Come Rack!

Come
Rope!

By

Robert Hugh Benson

 Come Rack! Come Rope!
PART I

CHAPTER I

There should be no sight more happy than a young man riding to meet his
love. His eyes should shine, his lips should sing; he should slap his mare
upon her shoulder and call her his darling. The puddles upon his way
should be turned to pure gold, and the stream that runs beside him should
chatter her name.

Yet, as Robin rode to Marjorie none of these things were done. It was a still
day of frost; the sky was arched above him, across the high hills, like that
terrible crystal which is the vault above which sits God—hard blue from
horizon to horizon; the fringe of feathery birches stood like filigree-work
above him on his left; on his right ran the Derwent, sucking softly among
his sedges; on this side and that lay the flat bottom through which he
went—meadowland broken by rushes; his mare Cecily stepped along, now
cracking the thin ice of the little pools with her dainty feet, now going gently
over peaty ground, blowing thin clouds from her red nostrils, yet
unencouraged by word or caress from her rider; who sat, heavy and all but
slouching, staring with his blue eyes under puckered eyelids, as if he went
to an appointment which he would not keep.

Yet he was a very pleasant lad to look upon, smooth-faced and gallant,
mounted and dressed in a manner that should give any lad joy. He wore
great gauntlets on his hands; he was in his habit of green; he had his steel-
buckled leather belt upon him beneath his cloak and a pair of daggers in it,
with his long-sword looped up; he had his felt hat on his head, buckled
again, and decked with half a pheasant's tail; he had his long boots of
undressed leather, that rose above his knees; and on his left wrist sat his
grim falcon Agnes, hooded and belled, not because he rode after game, but
from mere custom, and to give her the air.

He was meeting his first man's trouble.

Last year he had said good-bye to Derby Grammar School—of old my lord
Bishop Durdant's foundation—situated in St. Peter's churchyard. Here he
had done the right and usual things; he had learned his grammar; he had
fought; he had been chastised; he had robed the effigy of his pious founder
in a patched doublet with a saucepan on his head (but that had been done
before he had learned veneration)—and so had gone home again to
Matstead, proficient in Latin, English, history, writing, good manners and
chess, to live with his father, to hunt, to hear mass when a priest was within
reasonable distance, to indite painful letters now and then on matters of the
estate, and to learn how to bear himself generally as should one of Master's
rank—the son of a gentleman who bore arms, and his father's father before
him. He dined at twelve, he supped at six, he said his prayers, and blessed
himself when no strangers were by. He was something of a herbalist, as a
sheer hobby of his own; he went to feed his falcons in the morning, he rode
with them after dinner (from last August he had found himself riding north
more often than south, since Marjorie lived in that quarter); and now all had
been crowned last Christmas Eve, when in the enclosed garden at her house
he had kissed her two hands suddenly, and made her a little speech he had
learned by heart; after which he kissed her on the lips as a man should, in
the honest noon sunlight.

All this was as it should be. There were no doubts or disasters anywhere.
Marjorie was an only daughter as he an only son. Her father, it is true, was
but a Derby lawyer, but he and his wife had a good little estate above the
Hathersage valley, and a stone house in it. As for religion, that was all well
too. Master Manners was as good a Catholic as Master Audrey himself; and
the families met at mass perhaps as much as four or five times in the year,
either at Padley, where Sir Thomas' chapel still had priests coming and
going; sometimes at Dethick in the Babingtons' barn; sometimes as far
north as Harewood.

And now a man's trouble was come upon the boy. The cause of it was as
follows.

Robin Audrey was no more religious than a boy of seventeen should be. Yet
he had had as few doubts about the matter as if he had been a monk. His
mother had taught him well, up to the time of her death ten years ago; and
he had learned from her, as well as from his father when that professor
spoke of it at all, that there were two kinds of religion in the world, the true
and the false—that is to say, the Catholic religion and the other one.
Certainly there were shades of differences in the other one; the Turk did not
believe precisely as the ancient Roman, nor yet as the modern Protestant—
yet these distinctions were subtle and negligible; they were all swallowed up
in an unity of falsehood. Next he had learned that the Catholic religion was
at present blown upon by many persons in high position; that pains and
penalties lay upon all who adhered to it. Sir Thomas FitzHerbert, for
instance, lay now in the Fleet in London on that very account. His own
father, too, three or four times in the year, was under necessity of paying
over heavy sums for the privilege of not attending Protestant worship; and,
indeed, had been forced last year to sell a piece of land over on Lees Moor for
this very purpose. Priests came and went at their peril…. He himself had
fought two or three battles over the affair in St. Peter's churchyard, until he
had learned to hold his tongue. But all this was just part of the game. It
seemed to him as inevitable and eternal as the changes of the weather.
Matstead Church, he knew, had once been Catholic; but how long ago he
did not care to inquire. He only knew that for awhile there had been some
doubt on the matter; and that before Mr. Barton's time, who was now
minister there, there had been a proper priest in the place, who had read
English prayers there and a sort of a mass, which he had attended as a little
boy. Then this had ceased; the priest had gone and Mr. Barton come, and
since that time he had never been to church there, but had heard the real
mass wherever he could with a certain secrecy. And there might be further
perils in future, as there might be thunderstorms or floods. There was still
the memory of the descent of the Commissioners a year or two after his
birth; he had been brought up on the stories of riding and counter-riding,
and the hiding away of altar-plate and beads and vestments. But all this
was in his bones and blood; it was as natural that professors of the false
religion should seek to injure and distress professors of the true, as that the
foxes should attack the poultry-yard. One took one's precautions, one hoped
for the best; and one was quite sure that one day the happy ancient times
his mother had told him of would come back, and Christ's cause be
vindicated.

And now the foundations of the earth were moved and heaven reeled above
him; for his father, after a month or two of brooding, had announced, on St.
Stephen's Day, that he could tolerate it no longer; that God's demands were
unreasonable; that, after all, the Protestant religion was the religion of her
Grace, that men must learn to move with the times, and that he had paid
his last fine. At Easter, he observed, he would take the bread and wine in
Matstead Church, and Robin would take them too.
 II

The sun stood half-way towards his setting as Robin rode up from the valley,
past Padley, over the steep ascent that led towards Booth's Edge. The boy
was brighter a little as he came up; he had counted above eighty snipe
within the last mile and a half, and he was coming near to Marjorie. About
him, rising higher as he rose, stood the great low-backed hills. Cecily
stepped out more sharply, snuffing delicately, for she knew her way well
enough by now, and looked for a feed; and the boy's perplexities stood off
from him a little. Matters must surely be better so soon as Marjorie's clear
eyes looked upon them.

Then the roofs of Padley disappeared behind him, and he saw the smoke
going up from the little timbered Hall, standing back against its bare wind-
blown trees.

A great clatter and din of barking broke out as the mare's hoofs sounded on
the half-paved space before the great door; and then, in the pause, a
gaggling of geese, solemn and earnest, from out of sight. Jacob led the
outcry, a great mastiff, chained by the entrance, of the breed of which three
are set to meet a bear and four a lion. Then two harriers whipped round the
corner, and a terrier's head showed itself over the wall of the herb-garden on
the left, as a man, bareheaded, in his shirt and breeches, ran out suddenly
with a thonged whip, in time to meet a pair of spaniels in full career. Robin
sat his horse silently till peace was restored, his right leg flung across the
pommel, untwisting Agnes' leash from his fist. Then he asked for Mistress
Marjorie, and dropped to the ground, leaving his mare and falcon in the
man's hands, with an air.

He flicked his fingers to growling Jacob as he went past to the side entrance
on the east, stepped in through the little door that was beside the great one,
and passed on as he had been bidden into the little court, turned to the left,
went up an outside staircase, and so down a little passage to the ladies'
parlour, where he knocked upon the door. The voice he knew called to him
from within; and he went in, smiling to himself. Then he took the girl who
awaited him there in both his arms, and kissed her twice—first her hands
and then her lips, for respect should come first and ardour second.

"My love," said Robin, and threw off his hat with the pheasant's tail, for
coolness' sake.

It was a sweet room this which he already knew by heart; for it was here
that he had sat with Marjorie and her mother, silent and confused, evening
after evening, last autumn; it was here, too, that she had led him last
Christmas Eve, scarcely ten days ago, after he had kissed her in the
enclosed garden. But the low frosty sunlight lay in it now, upon the blue
painted wainscot that rose half up the walls, the tall presses where the linen
lay, the pieces of stuff, embroidered with pale lutes and wreaths that
Mistress Manners had bought in Derby, hanging now over the plaster
spaces. There was a chimney, too, newly built, that was thought a great
luxury; and in it burned an armful of logs, for the girl was setting out new
linen for the household, and the scents of lavender and burning wood
disputed the air between them.

"I thought it would be you," she said, "when I heard the dogs."

She piled the last rolls of linen in an ordered heap, and came to sit beside
him. Robin took one hand in his and sat silent.

She was of an age with him, perhaps a month the younger; and, as it ought
to be, was his very contrary in all respects. Where he was fair, she was pale
and dark; his eyes were blue, hers black; he was lusty and showed promise
of broadness, she was slender.

"And what news do you bring with you now?" she said presently.

He evaded this.

"Mistress Manners?" he asked.

"Mother has a megrim," she said; "she is in her chamber." And she smiled at
him again. For these two, as is the custom of young persons who love one
another, had said not a word on either side—neither he to his father nor she
to her parents. They believed, as young persons do, that parents who bring
children into the world, hold it as a chief danger that these children should
follow their example, and themselves be married. Besides, there is
something delicious in secrecy.

"Then I will kiss you again," he said, "while there is opportunity."

Making love is a very good way to pass the time, above all when that same
time presses and other disconcerting things should be spoken of instead;
and this device Robin now learned. He spoke of a hundred things that were
of no importance: of the dress that she wore—russet, as it should be, for
country girls, with the loose sleeves folded back above her elbows that she
might handle the linen; her apron of coarse linen, her steel-buckled shoes.
He told her that he loved her better in that than in her costume of state—the
ruff, the fardingale, the brocaded petticoat, and all the rest—in which he
had seen her once last summer at Babington House. He talked then, when
she would hear no more of that, of Tuesday seven-night, when they would
meet for hawking in the lower chase of the Padley estates; and proceeded
then to speak of Agnes, whom he had left on the fist of the man who had
taken his mare, of her increasing infirmities and her crimes of crabbing; and
all the while he held her left hand in both of his, and fitted her fingers
between his, and kissed them again when he had no more to say on any one
point; and wondered why he could not speak of the matter on which he had
come, and how he should tell her. And then at last she drew it from him.

"And now, my Robin," she said, "tell me what you have in your mind. You
have talked of this and that and Agnes and Jock, and Padley chase, and you
have not once looked me in the eyes since you first came in."

Now it was not shame that had held him from telling her, but rather a kind
of bewilderment. The affair might hold shame, indeed, or anger, or sorrow,
or complacence, but he did not know; and he wished, as young men of
decent birth should wish, to present the proper emotion on its right
occasion. He had pondered on the matter continually since his father had
spoken to him on Saint Stephen's night; and at one time it seemed that his
father was acting the part of a traitor and at another of a philosopher. If it
were indeed true, after all, that all men were turning Protestant, and that
there was not so much difference between the two religions, then it would be
the act of a wise man to turn Protestant too, if only for a while. And on the
other hand his pride of birth and his education by his mother and his
practice ever since drew him hard the other way. He was in a strait between
the two. He did not know what to think, and he feared what Marjorie might
think.

It was this, then, that had held him silent. He feared what Marjorie might
think, for that was the very thing that he thought that he thought too, and
he foresaw a hundred inconveniences and troubles if it were so.

"How did you know I had anything in my mind?" he asked. "Is it not enough
reason for my coming that you should be here?"

She laughed softly, with a pleasant scornfulness.

"I read you like a printed book," she said. "What else are women's wits given
them for?"

He fell to stroking her hand again at that, but she drew it away.

"Not until you have told me," she said.

So then he told her.

It was a long tale, for it began as far ago as last August, when his father had
come back from giving evidence before the justices at Derby on a matter of
witchcraft, and had been questioned again about his religion. It was then
that Robin had seen moodiness succeed to anger, and long silence to
moodiness. He told the tale with a true lover's art, for he watched her face
and trained his tone and his manner as he saw her thoughts come and go in
her eyes and lips, like gusts of wind across standing corn; and at last he told
her outright what his father had said to him on St. Stephen's night, and how
he himself had kept silence.

Marjorie's face was as white as a moth's wing when he was finishing, and
her eyes like sunset pools; but she flamed up bright and rosy as he finished.

"You kept silence!" she cried.

"I did not wish to anger him, my dear; he is my father," he said gently.

The colour died out of her face again and she nodded once or twice, and a
great pensiveness came down on her. He took her hand again softly, and she
did not resist.

"The only doubt," she said presently, as if she talked to herself, "is whether
you had best be gone at Easter, or stay and face it out."

"Yes," said Robin, with his dismay come fully to the birth.

Then she turned on him, full of a sudden tenderness and compassion.

"Oh! my Robin," she cried, "and I have not said a word about you and your
own misery. I was thinking but of Christ's honour. You must forgive me….
What must it be for you!… That it should be your father! You are sure that
he means it?"

"My father does not speak until he means it. He is always like that. He asks
counsel from no one. He thinks and he thinks, and then he speaks; and it is
finished."

She fell then to thinking again, her sweet lips compressed together, and her
eyes frightened and wondering, searching round the hanging above the
chimney-breast. (It presented Icarus in the chariot of the sun; and it was
said in Derby that it had come from my lord Abbot's lodging at Bolton.)

Meantime Robin thought too. He was as wax in the hands of this girl, and
knew it, and loved that it should be so. Yet he could not help his dismay
while he waited for her seal to come down on him and stamp him to her
model. For he foresaw more clearly than ever now the hundred
inconveniences that must follow, now that it was evident that to Marjorie's
mind (and therefore to God Almighty's) there must be no tampering with the
old religion. He had known that it must be so; yet he had thought, on the
way here, of a dozen families he knew who, in his own memory, had
changed from allegiance to the Pope of Rome to that of her Grace, without
seeming one penny the worse. There were the Martins, down there in Derby;
the Squire and his lady of Ashenden Hall; the Conways of Matlock; and the
rest—these had all changed; and though he did not respect them for it, yet
the truth was that they were not yet stricken by thunderbolts or eaten by
the plague. He had wondered whether there were not a way to do as they
had done, yet without the disgrace of it…. However, this was plainly not to
be so with him. He must put up with the inconveniences as well as he could,
and he just waited to hear from Marjorie how this must be done.

She turned to him again at last. Twice her lips opened to speak, and twice
she closed them again. Robin continued to stroke her hand and wait for
judgment. The third time she spoke.

"I think you must go away," she said, "for Easter. Tell your father that you
cannot change your religion simply because he tells you so. I do not see
what else is to be done. He will think, perhaps, that if you have a little time
to think you will come over to him. Well, that is not so, but it may make it
easier for him to believe it for a while…. You must go somewhere where
there is a priest…. Where can you go?"

Robin considered.

"I could go to Dethick," he said.

"That is not far enough away, I think."

"I could come here," he suggested artfully.

A smile lit in her eyes, shone in her mouth, and passed again into
seriousness.

"That is scarcely a mile further," she said. "We must think…. Will he be very
angry, Robin?"

Robin smiled grimly.

"I have never withstood him in a great affair," he said. "He is angry enough
over little things."

"Poor Robin!"
"Oh! he is not unjust to me. He is a good father to me."

"That makes it all the sadder," she said.

"And there is no other way?" he asked presently.

She glanced at him.

"Unless you would withstand him to the face. Would you do that, Robin?"

"I will do anything you tell me," he said simply.

"You darling!… Well, Robin, listen to me. It is very plain that sooner or later
you will have to withstand him. You cannot go away every time there is
communion at Matstead, or, indeed, every Sunday. Your father would have
to pay the fines for you, I have no doubt, unless you went away altogether.
But I think you had better go away for this time. He will almost expect it, I
think. At first he will think that you will yield to him; and then, little by little
(unless God's grace brings himself back to the Faith), he will learn to
understand that you will not. But it will be easier for him that way; and he
will have time to think what to do with you, too…. Robin, what would you do
if you went away?"

Robin considered again.

"I can read and write," he said. "I am a Latinist: I can train falcons and
hounds and break horses. I do not know if there is anything else that I can
do."

"You darling!" she said again.

These two, as will have been seen, were as simple as children, and as
serious. Children are not gay and light-hearted, except now and then (just
as men and women are not serious except now and then). They are grave
and considering: all that they lack is experience. These two, then, were real
children; they were grave and serious because a great thing had disclosed
itself to them in which two or three large principles were present, and no
more. There was that love of one another, whose consummation seemed
imperilled, for how could these two ever wed if Robin were to quarrel with
his father? There was the Religion which was in their bones and blood—the
Religion for which already they had suffered and their fathers before them.
There was the honour and loyalty which this new and more personal
suffering demanded now louder than ever; and in Marjorie at least, as will
be seen more plainly later, there was a strong love of Jesus Christ and His
Mother, whom she knew, from her hidden crucifix and her beads, and her
Jesus Psalter—which she used every day—as well as in her own soul—to be
wandering together once more among the hills of Derbyshire, sheltering, at
peril of Their lives, in stables and barns and little secret chambers, because
there was no room for Them in Their own places. It was this last
consideration, as Robin had begun to guess, that stood strongest in the girl;
it was this, too, as again he had begun to guess, that made her all that she
was to him, that gave her that strange serious air of innocency and
sweetness, and drew from him a love that was nine-tenths reverence and
adoration. (He always kissed her hands first, it will be remembered, before
her lips.)

So then they sat and considered and talked. They did not speak much of her
Grace, nor of her Grace's religion, nor of her counsellors and affairs of state:
these things were but toys and vanities compared with matters of love and
faith; neither did they speak much of the Commissioners that had been to
Derbyshire once and would come again, or of the alarms and the dangers
and the priest hunters, since those things did not at present touch them
very closely. It was rather of Robin's father, and whether and when the maid
should tell her parents, and how this new trouble would conflict with their
love. They spoke, that is to say, of their own business and of God's; and of
nothing else. The frosty sunshine crept down the painted wainscot and lay
at last at their feet, reddening to rosiness….
 III

Robin rode away at last with a very clear idea of what he was to do in the
immediate present, and with no idea at all of what was to be done later.
Marjorie had given him three things—advice; a pair of beads that had been
the property of Mr. Cuthbert Maine, seminary priest, recently executed in
Cornwall for his religion; and a kiss—the first deliberate, free-will kiss she
had ever given him. The first he was to keep, the second he was to return,
the third he was to remember; and these three things, or, rather, his
consideration of them, worked upon him as he went. Her advice, besides
that which has been described, was, principally, to say his Jesus Psalter
more punctually, to hear mass whenever that were possible, to trust in God,
and to be patient and submissive with his father in all things that did not
touch divine love and faith. The pair of beads that were once Mr. Maine's, he
was to keep upon him always, day and night, and to use them for his
devotions. The kiss—well, he was to remember this, and to return it to her
upon their next meeting.

A great star came out as he drew near home. His path took him not through
the village, but behind it, near enough for him to hear the barkings of the
dogs and to smell upon the frosty air the scent of the wood fires. The house
was a great one for these parts. There was a small gate-house before it, built
by his father for dignity, with a lodge on either side and an arch in the
middle, and beyond this lay the short road, straight and broad, that went up
to the court of the house. This court was, on three sides of it, buildings; the
hall and the buttery and the living-rooms in the midst, with the stables and
falconry on the left, and the servants' lodgings on the right; the fourth side,
that which lay opposite to the little gate-house, was a wall, with a great
double gate in it, hung on stone posts that had, each of them, a great stone
dog that held a blank shield. All this later part, the wall with the gate, the
stables and the servants' lodgings, as well as the gatehouse without, had
been built by the lad's father twenty years ago, to bring home his wife to; for,
until that time, the house had been but a little place, though built of stone,
and solid and good enough. The house stood half-way up the rise of the hill,
above the village, with woods about it and behind it; and it was above these
woods behind that the great star came out like a diamond in enamel-work;
and Robin looked at it, and fell to thinking of Marjorie again, putting all
other thoughts away. Then, as he rode through into the court on to the
cobbled stones, a man ran out from the stable to take his mare from him.

"Master Babington is here," he said. "He came half an hour ago."

"He is in the hall?"

"Yes, sir; they are at supper."

The hall at Matstead was such as that of most esquires of means. Its daïs
was to the south end, and the buttery entrance and the screens to the
north, through which came the servers with the meat. In the midst of the
floor stood the reredos with the fire against it, and a round vent overhead in
the roof through which went the smoke and came the rain. The tables stood
down the hall, one on either side, with the master's table at the daïs end set
cross-ways. It was not a great hall, though that was its name; it ran perhaps
forty feet by twenty. It was lighted, not only by the fire that burned there
through the winter day and night, but by eight torches in cressets that hung
against the walls and sadly smoked them; and the master's table was lighted
by six candles, of latten on common days and of silver upon festivals.

There were but two at the master's table this evening, Mr. Audrey himself, a
smallish, high-shouldered man, ruddy-faced, with bright blue eyes like his
son's, and no hair upon his face (for this was the way of old men then, in the
country, at least); and Mr. Anthony Babington, a young man scarcely a year
older than Robin himself, of a brown complexion and a high look in his face,
but a little pale, too, with study, for he was learned beyond his years and
read all the books that he could lay hand to. It was said even that his own
verses, and a prose-lament he had written upon the Death of a Hound, were
read with pleasure in London by the lords and gentlemen. It was as long ago
as '71, that his verses had first become known, when he was still serving in
the school of good manners as page in my Lord Shrewsbury's household.
They were considered remarkable for so young a boy. So it was to this
company that Robin came, walking up between the tables after he had
washed his hands at the lavatory that stood by the screens.

"You are late, lad," said his father.

"I was over to Padley, sir…. Good-day, Anthony."

Then silence fell again, for it was the custom in good houses to keep silence,
or very nearly, at dinner and supper. At times music would play, if there was
music to be had; or a scholar would read from a book for awhile at the
beginning, from the holy gospels in devout households, or from some other
grave book. But if there were neither music nor reading, all would hold their
tongues.

Robin was hungry from his riding and the keen air; and he ate well. First he
stayed his appetite a little with a hunch of cheat-bread, and a glass of
pomage, while the servant was bringing him his entry of eggs cooked with
parsley. Then he ate this; and next came half a wild-duck cooked with sage
and sweet potatoes; and last of all a florentine which he ate with a cup of
Canarian. He ate heartily and quickly, while the two waited for him and
nibbled at marchpane. Then, when the doors were flung open and the troop
of servants came in to their supper, Mr. Audrey blessed himself, and for
them, too; and they went out by a door behind into the wainscoted parlour,
where the new stove from London stood, and where the conserves and
muscadel awaited them. For this, or like it, had been the procedure in
Matstead hall ever since Robin could remember, when first he had come
from the women to eat his food with the men.

"And how were all at Booth's Edge?" asked Mr. Audrey, when all had pulled
off their boots in country fashion, and were sitting each with his glass beside
him. (Through the door behind came the clamour of the farm-men and the
keepers of the chase and the servants, over their food.)

"I saw Marjorie only, sir," said the boy. "Mr. Manners was in Derby, and

Mrs. Manners had a megrim."

"Mrs. Manners is ageing swifter than her husband," observed Anthony.

There seemed a constraint upon the company this evening. Robin spoke of
his ride, of things which he had seen upon it, of a wood that should be
thinned next year; and Anthony made a quip or two such as he was
accustomed to make; but the master sat silent for the most part, speaking
to the lads once or twice for civility's sake, but no more. And presently
silences began to fall, that were very unusual things in Mr. Anthony's
company, for he had a quick and a gay wit, and talked enough for five.
Robin knew very well what was the matter; it was what lay upon his own
heart as heavy as lead; but he was sorry that the signs of it should be so
evident, and wondered what he should say to his friend Anthony when the
time came for telling; since Anthony was as ardent for the old Faith as any
in the land. It was a bitter time, this, for the old families that served God as
their fathers had, and desired to serve their prince too; for, now and again,
the rumour would go abroad that another house had fallen, and another
name gone from the old roll. And what would Anthony Babington say,
thought the lad, when he heard that Mr. Audrey, who had been so hot and
persevered so long, must be added to these?

And then, on a sudden, Anthony himself opened on a matter that was at

least cognate.

"I was hearing to-day from Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert that his uncle would be
let out again of the Fleet soon to collect his fines."
He spoke bitterly; and, indeed, there was reason; for not only were the
recusants (as the Catholics were named) put in prison for their faith, but
fined for it as well, and let out of prison to raise money for this, by selling
their farms or estates.

"He will go to Norbury?" asked Robin.

"He will come to Padley, too, it is thought. Her Grace must have her money
for her ships and her men, and for her pursuivants to catch us all with; and
it is we that must pay. Shall you sell again this year, sir?"

Mr. Audrey shook his head, pursing up his lips and staring upon the fire.

"I can sell no more," he said.

Then an agony seized upon Robin lest his father should say all that was in
his mind. He knew it must be said; yet he feared its saying, and with a quick
wit he spoke of that which he knew would divert his friend.

"And the Queen of the Scots," he said. "Have you heard more of her?"

Now Anthony Babington was one of those spirits that live largely within
themselves, and therefore see that which is without through a haze or mist
of their own moods. He read much in the poets; you would say that Vergil
and Ovid, as well as the poets of his own day, were his friends; he lived
within, surrounded by his own images, and therefore he loved and hated
with ten times the ardour of a common man. He was furious for the Old
Faith, furious against the new; he dreamed of wars and gallantry and
splendour; you could see it even in his dress, in his furred doublet, the
embroideries at his throat, his silver-hilted rapier, as well as in his port and
countenance: and the burning heart of all his images, the mirror on earth of
Mary in heaven, the emblem of his piety, the mistress of his dreams—she
who embodied for him what the courtiers in London protested that Elizabeth
embodied for them—the pearl of great price, the one among ten thousand—
this, for him, was Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, now prisoner in her
cousin's hands, going to and fro from house to house, with a guard about
her, yet with all the seeming of liberty and none of its reality….

The rough bitterness died out of the boy's face, and a look came upon it as
of one who sees a vision.

"Queen Mary?" he said, as if he pronounced the name of the Mother of

God. "Yes; I have heard of her…. She is in Norfolk, I think."

Then he let flow out of him the stream that always ran in his heart like
sorrowful music ever since the day when first, as a page, in my Lord
Shrewsbury's house in Sheffield, he had set eyes on that queen of sorrows.
Then, again, upon the occasion of his journey to Paris, he had met with Mr.
Morgan, her servant, and the Bishop of Glasgow, her friend, whose talk had
excited and inspired him. He had learned from them something more of her
glories and beauties, and remembering what he had seen of her, adored her
the more. He leaned back now, shading his eyes from the candles upon the
table, and began to sing his love and his queen. He told of new insults that
had been put upon her, new deprivations of what was left to her of liberty;
he did not speak now of Elizabeth by name, since a fountain, even of talk,
should not give out at once sweet water and bitter; but he spoke of the day
when Mary should come herself to the throne of England, and take that
which was already hers; when the night should roll away, and the morning-
star arise; and the Faith should come again like the flowing tide, and all
things be again as they had been from the beginning. It was rank treason
that he talked, such as would have brought him to Tyburn if it had been
spoken in London in indiscreet company; it was that treason which her
Grace herself had made possible by her faithlessness to God and man; such
treason as God Himself must have mercy upon, since He reads all hearts
and their intentions. The others kept silence.

At the end he stood up. Then he stooped for his boots.

"I must be riding, sir," he said.

Mr. Audrey raised his hand to the latten bell that stood beside him on the
table.

"I will take Anthony to his horse," said Robin suddenly, for a thought had
come to him.

"Then good-night, sir," said Anthony, as he drew on his second boot and
stood up.

The sky was all ablaze with stars now as they came out into the court. On
their right shone the high windows of the little hall where peace now
reigned, except for the clatter of the boys who took away the dishes; and the
night was very still about them in the grip of the frost, for the village went
early to bed, and even the dogs were asleep.

Robin said nothing as they went over the paving, for his determination was
not yet ripe, and Anthony was still aglow with his own talk. Then, as the
servant who waited for his master, with the horses, showed himself in the
stable-arch with a lantern, Robin's mind was made up.
"I have something to tell you," he said softly. "Tell your man to wait."

"Eh?"

"Tell your man to wait with the horses."

His heart beat hot and thick in his throat as he led the way through the
screens and out beyond the hall and down the steps again into the
pleasaunce. Anthony took him by the sleeve once or twice, but he said
nothing, and went on across the grass, and out through the open iron gate
that gave upon the woods. He dared not say what he had to say within the
precincts of the house, for fear he should be overheard and the shame
known before its time. Then, when they had gone a little way into the wood,
into the dark out of the starlight, Robin turned; and, as he turned, saw the
windows of the hall go black as the boys extinguished the torches.

"Well?" whispered Anthony sharply (for a fool could see that the news was to
be weighty, and Anthony was no fool).

It was wonderful how Robin's thoughts had fixed themselves since his talk
with Mistress Marjorie. He had gone to Padley, doubting of what he should
say, doubting what she would tell him, asking himself even whether
compliance might not be the just as well as the prudent way. Yet now black
shame had come on him—the black shame that any who was a Catholic
should turn from his faith; blacker, that he should so turn without even a
touch of the rack or the threat of it; blackest of all, that it should be his own
father who should do this. It was partly food and wine that had
strengthened him, partly Anthony's talk just now; but the frame and
substance of it all was Marjorie and her manner of speaking, and her faith
in him and in God.

He stood still, silent, breathing so heavily that Anthony heard him.

"Tell me, Rob; tell me quickly."

Robin drew a long breath.

"You saw that my father was silent?" he said.

"Yes."

"Stay…. Will you swear to me by the mass that you will tell no one what you
will hear from me till you hear it from others?"

"I will swear it," whispered Anthony in the darkness.

Again Robin sighed in a long, shuddering breath. Anthony could hear him
tremble with cold and pain.

"Well," he said, "my father will leave the Church next Easter. He is tired of
paying fines, he says. And he has bidden me to come with him to Matstead
Church."

There was dead silence.

"I went to tell Marjorie to-day," whispered Robin. "She has promised to be
my wife some day; so I told her, but no one else. She has bidden me to leave
Matstead for Easter, and pray to God to show me what to do afterwards.
Can you help me, Anthony?"

He was seized suddenly by the arms.

"Robin…. No … no! It is not possible!"

"It is certain. I have never known my father to turn from his word."

From far away in the wild woods came a cry as the two stood there. It might
be a wolf or fox, if any were there, or some strange night-bird, or a woman in
pain. It rose, it seemed, to a scream, melancholy and dreadful, and then
died again. The two heard it, but said nothing, one to the other. No doubt it
was some beast in a snare or a-hunting, but it chimed in with the desolation
of their hearts so as to seem but a part of it. So the two stood in silence. The
house was quiet now, and most of those within it upon their beds. Only, as
the two knew, there still sat in silence within the little wainscoted parlour,
with his head on his hand and a glass of muscadel beside him—he of whom
they thought—the father of one and the friend and host of the other…. It
was not until this instant in the dark and to the quiet, with the other lad's
hands still gripped on to his arms, that this boy understood the utter shame
and the black misery of that which he had said, and the other heard.
 CHAPTER II

There were excuses in plenty for Robin to ride abroad, to the north towards
Hathersage or to the south towards Dethick, as the whim took him; for he
was learning to manage the estate that should be his one day. At one time it
was to quiet a yeoman whose domain had been ridden over and his sown
fields destroyed; at another, to dispute with a miller who claimed for injury
through floods for which he held his lord responsible; at a third, to see to
the woodland or the fences broken by the deer. He came and went then as
he willed; and on the second day, after Anthony's visit, set out before dinner
to meet him, that they might speak at length of what lay now upon both
their hearts.

To his father he had said no more, nor he to him. His father sat quiet in the
parlour, or was in his own chamber when Robin was at home; but the lad
understood very well that there was no thought of yielding. And there were a
dozen things on which he himself must come to a decision. There was the
first, the question as to where he was to go for Easter, and how he was to
tell his father; what to do if his father forbade him outright; whether or no
the priests of the district should be told; what to do with the chapel
furniture that was kept in a secret place in a loft at Matstead. Above all,
there hung over him the thought of what would come after, if his father held
to his decision and would allow him neither to keep his religion at home nor
go elsewhere.

On the second day, therefore, he rode out (the frost still holding, though the
sun was clear and warm), and turned southwards through the village for the
Dethick road, towards the place in which he had appointed to meet
Anthony. At the entrance to the village he passed the minister, Mr. Barton,
coming out of his house, that had been the priest's lodging, a middle-aged
man, made a minister under the new Prayer-Book, and therefore, no priest
as were some of the ministers about, who had been made priests under
Mary. He was a solid man, of no great wit or learning, but there was not an
ounce of harm in him. (They were fortunate, indeed, to have such a
minister; since many parishes had but laymen to read the services; and in
one, not twenty miles away, the squire's falconer held the living.) Mr. Barton
was in his sad-coloured cloak and round cap, and saluted Robin heartily in
his loud, bellowing voice.

"Riding abroad again," he cried, "on some secret errand!"

"I will give your respects to Mr. Babington," said Robin, smiling heavily. "I
am to meet him about a matter of a tithe too!"

"Ah! you Papists would starve us altogether if you could," roared the
minister, who wished no better than to be at peace with his neighbours, and
was all for liberty.

"You will get your tithe safe enough—one of you, at least," said Robin.

"It is but a matter as to who shall pay it."

He waved good-day to the minister and set his horse to the Dethick track.

There was no going fast to-day along this country road. The frosts and the
thaws had made of it a very way of sorrows. Here in the harder parts was a
tumble of ridges and holes, with edges as hard as steel; here in the softer,
the faggots laid to build it up were broken or rotted through, making it no
better than a trap for horses' feet; and it was a full hour before Robin
finished his four miles and turned up through the winter woodland to the
yeoman's farm where he was to meet Anthony. It was true, as he had said to
Mr. Barton, that they were to speak of a matter of tithe—this was to be their
excuse if his father questioned him—for there was a doubt as to in which
parish stood this farm, for the yeoman tilled three meadows that were in the
Babington estate and two in Matstead.

As he came up the broken ground on to the crest of the hill, he saw Anthony
come out of the yard-gate and the yeoman with him. Then Anthony mounted
his horse and rode down towards him, bidding the man stay, over his
shoulder.

"It is all plain enough," shouted Anthony loud enough for the man to hear.
"It is Dethick that must pay. You need not come up, Robin; we must do the
paying."

Robin checked his mare and waited till the other came near enough to
speak.

"Young Thomas FitzHerbert is within. He is riding round his new estates,"

said the other beneath his breath. "I thought I would come out and tell you;
and I do not know where we can talk or dine. I met him on the road, and he
would come with me. He is eating his dinner there."

"But I must eat my dinner too," said Robin, in dismay.

"Will you tell him of what you have told me? He is safe and discreet, I think."
"Why, yes, if you think so," said Robin. "I do not know him very well."

"Oh! he is safe enough, and he has learned not to talk. Besides, all the
country will know it by Easter."

So they turned their horses back again and rode up to the farm.

It was a great day for a yeoman when three gentlemen should take their
dinners in his house; and the place was in a respectful uproar. From the
kitchen vent went up a pillar of smoke, and through its door, in and out
continually, fled maids with dishes. The yeoman himself, John Merton, a
dried-looking, lean man, stood cap in hand to meet the gentlemen; and his
wife, crimson-faced from the fire, peeped and smiled from the open door of
the living-room that gave immediately upon the yard. For these gentlemen
were from three of the principal estates here about. The Babingtons had
their country house at Dethick and their town house in Derby; the Audreys
owned a matter of fifteen hundred acres at least all about Matstead; and the
FitzHerberts, it was said, scarcely knew themselves all that they owned, or
rather all that had been theirs until the Queen's Grace had begun to strip
them of it little by little on account of their faith. The two Padleys, at least,
were theirs, besides their principal house at Norbury; and now that Sir
Thomas was in the Fleet Prison for his religion, young Mr. Thomas, his heir,
was of more account than ever.

He was at his dinner when the two came in, and he rose and saluted them.
He was a smallish kind of man, with a little brown beard, and his short hair,
when he lifted his flapped cap to them, showed upright on his head; he
smiled pleasantly enough, and made space for them to sit down, one at each
side.

"We shall do very well now, Mrs. Merton," he said, "if you will bring in that
goose once more for these gentlemen."

Then he made excuses for beginning his dinner before them: he was on his
way home and must be off again presently.

It was a well-furnished table for a yeoman's house. There was a linen napkin
for each guest, one corner of which he tucked into his throat, while the
other corner lay beneath his wooden plate. The twelve silver spoons were
laid out on the smooth elm-table, and a silver salt stood before Mr. Thomas.
There was, of course, an abundance to eat and drink, even though no more
than two had been expected; and John Merton himself stood hatless on the
further side of the table and took the dishes from the bare-armed maids to
place them before the gentlemen. There was a jack of metheglin for each to
drink, and a huge loaf of miscelin (or bread made of mingled corn) stood in
the midst and beyond the salt.

They talked of this and of that and of the other, freely and easily—of Mr.
Thomas' marriage with Mistress Westley that was to take place presently; of
the new entailment of the estates made upon him by his uncle. John Merton
inquired, as was right, after Sir Thomas, and openly shook his head when
he heard of his sufferings (for he and his wife were as good Catholics as any
in the country); and when the room was empty for a moment of the maids,
spoke of a priest who, he had been told, would say mass in Tansley next day
(for it was in this way, for the most part, that such news was carried from
mouth to mouth). Then, when the maids came in again, the battle of the
tithe was fought once more, and Mr. Thomas pronounced sentence for the
second time.

They blessed themselves, all four of them, openly at the end, and went out
at last to their horses.

"Will you ride with us, sir?" asked Anthony; "we can go your way. Robin here
has something to say to you."

"I shall be happy if you will give me your company for a little. I must be at
Padley before dark, if I can, and must visit a couple of houses on the way."

He called out to his two servants, who ran out from the kitchen wiping their
mouths, telling them to follow at once, and the three rode off down the hill.

Then Robin told him.

He was silent for a while after he had put a question or two, biting his lower
lip a little, and putting his little beard into his mouth. Then he burst out.

"And I dare not ask you to come to me for Easter," he said. "God only knows
where I shall be at Easter. I shall be married, too, by then. My father is in
London now and may send for me. My uncle is in the Fleet. I am here now
only to see what money I can raise for the fines and for the solace of my
uncle. I cannot ask you, Mr. Audrey, though God knows that I would do
anything that I could. Have you nowhere to go? Will your father hold to what
he says?"

Robin told him yes; and he added that there were four or five places he
could go to. He was not asking for help or harbourage, but advice only.

"And even of that I have none," cried Mr. Thomas. "I need all that I can get
myself. I am distracted, Mr. Babington, with all these troubles."
Robin asked him whether the priests who came and went should be told of
the blow that impended; for at those times every apostasy was of importance
to priests who had to run here and there for shelter.

"I will tell one or two of the more discreet ones myself," said Mr. Thomas, "if
you will give me leave. I would that they were all discreet, but they are not.
We will name no names, if you please; but some of them are unreasonable
altogether and think nothing of bringing us all into peril."

He began to bite his beard again.

"Do you think the Commissioners will visit us again?" asked Anthony.

"Mr. Fenton was telling me—"

"It is Mr. Fenton and the like that will bring them down on us if any will,"
burst out Mr. FitzHerbert peevishly. "I am as good a Catholic, I hope, as any
in the world; but we can surely live without the sacraments for a month or
two sometimes! But it is this perpetual coming and going of priests that
enrages her Grace and her counsellors. I do not believe her Grace has any
great enmity against us; but she soon will, if men like Mr. Fenton and Mr.
Bassett are for ever harbouring priests and encouraging them. It is the same
in London, I hear; it is the same in Lancashire; it is the same everywhere.
And all the world knows it, and thinks that we do contemn her Grace by
such boldness. All the mischief came in with that old Bull, Regnans in
Excelsis, in '69, and—"

"I beg your pardon, sir," came in a quiet voice from beyond him; and

Robin, looking across, saw Anthony with a face as if frozen.

"Pooh! pooh!" burst out Mr. Thomas, with an uneasy air. "The Holy Father, I
take it, may make mistakes, as I understand it, in such matters, as well as
any man. Why, a dozen priests have said to me they thought it inopportune;
and—"

"I do not permit," said Anthony with an air of dignity beyond his years, "that
any man should speak so in my company."

"Well, well; you are too hot altogether, Mr. Babington. I admire such zeal
indeed, as I do in the saints; but we are not bound to imitate all that we
admire. Say no more, sir; and I will say no more either."

They rode in silence.

It was, indeed, one of those matters that were in dispute at that time
amongst the Catholics. The Pope was not swift enough for some, and too
swift for others. He had thundered too soon, said one party, if, indeed, it was
right to thunder at all, and not to wait in patience till the Queen's Grace
should repent herself; and he had thundered not soon enough, said the
other. Whence it may at least be argued that he had been exactly opportune.
Yet it could not be denied that since the day when he had declared Elizabeth
cut off from the unity of the Church and her subjects absolved from their
allegiance—though never, as some pretended then and have pretended ever
since, that a private person might kill her and do no wrong—ever since that
day her bitterness had increased yearly against her Catholic people, who
desired no better than to serve both her and their God, if she would but
permit that to be possible.
 II

It would be an hour later that they bid good-bye to Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert,
high among the hills to the east of the Derwent river; and when they had
seen him ride off towards Wingerworth, rode yet a few furlongs together to
speak of what had been said.

"He can do nothing, then," said Robin; "not even to give good counsel."

"I have never heard him speak so before," cried Anthony; "he must be near
mad, I think. It must be his marriage, I suppose."

"He is full of his own troubles; that is plain enough, without seeking others.
Well, I must bear mine as best I can."

They were just parting—Anthony to ride back to Dethick, and Robin over the
moors to Matstead, when over a rise in the ground they saw the heads of
three horsemen approaching. It was a wild country that they were in; there
were no houses in sight; and in such circumstances it was but prudent to
remain together until the character of the travellers should be plain; so the
two, after a word, rode gently forward, hearing the voices of the three talking
to one another, in the still air, though without catching a word. For, as they
came nearer the voices ceased, as if the talkers feared to be overheard.

They were well mounted, these three, on horses known as Scottish nags,
square-built, sturdy beasts, that could cover forty miles in the day. They
were splashed, too, not the horses only, but the riders, also, as if they had
ridden far, through streams or boggy ground. The men were dressed soberly
and well, like poor gentlemen or prosperous yeomen; all three were bearded,
and all carried arms as could be seen from the flash of the sun on their
hilts. It was plain, too, that they were not rogues or cutters, since each
carried his valise on his saddle, as well as from their appearance. Our
gentlemen, then, after passing them with a salute and a good-day, were once
more about to say good-bye one to the other, and appoint a time and place
to meet again for the hunting of which Robin had spoken to Marjorie, and,
indeed, had drawn rein—when one of the three strangers was seen to turn
his horse and come riding back after them, while his friends waited.

The two lads wheeled about to meet him, as was but prudent; but while he
was yet twenty yards away he lifted his hat. He seemed about thirty years
old; he had a pleasant, ruddy face.

"Mr. Babington, I think, sir," he said.

"That is my name," said Anthony.

"I have heard mass in your house, sir," said the stranger. "My name is

Garlick."

"Why, yes, sir, I remember—from Tideswell. How do you do, Mr. Garlick?

This is Mr. Audrey, of Matstead."

They saluted one another gravely.

"Mr. Audrey is a Catholic, too, I think?"

Robin answered that he was.

"Then I have news for you, gentlemen. A priest, Mr. Simpson, is with us; and
will say mass at Tansley next Sunday. You would like to speak with his
reverence?"

"It will give us great pleasure, sir," said Anthony, touching his horse with his
heel.

"I am bringing Mr. Simpson on his way. He is just fresh from Rheims. And
Mr. Ludlam is to carry him further on Monday," continued Mr. Garlick as
they went forward.

"Mr. Ludlam?"

"He is a native of Radbourne, and has but just finished at Oxford….

Forgive me, sir; I will but just ride forward and tell them."

The two lads drew rein, seeing that he wished first to tell the others who
they were, before bringing them up; and a strange little thing fell as Mr.
Garlick joined the two. For it happened that by now the sun was at his
setting; going down in a glory of crimson over the edge of the high moor; and
that the three riders were directly in his path from where the two lads
waited. Robin, therefore, looking at them, saw the three all together on their
horses with the circle of the sun about them, and a great flood of blood-
coloured light on every side; the priest was in the midst of the three, and the
two men leaning towards him seemed to be speaking and as if encouraging
him strongly. For an instant, so strange was the light, so immense the
shadows on this side spread over the tumbled ground up to the lads
themselves, so vast the great vault of illuminated sky, that it seemed to
Robin as if he saw a vision…. Then the strangeness passed, as Mr. Garlick
turned away again to beckon to them; and the boy thought no more of it at
that time.
They uncovered as they rode towards the priest, and bowed low to him as he
lifted his hand with a few words of Latin; and the next instant they were in
talk.

Mr. Simpson, like his friends, was a youngish man at this time, with a kind
face and great, innocent eyes that seemed to wonder and question. Mr.
Ludlam, too, was under thirty years old, plainly not of gentleman's birth,
though he was courteous and well-mannered. It seemed a great matter to
these three to have fallen in with young Mr. Babington, whose family was so
well-known, and whose own fame as a scholar, as well as an ardent
Catholic, was all over the county.

Robin said little; he was overshadowed by his friend; but he listened and
watched as the four spoke together, and learned that Mr. Simpson had been
made priest scarcely a month before, and was come from Yorkshire, which
was his own county, to minister in the district of the Peak at least for
awhile. He heard, too, news from Douay, and that the college, it was
thought, might move from there to another place under the protection of the
family of De Guise, since her Grace was very hot against Douay, whence so
many of her troubles proceeded, and was doing her best to persuade the
Governor of the Netherlands to suppress it. However, said Mr. Simpson, it
was not yet done.

Anthony, too, in his turn gave the news of the county; he spoke of Mr.
Fenton, of the FitzHerberts and others that were safe and discreet persons;
but he said nothing at that time of Mr. Audrey of Matstead, at which Robin
was glad, since his shame deepened on him every hour, and all the more
now that he had met with those three men who rode so gallantly through
the country in peril of liberty or life itself. Nor did he say anything of the
FitzHerberts except that they might be relied upon.

"We must be riding," said Garlick at last; "these moors are strange to me;
and it will be dark in half an hour."

"Will you allow me to be your guide, sir?" asked Anthony of the priest. "It is
all in my road, and you will not be troubled with questions or answers if you
are in my company."

"But what of your friend, sir?"

"Oh! Robin knows the country as he knows the flat of his hand. We were
about to separate as we met you."

"Then we will thankfully accept your guidance, sir," said the priest gravely.
An impulse seized upon Robin as he was about to say good-day, though he
was ashamed of it five minutes later as a modest lad would be. Yet he
followed it now; he leapt off his horse and, holding Cecily's rein in his arm,
kneeled on the stones with both knees.

"Your blessing, sir," he said to the priest. And Anthony eyed him with
astonishment.
 III

Robin was moved, as he rode home over the high moors, and down at last
upon the woods of Matstead, in a manner that was new to him, and that he
could not altogether understand. He had met travelling priests before;
indeed, all the priests whose masses he had ever heard, or from whom he
had received the sacraments, were travelling priests who went in peril; and
yet this young man, upon whose consecrated hands the oil was scarcely yet
dry, moved and drew his heart in a manner that he had never yet known. It
was perhaps something in the priest's face that had so affected him; for
there was a look in it of a kind of surprised timidity and gentleness, as if he
wondered at himself for being so foolhardy, and as if he appealed with that
same wonder and surprise to all who looked on him. His voice, too, was
gentle, as if tamed for the seminary and the altar; and his whole air and
manner wholly unlike that of some of the priests whom Robin knew—loud-
voiced, confident, burly men whom you would have sworn to be country
gentlemen or yeomen living on their estates or farms and fearing to look no
man in the face. It was this latter kind, thought Robin, that was best suited
to such a life—to riding all day through north-country storms, to lodging
hardily where they best could, to living such a desperate enterprise as a
priest's life then was, with prices upon their heads and spies everywhere. It
was not a life for quiet persons like Mr. Simpson, who, surely, would be
better at his books in some college abroad, offering the Holy Sacrifice in
peace and security, and praying for adventurers more hardy than himself.
Yet here was Mr. Simpson just set out upon such an adventure, of his own
free-will and choice, with no compulsion save that of God's grace.

There was yet more than an hour before supper-time when he rode into the
court at last; and Dick Sampson, his own groom, came to take his horse
from him.

"The master's not been from home to-day, sir," said Dick when Robin asked
of his father.

"Not been from home?"

"No, sir—not out of the house, except that he was walking in the pleasaunce
half an hour ago."

Robin ran up the steps and through the screens to see if his father was still
there; but the little walled garden, so far as he could see it in the light from
the hall windows, was empty; and, indeed, it would be strange for any man
to walk in such a place at such an hour. He wondered, too, to hear that his
father had not been from home; for on all days, except he were ill, he would
be about the estate, here and there. As he came back to the screens he
heard a step going up and down in the hall, and on looking in met his father
face to face. The old man had his hat on his head, but no cloak on his
shoulders, though even with the fire the place was cold. It was plain that he
had been walking up and down to warm himself. Robin could not make out
his face very well, as he stood with his back to a torch.

"Where have you been, my lad?"

"I went to meet Anthony at one of the Dethick farms, sir—John

Merton's."

"You met no one else?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert was there and dined with us. He rode with
us, too, a little way." And then as he was on the point of speaking of the
priest, he stopped himself; and in an instant knew that never again must he
speak of a priest to his father; his father had already lost his right to that.
His father looked at him a moment, standing with his hands clasped behind
his back.

"Have you heard anything of a priest that is newly come to these parts—or
coming?"

"Yes, sir. I hear mass is to be said … in the district on Sunday."

"Where is mass to be said?"

Robin drew along breath, lifted his eyes to his father's and then dropped
them again.

"Did you hear me, sir? Where is mass to be said?"

Again Robin lifted and again dropped his eyes.

"What is the priest's name?"

Again there was dead silence. For a son, in those days, so to behave towards
his father, was an act of very defiance. Yet the father said nothing. There the
two remained; Robin with his eyes on the ground, expecting a storm of
words or a blow in the face. Yet he knew he could do no otherwise; the
moment had come at last and he must act as he would be obliged always to
act hereafter.
Matters had matured swiftly in the boy's mind, all unconsciously to himself.
Perhaps it was the timid air of the priest he had met an hour ago that
consummated the process. At least it was so consummated.

Then his father turned suddenly on his heel; and the son went out
trembling.
 CHAPTER III

"I will speak to you to-night, sir, after supper," said his father sharply a
second day later, when Robin, meeting his father setting out before dinner,
had asked him to give him an hour's talk.

Robin's mind had worked fiercely and intently since the encounter in the
hall. His father had sat silent both at supper and afterwards, and the next
day was the same; the old man spoke no more than was necessary, shortly
and abruptly, scarcely looking his son once in the face, and the rest of the
day they had not met. It was plain to the boy that something must follow his
defiance, and he had prepared all his fortitude to meet it. Yet the second
night had passed and no word had been spoken, and by the second morning
Robin could bear it no longer; he must know what was in his father's mind.
And now the appointment was made, and he would soon know all. His
father was absent from dinner and the boy dined alone. He learned from
Dick Sampson that his father had ridden southwards.

It was not until Robin had sat down nearly half an hour later than supper-
time that the old man came in. The frost was gone; deep mud had
succeeded, and the rider was splashed above his thighs. He stayed at the
fire for his boots to be drawn off and to put on his soft-leather shoes, while
Robin stood up dutifully to await him. Then he came forward, took his seat
without a word, and called for supper. In ominous silence the meal
proceeded, and with the same thunderous air, when it was over, his father
said grace and made his way, followed by his son, into the parlour behind.
He made no motion at first to pour out his wine; then he helped himself
twice and left the jug for Robin.

Then suddenly he began without moving his head.

"I wish to know your intentions," he said, with irony so serious that it
seemed gravity. "I cannot flog you or put you to school again, and I must
know how we stand to one another."

Robin was silent. He had looked at his father once or twice, but now sat
downcast and humble in his place. With his left hand he fumbled, out of
sight, Mr. Maine's pair of beads. His father, for his part, sat with his feet
stretched to the fire, his head propped on his hand, not doing enough
courtesy to his son even to look at him.

"Do you hear me, sir?"

"Yes, sir. But I do not know what to say."

"I wish to know your intentions. Do you mean to thwart and disobey me in
all matters, or in only those that have to do with religion?"

"I do not wish to thwart or disobey you, sir, in any matters except where my
conscience is touched." (The substance of this answer had been previously
rehearsed, and the latter part of it even verbally.)

"Be good enough to tell me what you mean by that."

Robin licked his lips carefully and sat up a little in his chair.

"You told me, sir, that it was your intention to leave the Church. Then how
can I tell you of what priests are here, or where mass is to be said? You
would not have done so to one who was not a Catholic, six months ago."

The man sneered visibly.

"There is no need," he said. "It is Mr. Simpson who is to say mass to-
morrow, and it is at Tansley that it will be said, at six o'clock in the
morning. If I choose to tell the justices, you cannot prevent it." (He turned
round in a flare of anger.) "Do you think I shall tell the justices?"

Robin said nothing.

"Do you think I shall tell the justices?" roared the old man insistently.

"No, sir. Now I do not."

The other growled gently and sank back.

"But if you think that I will permit my son to flout and to my face in my own
hall, and not to trust his own father—why, you are immeasurably mistaken,
sir. So I ask you again how far you intend to thwart and disobey me."

A kind of despair surged up in the boy's heart—despair at the fruitlessness

of this ironical and furious sort of talk; and with the despair came boldness.

"Father, will you let me speak outright, without thinking that I mean to
insult you? I do not; I swear I do not. Will you let me speak, sir?"

His father growled again a sort of acquiescence, and Robin gathered his
forces. He had prepared a kind of defence that seemed to him reasonable,
and he knew that his father was at least just. They had been friends, these
two, always, in an underground sort of way, which was all that the relations
of father and son in such days allowed. The old man was curt, obstinate,
and even boisterous in his anger; but there was a kindliness beneath that
the boy always perceived—a kindliness which permitted the son an
exceptional freedom of speech, which he used always in the last resort and
which he knew his father loved to hear him use. This, then, was plainly a
legitimate occasion for it, and he had prepared himself to make the most of
it. He began formally:

"Sir," he said, "you have brought me up in the Old Faith, sent me to mass,
and to the priest to learn my duty, and I have obeyed you always. You have
taught me that a man's duty to God must come before all else—as our
Saviour Himself said, too. And now you turn on me, and bid me forget all
that, and come to church with you…. It is not for me to say anything to my
father about his own conscience; I must leave that alone. But I am bound to
speak of mine when occasion rises, and this is one of them…. I should be
dishonouring and insulting you, sir, if I did not believe you when you said
you would turn Protestant; and a man who says he will turn Protestant has
done so already. It was for this reason, then, and no other, that I did not
answer you the other day; not because I wish to be disobedient to you, but
because I must be obedient to God. I did not lie to you, as I might have
done, and say that I did not know who the priest was nor where mass was to
be said. But I would not answer, because it is not right or discreet for a
Catholic to speak of these things to those who are not Catholics—"

"How dare you say I am not a Catholic, sir!"

"A Catholic, sir, to my mind," said Robin steadily, "is one who holds to the
Catholic Church and to no other. I mean nothing offensive, sir; I mean what
I said I meant, and no more. It is not for me to condemn—"

"I should think not!" snorted the old man.

"Well, sir, that is my reason. And further—"

He stopped, doubtful.

"Well, sir—what further?"

"Well, I cannot come to the church with you at Easter."

His father wheeled round savagely in his chair.

"Father, hear me out, and then say what you will…. I say I cannot come with
you to church at Easter, because I am a Catholic. But I do not wish to
trouble or disobey you openly. I will go away from home for that time. Good
Mr. Barton will cause no trouble; he wants nothing but peace. Father, you
are not just to me. You have taught me too much, or you have not given me
time enough—"

Again he broke off, knowing that he had said what he did not mean, but the
old man was on him like a hawk.

"Not time enough, you say? Well, then—"

"No, sir; I did not mean that," wailed Robin suddenly. "I do not mean that I
should change if I had a hundred years; I am sure I shall not. But—"

"You said, 'Not time enough,'" said the other meditatively. "Perhaps if

I give you time—"

"Father, I beg of you to forget what I said; I did not mean to say it.

It is not true. But Marjorie said—"

"Marjorie! What has Marjorie to do with it?"

Robin found himself suddenly in deep waters. He had plunged and found
that he could not swim. This was the second mistake he had made in saying
what he did not mean…. Again the courage of despair came to him, and he
struck out further.

"I must tell you of that too, sir," he said. "Mistress Marjorie and I—"

He stopped, overwhelmed with shame. His father turned full round and
stared at him.

"Go on, sir."

Robin seized his glass and emptied it.

"Well, sir. Mistress Marjorie and I love one another. We are but boy and girl,
sir; we know that—"

Then his father laughed. It was laughter that was at once hearty and bitter;
and, with it, came the closing of the open door in the boy's heart. As there
came out, after it, sentence after sentence of scorn and contempt, the bolts,
so to say, were shot and the key turned. It might all have been otherwise if
the elder man had been kind, or if he had been sad or disappointed, or even
if he had been merely angry; but the soreness and misery in the old man's
heart—misery at his own acts and words, and at the outrage he was doing
to his own conscience—turned his judgment bitter, and with that bitterness
his son's heart shut tight against him.
"But boy and girl!" sneered the man. "A couple of blind puppies, I would say
rather—you with your falcons and mare and your other toys, and the down
on your chin, and your conscience; and she with her white face and her
mother and her linen-parlour and her beads"—(his charity prevailed so far
as to hinder him from more outspoken contempt)—"And you two babes have
been prattling of conscience and prayers together—I make no doubt, and
thinking yourselves Cecilies and Laurences and all the holy martyrs—and all
this without a by-your-leave, I dare wager, from parent or father, and
thinking yourselves man and wife; and you fondling her, and she too modest
to be fondled, and—"

The plain truth struck him with sudden splendour, at least sufficiently
strong to furnish him with a question.

"And have you told Mistress Marjorie about your sad rogue of a father?"

Robin, white with anger, held his lips grimly together and the wrath blazed
in an instant up from the scornful old heart, whose very love was turned to
gall.

"Tell me, sir—I will have it!" he cried.

Robin looked at him with such hard fury in his eyes that for a moment the
man winced. Then he recovered himself, and again his anger rose to the
brim.

"You need not look at me like that, you hound. Tell me, I say!"

"I will not!" shouted Robin, springing to his feet.

The old man was up too by now, with all the anger of his son hardened by
his dignity.

"You will not?"

"No."

For a moment the fate of them both still hung in the balance. If, even at this
instant, the father had remembered his love rather than his dignity, had
thought of the past and its happy years, rather than of the blinding, swollen
present; or, on the other side, if the son had but submitted if only for an
hour, and obeyed in order that he might rule later—the whole course might
have run aright, and no hearts have been broken and no blood shed. But
neither would yield. There was the fierce northern obstinacy in them both;
the gentle birth sharpened its edge; the defiant refusal of the son, the
wounding contempt of the father not for his son only, but for his son's love—
these things inflamed the hearts of both to madness. The father seized his
ultimate right, and struck his son across the face.

Then the son answered by his only weapon.

For a sensible pause he stood there, his fresh face paled to chalkiness,
except where the print of five fingers slowly reddened. Then he made a
courteous little gesture, as if to invite his father to sit down; and as the
other did so, slowly and shaking all over, struck at him by careful and
calculated words, delivered with a stilted and pompous air:

"You have beaten me, sir; so, of course, I obey. Yes, I told Mistress Marjorie
Manners that my father no longer counted himself a Catholic, and would
publicly turn Protestant at Easter, so as to please her Grace and be in
favour with the Court and with the county justices. And I have told Mr.
Babington so as well, and also Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert. It will spare you the
pain, sir, of making any public announcement on the matter. It is always a
son's duty to spare his father pain."

Then he bowed, wheeled, and went out of the room.

 II

Two hours later Robin was still lying completely dressed on his bed in the
dark.

It was a plain little chamber where he lay, fireless, yet not too cold, since it
was wainscoted from floor to ceiling, and looked out eastwards upon the
pleasaunce, with rooms on either side of it. A couple of presses sunk in the
walls held his clothes and boots; a rush-bottomed chair stood by the bed;
and the bed itself, laid immediately on the ground, was such as was used in
most good houses by all except the master and mistress, or any sick
members of the family—a straw mattress and a wooden pillow. His bows and
arrows, with a pair of dags or pistols, hung on a rack against the wall at the
foot of his bed, and a little brass cross engraved with a figure of the
Crucified hung over it. It was such a chamber as any son of a house might
have, who was a gentleman and not luxurious.

A hundred thoughts had gone through his mind since he had flung himself
down here shaking with passion; and these had begun already to repeat
themselves, like a turning wheel, in his head. Marjorie; his love for her; his
despair of that love; his father; all that they had been, one to the other, in
the past; the little, or worse than little, that they would be, one to the other,
in the future; the priest's face as he had seen it three days ago; what would
be done at Easter, what later—all these things, coloured and embittered now
by his own sorrow for his words to his father, and the knowledge that he
had shamed himself when he should have suffered in silence—these things
turned continually in his head, and he was too young and too simple to
extricate one from the other all at once.

Things had come about in a manner which yesterday he would not have
thought possible. He had never before spoken so to one to whom he owed
reverence; neither had this one ever treated him so. His father had stood
always to him for uprightness and justice; he had no more questioned these
virtues in his father than in God. Words or acts of either might be strange or
incomprehensible, yet the virtues themselves remained always beyond a
doubt; and now, with the opening of the door which his father's first
decision had accomplished, a crowd of questions and judgments had rushed
in, and a pillar of earth and heaven was shaken at last…. It is a dreadful day
when for the first time to a young man or maiden, any shadow of God,
however unworthy, begins to tremble.

He understood presently, however, what an elder man, or a less childish,

would have understood at once—that these things must be dealt with one by
one, and that that which lay nearest to his hand was his own fault. Even
then he fought with his conscience; he told himself that no lad of spirit
could tolerate such insults against his love, to say nothing of the injustice
against himself that had gone before; but, being honest, he presently
inquired of what spirit such a lad would be—not of that spirit which
Marjorie would approve, nor the gentle-eyed priest he had spoken with….

Well, the event was certain with such as Robin, and he was presently
standing at the door of his room, his boots drawn off and laid aside,
listening, with a heart beating in his ears to hinder him, for any sound from
beneath. He did not know whether his father were abed or not. If not, he
must ask his pardon at once.

He went downstairs at last, softly, to the parlour, and peeped in. All was
dark, except for the glimmer from the stove, and his heart felt lightened.
Then, as he was cold with his long vigil outside his bed, he stirred the
embers into a blaze and stood warming himself.

How strange and passionless, he thought, looked this room, after the
tempest that had raged in it just now. The two glasses stood there—his own
not quite empty—and the jug between them. His father's chair was drawn to
the table, as if he were still sitting in it; his own was flung back as he had
pushed it from him in his passion. There was an old print over the stove at
which he looked presently—it had been his mother's, and he remembered it
as long as his life had been—it was of Christ carrying His cross.

His shame began to increase on him. How wickedly he had answered, with
every word a wound! He knew that the most poisonous of them all were
false; he had known it even while he spoke them; it was not to curry favour
with her Grace that his father had lapsed; it was that his temper was tried
beyond bearing by those continual fines and rebuffs; the old man's patience
was gone—that was all. And he, his son, had not said one word of comfort or
strength; he had thought of himself and his own wrongs, and being reviled
he had reviled again….

There stood against the wall between the windows a table and an oaken
desk that held the estate-bills and books; and beside the desk were laid
clean sheets of paper, an ink-pot, a pounce-box, and three or four feather
pens. It was here that he wrote, being newly from school, at his father's
dictation, or his father sometimes wrote himself, with pain and labour, the
few notices or letters that were necessary. So he went to this and sat down
at it; he pondered a little; then he wrote a single line of abject regret.
"I ask your pardon and God's, sir, for the wicked words I said before I left
the parlour. R." He folded this and addressed it with the proper
superscription; and left it lying there.

III

It was a strange ride that he had back from Tansley next morning after
mass.

Dick Sampson had met him with the horses in the stable-court at Matstead
a little after four o'clock in the morning; and together they had ridden
through the pitch darkness, each carrying a lantern fastened to his stirrup.
So complete was the darkness, however, and so small and confined the
circle of light cast by the tossing light, that, for all they saw, they might have
been riding round and round in a garden. Now trees showed grim and
towering for an instant, then gone again; now their eyes were upon the
track, the pools, the rugged ground, the soaked meadow-grass; half a dozen
times the river glimmered on their right, turbid and forbidding. Once there
shone in the circle of light the eyes of some beast—pig or stag; seen and
vanished again.

But the return journey was another matter; for they needed no lanterns, and
the dawn rose steadily overhead, showing all that they passed in ghostly
fashion, up to final solidity.

It resembled, in fact, the dawn of Faith in a soul.

First from the darkness outlines only emerged, vast and sinister, of such an
appearance that it was impossible to tell their proportions or distances. The
skyline a mile away, beyond the Derwent, might have been the edge of a
bank a couple of yards off; the glimmering pool on the lower meadow path
might be the lighted window of a house across the valley. There succeeded
to outlines a kind of shaded tint, all worked in gray like a print, clear
enough to distinguish tree from boulder and sky from water, yet not clear
enough to show the texture of anything. The third stage was that in which
colours began to appear, yet flat and dismal, holding, it seemed, no light, yet
reflecting it; and all in an extraordinary cold clearness. Nature seemed
herself, yet struck to dumbness. No breeze stirred the twigs overhead or the
undergrowth through which they rode. Once, as the two, riding a little apart,
turned suddenly together, up a ravine into thicker woods, they came upon a
herd of deer, who stared on them without any movement that the eye could
see. Here a stag stood with two hinds beside him; behind, Robin saw the
backs and heads of others that lay still. Only the beasts kept their eyes
upon them, as they went, watching, as if it were a picture only that went by.
So, by little and little, the breeze stirred like a waking man; cocks crew from
over the hills one to the other; dogs barked far away, till the face of the
world was itself again, and the smoke from Matstead rose above the trees in
front.

Robin had ridden in the dawn an hundred times before; yet never before had
he so perceived that strange deliberateness and sleep of the world; and he
had ridden, too, perhaps twenty times at such an hour, with his father
beside him, after mass on some such occasion. Yet it seemed to him this
time that it was the mass which he had seen, and his own solitariness, that
had illuminated his eyes. It was dreadful to him—and yet it threw him more
than ever on himself and God—that his father would ride with him so no
more. Henceforward he would go alone, or with a servant only; he would,
alone, go up to the door of house or barn and rap four times with his riding-
whip; alone he would pass upstairs through the darkened house to the
shrouded room, garret or bed-chamber, where the group was assembled, all
in silence; where presently a dark figure would rise and light the pair of
candles, and then, himself a ghost, vest there by their light, throwing huge
shadows on wainscot and ceiling as his arms went this way and that; and
then, alone of all that were of blood-relationship to him, he would witness
the Holy Sacrifice….

How long that would be so, he did not know. Something surely must happen
that would prevent it. Or, at least, some day, he would ride so with Marjorie,
whom he had seen this morning across the dusky candle-lit gloom, praying
in a corner; or, maybe, with her would entertain the priest, and open the
door to the worshippers who streamed in, like bees to a flower-garden, from
farm and manor and village. He could not for ever ride alone from Matstead
and meet his father's silence.

One thing more, too, had moved him this morning; and that, the sight of the
young priest at the altar whom he had met on the moor. Here, more than
ever, was the gentle priestliness and innocency apparent. He stood there in
his red vestments; he moved this way and that; he made his gestures; he
spoke in undertones, lit only by the pair of wax-candles, more Levitical than
ever in such a guise, yet more unsuited than ever to such exterior
circumstances. Surely this man should say mass for ever; yet surely never
again ride over the moors to do it, amidst enemies. He was of the strong
castle and the chamber, not of the tent and the battle…. And yet it was of
such soldiers as these, as well as of the sturdy and the strong, that Christ's
army was made.

It was in broad daylight, though under a weeping sky, that Robin rode into
the court at Matstead. He shook the rain from his cloak within the screens,
and stamped to get the mud away; and, as he lifted his hat to shake it, his
father came in from the pleasaunce.

Robin glanced up at him, swift and shy, half smiling, expecting a word or a
look. His father must surely have read his little letter by now, and forgiven
him. But the smile died away again, as he met the old man's eyes; they were
as hard as steel; his clean-shaven lips were set like a trap, and, though he
looked at his son, it seemed that he did not see him. He passed through the
screens and went down the steps into the court.

The boy's heart began to beat so as near to sicken him after his long fast
and his ride. He told himself that his father could not have been into the
parlour yet, though he knew, even while he thought it, that this was false
comfort. He stood there an instant, waiting; hoping that even now his father
would call to him; but the strong figure passed resolutely on out of sight.

Then the boy went into the hall, and swiftly through it. There on the desk in
the window lay the pen he had flung down last night, but no more; the letter
was gone; and, as he turned away, he saw lying among the wood-ashes of
the cold stove a little crumpled ball. He stooped and drew it out. It was his
letter, tossed there after the reading; his father had not taken the pains to
keep it safe, nor even to destroy it.
 CHAPTER IV

The company was already assembled both within and without Padley, when
Robin rode up from the riverside, on a fine, windy morning, for the sport of
the day. Perhaps a dozen horses stood tethered at the entrance to the little
court, with a man or two to look after them, for the greater part of their
riders were already within; and a continual coming and going of lads with
dogs; falconers each with his cadge, or three-sided frame on which sat the
hawks; a barking of hounds, a screaming of birds, a clatter of voices and
footsteps in the court—all this showed that the boy was none too early. A
man stepped forward to take his mare and his hawks; and Robin slipped
from his saddle and went in.

