a few years ago, when he had kissed that gracious white hand, and looked into those alluring eyes, and, kneeling, stammered out in broken French his loyalty and his hopes. Whether it was by her devilish craft as her enemies said, or her serene and limpid innocence as her friends said, or by a maddening compound of the two, as later students have said—at least she had made the heart and confidence of old Nicholas her own. But there were troubles more practical than these mental strug- gles; it was a misery, beyond describing, to this old man and his wife to see the church, where once they had worshipped and received the sacraments, given over to what was, in their opinion, a novel heresy, and the charge of a schismatic minister. There, in the Maxwell chapel within, lay the bones of their Catholic ancestors; and there they had knelt to adore and receive their Saviour; and now for them all was gone, and the light was gone out in the temple of the Lord. In the days of the previous Rector matters were not so desperate; it had been their custom to receive from his hands at the altar-rail of the Church hosts previously consecrated at the Rectory; for the incumbent had been an old Marian priest who had not scrupled so to relieve his Catholic sheep of the burden of recusancy, while he fed his Protestant charges with bread and wine from the Communion table. But now all that was past, and the entire family was compelled year by year to slip off into Hampshire shortly before Easter for their annual duties, and the parish church that their 4 BY WHAT AUTHORITY forefathers had built, endowed and decorated, knew them no more. But the present Rector, the Reverend George Dent, was far from a bigot; and the Papists were more fortunate than perhaps, in their bitterness, they recognised; for the minister was one of the rising Anglican school, then strange and unfamiliar, but which has now established itself as the main representative section of the Church of England. He welcomed the effect but not the rise of the Reformation, and rejoiced that the incrustations of error had been removed from the lantern of the faith. But he no less sincerely deplored the fanaticism of the Puritan and Genevan faction. He exulted to see England with a church truly her own at last, adapted to her character, and freed from the avarice and tyranny of a foreign despot who had assumed prerogatives to which he had no right. But he reverenced the Episcopate, he wore the prescribed dress, he used the thick singing-cakes for the Communion, and he longed for the time when nation and Church should again be one; when the nation should worship through a Church of her own shaping, and the Church share the glory and influence of her lusty partner and patron. But Mrs. Dent had little sympathy with her husband’s views; she had assimilated the fiery doctrines of the Genevan refugees, and to her mind her husband was balancing himself to the loss of all dignity and consistency in an untenable position between the Popish priesthood on the one side and the Gospel ministry on the other. It was an unbearable thought to her that through her husband’s weak disposition and principles his chief parish- ioners should continue to live within a stone’s throw of the Rectory in an assured position of honour, and in personal friend- liness to a minister whose ecclesiastical status and claims they disregarded. The Rector’s position then was difficult and trying, no less in his own house than elsewhere. The third main family in the village was that of the Norrises, who lived in the Dower House, that stood in its own grounds and gardens a few hundred yards to the northwest of the village green. The house had originally been part of the Hall estate; but it had been sold some fifty years before. The present owner, Mr. Henry Norris, a widower, lived there with his two children, Isabel and Anthony, and did his best to bring them up in his own religious principles. He was a devout and cultivated Puritan, who had been affected by the New Learning in his youth and had conformed joyfully to the religicus changes that took place THE SITUATION 5 in Edward’s reign. He had suffered both anxiety and hardships in Mary’s reign, when he had travelled abroad in the Protestant countries, and made the acquaintance of many of the foreign reformers—Beza, Calvin, and even the great Melancthon himself. It was at this time, too, that he had lost his wife. It had been a great joy to him to hear of the accession of Elizabeth, and the re-establishment of a religion that was sincerely his own; and he had returned immediately to England with his two little children, and settled down once more at the Dower House. Here his whole time that he could spare from his children was divided between prayer and the writing of a book on the Eucharist; and as his children grew up he more and more retired into himself and silence and communing with God, and devoted himself to his book. It was beginning to be a great happiness to him to find that his daughter Isabel, now about seventeen years old, was growing up into active sympathy with his principles, and that the passion of her soul, as of his, was a tender, deep-lying faith towards God, which could exist independently of outward symbols and cere- monies. But unlike others of his school he was happy too to notice and encourage friendly relations between Lady Maxwell and his daughter, since he recognised the sincere and loving spirit of the old lady beneath her superstitions, and knew very well that her friendship would do for the girl what his own love could not. The other passion of Isabel’s life at present lay in her brother Anthony, who was about three years younger than herself, and who was just now more interested in his falcons and pony than in all the religious systems and human relationships in the world, except perhaps in his friendship for Hubert, who besides being three or four years older than himself, cared for the same things. And so relations between the Hall and the Dower House were all that they should be, and the path that ran through the gardens of the one and the yew hedge and orchard of the other was almost as well trodden as if all still formed one estate. As for the village itself, it was exceedingly difficult to gauge accurately the theological atmosphere. The Rector despaired of doing so. It was true that at Easter the entire population, except the Maxwells and their dependents, received communion in the parish church, or at least professed their willingness and intention to do so unless prevented by some accident of the preceding week; but it was impossible to be blind to the fact that many of the old beliefs lingered on, and that there was little 6 BY WHAT AUTHORITY enthusiasm for the new system. Rumours broke out now and again that the Catholics were rising in the north; that Elizabeth contemplated a Spanish or French marriage with a return to the old religion; that Mary Stuart would yet come to the throne; and with each such report there came occasionally a burst of joy in unsuspected quarters. Old Martin, for example, had been overheard, so a zealous neighbour reported, blessing Our Lady aloud for her mercies when a passing traveller had insisted that a religious league was in progress of formation between France and Spain, and that it was only a question of months as to when mass should be said again in every village church; but then on the following Sunday the cobbler’s voice had been louder than all in the metrical psalm, and on the Monday he had paid a morning visit to the Rectory to satisfy himself on the doctrine of Justification, and had gone again, praising God and not Our Lady, for the godly advice received. But again, three years back, just before Mr. Dent had come to the place, there had been a solemn burning on the village- green of all such muniments of superstition as had not been previously hidden by the priest and Sir Nicholas; and in the rejoicings that accompanied this return to pure religion practically the whole agricultural population had joined. Some Justices had ridden over from East Grinsted to direct this rustic reformation, and had reported favourably to the new Rector on his arrival of the zeal of his flock. The Great Rood, they told him, with SS. Mary and John, four great massy angels, the statue of St. Christopher, the Vernacle, a brocade set of mass vestments and a purple cope, had perished in the flames, and there had been no lack of hands to carry faggots; and now the Rector found it difficult to reconcile the zeal of his parishioners (which indeed he privately regretted) with the sudden and unexpected lapses into superstition, such as was Mr. Martin’s gratitude to Our Lady, and others of which he had had experience. As regards the secular politics of the outside world, Great Keynes took but little interest. It was far more a matter of concern whether mass or morning prayer was performed on Sun- day, than whether a German bridegroom could be found for Elizabeth, or whether she would marry the Duke of Anjou; and more important than either were the infinitestimal details of domestic life. Whether Mary was guilty or not, whether her supporters were rising, whether the shadow of Spain chilled the hearts of men in London whose affair it was to look after such THE SITUATION 7 things; yet the cows must be milked, and the children washed, and the falcons fed; and it was these things that formed the foreground of life, whether the sky were stormy or sunlit. And so, as the autumn of ’69 crept over the woods in flame and russet, and the sound of the sickle was in folks’ ears, the life at Great Keynes was far more tranquil than we should fancy who look back on those stirring days. The village, lying as it did out of the direct route between any larger towns, was not so much affected by the gallop of the couriers, or the slow creeping rumours from the Continent, as villages that lay on lines of fre- quent communication. So the simple life went on, and Isabel went about her business in Mrs. Carroll’s still-room, and Anthony rode out with the harriers, and Sir Nicholas told his beads in his room—all with nearly as much serenity as if Scotland were fairy- land and Spain a dream. CHAPTER II THE HALL AND THE HOUSE ANTHONY Norris, who was now about fourteen, went up to King’s College, Cambridge, in October. He was closeted long with his father the night before he left, and received from him much sound religious advice and exhortation; and in the morn- ing, after an almost broken-hearted good-bye from Isabel, he rode out with his servant following on another horse and leading a packhorse on the saddle of which the falcons swayed and stag- gered, and up the curving drive that led round into the village green. He was a good-hearted and wholesome-minded boy, and left a real ache behind him in the Dower House. Isabel indeed ran up to his room, after she had seen his feathered cap disappear at a trot through the gate, leaving her father in the hall; and after shutting and latching the door, threw herself on his bed, and sobbed her heart out. They had never been long separated before. For the last three years he had gone over to the Rectory morning by morning to be instructed by Mr. Dent; but now, although he would never make a great scholar, his father thought it well to send him up to Cambridge for two or three years, that he might learn to find his own level in the world. Anthony himself was eager to go. If the truth must be told, he fretted a little against the restraints of even such a moderate Puritan household as that of his father’s. It was a considerable weariness to Anthony to kneel in the hall on a fresh morning while his father read, even though with fervour and sincerity, long extracts from ‘Christian Prayers and Holy Meditations,” col- lected by the Reverend Henry Bull, when the real world, as Anthony knew it, laughed and rippled and twinkled outside in the humming summer air of the lawn and orchard; or to have to listen to godly discourses, however edifying to elder persons, just at the time when the ghost-moth was beginning to glimmer in the dusk, and the heavy trout to suck down his supper in the glooming pool in the meadow below the house. 8 THE HALL AND THE HOUSE 9 His very sports, too, which his father definitely encouraged, were obviously displeasing to the grave divines who haunted the house so often from Saturday to Monday, and spoke of high doctrinal matters at meal-times, when, so Anthony thought, lighter subjects should prevail. They were not interested in his horse, and Anthony never felt quite the same again towards one good minister who in a moment of severity called Eliza, the glorious peregrine that sat on the boy’s wrist and shook her bells, a “vanity.” And so Anthony trotted off happy enough on his way to Cambridge, of which he had heard much from Mr. Dent; and where, although there too were divines and theology, there were boys as well who acted plays, hunted with the hounds, and did not call high-bred hawks ‘“‘vanities.” Isabel was very different. While Anthony was cheerful and active like his mother who had died in giving him life, she, oa the other hand, was quiet and deep like her father. She was growing up, if not into actual beauty, at least into grace and dignity: but there were some who thought her beautiful. She was pale with dark hair, and the great grey eyes of her father; and she loved and lived in Anthony from the very difference between them. She frankly could not understand the attraction of sport, and the things that pleased her brother; she was afraid of the hawks, and liked to stroke a horse and kiss his soft nose better than to ride him. But, after all, Anthony liked to watch the towering bird, and to hear and indeed increase the thunder of the hoofs across the meadows behind the stooping hawk; and so she did her best to like them too; and she was often torn two ways by her sympathy for the partridge on the one hand, as it sped low and swift across the standing corn with that dread shadow following, and her desire, on the other hand, that Anthony should not be disappointed. But in the deeper things of the spirit, too, there was a wide difference between them. As Anthony fidgeted and sighed through his chair-back morning and evening, Isabel’s soul soared up to God on the wings of those sounding phrases. She had inherited all her father’s tender piety, and lived, like him, on the most intimate terms with the spiritual world. And though, of course, by training she was Puritan, by character she was Puritan too. As a girl of fourteen she had gone with Anthony to see the cleans- ing of the village temple. They had stood together at the west end of the church a little timid at the sight of that noisy crowd in the quiet house of prayer; but she had felt no disapproval 10 BY WHAT AUTHORITY at that fierce vindication of truth. Her father had taught her of course that the purest worship was that which was only spiritual; and while since childhood she had seen Sunday by Sunday the Great Rood overhead, she had never paid it any but artistic atten- tion. The men had the ropes round it now, and it was swaying violently to and fro; and then, even as the children watched, a tie had given, and the great cross with its pathetic wide-armed figure had toppled forward towards the nave, and then crashed down on the pavement. A fanatic ran out and furiously kicked the thorn-crowned head twice, splintering the hair and the features, and cried out on it as an idol; and yet Isabel, with all her tenderness, felt nothing more than a vague regret that a piece of carving so ancient and so delicate should be broken. But when the work was over, and the crowd and Anthony with them had stamped out, directed by the Justices, dragging the figures and the old vestments with them to the green, she had seen something which touched her heart much more. She passed up alone under the screen, which they had spared, to see what had been done in the chancel; and as she went she heard a sob- bing from the corner near the priest’s door; and there, crouched forward on his face, crying and moaning quietly, was the old priest who had been Rector of the church for nearly twenty years. He had somehow held on in Edward’s time in spite of difficulties; had thanked God and the Court of Heaven with a full heart for the accession of Mary; had prayed and deprecated the divine wrath at the return of the Protestant religion with Elizabeth; but yet had somehow managed to keep the old faith alight for eight years more, sometimes evading, sometimes resisting, and sometimes conforming to the march of events, in hopes of better days. But now the blow had fallen, and the old man, too ill- instructed to hear the accents of new truth in the shouting of that noisy crowd and the crash of his images, was on his knees before the altar where he had daily offered the holy sacrifice through all those troublous years, faithful to what he believed to be God’s truth, now bewailing and moaning the horrors of that day, and, it is to be feared, unchristianly calling down the vengeance of God upon his faithless flock. This shocked and touched Isabel far more than the destruction of the images; and she went forward timidly and said something; but the old man turned on her a face of such misery and anger that she had run straight out of the church, and joined Anthony as he danced on the green. THE HALL AND THE HOUSE II On the following Sunday the old priest was not there, and a fervent young minister from London had taken his place, and preached a stirring sermon on the life and times of Josiah; and Isabel had thanked God on her knees after the sermon for that He had once more vindicated His awful Name and cleansed His House for a pure worship. . But the very centre of Isabel’s religion was the love of the Saviour. The Puritans of those early days were very far from holding a negative or colourless faith. Not only was their belief delicately dogmatic to excess; but it all centred round the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Isabel had drunk in this faith from her father’s lips, and from devotional books which he gave — her, as far back as she could remember anything. Her love for the Saviour was even romantic and passionate. It seemed to her that He was as much a part of her life, and of her actual experi- ence, as Anthony or her father. Certain places in the lanes about, and certain spots in the garden, were sacred and fragrant to her because her Lord had met her there. It was indeed a trouble to her sometimes that she loved Anthony so much; and to her mind it was a less worthy kind of love altogether; it was kindled and quickened by such little external details, by the sight of his boyish hand brown with the sun and scarred by small sporting accidents, such as the stroke of his bird’s beak or talons, or by the very outline of the pillow where his curly head had rested only an hour or two ago. Whereas her love for Christ was a deep and solemn passion that seemed to well not out of His comeliness or even His marred Face or pierced Hands, but out of His wide encompassing love that sustained and clasped her at every moment of her conscious attention to Him, and that woke her soul to ecstasy at moments of high communion. These two loves then, one so earthly, one so heavenly, but both so sweet, every now and then seemed to her to be in slight conflict in her heart. And lately a third seemed to be rising up out of the plane of sober and quiet affections such as she felt for her father, and still further complicating the apparently encountering claims of love to God and man. Isabel grew quieter in a few minutes and lay still, following Anthony with her imagination along the lane that led to the London road, and then presently she heard her father calling, and went to the door to listen. “Tsabel,” he said, “come down. Hubert is in the hall.” She called out that she would be down in a moment; and then 12 BY WHAT AUTHORITY going across to her own room she washed her face and came downstairs. There was a tall, pleasant-faced lad of about her own age standing near the open door that led into the garden; and he came forward nervously as she entered. “T came back last night, Mistress Isabel,” he said, ‘‘and heard that Anthony was going this morning: but I am afraid I am too late.” She told him that Anthony had just gone. “Ves,” he said, “I came to say good-bye; but I came by the orchard, and so we missed one another.” Isabel asked a word or two about his visit to the North, and they talked for a few minutes about a rumour that Hubert had heard of a rising on behalf of Mary: but Hubert was shy and constrained, and Isabel was still a little tremulous. At last he said he must be going, and then suddenly remembered a message from his mother. “Ah!” he said, “I was forgetting. My mother wants you to come up this evening, if you have time. Father is away, and my aunt is unwell and is upstairs.” Isabel promised she would come. “Father is at Chichester,”’ went on Hubert, “before the Com- mission, but we do not expect him back till to-morrow.” A shadow passed across Isabel’s face. “I am sorry,” she said. The fact was that Sir Nicholas had again been summoned for recusancy. It was an expensive matter to refuse to attend church, and Sir Nicholas probably paid not less than £200 or £300 a year for the privilege of worshipping as his conscience bade. In the evening Isabel asked her father’s leave to be absent after supper, and then drawing on her hood, walked across in the dusk to the Hall. Hubert was waiting for her at the boundary door between the two properties. “Father has come back,” he said, “but my mother wants you still.” They went on together, passed round the cloister. wing to the south of the house: the bell turret over the inner hall and the crowded roofs stood up against the stars, as they came upy the curving flight of shallow steps from the garden to the tall doorway that led into the hall. It was a pleasant, wide, high room, panelled with fresh oak, and hung with a little old tapestry here and there, and a few portraits. A staircase rose out of it to the upper story. It had a fret-ceiling, with flower-de-luce and rose pendants, and on the walls between the tapestries hung a few antlers and pieces of THE HALL AND THE HOUSE ! 13 armour, morions and breast-plates, with a pair of pikes or hal- berds here and there. A fire had been lighted in the great hearth as the evenings were chilly; and Sir Nicholas was standing before it, still in his riding-dress, pouring out resentment and fury to his wife, who sat in a tall chair at her embroidery. She turned silently and held out a hand to Isabel, who came and stood beside her, while Hubert went and sat down near his father. Sir Nicholas scarcely seemed to notice their entrance, beyond glanc- ing up for a moment under his fierce white eyebrows; but went on growling out his wrath. He was a fine rosy man, with grey moustache and pointed beard, and a thick head of hair, and he held in his hand his flat riding cap, and his whip with which from time to time he cut at his boot. “It was monstrous, I told the fellow, that a man should be haled from his home like this to pay a price for his conscience. The religion of my father and his father and all our fathers was good enough for me; and why in God’s name should the Catholic have to pay who had never changed his faith, while every heretic went free? And then to that some stripling of a clerk told me that a religion that was good enough for the Queen’s Grace should be good enough for her loyal subjects too; but my Lord silenced him quickly. And then I went at them again; and all my Lord would do was to nod his head and smile at me as if I were a child; and then he told me that it was a special Commission all for my sake, and Sir Arthur’s, who was there too, my dear. . . . Well, well, the end was that I had to pay for their cursed religion.” “Sweetheart, sweetheart,” said Lady Maxwell, glancing at Isabel. “Well, I paid,’ went on Sir Nicholas, “but I showed them, thank God, what I was: for as we came out, Sir Arthur and I together, what should we see but another party coming in, pur- suivant and all; and in the mid of them that priest who was with us last July—Well, well, we’ll leave his name alone—him that said he was a priest before them all in September; and I went down on my knees, thank God, and Sir Arthur went down on his, and we asked his blessing before them all, and he gave it us: and oh! my Lord was red and white with passion.” “That was not wise, sweetheart,” said Lady Maxwell tran- quilly, “the priest will have suffered for it afterwards.” “Well, well,’ grumbled Sir Nicholas, “a man cannot always think, but we showed them that Catholics were not ashamed of their religion—yes, and we got the blessing too.” 14 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “Well, but here is supper waiting,” said my lady, ‘‘and Isabel, too, whom you have not spoken to yet.” Sir Nicholas paid no attention. “Ah! but that was not all,” he went on, savagely striking his boot again, “at the end of all who should I see but that— that—damned rogue—whom God reward!”—and he turned and spat into the fire—‘‘Topcliffe. There he was, bowing to my Lord and the Commissioners. When I think of that man,” he said, “when I think of that man—” and Sir Nicholas’ kindly old passionate face grew pale and lowering with fury, and his eye- brows bent themselves forward, and his lower lip pushed itself out, and his hand closed tremblingly on his whip. His wife laid down her embroidery and came to him. “There, sweetheart,” she said, taking his cap and whip. ‘Now sit down and have supper, and leave that man to God.” Sir Nicholas grew quiet again; and after saying a word or two of apology to Isabel, left the room to wash before he sat down to supper. “Mistress Isabel does not know who Topcliffe is,’’ said Hubert. “Hush, my son,” said his mother, “your father does not like his name to be spoken.” Presently Sir Nicholas returned, and sat down to supper. Gradually his good nature returned, and he told them what he had seen in Chichester, and the talk he had heard. How it was reported to his lordship the Bishop that the old religion was still the religion of the people’s hearts—how, for example, at Lindfield they had all the images and the altar furniture hidden under- ground, and at Battle, too; and that the mass could be set up again at a few hours’ notice: and that the chalices had not been melted down into communion cups according to the orders issued, and so on. And that at West Grinsted, moreover, the Blessed Sacrament was there still—praise God—yes, and was going to remain there. He spoke freely before Isabel, and yet he remem- bered his courtesy too, and did not abuse the new-fangled religion, as he thought it, in her presence; or seek in any way to trouble her mind. If ever in an excess of anger he was carried away in his talk, his wife would always check him gently; and he would always respond and apologise to Isabel if he had transgressed good manners. Im fact, he was just a fiery old man who could not change his religion even at the bidding of his monarch, and could not understand how what was right twenty years ago was wrong now. THE HALL AND THE HOUSE 15 Isabel herself listened with patience and tenderness, and awe too; because she loved and honoured this old man in spite of the darkness in which he still walked. He also told them in lower tones of a rumour that was persistent at Chichester that the Duke of Norfolk had been imprisoned by the Queen’s orders, and was to be charged with treason; and that he was at present at Burnham, in Mr. Wentworth’s house, under the guard of Sir Henry Neville. If this was true, as indeed it turned out to be later, it was another blow to the Catholic cause in England; but Sir Nichclas was of a sanguine mind, and pooh-poohed the whole affair even while he related it. And so the evening passed in talk. When Sir Nicholas had finished supper, they all went upstairs to my lady’s withdrawing- room on the first floor. This was always a strange and beautiful room to Isabel. It was panelled like the room below, but was more delicately furnished, and a tall harp stood near the window to which my lady sang sometimes in a sweet tremulous old voice, while Sir Nicholas nodded at the fire. Isabel, too, had had some lessons here from the old lady; but even this mild vanity troubled her Puritan conscience a little sometimes. Then the room, too, had curious and attractive things in it. A high niche in the oak over the fireplace held a slender image of Mary and her Holy Child, and from the Child’s fingers hung a pair of beads. Isabel had a strange sense sometimes as if this holy couple had taken refuge in that niche when they were driven from the church; but it seemed to her in her steadier moods that this was a super- Stitious fancy, and had the nature of sin. This evening the old lady went to her harp, while Isabel sat down near her in the wide window seat and looked out over the dark lawn where the white dial glimmered like a phantom, and thought of Anthony again. Sir Nicholas went and stretched him- self before the fire, and closed his eyes, for he was old, and tired with his long ride; and Hubert sat down in a dark corner near him whence he could watch Isabel. After a few rippling chords my lady began to sing a song by Sir Thomas Wyatt, whom she and Sir Nicholas had known in their youth; and which she had caused to be set to music by some foreign chapel master. It was a sorrowful little song, with the title, ““He seeketh comfort in patience,” and possibly she chose it on purpose for this evening. “Patience! for I have wrong, And dare not shew wherein; Patience shall be my song: 16 BY WHAT AUTHORITY Since truth can nothing win. Patience then for this fit; Hereafter comes not yet.” While she sang, she thought no doubt of the foolish brave courtier who lacked patience in spite of his singing, and lost his head for it; her voice shook once or twice: and old Sir Nicholas shook his drowsy head when she had finished, and said ‘‘God rest him,” and then fell fast asleep. Then he presently awoke as the others talked in whispers, and joined in too: and they talked of Anthony, and what he would find at Cambridge; and of Alderman Marrett, and his house off Cheapside, where Anthony would lie that night; and of such small and tranquil topics, and left fiercer questions alone. And so the evening came to an end; and Isabel said good-night, and went downstairs with Hubert, and out into the garden again. “T am sorry that Sir Nicholas has been so troubled,” she said to Hubert, as they turned the corner of the house together. “Why cannot we leave one another alone, and each worship God as we think fit?” Hubert smiled in the darkness to himself. “T am afraid Queen Mary did not think it could be done, either,” he said. “But then, Mistress Isabel,” he went on, “I am glad that you feel that religion should not divide people.” “Surely not,” she said, “‘so long as they love God.” “Then you think—” began Hubert, and then stopped. Isabel turned to him. “Ves?” she asked. “Nothing,” said Hubert. They had reached the door in the boundary wall by now, and Isabel would not let him come further with her and bade him good-night. But Hubert still stood, with his hand on the door, and watched the white figure fade into the dusk, and listened to the faint rustle of her skirt over the dry leaves; and then, when he heard at last the door of the Dower House open and close, he sighed to himself and went home. Isabel heard her father call from his room as she passed through the hall; and went in to him as he sat at his table in his furred gown, with his books about him, to bid him good-night and receive his blessing. He lifted his hands for a moment to finish the sentence he was writing, and she stood watching the quill move and pause and move again over the paper, in the candlelight, until he laid the pen down, and rose and stood with his back to the THE HALL AND THE HOUSE 17 fire, smiling down at her. He was a tall, slender man, surpris- ingly upright for his age, with a delicate, bearded, scholar’s face; the little plain ruff round his neck helped to emphasise the fine sensitiveness of his features; and the hands which he stretched out ' to his daughter were thin and veined. “Well, my daughter,” he said, looking down at her with his kindly grey eyes so like her own, and holding her hands. ‘“‘Flave you had a good evening, sir?” she asked. He nodded briskly. “And you, child?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” she said, smiling up at him. “And was Sir Nicholas there?” She told him what had passed, and how Sir Nicholas had been fined again for his recusancy; and how Lady Maxwell had sung one of Sir Thomas Wyatt’s songs. ‘“‘And was no one else there?” he asked. “Ves, father, Hubert.” ‘“Ah! And did Hubert come home with you?” “Only as far as the gate, father. I would not let him come further.” Her father said nothing, but still looked steadily down into her eyes for a moment, and then turned and looked away from her into the fire. “You must take care,” he said gently. “Remember he is a Papist, born and bred; and that he has a heart to be broken too.” She felt herself steadily flushing; and as he turned again towards her, dropped her eyes. “You will be prudent and tender, I know,” he added. “TI trust you wholly, Isabel.” Then he kissed her on the forehead and laid his hand on her head, and looked up, as the Puritan manner was. “May the God of grace bless you, my daughter; and make you faithful to the end.” And then he looked into her eyes again, smiled and nodded; and she went out, leaving him standing there. Mr. Norris had begun to fear that the boy loved Isabel, but as yet he did not know whether Isabel understood it or even was aware of it. The marriage difficulties of Catholics and Protestants were scarcely yet existing; and certainly there was no formulated rule of dealing with them. Changes of religion were so frequent in those days that difficulties, when they did arise, easily adjusted themselves. It was considered, for example, by politicians quite possible at one time that the Duke of Anjou should conform to 18 BY WHAT AUTHORITY the Church of England for the sake of marrying the Queen: or that he should attend public services with her, and at the same time have mass and the sacraments in his own private chapel. Or again, it was open to question whether England as a whole would not return to the old religion, and Catholicism be the only tolerated faith. But to really religious minds such solutions would not do. It would have been an intolerable thought to this sincere Puritan, with all his tolerance, that his daughter should marry a Catholic; such an arrangement would mean either that she was indifferent to vital religion, or that she was married to a man whose creed she was bound to abhor and anathematise: and however willing Mr. Norris might be to meet Papists on terms of social friendli- ness, and however much he might respect their personal charac- ters, yet the thought that the life of any one dear to him should be irretrievably bound up with ail that the Catholic creed involved, was simply an impossible one. Besides all this he had no great opinion of Hubert. He thought he detected in him a carelessness and want of principle that would make him hesitate to trust his daughter to him, even if the insuperable barrier of religion were surmounted. Mr. Norris liked a man to be consistent and zealous for his creed, even if that creed were dark and superstitious—and this zeal seemed to him lamen- tably lacking in Hubert. More than once he had heard the boy speak of his father with an air of easy indulgence, that his own opinion interpreted as contempt. “YT believe my father thinks,’ he had once said, ‘that every penny he pays in fines goes to swell the accidental glory of God.” And Hubert had been considerably startled and distressed when the elder man had told him to hold his tongue unless he could speak respectfully of one to whom he owed nothing but love and honour. This had happened, however, more than a year ago; and Hubert had forgotten it, no doubt, even if Mr. Norris had not. And as for Isabel. It is exceedingly difficult 6 say quite what place Hubert occu- pied in her mind. She certainly did not know herself much more than that she liked the boy to be near her; to hear his footsteps coming along the path from the Hall. This morning when her father had called up to her that Hubert was come, it was not so hard to dry her tears for Anthony’s departure. The clouds had parted a little when she came and found this tall lad smiling shyly at her in the hall. As she had sat in the window seat, too, THE HALL AND THE HOUSE 19 during Lady Maxwell’s singing, she was far from unconscious that Hubert’s face was looking at her from the dark corner. And as they walked back together her simplicity was not quite so transparent as the boy himself thought. Again when her father had begun to speak of him just now, although she was able to meet his eyes steadily and smilingly, yet it was just an effort. She had not mentioned Hubert herself, until her father had named him; and in fact it is probably safe to say that during Hubert’s visit to the north, which had lasted three or four months, he had made greater progress towards his goal, and had begun to loom larger than ever in the heart of this serene grey-eyed girl, whom he longed for so irresistibly. And now, as Isabel sat on her bed before kneeling to say her prayers, Hubert was in her mind even more than Anthony. She tried to wonder what her father meant, and yet only too well she knew that she knew. She had forgotten to look into Anthony’s room where she had cried so bitterly this morning, and now she sat wide-eyed, and self-questioning as to whether her heavenly love were as lucid and single as it had been; and when at last she went down on her knees she entreated the King of Love to bless not only her father, and her brother Anthony who lay under the Alderman’s roof in far-away London; but Sir Nicholas and Lady Maxwell, and Mistress Margaret Hallam, and —and—Hubert—and James Maxwell, his brother; and to bring them out of the darkness of Papistry into the glorious liberty of the children of the Gospel. CHAPTER III LONDON TOWN IsABEL’s visit to London, which had been arranged to take place the Christmas after Anthony’s departure to Cambridge, was full of bewildering experiences to her. Mr. Norris from time to time had references to look up in London, and divines to consult as te difficult points in his book on the Eucharist; and this was a favourable opportunity to see Mr. Dering, the St. Paul’s lecturer; so the two took the opportunity, and with a couple of servants drove up to the City one day early in December to the house of Alderman Marrett, the wool merchant, and a friend of Mr. Norris’ father; and for several days both before and after Anthony’s arrival from Cambridge went every afternoon to see the sights. The maze of narrow streets of high black and white houses with their iron-work signs, leaning forward as if to whisper to one another, leaving strips of sky overhead; the strange play of lights and shades after nightfall; the fantastic groups; the incessant roar and rumble of the crowded alleys—all the common- place life of London was like an enchanted picture to her, opening a glimpse into an existence of which she had known nothing. To live, too, in the whirl of news that poured in day after day borne by splashed riders and panting horses;—this was very different to the slow round of country life, with rumours and tales floating in, mellowed by doubt and lapse of time, like pensive echoes from another world. For example, morning by morning, as she came downstairs to breakfast, there was the ruddy-faced Alderman with his fresh budget of news of the north;—Lords Northumberland and Westmoreland with a Catholic force of sev- eral thousands, among which were two cousins of Mrs. Marrett herself—and the old lady nodded her head dolorously in cor- roboration—had marched southwards under the Banner of the Five Wounds, and tramped through Durham City welcomed by hundreds of the citizens; the Cathedral had been entered, old Richard Norton with the banner leading; the new Communion table had been cast out of doors, the English Bible and Prayer- book torn to shreds, the old altar reverently carried in from the 20 LONDON TOWN 21 rubbish heap, the tapers rekindled, and amid hysterical enthusi- asm Mass had been said once more in the old sanctuary. Then they had moved south; Lord Sussex was powerless in York; the Queen, terrified and irresolute, alternately storming and crying; Spain was about to send ships to Hartlepool to help the rebels; Mary Stuart would certainly be rescued from her prison at Tutbury. Then Mary had been moved to Coventry; then came a last flare of frightening tales: York had fallen; Mary had escaped; Elizabeth was preparing to flee. And then one morning the Alderman’s face was brighter: it was all a lie, he said. The revolt had crumbled away; my Lord Sussex was impregnably fortified in York with guns from Hull; Lord Pembroke was gathering forces at Windsor; Lords Clinton, Hereford and Warwick were converging towards York to relieve the siege. And as if to show Isabel it was not a mere romance, she could see the actual train-bands go by up Cheapside with the gleam of steel caps and pike-heads, and the mighty tramp of disciplined feet, and the welcoming roar of the swarming crowds. Then as men’s hearts grew lighter the tale of chastisement began to be told, and was not finished till long after Isabel was home again. Green after green of the windy northern villages was made hideous by the hanging bodies of the natives, and children hid their faces and ran by lest they should see what her Grace had done to their father. In spite of the Holy Sacrifice, and the piteous banner, and the call to fight for the faith, the Catholics had hung back and hesi- tated, and the catastrophe was complete. The religion of London, too, was a revelation to this country girl. She went one Sunday to St. Paul’s Cathedral, pausing with her father before they went in to see the new restorations and the truncated steeple struck by lightning eight years before, which in spite of the Queen’s angry urging the citizens had never been able to replace. There was a good congregation at the early morning prayer; and the organs and the singing were to Isabel as the harps and choirs of heaven. The canticles were sung to Shephard’s setting by the men and children of St. Paul’s all in surplices: and the dignitaries wore besides their grey fur almuces, which had not yet been abolished. The grace and dignity of the whole service, though to older people who remembered the unreformed worship a bare and miserable affair, and to Mr. Norris, with his sincere simplicity and spirituality, a somewhat elaborate and sensuous 22 BY WHAT AUTHORITY mode of honouring God, yet to Isabel was a first glimpse of what the mystery of worship meant. The dim towering arches, through which the dusty richly-stained sunbeams poured, the far-away murmurous melodies that floated down from the glim- mering choir, the high thin-pealing organ, all combined to give her a sense of the unfathomable depths of the Divine Majesty— an element that was lacking in the clear-cut personal Puritan creed, in spite of the tender associations that made it fragrant for her, and the love of the Saviour that enlightened and warmed it. The sight of the crowds outside, too, in the frosty sunlight, gathered round the grey stone pulpit on the north-east of the Cathedral, and streaming down every alley and lane, the packed galleries, the gesticulating black figure of the preacher—this impressed on her an idea of the power of corporate religion, that hours at her own prayer-desk, or solitary twilight walks under the Hall pines, or the uneventful divisions of the Rector’s village sermons, had failed to give. It was this Sunday in London that awakened her quiet soul from the lonely companionship of God, to the knowledge of that vast spiritual world of men of which she was but one tiny cell. Her father observed her quietly and interestedly as they went home together, but said nothing beyond an indifferent word or two. He was beginning to realise the serious reality of her spiritual life, and to dread anything that would even approximate to coming between her soul and her Saviour. The father and daughter understood one another, and were content to be silent | together. Her talks with Mrs. Marrett, too, left their traces on her mind. The Alderman’s wife, for the first time in her life, found her views and reminiscences listened to as if they were oracles, and she needed little encouragement to pour them out in profusion. She was especially generous with her tales of portents and warn- ings; and the girl was more than once considerably alarmed by what she heard while the ladies were alone in the dim firelit parlour on the winter afternoons before the candles were brought in. ‘When you were a little child, my dear,” began the old lady one day, “there was a great burning made everywhere of all the popish images and vestments; all but the copes and the altar- cloths that they made into dresses for the ministers’ new wives, and bed-quilts to cover them; and there were books and banners and sepulchres and even relics. I went out to see the burning at LONDON TOWN 23 Paul’s, and though I knew it was proper that the old papistry should go, yet I was uneasy at the way it was done. “Well,” went on the old lady, glancing about her, “I was sit- ting in this very room only a few days after, and the air began to grow dark and heavy, and all became still. There had been two or three cocks crowing and answering one another down by the river, and others at a distance; and they all ceased: and there had been birds chirping in the roof, and they ceased. And it grew so dark that I laid down my needle and went to the window, and there at the end of the street over the houses there was coming a great cloud, with wings like a hawk, I thought; but some said afterwards that, when they saw it, it had fingers like a man’s hand, and others said it was like a great tower, with battlements. However that may be, it grew nearer and larger, and it was blue and dark like that curtain there; and there was no wind to stir it, for the windows had ceased rattling, and the dust was quiet in the streets; and still it came on quickly, growing as it came; and then there came a far-away sound, like a heavy waggon, or, some said, like a deep voice complaining. And I turned away from the window afraid; and there was the cat, that had been on a chair, down in the corner, with her back up, staring at the cloud: and then she began to run round the room like a mad thing, and presently whisked out of the door when I opened it. And I went to find Mr. Marrett, and he had not come in, and all the yard was quiet. I could only hear a horse stamp once or twice in the stable. And then as I was calling out for some one to come, the storm broke, and the sky was all one dark cloud from side to side. For three hours it went on, rolling and clapping, and the lightning came in through the window that I had darkened and through the clothes over my head; for I had gone to my bed and rolled myself round under the clothes. And so it went on—and, my dear—” and Mrs. Marrett put her head close to Isabel’s—‘“I prayed to our Lady and the saints, which I had not done since I was married; and asked them to pray God to keep me safe. And then at the end came a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning more fearful than all that had- gone before; and at that very moment, so Mr. Marrett told me when he came in, two of the doors in St. Denys’ Church in Fanshawe Street were broken in pieces by something that crushed them in, and the stone steeple of Allhallow Church in Bread Street was broken off short, and a part of it killed a dog that was beneath, and overthrew a man that played with the dog.” 24 BY WHAT AUTHORITY Isabel could hardly restrain a shiver and a glance round the dark old room, so awful were Mrs. Marrett’s face and gestures and loud whispering tone, as she told this. ‘““Ah! but, my dear,” she went on, “there was worse happened to poor King Hal, God rest him—him who began to reform the Church, as they say, and destroyed the monasteries. All the money that he left for masses for his soul was carried off with the rest at the change of religion; and that was bad enough, but this is worse. This is a tale, my dear, that I have heard my father tell many a time; and I was a young woman myself when it happened. The King’s Grace was threatened by a friar, I think of Greenwich, that if he laid hands on the monasteries he should be as Ahab whose blood was licked by dogs in the very place which he took from aman. Well, the friar was hanged for his pains, and the King lived. And then at last he died, and was put in a great coffin, and carried through London; and they put the coffin in an open space in Sion Abbey, which the King had taken. And in the night there came one to view the coffin, and to see that all was well. And he came round the corner, and there stood the great coffin—(for his Grace was a great stout man, my dear)—on trestles in the moonlight, and beneath it a great black dog that lapped something: and the dog turned as the man came, and some say, but not my father, that the dog’s eyes were red as coals, and that his mouth and nostrils smoked, and that he cast no shadow; but (however that may be) the dog turned and looked and then ran; and the man followed him into a yard, but when he reached there, there was no dog. And the man went back to the coffin afraid; and he found the coffin was burst open, and—and. 3 Mrs. Marrett stopped abruptly. Isabel was white and trem- bling. “There, there, my dear. I am a foolish old woman; and I'll tell you no more.” Isabel was really terrified, and entreated Mrs. Marrett to tell her something pleasant to make her forget these horrors; and so she told her old tales of her youth, and the sights of the city, and the great doings in Mary’s reign; and so the time passed pleas- antly till the gentlemen came home. At other times she told her of Elizabeth and the great nobles, and Isabel’s heart beat high at it, and at the promise that before she left she herself should see the Queen, even if she had to go to Greenwich or Nonsuch for it. LONDON TOWN 25 “God bless her,” said Mrs. Marrett loyally, “she’s a woman like ourselves for all her majesty. And she likes the show and the music too, like us all. I declare when I see them all a-going down the water to Greenwich, or to the Tower for a bear-baiting, with the horns blowing and the guns firing and the banners and the barges and the music, I declare sometimes I think that heaven itself can be no better, God forgive me! Ah! but I wish her Grace’d take a husband; there are many that want her; and then we could laugh at them all. There’s so many against her Grace now who’d be for her if she had a son of her own. There’s Duke Charles whose picture hangs in her bedroom, they say; and Lord Robert Dudley—there’s a handsome spark, my dear, in his gay coat and his feathers and his ruff, and his hand on his hip, and his horse and all. I wish she’d take him and have done with it. And then we’d hear no more of the nasty Spaniards. There’s Don de Silva, for all the world like a monkey with his brown face and mincing ways and his grand clothes. I declare when Captain Hawkins came home, just four years ago last Michael- mas, and came up to London with his men, all laughing and rolling along with the people cheering them, I could have kissed the man—to think how he had made the brown men dance and curse and show their white teeth; and to think that the Don had to ask him to dinner, and grin and chatter as if nought had happened.” And Mrs. Marrett’s good-humoured face broke into mirth at the thought of the Ambassador’s impotence and duplicity. Anthony’s arrival in London a few days before Christmas removed the one obstacle to Isabel’s satisfaction—that he was not there to share it with her. The two went about together most of the day under their father’s care, when he was not busy at his book, and saw all that was to be seen. One afternoon as they were just leaving the courtyard of the Tower, which they had been visiting with a special order, a slight reddish-haired man, who came suddenly out of a doorway of the White Tower, stopped a moment irresolutely, and then came towards them, bare-headed and bowing. He had sloping shoulders and a serious-looking mouth, with a reddish beard and moustache, and had an air of strangely mingled submissiveness and capability. His voice too, as he spoke, was at once deferential and decided. “I ask your pardon, Mr. Norris,” he said. ‘Perhaps you do not remember me.” 26 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “T have seen you before,’”’ said the other, puzzled for a moment. “Yes, sir,” said the man, “down at Great Keynes; I was in service at the Hall, sir.” “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Norris, “I remember you perfectly. Lackington, is it not?” The man bowed again. “T left about eight years ago, sir; and by the blessing of God, have gained a little post under the Government. But I wished to tell you, sir, that I have been happily led to change my religion. I was a Papist, sir, you know.” Mr. Norris congratulated him. “T thank you, sir,” said Lackington. The two children were looking at him; and he turned to them and bowed again. “Mistress Isabel and Master Anthony, sir, is it not?” “T remember you,” said Isabel a little shyly, “at least, I think so.” Lackington bowed again as if gratified; and turned to their father. “If you are leaving, Mr. Norris, would you allow me to walk with you a few steps? I have much I would like to ask you of my old master and mistress.” The four passed out together, the two children in front; and as they went Lackington asked most eagerly after the household at the Hall, and especially after Mr. James, for whom he seemed to have a special affection. “Tt is rumoured,” said Mr. Norris, “that he is going abroad.” “Indeed, sir,” said the servant, with a look of great interest, “TI had heard it too, sir; but did not know whether to believe it.” Lackington also gave many messages of affection to others of © the household, to Piers the bailiff, and a couple of the foresters: and finished by entreating Mr. Norris to use him as he would, telling him how anxious he was to be of service to his friends, and asking to be entrusted with any little errands or commissions in London that the country gentleman might wish performed. “T shall count it, sir, a privilege,” said the servant, ‘and you shall find me prompt and discreet.” One curious incident took place just as Lackington was taking his leave at the turning down into Wharf Street; a man hurrying eastwards almost ran against them, and seemed on the point of apologising, but his face changed suddenly, and he spat furiously LONDON TOWN 27 on the ground, mumbling something, and hurried on. Lackington seemed to see nothing. “Why did he do that?” interrupted Mr. Norris, astonished. “T ask your pardon, sir?”’ said Lackington interrogatively. “That fellow! did you not see him spit at me?” “T did not observe it, sir,’’ said the servant; and presently took his leave. “Why did that man spit at you, father?” asked Isabel when they had come indoors. “T cannot think, my dear; I have never seen him in my life.” “T think Lackington knew,” said Anthony, with a shrewd air. “Lackington! Why, Lackington did not even see him.” “That was just it,” said Anthony. Anthony’s talk about Cambridge during these first evenings in London was fascinating to Isabel, if not to their father, too. It concerned of course himself and his immediate friends, and dealt with such subjects as cock-fighting a good deal; but he spoke also of the public disputations and the theological cham- pions who crowed and pecked, not unlike cocks themselves, while the theatre rang with applause and hooting. The sport was one of the most popular at the universities at this time. But above all his tales of the Queen’s visit a few years before attracted the girl, for was she not to see the Queen with her own eyes? “Oh! father,” said the lad, “I would I had been there five years ago when she came. Master Taylor told me of it. They acted the Awlularia, you know, in King’s Chapel on the Sunday evening. Master Taylor took a part, 1 forget what; and he told me how she laughed and clapped. And then there was a great disputation before her, one day, in St. Mary’s Church, and the doctors argued, I forget what about, but Master Taylor says that of course the Genevans had the best of it; and the Queen spoke, too, in Latin, though she did not wish to, but my lord of Ely persuaded her to it; so you see she could not have learned it by heart, as some said. And she said she would give some great gift to the University; but Master Taylor says they are still wait- ing for it; but it must come soon, you see, because it is the Queen’s Grace who has promised it; but Master Taylor says he hopes she has forgotten it, but he laughs when I ask him what he means, and says it again.” “Who is this Master Taylor?” asked his father. “Oh! he is a Fellow of King’s,” said Anthony, “and he told me about the Provost too. The Provost is half a Papist, they 28 BY WHAT AUTHORITY say: he is very old now, and he has buried all the vessels and the vestments of the Chapel, they say, somewhere where no one knows; and he hopes the old religion will come back again some day; and then he will dig them up. But that is Papistry, and no one wants that at Cambridge. And others say that he is a Papist altogether, and has a priest in his house sometimes. But I do not think he can be a Papist, because he was there when the Queen was there, bowing and smiling, says Master Taylor; and looking on the Queen so earnestly, as if he worshipped her, says Master Taylor, all the time the Chancellor was talking to her before they went into the chapel for the Te Deum. But they wished they had kept some of the things, like the Provost, says Master Taylor, because they were much put to it when her Grace came down for stuffs to cover the communion-tables and for sur- plices, for Cecil said she would be displeased if all was bare and poor. Is it true, father,” asked Anthony, breaking off, “that the Queen likes popish things, and has a crucifix and tapers on the table in her chapel?” ‘“‘Ah! my son,” said Mr. Norris, smiling, “you must ask one who knows. And what else happened?” “Well,” said Anthony, “the best is to come. They had plays, you know, the Dido, and one called Ezechias, before the Queen. Oh! and she sent for one of the boys, they say, and—and kissed him, they say; but I think that cannot be true.” ‘Well, my son, go on!” “Oh! and some of them thought they would have one more play before she went; but she had to go a long journey and left Cambridge before they could do it, and they went after her to— to Audley End, I think, where she was to sleep, and a room was made ready, and when all was prepared, though her Grace was tired, she came in to see the play. Master Taylor was not there; he said he would rather not act in that one; but he had the story from one who acted, but no one knew, he said, who wrote the play. Well, when the Queen’s Grace was seated, the actors came on, dressed, father, dressed’”—and Anthony’s eyes began to shine with amusement—“as the Catholic Bishops in the Tower. There was Bonner in his popish vestments—some they had from St. Benet’s—with a staff and his tall mitre, and a lamb in his arms; and he stared at it and gnashed his teeth at it as he tramped in; and then came the others, all like bishops, all in mass-vestments or cloth cut to look like them; and then at the end came a dog that belonged to one of them, well-trained, with LONDON TOWN 29 the Popish Host in his mouth, made large and white, so that all could see what it was. Well, they thought the Queen would laugh as she was a Protestant, but no one laughed; some one said something in the room, and a lady cried out; and then the Queen stood up and scolded the actors, and trounced them well with her tongue, she did, and said she was displeased; and then out she went with all her ladies and gentlemen after her, except one or two servants who put out the lights at once without wait- ing, and broke Bonner’s staff, and took away the Host, and kicked the dog, and told them to be off, for the Queen’s Grace was angered with them; and so they had to get back to Cambridge in the dark as well as they might.” | “Oh! the poor boys!” said Mrs. Marrett, “and they did it all to please her Grace, too.” “Ves,”’ said the Alderman, “but the Queen thought it enough, I dare say, to put the Bishops in prison, without allowing boys to make a mock of them and their faith before her.” “Ves,” said Anthony, “I thought that was it.” When the Alderman came in a day or two later with the news that Elizabeth was to come up from Nonsuch the next day, and to pass down Cheapside on her way to Greenwich, the excitement of Isabel and Anthony was indescribable. Cheapside was joyous to see, as the two, with their father behind them talking to a minister whose acquaintance he had made, sat at a first-floor window soon after midday, waiting to see the Queen go by. Many of the people had hung carpets or tapestries, some of taffetas and cloth-of-gold, out of their bal- conies and windows, and the very signs themselves,—fantastic ironwork, with here and there a grotesque beast rampant, or a bright painting, or an escutcheon;—with the gay, good-tempered crowds beneath and the strip of frosty blue sky, crossed by streamers from side to side, shining above the towering eaves and gables of the houses, all combined to make a scene so aston- ishing that it seemed scarcely real to these country children. It was yet some time before she was expected; but there came a sudden stir from the upper end of Cheapside, and then a burst of cheering and laughter and hoots. Anthony leaned out to see what was coming, but could make out nothing beyond the head of a horse, and a man driving it from the seat of a cart, coming slowly down the centre of the road. The laughter and noise grew louder as the crowds swayed this way and that to make room, Presently it was seen that behind the cart a little space 30 BY WHAT AUTHORITY was kept, and Anthony made out the grey head of a man at the tail of the cart, and the face of another a little way behind; then at last, as the cart jolted past, the two children saw a man stripped to the waist, his hands tied before him to the cart, his back one red wound; while a hangman walked behind whirling his thonged whip about his head, and bringing it down now and again on the old man’s back. At each lash the prisoner shrank away, and turned his piteous face, drawn with pain, from side to side, while the crowd yelled and laughed. “What’s it for, what’s it for?” inquired Anthony, eager and interested. A boy leaning from the next window answered him. “He said Jesus Christ was not in heaven.” At that moment a humorist near the cart began to cry out: “Way for the King’s Grace! Way for the King’s Grace!” and the crowd took the idea instantly: a few men walking with the cart formed lines like gentlemen ushers, uncovering their heads and all crying out the same words; and one eager player tried to walk backwards until he was tripped up. And so the dismal pageant of this red-robed king of anguish went by; and the hoots - and shouts of his heralds died away. Anthony turned to Isabel, exultant and interested. “Why, Isabel,” he said, ‘“‘you look all white. What is it? You know he’s a blasphemer.”’ “I know, I know,”’ said Isabel. Then suddenly, far away, came the sound of trumpets, and gusts of distant cheering, like the sound of the wind in thick foliage. Anthony leaned out again, and an excited murmur broke out once more, as all faces turned westwards. A moment more, and Anthony caught a flash of colour from the corner near St. Paul’s Churchyard; then the shrill trumpets sounded nearer, and the cheering broke out at the end, and ran down the street like a wave of noise. From every window faces leaned out; even on the roofs and between the high chimney pots were swaying figures. Masses of colour now began to emerge, with the glitter of steel, round the bend of the street, where the winter sunshine fell; and the crowds began to surge back, and against the houses. At first Anthony could make out little but two moving rippling lines of light, coming parallel, pressing the people back; and it was not until they had come opposite the window that he could make out the steel caps and pikeheads of men in half-armour, who, march- ing two and two with a space between them, led the procession LONDON TOWN 31 and kept the crowds back. There they went, with immovable disciplined faces, grounding their -pike-butts sharply now and again, caring nothing for the yelp of pain that sometimes followed. Immediately behind them came the aldermen in scarlet, on black horses that tossed their jingling heads as they walked. Anthony watched the solemn faces of the old gentlemen with a good deal of awe, and presently made out his friend, Mr. Marrett, who rode near the end, but who was too much engrossed in the management of his horse to notice the two children who cried out to him and waved. The serjeants-of-arms followed, and then two lines again of gentlemen-pensioners walking, bare-headed, carrying wands, in short cloaks and elaborate ruffs. But the lad saw little of them, for the splendour of the lords and knights that followed eclipsed them altogether. The knights came first, in steel armour with raised vizors, the horses too in armour, moving sedately with a splendid clash of steel, and twinkling fiercely in the sunshine; and then, after them (and Anthony drew his breath swiftly) came a blaze of colour and jewels as the great lords in their cloaks and feathered caps, metal-clasped and gemmed, came on their splendid long-maned horses; the crowd yelled and cheered, and great names were tossed to and fro, as the owners passed on, each talking to his fellow as if unconscious of the tumult and even of the presence of these shouting thousands. The cry of the trumpets rang out again high and shattering, as the trumpeters and heralds in rich coat-armour came next; and Anthony looked a moment, fascinated by the lions and lilies, and the brightness of the eloquent horns, before he turned his head to see the Lord Mayor himself, mounted on a great stately white horse, that needed no management, while his rider bore on a cushion the sceptre. Ah! she was coming near now. The two saw nothing of the next rider who carried aloft the glittering Sword of State, for their eyes were fixed on the six plumed heads of the horses, with grooms and footmen in cassock-coats and venetian hose, and the great gilt open carriage behind that swayed and jolted over the cobbles. She was here; she was here; and the loyal crowds yelled and surged to and fro, and cloths and handkerchiefs flapped and waved, and caps tossed up and down, as at last the great creaking carriage came under the window. This is what they saw in it. A figure of extraordinary dignity, sitting upright and stiff like a pagan idol, dressed in a magnificent and fantastic purple robe, with a great double ruff, like a huge collar, behind her head; a 32 BY WHAT AUTHORITY long taper waist, voluminous skirts spread all over the cushions, embroidered with curious figures and creatures. Over her shoul- ders, but opened in front so as to show the ropes of pearls and the blaze of jewels on the stomacher, was a purple velvet mantle lined with ermine, with pearls sewn into it here and there. Set far back on her head, over a pile of reddish-yellow hair drawn tightly back from the forehead, was a hat with curled brims, elaborately embroidered, with the jewelled outline of a little crown in front, and a high feather topping all. And her face—a long oval, pale and transparent in complexion, with a sharp chin, and a high forehead; high arched eyebrows, auburn, but a little darker than her hair; her mouth was small, rising at the corners, with thin curved lips tightly shut; and her eyes, which were clear in colour, looked incessantly about her with great liveliness and good-humour. There was something overpowering to these two children who looked, too awed to cheer, in this formidable figure in the barbaric dress, the gorgeous climax of a gorgeous pageant. Apart from the physical splendour, this solitary glittering creature represented so much—it was the incarnate genius of the laughing, brutal, wanton English nation, that sat here in the gilded carriage and smiled and glanced with tight lips and clear eyes. She was like some emblematic giant, moving in a processional car, as fantastic as itself, dominant and serene above the heads of the maddened crowds, on to some mysterious destiny. A sovereign, however personally inglorious, has such a dignity in some measure; and Elizabeth added to this an exceptional majesty of her own. Henry would not have been ashamed for this daughter of his. What wonder then that these crowds were delirious with love and loyalty and an exultant fear, as this overwhelming person- ality went by:—this pale-faced tranquil virgin Queen, passionate, wanton, outspoken and absolutely fearless; with a sufficient re- serve of will to be fickle without weakness; and sufficient grasp of her aims to be indifferent to her policy: untouched by vital religion; financially shrewd; inordinately vain. And when this strange dominant creature, royal by character as by birth, as strong as her father and as wanton as her mother, sat in ermine and velvet and pearls in a royal carriage, with shrewd-faced wits, and bright-eyed lovers, and solemn statesmen, and great nobles, vacuous and gallant, glittering and jingling before her; and troops of tall ladies in ruff and crimson mantle riding on white horses behind; and when the fanfares went shattering down the street, LONDON TOWN 33 vibrating through the continuous roar of the crowd and the shrill cries of children and the mellow thunder of church-bells rocking overhead, and the endless tramp of a thousand feet below; and when the whole was framed in this fantastic twisted street, blazing with tapestries and arched with gables and banners, all bathed in glory by the clear frosty sunshine—it is little wonder that for a few minutes at least this country boy felt that here at last was the incarnation of his dreams; and that his heart should exult, with an enthusiasm he could not interpret, for the cause of a people who could produce such a queen, and of a queen who could rule such a people; and that his imagination should be fired with a sudden sense that these were causes for which the sacrifice of a life would be counted cheap, if they might thereby be furthered. Yet, in this very moment, by one of those mysterious sugges- tions that rise from the depth of a soul, the image sprang into his mind, and poised itself there for an instant, of the grey- haired man who had passed half an hour ago, sobbing and shrink- ing at the cart’s tail. CHAPTER IV MARY CORBET THE spring that followed the visit to London passed uneventfully at Great Keynes to all outward appearances; and yet for Isabel they were significant months. In spite of herself and of the word of warning from her father, her relations with Hubert con- tinued to draw closer. For one thing, he had been the first to awaken in her the consciousness that she was lovable in herself, and the mirror that first tells that to a soul always has something of the glow of the discovery resting upon it. Then again his deference and his chivalrous air had a strange charm. When Isabel rode out alone with Anthony, she often had to catch the swinging gate as he rode through after opening it, and do such little things for herself; but when Hubert was with them there was nothing of that kind. And, once more, he appealed to her pity; and this was the most subtle element of all. There was no doubt that Hubert’s relations with his fiery old father became strained sometimes, and it was extraordinarily sweet to Isabel to be made a confidant. And yet Hubert never went beyond a certain point; his wooing was very skilful: and he seemed to be conscious of her uneasiness almost before she was conscious of it herself, and to relapse in a moment into frank and brotherly relations again. He came in one night after supper, flushed and bright-eyed, and found her alone in the hall: and broke out immediately, striding up and down as she sat and watched him. “YT cannot bear it; there is Mr. Bailey who has been with us all Lent; he is always interfering in my affairs. And he has no charity. I know I am a Catholic and that; but when he and my father, talk against the Protestants, Mistress Isabel, I cannot bear it. They were abusing the Queen to-night—at least,’”’ he added, for he had no intention to exaggerate, “they were saying she was a true daughter of her father; and sneers of that kind. And I am an Englishman, and her subject; and I said so; and Mr. Bailey snapped out, ‘And you are also a Catholic, my son,’ and then—and then I lost my temper, and said that the Catholic 34 MARY CORBET 35 religion seemed no better than any other for the good it did people; and that the Rector and Mr. Norris seemed to me as good men as any one; and of course I meant him and he knew it; and then he told me, before the servants, that I was speaking against the faith; and then I said I would sooner speak against the faith than against good Christians; and then he flamed up scarlet, and I saw I had touched him; and then my father got scarlet too, and my mother looked at me, and my father told me to leave the table for an insolent puppy; and I knocked over my chair and stamped out—and oh! Mistress Isabel, I came straight here.” And he flung down astride of a chair with his arms on the back, and dropped his head on to them. It would have been difficult for Hubert, even if he had been very clever indeed, to have made any speech which would have touched Isabel more than this. There was the subtle suggestion that he had defended the Protestants for her sake; and there was the open defence of her father, and defiance of the priests whom she feared and distrusted; there was a warm generosity and frankness running through it all; and lastly, there was the sweet flattering implication that he had come to her to be under- stood and quieted and comforted. Then, when she tried to show her disapproval of his quick temper, and had succeeded in showing a poorly disguised sym- pathy instead, he had flung away again, saying that she had: brought him to his senses as usual, and that he would ask the priest’s pardon for his insolence at once; and Isabel was left standing and looking at the fire, fearing that she was being wooed, and yet not certain, though she loved it. And then, too, there was the secret hope that it might be through her that he might escape from his superstitions, and—and then—and she closed her eyes and bit her lip for joy and terror. She did not know that a few weeks later Hubert had an inter- view with his father, of which she was the occasion. Lady Max- well had gone to her husband after a good deal of thought and anxiety, and told him what she feared; asking him to say a word to Hubert. Sir Nicholas had been startled and furious. It was all the lad’s conceit, he said; he had no real heart at all; he only flattered his vanity in making love; he had no love for his parents or his faith, and so on. She took his old hand in her own and held it while she spoke. | “Sweetheart,”’ she said, “how old were you when you used to 36 BY WHAT AUTHORITY come riding to Overfield? I forget.” And there came peace into his angry, puzzled old eyes, and a gleam of humour. “Mistress,” he said, “you have not forgotten.” For he had been just eighteen, too. And he took her face in his hands del- icately, and kissed her on the lips. “Well, well,” he said, “it is hard on the boy; but it must not go on. Send him to me. Oh! I will be easy with him.” But the interview was not as simple as he hoped; for Hubert was irritable and shamefaced; and spoke lightly of the Religion again. “After all,” he burst out,-“‘there are plenty of good men who have left the faith. It brings nothing but misery.” Sir Nicholas’ hands began to shake, and his fingers to clench themselves; but he remembered the lad was in love. “My son,” he said, ‘““you do not know what you say.” “Tt know well enough,” said Hubert, with his foot tapping sharply. “I say that the Catholic religion is a religion of misery and death everywhere. Look at the Low Countries, sir.” “T cannot speak of that,” said his father; and his son sneered visibly; “you and I are but laymen; but this I know, and have a right to say, that to threaten me like that is the act of a— is not worthy of my son. My dear boy,” he said, coming nearer, “you are angry; and, God forgive me! so am I; but I promised your mother,” and again he broke off, “and we cannot go on with this now. Come again this evening.” Hubert stood turned away, with his head against the high oak mantelpiece; and there was silence. “Father,” he said at last, turning round, “I ask your pardon.” Sir Nicholas stepped nearer, his eyes suddenly bright with tears, and his mouth twitching, and held out his hand, which Hubert took. “And I was a coward to speak like that—but, but—I will try,” went on the boy. ‘And I promise to say nothing to her yet, at any rate. Will that do? And I will go away for a while.” The father threw his arms round him. As the summer drew on and began to fill the gardens and meadows with wealth, the little Italian garden to the south- west of the Hall was where my lady spent most of the day. Here she would cause chairs to be brought out for Mistress Margaret and herself, and a small selection of devotional books, an orange leather volume powdered all over with pierced hearts, MARY CORBET 37 filled with extracts in a clear brown ink, another book called Le Chappellet de Jésus, while from her girdle beside her pocket- mirror there always hung an olive-coloured “Hours of the Blessed Virgin,” fastened by a long strip of leather prolonged from the binding. Here the two old sisters would sit, in the shadow of the yew hedge, taking it by turns to read and embroider or talking a little now and then in quiet voices, with long silences broken only by the hum of insects in the hot air, or the quick flight of a bird in the tall trees behind the hedge. Here too Isabel often came, also bringing her embroidery; and sat and talked and watched the wrinkled tranquil faces of the two old ladies, and envied their peace. Hubert had gone, as he had promised his father, on a long visit, and was not expected home until at least the autumn. “James will be here to-morrow,” said Lady Maxwell, suddenly, one hot afternoon. Isabel looked up in surprise; he had not been at home for so long; but the thought of his. coming was very pleasant to her. “And Mary Corbet, too,’’ went on the old lady, ‘“‘will be here to-morrow or the day after.” Isabel asked who this was. “She is one of the Queen’s ladies, my dear; and a great talker.” “She is very amusing sometimes,” said Mistress Margaret’s clear little voice. “And Mr. James will be here to-morrow?” said Isabel. “Yes, my child. They always suit one another; and we have known Mary for years.” ‘“‘And is Miss Corbet a Catholic?” “Yes, my dear; her Grace seems to like them about her.” When Isabel went up again to the Hall in the evening, a couple of days later, she found Mr. James sitting with his mother and aunt in the same part of the garden. Mr. James, who rose as she came through the yew archway, and stood waiting to greet her, was a tall, pleasant, brown-faced man. Isabel noticed as she came up his strong friendly face, that had something of Hubert’s look in it, and felt an immediate sense of relief from her timidity at meeting this man, whose name, it was said, was beginning to be known among the poets, and about whom the still more formidable fact was being repeated, that he was a rising man at Court and had attracted the Queen’s favour. As they sat down again together, she noticed, too, his strong delicate hand in its snowy ruff, for he was always perfectly 38 BY WHAT AUTHORITY dressed, as it lay on his knee; and again thought of Hubert’s browner and squarer hand. “We were talking, Mistress Isabel, about the play, and the new theatres. I was at the Blackfriar’s only last week. Ah! and I met Buxton there,” he went on, turning to his mother. “Dear Henry,” said Lady Maxwell. “He told me when I last saw him that he could never go to London again; his religion was too expensive, he said.” Mr. James’ white teeth glimmered in a smile. “He told me he was going to prison next time, instead of paying the fine. It would be cheaper, he thought.” “T hear her Grace loves the play,” said Mistress Margaret. “Indeed she does. I saw her at Whitehall the other day, when the children of the Chapel Royal were acting; she clapped and called out with delight. But Mistress Corbet can tell you more than I can— Ah! here she is.” Isabel looked up, and saw a wonderful figure coming briskly along the terrace and down the steps that led from the house. Miss Corbet was dressed with what she herself would have said was a milkmaid’s plainness; but Isabel looked in astonishment at the elaborate ruff and wings of muslin and lace, the shining peacock gown, the high-piled coils of black hair, and the twin- kling buckled feet. She had a lively bright face, a little pale, with a high forehead, and black arched brows and dancing eyes, and a little scarlet mouth that twitched humorously now and then after speaking. She rustled up, flicking her handkerchief, and exclaiming against the heat. Isabel was presented to her; she sat down on a settle Mr. James drew forward for her, with the handkerchief still whisking at the flies. “J am ashamed to come out like this,” she began. ‘Mistress Plesse would break her heart at my lace. You country ladies have far more sense. I am the slave of my habits. What were you talking of, that you look so gravely at me?” Mr. James told her. “Oh, her Grace!” said Miss Corbet. ‘Indeed, I think some- times she is never off the stage herself. Ah! and what art and passion she shows too!” “We are all loyal subjects here,” said Mr. James; “tell us what you mean.” “f mean what I say,” she said. ‘‘Never was there one who loved play-acting more and to occupy the centre of the stage, too. And the throne too, if there be one,” she added. MARY CORBET 39 Miss Corbet talked always at her audience; she hardly ever looked directly at any one, but up or down, or even shut her eyes and tilted her face forward while she talked; and all the while she kept an incessant movement of her lips or handker- chief, or tapped her foot, or shifted her position a little. Isabel thought she had never seen any one so restless. Then she went on to tell them of the Queen. She was so startlingly frank that Lady Maxwell again and again looked up as if to interrupt; but she always came off the thin ice in time. It was abominable gossip; but she talked with such a genial air of loyal good humour, that it was very difficult to find fault. Miss Corbet was plainly accustomed to act as Court Circular, or even as lecturer and show-woman on the most pop- ular subject in England. “But her Grace surpassed herself in acting the tyrant last January; you would have sworn her really angry. This was how it fell out. I was in the anteroom one day, waiting for her Grace, when I thought I heard her call. So I tapped; I got no clear answer, but I heard her voice within, so I entered. And there was her Majesty, sitting a little apart in a chair by herself, with the Secretary—poor rat—white-faced at the table, writing what she bade him, and looking at her, quick and side-ways, like a child at a lifted rod; and there was her Grace: she had kicked her stool over, and one shoe had fallen; and she was striking the arm of her chair as she spoke, and her rings rapped as loud as a drunken watchman. And her face was all white, and her eyes glaring’”—and Mary began to glare and raise her voice too—‘‘and she was crying out, ‘By God’s Son, sir, I will have them hanged. Tell the > (but I dare not say what she called my Lord Sussex, but few would have recognised him from what she said)—“‘tell him that I will have my will done. The—’ (and she called the rebels a name I dare not tell you)— ‘these men have risen against me these two months; and yet they are not hanged. Hang them in their own villages, that their chil- dren may see what treason brings.’ All this while I was standing at the open door, thinking she had called me; but she was as if she saw nought but the gallows and hell-fire beyond; and I spoke softly to her, asking what she wished; and she sprang up and ran at me, and struck me—yes; again and again across the face with her open hand, rings and all—and I ran out in tears. Yes,” went on Miss Corbet in a moment, dropping her voice, and pensively looking up at nothing, “yes; you would 40 BY WHAT AUTHORITY have said she was really angry, so quick and natural were her movements and so loud her voice.” Mr. James’ face wrinkled up silently in amusement; and Lady Maxwell seemed on the point of speaking; but Miss Corbet began again: “And to see her Grace act the lover. It was a miracle. You would have said that our Artemis repented of her coldness; if you had not known it was but play-acting; or let us say perhaps a rehearsal—if you had seen what I once saw at Nonsuch. It was on a summer evening, and we were all on the bowling green, and her Grace was within doors, not to be disturbed. My Lora Leicester was to come, but we thought had not arrived. Then I had occasion to go to my room to get a little book I had prom- ised to show to Caroline; and, thinking no harm, I ran through into the court, and there stood a horse, his legs apart, all steam- ing and blowing. Some courier, said I to myself, and never thought to look at the trappings; and so I ran upstairs to go to the gallery, across which lay my chamber; and I came up, and just began to push open the door, when I heard her Grace’s voice beyond, and, by the mercy of God, I stopped; and dared not close the door again nor go downstairs for fear I should be heard. And there were two walking within the gallery, her Grace and my lord, and my lord was all disordered with hard riding, and nearly as spent as his poor beast below. And her Grace had her arm round his neck, for I saw them through the chink; and she fondled and pinched his ear, and said over and over again, ‘Robin, my sweet Robin,’ and then crooned and moaned at him; and he, whenever he could fetch a breath—and oh! I promise you he did blow—murmured back, calling her his queen, which indeed she was, and his sweetheart and his moon and his star—which she was not: but ’twas all in the play. Well, again by the favour of God, they did not see how the door was open and I crouched behind it, for the sun was shining level through the west window in their eyes; but why they did not hear me as I ran upstairs and opened the door, He only knows—unless my lord was too sorely out of breath and her Grace too intent upon her play-acting. Well, I promise you, the acting was so good—he so spent and she so tender—that I nearly cried out Brava as I saw them; but that I remembered in time ’twas meant to be a private rehearsal. But I have seen her Grace act near as passionate a part before the whole company sometimes.” The two old ladies seemed not greatly pleased with all this MARY CORBET 41 talk; and as for Isabel she sat silent and overwhelmed. Mary Corbet glanced quickly at their faces when she had done, and turned a little in her seat. “Ah! look at that peacock,” she cried out, as a stately bird stepped delicately out of the shrubbery on to the low wall a little way off, and stood balancing himself. ‘‘He is loyal too, and has come to hear news of his Queen.” “He has come to see his cousin from town,” said Mr. James, looking at Miss Corbet’s glowing dress, “and to learn of the London fashions.” Mary got up and curtseyed to the astonished bird, who looked at her with his head lowered, as he took a high step or two, and then paused again, with his burnished breast swaying a little from side to side. “fe invites you to a dance,” went on Mr. James gravely, “‘a Ppavane.”’ Miss Corbet sat down again. “T dare not dance a pavane,” she said, ‘‘with a real peacock.” “Surely,” said Mr. James, with a courtier’s air, “you are too pitiful for him, and too pitiless for us.” “Y dare not,” she said again, ‘‘for he never ceases to practise.” “In hope,” said Mr. James, “that one day you will dance it with him.” And then the two went off into the splendid fantastic nonsense that the wits loved to talk; that grotesque, exaggerated phrasing made fashionable by Lyly. It was like a kind of impromptu sword-exercise in an assault of arms, where the rhythm and the flash and the graceful turns are of more importance than the actual thrusts received. The two old ladies embroidered on in silence, but their eyes twinkled, and little wrinkles flickered about the corners of their lips. But poor Isabel sat bewildered. It was so elaborate, so empty; she had almost said, so wicked to take the solemn gift of speech and make it dance this wild fan- dango; and as absurdity climbed and capered in a shower of sparks and gleams on the shoulders of absurdity, and was itself surmounted; and the names of heathen gods and nymphs and demi-gods and loose-living classical women whisked across the stage, and were tossed higher and higher, until the whole mad erection blazed up and went out in a shower of stars and gems of allusions and phrases, like a flight of rockets, bright and be- wildering at the moment, but leaving a barren darkness and dazzled eyes behind—the poor little Puritan country child almost 42 BY WHAT AUTHORITY cried with perplexity and annoyance. If the two talkers had looked at one another and burst into laughter at the end, she would have understood it to be a joke, though, to her mind, but a poor one. But when they had ended, and Mary Corbet had risen and then swept down to the ground in a great silent curtsey, and Mr. James, the grave, sensible gentleman, had sol- emnly bowed with his hand on his heart, and his heels together like a Monsieur, and then she had rustled off in her peacock dress to the house, with her muslin wings bulging behind her; and no one had laughed or reproved or explained; it was almost too much, and she looked across to Lady Maxwell with an appeal in her eyes. : Mr. James saw it and his face relaxed. “You must not take us too seriously, Mistress Isabel,” he said in his kindly way. ‘“‘It is all part of the game.” “The game?” she said piteously. “Yes,” said Mistress Margaret, intent on her embroidery, “the game of playing at kings and queens and courtiers and ruffs and high-stepping.” Mr. James’ face again broke into his silent laugh. “You are acid, dear aunt,” he said. “But ”” began Isabel again. “But it is wrong, you think,” he interrupted, ‘‘to talk such nonsense. Well, Mistress Isabel, I am not sure you are not right.” And the dancing light in his eyes went out. “No, no, no,” she cried, distressed. “I did not mean that. Only I did not understand.” “T know, I know; and please God you never will. And he looked at her with such a tender gravity that her eyes fell. “Tsabel is right,’”’ went on Mistress Margaret, in her singularly sweet old voice; ‘‘and you know it, my nephew. It is very well as a pastime, but some folks make it their business; and that is nothing less than fooling with the gifts of the good God.” “Well, aunt Margaret,” said James softly, ‘‘I shall not have much more of it. You need not fear for me.” Lady Maxwell looked quickly at her son for a moment, and down again. He made an almost imperceptible movement with his head, Mistress Margaret looked across at him with her tender eyes beaming love and sorrow; and there fell a little eloquent silence; while Isabel glanced shyly from one to the other, and wondered what it was all about. Miss Mary Corbet stayed a few weeks, as the custom was MARY CORBET 43 when travelling meant so much; but Isabel was scarcely nearer understanding her. She accepted her, as simple clean souls so often have to accept riddles in this world, as a mystery that no doubt had a significance, though she could not recognise it. So she did not exactly dislike or distrust her, but regarded her silently out of her own candid soul, as one would say a small fearless bird in a nest must regard the man who thrusts his strange hot face into her green pleasant world, and tries to make endearing sounds. For Isabel was very fascinating to Mary Corbet. She had scarcely ever before been thrown so close to any one so serenely pure. She would come down to the Dower House again and again at all hours of the day, rustling along in her silk, and seize upon Isabel in the little upstairs parlour, or her bedroom, and question her minutely about her ways and ideas; and she would look at her silently for a minute or two together; and then suddenly laugh and kiss her—Isabel’s trans- parency was almost as great a riddle to her as her own obscurity to Isabel. And sometimes she would throw herself on Isabel’s bed, and lie there with her arms behind her head, to the deplorable tuin of her ruff, with her buckled feet twitching and tapping; and go on and on talking like a running stream in the sun that runs for the sheer glitter and tinkle of it, and accomplishes noth- ing. But she was more respectful to Isabel’s simplicity than at first, and avoided dangerous edges and treacherous ground in a manner that surprised herself, telling her of the pageants at Court and the fair exterior of it all, and little about the poisonous con- versations and jests and the corrupt souls that engaged in them. She was immensely interested in Isabel’s religion. “Tell me, child,” she said one day, “I cannot understand such a religion. It is not like the Protestant religion at Court at all. All that the Protestants do there is to hear sermons—it is all so dismal and noisy. But here, with you, you have a proper soul. It seems to me that you are like a little herb-garden, very prim and plain, but living and wholesome and pleasant to walk in at sunset. And these Protestants that I know are more like a paved court at noon—all hot and hard and glaring. They give me the headache. Tell me all about it.” Of course Isabel could not, though she tried again and again. Her definitions were as barren as any others. “T see,” said Mary Corbet one day, sitting up straight and looking at Isabel. ‘It is not your religion but you; your religion is as dull as all the rest. But your soul is sweet, my dear, and 44 BY WHAT AUTHORITY the wilderness blossoms where you set your feet. There is noth- ing to blush about. It’s no credit to you, but to God.” Isabel hated this sort of thing. It seemed to her as if her soul was being dragged out of a cool thicket from the green shadow and the flowers, and set, stripped, in the high road. Another time Miss Corbet spoke yet more plainly. “You are a Catholic at heart, my dear; or you would be if you knew what the Religion was. But your father, good man, has never understood it himself; and so you don’t know it either. What you think about us, my dear, is as much like the truth as—as—lI am like a saint, or you like a sinner. I'll be bound now that you think us all idolaters!” Isabel had to confess that she did think something of the sort. “There, now, what did I say? Why haven’t either of those two old nuns at the Hall taught you any better?” ‘‘They—they don’t talk to me about religion.” “Ah! I see; or the Puritan father would withdraw his lamb ~ from the wolves. But if they are wolves, my dear, you must confess that they have the decency to wear sheep’s clothing, and that the disguise is excellent.” And so it gradually came about that Isabel began to learn an immense deal about what the Catholics really believed—far more than she had ever learnt in all her life before from the ladies at the Hall, who were unwilling to teach her, and her father, who was unable. About half-way through Miss Corbet’s visit, Anthony came home. At first he pronounced against her inexorably, dismissing her as nonsense, and as a fine lady—terms to him interchange- able. Then his condemnation began to falter, then ceased; then acquittal, and at last commendation succeeded. For Miss Corbet asked his advice about the dogs, and how to get that wonderful gloss on their coats that his had; and she asked his help, too, once or twice and praised his skill, and once asked to feel his muscle. And then she was so gallant in ways that appealed to him. She was not in the least afraid of Eliza. She kissed that ferocious head in spite of the glare of that steady yellow eye; and yet all with an air of trusting to Anthony’s protection. She tore her silk stocking across the instep in a bramble and scratched her foot, without even drawing attention to it, as she followed him along one of his short cuts through the copse; and it was only by chance that she saw it. And then this gallant girl, so MARY CORBET 45 simple and ignorant as she seemed out of doors, was like a splen- did queen indoors, and was able to hold her own, or rather to soar above all these elders who were so apt to look over Anthony’s head on grave occasions; and they all had to listen while she talked. In fact, the first time he saw her at the Hall in all her splendour, he could hardly realise it was the same girl, till she laughed up at him, and nodded, and said how much she had enjoyed the afternoon’s stroll, and how much she would have to tell when she got back to Court. In short, so incessant were her poses and so skilful her manner and tone, and so foolish this poor boy, that in a very few days, after he had pronounced her to be nonsense, Anthony was at her feet, hopelessly fascinated by the combination of the glitter and friendliness of this fine Court lady. To do her justice, she would have behaved exactly the same to a statue, or even to nothing at all, as a peacock dances and postures and vibrates his plumes to a kitten; and had no more deliberate intention of giving pain to anybody than a nightshade has of poisoning a silly sheep. The sublime conceit of a boy of fifteen made him of course think that she had detected in him a nobility that others over- looked, and so Anthony began a gorgeous course of day-dream- ing, in which he moved as a kind of king, worshipped and rev- erenced by this splendid creature, who after a disillusionment from the empty vanities of a Court life and a Queen’s favour, found at last the lord of her heart in a simple manly young coun- tryman. These dreams, however, he had the grace and modesty to keep wholly to himself. Mary came down one day and found the two in the garden together. “Come, my child,” she said, “‘and you too, Master Anthony, if you can spare time to escort us; and take me to the church. I want to see it.” “The church!” said Isabel, “‘that is locked: we must go to the Rectory.” “Tocked!” exclaimed Mary, “and is that part of the blessed Reformation? Well, come, at any rate.” They all went across to the village and down the green towards the Rectory, whose garden adjoined the churchyard on the south side of the church. Anthony walked with something of an air in front of the two ladies. Isabel told her as they went about the Rector and his views. Mary nodded and smiled and seemed to understand. 46 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “We will tap at the window,” said Anthony, “‘it is the quickest way.” They came up towards the study window that looked on to the drive; when Anthony, who was in front, suddenly recoiled and then laughed. “They are at it again,” he said. The next moment Mary was looking through the window too. The Rector was sitting in his chair opposite, a small dark, clean- shaven man, but his face was set with a look of distressed deter- mination, and his lower lip was sucked in; his eyes were fixed firmly on a tall, slender woman whose back was turned to the window and who seemed to be declaiming, with outstretched hand. The Rector suddenly saw the faces at the window. ‘We seem to be interrupting,” said Mary coolly, as she turned away. : CHAPTER V A RIDER FROM LONDON “Wer will walk on, Master Anthony,” said Mistress Corbet. “Will you bring the keys when the Rector and his lady have done?” She spoke with a vehement bitterness that made Isabel look at her in amazement, as the two walked on by the private path to the churchyard gate. Mary’s face was set in a kind of fury, and she went forward with her chin thrust disdainfully out, biting her lip. Isabel said nothing. As they reached the gate they heard steps behind them; and turning saw the minister and Anthony hastening together . Mr. Dent was in his cassock and gown and square cap, and carried the keys. His little scholarly face, with a sharp curved nose like a beak, and dark eyes set rather too close together, was not unlike a bird’s; and a way he had of sudden sharp movements of his head increased the likeness. Mary looked at him with scarcely veiled contempt. He glanced at her sharply and uneasily. “Mistress Mary Corbet?” he said, interrogatively. Mary bowed to him. “May we see the church, sir; your church, I should say per- haps; that is, if we are not disturbing you.” Mr. Dent made a polite inclination, and opened the gate for - them to go through. Then Mary changed her tactics; and a genial, good-humoured look came over her face; but Isabel, who glanced at her now and again as they went round to the porch at the west-end, still felt uneasy. As the Rector was unlocking the porch door, Mary surveyed him with a pleased smile. “Why you look quite like a priest,” she said. ‘“‘Do your bishops, or whatever you call them, allow that dress? I thought you had done away with it all.” Mr. Dent looked at her, but seeing nothing but geniality and interest in her face, explained elaborately in the porch that he was a Catholic priest, practically; though the word “minister” 47 48 BY WHAT AUTHORITY was more commonly used; and that it was the old Church still, only cleansed from superstitions. Mary shook her head at him cheerfully, smiling like a happy, puzzled child. “It is all too difficult for me,” she said. “It cannot be the same Church, or why should we poor Catholics be so much abused and persecuted? Besides, what of the Pope?” Mr. Dent explained that the Pope was one of the superstitions in question. “Ah! I see you are too sharp for me,” said Mary, beaming at him. Then they entered the church; and Mary began immediately on a running comment. “How sad that little niche looks,” she said. ‘I suppose Our Lady is in pieces somewhere on a dunghill. Surely, father—I beg your pardon, Mr. Dent—it cannot be the same religion if you have knocked Our Lady to pieces. But then I suppose you would say that she was a superstition, too. And where is the old altar? Is that broken, too? And is that a superstition, too? What a number there must have been! And the holy water, too, I see. But that looks like a very nice table up there you have instead. Ah! And I see you read the new prayers from a new desk outside the screen, and not from the priest’s stall. Was that a superstition too? And the mass vestments? Has your wife had any of them made up to be useful? The stoles are no good, I fear; but you could make charming stomachers out of the chasubles.”’ They were walking slowly up the centre aisle now. Mr. Dent had to explain that the vestments had been burnt on the green. “Ah! yes; I see,” she said, “and do you wear a surplice, or do you not like them? I see the chancel roof is all broken—were there angels there once? I suppose so. But how strange to break them all! Unless they are superstitions, too? I thought Protestants believed in them; but I see I was wrong. What do you believe in, Mr. Dent?” she asked, turning large, bright, per- plexed eyes upon him for a moment: but she gave him no time to answer. ‘““Ah!” she cried suddenly, and her voice rang with pain, “there is the altar-stone.”’ And she went down on her knees at the chancel entrance, bending down, it seemed, in an agony of devout sorrow and shame; and kissed with a gentle, lingering reverence the great slab with its five crosses, set in the ground at the de- struction of the altar to show there was no sanctity attached to it. A RIDER FROM LONDON 49 She knelt there a moment or two, her lips moving, and her black eyes cast up at the great east window, cracked and flawed with stones and poles. The Puritan boy and girl looked at her with astonishment; they had not seen this side of her before. When she rose from her knees, her eyes seemed bright with tears, and her voice was tender. “Forgive me, Mr. Dent,” she said, with a kind of pathetic dignity, putting out a slender be- ringed hand to him, ‘“‘but— but you know—for I think perhaps you have some sympathy for us poor Catholics—you know what all this means to me.” She went up into the chancel and looked about her in silence. “This was the piscina, Mistress Corbet,” said the Rector. She nodded her head regretfully, as at some relic of a dead friend; but said nothing. They came out’ again presently, and turned through the old iron gates into what had been the Maxwell chapel. The centre was occupied by an altar-tomb with Sir Nicholas’ parents lying in black stone upon it. Old Sir James held his right gauntlet in his left hand, and with his right hand held the right hand of his wife, which was crossed over to meet it; and the two steady faces gazed upon the disfigured roof. The altar, where a weekly requiem had:been said for them, was gone, and the footpace and piscina alone showed where it had stood. “This was a chantry, of course?” said Mistress Corbet. The Rector confessed that it had been so. “Ah!” she said mournfuly, “the altar is cast out and the priest gone; but—but—forgive me, sir, the money is here still? But then,” she added, ‘“‘I suppose the money is not a superstition.” When they reached the west entrance again she turned and looked up the aisle again. “And the Rood!” she said. ‘Even Christ crucified is gone. Then, in God’s name what is left?” And her eyes turned fiercely for a moment on the Rector. “At least courtesy and Christian kindness is left, madam,” he said sternly. She dropped her eyes and went out; and Isabel and Anthony followed, startled and ashamed. But Mary had recovered her- self as she came on to the head of the stone stairs, beside which the stump of the churchyard cross stood; standing there was the same tall, slender woman whose back they had seen through the window, and who now stood eyeing Mary with half-dropped lids. Her face was very white, with hard lines from nose to mouth, and thin, tightly compressed lips. Mary swept her with 50 BY WHAT AUTHORITY one look, and then passed on and down the steps, followed by Isabel and Anthony, as the Rector came out, locking the church door again behind him. As they went up the green, a shrill thin voice began to scold from over the churchyard wall, and they heard the lower, deter- mined voice of the minister answering. “They are at it again,” said Anthony, once more. “And what do you mean by that, Master Anthony?” said Mistress Corbet, who seemed herself again now. “She is just a scold,” said the lad, “the village folk hate her.” “You seem not to love her,’’ said Mary, smiling. “Oh! Mistress Corbet, do you know what she said—’” and then he broke off, crimson-faced. “She is no friend to Catholics, I suppose,” said Mary, seem- ing to notice nothing. “She is always making mischief,” he went on eagerly. “The Rector would be well enough but for her. He is a good fellow, really.” “There, there,” said Mary, ‘and you think me a scold, too, I daresay. Well, you know I cannot bear to see these old churches—well, perhaps I was—” and then she broke off again, and was silent. The brother and sister presently turned back to the Dower House; and Mary went on, and through the Hall straight into the Italian garden where Mistress Margaret was sitting alone at her embroidery. “My sister has been called away by the housekeeper,” she explained, “‘but she will be back presently.” Mary sat down and took up the little tawny book that lay by Lady Maxwell’s chair, and began to turn it over idly while she talked. The old lady by her seemed to invite confidences. “T have been to see the church,” said Mary. ‘“‘The Rector showed it to me. What a beautiful place it must have been.” “Ah!” said Mistress Margaret, ‘I only came to live here a few years ago; so I have never known or loved it like my sister or her husband. They can hardly bear to enter it now. You know that Sir Nicholas’ father and grandfather are buried in the Max- well chapel; and it was his father who gave the furniture of the sanctuary, and the images of Our Lady and Saint Christopher that they burned on the green.” “It is terrible,” said Mary, a little absently, as she turned the pages of the book. A RIDER FROM LONDON 51 Mistress Margaret looked up. “Ah! you have one of my books there,” she said. “It is a little collection I made.” Miss Corbet turned to the beginring, but only found a seal with an inscription. “But this belonged to a nunnery,” she said. “Yes,” said Mistress Margaret, tranquilly, ‘and I am a nun.” Mary looked at her in astonishment. “But, but,” she began. “Yes, Mistress Corbet; we were dispersed in ’38; some entered the other nunneries; and some went to France; but, at last, under circumstances that I need not trouble you with, I came here under spiritual direction, and have observed my obligations ever since.” “And have you always said your offices?” Mary asked astonished. “Yes, my dear; by the mercy of God I have never failed yet. I tell you this of course because you are one of us, and because you have a faithful heart.” Mistress Margaret lifted her great eyes and looked at Mary tenderly and penetratingly. “And this is one of your books?” she asked. “Yes, my dear. I was allowed at least to take it away with me. My sister here is very fond of it.” Mary opened it again, and began to turn the pages. “Ts it all in your handwriting, Mistress Torridon?” “Yes, my child; I continued writing in it ever since I first entered religion in 1534; so you see the handwriting changes a little,” and she smiled to herself. “Oh, but this is charming,” cried Mary, intent on the book. “Read it, my dear, aloud.” Mary read: “Let me not rest, O Lord, nor have quiet, But fill my soul with spiritual travail, To sing and say, O mercy, Jesu sweet; Thou my protection art in the battail. Set thou aside all other apparail; Let me in thee feel all my affiance. Treasure of treasures, thou dost most avail. Grant ere I die shrift, pardon, repentance.” Her voice trembled a little and ceased. “That is from some verses of Dom John Lydgate, I think,” said Mistress Margaret. 52 BY WHAT AUTHORITY ‘Here is another,” said Mary in a moment or two. “Jesu, at thy will, I pray that I may be, All my heart fulfil with perfect love to thee: That I have done ill, Jesu forgive thou me: And suffer me never to spill, Jesu for thy pity.” “The nuns of Hampole gave me that,” said Mistress Margaret. “Tt is by Richard Rolle, the hermit.” “Tell me a little,” said Mary Corbet, suddenly laying down the book, “about the nunnery.” “Oh, my dear, that is too much to ask; but how happy we were. All was so still; it used to seem sometimes as if earth were just a dream; and that we walked in Paradise. Sometimes in the Greater Silence, when we had spoken no word nor heard one except in God’s praise, it used to seem that if we could but be silent a little longer, and a little more deeply, in our hearts as well, we should hear them talking in heaven, and the harps; and the Saviour’s soft footsteps. But it was not always like that.” “You mean,” said Mary softly, “that, that—” and she stopped. “Oh, it was hard sometimes; but not often. God is so good. But He used to allow such trouble and darkness and noise to be in our hearts sometimes—at least in mine. But then of course I was always very wicked. But sitting in the nymph-hay some- times on a day like this, as we were allowed to do; with just tall thin trees like poplars and cypresses round us: and the stream running through the long grass; and the birds, and the soft sky and the little breeze; and then peace in our hearts; and the love of the Saviour round us—it seemed, it seemed as if God had nothing more to give; or, I should say, as if our hearts had no more space.” Mary was strangely subdued and quiet. Her little restless movements were still for once; and her quick, vivacious face was tranquil and a little awed. “Oh, Mistress Margaret, I love to hear you talk like that. Tell me more.” _ “Well, my dear, we thought too much about ourselves, I think; and too little about God and His poor children who were not so happy as we were; so then the troubles began; and they got nearer and nearer; and at last the Visitor came. He—he was my brother, my dear, which made it harder; but he made a good end. I will tell you his story another time. He took away our A RIDER FROM LONDON 53 great crucifix and our jewelled cope that old Mr. Wickham used to wear on the Great Festivals; and left us. He turned me out, too; and another who asked to go, but I went back for a while. And then, my dear, although we offered everything; our cows and our orchard and our hens, and all we had, you know how it ended; and one morning in May old Mr. Wickham said mass for us quite early, before the sun was risen, for the last time; and,—and he cried, my dear, at the elevation; and—and we were all crying too I think, and we all received communion to- gether for the last time—and,—and, then we all went away, leaving just old Dame Agnes to keep the house until the Com- missioner came. And oh, my dear, I don’t think the house ever looked so dear as it did that morning, just as the sun rose over the roofs, and we were passing out through the meadow door where we had sat so often, to where the horses were waiting to take us away.” Miss Corbet’s own eyes were full of tears as the old lady fin- ished; and she put out her white slender hand, which Mistress Torridon took and stroked for a moment. “Well,” she said, “I haven’t talked like this for a long while; but I knew you would understand. My dear, I have watched you while you have been here this time.” Mary Corbet smiled a little uneasily. “And you have found me out?” she answered smiling. “No, no; but I think our Saviour has found you out—or at least He is drawing very near.” A slight discomfort made itself felt in Mary’s heart. This nun then was like all the rest, always trying to turn the whole world into monks and nuns by hints and pretended intuitions into the unseen. | “And you think I should be a nun too?” she asked, with just a shade of coolness in her tone. “T should suppose not,’ said Mistress Margaret, tranquilly. “You do not seem to have a vocation for that, but I should think that Our Lord means you to serve Him where you are. Who knows what you may not accomplish?” This was a little disconcerting to Mary Corbet; it was not at all what she had expected. She did not know what to say; and took up the leather book again and began to turn over the pages. Mistress Margaret went on serenely with her embroidery, which she had neglected during the last sentence or two; and there was silence. Say | BY WHAT AUTHORITY “Tell me a little more about the nunnery,” said Mary in a minute or two, leaning back in her chair, with the book on her knees. ‘Well, my dear, I scarcely know what to say. It is all far off now like a childhood. We talked very little; not at all until recreation; except by signs, and we used to spend a good deal of our time in embroidery. That is where I learnt this,” and she held out her work to Mary for a moment. It was an exquisite piece of needlework, representing a stag running open-mouthed through thickets of green twining branches that wrapped them- selves about his horns and feet. Mary had never seen anything quite like it before. “What does it mean?” she asked, loking at it curiously. “Ouemadmodum cervus,’—began Mistress Margaret; ‘‘as the hart brayeth after the waterbrooks,”’—and she took the em- broidery and began to go on with it—‘It is the soul you see, desiring and fleeing to God, while the things of the world hold her back. _ Well, you see, it is difficult to talk about it; for it is the inner life that is the real history of a convent; the outer things are all plain and simple like all else.”’ “Well,” said Mary, “‘is it really true that you were happy?” The old lady stopped working a moment and looked up at her. ‘““My dear, there is no happiness in the world like it,” she said simply. ‘I dream sometimes that we are all back there together, and I wake crying for joy. The other night I dreamed that we were all in the chapel again, and that it was a spring morning, with the dawn beginning to show the painted windows, and that all the tapers were burning; and that mass was beginning. Not one stall was empty; not even old Dame Gertrude, who died when I was a novice, was lacking, and Mr. Wickham made us a sermon after the creed, and showed us the crucifix back in its place again; and told us that we were all good children, and that Our Lord had only sent us away to see if we would be patient; and that He was now pleased with us, and had let us come home again; and that we should never have to go away again; not even when we died: and then I understood that we were in heaven, and that it was all over: and I burst out into tears in my stall for happiness; and then I awoke and found myself in bed; but my cheeks were really wet—Well, well, perhaps by the mercy of God it may all come true some day.” She spoke so simply that Mary Corbet was amazed; she had always fancied that the Religious Life was a bitter struggle, A RIDER FROM LONDON 55 worth, indeed, living for those who could bear it, for the sake of the eternal reward; but it had scarcely even occurred to her that it was so full of joy in itself; and she looked up under her brows at the old lady, whose needle had stopped for a moment. A moment after and Lady Maxwell appeared coming down the steps into the garden; and at her side Anthony, who was dressed ready for riding. Old Mistress Margaret had, as she said, been watching Mary Corbet those last few weeks; and had determined to speak to her plainly. Her instinct had told her that beneath this flippancy and glitter there was something that would respond; and she was anxious to leave nothing undone by which Mary might be awak- ened to the inner world that was in such danger of extinc- tion in her soul. It cost the old lady a great effort to break through her ordinary reserve, but she judged that Mary could only be reached on her human side, and that there were not many of her friends whose human sympathy would draw her in the right direction. It is strange, sometimes, to find that some silent old lady has a power for sounding human character, which far shrewder persons lack; and this quiet old nun, so ignorant, one would have said, of the world and of the motives from which ordinary people act, had managed somehow to touch springs in this girl’s heart that had never been reached before. And now as Miss Corbet and Lady Maxwell talked, and Anthony lolled embarrassed beside them, attempting now and then to join in the conversation, Mistress Margaret, as she sat a little apart and worked away at the panting stag, dreamed away, smil- ing quietly to herself, of all the old scenes that her own conversa- tion had called up into clearer consciousness; of the pleasant little meadow of the Sussex priory, with the old apple-trees and the straight box-lined path called the nun’s walk from time im- memorial; all lighted with the pleasant afternoon glow, as it streamed from the west, throwing the slender poplar shadows across the grass; and of the quiet chatter of the brook as it over- flowed from the fish ponds at the end of the field and ran through the meadows beyond the hedge. The cooing of the pigeons as they sunned themselves round the dial in the centre of this Italian garden and on the roof of the hall helped on her reminis- cences, for there had been a dovecoie at the priory. Where were all her sisters now, those who had sat with her in the same sombre habits in the garth, with the same sunshine in their hearts? Some she knew, and thanked God for it, were safe in glory; 56 BY WHAT AUTHORITY others were old like her, but still safe in Holy Religion in France where as yet there was peace and sanctuary for the servants of the Most High; one or two—and for these she lifted up her heart in petition as she sat—one or two had gone back to the world, relinquished everything, and died to grace. Then the old faces one by one passed before her; old Dame Agnes with her mum- bling lips and her rosy cheeks like wrinkled apples, looking so fresh and wholesome in the white linen about her face; and then the others one by one—that white-faced, large-eyed sister who had shown such passionate devotion at first that they all thought that God was going to raise up a saint amongst them— ah! God help her—she had sunk back at the dissolution, from those heights of sanctity towards whose summits she had set her face, down into the muddy torrent of the world that went roaring down to the abyss—and who was responsible? ‘There was Dame Avice, the Sacristan, with her businesslike move- ments going about the garden, gathering flowers for the altar, with her queer pursed lips as she arranged them in her hands with her head a little on one side; how annoying she used to be some- times; but how good and tender at heart—God rest her soul! And there was Mr. Wickham, the old priest who had been their chaplain for so many years, and who lived in the village parson- age, waited upon by Tom Downe, that served at the altar too— he who had got the horses ready when the nuns had to go at last on that far-off May morning, and had stood there, holding the bridles and trying to hide his wet face behind the horses; where was Tom now? And Mr. Wickham too—he had gone to France with some of the nuns; but he had never settled down there—he couldn’t bear the French ways—and besides he had left his heart behind him buried in the little Sussex priory among the meadows. And so the old lady sat, musing; while the light and shadow of reminiscence moved across her face; and her lips quivered or her eyes wrinkled up with humour, at the thought of all those old folks with their faces and their movements and their ways of doing and speaking. Ah! well, please God, some day her dream would really come true; and they shall all be gathered again from France and England with their broken hearts mended and their tears wiped away, and Mr. Wickham himself shall minister to them and make them sermons, and Tom Downe too shall be there to minister to him—all in one of the many man- sions of which the Saviour spoke. A RIDER FROM LONDON 57 And so she heard nothing of the talk of the others; though her sister looked at her tenderly once or twice; and Mary Corbet chattered and twitched her buckles in the sun, and Anthony sat embarrassed in the midst of Paradise; and she knew nothing of where she was nor of what was happening round her, until Mary Corbet said that it was time for the horses to be round, and that she must go and get ready and not keep Mr. James and Mr. Anthony waiting. Then, as she and Anthony went towards the house, the old lady looked up from the braying stag and found herself alone with her sister. Mistress Margaret waited until the other two disappeared up the steps, and then spoke. “I have told her all, sister,” she said, “she can be trusted.” Lady Maxwell nodded gently. “She has a good heart,” went on the other, ‘and Our Lord no _ doubt will find some work for her to do at Court.” There was silence again; broken by the gentle little sound of the silk being drawn through the stuff. “Vou know best, Margaret,” said Lady Maxwell. Even as she spoke there was the sound of a door thrown violently open and old Sir Nicholas appeared on the top of the steps, hatless and plainly in a state of great agitation; beside him stood a courier, covered with the dust of the white roads, and his face crimson with hard riding. Sir Nicholas stood there as if dazed, and Lady Maxwell sprang up quickly to go to him. But a moment after there appeared behind him a little group, his son James, Miss Corbet and a servant or two; while Anthony hung back; and Mr. James came up quickly, and took his father by the arm; and together the little company came down the steps into the still and sunny garden. “What is it?” cried Lady Maxwell, trying to keep her voice under control; while Mistress Margaret laid her work quietly down, and stood up too. “Tell my lady,” said Sir Nicholas to the courier, who stood a little apart. “Tf you please, my lady,” he said, as if repeating a lesson, “a Bull of the Holy Father has been found nailed to the door of the Bishop of London’s palace, deposing Elizabeth and releas- ing all her subjects from their allegiance.” Lady Maxwell went to her husband and took him by the arm gently. 