Padley Hall was just such a house as would serve a wealthy gentleman who
desired a small country estate with sufficient dignity and not too many
responsibilities. It stood upon the side of the hill, well set-up above the
damps of the valley, yet protected from the north-easterly winds by the
higher slopes, on the tops of which lay Burbage Moor, where the hawking
was to be held. On the south, over the valley, stood out the modest hall and
buttery (as, indeed, they stand to this day), with a door between them, well
buttressed in two places upon the falling ground, in one by a chimney, in
the other by a slope of masonry; and behind these buildings stood the rest
of the court, the stables, the wash-house, the bake-house and such like,
below; and, above, the sleeping rooms for the family and the servants. On
the first floor, above the buttery and the hall, were situated the ladies'
parlour and chapel; for this, at least, Padley had, however little its dignity in
other matters, that it retained its chapel served in these sorrowful days not,
as once, by a chaplain, but by whatever travelling priest might be there.

Robin entered through the great gate on the east side—a dark entrance kept
by a porter who saluted him—and rode through into the court; and here,
indeed, was the company; for out of the windows of the low hall on his left
came a babble of tongues, while two or three gentlemen with pots in their
hands saluted him from the passage door, telling him that Mr. Thomas
FitzHerbert was within. Mr. Fenton was one of these, come over from North
Lees, where he had his manor, a brisk, middle-aged man, dressed soberly
and well, with a pointed beard and pleasant, dancing eyes.

"And Mr. John, too, came last night," he said; "but he will not hawk with us.
He is ridden from London on private matters."
It was an exceedingly gay sight on which Robin looked as he turned into the
hall. It was a low room, ceiled in oak and wainscoted half-way up, a trifle
dark, since it was lighted only by one or two little windows on either side,
yet warm and hospitable looking; with a great fire burning in a chimney on
the south side, and perhaps a dozen and a half persons sitting over their
food and drink, since they were dining early to-day to have the longer time
for sport.

A voice hailed him as he came in; and he went up to pay his respects to Mr.
John FitzHerbert, a tall man, well past middle-age, who sat with his hat on
his head, at the centre of the high table, with the arms of Eyre and
FitzHerbert beneath the canopy, all emblazoned, to do the honours of the
day.

"You are late, sir, you are late!" he cried out genially. "We are just done."

Robin saluted him. He liked this man, though he did not know him very
well; for he was continually about the country, now in London, now at
Norbury, now at Swinnerton, always occupied with these endless matters of
fines and recusancy.

Robin saluted him then, and said a word or two; bowed to Mr. Thomas, his
son, who came up to speak with him; and then looked for Marjorie. She sat
there, at the corner of the table, with Mrs. Fenton at one side, and an empty
seat on the other. Robin immediately sat down in it, to eat his dinner,
beginning with the "gross foods," according to the English custom. There
was a piece of Christmas brawn to-day, from a pig fattened on oats and
peas, and hardened by being lodged (while he lived) on a boarded floor; all
this was told Robin across the table with particularity, while he ate it, and
drank, according to etiquette, a cup of bastard. He attended to all this
zealously, while never for an instant was he unaware of the girl.

They tricked their elders very well, these two innocent ones. You would have
sworn that Robin looked for another place and could not see one, you would
have sworn that they were shy of one another, and spoke scarcely a dozen
sentences. Yet they did very well each in the company of the other; and
Robin, indeed, before he had finished his partridge, had conveyed to her
that there was news that he had, and must give to her before the day was
out. She looked at him with enough dismay in her face for him at least to
read it; for she knew by his manner that it would not be happy news.

So, too, when the fruit was done and dinner was over (for they had no
opportunity to speak at any length), again you would have sworn that the
last idea in his mind, as in hers, was that he should be the one to help her
to her saddle. Yet he did so; and he fetched her hawk for her, and settled
her reins in her hand; and presently he on one side of her, with Mr. Fenton
on the other side, were riding up through Padley chase; and the talk and the
laughter went up too.
 II

Up on the high moors, in the frank-chase, here indeed was a day to make
sad hearts rejoice. The air was soft, as if spring were come before his time;
and in the great wind that blew continually from the south-west, bearing the
high clouds swiftly against the blue, ruffling the stiff heather-twigs and
bilberry beneath—here was wine enough for any mourners. Before them, as
they went—two riding before, with falconers on either side a little behind
and the lads with the dogs beside them, and the rest in a silent line some
twenty yards to the rear—stretched the wide, flat moor like a tumbled table-
cloth, broken here and there by groups of wind-tossed beech and oak,
backed by the tall limestone crags like pillar-capitals of an upper world; with
here and there a little shallow quarry whence marble had been taken for
Derby. But more lovely than all were the valleys, seen from here, as great
troughs up whose sides trooped the leafless trees—lit by the streams that
threw back the sunlit sky from their bosoms; with here a mist of smoke
blown all about from a village out of sight, here the shadow of a travelling
cloud that fled as swift as the wind that drove it, extinguishing the flash of
water only to release it again, darkening a sweep of land only to make the
sunlight that followed it the more sweet.

Yet the two saw little of this, dear and familiar as they found it; since, first
they rode together, and next, as it should be with young hearts, the sport
presently began and drove all else away.

The sport was done in this way:

The two that rode in front selected each from the cadge one of his own
falcons (it was peregrines that were used at the beginning of the day, since
they were first after partridges), and so rode, carrying his falcon on his wrist,
hooded, belled, and in the leash, ready to cast off. Immediately before them
went a lad with a couple of dogs to nose the game—these also in a leash
until they stiffened. Then the lad released them and stepped softly back,
while the riders moved on at a foot's-pace, and the spaniels behind rose on
their hind legs, choked by the chain, whimpering, fifty yards in the rear.
Slowly the dogs advanced, each a frozen model of craft and blood-lust, till an
instant afterwards, with a whir and a chattering like a broken clock, the
covey whirled from the thick growth underfoot, and flashed away
northwards; and, a moment later, up went the peregrines behind them.
Then, indeed, it was sauve qui peut, for the ground was full of holes here
and there, though there were grass-stretches as well on which all rode with
loose rein, the two whose falcons were sprung always in front, according to
custom, and the rest in a medley behind. Away then went the birds,
pursued and pursuers, till, like a falling star the falcon stooped, and then,
maybe, the other a moment later, down upon the quarry; and a minute later
there was the falcon back again shivering with pride and ecstasy, or all
ruffle-feathered with shame, back on his master's wrist, and another torn
partridge, or maybe two, in the bottom of the lad's bag; and arguments went
full pelt, and cries, and sometimes sharp words, and faults were found, and
praise was given, and so, on for another pair.

It was but natural that Robin and Marjorie should compete one against the
other, for they were riding together and talked together. So presently Mr.
Thomas called to them, and beckoned them to their places. Robin set aside
Agnes on to the cadge and chose Magdalen, and Marjorie chose Sharpie. The
array was set, and all moved forward.

It was a short chase and a merry one. Two birds rose from the heather and
flew screaming, skimming low, as from behind them moved on the shadows
of death, still as clouds, with great noiseless sweeps of sickle-shaped wings.
Behind came the gallopers; Marjorie on her black horse, Robin on Cecily,
seeming to compete, yet each content if either won, each, maybe—or at least
Marjorie—desiring that the other should win. And the wind screamed past
them as they went.

Then came the stoops—together as if fastened by one string—faultless and

exquisite; and, as the two rode up and drew rein, there, side by side on the
windy turf, two fierce statues of destiny—cruel-eyed, blood-stained on the
beaks, resolute and suspicious—eyed them motionless, the claws sunk
deeply through back and head—awaiting recapture.

Marjorie turned swiftly to the boy as he leaped off.

"In the chapel," she said, "at Padley."

Robin stared at her. Then he understood and nodded his head, as Mr.
Thomas rode up, his beard all blown about by the wind, breathless but
congratulatory.

III

It fell on Robin's mind with a certain heaviness and reproach that it should
have been she who should have carried in her head all day the unknown
news that he was to give her and he who should have forgotten it. He
understood then a little better of all that he must be to her, since, as he
turned to her (his head full of hawks, and the glory of the shouting wind,
and every thought of Faith and father clean blown away), it was to her mind
that the under-thought had leapt, that here was their first, and perhaps
their last, chance of speaking in private.
It was indeed their last chance, for the sun already stood over Chapel-le-
Frith far away to the south-west; and they must begin their circle to return,
in which the ladies should fly their merlins after larks, and there was no
hope henceforth for Robin. Henceforth she rode with Mrs. Fenton and two or
three more, while the gentlemen who loved sport more than courtesy, turned
to the left over the broken ground to work back once more after partridges.
And Robin dared no more ride with his love, for fear that his company all
day with her should be marked.

It was within an hour of sunset that Robin, riding ahead, having lost a hawk
and his hat, having fallen into a bog-hole, being one mask of mud from head
to foot, slid from his horse into Dick's hands and demanded if the ladies
were back.

"Yes, sir; they are back half an hour ago. They are in the parlour."

Robin knew better. "I shall be riding in ten minutes," he said; "give the mare
a mouthful."

He limped across the court, and looking behind him to see if any saw, and
finding the court at that instant empty, ran up, as well as he could, the
stone staircase that rose from the outside to the chapel door. It was
unlatched. He pushed it open and went in.

It was a brave thing that the FitzHerberts did in keeping such a place at all,
since the greatest Protestant fool in the valley knew what the little chamber
was that had the angels carved on the beam-ends, and the piscina in the
south wall. Windows looked out every way; through those on the south
could be seen now the darkening valley and the sunlit hills, and, yet more
necessary, the road by which any travellers from the valley must surely
come. Within, too, scarcely any pains were taken to disguise the place. It
was wainscoted from roof to floor—veiled, floored and walled in oak. A great
chest stood beneath the little east window of two lights, that cried "Altar" if
any chest ever did so. A great press stood against the wooden screen that
shut the room from the ladies' parlour next door; filled in three shelves with
innocent linen, for this was the only disguise that the place stooped to put
on. You could not swear that mass was said there, but you could swear that
it was a place in which mass would very suitably be said. A couple of
benches were against the press, and three or four chairs stood about the
floor.

Robin saw her against the light as soon as he came in. She was still in her
blue riding-dress, with the hood on her shoulders, and held her whip in her
hand; but he could see no more of her head than the paleness of her face
and the gleam on her black hair.

"Well, then?" she whispered sharply; and then: "Why, what a state you are
in!"

"It's nothing," said Robin. "I rolled in a bog-hole."

She looked at him anxiously.

"You are not hurt?… Sit down at least."

He sat down stiffly, and she beside him, still watching to see if he were the
worse for his falling. He took her hand in his.

"I am not fit to touch you," he said.

"Tell me the news; tell me quickly."

So he told her; of the wrangle in the parlour and what had passed between
his father and him; of his own bitterness; and his letter, and the way in
which the old man had taken it.

"He has not spoken to me since," he said, "except in public before the
servants. Both nights after supper he has sat silent and I beside him."

"And you have not spoken to him?" she asked quickly.

"I said something to him after supper on Sunday, and he made no answer.

He has done all his writing himself. I think it is for him to speak now.

I should only anger him more if I tried it again."

She sighed suddenly and swiftly, but said nothing. Her hand lay passive in
his, but her face was turned now to the bright southerly window, and he
could see her puzzled eyes and her down-turned, serious mouth. She was
thinking with all her wits, and, plainly, could come to no conclusion.

She turned to him again.

"And you told him plainly that you and I … that you and I—"

"That you and I loved one another? I told him plainly. And it was his
contempt that angered me."

She sighed again.

It was a troublesome situation in which these two children found
themselves. Here was the father of one of them that knew, yet not the
parents of the other, who should know first of all. Neither was there any
promise of secrecy and no hope of obtaining it. If she should not tell her
parents, then if the old man told them, deception would be charged against
her; and if she should tell them, perhaps he would not have done so, and so
all be brought to light too soon and without cause. And besides all this there
were the other matters, heavy enough before, yet far more heavy now—
matters of their hopes for the future, the complications with regard to the
Religion, what Robin should do, what he should not do.

So they sat there silent, she thinking and he waiting upon her thought.

She sighed again and turned to him her troubled eyes.

"My Robin," she said, "I have been thinking so much about you, and I have
feared sometimes—"

She stopped herself, and he looked for her to finish. She drew her hand
away and stood up.

"Oh! it is miserable!" she cried. "And all might have been so happy."

The tears suddenly filled her eyes so that they shone like flowers in dew.

He stood up, too, and put his muddy arm about her shoulders. (She felt so
slight and slender.)

"It will be happy," he said. "What have you been fearing?"

She shook her head and the tears ran down.

"I cannot tell you yet…. Robin, what a holy man that travelling priest must
be, who said mass on Sunday."

The lad was bewildered at her swift changes of thought, for he did not yet
see the chain on which they hung. He strove to follow her.

"It seemed so to me too," he said. "I think I have never seen—"

"It seemed so to you too," she cried. "Why, what do you know of him?"

He was amazed at her vehemence. She had drawn herself clear of his arm
and was looking at him full in the face.

"I met him on the moor," he said. "I had some talk with him. I got his
blessing."
"You got his blessing! Why, so did I, after the mass, when you were gone."

"Then that should join us more closely than ever," he said.

"In Heaven, perhaps, but on earth—" She checked herself again. "Tell me
what you thought of him, Robin."

"I thought it was strange that such a man as that should live such a rough
life. If he were in the seminary now, safe at Douay—"

She seemed a shade paler, but her eyes did not flicker.

"Yes," she said. "And you thought—?"

"I thought that it was not that kind of man who should fare so hardly. If it
were a man like John Merton, who is accustomed to such things, or a man
like me—"

Again he stopped; he did not know why. But it was as if she had cried out,
though she neither spoke nor moved.

"You thought that, did you, Robin?" she said presently, never moving her
eyes from his face. "I thought so, too."

"But I do not know why we are talking about Mr. Simpson," said the lad.

"There are other affairs more pressing."

"I am not sure," said she.

"Marjorie, my love, what are you thinking about?"

She had turned her eyes and was looking out through the little window.
Outside the red sunlight still lay on the crags and slopes beyond the deep
valley beneath them, and her face was bright in the reflected brightness. Yet
he thought he had never seen her look so serious. She turned her eyes back
to him as he spoke.

"I am thinking of a great many things," she said. "I am thinking of the

Faith and of sorrow and of love."

"My love, what do you mean?"

Suddenly she made a swift movement towards him and took him by the
lapels. He could see her face close beneath his, yet it was in shadow again,
and he could make out of it no more than the shadows of mouth and eyes.
"Robin," she said, "I cannot tell you unless God tells you Himself. I am told
that I am too scrupulous sometimes…. I do not know what I think, nor what
is right, nor what are fancies…. But … but I know that I love you with all my
heart … and … and that I cannot bear—"

Then her face was on his breast in a passion of weeping, and his arms were
round her, and his lips on her hair.
 IV

Dick found his master a poor travelling companion as they rode home. He
made a few respectful remarks as to the sport of the day, but he was
answered by a wandering eye and a complete lack of enthusiasm. Mr. Robin
rode loosely and heavily. Three or four times his mare stumbled (and no
wonder, after all that she had gone through), and he jerked her savagely.

Then Dick tried another tack and began to speak of the company, but with
no greater success. He discoursed on the riding of Mrs. Fenton, and the
peregrine of Mr. Thomas, who had distinguished herself that day, and he
was met by a lack-lustre eye once more.

Finally he began to speak of the religious gossip of the countryside—how it

was said that another priest, a Mr. Nelson, had been taken, in London, as
Mr. Maine had been in Cornwall; that, it was said again, priests would have
to look to their lives in future, and not only to their liberty; how the priest,
Mr. Simpson, was said to be a native of Yorkshire, and how he was ridden
northwards again, still with Mr. Ludlam. And here he met with a little more
encouragement. Mr. Robin asked where was Mr. Simpson gone to, and Dick
told him he did not know, but that he would be back again by Easter, it was
thought, or, if not, another priest would be in the district. Then he began to
gossip of Mr. Ludlam; how a man had told him that his cousin's wife
thought that Mr. Ludlam was to go abroad to be made priest himself, and
that perhaps Mr. Garlick would go too.

"That is the kind of priest we want, sir," said Dick.

"Eh?"

"That is the kind of priest we want, sir," repeated Dick solemnly. "We should
do better with natives than foreigners. We want priests who know the county
and the ways of the people—and men too, I think, sir, who can ride and
know something of sport, and can talk of it. I told Mr. Simpson, sir, of the
sport we were to have to-day, and he seemed to care nothing about it!"

Robin sighed aloud.

"I suppose so," he said.

"Mr. John looked well, sir," pursued Dick, and proceeded to speak at length
of the FitzHerbert troubles, and the iniquities of the Queen's Grace. He was
such a man as was to be found throughout all England everywhere at this
time—a man whose religion was a part of his politics, and none the less
genuine for that. He was a shrewd man in his way, with the simplicity which
belongs to such shrewdness; he disliked the new ways which he experienced
chiefly in the towns, and put them down, not wholly without justice, to the
change of which religion formed an integral part; he hated the beggars and
would gladly have gone to see one flogged; and he disliked the ministers and
their sermons and their "prophesyings" with all the healthy ardour of
prejudice. Once in the year did Dick approach the sacraments, and a great
business he made of it, being unusually morose before them and almost
indecently boisterous after them. He was feudal to the very heart of him;
and it was his feudality that made him faithful to his religion as well as to
his masters, for either of which he would resolutely have died. And what in
the world he would do when he discovered, at Easter, that the objects of his
fidelity were to take opposite courses, Robin could not conceive.

As they rode in at last, Robin, who had fallen silent again after Dick's last
piece of respectful vehemence, suddenly beat his own leg with his whip and
uttered an inaudible word. It seemed to Dick that the young master had
perceived clearly that which plainly had been worrying him all the way
home, and that he did not like it.
 CHAPTER V

Mr. Manners sat in his parlour ten days after the beginning of Lent, full of
his Sunday dinner and of perplexing thoughts all at once. He had eaten well
and heartily after his week of spare diet, and then, while in high humour
with all the world, first his wife and then his daughter had laid before him
such revelations that all the pleasure of digestion was gone. It was but three
minutes ago that Marjorie had fled from him in a torrent of tears, for which
he could not see himself responsible, since he had done nothing but make
the exclamations and comments that should be expected of a father in such
a case.

The following were the points for his reflection—to begin with those that
touched him less closely.

First that his friend Mr. Audrey, whom he had always looked upon with
reverence and a kind of terror because of his hotness in matters of politics
and religion, had capitulated to the enemy and was to go to church at
Easter. Mr. Manners himself had something of timidity in his nature: he was
conservative certainly, and practised, when he could without bringing
himself into open trouble, the old religion in which he had been brought up.
He, like the younger generation, had been educated at Derby Grammar
School, and in his youth had sat with his parents in the nave of the old
Cluniac church of St. James to hear mass. He had then entered his father's
office in Derby, about the time that the Religious Houses had fallen, and had
transferred the scene of his worship to St. Peter's. At Queen Mary's
accession, he had stood, with mild but genuine enthusiasm, in his lawyer's
gown, in the train of the sheriff who proclaimed her in Derby market-place;
and stood in the crowd, with corresponding dismay, six years later to shout
for Queen Elizabeth. Since that date, for the first eleven years he had gone,
as did other Catholics, to his parish church secretly, thankful that there was
no doubt as to the priesthood of his parson, to hear the English prayers;
and then, to do him justice, though he heard with something resembling
consternation the decision from Rome that compromise must cease and
that, henceforth, all true Catholics must withdraw themselves from the
national worship, he had obeyed without even a serious moment of
consideration. He had always feared that it might be so, understanding that
delay in the decision was only caused by the hope that even now the breach
might not be final or complete; and so was better prepared for the blow
when it came. Since that time he had heard mass when he could, and
occasionally even harboured priests, urged thereto by his wife and daughter;
and, for the rest, still went into Derby for three or four days a week to carry
on his lawyer's business, with Mr. Biddell his partner, and had the
reputation of a sound and careful man without bigotry or passion.

It was, then, a shock to his love of peace and serenity, to hear that yet
another Catholic house had fallen, and that Mr. Audrey, one of his clients,
could no longer be reckoned as one of his co-religionists.

The next point for his reflection was that Robin was refusing to follow his
father's example; the third, that somebody must harbour the boy over
Easter, and that, in his daughter's violently expressed opinion, and with his
wife's consent, he, Thomas Manners, was the proper person to do it. Last,
that it was plain that there was something between his daughter and this
boy, though what that was he had been unable to understand. Marjorie had
flown suddenly from the room just as he was beginning to put his questions.

It is no wonder, then, that his peace of mind was gone. Not only were large
principles once more threatened—considerations of religion and loyalty, but
also those small and intimate principles which, so far more than great ones,
agitate the mind of the individual. He did not wish to lose a client; yet
neither did he wish to be unfriendly to a young confessor for the faith. Still
less did he wish to lose his daughter, above all to a young man whose
prospects seemed to be vanishing. He wondered whether it would be
prudent to consult Mr. Biddell on the point….

He was a small and precise man in his body and face, as well as in his
dress; his costume was, of course, of black; but he went so far as to wear
black buckles, too, on his shoes, and a black hilt on his sword. His face was
little and anxious; his eyebrows were perpetually arched, as if in appeal, and
he was accustomed, when in deep thought, to move his lips as if in a motion
of tasting. So, then, he sat before his fire to-day after dinner, his elbow on
the table where his few books lay, his feet crossed before him, his cup of
drink untouched at his side; and meantime he tasted continually with his
lips, as if better to appreciate the values and significances of the points for
his consideration.

It would be about half an hour later that the door opened once more and

Marjorie came in again.

She was in her fine dress to-day—fine, that is, according to the exigencies of
the time and place, though sober enough if for a town-house—in a good blue
silk, rather dark, with a little ruff, with lace ruffles at her wrists, and a
quilted petticoat, and silver buckles. For she was a gentleman's daughter,
quite clearly, and not a yeoman's, and she must dress to her station. Her
face was very pale and quite steady. She stood opposite her father.
"Father," she said, "I am very sorry for having behaved like a goose. You
were quite right to ask those questions, and I have come back to answer
them."

He had ceased tasting as she came in. He looked at her timidly and yet with
an attempt at severity. He knew what was due from him as a father. But for
the present he had forgotten what questions they were; his mind had been
circling so wildly.

"You are right to come back," he said, "you should not have left me so."

"I am very sorry," she said again.

"Well, then—you tell me that Mr. Robin has nowhere else to go."

She flushed a little.

"He has ten places to go to. He has plenty of friends. But none have the right
that we have. He is a neighbour; it was to me, first of all, that he told the
trouble."

Then he remembered.

"Sit down," he said. "I must understand much better first. I do not
understand why he came to you first. Why not, if he must come to this
house at all—why not to me? I like the lad; he knows that well enough."

He spoke with an admirable dignity, and began to feel more happy in

consequence.

She had sat down as he told her, on the other side of the table; but he could
not see her face.

"It would have been better if he had, perhaps," she said. "But—"

"Yes? What 'But' is that?"

Then she faced him, and her eyes were swimming.

"Father, he told me first because he loves me, and because I love him."

He sat up. This was speaking outright what she had only hinted at before.
She must have been gathering her resolution to say this, while she had been
gone. Perhaps she had been with her mother. In that case he must be
cautious….

"You mean—"
"I mean just what I say. We love one another, and I am willing to be his wife
if he desires it—and with your permission. But—"

He waited for her to go on.

"Another 'But'!" he said presently, though with increasing mildness.

"I do not think he will desire it after a while. And … and I do not know what
I wish. I am torn in two."

"But you are willing?"

"I pray for it every night," she cried piteously. "And every morning I pray that
it may not be so."

She was staring at him as if in agony, utterly unlike what he had looked for
in her. He was completely bewildered.

"I do not understand one word—"

Then she threw herself at his knees and seized his hands; her face was all
torn with pain.

"And I cannot explain one word…. Father, I am in misery. You must pray for
me and have patience with me…. I must wait … I must wait and see what
God wishes."

"Now, now…."

"Father, you will trust me, will you not?"

"Listen to me. You must tell me thus. Do you love this boy?"

"Yes, yes."

"And you have told him so? He asked you, I mean?"

"Yes."

He put her hands firmly from his knee.

"Then you must marry him, if matters can be arranged. It is what I should
wish. But I do not know—"

"Father, you do not understand—you do not understand. I tell you I am

willing enough, if he wishes it … if he wishes it."
Again she seized his hands and held them. And again bewilderment came
down on him like a cloud.

"Father! you must trust me. I am willing to do everything that I ought." (She
was speaking firmly and confidently now.) "If he wishes to marry me, I will
marry him. I love him dearly…. But you must say nothing to him, not one
word. My mother agrees with this. She would have told you herself; but I
said that I would—that I must be brave…. I must learn to be brave…. I can
tell you no more."

He lifted her hands and stood up.

"I see that I understand nothing that you say after all," he said with a fine
fatherly dignity. "I must talk with your mother."
 II

He found his wife half an hour later in the ladies' parlour, which he entered
with an air as of nothing to say. With the same air of disengagement he
made sure that Marjorie was nowhere in the room, and presently sat down.

Mrs. Manners was well past her prime. She was over forty years old and
looked over fifty, though she retained the air of distinction which Marjorie
had derived from her; but her looks belied her, and she had not one tithe of
the subtlety and keenness of her daughter. She was, in fact, more suited to
be wife to her husband than mother to her daughter.

"You have come about the maid," she said instantly, with disconcerting
penetration and frankness. "Well, I know no more than you. She will tell me
nothing but what she has told you. She has some fiddle-faddle in her head,
as maids will, but she will have her way with us, I suppose."

She drew her needle through the piece of embroidery which she permitted to
herself for an hour on Sundays, knotted the thread and bit it off. Then she
regarded her husband.

"I…. I will have no fiddle-faddle in such a matter," he said courageously.

"Maids did not rule their parents when I was a boy; they obeyed them or
were beaten."

His wife laughed shortly; and began to thread her needle again.

He began to explain. The match was in all respects suitable. Certainly there
were difficulties, springing from the very startling events at Matstead, and it
well might be that a man who would do as Mr. Audrey had done (or, rather,
proposed to do) might show obstinacy in other directions too. Therefore
there was no hurry; the two were still very young, and it certainly would be
wiser to wait for any formal betrothal until Robin's future disclosed itself.
But no action of Mr. Audrey's need delay the betrothal indefinitely; if need
were, he, Mr. Manners, would make proper settlements. Marjorie was an
only daughter; in fact, she was in some sort an heiress. The Manor would be
sufficient for them both. As to any other difficulties—any of the maidenly
fiddle-faddle of which his wife had spoken—this should not stand in the way
for an instant.

His wife laughed again in the same exclamatory manner, when he had done
and sat stroking his knees.

"Why, you understand nothing about it, Mr. Manners," she said, "Did the
maid not tell you she would marry him, if he wished it? She told me so."
"Then what is the matter?" he asked.

"I know no more than you."

"Does he not wish it?"

"She says so."

"Then—"

"Yes, that is what I say. And yet that says nothing. There is something
more."

"Ask her."

"I have asked her. She bids me wait, as she bids you. It is no good, Mr.

Manners. We must wait the maid's time."

He sat, breathing audibly through his nose.

These two were devoted to their daughter in a manner hardly to be

described. She was the only one left to them; for the others, of whom two
had been boys, had died in infancy or childhood; and, in the event, Marjorie
had absorbed the love due to them all. She was a strain higher than
themselves, thought her parents, and so pride in her was added to love. The
mother had made incredible sacrifices, first to have her educated by a
couple of old nuns who still survived in Derby, and then to bring her out
suitably at Babington House last year. The father had cordially approved,
and joined in the sacrifices, which included an expenditure which he would
not have thought conceivable. The result was, of course, that Marjorie,
under cover of a very real dutifulness, ruled both her parents completely;
her mother acknowledged the dominion, at least, to herself and her
husband; her father pretended that he did not; and on this occasion rose,
perhaps, nearer to repudiating it than ever in his life. It seemed to him
unbearable to be bidden by his daughter, though with the utmost courtesy
and affection, to mind his own business.

So he sat and breathed audibly through his nose, and meditated rebellion.

"And is the lad to come here for Easter?" he asked at last.

"I suppose so."

"And for how long?"

"So long as the maid appoints."

He breathed louder than ever.

"And, Mr. Manners," continued his wife emphatically, "no word must be said
to him on the matter. The maid is very plain as to that…. Oh! we must let
her have her way."

"Where is she gone?"

She nodded with her head to the window. He went to it and looked out.

It was the little walled garden on which he looked, in which, if he had but
known it, the lad whom he liked had kissed the maid whom he loved; and
there walked the maid, at this moment with her back to him, going up the
central path that was bordered with box. The February sun shone on her as
she went, on her hooded head, her dark cloak and her blue dress beneath.
He watched her go up, and drew back a little as she turned, so that she
might not see him watching; and as she came down again he saw that she
held a string of beads in her fingers and was making her devotions. She was
a good girl…. That, at least, was a satisfaction.

Then he turned from the window again.

"Well?" said his wife.

"I suppose it must be as she says."

 III

It was an hour before sunset when Marjorie came out again into the walled
garden that had become for her now a kind of sanctuary, and in her hand
she carried a letter, sealed and inscribed. On the outside the following words
were written:

"To Mr. Robin Audrey. At Matstead.

"Haste, haste, haste."

Within, the sheet was covered from top to bottom with the neat convent-
hand she had learnt from the nuns. The most of it does not concern us. It
began with such words as you would expect from a maid to her lover; it
continued to inform him that her parents were willing, and, indeed,
desirous, that he should come to them for Easter, and that her father would
write a formal letter later to invite him; it was to be written from Derby, (this
conspirator informed the other), that it might cause less comment when Mr.
Audrey saw it, and was to be expressed in terms that would satisfy him.
Finally, it closed as it had begun, and was subscribed by his "loving friend,
M. M." One paragraph, however, is worth attention.

"I have told my father and mother, that we love one another, my Robin; and
that you have asked me to marry you, and that I have consented should you
wish to do so when the time comes. They have consented most willingly; and
so Jesu have you in His keeping, and guide your mind aright."

It was this paragraph that had cost her half of the hour occupied in writing;
for it must be expressed just so and no otherwise; and its wording had cost
her agony lest on the one side she should tell him too much, and, on the
other, too little. And her agony was not yet over; for she had to face its
sending, and the thought of all that it might cost her. She was to give it to
one of the men who was to leave early for Derby next morning and was to
deliver it at Matstead on the road; so she brought it out now to her
sanctuary to spread it, like the old King of Israel, before the Lord….

There was a promise of frost in the air to-night. Underfoot the moisture of
the path was beginning, not yet to stiffen, but rather to withdraw itself; and
there was a cold clearness in the air. Over the wall beside the house, beyond
the leafless trees which barred it like prison-bars, burned the sunset,
deepening and glowing redder every instant. Yet she felt nothing of the cold,
for a fire was within her as she went again up and down the path on which
her father had watched her walk—a fire of which as yet she could not
discern the fuel. The love of Robin was there—that she knew; and the love of
Christ was there—so she thought; and yet where the divine and the human
passion mingled, she could not tell; nor whether, indeed, for certain, it were
the love of Christ at all, and not a vain imagination of her own as to how
Christ, in this case, would be loved. Only she knew that across her love for
Robin a shadow had fallen; she could scarcely tell when it had first come to
her, and whence. Yet it had so come; it had deepened rapidly and strongly
during the mass that Mr. Simpson had said, and, behold! in its very
darkness there was light. And so it had continued till confusion had fallen
on her which none but Robin could dissolve. It must be his word finally that
must give her the answer to her doubts; and she must make it easy for him
to give it. He must know, that is, that she loved him more passionately than
ever, that her heart would break if she had not her desire; and yet that she
would not hold him back if a love that was greater than hers could be for
him or his for her, called him to another wedding than that of which either
had yet spoken. A broken heart and God's will done would be better than
that God's will should be avoided and her own satisfied.

It was this kind of considerations, therefore, that sent her swiftly to and fro,
up and down the path under the darkening sky—if they can be called
considerations which beat on the mind like a clamour of shouting; and, as
she went, she strove to offer all to God: she entreated Him to do His will, yet
not to break her heart; to break her heart, yet not Robin's; to break both her
heart and Robin's, if that Will could not otherwise be served.

Her lips moved now and again as she went; but her eyes were downcast and
her face untroubled….

As the bell in the court rang for supper she went to the door and looked
through. The man was just saddling up in the stable-door opposite.

"Jack," she called, "here is the letter. Take if safely."

Then she went in to supper.

 CHAPTER VI

It was a great day and a solemn when the squire of Matstead went to
Protestant communion for the first time. It was Easter Day, too, but this was
less in the consideration of the village. There was first the minister, Mr.
Barton, in a condition of excited geniality from an early hour. He was
observed soon after it was light, by an old man who was up betimes,
hurrying up the village street in his minister's cassock and gown,
presumably on his way to see that all preparations were complete for the
solemnity. His wife was seen to follow him a few minutes later.

By eight o'clock the inhabitants of the village were assembled at points of

vantage; some openly at their doors; others at the windows; and groups from
the more distant farms, decked suitably, stood at all corners; to be greeted
presently by their minister hurrying back once more from the church to
bring the communion vessels and the bread and wine. The four or five
soldiers of the village—a couple of billmen and pikemen and a real gunner—
stood apart in an official group, but did not salute him. He did not speak of
that which was in the minds of all, but he waved a hand to this man, bid a
happy Easter to another, and disappeared within his lodgings leaving a
wake of excitement behind him.

By a quarter before nine the three bells had begun to jangle from the tower;
and the crowd had increased largely, when Mr. Barton once more passed to
the church in the spring sunshine, followed by the more devout who wished
to pray, and the more timid who feared a disturbance. For sentiments were
not wholly on the squire's side. There was first a number of Catholics,
openly confessed or at least secretly Catholic, though these were not in full
force since most were gone to Padley before dawn; and there was next a
certain sentiment abroad, even amongst those who conformed, in favour of
tradition. That the squire of Matstead should be a Catholic was at least as
fundamental an article of faith as that the minister should be a Protestant.
There was little or no hot-gospel here; men still shook their heads
sympathetically over the old days and the old faith, which indeed had
ceased to be the faith of all scarcely twenty years ago; and it appeared to the
most of them that the proper faith of the Quality, since they had before their
eyes such families as the Babingtons, the Fentons, and the FitzHerberts,
was that to which their own squire was about to say good-bye. It was
known, too, publicly by now, that Mr. Robin was gone away for Easter, since
he would not follow his father. So the crowd waited; the dogs sunned
themselves; and the gunner sat on a wall.
The bells ceased at nine o'clock, and upon the moment, a group came round
the churchyard wall, down from the field-path and the stile that led to the
manor.

First, walking alone, came the squire, swiftly and steadily. His face was
flushed a little, but set and determined. He was in his fine clothes, ruff and
all; his rapier was looped at his side, and he carried a stick. Behind him
came three or four farm servants; then a yeoman and his wife; and last, at a
little distance, three or four onlookers.

There was dead silence as he came; the hum of talk died at the corners; the
bells' clamour had even now ceased. It seemed as if each man waited for his
neighbour to speak. There was only the sound of the squire's brisk footsteps
on the few yards of cobbles that paved the walk up to the lych-gate. At the
door of the church, seen beyond him, was a crowd of faces.

Then a man called something aloud from fifty yards away; but there was no
voice to echo him. The folk just watched their lord go by, staring on him as
on some strange sight, forgetting even to salute him. And so in silence he
passed on.
 II

Within, the church murmured with low talking. Already two-thirds of it was
full, and all faces turned and re-turned to the door at every footstep or
sound. As the bells ceased a sigh went up, as if a giant drew breath; then,
once again, the murmuring began.

The church was as most were in those days. It was but a little place, yet it
had had in old days great treasures of beauty. There had been, until some
ten or twelve years ago, a carved screen that ran across the chancel arch,
with the Rood upon it, and St. Mary and St. John on this side and that. The
high-altar, it was remembered, had been of stone throughout, surrounded
with curtains on the three sides, hanging between posts that had each a
carven angel, all gilt. Now all was gone, excepting only the painted windows
(since glass was costly). The chancel was as bare as a barn; beneath the
whitewash, high over the place where the old canopy had hung, pale colours
still glimmered through where, twelve years ago, Christ had sat crowning
His Mother. The altar was gone; its holy slab served now as the pavement
within the west door, where the superstitious took pains to step clear of it.
The screen was gone; part lay beneath the tower; part had been burned;
Christ's Cross held up the roof of the shed where the minister kept his
horse; the three figures had been carted off to Derby to help swell the
Protestant bonfire. The projecting stoup to the right of the main door had
been broken half off…. In place of these glories there stood now, in the body
of the church, before the chancel-steps, a great table, such as the rubrics of
the new Prayer-Book required, spread with a white cloth, upon which now
rested two tall pewter flagons of wine, a flat pewter plate as great as a small
dish, and two silver communion-cups—all new. And to one side of this, in a
new wainscoted desk, waited worthy Mr. Barton for the coming of his
squire—a happy man that day; his face beamed in the spring sunlight; he
had on his silk gown, and he eyed, openly, the door through which his new
patron was to come.

Then, without sound or warning, except for the footsteps on the paving-
stones and the sudden darkening of the sunshine on the floor, there came
the figure for which all looked. As he entered he lifted his hand to his head,
but dropped it again; and passed on, sturdy, and (you would have said)
honest and resolute too, to his seat behind the reading-desk. He was met by
silence; he was escorted by silence; and in silence he sat down.

Then the waiting crowd surged in, poured this way and that, and flowed into
the benches. And Mr. Barton's voice was raised in holy exhortation.
"At what time soever a sinner doth repent him of his sin from the bottom of
his heart, I will put all his wickedness out of remembrance, with the Lord."
 III

Those who could best observe (for the tale was handed on with the careful
accuracy of those who cannot read or write) professed themselves amazed at
the assured ease of the squire. No sound came from the seat half-hidden
behind the reading-desk where he sat alone; and, during the prayers when
he stood or kneeled, he moved as if he understood well enough what he was
at. A great bound Prayer-Book, it was known, rested before him on the
book-board, and he was observed to turn the pages more than once.

It was, indeed, a heavy task that Mr. Barton had to do. For first there was
the morning prayer, with its psalms, its lessons and its prayers; next the
Litany, and last the communion, in the course of which was delivered one of
the homilies set forth by authority, especially designed for the support of
those who were no preachers—preceded and followed by a psalm. But all
was easy to-day to a man who had such cause for exultation; his voice
boomed heartily out; his face radiated his pleasure; and he delivered his
homily when the time came, with excellent emphasis and power—all from
the reading-desk, except the communion.

Yet it is to be doubted whether the attention of those that heard him was
where their pastor would have desired it to be; since even to these country-
folk the drama of the whole was evident. There, seen full when he sat down,
and in part when he kneeled and stood, was the man who hitherto had
stood to them for the old order, the old faith, the old tradition—the man
whose horse's footsteps had been heard, times and again, before dawn, in
the village street, bearing him to the mystery of the mass; through whose
gate strangers had ridden, perhaps three or four times in the year, to find
harbourage—strangers dressed indeed as plain gentlemen or yeomen, yet
known, every one of them, to be under her Grace's ban, and to ride in peril
of liberty if not of life.

Yet here he sat—a man feared and even loved by some—the first of his line
to yield to circumstance, and to make peace with his times. Not a man of all
who looked on him believed him certainly to be that which his actions
professed him to be; some doubted, especially those who themselves
inclined to the old ways or secretly followed them; and the hearts of these
grew sick as they watched.

But the crown and climax was yet to come.

The minister finished at last the homily—it was one which inveighed more
than once against the popish superstitions; and he had chosen it for that
reason, to clench the bargain, so to say—all in due order; for he was a
careful man and observed his instructions, unlike some of his brethren who
did as they pleased; and came back again to the long north side of the linen-
covered table to finish the service.

He had no man to help him; so he was forced to do it all for himself; so he

went forward gallantly, first reading a set of Scripture sentences while the
officers collected first for the poor-box, and then, as it was one of the
offering-days, collected again the dues for the curate. It was largely upon
these, in such poor parishes as was this, that the minister depended and his
wife.

Then he went on to pray for the whole estate of Christ's Church militant
here on earth, especially for God's "servant, Elizabeth our Queen, that under
her we may be godly and quietly governed"; then came the exhortation,
urging any who might think himself to be "a blasphemer of God, an hinderer
or slanderer of His Word … or to be in malice or envy," to bewail his sins,
and "not to come to this holy table, lest after the taking of that holy
sacrament, the devil enter into him, as he entered into Judas, and fill him
full of all iniquities."

So forward with the rest. He read the Comfortable Words; the English
equivalent for Sursum Corda with the Easter Preface; then another prayer;
and finally rehearsed the story of the Institution of the Most Holy
Sacrament, though without any blessing of the bread and wine, at least by
any action, since none such was ordered in the new Prayer-Book. Then he
immediately received the bread and wine himself, and stood up again,
holding the silver plate in his hand for an instant, before proceeding to the
squire's seat to give him the communion. Meantime, so great was the
expectation and interest that it was not until the minister had moved from
the table that the first communicants began to come up to the two white-
hung benches, left empty till now, next to the table.

Then those who still watched, and who spread the tale about afterwards,
saw that the squire did not move from his seat to kneel down. He had put off
his hat again after the homily, and had so sat ever since; and now that the
minister came to him, still there he sat.

Now such a manner of receiving was not unknown; yet it was the sign of a
Puritan; and, so far from the folk expecting such behaviour in their squire,
they had looked rather for Popish gestures, knockings on the breast, signs
of the cross.

For a moment the minister stood before the seat, as if doubtful what to do.
He held the plate in his left hand and a fragment of bread in his fingers.
Then, as he began the words he had to say, one thing at least the people
saw, and that was that a great flush dyed the old man's face, though he sat
quiet. Then, as the minister held out the bread, the squire seemed to recover
himself; he put out his fingers quickly, took the bread sharply and put it
into his mouth; and so sat again, until the minister brought the cup; and
this, too, he drank of quickly, and gave it back.

Then, as the communicants, one by one, took the bread and wine and went
back to their seats, man after man glanced up at the squire.

But the squire sat there, motionless and upright, like a figure cut of stone.
 IV

The court of the manor seemed deserted half an hour before dinner-time.
There was a Sabbath stillness in the air to-day, sweetened, as it were, by the
bubbling of bird-music in the pleasaunce behind the hall and the high
woods beyond. On the strips of rough turf before the gate and within it
bloomed the spring flowers, white and blue. A hound lay stretched in the
sunshine on the hall steps; twitching his ears to keep off a persistent fly.
You would have sworn that his was the only intelligence in the place. Yet at
the sound of the iron latch of the gate and the squire's footsteps on the
stones, the place, so to say, became alive, though in a furtive and secret
manner. Over the half door of the stable entrance on the left two faces
appeared—one, which was Dick's, sullen and angry, the other, that of a
stable-boy, inquiring and frankly interested. This second vanished again as
the squire came forward. A figure of a kitchen-boy, in a white apron, showed
in the dark doorway that led to the kitchen and hall, and disappeared again
instantly. From two or three upper windows faces peeped and remained
fascinated. Only the old hound remained still, twitching his ears.

All this—though there was nothing to be seen but the familiar personage of
the place, in his hat and cloak and sword, walking through his own court on
his way to dinner, as he had walked a thousand times before. And yet so
great was the significance of his coming to-day, that the very gate behind
him was pushed open by sightseers, who had followed at a safe distance up
the path from the church; half a dozen stood there staring, and behind
them, at intervals, a score more, spread out in groups, all the way down to
the porter's lodge.

The most remarkable feature of all was the silence. Not a voice there spoke,
even in a whisper. The maids at the windows above, Dick glowering over the
half door, the little group which, far back in the kitchen entrance, peeped
and rustled, the men at the gate behind, even the boys in the path—all these
held their tongues for interest and a kind of fear. Drama was in the air—the
tragedy of seeing the squire come back from church for the first time,
bearing himself as he always did, resolute and sturdy, yet changed in his
significance after a fashion of which none of these simple hearts had ever
dreamed.

So, again in silence, he went up the court, knowing that eyes were upon
him, yet showing no sign that he knew it; he went up the steps with the
same assured air, and disappeared into the hall.

Then the spell broke up and the bustle began, for it was only half an hour to
dinner and guests were coming. First Dick came out, slashing to the door
behind him, and strode out to the gate. He was still in his boots, for he had
ridden to Padley and back since early morning with a couple of the maids
and the stable-boy. He went to the gate of the court, the group dissolving as
he came, and shut it in their faces. A noise of talking came out of the
kitchen windows and the clash of a saucepan: the maids' heads vanished
from the upper windows.

Even as Dick shut the gate he heard the sound of horses' hoofs down by the
porter's lodge. The justices were coming—the two whose names he had
heard with amazement last week, as the last corroboration of the incredible
rumour of his master's defection. For these were a couple of magistrates—
harmless men, indeed, as regarded their hostility to the old Faith—yet
Protestants who had sat more than once on the bench in Derby to hear
cases of recusancy. Old Mrs. Marpleden had told him they were to come,
and that provision must be made for their horses—Mrs. Marpleden, the
ancient housekeeper of the manor, who had gone to school for a while with
the Benedictine nuns of Derby in King Henry's days. She had shaken her
head and eyed him, and then had suffered three or four tears to fall down
her old cheeks.

Well, they were coming, so Dick must open the gate again, and pull the bell
for the servants; and this he did, and waited, hat in hand.

Up the little straight road they came, with a servant or two behind them—
the two harmless gentlemen, chattering as they rode; and Dick loathed them
in his heart.

"The squire is within?"

"Yes, sir."

They dismounted, and Dick held their stirrups.

"He has been to church—eh?"

Dick made no answer. He feigned to be busy with one of the saddles.

The magistrate glanced at him sharply.

It was a strange dinner that day.

Outwardly, again, all was as usual—as it might have been on any other
Sunday in spring. The three gentlemen sat at the high table, facing down the
hall; and, since there was no reading, and since it was a festival, there was
no lack of conversation. The servants came in as usual with the dishes—
there was roast lamb to-day, according to old usage, among the rest; and
three or four wines. A little fire burned against the reredos, for cheerfulness
rather than warmth, and the spring sunshine flowed in through the clear-
glass windows, bright and genial.

Yet the difference was profound. Certainly there was no talk, overheard at
least by the servants, which might not have been on any Sunday for the last
twenty years: the congratulations and good wishes, or whatever they were,
must have been spoken between the three in the parlour before dinner; and
they spoke now of harmless usual things—news of the countryside and tales
from Derby; gossip of affairs of State; of her Grace, who, in a manner
unthinkable, even by now dominated the imagination of England. None of
these three had ever seen her; the squire had been to London but once in
his life, his two guests never. Yet they talked of her, of her state-craft, of her
romanticism; they told little tales, one to the other, as if she lived in the
county town. All this, then, was harmless enough. Religion was not
mentioned in the hearing of the servants, neither the old nor the new; they
talked, all three of them, and the squire loudest of all, though with pauses of
pregnant silence, of such things as children might have heard without
dismay.

Yet to the servants who came and went, it was as if their master were
another man altogether, and his hall some unknown place. There was no
blessing of himself before meat; he said something, indeed, before he sat
down, but it was unintelligible, and he made no movement with his hand.
But it was deeper than this … and his men who had served him for ten or
fifteen years looked on him as upon a stranger or a changeling.
 CHAPTER VII

The same Easter Day at Padley was another matter altogether.

As early as five o'clock in the morning the house was astir: lights glimmered
in upper rooms; footsteps passed along corridors and across the court;
parties began to arrive. All was done without ostentation, yet without
concealment, for Padley was a solitary place, and had no fear, at this time,
of a sudden descent of the authorities. For form's sake—scarcely for more—a
man kept watch over the valley road, and signalled by the flashing of a lamp
twice every party with which he was acquainted, and there were no others
than these to signal. A second man waited by the gate into the court to
admit them. They rode and walked in from all round—great gentlemen, such
as the North Lees family, came with a small retinue; a few came alone;
yeomen and farm servants, with their women-folk, from the Hathersage
valley, came for the most part on foot. Altogether perhaps a hundred and
twenty persons were within Padley Manor—and the gate secured—by six
o'clock.

Meanwhile, within, the priest had been busy since half-past four with the
hearing of confessions. He sat in the chapel beside the undecked altar, and
they came to him one by one. The household and a few of the nearer
neighbours had done their duty in this matter the day before, and a good
number had already made their Easter duties earlier in Lent; so by six
o'clock all was finished.

Then began the bustle.

A group of ladies, FitzHerberts and Fentons, entered, so soon as the priest

gave the signal by tapping on the parlour wall, bearing all things necessary
for the altar; and it was astonishing what fine things these were; so that by
the time that the priest was ready to vest, the place was transformed. Stuffs
and embroideries hung upon the wall about the altar, making it seem,
indeed, a sanctuary; two tall silver candlesticks, used for no other purpose,
stood upon the linen cloths, under which rested the slate altar-stone, taken,
with the sacred vessels and the vestments, from one of the privy hiding-
holes, with whose secret not a living being without the house, and not more
than two or three within, was acquainted. It was rumored that half a dozen
such places had been contrived within the precincts, two of which were
great enough to hold two or three men at a pinch.

Soon after six o'clock, then, the altar was ready and the priest stood vested.
He retired a pace from the altar, signed himself with the cross, and with Mr.
John FitzHerbert and his son Thomas on either side of him, began the
preparation….

It was a strange and an inspiriting sight that the young priest (for it was Mr.
Simpson who was saying the mass) looked upon as he turned round after
the gospel to make his little sermon. From end to end the tiny chapel was
full, packed so that few could kneel and none sit down. The two doors were
open, and here two faces peered in; and behind, rank after rank down the
steps and along the little passage, the folk stood or knelt, out of sight of both
priest and altar, and almost out of sound. The sanctuary was full of
children—whose round-eyed, solemn faces looked up at him—children who
knew little or nothing of what was passing, except that they were there to
worship God, but who, for all that, received impressions and associations
that could never thereafter wholly leave them. The chapel was still
completely dark, for the faint light of dawn was excluded by the heavy
hangings over the windows; and there was but the light of the two tapers to
show the people to one another and the priest to them all.

It was an inspiriting sight to him then—and one which well rewarded him
for his labours, since there was not a class from gentlemen to labourers who
was not represented there. The FitzHerberts, the Babingtons, the Fentons—
these, with their servants and guests, accounted for perhaps half of the folk.
From the shadow by the door peeped out the faces of John Merton and his
wife and son; beneath the window was the solemn face of Mr. Manners the
lawyer, with his daughter beside him, Robin Audrey beside her, and Dick
his servant behind him. Surely, thought the young priest, the Faith could
not be in its final decay, with such a gathering as this.

His little sermon was plain enough for the most foolish there. He spoke of
Christ's Resurrection; of how death had no power to hold Him, nor pains nor
prison to detain Him; and he spoke, too, of that mystical life of His which He
yet lived in His body, which was the Church; of how Death, too, stretched
forth his hands against Him there, and yet had no more force to hold Him
than in His natural life lived on earth near sixteen hundred years ago; how a
Resurrection awaited Him here in England as in Jerusalem, if His friends
would be constant and courageous, not faithless, but believing.

"Even here," he said, "in this upper chamber, where we are gathered for fear
of the Jews, comes Jesus and stands in the midst, the doors being shut.
Upon this altar He will be presently, the Lamb slain yet the Lamb victorious,
to give us all that peace which the world can neither give nor take away."

And he added a few words of exhortation and encouragement, bidding them

fear nothing whatever might come upon them in the future; to hold fast to
the faith once delivered to the saints, and so to attain the heavenly crown.
He was not eloquent, for he was but a young man newly come from college,
with no great gifts. Yet not a soul there looked upon him, on his innocent,
wondering eyes and his quivering lips, but was moved by what he saw and
heard.

The priest signed himself with the cross, and turned again to continue the
mass.
 II

"You tell me, then," said the girl quietly, "that all is as it was with you? God
has told you nothing?"

Robin was silent.

Mass had been done an hour or more, and for the most part the company
was dispersed again, after refreshment spread in the hall, except for those
who were to stay to dinner, and these two had slipped away at last to talk
together in the woods; for the court was still filled with servants coming and
going, and the parlours occupied. In one the ladies were still busy with the
altar furniture; in the other the priest sat to talk in private with those who
were come from a distance; and as for the hall—this, too, was in the hands
of the servants, since not less than thirty gentle folk were to dine there that
day.

Robin had come to Booth's Edge at the beginning of Passion week, and had
been there ever since. He had refrained, at Marjorie's entreaty, from
speaking of her to her parents; and they, too, ruled by their daughter, had
held their tongues on the matter. Everything else, however, had been
discussed—the effect of the squire's apostasy, the alternatives that
presented themselves to the boy, the future behaviour of him to his father—
all these things had been spoken of; and even the priest called into council
during the last two or three days. Yet not much had come of it. If the worst
came to the worst, the lawyer had offered the boy a place in his office;
Anthony Babington had proposed his coming to Dethick if his father turned
him out; while Robin himself inclined to a third alternative—the begging of
his father to give him a sum of money and be rid of him; after which he
proposed, with youthful vagueness, to set off for London and see what he
could do there.

Marjorie, however, had seemed strangely uninterested in such proposals.

She had listened with patience, bowing her head in assent to each,
beginning once or twice a word of criticism, and stopping herself before she
had well begun. But she had looked at Robin with more than interest; and
her mother had found her more than once on her knees in her own
chamber, in tears. Yet she had said nothing, except that she would speak
her mind after Easter, perhaps.

And now, it seemed, she was doing it.

"You have had no other thought?" she said again, "besides those of which
you talked with my father?"
They were walking together through the woods, half a mile along the
Hathersage valley. Beneath them the ground fell steeply away, above them it
rose as steeply to the right. Underfoot the new life of spring was bourgeoning
in mould and grass and undergrowth; for the heather did not come down so
far as this; and the daffodils and celandine and wild hyacinth lay in carpets
of yellow and blue, infinitely sweet, beneath the shadow of the trees and in
the open sunshine. (It was at this time that the squire of Matstead was
entering the church and hearing of the promises of the Lord to the sinner
who forsook his sinful ways.)

"I have had other thoughts," said the boy slowly, "but they are so wild and
foolish that I have determined to think no more of them."

"You are determined?"

He bowed his head.

"You are sure, then, that they are not from God?" asked the girl, torn
between fear and hope. He was silent; and her heart sank again.

He looked, indeed, a bewildered boy, borne down by a weight that was too
heavy for his years. He walked with his hands behind his back, his hatless
head bowed, regarding his feet and the last year's leaves on which he
walked. A cuckoo across the valley called with the insistence of one who will
be answered.

"My Robin," said the girl, "the last thing I would have you do is to tell me
what you would not…. Will you not speak to the priest about it?"

"I have spoken to the priest."

"Yes?"

"He tells me he does not know what to think."

"Would you do this thing—whatever it may be—if the priest told you it was
God's will?"

There was a pause; and then:

"I do not know," said Robin, so low she could scarcely hear him.

She drew a deep breath to reassure herself.

"Listen!" she said. "I must say a little of what I think; but not all.

Our Lord must finish it to you, if it is according to His will."

He glanced at her swiftly, and down again, like a frightened child. Yet even
in that glance he could see that it was all that she could do to force herself
to speak; and by that look he understood for the first time something of that
which she was suffering.

"You know first," she said, "that I am promised to you. I hold that promise
as sacred as anything on earth can be."

Her voice shook a little. The boy bowed his head again. She went on:

"But there are some things," she said, "more sacred than anything on
earth—those things that come from heaven. Now, I wish to say this—and
then have done with it: that if such should be God's will, I would not hold
you for a day. We are Catholics, you and I…. Your father—"

Her voice broke; and she stopped; yet without leaving go of her hold upon
herself. Only she could not speak for a moment.

Then a great fury seized on the boy. It was one of those angers that for a
while poison the air and turn all things sour; yet without obscuring the
mind—an anger in which the angry one strikes first at that which he loves
most, because he loves it most, knowing, too, that the words he speaks are
false. For this, for the present, was the breaking-point in the lad. He had
suffered torments in his soul, ever since the hour in which he had ridden
into the gate of his own home after his talk in the empty chapel; he had
striven to put away from him that idea for which the girl's words had broken
an entrance into his heart. And now she would give him no peace; she
continued to press on him from without that which already pained him
within; so he turned on her.

"You wish to be rid of me!" he cried fiercely.

She looked at him with her lips parted, her eyes astonished, and her face
gone white.

"What did you say?" she said.

His conscience pierced him like a sword. Yet he set his teeth.

"You wish to be rid of me. You are urging me to leave you. You talk to me of
God's will and God's voice, and you have no pity on me at all. It is an
excuse—a blind."

He stood raging. The very fact that he knew every word to be false made his
energy the greater; for he could not have said it otherwise.
"You think that!" she whispered.

There, then, they stood, eyeing one another. A stranger, coming suddenly
upon them, would have said it was a lovers' tiff, and have laughed at it. Yet
it was a deeper matter than that.

Then there surged over the boy a wave of shame; and the truth prevailed.
His fair face went scarlet; and his eyes filled with tears. He dropped on his
knees in the leaves, seized her hand and kissed it.

"Oh! you must forgive me," he said. "But … but I cannot do it!"
 III

It was a great occasion in the hall that Easter Day. The three tables, which,
according to custom, ran along the walls, were filled to-day with guests; and
a second dinner was to follow, scarcely less splendid than the first, for their
servants as well as for those of the household. The floor was spread with
new rushes; jugs of March beer, a full month old, as it should be, were
ranged down the tables; and by every plate lay a posy of flowers. From the
passage outside came the sound of music.

The feast began with the reading of the Gospel; at the close, Mr. John struck
with his hand upon the table as a signal for conversation; the doors opened;
the servants came in, and a babble of talk broke out. At the high table the
master of the house presided, with the priest on his right, Mrs. Manners and
Marjorie beyond him; on his left, Mrs. Fenton and her lord. At the other two
tables Mr. Thomas presided at one and Mr. Babington at the other.

The talk was, of course, within the bounds of discretion; though once and
again sentences were spoken which would scarcely have pleased the
minister of the parish. For they were difficult times in which they lived; and
it is no wonder at all if bitterness mixed itself with charity. Here was Mr.
John, for instance, come to Padley expressly for the selling of some meadows
to meet his fines; here was his son Thomas, the heir now, not only to Padley,
but to Norbury, whose lord, his uncle, lay in the Fleet Prison. Here was Mr.
Fenton, who had suffered the like in the matter of fines more than once.
Hardly one of the folk there but had paid a heavy price for his conscience;
and all the worship that was permitted to them, and that by circumstance,
and not by law, was such as they had engaged in that morning with
shuttered windows and a sentinel for fear that, too, should be silenced.

They talked, then, guardedly of those things, since the servants were in and
out continually, and though all professed the same faith as their masters,
yet these were times that tried loyalty hard. Mr. John, indeed, gave news, of
his brother Sir Thomas, and said how he did; and read a letter, too, from
Italy, from his younger brother Nicholas, who was fled abroad after a year's
prison at Oxford; but the climax of the talk came when dinner was over, and
the muscadel, with the mould-jellies, had been put upon the tables. It was
at this moment that Mr. John nodded to his son, who went to the door, to
see the servants out, and stood by it to see that none listened. Then his
father struck his hands together for silence, and himself spoke.

"Mr. Simpson," he said, "has something to say to us all. It is not a matter to

be spoken of lightly, as you will understand presently…. Mr. Simpson."
The priest looked up timidly, pulling out a paper from his pocket.

"You have heard of Mr. Nelson?" he said to the company. "Well, he was a
priest; and I have news of his death. He was executed in London on the
third of February for his religion. And another man, a Mr. Sherwood, was
executed a few days afterwards."

There was a rustle along the benches. Some there had heard of the fact, but
no more; some had heard nothing of either the man or his death. Two or
three faces turned a shade paler; and then the silence settled down again.
For here was a matter that touched them all closely enough; since up to now
scarcely a priest except Mr. Cuthbert Maine had suffered death for his
religion; and even of him some of the more tolerant said that it was treason
with which he was charged. They had heard, indeed, of a priest or two
having been sent abroad into exile for his faith; but the most of them
thought it a thing incredible that in England at this time a man should
suffer death for it. Fines and imprisonment were one thing; to such they had
become almost accustomed. But death was another matter altogether. And
for a priest! Was it possible that the days of King Harry were coming back;
and that every Catholic henceforth should go in peril of his life as well as of
liberty?

The folks settled themselves then in their seats; one or two men drank off a
glass of wine.

"I have heard from a good friend of mine in London," went on the priest,
looking at his paper, "one who followed every step of the trial; and was
present at the death. They suffered at Tyburn…. However, I will tell you
what he says. He is a countryman of mine, from Yorkshire; as was Mr.
Nelson, too.

"'Mr. Nelson was taken in London on the first of December last year. He was
born at Shelton, and was about forty-three years old; he was the son of Sir
Nicholas Nelson.'

"So much," said the priest, looking up from his paper, "I knew myself. I saw
him about four years ago just before he went to Douay, and he came back to
England as a priest, a year and a half after. Mr. Sherwood was not a priest;
he had been at Douay, too, but as a scholar only…. Well, we will speak of
Mr. Nelson first. This is what my friend says."

He spread the paper before him on the table; and Marjorie, looking past her
mother, saw that his hands shook as he spread it.
"'Mr. Nelson,'" began the priest, reading aloud with some difficulty, "'was
brought before my lords, and first had tendered to him the oath of the
Queen's supremacy. This he refused to take, saying that no lay prince could
have pre-eminence over Christ's Church; and, upon being pressed as to who
then could have it, answered, Christ's Vicar only, the successor of Peter.
Further, he proceeded to say, under questioning, that since the religion of
England at this time is schismatic and heretical, so also is the Queen's
Grace who is head of it.

"'This, then, was what was wanted; and after a delay of a few weeks, the
same questions being put to him, and his answers being the same, he was
sentenced to death. He was very fortunate in his imprisonment. I had
speech with him two or three times and was the means, by God's blessing,
of bringing another priest to him, to whom he confessed himself; and with
whom he received the Body of Christ a day before he suffered.

"'On the third of February, knowing nothing of his death being so near, he
was brought up to a higher part of the prison, and there told he was to
suffer that day. His kinsmen were admitted to him then, to bid him farewell;
and afterwards two ministers came to turn him from his faith if they could;
but they prevailed nothing.'"

There was a pause in the reading; but there was no movement among any
that listened. Robin, watching from his place at the right-hand table, cold at
heart, ran his eyes along the faces. The priest was as white as death, with
the excitement, it seemed, of having to tell such a tale. His host beside him
seemed downcast and quiet, but perfectly composed. Mrs. Manners had her
eyes closed; Anthony Babington was frowning to himself with tight lips;
Marjorie he could not see.

With a great effort the reader resumed:

"'When he was laid on the hurdle he refused to ask pardon of the Queen's
Grace; for, said he, I have never yet offended her. I was beside him, and
heard it. And he added, when those who stood near stormed at him, that it
was better to be hanged than to burn in hell-fire.

"'There was a great concourse of people at Tyburn, but kept back by the
officers so that they could not come at him. When he was in the cart, first he
commended his spirit into God's Hands, saying In manus tuas, etc.; then he
besought all Catholics that were present to pray for him; I saw a good many
who signed themselves in the crowd; and then he said some prayers in
Latin; with the psalms Miserere and De Profundis. And then he addressed
himself to the people, telling them he died for his religion, which was the
Catholic Roman one, and prayed, and desired them to pray, that God would
bring all Englishmen into it. The crowd cried out at that, exclaiming against
this Catholic Romish Faith; and so he said what he had to say, over again.
Then, before the cart was drawn away from him to leave him to hang, he
asked pardon of all them he had offended, and even of the Queen, if he had
indeed offended her. Then one of the sheriffs called on the hangman to make
an end; so Mr. Nelson prayed again in silence, and then begged all Catholics
that were there once more to pray that, by the bitter passion of Christ, his
soul might be received into everlasting joy. And they did so; for as the cart
was drawn away a great number cried out, and I with them, Lord, receive
his soul.

"'He was cut down, according to sentence, before he was dead, and the
butchery begun on him; and when it was near over, he moved a little in his
pain, and said that he forgave the Queen and all that caused or consented
to his death: and so he died.'"

The priest's voice, which had shaken again and again, grew so tremulous as
he ended that those that were at the end of the hall could scarcely hear him;
and, as it ceased, a murmur ran along the seats.

Mr. FitzHerbert leaned over to the priest and whispered. The priest nodded,
and the other held up his hand for silence.

"There is more yet," he said.

Mr. Simpson, with a hand that still shook so violently that he could hardly
hold his glass, lifted and drank off a cup of muscadel. Then he cleared his
throat, sat up a little in his chair, and resumed:

"'Next I went to see Mr. Sherwood, to talk to him in prison and to encourage
him by telling him of the passion of the other and how bravely he bore it.
Mr. Sherwood took it very well, and said that he was afraid of nothing, that
he had reconciled his mind to it long ago, and had rehearsed it all two or
three times, so that he would know what to say and how to bear himself.'"

Mr. FitzHerbert leaned over again to the priest at this point and whispered
something. Mr. Simpson nodded, and raised his eyes.

"Mr. Sherwood," he said, "was a scholar from Douay, but not a priest. He
was lodging in the house of a Catholic lady, and had procured mass to be
said there, and it was through her son that he was taken and charged with
recusancy."
Again ran a rustle through the benches. This executing of the laity for
religion was a new thing in their experience. The priest lifted the paper
again.

"'I found that Mr. Sherwood had been racked many times in the Tower,
during the six months he was in prison, to force him to tell, if they could,
where he had heard mass and who had said it. But they could prevail
nothing. Further, no visitor was admitted to him all this time, and I was the
first and the last that he had; and that though Mr. Roper himself had tried
to get at him for his relief; for he was confined underground and lay in
chains and filth not to be described. I said what I could to him, but he said
he needed nothing and was content, though his pain must have been very
great all this while, what with the racking repeated over and over again and
the place he lay in.

"'I was present again when he suffered at Tyburn, but was too far away to
hear anything that he said, and scarcely, indeed, could see him; but I
learned afterwards that he died well and courageously, as a Catholic should,
and made no outcry or complaint when the butchery was done on him.

"'This, then, is the news I have to send you—sorrowful, indeed, yet joyful,
too; for surely we may think that they who bore such pains for Christ's sake
with such constancy will intercede for us whom they leave behind. I am
hoping myself to come North again before I go to Douay next year, and will
see you then and tell you more.'"

The priest laid down the paper, trembling.

Mr. FitzHerbert looked up.

"It will give pleasure to the company," he said, "to know that the writer of the
letter is Mr. Ludlam, from Radbourne, in this county. As you have heard, he,
too, hopes by God's mercy to be made priest and to come back to England."
 CHAPTER VIII

In the following week Robin went home again.

The clear weather of Easter had broken, and racing clouds, thick as a pall,
sped across the sky that had been so blue and so cheerful; a wind screamed
all day, now high, now low, shattering the tender flowers of spring, ruffling
the Derwent against its current, by which he rode, and dashing spatters of
rain now and again on his back, tossing high and wide the branches under
which he went, until the woods themselves became as a great melancholy
organ, making sad music about him.

When a mind is fluent and uncertain there is no describing it. He thought

he had come to a decision last week; he found that the decision was
shattered as soon as made. He had talked to the priest; he had resisted
Marjorie; and yet to neither of them had he put into formal words what it
was that troubled him. He had asked questions about vocation, about the
place that circumstance occupies in it, of the value of dispositions, fears,
scruples, and resistance. He had, that is, fingered his wound, half
uncovered it, and then covered it up again, tormented it, glanced at it and
then glanced aside; yet the one thing he had not done was to probe it—not
even to allow another to do so.

His mind, then, was fluent and distracted; it formed images before him,
which dissolved as soon as formed; it whirled in little eddies; it threw up
obscuring foam; it ran clear one instant, and the next broke itself in rapids.
He could neither ease it, nor dam it altogether, and he did not know what to
do.

As he rode through Froggatt, he saw a group of saddle-horses standing at

the inn door, but thought nothing of it, till a man ran out of the door, still
holding his pot, and saluted him, and he recognised him to be one of Mr.
Babington's men.

"My master is within, sir," he said; "he bade me look out for you."

Robin drew rein, and as he did so, Anthony, too, came out.

"Ah!" he said. "I heard you would be coming this way. Will you come in?

I have something to say to you."

Robin slipped off, leaving his mare in the hands of Anthony's man, since he
himself was riding alone, with his valise strapped on behind.
It was a little room, very trim and well kept, on the first floor, to which his
friend led him. Anthony shut the door carefully and came across to the
settle by the window-seat.

"Well," he said, "I have bad news for you, my friend. Will you forgive me? I
have seen your father and had words with him."

"Eh?"

"I said nothing to you before," went on the other, sitting down beside him. "I
knew you would not have it so, but I went to see for myself and to put a
question or two. He is your father, but he has also been my friend. That
gives me rights, you see!"

"Tell me," said Robin heavily.

It appeared that Anthony, who was a precise as well as an ardent young

man, had had scruples about trusting to hearsay. Certainly it was rumoured
far and wide that the squire of Matstead had done as he had said he would
do, and gone to church; but Mr. Anthony was one of those spirits who will
always have things, as they say, from the fountain-head; partly from
instincts of justice, partly, no doubt, for the pleasure of making direct
observations to the principals concerned. This was what he had done in this
case. He had ridden, without a word to any, up to Matstead, and had
demanded to be led to the squire; and there and then, refusing to sit down
till he was answered, had put his question. There had been a scene. The
squire had referred to puppies who wanted drowning, to young sparks, and
to such illustrative similes; and Anthony, in spite of his youthful years, had
flared out about turncoats and lick-spittles. There had been a very pretty
ending: the squire had shouted for his servants and Anthony for his, and
the two parties had eyed one another, growling like dogs, until bloodshed
seemed imminent. Then the visitor had himself solved the situation by
stalking out of the house from which the squire was proposing to flog him,
mounting his horse, and with a last compliment or two had ridden away.
And here he was at Froggatt on his return journey, having eaten there that
dinner which no longer would be spread for him at Matstead.

Robin sat silent till the tale was done, and at the end of it Anthony was
striding about the room, aflame again with wrath, gesticulating and raging
aloud.

Then Robin spoke, holding up his hand for moderation. "You will have the
whole house here," he said. "Well, you have cooked my goose for me."
"Bah! that was cooked at Passiontide when you went to Booth's Edge. Do
you think he'll ever have a Papist in his house again?"

"Did he say so?"