58 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “What does it mean, sweetheart?” she asked. “Tt means that Catholics must choose between their sovereign and their God.” “God have mercy,” said a servant behind. CHAPTER VI MR. STEWART Sir NicHotras’ exclamatory sentence was no exaggeration. That terrible choice of which he spoke, with his old eyes shining with the desire to make it, did not indeed come so immediately as he anticipated; but it came none the less. From every point of view the Bull was unfortunate, though it may have been a necessity; for it marked the declaration of war between England - and the Catholic Church. A gentle appeal had been tried before; Elizabeth, who, it must be remembered had been crowned during mass with Catholic ceremonial, and had received the Blessed Sac- rament, had been entreated by the Pope as his ‘“‘dear daughter in Christ” to return to the Fold; and now there seemed to him no possibility left but this ultimatum. It is indeed difficult to see what else, from his point of view, he could have done. To continue to pretend that Elizabeth was his “dear daughter” would have discredited his fatherly authority in the eyes of the whole Christian world. He had patiently made an advance towards his wayward child; and she had repudiated and scorned him. Nothing was left but to recognise and treat her as an enemy of the Faith, an usurper of spiritual preroga- tives, and an apostate spoiler of churches; to do this might cer- tainly bring trouble upon others of his less distinguished but more obedient children, who were in her power; but to pretend that the suffering thus brought down upon Catholics was unneces- sary, and that the Pope alone was responsible for their persecu- tion, is to be blind to the fact that Elizabeth had already openly defied and repudiated his authority, and had begun to do her utmost to coax and compel his children to be disobedient to their father. The shock of the Bull to Elizabeth was considerable; she had not expected this extreme measure; and it was commonly reported too that France and Spain were likely now to unite on a religious basis against England; and that at least one of these Powers had sanctioned the issue of the Bull. This of course helped greatly og 60 BY WHAT AUTHORITY to complicate further the already complicated political position. Steps were taken immediately to strengthen England’s position against Scotland with whom it was now, more than ever, to be feared that France would co-operate; and the Channel Fleet was reinforced under Lord Clinton, and placed with respect to France in what was almost a state of war, while it was already in an informal state of war with Spain. There was fierce confusion in the Privy Council. Elizabeth, who at once began to vacillate under the combined threats of La Mothe, the French ambassador, and the arguments of the friend of Catholics, Lord Arundel, was counter-threatened with ruin by Lord Keeper Bacon unless she would throw in her lot finally with the Protestants and continue her hostility and resistance to the Catholic Scotch party. But in spite of Bacon Elizabeth’s heart failed her, and if it had not been for the rashness of Mary Stuart’s friends, Lord Southampton and the Bishop of Ross, the Queen might have been induced to substitute conciliation for severity towards Mary and the Catholic party generally. Southampton was arrested, and again there fol- lowed the further encouragement of the Protestant camp by the rising fortunes of the Huguenots and the temporary reverses to French Catholicism; so the pendulum swung this way and that. Elizabeth’s policy changed almost from day to day. She was tormented with temporal fears of a continental crusade against her, and by the spiritual terrors of the Pope’s Bull; and her unfathomable fickleness was the despair of her servants. Meanwhile in the religious world a furious paper war broke out; and volleys from both sides followed the solemn roar and crash of Regnans in Excelsis. But while the war of words went on, and the theological assaults and charges were given and received, repulsed or avoided, something practical must, it was felt, be done immediately; and search was made high and low for other copies of the Bull. The lawyers in the previous year had fallen under suspicion of re- ligious unsoundness; judges could not be trusted to convict Catholics accused of their religion; and counsel was unwilling to prosecute them; therefore the first inquisition was made in the Inns of Court; and almost immediately a copy of the Bull was found in the room of a student in Lincoln’s Inn, who upon the rack in the Tower confessed that he had received it from one John Felton, a Catholic gentleman who lived upon his property in Southwark. Upon Felton’s arrest (for he had not attempted to escape) he confessed immediately without pressure, that he MR. STEWART 61 had affixed the Bull to the Bishop of London’s gate; but although he was racked repeatedly he would not incriminate a single per- son besides himself; but at his trial would only assert with a joyous confidence that he was not alone; and that twenty-five peers, six hundred gentlemen, and thirty thousand commoners were ready to die in the Holy Father’s quarrel. He behaved with astonishing gallantry throughout, and after his condemnation had been pronounced upon the fourth of August at the Guild- hall, on the charge of high-treason, he sent a diamond ring from his own finger, of the value of £400, to the Queen to show that he bore her no personal ill-will. He had been always a steadfast Catholic; his wife had been maid of honour to Mary and a friend | of Elizabeth’s. On August the eighth he suffered the abominable punishment prescribed; he was drawn on a hurdle to the gate of the Bishop’s palace in S. Paul’s Churchyard, where he had affixed the Bull, hanged upon a new gallows, cut down before he was unconscious, disembowelled and quartered. His name has since been placed on the roll of the Blessed by the Apostolic See in whose quarrel he so cheerfully laid down his life. News of these and such events continued of course to be eagerly sought after by the Papists all over the kingdom; and the Max- wells down at Great Keynes kept in as close touch with the heart of affairs as almost any private persons in the kindom out of town. sir Nicholas was one of those fiery natures to whom opposition or pressure is as oil to flame. He began at once to organise his forces and prepare for the struggle that was bound to come. He established first a kind of private post to London and to other Catholic houses round; for purposes however of defence rather than offence, so that if any steps were threatened, he and his friends might be aware of the danger in time. There was great sorrow at the news of John Felton’s death; and mass was said for his soul almost immediately in the little oratory at Maxwell Court by one of the concealed priests who went chiefly between Hampshire and Sussex ministering to the Catholics of those dis- tricts. Mistress Margaret spent longer than ever at her prayers; Lady Maxwell had all she could do to keep her husband from some furious act of fanatical retaliation for John Felton’s death —some useless provocation of the authorities; the children at the Dower House began to come to the Hall less often, not because they were less welcomed, but because there was a con- straint in the air. All seemed preoccupied; conversations ceased abruptly on their entrance, and fits of abstraction would fall from 62 BY WHAT AUTHORITY time to time upon their kindly hosts. In the meanwhile, too, the preparations for James Maxwell’s departure, which had already begun to show themselves, were now pushed forward rapidly; and one morning in the late summer, when Isabel came up to the Hall, she found that Lady Maxwell was confined to her room and could not be seen that day; she caught a glimpse of Sir Nicholas’ face as he quickly crossed the entrance hall, that made her draw back from daring to intrude on such grief; and on inquiry found that Mr. James had ridden away that morning, and that the servants did not know when to expect him back, nor what was his destination. In other ways also at this time did Sir Nicholas actively help on his party. Great Keynes was in a convenient position and circumstances for agents who came across from the Continent. It was sufficiently near London, yet not so near to the highroad or to London itself as to make disturbance probable; and its very quietness under the spiritual care of a moderate minister like Mr. Dent, and its serenity, owing to the secret sympathy of many of the villagers and neighbours, as well as from the personal friendship between Sir Nicholas and the master of the Dower House—an undoubted Protestant—all these circumstances com- bined to make Maxwell Hall a favourite halting-place for priests and agents from the Continent. Strangers on horseback or in carriages, and sometimes even on foot, would arrive there after nightfall, and leave in a day or two for London. Its nearness to London enabled them to enter the city at any hour they thought best after ten or eleven in the forenoon. They came on very various businesses; some priests even stayed there and made the Hall a centre for their spiritual ministrations for miles round; others came with despatches from abroad, some of which were even addressed to great personages at Court and at the Embassies where much was being done by the Ambassadors at this time to aid their comrades in the Faith, and to other leading Catholics; and others again came with pamphlets printed abroad for distribu- tion in England, some of them indeed seditious, but many of them purely controversial and hortatory, and with other devo- tional articles and books such as it was difficult to obtain in England, and might not be exposed for public sale in booksellers’ shops: Agnus Deis, beads, hallowed incense and crosses were being sent in large numbers from abroad, and were eagerly sought after by the Papists in all directions. It was remarkable that while theatening clouds appeared to be gathering on all sides MR. STEWART 63 over the Catholic cause, yet the deepening peril was accompanied by a great outburst of religious zeal. It was reported to the Archbishop that “‘massing” was greatly on the increase in Kent; and was attributed, singularly enough, to the Northern Rebellion, which had ended in disaster for the Papists; but the very fact that such a movement could take place at all probably heartened many secret sympathisers, who had hitherto considered themselves almost alone in a heretic population. sir Nicholas came in one day to dinner in a state of great fury. One of his couriers had just arrived with news from Lon- don; and the old man came in fuming and resentful. “What hypocrisy!” he cried out to Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret, who were seated at table. ‘Not content with per- secuting Catholics, they will not even allow us to say we are persecuted for the Faith. Here is the Lord Keeper declaring in the Star Chamber that no man is to be persecuted for his private faith, but only for his public acts, and that the Queen’s Grace desires nothing so little as to meddle with any man’s conscience. Then I suppose they would say that hearing mass was a public act and therefore unlawful; but then how if a man’s private faith bids him to hear mass? Is not that meddling with his private conscience to forbid him to go to mass? What folly is this? And yet my Lord Keeper and her Grace are no fools! Then are they worse than fools?” Lady Maxwell tried to quiet the old man, for the servants were not out of the room; and it was terribly rash to speak like that before them; but he would not be still nor sit down, but raged up and down before the hearth, growling and breaking out now and again. What especially he could not get off his mind was that this was the Old Religion that was prescribed. That England for generations had held the Faith, and that then the Faith and all that it involved had been declared unlawful, was to him iniquity unfathomable. He could well understand some new upstart sect being persecuted, but not the Old Religion. He kept on returning to this. “Have they so far forgotten the Old Faith as to think it can be held in a man’s private conscience without appearing in his life, like their miserable damnable new fangled Justification by faith without works? Or that a man can believe in the blessed sacrament of the altar and yet not desire to receive it; or in penance and yet not be absolved; or in Peter and yet not say so, nor be reconciled. You may believe, say they, of their clem- 64 BY WHAT AUTHORITY oe what you like; be justified by that; that is enough! ab bein However mere declaiming against the Government was barren work, and Sir Nicholas soon saw that; and instead, threw him- self with more vigour than ever into entertaining and forwarding the foreign emissaries. Mary Corbet had returned to London by the middle of July; and Hubert was not yet returned; so Sir Nicholas and the two ladies had the Hall to themselves. Now it must be confessed that the old man had neither the nature nor the training for the réle of a conspirator, even of the mildest description. He was so exceedingly impulsive, unsuspicious and passionate that it would have been the height of folly to entrust him with any weighty secret, if it was possible to dispense with him; but the Catholics over the water needed stationary agents so grievously; and Sir Nicholas’ name commanded such respect, and his house such conveniences, that they overlooked the risk involved in making him their confidant, again and again; besides it need not ;be said that his honour and fidelity was beyond reproach; and those qualities after all balance favourably against a good deal of shrewdness and discretion. He, of course, was serenely unable to distinguish between sedition and religion; and entertained polit- ical meddlers and ordinary priests with an equal enthusiasm. It was pathetic to Lady Maxwell to see her simple old husband shuffling away his papers, and puzzling over cyphers and per- petually leaving the key of them lying about, and betraying again and again when he least intended it, by his mysterious becks and nods and oracular sayings, that some scheme was afoot. She could have helped him considerably if he had allowed her; but he had an idea that the capacities of ladies in general went no further than their harps, their embroidery and their devotions; and besides, he was chivalrously unwilling that his wife should be in any privy to business that involved such risks as this. One sunny morning in August he came into her room early just as she was finishing her prayers, and announced the arrival of an emissary from abroad. “Sweetheart,” he said, ‘‘will you prepare the east chamber for a young man whom we will call Mr. Stewart, if you please, who will arrive to-night. He hopes to be with us until after dusk to-morrow when he will leave; and I shall be obliged if you will No, no, my dear. I will order the horses myself.” The old man then bustled off to the stableyard and ordered a MR. STEWART 65 saddle-horse to be taken at once to Cuckfield, accompanied by a groom on another horse. These were to arrive at the inn and await orders from a stranger “whom you will call Mr. Stewart, if you please.” Mr. Stewart was to change horses there, and ride on to Maxwell Hall, and Sir Nicholas further ordered the same two horses and the same groom to be ready the following evening at about nine o’clock, and to be at “Mr. Stewart’s” orders again as before. This behaviour of Sir Nicholas’ was of course most culpably indiscreet. A child could not but have suspected something, and the grooms, who were of course Catholics, winked merrily at one another when the conspirator’s back was turned, and he had hastened in a transport of zeal and preoccupation back again to the house to interrupt his wife in her preparations for the guest. That evening ‘Mr. Stewart” arrived according to arrangements. He was a slim red-haired man, not above thirty years of age, the kind of man his enemies would call foxy, with a very courteous and deliberate manner, and he spoke with a slight Scotch accent. He had the air of doing everything on purpose. He let his riding-whip fall as he greeted Lady Maxwell in the entrance hall; but picked it up with such a dignified grace that you would have sworn he had let it fall for some wise reason of his own. He had a couple of saddle-bags with him, which he did not let out of his sight for a moment; even keeping his eye upon them as he met the ladies and saluted them. They were carried up to the east chamber directly, their owner following; where supper had been prepared. There was no real reason, since he arrived with such publicity, why he should not have supped downstairs, but Sir Nicholas had been peremptory. It was by his directions also that the arrival had been accomplished in the manner it had. After he had supped, Sir Nicholas receiving the dishes from the servants’ hands at the door of the room with the same air of secrecy and despatch, his host suggested that he should come to Lady Maxwell’s drawing-room, as the ladies were anxious to see him. Mr. Stewart asked leave to bring a little valise with him that had travelled in one of the bags, and then followed his host who preceded him with a shaded light along the gallery. When he entered he bowed again profoundly, with a slightly French air, to the ladies and to the image over the fire; and then seated himself, and asked leave to open his valise. He did 66 BY WHAT AUTHORITY so with their permission, and displayed to them the numerous devotional articles and books that it contained. The ladies and Sir Nicholas were delighted, and set aside at once some new books of devotion, and then they fell to talk. The Netherlands, from which Mr. Stewart had arrived two days before, on the east coast, were full at this time of Catholic refugees, under the Duke of Alva’s protection. Here they had been living, some of them even from Elizabeth’s accession, and Sir Nicholas and his ladies had many inquiries to make about their acquaintances, many of which Mr. Stewart was able to satisfy, for, from his conversation he was plainly one in the confidence of Catholics both at home and abroad. And so the evening passed away quietly. It was thought better by Sir Nicholas that Mr. Stewart should not be present at the evening devotions that he always conducted for the household in the dining-hall, unless indeed a priest were present to take his place; so Mr. Stewart was again conducted with the same secrecy to the East Chamber; and Sir Nicholas promised at his request to look in on him again after prayers. When prayers were over, Sir Nicholas went up to his guest’s room, and found him awaiting him in a state of evident excite- ment, very unlike the quiet vivacity and good humour he had shown when with the ladies. “Sir Nicholas,” he said, standing up, as his host came in, “I have not told you all my news.” And when they were both seated he proceeded: ‘You spoke a few minutes ago, Sir Nicholas, of Dr. Storey; he has been caught.” The old man exclaimed with dismay. Mr. Stewart went on: “When I left Antwerp, Sir Nicholas, Dr. Storey was in the town. I saw him myself in the street by the Cathedral only a few hours before I embarked. He is very old, you know, and lame, worn out with good works, and he was hobbling down the street on the arm of a young man. When I arrived at Yarmouth I went out into the streets about a little business I had with a bookseller, before taking horse. I heard a great commotion down near the docks, at the entrance of Bridge Street; and hastened down there; and there I saw pursuivants and seamen and officers all gathered about a carriage, and keeping back the crowd that was pressing and crying out to know who the man was; and presently the carriage drove by me, scattering the crowd, and I could see within; and there sat old Dr. Storey, very white and ill-looking, but steady and cheerful, whom I had seen the MR. STEWART 67 very day before in Antwerp. Now this is very grievous for Dr. Storey; and I pray God to deliver him; but surely the Duke and the King of Spain must move now. They cannot leave him in Cecil’s hands; and then, Sir Nicholas, we must all be ready, for who knows what may happen.” Sir Nicholas was greatly moved. There was one of the per- plexities which so much harassed all the Papists at this time. It seemed certain that Mr. Stewart’s prediction must be fulfilled. Dr. Storey was a naturalised subject of King Philip and in the employment of Alva, and he had been carried off forcibly by the English Government. It afterwards came out how it had been done. He had been lured away from Antwerp and enticed on board a trader at Bergen-op-Zoom, by Cecil’s agents with the help of a traitor named Parker, on pretext of finding heretical books there arriving from England; and as soon as he had set foot on deck he was hurried below and carried straight off to Yarmouth. Here then was Sir Nicholas’ perplexity. To welcome Spain when she intervened and to work actively for her, was treason against his country; to act against Spain was to delay the re-establishment of the Religion—something that appeared to him very like treason against his faith. Was the dreadful choice between his sovereign and his God, he wondered as he paced up and down and questioned Mr. Stewart, even now imminent? The whole affair, too, was so formidable and so mysterious that the hearts of these Catholics and of others in England when they heard the tale began to fail them. Had the Government then so long an arm and so keen an eye? And if it was able to hale a man from the shadow of the Cathedral at Antwerp and the protection of the Duke of Alva into the hands of pur- suivants at Yarmouth within the space of a few hours, who then was safe? And so the two sat late that night in the East Chamber; and laid schemes and discussed movements and probabilities and the like, until the dawn began to glimemr through the cracks of the shutters and the birds to chirp in the eaves; and Sir Nicholas at last carried to bed with him an anxious and a heavy heart. Mr. Stewart, however, did not seem so greatly disturbed; possibly because on the one side he had not others dearer to him than his own life involved in these complex issues; and partly because he at any rate had not the weight of suspense and inde- cision that so drew his host two ways at once, for Mr. Stewart 68 BY WHAT AUTHORITY was whole-heartedly committed already, and knew well how he would act should the choice present itself between Elizabeth and Philip. The following morning Sir Nicholas still would not allow his guest to come downstairs, and insisted that all his meals should be served in the East Chamber, while he himself, as before, re- ceived the food at the door and set it before Mr. Stewart. Mr. Stewart was greatly impressed and touched by the kindness of the old man, although not by his capacity for conspiracy. He had intended to tell his host far more than he had done of the movements of political and religious events, for he could not but believe, before his arrival, that a Catholic so prominent and influential as Sir Nicholas was becoming by reputation among the refugees abroad, was a proper person to be entrusted even with the highest secrets; but after a very little conversation with him the night before, he had seen how ingenuous the old man was, with his laughable attempts at secrecy and his lament- able lack of discretion; and so he had contented himself with general information and gossip, and had really told Sir Nicholas very little indeed of any importance. After dinner Sir Nicholas again conducted his guest to the drawing-room, where the ladies were ready to receive him. He had obtained Mr. Stewart’s permission the night before to tell his wife and sister-in-law the news about Dr. Storey; and the four sat for several hours together discussing the situation. Mr. Stewart was able to tell them too, in greater detail, the story of Lord Sussex’s punitive raid into Scotland in the preceding April. They had heard of course the main outline of the story with the kind of embroideries attached that were usual in those days of inaccurate reporting; but their guest was a Scotchman himself and had the stories first-hand in some cases from those rendered homeless by the raid, who had fled to the Netherlands where he had met them. Briefly the raid was undertaken on the pretended plea of an invitation from the “King’s men” or adherents of the infant James; but in reality to chastise Scotland and reduce it to servility. Sussex and Lord Hunsdon in the east, Lord Scrope on the west, had harried, burnt, and destroyed in the whole countryside about the Borders. Especially had Tiviotdale suf- fered. Altogether it was calculated that Sussex had burned three hundred villages and blown up fifty castles, and forty more “strong houses,” some of these latter, however, being little more than border peels. Mr. Stewart’s accounts were the more mov- = MR. STEWART 69 ing in that he spoke in a quiet delicate tone, and used little pic- turesque phrases in his speech. “Twelve years ago,” said Mr. Stewart, “I was at Branxholme myself. It was a pleasant house, well furnished and appointed; fortified, too, as all need to be in that country, with sheaves of pikes in all the lower rooms, and Sir Walter Scott gave me a warm welcome, for I was there on a business that pleased him. He showed me the gardens and orchards, all green and sweet, like these of yours, Lady Maxwell. And it seemed to me a home where a man might be content to spend all his days. Well, my Lord Sussex has been a visitor there now; and what he has left of the house would not shelter a cow, nor what is left of the pleasant gardens sustain her. At least, so one of the Scots told me whom I met in the Netherlands in June.” He talked, too, of the extraordinary scenes of romance and chivalry in which Mary Queen of Scots moved during her cap- tivity under Lord Scrope’s care at Bolton Castle in the previous year. He had met in his travels in France one of her undistin- guished adherents who had managed to get a position in the castle during her detention there. “The country was alive with her worshippers,” said Mr. Stew- art. ‘They swarmed like bees round a hive. In the night voices would be heard crying out to her Grace out of the darkness round the castle; and when the guards rode out they would find no man but maybe hear just a laugh or two. Her men would lie out at night and watch her window (for she would never go to rest till late), and pray towards it as if it were a light before the blessed sacrament. When she rode out a-hunting, with her guards of course about her, and my Lord Scrope or Sir Francis Knollys never far away, a beggar maybe would be sitting out on the road and ask an alms; and cry out ‘God save your Grace’; but he would be a beggar who was accustomed to wear silk next his skin except when he went a-begging. Many young gentle- men there were, yes and old ones too, who would thank God for a blow or a curse from some foul English trooper for his meat, if only he might have a look from the Queen’s eyes for his grace before meat. Oh! they would plot too, and scheme and lie awake half the night spinning their webs, not to catch her Grace indeed, but to get her away from that old Spider Scrope; and many’s the word and the scrap of paper that would go in to her Grace, right under the very noses of my Lord Scrope and Sir Francis them- selves, as they sat at their chess in the Queen’s chamber. It’s a qo BY WHAT AUTHORITY long game of chess that the two Queens are playing; but thank our Lady and the Saints it’s not mate yet—not mate yet; and the White Queen will win, please God, before the board’s over- turned.” | And he told them, too, of the failure of the Northern Rebellion, and the wretchedness of the fugitives. “They rode over the moors to Liddesdale,” he said, “ladies and all, in bitter weather, wind and snow, day after day, with stories of Clinton’s troopers all about them, and scarcely time for bite or sup or sleep. My lady Northumberland was so over- come with weariness and sickness that she could ride no more at last, and had to be left at John-of-the-Side’s house, where she had a little chamber where the snow came in at one corner, and the rats ran over my lady’s face as she lay. My Lords Northumberland and Westmoreland were in worse case, and spent their Christmas with no roof over them but what they could find out in the braes and woods about Harlaw, and no clothes but the foul rags that some beggar had thrown away, and no food but a bird or a rabbit that they could pick up here and there, or what their friends could get to them now and again privately. And then my Lord Northumberland’s little daughters whom he was forced to leave behind at Topclifi—a sweet Christmas they had! Their money and food was soon spent; they could have scarcely a fire in that bitter hard season; and God who feeds the ravens alone knows how they were sustained; and for entertain- ment to make the time pass merrily, all they had was to see the hanging of their own servants in scores about the house, who had served them and their father well; and all their music at night was the howling of the wind in those heavily laden Christmas- trees, and the noise of the chains in which the men were hanged.” Mr. Stewart’s narratives were engrossing to the two ladies and Sir Nicholas. They had never come so close to the struggles of the Catholics in the north before; and although the Northern Rebellion had ended so disastrously, yet it was encouraging, although heartbreaking too, to hear that delicate women and children were ready gladly to suffer such miseries if the religious cause that was so dear to them could be thereby helped. Sir Nicholas, as has been said, was in two minds as to the lawfulness of rising against a temporal sovereign in defence of religious liberties. His whole English nature revolted against it, and yet so many spiritual persons seemed to favour it. His simple con- science was perplexed. But none the less he could listen with MR. STEWART 71 the most intense interest and sympathy to these tales of these co-religionists of his own, who were so clearly convinced of their right to rebel in defence of their faith. And so with such stories the August afternoon passed away. It was a thundery day, which it would have been pleasanter to spend in the garden, but that, Sir Nicholas said, under the cir- cumstances was not to be thought of; so they threw the windows wide to catch the least breath of air; and the smell of the flower- garden came sweetly up and flooded the low cool room; and so they sat engrossed until the evening. Supper was ordered for Mr. Stewart at half-past seven o’clock; and this meal Sir Nicholas had consented should be laid down- stairs in his own private room opening out of the hall, and that he and his ladies should sit down to table at the same time. Mr. Stewart went to his room an hour before to dress for riding, and to superintend the packing of his saddle-bags; and at half-past seven he was conducted downstairs by Sir Nicholas who insisted on carrying the saddle-bags with his own hands, and they found the two ladies waiting for them in the panelled study that had one window giving upon the terrace that ran along the south of the house above the garden. When supper had been brought in by Sir Nicholas’ own body-servant, Mr. Boyd, they sat down to supper after a grace from Sir Nicholas. The horses were ordered for nine o’clock. CHAPTER VII THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL On the morning of the day after Mr. Stewart’s secret arrival at Maxwell Hall, the Rector was walking up and down the lawn that adjoined the churchyard. He had never yet wholly recovered from the sneers of Mistress Corbet; the wounds had healed but had not ceased to smart. How blind these Papists were, he thought! how prejudiced for — the old trifling details of worship! how ignorant of the vital prin- ciples still retained! The old realities of God and the Faith and the Church were with them still, in this village, he reminded himself; it was only the incrustations of error that had been removed. Of course the transition was difficult and hearts were sore; but the Eternal God can be patient. But then, if the dis- content of the Papists smouldered on one side, the fanatical and irresponsible zeal of the Puritans flared on the other. How diffi- cult, he thought, to steer the safe middle course! How much cool faith and clearsightedness it needed! He reminded him- self of Archbishop Parker who now held the rudder, and com- forted himself with the thought of his wise moderation in dealing with excesses, his patient pertinacity among the whirling gusts of passion, that enabled him to wait upon events to push his schemes, and his tender knowledge of human nature. But in spite of these reassuring facts Mr. Dent was anxious. What could even the Archbishop do when his suffragans were such poor creatures; and when Leicester, the strongest man at Court, was a violent Puritan partisan? The Rector would have been content to bear the troubles of his own flock and household if he had been confident of the larger cause; but the vagaries of the Puritans threatened all with ruin. That morning only he had received a long account from a Fellow of his own college of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and a man of the same views as himself, of the violent controversy raging there at that time. “The Professor,” wrote his friend, referring to Thomas Cart- wright, “is plastering us all with his Genevan ways. We are all 72 THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL 73 ‘Papists, it seems! He would have neither bishop nor priest nor archbishop nor dean nor archdeacon, nor dignitaries at all, but just the plain Godly Minister, as he names it. Or if he has the bishop and the deacon they are to be the Episcopos and the Diaconos of the Scripture, and not the Papish counterfeits! Then it seems that the minister is to be made not by God but by man—that the people are to make him, not the bishop (as if the sheep should make the shepherd). Then it appears we are Papists too for kneeling at the Communion; this he names a ‘feeble super- stition.’ Then he would have all men reside in their benefices or vacate them; and all that do not so, it appears, are no better than thieves or robbers. “And so he rages on, breathing out this smoky stuff, and all the young men do run after him, as if her were the very Pillar of Fire to lead them to Canaan. One day he says there shall be no bishop—and my Lord of Ely rides through Petty Cury with scarce a man found to doff cap and say ‘my lord’ save foolish ‘Papists’ like myself! Another day he will have no distinction of apparel; and the young sparks straight dress like ministers, and the ministers like young sparks. On another he likes not Saint Peter his day, and none will go to church. He would have us all to be little Master Calvins, if he could have his way with us. But the Master of Trinity has sent a complaint to the Council with charges against him, and has preached against him, too; but no word hath yet come from the Council; and we fear nought will be done; to the sore injury of Christ His holy Church and the Protestant Religion; and the triumphing of their pestilent heresies.” So the caustic divine wrote, and the Rector of Great Keynes was heavy-hearted as he walked up and down and read. Every- where it was the same story; the extreme precisians openly flouted the religion of the Church of England; submitted to episcopal ordination as a legal necessity and then mocked at it; refused to wear the prescribed dress, and repudiated all other distinctions too in meats and days as Judaic remnants; denounced all forms of worship except those directly sanctioned by Scripture; in short, they remained in the Church of England and drew her pay while they scouted her orders and derided her claims. Further, they cried out as persecuted martyrs whenever it was proposed to insist that they should observe their obligations. But worse than all, for such conscientious clergymen as Mr. Dent, was the fact that bishops preferred such men to livings, and at the same 74 BY WHAT AUTHORITY time were energetic against the Papist party. It was not that there was not an abundance of disciplinary machinery ready at the bishops’ disposal or that the Queen was opposed to coercion —rather she was always urging them to insist upon conformity; but it seemed rather to such sober men as the Rector that the principle of authority had been lost with the rejection of the Papacy, and that anarchy rather than liberty had prevailed in the National Church. In darker moments it seemed to him and his friends as if any wild fancy was tolerated, so long as it did not approximate too closely to the Old Religion; and they grew sick at heart. It was all the more difficult for the Rector, as he had so little sympathy in the place; his wife did all she could to destroy friendly relations between the Hall and the Rectory, and openly derided her husband’s prelatical leanings; the Maxwells them- selves disregarded his priestly claims, and the villagers thought of him as an oficial paid to promulgate the new State religion. The only house where he found sympathy and help was the Dower House; and as he paced up and down his garden now, his little perplexed determined face grew brighter as he made up his mind to see Mr. Norris again in the afternoon. During his meditations he heard, and saw indistinctly, through the shrubbery that fenced the lawn from the drive, a mounted man ride up to the Rectory door. He supposed it was some message, and held himself in readiness to be called into the house, but after a minute or two he heard the man ride off again down the drive into the village. At dinner he mentioned it to his wife, who answered rather shortly that it was a message for her; and he let the matter drop for fear of giving offence; he was terrified at the thought of provoking more quarrels than were absolutely necessary. Soon after dinner he put on his cap and gown, and to his wife’s inquiries told her where he was going, and that after he had seen Mr. Norris he would step on down to Comber’s, where was a sick body or two, and that she might expect him back not earlier than five o’clock. She nodded without speaking, and he went out. She watched him down the drive from the dining- room window and then went back to her business with an odd expression. Mr. Norris, whom he found already seated at his books again after dinner, took him out when he had heard his errand, and the two began to walk up and down together on the raised walk THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL 75 eae ran along under a line of pines a little way from the ouse. The Rector had seldom found his friend more sympathetic and tender; he knew very well that their intellectual and doctrinal standpoints were different, but he had not come for anything less than spiritual help, and that he found. He told him all his heart, and then waited, while the other, with his thin hands clasped behind his back, and his great grey eyes cast up at the heavy pines and the tender sky beyond, began to comfort the minister. ‘You are troubled, my friend,” he said, ‘and I do not wonder at it, by the turbulence of these times. On all sides are fightings and fears. Of course I cannot, as you know, regard these matters you have spoken of—episcopacy, ceremonies at the Communion and the like—in the grave light in which you see them; but I take it, if I understand you rightly, that it is the confusion and lack of any authority or respect for antiquity that is troubling you more. You feel yourself in a sad plight between these raging waves; tossed to and fro, battered upon by both sides, forsaken and despised and disregarded. Now, indeed, although I do not stand quite where you do, yet I see how great the stress must be; but, if I may say so to a minister, it is just what you regard as your shame that I regard as your glory. It is the mark of the cross that is on your life. When our Saviour went to his passion, he went in the same plight as that in which you go; both Jew and Gentile were against him on this side and that; his claims were disallowed, his royalty denied; he was despised and rejected of men. He did not go to his passion as to a splendid triumph, bearing his pain like some solemn and mysterious dignity at which the world wondered and was silent; but he went battered and spat upon, with the sweat and the blood and the spittle running down his face, contemned by the contemptible, hated by the hateful, rejected by the outcast, barked upon by the curs; and it was that that made his passion so bitter. To go to death, however painful, with honour and applause, or at least with the silence of respect, were easy; it is not hard to die upon a throne; but to live on a dunghill with Job, that is bitterness. Now again I must protest that I have no right to speak like this to a minister, but since you have come to me I must needs says what I think; and it is this that some wise man once said, ‘Fear honour, for shame is not far off. Covet shame, for honour is surely to follow.’ If that be true of the philosopher, how much more true 76 BY WHAT AUTHORITY is it of the Christian minister whose profession it is to follow the Saviour and to be made like unto him.” He said much more of the same kind; and his soft balmy faith soothed the minister’s wounds, and braced his will. The Rector could not help half envying his friend, living, as it seemed, in this still retreat, apart from wrangles and controversy, with the peaceful music and sweet fragrance of the pines, and the Love of God about him. When he had finished he asked the Rector to step indoors with him; and there in his own room took down and read to him a few extracts from the German mystics that he thought bore upon his case. Finally, to put him at his ease again, for it seemed an odd reversal that he should be coming for comfort to his parishioners, Mr. Norris told him about his two children, and in his turn asked his advice. “About Anthony,” he said, “I am not at all anxious. I know that the boy fancies himself in love; and goes sighing about when he is at home; but he sleeps and eats heartily, for I have observed him; and I think Mistress Corbet has a good heart and means no harm to him. But about my daughter I am less satis- fied, for I have been watching her closely. She is quiet and good, and, above all, she loves the Saviour; but how do I know that her heart is not bleeding within? She has been taught to hold herself in, and not to show her feelings; and that, I think, is as much a drawback sometimes as wearing the heart upon the sleeve.” | Mr. Dent suggested sending her away for a visit for a month or two. His host mused a moment and then said that he himself had thought of that; and now that his minister said so toc, prob- ably, under God, that was what was needed. The fact that Hubert was expected home soon was an additional reason; and he had friends in Northampton, he said, to whom he could send her. ‘They hold strongly by the Genevan theology there,” he said smiling, “but I think that will do her no harm as a balance to the Popery at Maxwell Hall.” They talked a few minutes more, and when the minister rose to take his leave, Mr. Norris slipped down on his knees as if it was the natural thing to do and as if the minister were expect- ing it; and asked his guest to engage in prayer. It was the first time he had ever done so; probably because this talk had brought them nearer together spiritually than ever before. The minister was taken aback, and repeated a collect or two from the Prayer- THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL 77 book; then they said the Lord’s Prayer together, and then Mr. Norris without any affectation engaged in a short extempore prayer, asking for light in these dark times and peace in the storm; and begging the blessing of God upon the village and “upon their shepherd to whom Thou hast given to drink of the Cup of thy Passion,” and upon his own children, and lastly upon himself, “the chief of sinners and the least of thy servants that is not worthy to be called thy friend.” It touched Mr. Dent exceedingly, and he was yet more touched and reconciled to the incident when his host said simply, remaining on his knees, with eyes closed and his clear cut tranquil face upturned: “T ask your blessing, sir.” The Rector’s voice trembled a little as he gave it. And then with real gratitude and a good deal of sincere emotion he shook his friend’s hand, and rustled out from the cool house into the sunlit garden, greeting Isabel who was walking up and down outside a little pensively, and took the field-path that led towards the hamlet where his sick folk were expecting him. As he walked back about five o’clock towards the village he noticed there was thunder in the air, and was aware of a physical oppression, but in his heart it was morning and the birds sing- ing. The talk earlier in the afternoon had shown him how, in the midst of the bitterness of the Cup, to find the fragrance where the Saviour’s lips had rested and that was joy to him. And again, his true pastor’s heart had been gladdened by the way his minis- trations had been received that afternoon. A sour old man who had always scowled at him for an upstart, in his foolish old desire to be loyal to the priest who had held the benefice before him, had melted at last and asked his pardon and God’s for having treated him so ill; and he had prepared the old man for death with great contentment to them both, and had left him at peace with God and man. On looking back on it all afterwards he was convinced that God had thus strengthened him for the trouble that was awaiting him at home. He had hardly come into his study when his wife entered with a strange look, breathing quick and short; she closed the door, and stood near it, looking at him apprehensively. “George,” she said, rather sharply and nervously, “you must not be vexed with me, but 4 “Well?” he said heavily, and the warmth died out of his heart. He knew something terrible impended. “I have done it for the best,” she said, and obstinacy and a 78 BY WHAT AUTHORITY kind of impatient tenderness strove in her eyes as she looked at him. ‘‘You must show yourself a man; it is not fitting that loose ladies of the Court should mock—” He got up; and his eyes were determined too. “Tell me what you have done, woman,” he cried. She put out her hand as if to hold him still, and her voice rang hard and thin. “T will say my say,” she said. “It is not for that that I have done it. But you are a Gospel-minister, and must be faithful. The Justice is here. I sent for him.” “The Justice?’ he said blankly; but his heart was beating heavily in his throat. “Mr. Frankland from East Grinsted, with a couple of pur- suivants and a company of servants. There is a popish agent at the Hall, and they are come to take him.” The Rector swallowed with difficulty once or twice, and then tried to speak, but she went on. “And I have promised that you shall take them in by the side door.” “T will not!” he cried. She held up her hand again for silence, and glanced round at the door. “T have given him the key,” she said. This was the private key, possessed by the incumbent for gen- erations past, and Sir Nicholas had not withdrawn it from the Protestant Rector. “There is no choice,” she said. ‘Oh! George, be a man!” Then she turned and slipped out. He stood perfectly still for a moment; his pulses were racing; he could not think. He sat down and buried his face in his hands; and gradually his brain cleared and quieted. Then he realised what it meant, and his soul rose in blind furious resent- ment. This was the last straw; it was the woman’s devilish jealousy. But what could he do? The Justice was here. Could he warn his friends? He clenched his fingers into his hair as the situation came out clear and hard before his brain. Dear God, what could he do? There were footsteps in the flagged hall, and he raised his head as. the door opened and a portly gentleman in riding-dress came in, followed by Mrs. Dent. The Rector rose confusedly, but could not speak, and his eyes wandered round to his wife again and again as she took a chair in the shadow and sat down. But the magistrate noticed nothing. THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL 79 ‘“‘Aha!” he said, beaming, “You have a wife, sir, that is a jewel. Solomon never spoke a truer word; an ornament to her husband, he said, I think; but you as a minister should know better than I, a mere layman’; and his face creased with mirth. What did the red-faced fool mean? thought the Rector. If only he would not talk so loud! He must think, he must think. What could he do? “She was very brisk, sir,” the magistrate went on, sitting down, and the Rector followed his example, sitting too with his back to the window and his hand to his head. Then Mr. Frankland went on with his talk; and the man sat there, still glancing from time to time mechanically towards his wife, who was there in the shadow with steady white face and hands in her lap, watching the two men. The magistrate’s voice seemed to the bewildered man to roll on like a wheel over stones; interminable, grinding, stupefying. What was he saying? What was that about his wife? She had sent to him the day before, had she, and told him of the popish agent’s coming?—-Ah! A dangerous man was he, a spreader of seditious pamphlets? At least they supposed he was the man.—Yes, yes, he understood; these fly-by-nights were threateners of the whole commonwealth; they must be hunted out like vermin—just so; and he as a minister of the Gospel should be the first to assist—Just so, he agreed with all his heart, as a minister of the Gospel. (Yes, but, dear Lord, what was he to do? This fat man with the face of a butcher must not be allowed to—) Ah! what was that? He had missed that. Would Mr. Frankland be so good as to say it again? Yes, yes, he understood now; the men were posted already. No one suspected anything; they had come by the bridle path——Every door? Did he understand that every door of the Hall was watched? Ah! that was prudent; there was no chance then of any one sending a warning in? Oh, no, no, he did not dream for a moment that there was any concealed Catholic who would be likely to do such a thing. But he only wondered.—Yes, yes, the magistrate was right; one could not be too careful. Because—ah!—-What was that about Sir Nicholas? Yes, yes, indeed he was a good landlord, and very popular in the village-——Ah! just so; it had better be done quietly, at the side door. Yes, that was the one which the key fitted. But, but, he thought perhaps, he had better not come in, because Sir Nicholas was his friend, and there was no use in making bad 80 BY WHAT AUTHORITY blood.—Oh! not to the house; very well, then, he would come as far as the yew hedge at—at what time did the magistrate say? At half-past eight; yes, that would be best as Mr. Frankland said, because Sir Nicholas had ordered the horses for nine o’clock; so they would come upon them just at the right time— How many men, did Mr. Frankland say? Eight? Oh yes, eight and himself, and—he did not quite follow the plan. Ah! through the yew hedge on to the terrace and through the south door into the hall; then if they bolted—they? Surely he had understood the magistrate to say there was only one? Oh! he had not under- stood that. Sir Nicholas too? But why, why? Good God, asa harbourer of priestsPp—No, but this fellow was an agent, surely. Well, if the magistrate said so, of course he was right; but he would have thought himself that Sir Nicholas might have been left—ah! Well, he would say no more. He quite saw the magis- trate’s point now.—No, no, he was no favourer; God forbid! his wife would speak for him as to that; Marion would bear witness. —Well, well, he thanked the magistrate for his compliments, and would he proceed with the plan? By the south door, he was saying, yes, into the hall—-Yes, the East room was Sir Nicholas’ study; or of course they might be supping upstairs. But it made no difference; no, the magistrate was right about that. So long as they held the main staircase, and had all the. other doors watched, they were safe to have them.—No, no, the cloister wing would not be used; they might leave that out of their calcula- tions. Besides, did not the magistrate say that Marion had seen the lights in the East wing last night? Yes, well, that settled it—And the signal? Oh, he had not caught that; the church bell, was it to be? But what for? Why did they need a signal? Ah! he understood, for the advance at half-past eight.—Just so, he would send Thomas up to ring it. Would Marion kindly see to that?—Yes, indeed, his wife was a woman to be proud of; such a faithful Protestant; no patience with these seditious rogues at all. Well, was that all? Was there anything elsep— Yes, how dark it was getting; it must be close on eight o’clock. Thomas had gone, had he? That was all right—And had the men everything they wanted?—Well, yes; although the village did go to bed early it would perhaps be better to have no lights; because there was no need to rouse suspicion.——Oh! very well; perhaps it would be better for Mr. Frankland to go and sit with the men and keep them quiet. And his wife would go, too, just to make sure they had all they wanted—vVery well, yes; he THE DOOR IN THE GARDEN-WALL 81 would wait here in the dark until he was called. Not more than a quarter of an hour? Thank you, yes— Then the door had closed; and the man, left alone, flung him- self down in his chair, and buried his face again in his arms. Ah! what was to be done? Nothing, nothing, nothing. And there they were at the Hall, his neighbours and friends. The kind old Catholic and his ladies! How would he ever dare to meet their eyes again? But what could be done? Nothing! How far away the afternoon seems; that quiet sunny walk beneath the pines. His friend is at his books, no doubt, with the silver candles, and the open pages, and his own neat manu- script growing under his white scholarly fingers. And Isabel; at her needlework before the fire—How peaceful and harmless and sweet it all is! And down there, not fifty yards away, is the village; every light out by now; and the children and parents, too, asleep—Ah! what will the news be when they wake to- morrow?—And that strange talk this afternoon, of the Saviour and His Cup of pain, and the squalor and indignity of the Passion! Ah! yes, he could suffer with Jesus on the Cross, so gladly, on that Tree of Life—but not with Judas on the Tree of Death! And the minister dropped his face lower, over the edge of his desk; and the hot tears of misery and self-reproach and impotence began to run. There was no help, no help anywhere. All were against him—even his wife herself; and his Lord. Then with a moan he lifted his hot face into the dusk. “Jesus,” he cried in his soul, “Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.” ~~ There came a tapping on the door; and the door opened an inch. “It is time,” whispered his wife’s voice. CHAPTER VIII THE TAKING OF MR. STEWART Tuey were still sitting over the supper-table at the Hall. The sun had set about the time they had begun, and the twilight had deepened into dark; but they had not cared to close the shutters as they were to move so soon. The four candles shone out through the windows, and there still hung a pale glimmer outside owing to the refraction of light from the white stones of the terrace. Beyond on the left there sloped away a high black wall of impenetrable darkness where the yew hedge stood; over that was the starless sky. Sir Nicholas’ study was bright with candle- light, and the lace and jewels of Lady Maxwell (for her sister wore none) added a vague pleasant sense of beauty to Mr. Stewart’s mind; for he was one who often fared coarsely and slept hard. He sighed a little to himself as he looked out over this shining supper-table past the genial smiling face of Sir Nicholas to the dark outside; and thought how in less than an hour he would have left the comfort of this house for the grey road and its hardships again. It was extraordinarily sweet to him (for he was a man of taste and a natural inclination to luxury) to stay a day or two now and again at a house like this and mix again with his own equals, instead of with the rough company of the village inn, or the curious foreign conspirators with their absence of educated perception and their doubtful cleanliness. He was a man of domestic instincts and good birth and breeding, and would have been perfectly at his ease as the master of some household such as this; with a chapel and a library and a pleasant garden and estate; spending his days in great leisure and good deeds. And instead of all this, scarcely by his own choice but by what he would have called his vocation, he was partly an exile living from hand to mouth in lodgings and inns, and when he was in his own fatherland, a hunted fugitive lurking about in unattractive disguises. He sighed again once or twice. There was silence a moment or two. There sounded one note from the church tower a couple of 82 THE TAKING OF MR. STEWART 83 hundred yards away. Lady Maxwell heard it, and looked sud- denly up; she scarcely knew why, and caught her sister’s eyes glancing at her. There was a shade of uneasiness in them. “It is thundery tonight,” said Sir Nicholas. Mr. Stewart did not speak. Lady Maxwell looked up quickly at him as he sat on her right facing the window; and saw an expression of slight disturbance cross his face. He was staring out on to the quickly darkening terrace, past Sir Nicholas, who with pursed lips and a little frown was stripping off his grapes from the stalk. The look of uneasiness deepened, and the young man half rose from his chair, and sat down again. “What is it, Mr. Stewart?” said Lady Maxwell, and her voice had a ring of terror in it. Sir Nicholas looked up quickly. “Eh, eh?”—he began. The young man rose up and recoiled a step, still staring out. “T beg your pardon,” he said, ‘“‘but I have just seen several men pass the window.” There was a rush of footsteps and a jangle of voices outside in the hall; and as the four rose up from table, looking at one another, there was a rattle at the handle outside, the door flew open, and a ruddy strongly-built man stood there, with a slightly apprehensive air, and holding a loaded cane a little ostentatiously in his hand; the faces of several men looked over his shoulder. Sir Nicholas’ ruddy face had paled, his mouth was half open with dismay, and he stared almost unintelligently at the magis- trate. Mr. Stewart’s hand closed on the handle of a knife that lay beside his plate. “In the Queen’s name,” said Mr. Frankland, and looked from the knife to the young man’s white determined face, and down again. A little sobbing broke from Lady Maxwell. “Tt is useless, sir,”’ said the magistrate; “Sir Nicholas, persuade your guest not to make a useless resistance; we are ten to one; the house has been watched for hours.” | Sir Nicholas took a step forward, his mouth closed and opened again. Lady Maxwell took a swift rustling step from behind the table, and threw her arm round the old man’s neck. Still none of them spoke. “Come in,” said the magistrate, turning a little. The men outside filed in, to the number of half a dozen, and two or three more were left in the hall. All were armed. Mistress Margaret, who had stood up with the rest, sat down again, and rested her head on her hand; apparently completely at her ease. 84 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “YT must beg pardon, Lady Maxwell,” he went on, “but my duty leaves me no choice.” He turned to the young man, who, on seeing the officers had laid the knife down again, and now stood, with one hand on the table, rather pale, but apparently completely self-controlled, looking a little disdainfully at the magistrate. Then Sir Nicholas made a great effort; but his face twitched as he spoke, and the hand that he lifted to his wife’s arm shook with nervousness, and his voice was cracked and unnatural. “Sit down, my dear, sit down—What is all this?—I do not understand——Mr. Frankland, sir, what do you want of me?— And who are all these gentlemen?—Won’t you sit down, Mr. Frankland, and take a glass of wine. Let me make Mr. Stewart known to you.” And he lifted a shaking hand as if to introduce them. The magistrate smiled a little on one side of his mouth. “Tt is no use, Sir Nicholas,” he said, “this gentleman, I fear, is well known to some of us already.—No, no, sir,” he cried sharply, “the window is guarded.” Mr. Stewart, who had looked swiftly and sideways across at the window, faced the magistrate again. “I do not know what you mean, sir,” he said. ‘It was a lad who passed the window.” There was a movement outside in the hall; and the magistrate stepped to the door. “Who is there?” he cried out sharply. There was a scuffle, and a cry of a boy’s voice; and a man appeared, holding Anthony by the arm. Mistress Margaret turned round in her seat; and said in a perfectly natural voice, ‘‘Why, Anthony, my lad!” There was a murmur from one or two of the men. “Silence,” called out the magistrate. ‘‘We will finish the other affair first,’ and he made a motion to hold Anthony for a moment.—‘‘Now then, do any of you men know this gentleman?” A pursuivant stepped out. “Mr. Frankland, sir; I know him under two names—Mr. Chap- man and Mr. Wode. He is a popish agent. I saw him in the company of Dr. Storey in Antwerp, four months ago.” Mr. Stewart blew out his lips sharply and contemptuously. “Pooh,” he said: and then turned to the man and bowed ironically. “T congratulate you, my man,” he said, in a tone of bitter THE TAKING OF MR. STEWART 85 triumph. “In April I was in France. Kindly remember this man’s words, Mr. Frankland; they will tell in my favour. For I presume you mean to take me.” “TY will remember them,” said the magistrate. Mr, Stewart bowed to him; he had completely regained his composure. Then he turned to Sir Nicholas and Lady Maxwell, who had been watching in a bewildered silence. “T am exceedingly sorry,” he said, “for having brought this annoyance on you, Lady Maxwell; but these men are so sharp that they see nothing but guilt everywhere. I do not know yet what my crime is. But that can wait. Sir Nicholas, we should have parted anyhow in half an hour. We shall only say good-bye here, instead of at the door.” The magistrate smiled again as before; and half put up his hand to hide it. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Chapman; but you need not part from Sir Nicholas yet. I fear, Sir Nicholas, that I shall have to trouble you to come with us.” Lady Maxwell drew a quick hissing breath; her sister got up swiftly and went to her, as she sat down in Sir Nicholas’ chair, still holding the old man’s hand. Sir Nicholas turned to his guest; and his voice broke again and again as he spoke. “Mr. Stewart,” he said, “I am sorry that any guest of mine should be subject to these insults. However, I am glad that I shall have the pleasure of your company after all. I suppose we ride to East Grinsted,” he added harshly to the magistrate, who bowed to him.