"No; but he said enough about his 'young cub.'… Nonsense, man! Come
home with me to Dethick. We'll find occupation enough."

"Did he say he would not have me home again?"

"No," bawled Anthony. "I have told you he did not say so outright. But he
said enough to show he'd have no rebels, as he called them, in his
Protestant house! Dick's to leave. Did you hear that?"

"Dick!"

"Why, certainly. There was a to-do on Sunday, and Dick spoke his mind.

He'll come to me, he says, if you have no service for him."

Robin set his teeth. It seemed as if the pelting blows would never cease.

"Come with me to Dethick!" said Anthony again. "I tell you—"

"Well?"

"There'll be time enough to tell you when you come. But I promise you
occupation enough."

He paused, as if he would say more and dared not.

"You must tell me more," said the lad slowly. "What kind of occupation?"

Then Anthony did a queer thing. He first glanced at the door, and then went
to it quickly and threw it open. The little lobby was empty. He went out,
leaned over the stair and called one of his men.

"Sit you there," he said, with the glorious nonchalance of a Babington, "and
let no man by till I tell you."

He came back, closed the door, bolted it, and then came across and sat
down by his friend.

"Do you think the rest of us are doing nothing?" he whispered. "Why, I tell
you that a dozen of us in Derbyshire—" He broke off once more. "I may not
tell you," he said, "I must ask leave first."
A light began to glimmer before Robin's mind; the light broadened suddenly
and intensely, and his whole soul leapt to meet it.

"Do you mean—?" And then he, too, broke off, well knowing enough, though
not all of, what was meant.

It was quiet here within this room, in spite of the village street outside. It
was dinner-time, and all were within doors or out at their affairs; and except
for the stamp of a horse now and again, and the scream of the wind in the
keyhole and between the windows, there was little to hear. And in the lad's
soul was a tempest.

He knew well enough now what his friend meant, though nothing of the
details; and from the secrecy and excitement of the young man's manner he
understood what the character of his dealings would likely be, and towards
those dealings his whole nature leaped as a fish to the water. Was it possible
that this way lay the escape from his own torment of conscience? Yet he
must put a question first, in honesty.

"Tell me this much," he said in a low voice. "Do you mean that this … this
affair will be against men's lives … or … or such as even a priest might
engage in?"

Then the light of fanaticism leaped to the eyes of his friend, and his face
brightened wonderfully.

"Do they observe the courtesies and forms of law?" he snarled. "Did Nelson
die by God's law, or did Sherwood—those we know of? I will tell you this," he
said, "and no more unless you pledge yourself to us … that we count it as
warfare—in Christ's Name yes—but warfare for all that."

There then lay the choice before this lad, and surely it was as hard a choice
as ever a man had to make. On the one side lay such an excitement as he
had never yet known—for Anthony was no merely mad fool—a path, too,
that gave him hopes of Marjorie, that gave him an escape from home
without any more ado, a task besides which he could tell himself honestly
was, at least, for the cause that lay so near to Marjorie's heart, and was
beginning to lie near his own. And on the other there was open to him that
against which he had fought now day after day, in misery—a life that had no
single attraction to the natural man in him, a life that meant the loss of
Marjorie for ever.

The colour died from his lips as he considered this. Surely all lay Anthony's
way: Anthony was a gentleman like himself; he would do nothing that was
not worthy of one…. What he had said of warfare was surely sound logic.
Were they not already at war? Had not the Queen declared it? And on the
other side—nothing. Nothing. Except that a voice within him on that other
side cried louder and louder—it seemed in despair: "This is the way; walk in
it."

"Come," whispered Anthony again.

Robin stood up; he made as if to speak; then he silenced himself and began
to walk to and fro in the little room. He could hear voices from the room
beneath—Anthony's men talking there no doubt. They might be his men,
too, at the lifting of a finger—they and Dick. There were the horses waiting
without; he heard the jingle of a bit as one tossed his head. Those were the
horses that would go back to Dethick and Derby, and, may be, half over
England.

He walked to and fro half a dozen times without speaking, and, if he had but
guessed it, he might have been comforted to know that his manhood flowed
in upon him, as a tide coming in over a flat beach. These instants added
more years to him than as many months that had gone before. His boyhood
was passing, since experience and conflict, whether it end in victory or
defeat, give the years to a man far more than the passing of time. So in
God's sight Robin added many inches to the stature of his spirit in this little
parlour of Froggatt.

Yet, though he conquered then, he did not know that he conquered. He still
believed, as he turned at last and faced his friend, that his mind was yet to
make up, and his whisper was harsh and broken.

"I do not know," he whispered. "I must go home first."

 II

Dick was waiting by the porter's lodge as the boy rode in, and walked up
beside him with his brown hand on the horse's shoulder. Robin could not
say much, and, besides, his confidence must be tied.

"So you are going," he said softly.

The man nodded.

"I met Mr. Babington…. You cannot do better, I think, than go to him."

It was with a miserable heart that an hour or two later he came down to
supper. His father was already at table, sitting grimly in his place; he made
no sign of welcome or recognition as his son came in. During the meal itself
this was of no great consequence, as silence was the custom; but the boy's
heart sank yet further as, still without a word to him, the squire rose from
table at the end and went as usual through the parlour door. He hesitated a
moment before following. Then he grasped his courage and went after.

All things were as usual there—the wine set out and the sweetmeats, and
his father in his usual place, Yet still there was silence.

Robin began to meditate again, yet alert for a sign or a word. It was in this
little room, he understood, that the dispute with Anthony had taken place a
few hours before, and he looked round it, almost wondering that all seemed
so peaceful. It was this room, too, that was associated with so much that
was happy in his life—drawn-out hours after supper, when his father was in
genial moods, or when company was there—company that would never
come again—and laughter and gallant talk went round. There was the fire
burning in the new stove—that which had so much excited him only a year
or two ago, for it was then the first that he had ever seen: there was the
table where he had written his little letter; there was "Christ carrying His
Cross."

"So you have sent your friend to insult me; now!"

Robin started. The voice was quiet enough, but full of a suppressed force.

"I have not, sir. I met Mr. Babington at Froggatt on his way back. He told
me. I am very sorry for it."

"And you talked with him at Padley, too, no doubt?"

"Yes, sir."
His father suddenly wheeled round on him.

"Do you think I have no sense, then? Do you think I do not know what you
and your friends speak of?"

Robin was silent.

He was astonished how little afraid he was. His heart beat loud enough in
his ears; yet he felt none of that helplessness that had fallen on him before
when his father was angry…. Certainly he had added to his stature in the
parlour at Froggatt.

The old man poured out a glass of wine and drank it. His face was flushed
high, and he was using more words than usual.

"Well, sir, there are other affairs we must speak of; and then no more of
them. I wish to know your meaning for the time to come. There must be no
more fooling this way and that. I shall pay no fines for you—mark that! If
you must stand on your own feet, stand on them…. Now then!"

"Do you mean, am I coming to church with you, sir?"

"I mean, who is to pay your fines?… Miss Marjorie?"

Robin set his teeth at the sneer.

"I have not yet been fined, sir."

"Now do you take me for a fool? D'you think they'll let you off? I was
speaking—"

The old man stopped.

"Yes, sir?"

The other wheeled his face on him.

"If you will have it," he said, "I was speaking to my two good friends who
dined here on Sunday. I was plain with them and they were plain with me. 'I
shall not pay for my brat of a son,' I said. 'Then he must pay for himself,'
said they, 'unless we lay him by the heels.' 'Not in my house, I hope,' I said;
and they laughed at that. We were very merry together."

"Yes, sir?"

"Good God! have I a fool for a son? I ask you again, Who is it to pay?"
"When will they demand it?"

"Why, they may demand it next week, if they will! You were not at church on
Sunday!"

"I was not in Matstead," said the lad.

"But—"

"And Mr. Barton will not, I think—"

The old man struck the table suddenly and violently.

"I have dropped words enough," he cried. "Where's the use of it? If you think
they will let you alone, I tell you they will not. There are to be doings before
Christmas, at latest; and what then?"

Then Robin drew his breath sharply between his teeth; and knew that one
more step had been passed, that had separated him from that which he
feared…. He had come just now, still hesitating. Still there had been passing
through his mind hopes and ideas of what his father might do for him. He
knew well enough that he would never pay the fines, amounting sometimes
to as much as twenty pounds a month; but he had thought that perhaps his
father would give him a sum of money and let him go to fend for himself;
that he might help him even to a situation somewhere; and now hope had
died so utterly that he did not even dare speak of it. And he had said "No" to
Anthony; he said to himself at least that he had meant "No," in spite of his
hesitation. All doors seemed closing, save that which terrified him….

"I have thought in my mind—" he began; and stopped, for the terror of what
was on his tongue grew suddenly upon him.

"Eh?"

Robin stood up.

"I must have time, sir," he cried; "I must have time. Do not press me too
much."

His father's eyes shone bright and wrathful. He beat on the table with his
open hand; but the boy was too quick for him.

"I beg of you, sir, not to make me speak too soon. It may be that you would
hate that I should speak more than my silence."
His whole person was tense and magnetic; his face was paler than ever; and
it seemed as if his father understood enough, at least, to make him hesitate.
The two looked at one another; and it was the man's eyes that tell first.

"You may have till Pentecost," he said.

 III

It would be at about an hour before dawn that Robin awoke for perhaps the
third or fourth time that night; for the conflict still roared within his soul
and would give him no peace. And, as he lay there, awake in an instant,
staring up into the dark, once more weighing and balancing this and the
other, swayed by enthusiasm at one moment, weighed down with
melancholy the next—there came to him, distinct and clear through the still
night, the sound of horses' hoofs, perhaps of three or four beasts, walking
together.

Now, whether it was the ferment of his own soul, or the work of some
interior influence, or indeed, the very intimation of God Himself, Robin never
knew (though he inclined later to the last of these); yet it remains as a fact
that when he heard that sound, so fierce was his curiosity to know who it
was that rode abroad in company at such an hour, he threw off the blankets
that covered him, went to his window and threw it open. Further, when he
had listened there a second or two, and had heard the sound cease and then
break out again clearer and nearer, signifying that the party was riding
through the village, his curiosity grew so intense, that he turned from the
window, snatched up and put on a few clothes, groping for them as well as
he could in the dimness, and was presently speeding, barefooted,
downstairs, telling himself in one breath that he was a fool, and in the next
that he must reach the churchyard wall before the horses did.

It was but a short run when he had come down into the court, by the little
staircase that led from the men's rooms; the ground was soaking with the
rains of yesterday, but he cared nothing for that; and, as the riding party
turned up the little ascent that led beneath the churchyard, Robin, on the
other side of the wall, was keeping between the tombstones to see, and not
be seen.

It was within an hour of dawn, at that time when the sky begins to glimmer
with rifts above the two horizons, showing light enough at least to
distinguish faces. It was such a light as that in which he had seen the deer
looking at him motionless as he rode home with Dick. Yet the three who now
rode up towards him were so muffled about the faces that he feared he
would not know them. They were men, all three of them; and he could make
out valises strapped to the saddle of each; but, what seemed strange, they
did not speak as they came; and it appeared as if they wished to make no
more noise than was necessary, since one of them, when his horse set his
foot upon the cobblestones beside the lych-gate, pulled him sharply off
them.
And then, just as they rounded the angle of the wall where the boy crouched
peeping, the man that rode in the middle, sighed as if with relief, and pulled
the cloak that was about him, so that the collar fell from his face, and at the
same time turned to his companion on his right, and said something in a
low voice.

But the boy heard not a word; for he found himself staring at the thin-faced
young priest from whom he had received Holy Communion at Padley. It was
but for an instant; for the man to whom the priest spoke answered in the
same low voice, and the other pulled his cloak again round his mouth.

Yet the look was enough. The sight, once more, of this servant of God,
setting out again upon his perilous travels—seen at such a moment, when
the boy's judgment hung in the balance (as he thought); this one single
reminder of what a priest could do in these days of sorrow, and of what God
called on him to do—the vision, for it was scarcely less, all things
considered, of a life such as this—presented, so to say, in this single scene
of a furtive and secret ride before the dawn, leaving Padley soon after
midnight—this, falling on a soul that already leaned that way, finished that
for which Marjorie had prayed, and against which the lad himself had fought
so fiercely.

Half an hour later he stood by his father's bed, looking down on him without
fear.

"Father," he said, as the old man stared up at him through sleep-ridden

eyes, "I have come to give you my answer. It is that I must go to Rheims and
be a priest."

Then he turned again and went out of the room, without waiting.
 CHAPTER IX

Mrs. Manners was still abed when her daughter came in to see her. She lay
in the great chamber that gave upon the gallery above the hall whence, on
either side, she could hear whether or no the maids were at their business—
which was a comfort to her if a discomfort to them. And now that her lord
was in Derby, she lay here all alone.

The first that she knew of her daughter's coming was a light in her eyes; and
the next was a face, as of a stranger, looking at her with great eyes, exalted
by joy and pain. The light, held below, cast shadows upwards from chin and
cheek, and the eyes shone in hollows. Then, as she sat up, she saw that it
was her daughter, and that the maid held a paper in her hands; she was in
her night-linen, and a wrap lay over her shoulders and shrouded her hair.

"He is to be a priest," she whispered sharply. "Thank our Lord with me …

and … and God have mercy on me!"

Then Marjorie was on her knees by the bedside, sobbing so that the curtains
shook.

The mother got it all out of her presently—the tale of the girl's heart torn two
ways at once. On the one side there was her human love for the lad who had
wooed her—as hot as fire, and as pure—and on the other that keen romance
that had made her pray that he might be a priest. This second desire had
come to her, as sharp as a voice that calls, when she had heard of the
apostasy of his father; it had seemed to her the riposte that God made to the
assault upon His honour. The father would no longer be His worshipper?
Then let the son be His priest; and so the balance be restored. And so the
maid had striven with the two loves that, for once, would not agree together
(as did the man in the Gospels who wished to go and bury his father and
afterwards to follow his Saviour); she had not dared to say a word to the lad
of anything of this lest it should be her will and not God's that should
govern him, for she knew very well what a power she had over him; but she
had prayed God, and begged Robin to pray too and to listen to His voice;
and now she had her way, and her heart was broken with it, she said:

"And when I think," she wailed across her mother's knees, "of what it is to
be a priest; and of the life that he will lead, and of the death that he may
die!… And it is I … I … who will have sent him to it. Mother!…"
Mrs. Manners was bethinking herself of a cordial just then, and how she
knew old Ann would be coming presently, and was listening with but half an
ear.

"It's not you, my dear," she said, patting the head beneath her hands. (The
wrap was fallen off, and the maid's long hair was all over her shoulders.)
"And now—"

"But our Lord will take care of him, will He not? And not suffer—"

Mrs. Manners fell to patting her head again.

"And who brought the message?" she asked.

Mrs. Manners was one of those experienced persons who are fully persuaded
that youth is a disease that must be borne with patiently. Time, indeed, will
cure it; yet until the cure is complete, elders must bear it as well as they can
and not seem to pay too much attention to it. A rigorous and prudent diet;
long hours of sleep, plenty of occupation—these are the remedies for the
fever. So, while Marjorie first began to read the lad's letter, and then,
breaking down altogether, thrust it into her mother's hand, Mrs. Manners
was searching her memory as to whether any imprudence the day before, in
food or behaviour, could be the cause of this crisis. Love between boys and
girls was common enough; she herself twenty years ago had suffered from
the sickness when young John had come wooing her; yet a love that could
thrust from it that which it loved, was beyond her altogether. Either Marjorie
loved the lad, or she did not, and if she loved him, why did she pray that he
might be a priest? That was foolishness; since priesthood was a bar to
marriage. She began to conclude that Marjorie did not love him; it had been
but a romantic fancy; and she was encouraged by the thought.

"Madge," she began, when she had read through the confused line or two, in
the half-boyish, half-clerkly hand of Robin, scribbled and dispatched by the
hands of Dick scarcely two hours ago. "Madge—"

She was about to say something sensible when the maid interrupted her
again.

"And it is I who have brought it all on him!" she wailed. "If it had not been
for me—"

Her mother laid a firm hand on her daughter's mouth. It was not often that
she felt the superior of the two; yet here was a time, plain enough, when
maturity and experience must take the reins.
"Madge," she said, "it is plain you do not love him; or you never—"

The maid started back, her eyes ablaze.

"Not love him! Why—"

"That you do not love him truly; or you would never have wished this for
him…. Now listen to me!"

She raised an admonitory finger, complacent at last. But her speech was not
to be made at that time; for her daughter swiftly rose to her feet, controlled
at last by the shock of astonishment.

"Then I do not think you know what love is," she said softly. "To love is to
wish the other's highest good, as I understand it."

Mrs. Manners compressed her lips, as might a prophetess before a

prediction. But her daughter was beforehand with her again.

"That is the love of a Christian, at least," she said. Then she stooped, took
the letter from her mother's knees, and went out.

Mrs. Manners sat for a moment as her daughter left her. Then she
understood that her hour of superiority was gone with Marjorie's hour of
weakness; and she emitted a short laugh as she took her place again behind
the child she had borne.
 II

It was a strange time that Marjorie had until two days later, when Robin
came and told her all, and how it had fallen out. For now, it seemed, she
walked on air; now in shoes of lead. When she was at her prayers (which
was pretty often just now), and at other times, when the air lightened
suddenly about her and the burdens of earth were lifted as if another hand
were put to them—at those times which every interior soul experiences in a
period of stress—why, then, all was glory, and she saw Robin as
transfigured and herself beneath him all but adoring. Little visions came
and went before her imagination. Robin riding, like some knight on an
adventure, to do Christ's work; Robin at the altar, in his vestments; Robin
absolving penitents—all in a rosy light of faith and romance. She saw him
even on the scaffold, undaunted and resolute, with God's light on his face,
and the crowd awed beneath him; she saw his soul entering heaven, with all
the harps ringing to meet him, and eternity begun…. And then, at other
times, when the heaviness came down on her, as clouds upon the
Derbyshire hills, she understood nothing but that she had lost him; that he
was not to be hers, but Another's; that a loveless and empty life lay before
her, and a womanhood that was without its fruition. And it was this latter
mood that fell on her, swift and entire, when, looking out from her window a
little before dinner-time, she saw suddenly his hat, and Cecily's head,
jerking up the steep path that led to the house.

She fell on her knees by her bedside.

"Jesu!" she cried. "Jesu! Give me strength to meet him."

Mrs. Manners, too, hearing the horse's footsteps on the pavement a minute
later, and Marjorie's steps going downstairs, also looked forth and saw him
dismounting. She was a prudent woman, and did not stir a finger till she
heard the bell ringing in the court for the dinner to be served. They would
have time, so she thought, to arrange their attitudes.

And, indeed, she was right: for it was two quiet enough persons who met her
as she came down into the hall: Robin flushed with riding, yet wholly under
his own command—bright-eyed, and resolute and natural (indeed, it seemed
to her that he was more of a man than she had thought him). And her
daughter, too, was still and strong; a trifle paler than she should be, yet that
was to be expected. At dinner, of course, nothing could be spoken of but the
most ordinary affairs—in such speaking, that is, as there was. It was not till
they had gone out into the walled garden and sat them down, all three of
them, on the long garden-seat beside the rose-beds, that a word was said on
these new matters. There was silence as they walked there, and silence as
they sat down.

"Tell her, Robin," said the maid.

It appeared that matters were not yet as wholly decided as Mrs. Manners
had thought. Indeed, it seemed to her that they were not decided at all.
Robin had written to Dr. Allen, and had found means to convey his letter to
Mr. Simpson, who, in his turn, had undertaken to forward it at least as far
as to London; and there it would await a messenger to Douay. It might be a
month before it would reach Douay, and it might be three or four months, or
even more, before an answer could come back. Next, the squire had taken a
course of action which, plainly, had disconcerted the lad, though it had its
conveniences too. For, instead of increasing the old man's fury, the news his
son had given him had had a contrary effect. He had seemed all shaken,
said Robin; he had spoken to him quietly, holding in the anger that surely
must be there, the boy thought, without difficulty. And the upshot of it was
that no more had been said as to Robin's leaving Matstead for the present—
not one word even about the fines. It seemed almost as if the old man had
been trying how far he could push his son, and had recoiled when he had
learned the effect of his pushing.

"I think he is frightened," said the lad gravely. "He had never thought that I
could be a priest."

Mrs. Manners considered this in silence.

"And it may be autumn before Dr. Allen's letter comes back?" she asked
presently.

Robin said that that was so.

"It may even be till winter," he said. "The talk among the priests, Mr.
Simpson tells me, is all about the removal from Douay. It may be made at
any time, and who knows where they will go?"

Mrs. Manners glanced across at her daughter, who sat motionless, with her
hands clasped. Then she was filled with the spirit of reasonableness and
sense: all this tragic to-do about what might never happen seemed to her
the height of folly.

"Nay, then," she burst out, "then nothing may happen after all. Dr. Allen
may say 'No;' the letter may never get to him. It may be that you will forget
all this in a month or two."
Robin turned his face slowly towards her, and she saw that she had spoken
at random. Again, too, it struck her attention that his manner seemed a
little changed. It was graver than that to which she was accustomed.

"I shall not forget it," he said softly. "And Dr. Allen will get the letter. Or, if
not he, someone else."

There was silence again, but Mrs. Manners heard her daughter draw a long
breath.
 III

It was an hour later that Marjorie found herself able to say that which she
knew must be said.

Robin had lingered on, talking of this and that, though he had said half a
dozen times that he must be getting homewards; and at last, when he rose,
Mistress Manners, who was still wholly misconceiving the situation, after
the manner of sensible middle-aged folk, archly and tactfully took her leave
and disappeared down towards the house, advancing some domestic reason
for her departure.

Robin sighed, and turned to the girl, who still sat quiet. But as he turned
she lifted her eyes to him swiftly.

"Good-bye, Mr. Robin," she said.

He pulled himself up.

"You understand, do you not?" she said. "You are to be a priest. You must
remember that always. You are a sort of student already."

She could see him pale a little; his lips tightened. For a moment he said
nothing; he was taken wholly aback.

"Then I am not to come here again?"

Marjorie stood up. She showed no sign of the fierce self-control she was
using.

"Why, yes," she said. "Come as you would come to any Catholic neighbours.
But no more than that…. You are to be a priest."

The spring air was full of softness and sweetness as they stood there. On the
trees behind them and on the roses in front the budding leaves had burst
into delicate green, and the copses on all sides sounded with the twittering
of birds. The whole world, it seemed, was kindling with love and freshness.
Yet these two had to stand here and be cold, one to the other…. He was to
be a priest; that must not be forgotten, and they must meet no more on the
old footing. That was gone. Already he stood among the Levites, at least in
intention; and the Lord alone was to be the portion of his inheritance and
his Cup.

It was a minute before either of them moved, and during that minute the
maid felt her courage ebb from her like an outgoing tide, leaving a desolation
behind. It was all that she could do not to cry out.
But when at last Robin made a movement and she had to look him in the
face, what she saw there braced and strengthened her.

"You are right, Mistress Marjorie," he said both gravely and kindly. "I will bid
you good-day and be getting to my horse."

He kissed her gently, as the manner was, and went down the path alone.
 PART II

CHAPTER I

It was with a sudden leap of her heart that Marjorie, looking out of her
window at the late autumn landscape, her mind still running on the sheet of
paper that lay before her, saw a capped head, and then a horse's crest, rise
over the broken edge of land up which Robin had ridden so often two and
three years ago. Then she saw who was the rider, and laid her pen down
again.

It was two years since the lad had gone to Rheims, and it would be five years
more, she knew (since he was not over quick at his books), before he would
return a priest. She had letters from him: one would come now and again, a
month or two sometimes after the date of writing. It was only in September
that she had had the letter which he had written her on hearing of her
father's death, and Mr. Manners had died in June. She had written back to
him then, a discreet and modest letter enough, telling him of how Mr.
Simpson had read mass over the body before it was taken down to Derby for
the burying; and telling him, too, of her mother's rheumatics that kept her
abed now three parts of the year. For the rest, the letters were dull enough
reading to one who did not understand them: the news the lad had to give
was of a kind that must be disguised, lest the letters should fall into other
hands, since it concerned the coming and going of priests whose names
must not appear. Yet, for all that, the letters were laid up in a press, and the
heap grew slowly.

It was Mr. Anthony Babington who was come now to see her, and it was his
third visit since the summer. But she knew well enough what he was come
for, since his young wife, whom he had married last year, was no use to him
in such matters: she had lately had a child, too, and lived quietly at Dethick
with her women. His letters, too, would come at intervals, carried by a rider,
or sometimes some farmer's man on his way home from Derby, and these
letters, too, held dull reading enough for such as were not in the secret. Yet
the magistrates at Derby would have given a good sum if they could have
intercepted and understood them.

It was in the upper parlour now that she received him. A fire was burning
there, as it had burned so long ago, when Robin found her fresh from her
linen, and Anthony sat down in the same place. She sat by the window, with
the paper in her hands at which she had been writing when she first saw
him.
He had news for her, of two kinds, and, like a man, gave her first that which
she least wished to hear. (She had first showed him the paper.)

"That was the very matter I was come about," he said. "You have only a few
of the names, I see. Now the rest will be over before Christmas, and will all
be in London together."

"Can you not give me the names?" she said.

"I could give you the names, certainly. And I will do so before I leave; I have
them here. But—Mistress Marjorie, could you not come to London with me?
It would ease the case very much."

"Why, I could not," she said. "My mother—And what good would it serve?"

"This is how the matter stands," said Anthony, crossing his legs. "We have a
dozen priests coming all together—at least, they will not travel together, of
course; but they will all reach London before Christmas, and there they will
hold counsel as to who shall go to the districts. Eight of them, I have no
doubt, will come to the north. There are as many priests in the south as are
safe at the present time—or as are needed. Now if you were to come with me,
mistress—with a serving-maid, and my sister would be with us—we could
meet these priests, and speak with them, and make their acquaintance.
That would remove a great deal of danger. We must not have that affair
again which fell out last month."

Marjorie nodded slowly. (It was wonderful how her gravity had grown on her
these last two years.)

She knew well enough what he meant. It was the affair of the clerk who had
come from Derby on a matter connected with her father's will about the time
she was looking for the arrival of a strange priest, and who had been so
mistaken by her. Fortunately he had been a well-disposed man, with
Catholic sympathies, or grave trouble might have followed. But this proposal
of a visit to London seemed to her impossible. She had never been to London
in her life; it appeared to her as might a voyage to the moon. Derby seemed
oppressingly large and noisy and dangerous; and Derby, she understood,
was scarcely more than a village compared to London.

"I could not do it," she said presently. "I could not leave my mother."

Anthony explained further.

It was evident that Booth's Edge was becoming more and more a harbour for
priests, owing largely to Mistress Marjorie's courage and piety. It was well
placed; it was remote; and it had so far avoided all suspicion. Padley
certainly served for many, but Padley was nearer the main road; and
besides, had fallen under the misfortune of losing its master for the very
crime of recusancy. It seemed to be all important, therefore, that the ruling
mistress of Booth's Edge, since there was no master, should meet as many
priests as possible, in order that she might both know and be known by
them; and here was such an opportunity as would not easily occur again.
Here were a dozen priests, all to be together at one time; and of these, at
least two-thirds would be soon in the north. How convenient, therefore, it
would be if their future hostess could but meet them, learn their plans, and
perhaps aid them by her counsel.

But she shook her head resolutely.

"I cannot do it," she said.

Anthony made a little gesture of resignation. But, indeed, he had scarcely

hoped to persuade her. He knew it was a formidable thing to ask of a
countrybred maid.

"Then we must do as well as we can," he said. "In any case, I must go. There
is a priest I have to meet in any case; he is returning as soon as he has
bestowed the rest."

"Yes?"

"His name is Ballard. He is known as Fortescue, and passes himself off as a

captain. You would never know him for a priest."

"He is returning, you say?"

A shade of embarrassment passed over the young man's face, and Marjorie
saw that there was something behind which she was not to know.

"Yes," he said, "I have business with him. He is not to come over on the
mission yet, but only to bring the others and see them safe—"

He broke off suddenly.

"Why, I was forgetting," he cried. "Our Robin is coming too. I had a letter
from him, and another for you."

He searched in the breast of his coat, and did not see the sudden rigidity
that fell on the girl. For a moment she sat perfectly still; her heart had leapt
to her throat, it seemed, and was hammering there…. But by the time he
had found the letter she was herself again.
"Here it is," he said.

She took it; but made no movement to open it.

"But he is not to be a priest for five years yet?" she said quietly.

"No; but they send them sometimes as servants and such like, to make a
party seem what it is not, as well as to learn how to avoid her Grace's
servants. He will go back with Mr. Ballard, I think, after three or four weeks.
You have had letters from him, you told me?"

She nodded.

"Yes; but he said nothing of it, but only how much he longed to see

England again."

"He could not. It has only just been arranged. He has asked to go."

There was a silence for a moment. But Anthony did not understand what it
meant. He had known nothing of the affair of his friend and this girl, and he
looked upon them merely as a pair of acquaintances, above all, when he had
heard of Robin's determination to go to Rheims. Even the girl saw that he
knew nothing, in spite of her embarrassment, and the thought that had
come to her when she had heard of Robin's coming to London grew on her
every moment. But she thought she must gain time.

She stood up.

"You would like to see his letters?" she asked. "I will bring them."

And she slipped out of the room.

 II

Anthony Babington sat still, staring up at Icarus in the chariot of the

Sun, with something of a moody look on his face.

It was true that he was sincere and active enough in all that he did up here
in the north for the priests of his faith; indeed, he risked both property and
liberty on their behalf, and was willing to continue doing so as long as these
were left to him. But it seemed to him sometimes that too much was done by
spiritual ways and too little by temporal. Certainly the priesthood and the
mass were instruments—and, indeed, the highest instruments in God's
hand; it was necessary to pray and receive the sacraments, and to run every
risk in life for these purposes. Yet it appeared to him that the highest
instruments were not always the best for such rough work.

It was now over two years ago since the thought had first come to him, and
since that time he had spared no effort to shape a certain other weapon,
which, he thought, would do the business straight and clean. Yet how
difficult it had been to raise any feeling on the point. At first he had spoken
almost freely to this or that Catholic whom he could trust; he had
endeavoured to win even Robin; and yet, with hardly an exception, all had
drawn back and bidden him be content with a spiritual warfare. One priest,
indeed, had gone so far as to tell him that he was on dangerous ground …
and the one and single man who up to the present had seemed on his side,
was the very man, Mr. Ballard, then a layman, whom he had met by chance
in London, and who had been the occasion of first suggesting any such idea.
It was, in fact, for the sake of meeting Ballard again that he was going to
London; and, he had almost thought from his friend's last letter, it had
seemed that it was for the sake of meeting him that Mr. Ballard was coming
across once more.

So the young man sat, with that moody look on his face, until Marjorie came
back, wondering what news he would have from Mr. Ballard, and whether
the plan, at present only half conceived, was to go forward or be dropped. He
was willing enough, as has been said, to work for priests, and he had been
perfectly sincere in his begging Marjorie to come with him for that very
purpose; but there was another work which he thought still more urgent….
However, that was not to be Marjorie's affair…. It was work for men only.

"Here they are," she said, holding out the packet.

He took them and thanked her.

"I may read them at my leisure? I may take them with me?"
She had not meant that, but there was no help for it now.

"Why, yes, if you wish," she said. "Stay; let me show you which they are. You
may not wish to take them all."

The letters that the two looked over together in that wainscoted parlour at
Booth's Edge lie now in an iron case in a certain muniment-room. They are
yellow now, and the ink is faded to a pale dusky red; and they must not be
roughly unfolded lest they should crack at the creases. But they were fresh
then, written on stout white paper, each occupying one side of a sheet that
was then folded three or four times, sealed, and inscribed to "Mistress
Marjorie Manners" in the middle, with the word "Haste" in the lower corner.
The lines of writing run close together, and the flourishes on one line
interweave now and again with the tails on the next.

The first was written within a week of Robin's coming to Rheims, and told
the tale of the sailing, the long rides that followed it, the pleasure the writer
found at coming to a Catholic country, and something of his adventures
upon his arrival with his little party. But names and places were
scrupulously omitted. Dr. Allen was described as "my host"; and, in more
than one instance, the name of a town was inscribed with a line drawn
beneath it to indicate that this was a kind of alias.

The second letter gave some account of the life lived in Rheims—was a real
boy's letter—and this was more difficult to treat with discretion. It related
that studies occupied a certain part of the day; that "prayers" were held at
such and such times, and that the sports consisted chiefly of a game called
"Cat."

So with the eight or nine that followed. The third and fourth were bolder,
and spoke of certain definitely Catholic practices—of prayers for the
conversion of England, and of mass said on certain days for the same
intention. It seemed as if the writer had grown confident in his place of
security. But later, again, his caution returned to him, and he spoke in
terms so veiled that even Marjorie could scarcely understand him. Yet, on
the whole, the letters, if they had fallen into hostile hands, would have done
no irreparable injury; they would only have indicated that a Catholic living
abroad, in some unnamed university or college, was writing an account of
his life to a Catholic named Mistress Marjorie Manners, living in England.

When the girl had finished her explaining, it was evident that there was no
longer any need for Anthony to take them with him. He said so.

"Ah! but take them, if you will," cried the girl.

"It would be better not. You have them safe here. And—"

Marjorie flushed. She felt that her ruse had been too plain.

"I would sooner you took them," she said. "You can read them at your
leisure."

So he accepted, and slipped them into his breast with what seemed to the
girl a lamentable carelessness. Then he stood up.

"I must go," he said. "And I have never asked after Mistress Manners."

"She is abed," said the girl. "She has been there this past month now."

She went with him to the door, for it was not until then that she was
courageous enough to speak as she had determined.

"Mr. Babington," she said suddenly.

He turned.

"I have been thinking while we talked," she said. "You think my coming to
London would be of real service?"

"I think so. It would be good for you to meet these priests before they—"

"Then I will come, if my mother gives me leave. When will you go?"

"We should be riding in not less than a week from now. But, mistress—"

"No, I have thought of it. I will come—if my mother gives me leave."

He nodded briskly and brightly. He loved courage, and he understood that

this decision of hers had required courage.

"Then my sister shall come for you, and—"

"No, Mr. Babington, there is no need. We shall start from Derby?"

"Why, yes."

"Then my maid and I will ride down there and sleep at the inn, and be ready
for you on the day that you appoint."

When he was gone at last she went back again to the parlour, and sat
without moving and without seeing. She was in an agony lest she had been
unmaidenly in determining to go so soon as she heard that Robin was to be
there.
 CHAPTER II

Anthony lifted his whip and pointed.

"London," he said.

Marjorie nodded; she was too tired to speak.

The journey had taken them some ten days, by easy stages; each night they
had slept at an inn, except once, when they stayed with friends of the
Babingtons and had heard mass. They had had the small and usual
adventures: a horse had fallen lame; a baggage-horse had bolted; they had
passed two or three hunting-parties; they had been stared at in villages and
saluted, and stared at and not saluted. Rain had fallen; the clouds had
cleared again; and the clouds had gathered once more and rain had again
fallen. The sun, morning by morning, had stood on the left, and evening by
evening gone down again on the right.

They were a small party for so long a journey—the three with four
servants—two men and two maids: the men had ridden armed, as the
custom was; one rode in front, then came the two ladies with Anthony; then
the two maids, and behind them the second man. In towns and villages they
closed up together lest they should be separated, and then spread out once
more as the long, straight track lengthened before them. Anthony and the
two men-servants carried each a case of dags or pistols at the saddle-bow,
for fear of highwaymen. But none had troubled them.

A strange dreamlike mood had come down on Marjorie. At times it seemed to

her in her fatigue as if she had done nothing all her life but ride; at times, as
she sat rocking, she was living still at home, sitting in the parlour, watching
her mother; the illusion was so clear and continuous that its departure,
when her horse stumbled or a companion spoke, was as an awaking from a
dream. At other times she looked about her; talked; asked questions.

She found Mistress Alice Babington a pleasant friend, some ten years older
than herself, who knew London well, and had plenty to tell her. She was a
fair woman, well built and active; very fond of her brother, whom she treated
almost as a mother treats a son; but she seemed not to be in his confidence,
and even not to wish to be; she thought more of his comfort than of his
ideals. She was a Catholic, of course, but of the quiet, assured kind, and
seemed unable to believe that anyone could seriously be anything else; she
seemed completely confident that the present distress was a passing one,
and that when politics had run their course, it would presently disappear.
Marjorie found her as comfortable as a pillow, when she was low enough to
rest on her….

Though Marjorie had nodded only when the spires of London shone up
suddenly in the evening light, a sharp internal interest awakened in her. It
was as astonishing as a miracle that the end should be in sight; the past ten
days had made it seem to her as if all things which she desired must
eternally recede…. She touched her horse unconsciously, and stared out
between his ears, sitting upright and alert again.

It was not a great deal that met the eye, but it was so disposed as to suggest
a great deal more. Far away to the right lay a faint haze, and in it appeared
towers and spires, with gleams of sharp white here and there, where some
tall building rose above the dark roofs. To the left again appeared similar
signs of another town—the same haze, towers and spires—linked to the first.
She knew what they were; she had heard half a dozen times already of the
two towns that made London—running continuously in one long line,
however, which grew thin by St. Mary's Hospital and St. Martin's, she was
told—the two troops of houses and churches that had grown up about the
two centres of Court and City, Westminster and the City itself. But it was
none the less startling to see these with her proper eyes.

Presently, in spite of herself, as she saw the spire of St. Clement's Dane,
where she was told they must turn City-wards, she began to talk, and
Anthony to answer.
 II

Dark was beginning to fall and the lamps to be lighted as they rode in at last
half an hour later, across the Fleet Ditch, through Ludgate and turned up
towards Cheapside. They were to stay at an inn where Anthony was
accustomed to lodge when he was not with friends—an inn, too, of which
the landlord was in sympathy with the old ways, and where friends could
come and go without suspicion. It was here, perhaps, that letters would be
waiting for them from Rheims.

Marjorie had known Derby only among the greater towns, and neither this
nor the towns where she had stayed, night by night, during the journey, had
prepared her in the least for the amazing rush and splendour of the City
itself. A fine, cold rain was falling, and this, she was told, had driven half the
inhabitants within doors; but even so, it appeared to her that London was
far beyond her imaginings. Beneath here, in the deep and narrow channel of
houses up which they rode, narrowed yet further by the rows of stalls that
were ranged along the pathways on either side, the lamps were kindling
swiftly, in windows as well as in the street; here and there hung great flaring
torches, and the vast eaves and walls overhead shone in the light of the fires
where the rich gilding threw it back. Beyond them again, solemn and
towering, leaned over the enormous roofs; and everywhere, it seemed to her
fresh from the silence and solitude of the country, countless hundreds of
moving faces were turned up to her, from doorways and windows, as well as
from the groups that hurried along under the shelter of the walls; and the
air was full of talking and laughter and footsteps. It meant nothing to her at
present, except inextricable confusion: the gleam of arms as a patrol passed
by; the important little group making its way with torches; the dogs that
scuffled in the roadway; the party of apprentices singing together loudly,
with linked arms, plunging up a side street; the hooded women chattering
together with gestures beneath a low-hung roof; the calling, from side to side
of the twisting street; the bargaining of the sellers at the stalls—all this, with
the rattle of their own horses' feet and the jingling of the bits, combined only
to make a noisy and brilliant spectacle without sense or signification.

Mistress Alice glanced at her, smiling.

"You are tired," she said; "we are nearly there. That is St. Paul's on the
right."

Ah! that gave her peace….

They were turning off from the main street just as her friend spoke; but she
had time to catch a glimpse of what appeared at first sight a mere gulf of
darkness, and then, as they turned, resolved itself into a vast and solemn
pile, grey-lined against black. Lights burned far across the wide churchyard,
as well as in the windows of the high houses that crowned the wall, and
figures moved against the glow, tiny as dolls…. Then she remembered again:
how God had once been worshipped there indeed, in the great house built to
His honour, but was no longer so worshipped. Or, if it were the same God,
as some claimed, at least the character of Him was very differently
conceived….

The "Red Bull" again increased her sense of rest; since all inns are alike. A
curved archway opened on the narrow street; and beneath this they rode, to
find themselves in a paved court, already lighted, surrounded by window-
pierced walls, and high galleries to right and left. The stamping of horses
from the further end; and, almost immediately, the appearance of a couple
of hostlers, showed where the stables lay. Beside it she could see through
the door of the brightly-lit bake-house.

She was terribly stiff, as she found when she limped up the three or four
stairs that led up to the door of the living-part of the inn; and she was glad
enough to sit down in a wide, low parlour with her friend as Mr. Babington
went in search of the host. The room was lighted only by a fire leaping in the
chimney; and she could make out little, except that pieces of stuff hung
upon the walls, and a long row of metal vessels and plates were ranged in a
rack between the windows.

"It is a quiet inn," said Alice. Marjorie nodded again. She was too tired to
speak; and almost immediately Anthony came back, with a tall, clean-
shaven, middle-aged man, in an apron, following behind.

"It is all well," he said. "We can have our rooms and the parlour complete.
These are the ladies," he added.

The landlord bowed a little, with a dignity beyond that of his dress.

"Supper shall be served immediately, madam," he said, with a tactful

impartiality towards them both.

They were indeed very pleasant rooms; and, as Anthony had described them
to her, were situated towards the back of the long, low house, on the first
floor, with a private staircase leading straight up from the yard to the
parlour itself. The sleeping-rooms, too, opened upon the parlour; that which
the two ladies were to occupy was furthest from the yard, for quietness'
sake; that in which Anthony and his man would sleep, upon the other side.
The windows of all three looked straight out upon a little walled garden that
appeared to be the property of some other house. The rooms were plainly
furnished, but had a sort of dignity about them, especially in the carved
woodwork about the doors and windows. There was a fireplace in the
parlour, plainly a recent addition; and a maid rose from kindling the logs
and turf, as the two ladies came back after washing and changing.

A table was already laid, lit by a couple of candles: it was laid with fine
napery, and the cutlery was clean and solid. Marjorie looked round the room
once more; and, as she sat down, Anthony came in, still in his mud-
splashed dress, carrying three or four letters in his hands.

"News," he said…. "I will be with you immediately," and vanished into his
room.

The sense of home was deepening on Marjorie every moment. This room in
which she sat, might, with a little fancy, be thought to resemble the hall at
Booth's Edge. It was not so high, indeed; but the plain solidity of the walls
and woodwork, the aspect of the supper-table, and the quiet, so refreshing
after the noises of the day, and, above all, after the din of their mile-long
ride through the City—these little things, together with the knowledge that
the journey was done at last, and that her old friend Robin was, if not
already come, at least soon to arrive—these little things helped to soothe
and reassure her. She wondered how her mother found herself….

When Anthony came back, the supper was all laid out. He had given orders
that no waiting was to be done; his own servants would do what was
necessary. He had a bright and interested face, Marjorie thought; and the
instant they were sat down, she knew the reason of it.

"We are just in time," he said. "These letters have been lying here for me the
last week. They will be here, they tell me, by to-morrow night. But that is
not all—"

He glanced round the dusky room; then he laid down the knife with which
he was carving; and spoke in a yet lower voice.

"Father Campion is in the house," he said.

His sister started.

"In the house?… Do you mean—"

He nodded mysteriously, as he took up the knife again.

"He has been here three or four days. The rooms are full in the … in the
usual place. And I have spoken with him; he is coming here after supper. He
had already supped."
Marjorie leaned back in her chair; but she said nothing. From beneath in
the house came the sound of singing, from the tavern parlour where boys
were performing madrigals.

It seemed to her incredible that she should presently be speaking with the
man, whose name was already affecting England as perhaps no priest's
name had ever affected it. He had been in England, she knew, comparatively
a short time; yet in that time, his name had run like fire from mouth to
mouth. To the minds of Protestants there was something almost diabolical
about the man; he was here, he was there, he was everywhere, and yet,
when the search was up, he was nowhere. Tales were told of his eloquence
that increased the impression that he made a thousand-fold; it was said
that he could wile birds off their branches and the beasts from their lairs;
and this eloquence, it was known, could be heard only by initiates, in far-off
country houses, or in quiet, unsuspected places in the cities. He preached in
some shrouded and locked room in London one day; and the next, thirty
miles off, in a cow-shed to rustics. And his learning and his subtlety were
equal to his eloquence: her Grace had heard him at Oxford years ago, before
his conversion; and, it was said, would refuse him nothing, even now, if he
would but be reasonable in his religion; even Canterbury, it was reported,
might be his. And if he would not be reasonable—then, as was fully in
accordance with what was known of her Grace, nothing was too bad for him.

Such feeling then, on the part of Protestants, found its fellow in that of the
Catholics. He was their champion, as no other man could be. Had he not
issued his famous "challenge" to any and all of the Protestant divines, to
meet them in any argument on religion that they cared to select, in any
place and at any time, if only his own safe-conduct were secure? And was it
not notorious that none would meet him? He was, indeed, a fire, a smoke in
the nostrils of his adversaries, a flame in the hearts of his friends.
Everywhere he ranged, he and his comrade, Father Persons, sometimes in
company, sometimes apart; and wherever they went the Faith blazed up
anew from its dying embers, in the lives of rustic knave and squire.

And she was to see him!

"He is here for four or five days only," went on Anthony presently, still in a
low, cautious voice. "The hunt is very hot, they say. Not even the host knows
who he is; or, at least, makes that he does not. He is under another name, of
course; it is Mr. Edmonds, this time. He was in Essex, he tells me; but
comes to the wolves' den for safety. It is safer, he says, to sit secure in the
midst of the trap, than to wander about its doors; for when the doors are
opened he can run out again, if no one knows he is there…."
 III

When supper was finished at last, and the maids had borne away the
dishes, there came almost immediately a tap upon the door; and before any
could answer, there walked in a man, smiling.

He was of middle-size, dressed in a dark, gentleman's suit, carrying his

feathered hat in his hand, with his sword. He appeared far younger than
Marjorie had expected—scarcely more than thirty years old, of a dark and
yet clear complexion, large-eyed, with a look of humour; his hair was long
and brushed back; and a soft, pointed beard and moustache covered the
lower part of his face. He moved briskly and assuredly, as one wholly at his
ease.

"I am come to the right room?" he said. "That is as well."

His voice, too, had a ring of gaiety in it; it was low, quite clear and very
sympathetic; and his manners, as Marjorie observed, were those of a
cultivated gentleman, without even a trace of the priest. She would not have
been astonished if she had been told that the man was of the court, or some
great personage of the country. There was no trace of furtive hurry or of
alarm about him; he moved deftly and confidently; and when he sat down,
after the proper greetings, crossed one leg over the other, so that he could
nurse his foot. It seemed more incredible even than she had thought, that
this was Father Campion!

"You have pleasant rooms here, and music to cheer you, too," he said.

"I understand that you are often here, Mr. Babington."

Anthony explained that he found them convenient and very secure.

"Roberts is a prudent landlord," he said.

Father Campion nodded.

"He knows his own business, which is what few landlords do, in these
degenerate days; and he knows nothing at all of his guests'. In that he is
even more of an exception."

His eyes twinkled delightfully at the ladies.

"And so," he said, "God blesses him in those who use his house."

They talked for a few minutes in this manner. Father Campion spoke of the
high duty that lay on all country ladies to make themselves acquainted with
the sights of the town; and spoke of three or four of these. Her Grace, of
course, must be seen; that was the greatest sight of all. They must make an
opportunity for that; and there would surely be no difficulty, since her Grace
liked nothing better than to be looked at. And they must go up the river by
water, if the weather allowed, from the Tower to Westminster; not from
Westminster to the Tower, since that was the way that traitors came, and no
good Catholic could, even in appearance, be a traitor. And, if they pleased,
he would himself be their guide for a part of their adventures. He was to lie
hid, he told them; and he knew no better way to do that than to flaunt as
boldly as possible in the open ways.

"If I lay in my room," said he, "with a bolt drawn, I would soon have some
busy fellow knocking on the door to know what I did there. But if I could but
dine with her Grace, or take an hour with Mr. Topcliffe, I should be secure
for ever."

Marjorie glanced shyly towards Alice, as if to ask a question. (She was

listening, it seemed to her, with every nerve in her tired body.) The priest
saw the glance.

"Mr. Topcliffe, madam? Well; let us say he is a dear friend of the Lieutenant
of the Tower, and has, I think, lodgings there just now. And he is even a
friend of Catholics, too—to such, at least, as desire a heavenly crown."

"He is an informer and a tormentor!" broke in Anthony harshly.

"Well, sir; let us say that he is very loyal to the letter of the law; and that he
presides over our Protestant bed of Procrustes."

"The—" began Marjorie, emboldened by the kindness of the priest's voice.

"The bed of Procrustes, madam, was a bed to which all who lay upon it had
to be conformed. Those that were too long were made short; and those that
were too short were made long. It is a pleasant classical name for the rack."

Marjorie caught her breath. But Father Campion went on smoothly.

"We shall have a clear day to-morrow, I think," he said. "If you are at liberty,
sir, and these ladies are not too wearied—I have a little business in
Westminster; and—"

"Why, yes," said Anthony, "for to-morrow night we expect friends. From

Rheims, sir."

The priest dropped his foot and leaned forward.

"From Rheims?" he said sharply.

The other nodded.

"Eight or ten at least will arrive. Not all are priests. One is a friend of our
own from Derbyshire, who will not be made priest for five years yet."

"I had not heard they were to come so soon," said Father Campion. "And
what a company of them!"

"There are a few of them who have been here before. Mr. Ballard is one of
them."

The priest was silent an instant.

"Mr. Ballard," he said. "Ballard! Yes; he has been here before. He travels as
Captain Fortescue, does he not? You are a friend of his?"

"Yes, sir."

Father Campion made as if he would speak; but interrupted himself and

was silent; and it seemed to Marjorie as if another mood was fallen on him.
And presently they were talking again of London and its sights.
 IV

In spite of her weariness, Marjorie could not sleep for an hour or two after
she had gone to bed. It was an extraordinary experience to her to have fallen
in, on the very night of her coming to London, with the one man whose
name stood to her for all that was gallant in her faith. As she lay there,
listening to the steady breathing of Alice, who knew no such tremors of
romance, to the occasional stamp of a horse across the yard, and, once or
twice, to voices and footsteps passing on some paved way between the
houses, she rehearsed again and again to herself the tales she had heard of
him.

Now and again she thought of Robin. She wondered whether he, too, one
day (and not of necessity a far-distant day, since promotion came quickly in
this war of faith), would occupy some post like that which this man held so
gaily and so courageously; and for the first time, perhaps, she understood
not in vision merely, but in sober thought, what the life of a priest in those
days signified. Certainly she had met man after man before—she had
entertained them often enough in her mother's place, and had provided by
her own wits for their security—men who went in peril of liberty and even of
life; but here, within the walls of London, in this "wolves' den" as Father
Campion had called it, where men brushed against one another continually,
and looked into a thousand faces a day, where patrols went noisily with
lights and weapons, where the great Tower stood, where her Grace, the
mistress of the wolves, had her dwelling—here, peril assumed another
aspect, and pain and death another reality, from that which they presented
on the wind-swept hills and the secret valleys of the country from which
they came…. And it was with Father Campion himself, in his very flesh, that
she had talked this evening—it was Father Campion who had given her that
swift, kindly look of commendation, as Mr. Babington had spoken of her
reason for coming to London, and of her hospitality to wandering priests—
Father Campion, the Angel of the Church, was in England. And to-morrow
Robin, too, would be here.

Then, as sleep began to come down on her tired and excited brain, and to
form, as so often under such conditions, little visible images, even before the
reason itself is lulled, there began to pass before her, first tiny and delicate
pictures of what she had seen to-day—the low hills to the north of London,
dull and dark below the heavy sky, but light immediately above the horizon
as the sun sank down; the appearance of her horse's ears—those ears and
that tuft of wayward mane between them of which she had grown so weary;
the lighted walls of the London streets; the monstrous shadows of the eaves;
the flare of lights; the moving figures—these came first; and then faces—
Father Campion's, smiling, with white teeth and narrowed eyes, bright
against the dark chimney-breast; Alice's serene features, framed in flaxen
hair; and then, as sleep had all but conquered her, the imagination sent up
one last idea, and a face came into being before her, so formless yet so full,
so sinister, so fierce and so distorted, that she drew a sudden breath and
sat up, trembling….

… Why had they spoken to her of Topcliffe?…

 CHAPTER III

It was a soft winter's morning as the party came down the little slope
towards the entrance-gate of the Tower next day. The rain last night had
cleared the air, and the sun shone as through thin veils of haze, kindly and
sweet. The river on the right was at high tide, and up from the water's edge
came the cries of the boatmen, pleasant and invigorating.

The sense of unreality was deeper than ever on Marjorie's mind. One
incredible thing after another, known to her only in the past by rumour and
description, and imagined in a frame of glory, was taking shape before her
eyes…. She was in London; she had slept in Cheapside; she had talked with
Father Campion; he was with her now; this was the Tower of London that
lay before her, a monstrous huddle of grey towers and battlemented walls
along which passed the scarlet of a livery and the gleam of arms.

All the way that they had walked, her eyes had been about her everywhere—
the eyes of a startled child, through which looked the soul of a woman. She
had seen the folks go past like actors in a drama—London merchants,
apprentices, a party of soldiers, a group on horseback: she had seen a
congregation pour out of the doors of some church whose name she had
asked and had forgotten again; the cobbled patches of street had been a
marvel to her; the endless roofs, the white and black walls, the leaning
windows, the galleries where heads moved; the vast wharfs; the crowding
masts, resembling a stripped forest; the rolling-gaited sailors; and, above all,
the steady murmur of voices and footsteps, never ceasing, beyond which the
crowing of cocks and the barking of dogs sounded far off and apart—these
things combined to make a kind of miracle that all at once delighted,
oppressed and bewildered her.

Here and there some personage had been pointed out to her by the trim,
merry gentleman who walked by her side with his sword swinging. (Anthony
went with his sister just behind, as they threaded their way through the
crowded streets, and the two men-servants followed.) She saw a couple of
City dignitaries in their furs, with stavesmen to clear their road; a little troop
of the Queen's horse, blazing with colour, under the command of a young
officer who might have come straight from Romance. But she was more
absorbed—or, rather, she returned every instant to the man who walked
beside her with such an air and talked so loudly and cheerfully. Certainly, it
seemed to her, his disguise was perfect, and himself the best part of it. She
compared him in her mind with a couple of ministers, splendid and awful in
their gowns and ruffs, whom they had met turning into one of the churches
just now, and smiled at the comparison; and yet perhaps these were
preachers too, and eloquent in their own fashion.

And now, here was the Tower—the end of all things, so far as London was
concerned. Beyond it she saw the wide rolling hills, the bright reaches of the
river, and the sparkle of Placentia, far away.

"Her Grace is at Westminster these days," exclaimed the priest; "she is

moving to Hampton Court in a day or two; so I doubt not we shall be able to
go in and see a little. We shall see, at least, the outside of the Paradise
where so many holy ones have lived and died. There are three or four of
them here now; but the most of them are in the Fleet or the Marshalsea."

Marjorie glanced at him. She did not understand.

"I mean Catholic prisoners, mistress. There are several of them in ward here,
but we had better speak no names."

He wheeled suddenly as they came out into the open and moved to the left.

"There is Tower Hill, mistress; where my lord Cardinal Fisher died, and

Thomas More."

Marjorie stopped short. But there was nothing great to see—only a rising
ground, empty and bare, with a few trimmed trees; the ground was without
grass; a few cobbled paths crossed this way and that.

"And here is the gateway," he said, "whence they come out to glory…. And
there on the right" (he swept his arm towards the river) "you may see, if you
are fortunate, other criminals called pirates, hung there till they be covered
by three tides."

Still standing there, with Mr. Babington and his sister come up from
behind, he began to relate the names of this tower and of that, in the great
tumbled mass of buildings surmounted by the high keep. But Marjorie paid
no great attention except with an effort: she was brooding rather on the
amazing significance of all that she saw. It was under this gateway that the
martyrs came; it was from those windows in that tower which the priest had
named just now, that they had looked…. And this was Father Campion. She
turned and watched him as he talked. He was dressed as he had been
dressed last night, but with a small cloak thrown over his shoulders; he
gesticulated freely and easily, pointing out this and that; now and again his
eyes met hers, and there was nothing but a grave merriment in them….
Only once or twice his voice softened, as he spoke of those great ones that
had shown Catholics how both to die and live.

"And now," he said, "with your permission I will go and speak to the guard,
and see if we may have entrance."

It was almost with terror that she saw him go—a solitary man, with a price
on his head, straight up to those whose business it was to catch him—
armed men, as she could see—she could even see the quilted jacks they
wore—who, it may be, had talked of him in the guard-room only last night.
But his air was so assured and so magnificent that even she began to
understand how complete such a disguise might be; and she watched him
speaking with the officer with a touch even of his own humour in her heart.
Indeed, there was some truth in the charge of Jesuitry, after all!

Then the figure turned and beckoned, and they went forward.
 II

A certain horror, in spite of herself and her company, fell on her as she
passed beneath the solid stone vaulting, passed along beneath the towering
wall, turned up from the water-gate, and came out into the wide court round
which the Lieutenant's lodgings, the little church, and the enormous White
Tower itself are grouped. There was a space, not enclosed in any way, but
situated within a web of paths, not far from the church, that caught her
attention. She stood looking at it.

"Yes, mistress," said the priest behind her. "That is the place of execution for
those who die within the Tower—those usually of royal blood. My Lady
Salisbury died there, and my Lady Jane Grey, and others."

He laid his hand gently on her arm.

"You must not look so grave," he said, "you must gape more. You are a
country-cousin, madam."

And she smiled in spite of herself, as she met his eyes.

"Tell me everything," she said.

They went together nearer to the church, and faced about.

"We can see better from here," he said. Then he began.

First there was the Lieutenant's lodging on the right. They must look well at
that. Interviews had taken place there that had made history. (He mentioned
a few names.) Then, further down on the right, beyond that corner round
which they had come just now, was the famous water-gate, called "Traitors'
Gate," through which passed those convicted of treason at Westminster, or,
at least, those who were under grave suspicion. Such as these came, of
course, by water, as prisoners on whose behalf a demonstration might
perhaps be made if they came by land. So, at least, he understood was the
reason of the custom.

"Her Grace herself once came that way," he said with a twinkle. "Now she
sends other folks in her stead."

Then he pointed out more clearly the White Tower. It was there that the

Council sat on affairs of importance.

"And it is there—" began Anthony harshly.

The priest turned to him, suddenly grave, as if in reproof.

"Yes," he said softly. "It is there that the passion of the martyrs begins."

Marjorie turned sharply.

"You mean—"

"Well," he said, "it is there that the Council sits to examine prisoners both
before and after the Question. They are taken downstairs to the Question,
and brought back again after it. It was there that—"

He broke off.

"Who is this?" he said.

The court had been empty while they talked except that on the far side,
beneath the towering cliff of the keep, a sentry went to and fro. But now
another man had come into view, walking up from the way they themselves
had come; and it would appear from the direction he took that he would
pass within twenty or thirty yards of them. He was a tall man, dressed in
sad-coloured clothes, with a felt hat on his head and the usual sword by his
side. He was plainly something of a personage, for he walked easily and
confidently. He was still some distance off; but it was possible to make out
that he was sallowish in complexion, wore a trimmed beard, and had
something of a long throat.

Father Campion stared at him a moment, and, as he stared, Marjorie heard

Mr. Babington utter a sudden exclamation. Then the priest, with one quick
glance at him, murmured something which Marjorie could not hear, and
walked briskly off to meet the stranger.

"Come," said Anthony in a sharp, low voice, "we must see the church."

"Who is it?" whispered Mistress Alice, with even her serene face a little
troubled.

For the first moment, as they walked towards the entrance of the church,

Anthony said nothing. Then as they reached it, he said, in a tone quite

low and yet full of suppressed passion of some kind, a name that

Marjorie could not catch.

She turned before they went in, and looked again.

The priest was talking to the stranger, and was making gestures, as if
asking for direction.

"Who is it, Mr. Babington?" she asked again as they went in. "I did not—"

"Topcliffe," said Anthony.

 III

The horror was still on the girl, as they went, an hour later, up the ebbing
tide towards Westminster, in a boat rowed by a waterman and one of their
own servants. About them was a scene, of which the very thought, a month
ago, would have absorbed and fascinated her. They had scarcely passed
through London Bridge finding themselves just in time before the fall of the
water would have hindered their passage, leaving out of sight the grey sunlit
heap of buildings from which they had come. All about them the river was
gay with shipping. Wherries, like clumsy water-beetles, lurched along out of
the current, or slipped out suddenly to make their way across from one
stairs to another; a great barge, coming down-stream, grew larger every
instant, its prow bright with gilding, and the throb of the twelve oars in the
row-locks coming to them like the grunting of a beast. On either side of the
broad stream rose the houses and the churches, those on this side visible
down to their shining window-panes in the sunlight, and the very texture of
their tiled roofs; those on the other a mere huddle of countless walls and
gables, in the shadow; and between them showed the leafless trees,
stretches of green meadow, across which moved tiny figures, and the brown
flats of the marshes beyond, broken here and there by outlying villages a
mile or two away. Behind them now towered the great buildings on London
Bridge—the chapel, the houses, the old gateway on the south end, above
which the impaled heads of traitors stood out against the bright sky. It was
a tolerable crop just now, the priest had said, bitterly smiling. But, above all
else, as the boat moved up, Marjorie kept her eyes fixed on far-off
Westminster, on the grey towers and the white walls where Elizabeth
reigned and Saint Edward slept; while within her mind, clear as a picture,
she saw still the empty court, as she had seen it when the priest fetched
them out again from the church—empty at last of the hateful presence
which he had faced so confidently.

"It appeared to me best to speak with him openly," said the priest quietly,
as they had waited ten minutes later on the wharf outside the Tower, while
the men ran to make ready their boat. "I do not know why, but I suppose I
am one of those who better like their danger in front than behind. I knew
him at once; I have had him pointed out to me two or three times before. So
I looked him in the eyes, and asked him whether some ladies from the
country might be permitted to see the White Tower, and to whom we had
best apply. He told me that was not his affair, and looked me up and down
as he said it. And then he went his way to … the White Tower, where I doubt
not he had business."

"He said no more?" asked Anthony.

"No, he said no more. But I shall know him again better next time, and he
me."

It seemed of evil omen to the girl that she should have had such an
encounter on the day that Robin came back. Like all persons who dwell
much in the country, a world that was neither that of the flesh nor yet of the
spirit was that in which she largely moved—a world of strange laws, and
auspices, and this answering to this and that to that. It is a state
inconceivable to those who live in the noise and movement of town—who
find town-life, that is, the life in which they are most at ease. For where men
have made the earth that is trodden underfoot, and have largely veiled the
heavens themselves, it is but natural that they should think that they have
made everything, and that it is they who rule it.

As they drew nearer Westminster then, it was with Marjorie as it had been
when they came to the Tower. The priest was busy pointing out this or that
building—the Palace towers, the Hall, the Abbey behind, and St. Margaret's
Church, as well as the smaller buildings of the Court, and the little town
that lay round about. But she listened as she listened to the noise that came
from the streets clear across the water, attending to it, yet scarcely
distinguishing one thing from another, and forgetting each as soon as she
heard it. She was thinking all the while of Robin, and of the man whose face
she had seen, of his beard and his long throat. Well, at least, Robin was not
yet a priest….

The boat was already nearing the King's Stairs at Westminster, when a
new event happened that for a while distracted her.

The first they saw of it was the sight of a number of men and women
running in a disorderly mob, calling out as they ran, along the river-bank in
the direction from Charing Old Cross towards Palace Yard. They appeared
excited, but not by fear; and it was plain that something was taking place of
which they wished to have a sight. As the priest stood up in the boat in
order to have a clearer sight of what lay above the bank, three or four
trumpet-calls of a peculiar melody, rang out clear and distinct, echoed back
by the walls round about, plainly audible above the rising noise of a crowd
that, it seemed, must be gathering out of sight. The priest sat down again
and his face was merry.

"You have come on a fortunate day, mistress," he said to Marjorie. "First

Topcliffe, and now her Grace; if we make haste we may see her pass by."

"Her Grace?"
"She will be going to dinner in Whitehall, after having taken the air by the
river. They will be passing the Abbey now. But she will not be in her
supreme state; I am sorry for that."

As they rowed in quickly over the last hundred yards that lay between
them and the stairs, Marjorie listened to the priest as he described
something of what the "supreme state" signified. He spoke of the long lines
of carriages, filled with the ladies and the infirm, preceded by the pikemen,
and the gentlemen pensioners carrying wands, and the knights followed by
the heralds. Behind these, he said, came the officers of State immediately
before the Queen's carriage, and after her the guards of her person.

"But this will be but a tame affair," he said. "I wish you could have seen a
Progress, with the arches and the speeches and the declamations, and the
heathen gods and goddesses that reign round our Eliza, when she will go to
Ashridge or Havering. I have heard it said—"

And then the prow of the boat, turned deftly at the last instant, grated along
the lowest stair, and the waterman was out to steady his craft.
 IV

It was the very crown and summit of new sensation that Marjorie attained
as she stood in an open gallery that looked on to the road from Westminster
to Whitehall. Father Campion, speaking of a "good friend" of his that had his
lodgings there, led them by a short turning or two, that avoided the crowd,
straight to the door of what appeared to Marjorie a mere warren of rooms,
stairs and passages. A grave little man, with a pen behind his ear, ran out
upon their knocking at one of these doors, and led them straight through,
smiling and talking, out into this very gallery where they now stood; and
then vanished again.

The gallery was such as those which Marjorie had noted on the way to the
Tower; a high-hung, airy place, running the length of the house, contrived
on the level of the second floor, with the first floor roof beneath and
overhanging attics above. It was supported on massive oak beams, and
protected from the street by a low balustrade of a height to lean the elbows
upon it. It was on this balustrade that Marjorie leaned, looking down into
the street.

To the left the narrow roadway curved off out of sight in the direction of
Palace Yard; on the right she could make out, a hundred yards away, some
kind of a gateway, that strode across the street, and gave access, she
supposed, to the Palace. Opposite, the windows were filled with faces, and
an enthusiastic loyalist was leaning, red-faced and vociferous, calling to a
friend in the crowd beneath, from a gallery corresponding to that from which
the girl was looking.

Of the procession nothing was at present to be seen. They had caught a

glimpse of colour somewhere to the east of the Abbey as they turned off
opposite Westminster Hall; and already the cry of the trumpets and the
increasing noise of a crowd out of sight, told the listeners that they would
not have long to wait.

Beneath, the crowd was arranging itself with admirable discipline,

dispersing in long lines two or three deep against the walls, so as to leave a
good space, and laughing good-humouredly at a couple of officious persons
in livery who had suddenly made their appearance. And then, as the country
girl herself smiled down, an exclamation from Alice made her turn.

At first it was difficult to discern anything clearly in the stream whose head
began to discharge itself round the curve from the left. A row of brightly-
coloured uniforms, moving four abreast, came first, visible above the tossing
heads of horses. Then followed a group of guards, whose steel caps passed
suddenly into the sunlight that caught them from between the houses, and
went again into shadow.

And then at last, she caught a glimpse of the carriage, followed by ladies on
grey horses; and forgot all the rest.

This way and that she craned her head, gripping the oak post by which she
leaned, unconscious of all except that she was to see her in whom England
itself seemed to have been incarnated—the woman who, as perhaps no other
earthly sovereign in the world at that time, or before her, had her people in a
grasp that was not one of merely regal power. Even far away in Derbyshire—
even in the little country manor from which the girl came, the aroma of that
tremendous presence penetrated—of the woman whom men loved to hail as
the Virgin Queen, even though they might question her virginity; the
woman—"our Eliza," as the priest had named her just now—who had made
so shrewd an act of faith in her people that they had responded with an
unreserved act of love. It was this woman, then, whom she was about to see;
the sister of Mary and Edward, the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, who
had received her kingdom Catholic, and by her own mere might had chosen
to make it Protestant; the woman whose anointed hands were already red in
the blood of God's servants, yet hands which men fainted as they kissed….

Then on a sudden, as Elizabeth lifted her head this side and that, the girl
saw her.

She was sitting in a low carriage, raised on cushions, alone. Four tall horses
drew her at a slow trot: the wheels of the carriage were deep in mud, since
she had driven for an hour over the deep December roads; but this added
rather to the splendour within. But of this Marjorie remembered no more
than an uncertain glimpse. The air was thick with cries; from window after
window waved hands; and, more than all, the loyalty was real, and filled the
air like brave music.

There, then, she sat, smiling.

She was dressed in some splendid stuff; jewels sparkled beneath her throat.
Once a hand in an embroidered glove rose to wave an answer to the roar of
salute; and, as the carriage came beneath, she raised her face.

It was a thin face, sharply pear-shaped, ending in a pointed chin; a tight

mouth smiled at the corners; above her narrow eyes and high brows rose a
high forehead, surmounted by strands of auburn hair drawn back tightly
beneath the little head-dress. It was a strangely peaked face, very clear-
skinned, and resembled in some manner a mask. But the look of it was as
sharp as steel; like a slender rapier, fragile and thin, yet keen enough to run
a man through. The power of it, in a word, was out of all measure with the
slightness of the face…. Then the face dropped; and Marjorie watched the
back of the head bending this way and that, till the nodding heads that
followed hid it from sight.

Marjorie drew a deep breath and turned. The faces of her friends were as
pale and intent as her own. Only the priest was as easy as ever.

"So that is our Eliza," he said.

Then he did a strange thing.

He lifted his cap once more with grave seriousness. "God save her

Grace!" he said.
 CHAPTER IV

Robin bowed to her very carefully, and stood upright again.

She had seen in an instant how changed he was, in that swift instant in
which her eyes had singled him out from the little crowd of men that had
come into the room with Anthony at their head. It was a change which she
could scarcely have put into words, unless she had said that it was the
conception of the Levite within his soul. He was dressed soberly and richly,
with a sword at his side, in great riding-boots splashed to the knees with
mud, with his cloak thrown back; and he carried his great brimmed hat in
his hand. All this was as it might have been in Derby, though, perhaps, his
dress was a shade more dignified than that in which she had ever seen him.
But the change was in his face and bearing; he bore himself like a man, and
a restrained man; and there was besides that subtle air which her woman's
eyes could see, but which even her woman's wit could not properly describe.

She made room for him to sit beside her; and then Father Campion's voice
spoke:

"These are the gentlemen, then," he said. "And two more are not yet come.
Gentlemen—" he bowed. "And which is Captain Fortescue?"