—‘‘Then may I have my servant, sir?” “Presently,” said Mr. Frankland, and then turned to Anthony, who had been staring wild-eyed at the scene, ‘‘Now who is this?” A man answered from the rank. “That is Master Anthony Norris, sir.” “Ah! and who is Master Anthony Norris? A Papist, too?” “No, sir,” said the man again, “a good Protestant; and the son of Mr. Norris at the Dower House.” “Ah!” said the magistrate again, judicially. ‘‘And what might you be wanting here, Master Anthony Norris?” Anthony explained that he often came up in the evening, and that he wanted nothing. The magistrate eyed him a moment or two. “Well, I have nothing against you, young gentleman. But I cannot let you go, till I am safely set out. You might rouse the 86 BY WHAT AUTHORITY village. Take him out till we start,’’ he added to the man who guarded him. “Come this way, sir,” said the officer; and Anthony presently found himself sitting on the long oak bench that ran across the western end of the hall, at the foot of the stairs, and just opposite the door of Sir Nicholas’ room where he had just witnessed that curious startling scene. The man who had charge of him stood a little distance off, and did not trouble him further, and Anthony watched in silence. The hall was still dark, except for one candle that had been lighted by the magistrate’s party, and it looked sombre and sug- gestive of tragedy. Floor walls and ceiling were all dark oak, and the corners were full of shadows. A streak of light came out of the slightly opened door opposite, and a murmur of voices. The rest of the house was quiet; it had all been arranged and carried out without disturbance. Anthony had a very fair idea of what was going forward; he knew of course that the Catholics were always under suspicion, and now understood plainly enough from the conversation he had heard that the reddish-haired young man, standing so alert and cheerful by the table in there, had somehow precipitated matters. Anthony himself had come up on some trifling errand, and had run straight into this affair; and now he sat and wondered resent- fully, with his eyes and ears wide open. There were men at all the inner doors now; they had slipped in from the outer entrances as soon as word had reached them that the prisoners were secured, and only a couple were left out- side to prevent the alarm being raised in the village. These inner sentinels stood motionless at the foot of the stairs that rose up into the unlighted lobby overhead, at the door that led to the inner hall and the servants’ quarters, and at those that led to the cloister wing and the garden respectively. The murmur of voices went on in the room opposite; and presently a man slipped out and passed through the sentinels to the door leading to the kitchens and pantry; he carried a pike in his hand, and was armed with a steel cap and breast-piece. In a minute he had returned followed by Mr. Boyd, Sir Nicholas’ body-servant; the two passed into the study—and a moment later the dark inner hall was full of moving figures and rustlings and whisperings, as the alarmed servants poured up from down- stairs. Then the study door opened again, and Anthony caught a P] THE TAKING OF MR. STEWART 87 glimpse of the lighted room; the two ladies with Sir Nicholas and his guest were seated at table; there was the figure of an armed man behind Mr. Stewart’s chair, and another behind Lady Maxwell’s; then the door closed again as Mr. Boyd with the magistrate and a constable carrying a candle came out. “This way, sir,” said the servant; and the three crossed the hall, and passing close by Anthony, went up the broad oak stair- case that led to the upper rooms. Then the minutes passed away; from upstairs came the noise of doors opening and shutting, and footsteps passing overhead; from the inner hall the sound of low talking, and a few sobs now and again from a frightened maid; from Sir Nicholas’ room all was quiet except once when Mr. Stewart’s laugh, high and natural, rang out. Anthony thought of that strong brisk face he had seen in the candlelight; and wondered how he could laugh, with death so imminent— and worse than death; and a warmth of admiration and respect glowed at the lad’s heart. The man by Anthony sighed and shifted his feet. “What is it for?” whispered the lad at last. “T mustn’t speak to you, sir,” said the man. At last the footsteps overhead came to the top of the stairs. The magistrate’s voice called out sharply and impatiently: “Come along, come along’; and the three, all carrying bags and valises, came downstairs again and crossed the hall. Again the door opened as they went in, leaving the luggage on the floor; and Anthony caught another glimpse of the four still seated round the table; but Sir Nicholas’ head was bowed upon his hands. Then again the door closed; and there was silence. Once more it was flung open, and Anthony saw the interior of the room plainly. The four were standing up, Mr. Stewart was bowing to Lady Maxwell; the magistrate stood close beside him; then a couple of men stepped up to the young man’s side as he turned away, and the three came out into the hall and stood waiting by the little heap of luggage. Mr. Frankland came next, with the man-servant close beside him, and the rest of the men behind; and the last closed the door and stood by it. There was a dead silence; Anthony sprang to his feet in uncontrollable excitement. What was happening? Again the door opened, and the men made room as Mistress Margaret came out, and the door shut. She came swiftly across, with her little air of dignity and confi- dence, towards Anthony, who was standing forward. 88 ~ BY WHAT AUTHORITY “Why, Master Anthony,” she said, ‘dear lad; I did not know they had kept you,” and she took his hand. “What is it, what is it?” he whispered sharply. “Flush,” she said; and the two stood together in silence. The moments passed; Anthony could hear the quick thumping beat of his own heart, and the breathing of Mistress Margaret; but the hall was perfectly quiet, where the magistrate with the prisoner and his men stood in an irregular dark group with the candle behind them; and no sound came from the room beyond. Then the handle turned, and a crack of light showed; but no further sound; then the door opened wide, a flood of light poured out and Sir Nicholas tottered into the hall. “Margaret, Margaret,” he cried, ‘““‘Where are you? Go to her.” There was a strange moaning sound from the brightly lighted room. The old lady dropped Anthony’s hand and moved swiftly and unfalteringly across, and once more the door closed be- hind her. There was a sharp word of command from the magistrate, and the sentries from every door left their posts, and joined the group which, with Sir Nicholas and his guest and Mr. Boyd in the centre, now passed out through the garden door. The magistrate paused as he saw Anthony standing there alone. “T can trust you, young gentleman,” he said, “not to give the alarm till we are gone?” Anthony nodded, and the magistrate passed briskly out on to the terrace, shutting the door behind him; there was a rush of footsteps and a murmur of voices and the hall was filled with the watching servants. As the chorus of exclamations and inquiries broke out, Anthony ran straight through the crowd to the garden door, and on to the terrace. They had gone to the left, he supposed, but he hesitated a moment to listen; then he heard the stamp of horses’ feet and the jingle of saddlery, and saw the glare of torches through the yew hedge; and he turned quickly and ran along the terrace, past the flood of light that poured out from the supper room, and down the path that led to the side-door opposite the Rectory. It . was very dark, and he stumbled once or twice; then he came to the two or three stairs that led down to the door in the wall, and turned off among the bushes, creeping on hands and feet till he reached the wall, low on this side, but deep on the other; and looked over. The pursuivants with their men had formed a circle round THE TAKING OF MR. STEWART 89 the two prisoners, who were already mounted and who sat looking about them as the luggage was being strapped to their saddles; the bridles were lifted forward over the horses’ heads, and a couple of the guard held each rein. The groom who had brought round the two horses for Mr. Stewart and himself stood white- faced and staring, with his back to the Rectory wall. The magis- trate was just mounting at a little distance his own horse, which was held by the Rectory boy. Mr. Boyd, it seemed, was to walk with the men. Two or three torches were burning by now, and every detail was distinct to Anthony, as he crouched among the dry leaves and peered down on to the group just beneath. Sir Nicholas’ face was turned away from him; but his head was sunk on his breast, and he did not lift it as his horse stamped at the strapping on of the valise Mr. Boyd had packed for him. Mr. Stewart sat erect and motionless, and his face as Anthony saw it was confident and fearless. Then suddenly the door in the Rectory wall opposite was flung open, and a figure in flying black skirts, but hatless, rushed out and through the guard straight up to the old man’s knee. There was a shout from the men and a movement to pull him off, but the magistrate spoke sharply, and the men fell back. “Oh, Sir Nicholas,” sobbed the minister, his face half buried in the saddle. Anthony saw his shoulders shaking and his hands clutching at the old man’s knee. “Forgive me, forgive me.” There was no answer from Sir Nicholas; he still sat unmoved as the Rector sobbed and moaned at his stirrup. “There, there,’”’ said the magistrate decidedly, over the heads of the guard, “that is enough, Mr. Dent’; and he made a motion with his hand. A couple of men took the minister by the shoulders and drew him, still crying out to Sir Nicholas, outside the group; and he stood there dazed and groping with his hands. There was a word of command; and the guard moved off at a sharp walk, with the horses in the centre, and as they turned, the lad saw in the torch- light the old man’s face drawn and wrinkled with sorrow, and great tears running down it. The Rector leaned against his own wall, with his hands over his face; and Anthony looked at him with growing suspicion and _ terror as the flare of the torches on the trees faded, and the noise of the troop died away round the corner. CHAPTER IX VILLAGE JUSTICE Tue village had never known such an awakening as on the morn- ing that followed Sir Nicholas’ arrest. Before seven o’clock every house knew it, and children ran half-dressed to the outlying hamlets to tell the story. Very little work was done that day, for the estate was disorganised; and the men had little heart for work; and there were groups all day on the green, which formed and re-formed and drifted here and there and discussed and sifted the evidence. It was soon known that the Rectory household had had a foremost hand in the affair. The groom, who had been present at the actual departure of the prisoners, had told the story of the black figure that ran out of the door, and of what was cried at the old man’s knee; and how he had not moved nor spoken in answer; and Thomas, the Rectory boy, was stopped as he went across the green in the evening and threatened and encouraged until he told of the stroke on the church-bell, and the Rectory key, and the little company that had sat all the afternoon in the kitchen over their ale. He told too how a couple of hours ago he had been sent across with a note to Lady Maxwell, and that it had been returned immediately unopened. So as night fell, indignation had begun to smoulder fiercely against the minister, who had not been seen all day; and after dark had fallen the name “Judas” was cried in at the Rectory door half a dozen times, and a stone or two from the direction of the churchyard had crashed on the tiles of the house. Mr. Norris had been up all day at the Hall, but he was the only visitor admitted. All day long the gate-house was kept closed, and the same message was given to the few horsemen and carriages that came to inquire after the truth of the report from the Catholic houses round, to the effect that it was true that Sir Nicholas and a friend had been taken off to London by the Justice from East Grinsted; and that Lady Maxwell begged the prayers of her friends for her husband’s safe return. Anthony had ridden off early with a servant, at his father’s 90 VILLAGE JUSTICE OI wish, to follow Sir Nicholas and learn any news of him that was possible, to do him any service he was able, and to return or send a message the next day down to Great Keynes; and early in the afternoon he returned with the information that Sir Nicholas was at the Marshalsea, that he was well and happy, that he sent his wife his dear love, and that she should have a letter from him before nightfall. He rode straight to the Hall with the news, full of chastened delight at his official importance, just pausing to tell a group that was gathered on the green that all was well so far, and was shown up to Lady Maxwell’s own parlour, where he found her, very quiet and self-controlled, and extremely grateful for his kindness in riding up to London and back on her account. Anthony explained too that he had been able to get Sir Nicholas one or two comforts that the prison did not provide, a pillow and an extra coverlet and some fruit; and he left her full of gratitude. His father had been up to see the ladies two or three times, and in spite of the difference in religion had prayed with them, and talked a little; and Lady Maxwell had asked that Isabel might come up to supper and spend the evening. Mr. Norris promised to send her up, and then added: “T am a little anxious, Lady Maxwell, lest the people may show their anger against the Rector or his wife, about what has happened.” Lady Maxwell looked startled. “They have been speaking of it all day long,” he said, “they know everything; and it seems the Rector is not so much to blame as his wife. It was she who sent for the magistrate and gave him the key and arranged it all; he was only brought into it too late to interfere or refuse.” “Have you seen him?” asked the old lady. “T have been both days,” he said, ‘‘but he will not see me; he is in his study, locked in.” “TI may have treated him hardly,” she said, “‘I would not open his note; but at least he consented to help them against his friend.” And her old eyes filled with tears. “T fear that is so,”’ said the other sadly. “But speak to the people,” she said, “I think they love my husband, and would do nothing to grieve us; tell them that nothing would pain either of us more than that any should suffer for this. Tell them they must do nothing, but be patient and pray.” 92 BY WHAT AUTHORITY There was a group still on the green near the pond as Isabel came up to supper that evening about six o’clock. Her father, who had given Lady Maxwell’s message to the people an hour or two before, had asked her to go that way and send down a mes- sage to him immediately if there seemed to be any disturbance or threatening of it; but the men were very quiet. Mr. Musgrave was there, she saw, sitting with his pipe, on the stocks, and Piers, the young Irish bailiff, was standing near; they all were silent as the girl came up, and saluted her respectfully as usual; and she saw no signs of any dangerous element. There were one or two older women with the men, and others were standing at their open doors on all sides as she went up. The Rectory gate was locked, and no one was to be seen within. Supper was laid in Sir Nicholas’ room, as it generally was, and as it had been two nights ago; and it was very strange to Isabel to know that it was here that the arrest had taken place; the floor, too, she noticed as she came in, all about the threshold was scratched and dented by rough boots. Lady Maxwell was very silent and distracted during supper; she made efforts to talk again and again, and her sister did her best to interest her and keep her talking; but she always relapsed after a minute or two into silence again, with long glances round the room, at the Vernacle over the fireplace, the prie-dieu with the shield of the Five Wounds above it, and all the things that spoke so keenly of her husband. What a strange room it was, too, thought Isabel, with its odd mingling of the two worlds, with the tapestry of the hawking scene and the stiff herons and ladies on horseback on one side, and the little shelf of devotional books on the other; and yet how characteristic of its owner who fingered his cross-bow or the reins of his horse all day, and his beads in the evening; and how strange that an old man like Sir Nicholas, who knew the world, and had as much sense apparently as any one else, should be willing to sacrifice home and property and even life itself, for these so plainly empty superstitious things that could not please a God that was Spirit and Truth! So Isabel thought to herself, with no bitterness or contempt, but just a simple wonder and amazement, as she looked at the painted tokens and trinkets. It was still daylight when they went upstairs to Lady Maxwell’s room about seven, but the clear southern sky over the yew hedges and the tall elms where the rooks were circling, was beginning to be flushed with deep amber and rose. Isabel sat down in the VILLAGE JUSTICE 93 window seat with the sweet air pouring in and looked out on the garden with its tiled paths and its cool green squares of lawn, and the glowing beds at the sides. Over to her right the cloister court ran out, with its two rows of windows, bedrooms above with galleries beyond, as she knew, and parlours and cloisters below; the pleasant tinkle of the fountain in the court came faintly to her ears across the caw of the rooks about the elms and the low - sounds from the stables and the kitchen behind the house. Other- wise the evening was very still; the two old ladies were sitting near the fireplace; Lady Maxwell had taken up her embroidery, and was looking at it listlessly, and Mistress Margaret had one of her devotional books and was turning the pages, pausing here and there as she did so. Presently she began to read, without a word of introduction, one of the musings of the old monk John Audeley in his sickness, and as the tender lines stepped on, that restless jewelled hand grew still. “As I lay sick in my languor In an abbey here by west; This book I made with great dolour, When I might not sleep nor rest. Oft with my prayers my soul I blest, And said aloud to Heaven’s King, ‘I know, O Lord, it is the best Meekly to take thy visiting, Else well I wot that I were lorn (High above all lords be he blest!) All that thou dost is for the best; By fault of Thee was no man lost, That is here of woman born.’ ” And then she read some of Rolle’s verses to Jesus, the “friend of all sick and sorrowful souls,” and a meditation of his on the Passion, and the tranquil thoughts and tender fragrant sorrows soothed the torn throbbing soul; and Isabel saw the old wrinkled hand rise to her forehead, and the embroidery, with the needle still in it slipped to the ground; as the holy Name “‘like ointment poured forth” gradually brought its endless miracle and made all sweet and healthful again. Outside the daylight was fading; the luminous vault overhead was deepening to a glowing blue as the sunset contracted on the western horizon to a few vivid streaks of glory; the room was growing darker every moment; and Mistress Margaret’s voice began to stumble over words. The great gilt harp in the corner 94 BY WHAT AUTHORITY only gleamed here and there now in single lines of clear gold where the dying daylight fell on the strings. The room was full of shadows and the image of the Holy Mother and Child had darkened into obscurity in their niche. The world was silent now too; the rooks were gone home and the stir of the household below had ceased; and in a moment more Mistress Margaret’s voice had ceased too, as she laid the book down. Then, as if the world outside had waited for silence before . speaking, there came a murmur of sound from the further side of the house. Isabel started up; surely there was anger in that low roar from the village; was it this that her father had feared? Had she been remiss? Lady Maxwell too sprang up and faced the window with wide large eyes. “The letter!” she said; and took a quick step towards the door; but Mistress Margaret was with her instantly, with her arm about her. “Sit down, Mary,” she said, ‘“‘they will bring it at once”; and her sister obeyed; and she sat waiting and looking towards the door, clasping and unclasping her hands as they lay on her lap; and Mistress Margaret stood by her, waiting and watching too. Isabel still stood by the window listening. Had she been mistaken then? The roar had sunk into silence for a moment; and there came back the quick beat of a horse’s hoofs outside on the short drive between the gatehouse and the Hall. They were right, then; and even as she thought it, and as the wife that waited for news of her husband drew a quick breath and half rose in her seat at the sound of that shod messenger that bore them, again the roar swelled up louder than ever; and Isabel sprang down from the low step of the window-seat into the dusky room where the two sisters waited. “What is that? What is that?” she whispered sharply. There was a sound of opening doors, and of feet that ran in the house below; and Lady Maxwell rose up and put out her hand, as a man-servant dashed in with a letter. “My lady,” he said panting, and giving it to her, “they are attacking the Rectory.” Lady Maxwell, who was half-way to the window now, for light to read her husband’s letter, paused at that. “The Rectory?” she said. “‘Why—Margaret ” then she stopped, and Isabel close beside her, saw her turn irresolutely from the great sealed letter in her hand to the door, and back again. VILLAGE JUSTICE 95 “Jervis told us, my lady; none saw him as he rode through— they were breaking down the gate.” Then Lady Maxwell, with a quick movement, lifted the letter to her lips and kissed it, and thrust it down somewhere out of sight in the folds of her dress. “Come, Margaret,” she said. Isabel followed them down the stairs and out through the hall-door; and there, as they came out on to the steps that savage snarling roar swelled up from the green. There was laughter and hooting mixed with that growl of anger; but even the laughter was fierce. The gatehouse stood up black against the glare of torches, and the towers threw great swinging shadows on the ground and the steps of the Hall. Isabel followed the two grey glimmering figures, and was aston- ished at the speed with which she had to go. The hoofs of the courier’s horse rang on the cobbles of the stable-yard as they came down towards the gatehouse, and the two wings of the door were wide-open through which he had passed just now; but the porter was gone. Ah! there was the crowd; but not at the Rectory. On the right the Rectory gate lay wide open, and a flood of light poured out from the house-door at the end of the drive. Before them lay the dark turf, swarming with black figures towards the lower end; and a ceaseless roar came from them. There were half a dozen torches down there, tossing to and fro; Isabel saw that the crowd was still moving down towards the stocks and the pond. Now the two ladies in front of her were just coming up with the skirts of the crowd; and there was an exclamation or two of astonishment as the women and children saw who it was that was coming. Then there came the furious scream of a man, and the crowd parted, as three men came reeling out together, two of them trying with all their power to restrain a fighting, kicking, plunging man in long black skirts, who tore and beat with his hands. The three ladies stopped for a moment, close together; and simultaneously the struggling man broke free and dashed back into the crowd, screaming with anger and misery. “Marion, Marion—I am coming—O God!” And Isabel saw with a shock of horror that sent her crouching and clinging close to Mistress Margaret, that it was the Rector. But the two men were after him and caught him by the shoulders as he disappeared; and as they turned they faced Lady Maxwell. 96 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “My lady, my lady,” stammered one, “we mean him no harm. We ” But his voice stopped, as there came a sudden silence, rent by a high terrible shriek and a splash; followed in a moment by a yell of laughter and shouting; and Lady Maxwell threw her- self into the crowd in front. There were a few moments of jostling in the dark, with the reek and press of the crowd about her; and Isabel found herself on the brink of the black pond, with Lady Maxwell on one side, and Piers on the other keeping the crowd back, and a dripping figure moaning and sobbing in the trampled mud at Lady Max- well’s feet. There was silence enough now, and the ring of faces opposite stared astonished and open-mouthed at the tall old lady with her grey veiled head upraised, as she stood there in the torchlight and rated them in her fearless indignant voice. “YT am ashamed, ashamed!” cried Lady Maxwell. “I thought you were men. I thought you loved my husband; and—and me.” Her voice broke, and then once more she cried again. “I am ashamed, ashamed of my village.” And then she stooped to that heaving figure that had crawled up, and laid hold tenderly of the arms that were writhed about her feet. ‘““Come home, my dear,” Isabel heard her whisper. It was a strange procession homeward up the trampled turf. The crowd had broken into groups, and the people were awed and silent as they watched the four women go back together. Isabel walked a little behind with her father and Anthony, who had at last been able to come forward through the press and join them; and a couple of the torchbearers escorted them. In front went the three, on one side Lady Maxwell, her lace and silk splashed and spattered with mud, and her white hands black with it, and on the other the old nun, each with an arm thrown round the woman in the centre who staggered and sobbed and leaned against them as she went, with her long hair and her draggled clothes streaming with liquid mud every step she took. Once they stopped, at a group of three men. The Rector was sitting up, in his torn dusty cassock, and Isabel saw that one of his buckled shoes was gone, as he sat on the grass with his feet before him, but quiet now, with his hands before him, and a dazed stupid look in his little black eyes that blinked at the light of the torch that was held over him; he said nothing as he looked at his wife between the two ladies, but his lips moved, and his VILLAGE JUSTICE 97 eyes wandered for a moment to Lady Maxwell’s face, and then back to his wife. “Take him home presently,” she said to the men who were with him—and then passed on again. As they got through the gatehouse, Isabel stepped forward to Mistress Margaret’s side. “Shall I come?” she whispered; and the nun shook her head; so she with her father and brother stood there to watch, with the crowd silent and ashamed behind. The two torchbearers went on, and stood by the steps as the three ladies ascended, leaving black footmarks as they went. The door was open and faces of servants peeped out, and hands were thrust out to take the burden from their mistress, but she shook her head, and the three came in together, and the door closed. As the Norrises went back silently, the Rector passed them, with a little group accompanying him too; he, too, could hardly walk alone, so exhausted was he with his furious struggles to rescue his wife. “Take your sister home,” said Mr. Norris to Anthony; and they saw him slip off and pass his arm through the Rector’s, and bend down his handsome kindly face to the minister’s staring -eyes and moving lips as he too led him homewards. Even Anthony was hushed and impressed, and hardly spoke a word until he and Isabel turned off down the little dark lane to the Dower House. “We could do nothing,” he said, “father and I—until Lady Maxwell came.” | “No,” said Isabel softly, “she only could have done it.” CHAPTER X A CONFESSOR Smr Nicuotas and the party were lodged at East Grinsted the night of their arrest, in the magistrate’s house. Although he was allowed privacy in his room, after he had given his word of honour not to attempt an escape, yet he was allowed no conversation with Mr. Stewart or his own servant except in the presence of the magistrate or one of the pursuivants; and Mr. Stewart, since he was personally unknown to the magistrate, and since the charge against him was the graver, was not on any ac- count allowed to be alone for a moment, even in the room in which he slept. The following day they all rode on to London, and the two prisoners were lodged in the Marshalsea. This had been for a long while the place where Bishop Bonner was confined; and where Catholic prisoners were often sent immediately after their arrest; and Sir Nicholas at any rate found to his joy that he had several old friends among the prisoners. He was confined in a separate room; but by the kindness of his gaoler whom he bribed profusely as the custom was, through his servant, he had many opportunities of meeting the others; and even of approach- ing the sacraments and hearing mass now and then. He began a letter to his wife on the day of his arrival and finished it the next day. which was Saturday, and it was taken down immediately by the courier who had heard the news and had called at the prison. In fact, he was allowed a good deal of liberty; although he was watched and his conversation listened to, a good deal more than he was aware. Mr. Stewart, however, as he still called himself, was in a much harder case. The saddle- bags had been opened on his arrival, and incriminating docu- ments found. Besides the “popish trinkets” they were found to contain a number of “seditious pamphlets,” printed abroad for distribution in England; for at this time the College at Douai, under its founder Dr. William Allen, late Principal of St. Mary’s Hall, Oxford, was active in the production of literature; these were chiefly commentaries on the Bull; as well as exhortations to 98 A: CONFESSOR 99 the Catholics to stand firm and to persevere in recusancy, and to the schismatic Catholics, as they were called, to give over attending the services in the parish churches. There were letters also from Dr. Storey himself, whom the authorities already had in person under lock and key at the Tower. These were quite sufficient to make Mr. Stewart a prize; and he also was very shortly afterwards removed to the Tower. Sir Nicholas wrote a letter at least once a week to his wife; but writing was something of a labour to him; it was exceedingly doubtful to his mind whether his letters were not opened and read before being handed to the courier, and as his seal was taken from him his wife could not tell either. However they seemed to arrive regularly; plainly therefore the authorities were either satisfied with their contents or else did not think them worth opening or suppressing. He was quite peremptory that his wife should not come up to London; it would only increase his distress, he said; and he liked to think of her at Maxwell Hall; there were other reasons too that he was prudent enough not to commit to paper, and which she was prudent enough to guess at, the principal of which was, of course, that she ought to be there for the entertaining and helping of other agents or priests who might be in need of shelter. The old man got into good spirits again very soon. It pleased ‘him to think that God had honoured him by imprisonment; and he said as much once or twice in his letters to his wife. He was also pleased with a sense of the part he was playing in the réle of a conspirator; and he underlined and put signs and exclamation marks all over his letters of which he thought his wife would understand the significance, but no one else; whereas in reality the old lady was sorely puzzled by them, and the authorities who opened the letters generally read them of course like a printed book. One morning about ten days after his arrival the Governor of the prison looked in with the gaoler, and announced to Sir Nicholas, after greeting him, that he was to appear before the Council that very day. This, of course, was what Sir Nicholas desired, and he thanked the Governor cordially for his good news. “They will probably keep you at the Tower, Sir Nicholas,” said the Governor, “and we shall lose you. However, sir, I hope you will be more comfortable there than we have been able to make you.” The knight thanked the Governor again, and said good-day I0o BY WHAT AUTHORITY to him with great warmth; for they had been on the best of terms with one another during his short detention at the Marshalsea. The following day Sir Nicholas wrote a long letter to his wife describing his examination. “We are in royal lodgings here at last, sweetheart; Mr. Boyd brought my luggage over yesterday; and I am settled for the present in a room of my own in the White Tower; with a prospect over the Court. I was had before my lords yesterday in the Council-room; we drove hither from the Marshalsea. There was a bay window in the room. I promise you they got little enough from me. There was my namesake, Sir Nicholas Bacon, my lords Leicester and Pembroke, and Mr. Secretary Cecil; Sir James Crofts, the Controller of the Household, and one or two more; but these were the principal. I was set before the table on a chair alone with none to guard me; but with men at the doors I knew very well. My lords were very courteous to me; though they laughed more than was seemly at such grave times. ‘They questioned me much as to my religion. Was Ia Papist? If they meant by that a Catholic, that I was, and thanked God for it every day—(those nicknames like me not). Was I then a re- cusant? If by that they meant, Did I go to their Genevan Hotch-Potch? That I did not nor never would. I thought to have said a word here about St. Cyprian his work De Unitate Ecclesiae, as F r X. told me, but they would not let me speak. Did I know Mr. Chapman? If by that they meant Mr. Stewart, that I did, and for a courteous God-fearing gentleman too. Was he a Papist, or a Catholic if I would have it so? That I would not tell them; let them find that out with their pur- suivants and that crew. Did I think Protestants to be fearers of God? That I did not; they feared nought but the Queen’s Majesty, so it seemed to me. Then they all laughed at once— I know not why. Then they grew grave; and Mr. Secretary began to ask me questions, sharp and hard; but I would not be put upon, and answered him again as he asked. Did I know ought of Dr. Storey? Nothing, said I, save that he is a good Catholic, and that they had taken him. He 7s a seditious rogue, said my Lord Pembroke. That he is not, said I. Then they asked me what I thought of the Pope and his Bull, and whether he can depose princes. I said I thought him to be the Vicar of Christ; and as to his power to depose princes, that I supposed he could do, if he said so. Then two or three cried out on me that I had not answered honestly; and at that I got wrath; and then they A CONFESSOR IOI laughed again, at least I saw Sir James Crofts at it. And Mr. Secretary, looking very hard at me asked whether if Philip sent an armament against Elizabeth to depose her, I would fight for him or her Grace. For neither, said I: I am too old. For which then would you pray? said they. For the Queen’s Grace, said I, for that she was my sovereign. This seemed to content them; and they talked a little among themselves. They had asked me other questions too as to my way of living; whether I went to mass. They asked me too a little more about Mr. Stewart. Did I know him to be a seditious rascal? That I did not, said I. Then how, asked they, did you come to receive him and his pamphlets? Of his pamphlets, said I, I know nothing; I saw nothing in his bags save beads and a few holy books and such things. (You see, sweetheart, I did him no injury by saying so, because I knew that they had his bags themselves.) And I said I had received him because he was recommended to me by some good friends of mine abroad, and I told them their names too; for they are safe in Flanders now. “And when they had done their questions they talked again for a while; and I was sent out to the antechamber to refresh myself; and Mr. Secretary sent a man with me to see that I had all I needed; and we talked together a little, and he said the Council were in good humour at the taking of Dr. Storey; and he had never seen them so merry. Then I was had back again presently; and Mr. Secretary said I was to stay in the Tower; and that Mr. Boyd was gone already to bring my things. And so after that I went by water to the Tower, and here I am, sweet- heart, well and cheerful, praise God. My dearest, I send you my heart’ S ‘best love. God have you in his holy keeping.” The Council treated the old knight very tenderly. They were shrewd enough to see his character very plainly; and that he was a simple man who knew nothing of sedition, but only had harboured agents thinking them to be as guileless as himself, As a matter of fact, Mr. Stewart was an agent of Dr. Storey’s; and was therefore implicated in a number of very grave charges. This of course was a very serious matter; but both in the exam- ination of the Council, and in papers in Mr. Stewart’s bags, nothing could be found to implicate Sir Nicholas in any political intrigue at all. The authorities were unwilling too to put such a man to the torture. There was always a possibility of public resentment against the torture of a man for his religion alone; 102 BY WHAT AUTHORITY and they were desirous not to arouse this, since they had many prisoners who would be more productive subjects of the rack than a plainly simple and loyal old man whose only crime was his religion. ‘They determined, however, to make an attempt to get a little more out of Sir Nicholas by a device which would excite no resentment if it ever transpired, and one which was more suited to the old man’s nature and years. Sir Nicholas thus described it to his wife. “Last night, my dearest, I had a great honour and consolation. I was awakened suddenly towards two o’clock in the morning by the door of my room opening and a man coming in. It was some- what dark, and I could not see the man plainly, but I could see that he limped and walked with a stick, and he breathed hard as he entered. I sat up and demanded of him who he was and what he wanted; and telling me to be still, he said that he was Dr. Storey. You may be sure, sweetheart, that I sprang up at that; but he would not let me rise; and himself sat down beside me. He said that by the kindness of a gaoler he had been allowed to come; and that he must not stay with me long; that he had heard of me from his good friend Mr. Stewart. I asked him how he did, for I heard that he had been racked; and he said yes, it was true; but that by the mercy of God and the prayers of the saints he had held his peace and they knew nothing from him. Then he asked me a great number of questions about the men I had entertained, and where they were now; and he knew many of their names. Some of them were friends of his own, he said; especially the priests. We talked a good while, till the morning light began; and then he said he must be gone or the head gaoler would know of his visit, and so he went. I wish I could have seen his face, sweetheart, for I think him a great servant of God; but it was still too dark when he went, and we dared not have a light for fear it should be seen.” This was as a matter of fact a ruse of the authorities. It was not Dr. Storey at all who was admitted to Sir Nicholas’ prison, but Parker, who had betrayed him at Antwerp. It was so suc- cessful, for Sir Nicholas told him all that he knew (which was really nothing at all) that it was repeated a few months later with richer results; when the conspirator Bailey, hysterical and almost beside himself with the pain of the rack, under similar circumstances gave up a cypher which was necessary to the Council in dealing with the correspondence of Mary Stuart. However, Sir Nicholas never knew the deception, and to the end A CONFESSOR 103 of his days was proud that he had actually met the famous Dr. Storey, when they were both imprisoned in the Tower together, and told his friends of it with reverent pride when the doctor was hanged a year later. Hubert, who had been sent for to take charge of the estate, had come to London soon after his father’s arrival at the Tower; and was allowed an interview with him in the presence of the Lieutenant. Hubert was greatly affected; though he could not look upon the imprisonment with the same solemn exultation as that which his father had; but it made a real impression upon him to find that he took so patiently this separation from home and family for the sake of religion. Hubert received instructions from Sir Nicholas as to the management of the estate, for it was be- coming plain that his father would have to remain in the Tower for the present; not any longer on a really grave charge, but chiefly because he was an obstinate recusant and would promise nothing. The law and its administration at this time were very far apart; the authorities were not very anxious to search out and punish those who were merely recusants or refused to take the oath of supremacy; and so Hubert and Mr. Boyd and other Catholics were able to come and go under the very nose of justice without any real risk to themselves; but it was another matter to let a sturdy recusant go from prison who stoutly refused to give any sort of promise or understanding as to future behaviour. Sir Nicholas was had down more than once to further examina- tion before the Lords Commissioners in the Lieutenant’s house; _ Sut it was a very tame and even an amusing affair for all save Sir Nicholas. It was so easy to provoke him; he was so simole and passionate that they could get almost anything they wanted! out of him by a little adroit baiting; and more than onc: his examination formed a welcome and humorous entr’acte between two real tragedies. Sir Nicholas, of course, never suspected for a moment that he was affording any amusement to any one. He thought their weary laughter to be sardonic and ironical, and he looked upon himself as a very desperate fellow indeed; and wrote glowing accounts of it all to his wife, full of apostrophic praises to God and the saints, in a hand that shook with excitement and awe at the thought of the important scenes in which he played so prominent a part. But there was no atmosphere of humour about Mr. Stewart. He had disappeared from Sir Nicholas’ sight on their arrival at the Marshalsea, and they had not set eyes on one another since; 104 BY WHAT AUTHORITY nor could all the knight’s persuasion and offer of bribes make his gaoler consent to take any message or scrap of paper between them. He would not even answer more than the simplest in- quiries about him,—that he was alive and in the Tower, and so forth; and Sir Nicholas prayed often and earnestly for that deliberate and vivacious young man who had so charmed and interested them all down at Great Keynes, and who had been so mysteriously engulfed by the sombre majesty of the law. “T fear,” he wrote to Lady Maxwell, “I fear that our friend must be sick or dying. But I can hear no news of him; when I am allowed sometimes to walk in the court or on the leads he is never there. My attendant Mr. Jakes looks glum and says noth- ing when I ask him how my friend does. My dearest, do not forget him in your prayers nor your old loving husband eitner.. One evening late in October Mr. Jakes did not come as usual to bring Sir Nicholas his supper at five o’clock; the time passed and still he did not come. This was very unusual. Presently Mrs. Jakes appeared instead, carrying the food which she set down at the door while she turned the key behind her. Sir Nicholas rallied her on having turned gaoler; but she turned on him a face with red eyes and lined with weeping. “OQ Sir Nicholas,” she said, for these two were good friends, ‘““what a wicked place this is! God forgive me for saying so; but they’ve had that young man down there since two o’clock; and Jakes is with them to help; and he told me to come up to you, Sir Nicholas, with your supper, if they weren’t done by five; and if the young gentleman hadn’t said what they wanted.” Sir Nicholas felt sick. “Who is it?” he asked. “Why, who but Mr. Stewart?” she said; and then fell weeping again, and went out forgetting to lock the door behind her in her grief. Sir Nicholas sat still a moment, sick and shaken; he knew what it meant; but it had never come so close to him before. He got up presently and went to the door to listen for he knew not what. But there was no sound but the moan of the wind up the draughty staircase, and the sound of a prisoner singing somewhere above him a snatch of a song. He looked out presently, but there was nothing but the dark well of the staircase disappearing round to the left, and the glimmer of an oil lamp somewhere from the depths below him, with wavering shadows as the light was blown about by the gusts that came up from outside. There was nothing A CONFESSOR 105 to be done of course; he closed the door, went back and prayed with all his might for the young man who was somewhere in this huge building, in his agony. Mr. Jakes came up himself within half an hour to see if all was well; but said nothing of his dreadful employment or of Mr. Stewart; and Sir Nicholas did not like to ask for fear of getting Mrs. Jakes into trouble. The gaoler took away the supper things, wished him good-night, went out and locked the door, apparently without noticing it had been left undone before. Possibly his mind was too much occupied with what he had been seeing and doing. And the faithful account of all this went down in due time to Great Keynes. The arrival of the courier at the Hall on Wednesday and Saturday was a great affair both to the household and to the village. Sir Nicholas sent his letter generally by the Saturday courier, and the other brought a kind of bulletin from Mr. Boyd, with sometimes a message or two from his master. These letters were taken by the ladies first to the study, as if to an oratory, and Lady Maxwell would read them slowly over to her sister. And in the evening, when Isabel generally came up for an hour or two, the girl would be asked to read them slowly all over again to the two ladies who sat over their embroidery on either side of her, ‘and who interrupted for the sheer joy of prolonging it. And they would discuss together the exact significance of all his marks of emphasis and irony; and the girl would have all she could do sometimes not to feel a disloyal amusement at the transparency of the devices and the simplicity of the loving hearts that mar- velled at the writer’s depth and ingenuity. But she was none the less deeply impressed by his courageous cheerfulness, and by the power of a religion that in spite of its obvious weaknesses and improbabilities yet inspired an old man like Sir Nicholas with so much fortitude. At first, too, a kind of bulletin was always issued on the Sunday and Thursday mornings, and nailed upon the outside of the gatehouse, so that any who pleased could come there and get first-hand information; and an interpreter stood there sometimes, | one of the educated younger sons of Mr. Piers, and read out to the groups from Lady Maxwell’s sprawling old handwriting, news of the master. “Sir Nicholas has been had before the Council,” he read out one day in a high complacent voice to the awed listeners, “and has been sent to the Tower of London.” This caused consterna- 106 BY WHAT AUTHORITY tion in the village, as it was supposed by the country-folk, not without excuse, that the Tower was the antechamber of death; but confidence was restored by the further announcement a few lines down that ‘“‘he was well and cheerful.” Great interest, too, was aroused by more domestic matters. “Sir Nicholas,” it was proclaimed, “‘is in a little separate cham- ber of his own. Mr. Jakes, his gaoler, seems an honest fellow. Sir Nicholas hath a little mattress from a friend that Mr. Boyd fetched for him. He has dinner at eleven and supper at five. Sir Nicholas hopes that all are well in the village.” But other changes had followed the old knight’s arrest. The furious indignation in the village against the part that the Rectory had played in the matter, made it impossible for the Dents to remain there. That the minister’s wife should have been publicly ducked, and that not by a few blackguards but by the solid fathers and sons with the applause of the wives and daughters, made her husband’s position intolerable, and further evidence was forthcoming in the behaviour of the people towards the Rector himself; some boys had guffawed during his sermon on the following Sunday, when he had ventured on a word or two of penitence as to his share in the matter, and he was shouted after on his way home. Mrs. Dent seemed strangely changed and broken during her stay at the Hall. She had received a terrible shock, and it was not safe to move her back to her own house. For the first two or three nights, she would start from sleep again and again scream- ing for help and mercy and nothing would quiet her till she was wide awake and saw in the firelight the curtained windows and the bolted door, and the kindly face of an old servant or Mistress Margaret with her beads in her hand. Isabel, who came up to see her two or three times, was both startled and affected by the change in her; and by the extraordinary mood of humility which seemed to have taken possession of the hard self-righteous Puritan. “IT begged pardon,” she whispered to the girl one evening, sit- ting up in bed and staring at her with wide, hard eyes, “I begged pardon of Lady Maxwell, though I am not fit to speak to her. Do you think she can ever forgive me? Do you think she can? It was I, you know, who wrought all the mischief, as I have wrought all the mischief in the village all these years. She said she did, and she kissed me, and said that our Saviour had for- given her much more. But—but do you think she has forgiven A CONFESSOR 107 me?”’ And then again, another night, a day or two before they left the place, she spoke to Isabel again. “Look after the poor bodies,” she said, “teach them a little charity; I have taught them nought but bitterness and malice, so they have but given me my own back again. I have reaped what I have sown.” So the Dents slipped off early one morning before the folks were up; and by the following Sunday, young Mr. Bodder, of whom the Bishop entertained a high opinion, occupied the little desk outside the chancel arch; and Great Keynes once more had to thank God and the diocesan that it possessed a proper minister of its own, and not a mere unordained reader, which was all that many parishes could obtain. Towards the end of September further hints began to arrive, very much underlined, in the knight’s letters, of Mr. Stewart and his sufferings. “You remember our friend,” Isabel read out one Saturday eve- ning, “not Mr. Stewart. (This puzzled the old ladies sorely till Isabel explained their lord’s artfulness.) “My dearest, I fear the worst for him. I do not mean apostacy, thank God. But I fear that these wolves have torn him sadly, in their dens.’ Then followed the story of Mrs. Jakes, with all its horror, all the greater from the obscurity of the details. Isabel put the paper down trembling, as she sat on the rug before the fire in the parlour upstairs, and thought of the bright- eyed, red-haired man with his steady mouth and low laugh whom Anthony had described to her. Lady Maxwell posted upon the gatehouse: “Sir Nicholas fears that a friend is in sore trouble; he hopes he may not yield.” Then, after a few days more, a brief notice with a black line drawn round it, that ran, in Mr. Bodder’s despite: “Our friend has passed away. Pray for his soul.” Sir Nicholas had written in great agitation to this effect. “My sweetheart, I have heavy news to-day. There was a great company of folks below my window to-day, in the Inner Ward, where the road runs up below the Bloody Tower. It was about nine of the clock. And there was a horse there whose head I. could see; and presently from the Beauchamp Tower came, as I thought, an old man between two warders; and then I could not very well see; the men were in my way; but soon the horse went off, and the men after him; and I could hear the groaning of the 108 BY WHAT AUTHORITY crowd that were waiting for them outside. And when Mr, Jakes brought me my dinner at eleven of the clock, he told me it was our friend—(think of it, my dearest—him whom I thought an old man! )—that had been taken off to Tyburn. And now I need say no more, but bid you pray for his soul.” Isabel could hardly finish reading it; for she heard a quick sobbing breath behind her, and felt a wrinkled old hand caressing her hair and cheek as her voice faltered. Meanwhile Hubert was in town. Sir Nicholas had at first intended him to go down at once and take charge of the estate; but Piers was very competent, and so his father consented that he should remain in London until the beginning of October; and this too better suited Mr. Norris’ plans who wished to send Isabel off about the same time to Northampton. When Hubert at last did arrive, he soon showed himself ex- tremely capable and apt for the work. He was out on the estate from morning till night on his cob, and there was not a man under © him from Piers downwards who had anything but praise for his insight and industry. There was in Hubert, too, as there so often is in country-boys who love and understand the life of the woods and fields, a balancing quality of a deep vein of sentiment; and this was now consecrated to Isabel Norris. He had pleasant dreams as he rode home in the autumn evening, under the sweet keen sky where the harvest moon rose large and yellow over the hills to his left and shed a strange mystical light that blended in a kind of chord with the dying daylight. It was at times like that, when the air was fragrant with the scent of dying leaves, with perhaps a touch of frost in it, and the cottages one by one opened red glowing eyes in the dusk, that the boy began to dream of a home of his own and pleasant domestic joys; of burning logs on the hearth and lighted candles, and a dear slender figure moving about the room. He used to rehearse to himself little meetings and partings; look at the roofs of the Dower House against the primrose sky as he rode up the fields homewards; identify her window, dark now. as she was away; and long for Christmas when she would be back again. ‘The only shadow over these delightful pictures was the uncertainty as to the future. Where after all would the home be? For he was a younger son. He thought about James very often. When he came back would he live at home? Would it all be James’ at his father’s death, these woods and fields and farms and stately house? Would it ever come to him? And A CONFESSOR 109 meanwhile where should he and Isabel live, when the religious difficulty had been surmounted, as he had no doubt that it would be sooner or later? When he thought of his father now, it was with a continually increasing respect. He had been inclined to despise him some- times before, as one of a simple and uneventful life; but now the red shadow of the Law conferred dignity. To have been imprisoned in the Tower was a patent of nobility, adding dis- tinction and gravity to the commonplace. Something of the glory even rested on Hubert himself as he rode and hawked with other Catholic boys, whose fathers maybe were equally zealous for the Faith, but less distinguished by suffering for it. Before Anthony went back to Cambridge, he and Hubert went out nearly every day together with or without their hawks. Anthony was about three years the younger, and Hubert’s addi- tional responsibility for the estate made the younger boy more in awe of him than the difference in their ages warranted. Be- sides, Hubert knew quite as much about sport, and had more opportunities for indulging his taste for it. There was no heronry at hand; besides, it was not the breeding time which is the proper season for this particular sport; so they did not trouble to ride out to one; but the partridges and hares and rabbits that abounded in the Maxwell estate gave them plenty of quarreys. They preferred to go out generally without the falconer, a Dutch- man, who had been taken into the service of Sir Nicholas thirty years before when things had been more prosperous; it was less embarrassing so; but they would have a lad to carry the “cadge,” and a pony following them to carry the game. They added to the excitement of the sport by making it a competition between their birds; and flying them one after another, or sometimes at the same quarry, as in coursing; but this often led to the birds’ crabbing. Anthony’s peregrine Eliza was almost unapproachable; and the lad was the more proud of her as he had ‘“‘made” her himself, as an “eyess” or young falcon captured as a nestling. But, on the other hand, Hubert’s goshawk Margaret, a fiery little creature, named inappropriately enough after his tranquil aunt, as a rule did better than Anthony’s Isabel, and brought the scores level again. There was one superb day that survived long in Anthony’s memory and conversation; when he had done exceptionally well, when Eliza had surpassed herself, and even Isabel had acquitted 1IO BY WHAT AUTHORPITY herself with credit. It was one of those glorious days of wind and sun that occasionally fall in early October, with a pale turquoise sky overhead, and air that seems to sparkle and intoxi- cate like wine. They went out together after dinner about noon; their ponies and spaniels danced with the joy of life; Lady Maxwell cried to them from the north terrace to be careful, and pointed out to Mr. Norris who had dined with them what a grace-. ful seat Hubert had; and then added politely, but as an obvious afterthought, that Anthony seemed to manage his pony with great address. The boys turned off through the village, and soon got on to high ground to the west of the village and all among. the stubble and mustard, with tracts of rich sunlit country, of meadows and russet woodland below them on every side. Then the sport began. It seemed as if Eliza could not make a mistake. There rose a solitary partridge forty yards away with a whirl of wings; (the coveys were being well broken up by now) Anthony unhooded his bird and “cast off,’ with the falconer’s cry “Hoo-ha, ha, ha, ha,” and up soared Eliza with the tinkle of bells, on great strokes of those mighty wings, up, up, behind the partridge that fled low down the wind for his life. The two ponies were put to the gallop as the peregrine began to “stoop”; and then down like a plummet she fell with closed wings, ‘‘raked”’ the quarry with her talons as she passed; recovered herself, and as Anthony came up holding out the tabur-stycke, returned to him and was hooded and leashed again; and sat there on his gloved wrist with wet claws, just shivering slightly from her nerves, like the aristocrat she was; while her master stroked her ashy back and the boy picked up the quarry, admiring the deep rent before he threw it into the pannier. Then Hubert had the next turn; but his falcon missed his first stoop, and did not strike the quarry till the second attempt, thus scoring one to Anthony’s account. Then the peregrines were put back on the cadge as the boys got near to a wide meadow in a hollow where the rabbits used to feed; and the goshawks Margaret and Isabel were taken, each in turn sitting unhooded on her master’s wrist, while they all watched the long thin grass for the quick movement that marked the passage of a rabbit;—and then in a moment the bird was cast off. The goshawk would rise just high enough to see the quarry in the grass, then fly straight with arched wings and pounces stretched out as she came over the quarry; then striking him between the shoulders would close with him; and her master would come up and take her off, throw A CONFESSOR III the rabbit to the game-carrier; and the other would have the next attempt. . And so they went on for three or four hours, encouraging their birds, whooping the death of the quarry, watching with all the sportsman’s keenness the soaring and stooping of the peregrines, the raking off of the goshawks; listening to the thrilling tinkle of the bells, and taking back their birds to sit triumphant and com- placent on their master’s wrists, when the quarry had been fairly struck, and furious and sullen when it had eluded them two or three times till their breath left them in the dizzy rushes, and they “canceliered” or even returned disheartened and would fly no more till they had forgotten—till at last the shadows grew long, and the game more wary, and the hawks and ponies tired; and the boys put up the birds on the cadge, and leashed them to it securely; and jogged slowly homewards together up the valley road that led to the village, talking in technical terms of how the merlin’s feather must be “‘imped” to-morrow; and of the relative merits of the “varvels” or little silver rings at the end of the jesses through which the leash ran, and the Dutch swivel that Squire Blackett always used. As they got nearer home and the red roofs of the Dower House began to glow in the ruddy sunlight above the meadows, Hubert began to shift the conversation round to Isabel, and inquire when she was coming home. Anthony was rather bored at this turn of the talk; but thought she would be back by Christmas at the latest; and said that she was at Northampton—and had Hubert ever seen such courage as Eliza’s? But Hubert would not be put off; but led the talk back again to the girl; and at last told Anthony under promise of secrecy that he was fond of Isabel, and wished to make her his wife; and oh! did Anthony think she cared really for him. Anthony stared and wondered and had no opinion at all on the subject; but presently fell in love with the idea that Hubert should be his brother-in-law and go hawking with him every day; and he added a private romance of his own in which he and Mary Corbet should be at the Dower House, with Hubert and Isabel at the Hall; while the elders, his own father, Sir Nicholas, Mr. James, Lady Maxwell, and Mistress Torridon had all taken up submissive and complacent attitudes in the middle distance. He was so pensive that evening that his father asked him at supper whether he had not had a good day; which diverted his thoughts from Mistress Corbet, and led him away from senti- 112 BY WHAT AUTHORITY ment on a stream of his own talk with long backwaters of descrip- tion of this and that stoop, and of exactly the points in which he thought the Maxwells’ falconer had failed in the training of Hubert’s Jane. Hubert found a long letter waiting from his father which Lady Maxwell gave him to read, with messages to himself in it about the estate, which brought him down again from the treading of rosy cloud-castles with a phantom Isabel whither his hawks and the shouting wind and the happy day had wafted him, down to questions of barns and farm-servants and the sober realities of harvest. CHAPTER XI MASTER CALVIN ISABEL reached Northampton a day or two before Hubert came back to Great Keynes. She travelled down with two combined parties going to Leicester and Nottingham, sleeping at Leighton Buzzard on the way; and on the evening of the second day reached the house of her father’s friend Dr. Carrington, that stood in the Market Square. Her father’s intention in sending her to this particular town and household was to show her how Puritanism, when carried to its extreme, was as orderly and disciplined a system, and was able to control the lives of its adherents, as well as the Catholi- cism whose influence on her character he found himself beginning to fear. But he wished also that she should be repelled to some extent by the merciless rigidity she would find at Northampton, and thus, after an oscillation or two come to rest in the quiet eclec- ticism of that middle position which he occupied himself, The town indeed was at this time a miniature Geneva. There was something in the temper of its inhabitants that made it espe- cially susceptible to the wave of Puritanism that was sweeping over England. Lollardy had flourished among them so far back as the reign of Richard II; when the mayor, as folks told one another with pride, had plucked a mass-priest by the vestment on the way to the altar in All Saints’ Church, and had made him give over his mummery till the preacher had finished his sermon. Dr. Carrington, too, a clean-shaven, blue-eyed, grey-haired man, churchwarden of Saint Sepulcher’s, was a representative of the straitest views, and desperately in earnest. For him the world ranged itself into the redeemed and the damned; these two