A big man, distinguished from the rest by a slightly military air, and by a
certain vividness of costume and a bristling feather in his hat, bowed back
to him.

"We have met once before, Mr.—Mr. Edmonds," he said. "At Valladolid."

Father Campion smiled.

"Yes, sir; for five or ten minutes; and I was in the same room with your
honour once at the Duke of Guise's…. And now, sir, who are the rest of your
company?"

The others were named one by one; and Marjorie eyed each of them
carefully. It was her business to know them again if ever they should meet
in the north; and for a few minutes the company moved here and there,
bowing and saluting, and taking their seats. There were still a couple of men
who were not yet come; but these two arrived a few minutes later; and it was
not until she had said a word or two to them all, and Father Campion had
named her and her good works, to them, that she found herself back again
with Robin in a seat a little apart.
"You look very well," she said, with an admirable composure.

His eyes twinkled.

"I am as weary as a man can be," he said. "We have ridden since before
dawn…. And you, and your good works?"

Marjorie explained, describing to him something of the system by which

priests were safeguarded now in the north—the districts into which the
county was divided, and the apportioning of the responsibilities among the
faithful houses. It was her business, she said, to receive messages and to
pass them on; she had entertained perhaps a dozen priests since the
summer; perhaps she would entertain him, too, one day, she said.

The ordeal was far lighter than she had feared it would be. There was a
strong undercurrent of excitement in her heart, flushing her cheeks and
sparkling in her eyes; yet never for one moment was she even tempted to
forget that he was now vowed to God. It seemed to her as if she talked with
him in the spirit of that place where there is neither marrying nor giving in
marriage. Those two years of quiet in the north, occupied, even more than
she recognised, in the rearranging of her relations with the memory of this
young man, had done their work. She still kindled at his presence; but it
was at the presence of one who had undertaken an adventure that destroyed
altogether her old relations with him…. She was enkindled even more by the
sense of her own security; and, as she looked at him, by the sense of his
security too. Robin was gone; here, instead, was young Mr. Audrey,
seminary student, who even in a court of law could swear before God that he
was not a priest, nor had been "ordained beyond the seas."

So they sat and exchanged news. She told him of the rumours of his father
that had come to her from time to time; he would be a magistrate yet, it was
said, so hot was his loyalty. Even her Grace, it was reported, had vowed she
wished she had a thousand such country gentlemen on whose faithfulness
she could depend. And Robin gave her news of the seminary, of the hours of
rising and sleeping, of the sports there; of the confessors for the faith who
came and went; of Dr. Allen. He told her, too, of Mr. Garlick and Mr.
Ludlam; he often had talked with them of Derbyshire, he said. It was very
peaceful and very stirring, too, to sit here in the lighted parlour, and hear
and give the news; while the company, gathered round Anthony and Father
Campion, talked in low voices, and Mistress Babington, placid, watched
them and listened. He showed her, too, Mr. Maine's beads which she had
given him so long ago, hung in a little packet round his neck.
More than once, as they talked, Marjorie found herself looking at Mr.
Ballard, or, as he was called here, Captain Fortescue. It was he who seemed
the leader of the troop; and, indeed, as Robin told her in a whisper, that was
what he was. He came and went frequently, he said; his manner and his
carriage were reassuring to the suspicious; he appeared, perhaps, the last
man in the world to be a priest. He was a big man, as has been said; and he
had a frank assured way with him; he was leaning forward, even now, as
she looked at him, and seemed laying down the law, though in what was
almost a whisper. Father Campion was watching him, too, she noticed; and,
what she had learned of Father Campion in the last few hours led her to
wonder whether there was not something of doubtfulness in his opinion of
him.

Father Campion suddenly shook his head sharply.

"I am not of that view at all," he said. "I—"

And once more his voice sank so low as to be inaudible; as the rest leaned
closer about him.
 II

Mr. Anthony Babington seemed silent and even a little displeased when, half
an hour later, the visitors were all gone downstairs to supper. Three or four
of them were to sleep in the house; the rest, of whom Robin was one, had
Captain Fortescue's instructions as to where lodgings were prepared. But
the whole company was tired out with the long ride from the coast, and
would be seen no more that night.

Marjorie knew enough of the divisions of opinion among Catholics, and of

Mr. Babington in particular, to have a general view as to why her companion
was displeased; but more than that she did not know, nor what point in
particular it was on which the argument had run. The one party—of Mr.
Babington's kind—held that Catholics were, morally, in a state of war. War
had been declared upon them, without justification, by the secular
authorities, and physical instruments, including pursuivants and the rack,
were employed against them. Then why should not they, too, employ the
same kind of instruments, if they could, in return? The second party held
that a religious persecution could not be held to constitute a state of war;
the Apostles Peter and Paul, for example, not only did not employ the arm of
flesh against the Roman Empire, but actually repudiated it. And this party
further held that even the Pope's bull, relieving Elizabeth's subjects from
their allegiance, did so only in an interior sense—in such a manner that
while they must still regard her personal and individual rights—such rights
as any human being possessed—they were not bound to render interior
loyalty to her as their Queen, and need not, for example (though they were
not forbidden to do so), regard it as a duty to fight for her, in the event, let
us say, of an armed invasion from Spain.

There, then, was the situation; and Mr. Anthony had, plainly, crossed
swords this evening on the point.

"The Jesuit is too simple," he said suddenly, as he strode about. "I think—"
He broke off.

His sister smiled upon him placidly.

"You are too hot, Anthony," she said.

The man turned sharply towards her.

"All the praying in the world," he said, "has not saved us so far. It seems to
me time—"

"Perhaps our Lord would not have us saved," she said; "as you mean it."
 III

It was not until Christmas Eve that Marjorie went to St. Paul's, for all that it
was so close. But the days were taken up with the visitors; a hundred
matters had to be arranged; for it was decided that before the New Year all
were to be dispersed. Captain Fortescue and Robin were to leave again for
the Continent on the day following Christmas Day itself.

Marjorie made acquaintance during these days with more than one meeting-
place of the Catholics in London. One was a quiet little house near St.
Bartholomew's-the-Great, where a widow had three or four sets of lodgings,
occupied frequently by priests and by other Catholics, who were best out of
sight; and it was here that mass was to be said on Christmas Day. Another
was in the Spanish Embassy; and here, to her joy, she looked openly upon a
chapel of her faith, and from the gallery adored her Lord in the tabernacle.
But even this was accomplished with an air of uneasiness in those round
her; the Spanish priest who took them in walked quickly and interrupted
them before they were done, and seemed glad to see the last of them. It was
explained to Marjorie that the ambassador did not wish to give causeless
offence to the Protestant court.

And now, on Christmas Eve, Robin, Anthony and the two ladies entered the
Cathedral as dusk was falling—first passing through the burial-ground, over
the wall of which leaned the rows of houses in whose windows lights were
beginning to burn.

The very dimness of the air made the enormous heights of the great church
more impressive. Before them stretched the long nave, over seven hundred
feet from end to end; from floor to roof the eye travelled up the bunches of
slender pillars to the dark ceiling, newly restored after the fire, a hundred
and fifty feet. The tall windows on either side, and the clerestory lights
above, glimmered faintly in the darkening light.

But to the Catholic eyes that looked on it the desolation was more apparent
than the splendour. There were plenty of people here, indeed: groups moved
up and down, talking, directing themselves more and more towards the
exits, as the night was coming on and the church would be closed presently;
in one aisle a man was talking aloud, as if lecturing, with a crowd of heads
about him. In another a number of soberly dressed men were putting up
their papers and ink on the little tables that stood in a row—this was
Scriveners' Corner, she was told; from a third half a dozen persons were
dejectedly moving away—these were servants that had waited to be hired.
But the soul of the place was gone. When they came out into the transepts,
Anthony stopped them with a gesture, while a couple of porters, carrying
boxes on their heads, pushed by, on their short cut through the cathedral.

"It was there," he said, "that the altars stood."

He pointed between the pillars on either side, and there, up little raised
steps, lay the floors of the chapels. But within all was empty, except for a
tomb or two, some tattered colours and the piscinæ still in place. Where the
altars had stood there were blank spaces of wall; piled up in one such place
were rows of wooden seats set there for want of room.

Opposite the entrance to the choir, where once overhead had hung the great
Rood, the four stood and looked in, through a gap which the masons were
mending in the high wall that had bricked off the chancel from the nave. On
either side, as of old, still rose up the towering carven stalls; the splendid
pavement still shone beneath, refracting back from its surface the glimmer
of light from the stained windows above; but the head of the body was gone.
Somewhere, beneath the deep shadowed altar screen, they could make out
an erection that might have been an altar, only they knew that it was not. It
was no longer the Stone of Sacrifice, whence the smoke of the mystical
Calvary ascended day by day: it was the table, and no more, where bread
and wine were eaten and drunk in memory of an event whose deathless
energy had ceased, in this place, at least, to operate. Yet it was here,
thought Marjorie, that only forty years ago, scarcely more than twenty years
before she was born, on this very Night, the great church had hummed and
vibrated with life. Round all the walls had sat priests, each in his place; and
beside each kneeled a penitent, making ready for the joy of Bethlehem once
again—wise and simple—Shepherds and Magi—yet all simple before the
baffling and entrancing Mystery. There had been footsteps and voices there
too—yet of men who were busy upon their Father's affairs in their Father's
house, and not upon their own. They were going from altar to altar,
speaking with their Friends at Court; and here, opposite where she stood
and peeped in the empty cold darkness, there had burned lights before the
Throne of Him Who had made Heaven and earth, and did His Father's Will
on earth as it was done in Heaven…. Forty years ago the life of this church
was rising on this very night, with a hum as of an approaching multitude,
from hour to hour, brightening and quickening as it came, up to the glory of
the Midnight Mass, the crowded church, alight from end to end, the smell of
bog and bay in the air, soon to be met and crowned by the savour of
incense-smoke; and the world of spirit, too, quickened about them; and the
angels (she thought) came down from Heaven, as men up from the City
round about, to greet Him who is King of both angels and men.
And now, in this new England, the church, empty of the Divine Presence,
was emptying, too, of its human visitors. She could hear great doors
somewhere crash together, and the reverberation roll beneath the stone
vaulting. It would empty soon, desolate and dark; and so it would be all
night…. Why did not the very stones cry out?

Mistress Alice touched her on the arm.

"We must be going," she said. "They are closing the church."
 IV

She had a long talk with Robin on Christmas night.

The day had passed, making strange impressions on her, which she could
not understand. Partly it was the contrast between the homely associations
of the Feast, begun, as it was for her, with the mass before dawn—the room
at the top of the widow's house was crowded all the while she was there—
between these associations and the unfamiliarity of the place. She had felt
curiously apart from all that she saw that day in the streets—the patrolling
groups, the singers, the monstrous-headed mummers (of whom companies
went about all day), two or three glimpses of important City festivities, the
garlands that decorated many of the houses. It seemed to her as a shadow-
show without sense or meaning, since the heart of Christmas was gone.
Partly, too, no doubt, it was the memory of a former Christmas, three years
ago, when she had begun to understand that Robin loved her. And he was
with her again; yet all that he had stood for, to her, was gone, and another
significance had taken its place. He was nearer to her heart, in one manner,
though utterly removed, in another. It was as when a friend was dead: his
familiar presence is gone; but now that one physical barrier is vanished, his
presence is there, closer than ever, though in another fashion….

Robin had come in to sup. Captain Fortescue would fetch him about nine
o'clock, and the two were to ride for the coast before dawn.

The four sat quiet after supper, speaking in subdued voices, of hopes for the
future, when England should be besieged, indeed, by the spiritual forces
that were gathering overseas; but they slipped gradually into talk of the past
and of Derbyshire, and of rides they remembered. Then, after a while,
Anthony was called away; Mistress Alice moved back to the table to see her
needlework the better, and Robin and Marjorie sat together by the fire.

He told her again of the journey from Rheims, of the inns where they
lodged, of the extraordinary care that was taken, even in that Catholic land,
that no rumour of the nature of the party should slip out, lest some gossip
precede them or even follow them to the coast of England. They carried
themselves even there, he said, as ordinary gentlemen travelling together;
two of them were supposed to be lawyers; he himself passed as Mr. Ballard's
servant. They heard mass when they could in the larger towns, but even
then not all together.

The landing in England had been easier, he said, than he had thought,
though he had learned afterwards that a helpful young man, who had
offered to show him to an inn in Folkestone, and in whose presence Mr.
Ballard had taken care to give him a good rating for dropping a bag—with
loud oaths—was a well-known informer. However, no harm was done: Mr.
Ballard's admirable bearing, and his oaths in particular, had seemed to
satisfy the young man, and he had troubled them no more.

Marjorie did not say much. She listened with a fierce attention, so much
interested that she was scarcely aware of her own interest; she looked up,
half betrayed into annoyance, when a placid laugh from Mistress Alice at the
table showed that another was listening too.

She too, then, had to give her news, and to receive messages for the

Derbyshire folk whom Robin wished to greet; and it was not until

Mistress Alice slipped out of the room that she uttered a word of what

she had been hoping all day she might have an opportunity to say.

"Mr. Audrey," she said (for she was careful to use this form of address), "I
wish you to pray for me. I do not know what to do."

He was silent.

"At present," she said, gathering courage, "my duty is clear. I must be at
home, for my mother's sake, if for nothing else. And, as I told you, I think I
shall be able to do something for priests. But if my mother died—"

"Yes?" he said, as she stopped again.

She glanced up at his serious, deep-eyed face, half in shadow and half in
light, so familiar, and yet so utterly apart from the boy she had known.

"Well," she said, "I think of you as a priest already, and I can speak to you
freely…. Well, I am not sure whether I, too, shall not go overseas, to serve
God better."

"You mean—"

"Yes. A dozen or more are gone from Derbyshire, whose names I know. Some
are gone to Bruges; two or three to Rome; two or three more to Spain. We
women cannot do what priests can, but, at least, we can serve God in
Religion."

She looked at him again, expecting an answer. She saw him move his head,
as if to answer. Then he smiled suddenly.
"Well, however you look at me, I am not a priest…. You had best speak to
one—Father Campion or another."

"But—"

"And I will pray for you," he said with an air of finality.

Then Mistress Alice came back.

She never forgot, all her life long, the little scene that took place when
Captain Fortescue came in with Mr. Babington, to fetch Robin away. Yet the
whole of its vividness rose from its interior significance. Externally here was
a quiet parlour; two ladies—for the girl afterwards seemed to see herself in
the picture—stood by the fireplace; Mistress Alice still held her needlework
gathered up in one hand, and her spools of thread and a pin-cushion lay on
the polished table. And the two gentlemen—for Captain Fortescue would not
sit down, and Robin had risen at his entrance—the two gentlemen stood by
it. They were not in their boots, for they were not to ride till morning; they
appeared two ordinary gentlemen, each hat-in-hand, and Robin had his
cloak across his arm. Anthony Babington stood in the shadow by the door,
and, beyond him, the girl could see the face of Dick, who had come up to
say good-bye again to his old master.

That was all—four men and two ladies. None raised his voice, none made a
gesture. The home party spoke of the journey, and of their hopes that all
would go well; the travellers, or rather the leader (for Robin spoke not one
word, good or bad), said that he was sure it would be so; there was not one-
tenth of the difficulty in getting out of England as of getting into it. Then,
again, he said that it was late; that he had still one or two matters to
arrange; that they must be out of London as soon as the gates opened. And
the scene ended.

Robin bowed to the two ladies, precisely and courteously; making no

difference between them, and wheeled and went out, and she saw Dick's
face, too, vanish from the door, and heard the voices of the two on the
stairs. Marjorie returned the salute of Mr. Ballard, longing to entreat him to
take good care of the boy, yet knowing that she must not and could not.

Then he, too, was gone, with Anthony to see him downstairs; and Marjorie,
without a word, went straight through to her room, fearing to trust her own
voice, for she felt that her heart was gone with them. Yet, not for one
moment did even her sensitive soul distrust any more the nature of the love
that she bore to the lad.

But Mistress Alice sat down again to her sewing.

 CHAPTER V

Marjorie was sitting in her mother's room, while her mother slept. She had
been reading aloud from a bundle of letters—news from Rheims; but little by
little she had seen sleep come down on her mother's face, and had let her
voice trail away into silence. And so she sat quiet.

It seemed incredible that nearly a year had passed since her visit to
London, and that Christmas was upon them again. Yet in this remote
country place there was little to make time run slowly: the country-side
wheeled gently through the courses of the year; the trees put on their green
robes, changed them for russet and dropped them again; the dogs and the
horses grew a little older, a beast died now and again, and others were born.
The faces that she knew, servants and farmers, aged imperceptibly. Here
and there a family moved away, and another into its place; an old man died
and his son succeeded him, but the mother and sisters lived on in the house
in patriarchal fashion. Priests came and went again unobserved; Marjorie
went to the sacraments when she could, and said her prayers always. But
letters came more frequently than ever to the little remote manor, carried
now by some farm-servant, now left by strangers, now presented as
credentials; and Booth's Edge became known in that underworld of the
north, which finds no record in history, as a safe place for folks in trouble
for their faith. For one whole month in the summer there had been a visitor
at the house—a cousin of old Mr. Manners, it was understood; and, except
for the Catholics in the place, not a soul knew him for a priest, against
whom the hue and cry still raged in York.

Derbyshire, indeed, had done well for the old Religion. Man after man went
in these years southwards and was heard of no more, till there came back
one day a gentleman riding alone, or with his servant; and it became known
that one more Derbyshire man was come again to his own place to minister
to God's people. Mr. Ralph Sherwine was one of them; Mr. Christopher
Buxton another; and Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick, it was rumoured, would
not be long now…. And there had been a wonderful cessation of trouble, too.
Not a priest had suffered since the two, the news of whose death she had
heard two years ago.

Marjorie, then, sitting quiet over the fire that burned now all the winter in
her mother's room, was thinking over these things.

She had had more news from London from time to time, sent on to her
chiefly by Mr. Babington, though none had come to her since the summer,
and she had singled out in particular all that bore upon Father Campion.
There was no doubt that the hunt was hotter every month; yet he seemed to
bear a charmed life. Once he had escaped, she had heard, through the quick
wit of a servant-maid, who had pushed him suddenly into a horse-pond, as
the officers actually came in sight, so that he came out all mud and water-
weed; and had been jeered at for a clumsy lover by the very men who were
on his trail…. Marjorie smiled to herself as she nursed her knee over the
fire, and remembered his gaiety and sharpness.

Robin, too, was never very far from her thoughts. In some manner she put
the two together in her mind. She wondered whether they would ever travel
together. It was her hope that her old friend might become another Campion
himself some day.

A log rolled from its place in the fire, scattering sparks. She stooped to put it
back, glancing first at the bed to see if her mother were disturbed; and, as
she sat back again, she heard the blowing of a horse and a man's voice,
fierce and low, from beyond the windows, bidding the beast hold himself up.

She was accustomed now to such arrivals. They came and went like this,
often without warning; it was her business to look at any credentials they
bore with them, and then, if all were well, to do what she could-whether to
set them on their way, or to give them shelter. A room was set aside now, in
the further wing, and called openly and freely the "priest's room,"—so great
was their security.

She got up from her seat and went out quickly on tiptoe as she heard a door
open and close beneath her in the house, running over in her mind any
preparations that she would have to make if the rider were one that needed
shelter.

As she looked down the staircase, she saw a maid there, who had run out
from the buttery, talking to a man whom she thought she knew. Then he
lifted his face, and she saw that she was right: and that it was Mr.
Babington.

She came down, reassured and smiling; but her breath caught in her throat
as she saw his face…. She told the maid to be off and get supper ready, but
he jerked his head in refusal. She saw that he could hardly speak. Then she
led him into the hall, taking down the lantern that hung in the passage, and
placing it on the table. But her hand shook in spite of herself.

"Tell me," she whispered.

He sat down heavily on a bench.

"It is all over," he said. "The bloody murderers!… They were gibbeted three
days ago."

The girl drew a long, steady breath. All her heart cried "Robin."

"Who are they, Mr. Babington?"

"Why, Campion and Sherwine and Brian. They were taken a month or two
ago…. I had heard not a word of it, and … and it ended three days ago."

"I … I do not understand."

The man struck his hand heavily on the long table against which he leaned.
He appeared one flame of fury; courtesy and gentleness were all gone from
him.

"They were hanged for treason, I tell you…. Treason! … Campion!…

By God! we will give them treason if they will have it so!"

All seemed gone from Marjorie except the white, splashed face that stared at
her, lighted up by the lantern beside him, glaring from the background of
darkness. It was not Robin … not Robin … yet—

The shocking agony of her face broke through the man's heart-broken fury,
and he stood up quickly.

"Mistress Marjorie," he said, "forgive me…. I am like a madman. I am on my

way from Derby, where the news came to me this afternoon. I turned aside
to tell you. They say the truce, as they call it, is at an end. I came to warn
you. You must be careful. I am riding for London. My men are in the valley.
Mistress Marjorie—"

She waved him aside. The blood was beginning again to beat swiftly and
deafeningly in her ears, and the word came back.

"I … I was shocked," she said; "… you must pardon me…. Is it certain?"

He tore out a bundle of papers from behind his cloak, detached one with
shaking hands and thrust it before her.

She sat down and spread it on the table. But his voice broke in and
interrupted her all the while.

"They were all three taken together, in the summer…. I … have been in
France; my letters never reached me…. They were racked continually….
They died all together; praying for the Queen … at Tyburn…. Campion died
the first…."

She pushed the paper from her; the close handwriting was no more to her
than black marks on the paper. She passed her hands over her forehead
and eyes.

"Mistress Marjorie, you look like death. See, I will leave the paper with you.
It is from one of my friends who was there…."

The door was pushed open, and the servant came in, bearing a tray.

"Set it down," said Marjorie, as coolly as if death and horror were as far from
her as an hour ago.

She nodded sharply to the maid, who went out again; then she rose and
spread the food within the man's reach. He began to eat and drink, talking
all the time.

As she sat and watched him and listened, remembering afterwards, as if

mechanically, all that he said, she was contemplating something else. She
seemed to see Campion, not as he had been three days ago, not as he was
now … but as she had seen him in London—alert, brisk, quick. Even the
tones of his voice were with her, and the swift merry look in his eyes….
Somewhere on the outskirts of her thought there hung other presences: the
darkness, the blood, the smoking cauldron…. Oh! she would have to face
these presently; she would go through this night, she knew, looking at all
their terror. But just now let her remember him as he had been; let her keep
off all other thoughts so long as she could….
 II

When she had heard the horse's footsteps scramble down the little steep
ascent in the dark, and then pass into silence on the turf beyond, she closed
the outer door, barred it once more, and then went back straight into the
hall, where the lantern still burned among the plates. She dared not face her
mother yet; she must learn how far she still held control of herself; for her
mother must not hear the news: the apothecary from Derby who had ridden
up to see her this week had been very emphatic. So the girl must be as
usual. There must be no sign of discomposure. To-night, at least, she would
keep her face in the shadow. But her voice? Could she control that too?

After she had sat motionless in the cold hall a minute or two, she tested
herself.

"He is dead," she said softly. "He is quite dead, and so are the others.

They—"

But she could not go on. Great shuddering seized on her; she shook from
head to foot….

Later that night Mrs. Manners awoke. She tried to move her head, but the
pain was shocking, and still half asleep, she moaned aloud.

Then the curtains moved softly, and she could see that a face was looking at
her.

"Margy! Is that you?"

"Yes, mother."

"Move my head; move my head. I cannot bear—"

She felt herself lifted gently and strongly. The struggle and the pain
exhausted her for a minute, and she lay breathing deeply. Then the ease of
the shifted position soothed her.

"I cannot see your face," she said. "Where is the light?"

The face disappeared, and immediately, through the curtains, the mother
saw the light. But still she could not see the girl's face. She said so
peevishly.

"It will weary your eyes. Lie still, mother, and go to sleep again."

"What time is it?"

"I do not know."

"Are you not in bed?"

"Not yet, mother."

The sick woman moaned again once or twice, but thought no more of it.

And presently the deep sleep of sickness came down on her again.

They rose early in those days in England; and soon after six o'clock, as
Janet had seen nothing of her young mistress, she opened the door of the
sleeping-room and peeped in…. A minute later Marjorie's mind rose up out
of black gulfs of sleep, in which, since her falling asleep an hour or two ago,
she had wandered, bearing an intolerable burden, which she could neither
see nor let fall, to find the rosy-streaked face of Janet, all pinched with cold,
peering into her own. She sat up, wide awake, yet with all her world still
swaying about her, and stared into her maid's eyes.

"What is it? What time is it?"

"It is after six, mistress. And the mistress seems uneasy. I—"

Marjorie sprang up and went to the bed.

 III

On the evening of that day her mother died.

There was no priest within reach. A couple of men had ridden out early,
dispatched by Marjorie within half an hour of her awaking—to Dethick, to
Hathersage, and to every spot within twenty miles where a priest might be
found, with orders not to return without one. But the long day had dragged
out: and when dusk was falling, still neither had come back. The country
was rain-soaked and all but impassable, she learned later, across valley
after valley, where the streams had risen. And nowhere could news be
gained that any priest was near; for, as a further difficulty, open inquiry was
not always possible, in view of the news that had come to Booth's Edge last
night. The girl had understood that the embers were rising again to flame in
the south; and who could tell but that a careless word might kindle the fire
here, too. She had been urged by Anthony to hold herself more careful than
ever, and she had been compelled to warn her messengers.

It was soon after dusk had fallen—the heavy dusk of a December day—
that her mother had come back again to consciousness. She opened her
eyes wearily, coming back, as Marjorie had herself that morning, from that
strange realm of heavy and deathly sleep, to the pale phantom world called
"life"; and agonising pain about the heart stabbed her wide awake.

"O Jesu!" she screamed.

Then she heard her daughter's voice, very steady and plain, in her ear.

"There is no priest, mother dear. Listen to me."

"I cannot! I cannot!… Jesu!"

Her eyes closed again for torment, and the sweat ran down her face. The
slow poison that had weighted and soaked her limbs so gradually these
many months past, was closing in at last upon her heart, and her pain was
gathering to its last assault. The silent, humorous woman was changed into
one twitching, uncontrolled incarnation of torture.

Then again the voice began:

"Jesu, Who didst die for love of me—upon the Cross—let me die—for love of
Thee."

"Christ!" moaned the woman more softly.

"Say it in your heart, after me. There is no priest. So God will accept your
sorrow instead. Now then—"

Then the old words began—the old acts of sorrow and love and faith and
hope, that mother and daughter had said together, night after night, for so
many years. Over and over again they came, whispered clear and sharp by
the voice in her ear; and she strove to follow them. Now and again the pain
closed its sharp hands upon her heart so cruelly that all that on which she
strove to fix her mind, fled from her like a mist, and she moaned or
screamed, or was silent with her teeth clenched upon her lip.

"My God—I am very sorry—that I have offended Thee."

"Why is there no priest?… Where is the priest?"

"Mother, dear, listen. I have sent for a priest … but none has come.

You remember now?… You remember that priests are forbidden now—"

"Where is the priest?"

"Mother, dear. Three priests were put to death only three days ago in

London—for … for being priests. Ask them to pray for you…. Say,

Edmund Campion pray for me. Perhaps … perhaps—"

The girl's voice died away.

For, for a full minute, an extraordinary sensation rested on her. It began

with a sudden shiver of the flesh, as sharp and tingling as water, dying away
in long thrills amid her hair—that strange advertisement that tells the flesh
that more than flesh is there, and that the world of spirit is not only present,
but alive and energetic. Then, as it passed, the whole world, too, passed into
silence. The curtains that shook just now hung rigid as sheets of steel; the
woman in the bed lay suddenly still, then smiled with closed eyes. The pair
of maids, kneeling out of sight beyond the bed, ceased to sob; and, while the
seconds went by, as real as any knowledge can be in which the senses have
no part, the certain knowledge deepened upon the girl who knelt, arrested in
spite of herself, that a priestly presence was here indeed….

Very slowly, as if lifting great weights, she raised her eyes, knowing that
there, across the tumbled bed, where the darkness of the room showed
between the parted curtains, the Presence was poised. Yet there was nothing
there to see—no tortured, smoke-stained, throttling face—ah! that could not
be—but neither was there the merry, kindly face, with large cheerful eyes
and tender mouth smiling; no hand held the curtains that the face might
peer in. Neither then nor at any time in all her life did Marjorie believe that
she saw him; yet neither then nor in all her life did she doubt he had been
there while her mother died.

Again her mother smiled—and this time she opened her eyes to the full, and
there was no dismay in them, nor fear, nor disappointment; and she looked
a little to her left, where the parted curtains showed the darkness of the
room….

Then Marjorie closed her eyes, and laid her head on the bed where her
mother's body sank back and down into the pillows. Then the girl slipped
heavily to the floor, and the maids sprang up screaming.
 IV

It was not till two hours later that Mr. Simpson arrived. He had been found
at last at Hathersage, only a few miles away, as one of the men, on his
return ride, had made one last inquiry before coming home; and there he
ran into the priest himself in the middle of the street. The priest had taken
the man's horse and pushed on as well as he could through the dark, in the
hopes he might yet be in time.

Marjorie came to him in the parlour downstairs. She nodded her head slowly
and gravely.

"It is over," she said; and sat down.

"And there was no priest?"

She said nothing.

She was in her house-dress, with the hood drawn over her head as it was a
cold night. He was amazed at her look of self-control; he had thought to find
her either collapsed or strainedly tragic: he had wondered as he came how
he would speak to her, how he would soothe her, and he saw there was no
need.

She told him presently of the sudden turn for the worse early that morning
as she herself fell asleep by the bedside; and a little of what had passed
during the day. Then she stopped short as she approached the end.

"Have you heard the news from London?" she said. "I mean, of our priests
there?"

His young face grew troubled, and he knit his forehead.

"They are in ward," he said; "I heard a week ago…. They will banish them
from England—they dare not do more!"

"It is all finished," she said quietly.

"What!"

"They were hanged at Tyburn three days ago—the three of them together."

He drew a hissing breath, and felt the skin of his face tingle.

"You have heard that?"

"Mr. Babington came to tell me last night. He left a paper with me: I have
not read it yet."

He watched her as she drew it out and put it before him. The terror was on
him, as once or twice before in his journeyings, or as when the news of Mr.
Nelson's death had reached him—a terror which shamed him to the heart,
and which he loathed yet could not overcome. He still stared into her pale
face. Then he took the paper and began to read it.

Presently he laid it down again. The sick terror was beginning to pass; or,
rather, he was able to grip it; and he said a conventional word or two; he
could do no more. There was no exultation in his heart; nothing but misery.
And then, in despair, he left the subject.

"And you, mistress," he said, "what will you do now? Have you no aunt or
friend—"

"Mistress Alice Babington once said she would come and live with me—if …
when I needed it. I shall write to her. I do not know what else to do."

"And you will live here?"

"Why; more than ever!" she said, smiling suddenly. "I can work in earnest
now."
 CHAPTER VI

It was on a bright evening in the summer that Marjorie, with her maid
Janet, came riding down to Padley, and about the same time a young man
came walking up the track that led from Derby. In fact, the young man saw
the two against the skyline and wondered who they were. Further, there was
a group of four or five walking on the terrace below the house, that saw both
the approaching parties, and commented upon their coming.

To be precise, there were four persons in the group on the terrace, and a
man-servant who hung near. The four were Mr. John FitzHerbert, his son
Thomas, his son's wife, and, in the midst, leaning on Mrs. FitzHerbert's arm,
was old Sir Thomas himself, and it was for his sake that the servant was
within call, for he was still very sickly after his long imprisonment, in spite
of his occasional releases.

Mr. John saw the visitors first.

"Why, here is the company all arrived together," he said. "Now, if anything
hung on that—" his son broke in, uneasily.

"You are sure of young Owen?" he said. "Our lives will all hang on him after
this."

His father clapped him gently on the shoulder.

"Now, now!" he said. "I know him well enough, from my lord. He hath made
a dozen such places in this county alone."

Mr. Thomas glanced swiftly at his uncle.

"And you have spoken with him, too, uncle?"

The old man turned his melancholy eyes on him.

"Yes; I have spoken with him," he said.

Five minutes later Marjorie was dismounted, and was with him. She
greeted old Sir Thomas with particular respect; she had talked with him a
year ago when he was first released that he might raise his fines; and she
knew well enough that his liberty was coming to an end. In fact, he was
technically a prisoner even now; and had only been allowed to come for a
week or two from Sir Walter Aston's house before going back again to the
Fleet.
"You are come in good time," said Sir John, smiling.

"That is young Owen himself coming up the path."

There was nothing particularly noticeable about the young man who a
minute later was standing before them with his cap in his hand. He was
plainly of the working class; and he had over his shoulder a bag of tools. He
was dusty up to the knees with his long tramp. Mr. John gave him a word of
welcome; and then the whole group went slowly together back to the house,
with the two men following. Sir Thomas stumbled a little going up the two or
three steps into the hall. Then they all sat down together; the servant put a
big flagon and a horn tumbler beside the traveller, and went out, closing the
doors.

"Now, my man," said Mr. John. "Do you eat and drink while I do the talking.
I understand you are a man of your hands, and that you have business
elsewhere."

"I must be in Lancashire by the end of the week, sir."

"Very well, then. We have business enough for you, God knows! This is
Mistress Manners, whom you may have heard of. And after you have looked
at the places we have here—you understand me?—Mistress Manners wants
you at her house at Booth's Edge…. You have any papers?"

Owen leaned back and drew out a paper from his bag of tools.

"This is from Mr. Fenton, sir."

Mr. John glanced at the address; then he turned it over and broke the seal.
He stared for a moment at the open sheet.

"Why, it is blank!" he said.

Owen smiled. He was a grave-looking lad of eighteen or nineteen years old;

and his face lighted up very pleasantly.

"I have had that trick played on me before, sir, in my travels. I understand
that Catholic gentlemen do so sometimes to try the fidelity of the
messenger."

The other laughed out loud, throwing back his head.

"Why, that is a poor compliment!" he said. "You shall have a better one from
us, I have no doubt."
Mr. Thomas leaned over the table and took the paper. He examined it very
carefully; then he handed it back. His father laughed again as he took it.

"You are very cautious, my son," he said. "But it is wise enough…. Well,
then," he went on to the carpenter, "you are willing to do this work for us?
And as for payment—"

"I ask only my food and lodging," said the lad quietly; "and enough to carry
me on to the next place."

"Why—" began the other in a protest.

"No, sir; no more than that…." He paused an instant. "I hope to be admitted
to the Society of Jesus this year or next."

There was a pause of astonishment. And then old Sir Thomas' deep voice
broke in.

"You do very well, sir. I heartily congratulate you. And I would I were twenty
years younger myself…."
 II

After supper that night the entire party went upstairs to the chapel.

Young Hugh Owen even already was beginning to be known among

Catholics, for his extraordinary skill in constructing hiding-holes. Up to the
present not much more had been attempted than little secret recesses where
the vessels of the altar and the vestments might be concealed. But the
young carpenter had been ingenious enough in two or three houses to which
he had been called, to enlarge these so considerably that even two or three
men might be sheltered in them; and, now that it seemed as if the
persecution of recusants was to break out again, the idea began to spread.
Mr. John FitzHerbert while in London had heard of his skill, and had taken
means to get at the young man, for his own house at Padley.

Owen was already at work when the party came upstairs. He had supped
alone, and, with a servant to guide him, had made the round of the house,
taking measurements in every possible place. He was seated on the floor as
they came in; three or four panels lay on the ground beside him, and a heap
of plaster and stones.

He looked up as they came in.

"This will take me all night, sir," he said. "And the fire must be put out
below."

He explained his plan. The old hiding-place was but a poor affair; it
consisted of a space large enough for only one man, and was contrived by a
section of the wall having been removed, all but the outer row of stones
made thin for the purpose; the entrance to it was through a tall sliding
panel on the inside of the chapel. Its extreme weakness as a hiding-hole lay
in the fact that anyone striking on the panel could not fail to hear how
hollow it rang. This he proposed to do away with, unless, indeed, he left a
small space for the altar vessels; and to construct instead a little chamber in
the chimney of the hall that was built against this wall; he would contrive it
so that an entrance was still from the chapel, as well as one that he would
make over the hearth below; and that the smoke should be conducted round
the little enclosed space, passing afterwards up the usual vent. The chamber
would be large enough, he thought, for at least two men. He explained, too,
his method of deadening the hollowness of the sound if the panel were
knocked upon, by placing pads of felt on struts of wood that would be set
against the panel-door.

"Why, that is very shrewd!" cried Mr. John. He looked round the faces for
approval.
For an hour or so, the party sat and watched him at his work; and Marjorie
listened to their talk. It was of that which filled the hearts of all Catholics at
this time; of the gathering storm in England, of the priests that had been
executed this very year—Mr. Paine at Chelmsford, in March; Mr. Forde, Mr.
Shert and Mr. Johnson, at Tyburn in May, the first of the three having been
taken with Father Campion at Lyford—deaths that were followed two days
later by the execution of four more—one of whom, Mr. Filbie, had also been
arrested at Lyford. And there were besides a great number more in prison—
Mr. Cottam, it was known, had been taken at York, scarcely a week ago,
and, it was said, would certainly suffer before long.

They talked in low voices; for the shadow was on all their hearts. It had been
possible almost to this very year to hope that the misery would be a passing
one; but the time for hope was gone. It remained only to bear what came, to
multiply priests, and, if necessary, martyrs, and meantime to take such
pains for protection as they could.

"He will be a clever pursuivant who finds this one out," said Mr. John.

The carpenter looked up from his work.

"But a clever one will find it," he said.

Mr. Thomas was heard to sigh.

 III

It was on the afternoon of the following day that Marjorie rode up to her
house with Janet beside her, and Hugh Owen walking by her horse.

He had finished his work at Padley an hour or two after dawn—for he

worked at night when he could, and had then gone to rest. But he had been
waiting for her when her horses were brought, and asked if he might walk
with her; he had asked it simply and easily, saying that it might save his
losing his way, and time was precious to him.

Marjorie felt very much interested by this lad, for he was no more than
that. In appearance he was like any of his kind, with a countryman's face, in
a working-dress: she might have seen him by chance a hundred times and
not known him again. But his manner was remarkable, so wholly simple
and well-bred: he was courteous always, as suited his degree; but he had
something of the same assurance that she had noticed so plainly in Father
Campion. (He talked with a plain, Northern dialect.)

Presently she opened on that very point; for she could talk freely before
Janet.

"Did you ever know Father Campion?" she asked.

"I have never spoken with him, mistress. I have heard him preach. It was
that which put it in my heart to join the company."

"You heard him preach?"

"Yes, mistress; three or four times in Essex and Hertfordshire. I heard him
preach upon the young man who came to our Saviour."

"Tell me," she said, looking down at what she could see of his face.

"It was liker an angel than a man," he said quietly. "I could not take my eyes
off him from his first word to the last. And all were the same that were
there."

"Was he eloquent?"

"Aye; you might call it that. But I thought it to be the Spirit of God."

"And it was then you made up your mind to join the Society?"

"There was no rest for me till I did. 'And Christ also went away sorrowful,'
were his last words. And I could not bear to think that."
Marjorie was silent through pure sympathy. This young man spoke a
language she understood better than that which some of her friends used—
Mr. Babington, for instance. It was the Person of Jesus Christ that was all
her religion to her; it was for this that she was devout, that she went to
mass and the sacraments when she could; it was this that made Mary dear
to her. Was He not her son? And, above all, it was for this that she had
sacrificed Robin: she could not bear that he should not serve Him as a
priest, if he might. But the other talk that she had heard sometimes—of the
place of religion in politics, and the justification of this or that course of
public action—well, she knew that these things must be so; yet it was not
the manner of her own most intimate thought, and the language of it was
not hers.

The two went together so a few paces, without speaking. Then she had a
sudden impulse.

"And do you ever think of what may come upon you?" she asked. "Do you
ever think of the end?

"Aye," he said.

"And what do you think the end will be?"

She saw him raise his eyes to her an instant.

"I think," he said, "that I shall die for my faith some day."

That same strange shiver that passed over her at her mother's bedside,
passed over her again, as if material things grew thin about her. There was a
tone in his voice that made it absolutely clear to her that he was not
speaking of a fancy, but of some certain knowledge that he had. Yet she
dared not ask him, and she was a middle-aged woman before the news came
to her of his death upon the rack.
 IV

It was a sleepy-eyed young man that came into the kitchen early next
morning, where the ladies and the maids were hard at work all together
upon the business of baking. The baking was a considerable task each
week, for there were not less than twenty mouths, all told, to feed in the hall
day by day, including a widow or two that called each day for rations; and a
great part, therefore, of a mistress's time in such houses was taken up with
such things.

Marjorie turned to him, with her arms floured to the elbow.

"Well?" she said, smiling.

"I have done, mistress. Will it please you to see it before I go and sleep?"

They had examined the house carefully last night, measuring and sounding
in the deep and thin walls alike, for there was at present no convenience at
all for a hunted man. Owen had obtained her consent to two or three
alternative proposals, and she had then left him to himself. From her bed,
that she had had prepared, with Alice Babington's, in a loft—turning out for
the night the farm-men who had usually slept there, she had heard more
than once the sound of distant hammering from the main front of the house
where her own room lay, that had been once her mother's as well.

The possibilities in this little manor were small. To construct a passage,

giving an exterior escape, as had been made in some houses, would have
meant here a labour of weeks, and she had told the young man she would
be content with a simple hiding-hole. Yet, although she did not expect great
things, and knew, moreover, the kind of place that he would make, she was
as excited as a child, in a grave sort of way, at what she would see.

He took her first into the parlour, where years ago Robin had talked with her
in the wintry sunshine. The open chimney was on the right as they entered,
and though she knew that somewhere on that same side would be one of the
two entrances that had been arranged, all the difference she could see was
that a piece of the wall-hanging that had been between the window and the
fire was gone, and that there hung in its place an old picture painted on a
panel. She looked at this without speaking: the wall was wainscoted in oak,
as it had always been, six feet up from the floor. Then an idea came to her:
she tilted the picture on one side. But there was no more to be seen than a
cracked panel, which, it seemed to her, had once been nearer the door. She
rapped upon this, but it gave back the dull sound as of wood against stone.

She turned to the young man, smiling. He smiled back.

"Come into the bedroom, mistress."

He led her in there, through the passage outside into which the two doors
opened at the head of the outside stairs; but here, too, all that she could see
was that a tall press that had once stood between the windows now stood
against the wall immediately opposite to the painted panel on the other side
of the wall. She opened the doors of the press, but it was as it had always
been: there even hung there the three or four dresses that she had taken
from it last night and laid on the bed.

She laughed outright, and, turning, saw Mistress Alice Babington beaming
tranquilly from the door of the room.

"Come in, Alice," she said, "and see this miracle."

Then he began to explain it.

On this side was the entrance proper, and, as he said so, he stepped up
into the press and closed the doors. They could hear him fumbling within,
then the sound of wood sliding, and finally a muffled voice calling to them.
Marjorie flung the doors open, and, save for the dresses, it was empty. She
stared in for a moment, still hearing the movements of someone beyond, and
at last the sound of a snap; and as she withdrew her head to exclaim to
Alice, the young man walked into the room through the open door behind
her.

Then he explained it in full.

The back of the press had been removed, and then replaced, in such a
manner that it would slide out about eighteen inches towards the window,
but only when the doors of the press were closed; when they were opened,
they drew out simultaneously a slip of wood on either side that pulled the
sliding door tight and immovable. Behind the back of the press, thus
removed, a corresponding part of the wainscot slid in the same way, giving a
narrow doorway into the cell which he had excavated between the double
beams of the thick wall. Next, when the person that had taken refuge was
inside, with the two sliding doors closed behind him, it was possible for him,
by an extremely simple device, to turn a wooden button and thus release a
little wooden machinery which controlled a further opening into the parlour,
and which, at the same time, was braced against the hollow panelling and
one of the higher beams in such a manner as to give it, when knocked upon,
the dullness of sound the girl had noticed just now. But this door could only
be opened from within. Neither a fugitive nor a pursuer could make any
entrance from the parlour side, unless the wainscoting itself were torn off.
Lastly, the crack in the woodwork, corresponding with two minute holes
bored in the painted panel, afforded, when the picture was hung exactly
straight, a view of the parlour that commanded nearly all the room.

"I do not pretend that it is a fortress," said the young man, smiling gravely.
"But it may serve to keep out a country constable. And, indeed, it is the best
I can contrive in this house."
 CHAPTER VII

Marjorie found it curious, even to herself, how the press that faced the foot
of the two beds where she and Alice slept side by side, became associated in
her mind with the thought of Robin; and she began to perceive that it was
largely with the thought of him in her intention that the idea had first
presented itself of having the cell constructed at all. It was not that in her
deliberate mind she conceived that he would be hunted, that he would fly
here, that she would save him; but rather in that strange realm of
consciousness which is called sometimes the Imagination, and sometimes
by other names—that inner shadow-show on which move figures cast by the
two worlds—she perceived him in this place….

It was in the following winter that she was reminded of him by other means
than those of his letters.

The summer and autumn had passed tranquilly enough, so far as this
outlying corner of England was concerned. News filtered through of the
stirring world outside, and especially was there conveyed to her, through
Alice for the most part, news that concerned the fortunes of Catholics.
Politics, except in this connection, meant little enough to such as her. She
heard, indeed, from time to time vague rumours of fighting, and of foreign
Powers; and thought now and again of Spain, as of a country that might yet
be, in God's hand, an instrument for the restoring of God's cause in
England; she had heard, too, in this year, of one more rumour of the
Queen's marriage with the Duke d'Alençon, and then of its final rupture.
But these matters were aloof from her; rather she pondered such things as
the execution of two more priests at York in August, Mr. Lacy and Mr.
Kirkman, and of a third, Mr. Thompson, in November at the same place. It
was on such affairs as these that she pondered as she went about her
household business, or sat in the chamber upstairs with Mistress Alice; and
it was of these things that she talked with the few priests that came and
went from time to time in their circuits about Derbyshire. It was a life of
quietness and monotony inconceivable by those who live in towns. Its sole
incident lay in that life which is called Interior….

It was soon after the New Year that she met the squire of Matstead face to
face.

She and Alice, with Janet and a man riding behind, were on their way
back from Derby, where they had gone for their monthly shopping. They had
slept at Dethick, and had had news there of Mr. Anthony, who was again in
the south on one of his mysterious missions, and started again soon after
dawn next day to reach home, if they could, for dinner.

She knew Alice now for what she was—a woman of astounding dullness, of
sterling character, and of a complete inability to understand any shades or
tones of character or thought that were not her own, and yet a friend in a
thousand, of an immovable stability and loyalty, one of no words at all, who
dwelt in the midst of a steady kind of light which knew no dawn nor sunset.
The girl entertained herself sometimes with conceiving of her friend
confronted with the rack, let us say, or the gallows; and perceived that she
knew with exactness what her behaviour would be: She would do all that
was required of her with out speeches or protest; she would place herself in
the required positions, with a faint smile, unwavering; she would suffer or
die with the same tranquil steadiness as that in which she lived; and, best of
all, she would not be aware, even for an instant, that anything in her
behaviour was in the least admirable or exceptional. She resembled, to
Marjorie's mind, that for which a strong and well-built arm-chair stands in
relation to the body: it is the same always, supporting and sustaining
always, and cannot even be imagined as anything else.

It was a brilliant frosty day, as they rode over the rutted track between
hedges that served for a road, that ran, for the most part, a field or two away
from the black waters of the Derwent. The birches stood about them like
frozen feathers; the vast chestnuts towered overhead, motionless in the
motionless air. As they came towards Matstead, and, at last, rode up the
street, naturally enough Marjorie again began to think of Robin. As they
came near where the track turned the corner beneath the churchyard wall,
where once Robin had watched, himself unseen, the three riders go by, she
had to attend to her horse, who slipped once or twice on the paved
causeway. Then as she lifted her head again, she saw, not three yards from
her, and on a level with her own face, the face of the squire looking at her
from over the wall.

She had not seen him, except once in Derby, a year or two before, and that
at a distance, since Robin had left England; and at the sight she started so
violently, in some manner jerking the reins that she held, that her horse,
tired with the long ride of the day before, slipped once again, and came
down all asprawl on the stones, fortunately throwing her clear of his
struggling feet. She was up in a moment, but again sank down, aware that
her foot was in some way bruised or twisted.

There was a clatter of hoofs behind her as the servants rode up; a child or
two ran up the street, and when, at last, on Janet's arm, she rose again to
her feet, it was to see the squire staring at her, with his hands clasped
behind his back.

"Bring the ladies up to the house," he said abruptly to the man; and then,
taking the rein of the girl's horse that had struggled up again, he led the
way, without another word, without even turning his head, round to the way
that ran up to his gates.
 II

It was not with any want of emotion that Marjorie found herself presently
meekly seated upon Alice's horse, and riding up at a foot's-pace beneath the
gatehouse of the Hall. Rather it was the balance of emotions that made her
so meek and so obedient to her friend's tranquil assumption that she must
come in as the squire said. She was aware of a strong resentment to his
brusque order, as well as to the thought that it was to the house of an
apostate that she was going; yet there was a no less strong emotion within
her that he had a sort of right to command her. These feelings, working
upon her, dazed as she was by the sudden sharpness of her fall, and the
pain in her foot, combined to drive her along in a kind of resignation in the
wake of the squire.

Still confused, yet with a rapid series of these same emotions running before
her mind, she limped up the steps, supported by Alice and her maid, and
sat down on a bench at the end of the hall. The squire, who had shouted an
order or two to a peeping domestic, as he passed up the court, came to her
immediately with a cup in his hand.

"You must drink this at once, mistress."

She took it at once, drank and set it down, aware of the keen, angry-looking
face that watched her.

"You will dine here, too, mistress—" he began, still with a sharp kindness….
And then, on a sudden, all grew dark about her; there was a roaring in her
ears, and she fainted.

She came out of her swoon again, after a while, with that strange and
innocent clearness that usually follows such a thing, to find Alice beside
her, a tapestried wall behind Alice, and the sound of a crackling fire in her
ears. Then she perceived that she was in a small room, lying on her back
along a bench, and that someone was bathing her foot.

"I … I will not stay here—" she began. But two hands held her firmly down,
and Alice's reassuring face was looking into her own.

When her mind ran clearly again, she sat up with a sudden movement,
drawing her foot away from Janet's ministrations.
"I do very well," she said, after looking at her foot, and then putting it to the
ground amid a duet of protestations. (She had looked round the room to
satisfy herself that no one else was there, and had seen that it must be the
parlour that she was in. A newly-lighted fire burned on the hearth, and the
two doors were closed.)

Then Alice explained.

It was impossible, she said, to ride on at once; the horse even now was being
bathed in the stable, as his mistress in the parlour. The squire had been
most considerate; he had helped to carry her in here just now, had lighted
the fire with his own hands, and had stated that dinner would be sent in
here in an hour for the three women. He had offered to send one of his own
men on to Booth's Edge with the news, if Mistress Marjorie found herself
unable to ride on after dinner.

"But … but it is Mr. Audrey!" exclaimed Marjorie.

"Yes, my dear," said Alice. "I know it is. But that does not mend your foot,"
she said, with unusual curtness. And Marjorie saw that she still looked at
her anxiously.

The three women dined together, of course, in an hour's time. There was
no escape from the pressure of circumstance. It was unfortunate that such
an accident should have fallen out here, in the one place in all the world
where it should not; but the fact was a fact. Meanwhile, it was not only
resentment that Marjorie felt: it was a strange sort of terror as well—a terror
of sitting in the house of an apostate—of one who had freely and deliberately
renounced that faith for which she herself lived so completely; and that it
was the father of one whom she knew as she knew Robin—with whose fate,
indeed, her own had been so intimately entwined—this combined to increase
that indefinable fear that rested on her as she stared round the walls, and
sat over the food and drink that this man provided.

The climax came as they were finishing dinner: for the door from the hall
opened abruptly, and the squire came in. He bowed to the ladies, as the
manner was, straightening his trim, tight figure again defiantly; asked a civil
question or two; directed a servant behind him to bring the horses to the
parlour door in half an hour's time; and then snapped out the sentence
which he was, plainly, impatient to speak.

"Mistress Manners," he said, "I wish to have a word with you privately."
Marjorie, trembling at his presence, turned a wavering face to her friend;
and Alice, before the other could speak, rose up, and went out, with Janet
following.

"Janet—" cried the girl.

"If you please," said the old man, with such a decisive air that she hesitated.
Then she nodded at her maid; and a moment later the door closed.
 III

"I have two matters to speak of," said the squire abruptly, sitting down in
the chair that Alice had left; "the first concerns you closely; and the other
less closely."

She looked at him, summoning all her power to appear at her ease.

He seemed far older than when she had last spoken with him, perhaps five
years ago; and had grown a little pointed beard; his hair, too, seemed
thinner—such of it as she could see beneath the house-cap that he wore; his
face, especially about his blue, angry-looking eyes, was covered with fine
wrinkles, and his hands were clearly the hands of an old man, at once
delicate and sinewy. He was in a dark suit, still with his cloak upon him;
and in low boots. He sat still as upright as ever, turned a little in his chair,
so as to clasp its back with one strong hand.

"Yes, sir?" she said.

"I will begin with the second first. It is of my son Robin: I wish to know what
news you have of him. He hath not written to me this six months back. And
I hear that letters sometimes come to you from him."

Marjorie hesitated.

"He is very well, so far as I know," she said.

"And when is he to be made priest?" he demanded sharply.

Marjorie drew a breath to give herself time; she knew that she must not
answer this; and did not know how to say so with civility.

"If he has not told you himself, sir," she said, "I cannot."

The old man's face twitched; but he kept his manners. "I understand you,
mistress…." But then his wrath overcame him. "But he must understand he
will have no mercy from me, if he comes my way. I am a magistrate, now,
mistress, and—"

A thought like an inspiration came to the girl; and she interrupted; for she
longed to penetrate this man's armour.

"Perhaps that was why he did not tell you when he was to be made priest,"
she said.

The other seemed taken aback.

"Why, but—"

"He did not wish to think that his father would be untrue to his new
commission," she said, trembling at her boldness and yet exultant too; and
taking no pains to keep the irony out of her voice.

Again that fierce twitch of the features went over the other's face; and he
stared straight at her with narrowed eyes. Then a change again came over
him; and he laughed, like barking, yet not all unkindly.

"You are very shrewd, mistress. But I wonder what you will think of me
when I tell you the second matter, since you will tell me no more of the first."

He shifted his position in his chair, this time clasping both his hands
together over the back.

"Well; it is this in a word," he said: "It is that you had best look to yourself,
mistress. My lord Shrewsbury even knows of it."

"Of what, if you please?" asked the girl, hoping she had not turned white.

"Why, of the priests that come and go hereabouts! It is all known; and her
Grace hath sent a message from the Council—"

"What has this to do with me?"

He laughed again.

"Well; let us take your neighbours at Padley. They will be in trouble if they
do not look to their goings. Mr. FitzHerbert—"

But again she interrupted him. She was determined to know how much he
knew. She had thought that she had been discreet enough, and that no
news had leaked out of her own entertaining of priests; it was chiefly that
discretion might be preserved that she had set her hands to the work at all.
With Padley so near it was thought that less suspicion would be aroused.
Her name had never yet come before the authorities, so far as she knew.

"But what has all this to do with me, sir?" she asked sharply. "It is true that
I do not go to church, and that I pay my fines when they are demanded: Are
there new laws, then, against the old faith?"

She spoke with something of real bitterness. It was genuine enough; her
only art lay in her not concealing it; for she was determined to press her
question home. And, in his shrewd, compelling face, she read her answer
even before his words gave it.
"Well, mistress; it was not of you that I meant to speak—so much as of your
friends. They are your friends, not mine. And as your friends, I thought it to
be a kindly action to send them an advertisement. If they are not careful,
there will be trouble."

"At Padley?"

"At Padley, or elsewhere. It is the persons that fall under the law, not
places!"

"But, sir, you are a magistrate; and—"

He sprang up, his face aflame with real wrath.

"Yes, mistress; I am a magistrate: the commission hath come at last, after

six months' waiting. But I was friend to the FitzHerberts before ever I was a
magistrate, and—"

Then she understood; and her heart went out to him. She, too, stood up,
catching at the table with a hiss of pain as she threw her weight on the
bruised foot. He made a movement towards her; but she waved him aside.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Audrey, with all my heart. I had thought that you
meant harm, perhaps, to my friends and me. But now I see—"

"Not a word more! not a word more!" he cried harshly, with a desperate kind
of gesture. "I shall do my duty none the less when the time comes—"

"Sir!" she cried out suddenly. "For God's sake do not speak of duty—there is
another duty greater than that. Mr. Audrey—"

He wheeled away from her, with a movement she could not interpret. It
might be uncontrolled anger or misery, equally. And her heart went out to
him in one great flood.

"Mr. Audrey. It is not too late. Your son Robin—"

Then he wheeled again; and his face was distorted with emotion.

"Yes, my son Robin! my son Robin!… How dare you speak of him to me?…

Yes; that is it—my son Robin—my son Robin!"

He dropped into the chair again, and his face fell upon his clasped hands.
 IV

She scarcely knew how circumstances had arranged themselves up to the

time when she found herself riding away again with Alice, while a man of
Mr. Audrey's led her horse. They could not talk freely till he left them at the
place where the stony road turned to a soft track, and it was safe going once
more. Then Alice told her own side of it.

"Yes, my dear; I heard him call out. I was walking in the hall with Janet to
keep ourselves warm. But when I ran in he was sitting down, and you were
standing. What was the matter?"

"Alice," said the girl earnestly, "I wish you had not come in. He is very heart-
broken, I think. He would have told me more, I think. It is about his son."

"His son! Why, he—"

"Yes; I know that. And he would not see him if he came back. He has had
his magistrate's commission; and he will be true to it. But he is heart-
broken for all that. He has not really lost the Faith, I think."

"Why, my dear; that is foolish. He is very hot in Derby, I hear, against the
Papists. There was a poor woman who could not pay her fines; and—"

Marjorie waved it aside.

"Yes; he would be very hot; but for all that, there is his son Robin you
know—and his memories. And Robin has not written to him for six months.
That would be about the time when he told him he was to be a magistrate."

Then Marjorie told her of the whole that had passed, and of his mention of
the FitzHerberts.

"And what he meant by that," she said, "I do not know; but I will tell them."

She was pondering deeply all the way as she rode home. Mistress Alice
was one of those folks who so long as they are answered in words are
content; and Marjorie so answered her. And all the while she thought upon
Robin, and his passionate old father, and attempted to understand the
emotions that fought in the heart that had so disclosed itself to her—its
aged obstinacy, its loyalty and its confused honourableness. She knew very
well that he would do what he conceived to be his duty with all the more
zeal if it were an unpleasant duty; and she thanked God that it was not for a
good while yet that the lad would come home a priest.
 CHAPTER VIII

The warning which she had had with regard to her friends, and which she
wrote on to them at once, received its fulfilment within a very few weeks. Mr.
John, who was on the eve of departure for London again to serve his brother
there, who was back again in the Fleet by now, wrote that he knew very well
that they were all under suspicion, that he had sent on to his son the
message she had given, but that he hoped they would yet weather the
storm.

"And as to yourself, Mistress Marjorie," he wrote, "this makes it all the more
necessary that Booth's Edge should not be suspected; for what will our men
do if Padley be closed to them? You have heard of our friend Mr. Garlick's
capture? But that was no fault of yours. The man was warned. I hear that
they will send him into banishment, only, this time."

The news came to her as she sat in the garden over her needlework on a
hot evening in June. There it was as cool as anywhere in the countryside.
She sat at the top of the garden, where her mother and she had sat with
Robin so long before; the breeze that came over the moor bore with it the
scent of the heather; and the bees were busy in the garden flowers about
her.

It was first the gallop of a horse that she heard; and even at that sound she
laid down her work and stood up. But the house below her blocked the most
of her view; and she sat down again when she heard the dull rattle of the
hoofs die away again. When she next looked up a man was running towards
her from the bottom of the garden, and Janet was peeping behind him from
the gate into the court. As she again stood up, she saw that it was Dick
Sampson.

He was so out of breath, first with his ride and next with his run up the
steep path, that for a moment or two he could not speak. He was dusty, too,
from foot to knee; his cap was awry and his collar unbuttoned.

"It is Mr. Thomas, mistress," he gasped presently. "I was in Derby and saw
him being taken to the gaol…. I could not get speech with him…. I rode
straight up to Padley, and found none there but the servants, and them
knowing nothing of the matter. And so I rode on here, mistress."

He was plainly all aghast at the blow. Hitherto it had been enough that Sir
Thomas was in ward for his religion; and to this they had become
accustomed. But that the heir should be taken, too, and that without a hint
of what was to happen, was wholly unexpected. She made him sit down, and
presently drew from him the whole tale.

Mr. Anthony Babington, his master, was away to London again, leaving the
house in Derby in the hands of the servants. He then—Dick Sampson—was
riding out early to take a horse to be shoed, and had come back through the
town-square, when he saw the group ride up to the gaol door near the Friar
Gate. He, too, had ridden up to ask what was forward, and had been just in
time to see Mr. Thomas taken in. He had caught his eye, but had feigned not
to know him. Then the man had attempted to get at what had happened
from one of the fellows at the door, but could get no more from him than
that the prisoner was a known and confessed recusant, and had been laid
by the heels according to orders, it was believed, sent down by the Council.
Then, Dick had ridden slowly away till he had turned the corner, and then,
hot foot for Padley.

"And I heard the fellow say to one of his company that an informer was
coming down from London on purpose to deal with Mr. Thomas."

Marjorie felt a sudden pang; for she had never forgotten the one she had set
eyes on in the Tower.

"His name?" she said breathlessly. "Did you hear his name?"

"It was Topcliffe, mistress," said Dick indifferently. "The other called it out."

Marjorie sat silent. Not only had the blow fallen more swiftly than she
would have thought possible, but it was coupled with a second of which she
had never dreamed. That it was this man, above all others, that should have
come; this man, who stood to her mind, by a mere chance, for all that was
most dreadful in the sinister forces arrayed against her—this brought
misery down on her indeed. For, besides her own personal reasons for
terror, there was, besides, the knowledge that the bringing of such a man at
all from London on such business meant that the movement beginning here
in her own county was not a mere caprice.

She sat silent then—seeing once more before her the wide court of the
Tower, the great keep opposite, and in the midst that thin figure moving to
his hateful business…. And she knew now, in this instant, as never before,
that the chief reason for her terror was that she had coupled in her mind
her own friend Robin with the thought of this man, as if by some inner
knowledge that their lives must cross some day—a knowledge which she
could neither justify nor silence. Thank God, at least, that Robin was still
safe in Rheims!
 II

She sent him off after a couple of hours' rest, during which once more he
had told his story to Mistress Alice, with a letter to Mr. Thomas's wife, who,
no doubt, would have followed her lord to Derby. She had gone apart with
Alice, while Dick ate and drank, to talk the affair out, and had told her of
Topcliffe's presence, at which news even the placid face of her friend looked
troubled; but they had said nothing more on the point, and had decided that
a letter should be written in Mistress Babington's name, offering Mrs.
FitzHerbert the hospitality of Babington House, and any other services she
might wish. Further, they had decided that the best thing to do was to go
themselves to Derby next day, in order to be at hand; since Mr. John was in
London, and the sooner Mrs. Thomas had friends with her, the better.

"They may keep him in ward a long time," said Mistress Alice, "before they
bring him into open court—to try his courage. That is the way they do. The
charge, no doubt, will be that he has harboured and assisted priests."

It seemed to Marjorie, as she lay awake that night, staring through the
summer dusk at the tall press which hid so much beside her dresses, that
the course on which her life moved was coming near to the rapids. Ever
since she had first put her hand to the work, ever since, even, she had first
offered her lover to God and let him go from her, it appeared as if God had
taken her at her word, and accepted in an instant that which she offered so
tremblingly. Her sight of London—the great buildings, the crowds, the visible
forces of the Crown, the company of gallant gentlemen who were priests
beneath their ruffs and feathers, the Tower, her glimpse of Topcliffe—these
things had shown her the dreadful reality that lay behind this gentle
scheming up in Derbyshire. Again, there was Mr. Babington; here, too, she
had perceived a mystery which she could not understand: something moved
behind the surface of which not even Mr. Babington's sister knew anything,
except that, indeed, it was there. Again, there was the death of Father
Campion—the very man whom she had taken as a symbol of the Faith for
which she fought with her woman's wits; there was the news that came so
suddenly and terribly now and again, of one more priest gone to his death….
It was like the slow rising of a storm: the air darkens; a stillness falls on the
countryside; the chirp of the birds seems as a plaintive word of fear; then
the thunder begins—a low murmur far across the horizons; then a whisk of
light, seen and gone again, and another murmur after it. And so it gathers,
dusk on dusk, stillness on stillness, murmur on murmur, deepening and
thickening; yet still no rain, but a drop or two that falls and ceases again.
And from the very delay it is all the more dreadful; for the storm itself must
break some time, and the artillery war in the heavens, and the rain rush
down, and flash follow flash, and peal peal, and the climax come.

So, then, it was with her. There was no drawing back now, even had she
wished it. And she wished it indeed, though she did not will it; she knew
that she must stand in her place, now more than ever, when the blow had
fallen so near. Now more than ever must she be discreet and resolute, since
Padley itself was fallen, in effect, if not in fact; and Booth's Edge, in this
valley at least, was the one hope of hunted men. She must stand, then, in
her place; she must plot and conspire and scheme; she must govern her face
and her manner more perfectly than ever, for the sake of that tremendous
Cause.

As she lay there, listening to her friend's breathing in the darkness, staring
now at the doors of the press, now at the baggage that lay heaped ready for
the early start, these and a thousand other thoughts passed before her. It
was a long plot that had ended in this: it must have reached its maturity
weeks ago; the decision to strike must have been reached before even Squire
Audrey had given her the warning—for it was only by chance that she had
met him and he had told her…. And he, too, Robin's father, would be in the
midst of it all; he, too, that was a Catholic by baptism, must sit with the
other magistrates and threaten and cajole as the manner was; and quiet
Derby would be all astir; and the Bassetts would be there, and Mr. Fenton,
to see how their friend fared in the dock; and the crowds would gather to see
the prisoner brought out, and the hunt would be up. And she herself, she,
too, must be there with the tearful little wife, who could do so little….

Thank God Robin was safe in Rheims!…

 III

Derby was, indeed, astir as they rode in, with the servants and the baggage
following behind, on the late afternoon of the next day. They had ridden by
easy stages, halting at Dethick for dinner, where the Babingtons' house
already hummed with dismay at the news that had come from Derby last
night. Mr. Anthony was away, and all seemed distracted.

They rode in by the North road, seeing for the last mile or two of their ride
the towering spire of All Saints' Church high above the smoke of the houses;
they passed the old bridge half a mile from the market-place, near the
ancient camp; and even here overheard a sentence or two from a couple of
fellows that were leaning on the parapet, that told them what was the talk of
the town. It was plain that others besides the Catholics understood the
taking of Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert to be a very significant matter.

Babington House stood on the further side of the market-place from that on
which they entered, and Alice was for going there through side streets.

"They will take notice if we go straight through," she said. "It is cheese-
market to-day."

"They will take notice in any case," said Marjorie. "It will be over the town to-
morrow that Mistress Babington is here, and it is best, therefore, to come
openly, as if without fear."

And she turned to beckon the servants to draw up closer behind.

The square was indeed crowded as they came in. From all the country
round, and especially from Dovedale, the farmers came in on this day, or
sent their wives, for the selling of cheeses; and the small oblong of the
market—the smaller from its great Conduit and Cross—was full with rows of
stalls and carts, with four lanes only left along the edges by which the traffic
might pass; and even here the streams of passengers forced the horses to go
in single file. Groups of men—farmers' servants who had driven in the carts,
or walked with the pack-beasts—to whom this day was a kind of feast, stood
along the edges of the booths eyeing all who went by. The inns, too, were
doing a roaring trade, and it was from one of these that the only offensive
comment was made.

Mistress Babington rode first, as suited her dignity, preceded by one of the
Dethick men whom they had taken up on their way, and who had pushed
forward when they came into the town to clear the road; and Mistress
Manners rode after her. The men stood aside as the cavalcade began to go
between the booths, and the most of them saluted Mistress Babington. But
as they were almost out of the market they came abreast one of the inns
from whose wide-open doors came a roar of voices from those that were
drinking within, and a group that was gathered on the step stopped talking
as the party came up. Marjorie glanced at them, and noticed there was an
air about two or three of the men that was plainly town-bred; there was a
certain difference in the cut of their clothes and the way they wore them.
Then she saw two or three whispering together, and the next moment came
a brutal shout. She could not catch the sentence, but she heard the word
"Papist" with an adjective, and caught the unmistakable bullying tone of the
man. The next instant there broke out a confusion: a man dashed up the
step from the crowd beneath, and she caught a glimpse of Dick Sampson's
furious face. Then the group bore back, fighting, into the inn door; the
Dethick servant leapt off his horse, leaving it in some fellow's hands, and
vanished up the step; there was a rush of the crowd after him, and then the
way was clear in front, over the little bridge that spanned Bramble brook.

When she drew level with Alice, she saw her friend's face, pale and agitated.

"It is the first time I have ever been cried at," she said. "Come; we are nearly
home. There is St. Peter's spire."

"Shall we not—?" began Marjorie.

"No, no" (and the pale face tightened suddenly). "My fellows will give them a
lesson. The crowd is on our side as yet."
 IV

As they rode in under the archway that led in beside the great doors of
Babington House, three or four grooms ran forward at once. It was plain
that their coming was looked far with some eagerness.

Alice's manner seemed curiously different from that of the quiet woman who
had sat so patiently beside Marjorie in the manor among the hills: a certain
air of authority and dignity sat on her now that she was back in her own
place.

"Is Mrs. FitzHerbert here?" she asked from the groom who helped her to the
ground.

"Yes, mistress; she came from the inn this morning, and—"

"Well?"

"She is in a great taking, mistress. She would eat nothing, they said."

Alice nodded.

"You had best be off to the inn," she said, with a jerk of her head. "A

London fellow insulted us just now, and Sampson and Mallow—"

She said no more. The man who held her horse slipped the reins into the
hands of the younger groom who stood by him, and was away and out of the
court in an instant. Marjorie smiled a little, astonished at her own sense of
exultation. The blows were not to be all one side, she perceived. Then she
followed Alice into the house.

As they came through into the hall by the side-door that led through from
the court where they had dismounted, a figure was plainly visible in the
dusky light, going to and fro at the further end, with a quick, nervous
movement. The figure stopped as they advanced, and then darted forward,
crying out piteously:

"Ah! you have come, thank God! thank God! They will not let me see him."

"Hush! hush!" said Alice, as she caught her in her arms.

"Mr. Bassett has been here," moaned the figure, "and he says it is Topcliffe
himself who has come down on the matter…. He says he is the greatest devil
of them all; and Thomas—"

Then she burst out crying again.

It was an hour before they could get the full tale out of her. They took her
upstairs and made her sit down, for already a couple of faces peeped from
the buttery, and the servants would have gathered in another five minutes;
and together they forced her to eat and drink something, for she had not
tasted food since her arrival at the inn yesterday; and so, little by little, they
drew the story out.

Mr. Thomas and his wife were actually on their way from Norbury when the
arrest had been made. Mr. Thomas had intended to pass a couple of nights
in Derby on various matters of the estates; and although, his wife said, he
had been somewhat silent and quiet since the warning had come to him
from Mr. Audrey, even he had thought it no danger to ride through Derby on
his way to Padley. He had sent a servant ahead to order rooms at the inn for
those two nights, and it was through that, it appeared, that the news of his
coming had reached the ears of the authorities. However that was, and
whether the stroke had been actually determined upon long before, or had
been suddenly decided upon at the news of his coming, it fell out that, as
the husband and wife were actually within sight of Derby, on turning a
corner they had found themselves surrounded by men on horses, plainly
gathered there for the purpose, with a magistrate in the midst. Their names
had been demanded, and, upon Mr. Thomas' hesitation, they had been told
that their names were well known, and a warrant was produced, on a charge
of recusancy and of aiding her Grace's enemies, drawn out against Thomas
FitzHerbert, and he had been placed under arrest. Further, Mrs. FitzHerbert
had been told she must not enter the town with the party, but must go
either before them or after them, which she pleased. She had chosen to go
first, and had been at the windows of the inn in time to see her husband go
by. There had been no confusion, she said; the townsfolk appeared to know
nothing of what was happening until Mr. Thomas was safely lodged in the
ward.

Then she burst out crying again, lamenting the horrible state of the prison,
as it had been described to her, and demanding to know where God's justice
was in allowing His faithful servants to be so tormented and harried….

Marjorie watched her closely. She had met her once at Babington House,
when she was still Elizabeth Westley, but had thought little or nothing of
her since. She was a pale little creature, fair-haired and timorous, and had
now a hunted look of misery in her eyes that was very piteous to see. It was
plain they had done right in coming: this woman would be of little service to
her husband.
Then when Alice had said a word or two, Marjorie began her questions.

"Tell me," she said gently, "had you no warning of this?"

The girl shook her head.

"Not beyond that which came from yourself," she said; "and we never
thought—"

"Hath Mr. Thomas had any priests with him lately?"

"We have not had one at Norbury for the last six months, whilst we were
there, at least. My husband said it was better not, and that there was a
plenty of places for them to go to."

"And you have not heard mass during that time?"

The girl looked at her with tear-stained eyes.

"No," she said. "But why do you ask that? My husband says—"

"And when was the first you heard of Topcliffe? And what have you heard of
him?"

The other's face fell into lines of misery.

"I have heard he is the greatest devil her Grace uses. He hath authority to
question priests and others in his own house. He hath a rack there that he
boasts makes all others as Christmas toys. My husband—"

Marjorie patted her arm gently.

"There! there!" she said kindly. "Your husband is not in Topcliffe's house.
There will be no question of that. He is here in his own county, and—"

"But that will not save him!" cried the girl. "Why—"

"Tell me" interrupted Marjorie, "was Topcliffe with the men that took

Mr. Thomas?"

The other shook her head.

"No; I heard he was not. He was come from London yesterday morning. That
was the first I heard of him."

Then Alice began again to soothe her gently, to tell her that her husband
was in no great danger as yet, that he was well known for his loyalty, and to
do her best to answer the girl's pitiful questions. And Marjorie sat back and
considered.

Marjorie had a remarkable knowledge of the methods of the Government,

gathered from the almost endless stories she had heard from travelling
priests and others; it was her business, too, to know them. Two or three
things, therefore, if the girl's account was correct, were plain. First, that this
was a concerted plan, and not a mere chance arrest. Mr. Audrey's message
to her showed so much, and the circumstances of Topcliffe's arrival
confirmed it. Next, it must be more than a simple blow struck at one man,
Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert: Topcliffe would not have come down from London
at all unless it were a larger quarry than Mr. Thomas that was aimed at.
Thirdly, and in conclusion, it would not be easy therefore to get Mr. Thomas
released again. There remained a number of questions which she had as yet
no means of answering. Was it because Mr. Thomas was heir to the
enormous FitzHerbert estates in this county and elsewhere, that he was
struck at? Or was it the beginning, merely, of a general assault on
Derbyshire, such as had taken place before she was born? Or was it that
Mr. Thomas' apparent coolness towards the Faith (for that was evident by
his not having heard mass for so long, and by his refusal to entertain priests
just at present)—was it that lack of zeal on his part, which would, of course,
be known to the army of informers scattered now throughout England,
which had marked him out as the bird to be flown at? It would be, indeed, a
blow to the Catholic gentry of the county, if any of the FitzHerberts should
fall!

She stood up presently, grave with her thoughts. Mistress Alice glanced up.

"I am going out for a little," said Marjorie.

"But—"

"May two of your men follow me at a little distance? But I shall be safe
enough. I am going to a friend's house."

Marjorie knew Derby well enough from the old days when she rode in
sometimes with her father and slept at Mr. Biddell's; and, above all, she
knew all that Derby had once been. In one place, outside the town, was St.
Mary-in-Pratis, where the Benedictine nuns had lived; St. Leonard's had had
a hospital for lepers; St. Helen's had had the Augustinian hospital for poor
brothers and sisters; St. Alkmund's had held a relic of its patron saint; all
this she knew by heart; and it was bitter now to be here on such business.
But she went briskly out from the hall; and ten minutes later she was
knocking at the door of a little attorney, the old partner of her father's,
whose house faced the Guildhall across the little market-square. It was
opened by an old woman who smiled at the sight of her.

"Eh! come in, mistress. The master saw you ride into town. He is in the
upstairs parlour, with Mr. Bassett."

The girl nodded to her bodyguard, and followed the old woman in. She
bowed as she passed the lawyer's confidential clerk and servant, Mr. George
Beaton, in the passage—a big man, with whom she had had
communications more than once on Popish affairs.

Mr. John Biddell, like Marjorie's own father and his partner, was one of
those quiet folks who live through storms without attracting attention from
the elements, yet without the sacrifice of principle. He was a Catholic, and
never pretended to be anything else; but he was so little and so harmless
that no man ever troubled him. He pleaded before the magistrates
unobtrusively and deftly; and would have appeared before her Grace herself
or the Lord of Hell with the same timid and respectful air, in his iron-
rimmed spectacles, his speckless dark suit, and his little black cap drawn
down to his ears. He had communicated with Marjorie again and again in
the last two or three years on the subject of wandering priests, calling them
"gentlemen," with the greatest care, and allowing no indiscreet word ever to
appear in his letters, He remembered King Harry, whom he had seen once in
a visit of his to London; he had assisted the legal authorities considerably in
the restoration under Queen Mary; and he had soundlessly acquiesced in
the changes again under Elizabeth—so far, at least, as mere law was
concerned.

Mr. William Bassett was a very different man. First he was the brother-in-
law of Sir Thomas FitzHerbert himself; and was entirely of the proper spirit
to mate with that fearless family. He had considerable estates, both at
Langley and Blore, in both of which places he cheerfully evaded the new
laws, maintaining and helping priests in all directions; a man, in fact, of an
ardent and boisterous faith which he extended (so the report ran) even to
magic and astrology; a man of means, too, in spite of his frequent fines for
recusancy, and aged about fifty years old at this time, with a high colour in
his face and bright, merry eyes. Marjorie had spoken with him once or twice
only.

These two men, then, first turned round in their chairs, and then stood up
to salute Marjorie, as she came into the upstairs parlour. It was a somewhat
dark room, panelled where there was space for it between the books, and
with two windows looking out on to the square.
"I thought we should see you soon," said the attorney. "We saw you come,
mistress; and the fellows that cried out on you."

"They had their deserts," said Marjorie, smiling.

Mr. Bassett laughed aloud.

"Indeed they did," he said in his deep, pleasant voice. "There were two of
them with bloody noses before all was done…. You have come for the news, I
suppose, mistress?"

He eyed her genially and approvingly. He had heard a great deal of this
young lady in the last three or four years; and wished there were more of her
kind.

"That is what I have come for," said Marjorie. "We have Mrs. Thomas over at
Babington House."

"She'll be of no great service to her husband," said the other. "She cries and
laments too much. Now—"

He stopped himself from paying his compliments. It seemed to him that this
woman, with her fearless, resolute face, would do very well without them.

Then he set himself to relate the tale.

It seemed that little Mrs. Thomas had given a true enough report. It was
true that Topcliffe had arrived from London on the morning of the arrest;
and Mistress Manners was perfectly right in her opinion that this signified a
good deal. But, it seemed to Mr. Bassett, the Council had made a great
mistake in striking at the FitzHerberts. The quarry was too strong, he said,
for such birds as the Government used—too strong and too many. For, first,
no FitzHerbert had ever yet yielded in his allegiance either to the Church or
to the Queen's Grace; and it was not likely that Mr. Thomas would begin:
and, next, if one yielded (suadente diabolo, and Deus avertat!) a dozen more
would spring up. But the position was serious for all that, said Mr. Bassett
(and Mr. Biddell nodded assent), for who would deal with the estates and
make suitable arrangements if the heir, who already largely controlled them,
were laid by the heels? But that the largeness of the undertaking was
recognised by the Council, was plain enough, in that no less a man than
Topcliffe (Mr. Bassett spat on the floor as he named him), Topcliffe, "the
devil possessed by worse devils," was sent down to take charge of the
matter.

Marjorie listened carefully.

"You have no fear for yourself, sir?" she asked presently, as the man sat
back in his chair.

Mr. Bassett smiled broadly, showing his strong white teeth between the
iron-grey hair that fringed his lips.

"No; I have no fear," he said. "I have a score of my men quartered in the
town."

"And the trial? When will that—"

"The trial! Why, I shall praise God if the trial falls this year. They will harry
him before magistrates, no doubt; and they will squeeze him in private. But
the trial!… Why, they have not a word of treason against him; and that is
what they are after, no doubt."

"Treason?"

"Why, surely. That is what they seek to fasten upon us all. It would not
sound well that Christian should shed Christian's blood for Christianity; but
that her Grace should sorrowfully arraign her subjects whom she loves and
cossets so much, for treason—Why, that is as sound a cause as any in the
law-books!"

He smiled in a manner that was almost a snarl, and his eyes grew narrow
with ironic merriment.

"And Mr. Thomas—" began Marjorie hesitatingly.

He whisked his glance on her like lightning.

"Mr. Thomas will laugh at them all," he cried. "He is as staunch as any of his
blood. I know he has been careful of late; but, then, you must remember
how all the estates hang on him. But when he has his back to the wall—or
on the rack for that matter—he will be as stiff as iron. They will have their
work to bend him by a hair's breadth."

Marjorie drew a breath of relief. She did not question Mr. Bassett's
judgment. But she had had an uneasy discomfort in her heart till he had
spoken so plainly.

"Well, sir," she said, "that is what I chiefly came for. I wished to know if I
could do aught for Mr. Thomas or his wife; and—"
"You can do a great deal for his wife," said he. "You can keep her quiet and
comfort her. She needs it, poor soul! I have told her for her comfort that we
shall have Thomas out again in a month—God forgive me for the lie!"

Marjorie stood up; and the men rose with her.

"Why, what is that?" she said; and went swiftly to the window; for the noise
of the crying of the cheeses and the murmur of voices had ceased all on a
sudden.

Straight opposite the window where she stood was the tiled flight of stairs
that ran up from the market-place to the first floor of the Guildhall, a great
building where the business of the town was largely done, and where the
magistrates sat when there was need; and a lane that was clear of booths
and carts had been left leading from that door straight across the square, so
that she could see the two little brobonets—or iron guns—that guarded the
door on either side. It was up this lane that she looked, and down it that
there advanced a little procession, the very sight of which, it seemed, had
stricken the square to silence. Already the crowd was dividing from end to
end, ranging itself on either side—farmers' men shambled out of the way
and turned to see; women clambered on the carts holding up their children
to see, and from across the square came country-folk running, that they too
might see. The steps of the Cross were already crowded with sightseers.

Yet, to outward sight, the little procession was ordinary enough. First came
three or four of the town-guard in livery, carrying their staves; then half a
dozen sturdy fellows; then a couple of dignified gentlemen—one of them she
knew: Mr. Roger Columbell, magistrate of the town—and then, walking all
alone, the figure of a man, tall and thin, a little rustily, but very cleanly
dressed in a dark suit, who carried his head stooping forward as if he were
looking on the ground for something, or as if he deprecated so much notice.

Marjorie saw no more than this clearly. She did not notice the group of men
that followed in case protection were needed for the agent of the Council,
nor the crowd that swirled behind. For, as the solitary figure came beneath
the windows she recognised the man whom she had seen once in the Tower
of London.

"God smite the man!" growled a voice in her ear. "That is Topcliffe, going to
the prison, I daresay."

And as Marjorie turned her pale face back, she saw the face of kindly

Mr. Bassett, suffused and convulsed with fury.

 CHAPTER IX

"Marjorie! Marjorie! Wake up! the order hath come. It is for to-night."

Very slowly Marjorie rose out of the glimmering depths of sleep into which
she had fallen on the hot August afternoon, sunk down upon the arm of the
great chair that stood by the parlour window, and saw Mrs. Thomas radiant
before her, waving a scrap of paper in her hand.

Nearly two months were passed; and as yet no opportunity had been given
to the prisoner's wife to visit him, and during that time it had been
impossible to go back into the hills and leave the girl alone. The heat of the
summer had been stifling, down here in the valley; a huge plague of
grasshoppers had ravaged all England; and there were times when even in
the grass-country outside Derby, their chirping had become intolerable. The
heat, and the necessary seclusion, and the anxiety had told cruelly upon the
country girl; Marjorie's face had perceptibly thinned; her eyes had shadows
above and beneath; yet she knew she must not go; since the young wife had
attached herself to her altogether, finding Alice (she said) too dull for her
spirits. Mr. Bassett was gone again. There was no word of a trial; although
there had been a hearing or two before the magistrates; and it was known
that Topcliffe continually visited the prison.

One piece of news only had there been to comfort her during this time, and
that, that Mr. John's prediction had been fulfilled with regard to the
captured priest, Mr. Garlick, who, back from Rheims only a few months, had
been deported from England, since it was his first offence, But he would
soon be over again, no doubt, and next time with death as the stake in the
game.

Marjorie drew a long breath, and passed her hands over her forehead.

"The order?" she said. "What order?"

The girl explained, torrentially. A man had come just now from the
Guildhall; he had asked for Mrs. FitzHerbert; she had gone down into the
hall to see him; and all the rest of the useless details. But the effect was that
leave had been given at last to visit the prisoner—for two persons, of which
Mrs. FitzHerbert must be one; and that they must present the order to the
gaoler before seven o'clock, when they would be admitted. She looked—such
was the constitution of her mind—as happy as if it were an order for his
release. Marjorie drove away the last shreds of sleep; and kissed her.
"That is very good news," she said. "Now we will begin to do something."

The sun had sunk so far, when they set out at last, as to throw the whole
of the square into golden shade; and, in the narrow, overhung Friar's Gate,
where the windows of the upper stories were so near that a man might
shake hands with his friend on the other side, the twilight had already
begun. They had determined to walk, in order less to attract attention, in
spite of the filth through which they knew they must pass, along the couple
of hundred yards that separated them from the prison. For every housewife
emptied her slops out of doors, and swept her house (when she did so at all)
into the same place: now and again the heaps would be pushed together and
removed, but for the most part they lay there, bones and rags and rotten
fruit,—dusty in one spot, so that all blew about—dampened in others where
a pail or two had been poured forth. The heat, too, was stifling, cast out
again towards evening from the roofs and walls that had drunk it in all day
from the burning skies.

As they stood before the door at last and waited, after beating the great iron
knocker on the iron plate, a kind of despair came down on Marjorie. They
had advanced just so far in two months as to be allowed to speak with the
prisoner; and, from her talkings with Mr. Biddell, had understood how little
that was. Indeed, he had hinted to her plainly enough that even in this it
might be that they were no more than pawns in the enemy's hand; and that,
under a show of mercy, it was often allowed for a prisoner's friends to have
free access to him in order to shake his resolution. If there was any cause
for congratulation then, it lay solely in the thought that other means had so
far failed. One thing at least they knew, for their comfort, that there had
been no talk of torture….

It was a full couple of minutes before the door opened to show them a thin,
brown-faced man, with his sleeves rolled up, dressed over his shirt and hose
in a kind of leathern apron. He nodded as he saw the ladies, with an air of
respect, however, and stood aside to let them come in. Then, with the same
civility, he asked for the order, and read it, holding it up to the light that
came through the little barred window over the door.

It was an unspeakably dreary little entrance passage in which they stood,

wainscoted solidly from floor to ceiling with wood that looked damp and
black from age; the ceiling itself was indistinguishable in the twilight; the
floor seemed composed of packed earth, three or four doors showed in the
woodwork; that opposite to the one by which they had entered stood slightly
ajar, and a smoky light shone from beyond it. The air was heavy and hot
and damp, and smelled of mildew.
The man gave the order back when he had read it, made a little gesture that
resembled a bow, and led the way straight forward.

They found themselves, when they had passed through the half-open door,
in another passage running at right-angles to the entrance, with windows,
heavily barred, so as to exclude all but the faintest twilight, even though the
sun was not yet set; there appeared to be foliage of some kind, too, pressing
against them from outside, as if a little central yard lay there; and the light,
by which alone they could see their way along the uneven earth floor, came
from a flambeau which hung by the door, evidently put there just now by
the man who had opened to them; he led them down this passage to the left,
down a couple of steps; unlocked another door of enormous weight and
thickness and closed this behind them. They found themselves in complete
darkness.

"I'll be with you in a moment, mistress," said his voice; and they heard his
steps go on into the dark and cease.

Marjorie stood passive; she could feel the girl's hands clasp her arm, and
could hear her breath come like sobs. But before she could speak, a light
shone somewhere on the roof; and almost immediately the man came back
carrying another flambeau. He called to them civilly; they followed. Marjorie
once trod on some soft, damp thing that crackled beneath her foot. They
groped round one more corner; waited, while they heard a key turning in a
lock. Then the man stood aside, and they went past into the room. A figure
was standing there; but for the first moment they could see no more. Great
shadows fled this way and that as the gaoler hung up the flambeau. Then
the door closed again behind them; and Elizabeth flung herself into her
husband's arms.
 II

When Marjorie could see him, as at last he put his wife into the single chair
that stood in the cell and gave her the stool, himself sitting upon the table,
she was shocked by the change in his face. It was true that she had only the
wavering light of the flambeau to see him by (for the single barred window
was no more than a pale glimmer on the wall), yet even that shadowy
illumination could not account for his paleness and his fallen face. He was
dressed miserably, too; his clothes were disordered and rusty-looking; and
his features looked out, at once pinched and elongated. He blinked a little
from time to time; his lips twitched beneath his ill-cut moustache and
beard; and little spasms passed, as he talked, across his whole face. It was
pitiful to see him; and yet more pitiful to hear him talk; for he assumed a
kind of courtesy, mixed with bitterness. Now and again he fell silent,
glancing with a swift and furtive movement of his eyes from one to the other
of his visitors and back again. He attempted to apologise for the
miserableness of the surroundings in which he received them—saying that
her Grace his hostess could not be everywhere at once; and that her guests
must do the best that they could. And all this was mixed with sudden wails
from his wife, sudden graspings of his hands by hers. It all seemed to the
quiet girl, who sat ill-at-ease on the little three-legged stool, that this was
not the way to meet adversity. Then she drove down her criticism; and told
herself that she ought rather to admire one of Christ's confessors.

"And you bring me no hope, then, Mistress Manners?" he said presently (for
she had told him that there was no talk yet of any formal trial)—"no hope
that I may meet my accusers face to face? I had thought perhaps—"

He lifted his eyes swiftly to hers, and dropped them again.

She shook her head.

"And yet that is all that I ask now—only to meet my accusers. They can
prove nothing against me—except, indeed, my recusancy; and that they
have known this long time back. They can prove nothing as to the
harbouring of any priests—not within the last year, at any rate, for I have
not done so. It seemed to me—"

He stopped again, and passed his shaking hand over his mouth, eyeing the
two women with momentary glances, and then looking down once more.

"Yes?" said Marjorie.

He slipped off from the table, and began to move about restlessly.
"I have done nothing—nothing at all," he said. "Indeed, I thought—"

And once more he was silent.

He began to talk presently of the Derbyshire hills of Padley and of

Norbury. He asked his wife of news from home, and she gave it him,
interrupting herself with laments. Yet all the while his eyes strayed to
Marjorie as if there was something he would ask of her, but could not. He
seemed completely unnerved, and for the first time in her life the girl began
to understand something of what gaol-life must signify. She had heard of
death and the painful Question; and she had perceived something of the
heroism that was needed to meet them; yet she had never before imagined
what that life of confinement might be, until she had watched this man,
whom she had known in the world as a curt and almost masterful
gentleman, careful of his dress, particular of the deference that was due to
him, now become this worn prisoner, careless of his appearance, who
stroked his mouth continually, once or twice gnawing his nails, who paced
about in this abominable hole, where a tumbled heap of straw and blankets
represented a bed, and a rickety table with a chair and a stool his sole
furniture. It seemed as if a husk had been stripped from him, and a
shrinking creature had come out of it which at present she could not
recognise.

Then he suddenly wheeled on her, and for the first time some kind of
forcefulness appeared in his manner.

"And my Uncle Bassett?" he cried abruptly. "What is he doing all this while?"

Marjorie said that Mr. Bassett had been most active on his behalf with the
lawyers, but, for the present, was gone back again to his estates. Mr.
Thomas snorted impatiently.

"Yes, he is gone back again," he cried, "and he leaves me to rot here!

He thinks that I can bear it for ever, it seems!"

"Mr. Bassett has done his utmost, sir," said Marjorie. "He exposed himself
here daily."

"Yes, with twenty fellows to guard him, I suppose. I know my Uncle

Bassett's ways…. Tell me, if you please, how matters stand."

Marjorie explained again. There was nothing in the world to be done until
the order came for his trial—or, rather, everything had been done already.
His lawyers were to rely exactly on the defence that had been spoken of just
now; it was to be shown that the prisoner had harboured no priests; and the
witnesses had already been spoken with—men from Norbury and Padley,
who would swear that to their certain knowledge no priest had been received
by Mr. FitzHerbert at least during the previous year or eighteen months.
There was, therefore, no kind of reason why Mr. Bassett or Mr. John
FitzHerbert should remain any longer in Derby. Mr. John had been there,
but had gone again, under advice from the lawyers; but he was in constant
communication with Mr. Biddell, who had all the papers ready and the
names of the witnesses, and had made more than one application already
for the trial to come on.

"And why has neither my father nor my Uncle Bassett come to see me?"
snapped the man.

"They have tried again and again, sir," said Marjorie. "But permission was
refused. They will no doubt try again, now that Mrs. FitzHerbert has been
admitted."

He paced up and down again for a few steps without speaking. Then again
he turned on her, and she could see his face working uncontrolledly.

"And they will enjoy the estates, they think, while I rot here!"

"Oh, my Thomas!" moaned his wife, reaching out to him. But he paid no
attention to her.

"While I rot here!" he cried again. "But I will not! I tell you I will not!"

"Yes, sir?" said Marjorie gently, suddenly aware that her heart had begun to
beat swiftly.

He glanced at her, and his face changed a little.

"I will not," he murmured. "I must break out of my prison. Only their
accursed—"

Again he interrupted himself, biting sharply on his lip.

For an instant the girl had thought that all her old distrust of him was
justified, and that he contemplated in some way the making of terms that
would be disgraceful to a Catholic. But what terms could these be? He was a
FitzHerbert; there was no evading his own blood; and he was the victim
chosen by the Council to answer for the rest. Nothing, then, except the
denial of his faith—a formal and deliberate apostasy—could serve him; and
to think that of the nephew of old Sir Thomas, and the son of John, was
inconceivable. There seemed no way out; the torment of this prison must be
borne. She only wished he could have borne it more manfully.

It seemed, as she watched him, that some other train of thought had
fastened upon him. His wife had begun again her lamentations, bewailing
his cell and his clothes, and his loss of liberty, asking him whether he were
not ill, whether he had food enough to eat; and he hardly answered her or
glanced at her, except once when he remembered to tell her that a good gift
to the gaoler would mean a little better food, and perhaps more light for
himself. And then he resumed his pacing; and, three or four times as he
turned, the girl caught his eyes fixed on hers for one instant. She wondered
what was in his mind to say.

Even as she wondered there came a single loud rap upon the door, and then
she heard the key turning. He wheeled round, and seemed to come to a
determination.

"My dearest," he said to his wife, "here is the gaoler come to turn you out
again. I will ask him—" He broke off as the man stepped in.

"Mr. Gaoler," he said, "my wife would speak alone with you a moment." (He
nodded and winked at his wife, as if to tell her that this was the time to give
him the money.)

"Will you leave Mistress Manners here for a minute or two while my wife
speaks with you in the passage?"

Then Marjorie understood that she had been right.

The man who held the keys nodded without speaking.

"Then, my dearest wife," said Thomas, embracing her all of a sudden, and
simultaneously drawing her towards the door, "we will leave you to speak
with the man. He will come back for Mistress Manners directly."

"Oh! my Thomas!" wailed the girl, clinging to him.

"There, there, my dearest. And you will come and see me again as soon as
you can get the order."

The instant the door was closed he came up to Marjorie and his face looked
ghastly.
"Mistress Manners," he said, "I dare not speak to my wife. But … but, for
Jesu's sake, get me out of here. I … I cannot bear it…. Topcliffe comes to see
me every day…. He … he speaks to me continually of—O Christ! Christ! I
cannot bear it!"

He dropped suddenly on to his knees by the table and hid his face.
 III

At Babington House Marjorie slept, as was often the custom, in the same
room with her maid—a large, low room, hung all round with painted cloths
above the low wainscoting.

On the night after the visit to the prison, Janet noticed that her mistress
was restless; and that while she would say nothing of what was troubling
her, and only bade her go to bed and to sleep, she herself would not go to
bed. At last, in sheer weariness, the maid slept.

She awakened later, at what time she did not know, and, in her uneasiness,
sat up and looked about her; and there, still before the crucifix, where she
had seen her before she slept, kneeled her mistress. She cried out in a loud
whisper:

"Come to bed, mistress; come to bed."

And, at the word, Marjorie started; then she rose, turned, and in the twilight
of the summer night began to prepare herself for bed, without speaking. Far
away across the roofs of Derby came the crowing of a cock to greet the
dawn.
 CHAPTER X

It was a fortnight later that there came suddenly to Babington House old

Mr. Biddell himself. Up to the present he had been careful not to do so.

He appeared in the great hall an hour before dinner-time, as the tables

were being set, and sent a servant for Mistress Manners.

"Hark you!" he said; "you need not rouse the whole house. It is with

Mistress Manners alone that my business lies."

He broke off, as Mrs. FitzHerbert looked over the gallery.

"Mr. Biddell!" she cried.

He shook his head, but he seemed to speak with some difficulty.

"It is just a rumour," he said, "such as there hath been before. I beg you—"

"That … there will be no trial at all?"

"It is just a rumour," he repeated. "I did not even come to trouble you with it.
It is with Mistress Manners that—"

"I am coming down," cried Mrs. Thomas, and vanished from the gallery.

Mr. Biddell acted with decision. He whisked out again into the passage from
the court, and there ran straight into Marjorie, who was coming in from the
little enclosed garden at the back of the house.

"Quick!" he said. "Quick! Mrs. Thomas is coming, and I do not wish—"

She led the way without a word back into the court, along a few steps, and
up again to the house into a little back parlour that the steward used when
the house was full. It was unoccupied now, and looked out into the garden
whence she was just come. She locked the door when he had entered, and
came and sat down out of sight of any that might be passing.

"Sit here," she said; and then: "Well?" she asked.

He looked at her gravely and sadly, shaking his head once or twice. Then he
drew out a paper or two from a little lawyer's valise that he carried, and, as
he did so, heard a hand try the door outside.
"That is Mrs. Thomas," whispered the girl. "She will not find us."

He waited till the steps moved away again. Then he began. He looked
anxious and dejected.

"I fear it is precisely as you thought," he said. "I have followed up every
rumour in the place. And the first thing that is certain is that Topcliffe
leaves Derby in two days from now. I had it as positive information that his
men have orders to prepare for it. The second thing is that Topcliffe is
greatly elated; and the third is that Mr. FitzHerbert will be released as soon
as Topcliffe is gone."

"You are sure this time, sir?"

He assented by a movement of his head.

"I dared not tell Mrs. Thomas just now. She would give me no peace. I said it
was but a rumour, and so it is; but it is a rumour that hath truth behind it.
He hath been moved, too, these three days back, to another cell, and hath
every comfort."

He shook his head again.

"But he hath made no promise—" began Marjorie breathlessly.

"It is exactly that which I am most afraid of," said the lawyer. "If he had
yielded, and, consented to go to church, it would have been in every man's
mouth by now. But he hath not, and I should fear it less if he had. That's
the very worst part of my news."

"I do not understand—"

Mr. Biddell tapped his papers on the table.

"If he were an open and confessed enemy, I should fear it less," he repeated.
"It is not that. But he must have given some promise to Topcliffe that
pleases the fellow more. And what can that be but that—"

Marjorie turned yet whiter. She sighed once as if to steady herself. She could
not speak, but she nodded.

"Yes, Mistress Manners," said the old man. "I make no doubt at all that he
hath promised to assist him against them all—against Mr. John his father,
it may be, or Mr. Bassett, or God knows whom! And yet still feigning to be
true! And that is not all."
She looked at him. She could not conceive worse than this, if indeed it were
true.

"And do you think," he continued, "that Mr. Topcliffe will do all this for love,
or rather, for mere malice? I have heard more of the fellow since he hath
been in Derby than in all my life before; and, I tell you, he is for feathering
his own nest if he can." He stopped.

"Mistress, did you know that he had been out to Padley three or four times
since he came to Derby?… Well, I tell you now that he has. Mr. John was
away, praise God; but the fellow went all round the place and greatly
admired it."

"He went out to see what he could find?" asked the girl, still whispering.

The other shook his head.

"No, mistress; he searched nothing. I had it all from one of his fellows,
through one of mine. He searched nothing; he sat a great while in the
garden, and ate some of the fruit; he went through the hall and the rooms,
and admired all that was to be seen there. He went up into the chapel-room,
too, though there was nothing there to tell him what it was; and he talked a
great while to one of the men about the farms, and the grazing, and such-
like, but he meddled with nothing." (The old man's face suddenly wrinkled
into fury.) "The devil went through it all like that, and admired it; and he
came out to it again two or three times and did the like."

He stopped to examine the notes he had made, and Marjorie sat still, staring
on him.

It was worse than anything she could have conceived possible. That a
FitzHerbert should apostatise was incredible enough; but that one should
sell his family—It was impossible.

"Mr. Biddell," she whispered piteously, "it cannot be. It is some—"

He shook his head suddenly and fiercely.

"Mistress Manners, it is as plain as daylight to me. Do you think I could

believe it without proof? I tell you I have lain awake all last night, fitting
matters one into the other. I did not hear about Padley till last night, and it
gave me all that I needed. I tell you Topcliffe hath cast his foul eyes on
Padley and coveted it; and he hath demanded it as a price for Mr. Thomas'
liberty. I do not know what else he hath promised, but I will stake my
fortune that Padley is part of it. That is why he is so elated. He hath been
here nearly this three months back; he hath visited Mr. FitzHerbert nigh
every day; he hath cajoled him, he hath threatened him; he hath worn out
his spirit by the gaol and the stinking food and the loneliness; and he hath
prevailed, as he hath prevailed with many another. And the end of it all is
that Mr. FitzHerbert hath yielded—yet not openly. Maybe that is part of the
bargain upon the other side, that he should keep his name before the world.
And on this side he hath promised Padley, if that he may but keep the rest
of the estates, and have his liberty. I tell you that alone cuts all the knots of
this tangle…. Can you cut them in any other manner?"

There was a long silence. From the direction of the kitchen came the sound
of cheerful voices, and the clatter of lids, and from the walled garden outside
the chatter of birds….

At last the girl spoke.

"I cannot believe it without evidence," she said. "It may be so. God knows!
But I do not…. Mr. Biddell?"

"Well, mistress?"

The lawyer's head was sunk on his breast; he spoke listlessly.

"He will have given some writing to Mr. Topcliffe, will he not? if this be true.
Mr. Topcliffe is not the man—"

The old man lifted his head sharply; then he nodded.

"That is the shrewd truth, mistress. Mr. Topcliffe will not trust to another's
honour; he hath none of his own!"

"Well," said Marjorie, "if all this be true, Mr. Topcliffe will already have that
writing in his possession."

She paused.

"Eh?" said the lawyer.

They looked at one another again in silence. It would have seemed to

another that the two minds talked swiftly and wordlessly together, the
trained thought of the lawyer and the quick wit of the woman; for when the
man spoke again, it was as if they had spoken at length.
"But we must not destroy the paper," he said, "or the fat will be in the fire.
We must not let Mr. FitzHerbert know that he is found out."

"No," said the girl. "But to get a view of it…. And a copy of it, to send to his
family."

Again the two looked each at the other in silence—as if they were equals—
the old man and the girl.
 II

It was the last night before the Londoners were to return.

They had lived royally these last three months. The agent of the Council had
had a couple of the best rooms in the inn that looked on to the market-
square, where he entertained his friends, and now and then a magistrate or
two. Even Mr. Audrey, of Matstead, had come to him once there, with
another, but had refused to stay to supper, and had ridden away again
alone.

Downstairs, too, his men had fared very well indeed. They knew how to
make themselves respected, for they carried arms always now, since the
unfortunate affair a day after the arrival, when two of them had been gravely
battered about by two rustic servants, who, they learned, were members of a
Popish household in the town. But all the provincial fellows were not like
this. There was a big man, half clerk and half man-servant to a poor little
lawyer, who lived across the square—a man of no wit indeed, but, at any
rate, one of means and of generosity, too, as they had lately found out—
means and generosity, they understood, that were made possible by the
unknowing assistance of his master. In a word it was believed among Mr.
Topcliffe's men that all the refreshment which they had lately enjoyed,
beyond that provided by their master, was at old Mr. Biddell's expense,
though he did not know it, and that George Beaton, fool though he was, was
a cleverer man than his employer. Lately, too, they had come to learn, that
although George Beaton was half clerk, half man-servant, to a Papist, he
was yet at heart as stout a Protestant as themselves, though he dared not
declare it for fear of losing his place.

On this last night they made very merry indeed, and once or twice the
landlord pushed his head through the doorway. The baggage was packed,
and all was in readiness for a start soon after dawn.

There came a time when George Beaton said that he was stifling with the
heat; and, indeed, in this low-ceilinged room after supper, with the little
windows looking on to the court, the heat was surprising. The men sat in
their shirts and trunks. So that it was as natural as possible that George
should rise from his place and sit down again close to the door where the
cool air from the passage came in; and from there, once more, he led the
talk, in his character of rustic and open-handed boor; he even beat the
sullen man who was next him genially over the head to make him give more
room, and then he proposed a toast to Mr. Topcliffe.
It was about half an hour later, when George was becoming a little anxious,
that he drew out at last a statement that Mr. Topcliffe had a great valise
upstairs, full of papers that had to do with his law business. (He had tried
for this piece of information last night and the night before, but had failed to
obtain it.) Ten minutes later again, then, when the talk had moved to affairs
of the journey, and the valise had been forgotten, it was an entirely
unsuspicious circumstance that George and the man that sat next him
should slip out to take the air in the stable-court. The Londoner was so
fuddled with drink as to think that he had gone out at his own deliberate
wish; and there, in the fresh air, the inevitable result followed; his head
swam, and he leaned on big George for support. And here, by the one stroke
of luck that visited poor George this evening, it fell that he was just in time
to see Mr. Topcliffe himself pass the archway in the direction of Friar's Gate,
in company with a magistrate, who had supped with him upstairs.

Up to this point George had moved blindly, step by step. He had had his
instructions from his master, yet all that he had been able to determine was
the general plan to find out where the papers were kept, to remain in the inn
till the last possible moment, and to watch for any chance that might open
to him. Truly, he had no more than that, except, indeed, a vague idea that it
might be necessary to bribe one of the men to rob his master. Yet there was
everything against this, and it was, indeed, a last resort. It seemed now,
however, that another way was open. It was exceedingly probable that Mr.
Topcliffe was off for his last visit to the prisoner, and, since a magistrate was
with him, it was exceedingly improbable that he would take the paper with
him. It was not the kind of paper—if, indeed, it existed at all—that more
persons would be allowed to see than were parties to the very discreditable
affair.

And now George spoke earnestly and convincingly. He desired to see the
baggage of so great a man as Mr. Topcliffe; he had heard so much of him.
His friend was a good fellow who trusted him (here George embraced him
warmly). Surely such a little thing would be allowed as for him, George, to
step in and view Mr. Topcliffe's baggage, while the faithful servant kept
watch in the passage! Perhaps another glass of ale—
 III

"Yes, sir," said George an hour later, still a little flushed with the amount of
drink he had been forced to consume. "I had some trouble to get it. But I
think this is what your honour wanted."

He began to search in his deep breast-pocket.

"Tell me," said Mr. Biddell.

"I got the fellow to watch in the passage, sir; him that I had made drunk,
while I was inside. There were great bundles of papers in the valise…. No,
sir, it was strapped up only…. The most of the papers were docketed very
legally, sir; so I did not have to search long. There were three or four papers
in a little packet by themselves; besides a great packet that was endorsed
with Mr. FitzHerbert's name, as well as Mr. Topcliffe's and my lord
Shrewsbury's; and I think I should not have had time to look that through.
But, by God's mercy, it was one of the three or four by themselves."

He had the paper in his hand by now. The lawyer made a movement to take
it. Then he restrained himself.

"Tell me, first," he said.

"Well, sir," said George, with a pardonable satisfaction in spinning the

matter out, "one was all covered with notes, and was headed 'Padley.' I read
that through, sir. It had to do with the buildings and the acres, and so forth.
The second paper I could make nothing out of; it was in cypher, I think. The
third paper was the same; and the fourth, sir, was that which I have here."

The lawyer started.

"But I told you—"

"Yes, sir; I should have said that this is the copy—or, at least, an abstract. I
made the abstract by the window, sir, crouching down so that none should
see me. Then I put all back as before, and came out again; the fellow was
fast asleep against the door."

"And Topcliffe—"

"Mr. Topcliffe, sir, returned half an hour afterwards in company again with
Mr. Hamilton. I waited a few minutes to see that all was well, and then I
came to you, sir."
There was silence in the little room for a moment. It was the small back
office of Mr. Biddell, where he did his more intimate business, looking out
on to a paved court. The town was for the most part asleep, and hardly a
sound came through the closed windows.

Then the lawyer turned and put out his hand for the paper without a word.
He nodded to George, who went out, bidding him good-night.

Ten minutes later Mr. Biddell walked quietly through the passengers' gate
by the side of the great doors that led to the court beside Babington House,
closing it behind him. He knew that it would be left unbarred till eleven
o'clock that night. He passed on through the court, past the house door, to
the steward's office, where through heavy curtains a light glimmered. As he
put his hand on the door it opened, and Marjorie was there. He said
nothing, nor did she. Her face was pale and steady, and there was a
question in her eyes. For answer he put the paper into her hands, and sat
down while she read it. The stillness was as deep here as in the office he had
just left.
 IV

It was a minute or two before either spoke. The girl read the paper twice
through, holding it close to the little hand-lamp that stood on the table.

"You see, mistress," he said, "it is as bad as it can be."

She handed back the paper to him; he slid out his spectacles, put them on,
and held the writing to the light.

"Here are the points, you see …" he went on. "I have annotated them in the
margin. First, that Thomas FitzHerbert be released from Derby gaol within
three days from the leaving of Topcliffe for London, and that he be no more
troubled, neither in fines nor imprisonment; next, that he have secured to
him, so far as the laws shall permit, all his inheritance from Sir Thomas,
from his father, and from any other bequests whether of his blood-relations
or no; thirdly, that Topcliffe do 'persecute to the death'"—(the lawyer paused,
cast a glance at the downcast face of the girl) "'—do persecute to the death'
his uncle Sir Thomas, his father John, and William Bassett his kinsman;
and, in return for all this, Thomas FitzHerbert shall become her Grace's
sworn servant—that is, Mistress Manners, her Grace's spy, pursuivant,
informer and what-not—and that he shall grant and secure to Richard
Topcliffe, Esquire, and to his heirs for ever, 'the manors of Over Padley and
Nether Padley, on the Derwent, with six messuages, two cottages, ten
gardens, ten orchards, a thousand acres of land, five hundred acres of
meadow-land, six hundred acres of pasture, three hundred acres of wood, a
thousand acres of furze and heath, in Padley, Grindleford and Lyham, in the
parish of Hathersage, in consideration of eight hundred marks of silver, to
be paid to Thomas FitzHerbert, Esquire, etc.'"

The lawyer put the paper down, and pushed his spectacles on to his
forehead.

"That is a legal instrument?" asked the girl quietly, still with downcast eyes.

"It is not yet fully completed, but it is signed and witnessed. It can become a
legal instrument by Topcliffe's act; and it would pass muster—"

"It is signed by Mr. Thomas?"

He nodded.

She was silent again. He began to tell her of how he had obtained it, and of
George's subtlety and good fortune; but she seemed to pay no attention. She
sat perfectly still. When he had ended, she spoke again.
"A sworn servant of her Grace—" she began.

"Topcliffe is a sworn servant of her Grace," he said bitterly; "you may judge
by that what Thomas FitzHerbert hath become."

"We shall have his hand, too, against us all, then?"

"Yes, mistress; and, what is worse, this paper I take it—" (he tapped it) "this
paper is to be a secret for the present. Mr. Thomas will still feign himself to
be a Catholic, with Catholics, until he comes into all his inheritances. And,
meantime, he will supply information to his new masters."

"Why cannot we expose him?"

"Where is the proof? He will deny it."

She paused.

"We can at least tell his family. You will draw up the informations?"

"I will do so."

"And send them to Sir Thomas and Mr. Bassett?"

"I will do so."

"That may perhaps prevent his inheritance coming to him as quickly as he

thinks."

The lawyer's eyes gleamed.

"And what of Mrs. Thomas, mistress?"

Marjorie lifted her eyes.

"I do not think a great deal of Mrs. Thomas," she said. "She is honest,

I think; but she could not be trusted with a secret. But I will tell

Mistress Babington, and I will warn what priests I can."

"And if it leaks out?"

"It must leak out."

"And yourself? Can you meet Mr. Thomas again just now? He will be out in
three days."
Marjorie drew a long breath.

"No, sir; I cannot meet him. I should betray what I felt. I shall make excuses
to Mrs. Thomas, and go home to-morrow."
 PART III

CHAPTER I

The "Red Bull" in Cheapside was all alight; a party had arrived there from
the coast not an hour ago, and the rooms that had been bespoken by
courier occupied the greater part of the second floor; the rest of the house
was already filled by another large company, spoken for by Mr. Babington,
although he himself was not one of them. And it seemed to the shrewd
landlord that these two parties were not wholly unknown to one another,
although, as a discreet man, he said nothing.

The latest arrived party was plainly come from the coast. They had arrived a
little after sunset on this stormy August day, splashed to the shoulders by
the summer-mud, and drenched to the skin by the heavy thunder-showers.
Their baggage had a battered and sea-going air about it, and the landlord
thought he would not be far away if he conjectured Rheims as their starting-
point; there were three gentlemen in the party, and four servants
apparently; but he knew better than to ask questions or to overhear what
seemed rather over-familiar conversation between the men and their
masters. There was only one, however, whom he remembered to have lodged
before, over five years ago. The name of this one was Mr. Alban. But all this
was not his business. His duty was to be hearty and deferential and entirely
stupid; and certainly this course of behaviour brought him a quantity of
guests.

Mr. Alban, about half-past nine o'clock, had finished unstrapping his
luggage. It was of the most innocent description, and contained nothing that
all the world might not see. He had made arrangements that articles of
another kind should come over from Rheims under the care of one of the
"servants," whose baggage would be less suspected. The distribution would
take place in a day or two. These articles comprised five sets of altar vessels,
five sets of mass-vestments, made of a stuff woven of all the liturgical
colours together, a dozen books, a box of medals, another of Agnus Deis—
little wax medallions stamped with the figure of a Lamb supporting a
banner—a bunch of beads, and a heavy little square package of very thin
altar-stones.

As he laid out the suit of clothes that he proposed to wear next day, there
was a rapping on his door.

"Mr. Babington is come—sir." (The last word was added as an obvious

afterthought, in case of listeners.)
Robin sprang up; the door was opened by his "servant," and Anthony came
in, smiling.

Mr. Anthony Babington had broadened and aged considerably during the
last five years. He was still youthful-looking, but he was plainly a man and
no longer a boy. And he presently said as much for his friend.

"You are a man, Robin," he said.—"Why, it slipped my mind!"

He knelt down promptly on the strip of carpet and kissed the palms of the
hands held out to him, as is the custom to do with newly-ordained priests,
and Robin murmured a blessing.

Then the two sat down again.

"And now for the news," said Robin.

Anthony's face grew grave.

"Yours first," he said.

So Robin told him. He had been ordained priest a month ago, at Châlons-
sur-Marne…. The college was as full as it could hold…. They had had an
unadventurous journey.

Anthony put a question or two, and was answered.

"And now," said Robin, "what of Derbyshire; and of the country; and of my
father? And is it true that Ballard is taken?"

Anthony threw an arm over the back of his chair, and tried to seem at his
ease.

"Well," he said, "Derbyshire is as it ever was. You heard of Thomas

FitzHerbert's defection?"

"Mistress Manners wrote to me of it, more than two years ago."

"Well, he does what he can: he comes and goes with his wife or without her.
But he comes no more to Padley. And he scarcely makes a feint even before
strangers of being a Catholic, though he has not declared himself, nor gone
to church, at any rate in his own county. Here in London I have seen him
more than once in Topcliffe's company. But I think that every Catholic in the
country knows of it by now. That is Mistress Manners' doing. My sister says
there has never been a woman like her."
Robin's eyes twinkled.

"I always said so," he said. "But none would believe me. She has the wit and
courage of twenty men. What has she been doing?"

"What has she not done?" cried Anthony. "She keeps herself for the most
part in her house; and my sister spends a great deal of time with her; but
her men, who would die for her, I think, go everywhere; and half the hog-
herds and shepherds of the Peak are her sworn men. I have given your Dick
to her; he was mad to do what he could in that cause. So her men go this
way and that bearing her letters or her messages to priests who are on their
way through the county; and she gets news—God knows how!—of what is a-
stirring against us. She has saved Mr. Ludlam twice, and Mr. Garlick once,
as well as Mr. Simpson once, by getting the news to them of the
pursuivants' coming, and having them away into the Peak. And yet with all
this, she has never been laid by the heels."

"Have they been after her, then?" asked Robin eagerly.

"They have had a spy in her house twice to my knowledge, but never openly;
and never a shred of a priest's gown to be seen, though mass had been said
there that day. But they have never searched it by force. And I think they do
not truly suspect her at all."

"Did I not say so?" cried Robin. "And what of my father? He wrote to me that
he was to be made magistrate; and I have never written to him since."

"He hath been made magistrate," said Anthony drily; "and he sits on the
bench with the rest of them."

"Then he is all of the same mind?"

"I know nothing of his mind. I have never spoken with him this six years
back. I know his acts only. His name was in the 'Bond of Association,' too!"

"I have heard of that."

"Why, it is two years old now. Half the gentry of England have joined it," said
Anthony bitterly. "It is to persecute to the death any pretender to the Crown
other than our Eliza."

There was a pause. Robin understood the bitterness.

"And what of Mr. Ballard?" asked Robin.

"Yes; he is taken," said Anthony slowly, watching him. "He was taken a week
ago."

"Will they banish him, then?"

"I think they will banish him."

"Why, yes—it is the first time he hath been taken. And there is nothing great
against him?"

"I think there is not," said Anthony, still with that strange deliberateness.

"Why do you look at me like that?"

Anthony stood up without answering. Then he began to pace about. As he

passed the door he looked to the bolt carefully. Then he turned again to his
friend.

"Robin," he said, "would you sooner know a truth that will make you
unhappy, or be ignorant of it?"

"Does it concern myself or my business?" asked Robin promptly.

"It concerns you and every priest and every Catholic in England. It is what I
have hinted to you before."

"Then I will hear it."

"It is as if I told it in confession?"

Robin paused.

"You may make it so," he said, "if you choose."

Anthony looked at him an instant. "Well," he said, "I will not make a
confession, because there is no use in that now—but—Well, listen!" he said,
and sat down.
 II

When he ceased, Robin lifted his head. He was as white as a sheet.

"You have been refused absolution before for this?"

"I was refused absolution by two priests; but I was granted it by a third."

"Let me see that I have the tale right.

"Yourself, with a number of others, have bound yourselves by an oath to kill

her Grace, and to set Mary on the throne. This has taken shape now since
the beginning of the summer. You yourself are now living in Mr.
Walsingham's house, in Seething Lane, under the patronage of her Grace,
and you show yourself freely at court. You have proceeded so far, under fear
of Mr. Ballard's arrest, as to provide one of your company with clothes and
necessaries that can enable him to go to court; and it was your intention, as
well as his, that he should take opportunity to kill her Grace. But to-day
only you have become persuaded that the old design was the better; and you
wish first to arrange matters with the Queen of the Scots, so that when all is
ready, you may be the more sure of a rising when that her Grace is killed,
and that the Duke of Parma may be in readiness to bring an army into
England. It is still your intention to kill her Grace?"

"By God! it is!" said Anthony, between clenched teeth.

"Then I could not absolve you, even if you came to confession. You may be
absolved from your allegiance, as we all are; but you are not absolved from
charity and justice towards Elizabeth as a woman. I have consulted
theologians on the very point; and—"

Then Anthony sprang up.

"See here, Robin; we must talk this out." He flicked his fingers sharply.
"See—we will talk of it as two friends."

"You had better take back those words," said the priest gravely.

"Why?"

"It would be my duty to lay an information! I understood you spoke to me as

to a priest, though not in confession."

"You would!" blazed the other.

"I should do so in conscience," said the priest. "But you have not yet told me
as a friend, and—"

"You mean—"

"I mean that so long as you choose to speak to me of it, now and here, it
remains that I choose to regard it as sub sigillo in effect. But you must not
come to me to-morrow, as if I knew it all in a plain way. I do not. I know it
as a priest only."

There was silence for a moment. Then Anthony stood up.

"I understand," he said. "But you would refuse me absolution in any case?"

"I could not give you absolution so long as you intended to kill her

Grace."

Anthony made an impatient gesture.

"See here," he said. "Let me tell you the whole matter from the beginning.
Now listen."

He settled himself again in his chair, and began.

"Robin," he said, "you remember when I spoke to you in the inn on the
way to Matstead; it must be seven or eight years gone now? Well, that was
when the beginning was. There was no design then, such as we have to-day;
but the general purpose was there. I had spoken with man after man; I had
been to France, and seen Mr. Morgan there, Queen Mary's man, and my lord
of Glasgow; and all that I spoke with seemed of one mind—except my lord of
Glasgow, who did not say much to me on the matter. But all at least were
agreed that there would be no peace in England so long as Elizabeth sat on
the throne.

"Well: it was after that that I fell in with Ballard, who was over here on some
other affair; and I found him a man of the same mind as myself; he was all
agog for Mary, and seemed afraid of nothing. Well; nothing was done for a
great while. He wrote to me from France; I wrote back to him again, telling
him the names of some of my friends. I went to see him in France two or
three times; and I saw him here, when you yourself came over with him. But
we did not know whom to trust. Neither had we any special design. Her
Grace of the Scots went hither and thither under strong guards; and what I
had done for her before—"

Robin looked up. He was still quite pale and quite quiet.
"What was that?" he said.

Anthony again made his impatient gesture. He was fiercely excited; but kept
himself under tolerable control.

"Why, I have been her agent for a great while back, getting her letters
through to her, and such like. But last year, when that damned Sir Amyas
Paulet became her gaoler, I could do nothing. Two or three times my
messenger was stopped, and the letters taken from him. Well; after that time
I could do no more. There her Grace was, back again at Tutbury, and none
could get near her. She might no more give alms, even, to the poor; and all
her letters must go through Walsingham's hands. And then God helped us:
she was taken last autumn to Chartley, near by which is the house of the
Giffords; and since that time we have been almost merry. Do you know
Gilbert Gifford?"

"He hath been with the Jesuits, hath he not?"

"That is the man. Well, Mr. Gilbert Gifford hath been God's angel to us.

A quiet, still kind of a man—you have seen him?"

"I have spoken with him at Rheims," said Robin. "I know nothing of him."

"Well; he contrived the plan. He hath devised a beer-barrel that hath the
beer all roundabout, so that when they push their rods in, there seems all
beer within. But in the heart of the beer there is secured a little iron case;
and within the iron case there is space for papers. Well, this barrel goes to
and fro to Chartley and to a brewer that is a good Catholic; and within the
case there are the letters. And in this way, all has been prepared—"

Robin looked up again. He remained quiet through all the story; and lifted
no more than his eyes. His fingers played continually with a button on his
doublet.

"You mean that Queen Mary hath consented to this?"

"Why, yes!"

"To her sister's death?"

"Why, yes!"

"I do not believe it," said the priest quietly. "On whose word does that
stand?"
"Why, on her own! Whose else's?" snapped Anthony.

"You mean, you have it in her own hand, signed by her name?"

"It is in Gifford's hand! Is not that enough? And there is her seal to it. It is in
cypher, of course. What would you have?"

"Where is she now?" asked Robin, paying no attention to the question.

"She hath just now been moved again to Tixall."

"For what?"

"I do not know. What has that to do with the matter? She will be back soon
again. I tell you all is arranged."

"Tell me the rest of the story," said the priest.

"There is not much more. So it stands at present. I tell you her Grace hath
been tossed to and fro like a ball at play. She was at Chatsworth, as you
know; she has been shut up in Chartley like a criminal; she was at
Babington House even. God! if I had but known it in time!"

"In Babington House! Why, when was that?"

"Last year, early—with Sir Ralph Sadler, who was her gaoler then!" cried
Anthony bitterly; "but for a night only…. I have sold the house."

"Sold it!"

"I do not keep prisons," snapped Anthony. "I will have none of it!"

"Well?"

"Well," resumed the other man quietly. "I must say that when Ballard was
taken—"

"When was that?"

"Last week only. Well, when he was taken I thought perhaps all was known.
But I find Mr. Walsingham's conversation very comforting, though little he
knows it, poor man! He knows that I am a Catholic; and he was lamenting to
me only three days ago of the zeal of these informers. He said he could not
save Ballard, so hot was the pursuit after him; that he would lose favour
with her Grace if he did."

"What comfort is there in that?"

"Why; it shows plain enough that nothing is known of the true facts. If they
were after him for this design of ours do you think that Walsingham would
speak like that? He would clap us all in ward—long ago."

The young priest was silent. His head still whirled with the tale, and his
heart was sick at the misery of it all. This was scarcely the home-coming he
had looked for! He turned abruptly to the other.

"Anthony, lad," he said, "I beseech you to give it up."

Anthony smiled at him frankly. His excitement was sunk down again.

"You were always a little soft," he said. "I remember you would have nought
to do with us before. Why, we are at war, I tell you; and it is not we who
declared it! They have made war on us now for the last twenty years and
more. What of all the Catholics—priests and others—who have died on the
gibbet, or rotted in prison? If her Grace makes war upon us, why should we
not make war upon her Grace? Tell me that, then!"

"Anthony, I beseech you to give it up. I hate the whole matter, and fear it,
too."

"Fear it? Why, I tell you, we hold them so." (He stretched out his lean, young
hand, and clenched the long fingers slowly together.) "We have them by the
throat. You will be glad enough to profit by it, when Mary reigns. What is
there to fear?"

"I do not know; I am uneasy. But that is not to the purpose. I tell you it is
forbidden by God's—"

"Uneasy! Fear it! Why, tell me what there is to fear? What hole can you find
anywhere?"

"I do not know. I hardly know the tale yet. But it seems to me there might be
a hundred."

"Tell me one of them, then."

Anthony threw himself back with an indulgent smile on his face.

"Why, if you will have it," said Robin, roused by the contempt, "there is one
great hole in this. All hangs upon Gifford's word, as it seems to me. You
have not spoken with Mary; you have not even her own hand on it."

"Bah! Why, her Grace of the Scots cannot write in cypher, do you think?"
"I do not know how that may be. It may be so. But I say that all hangs upon
Gifford."

"And you think Gifford can be a liar and a knave!" sneered Anthony.

"I have not one word against him," said the priest. "But neither had I against
Thomas FitzHerbert; and you know what has befallen—"

Anthony snorted with disdain.

"Put your finger through another hole," he said.

"Well—I like not the comfort that Mr. Secretary Walsingham has given you.
You told me a while ago that Ballard was on the eve of going to France. Now
Walsingham is no fool. I would to God he were! He has laid enough of our
men by the heels already."

"By God!" cried Anthony, roused again. "I would not willingly call you a fool
either, my man! But do you not understand that Walsingham believes me as
loyal as himself? Here have I been at court for the last year, bowing before
her Grace, and never a word said to me on my religion. And here is
Walsingham has bidden me to lodge in his house, in the midst of all his
spider's webs. Do you think he would do that if—"

"I think he might have done so," said Robin slowly.

Anthony sprang to his feet.

"My Robin," he said, "you were right enough when you said you would not
join with us. You were not made for this work. You would see an enemy in
your own father—"

He stopped confounded.

Robin smiled drearily.

"I have seen one in him," he said.

Anthony clapped him on the shoulder, not unkindly.

"Forgive me, my Robin. I did not think what I said. Well; we will leave it at
that. And you would not give me absolution?"

The priest shook his head.

"Then give me your blessing," said Anthony, dropping on his knees. "And so
we will close up the quasi-sigillum confessionis."
 III

It was a heavy-hearted priest that presently, downstairs, stood with Anthony

in one of the guest-rooms, and was made known to half a dozen strangers.
Every word that he had heard upstairs must be as if it had never been
spoken, from the instant at which Anthony had first sat down to the instant
in which he had kneeled down to receive his blessing. So much he knew
from his studies at Rheims. He must be to each man that he met, that
which he would have been to him an hour ago. Yet, though as a man he
must know nothing, his priest's heart was heavy in his breast. It was a
strange home-coming—to pass from the ordered piety of the college: to the
whirl of politics and plots in which good and evil span round together—
honest and fiery zeal for God's cause, mingled with what he was persuaded
was crime and abomination. He had thought that a priest's life would be a
simple thing, but it seemed otherwise now.

He spoke with those half-dozen men—those who knew him well enough for a
priest; and presently, when some of his own party came, drew aside again
with Anthony, who began to tell him in a low voice of the personages there.

"These are all my private friends," he said, "and some of them be men of
substance in their own place. There is Mr. Charnoc, of Lancashire, he with
the gilt sword. He is of the Court of her Grace, and comes and goes as he
pleases. He is lodged in Whitehall, and comes here but to see his friends.
And there is Mr. Savage, in the new clothes, with his beard cut short. He is
a very honest fellow, but of a small substance, though of good family
enough."

"Her Grace has some of her ladies, too, that are Catholics, has she not?"
asked Robin.

"There are two or three at least, and no trouble made. They hear mass when
they can at the Embassies. Mendoza is a very good friend of ours."

Mr. Charnoc came up presently to the two. He was a cheerful-looking man,

of northern descent, very particular in his clothes, with large gold ear-rings;
he wore a short, pointed beard above his stiff ruff, and his eyes were bright
and fanatical.

"You are from Rheims, I understand, Mr. Alban."

He sat down with something of an air next to Robin.

"And your county—?" he asked.

"I am from Derbyshire, sir," said Robin.

"From Derbyshire. Then you will have heard of Mistress Marjorie Manners,
no doubt."

"She is an old friend of mine," said Robin, smiling. (The man had a great
personal charm about him.)

"You are very happy in your friends, then," said the other. "I have never
spoken with her myself; but I hear of her continually as assisting our
people—sending them now up into the Peak country, now into the towns, as
the case may be—and never a mistake."

It was delightful to Robin to hear her praised, and he talked of her keenly
and volubly. Exactly that had happened which five years ago he would have
thought impossible; for every trace of his old feeling towards her was gone,
leaving behind, and that only in the very deepest intimacies of his thought, a
sweet and pleasant romance, like the glow in the sky when the sun is gone
down. Little by little that had come about which, in Marjorie, had
transformed her when she first sent him to Rheims. It was not that reaction
had followed; there was no contempt, either of her or of himself, for what he
had once thought of her; but another great passion had risen above it—a
passion of which the human lover cannot even guess, kindled for one that is
greater than man; a passion fed, trained and pruned by those six years of
studious peace at Rheims, directed by experts in humanity. There he had
seen what Love could do when it could rise higher than its human channels;
he had seen young men, scarcely older than himself, set out for England, as
for their bridals, exultant and on fire; and back to Rheims had come again
the news of their martyrdom: this one died, crying to Jesu as a home-
coming child cries to his mother at the garden-gate; this one had said
nothing upon the scaffold, but his face (they said who brought the news)
had been as the face of Stephen at his stoning; and others had come back
themselves, banished, with pain of death on their returning, yet back once
more these had gone. And, last, more than once, there had crept back to
Rheims, borne on a litter all the way from the coast, the phantom of a man
who a year or two ago had played "cat" and shouted at the play—now a bent
man, grey-haired, with great scars on wrists and ankles…. Te Deums had
been sung in the college chapel when the news of the deaths had come:
there were no requiems for such as these; and the place of the martyr in the
refectory was decked with flowers…. Robin had seen these things, and
wondered whether his place, too, would some day be so decked.

For Marjorie, then, he felt nothing but a happy friendliness, and a real
delight when he thought of seeing her again. It was glorious, he thought,
that she had done so much; that her name was in all men's mouths. And he
had thought, when he had first gone to Rheims, that he would do all and
she nothing! He had written to her then, freely and happily. He had told her
that she must give him shelter some day, as she was doing for so many.

Meanwhile it was pleasant to hear her praises.

"'Eve would be Eve,'" quoted Mr. Charnoc presently, in speaking of pious

women's obstinacy, "'though Adam would say Nay.'"

Then, at last, when Mr. Charnoc said that he must be leaving for his own
lodgings, and stood up; once more upon Robin's heart there fell the horrible
memory of all that he had heard upstairs.
 CHAPTER II

It was strange to Robin to walk about the City, and to view all that he saw
from his new interior position. The last time that he had been in his own
country on that short visit with "Captain Fortescue," he had been innocent
in the eyes of the law, or, at least, no more guilty than any one of the
hundreds of young men who, in spite of the regulations, were sent abroad to
finish their education amid Catholic surroundings. Now, however, his very
presence was an offence: he had broken every law framed expressly against
such cases as his; he had studied abroad, he had been "ordained beyond
the seas"; he had read his mass in his own bedchamber; he had, practically,
received a confession; and it was his fixed and firm intention to "reconcile"
as many of "her Grace's subjects" as possible to the "Roman See." And, to
tell the truth, he found pleasure in the sheer adventure of it, as would every
young man of spirit; and he wore his fine clothes, clinked his sword, and
cocked his secular hat with delight.

The burden of what he had heard still was heavy on him. It was true that in
a manner inconceivable to any but a priest it lay apart altogether from his
common consciousness: he had talked freely enough to Mr. Charnoc and the
rest; he could not, even by a momentary lapse, allow what he knew to colour
even the thoughts by which he dealt with men in ordinary life; for though it
was true that no confession had been made, yet it was in virtue of his
priesthood that he had been told so much. Yet there were moments when he
walked alone, with nothing else to distract him, when the cloud came down
again; and there were moments, too, in spite of himself, when his heart beat
with another emotion, when he pictured what might not be five years hence,
if Elizabeth were taken out of the way and Mary reigned in her stead. He
knew from his father how swiftly and enthusiastically the old Faith had
come back with Mary Tudor after the winter of Edward's reign. And if, as
some estimated, a third of England were still convincedly Catholic, and
perhaps not more than one twentieth convincedly Protestant, might not
Mary Stuart, with her charm, accomplish more even than Mary Tudor with
her lack of it?

He saw many fine sights during the three or four days after his coming to
London; for he had to wait there at least that time, until a party that was
expected from the north should arrive with news of where he was to go.
These were the instructions he had had from Rheims. So he walked freely
abroad during these days to see the sights; and even ventured to pay a visit
to Fathers Garnett and Southwell, two Jesuits that arrived a month ago, and
were for the present lodging in my Lord Vaux's house in Hackney.
He was astonished at Father Southwell's youthfulness.

This priest had landed but a short while before, and, for the present, was
remaining quietly in the edge of London with the older man; for himself was
scarcely twenty-five years old, and looked twenty at the most. He was very
quiet and sedate, with a face of almost feminine delicacy, and passed a good
deal of his leisure, as the old lord told Robin, in writing verses. He appeared
a strangely fine instrument for such heavy work as was a priest's.

On another day Robin saw the Archbishop land at Westminster Stairs.

It was a brilliant day of sunshine as he came up the river-bank, and a little

crowd of folks at the head of the stairs drew his attention. Then he heard,
out of sight, the throb of oars grow louder; then a cry of command; and, as
he reached the head of the stairs and looked over, the Archbishop, with a
cloak thrown over his rochet, was just stepping out of the huge gilded barge,
whose blue-and-silver liveried oarsmen steadied the vessel, or stood at the
salute. It was a gay and dignified spectacle as he perceived, in spite of his
intense antipathy to the sight of a man who, to him, was no better than an
usurper and a deceiver of the people. Dr. Whitgift, too, was no friend to
Catholics: he had, for instance, deliberately defended the use of the rack
against them and others, unashamed; and in one particular instance, at
least, as Bishop of Worcester, had directed its exercise in the county of
Denbigh. These things were perfectly known, of course, even beyond the
seas, to the priests who were to go on the English mission, in surprising
detail. Robin knew even that this man was wholly ignorant of Greek; he
looked at him carefully as he came up the stairs, and was surprised at the
kindly face of him, thin-lipped, however, though with pleasant, searching
eyes. His coach was waiting outside Old Palace Yard, and Robin, following
with the rest of the little crowd, saluted him respectfully as he climbed into
it, followed by a couple of chaplains.

As he walked on, he glanced back across the river at Lambeth. There it lay,
then, the home of Warham and Pole and Morton, with the water lapping its
towers. It had once stood for the spiritual State of God in England, facing its
partner—(and sometimes its rival)—Westminster and Whitehall; now it was
a department of the civil State merely. It was occupied by men such as Dr.
Grindal, sequestrated and deprived of even his spiritual functions by the
woman who now grasped all the reins of the Commonwealth; and now again
by the man whom he had just seen, placed there by the same woman to
carry out her will more obediently against all who denied her supremacy in
matters spiritual as well as temporal, whether Papists or Independents.
The priest was astonished, as he reached the precincts of Whitehall, to
observe the number of guards that were everywhere visible. He had been
warned at Rheims not to bring himself into too much notice, no more than
markedly to avoid it; so he did not attempt to penetrate even the outer
courts or passages. Yet it seemed to him that an air of watchfulness was
everywhere. At the gate towards which he looked at least half a dozen men
were on formal guard, their uniforms and weapons sparkling brilliantly in
the sunshine; and besides these, within the open doors he caught sight of a
couple of officers. As he stood there, a man came out of one of the houses
near the gate, and turned towards it: he was immediately challenged, and
presently passed on within, where one of the officers came forward to speak
to him. Then Robin thought he had stood looking long enough, and moved
away.

He came back to the City across the fields, half a mile away from the
river, and, indeed, it was a glorious sight he had before him. Here, about
him, was open ground on either side of the road on which he walked; and
there, in front, rose up on the slope of the hill the long line of great old
houses, beyond the stream that ran down into the Thames—old Religious
Houses for the most part, now disguised and pulled about beyond
recognition, ranging right and left from the Ludgate itself: behind these rose
again towers and roofs, and high above all the tall spire of the Cathedral, as
if to gather all into one, culminant aspiration…. The light from the west lay
on every surface that looked to his left, golden and rosy; elsewhere lay blue
and dusky shadows.
 II

"There is a letter for you, air," said the landlord, who had an uneasy look on
his face, as the priest came through the entrance of the inn.

Robin took it. Its superscription ran shortly: "To Mr. Alban, at the Red

Bull Inn in Cheapside. Haste. Haste. Haste."

He turned it over; it was sealed plainly on the back without arms or any
device; it was a thick package, and appeared as if it might hold an enclosure
or two.

Robin had learned caution in a good school, and what is yet more vital in
true caution, an appearance of carelessness. He weighed the packet easily in
his hand, as if it were of no value, though he knew it might contain very
questionable stuff from one of his friends, and glanced at a quantity of
baggage that lay heaped beside the wall.

"What is all this?" he said. "Another party arrived?"

"No, sir; the party is leaving. Rather, it is left already; and the gentlemen
bade me have the baggage ready here. They would send for it later, they told
me."

This was unusually voluble from this man. Robin looked at him quickly, and
away again.

"What party?" he said.

"The gentlemen you were with this two nights past, sir," said the landlord
keenly.

Robin was aware of a feeling as if a finger had been laid on his heart; but
not a muscle of his face moved.

"Indeed!" he said. "They told me nothing of it."

Then he moved on easily, feeling the landlord's eyes in every inch of his
back, and went leisurely upstairs.

He reached his room, bolted the door softly behind him, and sat down. His
heart was going now like a hammer. Then he opened the packet; an
enclosure fell out of it, also sealed, but without direction of any kind. Then
he saw that the sheet in which the packet had come was itself covered with
writing, rather large and sprawling, as if written in haste. He put the packet
aside, and then lifted the paper to read it.