companies were the pivots of life for him; and every subject of mind or desire was significant only so far as it bore relations to the immutable decrees of God. But his fierce and merciless theological insistence was disguised by a real human tenderness and a marked courtesy of manner; and Isabel found him a kindly and thoughtful host. 113 114 BY WHAT AUTHORITY Yet the mechanical strictness of the household, and the over- powering sense of the weightiness of life that it conveyed, was a revelation to Isabel. Dr. Carrington at family prayers was a tre- mendous figure, as he kneeled upright at the head of the table in the sombre dining-room; and it seemed to Isabel in her place that the pitiless all-seeing Presence that kept such terrifying silence as the Doctor cried on Jehovah, was almost a different God to that whom she knew in the morning parlour at home, to whom her father prayed with more familiarity but no less romance, and who answered in the sunshine that lay on the carpet, and the shadows-of boughs that moved across it, and the chirp of the birds under the eaves. And all day long she thought she noticed the same difference; at Great Keynes life was made up of many parts, the love of family, the country doings, the worship of God, the garden, and the company of the Hall ladies; and the Presence of God interpenetrated all like light or fra- grance; but here life was lived under the glare of His eye, and absorption in any detail apart from the consciousness of that encompassing Presence had the nature of sin. On the Saturday after her arrival, as she was walking by the Nen with Kate Carrington, one of the two girls, she asked her about the crowd of ministers she had seen in the streets that morning. “They have been to the Prophesyings,’ said Kate. “My father says that there is no exercise that sanctifies a godly young minister so quickly.” Kate went on to describe them further. The ministers assem- bled each Saturday at nine o’clock, and one of their number gave a short Bible-reading or lecture. Then all present were invited to join in the discussion; the less instructed would ask questions, the more experienced would answer, and debate would run high. Such a method, Kate explained, who herself was a zealous and well instructed Calvinist, was the surest and swiftest road to truth, for every one held the open Scriptures in his hand, and interpreted and checked the speakers by the aid of that infallible guide. “But if a man’s judgment lead him wrong?” asked Isabel, who professedly admitted authority to have some place in mat- ters of faith. ‘‘All must hold the Apostles’ Creed first of all,” said Kate, “and must set his name to a paper declaring the Pope to be antichrist, with other truths upon it.” MASTER CALVIN II5 Isabel was puzzled; for it seemed now as if Private Judgment were not supreme among its professors; but she did not care to question further. It began to dawn upon her presently, how- ever, why the Queen was so fierce against Prophesyings; for she saw that they exercised that spirit of exclusiveness, the prop- erty of Papist and Puritan alike; which, since it was the antith- esis of the tolerant comprehensiveness of the Church of Eng- land, was also the enemy of the theological peace that Elizabeth was seeking to impose upon the country; and that it was for that reason that Papist and Puritan, sundered so far in theology, were united in suffering for conscience’ sake. On the Sunday morning Isabel went with Mrs. Carrington and the two girls to the round Templars’ Church of Saint Sepulchre for the Morning Prayer at eight o’clock, and then on to St. Peter’s for the sermon. It was the latter function that was important in Puritan eyes; for the word preached was considered to have an almost sacramental force in the application of truth and grace to the soul; and crowds of people, with downcast eyes and in sombre dress, were pouring down the narrow streets from all the churches round, while the great bell beat out its summons from the Norman tower. The church was filled from end to end as they came in, meeting Dr. Carrington at the door, and they all passed up together to the pew reserved for the church- warden, close beneath the pulpit. As Isabel looked round her, it came upon her very forcibly what she had begun to notice even at Great Keynes, that the religion preached there did not fit the church in which it was set forth; and that, though great efforts had been made to con- form the building to the worship. There had been no half meas- ures at Northampton, for the Puritans had a loathing of what they called a “mingle-mangle.” Altars, footpaces, and piscine had been swept away and all marks of them removed, as well as the rood-loft and every image in the building; the stained windows had been replaced by plain glass painted white; the walls had been whitewashed from roof to floor, and every suspicion of colour erased except where texts of Scripture ran rigidly across the open wall spaces: “We are not under the Law, but under Grace,” Isabel read opposite her, beneath the clerestory windows. And, above all, the point to which all lines and eyes converged, was occupied no longer by the Table but by the tribunal of the Lord. Yet underneath the disguise the old religion triumphed still. Beneath the great plain orderly scheme, without depth of 116 BY WHAT AUTHORITY shadows, dominated by the towering place of Proclamation where the crimson-faced herald waited to begin, the round arches and the elaborate mouldings, and the cool depths beyond the pillars, all declared that in the God for whom that temple was built, there was mystery as well as revelation, Love as well as Justice, condescension as well as Majesty, beauty as well as awfulness, invitations as well as eternal decrees. Isabel looked up presently, as the people still streamed in, and watched the minister in his rustling Genevan gown, leaning with his elbows on the Bible that rested open on the great tas- selled velvet cushion before him. Everything about him was on the grand scale; his great hands were clasped and protruded over the edge of the Book; and his heavy dark face looked men- acingly round on the crowded church; he had the air of a melan- choly giant about to engage in some tragic pleasure. But Isabel’s instinctive dislike began to pass into positive terror so soon as he began to preach. When the last comers had found a place, and the talking had stopped, he presently gave out his text, in a slow thunderous voice, that silenced the last whispers: ‘What shall we then say to these things? If God be on our side, who can be against us?” There were a few slow sentences, in a deep resonant voice, uttering each syllable deliberately like the explosion of a far-off gun, and in a minute or two he was in the thick of Calvin’s smoky gospel. Doctrine, voice, and man were alike terrible and over- powering. There lay the great scheme in a few minutes, seen by Isabel as though through the door of hell, illumined by the glare of the eternal embers. The huge merciless Will of God stood there before her, disclosed in all its awfulness, armed with thunders, moving on mighty wheels. ‘The foreknowledge of God closed the question henceforth, and, if proof were needed, made pre- destination plain. There was man’s destiny, irrevocably fixed, iron-bound, changeless and immovable as the laws of God’s own being. Yet over the rigid and awful Face of God, flickered a faint light, named mercy, and this mercy vindicated its existence by demanding that some souls should escape the final and end- less doom that was the due reward of every soul conceived and born in enmity against God and under the frown of His Justice. Then, heralded too by wrath, the figure of Jesus began to glimmer through the thunderclouds; and Isabel lifted her eyes, MASTER CALVIN 117 to look in hope. But He was not as she had known him in His graciousness, and as He had revealed Himself to her in tender communion, and among the flowers and under the clear skies of Sussex. Here, in this echoing world of wrath He stood, pale and rigid, with lightning in His eyes, and the grim and crimson Cross behind him; and as powerless as His own Father Himself to save one poor timid despairing hoping soul against whom the Eternal Decree had gone forth. Jesus was stern and for- bidding here, with the red glare of wrath on His Face too, instead of the rosy crown of Love upon His forehead; His mouth was closed with compressed lips which surely would only open to condemn; not that mouth, quivering and human, that had smiled and trembled and bent down from the Cross to kiss poor souls that could not hope, nor help themselves, that had smiled upon Isabel ever since she had known Him. It was appalling to this gentle maiden soul that had bloomed and rejoiced so long in the shadow of His healing, to be torn out of her retreat and set thus under the consuming noonday of the Justice of this Sun of white-hot Righteousness. For, as she listened, it was all so miserably convincing; her own little essays of intellect and flights of hopeful imagination were caught up and whirled away in the strong rush of this man’s argument; her timid expectancy that God was really Love, as she understood the word in the vision of her Saviour’s person,— this was dashed aside as a childish fancy; the vision of the Father of the Everlasting Arms receded into the realm of dreams; and instead there lowered overhead in this furious tempest of wrath a monstrous God with a stony Face and a stonier Heart, who was eternally either her torment or salvation; and Isabel thought, and trembled at the blasphemy, that if God were such as this, the one would be no less agony than the other. Was this man bearing false witness, not only against his neighbour, but far more awfully, against his God? But it was too convinc- ing; it was built up on an iron hammered framework of a great man’s intellect and made white hot with another great man’s burning eloquence. But it seemed to Isabel now and again as if a thunder-voiced virile devil were proclaiming the Gospel of Everlasting shame. There he bent over the pulpit with flaming face and great compelling gestures that swayed the congregation, eliciting the emotions he desired, as the conductor’s baton draws out the music (for the man was a great orator), and he stormed and roared and seemed to marshal the very powers of the world 118 BY WHAT AUTHORITY to come, compelling them by his nod, and interpreting them by his voice; and below him sat this poor child, tossed along on his | eloquence, like a straw on a flood; and yet hating and resenting it and struggling to detach herself and disbelieve every word he spoke. As the last sands were running out in his hour-glass, he came to harbour from this raging sea; and in a few deep resonant sentences, like those with which he began, he pictured the peace of the ransomed soul, that knows itself safe in the arms of God; that rejoices, even in this world, in the Light of His Face and the ecstasy of His embrace; that dwells by waters of comfort and lies down in the green pastures of the Heavenly Love; while, round this little island of salvation in an ocean of terror, the thunders of wrath sound only as the noise of surge on a far-off reef. The effect on Isabel was very great. It was far more startling than her visit to London; there her quiet religion had received high sanction in the mystery of S. Paul’s. But here it was the plainest Calvinism preached with immense power. The preacher’s last words of peace were no peace to her. If it was necessary to pass those bellowing breakers of wrath to reach the Happy Coun- try, then she had never reached it yet; she had lived so far in an illusion; her life had been spent in a fool’s paradise, where the light and warmth and flowers were but artificial after all; and she know that she had not the heart to set out again. Though she recognised dimly the compelling power of this religion, and that it was one which, if sincerely embraced, would make the smallest details of life momentous with eternal weight, yet she knew that her soul could never respond to it, and whether saved or damned that it could only cower in miserable despair under a Deity that was so sovereign as this. So her heart was low and her eyes sad as she followed Mrs. Carrington out of church. Was this then really the Revelation of the Love of God in the Person of Jesus Christ? Had all that she knew was the Gospel melted down into this fiery lump? The rest of the day did not alter the impression made on her mind. There was little talk, or evidence of any human fellowship, in the Carrington household on the Lord’s Day; there was a word or two of grave commendation on the sermon during dinner; and in the afternoon there was the Evening Prayer to be attended in St. Sepulchre’s followed by an exposition, and a public cate- chising on Calvin’s questions and answers. Here the same awful MASTER CALVIN 11g doctrines reappeared, condensed with an icy reality, even more paralysing than the burning presentation of them in the morn- ing’s sermon. She was spared questions herself, as she was a stranger; and sat to hear girls of her own age and older men and women who looked as soft-hearted as herself, utter defini- tions of the method of salvation and the being and character of God that compelled the assent of her intellect, while they jarred with her spiritual experience as fiercely as brazen trumpets out of tune. In the evening there followed further religious exercises in the dark dining-room, at the close of which Dr. Carrington read one of Mr. Calvin’s Genevan discourses, from his tall chair at the head of the table. She looked at him at first, and wondered in her heart whether that man, with his clear gentle voice, and his pleasant old face crowned with iron-grey hair seen in the mellow candlelight, really believed in the terrible gospel of the morning; for she heard nothing of the academic discourse that he was reading now, and presently her eyes wandered away out of the windows to the pale night sky. There still glimmered a faint streak of light in the west across the Market Square; it seemed to her as a kind of mirror of her soul at this moment; the tender daylight had faded, though she could still discern the token of its presence far away, and as from behind the bars of a cage; but the night of God’s wrath was fast blotting out the last touch of radiance from her despairing soul. Dr. Carrington looked at her with courteous anxiety, but with approval too, as he held her hand for a moment as she said good-night to him. There were shadows of weariness and de- pression under her eyes, and the corners of her mouth drooped a little; and the doctor’s heart stirred with hope that the Word of God had reached at last this lamb of His who had been fed too long on milk, and sheltered from the sun; but who was now coming out, driven it might be, and unhappy, but still on its way to the plain and wholesome pastures of the Word that lay in the glow of the unveiled glory of God. Isabel in her dark room upstairs was miserable; she stood long at her window, her face pressed against the glass, and looked at the sky, from which the last streak of light had now died, and longed with all her might for her own oak room at home, with her prie-dieu and the familiar things about her; and the pines rustling outside in the sweet night-wind. It seemed to her as if an irresistible hand had plucked her out from those 120 BY WHAT AUTHORITY loved things and places, and that a penetrating eye were exam- ining every corner of her soul. In one sense she believed herself nearer to God than ever before, but it was heartbreaking to find Him like this. She went to sleep with the same sense of a bur- dening Presence resting on her spirit. The next morning Dr. Carrington saw her privately and ex- plained to her a notice that she had not understood when it had been given out in church the day before. It was to the effect that the quarterly communion would be administered on the fol- lowing Sunday, having been transferred that year from the Sunday after Michaelmas Day, and that she must hold herself in readiness on the Wednesday afternoon to undergo the exam- ination that was enforced in every household in Northampton, at the hands of the Minister and Churchwardens. “But you need not fear it, Mistress Norris,’ he said kindly, seeing her alarm. ‘My daughter Kate will tell you all that is needful.” Kate too told her it would be little more than formal in her case. “The minister will not ask you much,” she said, “for you are a stranger, and my father will vouch for you. He will ask you of irresistible grace, and of the Sacrament.’’” And she gave her a couple of books from which she might summarise the answers; especially directing her attention to Calvin’s Catechism, telling her that that was the book with which all the servants and apprentices were obliged to be familiar. When Wednesday afternoon came, one by one the members of the household went before the inquisition that held its court in the dining-room; and last of all Isabel’s turn came. The three gentlemen who sat in the middle of the long side of the table, with their backs to the light, half rose and bowed to her as she entered; and requested her to sit opposite to them. To her relief it was the Minister of St. Sepulchre’s who was to examine her—he who had read the service and discoursed on the Cate- chism, not the morning preacher. He was a man who seemed a little ill at ease himself; he had none of the superb confidence of the preacher; but appeared to be one to whose natural char- acter this stern ro/e was not altogether congenial. He asked a few very simple questions; as to when she had last taken the Sacraments; how she would interpret the words, “This is my Body”’; and looked almost grateful when she answered quietly and without heat. He asked her too three or four of the simpler MASTER CALVIN 121 questions which Kate had indicated to her; all of which she answered satisfactorily; and then desired to know whether she was in charity with all men; and whether she looked to Jesus Christ alone as her one Saviour. Finally he turned to Dr. Car- rington, and wished to know whether Mistress Norris would come to the sacrament at five or nine o’clock, and Dr. Carrington answered that she would no doubt wish to come with his own wife and daughters at nine o’clock; which was the hour for the folks who were better to do. And so the inquisition ended much to Isabel’s relief. But this was a very extraordinary experience to her; it gave her a first glimpse into the rigid discipline that the extreme Pur- itans wished to see enforced everywhere; and with a sense of corporate responsibility that she had not appreciated before; the congregation meant something to her now; she was no longer alone with her Lord individually, but understood that she was part of a body with various functions, and that the care of her soul was not merely a personal matter for herself, but involved her minister and the officers of the Church as well. It astonished her to think that this process was carried out on every individual who lived in the town in preparation for the sacrament on the following Sunday. Isabel, and indeed the whole household, spent the Friday and Saturday in rigid and severe preparation. No flesh food was eaten on either of the days; and all the members of the family were supposed to spend several hours in their own rooms in prayer and meditation. She did not find this difficult, as she was well practised in solitude and prayer, and she scarcely left her room all Saturday except for meals. “OQ Lord,” Isabel repeated each morning and evening at her bedside during this week, ‘‘the blind dulness of our corrupt nature will not suffer us sufficiently to weigh these thy most ample benefits, yet, nevertheless, at the commandment of Jesus Christ our Lord, we present ourselves to this His table, which Ke hath left to be used in remembrance of His death until His coming again, to declare and witness before the world, that by Him alone we have received liberty and life; that by Him alone dost thou acknowledge us to be thy children and heirs; that by Him alone we have entrance to the throne of thy grace; that by Him alone we are possessed in our spiritual kingdom, to eat and drink at His table, with whom we have our conversation pres- ently in heaven, and by whom our bodies shall be raised up 122 BY WHAT AUTHORITY again from the dust, and shall be placed with Him in that endless joy, which Thou, O Father of mercy, has prepared for thine elect, before the foundation of the world was laid.” And so she prepared herself for that tryst with her Beloved in a foreign land where all was strange and unfamiliar about her: yet He was hourly drawing nearer, and she cried to Him day by, day in these words so redolent to her with associations of past communions, and of moments of great spiritual elevation. The very use of the prayer this week was like a breeze of flowers to one in a wilderness. On the Saturday night she ceremoniously washed her feet as her father had taught her; and lay down happier than she had been for days past, for to-morrow would bring the Lover of her soul. On the Sunday all the household was astir early at their prayers, and about half-past eight o’clock all, including the servants who had just returned from the five o’clock service, assembled in the dining-room; the noise of the feet of those re- turning from church had ceased on the pavement of the square outside, and all was quiet except for the solemn sound of the bells, as Dr. Carrington offered extempore prayer for all who were fulfilling the Lord’s ordinance on that day. And Isabel once more felt her heart yearn to a God who seemed Love after all. St. Sepulchre’s was nearly full when they arrived. The ma- hogany table had been brought down from the eastern wall to beneath the cupola, and stood there with a large white cloth, descending almost to the ground on every side; and a row of silver vessels, flat plates and tall new Communion cups and flagons, shone upon it. Isabel buried her face in her hands, and tried to withdraw into the solitude of her own soul; but the noise of the feet coming and going, and the talking on all sides of her, were terribly distracting. Presently four ministers entered and Isabel was startled to see, as she raised her face at the sudden silence, that none of them wore the prescribed surplice; for she had not been accustomed to the views of the extreme Puritans to whom this was a remnant of Popery; an indifferent thing indeed in itself, as they so often maintained; but far from indifferent when it was imposed by authority. One entered the pulpit; the other three took their places at the Holy Table; and after a metrical Psalm sung in the Genevan fashion, the service began. At the proper place the minister in the pulpit delivered an hour’s sermon of the type to which Isabel was being MASTER CALVIN 123 now introduced for the first time; but bearing again and again on the point that the sacrament was a confession to the world of faith in Christ; it was in no sense a sacrificial act towards God, ‘‘as the Papists vainly taught’; this part of the sermon was spoiled, to Isabel’s ears at least, by a flood of disagreeable words poured out against the popish doctrine; and the end of the sermon consisted of a searching exhortation to those who contemplated sin, who bore malice, who were in any way holding aloof from God, “‘to cast themselves mightily upon the love of the Redeemer, bewailing their sinful lives, and purposing to amend them.” This act, wrought out in the silence of the soul, even now would trans- fer the sinner from death unto life; and turn what threatened to be poison into a “lively and healthful food.”” Then he turned to those who came prepared and repentant, hungering and thirst- ing after the Bread of Life and the Wine that the Lord had mingled; and congratulated them on their possession of grace, and on the rich access of sanctification that would be theirs by a faithful reception of this comfortable sacrament; and then in half a dozen concluding sentences he preached Christ, as ‘food to the hungry; a stream to the thirsty; a rest for the weary. It is He alone, our dear Redeemer, who openeth the Kingdom of Heaven, to which may He vouchsafe to bring us for His Name’s sake.” | Isabel was astonished to see that the preacher did not descend from the pulpit after the sermon, but that as soon as he had announced that the mayor would sit at the Town Hall with the ministers and churchwardens on the following Thursday to inquire into the cases of all who had not presented themselves for Com- munion, he turned and began to busy himself with the great Bible that lay on the cushion. The service went on, and the conducting of it was shared among the three ministers standing, one at the centre of the table which was placed endways, and the others at the two ends. As the Prayer of Consecration was begun, Isabel hid her face as she was accustomed to do, for she believed it to be the principal part of the service, and waited for the silence that in her experience generally followed the Amen. But a voice immediately began from the pulpit, and she looked up, startled and distracted. “Then Jesus said unto them,” pealed out the preacher’s voice, “All ye shall be offended by me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. But after I am risen, I will go into Galilee before you.” 124 BY WHAT AUTHORITY Ah! why would not the man stop? Isabel did not want the past Saviour but the present now; not a dead record but a living experience; above all, not the minister but the great High Priest Himself. “He began to be troubled and in great heaviness, and said unto them, My soul is very heavy, even unto the death; tarry here and watch.” The three ministers had communicated by now; and there was a rustle and clatter of feet as the empty seats in front, hung with houselling cloths, began to be filled. The murmur of the three voices below as the ministers passed along with the vessels was drowned by the tale of the Passion that rang out overhead. “Couldest thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is ready, but the flesh is weak.” It was coming near to Isabel’s turn; the Carringtons already were beginning to move; and in a moment or two she rose and followed them out. The people were pressing up the aisles; and as she stood waiting her turn to pass into the white-hung seat, she could not help noticing the disorder that prevailed; some knelt devoutly, some stood, some sat to receive the sacred ele- ments; and all the while louder and louder, above the rustling and the loud whispering of the ministers and the shuffling of feet, the tale rose and fell on the cadences of the preacher’s voice. Now it was her turn; she was kneeling with palms outstretched and closed eyes. Ah! would he not be silent for one moment? Could not the reality speak for itself, and its interpreter be still? Surely the King of Love needed no herald when Himself was here. “And anon in the dawning, the high Priests held a Council with Elders and the Scribes and the whole Council, and bound Jesus and led Him away.”’ And so it was over presently, and she was back again in her seat, distracted and miserable; trying to pray, forcing herself to attend now to the reader, now to her Saviour with whom she believed herself in intimate union, and finding nothing but dry- ness and distraction everywhere. How interminable it was! She opened her eyes, and what she saw amazed and absorbed her for a few moments; some were sitting back and talking; some look- ing cheerfully about them as if at a public entertainment; one man especially overwhelmed her imagination; with a great red face and neck like a butcher, animal and brutal, with a heavy MASTER CALVIN 125 hanging jowl and little narrow lack-lustre eyes—how bored and depressed he was by this long obligatory ceremony! ‘Then once more she closed her eyes in self-reproach at her distractions; here were her lips still fragrant with the Wine of God, the pres- sure of her Beloved’s arm still about her; and these were her thoughts, settling like flies, on everything... . When she opened them again the last footsteps were passing down the aisle, the dripping Cups were being replaced by the ministers, and covered with napkins, and the tale of Easter was in telling from the pulpit like the promise of a brighter day. “And they said one to another, Who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away (for it was a very great one).” So read the minister and closed the book; and Our Father began. In the evening, when all was over, and the prayers said and the expounding and catechising finished, in a kind of despair she slipped away alone, and walked a little by herself in the deepen- ing twilight beside the river; and again she made effort after effort to catch some consciousness of grace from this Sacrament Sunday, so rare and so precious; but an oppression seemed to dwell in the very air. The low rain-clouds hung over the city, leaden and chill, the path where she walked was rank with the smell of dead leaves, and the trees and grass dripped with life- less moisture. As she goaded and allured alternately her own fainting soul, it writhed and struggled but could not rise; there was no pungency of bitterness in her self-reproach, no thrill of joy in her aspiration; for the hand of Calvin’s God lay heavy on the delicate languid thing. She walked back at last in despair over the wet cobblestones of the empty market square; but as she came near the house, she saw that the square was not quite empty. A horse stood blowing and steaming before Dr. Carrington’s door, and her own maid and Kate were standing hatless in the doorway looking up and down the street. Isabel’s heart began to beat, and she walked quicker. In a moment Kate saw her, and began to beckon and call; and the maid ran to meet her. “Mistress Isabel, Mistress Isabel,” she cried, “‘make haste.” “What is it?” asked the girl, in sick foreboding. “There is a man come from Great Keynes,” began the maid, but Kate stopped her. 126 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “Come in, Mistress Isabel,” she said, “my father is waiting for you.” Dr. Carrington met her at the dining-room door; and his face was tender and full of emotion. ‘What is it?” whispered the girl sharply. “Anthony?” “Dear child,” he said, “come in, and be brave.” There was a man standing in the room with cap and whip in hand, spurred and splashed from head to foot; Isabel recognised one of the grooms from the Hall. “What is it?’ she said again with a piteous sharpness. Dr. Carrington laid his hands gently on her shoulders, and looked into her eyes. - “Tt is news of your father,” he said, “from Lady Maxwell.” He paused, and the steady gleam of his eyes strengthened and quieted her, then he went on deliberately, “The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken it.” He paused as if for an answer, but no answer came; Isabel was staring white-faced with parted lips into those strong blue eyes of his: and he finished: “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” CHAPTER XII A WINDING-UP THE curtained windows on the ground-floor of the Dower House shone red from within as Isabel and Dr. Carrington, with three or four servants behind, rode round the curving drive in front late on the Monday evening. A face peeped from Mrs. Carroll’s window as the horse’s hoofs sounded on the gravel, and by the time that Isabel, pale, wet and worn-out with the seventy miles’ ride, was dismounted, Mistress Margaret herself was at the door, with Anthony’s face at her shoulder, and Mrs. Carroll looking over the banisters. Isabel was not allowed to see her father’s body that night, but after she was in bed, Lady Maxwell herself, who had been sent for when he lay dying, came down from the Hall, and told her what there was to tell; while Mistress Margaret and Anthony entertained Dr. Carrington below. “Dear child,” said the old lady, leaning with her elbow on the bed, and holding the girl’s hand tenderly as she talked, “it was all over in an hour or two. It was the heart, you know. Mrs. Carroll sent for me suddenly, on Saturday morning; and by the time I reached him he could not speak. They had carried him upstairs from his study, where they had found him; and laid him down on his bed, and—yes, yes—he was in pain, but he was conscious, and he was praying, I think; his lips moved. And I knelt down by the bed and prayed aloud; he only spoke twice; and, my dear, it was your name the first time, and the name of His Saviour the second time. He looked at me, and I could see he was trying to speak; and then on a sudden he spoke ‘Isabel.’ And I think he was asking me to take care of you. And I nodded and said that I would do what I could, and he seemed satisfied and shut his eyes again. And then presently Mr. Bodder began a prayer—he had come in a moment before; they could not find him at first—and then, and then your dear father moved a little and raised his hand, and the minister stayed; and he was looking up as if he saw something; and then 127 128 BY WHAT AUTHORITY he said once, ‘Jesus’ clear and loud; and, and—that was all, dear child.” The next morning she and Anthony, with the two old ladies, one of whom was always with them during these days, went into the darkened oak room on the first floor, where he had died and now rested. The red curtains made a pleasant rosy light, and it seemed to the children impossible to believe that that serene face, scarcely more serene than in life, with its wide closed lids under the delicate eyebrows, and contented clean-cut mouth, and the scholarly hands closed on the breast, all in a wealth oi autumn flowers and dark copper-coloured beech leaves, were not the face and hands of a sleeping man. But Isabel did not utterly break down till she saw his study. She drew the curtains aside herself, and there stood his table; his chair was beside it, pushed back and sideways as if he had that moment left it; and on the table itself the books she knew so well. In the centre of the table stood his inlaid desk, with the papers lying upon it, and his quill beside them, as if just laid down; even the ink-pot was uncovered just as he had left it, as the agony began to lay its hand upon his heart. She stooped and read the last sentence. “This is the great fruit, that unspeakable benefit that they do eat and drink of that labour and are burden, and come—” and there it stopped; and the blinding tears rushed into the girl’s eyes, as she stooped to kiss the curved knob of the chair-arm where his dear hand had last rested. | When all was over a day or two later the two went up to stay at the Hall, while the housekeeper was left in charge of the Dower House. Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret had been present at the parish church on the occasion of the funeral, for the first time ever since the old Marian priest had left; and had assisted too at the opening of the will, which was found tied up and docketed in one of the inner drawers of the inlaid desk; and before its instructions were complied with, Lady Maxwell wished to have a word or two with Isabel and Anthony. She made an opportunity on the morning of Anthony’s de- parture for Cambridge, two days after the funeral, when Mistress Margaret was out of the room, and Hubert had ridden off as usual with Piers, on the affairs of the estate. “My child,” said she to Isabel, who was lying back passive and listless on the window seat. “What do you think your A WINDING-UP 129 cousin will direct to be done? He will scarcely wish you to leave home altogether, to stay with him. And yet, you understand, he is your guardian.” Isabel shook her head. “We know nothing of him,” she said wearily, “he has never been here.” “Tf you have a suggestion to make to him you should decide at once,’ the other went on, “the courier is to go on Monday, is he not, Anthony?” The boy nodded. “But will he not allow us,” he said, “to stay at home as usual? Surely B Lady Maxwell shook her head. “‘And Isabel?” she asked, “who will look after her when you are away?” “Mrs. Carroll?” he said interrogatively. Again she shook her head. “He would never consent,” she said, “it would not be right.” Isabel looked up suddenly, and her eyes brightened a little. “Lady Maxwell—” she began, and then stopped, embarrassed. “Well, my dear?” “What is it, Isabel?” asked Anthony. “Tf it were possible—but, but I could not ask it.” “Tf you mean Margaret, my dear;”’ said the old lady serenely, drawing her needle carefully through, “it was what I thought myself; but I did not know if you would care for that. Is that what you meant?” “Oh, Lady Maxwell,” said the girl, her face lighting up. Then the old lady explained that it was not possible to ask them to live permanently at the Hall, although of course Isabel must do so until an arrangement had been made; because their father would scarcely have wished them to be actually inmates of a Catholic house; but that he plainly had encouraged close relations between the two houses, and indeed, Lady Maxwell interpreted his mention of his daughter’s name, and his look as he said it, in the sense that he wished those relations to con- tinue. She thought therefore that there was no reason why their new guardian’s consent should not be asked to Mistress Mar- garet’s coming over to the Dower House to take charge of Isabel, if the girl wished it. He had no particular interest in them; he lived a couple of hundred miles away, and the arrangement would probably save him a great deal of trouble and inconvenience. 130 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “But you, Lady Maxwell,” Isabel burst out, her face kindled with hope, for she had dreaded the removal terribly, “you will be lonely here.” “Dear child,” said the old lady, laying down her embroidery, “God has been gracious to me; and my husband is coming back to me; you need not fear for me.”’ And she told them, with her old eyes full of happy tears, how she had had a private word, which they must not repeat, from a Catholic friend at Court, that all had been decided for Sir Nicholas’ release, though he did not know it himself yet, and that he would be at home again for Advent. The prison fever was beginning to cause alarm, and it seemed that a good fine would meet the old knight’s case better than any other execution of justice. So then, it was decided; and as Isabel walked out to the gatehouse after dinner beside Anthony, with her hand on his horse’s neck, and as she watched him at last ride down the vil- lage green and disappear round behind the church, half her sorrow at losing him was swallowed up in the practical certainty that they would meet again before Christmas in their old home, and not in a stranger’s house in the bleak North Country. On the following Thursday, Sir Nicholas’ weekly letter showed evidence that the good news of his release had begun to penetrate to him; his wife longed to tell him all she had heard, but so many jealous eyes were on the watch for favouritism that she had been strictly forbidden to pass on her information. How- ever there was little need. ‘“T am in hopes,” he wrote, “of keeping Christmas in a merrier place than prison. I do not mean heaven,’ he hastened to add, for fear of alarming his wife. ‘‘Good Mr. Jakes tells me that Sir John is ill to-day, and that he fears the gaol-fever; and if it is the gaol-fever, sweetheart, which pray God it may not be for Sw John’s sake, it will be the fourteenth case in the Tower; and folks say that we shall all be let home again; but with another good fine, they say, to keep us poor and humble, and mindful of the Queen’s Majesty her laws. However, dearest, I would gladly pay a thousand pounds, if I had them, to be home again.” But there was news at the end of the letter that caused con- sternation in one or two hearts, and sent Hubert across, storming and almost crying, to Isabel, who was taking a turn in the dusk at sunset. She heard his step, beyond the hedge, quick and impatient, and stopped short, hesitating and wondering. A WINDING-UP 131 He had behaved to her with extraordinary tact and consider- ation, and she was very conscious of it. Since her sudden return ten days before from the visit which had been meant to separate them, he had not spoken a word to her privately, except a shy sentence or two of condolence, stammered out with downcast eyes, but which from the simplicity and shortness of the words had brought up a sob from her heart. She guessed that he knew why she had been sent to Northampton, and had determined not to take advantage in any way of her sorrow. Every morning he had disappeared before she came down, and did not come back till supper, where he sat silent and apart, and yet, when an occasion offered itself, behaved with a quick attentive defer- ence that showed her where his thoughts had been. Now she stood, wondering and timid, at that hurried insistent step on the other side of the hedge. As she hesitated, he came quickly through the doorway and stopped short. “Mistress Isabel,” he said, with all his reserve gone, and looking at her imploringly, but with the old familiar air that she loved, “have you heard? I am to go as soon as my father comes back. Oh! it is a shame!” His voice was full of tears, and his eyes were bright and angry. Her heart leapt up once and then seemed to cease beating. “Gor” she said; and even as she spoke knew from her own dismay how dear that quiet, chivalrous presence was to her. “Yes,” he went on in the same voice. “Oh! I know I should not speak; and—and especially now at all times; but I could not bear it; nor that you should think it was my will to go.” She stood still looking at him. “May I walk with you a little,” he said, “but—I must not say much—I promised my father.” And then as they walked he began to pour it out. “It is some old man in Durham,” he said, “‘and I am to see to his estates. My father will not want me here when he comes back, and, and it is to be soon. He has had the offer for me; and has written to tell me. There is no choice.” She had turned instinctively towards the house, and the high roofs and chimneys were before them, dark against the luminous sky. “No, no,” said Hubert, laying his hand on her arm; and at the touch she thrilled so much that she knew she must not stay, and went forward resolutely up the steps of the terrace. 132 BY WHAT AUTHORITY ‘““Ah! let me speak,” he said; “I have not troubled you much, Mistress Isabel.” She hesitated again a moment. “In my father’s room,” he went on, “and I will bring the letter.” She nodded and passed into the hall without speaking, and turned to Sir Nicholas’ study; while Hubert’s steps dashed up the stairs to his mother’s room. Isabel went in and stood on the hearth in the firelight that glowed and wavered round the room on the tapestry and the prie-dieu and the table where Hubert had been sitting and the tall shuttered windows, leaning her head against the mantelpiece, doubtful and miserable. “Listen,” said Hubert, bursting into the room a moment later with the sheet open in his hand. ‘“‘*Tell Hubert that Lord Arncliffe needs a gentleman to take charge of his estates; he is too old now himself, and has none to help him. I have had the offer for Hubert, and have accepted it; he must go as soon as I have returned. I am sorry to lose the lad, but since James >” and Hubert broke off. “I must not read that,” he said. Isabel still stood, stretching her hands out to the fire, turned a little away from him. “But what can I say?” went on the lad passionately, “I must go; and—and God knows for how long, five or six years maybe; and I shall come back and find you—and find you Yanda sob rose up and silenced him. “Hubert,” she said, turning and looking with a kind of waver- ing steadiness into his shadowed eyes, and even then noticing the clean-cut features and the smooth curve of his jaw with the firelight on it, “you ought not iy “T know, I know; I promised my father; but there are some things I cannot bear. Of course I do not want you to promise anything; but I thought that if perhaps you could tell me that you thought—that you thought there would be no one else; and that when I came back——” “Hubert,” she said again, resolutely, ‘“‘it is impossible: our religions He : “But I would do anything, I think. Besides, in five years so much may happen. You might become a Catholic—or—or, I might come to see that the Protestant Religion was nearly the same, or as true at least—or—or—so much might happen.—Can you not tell me anything before I go?” a A WINDING-UP 133 A keen ray of hope had pierced her heart as he spoke; and she scarcely know what she said. “But, Hubert, even if I were to say ‘ He seized her hands and kissed them again and again. “Oh! God bless you, Isabel! Now I can go so happily. And I will not speak of it again; you can trust me; it will not be hard for you.” She tried to draw her hands away, but he still held them tightly in his own strong hands, and looked into her face. His eyes were shining. “Ves, yes, [ know you have promised nothing. I hold you to nothing. You are as free as ever to do what you will with me. But,’”—and he lifted her hands once more and kissed them, and dropped them; seized his cap and was gone. Isabel was left alone in a tumult of thought and emotion. He had taken her by storm; she had not guessed how desperately weak she was towards him, until he had come to her like this in a whirlwind of passion and stood trembling and almost crying, with the ruddy firelight on his face, and his eyes burning out of shadow. She felt fascinated still by that mingling of a boy’s weakness and sentiment and of a man’s fire and purpose; and she sank down on her knees before the hearth and looked wonder- ingly at her hands which he had kissed so ardently, now trans- parent and flaming against the light as if with love. Then as she looked at the red heart of the fire the sudden leaping of her heart quieted, and there crept on her a glow of steady desire to lean on the power of this tall young lover of hers; she was so utterly alone without him it seemed as if there were no choice left; he had come and claimed her in virtue of the master-law, and she—how much had she yielded? She had not promised; but she had shown evidently her real heart in those half dozen words; and he had interpreted them for her; and she dared not in honesty repudiate his interpretation. And so she knelt there, clasping and unclasping her hands, in a whirl of delight and trem- bling; all the bounds of that sober inner life seemed for the moment swept away; she almost began to despise its old cold- ness and limitations. How shadowy after all was the love of God, compared with this burning tide that was bearing her along on its bosom! . She sank lower and lower into herself among the black draperies, clasping those slender hands tightly across her breast. Suddenly a great log fell with a crash, the red glow turned »] 134 BY WHAT AUTHORITY into leaping flames; the whole dark room seemed alive with shadows that fled to and fro, and she knelt upright quickly and looked round her, terrified and ashamed—What was she doing here? Was it so soon then that she was setting aside the will of her father, who trusted and loved her so well, and who lay out there in the chancel vault? Ah! she had no right here in this room—Hubert’s room now, with his cap and whip lying across the papers and the estate-book, and his knife and the broken jesses on the seat of the chair beside her. There was his step overhead again. She must be gone before he came back. There was high excitement on the estate and in the village a week or two later when the rumour of Sir Nicholas’ return was established, and the paper had been pinned up to the gatehouse stating, in Lady Maxwell’s own handwriting, that he would be back sometime in the week before Advent Sunday. Reminiscences were exchanged of the glorious day when the old knight came of age, over forty years ago; of the sports on the green, of the quintain-tilting for the gentlefolks, and the archery in the meadow behind the church for the vulgar; of the high mass and the din- ner that followed it. It was rumoured that Mr. Hubert and Mr. Piers had already selected the ox that was to be roasted whole, and that materials for the bonfire were in process of collection in the woodyard of the home farm. Sir Nicholas’ letters became more and more emphatically un- derlined and incoherent as the days went on, and Lady Maxwell less and less willing for Isabel to read them; but the girl often found the old lady hastily putting away the thin sheets which she had just taken out to read to herself once again, on which her dear lord had scrawled down his very heart itself, as if his courting of her were all to do again. It was not until the Saturday morning that the courier rode in through the gatehouse with the news that Sir Nicholas was to be released that day, and would be down if possible before nightfall. All the men on the estate were immediately called in and sent home to dress themselves; and an escort of a dozen grooms and servants led by Hubert and Piers rode out at once on the north road, with torches ready for kindling, to meet the party and bring them home; and all other preparations were set forward at once. Towards eight o’clock Lady Maxwell was so anxious and rest- less that Isabel slipped out and went down to the gatehouse to look out for herself if there were any signs of the approach of A WINDING-UP 135 the party. She went up to one of the little octagonal towers, and looked out towards the green. It was a clear starlight night, but towards the village all was bathed in the dancing ruddy light of the bonfire. It was burning on a little mound at the upper end of the green, just below where Isabel stood, and a heavy curtain of smoke drifted westwards. As she looked down on it she saw against it the tall black posts of the gigantic jack and the slowly revolving carcass of the ox; and round about the stirring crowd of the village folk, their figures black on this side, luminous on that. She could even make out the cassock and square cap of Mr. Bodder as he moved among his flock. The rows of houses on either side, bright and clear at this end, melted away into darkness at the lower end of the green, where on the right the church tower rose up, blot- ting out the stars, itself just touched with ruddy light, and on the top of which, like a large star itself, burned the torch of the watcher who was looking out towards the north road. There was a ceaseless hum of noise from the green, pierced by the shrill cries of the children round the glowing mass of the bonfire, but there was no disorder, as the barrels that had been rolled out of the Hall cellars that afternoon still stood untouched beneath the Rectory garden-wall. Isabel contrasted in her mind this pleasant human tumult with the angry roaring she had heard from these same countryfolk a few months before, when she had followed Lady Maxwell out to the rescue of the woman who had injured her; and she wondered at these strange souls, who at- tended a Protestant service, but were so fierce and so genial in their defence and welcome of a Catholic squire. As she thought, there was a sudden movement of the light on the church tower; it tossed violently up and down, and a moment later the jubilant clangour of the bells broke out. There was a sudden stir in the figures on the green, and a burst of cheering rose. Isabel strained her eyes northwards, but the road took a turn beyond the church and she could see nothing but darkness and low-hung stars and one glimmering window. She turned instinctively to the house behind her, and there was the door flung wide, and she could make out the figures of the two ladies against the brightly lit hall beyond, wrapped like herself, in cloak _ and hood, for the night was frosty and cold. As she turned once more she heard the clear rattle of trotting hoofs on the hard road, and a glow began to be visible at the lower dark end of the village. The cheering rose higher, and the 136 BY WHAT AUTHORITY bells were all clashing together in melodious discord as in the angle of the road a group of tossing torches appeared. Then she could make out the horsemen; three riding together, and the others as escort round them. The crowd had poured off the grass on to the road by now, and the horses were coming up between two shouting, gesticulating lines which closed after them as they went. Now she could make out the white hair of Sir Nicholas, as he bowed bare-headed right and left; and Hubert’s feathered cap, on one side of him, and Mr. Boyd’s black hat on the other. They had passed the bonfire now, and were com- ing up the avenue, the crowds still streaming after them, and the church tower bellowing rough music overhead. Isabel leaned out over the battlements, and saw beneath her the two old ladies waiting just outside the gate by the horse-block; and then she drew back, her eyes full of tears, for she saw Sir Nicholas’ face as he caught sight of his wife. There was a sudden silence as the horses drew up; and the crowds ceased shouting, and when Isabel leaned over again Sir Nicholas was on the horse-block, the two ladies immediately behind him, and the people pressing forward to hear his voice. It was a very short speech; and Isabel overhead could not catch more than detached phrases of it, “for the faith’—‘“my wife and you all’—“‘home again”—‘“‘my son Hubert here’—“you and your families’”—“the Catholic religion”—‘‘the Queen’s Grace”— ““God save her Majesty.” Then again the cheering broke out; and Isabel crossed over to see them pass up to the house and to the bright door set wide for them, and even as she watched them go up the steps, and Hubert’s figure close behind, she suddenly dropped her forehead on to the cold battlement, and drew a sharp breath or two, for she remembered again what it all meant to him and to herself. PART etle CHAPTER I ANTHONY IN LONDON Tue development of a nation is strangely paralleled by the de- velopment of an individual. There comes in both a period of adolescence, of the stirring of new powers, of an increase of strength, of the dawn of new ideals, of the awaking of self- consciousness; contours become defined and abrupt, awkward and hasty movements succeed to the grace of childhood; and there is a curious mingling of refinement and brutality, stupidity and tenderness; the will is subject to whims; it is easily roused and not so easily quieted. Yet in spite of the attendant discomforts the whole period is undeniably one of growth. The reign of Elizabeth coincided with this stage in the develop- ment of England. The young vigour was beginning to stir—and Hawkins and Drake taught the world that it was so, and that when England stretched herself catastrophe abroad must follow. She loved finery and feathers and velvet, and to see herself on the dramatic stage and to sing her love-songs there, as a growing maid dresses up and leans on her hand and looks into her own eyes in the mirror—and Marlowe and Greene and Shakespeare are witnesses to it. Yet she loved to hang over the arena too and watch the bear-baiting and see the blood and foam and listen to the snarl of the hounds, as a lad loves sport and things that minister death. Her policy, too, under Elizabeth as her genius, was awkward and ill-considered and capricious, and yet strong and successful in the end, as a growing lad, while he is clumsier, yet manages to leap higher than a year ago. And once more, to carry the parallel still further, during the middle period of the reign, while the balance of parties and powers remained much the same, principles and tendencies began to assert themselves more definitely, just as muscles and sinews begin to appear through the round contour of the limbs of a growing child. 137 138 BY WHAT AUTHORITY Thus, from 1571 to 1577, while there was no startling reversal of elements in the affairs of England, the entire situation became more defined. The various parties, though they scarcely changed in their mutual relations, yet continued to develop swiftly along their respective lines, growing more pronounced and less inclined to compromise; foreign enmities and expectations became more acute; plots against the Queen’s life more frequent and serious, and the countermining of them under Walsingham more patient and skilful; competition and enterprise in trade more strenuous; Scottish affairs more complicated; movements of revolt and re- pression in Ireland more violent. What was true of politics was also true of religious matters, for the two were inextricably mingled. The Puritans daily became more clamorous and intolerant; their “Exercises” more turbulent, and their demands more unreasonable and one-sided. The Papists became at once more numerous and more strict; and the Govern- ment measures more stern in consequence. The act of ’71 made it no less a crime than High Treason to reconcile or be reconciled to the Church of Rome, to give effect to a Papal Bull, to be in possession of any muniments of superstition, or to declare the Queen a heretic or schismatic. The Church of England, too, under the wise guidance of Parker, had begun to shape her course more and more resolutely along the lines of inclusiveness and moderation; to realise herself as representing the religious voice of a nation that was widely divided on matters of faith; and to attempt to include within her fold every individual that was not an absolute fanatic in the Papist or Puritan direction. Thus, in every department, in home and foreign politics, in art and literature, and in religious independence, England was rising and shaking herself free; the last threads that bound her to the Continent were snapped by the Reformation, and she was standing with her soul, as she thought, awake and free at last, conscious of her beauty and her strength, ready to step out at last before the world, as a dominant and imperious power. Anthony Norris had been arrested, like so many others, by the vision of this young country of his, his mother and mistress, who stood there, waiting to be served. He had left Cambridge in ’73, and for three years had led a somewhat aimless life; for his guardian allowed him a generous income out of his father’s for- tune. He had stayed with Hubert in the north, had yawned and stretched himsel at Great Keynes, had gone to and fro among friends’ houses, and had at last come to the conclusion, ANTHONY IN LONDON 139 to which he was aided by a chorus of advisers, that he was wasting his time. He had begun then to look round him for some occupation, and in the final choice of it his early religious training had formed a large element. It had kept alive in him a certain sense of the supernatural, that his exuberance of physical life might other- wise have crushed; and now as he looked about to see how he could serve his country, he became aware that her ecclesiastical character had a certain attraction for him; he had had indeed an idea of taking Orders; but he had relinquished this by now, thought he still desired if he might to serve the National Church in some other capacity. There was much in the Church of Eng- land to appeal to her sons; if there was a lack of unity in her faith and policy, yet that was largely out of sight, and her bear- ing was gallant and impressive. She had great wealth, great power and great dignity. The ancient buildings and revenues were hers; the civil power was at her disposal, and the Queen was eager to further her influence, and to protect her bishops from the en- croaching power of Parliament, claiming only for the crown the right to be the point of union for both the secular and eccle- siastical sections of the nation, and to stamp by her royal approval or annul by her veto the acts of Parliament and Convocation alike. It seemed then to Anthony’s eyes that the Church of Eng- land had a tremendous destiny before her, as the religious voice of the nation that was beginning to make itself so dominant in the council of the world, and that there was no limit to the influence she might exercise by disciplining the exuberant strength of England, and counteracting by her soberness and self-restraint the passionate fanaticism of the Latin nations. So little by little in place of the shadowy individualism that was all that he knew of religion, there rose before him the vision of a living church, who came forth terrible as an army with banners, surrounded by all the loyalty that nationalism could give her, with the Queen herself as her guardian, and great princes and prelates as her supporters, while at the wheels of her splendid car walked her hot- blooded chivalrous sons, who served her and spread her glories by land and sea, not perhaps chiefly for the sake of her spiritual claims, but because she was bone of their bone, and was no less zealous than themselves for the name and character of England. When, therefore, towards the end of ’76, Anthony received the offer of a position in the household of the Archbishop of Can- 140 BY WHAT AUTHORITY terbury, through the recommendation of the father of one of his Cambridge friends, he accepted it with real gratitude and enthusiasm. The post to which he was appointed was that of Gentleman of the Horse. His actual duties were not very arduous owing to the special circumstances of Archbishop Grindal; and he had a good deal of time to himself. Briefly, they were as follows— He had to superintend the Yeoman of the Horse, and see that he kept full accounts of all the horses in stable or at pasture, and of all the carriages and harness and the like. Every morn- ing he had to present himself to the Archbishop and receive stable orders for the day, and to receive from the yeoman ac- counts of the stables. Every month he examined the books of the yeoman before passing them on to the steward. His per- mission too was necessary before any guest’s or stranger’s horse might be cared for in the Lambeth stables. He was responsible also for all the men and boys connected with the stable; to engage them, watch their morals and even the performance of their religious duties, and if necessary report them for dismissal to the steward of the household. In Arch- bishop Parker’s time this had been a busy post, as the state observed at Lambeth and Croydon was very considerable; but Grindal was of a more retiring nature, disliking as was said, “Jordliness”; and although still the household was an immense affair, in its elaborateness and splendour beyond almost any but royal households of the present day, still Anthony’s duties were far from heavy. The Archbishop indeed at first dispensed with this office altogether, and concentrated all the supervision of the stable on the yeoman, and Anthony was the first and only Gentleman of the Horse that Archbishop Grindal employed. The disgrace and punishment under which the Archbishop fell so early in his archiepiscopate made this particular post easier than it would even otherwise have been; as fewer equipages were required when the Archbishop was confined to his house, and the establishment was yet further reduced. Ordinarily then his duties were over by eleven o’clock, except when special arrangements were to be made. He rose early, waited upon the Archbishop by eight o’clock, and received his orders for the day; then interviewed the yeoman; sometimes visited the stables to receive complaints, and was ready by half- past ten to go to the chapel for the morning prayers with the rest of the household. At eleven he dined at the steward’s table ANTHONY IN LONDON | 141 in the great hall, with the other principal officers of the house- hold, the chaplain, the secretaries, and the gentlemen ushers, with guests of lesser degree. This great hall with its two entrances at the lower end near the gateway, its magnificent hammer-beam roof, its dais, its stained glass, was a worthy place of entertain- ment, and had been the scene of many great feasts and royal visits in the times of previous archbishops in favour with the sovereign, and of a splendid banquet at the beginning of Grindal’s occupancy of the see. Now, however, things were changed. There were seldom many distinguished persons to dine with the dis- graced prelate; and he himself preferred to entertain those who could not repay him again, after the precept of the gospel; and besides the provision for the numerous less important guests who dined daily at Lambeth, a great tub was set at the lower end of the hall as it had been in Parker’s time, and every day after dinner under the steward’s direction was filled with food from the tables, which was afterwards distributed at the gate to poor people of the neighbourhood. After dinner Anthony’s time was often his own, until the evening prayers at six, followed by supper again spread in the hall. It was necessary for him always to sleep in the house, unless leave was obtained from the steward. This gentleman, Mr. John Scot, an Esquire, took a fancy to Anthony, and was indulgent to him in many ways; and Anthony had, as a matter of fact, little difficulty in coming and going as he pleased so soon as his morning duties were done. Lambeth House had been lately restored by Parker, and was now a very beautiful and well-kept place. Among other repairs and buildings he had re-roofed the great hall that stood just within Morton’s gateway; he had built a long pier into the Thames where the barge could be entered easily even at low tide; he had rebuilt the famous summerhouse of Cranmer’s in the garden, besides doing many sanitary alterations and repairs; and the house was well kept up in Grindal’s time. Anthony soon added a great affection and tenderness to the awe that he felt for the Archbishop, who was almost from the first a pathetic and touching figure. When Anthony first entered on his duties in November ’76, he found the Archbishop in his last days of freedom and good favour with the Queen. Elizabeth, he soon learnt from the gossip of the household, was as determined to put down the Puritan “prophesyings” as the popish services; for both alike tended to injure the peace she was resolved to 142 BY WHAT AUTHORITY maintain. Rumours were flying to and fro; the Archbishop was continually going across the water to confer with his friends and the Lords of the Council, and messengers came and went all day; and it was soon evident that the Archbishop did not mean to yield. It was said that his Grace had sent a letter to her Majesty bidding her not to meddle with what did not concern her, telling her that she, too, would one day have to render account before Christ’s tribunal, and warning her of God’s anger if she persisted. Her Majesty had sworn like a trooper, a royal page said one day as he lounged over the fire in the guard-room, and had de- clared that if she was like Ozeas and Ahab and the rest, as Grindal had said she was, she would take care that he, at least, should be like Micaiah, the son of Imlah, before she had done with him. Then it began to leak out that Elizabeth was sending her commands to the bishops direct instead of through their Met- ropolitan; and, as the days went by, it became more and more evident that disgrace was beginning to shadow Lambeth. The barges that drew up at the watergate were fewer as summer went on, and the long tables in hall were more and more deserted; even the Archbishop himself seemed silent and cast down. Anthony used to watch him from his window going up and down the little walled garden that looked upon the river, with his hands clasped behind him and his black habit gathered up in them, and his chin on his breast. He would be longer than ever too in chapel after the morning prayer, and the company would wait and wonder in the anteroom till his Grace came in and gave the signal for dinner. And at last the blow fell. On one day in June, Anthony, who had been on a visit to Isabel at Great Keynes, returned to Lambeth in time for morning prayer and dinner just before the gates were shut by the porter, having ridden up early with a couple of grooms. There seemed to him to be an air of constraint abroad as the guests and mem- bers of the household gathered for dinner. There were no guests of high dignity that day, and the Archbishop sat at his own table silent and apart. Anthony, from his place at the steward’s table, noticed that he ate very sparingly, and that he appeared even more preoccupied and distressed than usual.. His short- sighted eyes, kind and brown, surounded by wrinkles from his habit of peering closely at everything, seemed full of sadness and perplexity, and his hand fumbled with his bread continually. Anthony did not like to ask anything of his neighbours, as there were one or two strangers dining at the steward’s table that day; ANTHONY IN LONDON 143 and the moment dinner was over, and grace had been said and the Archbishop retired with his little procession preceded by a white wand, an usher came running back to tell Master Norris that his Grace desired to see him at once in the inner cloister. Anthony hastened round through the court between the hall and the river, and found the Archbishop walking up and down in his black habit with the round flapped cap, that, as a Puritan, he preferred to the square head-dress of the more ecclesiastically- minded clergy, still looking troubled and cast down, continually stroking his dark forked beard, and talking to one of his secre- taries. Anthony stood at a little distance at the open side of the court near the river, cap in hand, waiting till the Archbishop should beckon him. The two went up and down in the shade in the open court outside the cloisters, where the pump stood, and where the pulpit had been erected for the Queen’s famous visit to his predecessor; when she had sat in a gallery over the cloister and heard the chaplain’s sermon. On the north rose up the roof of the chapel. The little cloisters themselves were poor buildings—little more than passages with a continuous row of square windows running along them the height of a man’s head. After a few minutes the secretary left the Archbishop with an obeisance, and hastened into the house through the cloister, and presently the Archbishop, after a turn or two more with the same grave air, peered towards Anthony and then called him. Anthony immediately came towards him and received orders that half a dozen horses with grooms should be ready as soon as possible, who were to receive orders from Mr. Richard Framp- ton, the secretary; and that three or four horses more were to be kept saddled till seven o’clock that evening in case further messages were wanted. “And I desire you, Mr. Norris,” said the Archbishop, “‘to let the men under your charge know that their master is in trouble with the Queen’s Grace; and that they can serve him best by being prompt and obedient.” Anthony bowed to the Archbishop, and was going to with- draw, but the Archbishop went on: “TY will tell you,’”’ he said, “for your private ear only at pres- ent, that I have received an order this day from my Lords of the Council, bidding me to keep to my house for six months; and telling me that I am sequestered by the Queen’s desire. I know not how this will end, but the cause is that I will not do 144 BY WHAT AUTHORITY her Grace’s will in the matter of the Exercises, as I wrote to tell her so; and I am determined, by God’s grace, not to yield in this thing; but to govern the charge committed to me as He gives me light. That is all, Mr. Norris.” The whole household was cast into real sorrow by the blow that had fallen at last on the master; he was “loving and grate- ful to servants”; and was free and liberal in domestic matters, and it needed only a hint that he was in trouble, for his officers and servants to do their utmost for him. Anthony’s sympathy was further aroused by the knowledge that the Papists, too, hated the old man, and longed to injure him. There had been a great increase of Catholics this year; the Archbishop of York had reported that “a more stiff-necked, wilful, or obstinate people did he never hear of”; and from Here- ford had come a lament that conformity itself was a mockery, as even the Papists that attended church were a distraction when they got there, and John Hareley was instanced as “reading so loud upon his Latin popish primer (that he understands not) that he troubles both minister and people.’”’ In November mat- ters were so serious that the Archbishop felt himself obliged to take steps to chastise the recusants; and in December came the news of the execution of Cuthbert Maine at Launceston in Cornwall. c How much the Catholics resented this against the Archbishop was brought to Anthony’s notice a day or two later. He was riding back from morning prayer after an errand in Battersea, one frosty day, and had just come in sight of Morton’s Gateway, when he observed a man standing by it, who turned and ran, on hearing the horse’s footsteps, past Lambeth Church and disap- peared in the direction of the meadows behind Essex House. Anthony checked his horse, doubtful whether to follow or not, but decided to see what it was that the man had left pinned to the door. He rode up and detached it, and found it was a violent and scurrilous attack upon the Archbishop for his sup- posed share in the death of the two Papists. It denounced him as a “bloody pseudo-minister,’ compared him to Pilate, and bade him “look to his congregation of lewd and profane persons that he named the Church of England,” for that God would avenge the blood of his saints speedily upon their murderers. Anthony carried it into the hall, and after showing it to Mr. Scot, put it indignantly into the fire. The steward raised his eyebrows. ANTHONY IN LONDON 145 “Why so, Master Norris?” he asked. “Why,” said Anthony sharply, ““you would not have me frame it, and show to my lord.” “Tf am not sure,” said the other, “if you desire to injure the Papists. Such foul nonsense is their best condemnation. It is best to keep evidence against a traitor, not destroy it. Besides, we might have caught the knave, and now we cannot,” he added, looking at the black shrivelling sheet half regretfully. “It is a mystery to me,” said Anthony, “how there can be Papists.” “Why, they hate England,” said the steward, briefly, as the bell rang for morning prayer. As Anthony followed him along the gallery, he thought half guiltily of Sir Nicholas and his lady, and wondered whether that was true of them. But he had no doubt that it was true of Catholics as a class; they had ceased to be English; the cause of the Pope and the Queen were irrecon- cilable; and so the whole incident added more fuel to the hot flame of patriotism and loyalty that burnt so bright in the lad’s soul. But it was fanned yet higher by a glimpse he had of Court- life; and he owed it to Mary Corbet whom he had only seen momentarily in public once or twice, and never to speak to since her visit to Great Keynes over six years ago. He had blushed pri- vately and bitten his lip a good many times in the interval, when he thought of his astonishing infatuation, and yet the glamour had never wholly faded; and his heart quickened perceptibly when he opened a note one day, brought by a royal groom, that asked him to come that very afternoon if he could, to Whitehall Palace, where Mistress Corbet would be delighted to see him and renew their acquaintance. As he came, punctual to the moment, into the gallery over- looking the tilt-yard, the afternoon sun was pouring in through the oriel window, and the yard beyond seemed ail a haze of golden light and dust. He heard an exclamation, as he paused, dazzled, and the servant closed the door behind him; and there came forward to him in the flood of glory, the same resplendent figure, all muslin and jewels, that he remembered so well, with the radiant face, looking scarcely older, with the same dancing eyes and scarlet lips. All the old charm seemed to envelop him in a moment as he saluted her with all the courtesy of which he was capable. “Ah!” she cried, “how happy I am to see you again—those 146 BY WHAT AUTHORITY dear days at Great Keynes!” And she took both his hands with such ardour that poor Anthony was almost forced to think that he had never been out of her thoughts since. “How can I serve you, Miss Corbet?” he asked. “Serve me? Why, by talking to me, and telling me of the country. What does the lad mean? Come and sit here,” she said, and she drew him to the window seat. Anthony looked out into the shining haze of the tilt-yard. Some one with a long pole was struggling violently on the back of a horse, jerking the reins and cursing audibly. “Took at that fool,” said Mary, “he thinks his horse as great a dolt as himself. Chris, Chris,’”’ she screamed through her hands—“‘you sodden ass; be quieter with the poor beast—soothe him, soothe him. He doesn’t know what you want of him with your foul temper and your pole going like a windmill about his ears.” The cursing and jerking ceased, and a red furious face with thick black beard and hair looked up. But before the rider could speak, Mary went on again: “There now, Chris, he is as quiet as a sheep again. Now take him at it.” “What does he want?” asked Anthony. “I can scarcely see for the dust.” “Why, he’s practising at the quintain;—ah! ah!” she cried out again, as the quintain was missed and swung round with a hard buffet on the man’s back as he tore past. “Going to market, Chris? You’ve got a sturdy shepherd behind you. Baa, baa, black sheep.” ‘“Who’s that?” asked Anthony, as the tall horseman, as if driven by the storm of contumely from the window, disappeared towards the stable. “Why, that’s Chris Hatton—whom the Queen calls her sheep, and he’s as silly as one, too, with his fool’s face and his bleat and his great eyes. He trots about after her Grace, too, like a pet lamb. Bah! I’m sick of him. That’s enough of the ass; tell me about Isabel.” Then they fell to talking about Isabel; and Mary eyed him as he answered her questions. “Then she isn’t a Papist, yet?” she asked. Anthony’s face showed such consternation that she burst out laughing. ‘There, there, there!” she cried. ‘‘No harm’s done. Then that ANTHONY IN LONDON 147 tall lad, who was away last time I was there—well, I suppose he’s not turned Protestant?” Anthony’s face was still more bewildered. “Why, my dear lad,” she said, ‘““where are your eyes?” “Mistress Corbet,” he burst out at last, “I do not know what you mean. Hubert has been in Durham for years. There is no talk”—and he stopped. Mary’s face became sedate again. “Well, well,’ she said, “I always was a tattler. It seems I am wrong again. Forgive me, Master Anthony.” Anthony was indeed astonished at her fantastic idea. Of course he knew that Hubert had once been fond of Isabel, but that was years ago, when they had been all children together. Why, he reflected, he too had been foolish once—and he blushed a little. Then they went on to talk of Great Keynes, Sir Nicholas, and Mr. Stewart’s arrest and death; and Mary asked Anthony to excuse her interest in such matters, but Papistry had always been her religion, and what could a poor girl do but believe what she was taught? Then they went on to speak of more recent affairs, and Mary made him describe to her his life at Lambeth, and everything he did from the moment he got up to the moment he went to bed again; and whether the Archbishop was a kind master, and how long they spent at prayers, and how many courses they had at dinner; and Anthony grew more and more animated and confidential—she was so friendly and interested and pretty, as she leaned towards him and questioned and listened, and the faint scent of violet from her dress awakened his old memories of her. And then at last she approached the subject on which she had chiefly wished to see him—which was that he should speak to the steward at Lambeth on behalf of a young man who was to be dismissed, it seemed, from the Archbishop’s service, because his sister had lately turned Papist and fled to a convent abroad. It was a small matter; and Anthony readily promised to do his best, and, if necessary, to approach the Archbishop himself: and Mistress Corbet was profusely grateful. They had hardly done talking of the matter, when a trumpet blew suddenly somewhere away behind the building they were in. Mary held up a white finger and put her head on one side. “That will be the Ambassador,” she said. Anthony looked at her interrogatively. 148 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “Why, you country lad!” she said, ‘“‘come and see.” She jumped up, and he followed her down the gallery, and along through interminable corridors and antechambers, and up and down the stairs of this enormous palace; and Anthony grew bewildered and astonished as he went at the doors on all sides, and the roofs that ranged themselves every way as he looked out. And at last Mary stopped at a window, and pointed out. The courtyard beneath was alive with colour and movement. In front of the entrance opposite waited the great gilded state carriage, and another was just driving away. On one side a dozen ladies on grey horses were drawn up, to follow behind the Queen when she should come out; and a double row of liveried servants were standing bareheaded round the empty carriage. The rest of the court was filled with Spanish and English nobles, mounted, with their servants on foot; all alike in splendid cos- tumes—the Spaniards with rich chains about their necks, and tall broad-brimmed hats decked with stones and pearls, and the Englishmen in feathered buckled caps and short cloaks thrown back. Two or three trumpeters stood on the steps of the porch. Anthony did not see much state at Lambeth, and the splendour and gaiety of this seething courtyard exhilarated him, and he stared down at it all, fascinated, while Mary Corbet poured out a caustic commentary: “There is the fat fool Chris again, all red with his tilting. I would like to baa at him again, but I dare not with all these foreign folk. . There is Leicester, that tall man with a bald fore- head in the cap with the red feather, on the white horse behind the carriage—he always keeps close to the Queen. He is the enemy of your prelate, Master Anthony, you know. . . . That is Oxford, just behind him on the chestnut. Yes, look well at him. He is the prince of the tilt-yard; none can stand against him. You would say he was at his nine-pins, when he rides against them all. . . . And he can do more than tilt. These sweet-washed gloves’’—and she flapped an embroidered pair before Anthony “these he brought to England. God bless and reward him for it!” she added fervently... . ‘I do not see Burghley. Eh! but he is old and gouty these days; and loves a cushion and a chair and a bit of flannel better than to kneel before her Grace. You know, she allows him to sit when he confers with her. But then, she is ever prone to show mercy to bearded persons. .. . Ah! there is dear Sidney; that is a sweet soul. But what does he do here among the stones and mortar when he has the beeches ANTHONY IN LONDON 149 of Penshurst to walk beneath? He is not so wise as I thought him. . . . But I must say I grow weary of his nymphs and his airs of Olympus. And for myself, I do not see that Flora and Phcebus and Maia and the rest are a great gain, instead of Our Lady and Saint Christopher and the court of heaven. But then I am a Papist and not a heathen, and therefore blind and super- stitious. Is that not so, Master Anthony? ... And there is Maitland beside him, with the black velvet cap and the white feather, and his cross eyes and mouth. Now I wish he were at Penshurst, or Bath—or better still, at Jericho, for it is further off. I cannot bear that fellow. ... Why, Sussex is going on the water, too, I see. Now what brings him here? I should have thought his affairs gave him enough to think of... . There he is, with his groom behind him, on the other chestnut. I am astonished at him. He is all for this French marriage, you know. So you may figure to yourself Mendoza’s love for him! They will be like two cats together on the barge; spitting and snarling softly at one another. Her Grace loves to balance folk like that; first one stretches his claws, and then the other; then one arches his back and snarls, and the other scratches his face for him; and then when all is flying fur and blasphemy, off slips her Grace and does what she will.” It was an astonishing experience for Anthony. He had stepped out from his workaday life among the grooms and officers and occasional glimpses of his lonely old master, into an enchanted region, where great personages whose very names were luminous with fame, now lived and breathed and looked cheerful or sullen before his very eyes; and one who knew them in their daily life stood by him and commented and interpreted them for him. He listened and stared, dazed with the strangeness of it all. Mistress Corbet was proceeding to express her views upon the foreign element that formed half the pageant, when the shrill music broke out again in the palace, and the trumpeters on the steps took it up; and a stir and bustle began. Then out of the porch began to stream a procession, like a river of colour and jewels, pouring from the foot of the carved and windowed wall, and eddying in a tumbled pool about the great gilt carriage;— ushers and footmen and nobles and ladies and pages in bewilder- ing succession. Anthony pressed his forehead to the glass as he watched, with little exclamations, and Mary watched him, amused and interested by his enthusiasm. And last moved the great canopy bending and swaying under 150 BY WHAT AUTHORITY the doorway, and beneath it, like two gorgeous butterflies, at the sight of whom all the standing world fell on its knees, came the pale Elizabeth with her auburn hair, and the brown-faced Mendoza, side by side; and entered the carriage with the five plumes atop and the caparisoned horses that stamped and tossed their jingling heads. The yard was already emptying fast, en route for Chelsea Stairs; and as soon as the two were seated, the shrill trumpets blew again, and the halberdiers moved off with the carriage in the midst, the great nobles going before, and the ladies behind. The later comers mounted as quickly as possible, as their horses were brought in from the stable entrance, and clattered away, and in five minutes the yard was empty, except for a few sentries at their posts, and a servant or two lounging at the doorway; and as Anthony still stared at the empty pave- ment and the carpeted steps, far away from the direction of the Abbey came the clear call of the horns to tell the loyal folk that the Queen was coming. It was a great inspiration for Anthony. He had seen world- powers incarnate below him in the glittering rustling figure of the Queen, and the dark-eyed courtly Ambassador in his orders and jewels at her side. There they had sat together in one carriage; the huge fiery realm of the south, whose very name was redolent with passion and adventure and boundless wealth; and the little self-contained northern kingdom, now beginning to stretch its hands, and quiver all along its tingling sinews and veins with fresh adolescent life. And Anthony knew that he was one of the cells of this young organism; and that in him as well as in Elizabeth and this sparkling creature at his side ran the fresh red blood of England. They were all one in the pos- session of a common life; and his heart burned as he thought of it. After he had parted from Mary he rode back to Westminster, and crossed the river by the horse-ferry that plied there. And even as he landed and got his beast, with a deal of stamping and blowing, off the echoing boards on to the clean gravel again, there came down the reaches of the river the mellow sound of music across a mile of water, mingled with the deep rattle of oars, and sparkles of steel and colour glittered from the far-away royal barges in the autumn sunshine; and the lad thought with wonder how the two great powers so savagely at war upon the salt sea, were at peace here, sitting side by side on silken cushions and listening to the same trumpets of peace upon the flowing river. CHAPTER II SOME NEW LESSONS THE six years that followed Sir Nicholas’ return and Hubert’s departure for the North had passed uneventfully at Great Keynes. The old knight had been profoundly shocked that any Catholic, especially an agent so valuable as Mr. Stewart, should have found his house a death-trap; and although he continued receiving his friends and succouring them, he did so with more real caution and less ostentation of it. His religious zeal and discretion were further increased by the secret return to the “Old Religion” of several of his villagers during the period; and a very fair congre- gation attended Mass so often as it was said in the cloister wing of the Hall. The new Rector, like his predecessor, was content to let the squire alone; and unlike him had no wife to make trouble. Then, suddenly, in the summer of ’77, catastrophes began, headed by the unexpected return of Hubert, impatient of waiting, and with new plans in his mind. Isabel had been out with Mistress Margaret walking in the dusk one August evening after supper, on the raised terrace be- neath the yews. They had been listening to the loud snoring of the young owls in the ivy on the chimney-stack opposite, and had watched the fierce bird slide silently out of the gloom, white against the blackness, and disappear down among the meadows. Once Isabel had seen him pause, too, on one of his return jour- neys, suspicious of the dim figures beneath, silhouetted on a branch against the luminous green western sky, with the outline of a mouse with its hanging tail plain in his crooked claws, before he glided to his nest again. As Isabel waited she heard the bang of the garden-door, but gave it no thought, and a moment after Mistress Margaret asked her to fetch a couple of wraps from the house for them both, as the air had a touch of chill in it. She came down the lichened steps, crossed the lawn, and passed into the unlighted hall. As she entered, the door 151 152 BY WHAT AUTHORITY opposite opened, and for a moment she saw the silhouette of a man’s figure against the bright passage beyond. Her heart sud- denly leapt, and stood still. “Anthony!” she whispered, in a hush of suspense. There was a vibration and a step beside her. “Tsabel!”? said Hubert’s voice. And then his arms closed round her for the first time in her life. She struggled and panted a moment as she felt his breath on her face; and he re- leased her. She recoiled to the door, and stood there silent and panting. “Oh! Isabel!” he whispered; and again, “‘Isabel!”’ She put out her hand and grasped the door-post behind her. “Oh! Hubert! Why have you come?” He came a step nearer and she could see the faint whiteness of his face in the western glimmer. “T cannot wait,” he said, ‘I have been nearly beside myself. I have left the north—and I cannot wait so long.” “Well?” she said; and he heard the note of entreaty and anxiety in her voice. : “T have my plans,” he answered; “I will tell you to-morrow. Where is my aunt?” Isabel heard a step on the gravel outside. “She is coming,” she said sharply. Hubert melted into the dark, and she saw the opposite door open and let him out. The next day Hubert announced his plans to Sir Nicholas, and a conflict followed. “T cannot go on, sir,” he said, “I cannot wait for ever. I am treated like a servant, too; and you know how miserably I am paid. I have obeyed you for six years, sir; and now I have thrown up the post and told my lord to his face that I can bear with him no longer.” Sir Nicholas’ face, as he sat in his upright chair opposite the boy, grew flushed with passion. “Tt is your accursed temper, sir,” he said violently. ‘I know you of old. Wait? For what? For the Protestant girl? I told you to put that from your mind, sir.” Hubert did not propose as yet to let his father into all his plans. “T have not spoken her name, sir, I think. I say I cannot wait for my fortune; I may be impatient, sir—I do not deny it.” “Then how do you propose to better it?” sneered his father. “In November,” said Hubert steadily, looking his father in the eyes, “TI sail with Mr. Drake.” SOME NEW LESSONS 153 Sir Nicholas’ face grew terrific. He rose, and struck the table twice with his clenched fist. “Then, by God, sir, Mr. Drake may have you now.” Hubert’s face grew white with anger; but he had his temper under control. “Then I wish you good-day, sir,” and he left the room. When the boy had left the house again for London, as he did the same afternoon, Lady Maxwell tried to soothe the old man. It was impossible, even for her, to approach him before. “Sweetheart,” she said tranquilly, as he sat and glowered at his plate when supper was over and the men had left the room, “sweetheart, we must have Hubert down here again. He must not sail with Mr. Drake.” The old man’s face flared up again in anger. “He may follow his own devices,” he cried. “I care not what he does. He has given up the post that I asked for him; and he comes striding and ruffling home with his hat cocked and— and ”: his voice became inarticulate. “He is only a boy, sweetheart; with a boy’s hot blood—you would sooner have him like that than a milk-sop. Besides—he is our boy.” The old man growled. His wife went on: “And now that James cannot have the estate, he must have it, as you know, and carry on the old name.” “He has disgraced it,” burst out the angry old man, “and he is going now with that damned Protestant to harry Catholics. By the grace of God I love my country, and would serve her Grace with my heart’s blood—but that my boy should go with Drake !” and again his voice failed. It was a couple of days before she could obtain her husband’s leave to write a conciliatory letter, giving leave to Hubert to go with Drake, if he had made any positive engagement (because, as she represented to Sir Nicholas, there was nothing actually wrong or disloyal to the Faith in it)—but entreating him with much pathos not to leave his old parents so bitterly. “Oh, my dear son,” the end of the letter ran, “your father is old; and God, in whose hand are our days, alone knows how long he will live; and I, too, my son, am old. So come back to us and be our dear child again. You must not think too hardly of your father’s words to you; he is quick and hot, as you are, too—but indeed we love you dearly. Your room here is ready 154 BY WHAT AUTHORITY for you; and Piers wants a firm hand now over him, as your father is so old. So come back, my darling, and make our old hearts glad again.” But the weeks passed by, and no answer came, and the old people’s hearts grew sick with suspense; and then, at last, in September the courier brought a letter, written from Plymouth, which told the mother that it was too late; that he had in fact engaged himself to Mr. Drake in August before he had come to Great Keynes at all; and that in honour he must keep his engage- ment. He asked pardon of his father for his hastiness; but it seemed a cold and half-hearted sorrow; and the letter ended by announcing that the little fleet would sail in November; and that at present they were busy fitting the ships and engaging the men; and that there would be no opportunity for him to return to wish them good-bye before he sailed. It was plain that the lad was angry still. Sir Nicholas did not say much; but a silence fell on the house. Lady Maxwell sent for Isabel, and they had a long interview. The old lady was astonished at the girl’s quietness and resignation. Yes, she said, she loved Hubert with all her heart. She had loved him for a long while. No, she was not angry, only startled. What would she do about the difference in religion? Could she marry him while one was a Catholic and the other a Protestant? No, they would never be happy like that; and she did not know what she would do. She supposed she would wait and see. Yes, she would wait and see; that was all that could be done-——And then had come a silent burst of tears, and the girl had sunk down on her knees and hidden her face in the old lady’s lap, and the wrinkled jewelled old hand passed quietly over the girl’s black hair; but no more had been said, and Isabel presently got up and went home to the Dower House. The autumn went by, and November came, and there was no further word from Hubert. Then towards the end of November a report reached them from Anthony at Lambeth that the fleet had sailed; but had put back into Falmouth after a terrible storm in the Channel. And hope just raised its head. Then one evening after supper Sir Nicholas complained of fever and restlessness, and went early to bed. In the night he was delirious. Mistress Margaret hastened up at midnight from the Dower House, and a groom galloped off to Lindfield before morning to fetch the doctor, and another to fetch Mr. Barnes, the priest, from Cuckfield. Sir Nicholas was bled to reduce the SOME NEW LESSONS 155 fever of the pneumonia that had attacked him. All day long he was sinking. About eleven o’clock that night he fell asleep, appar- ently, and Lady Maxwell, who had watched incessantly, was persuaded to lie down; but at three o’clock in the morning, on the first of December, Mistress Margaret awakened her, and together they knelt by the bedside of the old man. The priest, who had anointed him on the previous evening, knelt behind, re- peating the prayers for the dying. Sir Nicholas lay on his back, supported by pillows, under the gloom of the black old four-posted bed. A wood-fire glowed on the hearth, and the air was fragrant with the scent of the burning cedar-logs. A crucifix was in the old man’s hands; but his eyes were bright with fever, and his fingers every now and then relaxed, and then tightened their hold again on the cool silver of the figure of the crucified Saviour. His lips were moving tremu- lously, and his ruddy old face was pale now. The priest’s voice went on steadily; the struggle was beginning. “Proficiscere, anima christiana, de hoc mundo-—Go forth, Christian soul, from this world in the name of God the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, Who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who was shed forth upon thee; in the name of Angels and Archangels; in the name of Thrones and Dominions; in the name of Principalities and Powers fi Suddenly the old man, whose head had been slowly turning from side to side, ceased his movement, and his open mouth closed; he was looking steadily at his wife, and a look of recog- nition came back to his eyes. “Sweetheart,” he said; and smiled, and died. Isabel did not see much of Mistress Margaret for the next few days; she was constantly with her sister, and when she came to the Dower House now and then, said little to the girl. There were curious rumours in the village; strangers came and went continually, and there was a vast congregation at the funeral, when the body of the old knight was laid to rest in the Maxwell chapel. The following day the air of mystery deepened; and young Mrs. Melton whispered to Isabel, with many glances and becks, that she and her man had seen lights through the chapel windows at three o’clock that morning. Isabel went into the chapel presently to visit the grave, and there was a new smear of black on the east wall as if a taper had been set too near. 156 BY WHAT AUTHORITY The courier who had been despatched to announce to Hubert that his father had died and left him master of the Hall and estate, with certain conditions, returned at the end of the month with the news that the fleet had sailed again on the thirteenth, and that Hubert was gone with it; so Lady Maxwell, now more silent and retired than ever, for the present retained her old position and Mr. Piers took charge of the estate. Although Isabel outwardly was very little changed in the last six years, great movements had been taking place in her soul, and if Hubert had only known the state of the case, possibly he would not have gone so hastily. with Mr. Drake. The close companionship of such an one as Mistress Margaret was doing its almost inevitable work; and the girl had been learning that behind the brilliant and even crude surface of the Catholic practice, there lay still and beautiful depths of devotion which she had scarcely dreamed of. The old nun’s life was a revelation to Isabel; she heard from her bed in the black winter mornings her footsteps in the next room, and soon learnt that Mistress Margaret spent at least two hours in prayer before she appeared at all. Two or three times in the day she knew that she retired again for the same purpose, and again an hour after she was in bed, there were the same gentle movements next door. She began to discover, too, that for the Catholic, as well as for the Puritan, the Person of the Saviour was the very heart of religion; that her own devotion to Christ was a very languid flame by the side of the ardent inarticulate passion of this soul who believed herself His wedded spouse; and that the worship of the saints and the Blessed Mother instead of distracting the love of the Christian soul rather seemed to augment it. The King of Love stood, as she fancied sometimes, to Catholic eyes, in a glow of ineffable splendour; and the faces of His adoring Court reflected the ruddy glory on all sides; thus refracting the light of their central Sun, instead of, as she had thought, ob- scuring it. Other difficulties, too, began to seem oddly unreal and in- tangible, when she had looked at them in the light of Mistress Margaret’s clear old eyes and candid face. It was a real event in her inner life when she first began to understand what the rosary meant to Catholics. Mistress Corbet had told her what was the actual use of the beads; and how the mysteries of Christ’s life and death were to be pondered over as the various prayers were said; but it had hitherto seemed to Isabel as if this method SOME NEW LESSONS 157 were an elaborate and superstitious substitute for reading the inspired record of the New Testament. She had been sitting out in the little walled garden in front of the Dower House one morning on an early summer day after her father’s death, and Mistress Margaret had come out in her black dress and stood for a moment looking at her irresolutely, framed in the dark doorway. Then she had come slowly across the grass, and Isabel had seen for the first time in her fingers a string of ivory beads. Mistress Margaret sat down on a garden chair a little way from her, and let her hands sink into her lap, still holding the beads. Isabel said nothing, but went on reading. Presently she looked up again, and the old lady’s eyes were half- closed, and her lips just moving; and the beads passing slowly through her fingers. She looked almost like a child dreaming, in spite of her wrinkles and her snowy hair; the pale light of a serene soul lay on her face. This did not look like the mechanical performance that Isabel had always associated with the idea of beads. So the minutes passed away; every time that Isabel looked up there was the little white face with the long lashes lying on the cheek, and the crown of snowy hair and lace, and the luminous look of a soul in conscious communion with the unseen. When the old lady had finished, she twisted the beads about her fingers and opened her eyes. Isabel had an impulse to speak. “Mistress Margaret,” she said, “may I ask you something?”’ “Of course, my darling,” the old lady said. “T have never seen you use those before—I cannot understand them.” “What is it,’ asked the old lady, “that you don’t understand?” “How can prayers said over and over again like that be any good?” Mistress Margaret was silent for a moment. “T saw young Mrs. Martin last week,” she said, “‘with her little girl in her lap. Amy had her arms round her mother’s neck, and was being rocked to and fro; and every time she rocked she said ‘Oh, mother.’ ” “But then,” said Isabel, after a moment’s silence, “she was only a child.” ““ “Except ye become like little children >” quoted Mistress Margaret softly—‘‘you see, my Isabel, we are nothing more than children with God and His Blessed Mother. To say ‘Hail Mary, Hail Mary,’ is the best way of telling her how much we love her. And then this string of beads is like Our Lady’s girdle, and 158 BY WHAT AUTHORITY her children love to finger it, and whisper to her. And then we say our paternosters, too; and all the while we are talking she is shewing us pictures of her dear Child, and we look at all the great things He did for us, one by one; and then we turn the page and begin again.” “T see,” said Isabel; and after a moment or two’s silence Mis- tress Margaret got up and went into the house. The girl sat still with her hands clasped round her knee. How strange and different this religion was to the fiery gospel she had heard last year at Northampton from the harsh stern preacher, at whose voice a veil seemed to rend and show a red-hot heaven behind! How tender and simple this was—like a blue summer’s sky with drifting clouds! If only it was true! If only there were a great Mother whose girdle was of beads strung together, which dangled into every Christian’s hands; whose face bent down over every Christian’s bed; and whose mighty and tender arms that had held her Son and God were still stretched out beneath her other children. And Isabel, whose soul yearned for a mother, sighed as she reminded herself that there was but “one Mediator between God and man—the man, Christ Jesus.” And so the time went by, like an outgoing tide, silent and steady. The old nun did not talk much to the girl about dog- matic religion, for she was in a difficult position. She was timid certainly of betraying her faith by silence, but she was also timid of betraying her trust by speech. Sometimes she felt she had gone too far, sometimes not far enough; but on the whole her practice was never to suggest questions, but only to answer them when Isabel asked; and to occupy herself with affirmative rather than with destructive criticism. More than this she hesitated to do out of honour for the dead; less than this she dared not do out of love for God and Isabel. But there were three or four conversations that she felt were worth waiting for; and the look on Isabel’s face afterwards, and the sudden questions she would ask sometimes after a fit of silence, made her friend’s heart quicken towards her, and her prayers more fervent. The two were sitting together one December day in Isabel’s upstairs room and the girl, who had just come in from a solitary walk, was half kneeling on the window-seat and drumming her fingers softly on the panes as she looked out at the red west- ern sky. “T used to think,” she said, “that Catholics had no spiritual life; but now it seems to me that in comparison we Puritans have SOME NEW LESSONS 159 none. You know so much about the soul, as to what is from God and what from the Evil One: and we have to grope for our- selves. And yet our Saviour said that His sheep should know His voice. I do not understand it.’’ And she turned towards Mistress Margaret who had laid down her work and was listening. “Dear child,” she said, “if you mean our priests and spiritual writers, it is because they study it. We believe in the science of the soul; and we consult our spiritual guides for our soul’s health, as the leech for our body’s health.” “But why must you ask the priest, if the Lord speaks to all alike?” “He speaks through the priest, my dear, as He does through the physician.” “But why should the priest know better than the people?” pursued Isabel, intent on her point. “Because he tells us what the Church says,” said the other smiling, “it is his business. He need not be any better or cleverer in other respects. The baker may be a thief or a foolish fellow; but his bread is good.” “But how do you know,” went on Isabel, who thought Mistress Margaret a little slow to see her point—‘“how do you know that the Church is right?” The old nun considered a moment, and then lifted her em- broidery again. “Why do you think,” she asked, beginning to sew, “that each single soul that asks God’s guidance is right?” “Because the Holy Ghost is promised to such,” said Isabel wondering. “Then is it not likely,” went on the other still stitching, ‘‘that the millions of souls who form Holy Church are right, when they all agree together?”’? Isabel moved a little impatiently. “You see,” went on Mistress Margaret, “that is what we Catho- lics believe our Saviour meant when He said that the gates of hell should not prevail against His Church.” ' But Isabel was not content. She broke in: “But why are not the Scriptures sufficient? They are God’s Word.” The other put down her embroidery again, and smiled up into the girl’s puzzled eyes. “Well, my child,” she said, “‘do they seem sufficient, when you look at Christendom now? If they are so clear, how is it that you have the Lutherans, and the Anabaptists, and the Family of 160 BY WHAT AUTHORITY Love, and the Calvinists, and the Church of England, all saying they hold to the Scriptures alone. Nay, nay; the Scriptures are the grammar, and the Church is the dame that teaches out of it, and she knows so well much that is not in the grammar, and we name that tradition. But where there is no dame to teach, the children soon fall a-fighting about the book and the meaning of it.” Isabel looked at Mistress Margaret a moment, and then turned back again to the window in silence. At another time they had a word or two about Peter’s prerogatives. | “Surely,” said Isabel suddenly, as they walked together in the garden, “Christ is the one Foundation of the Church, St. Paul tells us so expressly.” “Yes, my dear,” said the nun, “but then Christ our Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.’ So he who is the only Good Shepherd, said to Peter, ‘Feed My sheep’; and He that is Clavis David and that openeth and none shutteth said to him, ‘I will give thee the keys, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.’ That is why we call Peter the Vicar of Christ.” Isabel raised her eyebrows. “Surely, surely ” she began. “Ves, my child,” said Mistress Margaret, ‘I know it is new and strange to you; but it was not to your grandfather or his forbears: to them, as to me, it is the plain meaning of the words. We Catholics are a simple folk. We hold that what our Saviour said simply He meant simply: as we do in the sacred mystery of His Body and Blood. To us, you know,” she went on, smiling, with a hand on the girl’s arm, “it seems as if you Protestants twisted the Word of God against all justice.” Isabel smiled back at her; but she was puzzled. The point of view was new to her. And yet again in the garden, a few months later, as they sat out together on the lawn, the girl opened the same subject. ‘Mistress Margaret,” she said, “I have been thinking a great deal; and it seems very plain when you talk. But you know our great divines could answer you, though I cannot. My father was no Papist; and Dr. Grindal and the Bishops are all wise men. How do you answer that?” The nun looked silently down at the grass a moment or two. “It is the old tale,” she said at last, looking up; ‘‘we cannot SOME NEW LESSONS 161 believe that the babes and sucklings are as likely to be right in such matters as the wise and prudent—even more likely, if our Saviour’s words are to be believed. Dear child, do you not see that our Lord came to save all men, and call all men into His Church; and that therefore He must have marked His Church in such a manner that the most ignorant may perceive it as easily as the most learned? Learning is very well, and it is the gift of God; but salvation and grace cannot depend upon it. It needs an architect to understand why Paul’s Church is strong and beautiful, and what makes it so; but any child or foolish fellow can see that it is so.” “T do not understand,” said Isabel, wrinkling her forehead. “Why this—that you are as likely to know the Catholic Church when you see it, as Dr. Grindal or Dr. Freake, or your dear father himself. Only a divine can explain about it and understand it, but you and I are as fit to see it and walk into it, as any of them.” “But then why are they not all Catholics?” asked Isabel, still bewildered. “Ah!” said the nun, softly, “God alone knows, who reads hearts and calls whom He will. But learning, at least, has nought to do with it.” Conversations of this kind that took place now and then be- tween the two were sufficient to show Mistress Margaret, like tiny bubbles on the surface of a clear stream, the swift movement of this limpid soul that she loved so well. But on the other hand, all the girl’s past life, and most sacred and dear associations, were in conflict with this movement; the memory of her quiet, wise father rose and reproached her sometimes; Anthony’s enthu- siastic talk, when he came down from Lambeth, on the glorious destinies of the Church of England, of her gallant protest against the corruptions of the West, and of her future unique position in Christendom as the National Church of the most progressive country—all this caused her to shrink back terrified from the bourne to which she was drifting, and from the breach that must follow with her brother. But above all else that caused her pain was the shocking suspicion that her love for Hubert perhaps was influencing her, and that she was living in gross self-deception as to the sincerity of her motives. This culminated at last in a scene that seriously startled the old nun; it took place one summer night after Hubert’s departure in Mr. Drake’s expedition. Mistress Margaret had seen Isabel to her room, and an hour later had finished her night-office and was 162 BY WHAT AUTHORITY thinking of preparing herself to bed, when there was a hurried tap at the door, and Isabel came quickly in, her face pale and miserable, her great grey eyes full of trouble and distraction, and her hair on her shoulders. “My dear child,” said the nun, “what is it?” Isabel closed the door and stood looking at her, with her lips parted. “How can I know, Mistress Margaret,” she said, in the voice of a sleep-walker, ‘“‘whether this is the voice of God or of my own wicked self? No, no,’ she went on, as the other came towards her, frightened, ‘Jet me tell you. 1 must speak.” “Yes, my child, you shall; but come and sit down first,”’ and she drew her to a chair and set her in it, and threw a wrap over her knees and feet; and sat down beside her, and took one of her hands, and held it between her own. “‘Now then, Isabel, what is it?” “J have been thinking over it all so long,” began the girl, in the same tremulous voice, with her eyes fixed on the nun’s face, “and to-night in bed I could not bear it any longer. You see, I love Hubert, and I used to think I loved our Saviour too; but now I do not know. It seems as if He was leading me to the Catholic Church; all is so much more plain and easy there—it seems—it seems—to make sense in the Catholic Church; and all the rest of us are wandering in the dark. But if I become a Catholic, you see, I can marry Hubert then; and I cannot help thinking of that; and wanting to marry him. But then perhaps that is the reason that I think I see it all so plainly; just because I want to see it plainly. And what am I to do? Why will not our Lord shew me my own heart and what is His Will?” Mistress Margaret shook her head gently. “Dear child,” she said, “our Saviour loves you and wishes to make you happy. Do you not think that perhaps He is helping you and making it easy in this way, by drawing you to His Church through Hubert. Why should not both be His Will? that you should become a Catholic and marry Hubert as well?” “Ves,” said Isabel, “but how can I tell?” “There is only one thing to be done,” went on the old lady, “be quite simple and quiet. Whenever your soul begins to be disturbed and anxious, put yourself in His Hands, and refuse to decide for yourself. It is so easy, so easy.” “But why should I be so anxious and disturbed, if it were not our Lord speaking and warning me?” SOME NEW LESSONS 163 “In the Catholic Church,” said Mistress Margaret, ‘““we know well about all those movements of the soul; and we call them scruples. You must resist them, dear child, like temptations. We are told that if a soul is in grace and desires to serve God, then whenever our Lord speaks it is to bring sweetness with Him; and when it is the evil one, he brings disturbance. And that is why I am sure that these questionings are not from God. You feel stifled, is it not so, when you try to pray? and all seems empty of God; the waves and storms are going over you. But lie still and be content; and refuse to be disturbed; and you will soon be at peace again and see the light clearly.” Mistress Margaret found herself speaking simply in short words and sentences as to a child. She had seen that for a long while past the clouds had been gathering over Isabel, and that her soul was at present completely overcast and unable to perceive or decide anything clearly; and so she gave her this simple advice, and did her utmost to soothe her, knowing that such a clean soul would not be kept long in the dark. She knelt down with Isabel presently and prayed aloud with her, in a quiet even voice; a patch of moonlight lay on the floor, and something of its white serenity seemed to be in the old nun’s tones as she entreated the merciful Lord to bid peace again to this anxious soul, and let her see light again through the dark. And when she had taken Isabel back again to her own room at last, and had seen her safely into bed, and kissed her. good- night, already the girl’s face was quieter as it lay on the pillow, and the lines were smoothed out of her forehead. “God bless you!” said Mistress Margaret. CHAPTER III HUBERT’S RETURN AFTER the sailing of Mr. Drake’s expedition, the friends of the adventurers had to wait in patience for several months before news arrived. Then the Elizabeth, under the command of Mr. Winter, which had been separated from Mr. Drake’s Pelican in a gale off the south-west coast of America, returned to England, bringing the news of Mr. Doughty’s execution for desertion; but of the Pelican herself there was no further news until complaints arrived from the Viceroy of New Spain of Mr. Drake’s ravages up the west coast. Then silence again fell for eighteen months. Anthony had followed the fortunes of the Pelican, in which Hubert had sailed, with a great deal of interest: and it was with real relief that after the burst of joy in London at the news of her safe return to Plymouth with an incalculable amount of plunder, he had word from Lady Maxwell that she hoped he would come down at once to Great Keynes, and help to welcome Hubert home. He was not able to go at once, for his duties detained him; but a couple of days after the Hall had welcomed its new master, Anthony was at the Dower House again with Isabel. He found her extraordinarily bright and vivacious, and was delighted at the change, for he had been troubled the last time he had seen her a few months before, at her silence and listlessness; but her face was radiant now, as she threw herself into his arms at the door, and told him that they were all to go to supper that night at the Hall; and that Hubert had been keeping his best stories on purpose for his return. She showed him, when they got up to his room at last, little things Hubert had given her—carved nuts, a Spanish coin or two, and an ingot of gold—but of which she would say nothing, but only laugh and nod her head. Hubert, too, when he saw him that evening seemed full of the same sort of half-suppressed happiness that shone out now and again suddenly. There he sat, for hours after supper that night, broader and more sunburnt than ever, with his brilliant 164 HUBERT’S RETURN 165 eyes glancing round as he talked, and his sinewy man’s hand, in the delicate creamy ruff, making little explanatory movements, and drawing a map once or twice in spilled wine on the polished oak; the three ladies sat forward and watched him breathlessly, or leaned back and sighed as each tale ended, and Anthony found himself, too, carried away with enthusiasm again and again, as he looked at this gallant sea-dog in his gold chain and satin and jewels, and listened to his stories. “Tt was bitter cold,” said Hubert in his strong voice, telling them of Mr. Doughty’s death, “on the morning itself: and snow lay on the decks when we rose. Mr. Fletcher had prepared a table in the poop-cabin, with a white cloth and bread and wine; and at nine of the clock we were all assembled where we might see into the cabin: and Mr. Fletcher said the Communion service, and Mr. Drake and Mr. Doughty received the sacrament there at his hands. Some of Mr. Doughty’s men had all they could do to keep back their tears; for you know, mother, they were good friends. And then when it was done, we made two lines down the deck to where the block stood by the main-mast; and the two came down together; and they kissed one another there. And Mr. Doughty spoke to the men, and bade them pray for the Queen’s Grace with him; and they did. And then he and Mr. Drake put off their doublets, and Mr. Doughty knelt at the block, and said another prayer or two, and then laid his head down, and he was shivering a little with cold, and then, when he gave the sign, Mr. Drake ” and Hubert brought the edge of his hand down sharply, and the glasses rang, and the ladies drew quick hissing breaths; and Lady Maxwell put her hand on her son’s arm, as he looked round on all their faces. Then he told them of the expedition up the west coast, and of the towns they sacked; and the opulent names rolled oddly off his tongue, and seemed to bring a whiff of southern scent into this panelled English room,—Valparaiso, Tarapaca, and Arica—; and of the capture of the Cacafuego off Quibdo; and of the enormous treasure they took, the great golden crucifix with emeralds of the size of pigeon’s eggs, and the chests of pearls, and the twenty-six tons of silver, and the wedges of pure gold from the Peruvian galleon, and of the golden falcon from the Chinese trader that they captured south of Guatulco. And he described the search up the coast for the passage eastwards that never existed; and of Drake’s superb resolve to return westwards instead, by the Moluccas; and how they stayed at Ternate, south of Celebes, 166 BY WHAT AUTHORITY and coasted along Java seeking a passage, and found it in the Sunda straits, and broke out from the treacherous islands into the open sea; crossed to Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope; came up the west coast, touching at Sierra Leone, and so home again along the Spanish and French coasts, to Plymouth Sound and the pealing of Plymouth bells. And he broke out into something very like eloquence when he spoke of Drake. “Never was such a captain,” he cried, “with his little stiff beard and his obstinate eyes. I have seen him stand on the poop, when the arrows were like hail on the deck, with one finger in the ring round his neck,—so”: and Hubert thrust a tanned finger into a link of his chain, and lifted his chin, “just making little signs to the steersman, with his hand behind his back, to bring the ship nearer to the Spaniard; as cool, I tell you, as cool as if he were playing merelles. Oh! and then when we boarded, out came his finger from his ring; and there was none that struck so true and fierce; and all in silence too, without an oath or a cry or a word; except maybe to give an order. But he was very sharp with all that angered him. When we sighted the Madre di Dios, I ran into his cabin to tell him of it, without saluting, so full was my head of the chase. And he looked at me like ice; and then roared at me to know where my manners were, and bade me go out and enter again properly, before he would hear my news; and then I heard him rating the man that stood at his door for letting me pass in that state. At his dinner, too, which he took alone, there were always trumpets to blow, as when her Grace dines. When he laughed it seemed as if he did it with a grave face. There was a piece of grand fooling when we got out from among those weary Indian islands; where the great crabs be, and flies that burn in the dark, as I told you. Mr. Fletcher, the minister, played the coward one night when we ran aground; and bade us think of our sins and our immortal souls, instead of urging us to be smart about the ship; and he did it, too, not as Mr. Drake might do, but in such a melancholy voice as if we were all at our last hour; so when we were free of our trouble, and out on the main again, we were all called by the drum to the forecastle, and there Mr. Drake sat on a sea-chest as solemn as a judge, so that not a man durst laugh, with a pair of pantoufles in his hand; and Mr. Fletcher was brought before him, trying to smile as if ’twas a jest for him too, between two guards; and there he was arraigned; and the witnesses were HUBERT’S RETURN 167 called; and Tom Moore said how he was tapped on the shoulder by Mr. Fletcher as he was getting a pick from the hold; and how he was as white as a ghost and bade him think on Mr. Doughty, how there was no mercy for him when he needed it, and so there would be none for us—and then other witnesses came, and then Mr. Fletcher tried to make his defence, saying how it was the part of a minister to bid men think on their souls; but ’twas no good. Mr. Drake declared him guilty; and sentenced him to be kept in irons till he repented of that his cowardice; and then, which was the cream of the joke, since the prisoner was a minister, Mr. Drake declared him excommunicate, and cut off from the Church of God, and given over to the devil. And he was put in irons, too, for a while; so ’twas not all a joke.” “And what is Mr. Drake doing now?” asked Lady Maxwell. “Oh! Drake is in London,” said Hubert. “Ah! yes, and you must all come to Deptford when her Grace is going to be there. Anthony, lad, you’ll come?” Anthony said he would certainly do his best; and Isabel put out her hand to her brother, and beamed at him; and then turned to look at Hubert again. “And what are you to do next?” asked Mistress Margaret. “Well,” he said, “I am to go to Plymouth again presently, to help to get the treasure out of the ships; and I must be there, too, for the spring and summer, for Drake wants me to help him with his new expedition.” “But you are not going with him again, my son?” said his mother quickly. Hubert put out his hand to her. “No, no,” he said, “I have written to tell him I cannot. I must take my father’s place here. He will understand”; and he gave one swift glance at Isabel, and her eyes fell. Anthony was obliged to return to Lambeth after a day or two, and he carried with him a heart full of admiration and enthusiasm for his friend. He had wondered once or twice, too, as his eyes fell on Isabel, whether there was anything in what Mistress Corbet had said; but he dared not speak to her, and