When he had finished, he sat quite still. The room looked to him misty
and unreal; the paper crackled in his shaking fingers, and a drop of sweat
ran suddenly into the corner of his dry lips. Then he read the paper again. It
ran as follows:

"It is all found out, we think. I find myself watched at every point, and I can
get no speech with B. I cannot go forth from the house without a fellow to
follow me, and two of my friends have found the same. Mr. G., too, hath
been with Mr. W. this three hours back. By chance I saw him come in, and
he has not yet left again. Mr. Ch. is watching for me while I write this, and
will see that this letter is bestowed on a trusty man who will bring it to your
inn, and, with it, another letter to bid our party save themselves while they
can. I do not know how we shall fare, but we shall meet at a point that is
fixed, and after that evade or die together. You were right, you see. Mr. G.
has acted the traitor throughout, with Mr. W.'s connivance and assistance. I
beg of you, then, to carry this letter, which I send in this, to Her for whom
we have forfeited our lives, or, at least, our country; or, if you cannot take it
with safety, master the contents of it by note and deliver it to her with your
own mouth. She has been taken back to C. again, whither you must go, and
all her effects searched."

There was no signature, but there followed a dash of the pen, and then a
scrawled "A.B.," as if an interruption had come, or as if the man who was
with the writer would wait no longer.

A third time Robin read it through. It was terribly easy of interpretation. "B."
was Ballard; "G." was Gifford; "W." was Walsingham; "Ch." was Charnoc;
"Her" was Mary Stuart; "C." was Chartley. It fitted and made sense like a
child's puzzle. And, if the faintest doubt could remain in the most
incredulous mind as to the horrible reality of it all, there was the piled
luggage downstairs, that would never be "sent for" (and never, indeed,
needed again by its owners in this world).

Then he took up the second sealed packet, and held it unbroken, while his
mind flew like a bird, and in less than a minute he decided, and opened it.

It was a piteous letter, signed again merely "A.B.," and might have been
written by any broken-hearted reverent lover to his beloved. It spoke an
eternal good-bye; the writer said that he would lay down his life gladly again
in such a cause if it were called for, and would lay down a thousand if he
had them; he entreated her to look to herself, for that no doubt every
attempt would now be made to entrap her; and it warned her to put no
longer any confidence in a "detestable knave, G.G." Finally, he begged that
"Jesu would have her in His holy keeping," and that if matters fell out as he
thought they would, she would pray for his soul, and the souls of all that
had been with him in the enterprise.

He read it through three or four times; every line and letter burned itself into
his brain. Then he tore it across and across; then he tore the letter
addressed to himself in the same manner; then he went through all the
fragments, piece by piece, tearing each into smaller fragments, till there
remained in his hands just a bunch of tiny scraps, smaller than snowflakes,
and these he scattered out of the window.

Then he went to his door, unbolted it, and walked downstairs to find the
landlord.
 III

It was not until ten days later, soon after dawn, that Robin set out on his
melancholy errand. He rode out northward as soon as the gates were
opened, with young "Mr. Arnold," a priest ordained with him in Rheims, and
one of his party, disguised as a servant, following him on a pack-horse with
the luggage. It was a misty morning, white and cheerless, with the early fog
that had drifted up from the river. Last night the news had come in that
Anthony and at least one other had been taken near Harrow, in disguise,
and the streets had been full of riotous rejoicing over the capture.

He had thought it more prudent to wait till after receiving the news, which
he so much dreaded, lest haste should bring suspicion on himself, and the
message that he carried; since for him, too, to disappear at once would have
meant an almost inevitable association of him with the party of plotters; but
it had been a hard time to pass through. Early in the morning, after
Anthony's flight, he had awakened to hear a rapping upon the inn door,
and, peeping from his window, had seen a couple of plainly dressed men
waiting for admittance; but after that he had seen no more of them. He had
deliberately refrained from speaking with the landlord, except to remark
again upon the luggage of which he caught a sight, piled no longer in the
entrance, but in the little room that the man himself used. The landlord had
said shortly that it had not yet been sent for. And the greater part of the
day—after he had told the companions that had come with him from Rheims
that he had had a letter, which seemed to show that the party with whom
they had made friends had disappeared, and were probably under
suspicion, and had made the necessary arrangements for his own departure
with young Mr. Arnold—he spent in walking abroad as usual. The days that
followed had been bitter and heavy. He had liked neither to stop within
doors nor to go abroad, since the one course might arouse inquiry and the
second lead to his identification. He had gone to my Lord Vaux's house
again and again, with his friend and without him; he had learned of the
details of Anthony's capture, though he had not dared even to attempt to get
speech with him; and, further, that unless the rest of the men were caught,
it would not be easy to prove anything against him. One thing, therefore, he
prayed for with all his heart—that the rest might yet escape. He told his
party something of the course of events, but not too much. On the Sunday
that intervened he went to hear mass in Fetter Lane, where numbers of
Catholics resorted; and there, piece by piece, learned more of the plot than
even Anthony had told him.

Mr. Arnold was a Lancashire man and a young convert of Oxford—one of

that steady small stream that poured over to the Continent—a sufficiently
well-born and intelligent man to enjoy acting as a servant, which he did with
considerable skill. It was common enough for gentlemen to ride side by side
with their servants when they had left the town; and by the time that the
two were clear of the few scattered houses outside the City gates, Mr. Arnold
urged on his horse; and they rode together. Robin was in somewhat of a
difficulty as to how far he was justified in speaking of what he knew. It was
true that he was not at liberty to use what Anthony had originally told him;
but the letter and the commission which he had received certainly liberated
his conscience to some degree, since it told him plainly enough that there
was a plot on behalf of Mary, that certain persons, one or two of whom he
knew for himself, were involved in it, that they were under suspicion, and
that they had fled. Ordinary discretion, however, was enough to make him
hold his tongue, beyond saying, as he had said already to the rest of them,
that he was the bearer of a message from Mr. Babington, now in prison, to
Mary Stuart. Mr. Arnold had been advertised that he might take up his
duties in Lancashire as soon as he liked; but, because of his inexperience
and youth, it had been decided that he had better ride with "Mr. Alban" so
far as Chartley at least, and thence, if all were well, go on to Lancaster itself,
where his family was known, and whither he could return, for the present,
without suspicion.

The roads, such as they were, were in a terrible state still with the heavy
rain of a few days ago, and the further showers that had fallen in the night.
They made very poor progress, and by dinner-time were not yet in sight of
Watford. But they pushed on, coming at last about one o'clock to that little
town, all gathered together in the trench of the low hills. There was a modest
inn in the main street, with a little garden behind it; and while Mr. Arnold
took the horses off for watering, Robin went through to the garden, sat
down, and ordered food to be served for himself and his man together. The
day was warmer, and the sun came out as they sat over their meal. When
they had done, Robin sent his friend off again for the horses. They must not
delay longer than was necessary, if they wished to sleep at Leighton, and
give the horses their proper rest.

When he was left alone, he fell a-thinking once more; and, what with the
morning's ride and the air and the sunshine, and the sense of liberty, he
was inclined to be more cheerful. Surely England was large enough to hide
the rest of the plotters for a time, until they could get out of it. Anthony was
taken, indeed, yet, without the rest, he might very well escape conviction.
Robin had not been challenged in any way; the gatekeepers had looked at
him, indeed, as he came out of the City; but so they always did, and the
landlady here had run her eyes over him; but that was the way of landladies
who wished to know how much should be charged to travellers. And if he
had come out so easily, why should not his friends? All turned now, to his
mind, on whether the rest of the conspirators could evade the pursuivants
or not.

He stood up presently to stretch his legs before mounting again, and as he

stood up he heard running footsteps somewhere beyond the house: they
died away; but then came the sound of another runner, and of another, and
he heard voices calling. Then a window was flung up beyond the house;
steps came rattling down the stairs within and passed out into the street. It
was probably a bull that had escaped, or a mad dog, he thought, or some
rustic excitement of that kind, and he thought he would go and see it for
himself; so he passed out through the house, just in time to meet Mr. Arnold
coming round with the horses.

"What was the noise about?" he asked.

The other looked at him.

"I heard none, sir," he said. "I was in the stable."

Robin looked up and down the street. It seemed as empty as it should be on

a summer's day; two or three women were at the doors of their houses, and
an old dog was asleep in the sun. There was no sign of any disturbance.

"Where is the woman of the house?" asked Robin.

"I do not know, sir."

They could not go without paying; but Robin marvelled at the simplicity of
these folks, to leave a couple of guests free to ride away; he went within
again and called out, but there was no one to be seen.

"This is laughable," he said, coming out again. "Shall we leave a mark

behind us and be off?"

"Are they all gone, sir?" asked the other, staring at him.

"I heard some running and calling out just now," said Robin. "I suppose a
message must have been brought to the house."

Then, as he stood still, hesitating, a noise of voices arose suddenly round

the corner of the street, and a group of men with pitchforks ran out from a
gateway on the other side, fifty yards away, crossed the road, and
disappeared again. Behind them ran a woman or two, a barking dog, and a
string of children. But Robin thought he had caught a glimpse of some kind
of officer's uniform at the head of the running men, and his heart stood still.
 IV

Neither of the two spoke for a moment.

"Wait here with the horses," said Robin. "I must see what all this is about."

Mr. Arnold was scarcely more than a boy still, and he had all the desire of
a boy, if he saw an excited crowd, to join himself to it. But he was being a
servant just now, and must do what he was told. So he waited patiently with
the two horses that tossed their jingling heads and stamped and attempted
to kick flies off impossibly remote parts of their bodies. Certainly, the
excitement was growing. After he had seen his friend walk quickly down the
road and turn off where the group of rustically-armed men had disappeared
in the direction where newly-made haystacks shaded their gables beyond
the roofs of the houses, several other figures appeared through the opposite
gateway in hot pursuit. One was certainly a guard of some kind, a stout,
important-looking fellow, who ran and wheezed as he ran loud enough to be
heard at the inn door. The women standing before the houses, too, presently
were after the rest—all except one old dame, who put her head forth, and
peered this way and that with a vindictive anger at having been left all alone.
More yet showed themselves—children dragging puppies after them, an old
man with a large rusty sword, a couple of lads each with a pike—these
appeared, like figures in a pantomime play, whisking into sight from
between the houses, and all disappearing again immediately.

And then, all on a sudden, a great clamour of voices began, all shouting
together, as if some quarry had been sighted: it grew louder, sharp cries of
command rang above the roar. Then there burst out of the side, where all
had gone in, a ball of children, which exploded into fragments and faced
about, still with a couple of puppies that barked shrilly; and then, walking
very fast and upright, came Mr. Robin Audrey, white-faced and stern,
straight up to where the lad waited with the horses.

Robin jerked his head.

"Quick!" he said. "We must be off, or we shall be here all night." He gathered
up his reins for mounting.

"What is it, sir?" asked the other, unable to be silent.

"They have caught some fellows," he said.

"And the inn-account, sir?"

Robin pulled out a couple of coins from his pouch.

"Put that on the table within," he said. "We can wait no longer. Give me your
reins!"

His manner was so dreadful that the young man dared ask no more. He ran
in, laid the coins down (they were more than double what could have been
asked for their entertainment), came out again, and mounted his own horse
that his friend held. As they rode down the street, he could not refrain from
looking back, as a great roar of voices broke out again; but he could see no
more than a crowd of men, with the pitchforks moving like spears on the
outskirt, as if they guarded prisoners within, come out between the houses
and turn up towards the inn they themselves had just left.

As they came clear of the village and out again upon the open road,

Robin turned to him, and his face was still pale and stern.

"Mr. Arnold," he said, "those were the last of my friends that I told you of.
Now they have them all, and there is no longer any hope. They found them
behind the haystacks next to the garden where we dined. They must have
been there all night."
 CHAPTER III

It was in the evening of the fourth day after their start that, riding up
alongside of the Blythe, they struck out to the northwest, away from the
trees, and saw the woods of Chartley not half a mile away. Robin sighed with
relief, though, as a fact, his adventure was scarcely more than begun, since
he had yet to learn how he could get speech with the Queen; but, at least,
he was within sight of her, and of his own country as well. Far away,
eastwards, beyond the hills, not twenty miles off, lay Derby.

It had been a melancholy ride, in spite of the air of freedom through

which they rode, since news had come to them, in more than one place, of
the fortunes of the Babington party. A courier, riding fast, had passed them
as they sighted Buckingham; and by the time they came in, he was gone
again, on Government business (it was said), and the little town hummed
with rumours, out of which emerged, at any rate, the certainty that the
whole company had been captured. At Coventry, again, the tidings had
travelled faster than themselves; for here it was reported that Mr. Babington
and Mr. Charnoc had been racked; and in Lichfield, last of all, the tale was
complete, and (as they learned later) tolerably accurate too.

It was from a clerk in the inn there that the story came, who declared that
there was no secrecy about the matter any longer, and that he himself had
seen the tale in writing. It ran as follows:

The entire plot had been known from the beginning, Gilbert Gifford had
been an emissary of Walsingham's throughout; and every letter that passed
to and from the various personages had passed through the Secretary's
hands and been deciphered in his house. There never had been one instant
in which Mr. Walsingham had been at fault, or in the dark: he had gone so
far, it was reported, as to insert in one of the letters that was to go to Mr.
Babington a request for the names of all the conspirators, and in return
there had come from him, not only a list of the names, but a pictured group
of them, with Mr. Babington himself in the midst. This picture had actually
been shown to her Grace in order that she might guard herself against
private assassination, since two or three of the group were in her own
household.

"It is like to go hard with the Scots Queen!" said the clerk bitterly.

"She has gone too far this time."

Robin said nothing to commit himself, for he did not know on which side the
man ranged himself; but he drew him aside after dinner, and asked whether
it might be possible to get a sight of the Queen.

"I am riding to Derby," he said, "with my man. But if to turn aside at

Chartley would give us a chance of seeing her, I would do so. A queen in
captivity is worth seeing. And I can see you are a man of influence."

The clerk looked at him shrewdly; he was a man plainly in love with his own
importance, and the priest's last words were balm to him.

"It might be done," he said. "I do not know."

Robin saw the impression he had made, and that the butter could not be too
thick.

"I am sure you could do it for me," he said, "if any man could. But I
understand that a man of your position may be unwilling—"

The clerk solemnly laid a hand on the priest's arm.

"Well, I will tell you this," he said. "Get speech with Mr. Bourgoign, her
apothecary. He alone has access to her now, besides her own women. It
might be he could put you in some private place to see her go by."

This was not much use, thought Robin; but, at least, it gave him something
to begin at: so he thanked the clerk solemnly and reverentially, and was
rewarded by another discreet pat on the arm.

The sight of the Chartley woods, tall and splendid in the light of the
setting sun, and already tinged here and there with the first marks of
autumn, brought his indecision to a point; and he realized that he had no
plan. He had heard that Mary occasionally rode abroad, and he hoped
perhaps to get speech with her that way; but what he had heard from the
clerk and others showed him that this small degree of liberty was now
denied to the Queen. In some way or another he must get news of Mr.
Bourgoign. Beyond that he knew nothing.

The great gates of Chartley were closed as the two came up to them. There
was a lodge beside them, and a sentry stood there. A bell was ringing from
the great house within the woods, no doubt for supper-time, but there was
no other human being besides the sentry to be seen. So Robin did not even
check his weary horse; but turned only, with a deliberately curious air, as
he went past and rode straight on. Then, as he rounded a corner he saw
smoke going up from houses, it seemed, outside the park.
"What is that?" asked Arnold suddenly. "Do you hear—?"

A sound of a galloping horse grew louder behind them, and a moment

afterwards the sound of another. The two priests were still in view of the
sentry; and knowing that Chartley was guarded now as if it had all the
treasures of the earth within, Robin reflected that to show too little interest
might arouse as sharp suspicion as too much. So he wheeled his horse
round and stopped to look.

They heard the challenge of the sentry within, and then the unbarring of the
gates. An instant later a courier dashed out and wheeled to the right, while
at the same time the second galloper came to view—another courier on a
jaded horse; and the two passed—the one plainly riding to London, the
second arriving from it. The gates were yet open; but the second was
challenged once more before he was allowed to pass and his hoofs sounded
on the road that led to the house. Then the gates clashed together again.

Robin turned his horse's head once more towards the houses, conscious
more than ever how near he was to the nerves of England's life, and what
tragic ties they were between the two royal cousins, that demanded such a
furious and frequent exchange of messages.

"We must do our best here," he said, nodding towards the little hamlet.
 II

It was plainly a newly-grown little group of houses that bordered the side of
the road away from the enclosed park—sprung up as a kind of overflow
lodging for the dependants necessary to such a suddenly increased
household; for the houses were no more than wooden dwellings, ill-roofed
and ill-built, with the sap scarcely yet finished oozing from the ends of the
beams and the planks. Smoke was issuing, in most cases, from rough holes
cut in the roofs, and in the last rays of sunshine two or three men were
sitting on stools set out before the houses.

Robin checked his horse before a man whose face seemed kindly, and who
saluted courteously the fine gentleman who looked about with such an air.

"My horse is dead-spent," he said curtly. "Is there an inn here where my
man and I can find lodging?"

The man shook his head, looking at the horse compassionately. He had the
air of a groom about him.

"I fear not, sir, not within five miles; at least, not with a room to spare."

"This is Chartley, is it not?" asked the priest, noticing that the next man,
too, was listening.

"Aye, sir."

"Can you tell me if my friend Mr. Bourgoign lodges in the house, or without
the gates?"

"Mr. Bourgoign, sir? A friend of yours?"

"I hope so," said Robin, smiling, and keeping at least within the letter of
truth.

The man mused a moment.

"It is possible he might help you, sir. He lodges in the house; but he comes
sometimes to see a woman that is sick here."

Robin demanded where she lived.

"At the last house, sir—a little beyond the rest. She is one of her Grace's
kitchen-women. They moved her out here, thinking it might be the fever she
had."
This was plainly a communicative fellow; but the priest thought it wiser not
to take too much interest. He tossed the man a coin and rode on.

The last house was a little better built than the others, and stood further
back from the road. Robin dismounted here, and, with a nod to Mr. Arnold,
who was keeping his countenance admirably, walked up to the door and
knocked on it. It was opened instantly, as if he were expected, but the
woman's face fell when she saw him.

"Is Mr. Bourgoign within?" asked the priest.

The woman glanced over him before answering, and then out to where the
horses waited.

"No, sir," she said at last. "We were looking for him just now…."

(She broke off.) "He is coming now," she said.

Robin turned, and there, walking down the road, was an old man, leaning
on a stick, richly and soberly dressed in black, wearing a black beaver hat
on his head. A man-servant followed him at a little distance.

The priest saw that here was an opportunity ready-made; but there was one
more point on which he must satisfy himself first, and what seemed to him
an inspiration came to his mind.

"He looks like a minister," he said carelessly.

A curious veiled look came over the woman's face. Robin made a bold
venture. He smiled full in her face.

"You need not fear," he said. "I quarrel with no man's religion;" and, at the
look in her face at this, he added: "You are a Catholic, I suppose? Well, I am
one too. And so, I suppose, is Mr. Bourgoign."

The woman smiled tremulously, and the fear left her eyes.

"Yes, sir," she said. "All the friends of her Grace are Catholics, I think."

He nodded to her again genially. Then, turning, he went to meet the

apothecary, who was now not thirty yards away.
It was a pathetic old figure that was hobbling towards him. He seemed a
man of near seventy years old, with a close-cropped beard and spectacles on
his nose, and he carried himself heavily and ploddingly. Robin argued to
himself that it must be a kindly man who would come out at this hour—
perhaps the one hour he had to himself—to visit a poor dependant. Yet all
this was sheer conjecture; and, as the old man came near, he saw there was
something besides kindliness in the eyes that met his own.

He saluted boldly and deferentially.

"Mr. Bourgoign," he said in a low voice, "I must speak five minutes with you.
And I ask you to make as if you were my friend."

The old man stiffened like a watch-dog. It was plain that he was on his
guard.

"I do not know you, sir."

"I entreat you to do as I ask. I am a priest, sir. I entreat you to take my hand
as if we were friends."

A look of surprise went over the physician's face.

"You can send me packing in ten minutes," went on Robin rapidly, at the
same time holding out his hand. "And we will talk here in the road, if you
will."

There was still a moment's hesitation. Then he took the priest's hand.

"I am come straight from London," went on Robin, still speaking clearly, yet
with his lips scarcely moving. "A fortnight ago I talked with Mr. Babington."

The old man drew his arm close within his own.

"You have said enough, or too much, at present, sir. You shall walk with me
a hundred yards up this road, and justify what you have said."

"We have had a weary ride of it, Mr. Bourgoign…. I am on the road to
Derby," went on Robin, talking loudly enough now to be overheard, as he
hoped, by any listeners. "And my horse is spent…. I will tell you my
business," he added in a lower tone, "as soon as you bid me."

Fifty yards up the road the old man pressed his arm again.

"You can tell me now, sir," he said. "But we will walk, if you please, while
you do so."
"First," said Robin, after a moment's consideration as to his best beginning,
"I will tell you the name I go by. It is Mr. Alban. I am a newly-made priest, as
I told you just now; I came from Rheims scarcely a fortnight ago. I am from
Derbyshire; and I will tell you my proper name at the end, if you wish it."

"Repeat the blessing of the deacon by the priest at mass," murmured Mr.
Bourgoign to the amazement of the other, without the change of an
inflection in his voice or a movement of his hand.

"Dominus sit in corde tuo et in labiis—" began the priest.

"That is enough, sir, for the present. Well?"

"Next," said Robin, hardly yet recovered from the extraordinary promptness
of the challenge—"Next, I was speaking with Mr. Babington a fortnight ago."

"In what place?"

"In the inn called the 'Red Bull,' in Cheapside."

"Good. I have lodged there myself," said the other. "And you are one—"

"No, sir," said Robin, "I do not deny that I spoke with them all—with

Mr. Charnoc and—"

"That is enough of those names, sir," said the other, with a small and fearful
lift of his white eyebrows, as if he dreaded the very trees that nearly met
overhead in this place. "And what is your business?"

"I have satisfied you, then—" began Robin.

"Not at all, sir. You have answered sufficiently so far; that is all. I wish to
know your business."

"The night following the day on which the men fled, of whom I have just
spoken, I had a letter from—from their leader. He told me that all was lost,
and he gave me a letter to her Grace here—"

He felt the thin old sinews under his hand contract suddenly, and paused.

"Go on, sir," whispered the old voice.

"A letter to her Grace, sir. I was to use my discretion whether I carried it
with me, or learned it by rote. I have other interests at stake besides this,
and I used my discretion, and destroyed the letter."

"But you have some writing, no doubt—"

"I have none," said Robin. "I have my word only."

There was a pause.

"Was the message private?"

"Private only to her Grace's enemies. I will tell you the substance of it now, if
you will."

The old man, without answering, steered his companion nearer to the wall;
then he relinquished the supporting arm, and leaned himself against the
stones, fixing his eyes full upon the priest, and searching, as it seemed,
every feature of his face and every detail of his dress.

"Was the message important, sir?"

"Important only to those who value love and fidelity."

"I could deliver it myself, then?"

"Certainly, sir. If you will give me your word to deliver it to her Grace, as I
deliver it to you, and to none else, I will ride on and trouble you no more."

"That is enough," said the physician decidedly. "I am completely satisfied,

Mr. Alban. All that remains is to consider how I can get you to her Grace."

"But if you yourself will deliver—" began Robin.

An extraordinary spasm passed over the other's face, that might denote any
fierce emotion, either of anger or grief.

"Do you think it is that?" he hissed. "Why, man, where is your priesthood?
Do you think the poor dame within would not give her soul for a priest?…
Why, I have prayed God night and day to send us a priest. She is half mad
with sorrow; and who knows whether ever again in this world—"

He broke off, his face all distorted with pain; and Robin felt a strange thrill
of glory at the thought that he bore with him, in virtue of his priesthood
only, so much consolation. He faced for the first time that tremendous call
of which he had heard so much in Rheims—that desolate cry of souls that
longed and longed in vain for those gifts which a priest of Christ could alone
bestow….

"… The question is," the old man was saying more quietly, "how to get you in
to her Grace. Why, Sir Amyas opens her letters even, and reseals them
again! He thinks me a fool, and that I do not know what he does…. Do you
know aught of medicine?" he asked abruptly.

"I know only what country folks know of herbs."

"And their names—their Latin names, man?" pursued the other, leaning
forward.

Robin half smiled.

"Now you speak of it," he said, "I have learned a good many, as a pastime,
when I was a boy. I was something of a herbalist, even. But I have
forgotten—"

"Bah! that would be enough for Sir Amyas—"

He turned and spat venomously at the name.

"Sir Amyas knows nothing save his own vile trade. He is a lout—no more. He
is as grim as a goose, always. And you have a town air about you," he went
on, running his eyes critically over the young man's dress. "Those are
French clothes?"

"They were bought in France."

The two stood silent. Robin's excitement beat in all his veins, in spite of his
weariness. He had come to bear a human message only to a bereaved
Queen; and it seemed as if his work were to be rather the bearing of a Divine
message to a lonely soul. He watched the old man's face eagerly. It was sunk
in thought…. Then Mr. Bourgoign took him abruptly by the arm.

"Give me your arm again," he said. "I am an old man. We must be going
back again. It seems as if God heard our prayers after all. I will see you
disposed for to-night—you and your man and the horses, and I will send for
you myself in the morning. Could you say mass, think you? if I found you a
secure place—and bring Our Lord's Body with you in the morning?"

He checked the young man, to hear his answer.

"Why, yes," said Robin. "I have all things that are needed."
"Then you shall say mass in any case … and reserve our Lord's Body in a
pyx…. Now listen to me. If my plan falls as I hope, you must be a physician
to-morrow, and have practised your trade in Paris. You have been in Paris?"

"No, sir."

"Bah!… Well, no more has Sir Amyas!… You have practised your trade in
Paris, and God has given you great skill in the matter of herbs. And, upon
hearing that I was in Chartley, you inquired for your old friend, whose
acquaintance you had made in Paris, five years ago. And I, upon hearing
you were come, secured your willingness to see my patient, if you would but
consent. Your reputation has reached me even here; you have attended His
Majesty in Paris on three occasions; you restored Mademoiselle Élise, of the
family of Guise, from the very point of death. You are but a young man still;
yet—Bah! It is arranged. You understand? Now come with me."
 CHAPTER IV

In spite of his plans and his hopes and his dreams, it was with an
amazement beyond all telling, that Mr. Robert Alban found himself, at nine
o'clock next morning, conducted by two men through the hall at Chartley to
the little parlour where he was to await Sir Amyas Paulet and the Queen's
apothecary.

Matters had been arranged last night with that promptness which alone
could make the tale possible. He had walked back with the old man in full
view of the little hamlet, to all appearances, the best of old friends; and after
providing for a room in the sick woman's house for Robin himself, another
in another house for Mr. Arnold, and stabling for the horses in a shed where
occasionally the spent horses of the couriers were housed when Chartley
stables were overflowing—after all this had been arranged by Mr. Bourgoign
in person, the two walked on to the great gates of the park, where they took
an affectionate farewell within hearing of the sentry, the apothecary
promising to see Sir Amyas that night and to communicate with his friend in
the morning. Robin had learned previously how strict was the watch set
about the Queen's person, particularly since the news of the Babington plot
had first reached the authorities, and of the extraordinary difficulty to the
approach of any stranger to her presence. Nau and Curle, her two
secretaries, had been arrested and perhaps racked a week or ten days
before; all the Queen's papers had been taken from her, and even her
jewellery and pictures sent off to Elizabeth; and the only persons ordinarily
allowed to speak with her, besides her gaoler, were two of her women, and
Mr. Bourgoign himself.

That morning then, before six o'clock, Robin had said mass in the sick
woman's room and given her communion, with her companion, who
answered his mass, as it was thought more prudent that the other priest
should not even be present; and, at the close of the mass he had reserved in
a little pyx, hidden beneath his clothes, a consecrated particle. Mr.
Bourgoign had said that he would see to it that the Queen should be fasting
up to ten o'clock that day.

And now the last miracle had been accomplished. A servant had come down
late the night before, with a discreet letter from the apothecary, saying that
Sir Amyas had consented to receive and examine for himself the travelling
physician from Paris; and here now went Robin, striving to remember the
old Latin names he had learned as a boy, and to carry a medical air with
him.
The parlour in which he found himself was furnished severely and even
rather sparely, owing, perhaps, he thought, to the temporary nature of the
household. It was the custom in great houses to carry with the family, from
house to house, all luxuries such as extra hangings or painted pictures or
carpets, as well as even such things as cooking utensils; and in the Queen's
sudden removal back again from Tixall, many matters must have been
neglected. The oak wainscoting was completely bare; and over the upper
parts of the walls in many places the stones showed through between the ill-
fitting tapestries. A sheaf of pikes stood in one corner; an oil portrait of an
unknown worthy in the dress of fifty years ago hung over one of the doors; a
large round oak table, with ink-horn and pounce-box, stood in the centre of
the room with stools beside it: there was no hearth or chimney visible; and
there was no tapestry upon the floor: a skin only lay between the windows.
The priest sat down and waited.

He had enough to occupy his mind; for not only had he the thought of the
character he was to sustain presently under the scrutiny of a suspicious
man; but he had the prospect, as he hoped, of coming into the presence of
the most-talked-of woman in Europe, and of ministering to her as a priest
alone could do, in her sorest need. His hand went to his breast as he
considered it, and remembered What he bore … and he felt the tiny flat
circular case press upon his heart….

For his imagination was all aflame at the thought of Mary. Not only had he
been kindled again and again in the old days by poor Anthony's talk, until
the woman seemed to him half-deified already; but man after man had
repeated the same tale, that she was, in truth, that which her lean cousin of
England desired to be thought—a very paragon of women, innocent, holy,
undefiled, yet of charm to drive men to their knees before her presence. It
was said that she was as one of those strange moths which, confined behind
glass, will draw their mates out of the darkness to beat themselves to death
against her prison; she was exquisite, they said, in her pale beauty, and yet
more exquisite in her pain; she exuded a faint and intoxicating perfume of
womanliness, like a crushed herb. Yet she was to be worshipped, rather
than loved—a sacrament to be approached kneeling, an incarnate breath of
heaven, the more lovely from the vileness into which her life had been cast
and the slanders that were about her name…. More marvellous than all was
that those who knew her best and longest loved her most; her servants wept
or groaned themselves into fevers if they were excluded from her too long; of
her as of the Wisdom of old might it be said that, "They who ate her
hungered yet, and they who drank her thirsted yet."… It was to this miracle
of humanity, then, that this priest was to come….

He sat up suddenly, once more pressing his hand to his breast, where his

Treasure lay hidden, as he heard steps crossing the paved hall outside.

Then he rose to his feet and bowed as a tall man came swiftly in,

followed by the apothecary.

 II

It was a lean, harsh-faced man that he saw, long-moustached and

melancholy-eyed—"grim as a goose," as the physician had said—wearing,
even in this guarded household, a half-breast and cap of steel. A long sword
jingled beside him on the stone floor and clashed with his spurred boots. He
appeared the last man in the world to be the companion of a sorrowing
Queen; and it was precisely for this reason that he had been chosen to
replace the courtly lord Shrewsbury and the gentle Sir Ralph Sadler. (Her
Grace of England said that she had had enough of nurses for gaolers.) His
voice, too, resembled the bitter clash of a key in a lock.

"Well, sir," he said abruptly, "Mr. Bourgoign tells me you are a friend of his."

"I have that honour, sir."

"You met in Paris, eh?… And you profess a knowledge of herbs beyond the
ordinary?"

"Mr. Bourgoign is good enough to say so."

"And you are after her Grace of Scotland, as they call her, like all the rest of
them, eh?"

"I shall be happy to put what art I possess at her Grace of Scotland's
service."

"Traitors say as much as that, sir."

"In the cause of treachery, no doubt, sir."

Sir Amyas barked a kind of laugh.

"Vous avez raisong," he said with a deplorable accent. "As her Grace would
say. And you come purely by chance to Chartley, no doubt!"

The sneer was unmistakable. Robin met it full.

"Not for one moment, sir. I was on my way to Derby. I could have saved a
few miles if I had struck north long ago. But Chartley is interesting in these
days."

(He saw Mr. Bourgoign's eyes gleam with satisfaction.)

"That is honest at least, sir. And why is Chartley interesting?"

"Because her Grace is here," answered Robin with sublime simplicity.

Sir Amyas barked again. It seemed he liked this way of talk. For a moment
or two his eyes searched Robin—hard, narrow eyes like a dog's; he looked
him up and down.

"Where are your drugs, sir?"

Robin smiled.

"A herbalist does not need to carry drugs," he said. "They grow in every
hedgerow if a man has eyes to see what God has given him."

"That is true enough. I would we had more talk about God His Majesty in
this household, and less of Popish trinkets and fiddle-faddle…. Well, sir; do
you think you can cure her ladyship?"

"I have no opinion on the point at all, sir. I do not know what is the matter
with her—beyond what Mr. Bourgoign has told me," he added hastily,
remembering the supposed situation.

The soldier paid no attention. Like all slow-witted men, he was following up
an irrelevant train of thought from his own last sentence but one.

"Fiddle-faddle!" he said again. "I am sick of her megrims and her vapours
and her humours. Has she not blood and bones like the rest of us? And yet
she cannot take her food nor her drink, nor sleep like an honest woman.
And I do not wonder at it; for that is what she is not. They will say she is
poisoned, I dare say…. Well, sir; I suppose you had best see her; but in my
presence, remember, sir; in my presence."

Robin's spirits sank like a stone…. Moreover, he would be instantly detected

as a knave (though that honestly seemed a lesser matter to him), if he
attempted to talk medically in Sir Amyas' presence; unless that warrior was
truly as great a clod as he seemed. He determined to risk it. He bowed.

"I can at least try my poor skill, sir," he said.

Sir Amyas instantly turned, with a jerk of his head to beckon them, and
clanked out again into the hall. There was not a moment's opportunity for
the two conspirators to exchange even a word; for there, in the hall, stood
the two men who had brought Robin in, to keep guard; and as the party
passed through to the foot of the great staircase, he saw on each landing
that was in sight another sentry, and, at a door at the end of the overhead
gallery, against which hung a heavy velvet curtain, stood the last, a stern
figure to keep guard on the rooms of a Queen, with his body-armour
complete, a steel hat on his head and a pike in his hand.
It was to this door that Sir Amyas went, acknowledging with a lift of the
finger the salute of his men. (It was plain that this place was under strict
military discipline.) With the two, the real and the false physician following
him, he pulled aside the curtain and rapped imperiously on the door. It was
opened after a moment's delay by a frightened-faced woman.

"Her Grace?" demanded the officer sharply. "Is she still abed?"

"Her Grace is risen, sir," said the woman tremulously; "she is in the inner
room."

Sir Amyas strode straight on, pulled aside a second curtain hanging over the
further door, rapped upon that, too, and without even waiting for an answer
this time, beyond the shrill barking of dogs within, opened it and passed in.
Mr. Bourgoign followed; and Robin came last. The door closed softly behind
him.
 III

The room was furnished with more decency than any he had seen in this
harsh house; for, although at the time he thought that he had no eyes for
anything but one figure which it contained, he found himself afterwards able
to give a very tolerable account of its general appearance. The walls were
hung throughout with a dark-blue velvet hanging, stamped with silver fleur-
de-lys. There were tapestries on the floor, between which gleamed the
polished oak boards, perfectly kept, by the labours (no doubt) of her Grace's
two women (since such things would be mere "fiddle-faddle" to the honest
soldier); a graceful French table ran down the centre of the room, very
delicately carved, and beneath it two baskets from which looked out the
indignant heads of a couple of little spaniels; upon it, at the nearer end,
were three or four cages of turtle-doves, melancholy-looking in this half-lit
room; old, sun-bleached curtains of the same material as that which hung
on the walls, shrouded the two windows on the right, letting but a half light
into the room: there was a further door, also curtained, diagonally opposite
that by which the party had entered; and in the centre of the same wall a
tall blue canopy, fringed with silver, rose to the ceiling. Beneath it, on a daïs
of a single step, stood a velvet chair, with gilded arms, and worked with the
royal shield in the embroidery of the back—with a crowned lion sejant,
guardant, for the crest above the crown. Half a dozen more chairs were
ranged about the table; and, on a couch, with her feet swathed in draperies,
with a woman standing over her behind, as if she had just risen up from
speaking in her ear, lay the Queen of the Scots. A tall silver and ebony
crucifix, with a couple of velvet-bound, silver-clasped little books, stood on
the table within reach of her hand, and a folded handkerchief beside them.

Mary was past her prime long ago; she was worn with sorrow and slanders
and miseries; yet she appeared to the priest's eyes, even then, like a figure of
a dream. It was partly, no doubt, the faintness of the light that came in
through the half-shrouded windows that obliterated the lines and fallen
patches that her face was beginning to bear; and she lay, too, with her back
even to such light as there was. Yet for all that, and even if he had not
known who she was, Robin could not have taken his eyes from her face. She
lay there like a fallen flower, pale as a lily, beaten down at last by the waves
and storms that had gone over her; and she was more beautiful in her
downfall and disgrace, a thousand times, than when she had come first to
Holyrood, or danced in the Courts of France.

Now it is not in the features one by one that beauty lies but rather in the
coincidence of them all. Her face was almost waxen now, blue shadowed
beneath the two waves of pale hair; she had a small mouth, a delicate nose,
and large, searching hazel eyes. Her head-dress was of white, with silver
pins in it; a light white shawl was clasped cross-wise over her shoulders;
and she wore a loose brocaded dressing-gown beneath it. Her hands,
clasped as if in prayer, emerged out of deep lace-fringed sleeves, and were
covered with rings. But it was the air of almost superhuman delicacy that
breathed from her most forcibly; and, when she spoke, a ring of assured
decision revealed her quiet consciousness of royalty. It was an extraordinary
mingling of fragility and power, of which this feminine and royal room was
the proper frame.

Sir Amyas knelt perfunctorily, as if impatient of it; and rose up again at once
without waiting for the signal. Mary lifted her fingers a little as a sign to the
other two.

"I have brought the French doctor, madam," said the soldier abruptly.

"But he must see your Grace in my presence."

"Then you might as well have spared him, and yourself, the pains, sir," came
the quiet, dignified voice. "I do not choose to be examined in your presence."

Robin lifted his eyes to her face; but although he thought he caught an
under air of intense desire towards him and That which he bore, there was
no faltering in the tone of her voice. It was, as some man said, as "soft as
running water heard by night."

"This is absurd, madam. I am responsible for your Grace's security and good
health. But there are lengths—"

"You have spoken the very word," said the Queen. "There are lengths to
which none of us should go, even to preserve our health."

"I tell you, madam—"

"There is no more to be said, sir," said the Queen, closing her eyes again.

"But what do I know of this fellow? How can I tell he is what he professes to
be?" barked Sir Amyas.

"Then you should never have admitted him at all," said the Queen, opening
her eyes again. "And I will do the best that I can—"

"But, madam, your health is my care; and Mr. Bourgoign here tells me—"

"The subject does not interest me," murmured the Queen, apparently half
asleep.
"But I will retire to the corner and turn my back, if that is necessary,"
growled the soldier.

There was no answer. She lay with closed eyes, and her woman began again
to fan her gently.

Robin began to understand the situation a little better. It was plain that
Sir Amyas was a great deal more anxious for the Queen's health than he
pretended to be, or he would never have tolerated such objections. The
Queen, too, must know of this, or she would not have ventured, with so
much at stake, to treat him with such maddening rebuffs. There had been
rumours (verified later) that Elizabeth had actually caused it to be suggested
to Sir Amyas that he should poison his prisoner decently and privately, and
thereby save a great deal of trouble and scandal; and that Sir Amyas had
refused with indignation. Perhaps, if all this were true, thought Robin, the
officer was especially careful on this very account that the Queen's health
should be above suspicion. He remembered that Sir Amyas had referred just
now to a suspicion of poison…. He determined on the bold line.

"Her Grace has spoken, sir," he said modestly. "And I think I should have a
word to say. It is plain to me, by looking at her Grace, that her health is very
far from what it should be—" (he paused significantly)—"I should have to
make a thorough examination, if I prescribed at all; and, even should her
Grace consent to this being done publicly, for my part I would not consent. I
should be happy to have her women here, but—"

Sir Amyas turned on him wrathfully.

"Why, sir, you said downstairs—"

"I had not then seen her Grace. But there is no more to be said—" He
kneeled again as if to take his leave, stood up, and began to retire to the
door. Mr. Bourgoign stood helpless.

Then Sir Amyas yielded.

"You shall have fifteen minutes, sir. No more," he cried harshly. "And I shall
remain in the next room."

He made a perfunctory salute and strode out.

The Queen opened her eyes, waited for one tense instant till the door closed;
then she slipped swiftly off the couch.

"The door!" she whispered.

The woman was across the room in an instant, on tip-toe, and drew the
single slender bolt. The Queen made a sharp gesture; the woman fled back
again on one side, and out through the further door, and the old man
hobbled after her. It was as if every detail had been rehearsed. The door
closed noiselessly.

Then the Queen rose up, as Robin, understanding, began to fumble with his
breast. And, as he drew out the pyx, and placed it on the handkerchief (in
reality a corporal), apparently so carelessly laid by the crucifix, Mary sank
down in adoration of her Lord.

"Now, mon père," she whispered, still kneeling, but lifting her star-bright
eyes. And the priest went across to the couch where the Queen had lain,
and sat down on it.

"In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti—" began Mary.

 IV

When the confession was finished, Robin went across, at the Queen's order,
and tapped with his finger-nail upon the door, while she herself remained on
her knees. The door opened instantly, and the two came in, the woman first,
bearing two lighted tapers. She set these down one on either side of the
crucifix, and herself knelt with the old physician.

… Then Robin gave holy communion to the Queen of the Scots….

 V

She was back again on her couch now, once more as drowsy-looking as
ever. The candlesticks were gone again; the handkerchief still in its place,
and the woman back again behind the couch. The two men kneeled close
beside her, near enough to hear every whisper.

"Listen, gentlemen," she said softly, "I cannot tell you what you have done
for my soul to-day—both of you, since I could never have had the priest
without my friend…. I cannot reward you, but our Lord will do so
abundantly…. Listen, I know that I am going to my death, and I thank God
that I have made my peace with Him. I do not know if they will allow me to
see a priest again. But I wish to say this to both of you—as I said just now
in my confession, to you, mon père—that I am wholly and utterly guiltless of
the plot laid to my charge; that I had neither part nor wish nor consent in it.
I desired only to escape from my captivity…. I would have made war, if I
could, yes, but as for accomplishing or assisting in her Grace's death, the
thought was never near me. Those whom I thought my friends have
entrapped me, and have given colour to the tale. I pray our Saviour to
forgive them as I do; and with that Saviour now in my breast I tell you—and
you may tell all the world if you will—that I am guiltless of what they impute
to me. I shall die for my Religion, and nothing but that. And I thank you
again, mon père, et vous, mon ami, que vous avez…."

Her voice died away in inaudible French, and her eyes closed.

Robin's eyes were raining tears, but he leaned forward and kissed her
hand as it lay on the edge of the couch. He felt himself touched on the
shoulder, and he stood up. The old man's eyes, too, were brimming with
tears.

"I must let Sir Amyas in," he whispered. "You must be ready."

"What shall I say?"

"Say that you will prescribe privately, to me: and that her Grace's health is
indeed delicate, but not gravely impaired…. You understand?"

Robin nodded, passing his sleeve over his eyes. The woman touched the

Queen's shoulder to rouse her, and Mr. Bourgoign opened the door.
 VI

"And now, sir," said Mr. Bourgoign, as the two passed out from the house
half an hour later, "I have one more word to say to you. Listen carefully, if
you please, for there is not much time."

He glanced behind him, but the tall figure was gone from the door; there
remained only the two pikemen that kept ward over the great house on the
steps.

"Come this way," said the physician, and led the priest through into the little
walled garden on the south. "He will think we are finishing our
consultation."

"I cannot tell you," he said presently, "all that I think of your courage and
your wit. You made a told stroke when you told him you would begone
again, unless you could see her Grace alone, and again when you said you
had come to Chartley because she was here. And you may go again now,
knowing you have comforted a woman in her greatest need. They sent her
chaplain from her when she left here for Tixall in July, and she has not had
him again yet. She is watched at every point. They have taken all her papers
from her, and have seduced M. Nau, I fear. Did you hear anything of him in
town?"

"No," said the priest. "I know nothing of him."

"He is a Frenchman, and hath been with her Grace more than ten years. He
hath written her letters for her, and been privy to all her counsels. And I fear
he hath been seduced from her at last. It was said that Mr. Walsingham was
to take him into his house…. Well, but we have not time for this. What I
have to ask you is whether you could come again to us?"

He peered at the priest almost timorously. Robin was startled.

"Come again?" he said. "Why—"

"You see you have already won to her presence, and Sir Amyas is committed
to it that you are a safe man. I shall tell her Grace, too, that she must eat
and drink well, and get better, if she would see you again, for that will
establish you in Sir Amyas' eyes."

"But will she not have a priest?"

"I know nothing, Mr. Alban. They even shut me up here when they took her
to Tixall; and even now none but myself and her two women have access to
her. I do not know even if her Grace will be left here. There has been talk
among the men of going to Fotheringay. I know nothing, from day to day. It
is a … a cauchemar. But they will certainly do what they can to shake her.
It grows more rigorous every day. And I thought, that if you would tell me
whether a message could reach you, and if her chaplain is not allowed to see
her again, you might be able to come again. I would tell Sir Amyas how
much good you had done to her last time, with your herbs; and, it might be,
you could see her again in a month or two perhaps—or later."

Robin was silent.

The greatness of the affair terrified him; yet its melancholy drew him. He
had seen her on whom all England bent its thoughts at this time, who was a
crowned Queen, with broad lands and wealth, who called Elizabeth "sister";
yet who was more of a prisoner than any in the Fleet or Westminster
Gatehouse, since those at least could have their friends to come to them.
Her hidden fires, too, had warmed him—that passion for God that had burst
from her when her gaoler left her, and she had flung herself on her knees
before her hidden Saviour. It may be he had doubted her before (he did not
know); but there was no more doubt in him after her protestation of her
innocence. He began to see now that she stood for more than her kingdom
or her son or the plots attributed to her, that she was more than a mere
great woman, for whose sake men could both live and die; he began to see in
her that which poor Anthony had seen—a champion for the Faith of them
all, an incarnate suffering symbol, in flesh and blood, of that Religion for
which he, too, was in peril—that Religion, which, in spite of all clamour to
the contrary, was the real storm-centre of England's life.

He turned then to the old man with a suddenly flushed face.

"A message will always reach me at Mistress Manners' house, at Booth's

Edge, near Hathersage, in Derbyshire. And I will come from there, or from
the world's end, to serve her Grace."
 CHAPTER V

"First give me your blessing, Mr. Alban," said Marjorie, kneeling down before
him in the hall in front of them all. She was as pale as a ghost, but her eyes
shone like stars.

It was a couple of months after his leaving Chartley before he came at last
to Booth's Edge. First he had had to bestow Mr. Arnold in Lancashire, for
suspicion was abroad; and it was a letter from Marjorie herself, reaching
him in Derby, at Mr. Biddell's house, that had told him of it, and bidden him
go on with his friend. The town had never been the same since Topcliffe's
visit; and now that Babington House was no longer in safe Catholic hands, a
great protection was gone. He had better go on, she said, as if he were what
he professed to be—a gentleman travelling with his servant. A rumour had
come to her ears that the talk in the town was of the expected arrival of a
new priest to take Mr. Garlick's place for the present, and every stranger
was scrutinised. So he had taken her advice; he had left Derby again
immediately, and had slowly travelled north; then, coming round about from
the north, after leaving his friend, saying mass here and there where he
could, crossing into Yorkshire even as far west as Wakefield, he had come at
last, through this wet November day, along the Derwent valley and up to
Booth's Edge, where he arrived after sunset, to find the hall filled with folks
to greet him.

He was smiling himself, though his eyes were full of tears, by the time that
he had done giving his blessings. Mr. John FitzHerbert was come up from
Padley, where he lived now for short times together, greyer than ever, but
with the same resolute face. Mistress Alice Babington was there, still serene
looking, but with a new sorrow in her eyes; and, clinging to her, a thin, pale
girl all in black, who only two months before had lost both daughter and
husband; for the child had died scarcely a week or two before her father,
Anthony Babington, had died miserably on the gallows near St. Giles' Fields,
where he had so often met his friends after dark. It was a ghastly tale, told
in fragments to Robin here and there during his journeyings by men in
taverns, before whom he must keep a brave face. And a few farmers were
there, old Mr. Merton among them, come in to welcome the son of the Squire
of Matstead, returned under a feigned name, unknown even to his father,
and there, too, was honest Dick Sampson, come up from Dethick to see his
old master. So here, in the hall he knew so well, himself splashed with red
marl from ankle to shoulder, still cloaked and spurred, one by one these
knelt before him, beginning with Marjorie herself, and ending with the
youngest farm-boy, who breathed heavily as he knelt down and got up
round-eyed and staring.

"And his Reverence will hear confessions," proclaimed Marjorie to the

multitude, "at eight o'clock to-night; and he will say mass and give holy
communion at six o'clock to-morrow morning."
 II

He had to hear that night, after supper, and before he went to keep his
engagement in the chapel-room, the entire news of the county; and, in his
turn, to tell his own adventures. The company sat together before the great
hall-fire, to take the dessert, since there would have been no room in the
parlour for all who wished to hear. (He heard the tale of Mr. Thomas
FitzHerbert, traitor, apostate and sworn man of her Grace, later, when he
had come down again from the chapel-room, and the servants had gone.)
But now it was of less tragic matters, and more triumphant, that they
talked: he told of his adventures since he had landed in August; of his riding
in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and of the fervour that he met with there (in
one place, he said, he had reconciled the old minister of the parish, that had
been made priest under Mary thirty years ago, and now lay dying); but he
said nothing at that time of what he had seen of her Grace of Scotland, and
Chartley: and the rest, on the other hand, talked of what had passed in
Derby, of all that Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick had done; of the arrest and
banishment of the latter, and his immediate return; of the hanging of Mr.
Francis Ingolby, in York, which had made a great stir in the north that
summer, since he was the son of Sir Francis, of Ripley Castle; as well as of
the deaths of many others—Mr. Finglow in August; Mr. Sandys, in the same
month, in Gloucester; and of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Adams and Mr. Dibdale, all
together at Tyburn, the news of which had but just come to Derbyshire; and
of Mistress Clitheroe, that had been pressed to death in York, for the very
crime which Mistress Marjorie Manners was perpetrating at this moment,
namely, the assistance and harbourage of priests; or, rather, for refusing to
plead when she had been arrested for that crime, lest she should bring them
into trouble.

And then at last they began to speak of Mary in Fotheringay and at that a
maid came in to say that it was eight o'clock, and would his Reverence come
up, as a few had to travel home that night and to come again next day….

It was after nine o'clock before he came downstairs again, to find the
gentlefolk alone in the little parlour that opened from the hall. It gave him a
strange thrill of pleasure to see them there in the firelight; the four of them
only—Mr. John in the midst, with the three ladies; and an empty chair
waiting for the priest. He would hear their confessions presently when the
servants were gone to bed. A great mug of warm ale stood by his place, to
comfort him after his long ride and his spiritual labours.

Mr. John told him first the news of his own son, as was his duty to do; and
he told it without bitterness, in a level voice, leaning his cheek on his hand.
It appeared that Mr. Thomas still passed for a Catholic among the simpler
folk; but with none else. All the great houses round about had the truth as
an open secret; and their doors were closed to him; neither had any priest
been near him, since the day when Mr. Simpson met him alone on the
moors and spoke to him of his soul. Even then Mr. Thomas had blustered
and declared that there was no truth in the tale; and had so ridden away at
last, saying that such pestering was enough to make a man lose his religion
altogether.

"As for me," said Mr. John, "he has not been near me, nor I near him. He
lives at Norbury for the most part. My brother is attempting to set aside the
disposition he had made in his favour; but they say that it will be made to
stand; and that my son will get it all yet. But he has not troubled us at
Padley; nor will he, I think."

"He is at Norbury, you say, sir?"

"Yes; but he goes here and there continually. He has been to London to lay
informations, I have no doubt, for I know that he hath been seen there in
Topcliffe's company…. It seems that we are to be in the thick of the conflict.
We have had above a dozen priests in this county alone arraigned for
treason, and the most of them executed."

His voice had gone lower, and trembled once or twice as he talked. It was
plain that he could not bear to speak much more against the son that had
turned against him and his Faith, for the sake of his own liberty and the
estates he had hoped to have. Robin made haste to turn the talk.

"And my father, sir?"

Mr. John looked at him tenderly.

"You must ask Mistress Marjorie of him," he said. "I have not seen him these
three years."

Robin turned to the girl.

"I have had no more news of him since what I wrote to you," she said
quietly. "After I had spoken with him, and he had given me the warning, he
held himself aloof."

"Hath he been at any of the trials at Derby?"

She bowed her head.

"He was at the trial of Mr. Garlick," she said; "last year; and was one of
those who spoke for his banishment."

And then, on a sudden, Mistress Alice moved in her corner, where she sat
with the widow of her brother.

"And what of her Grace?" she said. "Is it true what Dick told us before
supper, that Parliament hath sentenced her?"

Robin shook his head.

"I hear so much gossip," he said, "in the taverns, that I believe nothing. I
had not heard that. Tell me what it was."

He was in a torment of mind as to what he should say of his own adventure

at Chartley. On the one side it was plain that no rumour of the tale must get
abroad or he would never be able to come to her again; on the other side, no
word had come from Mr. Bourgoign, though two months had passed. He
knew, indeed, what all the world knew by now, that a trial had been held by
over forty lords in Fotheringay Castle, whither the Queen had been moved at
the end of September, and that reports had been sent of it to London. But
for the rest he knew no more than the others. Tales ran about the country
on every side. One man would say that he had it from London direct that
Parliament had sentenced her; another that the Queen of England had given
her consent too; a third, that Parliament had not dared to touch the matter
at all; a fourth, that Elizabeth had pardoned her. But, for Robin, his
hesitation largely lay in his knowledge that it was on the Babington plot that
all would turn, and that this would have been the chief charge against her;
and here, but a yard away from him, in the gloom of the chimney-breast sat
Anthony's wife and sister. How could he say that this was so, and yet that
he believed her wholly innocent of a crime which he detested? He had
dreaded this talk the instant that he had seen them in the hall and heard
their names.

But Mistress Alice would not be put off. She repeated what she had said.
Dick had come up from Dethick only that afternoon, and was now gone
again, so that he could not be questioned; but he had told his mistress
plainly that the story in Derby, brought in by couriers, was that Parliament
had consented and had passed sentence on her Grace; that her Grace
herself had received the news only the day before; but that the warrant was
not signed.
"And on what charge?" asked Robin desperately. Mistress Alice's voice rang
out proudly; but he saw her press the girl closer as she spoke.

"That she was privy to the plot which my … my brother had a hand in."

Then Robin drew a breath and decided.

"It may be so," he said. "But I do not believe she was privy to it. I spoke with
her Grace at Chartley—"

There was a swift movement in the half circle.

"I spoke with her Grace at Chartley," he said. "I went to her under guise of a
herbalist: I heard her confession and gave her communion; and she declared
publicly, before two witnesses, after she had had communion, that she was
guiltless."

Robin was no story-teller; but for half an hour he was forced to become one,
until his hearers were satisfied. Even here, in the distant hills, Mary's name
was a key to a treasure-house of mysteries. It was through this country, too,
that she had passed again and again. It was at old Chatsworth—the square
house with the huge Italian and Dutch gardens, that a Cavendish had
bought thirty years ago from the Agards—that she had passed part of her
captivity; it was in Derby that she had halted for a night last year; it was
near Burton that she had slept two months ago on her road to Fotheringay;
and to hear now of her, from one who had spoken to her that very autumn,
was as a revelation. So Robin told it as well as he could.

"And it may be," he said, "that I shall have to go again. Mr. Bourgoign said
that he would send to me if he could. But I have heard no word from him."
(He glanced round the watching faces.) "And I need not say that I shall hear
no word at all, if the tale I have told you leak out."

"Perhaps she hath a chaplain again," said Mr. John, after pause.

"I do not think so," said the priest. "If she had none at Chartley, she would
all the less have one at Fotheringay."

"And it may be you will be sent for again?" asked Marjorie's voice gently from
the darkness.

"It may be so," said the priest.

"The letter is to be sent here?" she asked.

"I told Mr. Bourgoign so."

"Does any other know you are here?"

"No, Mistress Marjorie."

There was a pause.

"It is growing late," said Mr. John. "Will your Reverence go upstairs with me;
and these ladies will come after, I think."
 III

If it had been a great day for Robin that he should come back to his own
country after six years, and be received in this house of strange memories;
that he should sit upstairs as a priest, and hear confessions in that very
parlour where nearly seven years ago he had sat with Marjorie as her
accepted lover—if all this had been charged, to him, with emotions and
memories which, however he had outgrown them, yet echoed somewhere
wonderfully in his mind; it was no less a kind of climax and consummation
to the girl whose house this was, and who had waited so long to receive back
a lover who came now in so different a guise.

But it must be made plain that to neither of them was there a thought or a
memory that ought not to be. To those who hold that men are no better,
except for their brains, than other animals; that they are but, after all,
bundles of sense from which all love and aspiration take their rise—to such
the thing will seem simply false. They will say that it was not so; that all that
strange yearning that Marjorie had to see the man back again; that the
excitement that beat in Robin's heart as he had ridden up the well-
remembered slope, all in the dark, and had seen the lighted windows at the
top; that these were but the old loves in the disguise of piety. But to those
who understand what priesthood is, for him that receives it, and for the soul
that reverences it, the thing is a truism. For the priest was one who loved
Christ more than all the world; and the woman one who loved priesthood
more than herself.

Yet her memories of him that remained in her had, of course, a place in her
heart; and, though she knelt before him presently in the little parlour where
once he had kneeled before her, as simply as a child before her father, and
told her sins, and received Christ's pardon, and went away to make room for
the next—though all this was without a reproach in her eyes; yet, as she
went she knew that she must face a fresh struggle, and a temptation that
would not have been one-tenth so fierce if it had been some other priest that
was in peril. That peril was Fotheringay, where (as she knew well enough)
every strange face would be scrutinized as perhaps nowhere else in all
England; and that temptation lay in the knowledge that when that letter
should come (as she knew in her heart it would come), it would be through
her hands that it would pass—if it passed indeed.

While the others went to the priest one by one, Marjorie kneeled in her
room, fighting with a devil that was not yet come to her, as is the way with
sensitive consciences.
 CHAPTER VI

The suspense at Fotheringay grew deeper with every day that passed.

Christmas was come and gone, and no sign was made from London, so far,
at least, as the little town was concerned. There came almost daily from the
castle new tales of slights put upon the Queen, and now and again of new
favours granted to her. Her chaplain, withdrawn for a while, had been
admitted to her again a week before Christmas; a crowd had collected to see
the Popish priest ride in, and had remarked on his timorous air; and about
the same time a courier had been watched as he rode off to London, bearing,
it was rumoured, one last appeal from one Queen to the other. On the other
hand, it was known that Mary no longer had her daïs in her chamber, and
that the billiard-table, which she never used, had been taken away again.

But all this had happened before Christmas, and now a month had gone by,
and although this or that tale of discourtesy from gaoler to prisoner leaked
out through the servants; though it was known that the crucifix which Mary
had hung up in the place where her daïs had stood remained undisturbed—
though this argument or the other could be advanced in turn by men sitting
over their wine in the taverns, that the Queen's cause was rising or falling,
nothing was truly known the one way or the other. It had been proclaimed,
by trumpet, in every town in England, that sentence of death was passed;
yet this was two or three months ago, and the knowledge that the warrant
had not yet been signed seemed an argument to some that now it never
would be.

A group was waiting (as a group usually did wait) at the village entrance to
the new bridge lately built by her Grace of England, towards sunset on an
evening late in January. This situation commanded, so far as was possible,
every point of interest. It was the beginning of the London road, up which so
many couriers had passed; it was over this bridge that her Grace of Scotland
herself had come from her cross-country journey from Chartley. On the left,
looking northwards, rose the great old collegiate church, with its graceful
lantern tower, above the low thatched stone houses of the village; on the
right, adjoining the village beyond the big inn, rose the huge keep of the
castle and its walls, within its double moats, ranged in form of a fetterlock of
which the river itself was its straight side. Beyond, the low rolling hills and
meadows met the chilly January sky.

For four months now the village had been transformed into a kind of camp.
The castle itself was crammed to bursting. The row of little windows beside
the hall on the first floor, visible only from the road that led past the inn
parallel to the river, marked the lodgings of the Queen, where, with the hall
also for her use, she lived continually; the rest of the castle was full of men-
at-arms, officers, great lords who came and went—these, with the castellan's
rooms and those of his people, Sir Amyas' lodgings, and the space occupied
by Mary's own servants—all these filled the castle entirely. For the rest—the
garrison not on duty, the grooms, the couriers, the lesser servants, the
suites of the visitors, and even many of the visitors themselves—these filled
the two inns of the little town completely, and overflowed everywhere into
the houses of the people. It was a vision of a garrison in war-time that the
countryfolk gaped at continually; the street sparkled all day with liveries and
arms; archers went to and fro; the trample of horses, the sharp military
orders at the changings of guard outside and within the towered gateway
that commanded the entrance over the moats, the songs of men over their
wine in the tavern-parlours— these things had become matters of common
observation, and fired many a young farm-man with a zeal for arms.

The Queen herself was a mystery.

They had seen, for a moment, as she drove in after dark last September, a
coach (in which, it was said, she had sat with her back to the horses)
surrounded by guards; patient watchers had, perhaps, half a dozen times
altogether caught a glimpse of a woman's face, at a window that was
supposed to be hers, look out for an instant over the wall that skirted the
moat. But that was all. They heard the trumpets' cry within the castle; and
even learned to distinguish something of what each signified—the call for
the changing of guards, the announcement of dinner and supper; the
warning to the gatekeepers that persons were to pass out. But of her, round
whom all this centred, of the prison-queen of this hive of angry bees, they
knew less than of her Grace of England whom once they had seen ride in
through these very gates. Tales, of course, were abundant—gossip from
servant to servant, filtering down at last, distorted or attenuated, to the
rustics who watched and exclaimed; but there was not a soldier who kept
her, not a cook who served her, of whom they did not know more than of
herself. There were even parties in the village; or, rather, there was a silent
group who did not join in the universal disapproval, but these were queer
and fantastic persons, who still held to the old ways and would not go to
church with the rest.

A little more material had been supplied for conversation by the events of to-
day. It had positively been reported, by a fellow who had been to see about a
room for himself in the village, that he had been turned out of the castle to
make space for her Grace's chaplain. This was puzzling. Had not the Popish
priest already been in the castle five or six weeks? Then why should he now
require another chamber?

The argument waxed hot by the bridge. One said that it was another priest
that was come in disguise; another, that once a Popish priest got a foothold
in a place he was never content till he got the whole for himself; a third, that
the fellow had simply lied, and that he was turned out because he had been
caught by Sir Amyas making love to one of the maids. Each was positive of
his own thesis, and argued for it by the process of re-assertion that it was
so, and that his opponents were fools. They spat into the water; one got out
a tobacco pipe that a soldier had given him and made a great show of filling
it, though he had no flint to light it with; another proclaimed that for two
figs he would go and inquire at the gateway itself….

To this barren war of the schools came a fact at last, and its bearer was a
gorgeous figure of a man-at-arms (who, later, got into trouble by talking too
much), who came swaggering down the road from the New Inn, blowing
smoke into the air, with his hat on one side, and his breast-piece loose; and
declared in that strange clipped London-English of his that he had been on
guard at the door of Sir Amyas' room, and had heard him tell Melville the
steward and De Préau the priest that they must no longer have access to her
Grace, but must move their lodgings elsewhere within the castle.

This, then, had to be discussed once more from the beginning. One said that
this was an evident sign that the end was to come and that Madam was to
die; another that, on the contrary, it was plain that this was not so, but that
rather she was to be compelled by greater strictness to acknowledge her
guilt; a third, that it was none of these things, but rather that Madam was
turning Protestant at last in order to save her life, and had devised this
manner of ridding herself of the priest. And the soldier damned them all
round as block-fools, who knew nothing and talked all the more for it.

The dark was beginning to fall before the group broke up, and none of them
took much notice of a young man on a fresh horse, who rode quietly out of
the yard of the New Inn as the saunterers came up. One of them, three
minutes later, however, heard suddenly from across the bridge the sound of
a horse breaking into a gallop and presently dying away westwards beyond
Perry Lane.
 II

Within the castle that evening nothing happened that was of any note to its
more careless occupants. All was as usual.

The guard at the towers that controlled the drawbridge across the outer
moat was changed at four o'clock; six men came out, under an officer, from
the inner court; the words were exchanged, and the six that went off duty
marched into the armoury to lay by their pikes and presently dispersed, four
to their rooms in the east side of the quadrangle, two to their quarters in the
village. From the kitchen came the clash of dishes. Sir Amyas came out from
the direction of the keep, where he had been conferring with Mr. FitzWilliam,
the castellan, and passed across to his lodging on the south. A butcher
hurried in, under escort of a couple of men from the gate, with a covered
basket and disappeared into the kitchen entry. All these things were
observed idly by the dozen guards who stood two at each of the five doors
that gave upon the courtyard. Presently, too, hardly ten minutes after the
guard was changed, three figures came out at the staircase foot where Sir
Amyas had just gone in, and stood there apparently talking in low voices.
Then one of them, Mr. Melville, the Queen's steward, came across the court
with Mr. Bourgoign towards the outer entrance, passed under it, and
presently Mr. Bourgoign came back and wheeled sharply in to the right by
the entry that led up to the Queen's lodging. Meanwhile the third figure,
whom one of the men had thought to be M. de Préau, had gone back again
towards Mr. Melville's rooms.

That was all that was to be seen, until half an hour later, a few minutes
before the drawbridge was raised for the night, the steward came back,
crossed the court once more and vanished into the entry opposite.

It was about this time that the young man had ridden out from the New

Inn.

Then the sun went down; the flambeaux were lighted beneath the two great
entrances—in the towered archway across the moat, and the smaller vaulted
archway within, as well as one more flambeau stuck into the iron ring by
each of the four more court-doors, and lights began to burn in the windows
round about. The man at Sir Amyas' staircase looked across the court and
idly wondered what was passing in the rooms opposite on the first floor
where the Queen was lodged. He had heard that the priest had been forced
to change his room, and was to sleep in Mr. Melville's for the present; so her
Grace would have to get on without him as well as she could. There would
be no Popish mass to-morrow, then, in the oratory that he had heard was
made upstairs…. He marvelled at the superstition that made this a
burden….

At a quarter before six a trumpet blew, and presently the tall windows of the
hall across the court from him began to kindle. That was for her Grace's
supper to be served. At five minutes to six another trumpet sounded, and M.
Landet, the Queen's butler, hurried out with his white rod to take his place
for the entrance of the dishes. Finally, through the ground-floor window at
the foot of the Queen's stair, the man caught a glimpse of moving figures
passing towards the hall. That would be her Grace going in state to her
supper with her women; but, for the first time, without either priest to say
grace or steward to escort her. He saw, too, the couple of guards under the
inner archway come to the salute as the little procession came for an instant
within their view; and Mr. Newrins, the butler of the castle, stop suddenly
and pull off his cap as he was hurrying in to be in time for the supper of the
gentlemen that was served in the keep half an hour after the Queen's.

Meanwhile, ten miles away, along the Uppingham and Leicester track,
rode a young man through the dark.
 III

Sunday, too, passed as usual.

At half-past eight the bells of the church pealed out for the morning service,
and the village street was thronged with worshippers and a few soldiers. At
nine o'clock they ceased, and the street was empty. At eleven o'clock the
trumpets sounded to announce change of guard, and to tell the kitchen folk
that dishing-time was come. Half an hour later once more the little
procession glinted a moment through the ground-floor window of the
Queen's stair as her Grace went to dinner. (She was not very well, the cooks
had reported, and had eaten but little last night.) At twelve o'clock she came
out again and went upstairs; and at the same time, in Leicester, a young
man, splashed from head to foot, slipped off a draggled and exhausted horse
and went into an inn, ordering a fresh horse to be ready for him at three
o'clock.

And so once more the sun went down, and the little rituals were performed,
and the guards were changed, and M. Landet, for the last time in his life
(though he did not know it), came out from the kitchen with his white rod to
bear it before the dishes of a Queen; and Sir Amyas walked in from the
orchard and was saluted, and Mr. FitzWilliam went his rounds, and the
drawbridge was raised. And, at the time that the drawbridge was raised, a
young man on a horse was wondering when he should see the lights of
Burton….
 IV

The first that Mistress Manners knew of his coming in the early hours of
Monday morning, was when she was awakened by Janet in the pitch
darkness shaking her shoulder.

"It is a young man," she said, "on foot. His horse fell five miles off.

He is come with a letter from Derby."

Sleep fell from Marjorie like a cloak. This kind of thing had happened to her
before. Now and then such a letter would come from a priest who lacked
money or desired a guide or information. She sprang out of bed and began
to put on her outer dress and her hooded cloak, as the night was cold.

"Bring him into the hall," she said. "Get beer and some food, and blow the
fire up."

Janet vanished.

When the mistress came down five minutes later, all had been done as she
had ordered. The turf and wood fire leaped in the chimney; a young man,
still with his hat on his head and drawn down a little over his face, was
sitting over the hearth, steaming like a kettle, eating voraciously. Janet was
waiting discreetly by the doors. Marjorie nodded to her, and she went out;
she had learned that her mistress's secrets were not always her own as well.

"I am Mistress Manners," she said. "You have a letter for me?"

The young man stood up.

"I know you well enough, mistress," he said. "I am John Merton's son."

Marjorie's heart leaped with relief. In spite of her determination that this
must be a letter from a priest, there had still thrust itself before her mind
the possibility that it might be that other letter whose coming she had
feared. She had told herself fiercely as she came downstairs just now, that it
could not be. No news was come from Fotheringay all the winter; it was
common knowledge that her Grace had a priest of her own. And now that
this was John Merton's son—

She smiled.

"Give me the letter," she said. "I should have known you, too, if it were not
for the dark."
"Well, mistress," he said, "the letter was to be delivered to you, Mr.

Melville said; but—"

"Who?"

"Mr. Melville, mistress: her Grace's steward at Fotheringay."

He talked on a moment or two, beginning to say that Mr. Melville himself

had come out to the inn, that he, as Melville's own servant, had been lodging
there, and had been bidden to hold himself in readiness, since he knew
Derbyshire…. But she was not listening. She only knew that that had fallen
which she feared.

"Give me the letter," she said again.

He sat down, excusing himself, and fumbled with his boot; and by the time
that he held it out to her, she was in the thick of the conflict. She knew well
enough what it meant—that there was no peril in all England like that to
which this letter called her friend, there, waiting for him in Fotheringay
where every strange face was suspected, where a Popish priest was as a
sheep in a den of wolves, where there would be no mercy at all if he were
discovered; and where, if he were to be of use at all, he must adventure
himself in the very spot where he would be most suspected, on a task that
would be thought the last word in treason and disobedience. And, worst of
all, this priest had lodged in the tavern where the conspirators had lodged;
he had talked with them the night before their flight, and now, here he was,
striving to get access to her for whom all had been designed. Was there a
soul in England that could doubt his complicity?… And it was to her own
house here in Derbyshire that he had come for shelter; it was here that he
had said mass yesterday; and it must be from this house that he must ride,
on one of her horses; and it must be her hand that gave him the summons.
Last of all, it was she, Marjorie Manners, that had sent him to this life, six
years ago.

Then, as she took the letter, the shrewd woman in her spoke. It was
irresistible, and she seemed to listen to voice that was not hers.

"Does any here know that you are come?"

"No, mistress."

"If I bade you, and said that I had reasons for it, you would ride away again
alone, without a word to any?"

"Why, yes, mistress!"

(Oh! the plan was irresistible and complete. She would send this messenger
away again on one of her own horses as far as Derby; he could leave the
horse there, and she would send a man for it to-morrow. He would go back
to Fotheringay and would wait, he and those that had sent him. And the
priest they expected would not come. He, too, himself, had ceased to expect
any word from Mr. Bourgoign; he had said a month ago that surely none
would come now. He had been away from Booth's Edge, in fact, for nearly a
month, and had scarcely even asked on his return last Saturday to Padley,
whether any message had come. Why, it was complete—complete and
irresistible! She would burn the letter here in this hall-fire when the man
was gone again; and say to Janet that the letter had been from a travelling
priest that was in trouble, and that she had sent the answer. And Robin
would presently cease to look for news, and the end would come, and there
would be no more trouble.)

"Do you know what is in the letter?" she whispered sharply. ("Sit down again
and go on eating.")

He obeyed her.

"Yes, mistress," he said. "The priest was taken from her on Saturday.

Mr. Bourgoign had arranged all in readiness for that."

"You said Mr. Melville."

"Mr. Melville is a Protestant, mistress; but he is very well devoted to her

Grace, and has done as Mr. Bourgoign wished."

"Why must her Grace have a priest at once? Surely for a few days—"

He glanced up at her, and she, conscious of her own falseness, thought he

looked astonished.

"I mean that they will surely give her her priest back, again presently;
and"—(her voice faltered)—"and Mr. Alban is spent with his travelling."

"They mean to kill her, mistress. There is no doubt of it amongst those of us

that are Catholics. And it is that she may have a priest before she dies,
that—"

He paused.

"Yes?" she said.

"Her Grace had a fit of crying, it is said, when her priest was taken from her.
Mr. Melville was crying himself, even though—"

He stopped, himself plainly affected.

Then, in a great surge, her own heart rose up, and she understood what
she was doing. As in a vision, she saw her own mother crying out for the
priest that never came; and she understood that horror of darkness that
falls on one who, knowing what the priest can do, knowing the infinite
consolations which Christ gives, is deprived, when physical death
approaches, of that tremendous strength and comfort. Indeed, she
recognised to the full that when a priest cannot be had, God will save and
forgive without him; yet what would be the heartlessness, to say nothing of
the guilt, of one that would keep him away? For what, except that this
strength and comfort might be at the service of Christ's flock, had her own
life been spent? It was expressly for this that she had lived on in England
when peace and the cloister might be hers elsewhere; and now that her own
life was touched, should she fail?… The blindness passed like a dream, and
her soul rose up again on a wave of pain and exaltation….

"Wait," she said. "I will go and awaken him, and bid him come down."
 V

An hour later, as the first streaks of dawn slit the sky to the eastwards over
the moors, she stood with Janet and Mistress Alice and Robin by the hall
fire.

She had said not a word to any of the struggle she had passed through. She
had gone upstairs resolutely and knocked on his door till he had answered,
and then whispered, "The letter is come…. I will have food ready"; slipping
the letter beneath the door.

Then she had sent Janet to awaken a couple of men that slept over the
stables; and bid them saddle two horses at once; and herself had gone to the
buttery to make ready a meal. Then Mistress Alice had awakened and come
downstairs, and the three women had waited on the priest, as, in boots and
cloak, he had taken some food.

Then, as the sound of the horses' feet coming round from the stables at the
back had reached them, she had determined to tell Robin before he went of
how she had played the coward.

She went out with him to the entry between the hall and the buttery,
holding the others back with a glance.

"I near destroyed the letter," she said simply, with downcast eyes, "and sent
the man away again. I was afraid of what might fall at Fotheringay…. May
Christ protect you!"

She said no more than that, but turned and called the others before he
could speak.

As he gathered up the reins a moment later, before mounting, the three

women kneeled down in the lighted entry and the two farm-men by the
horses' heads, and the priest gave them his blessing.
 CHAPTER VII

It was not until after dawn on Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of January, as

the bells were ringing in the parish church for the Conversion of St. Paul,
that the two draggled travellers rode in over the bridge of Fotheringay,
seeing the castle-keep rise grim and grey out of the river-mists on the right;
and, passing on, dismounted in the yard of the New Inn. They had had one
or two small misadventures by the way, and young Merton, through sheer
sleepiness, had so reeled in his saddle on the afternoon of Monday, that the
priest had insisted that they should both have at least one good night's rest.
But they had ridden all Tuesday night without drawing rein, and Robin,
going up to the room that he was to share with the young man, fell upon the
bed, and asleep, all in one act.

He was awakened by the trumpets sounding for dinner in the castle-yard,

and sat up to find young John looking at him. The news that he brought
drove the last shreds of sleep from his brain.

"I have seen Mr. Melville, my master, sir. He bids me say it is useless for Mr.
Bourgoign, or anyone else, to attempt anything with Sir Amyas for the
present. Mr. Melville hath spoken to Sir Amyas as to his separation from her
Grace, and could get no reason for it. But the same day—it was of Monday—
her Grace's butler was forbidden any more to carry the white rod before her
dishes. This is as much as to signify, Mr. Melville says, that her Grace's
royalty shall no longer protect her. It is their intention, he says, to degrade
her first, before they execute her. And we may look for the warrant any day,
my master says."

The young man stared at him mournfully.

"And M. de Préau?"

"M. de Préau goes about as a ghost. He will come and speak with your
Reverence before the day is out. Meanwhile, Mr. Melville says you may walk
abroad freely. Sir Amyas never goes forth of the castle now, and none will
notice. But they might take notice, Mr. Melville says, if you were to lie all
day in your chamber."

It was after dinner, as Robin rose from the table in a parlour, where he
had dined with two or three lawyers and an officer of Mr. FitzWilliam, that
John Merton came to him and told him that a gentleman was waiting. He
went upstairs and found the priest, a little timorous-looking man, dressed
like a minister, pacing quickly to and fro in the tiny room at the top of the
house where John and he were to sleep. The Frenchman seized his two
hands and began to pour out in an agitated whisper a torrent of French and
English. Robin disengaged himself.

"You must sit down, M. de Préau," he said, "and speak slowly, or I shall not
understand one word. Tell me precisely what I must do. I am here to obey
orders—no more. I have no design in my head at all. I will do what Mr.
Bourgoign and yourself decide."

It was pathetic to watch the little priest. He interrupted himself by a

thousand apostrophes; he lifted hands and eyes to the ceiling repeatedly; he
named his poor mistress saint and martyr; he cried out against the
barbarian land in which he found himself, and the bloodthirsty tigers with
whom, like a second Daniel, he himself had to consort; he expatiated on the
horrible risk that he ran in venturing forth from the castle on such an
errand, saying that Sir Amyas would wring his neck like a hen's, if he so
much as suspected the nature of his business. He denounced, with feeble
venom, the wickedness of these murderers, who would not only slay his
mistress's body, but her soul as well, if they could, by depriving her of a
priest. Incidentally, however, he disclosed that at present there was no plan
at all for Robin's admission. Mr. Bourgoign had sent for him, hoping that he
might be able to reintroduce him once more on the same pretext as at
Chartley; but the incident of Monday, when the white rod had been
forbidden, and the conversation of Sir Amyas to Mr. Melville had made it
evident that an attempt at present would be worse than useless.

"You must yourself choose!" he cried, with an abominable accent. "If you will
imperil your life by remaining, our Lord will no doubt reward you in eternity;
but, if not, and you flee, not a man will blame you—least of all myself, who
would, no doubt, flee too, if I but dared."

This was frank and humble, at any rate. Robin smiled.

"I will remain," he said.

The Frenchman seized his hands and kissed them.

"You are a hero and a martyr, monsieur! We will perish together, therefore."
 II

After the Frenchman's departure, and an hour's sleep in that profundity of

unconsciousness that follows prolonged effort, Robin put on his sword and
hat and cloak, having dressed himself with care, and went slowly out of the
inn to inspect the battlefield. He carried himself deliberately, with a kind of
assured insolence, as if he had supreme rights in this place, and were one of
that crowd of persons—great lords, lawyers, agents of the court—to whom
for the last few months Fotheringay had become accustomed. He turned
first to the right towards the castle, and presently was passing down its long
length.

It looked, indeed, a royal prison. A low wall on his right protected the road
from the huge outer moat that ran, in the shape of a fetterlock, completely
round all the buildings; and beyond it, springing immediately from the edge
of the water, rose the massive outer wall, pierced here and there with
windows. He thought that he could make out the tops of the hall windows in
one place, beyond the skirting wall, the pinnacles of the chapel in another,
and a row of further windows that might be lodgings in a third; but from
without here nothing was certain, except the gigantic keep, that stood high
to the west, and the strong towers that guarded the drawbridge; this, as he
went by, was lowered to its place, and he could look across it into the
archway, where four men stood on guard with their pikes. The inner doors,
however, were closed beyond them, and he could see nothing of the inner
moat that surrounded the court, nor the yard itself. Neither did he think it
prudent to ask any questions, though he looked freely about him; since the
part he must play for the present plainly was that of one who had a right
here and knew what he did.

He came back to the inn an hour later, after a walk through the village and
round the locked church: this was a splendid building, with flying
buttresses and a high tower, with exterior carvings of saints and evangelists
all in place. But it looked desolate to him, and he was the more dejected, as
he seemed no nearer to the Queen than before, and with little chance of
getting there. Meanwhile, there was but one thing to be done, and that the
hardest of all—to wait. Perhaps in a few days he might get speech with Mr.
Bourgoign; yet for the present than, too, as the priest had told him, was out
of the question.
 III

Five days were gone by, Sunday had come and gone, and yet there had been
no news, except a letter conveyed to him by Merton, written by Mr.
Bourgoign himself, telling him that he had news that Mr. Beale, the Clerk of
the Council, was to arrive some time that week, and that this presaged the
approach of the end. He would, therefore, do his utmost within the next few
days to approach Sir Amyas and ask for the admission of the young
herbalist who had done her Grace so much good at Chartley. He added that
if any question were to be raised as to why he had been so long in the place,
and why, indeed, he had come at all, he was to answer fearlessly that Mr.
Bourgoign had sent for him.

On the Sunday night Robin could not sleep. Little by little the hideous
suspense was acting upon him, and the knowledge that not a hundred
yards away from him the wonderful woman whom he had seen at Chartley,
the loving and humble Catholic, who had kneeled so ardently before her
Lord, the Queen who had received from him the sacraments for which she
thirsted—the knowledge that she was breaking her heart, so near, for the
consolation which a priest only could give, and that he, a priest, was free to
go through all England, except through that towered gateway past which he
walked every day—this increased his misery and his longing.

The very day he had been through—the Sunday on which he could neither
say nor even hear mass (for, because of the greatness of that which was at
stake, he had thought it wiser to bring with him nothing that could arouse
suspicion)—and the hearing of the bells from the church calling to
Protestant prayers, and the sight of the crowds going and returning—this
brought him lower than he had been since his first coming to England. He
lay then in the darkness, turning from side to side, thinking of these things,
listening to the breathing of the young man who lay on blankets at the foot
of his bed.

About midnight he could lie there no longer. He got out of bed noiselessly,
stepped across the other, went to the window-seat and sat down there,
staring out, with eyes well accustomed to the darkness, towards the vast
outline against the sky which he knew was the keep of the castle. No light
burned there to relieve its brutality. It remained there, implacable as English
justice, immovable as the heart of Elizabeth and the composure of the gaoler
who kept it…. Then he drew out Mr. Maine's rosary and began to recite the
"Sorrowful Mysteries."…

He supposed afterwards that he had begun to doze; but he started, wide-

awake, at a sudden glare of light in his eyes, as if a beacon had flared for an
instant somewhere within the castle enclosure. It was gone again, however;
there remained the steady monstrous mass of building and the heavy sky.
Then, as he watched, it came again, without warning and without sound—
that same brilliant flare of light, against which the towers and walls stood
out pitch-black. A third time it came, and all was dark once more.

In the morning, as he sat over his ale in the tavern below, he listened,
without lifting his eyes, engrossed, it seemed, in a little book he was reading,
to the excited talk of a group of soldiers. One of them, he said, had been on
guard beneath the Queen's windows last night, and between midnight and
one o'clock had seen three times a brilliant light explode itself, like
soundless gunpowder, immediately over the room where she slept. And this
he asserted, over and over again.
 IV

On the following Saturday John Merton came up into the room where the
priest was sleeping after dinner and awakened him.

"If you will come at once with me, sir, you can have speech with Mr.
Bourgoign. My master has sent me to tell you so; Mr. Bourgoign has leave to
go out."

Robin said nothing. It was the kind of opportunity that must not be
imperilled by a single word that might be overheard. He threw on his great
cloak, buckled his sword on, and followed with every nerve awake. They
went up the street leading towards the church, and turned down a little
passage-way between two of the larger houses; the young man pushed on a
door in the wall; and Robin went through, to find himself in a little enclosed
garden with Mr. Bourgoign gathering herbs from the border, not a yard from
him. The physician said nothing; he glanced sharply up and pointed to a
seat set under the shelter of the wall that hid the greater part of the garden
from the house to which it belonged; and as Robin reached it, Mr.
Bourgoign, still gathering his herbs, began to speak in an undertone.

"Do not speak except very softly, if you must," he said. "The Queen is sick
again; and I have leave to gather herbs for her in two or three gardens. It
was refused to me at first and then granted afterwards. From that I look for
the worst…. Beale will come to-morrow, I hear…. Paulet refused me leave
the first time, I make no doubt, knowing that all was to end within a day or
two: then he granted it me, for fear I should suspect his reason. (Can you
hear me, sir?)"

Robin nodded. His heart thumped within him.

"Well, sir; I shall tell Sir Amyas to-morrow that my herbs do no good—that I
do not know what to give her Grace. I have seen her Grace continually, but
with a man in the room always…. Her Grace knows that you are here, and
bids me thank you with all her heart…. I shall speak to Sir Amyas, and shall
tell him that you are here: and that I sent for you, but did not dare to ask
leave for you until now. If he refuses I shall know that all is finished, and
that Beale has brought the warrant with him…. If he consents I shall think
that it is put off for a little…."

He was very near to Robin now, still, with a critical air pushing the herbs
this way and that, selecting one now and again.
"Have you anything to say to me, sir? Do not speak loud. The fellow that
conducted me from the castle is drinking ale in the house behind. He did
not know of this door on the side…. Have you anything to say?"

"Yes," said Robin.

"What is it?"

"Two things. The first is that I think one of the fellows in the inn is doubtful
of me. Merton tells me he has asked a great number of questions about me.
What had I best do?"

"Who is he?"

"He is a servant of my lord Shrewsbury's who is in the neighbourhood."

The doctor was silent.

"Am I in danger?" asked the priest quietly. "Shall I endanger her

Grace?"

"You cannot endanger her Grace. She is near her end in any case. But for
yourself—"

"Yes."

"You are endangering yourself every instant by remaining," said the doctor
dryly.

"The second matter—" began Robin.

"But what of yourself—"

"Myself must be endangered," said Robin softly. "The second matter is

whether you cannot get me near her Grace in the event of her execution. I
could at least give her absolution sub conditione."

Mr. Bourgoign shot a glance at him which he could not interpret.

"Sir," he said; "God will reward you…. As regards the second matter it will be
exceedingly difficult. If it is to be in the open court, I may perhaps contrive
it. If it is to be in the hall, none but known persons would be admitted….
Have you anything more, sir?"

"No."
"Then you had best be gone again at once…. Her Grace prays for you…. She
had a fit of weeping last night to know that a priest was here and she not
able to have him…. Do you pray for her…."
 V

Sunday morning dawned; the bells pealed out; the crowds went by the
church and came back to dinner; and yet no word had come to the inn.
Robin scarcely stirred out all that day for fear a summons should come and
he miss it. He feigned a little illness and sat wrapped up in the corner
window of the parlour upstairs, whence he could command both roads—that
which led to the Castle, and that which led to the bridge over which Mr.
Beale must come. He considered it prudent also to do this, because of the
fellow of whom Merton had told him—a man that looked like a groom, and
who was lent, he heard, with one or two others by his master to do service at
the Castle.

Robin's own plan had been distinct ever since M. de Préau had brought him
the first message. He bore himself, as has been said, assuredly and
confidently; and if he were questioned would simply have said that he had
business connected with the Castle. This, asserted in a proper tone, would
probably have its effect. There was so much mystery, involving such highly-
placed personages from the Queen of England downwards, that discretion
was safer than curiosity.

It was growing towards dark when Robin, after long and fruitless staring
down the castle road, turned himself to the other. The parlour was empty at
this hour except for himself.

He saw the group gathering as usual at the entrance to the bridge to watch
the arrivals from London, who, if there were any, generally came about this
time.

Then, as he looked, he saw two horsemen mount the further slope of the
bridge, and come full into view.

Now there was nothing whatever about these two persons, in outward
appearance, to explain the strange effect they had upon the priest. They
could not possibly be the party for which he was watching. Mr. Beale would
certainly come with a great company. They were, besides, plainly no more
than serving-men: one wore some kind of a livery; the other, a strongly-built
man who sat his horse awkwardly, was in new clothes that did not fit him.
They rode ordinary hackneys; and each had luggage strapped behind his
saddle. All this the priest saw as they came up the narrow street and halted
before the inn door. They might, perhaps, be servants of Mr. Beale; yet that
did not seem probable as there was no sign of a following party. The
landlord came out on to the steps beneath; and after a word or two, they
slipped off their horses wearily, and led them round into the court of the
inn.

All this was usual enough; the priest had seen such arrivals a dozen times
at this very door; yet he felt sick as he looked at them. There appeared to
him something terrible and sinister about them. He had seen the face of the
liveried servant; but not of the other: this one had carried his head low, with
his great hat drawn down on his head. The priest wondered, too, what they
carried in their trunks.

When he went down to supper in the great room of the inn, he could not
forbear looking round for them. But only one was to be seen—the liveried
servant who had done the talking.

Robin turned to his neighbour—a lawyer with whom he had spoken a few
times.

"That is a new livery to me," he said, nodding towards the stranger.

"That?" said the lawyer. "That? Why, that is the livery of Mr.

Walsingham. I have seen it in London."

Towards the end of supper a stir broke out among the servants who sat at
the lower end of the room near the windows that looked out upon the
streets. Two or three sprung up from the tables and went to look out.

"What is that?" cried the lawyer.

"It is Mr. Beale going past, sir," answered a voice.

Robin lifted his eyes with an effort and looked. Even as he did so there came
a trampling of horses' hoofs; and then, in the light that streamed from the
windows, there appeared a company on horseback. They were too far away
from where he sat, and the lights were too confusing, for him to see more
than the general crowd that went by—perhaps from a dozen to twenty all
told. But by them ran the heads of men who had waited at the bridge to see
them go by; and a murmuring of voices came even through the closed
windows. It was plain that others besides those who were close to her Grace,
saw a sinister significance in Mr. Beale's arrival.
 VI

Robin had hardly reached his room after supper and a little dessert in the
parlour, before Merton came in. He drew his hand out of his breast as he
entered, and, with a strange look, gave the priest a folded letter. Robin took
it without a word and read it through.

After a pause he said to the other:

"Who were those two men that came before supper? I saw them ride up."

"There is only one, sir. He is one of Mr. Walsingham's men."

"There were two," said the priest.

"I will inquire, sir," said the young man, looking anxiously from the priest's
face to the note and back again.

Robin noticed it.

"It is bad news," he said shortly. "I must say no more…. Will you inquire for
me; and come and tell me at once."

When the young man had gone Robin read the note again before destroying
it.

"I spoke to Sir A. to-day. He will have none of it. He seemed highly
suspicious when I spoke to him of you. If you value your safety more than
her Grace's possible comfort, you had best leave at once. In any case, use
great caution."

Then, in a swift, hurried hand there followed a post-script:

"Mr. B. is just now arrived, and is closeted with Sir A. All is over, I think."

Ten minutes later Merton came back and found the priest still in the
same attitude, sitting on the bed.

"They will have none of it, sir," he said. "They say that one only came, in
advance of Mr. Beale."

He came a little closer, and Robin could see that he was excited.

"But you are right, sir, for all their lies. I saw supper plates and an empty
flagon come down from the stair that leads to the little chamber above the
kitchen."
 CHAPTER VIII

Overhead lay the heavy sky of night-clouds like a curved sheet of dark steel,
glimmering far away to the left with gashes of pale light. In front towered the
twin gateway, seeming in the gloom to lean forward to its fall. Lights shone
here and there in the windows, vanished and appeared again, flashing
themselves back from the invisible water beneath. About, behind and on
either side, there swayed and murmured this huge crowd—invisible in the
darkness—peasants, gentlemen, clerks, grooms—all on an equality at last,
awed by a common tragedy into silence, except for words exchanged here
and there in an undertone, or whispered and left unanswered, or sudden
murmured prayers to a God who hid Himself indeed. Now and again, from
beyond the veiling walls came the tramp of men; once, three or four brisk
notes blown on a horn; once, the sudden rumble of a drum; and once, when
the silence grew profound, three or four blows of iron on wood. But at that
the murmur rose into a groan and drowned it again….

So the minutes passed…. Since soon after midnight the folks had been
gathering here. Many had not slept all night, ever since the report had run
like fire through the little town last evening, that the sentence had been
delivered to the prisoner. From that time onwards the road that led down
past the Castle had never been empty. It was now moving on to dawn, the
late dawn of February; and every instant the scene grew more distinct. It
was possible for those pushed against the wall, or against the chains of the
bridge that had been let down an hour ago, to look down into the chilly
water of the moat; to see not the silhouette only of the huge fortress, but the
battlements of the wall, and now and again a steel cap and a pike-point pass
beyond it as the sentry went to and fro. Noises within the Castle grew more
frequent. The voice of an officer was heard half a dozen times; the rattle of
pike-butts, the clash of steel. The melancholy bray of the horn-blower ran
up a minor scale and down again; the dub-dub of a drum rang out, and was
thrown back in throbs by the encircling walls. The galloping of horses was
heard three or four times as a late-comer tore up the village street and was
forced to halt far away on the outskirts of the crowd—some country squire,
maybe, to whom the amazing news had come an hour ago. Still there was no
movement of the great doors across the bridge. The men on guard there
shifted their positions; nodded a word or two across to one another; changed
their pikes from one hand to the other. It seemed as if day would come and
find the affair no further advanced….

Then, without warning (for so do great climaxes always come), the doors
wheeled back on their hinges, disclosing a line of pikemen drawn up under
the vaulted entrance; a sharp command was uttered by an officer at their
head, causing the two sentries to advance across the bridge; a great roaring
howl rose from the surging crowd; and in an instant the whole lane was in
confusion. Robin felt himself pushed this way and that; he struggled
violently, driving his elbows right and left; was lifted for a moment clean
from his feet by the pressure about him; slipped down again; gained a yard
or two; lost them; gained three or four in a sudden swirl; and immediately
found his feet on wood instead of earth; and himself racing desperately as a
loose group of runners, across the bridge; and beneath the arch of the
castle-gate.
 II

When he was able to take breath again, and to substitute thought for blind
instinct, he found himself tramping in a kind of stream of men into what
appeared an impenetrably packed crowd. He was going between ropes,
however, which formed a lane up which it was possible to move. This lane,
after crossing half the court, wheeled suddenly to one side and doubled on
itself, conducting the newcomers behind the crowd of privileged persons that
had come into the castle overnight, or had been admitted three or four
hours ago. These persons were all people of quality; many of them, out of a
kind of sympathy for what was to happen, were in black. They stood there in
rows, scarcely moving, scarcely speaking, some even bare-headed, filling up
now, so far as the priest could see, the entire court, except in that quarter in
which he presently found himself—the furthest corner away from where rose
up the tall carved and traceried windows of the banqueting-hall. Yet, though
no man spoke above an undertone, a steady low murmur filled the court
from side to side, like the sound of a wagon rolling over a paved road.

He reached his place at last, actually against the wall of the soldiers'
lodgings, and found, presently, that a low row of projecting stones enabled
him to raise himself a few inches, and see, at any rate, a little better than
his neighbours. He had perceived one thing instantly—namely, that his
dream of getting near enough to the Queen to give her absolution before her
death was an impossible one. He had known since yesterday that the
execution was to take place in the hall, and here was he, within the court
certainly, yet as far as possible away from where he most desired to be.

The last two days had gone by in a horror that there is no describing. All
the hours of them he had passed at his parlour window, waiting hopelessly
for the summons which never came. John Merton had gone to the castle and
come back, each time with more desolate news. There was not a possibility,
he said, when the news was finally certified, of getting a place in the hall.
Three hundred gentlemen had had those places already assigned; four or
five hundred more, it was expected, would have space reserved for them in
the courtyard. The only possibility was to be early at the gateway, since a
limited number of these would probably be admitted an hour or so before
the time fixed for the execution.

The priest had seen many sights from his parlour window during those two
days.

On Monday he had seen, early in the morning, Mr. Beale ride out with his
men to go to my lord Shrewsbury, who was in the neighbourhood, and had
seen him return in time for dinner, with a number of strangers, among
whom was an ecclesiastic. On inquiry, he found this to be Dr. Fletcher,
Dean of Peterborough, who had been appointed to attend Mary both in her
lodgings and upon the scaffold. In the afternoon the street was not empty for
half an hour. From all sides poured in horsemen; gentlemen riding in with
their servants; yeomen and farmers come in from the countryside, that they
might say hereafter that they had at least been in Fotheringay when a
Queen suffered the death of the axe. So the dark had fallen, yet lights moved
about continually, and horses' hoofs never ceased to beat or the voices of
men to talk. Until he fell asleep at last in his window-seat, he listened
always to these things; watched the lights; prayed softly to himself; clenched
his nails into his hands for indignation; and looked again. On the Tuesday
morning came the sheriff, to dine at the castle with Sir Amyas—a great
figure of a man, dignified and stalwart, riding in the midst of his men. After
dinner came the Earl of Kent, and, last of all, my lord Shrewsbury himself—
he who had been her Grace's gaoler, until he proved too kind for Elizabeth's
taste—now appointed, with peculiar malice, to assist at her execution. He
looked pale and dejected as he rode past beneath the window.

Yet all this time the supreme horror had been that the end was not
absolutely certain. All in Fotheringay were as convinced as men could be,
who had not seen the warrant nor heard it read, that Mr. Beale had brought
it with him on Sunday night; the priest, above all, from his communications
with Mr. Bourgoign, was morally certain that the terror was come at last….
It was not until the last night of Mary's life on earth was beginning to close
in that John Merton came up to the parlour, white and terrified, to tell him
that he had been in his master's room half an hour ago, and that Mr.
Melville had come in to them, his face all slobbered with tears, and had told
him that he had but just come from her Grace's rooms, and had heard with
his own ears the sentence read to her, and her gallant and noble answer….
He had bidden him to go straight off to the priest, with a message from Mr.
Bourgoign and himself, to the effect that the execution was appointed for
eight o'clock next morning; and that he was to be at the gate of the castle
not later than three o'clock, if, by good fortune, he might be admitted when
the gates were opened at seven.
 III

And now that the priest was in his place, he began again to think over that
answer of the Queen. The very words of it, indeed, he did not know for a
month or two later, when Mr. Bourgoign wrote to him at length; but this, at
least, he knew, that her Grace had said (and no man contradicted her at
that time) that she would shed her blood to-morrow with all the happiness
in the world, since it was for the cause of the Catholic and Roman Church
that she died. It was not for any plot that she was to die: she professed
again, kissing her Bible as she did so, that she was utterly guiltless of any
plot against her sister. She died because she was of that Faith in which she
had been born, and which Elizabeth had repudiated. As for death, she did
not fear it; she had looked for it during all the eighteen years of her
imprisonment.

It was at a martyrdom, then, that he was to assist…. He had known that,

without a doubt, ever since the day that Mary had declared her innocence at
Chartley. There had been no possibility of thinking otherwise; and, as he
reflected on this, he remembered that he, too, was guilty of the same
crime;… and he wondered whether he, too, would die as manfully, if the
need for it ever came.

Then, in an instant, he was called back, by the sudden crash of horns

and drums playing all together. He saw again the ranks of heads before him:
the great arched windows of the hall on the other side of the court, the grim
dominating keep, and the merciless February morning sky over all.

It was impossible to tell what was going on.

On all sides of him men jostled and murmured aloud. One said, "She is
coming down"; another, "It is all over"; another, "They have awakened her."
"What is it? what is it?" whispered Robin to the air, watching waves of
movement pass over the serried heads before him. The lights were still
burning here and there in the windows, and the tall panes of the hall were
all aglow, as if a great fire burned within. Overhead the sky had turned to
daylight at last, but they were grey clouds that filled the heavens so far as
he could see. Meanwhile, the horns brayed in unison, a rough melody like
the notes of bugles, and the drums beat out the time.

Again there was a long pause—in which the lapse of time was incalculable.
Time had no meaning here: men waited from incident to incident only—the
moving of a line of steel caps, a pause in the music, a head thrust out from
a closed window and drawn back again…. Again the music broke out, and
this time it was an air that they played—a lilting melancholy melody, that
the priest recognised, yet could not identify. Men laughed subduedly near
him; he saw a face wrinkled with bitter mirth turned back, and he heard
what was said. It was "Jumping Joan" that was being played—the march
consecrated to the burning of witches. He had heard it long ago, as a boy….

Then the rumour ran through the crowd, and spent itself at last in the
corner where the priest stood trembling with wrath and pity.

"She is in the hall."

It was impossible to know whether this were true, or whether she had not
been there half an hour already. The horror was that all might be over, or
not yet begun, or in the very act of doing. He had thought that there would
be some pause or warning—that a signal would be given, perhaps, that all
might bare their heads or pray, at this violent passing of a Queen. But there
was none. The heads surged and quieted; murmurs burst out and died
again; and all the while the hateful, insolent melody rose and fell; the horns
bellowed; the drums crashed. It sounded like some shocking dance-
measure; a riot of desperate spirits moved in it, trampling up and down, as
if in one last fling of devilish gaiety….

Then suddenly the heads grew still; a wave of motionlessness passed over
them, as if some strange sympathy were communicated from within those
tall windows. The moments passed and passed. It was impossible to hear
those murmurs, through the blare of the instruments; there was one sound
only that could penetrate them; and this, rising from what seemed at first
the wailing of a child, grew and grew into the shrill cries of a dog in agony.
At the noise once more a roar of low questioning surged up and fell.
Simultaneously the music came to an abrupt close; and, as if at a signal,
there sounded a great roar of voices, all shouting together within the hall. It
rose yet louder, broke out of doors, and was taken up by those outside. The
court was now one sea of tossing heads and open mouths shouting—as if in
exultation or in anger. Robin fought for his place on the projecting stones,
clung to the rough wall, gripped a window-bar and drew himself yet higher.

Then, as he clenched himself tight and stared out again towards the tall
windows that shone in bloody flakes of fire from the roaring logs within; a
sudden and profound silence fell once more before being shattered again by
a thousand roaring throats….

For there, in full view beyond the clear glass stood a tall, black figure,
masked to the mouth, who held in his out-stretched hands a wide silver
dish, in which lay something white and round and slashed with crimson….

PART IV
 CHAPTER I

"There is no more to be said, then," said Marjorie, and leaned back, with a
white, exhausted face. "We can do no more."

It was a little council of Papists that was gathered—a year after the
Queen's death at Fotheringay—in Mistress Manners' parlour. Mr. John
FitzHerbert was there; he had ridden up an hour before with heavy news
from Padley and its messenger. Mistress Alice was there, quiet as ever, yet
paler and thinner than in former years (Mistress Babington herself had gone
back to her family last year). And, last, Robin himself was there, having
himself borne the news from Derby.

He had had an eventful year, yet never yet had he come within reach of the
pursuivant. But he had largely effected this by the particular care which he
had observed with regard to Matstead, and his silence as to his own identity.
Extraordinary care, too, was observed by his friends, who had learned by
now to call him even in private by his alias; and it appeared certain that
beyond a dozen or two of discreet persons it was utterly unsuspected that
the stately bearded young gentleman named Mr. Robert Alban—the "man of
God," as, like other priests, he was commonly called amongst the
Catholics—had any connection whatever with the hawking, hunting, and
hard-riding lover of Mistress Manners. It was known, indeed, that Mr. Robin
had gone abroad years ago to be made priest; but those who thought of him
at all, or, at least as returned, believed him sent to some other part of
England, for the sake of his father, and it was partly because of the very fact
that his father was so hot against the Papists that it had been thought safe
at Rheims to send him to Derbyshire, since this would be the very last place
in which he would be looked for.

He had avoided Matstead then—riding through it once only by night, with

strange emotions—and had spent most of his time in the south of
Derbyshire, crossing more than once over into Stafford and Chester, and
returning to Padley or to Booth's Edge once in every three or four months.
He had learned a hundred lessons in these wanderings of his.

The news that he had now brought with him was of the worst. He had heard
from Catholics in Derby that Mr. Simpson, returned again after his
banishment, recaptured a month or two ago, and awaiting trial at the Lent
Assizes, was beginning to falter. Death was a certainty for him this time,
and it appeared that he had seemed very timorous before two or three
friends who had visited him in gaol, declaring that he had done all that a
man could do, that he was being worn out by suffering and privation, and
that there was some limit, after all, to what God Almighty should demand.

Marjorie had cried out just now, driven beyond herself at the thought of
what all this must mean for the Catholics of the countryside, many of whom
already had fallen away during the last year or two beneath the pitiless
storm of fines, suspicions, and threats—had cried out that it was impossible
that such a man as Mr. Simpson could fall; that the ruin it would bring
upon the Faith must be proportionate to the influence he already had won
throughout the country by his years of labour; entreating, finally, when the
trustworthiness of the report had been forced upon her at last, that she
herself might be allowed to go and see him and speak with him in prison.

This, however, had been strongly refused by her counsellors just now. They
had declared that her help was invaluable; that the amazing manner in
which her little retired house on the moors had so far evaded grave
suspicion rendered it one of the greatest safeguards that the hunted
Catholics possessed; that the work she was doing by her organization of
messengers and letters must not be risked, even for the sake of a matter like
this….

She had given in at last. But her spirit seemed broken altogether.
 II

"There is one more matter," said Robin presently, uncrossing one splashed
leg from over the other. "I had not thought to speak of it; but I think it best
now to do so. It concerns myself a little; and, therefore, if I may flatter
myself, it concerns my friends, too."

He smiled genially upon the company; for if there was one thing more than
another he had learned in his travels, it was that the tragic air never yet
helped any man.

Marjorie lifted her eyes a moment.

"Mistress Manners," he said, "you remember my speaking to you after

Fotheringay, of a fellow of my lord Shrewsbury's who honoured me with his
suspicions?"

She nodded.

"I have never set eyes on him from that day to this—to this," he added. "And
this morning in the open street in Derby whom should I meet with but
young Merton and his father. (Her Grace's servants have suffered horribly
since last year. But that is a tale for another day.) Well: I stopped to speak
with these two. The young man hath left Mr. Melville's service a while back,
it seems; and is to try his fortune in France. Well; we were speaking of this
and that, when who should come by but a party of men and my lord
Shrewsbury in the midst, riding with Mr. Roger Columbell; and immediately
behind them my friend of the 'New Inn' of Fotheringay. It was all the ill-
fortune in the world that it should be at such moment; if he had seen me
alone he would have thought no more of me; but seeing me with young Jack
Merton, he looked from one to the other. And I will stake my hat he knew me
again."

Marjorie was looking full at him now.

"What was my lord Shrewsbury doing in Derby with Mr. Columbell?" mused

Mr. John, biting his moustaches.

"It was the very question I put to myself," said Robin. "And I took the liberty
of seeing where they went. They went to Mr. Columbell's own house, and
indoors of it. The serving-men held the horses at the door. I watched them
awhile from Mr. Biddell's window; but they were still there when I came
away at last."

"What hour was that?" asked the old man.

"That would be after dinner-time. I had dined early; and I met them
afterwards. My lord would surely be dining with Mr. Columbell. But that is
no answer to my question. It rather pierces down to the further point, Why
was my lord Shrewsbury dining with Mr. Columbell? Shrewsbury is a great
lord; Mr. Columbell is a little magistrate. My lord hath his own house in the
country, and there be good inns in Derby."

He stopped short.

"What is the matter, Mistress Manners?" he asked.

"What of yourself?" she said sharply; "you were speaking of yourself."

Robin laughed.

"I had forgotten myself for once!… Why, yes; I intended to ask the company
what I had best do. What with this news of Mr. Simpson, and the report
Mistress Manners gives us of the country-folk, a poor priest must look to
himself in these days; and not for his own sake only. Now, my lord
Shrewsbury's man knows nothing of me except that I had strange business
at Fotheringay a year ago. But to have had strange business at Fotheringay
a year ago is a suspicious circumstance; and—"

"Mr. Alban," broke in the old man, "you had best do nothing at all. You were
not followed from Derby; you are as safe in Padley or here as you could be
anywhere in England. All that you had best do is to remain here a week or
two and not go down to Derby again for the present. I think that showing of
yourself openly in towns hath its dangers as well as its safeguards."

Mr. John glanced round. Marjorie bowed her head in assent.

"I will do precisely as you say," said Robin easily. "And now for the news of
her Grace's servants."

He had already again and again told the tale of Fotheringay so far as he had
seen it in this very parlour. At first he had hardly found himself able to
speak of it without tears. He had described the scene he had looked upon
when, in the rush that had been made towards the hall after Mary's head
had been shown at the window, he had found a place, and had been forced
along, partly with his will and partly against it, right through the great doors
into the very place where the Queen had suffered; and he had told the story
so well that his listeners had seemed to see it for themselves—the great hall
hung with black throughout; the raised scaffold at the further end beside
the fire that blazed on the wide hearth; the Queen's servants being led away
half-swooning as he came in; the dress of velvet, the straw and the bloody
sawdust, the beads and all the other pitiful relics being heaped upon the fire
as he stood there in the struggling mob; and, above all, the fallen body, in
its short skirt and bodice lying there where it fell beside the low, black block.
He had told all this as he had seen it for himself, until the sheriff's men
drove them all forth again into the court; and he had told, too, of all that he
had heard afterwards, that had happened until my lord Shrewsbury's son
had ridden out at a gallop to take the news to court, and the imprisoned
watchers had been allowed to leave the Castle; how the little dog, that he
had heard wailing, had leapt out as the head fell at the third stroke, so that
he was all bathed in his mistress' blood—one of the very spaniels, no doubt,
which he himself had seen at Chartley; how the dog was taken away and
washed and given afterwards into Mr. Melville's charge; how the body and
the head had been taken upstairs, had been roughly embalmed, and laid in
a locked chamber; how her servants had been found peeping through the
keyhole and praying aloud there, till Sir Amyas had had the hole stopped
up. He had told them, too, of the events that followed; of the mass M. de
Préau had been permitted to say in the Queen's oratory on the morning
after; and of the oath that he had been forced to take that he would not say
it again; of the destruction of the oratory and the confiscation of the altar
furniture and vestments.

All this he had told, little by little; and of the Queen's noble bearing upon
the scaffold, her utter fearlessness, her protestations that she died for her
religion and for that only, and of the pesterings of Dr. Fletcher, Dean of
Peterborough, who had at last given over in despair, and prayed instead.
The rest they knew for themselves—of the miserable falseness of Elizabeth,
who feigned, after having signed the warrant and sent it, that it was Mr.
Davison's fault for doing as she told him; and of her accusations
(accusations that deceived no man) against those who had served her; of the
fires made in the streets of all great towns as a mark of official rejoicing over
Mary's death; and of the pitiful restitution made by the great funeral in
Peterborough, six months after, and the royal escutcheons and the tapers
and the hearse, and all the rest of the lying pretences by which the
murderess sought to absolve her victim from the crime of being murdered.
Well; it was all over….

And now he told them of what he had heard to-day from young Merton in
Derby; of how Nau, Mary's French secretary—the one who had served her
for eleven years and had been loaded by her kindness—had been rewarded
also by Elizabeth, and that the nature of his services was unmistakable;
while all the rest of them, who had refused utterly to take any part in the
insolent mourning at Peterborough, either in the Cathedral or at the
banquet, had fallen under her Grace's displeasure, so that some of them,
even now, were scarcely out of ward, Mr. Bourgoign alone excepted, since he
was allowed to take the news of the death to their Graces of France, and
had, most wisely, remained there ever since.

So the party sat round the fire in the same little parlour where they had sat
so often before, with the lutes and wreaths embroidered on the hangings
and Icarus in the chariot of the sun; and Robin, after telling his tale,
answered question after question, till silence fell, and all sat motionless,
thinking of the woman who, while dead, yet spoke.

Then Mr. John stood up, clapped the priest on the back, and said that they
two must be off to Padley for the night.
 III

They had all risen to their feet when a knocking came on the door, and

Janet looked in. She seemed a little perturbed.

"If you please, sir," she said to Mr. John, "one of your men is come up from
Padley; and wishes to speak to you alone."

Mr. John gave a quick glance at the others.

"If you will allow me," he said, "I will go down and speak with him in the
hall."

The rest sat down again. It was the kind of interruption that might be wholly
innocent; yet, coming when it did, it affected them a little. There seemed to
be nothing but bad news everywhere.

The minutes passed, yet no one returned. Once Marjorie went to the door
and listened, but there was only the faint wail of the winter wind up the
stairs to be heard. Then, five minutes later, there were steps and Mr. John
came in. His face looked a little stern, but he smiled with his mouth.

"We poor Papists are in trouble again," he said. "Mistress Manners, you
must let us stay here all night, if you will; and we will be off early in the
morning. There is a party coming to us from Derby—to-morrow or next day:
it is not known which."

"Why, yes! And what party?" said Marjorie, quietly enough, though she must
have guessed its character. The smile left his mouth.

"It is my son that is behind it," he said. "I had wondered we had not had
news of him! There is to be a general search for seminarists in the High
Peak" (he glanced at Robin), "by order of my lord Shrewsbury. Your
namesake, mistress, Mr. John Manners, and our friend Mr. Columbell, are
commissioned to search; and Mr. Fenton and myself are singled out to be
apprehended immediately. Thomas knows that I am at Padley, and that Mr.
Eyre will come in there for Candlemas, the day after to-morrow; in that I
recognize my son's knowledge. Well, I will dispatch my man who brought the
news to Mr. Eyre to bid him to avoid the place; and we two, Mr. Alban and
myself, will make our way across the border into Stafford."

"There are none others coming to Padley to-morrow?" asked Marjorie.

"None that I know of. They will come in sometimes without warning; but I
cannot help that. Mr. Fenton will be at Tansley: he told me so."
"How did the news come?" asked Robin.

"It seems that the preacher Walton, in Derby, hath been warned that we
shall be delivered to him two days hence. It was his servant that told one of
mine. I fear he will be a-preparing his sermons to us, all for nothing."

He smiled bitterly again. Robin could see the misery in this man's heart at
the thought that it was his own son who had contrived this. Mr. Thomas
had been quiet for many months, no doubt in order to strike the more surely
in his new function as "sworn man" of her Grace. Yet he would seem to have
failed.

"We shall not get our candles then, this year either," smiled Mr.

Thomas. "Lanterns are all that we shall have."

There was not much time to be lost. Luggage had to be packed, since it
would not be safe for the three to return until at least two or three weeks
had passed; and Marjorie, besides, had to prepare a list of places and names
that must be dealt with on their way—places where word must be left that
the hunt was up again, and names of particular persons that were to be
warned. Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam were in the county, and these must be
specially informed, since they were known, and Mr. Garlick in particular
had already suffered banishment and returned again, so that there would be
no hope for him if he were once more captured.

The four sat late that night; and Robin wondered more than ever, not only at
the self-command of the girl, but at her extraordinary knowledge of Catholic
affairs in the county. She calculated, almost without mistake, as was
afterwards shown, not only which priests were in Derbyshire, but within a
very few miles of where they would be and at what time: she showed, half-
smiling, a kind of chart which she had drawn up, of the movements of the
persons concerned, explaining the plan by which each priest (if he desired)
might go on his own circuit where he would be most needed. She lamented,
however, the fewness of the priests, and attributed to this the growing laxity
of many families—living, it might be, in upland farms or in inaccessible
places, where they could but very seldom have the visits of the priest and
the strength of the sacraments.

Before midnight, therefore, the two travellers had complete directions for
their journey, as well as papers to help their memories, as to where the news
was to be left. And at last Mr. John stood up and stretched himself.

"We must go to bed," he said. "We must be booted by five."

Marjorie nodded to Alice, who stood up, saying she would show him where
his bed had been prepared.

Robin lingered for a moment to finish his last notes.

"Mr. Alban," said Marjorie suddenly, without lifting her eyes from the paper
on which she wrote.

"Yes?"

"You will take care to-morrow, will you not?" she said. "Mr. John is a little
hot-headed. You must keep him to his route?"

"I will do my best," said Robin, smiling.

She lifted her clear eyes to his without tremor or shame.

"My heart would be broken altogether if aught happened to you. I look to

you as our Lord's chief soldier in this county."

"But—"

"That is so," she said. "I do not know any man who has been made perfect in
so short a time. You hold us all in your hands."
 CHAPTER II

It was in Mr. Bassett's house at Langley that the news of the attack on
Padley reached the two travellers a month later, and it bore news in it that
they little expected.

For it seemed that, entirely unexpectedly, there had arrived at Padley the
following night no less than three of the FitzHerbert family, Mr. Anthony the
seventh son, with two of his sisters, as well as Thomas FitzHerbert's wife,
who rode with them, whether as a spy or not was never known. Further, Mr.
Fenton himself, hearing of their coming, had ridden up from Tansley, and
missed the messenger that Marjorie had sent out. They had not arrived till
late, missing again, by a series of mischances, the scouts Marjorie had
posted; and, on discovering their danger, had further discovered the house
to be already watched. They judged it better, therefore, as Marjorie said in
her letter, to feign unconsciousness of any charge against them, since there
was no priest in the house who could incriminate them.

All this the travellers learned for the first time at Langley.

They had gone through into Staffordshire, as had been arranged, and there
had moved about from house to house of Catholic friends without any
trouble. It was when at last they thought it safe to be moving homewards,
and had arrived at Langley, that they found Marjorie's letter awaiting them.
It was addressed to Mr. John FitzHerbert and was brought by Robin's old
servant, Dick Sampson.

"The assault was made," wrote Marjorie, "according to the arrangement. Mr.
Columbell himself came with a score of men and surrounded the house very
early, having set watchers all in place the evening before: they had made
certain they should catch the master and at least a priest or two. But I have
very heavy news, for all that; for there had come to the house after dark Mr.
Anthony FitzHerbert, with two of his sisters, Mrs. Thomas FitzHerbert and
Mr. Fenton himself, and they have carried the two gentlemen to the Derby
gaol. I have had no word from Mr. Anthony, but I hear that he said that he
was glad that his father was not taken, and that his own taking he puts
down to his brother's account, as yourself, sir, also did. The men did no
great harm in Padley beyond breaking a panel or two: they were too careful,
I suppose, of what they think will be Mr. Topcliffe's property some day! And
they found none of the hiding-holes, which is good news. The rest of the
party they let go free again for the present.
"I have another piece of bad news, too—which is no more than what we had
looked for: that Mr. Simpson at the Assizes was condemned to death, but
has promised to go to church, so that his life is spared if he will do so. He is
still in the gaol, however, where I pray God that Mr. Anthony may meet with
him and bring him to a better mind; so that he hath not yet denied our Lord,
even though he hath promised to do so.

"May God comfort and console you, Mr. FitzHerbert, for this news of Mr.

Anthony that I send."

The letter ended with messages to the party, with instructions for their
way of return if they should come within the next week; and with the
explanation, given above, of the series of misfortunes by which any came to
be at Padley that night, and how it was that they did not attempt to break
out again.

The capture of Mr. Anthony was, indeed, one more blow to his father; but
Robin was astonished how cheerfully he bore it; and said as much when
they two were alone in the garden.

The grey old man smiled, while his eyelids twitched a little.

"They say that when a man is whipped he feels no more after awhile. The
former blows prepare him and dull his nerves for the later, which, I take it,
is part of God's mercy. Well, Mr. Alban, my father hath been in prison a
great while now; my son Thomas is a traitor, and a sworn man of her Grace;
I myself have been fined and persecuted till I have had to sell land to pay the
fines with. I have seen family after family fall from their faith and deny it. So
I take it that I feel the joy that I have a son who is ready to suffer for it, more
than the pain I have in thinking on his sufferings. The one may perhaps
atone for the sins of the other, and yet help him to repentance."

Life here at Langley was more encouraging than the furtive existence
necessary in the north of Derbyshire.

Mr. Bassett had a confident way with him that was like wine to fainting
hearts, and he had every reason to be confident; since up to the present,
beyond being forced to pay the usual fines for recusancy, he had scarcely
been troubled at all; and lived in considerable prosperity, having even been
sheriff of Stafford in virtue of his other estates at Blore. His house at Langley
was a great one, standing in a park, and showing no signs of poverty; his
servants were largely Catholic; he entertained priests and refugees of all
kinds freely, although discreetly; and he laughed at the notion that the
persecution could be of long endurance.
The very first night the travellers had come he had spoken with considerable
freedom after supper.

"Look more hearty!" he cried. "The Spanish fleet will be here before summer
to relieve us of all troubles, as of all heretics, too. Her Grace will have to
turn her coat once more, I think, when that comes to pass."

Mr. John glanced at him doubtfully.

"First," he said, "no man knows whether it will come. And, next, I for one am
not sure if I even wish for it."

Mr. Bassett laughed loudly.

"You will dance for joy!" he said. "And why do you not know whether you
wish it to come?"

"I have no taste to be a Spanish subject."

"Why, nor have I! But the King of Spain will but sail away again when he
hath made terms against the privateers, whether they be those that ply on
the high seas against men's bodies, or here in England against their souls.
There will be no subjection of England beyond that."

Mr. John was silent.

"Why, I heard from Sir Thomas but a week ago, to ask for a little money to
pay his fines with. He said that repayment should follow so soon as the fleet
should come. Those were his very words."

"You sent the money, then?"

"Why, yes; I made shift that a servant should throw down a bag with ten
pounds in it, into a bush, and that Brittlebank—your brother's man—should
see him do it! And lo! when we looked again, the bag was gone!"

He laughed again with open mouth. Certainly he was an inspiriting man

with a loud bark of his own; but Robin imagined that he would not bite too
cruelly for all that. But he saw another side of him presently.

"What was that matter of Mr. Sutton, the priest who was executed in

Stafford last year?" asked Mr. John suddenly.

The face of the other changed as abruptly. His eyes became pin-points
under his grey eyebrows and his mouth tightened.
"What of him?" he said.

"It was reported that you might have stayed the execution, and would not. I
did not believe a word of it."

"It is true," said Mr. Bassett sharply—"at least a portion of it."

"True?"

"Listen," cried the other suddenly, "and tell me what you would have done.
Mr. Sutton was taken, and was banished, and came back again, as any
worthy priest would do. Then he was taken again, and condemned. I did my
utmost to save him, but I could not. Then, as I would never have any part in
the death of a priest for his religion, another was appointed to carry the
execution through. Three days before news was brought to me by a private
hand that Mr. Sutton had promised to give the names of priests whom he
knew, and of houses where he had said mass, and I know not what else;
and it was said to me that I might on this account stay the execution until
he had told all that he could. Now I knew that I could not save his life
altogether; that was forfeited and there could be no forgiveness. All that I
might do was to respite him for a little—and for what? That he might damn
his own soul eternally and bring a great number of good men into trouble
and peril of death for themselves. I sent the messenger away again, and said
that I would listen to no such tales. And Mr. Sutton died like a good priest
three days after, repenting, I doubt not, bitterly, of the weakness into which
he had fallen. Now, sir, what would you have done in my place?"

He wagged his face fiercely from side to side.

Mr. John put his hand over his eyes and nodded without speaking. Robin
sat silent: it was not only for priests, it seemed, that life presented a tangle.
 II

The evening before the two left for the north again, Mr. Bassett took them
both into his own study. It was a little room opening out of his bedroom, and
was more full of books than Robin had ever seen, except in the library at
Rheims, in any room in the world. A shelf ran round the room, high on the
wall, and was piled with manuscripts to the ceiling. Beneath, the book-
shelves that ran nearly round the room were packed with volumes, and a
number more lay on the table and even in the corners.

"This is my own privy chamber," said Mr. Bassett to the priest. "My other
friends have seen it many a time, but I thought I would show it to your
Reverence, too."

Robin looked round him in wonder: he had no idea that his host was a man
of such learning.

"All the books are ranged in their proper places," went on the other. "I could
put my finger on any of them blind-fold. But this is the shelf I wished you to
see."

He took him to one that was behind the door, holding up the candle that he
might see. The shelf had a box or two on it, besides books, and these he
opened and set on the table. Robin looked in, as he was told, but could
understand nothing that he saw: in one was a round ball of crystal on a
little gold stand, wrapped round in velvet; in another some kind of a
machine with wheels; in a third, some dried substances, as of herbs, tied
together with silk. He inspected them gravely, but was not invited to touch
them. Then his host touched him on the breast with one finger, and
recoiled, smiling.

"This is my magic," he said. "John here does not like it; neither did poor Mr.
Fenton when he was here; but I hold there is no harm in such things if one
does but observe caution."

"What do you do with them, sir?" inquired the priest curiously, for he was
not sure whether the man was serious.

"Well, sir, I hold that God has written His will in the stars, and in the
burning of herbs, and in the shining of the sun, and such things. There is
no black magic here. But, just as we read in the sky at morning, if it be red
or yellow, whether it will be foul or fair, so I hold that God has written other
secrets of His in other things; and that by observing them and judging
rightly we may guess what He has in store. I knew that a prince was to die
last year before ever it happened. I knew that a fleet of ships will come to
England this year, before ever an anchor is weighed. And I would have you
notice that here are Mr. FitzHerbert and your Reverence, too, fleeing for your
lives; and here sit I safe at home; and all, as I hold, because I have been able
to observe by my magic what is to come to pass."

"But that strikes at the doctrine of free-will," cried the priest.

"No, sir; I think it does not. God's foreknowledge doth not hinder the use of
our free-will (which is a mystery, no doubt, yet none the less true). Then why
should God's foreknowledge any more hinder our free-will, when He chooses
to communicate it to us?"

Robin was silent. He knew little or nothing of these things, except from his
theological reading. Yet he felt uneasy. The other said nothing.

"And the stars, too?" he asked.

"I hold," said Mr. Bassett, "that the stars have certain influences and powers
upon those that are born under their signs. I do not hold that we are so
ruled by these that we have no action of our own, any more than we are
compelled to be wet through by rain or scorched by the sun: we may always
come into a house or shelter beneath a tree, and thus escape them. So, too,
I hold, with the stars. There is an old saying, sir: 'The fool is ruled by his
stars; the wise man rules them.' That is, in a nutshell, my faith in the
matter. I have told Mr. Fenton's fortune here, and Mr. FitzHerbert's, only
they will never listen to me."

Robin looked round the room. It was dark outside long ago; they had supped
at sunset, and sat for half an hour over their banquet of sweetmeats and
wine before coming upstairs. And the room, too, was as dark as night,
except where far off in the west, beyond the tall trees of the park, a few red
streaks lingered. He felt oppressed and miserable. The place seemed to him
sinister. He hated these fumblings at locks that were surely meant to remain
closed. Yet he did not know what to say. Mr. John had wandered off to one
of the windows and was humming uneasily to himself.

Then, suddenly, an intense curiosity overcame him.

His life was a strange and perilous one; he carried it in his hand every day.
In the morning he could not be sure but that he would be fleeing before
evening. As he fell asleep, he could not be sure that he would not be
awakened to a new dream. He had long ago conquered those moods of terror
which, in spite of his courage, had come down on him sometimes, in some
lonely farm, perhaps, where flight would be impossible—or, in what was far
more dangerous, in some crowded inn where every movement was known—
these had passed, he thought, never to come back.

But in that little book-lined room, with these curious things in boxes on the
table, and his merry host peering at him gravely, and the still evening
outside; with the knowledge that to-morrow he was to ride back to his own
country, whence he had fled for fear of his life, six weeks ago; leaving the
security of this ex-sheriff's house for the perils of the Peak and all that
suspected region from which even now, probably, the pursuit had not
altogether died away—here a sudden intense desire to know what the future
might hold overcame him.

"Tell me, sir," he said. "You have told Mr. FitzHerbert's fortune, you say, as
well as others. Have you told mine since I have been here?"

There was a moment's silence. Mr. John was silent, with his back turned.

Robin looked up at his host, wondering why he did not answer. Then Mr.

Bassett took up the candle.

"Come," he said; "we have been here long enough."

 CHAPTER III

"There will be a company of us to-night," said Mr. John to the two priests, as
he helped them to dismount. "Mr. Alban has sent his man forward from
Derby to say that he will be here before night."

"Mr. Ludlam and I are together for once," said Mr. Garlick. "We must
separate again to-morrow, he is for the north again, he tells me. There has
been no more trouble?"

"Not a word of it. They were beaten last time and will not try again, I think,
for the present. You heard of the attempt at Candlemas, then?"

It had been a quiet time enough ever since Lent, throughout the whole
county; and it seemed as if the heat of the assault had cooled for want of
success. Plainly a great deal had been staked upon the attack on Padley,
which, for its remoteness from towns, was known to be a meeting-place
where priests could always find harbourage. And, indeed, it was time that
the Catholics should have a little breathing space. Things had been very bad
with them—the arrest of Mr. Simpson, and, still more, his weakness (though
he had not as yet actually fulfilled his promise of going to church, and was
still detained in gaol); the growing lukewarmness of families that seldom saw
a priest; the blows struck at the FitzHerbert family; and, above all, the
defection of Mr. Thomas—all these things had brought the hearts of the
faithful very low. Mr. John himself had had an untroubled time since his
return a little before Easter; but he had taken the precaution not to remain
too long at Padley at one time; he had visited his other estates at
Swynnerton and elsewhere, and had even been back again at Langley. But
there had been no hint of any pursuit. Padley had remained untouched; the
men went about their farm business; the housekeeper peered from her
windows, without a glimpse of armed men such as had terrified the
household on Candlemas day.

It was only last night, indeed, that the master had returned, in time to meet
the two priests who had asked for shelter for a day or two. They had stayed
here before continually, as well as at Booth's Edge, during their travels, both
in the master's absence and when he was at home. There were a couple of
rooms kept vacant always for "men of God"; and all priests who came were
instructed, of course (in case of necessity), as to the hiding-holes that Mr.
Owen had contrived a few years before. Never, however, had there been any
use made of them.
It was a hot July afternoon when the two priests were met to-day by Mr.
John outside the arched gate that ran between the hall and the buttery.
They had already dined at a farm a few miles down the valley, but they were
taken round the house at once to the walled garden, where drink and food
were set out. Here their dusty boots were pulled off; they laid aside their
hats, and were presently at their ease again.

They were plain men, these two; though Mr. Garlick had been educated at
Oxford, and, before his going to Rheims, had been schoolmaster at
Tideswell. In appearance he was a breezy sunburnt man, with very little of
the clerk about him, and devoted to outdoor sports (which was something of
a disguise to him since he could talk hawking and riding in mixed company
with a real knowledge of the facts). He spoke in a loud voice with a strong
Derbyshire accent, which he had never lost and now deliberately used. Mr.
Ludlam looked far more of the priest: he was a clean-shaven man, of middle-
age, with hair turning to grey on his temples, and with a very pleasant
disarming smile; he spoke very little, but listened with an interested and
attentive air. Both were, of course, dressed in the usual riding costume of
gentlemen, and used good horses.

It was exceedingly good to sit here, with the breeze from over the moors
coming down on them, with cool drink before them, and the prospect of a
secure day, at any rate, in this stronghold. Their host, too, was contented
and serene, and said so, frankly.

"I am more at peace, gentlemen," he said, "than I have been for the past five
years. My son is in gaol yet; and I am proud that he should be there, since
my eldest son—" (he broke off a moment). "And I think the worst of the
storm is over. Her Grace is busying herself with other matters."

"You mean the Spanish fleet, sir?" said Mr. Garlick.

He nodded.

"It is not that I look for final deliverance from Spain," he said. "I have no
wish to be aught but an Englishman, as I said to Mr. Bassett a while ago.
But I think the fleet will distract her Grace for a while; and it may very well
mean that we have better treatment hereafter."

"What news is there, sir?"

"I hear that the Londoners buzz continually with false alarms. It was
thought that the fleet might arrive on any day; but I understand that the
fishing-boats say that nothing as yet been seen. By the end of the month, I
daresay, we shall have news."
So they talked pleasantly in the shade till the shadows began to lengthen.
They were far enough here from the sea-coast to feel somewhat detached
from the excitement that was beginning to seethe in the south. At Plymouth,
it was said, all had been in readiness for a month or two past; at Tilbury, my
lord Leicester was steadily gathering troops. But here, inland, it was more of
an academic question. The little happenings in Derby; the changes of
weather in the farms; the deaths of old people from the summer heats—
these things were far more vital and significant than the distant thunders of
Spain. A beacon or two had been piled on the hills, by order of the
authorities, to pass on the news when it should come; a few lads had
disappeared from the countryside to drill in Derby marketplace; but except
for these things, all was very much as it had been from the beginning. The
expected catastrophe meant little more to such folk than the coming of the
Judgment Day—certain, but infinitely remote from the grasp of the
imagination.

The three were talking of Robin as they came down towards the house for
supper, and, as they turned the corner, he himself was at that moment
dismounting.

He looked surprisingly cool and well-trimmed, considering his ride up the

hot valley. He had taken his journey easily, he said, as he had had a long
day yesterday.

"And I made a round to pay a visit to Mistress Manners," he said. "I found
her a-bed when I got there; and Mrs. Alice says she will not be at mass to-
morrow. She stood too long in the sun yesterday, at the carrying of the hay;
it is no more than that."

"Mistress Manners is a marvel to me," said Garlick, as they went towards

the house. "Neither wife nor nun. And she rules her house like a man; and
she knows if a priest lift his little finger in Derby. She sent me my whole
itinerary for this last circuit of mine; and every point fell out as she said."

Robin thought that he had seldom had so pleasant a supper as on that

night. The windows of the low hall where he had dined so often as a boy,
were flung wide to catch the scented evening air. The sun was round to the
west and threw long, golden rays, that were all lovely light and no heat,
slantways on the paved floor and the polished tables and the bright pewter.
Down at the lower end sat the servants, brown men, burned by the sun;
lean as panthers, scarcely speaking, ravenous after their long day in the
hayfields; and up here three companions with whom he was wholly at his
ease. The evening was as still as night, except for the faint peaceful country
sounds that came up from the valley below—the song of a lad riding home;
the barking of a dog; the bleat of sheep—all minute and delicate, as
unperceived, yet as effective, as a rich fabric on which a design is woven. It
seemed to him as he listened to the talk—the brisk, shrewd remarks of Mr.
Garlick; the courteous and rather melancholy answers of his host; as he
watched the second priest's eyes looking gently and pleasantly about him;
as he ate the plain, good food and drank the country drink, that, in spite of
all, his lot was cast in very sweet places. There was not a hint here of
disturbance, or of men's passions, or of ugly strife: there was no clatter, as
in the streets of Derby, or pressure of humanity, or wearying politics of the
market-place. He found himself in one of those moods that visit all men
sometimes, when the world appears, after all, a homely and a genial place;
when the simplest things are the best; when no excitement or ambition or
furious zeal can compare with the gentle happiness of a tired body that is in
the act of refreshment, or of a driven mind that is finding its relaxation. At
least, he said to himself, he would enjoy this night and the next day and the
night after, with all his heart.

The four found themselves so much at ease here, that the dessert was
brought in to them where they sat; and it was then that the first unhappy
word was spoken.

"Mr. Simpson!" said Garlick suddenly. "Is there any more news of him?"

Mr. John shook his head.

"He hath not yet been to church, thank God!" he said. "So much I know for
certain. But he hath promised to go."

"Why is he not yet gone? He promised a great while ago."

"I hear he hath been sick. Derby gaol is a pestiferous place. They are
waiting, I suppose, till he is well enough to go publicly, that all the world
may be advertised of it!"

Mr. Garlick gave a bursting sigh.

"I cannot understand it at all," he said. "There has never been so zealous a
priest. I have ridden with him again and again before I was a priest. He was
always quiet; but I took him to be one of those stout-hearted souls that need
never brag. Why, it was here that we heard him tell of Mr. Nelson's death!"

Mr. John threw out his hands.

"These prisons are devilish," he said; "they wear a man out as the rack can
never do. Why, see my son!" he cried. "Oh! I can speak of him if I am but
moved enough! It was that same Derby gaol that wore him out too! It is the
darkness, and the ill food, and the stenches and the misery. A man's heart
fails him there, who could face a thousand deaths in the sunlight. Man after
man hath fallen there—both in Derby, and in London and in all the prisons.
It is their heart that goes—all the courage runs from them like water, with
their health. If it were the rack and the rope only, England would be
Catholic, yet, I think."

The old man's face blazed with indignation; it was not often that he so spoke
out his mind. It was very easy to see that he had thought continually of his
son's fall.

"Mistress Manners hath told me the very same thing," said Robin. "She
visited Mr. Thomas in gaol once at least. She said that her heart failed her
altogether there."

Mr. Ludlam smiled.

"I suppose it is so," he said gently, "since you say so. But I think it would
not be so with me. The rack and the rope, rather, are what would shake me
to the roots, unless God His Grace prevailed more than it ever yet hath with
see."

He smiled again.

Robin shook his head sharply.

"As for me—!" he said grimly, with tight lips.

It was a lovely night of stars as the four stepped out of the archway before
going upstairs to the parlour. Behind them stood the square and solid
house, resembling a very fortress. The lights that had been brought in still
shone through the windows, and a hundred night insects leapt and poised
in the brightness.

And before them lay the deep valley—silent now except for the trickle of the
stream; dark (since the moon was not yet risen), except for one light that
burned far away in some farm-house on the other side; and this light went
out, like a closing eye, even as they looked. But overhead, where God dwelt,
all heaven was alive. The huge arch resting, as it appeared, on the
monstrous bases of the moors and hills standing round this place, like the
mountains about Jerusalem, was one shimmering vault of glory, as if it was
there that the home of life had its place, and this earth beneath but a
bedroom for mortals, or for those that were too weary to aspire or climb. The
suggestion was enormously powerful. Here was this mortal earth that
needed rest so cruelly—that must have darkness to refresh its tired eyes,
coolness to recuperate its passion, and silence, if ever its ears were to hear
again. But there was radiance unending. All day a dome of rigid blue; all
night a span of glittering lights—the very home of a glory that knows no
waste and that therefore needs no reviving: it was to that only, therefore,
that a life must be chained which would not falter or fail in the unending
tides and changes of the world….

A soft breeze sprang up among the tops of the chestnuts; and the sound was
as of the going of a great company that whispered for silence.
 II

It was within an hour of dawn that the first mass was said next morning by
Mr. Robert Alban.

The chapel was decked out as they seldom dared to deck it in those days;
but the failure of the last attempt on this place, and the peace that had
followed, made them bold.

The carved chest of newly-cut oak was in its place, with a rich carpet of silk
spread on its face; and, on the top, the three linen cloths as prescribed by
the Ritual. Two silver candlesticks, that stood usually on the high shelf over
the hall-fire, and a silver crucifix of Flemish work, taken from the hiding-
place, were in a row on the back, with red and white flowers, between.
Beneath the linen cloths a tiny flat elevation showed where the altar stone
lay. The rest of the chapel, in its usual hangings, had only sweet herbs on
the floor; with two or three long seats carried up from the hall below. An
extraordinary sweetness and peace seemed in the place both to the senses
and the soul of the young priest as he went up to the altar to vest.
Confessions had been heard last night; and, as he turned, in the absolute
stillness of the morning, and saw, beneath those carved angels that still to-
day lean from the beams of the roof, the whole little space already filled with
farm-lads, many of whom were to approach the altar presently, and the grey
head of their master kneeling on the floor to answer the mass, it appeared to
him as if the promise of last night were reversed, and that it was, after all,
earth rather than heaven that proclaimed the peace and the glory of God….

Robin served the second mass himself, said by Mr. Garlick, and made his
thanksgiving as well as he could meanwhile; but he found what appeared to
him at the time many distractions, in watching the tanned face and hands
of the man who was so utterly a countryman for nine-tenths of his life, and
so utterly a priest for the rest. His very sturdiness and breeziness made his
reverence the more evident and pathetic: he read the mass rapidly, in a low
voice, harshened by shouting in the open air over his sports, made his
gestures abruptly, and yet did the whole with an extraordinary attention.
After the communion, when he turned for the wine and water, his face, as so
often with rude folk in a great emotion, browned as it was with wind and
sun, seemed lighted from within; he seemed etherealized, yet with his virility
all alive in him. A phrase, wholly inapplicable in its first sense, came
irresistibly to the younger priest's mind as he waited on him. "When the
strong man, armed, keepeth his house, his goods are in peace."