still less to Hubert, unless his confidence was first sought. The visit to Deptford, which took place a week or two later, gave an additional spurt to Anthony’s nationalism. London was all on fire at the return of the buccaneers, and as Anthony rode down the south bank of the river from Lambeth to join the others at the inn, the three miles of river beyond London Bridge were 168 BY WHAT AUTHORITY an inspiriting sight in the bright winter sunshine, crowded with craft of all kinds, bright with bunting, that were making their way down to the naval triumph. The road, too, was thick with vehicles and pedestrians. It was still early when he met his party at the inn, and Hubert took them immediately to see the Pelican that was drawn up in a little creek on the south bank. Mistress Margaret had not come, so the four went together all over the ship that had been for these years the perilous home of this sunburnt lad they all loved so well. Hubert pointed out Drake’s own cabin at the poop, with its stern-windows, where the last sacrament of the two friends had been celebrated; and where Drake himself had eaten in royal fashion to the sound of trumpets and slept with all-night sentries at his door. He showed them too his own cabin, where he had lived with three more officers, and the upper poop-deck where Drake would sit hour after hour with his spy-glass, ranging the horizons for treasure-ships. And he showed them, too, the high forecastle, and the men’s quarters; and Isabel fingered deli- cately the touch-holes of the very guns that had roared and snapped so fiercely at the Dons; and they peered down into the dark empty hold where the treasure-chests had lain, and up at the three masts and the rigging that had borne so long the swift wings of the Pelican. And they heard the hiss and rattle of the ropes as Hubert ordered a man to run up a flag to show them how it was done; and they smelled the strange tarry briny smell of a sea-going ship. “You are not tired?” Anthony said to his sister, as they walked back to the inn from which they were to see the spectacle. She shook her head happily; and Anthony, looking at her, once more questioned himself whether Mistress Corbet were right or not. When they had settled down at last to their window, the crowds were gathering thicker every moment about the entrance to the ship, which lay in the creek perhaps a hundred yards from the inn, and on the road along which the Queen was to come from Greenwich. Anthony felt his whole heart go out in sympathy to these joyous shouting folk beneath, who were here to celebrate the gallant pluck of a little bearded man and his followers, who for the moment stood for England, and in whose presence just now the Queen herself must take second place. Even the quacks and salesmen who were busy in their booths all round used patriotism to push their bargains. “Spanish ointment, Spanish ointment!” bellowed a red-faced HUBERT’S RETURN 169 herbalist in a doctor’s gown, just below the window. “The Dons know what’s best for wounds and knocks after Frankie Drake’s visit”; and the crowd laughed and bought up his boxes. And another drove a roaring business in green glass beads, reported to be the exact size of the emeralds taken from the Cacafuego; and others sold little models of the Pelican, warranted to frighten away Dons and all other kinds of devils from the house that pos- sessed one. Isabel laughed with pleasure, and sent Anthony down to buy one for her. But perhaps more than all else the sight of the seamen them- selves stirred his heart. Most of them, officers as weil as men, were dressed with absurd extravagance, for the prize-money, even after the deduction of the Queen’s lion-share, had been immense, but beneath their-plumed and jewel-buckled caps, brown faces looked out, alert and capable, with tight lips and bright, puckered eyes, with something of the terrier in their expression. There they swaggered along with a slight roll in their walk, by ones or twos, through the crowd that formed lanes to let them pass, and surged along in their wake, shouting after them and clapping them on the back. Anthony watched them eagerly as they made their way from all directions to where the Pelican lay; for it. was close on noon. Then from far away came the boom of the Tower guns, and then the nearer crash of those that guarded the dock- yard; and last the deafening roar of the Pelican broadside; and then the smoke rose and drifted in a heavy veil in the keen frosty air over the cheering crowds. When it lifted again, there was the flash of gold and colour from the Greenwich road, and the high braying of the trumpets pierced the roaring welcome of the people. But the watchers at the windows could see no more over the heads of the crowd than the plumes of the royal carriage, as the Queen dismounted, and a momentary glimpse of her figure and the group round her as she passed on to the deck of the Pelican and went immediately below to the banquet, while the parish church bells pealed a welcome. Lady Maxwell insisted that Isabel should now dine, as there would be no more to be seen till the Queen should come up on deck again. Of the actual ceremony of the knighting of Mr. Drake they had a very fair view, though the figures were little and far away. The first intimation they had that the banquet was over was the sight of the scarlet-clad yeomen emerging one by one up the little hatchway that led below. The halberdiers lined the 170 BY WHAT AUTHORITY decks already, with their weapons flashing in long curved lines; and by the time that the trumpets began to sound to show that the Queen was on her way from below, the decks were one dense mass of colour and steel, with a lane left to the foot of the poop- stairs by which she would ascend. Then at last the two figures appeared, the Queen radiant in cloth of gold, and Mr. Drake, alert and brisk, in his Court suit and sword. There was silence from the crowd as the adventurer knelt before the Queen, and Anthony held his breath with excitement as he caught the flash of the slender sword that an officer had put into the Queen’s hand; and then an inconceivable noise broke out as Sir Francis Drake stood up. The crowd was one open mouth, shouting, the church bells burst into peals overhead, answered by the roll of drums from the deck and the blare of trumpets; and then the whole din sank into nothingness for a moment under the heart- shaking crash of the ship’s broadside, echoed instantly by the deeper roar of the dockyard guns, and answered after a moment or two from far away by the dull boom‘from the Tower. And Anthony leaned yet further from the window and added his voice to the tumult. As he rode back alone to Lambeth, after parting with the others at London Bridge, for they intended to go down home again that night, he was glowing with national zeal. He had seen not only royalty and magnificence but an apotheosis of character that day. There in the little trim figure with the curly hair kneeling before the Queen was England at its best—England that sent two ships against an empire; and it was the Church that claimed Sir Francis Drake as a son, and indeed a devoted one, in a sense, that ' Anthony himself was serving here at Lambeth, and for which he felt a real and fervent enthusiasm. He was surprised a couple of days later to receive a note in Lady Maxwell’s handwriting, brought up by a special messenger from the Hall. “There is a friend of mine,” she wrote, “to come to Lambeth House presently, he tells me, to be kept a day or two in ward before he is sent to Wisbeach. He is a Catholic, named Mr. Henry Buxton, who showed me great love during the sorrow of my dear husband’s death; and I write to you to show kindness to him, and to get him a good bed, and all that may comfort him: for I know not whether Lambeth Prison is easy or hard; but I hope perhaps that since my Lord Archbishop is a prisoner him- self he has pity on such as are so too; and so my pains be in HUBERT’S RETURN 171 vain. However, if you will see Mr. Buxton at least, and have some talk with him, and show him this letter, it will cheer him perhaps to see a friend’s face.” Anthony of course made inquiries at once, and found that Mr. Buxton was to arrive on the following afternoon. It was the custom to send prisoners occasionally to Lambeth, more particu- larly those more distinguished, or who, it was hoped, could be persuaded to friendly conference. Mr. Buxton, however, was thought to be incorrigible, and was only sent there because there was some delay in the preparations for his reception at Wisbeach, which since the previous year had been used as an overflow prison for Papists. On the evening of the next day, which was Friday, Anthony went straight out from the Hall after supper to the gateway prison, and found Mr. Buxton at a fish supper in the little prison in the outer part of the eastern tower. He introduced himself, but found it necessary to show Lady Maxwell’s letter before the prisoner was satisfied as to his identity. “You must pardon me, Mr. Norris,” he said, when he had read the letter and asked a question or two, “but we poor Papists are bound to be shy. Why, in this very room,” he went. on, pointing to the inner corner away from the door, and smiling, “for aught I know a man sits now to hear us.” Anthony was considerably astonished to see this stranger point so confidently to the hiding-hole, where indeed the warder used to sit sometimes behind a brick partition, to listen to the talk of the prisoners; and showed his surprise. “Ah, Mr. Norris,” the other said, “‘we Papists are bound to be well informed; or else where were our lives? But come, sir, let us sit down.” Anthony apologised for interrupting him at his supper, and offered to come again, but Mr. Buxton begged him not to leave, as he had nearly finished. So Anthony sat down, and observed the prison and the prisoner. It was fairly well provided with necessaries: a good straw bed lay in one corner on trestles; and washing utensils stood at the further wall; and there was an oil lamp that hung high up from an iron pin. The prisoner’s luggage lay still half unpacked on the floor, and a row of pegs held a hat and a cloak. Mr. Buxton himself was a dark-haired man with a short beard and merry bright eyes; and was dressed soberly as a gentleman; and behaved himself with courtesy and assurance. But it was a queer place with this flickering lamp, thought 172 BY WHAT AUTHORITY Anthony, for a gentleman to be eating his supper in. When Mr. Buxton had finished his dish of roach and a tankard of ale, he looked up at Anthony, smiling. “My lord knows the ways of Catholics, then,” he said, pointing to the bones on his plate. Anthony explained that the Protestants observed the Friday abstinence, too. “Ah yes,” said the other, “I was forgetting the Queen’s late injunctions. Let us see; how did it run? ‘The same is not required for any liking of Papish Superstitions or Ceremonies (is it?) hitherto used, which utterly are to be detested of all Christian folk’; (no, the last word or two is a gloss), ‘but only -to maintain the mariners in this land, and to set men a-fishing.’ That is the sense of it, is it not, sir? You fast, that is, not for heavenly reasons, which were a foolish and Papish thing to do; but for earthly reasons, which is a reasonable and Protestant thing to do.” Anthony might have taken this assault a little amiss, if he had not seen a laughing light in his companion’s eyes; and re- membered, too, that imprisonment is apt to breed a little bitter- ness. So he smiled back at him. Then soon they fell to talking of Lady Maxwell. and Great Keynes, where it seemed that Mr. Buxton had stayed more than once. “T knew Sir Nicholas well,” he said, “God rest his soul. It seems to me he is one of those whose life continually gave the lie to men who say that a Catholic can be no true Englishman. There never beat a more loyal heart than his.” : Anthony agreed; but asked if it were not true that Catholics were in difficulties sometimes as to the proper authority to be obeyed—the Pope or the Prince. “Tt is true,” said the other, “or it might be. Yet the principle is clear, Date Cesari quae sunt Cesaris. The difficulty lies but in the application of the maxim.” “But with us,” said Anthony—‘‘Church of England folk,— there hardly can be ever any such difficulty; for the Prince of the State is the Governor of the Church as well.” “IT take your point,’ said Mr. Buxton. “You mean that a National Church is better, for that spiritual and temporal authori- ties are then at one.” “Just so,” said Anthony, beginning to warm to his favourite theme. “The Church is the nation regarded as religious. When England wars on land it is through her army, which is herself HUBERT’S RETURN 173 under arms; when on sea she embarks in the navy; and in the warfare with spiritual powers, it is through her Church. And surely in this way the Church must always be the Church of the people. The Englishman and the Spaniard are like cat and dog; they like not the same food nor the same kind of coat; I hear that their buildings are not like ours; their language, nay, their faces and minds, are not like ours. Then why should be their prayers and their religion? I quarrel with no foreigner’s faith; it is God who made us so.” Anthony stopped, breathless with his unusual eloquence; but it was the subject that lay nearest to his heart at present, and he found no lack of words. The prisoner had watched him with twinkling eyes, nodding his head as if in agreement; and when he had finished his little speech, nodded again in meditative silence. “Tt is complete,’’ he answered, “complete. And as a theory would be convincing; and I envy you, Master Norris, for you stand on the top of the wave. That is what England holds. But, my dear sir, Christ our Lord refused such a kingdom as that. My kingdom, He said, is not of this world—is not, that is, ruled by the world’s divisions and systems. You have described Babel, —every nation with its own language. But it was to undo Babel and to build one spiritual city that our Saviour came down, and sent the Holy Ghost to make the Church at Pentecost out of Arabians and Medes and Elamites—to break down the partition- walls, as the apostle tells us,——that there be neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian nor Scythian—and to establish one vast king- dom (which for that very reason we name Catholic), to destroy differences between nation and nation, by lifting each to be of the People of God—to pull down Babel, the City of Confusion, and build Jerusalem the City of Peace. Dear God!” cried Mr. Buxton, rising in his excitement, and standing over Anthony, who looked at him astonished and bewildered. ‘You and your England would parcel out the Kingdom of heaven into national Churches, as you name them—among all the kingdoms of the world; and yet you call yourself the servants of Him who came to do just the opposite—yes, and who will do it, in spite of you, and make the kingdoms of this world, instead, the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Why, if each nation is to have her Church, why not each county and each town—yes, and each separate soul, too; for all are different! Nay, nay, Master Norris, you are blinded by the Prince of this world. He is shewing you even now from an high mountain the kingdoms of this world and 174 BY WHAT AUTHORITY the glory of them: lift your eyes, dear lad, to the hills from whence cometh your help; those hills higher than the mountain where you stand; and see the new Jerusalem, and the glory of her, coming down from God to dwell with men.” Mr. Buxton stood, his eyes blazing, plainly carried away wholly by enthusiasm; and Anthony, in spite of himself, could not be angry. He moistened his lips once or twice. “Well, sir; of course I hold with what you say, in one sense; but it is not come yet; and never will, till our Lord comes back to make all plain.” “Not come yet?” cried the other, “Not come yet! Why, what is the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but that? There you have one visible kingdom, gathered out of every nation and tongue and people, as the apostle said. I have a little estate in France, Master Norris, where I go sometimes; and there are folk in their wooden shoes, talking a different human tongue to me, but, thank God! the same divine one—of contrition and adora- tion and prayer. There we have the same mass, the same priest- hood, the same blessed sacrament and the same Faith, as in my own little oratory at Stanfield. Go to Spain, Africa, Rome, India; wherever Christ is preached; there is the Church as it is here— the City of Peace. And as for you and your Church! with whom do you hold communion?” This stung Anthony, and he answered impulsively. “In Geneva and Frankfort, at least, there are folk who speak the same divine tongue, as you call it, as we do; they and we are agreed in matters of faith.” “Indeed,” said Mr. Buxton sharply, “then what becomes of your Nationalism, and the varied temperaments that you told me God had made?” Anthony bit his lip; he had overshot his mark. But the other swept on; and as he talked began to step up and down the little room, in a kind of rhapsody. “Ts it possible?” he cried, “that men should be so blind as to prefer the little divided companies they name National Churches —all confusion and denial—to that glorious kingdom that Christ bought with his own dear blood, and has built upon Peter, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Yes, I know it is a flattering and a pleasant thought that this little nation should have her own Church; and it is humbling and bitter that England should be called to submit to a foreign potentate in the affairs of faith—Nay, cry they like the Jews of old, not Christ but HUBERT’S RETURN 175 Barabbas—we will not have this Man to reign over us. And yet this is God’s will and not that. Mark me, Mr. Norris, what you hope will never come to be—the Liar will not keep his word —you shall not have that National Church that you desire: as you have dealt, so will it be dealt to you: as you have rejected, so will you be rejected. England herself will cast you off: your religious folk will break into a hundred divisions. Even now your Puritans mock at your prelates—so soon! And if they do this now, what will they do hereafter? You have cast away Authority, and authority shall forsake you. Behold your house is left unto you desolate.” “Forgive me, Mr. Norris,” he added after a pause, “if I have been discourteous, and have forgotten my manners; but—but I would, as the apostle said, that you were altogether as I am, except these bonds.” CHAPTER IV A COUNTER-MARCH IsABEL was sitting out alone in the Italian garden at the Hall, one afternoon in the summer following the visit to Deptford. Hubert was down at Plymouth, assisting in the preparations for the expedition that Drake hoped to conduct against Spain. The two countries were technically at peace, but the object with which he was going out, with the moral and financial support of the Queen, was a corporate demonstration against Spain, of French, Portuguese, and English ships under the main command of Don Antonio, the Portuguese pretender; it was proposed to occupy Terceira in the Azores; and Drake and Hawkins entertained the highest hopes of laying their hands on further plunder. She was leaning back in her seat, with her hands behind her head, thinking over her relations with Hubert. When he had been at home at the end of the previous year, he had apparently taken it for granted that the marriage would be celebrated; he had given her the gold nugget, that she had showed Anthony, telling her he had brought it home for the wedding-ring; and she understood that he was to come for his final answer as soon as his work at Plymouth was over. But not a word of explanation had passed between them on the religious difficulty. He had silenced her emphatically and kindly once when she had ap- proached it; and she gathered from his manner that he suspected the direction in which her mind was turning and was generously unwilling for her to commit herself an inch further than she saw. Else whence came his assurance? And, for herself, things were indeed becoming plain: she wondered why she had hesitated so long, why she was still hesitating; the cup was brimming above the edge; it needed but a faint touch of stimulus to precipitate all. And so Isabel lay back and pondered, with a touch of happy impatience at the workings of her own soul; for she dared not act without the final touch of conviction. Mistress Margaret had taught her that the swiftest flight of the soul was when there was least movement, when the soul knew how to throw itself with that supreme effort of cessation into the Hands of God, that He 176 A COUNTER-MARCH 177 might bear it along: when, after informing the intellect and seek- ing by prayer for God’s bounty, the humble client of Heaven waited with uplifted eyes and ready heart until God should answer. And so she waited, knowing that the gift was at hand, yet not daring to snatch it. But, in the meanwhile, her imagina- tion at least might act without restraint; so she sent it out, like a bird from the Ark, to bring her the earnest of peace. There, in the cloister-wing, somewhere, lay the chapel, where she and Hubert would kneel together;—somewhere beneath that grey roof. That was the terrace where she would walk one day as one who has a right there. Which of these windows would be hers? Not Lady Maxwell’s, of course; she must keep that... . Ah! how good God was! The tall door on to the terrace opened, and Mistress Margaret peered out with a letter in her hand. Isabel called to her; and the old nun came down the steps into the garden. Why did she walk so falteringly, the girl wondered, as if she could not see? What was it? What was it? Isabel rose to her feet, startled, as the nun with bent head came up the path. ‘What is it, Mistress Margaret?” The other tried to smile at her, but her lips were trembling too much; and the girl saw that her eyes were brimming with tears. She put the letter into her hand. Isabel lifted it in an agony of suspense; and saw her name, in Hubert’s handwriting. “What is it?” she said again, white to the lips. The old lady as she turned away glanced at her; and Isabel saw that her face was all twitching with the effort to keep back her tears. The girl had never seen her like that before, even at Sir Nicholas’ death. Was there anything, she wondered as she looked, worse than death? But she was too dazed by the sight to speak, and Mistress Margaret went slowly back to the house unquestioned. Isabel turned the letter over once or twice; and then sat down and opened it. It was all in Hubert’s sprawling handwriting, and was dated from Plymouth. It gave her news first about the squadron; saying how Don Antonio had left London for Plymouth, and was expected daily; and then followed this paragraph: ‘““And now, dearest Isabel, I have such good news to give you. I have turned Protestant; and there is no reason why we should not be married as soon as [ return. I know this will make you 178 BY WHAT AUTHORITY happy to think that our religions are no longer different. I have thought of this so long; but would not tell you before for fear of disappointing you. Sir Francis Drake’s religion seems to me the best; it is the religion of all the ‘sea-dogs’ as they name us; and of the Queen’s Grace, and it will be soon of all England; and more than all it is the religion of my dearest mistress and love. I do not, of course, know very much of it as yet; but good Mr. Collins here has shown me the superstitions of Popery; and I hope now to be justified by faith without works as the gospel teaches. I fear that my mother and aunt will be much distressed by this news; I have written, too, to tell them of it. You must comfort them, dear love; and perhaps some day they, too, will see as we do.” Then followed a few messages, and loving phrases, and the letter ended. Isabel laid it down beside her on the low stone wall; and looked round her with eyes that saw nothing. ‘There was the grey old house before her, and the terrace, and the cloister-wing to the left, and the hot sunshine lay on it all, and drew out scents and colours from the flower-beds, and joy from the insects that danced in the trembling air; and it all meant nothing to her; like a picture when the page is turned over it. Five minutes ago she was regarding her life and seeing how the Grace of God was slowly sorting out its elements from chaos to order—the road was unwinding itself before her eyes as she trod on it day by day—now a hand had swept all back into disorder, and the path was hidden by the ruins. Then gradually one thought detached itself, and burned before her, vivid and startling; and in all its terrible reality slipped between her and the visible world on which she was staring. It was this: to embrace the Catholic Faith meant the renouncing of Hubert. As a Protestant she might conceivably have married a Catholic; as a Catholic it was inconceivable that she should marry an apostate. Then she read the letter through again carefully and slowly; and was astonished at the unreality of Hubert’s words about Romish superstition and gospel simplicity. She tried hard to silence her thoughts; but two reasons for Hubert’s change of religion rose up and insisted on making themselves felt; it was that he might be more in unity with the buccaneers whom he admired; second, that there might be no obstacle to their mar- riage. And what then, she asked, was the quality of the heart he had given her? A COUNTER-MARCH 179 Then, in a flash of intuition, she perceived that a struggle lay before her, compared with which all her previous spiritual con- flicts were as child’s play; and that there was no avoiding it. The vision passed, and she rose and went indoors to find the desolate mother whose boy had lost the Faith. A month or two of misery went by. For Lady Maxwell they passed with recurring gusts of heart-broken sorrow and of agonies of prayer for her apostate son. Mistress Margaret was at the Hall all day, soothing, encouraging, even distracting her sister by all the means in her power. The mother wrote one passionate wail to her son, appealing to all that she thought he held dear, even yet to return to the Faith for which his father had suffered and in which he had died; but a short answer only returned, saying _ it was Impossible to make his defence in a letter, and expressing pious hopes that she, too, one day would be as he was; the same courier brought a letter to Isabel, in which he expressed his wonder that she had not answered his former one. And as for Isabel, she had to pass through this valley of dark- ness alone. Anthony was in London; and even if he had been with her could not have helped her under these circumstances; her father was dead—she thanked God for that now—and Mis- tress Margaret seemed absorbed in her sister’s grief. And so the girl fought with devils alone. The arguments for Catholicism burned pitilessly clear now; every line and feature in them stood out distinct and hard. Catholicism, it appeared to her, alone had the marks of the Bride, visible Unity, visible Catholicity, visible Apostolicity, visible Sanctity;—there they were, the seals of the Most High God. She flung herself back furiously into the Protestantism from which she had been emerging; there burned in the dark before her the marks of the Beast, visible disunion, visible nationalism, visible Erastianism, visible gulfs where holiness should be: that system in which now she could never find rest again glared at her in all its unconvincing inco- herence, its lack of spirituality, its adulterous union with the civil power instead of the pure wedlock of the Spouse of Christ. She wondered once more how she dared to have hesitated so long; or dared to hesitate still. On the theological side intellectual arguments of this kind started out, strong and irrefutable; her emotional drawings towards Catholicism for the present retired. Feelings might have been disregarded or discredited by a strong effort of the will; these apparently cold phenomena that presented themselves to her 180 BY WHAT AUTHORITY intellect, could not be thus dealt with. Yet, strangely enough, even now she would not throw herself resolutely into Catholicism: the fierce stimulus instead of precipitating the crisis, petrified it. More than once she started up from her knees in her own dark room, resolved to awaken the nun and tell her she would wait no longer, but would turn Catholic at once and have finished with the misery of suspense: and even as she moved to the door her will found itself against an impenetrable wall. And then on the other side all her human nature cried out for Hubert—Hubert-—Hubert. There he stood by her in fancy, day and night, that chivalrous, courteous lad, who had been loyal to her so long; had waited so patiently; had run to her with such dear impatience; who was so wholesome, so strong, so humble to her; so quick to understand her wants, so eager to fulfil them; so bound to her by associations; so fit a mate for the very differ- ences between them. And now these two claims were no longer compatible; in his very love for her he had ended that possibility. All those old dreams; the little scenes she had rehearsed, of their first mass, their first communion together; their walks in the twilight; their rides over the hills; the new ties that were to draw the old ladies at the Hall and herself so close together— all this was changed; some of those dreams were now for ever impossible, others only possible on terms that she trembled even to think of. Perhaps it was worst of all to reflect that she was in some measure responsible for his change of religion; she fancied that it was through her slowness to respond to light, her delaying to confide in him, that he had been driven through impatience to take this step. And so week after week went by and she dared not answer his letter. The old ladies, too, were sorely puzzled at her. It was impos- sible for them to know how far her religion was changing. She had kept up the same reserve towards them lately as towards Hubert, chiefly because she feared to disappoint them; and so after an attempt to tell each other a little of their mutual sym- pathy, the three women were silent on the subject of the lad who was so much to them all. She began to show her state a little in her movements and appearance. She was languid, soon tired and dispirited; she would go for short, lonely walks, and fall asleep in her chair worn out when she came in. Her grey eyes looked longer and darker; her eyelids and the corners of her mouth began to droop a little. A COUNTER-MARCH 181 Then in October he came home. Isabel had been out a long afternoon walk by herself through the reddening woods. They had never, since the first awakening of the consciousness of beauty in her, meant so little to her as now. It appeared as if that keen unity of a life common to her and all living things had been broken or obscured; and that she walked in an isolation all the more terrible in that she was sur- rounded by the dumb presence of what she loved. Last year the quick chattering cry of the blackbird, the evening mists over the meadows, the stir of the fading life of the woods, the rustling scamper of the rabbit over the dead leaves, the solemn call of the homing rooks—all this, only last year, went to make up the sweet natural atmosphere in which her spirit moved and breathed at ease. Now she was excommunicate from that pleasant friend- ship, banned by nature and forgotten by the God who made it and was immanent within it. Her relations to the Saviour, who only such a short time ago had been the Person round whom all the joys of life had centred, from whom they radiated, and to whom she referred them all—these relations had begun to be obscured by her love for Hubert, and now had vanished alto- gether. She had regarded her earthly and her heavenly lover as two persons, each of whom had certain claims upon her heart, and each of whom she had hoped to satisfy in different ways; instead of identifying the two, and serving each not apart from, but in the other. And it now seemed to her that she was making experience of a Divine jealousy that would suffer her to be satisfied neither with God nor man. Her soul was exhausted by internal conflict, by the swift alternations of attraction and repulsion between the poles of her supernatural and natural life; so that when it turned wearily from self to what lay outside, it was not even capable, as before, of making that supreme effort of cessation of effort which was necessary to its peace. It seemed to her that she was self-poised in emptiness, and could neither touch heaven or earth—crucified so high that she could not rest on earth, so low that she could not reach to heaven. She came in weary and dispirited as the candles were being lighted in her sitting-room upstairs; but she saw the gleam of them from the garden with no sense of a welcoming brightness. She passed from the garden into the door of the hall which was still dark, as the fire had nearly burned itself out. As she entered the door opposite opened, and once more she saw the silhouette of a man’s figure against the lighted passage be- 182 BY WHAT AUTHORITY yond; and again she stopped frightened, and whispered “Anthony.” There was a momentary pause as the door closed and all was dark again; and then she heard Hubert’s voice say her name; and felt herself wrapped once more in his arms. For a moment she clung to him with furious longing. Ah! this is a tangible thing, she felt, this clasp; the faint cleanly smell of his rough frieze dress refreshed her like wine, and she kissed his sleeve passionately. And the wide gulf between them yawned again; and her spirit sickened at the sight of it. “Oh! Hubert, Hubert!” she said. She felt herself half carried to a high chair beside the fire-place and set down there; then he re-arranged the logs on the hearth, so that the flames began to leap again, showing his strong hands and keen clear-cut face; then he turned on his knees, seized her two hands in his own, and lifted them to his lips; then laid them down again on her knee, still holding them; and so remained. “Oh! Isabel,” he said, “why did you not write?” She was silent as one who stares fascinated down a precipice. “Tt is all over,’ he went on in a moment, “‘with the expedition. The Queen’s Grace has finally refused us leave to go—and I have come back to you, Isabel.” How strong and pleasant he looked in this leaping firelight! how real! and she was hesitating between this warm human reality and the chilly possibilities of an invisible truth. Her hands tightened instinctively within his, and then relaxed. “T have been so wretched,” she said piteously. ‘“‘Ah! my dear,” and he threw an arm round her neck and drew her face down to his, “but that is over now.” She sat back again; and then an access of purpose poured into her and braced her will to an effort. “No, no,” she began, “I must tell you. I was afraid to write. Hubert, I must wait a little longer. I—I do not know what I believe.” He looked at her, puzzled. “What do you mean, dearest?” “IT have been so much puzzled lately—thinking so much—and —and—I am sorry you have become a Protestant. It makes all so hard.” “My dear, this is—I do not understand.” “T have been thinking,’ went on Isabel bravely, “whether per- haps the Catholic Church is not right after all.” A COUNTER-MARCH 183 Hubert loosed her hands and stood up. She crouched into the shadow of the interior of the high chair, and looked up at him, terrified. His cheek twitched a little. “Isabel, this is foolishness. I know what the Catholic faith is. It is not true; I have been through it all.” He was speaking nervously and abruptly. She said nothing. Then he suddenly dropped on his knees himself. “My dearest, I understand. You were doing this for me. I quite understand. It is what I too ” and then he stopped. “I know, I know,” she cried piteously. “It is just what I have feared so terribly—that—that our love has been blinding us both. And yet, what are we to do, what are we to do? Oh! God—Hubert, help me.” Then he began to speak in a low emphatic voice, holding her hands, delicately stroking one of them now and again, and playing with her fingers. She watched his curly head in the fire- light as he talked, and his keen face as he looked up. “Tt is all plain to me,” he said, caressingly. ‘You have been living here with my aunt, a dear old saint; and she has been talking and telling you all about the Catholic religion, and making it seem all true and good. And you, my dear child, have been thinking of me sometimes, and loving me a little, is it not so? and longing that religion should not separate us; and so you began to wish it was true; and then to hope it was; and at last you have begun to think it is. But it is not your true sweet self that believes it. Ah! you know in your heart of hearts, as I have known so long, that it is not true; that it is made up by priests and nuns; and it is very beautiful, I know, my dearest, but it is only a lovely tale; and you must not spoil all for the sake of a tale. And I have been gradually ied to the light; it was your—” and his voice faltered—‘‘your prayers that helped me to it. I have longed to understand what it was that made you so sweet and so happy; and now I know; it is your own simple pure religion; and—and—it is so much more sensible, so much more likely to be true than the Catholic religion. It is all in the Bible you see; so plain, as Mr. Collins has showed me. And so, my dear love, I have come to believe it too; and you must put all these fancies out of your head, these dreams; though I love you, I love you,” and he kissed her hand again, “for wishing to believe them for my sake—and—and we will be married before Christmas; and we will have our own fairy-tale, but it shall be a true one.” 184 BY WHAT AUTHORITY This was terrible to Isabel. It seemed as if her own haunting thought that she was sacrificing a dream to reality had become incarnate in her lover and was speaking through his lips. And yet in its very incarnation, it seemed to reveal its weakness rather than its strength. As a dark suggestion the thought was mighty; embodied in actual language it seemed to shrink a little. But then, on the other hand and so the interior conflict began to rage again. She made a movement as if to stand up; but he pressed her back into the chair. ‘“‘No, my dearest, yousshall be a prisoner until you give your parole.” Twice Isabel made an effort to speak; but no sound came. It seemed as if the raging strife of thoughts deafened and para- lysed her. “Now, Isabel,” said Hubert. “T cannot, I cannot,” she cried desperately, ‘you must give me time. It is too sudden, your returning like this. You must give me time. I do not know what I believe. Oh, dear God, help me.” “Tsabel, promise! promise! Before Christmas! I thought it was all to be so happy, when I came in through the garden just now. My mother will hardly speak to me; and I came to you, Isabel, as I always did; I felt so sure you would be good to me; and tell me that you would always love me, now that I had given up my religion for love of you. And now ” and Hubert’s voice ended in a sob. Her heart seemed rent across, and she drew a sobbing sigh. Hubert heard it, and caught at her hands again as he knelt. “Isabel, promise, promise.” Then there came that gust of purpose into her heart again; she made a determined effort and stood up; and Hubert rose and stood opposite her. “You must not ask me,” she said, bravely. ‘It would be wicked to decide yet. I cannot see anything clearly. I do not know what I believe, nor where I stand. You must give me time.” There was a dead silence. His face was so much in shadow that she could not tell what he was thinking. He was standing perfectly still. “Then that is all the answer you will give me?” he said, in a perfectly even voice. Isabel bowed her head. A COUNTER-MARCH 185 “Then—then I wish you good-night, Mistress Norris,” and he bowed to her, caught up his cap and went out. She could not believe it for a moment, and caught her breath to cry out after him as the door closed; but she heard his step on the stone pavement outside, the crunch of the gravel, and he was gone. Then she went and leaned her head against the curved mantelshelf and stared into the logs that his hands had piled together. This, then, she thought, was the work of religion; the end of all her aspirations and efforts, that God should mock them by bringing love into their life, and then when they caught at it and thanked him for it, it was whisked away again, and left their hands empty. Was this the Father of Love in whom she had been taught to believe, who treated His children like this? And so the bitter thoughts went on; and yet she knew in her heart that she was powerless; that she could not go to the door and call Hubert and promise what he asked. A great Force had laid hold of her, it might be benevolent or not—at this moment she thought not—but it was irresistible; and she must bow her head and obey. And even as she thought that, the door opened again, and there was Hubert. He came in two quick steps across the room to her, and then stopped suddenly. “Mistress Isabel,’’ he asked, ‘“‘can you forgive me? I was a brute just now. I do not ask for your promise. I leave it all in your hands. Do with me what you will. But—but, if you could tell me how long you think it will be before you know as He had touched the right note. Isabel’s heart gave a leap of sorrow and sympathy. “Oh, Hubert,” she said brokenly, “I am so sorry; but I promise I will tell you—by Easter?” and her tone was interrogative. “Ves, yes,” said Hubert. He looked at her in silence, and she saw strange lines quivering at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes large and brilliant in the firelight. Then the two drew together, and he took her in his arms strongly and passionately. There was a scene that night between the mother and son. Mistress Margaret had gone back to the Dower House for supper; and Lady Maxwell and Hubert were supping in Sir Nicholas’ old study that would soon be arranged for Hubert now that he had returned for good. They had been very silent during the meal, while the servants were in the room, talking only of little village 186 BY WHAT AUTHORITY affairs and of the estate, and of the cancelling of the proposed expedition. Hubert had explained to his mother that it was generally believed that Elizabeth had never seriously intended the English ships to sail, but that she only wished to draw Spain’s attention off herself by setting up complications between that country and France; and when she had succeeded in this by managing to get the French squadron safe at Terceira, she then withdrew her permission to Drae and Ffawkins, and thus escaped from the quarrel altogether. Lut it was a poor makeshift for conversation. . When the servants had withdrawn, a silence fell. Presently Hubert looked across the table between the silver branched candlesticks. “Mother,” he said, “of course I know what you are thinking. But I cannot consent to go through all the arguments; I am weary of them. Neither will I see Mr. Barnes to-morrow at Cuck- field or here. I am satisfied with my position.” “My son,” said Lady Maxwell with dignity, “I do not think I have spoken that priest’s name; or indeed any.” “Well,” said Hubert, impatiently, “at any rate I will not see him. But I wish to say a few words about this house. We must have our positions clear. My father left to your use, did he not, the whole of the cloister-wing? JI am delighted, dear mother, that he did so. You will be happy there, I know; and of course I need not say that I hope you will keep your old room overhead as well; and, indeed, use the whole house as you have always done. I shall be grateful if you will superintend it all, as before— at least, until a new mistress comes.” “Thank you, my son.” “T will speak of that in a moment,” he went on, looking steadily at the table-cloth; “but there was a word I wished to say first. I am now a loyal subject of her Grace in all things; in religion as in all else. And—and I fear I cannot continue to entertain seminary priests as my father used to do. My—my conscience will not allow that. But of course, mother, I need not say that you are at perfect liberty to do what you will in the cloister-wing: I shall ask no questions; and I shall set no traps or spies. But I must ask that the priests do not come into this part of the house, nor walk in the garden. Fortunately you have a lawn in the cloister; so that they need not lack fresh air or exercise.” “You need not fear, Hubert,” said his mother, “I will not embarrass you. You shall be in no danger.” A COUNTER-MARCH 187 “T think you need not have said that, mother; I am not usually thought a coward.” Lady Maxwell flushed a little, and began to finger her silver knife. “However,” Hubert went on, “I thought it best to say that. The chapel, you see, is in that wing; and you have that lawn; and—and I do not think I am treating you hardly.” “And is your brother James not to come?” asked his mother. “T have thought much over that,” said Hubert; “and although it is hard to say it, I think he had better not come to my part of the house—at least not when I am here; I must know nothing of it. You must do what you think well when I am away, about him and others too. It is very difficult for me, mother; please do not add to the difficulty.” “You need not fear,” said Lady Maxwell steadily; “you shall not be troubled with any Catholics besides ourselves.” “Then that is arranged,” said the lad. “And now there is a word more. What have you been doing to Isabel?” And he looked sharply across the table. His mother’s eyes met his fearlessly. “YT do not understand you,” she said. “Mother, you must know what I mean. You have seen her continually.” “T have told you, my son, that I do not know.” “Why,” burst out Hubert, “‘she is half a Catholic.” “Thank God,” said his mother. “Ah! yes; you thank God, I know; but whom am I to thank for it?” “T would that you could thank Him too.” Hubert made a sharp sound of disgust. ‘““Ah! yes,” he said scornfully, “I knew it; Non nobis Domine, and the rest.” “Hubert,” said Lady Maxwell, “I do not think you mean to insult me in this house; but either that is an insult, or else I misunderstood you wholly, and must ask your pardon for it.” “Well,” he said, in a harsh voice, “I will make myself plain. I believe that it is through the influence of you and Aunt Margaret that this has been brought about.” At the moment he spoke the door opened. “Come in, Margaret,” said his sister, ‘this concerns you.” The old nun came across to Hubert with her anxious sweet 188 BY WHAT AUTHORITY face; and put her old hand tenderly on his black satin sleeve as he sat and wrenched at a nut between his fingers. “Hubert, dear boy,” she said, ‘what is all this? Will you tell me?” Hubert rose, a little ashamed of himself, and went to the door and closed it; and then drew out a chair for his aunt, and put a wine-glass for her. “Sit down, aunt,” he said, and pushed the decanter towards her. “T have just left Isabel, ” she said, ‘‘she is very unhappy about something. You saw her this evening, dear lad?” “Ves,” said Hubert, heavily, looking down at the table and taking up another nut, “and it is of that that I have been speak- ing. Who has made her unhappy?” “T had hoped you would tell us that,” said Mistress Margaret; “T came up to ask you.” “My son has done us—me—the honour——” began Lady Maxwell; but Hubert broke in: “T left Isabel here last Christmas happy and a Protestant. I have come back here now to find her unhappy and half a Catholic, if not more—and m “Oh! are you sure?” asked Mistress Margaret, her eyes shining. “Thank God, if it be so!” “Sure?” said Hubert, “why she will not marry me; at least not yet.” “Oh, poor lad,” she said tenderly, “‘to have lost both God and Isabel.” Hubert turned on her savagely. But the old nun’s eyes were steady and serene. “Poor lad!” she said again. Hubert looked down again; his lip wrinkled up in a little sneer. ‘“‘As far as I am concerned,” he said, ‘‘I can understand your not caring, but I am astonished at this response of yours to her father’s confidence!” Lady Maxwell grew white to the lips. “T have told you,” she began—“but you do not seem to believe it—that I have had nothing to do, so far as I know, with her conversion, which’”—and she raised her voice bravely—‘I pray God to accomplish. She has, of course, asked me questions now and then; and I have answered them—that is all.” “And I,” said Mistress Margaret, “plead guilty to the same charge, and to no other. You are not yourself, dear boy, at present; and indeed I do not wonder at it; and I pray God to A COUNTER-MARCH 189 help you; but you are not yourself, or you would not speak like this to your mother.” Hubert rose to his feet; his face was white under the tan, and the ruffle round his wrist trembled as he leaned heavily with his fingers on the table. “T am only a plain Protestant now,” he said bitterly, “and I have been with Protestants so long that I have forgotten Catholic ways; but 3 “Stay, Hubert,” said his mother, “do not finish that. You will be sorry for it presently, if you do. Come, Margaret.” And she moved towards the door; her son went quickly past and opened it. “Nay, nay,” said the nun. “Do you be going, Mary. Let me stay with the lad, and we will come to you presently.” Lady Maxwell bowed her head and passed out, and Hubert closed the door. Mistress Margaret looked down on the table. “You have given me a glass, dear boy; but no wine in it.” Hubert took a couple of quick steps back, and faced her. “It is no use, it is no use,” he burst out, and his voice was broken with emotion, “you cannot turn me like that. Oh, what have you done with my Isabel?”’ He put out his hand and seized her arm. “Give her back to me, Aunt Margaret; give her back to me.” He dropped into his seat and hid his face on his arm; and there was a sob or two. “Sit up and be a man, Hubert,” broke in Mistress Margaret’s voice, clear and cool. He looked up in amazement with wet indignant eyes. She was looking at him, smiling tenderly. “And now, for the second time, give me half a glass of wine, dear boy.” He poured it out, bewildered at her self-control. “For a man that has been round the world,” she said, ‘‘you are but a foolish child.” “What do you mean?” “Have you never thought of a way of yet winning Isabel?” she asked. “What do you mean?” he repeated. “Why, come back to the Church, dear lad; and make your mother and me happy again, and marry Isabel, and save your own soul.” } “Aunt Margaret,” he cried, “it is impossible. I have truly 190 BY WHAT AUTHORITY lost my faith in the Catholic religion; and—and—you would not have me a hypocrite.” “Ah! ah!” said the nun, “you cannot tell yet. Please God it may come back. Oh! dear boy, in your heart you know it is true.” “Before God, in my heart I know that it is not true.” “No, no, no,” she said; but the light died out of her eyes, and she stretched a tremulous hand. “Yes, Aunt Margaret, it is so. For years and years I have been doubting; but I kept on just because it seemed to me the best religion; and—and I would not be driven out of it by her Grace’s laws against my will, like a dog stoned from his kennel.”’ “But you are only a lad still,” she said piteously. He laughed a little. “But I have had the gift of reason and discretion nearly twenty years, a priest would tell me. Besides, Aunt Margaret, I could not be such a—a cur—as to come back without believing. I could never look Isabel in the eyes again.” “Well, well,” said the old lady, “let us wait and see. Do you intend to be here now for a while?” “Not while Isabel is like this,” he said. “I could not. I must go away for a while, and then come back and ask her again.” “When will she decide?” “She told me by next Easter,” said Hubert. “Oh, Aunt Margaret, pray for us both.” The light began to glimmer again in her eyes. “There, dear boy,” she said, “‘you see you believe in prayer still.” “But, aunt,” said Hubert, “why should I not? Protestants pray.” “Well, well,” said the old nun again. ‘‘Now you must come to your mother; and—and be good to her.” CHAPTER V THE COMING OF THE JESUITS THE effect on Anthony of Mr. Buxton’s conversation was very considerable. He had managed to keep his temper very well during the actual interview; but he broke out alone afterwards, at first with an angry contempt. The absurd arrogance of the man made him furious—-the arrogance that had puffed away England and its ambitions and its vigour—palpable evidences of life and reality, and further of God’s blessing—in favour of a miserable Latin nation which had the presumption to claim the possession of Peter’s Chair and of the person of the Vicar of Christ! Test it, said the young man to himself, by the ancient Fathers and Councils that Dr. Jewel quoted so learnedly, and the preposterous claim crumbled to dust. Test it, yet again, by the finger of Providence; and God Himself proclaimed that the pretensions of the spiritual kingdom, of which the prisoner in the cell had bragged, are but a blasphemous fable. And Anthony reminded himself of the events of the previous year. ‘Three great assaults had been made by the Papists to win back England to the old Religion. Dr. William Allen, the founder of Douai College, had already for the last seven or eight years been pouring seminary priests into England, and over a hundred and twenty were at work among their countrymen, preparing the grand attack. This was made in three quarters at once. In Scotland it was chiefly political, and Anthony thought, with a bitter contempt, of the Count d’Aubigny, Esmé Stuart, who was supposed to be an emissary of the Jesuits; how he had plotted with ecclesiastics and nobles, and professed Protestantism to further his ends; and of all the stories of his duplicity and evil- living, told round the guard-room fire. In Ireland the attempt was little else than ludicrous. Anthony laughed fiercely to himself as he pictured the landing of the treacherous fools at Dingle, of Sir James FitzMaurice and his lady, very wretched and giddy after their voyage, and the bare- footed friars, and Dr. Sanders, and the banner so solemnly con- 191 192 BY WHAT AUTHORITY secrated; and of the sands of Smerwick, when all was over a year later, and the six hundred bodies, men and women who had preferred Mr. Buxton’s spiritual kingdom to Elizabeth’s kindly rule, stripped and laid out in rows, like dead game, for Lord Grey de Wilton to reckon them by. But his heart sank a little as he remembered the third method of attack, and of the coming of the Jesuits. By last July all London knew that they were here, and men’s hearts were shaken with apprehension. ‘They reminded one another of the April earthquake that had tolled the great Westminster bell, and thrown down stones from the churches. One of the Lambeth guards, a native of Blunsdon, in Wiltshire, had told Anthony himself that a pack of hell-hounds had been heard there, in full cry after a ghostly quarry. Phantom ships had been seen from Bodmin attacking a phantom castle that rode over the waves of the Cornish coast. An old woman of Blasedon had given birth to a huge-headed monster with the mouth of a mouse, eight legs, and a tail; and, worse than all, it was whispered in the Somersetshire inns that three companies of black-robed men, sixty in number, had been seen, coming and going overhead in the gloom. These two strange emissaries, Fathers Persons and Campion—how they appealed to the imagination, lurking under a hundred disguises, now of servants, now of gentlemen of means and position! It was known that they were still in England, going about doing good, their friends said who knew them; stirring up the people, their enemies said who were searching for them. Anthony had seen with his own eyes some of the papers connected with their pres- ence—that containing a statement of their objects in coming, namely, that they were spiritual not political agents, seeking recruits for Christ and for none else; Campion’s “Challenge and Brag,” offering to meet any English Divine on equal terms in a public disputation; besides one or two of the controversial pamphlets, purporting to be printed at Douai, but really em- anating from a private printing-press in England, as the Government experts had discovered from an examination of the watermarks of the paper employed. Yet as the weeks went by, and his first resentment cooled, Mr. Buxton’s arguments more and more sank home, for they had touched the very point where Anthony had reckoned that his own strength lay. He had never before heard Nationalism and Catholicism placed in such flat antithesis. In fact, he had never before really heard the statement of the Catholic position; and THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 193 his fierce contempt gradually melted into respect. Both theories had a concrete air of reality about them; his own imagined itself under the symbols of England’s power; the National Church appealed to him so far as it represented the spiritual side of the English people; and Mr. Buxton’s conception appealed to him from its very audacity. This great spiritual kingdom, striding on its way, trampling down the barriers of temperament and nation- ality, disregarding all earthly limitations and artificial restraints, imperiously dominating the world in spite of the world’s struggles and resentment—this, after all, as he thought over it, was—well— was a new aspect of affairs. The coming of the Jesuits, too, emphasised the appeal: here were two men, as the world itself confessed, of exceptional ability—-for Campion had been a famous Oxford orator, and Persons a Fellow of Balliol—choosing, under a free-will obedience, first a life of exile, and then one of daily peril and apprehension, the very thought of which burdened the imagination with horror; hunted like vermin, sleeping and faring hard, their very names detested by the majority of their country- men, with the shadow of the gallows moving with them, and the reek of the hangman’s cauldron continually in their nostrils—and for what? For Mr. Buxton’s spiritual kingdom! Well, Anthony thought to himself as the weeks went by and his new thoughts sank deeper, if it is all a superstitious dream, at least it is a noble one! What, too, was the answer, he asked himself, that England gave to Father Campion’s challenge, and the defence that the Govern- ment was preparing against the spiritual weapons of the Jesuits? New prisons at Framingham and Battersea; new penalties enacted by Parliament; and, above all, the unanswerable argument of the rack, and the gallows finally to close the discussion. And what of the army that was being set in array against the priests, and that was even now beginning to scour the country round Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and London? Anthony had to confess to himself that they were queer allies for the servants of Christ; for traitors, liars, and informers were among the most trusted Government agents. In short, as the spring drew on, Anthony was not wholly happy. Again and again in his own room he studied a little manuscript translation of Father Campion’s ‘‘Ten Reasons,” that had been taken from a popish prisoner, and that a friend had given him; and as he read its exultant rhetoric, he wondered whether the writer was indeed as insincere and treacherous as Mr. Scot de 194 BY WHAT AUTHORITY clared. There seemed in the paper a reckless outspokenness, calculated rather to irritate than deceive. “T turn to the Sacraments,” he read, “none, none, not two, not one, O holy Christ, have they left. Their very bread is poison. Their baptism, though it be true, yet in their judgment is nothing. It is not the saving water! It is not the channel of Grace! It brings not Christ’s merits to us! It is but a sign of salvation!” And again the writer cried to Elizabeth to return to the ancient Religion, and to be in truth what she was in name, the Defender of the Faith. “Kings shall be thy nursing fathers,’ thus Isaiah sang, ‘and Queens thy nursing mothers.’ Listen, Elizabeth, most Mighty Queen! To thee the great Prophet sings! He teaches thee thy part. Join then thyself to these princes! ...O Elizabeth, a day, a day shall come that shall show thee clearly which have loved thee the better, the Society of JEsus or Luther’s brood!” What arrogance, thought Anthony to himself, and what assur- ance too! Meanwhile in the outer world things were not reassuring to the friends of the Government: it was true that half a dozen priests had been captured and examined by torture, and that Sir George Peckham himself, who was known to have harboured Campion, had been committed to the Marshalsea; but yet the Jesuits’ influ- ence was steadily on the increase. More and more severe penalties had been lately enacted; it was now declared to be high treason to reconcile or be reconciled to the Church of Rome; overwhelm- ing losses in fortune as well as liberty were threatened against all who said or heard Mass or refused to attend the services of the Establishment; but, as was discovered from papers that fell from time to time into the hands of the Government agents, the only answer of the priests was to inveigh more strenuously against even occasional conformity, declaring it to be the mortal sin of schism, if not of apostasy, to put in an appearance under any circumstances, except those of actual physical compulsion, at the worship in the parish churches. Worse than all, too, was the fact that this severe gospel began to prevail; recusancy was reported to be on the increase in all parts of the country; and many of the old aristocracy began to return to the faith of their fathers: Lords Arundel, Oxford, Vaux, Henry Howard, and Sir Francis Southwell were all beginning to fall under the suspicion of the shrewdest Government spies. The excitement at Lambeth ran higher day by day as the sum- THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 195 mer drew on; the net was being gradually contracted in the home counties; spies were reported to be everywhere, in inns, in the servants’ quarters of gentlemen’s houses, lounging at cross roads and on village greens. Campion’s name was in every mouth. Now they were on his footsteps, it was said; now he was taken; mow he was gone back to France; now he was in London; now in Lancashire; and each rumour in turn corrected its predecessor. Anthony shared to the full in the excitement; the figure of the quarry, after which so many hawks were abroad, appealed to his imagination. He dreamed of him at night, once as a crafty- looking man with narrow eyes and stooping shoulders, that skulked and ran from shadow to shadow across a moonlit country; once as a ruddy-faced middle-aged gentleman riding down a crowded street; and several times as a kind of double of Mr. Stewart, whom he had never forgotten, since he had watched him in the little room of Maxwell Hall, gallant and alert among his enemies. At last one day in July, as it drew on towards evening, and as Anthony was looking over the stable-accounts in his little office beyond the Presence Chamber, a buzz of talk and footsteps broke out in the court below; and a moment later the Arch- bishop’s body-servant ran in to say that his Grace wished to see Mr. Norris at once in the gallery that opened out of the guard-room. “And I think it is about the Jesuits, sir,’ added the man, evidently excited. Anthony ran down at once and found his master pacing up and down, with a courier waiting near the steps at the lower end that led to Chichele’s tower. The Archbishop stopped by a window, emblazoned with Cardinal Pole’s emblem, and beckoned to him. “See here, Master Norris,” he said, “I have received news that Campion is at last taken: it may well be false, as so often before; but take horse, if you please, and ride into the city and find the truth for me. I will not send a groom; they believe the maddest tales. You are at liberty?” he added courteously. “Yes, your Grace, I will ride immediately.” As he rode down the river-bank towards London Bridge ten minutes later, he could not help feeling some dismay as well as excitement at the news he was to verify. And yet what other end was possible? But what a doom for the brilliant Oxford orator, even though he had counted the cost! Streams of excited people were pouring across the bridge into 196 BY WHAT AUTHORITY the city; Campion’s name was on every tongue; and Anthony, as he passed under the high gate, noticed a man point up at the grim spiked heads above it, and laugh to his companion. ‘There seemed little doubt, from the unanimity of those whom he ques- tioned, that the rumour was true; and some even said that the Jesuit was actually passing down Cheapside on his way to the Tower. When at last Anthony came to the thoroughfare the crowd was as dense as for a royal progress. He checked his horse at the door of an inn-yard, and asked an ostler that stood there what it was all about. “Tt is Campion, the Jesuit, sir,” said the man. ‘He has been taken at Lyford, and is passing here presently.” The man had hardly finished speaking when a yell came from the end of the street, and groans and hoots ran down the crowd. Anthony turned in his saddle, and saw a great stir and move- ment, and then horses’ and men’s heads moving slowly down over the seething surface of the crowd, as if swimming in a rough sea. He could make little out, as the company came towards him, but the faces of the officers and pursuivants who rode in the front rank, four or five abreast; then followed the faces of three or four others, also riding between guards, and Anthony looked eagerly at them; but they were simple faces enough, a little pale and quiet; one was like a farmer’s, ruddy and bearded;—surely Campion could not be among those! Then more and more, riding two and two, with a couple of armed guards with each pair; some looked like countrymen or servants, some like gentlemen, and one or two might be priests; but the crowd seemed to pay them no attention beyond a glance or two. Ah! what was this coming behind? There was a space behind the last row of guards, and then came a separate troop riding all together, of half a dozen men at least, and one in the centre, with something white in his hat. The ferment round this group was tremendous; men were leaping up and yelling, like hounds round a carted stag; clubs shot up menacingly, and a storm of ceaseless execration raged outside the compact square of guards who sat alert and ready to beat off an attack. Once a horse kicked fiercely as a man sprang to his hind-quarters, and there was a scream of pain and a burst of laughing. Anthony sat trembling with excitement as the first group had passed, and this second began to come opposite the entrance where he sat. This then was the man! THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 197 The rider in the centre sat his horse somewhat stiffly, and Anthony saw that his elbows were bound behind his back, and his hands in front; the reins were drawn over his horse’s head and a pursuivant held them on either side. The man was dressed as a layman, in a plumed hat and a buff jerkin, such as soldiers or plain country-gentlemen might use; and in the hat was a great paper with an inscription. Anthony spelt it out. : “Campion, the Seditious Jesuit.” Then he looked at the man’s face. It was a comely refined face, a little pale but perfectly serene: his pointed dark brown beard and moustache were carefully trimmed; and his large passionate eyes looked cheerfully about him. Anthony stared at him, wholly fascinated; for above the romance that hung about the hunted priest and the glamour of the dreaded Society which he represented, there was a chivalrous fearless look in his face that drew the heart of the young man almost irresistibly. At least he did not look like the skulking knave at whom all the world was sneering, and of whom Anthony had dreamt so vividly a few nights before. The storm of execration from the faces below, and the faces crowding at the windows, seemed to affect him not at all; and he looked from side to side as if they were cheering him rather than crying against him. Once his eyes met Anthony’s and rested on them for a moment; and a strange thrill ran through him and he shivered sharply. And yet he felt, too, a distinct and irresistible movement of attraction towards this felon who was riding towards his agony and passion; and he was conscious at the same time of that curious touch of wonder that he had felt years before towards the man whipped at the cart’s tail, as to whether the solitary criminal were not in the right, and the clamorous accusers in the wrong. Campion in a moment had passed on and turned his head. In that moment, too, Anthony caught a sudden clear instan- taneous impression of a group of faces in the window opposite. There were a couple of men in front, stout city personages no doubt, with crimson faces and open mouths cursing the traitorous Papist and the crafty vagrant fox trapped at last; but between them, looking over their shoulders, was a woman’s face in which Anthony saw the most intense struggle of emotions. The face was quite white, the lips parted, the eyes straining, and sorrow and compassion were in every line, as she watched the cheerful priest among his warders; and yet there rested on it, too, a 198 BY WHAT AUTHORITY strange light as of triumph. It was the face of one who sees victory even at the hour of supremest failure. In an instant more the face had withdrawn itself into the darkness of the room. When the crowds had surged down the street in the direction of the Tower, yelling in derision as Campion saluted the lately defaced Cheapside Cross, Anthony guided his horse out through the dispersing groups, realising as he did so, with a touch of astonishment at the coincidence, that he had been standing almost immediately under the window whence he and Isabel had leaned out so many years before. The sun was going down behind the Abbey as he rode up towards Lambeth, and the sky above and the river beneath were as molten gold. The Abbey itself, with Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament below, stood up like mystical palaces against the sunset; and it seemed to Anthony as he rode, as if God Himself were illustrating in glorious illumination the closing pages of that human life of which a glimpse had opened to him in Cheapside. It did not appear to him as it had done in the days of his boyish love as if heaven and earth were a stage for himself to walk and pose upon; but he felt intensely now the dominating power of the personality of the priest; and that he himself was no more than a spectator of this act of a tragedy of which the priest was both hero and victim, and for which this evening glory formed so radiant a scene. The old intellectual arguments against the cause that the priest represented for the moment were drowned in this flood of splendour. When he arrived at Lambeth and had reached the Archbishop’s presence, he told him the news briefly, and went to his room full of thought and perplexity. In a few days the story of Campion’s arrest was known far and wide. It had been made possible by the folly of one Catholic and the treachery of another; and when Anthony heard it, he was stirred still more by the contrast between the Jesuit and his pursuers. The priest had returned to the moated grange at Lyford, after having already paid as long a visit there as was prudent, owing to the solicitations of a number of gentlemen who had ridden after him and his companion, and who wished to hear his eloquence. He had returned there again, said mass on the Sunday morning, and preached afterwards, from a chair set before the altar, a sermon on the tears of the Saviour over apostate Jerusalem. But a false disciple had been present who THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 199 had come in search of one Payne; and this man, known afterwards by the Catholics as Judas Eliot or Eliot Iscariot, had gathered a number of constables and placed them about the manor-house; and before the sermon was over he went out quickly from the table of the Lord, the house was immediately surrounded, and the alarm was raised by a watcher placed in one of the turrets after Eliot’s suspicious departure. The three priests present, Campion and two others, were hurried into a hiding-hole over the stairs. The officers entered, searched, and found nothing; and were actually retiring, when Eliot succeeded in persuading them to try again; they searched again till dark, and still found nothing. Mrs. Yate encouraged them to stay the night in the house, and entertained them with ale; and then when all was quiet, insisted on hearing some parting words from her eloquent guest. He came out into the room where she had chosen to spend the night until the officers were gone; and the rest of the Catho- lics, some Brigittine nuns and others, met there through private passages and listened to him for the last time. As the company was dispersing one of the priests stumbled and fell, making a noise that roused the sentry outside. Again the house was searched, and again with no success. In despair they were leav- ing it, when Jenkins, Eliot’s companion, who was coming down- stairs with a servant of the house, beat with his stick on the wall, saying that they had not searched there. It was noticed that the servant showed signs of agitation; and men were fetched to the spot; the wall was beaten in and the three priests were found together, having mutually shriven one another, and made them- selves ready for death. Campion was taken out and sent first to the Sheriff of Berk- shire, and then on towards London on the following day. The summer days went by, and every day brought its fresh rumour about Campion. Sir Owen Hopton, Governor of the Tower, who at first had committed his prisoner to Little-Ease, now began to treat him with more honour; he talked, too, mysteri- ously, of secret interviews and promises and understandings; and gradually it began to get about that Campion was yielding to kindness; that he had seen the Queen; that he was to recant at Paul’s Cross; and even that he was to have the See of Canterbury. This last rumour caused great indignation at Lambeth, and Anthony was more pressed than ever to get what authentic news ‘he could of the Jesuit. Then at the beginning of August came 200 BY WHAT AUTHORITY a burst of new tales; he had been racked, it was said, and had given up a number of names; and as the month went by more and more details, authentic and otherwise, were published. Those favourably inclined to the Catholics were divided in opinion; some feared that he had indeed yielded to an excess of agony; others, and these proved to be in the right when the truth came ‘out, that he had only given up names which were already known to the authorities; though even for this he asked public pardon on the scaffold. Towards the end of August the Archbishop again sent expressly for Anthony and bade him accompany his chaplain on the follow- ing day to the Tower, to be present at the public disputation that was to take place between English divines and the Jesuit. ‘“‘Now he will have the chance he craved for,” said Grindal. ‘‘He hath bragged that he would meet any and all in dispute, and now the Queen’s clemency hath granted it him.” On the following day in the early morning sunshine the minister and Anthony rode down together to the Tower, where they atrived a few minutes before eight o’clock, and were passed through up the stairs into St. John’s chapel to the seats reserved for them. It was indeed true that the authorities had determined to give Campion his chance, but they had also determined to make it as small as possible. He was not even told that the discussion was to take place until the morning of its occasion, and he was allowed no opportunity for developing his own theological posi- tion; the entire conduct of the debate was in the hands of his adversaries; he might only parry, seldom riposte, and never attack. When Anthony found himself in his seat he looked round the chapel. Almost immediately opposite him, on a raised platform against a pillar, stood two high seats occupied by Deans Nowell and Day, who were to conduct the disputation, and who were now talking with their heads together while a secretary was arranging a great heap of books on the table before them. On either side, east and west, stretched chairs for the divines that were to support them in debate, should they need it; and the platform on which Anthony himself had a chair was filled with a crowd of clergy and courtiers laughing and chatting together. A little table, also heaped with books, with seats for the notaries, stood in the centre of the nave, and not far from it were a number of little wooden stools which the prisoners were to occupy. Plainly they were te THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 201 be allowed no advisers and no books; even the physical support of table and chairs was denied to them in spite of their weary racked bodies. The chapel, bright with the morning sunlight that streamed in through the east windows of the bare Norman sanc- tuary, hummed with the talk and laughter of those who had come to see the priest-baiting and the vindication of the Protestant Religion; though, as Anthony looked round, he saw here and there an anxious or a downcast face of some unknown friend of the Papists. He himself was far from easy in his mind. He had been study- ing Campion’s ‘“Ten Reasons” more earnestly than ever, and was amazed to find that the very authorities to which Dr. Jewel deferred, namely, the Scriptures interpreted by Fathers and Councils and illustrated by History, were exactly Campion’s authorities, too; and that the Jesuit’s appeal to them was no less confident than the Protestant’s. That fact had, of course, sug- gested the thought that if there were no further living authority in existence to decide between these two scholars, Christendom was in a poor position. When doctors differed, where was the layman to turn? To his own private judgment, said the Protes- tant. But then Campion’s private judgment led him to submit to the Catholic claim! This then at present weighed heavily on Anthony’s mind. Was there or was there not an authority on earth capable of declaring to him the Revelation of God? For the first time he was beginning to feel a logical and spiritual necessity for an infallible external Judge in matters of faith; and that the Catholic Church was the only system that professed to supply it. The question of the existence of such an authority was, with the doctrine of justification, one of those subjects con- tinually in men’s minds and conversations, and to Anthony, unlike others, it appeared more fundamental even than its companion. All else seemed secondary. Indulgences, the Mass, Absolution, the Worship of Mary and the Saints—all these must stand or fall on God’s authority made known to man. The one question for him was, Where was that authority to be certainly found? There came the ringing tramp of footsteps; the buzz of talk ceased and then broke out again, as the prisoners, with all eyes bent upon them, surrounded by a strong guard of pikemen, were seen advancing up the chapel from the north-west door towards the stools set ready for them. Anthony had no eyes but for Campion who limped in front, supported on either side by a 202 BY WHAT AUTHORITY warder. He could scarcely believe at first that this was the same priest who had ridden so bravely down Cheapside. Now he was bent, and walked like an old broken man; his face was deathly pale, with shadows and lines about his eyes, and his head trembled a little. There were one or two exclamations of pity, for all knew what had caused the change; and Anthony heard an under- tone moan of sorrow and anger from some one in a seat behind him. The prisoners sat down; and the guards went to their places. Campion took his seat in front, and turned immediately from side to side, running his dark eyes along the faces to see where were his adversaries; and once more Anthony met his eyes, and thrilled at it. Through the pallor and pain of his face, the same chivalrous spirit looked out and called for homage and love, that years ago at Oxford had made young men, mockingly nicknamed after their leader, to desire his praise more passionately than anything on earth, and even to imitate his manners and dress and gait, for very loyalty and devotion. Anthony could not take his eyes off him; he watched the clear-cut profile of his face thrown fear- lessly forward, waited in tense expectation to hear him speak, and paid no attention to the whisperings of the chaplain beside him. Presently the debate began. It was opened by Dean Nowell from his high seat, who assured Father Campion of the disin- terested motives of himself and his reverend friends in holding this disputation. It was, after all, only what the priest had demanded; and they trusted by God’s grace that they would do him good and help him to see the truth. There was no unfair- ness, said the Dean, who seemed to think that some apology was needed, in taking him thus unprepared, since the subject of debate would be none other than Campion’s own book. The Jesuit looked up, nodded his head, and smiled. “T thank you, Mr. Dean,” he said, in his deep resonant voice, and there fell a dead hush as he spoke. “I thank you for desiring to do me good, and to take up my challenge; but I must say that I would I had understood of your coming, that I might have made myself ready.” Campion’s voice thrilled strangely through Anthony, as the — glance from his eyes had done. It was so assured, so strong and delicate an instrument, and so supremely at its owner’s command, that it was hardly less persuasive than his personality and his THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 203 learning that made themselves apparent during the day. And Anthony was not alone in his impressions of the Jesuit. Lord Arundel afterwards attributed his conversion to Campion’s share in the discussions. Again and again during the day a murmur of applause followed some of the priest’s clean-cut speeches and arguments, and a murmur of disapproval the fierce thrusts and taunts of his opponents; and by the end of the day’s debate, so marked was the change of attitude of the crowd that had come to triumph over the Papist, and so manifest their sympathy with the prisoners, that it was thought advisable to exclude the public from the subsequent discussions. On this first day, all manner of subjects were touched upon, such as the comparative leniency of Catholic and Protestant governments, the position of Luther with regard to the Epistle of St. James, and other matters comparatively unimportant, in the discussion of which a great deal of time was wasted. Campion entreated his opponents to leave such minor questions alone, and to come to doctrinal matters; but they preferred to keep to details rather than to principles, and the priest had scarcely any opportunity to state his positive position at all. The only doc- rinal matter seriously touched upon was that of Justification by Faith; and texts were flung to and fro without any great result. “We are justified by faith,” cried one side. “Though I have all faith and have not charity, I am nothing,” cried the other. The effect on Anthony of this day’s debate arose rather from the victorious personality of the priest than from his arguments. His gaiety, too, was in strange contrast to the solemn Puritan- ism of his enemies. For instance, he was on the point that Coun- cils might err in matters of fact, but that the Scriptures could not. “As for example,” he said, his eyes twinkling out of his drawn face, “I am bound under pain of damnation to believe that Toby’s dog had a tail, because it is written, he wagged it.” The Deans looked sternly at him, as the audience laughed. “Now, now,” said one of them, “it becomes not to deal so triflingly with matters of weight.” Campion dropped his eyes, demurely, as if reproved. “Why, then,” he said, “if this example like you not, take another. I must believe that St. Paul had a cloak, because he willeth Timothy to bring it with him.” Again the crowd laughed; and Anthony laughed, too, with a strange sob in his throat at the gallant foolery, which, after 204 BY WHAT AUTHORITY all, was as much to the point as a deal that the Deans were saying. But the second day’s debate, held in Hopton’s Hall, was on more vital matters; and Anthony again and again found himself leaning forward breathlessly, as Drs. Goode and Fulke on the one side, and Campion on the other, respectively attacked and defended the Doctrine of the Visible Church; for this, for Anthony, was one of the crucial points of the dispute between Catholicism and Protestantism. Anthony believed already that the Church was one; and if it was visible, surely he thought to himself, it must be visibly one; and in that case, it is evident where that Church is to be found. But if it is invisible, it may be invisibly one, and then as far as that matter is concerned, he may rest in the Church of England. If not—and then he re- coiled from the gulf that opened. “Tt must be an essential mark of the Church,” said Campion, “and such a quality as is inseparable. It must be visible, as fire is hot, and water moist.” Goode answered that when Christ was taken and the Apostles fled, then at least the Church was invisible; and if then, why not always? “Tt was a Church inchoate,” answered the priest, “beginning, not perfect.” But Goode continued to insist that the true Church is known only to God, and therefore invisible. “There are many wolves within,” he said, “and many sheep without.” “T know not who is elect,” retorted Campion, “but I know who is a Catholic.” “Only the elect are of the Church,” said Goode. “T say that both good and evil are of the visible Church,” answered the other. “To be elect or true members of Christ is one thing,” went on Goode, “and to be in the visible Church is another.” As the talk went on, Anthony began to see where the con- fusion lay. The Protestants were anxious to prove that mem- bership in a visible body did not ensure salvation; but then the Catholics never claimed that it did; the question was: Did or did not Christ intend there to be a visible Church, member- ship in which should be the normal though not the infallible means of salvation? THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 205 They presently got on to the @ priort point as to whether a visible Church would seem to be a necessity. “There is a perpetual commandment,” said the priest, “in Matthew eighteen—‘Tell the Church’; but that cannot be unless the Church is visible; ergo, the visibility of the Church is con- tinual.” ‘When there is an established Church,” said Goode, “this remedy is to be sought for. But this cannot be always had.” “The disease is continual,’ answered Campion; ergo the rem- edy must be continual.” Then he left the @ priori ground and entered theirs. “To whom should I have gone,” he cried, ‘“‘before Luther’s time? What prelates should I have made my complaint unto in those days? Where was your Church nine hundred years ago? Whose were John Huss, Jerome of Prague, the Waldenses? Were they yours?” ‘Then he turned scornfully to Fulke, “Help him, Master Doctor.” And Fulke repeated Goode’s assertion, that valuable as the remedy is, it cannot always be had. Anthony sat back, puzzled. Both sides seemed right. Perse- cution must often hinder the full privileges of Church member- ship and the exercise of discipline. Yet the question was, What was Christ’s intention? Was it that the Church should be vis- ible? It seemed that even the ministers allowed that, now. And if so, why then the Catholic’s claim that Christ’s intention had never been wholly frustrated, but that a visible unity was to be found amongst themselves—surely this was easier to believe than the Protestant theory that the Church which had been visible for fifteen centuries was not really the Church at all; but that the true Church had been invisible—in spite of Christ’s intention —during ali that period, and was now to be found only in small separated bodies scattered here and there. How of the prevailing of the gates of hell, if that were allowed to be true? At two o’clock they reassembled for the afternoon conference; and now they got even closer to the heart of the matter, for the subject was to be, whether the Church could err? Fulke aserted that it could, and did; and made a syllogism: ‘‘Whatsoever error is incident to every member, is incident to the whole. But it is incident to every member to err; ergo, to the whole.” “T deny both major and minor,” said Campion quietly. “Every 206 BY WHAT AUTHORITY man may err, but not the whole gathered together; for the whole hath a promise, but so hath not every particular man.” Fulke denied this stoutly, and beat on the table. “Every member hath the spirit of Christ,” he said, “which is the spirit of truth; and therefore hath the same promise that the whole hath.” “Why, then,”’ said Campion, smiling, “there should be no her- etics.” “Ves,” answered Fulke, “heretics may be within the Church, but not of the Church.” And so they found themselves back again where they started from. Anthony sat back on the oak bench and sighed, and glanced round at the interested faces of the theologians and the yawns of the amateurs, as the debate rolled on over the old ground, and touched on free will, and grace, and infant baptism; until the Lieutenant interposed: “Master Doctors,” he said, with a judicial air, ‘the question that was appointed before dinner was, whether the visible Church may err’”—to which Goode retorted that the digressions were all Campion’s fault. Then the debate took the form of contradictions. ‘“‘Whatsoever congregation doth err in matters of faith,” said Goods, “‘is not the true Church; but the Church of Rome erreth in matters of faith; ergo, it is not the true Church.” “T deny your minor,’ said Campion, “the Church of Rome hath not erred.” Then the same process was repeated over the Council of Trent; and the debate whirled off once more into details and irrelevancies about imputed righteousness, and the denial of the Cup to the laity. Again the audience grew restless. They had not come there, most of them, to listen to theological minutiz, but to see sport; and this interminable chopping of words that resulted in nothing bored them profoundly. A murmur of conversation began to buzz on all sides. Campion was in despair. “Thus shall we run into all questions,” he cried hopelessly, “and then we shall have done this time twelve months.” But Fulke would not let him be; but pressed on a question about the Council of Nice. “Now we shall have the matter of images,” sighed Campion. “You are nimis acutus,’ retorted Fulke, “you will leap over THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 207 the stile or ever you come to it. I mean not to speak of images.” And so with a few more irrelevancies the debate ended. The third debate in September (on the twenty-third) at which Anthony was again present, was on the subject of the Real Pres- ence in the Blessed Sacrament. Fulke was in an evil temper, since it was common talk that Campion had had the best of the argument on the eighteenth. “The other day,” he said, “when we had some hope of your conversion, we forbare you much, and suffered you to discourse; but now that we see you are an obstinate heretic, and seek to cover the light of the truth with multitude of words, we mean not to allow you such large discourses as we did.” ‘You are very imperious to-day,” answered Campion serenely, “whatsoever the matter is. I am the Queen’s prisoner, and none of yours.” ‘“‘Not a whit imperious,” said Fulke angrily—‘“though I will exact of you to keep the right order of disputation.” Then the argument began. It soon became plain to Anthony that it was possible to take the Scripture in two senses, literally and metaphorically. The sacrament either was literally Christ’s body, or it was not. Who then was to decide? Father Campion said it meant the one; Dr. Fulke the other. Could it be pos- sible that Christ should leave His people in doubt of such a thing? Surely not, thought Anthony. Well, then, where is the arbiter? Father Campion says, The Church; Dr. Fulke says, The Scripture. But that is a circular argument, for the question to be decided is: What does the Scripture mean? for it may mean at least two things, at least so it would seem. Here then he found himself face to face with the claims of the Church of Rome to be that arbiter; and his heart began to grow sick with appre- hension as he saw how that Church supplied exactly what was demanded by the circumstances of the case—that is, an infallible living guide as to the meaning of God’s Revelation. The sim- plicity of her claim appalled him. He did not follow the argument closely, since it seemed to him but a secondary question now; though he heard one or two sen- tences. At one point Campion was explaining what the Church meant by substance. It was that which transcended the senses. ‘Are you not Dr. Fulke?” he said. ‘‘And yet I see nothing but your colour and exterior form. The substance of Dr. Fulke cannot be seen.” 208 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “T will not vouchsafe to reply upon this answer,” snarled Fulke, whose temper had not been improved by the debate— “too childish for a sophister!”’ Then followed interminable syllogisms, of which Campion would not accept the premises; and no real progress was made. The Jesuit tried to explain the doctrine that the wicked may be said not to eat the Body in the Sacrament, because they receive not the virtue of It, though they receive the Thing; but Fulke would not hear him. The distinction was new to Anthony, with his Puritan training, and he sat pondering it while the debate passed on. The afternoon discussion, too, was to little purpose. More and more Anthony, and others with him, began to see that the heart of the matter was the authority of the Church; and that unless that was settled, all other debate was beside the point; and the importance of this was brought out for him more clearly than ever on the 27th of the month, when the fourth and last debate took place, and on the subject of the sufficiency of the Scriptures unto salvation. Mr. Charke, who had now succeeded as disputant, began with extempore prayer, in which as usual the priest refused to join, praying and crossing himself apart. Mr. Walker then opened the disputation with a pompous and insolent speech about “one Campion,” an “unnatural man to his country, degenerated from an Englishman, an apostate in religion, a fugitive from this realm, unloyal to his prince.” Cam- pion sat with his eyes cast down, until the minister had done. Then the discussion began. The priest pointed out that Protestants were not even decided as to what were Scriptures and what were not, since Luther rejected three epistles in the New Testament; therefore, he argued, the Church is necessary as a guide, first of all, to tell men what is Scripture. Walker evaded by saying he was not a Lutheran but a Christian; and then the talk turned on to apocryphal books. But it was not possible to evade long, and the Jesuit soon touched his opponent. “To leave a door to traditions,’ he said, “which the Holy Ghost may deliver to the true Church, is both manifest and seen: as in the Baptism of infants, the Holy Ghost proceeding from Father to Son, and such other things mentioned, which are delivered by tradition. Prove these directly by Scripture if you can!” Charke answered by the analogy of circumcision which infants a THE COMING OF THE JESUITS 209 received, and by quoting Christ’s words as to “sending” of the Comforter; and they were soon deep in detailed argument; but once more Anthony saw that it was all a question of the interpretation of Scripture; and, therefore, that it would seem that an authoritative interpreter was necessary—and where could such be found save in an infallible living Voice? And once more a question of Campion’s drove the point home. “Was all Scripture written when the Apostles first taught?” And Charke dared not answer yes. The afternoon’s debate concerned justification by faith, and this, more than ever, seemed to Anthony a secondary matter, now that he was realising what the claim of a living authority meant; and he sat back, only interested in watching the priest’s face, so controlled yet so transparent in its simplicity and steadfast- ness, as he listened to the ministers’ brutal taunts and insolence, and dealt his quiet skilful parries and ripostes to their incessant assaults. At last the Lieutenant struck the table with his hand, and intimated that the time was past, and after a long prayer by Mr. Walker, the prisoners were led back to their cells. As Anthony rode back alone in the evening sunlight, he was as one who was seeing a vision. ‘There was indeed a vision before him, that had been taking shape gradually, detail by detail, during these last months, and ousting the old one; and which now, terribly emphasised by Campion’s arguments and illuminated by the fire of his personality, towered up imperious, consistent, dominating—and across her brow her title, The Cath- olic Church. Far above all the melting cloudland of theory she moved, a stupendous fact; living in contrast with the dead past to which her enemies cried in vain; eloquent when other systems were dumb; authoritative when they hesitated; steady when they reeled and fell. About her throne dwelt her children, from every race and age, secure in her protection, and wise with her knowledge, when other men faltered and questioned and doubted: and as Anthony looked up and saw her for the first time, he recognised her as the Mistress and Mother of his soul; and although the blinding clouds of argument and theory and self-distrust rushed down on him again and filled his eyes with dust, yet he knew he had seen her face in very truth, and that the memory of that vision could never again wholly leave him. CHAPTER VI SOME CONTRASTS In the Lambeth household the autumn passed by uneventfully. The rigour of the Archbishop’s confinement had been mitigated, and he had been allowed now and again to visit his palace at Croydon; but his inactivity still continued as the sequestration was not removed; Elisabeth had refused to listen to the petition of Convocation in ’80 for his reinstatement. Anthony went down to the old palace once or twice with him; and was brought closer to him in many ways; and his affection and tenderness towards his master continually increased. Grindal was a pathetic figure at this time, with few friends, in poor health, out of favour with the Queen, who had disregarded his existence; and now his afflictions were rendered more heavy than ever by the blind- ness that was creeping over him. The Archbishop, too, in his loneliness and sorrow, was drawn closer to his young officer than ever before; and gradually got to rely upon him in many little ways. He would often walk with Anthony in the gardens at Lambeth, leaning upon his arm, talking to him of his beloved flowers and herbs which he was now almost too blind to see; telling him queer facts about the properties of plants; and even attempting to teach him a little irrelevant botany now and then. They were walking up and down together, soon after Cam- pion’s arrest, one August morning before prayers in a little walled garden on the river that Grindal had laid out with great care in earlier years. “Ah,” said the old man, “I am too blind to see my flowers now, Mr. Norris; but I love them none the less; and I know their places. Now there,” he went on, pointing with his stick, “there I think grows my mastick or marum; perhaps I smell it, however. What is that flower like, Mr. Norris?” Anthony looked at it, and described its little white flowers and its leaves. “That is it,’ said the Archbishop, “I thought my memory served me. It is a kind of marjoram, and it has many virtues, against cramps, convulsions and venomous bites—so Galen tells 210 SOME CONTRASTS 211 us.” Then he went on to talk of the simple old plants that he loved best; of the two kinds of basil that he always had in his garden; and how good it was mixed in sack against the headache; and the male pennyroyal, and how well it had served him once when he had great internal trouble. “Mr. Gerrard was here a week or two ago, Mr. Norris, when you were down at Croydon for me. He is my Lord Burghley’s man; he oversees his gardens at Wimbledon House, and in the country. He was telling me of a rascal he had seen at a fair, who burned henbane and made folks with the toothache breathe in the fumes; and then feigned to draw a worm forth from the aching tooth; but it was no worm at all, but a lute string that he held ready in his hand. There are sad rascals abroad, Mr. Norris.” The old man waxed eloquent when they came to the iris bed. “Ah! Mr. Norris, the flowers-de-luce are over by now, I fear; but what wonderful creatures of God they are, with their great handsome heads and their cool flags. I love to hear a bed of them rustle all together and shake their spears and nod their banners like an army in array. And then they are not only for show. Apuleius says that they are good against the gout. I asked Mr. Gerrard whether my lord had tried them; but he said no, he would not.” At the violet bed he was yet more emphatic. “TY think, Mr. Norris, I love these the best of all. They are lowly creatures; but how sweet; and like the other lowly creatures exalted by their Maker to do great things as his handmaidens. The leaves are good against inflammations, and the flowers against ague and hoarseness as well. And then there is oil-of-violets, as you know; and violet-syrup and sugar-violet; then they are good for blisters; garlands of them were an ancient cure for the headache, as I think Dioscorides tells us. And they are the best of all cures for some children’s ailments.” And so they walked up and down together; the Archbishop talking quietly on and on; and helping quite unknown to himself by his tender irrelevant old man’s talk to soothe the fever of unrest and anxiety that was beginning to torment Anthony so much now. His conversation, like the very flowers he loved to speak of, was “good against inflammations.” Anthony came to him one morning, thinking to please him, and brought him a root that he had bought from a travelling pedlar just outside the gateway. 212 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “This is a mandrake root, your Grace; I heard you speak of it the other day.” The Archbishop took it, smiling, felt it carefully, peered at it a minute or two. “No, my son,” he said, “I fear you have met a knave. This is briony-root carved like a mandrake into the shape of a man’s legs. It is worthless, I fear; but I thank you for the kind thought, Mr. Norris,’ and he gave the root back to him. “And the stories we hear of the mandrake, I fear, are fables, too. Some say that they only grow’ beneath gallows from that which falls there; that the male grows from the corruption of a man’s body; and the female from that of a woman’s; but that is surely a lie, and a foul one, too. And then folks say that to draw it up means death; and that the mandrake screams terribly as it comes up; and so they bid us tie a dog to it, and then drive the dog from it so as to draw it up so. I asked Mr. Baker, the chirurgeon in the household of my Lord Oxford, the other day, about that; and he said that such tales be but doltish dreams and old wives’ fables. But the true mandrake is a clean and wholesome plant. The true ointment Populeon should have the juice of the leaves in it; and the root boiled and strained causes drowsiness. It hath a predominate cold faculty, Galen saith; but its true home is not in England at all. It comes from Mount Garganus in Apulia.” It was pathetic, Anthony thought sometimes, that this old prelate should be living so far from the movements of the time, owing to no fault of his own. During these months the great tragedy of Campion’s passion was proceeding a couple of miles away; but the Archbishop thought less of it than of the death of an old tree. The only thing from the outside world that seemed to ruffle him was the behaviour of the Puritans. Anthony was passing though “le velvet-room” one afternoon when he heard voices in the Presence Chamber beyond; and almost imme- diately heard the Archbishop, who had recognised his step, call his name. He went in and found him with a stranger in a dark sober dress. “Take this gentleman to Mr. Scot,” he said, “and ask him to give him some refreshment; for that he must be gone directly.” When Anthony had taken the gentleman to the steward, he returned to the Archbishop for any further instructions about him. “No, Mr. Norris, my business is done with him. He comes from my lord of Norwich, and must be returning this evening. { SOME CONTRASTS 213 If you are not occupied, Mr. Norris, will you give me your arm into the garden?” They went out by the vestry-door into the little cloisters, and skirting the end of the creek that ran up by Chichele’s water- tower began to pace up and down the part of the garden that looked over the river. “My lord has sent to know if I know aught of one Robert Browne, with whom he is having trouble. This Mr. Browne has lately come from Cambridge, and so my lord thought I might know something of him; but I do not. This gentleman has been saying some wild and foolish things, I fear; and desires that every church should be free of all others; and should appoint its own minister, and rule its own affairs without interference, and that prophesyings should be without restraint. Now, you know, Mr. Norris, I have always tried to serve that party, and support them in their gospel religion; but this goes too far. Where were any governance at all, if all this were to come about? where were the Rule of Faith? the power of discipline? Nay, where were the unity for which our Saviour prayed? It liketh me not. Good Dr. Freake, as his messenger tells me, feels as I do about this; and desires to restrain Mr. Browne, but he is so hot he will not be restrained; and besides, he is some kin to my Lord Burghley, so I fear his mouth will be hard to stop.” Anthony could not help thinking of Mr. Buxton’s prediction that the Church of England had so repudiated authority, that in turn her own would one day be repudiated. “A Papist prisoner, your Grace,” he said, ‘‘said to me the other day that this would be sure to come: that the whole prin- ciple of Church authority had been destroyed in England; and that the Church of England would more and more be deserted by her children; for that there was no necessary centre of unity left, now that Peter was denied.” “It is what a Papist is bound to say,” replied the Archbishop; “but it is easy to prophesy, when fulfilment may be far away. Indeed, I think we shall have trouble with some of these zealous men; and the Queen’s Grace was surely right in desiring some restraint to be put upon the Exercises. But it is mere angry raving to say that the Church of England will lose the allegiance of her children.” Anthony could not feel convinced that events bore out the Archbishop’s assertion. Everywhere the Puritans were becoming more outrageously disloyal. There were everywhere signs of 214 BY WHAT AUTHORITY disaffection and revolt against the authorities of the Establish- ment, even on the part of the most sincere and earnest men, many of whom were looking forward to the day when the last rags of popery should be cast away, and formal Presbyterianism inau- gurated in the Church of England. Episcopal Ordination was more and more being regarded as a merely civil requirement, but conveying no ministerial commission; recognition by the congre- gation with the laying on of the hands of the presbyterate was the only ordination they allowed as apostolic. Anthony said a word to the Archbishop about this. “Vou must not be too strict,” said the old man. “Both views can be supported by the Scriptures; and although the Church of England at present recognises only Episcopal Ordination within her own borders, she does not dare to deny, as the Papists fondly do, that other rites may not be as efficacious as her own. That, surely, Master Norris, is in accordance with the mind of Christ that hath the spirit of liberty.” Much as Anthony loved the old man and his gentle charity, this doctrinal position as stated by the chief pastor of the Church of England scarcely served to establish his troubled allegiance. During these autumn months, too, both between and after the disputations in the Tower, the image of Campion had been much in his thoughts. Everywhere, except among the irrecon- cilables, the Jesuit was being well spoken of: his eloquence, his humour, and his apparent sincerity were being greatly commented on in London and elsewhere. Anthony, as has been seen, was being deeply affected on both sides of his nature; the shrewd wit of the other was in conflict with his own intellectual convic- tions, and this magnetic personality was laying siege to his heart. And now the last scene of the tragedy, more affecting than all, was close at hand. Anthony was present first at the trial in Westminster Hall, which took place during November, and was more than ever moved by what he saw and heard there. The priest, as even his opponents confessed, had by now ‘“‘won a marvellously good report, to be such a man as his like was not to be found, either for life, learning, or any other quality which might beautify a man.” And now here he stood at the bar, paler than ever, so numbed with racking that he could not lift his hand to plead— that supple musician’s hand of his, once so skilful on the lute— so that Mr. Sherwin had to lift it for him out of the furred cuff in which he had wrapped it, kissing it tenderly as he did so, in SOME CONTRASTS 218 reverence for its sufferings; and he saw, too, the sleek face of Eliot, in his red yeoman’s coat, as he stood chatting at the back, like another Barabbas whom the people preferred to the servant of the Crucified. And, above all, he heard Campion’s stirring defence, spoken in that same resonant sweet voice, though it broke now and then through weakness, in spite of the unconquer- able purpose and cheerfulness that showed in his great brown eyes, and round his delicate humorous mouth. It was indeed an astonishing combination of sincerity and eloquence, and even humour, that was brought to bear on the jury, and all in vain, during those days. “Tf you want to dispute as though you were in the schools,” cried one of the court, when he found himself out of his depth, “vou are only proving yourself a fool.” “T pray God,” said Campion, while his eyes twinkled, “I pray God make us both sages.” And, in spite of the tragedy of the day, a little hum of laughter ran round the audience. “If a sheep were stolen,’ he argued again, in answer to the presupposition that since some Catholics were traitors, therefore these were—‘‘and a whole family called in question for the same, were it good manner of proceeding for the accusers to say ‘Your great grandfathers and fathers and sisters and kinsfolk all loved mutton; ergo, you have stolen the sheep’?”’ Again, in answer to the charge that he and his companions had conspired abroad, he said, “As for the accusation that we plotted treason at Rheims, reflect, my lords, how just this charge is! For see! First we never met there at all; then, many of us have never been at Rheims at all; finally, we were never in our lives all together, except at this hour and in prison.” Anthony heard, too, Campion expose the attempt that was made to shift the charge from religion to treason. “There was offer made to us,” he cried indignantly, “that if we would come to the church to hear sermons and the word preached, we should be set at large and at liberty; so Pascall and Nicholls’”—(two apostates) ‘‘otherwise as culpable in all offences aS we, upon coming to church were received to grace and had their pardon granted; whereas, if they had been so happy as to have persevered to the end, they had been partakers of our calamities. So that our religion was cause of our imprison- ment, and ex consequenti, of our condemnation.” The Queen’s Counsel tried to make out that certain secrets 216 BY WHAT AUTHORITY that Campion, in an intercepted letter, had sworn not to reveal, must be treasonable or he would not so greatly fear their publica- tion. To this the priest made a stately defence of his office, and declaration of his staunchness. He showed how by his calling as a priest he was bound to secrecy in matters heard in confession, and that these secret matters were of this nature. “These were the hidden matters,” he said, ‘‘these were the secrets, to the revealing whereof I cannot nor will not be brought, come rack, come rope!” And again, when Sergeant Anderson interpreted a phrase of Campion’s referring to the great day to which he looked forward, as meaning the day of a foreign papal invasion, the prisoner cried in a loud voice: “Q Judas, Judas! No other day was in my mind, I protest, than that wherein it should please God to make a restituion of faith and religion. Whereupon, as in every pulpit every Protestant doth, I pronounced a great day, not wherein any temporal potentate should minister, but wherein the terrible Judge should reveal all men’s consciences, and try every man of each kind of religion. This is the day of change, this is the great day which I threatened; comfortable to the well-behaving, and terrible to all heretics. Any other day but this, God knows I meant not.” Then, after the other prisoners had pleaded, Campion delivered a final defence to the jury, with a solemnity that seemed to belong to a judge rather than a criminal. The babble of tongues that had continued most of the day was hushed to a profound silence in court as he stool and spoke, for the sincerity and simplicity of the priest were evident to all, and combined with his eloquence and his strange attractive personality, dominated all but those whose minds were already made up before entering the court. “What charge this day you sustain,” began the priest, in a steady low voice, with his searching eyes bent on the faces before him, “and what account you are to render at the dreadful Day of Judgment, whereof I could wish this also were a mirror, I trust there is not one of you but knoweth. I doubt not but in like manner you forecast how dear the innocent is to God, and at what price He holdeth man’s blood. Here we are accused and impleaded to the death,”—he began to raise his voice a little— “here you do receive our lives into your custody; here must be your device, either to restore them or condemn them. We have no whither to appeal but to your consciences; we have no friends SOME CONTRASTS 217 to make there but your heeds and discretions.”’ Then he touched briefly on the evidence, showing how faulty and circumstantial it was, and urged them to remember that a man’s life by the very constitution of the realm must not be sacrificed to mere probabilities or presumptions; then he showed the untrustworthi- ness of his accusers, how one had confessed himself a murderer, and how another was an atheist. Then he ended with a word or two of appeal. “God give you grace,” he cried, “to weigh our causes aright, and have respect to your own consciences; and so I will keep the jury no longer. I commit the rest to God, and our convictions to your good discretions.” When the jury had retired, and all the judges but one had left the bench until the jury should return, Anthony sat back in his place, his heart beating and his eyes looking restlessly now on the prisoners, now on the door where the jury had gone out, and now on Judge Ayloff, whom he knew a little, and who sat only a few feet away from him on one side. He could hear the lawyers sitting below the judge talking among themselves; and presently one of them leaned over to him. “Good-day, Mr. Norris,” he said, ‘“‘you have come to see an acquittal, I doubt not. No man can be in two minds after what we have heard; at least concerning Mr. Campion. We all think so, here, at any rate.” _ The lawyer was going on to say a word or two more as to the priest’s eloquence, when there was a sharp exclamation from the judge. Anthony looked up and saw Judge Ayloff staring at his hand, turning it over while he held his glove in the other; and Anthony saw to his surprise that the fingers were all blood- stained. One or two gentlemen near him turned and looked, too, as the judge, still staring and growing a little pale, wiped the blood quickly away with the glove; but the fingers grew crimson again immediately. “°S’Body!” said Ayloff, half to himself; “ ’tis strange, there is no wound.” A moment later, looking up, he saw many of his neighbours glancing curiously at his hand and his pale face, and hastily thrust on his glove again; and immediately after the jury returned, and the judges filed in to take their places. Anthony’s attention was drawn off again, and the buzz of talk in the court was followed again by a deep silence. The verdict of Guilty was uttered, as had been prearranged, and the Queen’s Counsel demanded sentence. bol { 218 BY WHAT AUTHORITY “Campion and the rest,” said Chief Justice Wray, “What can you say why you should not die?” Then Campion, still steady and resolute, made his last useless appeal. “Tt was not our death that ever we feared. But we knew that we were not lords of our own lives, and therefore for want of answer would not be guilty of our own deaths. The only thing that we have now to Say is, that if our religion do make us traitors, we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise are and have been true subjects as ever the Queen had. In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors,” and as he said this, his voice began to rise, and he glanced steadily and mournfully round at the staring faces about him, “all the ancient priests, bishops, and kings—all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.” Then, as he went on, he flung out his wrenched hands, and his voice rang with indignant defiance. ‘‘For what have we taught,” he cried, “however you may qualify it with the odious name of treason, that they did not uniformly teach? To be condemned with these old lights—not of England only, but of the world— by their degenerate descendants, is both gladness and glory to us.” Then, with a superb gesture, he sent his voice pealing through the hall: “God lives, posterity will live; their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now about to sentence us to death.” There was a burst of murmurous applause as he ended, which stilled immediately, as the Chief Justice began to deliver sentence. But when the horrible details of his execution had been enumer- ated, and the formula had ended, it was the prisoner’s turn to applaud :— “Te Deum laudamus!”’ cried Campion; “Te Dominum con- fitemur.” “Haec est dies,’ shouted Sherwin, “quam fecit Dominus; exul- temus et laetemur in illa@”: and so with the thanksgiving and joy of the condemned criminals, the mock-trial ended. When Anthony rode down silently and alone in the rain that December morning a few days later, to see the end, he found a vast silent crowd assembled on Tower Hill and round the gate- way, where the four horses were waiting, each pair harnessed to a hurdle laid flat on the ground. He would not go in, for he could scarcely trust himself to speak, so great was his horror of the crime that was to be committed; so he backed his horse SOME CONTRASTS 219 against the wall, and waited over an hour in silence, scarcely hearing the murmurs of impatience that rolled round the great crowd from time to time, absorbed in his own thoughts. Here was the climax of these days of misery and self-questioning that had passed since the trial in Westminster Hall. It was no use, he argued to himself, to pretend otherwise. These three men of God were to die for their religion—and a religion too which was gradually detaching itself to his view from the mists and clouds that hid it, as the one great reality and truth of God’s Revelation to man. He had come, he knew, to see not an execution but a martyrdom. There was a trampling from within, the bolts creaked, and the gate rolled back; a company of halberdiers emerged, and in their midst the three priests in laymen’s dress; behind followed a few men on horseback, with a little company of ministers, bible in hand; and then a rabble of officers and pursuivants. Anthony edged his horse in among the others, as the crowd fell back, and took up his place in the second rank of riders between a gentle- man of his acquaintance who made room for him on the one side, and Sir Francis Knowles on the other, and behind the Tower officials. Then once more he heard that ringing bass voice whose first sound silenced the murmurs of the surging excited crowd. “God save you all, gentlemen! God bless you and make you all good Catholics.” Then, as the priest turned to kneel towards the east, he saw his face paler than ever now, after his long fast in preparation for death. The rain was still falling as Campion in his frieze gown knelt in the mud. There was silence as he prayed, and as he ended aloud by commending his soul to God. “In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.” The three were secured to the hurdles. Briant and Sherwin on the one, Campion on the other, all lying on their backs, with their feet towards the horse’s heels. The word to start was given by Sir Owen Hopton who rode with Charke, the preacher of Gray’s Inn, in the front rank; the lashed horses plunged for- ward, with the jolting hurdles spattering mud behind them; and the dismal pageant began to move forward through the crowd on that way of sorrows. There was a ceaseless roar and babble of voices as they went. Charke, in his minister’s dress, able now to declaim without fear of reply, was hardly silent for a moment 220 BY WHAT AUTHORITY from mocking and rebuking the prisoners, and making pompous speeches to the people. “See here,” he cried, ‘‘these rogueing popish priests, laid by the heels, aye, by the heels—at last; in spite of their tricks and turns. See this fellow in his frieze gown, dead to the world as he brags; and know how he skulked and hid in his disguises till her Majesty’s servants plucked him forth! We will disguise him, we will disguise him, ere we have done with him, that his own mother should not know him. Ha, now! Campion, do you hear me?” And so the harsh voice rang out over the crowd that tramped alongside, and up to the faces that filled every window; while the ministers below kept up a ceaseless murmur of adjuration and entreaty and threatening, with a turning of leaves of their bibles, and bursts of prayer, over the three heads that jolted and rocked at their feet over the cobblestones and through the mud. The friends of the prisoners walked as near to them as they dared, and their lips moved continually in prayer. Every now and then as Anthony craned his head, he could see Campion’s face, with closed eyes and moving lips that smiled again and again, all spattered and dripping with filth; and once he saw a gentleman walking beside him fearlessly stoop down and wipe the priest’s face with a handkerchief. Presently they had passed up Cheapside and reached Newgate; in a niche in the archway itself stood a figure of the Mother of God looking com- passionately down; and as Campion’s hurdle passed beneath it, her servant wrenched himself a few inches up in his bonds and bowed to his glorious Queen; and then laid himself down quietly again, as a chorus of lament rose from the ministers over his superstition and obstinate idolatry that seemed as if it would last even to death; and Charke too, who had become somewhat more silent, broke out again into revilings. The crowd at Tyburn was vast beyond all reckoning. Outside the gate it stretched on every side, under the elms, a few were even in the branches, along the sides of the stream; everywhere was a sea of heads, out of which, on a little eminence like another Calvary, rose up the tall posts of the three-cornered gallows, on which the martyrs were to suffer. As the hurdles came slowly under the gate, the sun broke out for the first time; and as the horses that drew the hurdles came round towards the carts that stood near the gallows and the platform on which the quartering SOME CONTRASTS 221 block stood, a murmur began that ran through the crowd from those nearest the martyrs—‘But they are laughing, they are laughing!” The crowd gave a surge to and fro as the horses drew up, and Anthony reined his own beast back among the people, so that he was just opposite the beam on which the three new ropes were already hanging, and beneath which was standing a cart with the back taken out. In the cart waited a dreadful figure in a tight-fitting dress, sinewy arms bare to the shoulder, and a butcher’s knife at his leather girdle. A little distance away stood the hateful cauldron, bubbling fiercely, with black smoke pouring from under it: the platform with the block and quartering-axe stood beneath the gallows; and round this now stood the officers, with Norton the rack-master, and Sir Owen Hopton and the rest, and the three priests, with the soldiers forming a circle to keep the crowd back. The hangman stooped as Anthony looked, and a moment later Campion stood beside him on the cart, pale, mud-splashed, but with the same serene smile; his great brown eyes shone as they looked out over the wide heaving sea of heads, from which a deep heart-shaking murmur rose as the famous priest appeared. Anthony could see every detail of what went on; the hangman took the noose that hung from above, and slipped it over the prisoner’s head, and drew it close round his neck; and then himself slipped down from the cart, and stood with the others, still well above the heads of the crowd, but leaving the priest standing higher yet on the cart, silhouetted, rope and all, framed in the posts and cross-beam, from which two more ropes hung dangling against the driving clouds and blue sky over London city. Campion waited perfectly motionless for the murmur of innu- merable voices to die down; and Anthony, fascinated and afraid beneath that overpowering serenity, watched him turn his head slowly from side to side with a “majestical countenance,” as his enemies confessed, as if he were on the point of speaking. Silence seemed to radiate out from him, spreading like a ripple, outwards, until the furthest outskirts of that huge crowd was motionless and quiet; and then without apparent effort, his voice began to peal out. “