Robin heard the third mass, said by Mr. Ludlam, from a corner near the
door; and this one, too, was a fresh experience. The former priest had
resembled a strong man subdued by grace; the second, a weak man
ennobled by it. Mr. Ludlam was a delicate soul, smiling often, as has been
said, and speaking little—"a mild man," said the countryfolk. Yet, at the
altar there was no weakness in him; he was as a keen, sharp blade, fitted as
a heavy knife cannot be, for fine and peculiar work. His father had been a
yeoman, as had the other's; yet there must have been some unusual strain
of blood in him, so deft and gentle he was—more at his ease here at God's
Table than at the table of any man…. So he, too, finished his mass, and
began to unvest….

Then, with a noise as brutal as a blasphemy, there came a thunder of

footsteps on the stairs; and a man burst into the room, with glaring eyes
and rough gestures.

"There is a company of men coming up from the valley," he cried; "and

another over the moor…. And it is my lord Shrewsbury's livery."
 III

In an instant all was in confusion; and the peace had fled. Mr. John was
gone; and his voice could be heard on the open stairs outside speaking
rapidly in sharp, low whispers to the men gathered beneath; and,
meanwhile, three or four servants, two men and a couple of maids,
previously drilled in their duties, were at the altar, on which Mr. Ludlam
had but that moment laid down his amice. The three priests stood together
waiting, fearing to hinder or to add to the bustle. A low wailing rose from
outside the door; and Robin looked from it to see if there were anything he
could do. But it was only a little country servant crouching on the tiny
landing that united the two sets of stairs from the court, with her apron over
her head: she must have been in the partitioned west end of the chapel to
hear the mass. He said a word to her; and the next instant was pushed
aside, as a man tore by bearing a great bundle of stuffs—vestments and the
altar cloths. When he turned again, the chapel was become a common room
once more: the chest stood bare, with a great bowl of flowers on it; the
candlesticks were gone; and the maid was sweeping up the herbs.

"Come, gentlemen," said a sharp voice at the door, "there is no time to lose."

He went out with the two others behind, and followed Mr. John downstairs.
Already the party of servants was dispersed to their stations; two or three to
keep the doors, no doubt, and the rest back to kitchen work and the like, to
give the impression that all was as usual.

The four went straight down into the hall, to find it empty, except for one
man who stood by the fire-place. But a surprising change had taken place
here. Instead of the solemn panelling, with the carved shield that covered
the wall over the hearth, there was a great doorway opened, through which
showed, not the bricks of the chimney-breast, but a black space large
enough to admit a man.

"See here," said Mr. John, "there is room for two here, but no more. There is
room for a third in another little chamber upstairs that is nearly joined on to
this: but it is not so good. Now, gentlemen—"

"This is the safer of the two?" asked Robin abruptly.

"I think it to be so. Make haste, gentlemen."

Robin wheeled on the others. He said that there was no time to argue in.
"See!" he said. "I have not yet been taken at all. Mr. Garlick hath been taken;
and Mr. Ludlam hath had a warning. There is no question that you must be
here."

"I utterly refuse—" began Garlick.

Robin went to the door in three strides; and was out of it. He closed the door
behind him and ran upstairs. As he reached the head his eye caught a glint
of sunlight on some metal far up on the moor beyond the belt of trees. He
did not turn his head again; he went straight in and waited.

Presently he heard steps coming up, and Mr. John appeared smiling and out
of breath.

"I have them in," he said, "by promising that there was no great difference
after all; and that there was no time. Now, sir—" And he went towards the
wall at which, long ago, Mr. Owen had worked so hard.

"And yourself, sir?" asked Robin, as once more an innocent piece of

panelling moved outwards under Mr. John's hand.

"I'll see to that; but not until you are in—"

"But—"

The old man's face blazed suddenly up.

"Obey me, if you please. I am the master here. I tell you I have a very good
place."

There was no more to be said. Robin advanced to the opening, and sat down
to slide himself in. It was a little door about two feet square, with a hole
beneath it.

"Drop gently, Mr. Alban," whispered the voice in his ear. "The altar vessels
are at the bottom, with the crucifix, on some soft stuff…. That is it. Slide in
and let yourself slip. There is some food and drink there, too."

Robin did so. The floor of the little chamber was about five feet down, and he
could feel woodwork on all three sides of him.

"When the door is closed," said the voice from the daylight, "push a pair of
bolts on right and left till they go home. Tap upon the shutter when it is
done."
The light vanished, and Robin was aware of a faint smell of smoke. Then he
remembered that he had noticed a newly lit fire on the hearth of the hall….
He found the bolts, pushed them, and tapped lightly three times. He heard a
hand push on the shutter to see that all was secure, and then footsteps go
away over the floor on a level with his chin.

Then he remembered that he must be in the same chamber with his two
fellow-priests, separated from them by the flooring on which he stood. He
rapped gently with his foot twice. Two soft taps came back. Silence followed.
 IV

Time, as once before in his experience, seemed wholly banished from this
place. There were moments of reflection when he appeared to himself as
having but just entered; there were other moments when he might have
been here for an eternity that had no divisions to mark it. He was in
complete and utter darkness. There was not a crack anywhere in the
woodwork (so perfect had been the young carpenter's handiwork) by which
even a glimmer of light could enter. A while ago he had been in the early
morning sunlight; now he might be in the grave.

For a while his emotions and his thoughts raced one another, tumbling in
inextricable confusion; and they were all emotions and thoughts of the
present: intense little visions of the men closing round the house, cutting off
escape from the valley on the one side and from the wild upland country on
the other; questions as to where Mr. John would hide himself; minute
sensible impressions of the smoky flavour of the air, the unplaned
woodwork, the soft stuffs beneath his feet. Then they began to extend
themselves wider, all with that rapid unjarring swiftness: he foresaw the
bursting in of his stronghold; the footsteps within three inches of his head;
the crash as the board was kicked in: then the capture; the ride to Derby,
bound on a horse; the gaol; the questioning; the faces of my lord
Shrewsbury and the magistrates … and the end….

There were moments when the sweat ran down his face, when he bit his lips
in agony, and nearly moaned aloud. There were others in which he
abandoned himself to Christ crucified; placed himself in Everlasting Hands
that were mighty enough to pluck him not only out of this snare, but from
the very hands that would hold him so soon; Hands that could lift him from
the rack and scaffold and set him a free man among his hills again: yet that
had not done so with a score of others whom he knew. He thought of these,
and of the girl who had done so much to save them all, who was now saved
herself by sickness, a mile or two away, from these hideous straits. Then he
dragged out Mr. Maine's beads and began to recite the "Mysteries."…

There broke in suddenly the first exterior sign that the hunters were on
them—a muffled hammering far beneath his feet. There were pauses; then
voices carried up from the archway nearly beneath through the hollowed
walls; then hammering again; but all was heard as through wool.

As the first noise broke out his mind rearranged itself and seemed to have
two consciousnesses. In the foreground he followed, intently and eagerly,
every movement below; in the background, there still moved before him the
pageant of deeper thoughts and more remote—of prayer and wonder and
fear and expectation; and from that onwards it continued so with him. Even
while he followed the sounds, he understood why my lord Shrewsbury had
made this assault so suddenly, after months of peace…. He perceived the
hand of Thomas FitzHerbert, too, in the precision with which the attack had
been made, and the certain information he must have given that priests
would be in Padley that morning.

There were noises that he could not interpret—vague tramplings from a

direction which he could not tell; voices that shouted; the sound of metal on
stone.

He did interpret rightly, however, the sudden tumult as the gate was
unbarred at last, and the shrill screaming of a woman as the company
poured through into the house; the clamour of voices from beneath as the
hall below was filled with men; the battering that began almost immediately;
and, finally, the rush of shod feet up the outside staircases, one of which led
straight into the chapel itself. Then, indeed, his heart seemed to spring
upwards into his throat, and to beat there, as loud as knocking, so loud that
it appeared to him that all the house must hear it.

Yet it was still some minutes before the climax came to him. He was still
standing there, listening to voices talking, it seemed, almost in his ears, yet
whose words he could not hear; the vibration of feet that shook the solid
joist against which he had leaned his head, with closed eyes; the brush of a
cloak once, like a whisper, against the very panel that shut him in. He could
attend to nothing else; the rest of the drama was as nothing to him: he had
his business in hand—to keep away from himself, by the very intentness of
his will and determination, the feet that passed so close.

The climax came in a sudden thump of a pike foot within a yard of his head,
so imminent, that for an instant he thought it was at his own panel. There
followed a splintering sound of a pike-head in the same place. He
understood. They were sounding on the woodwork and piercing all that rang
hollow…. His turn, then, would come immediately.

Talking voices followed the crash; then silence; then the vibration of feet
once more. The strain grew unbearable; his fingers twisted tight in his
rosary, lifted themselves once or twice from the floor edge on which they
were gripped, to tear back the bolts and declare himself. It seemed to him in
those instants a thousand times better to come out of his own will, rather
than to be poked and dragged from his hole like a badger. In the very midst
of such imaginings there came a thumping blow within three inches of his
face, and then silence. He leaned back desperately to avoid the pike-thrust
that must follow, with his eyes screwed tight and his lips mumbling. He
waited;… and then, as he waited, he drew an irrepressible hissing breath of
terror, for beneath the soft padding under his feet he could feel movements;
blow follow blow, from the same direction, and last a great clamour of voices
all shouting together.

Feet ran across the floor on which his hands were gripped again, and down
the stairs. He perceived two things: the chapel was empty again, and the
priests below had been found.
 V

He could follow every step of the drama after that, for he appeared to himself
now as a mere witness, without personal part in it.

First, there were voices below him, so clear and close that he could
distinguish the intonation, and who it was that spoke, though the words
were inaudible.

It was Mr. Garlick who first spoke—a sentence of a dozen words, it might be,
consenting, no doubt, to come out without being dragged; congratulating,
perhaps (as the manner was), the searchers on their success. A murmur of
answer came back, and then one sharp, peevish voice by itself. Again Mr.
Garlick spoke, and there followed the shuffling of movements for a long
while; and then, so far as the little chamber was concerned, empty silence.
But from the hall rose up a steady murmur of talk once more….

Again Robin's heart leaped in him, for there came the rattle of a pike-end
immediately below his feet. They were searching the little chamber beneath,
from the level of the hall, to see if it were empty. The pike was presently
withdrawn.

For a long while the talking went on. So far as the rest of the house was
concerned, the hidden man could tell nothing, or whether Mr. John were
taken, or whether the search were given up. He could not even fix his mind
on the point; he was constructing for himself, furiously and intently, the
scene he imagined in the hall below; he thought he saw the two priests
barred in behind the high table; my lord Shrewsbury in the one great chair
in the midst of the room; Mr. Columbell, perhaps, or Mr. John Manners
talking in his ear; the men on guard over the, priests and beside the door;
and another, maybe, standing by the hearth.

He was so intent on this that he thought of little else; though still, on a

strange background of another consciousness, moved scenes and ideas
such as he had had at the beginning. And he was torn from this
contemplation with the suddenness of a blow, by a voice speaking, it
seemed, within a foot of his head.

"Well, we have those rats, at any rate."

(He perceived instantly what had happened. The men were back again in the
chapel, and he had not heard them come. He supposed that he could hear
the words now, because of the breaking of the panel next to his own.)

"Ralph said he was sure of the other one, too," said a second voice.
"Which was that one?"

"The fellow that was at Fotheringay."

(Robin clenched his teeth like iron.)

"Well, he is not here."

There was silence.

"I have sounded that side," said the first voice sharply.

"Well, but—"

"I tell you I have sounded it. There is no time to be lost. My lord—"

"Hark!" said the second voice. "There is my lord's man—"

There followed a movement of feet towards the door, as it seemed to the

priest.

He could hear the first man grumbling to himself, and beating listlessly on
the walls somewhere. Then a voice called something unintelligible from the
direction of the stairs; the beating ceased, and footsteps went across the
floor again into silence.
 VI

He was dazed and blinded by the light when, after infinite hours, he drew
the bolts and slid the panel open.

He had lost all idea of time utterly: he did not know whether he should
find that night had come, or that the next day had dawned. He had waited
there, period after period; he marked one of them by eating food that had no
taste and drinking liquid that stung his throat but did not affect his palate;
he had marked another by saying compline to himself in a whisper.

During the earlier part of those periods he had followed—he thought with
success—the dreadful drama that was acted in the house. Someone had
made a formal inspection of all the chambers—a man who said little and
moved heavily with something of a limp (he had thought this to be my lord
Shrewsbury himself, who suffered from the gout): this man had walked
slowly through the chapel and out again.

At a later period he had heard the horses being brought round the house;
heard plainly the jingle of the bits and a sneeze or two. This had been
followed by long interminable talking, muffled and indistinguishable, that
came up to him from some unknown direction. Voices changed curiously in
loudness and articulation as the speakers moved about.

At a later period a loud trampling had begun again, plainly from the hall: he
had interpreted this to mean that the prisoners were being removed out of
doors; and he had been confirmed in this by hearing immediately afterwards
again the stamping of horses and the creaking of leather.

Again there had been a pause, broken suddenly by loud women's wailing.
And at last the noise of horses moving off; the noise grew less; a man ran
suddenly through the archway and out again, and, little by little, complete
silence once more.

Yet he had not dared to move. It was the custom, he knew, sometimes to
leave three or four men on guard for a day or two after such an assault, in
the hope of starving out any hidden fugitives that might still be left. So he
waited again—period after period; he dozed a little for weariness, propped
against the narrow walls of his hidinghole; woke; felt again for food and
found he had eaten it all … dozed again.

Then he had started up suddenly, for without any further warning there had
come a tiny indeterminate tapping against his panel. He held his breath and
listened. It came again. Then fearlessly he drew back the bolts, slid the
panel open and shut his eyes, dazzled by the light.
He crawled out at last, spent and dusty. There was looking at him only the
little red-eyed maid whom he had tried to comfort at some far-off hour in his
life. Her face was all contorted with weeping, and she had a great smear of
dust across it.

"What time is it?" he said.

"It … it is after two o'clock," she whispered.

"They have all gone?"

She nodded, speechless.

"Whom have they taken?"

"Mr. FitzHerbert … the priests … the servants."

"Mr. FitzHerbert? They found him, then?"

She stared at him with the dull incapacity to understand why he did not
know all that she had seen.

"Where did they find him?" he repeated sharply.

"The master … he opened the door to them himself."

Her face writhed itself again into grotesque lines, and she broke out into
shrill wailing and weeping.
 CHAPTER IV

Marjorie was still in bed when the news was brought her by her friend.

She did not move or speak when Mistress Alice said shortly that Mr.

FitzHerbert had been taken with ten of his servants and two priests.

"You understand, my dear…. They have ridden away to Derby, all of them
together. But they may come back here suddenly."

Marjorie nodded.

"Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam were in the chimney-hole of the hall,"
whispered Mistress Alice, glancing fearfully behind her.

Marjorie lay back again on her pillows.

"And what of Mr. Alban?" she asked.

"Mr. Alban was upstairs. They missed him. He is coming here after dark, the
maid says."

An hour after supper-time the priest came quietly upstairs to the parlour.
He showed no signs of his experience, except perhaps by a certain
brightness in his eyes and an extreme self-repression of manner. Marjorie
was up to meet him; and had in her hands a paper. She hardly spoke a
single expression of relief at his safety. She was as quiet and business-like
as ever.

"You must lie here to-night," she said. "Janet hath your room ready. At one
o'clock in the morning you must ride: here is a map of your journey. They
may come back suddenly. At the place I have marked here with red there is
a shepherd's hut; you cannot miss it if you follow the track I have marked.
There will be meat and drink there. At night the shepherd will come from the
westwards; he is called David, and you may trust him. You must lie there
two weeks at least."

"I must have news of the other priests," he said.

Marjorie bowed her head.

"I will send a letter to you by Dick Sampson at the end of two weeks. Until
that I can promise nothing. They may have spies round the house by this
time to-morrow, or even earlier. And I will send in that letter any news I can
get from Derby."

"How shall I find my way?" asked Robin.

"Until it is light you will be on ground that you know." (She flushed slightly.)
"Do you remember the hawking, that time after Christmas? It is all across
that ground. When daylight comes you can follow this map." (She named
one or two landmarks, pointing to them on the map.) "You must have no
lantern."

They talked a few minutes longer as to the way he must go and the provision
that would be ready for him. He must take no mass requisites with him.
David had made that a condition. Then Robin suddenly changed the
subject.

"Had my father any hand in this affair at Padley?"

"I am certain he had not."

"They will execute Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam, will they not?"

She bowed her head in assent.

"The Summer Assizes open on the eighteenth," she said. "There is no doubt
as to how all will go."

Robin rose.

"It is time I were in bed," he said, "if I must ride at one."

The two women knelt for his blessing.

At one o'clock Marjorie heard the horse brought round. She stepped softly to
the window, knowing herself to be invisible, and peeped out.

All was as she had ordered. There was no light of any kind: she could make
out but dimly in the summer darkness the two figures of horse and groom.
As she looked, a third figure appeared beneath; but there was no word
spoken that she could hear. This third figure mounted. She caught her
breath as she heard the horse scurry a little with freshness, since every
sound seemed full of peril. Then the mounted figure faded one way into the
dark, and the groom another.
 II

It was two weeks to the day that Robin received his letter.

He had never before been so long in utter solitude; for the visits of David
did not break it; and, for other men, he saw none except a hog-herd or two
in the distance once or twice. The shepherd came but once a day, carrying a
great jug and a parcel of food, and set them down without the hut; he
seemed to avoid even looking within; but merely took the empty jug of the
day before and went away again. He was an old, bent man, with a face like a
limestone cliff, grey and weather-beaten; he lived half the year up here in
the wild Peak country, caring for a few sheep, and going down to the village
not more than once or twice a week. There was a little spring welling up in a
hollow not fifty yards away from the hut, which itself stood in a deep,
natural rift among the high hills, so that men might search for it a lifetime
and not come across it.

Robin's daily round was very simple. He had leave to make a fire by day, but
he must extinguish it at night lest its glow should be seen, so he began his
morning by mixing a little oatmeal, and then preparing his dinner. About
noon, so near as he could judge by the sun, he dined; sometimes off a
partridge or rabbit; on Fridays off half a dozen tiny trout; and set aside part
of the cold food for supper; he had one good loaf of nearly black bread every
day, and the single jug of small beer.

The greater part of the day he spent within the hut, for safety's sake,
sleeping a little, and thinking a good deal. He had no books with him; even
his breviary had been forbidden, since David, as a shrewd man, had made
conditions, first that he should not have to speak with any refugee, second,
that if the man were a priest he should have nothing about him that could
prove him to be so. Mr. Maine's beads, only, had been permitted, on
condition that they were hidden always beneath a stone outside the hut.

After nightfall Robin went out to attend to his horse that was tethered in the
next ravine, over a crag; to shift his peg and bring him a good armful of cut
grass and a bucket of water. (The saddle and bridle were hidden beneath a
couple of great stones that leaned together not far away.) After doing what
was necessary for his horse, he went to draw water for himself; and then
took his exercise, avoiding carefully, according to instructions, every
possible skyline. And it was then, for the most part, that he did his clear
thinking…. He tried to fancy himself in a fortnight's retreat, such as he had
had at Rheims before his reception of orders.
The evening of the twenty-fifth of July closed in stormy; and Robin, in an old
cloak he had found placed in the but for his own use, made haste to attend
to what was necessary, and hurried back as quickly as he could. He sat a
while, listening to the thresh of the rain and the cry of the wind; for, up here
in the high land the full storm broke on him. (The hut was wattled of osiers
and clay, and kept out the wet tolerably well.)

He could see nothing from the door of his hut except the dim outline of the
nearer crag thirty or forty yards off; and he went presently to bed.

He awoke suddenly, wide awake—as is easy for a man who is sleeping in

continual expectation of an alarm—at the flash of light in his eyes. But he
was at once reassured by Dick's voice.

"I have come, sir; and I have brought the mistress' letter."

Robin sat up and took the packet. He saw now that the man carried a little
lantern with a slide over it that allowed only a thin funnel of light to escape
that could be shut off in an instant.

"All well, Dick? I did not hear you coming."

"The storm's too loud, sir."

"All well?"

"Mistress Manners thinks you had best stay here a week longer, sir."

"And … and the news?"

"It is all in the letter, sir."

Robin looked for the inscription, but there was none. Then he broke the two
seals, opened the paper and began to read. For the next five minutes there
was no sound, except the thresh of the rain and the cry of the wind. The
letter ran as follows:
 III

"Three more have glorified God to-day by a good confession—Mr. Garlick,

Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Simpson. That is the summary. The tale in detail hath
been brought to me to-day by an eye-witness.

"The trial went as all thought it would. There was never the least question of
it; for not only were the two priests taken with signs of their calling upon
them, but both of them had been in the hands of the magistrates before.
There was no shrinking nor fear showed of any kind. But the chief marvel
was that these two priests met with Mr. Simpson in the gaol; they put them
together in one room, I think, hoping that Mr. Simpson would prevail upon
them to do as he had promised to do; but, by the grace of God, it was all the
other way, and it was they who prevailed upon Mr. Simpson to confess
himself again openly as a Catholic. This greatly enraged my lord Shrewsbury
and the rest; so that there was less hope than ever of any respite, and
sentence was passed upon them all together, Mr. Simpson showing, at the
reading of it, as much courage as any. This was all done two days ago at the
Assizes; and it was to-day that the sentence was carried out.

"They were all three drawn on hurdles together to the open space by St.
Mary's Bridge, where all was prepared, with gallows and cauldron and
butchering block; and a great company went after them. I have not heard
that they spoke much, on the way, except that a friend of Mr. Garlick's cried
out to him to remember that they had often shot off together on the moors;
to which Mr. Garlick made answer merrily that it was true; but that 'I am
now to shoot off such a shot as I never shot in all my life.' He was merry at
the trial, too, I hear; and said that 'he was not come to seduce men, but
rather to induce them to the Catholic religion, that to this end he had come
to the country, and for this that he would work so long as he lived.' And this
he did on the scaffold, speaking to the crowd about him of the salvation of
their souls, and casting papers, which he had written in prison, in proof of
the Catholic faith.

"Mr. Garlick went up the ladder first, kissing and embracing it as the
instrument of his death, and to encourage Mr. Simpson, as it was thought,
since some said he showed signs of timorousness again when he came to
the place. But he showed none when his turn came, but rather exhibited the
same courage as them both. Mr. Ludlam stood by smiling while all was
done; and smiling still when his turn came. His last words were, 'Venite
benedicti Dei'; and this he said, seeming to see a vision of angels come to
bear his soul away.
"They were cut down, all three of them, before they were dead; and the
butchery done on them according to sentence; yet none of them cried out or
made the least sound; and their heads and quarters were set up
immediately afterwards on poles in divers places of Derby; some of them
above the house that stands on the bridge and others on the bridge itself.
But these, I hear, will not be there long.

"So these three have kept the faith and finished their course with joy. Laus
Deo. Mr. John is in ward, for harbouring of the priests; but nothing hath
been done to him yet.

"As for your reverence, I am of opinion that you had best wait another week
where you are. There has been a man or two seen hereabouts whom none
knew, as well as at Padley. It hath been certified, too, that Mr. Thomas was
at the root of it all, that he gave the information that Mr. John and at least a
priest or two would be at Padley at that time, though no man knows how he
knew it, unless through servants' talk; and since Mr. Thomas knows your
reverence, it will be better to be hid for a little longer. So, if you will, in a
week from now, I will send Dick once, again to tell you if all be well. I look
for no letter back for this since you have nothing to write with in the hut, as
I know; but Dick will tell me how you do; as well as anything you may
choose to say to him.

"I ask your reverence's blessing again. I do not forget your reverence in my
poor prayers."

And so it ended, without signature—for safety's sake.

 IV

Robin looked up when he had finished to where the faint outline of the
servant could be seen behind the lantern, against the greater darkness of
the wall.

"You know of all that has fallen at Derby?" he said, with some difficulty.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, pray God we may be willing, too, if He bids us to it."

"Yes, sir."…

"You had best lose no time if you are to be home before dawn. Say to
Mistress Manners that I thank her for her letter; that I praise God for the
graces she relates in it; and that I will do as she bids…. Dick."

"Yes, sir."

"Is Mr. Audrey in any of this?"

"I do not know, sir…. I heard—" The man's voice hesitated.

"What did you hear?"

"I heard that my lord Shrewsbury wondered at his absence from the trial;
and … and that a message would be sent to Mr. Audrey to look to it to be
more zealous on her Grace's commission."

"That was all?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then you had best be gone. There is no more to be said. Bring me what
news you can when you come again. Good-night, Dick."

"Good-night, sir…. God bless your reverence."

An hour later, with the first coming of the dawn, the storm ceased. (It was
that same storm, if he had only known it, that had blown upon the Spanish
Fleet at sea and driven it towards destruction. But of this he knew nothing.)
He had not slept since Dick had gone, but had lain on his back on the
turfed and blanketed bed in the corner, his hands clasped behind his head,
thinking, thinking and re-thinking all that he had read just now. He had
known it must happen; but there seemed to him all the difference in the
world between an event and its mere certainty…. The thing was done—out
to every bitter detail of the loathsome, agonizing death—and it had been two
of the men whom he had seen say mass after himself—the ruddy-faced,
breezy countryman, yet anointed with the sealing oil, and the gentle,
studious, smiling man who had been no less vigorous than his friend….

But there was one thing he had not known, and that, the recovery of the
faint heart which they had inspirited. And then, in an instant he
remembered how he had seen the three, years ago, against the sunset, as he
rode with Anthony….

His mind was full of the strange memory as he came out at last, when the
black darkness began to fade to grey, and the noise of the rain on the roof
had ceased, and the wind had fallen.

It was a view of extraordinary solemnity that he looked on, as he stood

leaning against the rough door-post. The night was still stronger than day;
overhead was as black as ever, and stars shone in it through the dissolving
clouds that were passing at last. But, immediately over the grim, serrated
edge of the crag that faced him to the east, a faint and tender light was
beginning to burn, so faint that, as yet it seemed an absence of black rather
than as of a colour itself; and in the midst of it, like a crumb of diamond,
shone a single dying star. This high land was as still now as a sheltered
valley, a tuft of springy grass stood out on the crag as stiff as a thin plume;
and the silence, as at Padley two weeks ago, was marked rather than broken
by the tinkle of water from his spring fifty yards away. The air was cold and
fresh and marvellously scented, after the rain, with the clean smell of strong
turf and rushes. It was as different from the peace he had had at Padley as
water is different from wine; yet it was Peace, too, a confident and expectant
peace that precedes the battle, rather than the rest which follows it….

How was it he had seen the three men on the moor; as he turned with
Anthony? They were against the crimson west, as against a glory, the two
laymen on either side, the young priest in the middle…. They had seemed to
bear him up and support him; the colour of the sky was as a stain of blood;
and their shadows had stretched to his own feet….

And there came on him in that hour one of those vast experiences that
can never be told, when a flood rises in earth and air that turns them all to
wine, that wells up through tired limbs, and puzzled brain and beating
heart, and soothes and enkindles, all in one; when it is not a mere vision of
peace that draws the eyes up in an ecstasy of sight, but a bathing in it, and
an envelopment in it, of every fibre of life; when the lungs draw deep breaths
of it; and the heart beats in it, and the eyes are enlightened by it; when the
things of earth become at once eternal and fixed and of infinite value, and at
the same instant of less value than the dust that floats in space; when there
no longer appears any distinction between the finite and the eternal,
between time and infinity; when the soul for that moment at least finds that
rest that is the magnet and the end of all human striving; and that comfort
which wipes away all tears.
 CHAPTER V

I
It was the sixth night after Dick Sampson had come back with news of Mr.
Alban; and he had already received instructions as to how he was to go
twenty-four hours later. He was to walk, as before, starting after dark, not
carrying a letter this time, after all, in spite of the news that he might have
taken with him; for the priest would be back before morning and could hear
it all then at his ease.
Every possible cause of alarm had gone; and Marjorie, for the first time for
three weeks, felt very nearly as content as a year ago. Not one more doubtful
visitor had appeared anywhere; and now she thought herself mistaken even
about those solitary figures she had suspected before. After all, they had
only been a couple of men, whose faces her servants did not know, who had
gone past on the track beneath the house; one mounted, and the other on
foot.
There had been something of a reaction, too, in Derby. The deaths of the
three priests had made an impression; there was no doubt of that. Mr.
Biddell had written her a letter on the point, saying that the blood of those
martyrs might well be the peace, if it might not be the seed, of the Church in
the district. Men openly said in the taverns, he reported, that it was hard
that any should die for religion merely; politics were one matter and religion
another. Yet the deaths had dismayed the simple Catholics, too, for the
present; and at Hathersage church, scarcely ten miles away, above two
hundred came to the Protestant sermon preached before my lord
Shrewsbury on the first Sunday after.

The news of the Armada, too, had distracted men's minds wonderfully in
another direction. News had come in already, she was informed, of an
engagement or two in the English Channel, all in favour of its defenders.
More than that was not known. But the beacons had blazed; and the
market-place of Derby had echoed with the tramp of the train-bands; and it
was not likely that at such a time the attention of the magistrates would be
given to anything else.

So her plans were laid. Mr. Alban was to come here for three or four days; be
provided with a complete change of clothes (all of which she had ready);
shave off his beard; and then set out again for the border. He had best go to
Staffordshire, she thought, for a month or two, before beginning once more
in his own county.

She went to bed that night, happy enough, in spite of the cause, which
she loved so much, seeming to fail everywhere. It was true that, under this
last catastrophe, great numbers had succumbed; but she hoped that this
would be but for a time. Let but a few more priests come from Rheims to join
the company that had lost so heavily, and all would be well again. So she
said to herself: she did not allow even in her own soul that the security of
her friend and the thought that he would be with her in a day or two, had
any great part in her satisfaction.

She awaked suddenly. At the moment she did not know what time it was
or how long she had slept; but it was still dark and deathly still. Yet she
could have sworn that she had heard her name called. The rushlight was
burned out; but in the summer night she could still make out the outline of
Mistress Alice's bed. Yet all was still there, except for the gentle breathing: it
could not have been she who had called out in her sleep, or she would
surely show some signs of restlessness.

She sat up listening; but there was not a sound. She lay down again; and
the strange fancy seized her that it had been her mother's voice that she had
heard…. It was in this room that her mother had died…. Again she sat up
and looked round. All was quiet as before: the tall press at the foot of her
bed glimmered here and there with lines and points of starlight.

Then, as again she began to lie down, there came the signal for which her
heart was expectant, though her mind knew nothing of its coming. It was a
clear rap, as of a pebble against the glass.

She was up and out of bed in a moment, and was peering out under the
thick arch of the little window. And a figure stood there, bending, it seemed,
for another pebble; in the very place where she had seen it, she thought,
nearly three weeks ago, standing ready to mount a horse.

Then she was at Alice's bedside.

"Alice," she whispered. "Alice! Wake up…. There is someone come. You must
come with me. I do not know—" Her voice faltered: she knew that she knew,
and fear clutched her by the throat.

The porter was fast asleep, and did not move, as carrying a rushlight she
went past the buttery with her friend behind her saying no word. The bolts
were well oiled, and came back with scarcely a sound. Then as the door
swung slowly back a figure slipped in.

"Yes," he said, "it is I…. I think I am followed…. I have but come—"

"Come in quickly," she said, and closed and bolted the door once more.
 II

It was a horrible delight to sit, wrapped in her cloak with the hood over her
head, listening to his story in the hall, and to know that it was to her house
that he had come for safety. It was horrible to her that he needed it—so
horrible that every shred of interior peace had left her; she was composed
only in her speech, and it was a strange delight that he had come so simply.
He sat there; she could see his outline and the pallor of his face under his
hat, and his voice was perfectly resolute and quiet. This was his tale.

"Twice this afternoon," he said, "I saw a man against the sky, opposite my
hut. It was the same man both times; he was not a shepherd or a farmer's
man. The night before, when David came, he did not speak to me; but for
the first time he put his head in at the hut-door when he brought the food
and made gestures that I could not understand. I looked at him and shook
my head, but he would say nothing, and I remembered the bond and said
nothing myself. All that he would do was to shut his eyes and wave his
hands. Then this last night he brought no food at all.

"I was uneasy at the sight of the man, too, in the afternoon. I think he
thought that I was asleep; for when I saw him for the first time I was lying
down and looking at the crag opposite. And I saw him raise himself on his
hands against the sky, as if he had been lying flat on his face in the heather.
I looked at him for a while, and then I flung my hand out of bed suddenly,
and he was gone in a whisk. I went to the door after a time, stretching
myself as if I were just awakened, and there was no sign of him.

"About an hour before sunset I was watching again; and I saw, on a sudden,
a covey of birds rise suddenly about two hundred yards away to the north of
the hut—that is, by the way that I should have to go down to the valleys
again. They rose as if they were frightened. I kept my eyes on the place, and
presently I saw a man's hat moving very slowly. It was the movement of a
man crawling on his hands, drawing his legs after him.

"Then I waited for David to come, but he did not come, and I determined
then to make my way down here as well as I could after dark. If there were
any fellows after me, I should have a better chance of escape than if I stayed
in the hut, I thought, until they could fetch up the rest; and, if not, I could
lose nothing by coming a day too soon."

"But—" began the girl eagerly.

"Wait," said Robin quietly. "That is not all. I made very poor way on foot (for I
thought it better to come quietly than on a horse), and I went round about
again and again in the precipitous ground so that, if there were any after
me, they could not tell which way I meant to go. For about two hours I heard
and saw nothing of any man, and I began to think I was a fool for all my
pains. So I sat down a good while and rested, and even thought that I would
go back again. But just as I was about to get up again I heard a stone fall a
great way behind me: it was on some rocky ground about two hundred
yards away. The night was quite still, and I could hear the stone very
plainly…. It was I that crawled then, further down the hill, and it was then
that I saw once more a man's head move against the stars.

"I went straight on then, as quietly as I could. I made sure that it was but
one that was after me, and that he would not try to take me by himself, and
I saw no more of him till I came down near Padley—"

"Near Padley? Why—"

"I meant to go there first," said the priest, "and lie, there till morning. But as
I came down the hill I heard the steps of him again a great way off. So I
turned sharp into a little broken ground that lies there, and hid myself
among the rocks—"

Mistress Alice lifted her hand suddenly.

"Hark!" she whispered.

Then as the three sat motionless, there came, distinct and clear, from a little
distance down the hill, the noise of two or three horses walking over stony
ground.
 III

For one deathly instant the two sat looking each into the other's white face—
since even the priest changed colour at the sound. (While they had talked
the dawn had begun to glimmer, and the windows showed grey and ghostly
on the thin morning mist.) Then they rose together. Marjorie was the first to
speak.

"You must come upstairs at once," she said. "All is ready there, as you
know."

The priest's lips moved without speaking. Then he said suddenly:

"I had best be off the back way; that is, if it is what I think—"

"The house will be surrounded."

"But you will have harboured me—"

Marjorie's lips opened in a smile.

"I have done that in any case," she said. She caught up the candle and blew
it out, as she went towards the door.

"Come quickly," she said.

At the door Janet met them. Her old face was all distraught with fear. She
had that moment run downstairs again on hearing the noise. Marjorie
silenced her by a gesture….

The young carpenter had done his work excellently, and Marjorie had taken
care that there had been no neglect since the work had been done. Yet so
short was the time since the hearing of the horses' feet, that as the girl
slipped out of the press again after drawing back the secret door, there came
the loud knocking beneath, for which they had waited with such agony.

"Quick!" she said….

From within, as she waited, came the priest's whisper. "Is this to be
pushed—?"

"Yes; yes."

There was the sound of sliding wood and a little snap. Then she closed the
doors of the press again.
 IV

Mr. Audrey outside grew indignant, and the more so since he was unhappy.

He had had the message from my lord Shrewsbury that a magistrate of

her Grace should show more zeal; and, along with this, had come a private
intimation that it was suspected that Mr. Audrey had at least once warned
the recusants of an approaching attack. It would be as well, then, if he
would manifest a little activity….

But it appeared to him the worst luck in the world that the hunt should lead
him to Mistress Manners' door.

It was late in the afternoon that the informer had made his appearance at
Matstead, thirsty and dishevelled, with the news that a man thought to be a
Popish priest was in hiding on the moors; that he was being kept under
observation by another informer; and that it was to be suspected that he
was the man who had been missed at Padley when my lord had taken
Garlick and Ludlam. If it were the man, it would be the priest known by the
name of Alban—the fellow whom my lord's man had so much distrusted at
Fotheringay, and whom he had seen again in Derby a while later. Next, if it
were this man, he would almost certainly make for Padley if he were
disturbed.

Mr. Audrey had bitten his nails a while as he listened to this, and then had
suddenly consented. The plan suggested was simple enough. One little troop
should ride to Padley, gathering reinforcements on the way, and another on
foot should set out for the shepherd's hut. Then, if the priest should be
gone, this second party should come on towards Padley immediately and
join forces with the riders.

All this had been done, and the mounted company, led by the magistrate
himself, had come up from the valley in time to see the signalling from the
heights (contrived by the showing of lights now and again), which indicated
that the priest was moving in the direction that had been expected, and that
one man at least was on his track. They had waited there, in the valley, till
the intermittent signals had reached the level ground and ceased, and had
then ridden up cautiously in time to meet the informer's companion, and to
learn that the fugitive had doubled suddenly back towards Booth's Edge.
There they had waited then, till the dawn was imminent, and, with it, there
came the party on foot, as had been arranged; then, all together, numbering
about twenty-five men, they had pushed on in the direction of Mistress
Manners' house.
As the house came into view, more than ever Mr. Audrey reproached his evil
luck. Certainly there still were two or three chances to one that no priest
would be taken at all; since, first, the man might not be a priest, and next,
he might have passed the manor and plunged back again into the hills. But
it was not very pleasant work, this rousing of a house inhabited by a woman
for whom the magistrate had very far from unkindly feelings, and on such
an errand…. So the informers marvelled at the venom with which Mr.
Audrey occasionally whispered at them in the dark.

His heart sank as he caught a glimpse of a light first showing, and then
suddenly extinguished, in the windows of the hall, but he was relieved to
hear no comment on it from the men who walked by his horse; he even
hoped that they had not seen it…. But he must do his duty, he said to
himself.

He grew a little warm and impatient when no answer came to the knocking.
He said such play-acting was absurd. Why did not the man come out
courageously and deny that he was a priest? He would have a far better
excuse for letting him go.

"Knock again," he cried.

And again the thunder rang through the archway, and the summons in the

Queen's name to open.

Then at last a light shone beneath the door. (It was brightening rapidly
towards the dawn here in the open air, but within it would still be dark.)
Then a voice grumbled within.

"Who is there?"

"Man," bellowed the magistrate, "open the door and have done with it. I tell
you I am a magistrate!"

There was silence. Then the voice came again.

"How do I know that you are?"

Mr. Audrey slipped off his horse, scrambled to the door, set his hands on his
knees and his mouth to the keyhole.

"Open the door, you fool, in the Queen's name…. I am Mr. Audrey, of

Matstead."
Again came the pause. The magistrate was in the act of turning to bid his
men beat the door in, when once more the voice came.

"I'll tell the mistress, sir…. She's a-bed."

His discomfort grew on him as he waited, staring out at the fast yellowing
sky. (Beneath him the slopes towards the valley and the far-off hills on the
other side appeared like a pencil drawing, delicate, minute and colourless,
or, at the most, faintly tinted in phantoms of their own colours. The sky, too,
was grey with the night mists not yet dissolved.) It was an unneighbourly
action, this of his, he thought. He must do his best to make it as little
offensive as he could. He turned to his men.

"Now, men," he said, glaring like a judge, "no violence here, unless I give the
order. No breaking of aught in the house. The lady here is a friend of mine;
and—"

The great bolts shot back suddenly; he turned as the door opened; and
there, pale as milk, with eyes that seemed a-fire, Marjorie's face was looking
at him; she was wrapped in her long cloak and her hood was drawn over her
head. The space behind was crowded with faces, unrecognizable in the
shadow.

He saluted her.

"Mistress Manners," he said, "I am sorry to incommode you in this way. But
a couple of fellows tell me that a man hath come this way, whom they think
to be a priest. I am a magistrate, mistress, and—"

He stopped, confounded by her face. It was not like her face at all—the face,
rather, seemed as nothing; her whole soul was in her eyes, crying to him
some message that he could not understand. It appeared impossible to him
that this was a mere entreaty that he should leave one more priest at liberty;
impossible that the mere shock and surprise should have changed her so….
He looked at her…. Then he began again:

"It is no will of mine, mistress, beyond my duty. But I hold her Grace's
commission—"

She swept back again, motioning him to enter. He was astonished at his
own discomfort, but he followed, and his men pressed close after; and he
noticed, even in that twilight, that a look of despair went over the girl's face,
sharp as pain, as she saw them.
"You have come to search my house, sir?" she asked. Her voice was as
colourless as her features.

"My commission, mistress, compels me—"

Then he noticed that the doors into the hall had been pushed open, and that
she was moving towards them. And he thought he understood.

"Stand back, men," he barked, so fiercely that they recoiled. "This lady shall
speak with me first."

He passed up the hall after her. He was as unhappy as possible. He

wondered what she could have to say to him; she must surely understand
that no pleading could turn him; he must do his duty. Yet he would
certainly do this with as little offence as he could.

"Mistress Manners—" he began.

Then she turned on him again. They were at the further end of the hall, and
could speak low without being overheard.

"You must begone again," she whispered. "Oh! you must begone again. You
do not understand; you—"

Her eyes still burned with that terrible eloquence; it was as the face of one
on the rack.

"Mistress, I cannot begone again. I must do my duty. But I promise you—"

She was close to him, staring into his face; he could feel the heat of her
breath on his face.

"You must begone at once," she whispered, still in that voice of agony. He
saw her begin to sway on her feet and her eyes turn glassy. He caught her
as she swayed.

"Here! you women!" he cried.

It was all that he could do to force himself out through the crowd of folks
that looked on him. It was not that they barred his way. Rather they shrank
from him; yet their eyes pulled and impeded him; it was by a separate effort
that he put each foot before the other. Behind he could hear the long moan
that she had given die into silence, and the chattering whispers of her
women who held her. He reassured himself savagely; he would take care
that no one was taken … she would thank him presently; he would but set
guards at all the doors and make a cursory search; he would break a panel
or two; no more. And that would save both his face and her own…. Yet he
loathed even such work as this….

He turned abruptly as he came into the buttery passage.

"All the women in the hall," he said sharply. "Jack, keep the door fast till we
are done."
 V

He took particular pains to do as little damage as possible.

First he went through the out-houses, himself with a pike testing the
haystacks, where he was sure that no man could be hidden. The beasts
turned slow and ruminating eyes upon him as he went by their stalls.

As he passed, a little later, the inner door into the buttery passage, he could
hear the beating of hands on the hall-door. He went on quickly to the
kitchen, hating himself, yet determined to get all done quickly, and drove
the kitchen-maid, who was crouching by the unlighted fire, out behind him,
sending a man with her to bestow her in the hall. She wailed as she went by
him, but it was unintelligible, and he was in no mood for listening.

"Take her in," he said; "but let no one out, nor a message, till all is done."
(He thought that the kinder course.)

Then at last he went upstairs, still with his little bodyguard of four, of whom
one was the man who had followed the fugitive down from the hills.

He began with the little rooms over the hall: a bedstead stood in one; in
another was a table all piled with linen a third had its floor covered with
early autumn fruit, ready for preserving. He struck on a panel or two as he
went, for form's sake.

As he came out again he turned savagely on the informer.

"It is damned nonsense," he said; "the fellow's not here at all. I told you he'd
have gone back to the hills."

The man looked up at him with a furtive kind of sneer in his face; he, too,
was angry enough; the loss of the priest meant the loss of the heavy reward.

"We have not searched a room rightly yet, sir," he snarled. "There are a
hundred places—"

"Not searched! You villain! Why, what would you have?"

"It's not the manner I've done it before, sir. A pike-thrust here, and a blow
there—"

"I tell you I will not have the house injured! Mistress Manners—"

"Very good, sir. Your honour is the magistrate…. I am not."

The old man's temper boiled over. They were passing at that instant a half-
open door, and within he could see a bare little parlour, with linen presses
against the walls. It would not hide a cat.

"Do you search, then!" he cried. "Here, then, and I will watch you! But you
shall pay for any wanton damage, I tell you."

The man shrugged his shoulders.

"What is the use, then—" he began.

"Bah! search, then, as you will. I will pay."

The noise from the hall had ceased altogether as the four men went into
the parlour. It was a plain little room, with an open fireplace and a great
settle beside it. There were hangings here and there. That over the hearth
presented Icarus in the chariot of the sun. It seemed such a place as that in
which two lovers might sit and talk together at sunset…. In one place hung
a dark oil painting.

The old man went across to the window and stared out.

The sun was up by now, far away out of sight; and the whole sunlit valley
lay stretched beneath beyond the slopes that led down to Padley. The
loathing for his work rose up again and choked him—this desperate bullying
of a few women; and all to no purpose. He stared out at the horses beneath,
and at the couple of men gossiping together at their heads…. He determined
to see Mistress Manners again alone presently, when she should be
recovered, and have a word with her in private. She would forgive him,
perhaps, when she saw him ride off empty-handed, as he most certainly
meant to do.

He thought, too, of other things, this old man, as he stood, with his
shoulders squared, resolute in his lack of attention to the mean work going
on behind him…. He wondered whether God were angry or no. Whether this
kind of duty were according to His will. Down there was Padley, where he
had heard mass in the old days; Padley, where the two priests had been
taken a few weeks ago. He wondered—

"If it please your honour we will break in this panel," came the smooth,
sneering voice that he loathed.

He turned sullenly.
They were opposite the old picture. Beneath it there showed a crack in the
wainscoting…. He could scarcely refuse leave. Besides, the woodwork was
flawed in any case—he would pay for a new panel himself.

"There is nothing there!" he said doubtfully.

"Oh, no, sir," said the man with a peculiar look. "It is but to make a show—"

The old man's brows came down angrily. Then he nodded; and, leaning
against the window, watched them.

One of his own men came forward with a hammer and chisel. He placed
the chisel at the edge of the cracked panel, where the informer directed, and
struck a blow or two. There was the unmistakable dull sound of wood
against stone—not an echo of resonance. The old man smiled grimly to
himself. The man must be a fool if he thought there could be any hole
there!… Well; he would let them do what they would here; and then forbid
any further damage…. He wondered if the priest really were in the house or
no.

The two men had their heads together now, eyeing the crack they had
made…. Then the informer said something in a low voice that the old man
could not hear; and the other, handing him the chisel and hammer, went
out of the room, beckoning to one of the two others that stood waiting at the
door.

"Well?" sneered the old man. "Have you caught your bird?

"Not yet, sir."

He could hear the steps of the others in the next room; and then silence.

"What are they doing there?" he asked suddenly.

"Nothing, sir…. I just bade a man wait on that side."

The man was once more inserting the chisel in the top of the wainscoting;
then he presently began to drive it down with the hammer as if to detach it
from the wall.

Suddenly he stopped; and at the same instant the old man heard some
faint, muffled noise, as of footsteps moving either in the wall or beyond it.

"What is that?"

The man said nothing; he appeared to be listening.

"What is that?" demanded the other again, with a strange uneasiness at his
heart. Was it possible, after all! Then the man dropped his chisel and
hammer and darted out and vanished. A sudden noise of voices and
tramplings broke out somewhere out of sight.

"God's blood!" roared the old man in anger and dismay. "I believe they have
the poor devil!"

He ran out, two steps down the passage and in again at the door of the
next room. It was a bedroom, with two beds side by side: a great press with
open doors stood between the hearth and the window; and, in the midst of
the floor, five men struggled and swayed together. The fifth was a bearded
young man, well dressed; but he could not see his face.

Then they had him tight; his hands were twisted behind his back; an arm
was flung round his neck; and another man, crouching, had his legs
embraced. He cried out once or twice…. The old man turned sick … a great
rush of blood seemed to be hammering in his ears and dilating his eyes….
He ran forward, tearing at the arm that was choking the prisoner's throat,
and screaming he knew not what.

And it was then that he knew for certain that this was his son.
 CHAPTER VI

Robin drew a long breath as the door closed behind him. Then he went
forward to the table, and sat on it, swinging his feet, and looking carefully
and curiously round the room, so far as the darkness would allow him; his
eyes had had scarcely time yet to become accustomed to the change from
the brilliant sunshine outside to the gloom of the prison. It was his first
experience of prison, and, for the present, he was more interested than
subdued by it.

It seemed to him that a lifetime had passed since the early morning, up in
the hills, when he had attempted to escape by the bedroom, and had been
seized as he came out of the press. Of course, he had fought; it was his right
and his duty; and he had not known the utter uselessness of it, in that
guarded house. He had known nothing of what was going forward. He had
heard the entrance of the searchers below, and now and again their
footsteps…. Then he had seen the wainscoting begin to gape before him, and
had understood that his only chance was by the way he had entered. Then,
as he had caught sight of his father, he had ceased his struggles.

He had not said one word to him. The shock was complete and unexpected.
He had seen the old man stagger back and sink on the bed. Then he had
been hurried from the room and downstairs. As the party came into the
buttery entrance, there had been a great clamour; the man on guard at the
hall doors had run forward; the doors had opened suddenly and Marjorie
had come out, with a surge of faces behind her. But to her, too, he had said
nothing; he had tried to smile; he was still faint and sick from the fight
upstairs. But he had been pushed out into the air, where he saw the horses
waiting, and round the corner of the house into an out-building, and there
he had had time to recover.

It was strange how little religion had come to his aid during that hour of
waiting; and, indeed, during the long and weary ride to Derby. He had tried
to pray; but he had had no consolation, such as he supposed must surely
come to all who suffered for Christ. It had been, instead, the tiny things that
absorbed his attention; the bundle of hay in the corner; an ancient pitch-
fork; the heads of his guards outside the little barred window; the sound of
their voices talking. Later, when a man had come out from the house, and
looked in at his door, telling him that they must start in ten minutes, and
giving him a hunch of bread to eat, it had been the way the man's eyebrows
grew over his nose, and the creases of his felt hat, to which he gave his
mind. Somewhere, far beneath in himself, he knew that there were other
considerations and memories and movements, that were even fears and
hopes and desires; but he could not come at these; he was as a man
struggling to dive, held up on the surface by sheets of cork. He knew that
his father was in that house; that it was his father who had been the means
of taking him; that Marjorie was there—yet these facts were as tales read in
a book. So, too, with his faith; his lips repeated words now and then; but
God was as far from him and as inconceivably unreal, as is the thought of
sunshine and a garden to a miner freezing painlessly in the dark….

In the same state he was led out again presently, and set on a horse. And
while a man attached one foot to the other by a cord beneath the horse's
belly, he looked like a child at the arched doorway of the house; at a patch
of lichen that was beginning to spread above the lintel; at the open window
of the room above.

He vaguely desired to speak with Marjorie again; he even asked the man
who was tying his feet whether he might do so; but he got no answer. A
group of men watched him from the door, and he noticed that they were
silent. He wondered if it were the tying of his feet in which they were so
much absorbed.

Little by little, as they rode, this oppression began to lift. Half a dozen
times he determined to speak with the man who rode beside him and held
his horse by a leading rein; and each time he did not speak. Neither did any
man speak to him. Another man rode behind; and a dozen or so went on
foot. He could hear them talking together in low voices.

He was finally roused by his companion's speaking. He had noticed the man
look at him now and again strangely and not unkindly.

"Is it true that you are a son of Mr. Audrey, sir?"

He was on the point of saying "Yes," when his mind seemed to come back to
him as clear as an awakening from sleep. He understood that he must not
identify himself if he could help it. He had been told at Rheims that silence
was best in such matters.

"Mr. Audrey?" he said. "The magistrate?"

The man nodded. He did not seem an unkindly personage at all. Then he
smiled.

"Well, well," he said. "Less said—"

He broke off and began to whistle. Then he interrupted himself once more.
"He was still in his fit," he said, "when we came away. Mistress Manners was
with him."

Intelligence was flowing back in Robin's brain like a tide. It seemed to him
that he perceived things with an extraordinary clearness and rapidity. He
understood he must show no dismay or horror of any kind; he must carry
himself easily and detachedly.

"In a fit, was he?"

The other nodded.

"I am arrested on his warrant, then? And on what charge?"

The man laughed outright.

"That's too good," he said. "Why, we, have a bundle of popery on the horse
behind! It was all in the hiding-hole!"

"I am supposed to be a priest, then?" said Robin, with admirable disdain.

Again the man laughed.

"They will have some trouble in proving that," said Robin viciously.

He learned presently whither they were going. He was right in thinking it

to be Derby. There he was to be handed over to the gaoler. The trial would
probably come on at the Michaelmas assizes, five or six weeks hence. He
would have leave to communicate with a lawyer when he was once safely
bestowed there; but whether or no his lawyer or any other visitors would be
admitted to him was a matter for the magistrates.

They ate as they rode, and reached Derby in the afternoon.

At the very outskirts the peculiar nature of this cavalcade was observed; and
by the time that they came within sight of the market-square a considerable
mob was hustling along on all sides. There were a few cries raised. Robin
could not distinguish the words, but it seemed to him as if some were raised
for him as well as against him. He kept his head somewhat down; he
thought it better to risk no complications that might arise should he be
recognised.

As they drew nearer the market-place the progress became yet slower, for
the crowd seemed suddenly and abnormally swelled. There was a great
shouting of voices, too, in front, and the smell of burning came distinctly on
the breeze. The man riding beside Robin turned his head and called out; and
in answer one of the others riding behind pushed his horse up level with the
other two, so that the prisoner had a guard on either side. A few steps
further, and another order was issued, followed by the pressing up of the
men that went on foot so as to form a complete square about the three
riders.

Robin put a question, but the men gave him no answer. He could see that
they were preoccupied and anxious. Then, as step by step they made their
way forward and gained the corner of the market-place, he saw the reason of
these precautions; for the whole square was one pack of heads, except
where, somewhere in the midst, a great bonfire blazed in the sunlight. The
noise, too, was deafening; drums were beating, horns blowing, men shouting
aloud. From window after window leaned heads, and, as the party advanced
yet further, they came suddenly in view of a scaffold hung with gay carpets
and ribbons, on which a civil dignitary, in some official dress, was
gesticulating.

It was useless to ask a question; not a word could have been heard unless it
were shouted aloud; and presently the din redoubled, for out of sight, round
some corner, guns were suddenly shot off one after another; and the
cheering grew shrill and piercing in contrast.

As they came out at last, without attracting any great attention, into the
more open space at the entrance of Friar's Gate, Robin turned again and
asked what the matter was. It was plainly not himself, as he had at first
almost believed.

The man turned an exultant face to him.

"It's the Spanish fleet!" he said. "There's not a ship of it left, they say."

When they halted at the gate of the prison there was another pause, while
the cord that tied his feet was cut, and he was helped from his horse, as he
was stiff and constrained from the long ride under such circumstances. He
heard a roar of interest and abuse, and, perhaps, a little sympathy, from the
part of the crowd that had followed, as the gate close behind him.
 II

As his eyes became better accustomed to the dark, he began to see what
kind of a place it was in which he found himself. It was a square little room
on the ground-floor, with a single, heavily-barred window, against which the
dirt had collected in such quantities as to exclude almost all light. The floor
was beaten earth, damp and uneven; the walls were built of stones and
timber, and were dripping with moisture; there was a table and a stool in
the centre of the room, and a dark heap in the corner. He examined this
presently, and found it to be rotting hay covered with some kind of rug. The
whole place smelled hideously foul.

From far away outside came still the noise of cheering, heard as through
wool, and the sharp reports of the cannon they were still firing. The Armada
seemed very remote from him, here in ward. Its destruction affected him
now hardly at all, except for the worse, since an anti-Catholic reaction might
very well follow…. He set himself, with scarcely an effort, to contemplate
more personal matters.

He was astonished that his purse had not been taken from him. He had
been searched rapidly just now, in an outer passage, by a couple of men,
one of whom he understood to be his gaoler; and a knife and a chain and his
rosary had been taken from him. But the purse had been put back again….
He remembered presently that the possession of money made a considerable
difference to a prisoner's comfort; but he determined to do as little as he was
obliged in this way. He might need the money more urgently by and by.

By the time that he had gone carefully round his prison-walls, even
reaching up to the window and testing the bars, pushing as noiselessly as
he could against the door, pacing the distances in every direction—he had,
at the same time, once more arranged and rehearsed every piece of evidence
that he possessed, and formed a number of resolutions.

He was perfectly clear by now that his father had been wholly ignorant of
the identity of the man he was after. The horror in the gasping face that he
had seen so close to his own, above the strangling arm, set that beyond a
doubt; the news of the fit into which his father had fallen confirmed it.

Next, he had been right in believing himself watched in the shepherd's hut,
and followed down from it. This hiding of his in the hills, the discovery of
him in the hiding-hole, together with the vestments—these two things were
the heaviest pieces of testimony against him. More remote testimony might
be brought forward from his earlier adventures—his presence at
Fotheringay, his recognition by my lord's man. But these were, in
themselves, indifferent.

His resolutions were few and simple.

He would behave himself quietly in all ways: he would make no demand to

see anyone; since he knew that whatever was possible would be done for
him by Marjorie. He would deny nothing and assert very little if he were
brought before the magistrates. Finally, he would say, if he could, a dry
mass every day; and observe the hours of prayer so far as he could. He had
no books with him of any kind. But he could pray God for fortitude.

Then he knelt down on the earth floor and said his first prayer in prison; the
prayer that had rung so often in his mind since Mary herself had prayed it
aloud on the scaffold; and Mr. Bourgoign had repeated it to him.

"As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended on the Cross; even so receive me into
the arms of Thy mercy, and blot out all my sins with Thy most precious
Blood."
 CHAPTER VII

There was a vast crowd in the market-place at Michaelmas to see the judges
come—partly because there was always excitement at the visible majesty of
the law; partly because the tale of one at least of the prisoners had roused
interest. It was a dramatic tale: he was first a seminary priest and a
Derbyshire man (many remembered him riding as a little lad beside his
father); he was, next, a runaway to Rheims for religion's sake, when his
father conformed; third, he had been taken in the house of Mistress
Manners, to whom, report said, he had once been betrothed; last, he had
been taken by his father himself. All this furnished matter for a quantity of
conversation in the taverns; and it was freely discussed by the sentimental
whether or no, if the priest yielded and conformed, he would yet find
Mistress Manners willing to wed him.

Signs of the Armada rejoicings still survived in the market-place as the

judges rode in. Streamers hung in the sunshine, rather bedraggled after so
long, from the roof and pillars of the Guildhall, and a great smoke-blackened
patch between the conduit and the cross marked where the ox had been
roasted. There was a deal of loyal cheering as the procession went by; for
these splendid personages on horseback stood to the mob for the power that
had repelled the enemies of England; and her Grace's name was received
with enthusiasm. Behind the judges and their escort came a cavalcade of
riders—gentlemen, grooms, servants, and agents of all sorts. But not a
Derby man noticed or recognised a thin gentleman who rode modestly in the
midst, with a couple of personal servants on either side of him. It was not
until the visitors had separated to the various houses and inns where they
were to be lodged, and the mob was dispersing home again, that it began to
be rumoured everywhere that Mr. Topcliffe was come again to Derby on a
special mission.
 II

The tidings came to Marjorie as she leaned back in her chair in Mr.

Biddell's parlour and listened to the last shoutings.

She had been in town now three days.

Ever since the capture she had been under guard in her own house till three
days ago. Four men had been billeted upon her, not, indeed, by the orders of
Mr. Audrey, since Mr. Audrey was in no condition to control affairs any
longer, but by the direction of Mr. Columbell, who had himself ridden out to
take charge at Booth's Edge, when the news of the arrest had come, with the
prisoner himself, to the city. It was he, too, who had seen to the removal of
Mr. Audrey a week later, when he had recovered from the weakness caused
by the fit sufficiently to travel as far as Derby; for it was thought better that
the magistrate who had effected the capture should be accessible to the
examining magistrates. It was, of course, lamentable, said Mr. Columbell,
that father and son should have been brought into such relations, and he
would do all that he could to relieve Mr. Audrey from any painful task in
which they could do without him. But her Grace's business must be done,
and he had had special messages from my lord Shrewsbury himself that the
prisoner must be dealt with sternly. It was believed, wrote my lord, that Mr.
Alban, as he called himself, had a good deal more against him than the mere
fact of being a seminary priest: it was thought that he had been involved in
the Babington plot, and had at least once had access to the Queen of the
Scots since the fortunate failure of the conspiracy.

All this, then, Marjorie knew from Mr. Biddell, who seemed always to know
everything; but it was not until the evening on which the judges arrived that
she learned the last and extreme measures that would betaken to establish
these suspicions. She had ridden openly to Derby so soon as the news came
from there that for the present she might be set at liberty.

The lawyer came into the darkening room as the square outside began to
grow quiet, and Marjorie opened her eyes to see who it was.

He said nothing at first, but sat down close beside her. He knew she must
be told, but he hated the telling. He carried a little paper in his hand. He
would begin with that little bit of good news first, he said to himself.

"Well, mistress," he said, "I have the order at last. We are to see him to-
night. It is 'for Mr. Biddell and a friend.'"
She sat up, and a little vitality came back to her face; for a moment she
almost looked as she had looked in the early summer.

"To-night?" she said. "And when—"

"He will not be brought before my lords for three or four days yet. There is a
number of cases to come before his. It will give us those two or three days,
at least, to prepare our case."

He spoke heavily and dejectedly. Up to the present he had been utterly

refused permission to see his client; and though he knew the outlines of the
affair well enough, he knew very little of the thousand details on which the
priest would ask his advice. It was a hopeless affair, it appeared to the
lawyer, in any case. And now, with this last piece of tidings, he knew that
there was, indeed, nothing to be said except words of encouragement.

He listened with the same heavy air to Mistress Manners as she said a word
or two as to what must be spoken of to Robin. She was very quiet and
collected, and talked to the point. But he said nothing.

"What is the matter, sir?" she said.

He lifted his eyes to hers. There was still enough light from the windows for
him to see her eyes, and that there was a spark in them that had not been
there just now. And it was for him to extinguish it…. He gripped his
courage.

"I have had worse news than all," he said.

Her lips moved, and a vibration went over her face. Her eyes blinked, as at a
sudden light.

"Yes?"

He put his hand tenderly on her arm.

"You must be courageous," he said. "It is the worst news that ever came to
me. It concerns one who is come from London to-day, and rode in with my
lords."

She could not speak, but her great eyes entreated him to finish her misery.

"Yes," he said, still pressing his hand on to her arm. "Yes; it is Mr.

Topcliffe who is come."

He felt the soft muscles harden like steel…. There was no sound except the
voices talking in the square and the noise of footsteps across the pavements.
He could not look at her.

Then he heard her draw a long breath and breathe it out again, and her taut
muscles relaxed.

"We … we are all in Christ's hands," she said…. "We must tell him."
 III

It appeared to the girl as if she were moving on a kind of set stage, with
every movement and incident designed beforehand, in a play that was itself
a kind of destiny—above all, when she went at last into Robin's cell and saw
him standing there, and found it to be that in which so long ago she had
talked with Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert….

The great realities were closing round her, as irresistible as wheels and bars.
There was scarcely a period in her life, scarcely a voluntary action of hers for
good or evil, that did not furnish some part of this vast machine in whose
grip both she and her friend were held so fast. No calculation on her part
could have contrived so complete a climax; yet hardly a calculation that had
not gone astray from that end to which she had designed it. It was as if
some monstrous and ironical power had been beneath and about her all her
life long, using those thoughts and actions that she had intended in one way
to the development of another.

First, it was she that had first turned her friend's mind to the life of a priest.
Had she submitted to natural causes, she would have been his wife nine
years ago; they would have been harassed no doubt and troubled, but no
more. It was she again that had encouraged his return to Derbyshire. If it
had not been for that, and for the efforts she had made to do what she
thought good work for God, he might have been sent elsewhere. It was in her
house that he had been taken, and in the very place she had designed for
his safety. If she had but sent him on, as he wished, back to the hills again,
he might never have been taken at all. These, and a score of other thoughts,
had raced continually through her mind; she felt even as if she were
responsible for the manner of his taking, and for the horror that it had been
his father who had accomplished it; if she had said more, or less, in the hall
of that dark morning; if she had not swooned; if she had said bravely: "It is
your son, sir, who is here," all might have been saved. And now it was
Topcliffe who was come—(and she knew all that this signified)—the very
man at whose mere bodily presence she had sickened in the court of the
Tower. And, last, it was she who had to tell Robin of this.

So tremendous, however, had been the weight of these thoughts upon her,
crowned and clinched (so to say) by finding that the priest was even in the
same cell as that in which she had visited the traitor, that there was no
room any more for bitterness. Even as she waited, with Mr. Biddell behind
her, as the gaoler fumbled with the keys, she was aware that the last breath
of resentment had been drawn…. It was, indeed, a monstrous Power that
had so dealt with her…. It was none other than the Will of God, plain at last.
She knelt down for the priest's blessing, without speaking, as the door
closed, and Mr. Biddell knelt behind her. Then she rose and went forward to
the stool and sat upon it.

He was hardly changed at all. He looked a little white and drawn in the
wavering light of the flambeau; but his clothes were orderly and clean, and
his eyes as bright and resolute as ever.

"It is a great happiness to see you," he said, smiling, and then no more
compliments.

"And what of my father?" he added instantly.

She told him. Mr. Audrey was in Derby, still sick from his fit. He was in Mr.
Columbell's house. She had not seen him.

"Robin," she said (and she used the old name, utterly unknowing that she
did so), "we must speak with Mr. Biddell presently about your case. But
there is a word or two I have to say first. We can have two hours here, if you
wish it."

Robin put his hands behind him on to the table and jumped lightly, so that
he sat on it, facing her.

"If you will not sit on the table, Mr. Biddell, I fear there is only that block of
wood."

He pointed to a, block of a tree set on end. It served him, laid flat, as a

pillow. The lawyer went across to it.

"The judges, I hear, are come to-night," said the priest.

She bowed.

"Yes; but your case will not be up for three or four days yet."

"Why, then, I shall have time—"

She lifted her hand sharply a little to check him.

"You will not have much time," she said, and paused again. A sharp
contraction came and went in the muscles of her throat. It was as if a band
gripped her there, relaxed, and gripped again. She put up her own hand
desperately to tear at her collar.
"Why, but—" began the priest.

She could bear it no more. His resolute cheerfulness, his frank

astonishment, were like knives to her. She gave one cry.

"Topcliffe is come … Topcliffe!…" she cried. Then she flung her arm across
the table and dropped her face on it. No tears came from her eyes, but
tearing sobs shook and tormented her.

It was quite quiet after she had spoken. Even in her anguish she knew that.
The priest did not stir from where he sat a couple of feet away; only the
swinging of his feet ceased. She drove down her convulsions; they rose
again; she drove them down once more. Then the tears surged up, her whole
being relaxed, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Marjorie," said the grave voice, as steady as it had ever been, "Marjorie.
This is what we looked for, is it not?… Topcliffe is come, is he? Well, let him
come. He or another. It is for this that we have all looked since the
beginning. Christ His Grace is strong enough, is it not? It hath been strong
enough for many, at least; and He will not surely take it from me who need
it so much…." (He spoke in pauses, but his voice never faltered.) "I have
prayed for that grace ever since I have been here…. He hath given me great
peace in this place…. I think He will give it me to the end…. You must pray,
my … my child; you must not cry like that."

(She lifted her agonized face for a moment, then she let it fall again.

It seemed as if he knew the very thoughts of her.)

"This all seems very perfect to me," he went on. "It was yourself who first
turned me to this life, and you knew surely what you did. I knew, at least,
all the while, I think; and I have never ceased to thank God. And it was
through your hands that the letter came to me to go to Fotheringay. And it
was in your house that I was taken…. And it was Mr. Maine's beads that
they found on me when they searched me here—the pair of beads you gave
me."

Again she stared at him, blind and bewildered.

He went on steadily:

"And now it is you again who bring me the first news of my passion. It is
yourself, first and last, under God, that have brought me all these graces
and crosses. And I thank you with all my heart…. But you must pray for me
to the end, and after it, too."
 CHAPTER VIII

"Water," said a sharp voice, pricking through the enormous thickness of the
bloodshot dark that had come down on him. There followed a sound of
floods; then a sense of sudden coolness, and he opened his eyes once more,
and became aware of unbearable pain in arms and feet. Again the whirling
dark, striped with blood colour, fell on him like a blanket; again the sound
of waters falling and the sense of coolness, and again he opened his eyes.

For a minute or two it was all that he could do to hold himself in

consciousness. It appeared to him a necessity to do so. He could see a
smoke-stained roof of beams and rafters, and on these he fixed his eyes,
thinking that he could hold himself so, as by thin, wiry threads of sight,
from falling again into the pit where all was black or blood-colour. The pain
was appalling, but he thought he had gripped it at last, and could hold it so,
like a wrestler.

As the pain began to resolve itself into throbs and stabs, from the
continuous strain in which at first it had shown itself—a strain that was like
a shrill horn blowing, or a blaze of bluish light—he began to see more, and
to understand a little. There were four or five faces looking down on him:
one was the face of a man he had seen somewhere in an inn … it was at
Fotheringay; it was my lord Shrewsbury's man. Another was a lean face; a
black hat came and went behind it; the lips were drawn in a sort of smile, so
that he could see the teeth…. Then he perceived next that he himself was
lying in a kind of shallow trough of wood upon the floor. He could see his
bare feet raised a little and tied with cords.

Then, one by one, these sights fitted themselves into one another and made
sense. He remembered that he was in Derby gaol—not in his own cell; that
the lean face was of a man called Topcliffe; that a physician was there as
well as the others; that they had been questioning him on various points,
and that some of these points he had answered, while others he had not,
and must not. Some of them concerned her Grace of the Scots…. These he
had answered. Then, again, association came back….

"As Thy arms, O Christ …" he whispered.

"Now then," came the sharp voice in his ear, so close and harsh as to
distress him. "These questions again…. Were there any other places besides
at Padley and Booth's Edge, in the parish of Hathersage, where you said
mass?"
"… O Christ, were extended on the Cross—" began the tortured man
dreamily. "Ah-h-h!"….

It was a scream, whispered rather than shrieked, that was torn from him by
the sharpness of the agony. His body had lifted from the floor without will of
his own, twisting a little; and what seemed as strings of fiery pain had shot
upwards from his feet and downwards from his wrists as the roller was
suddenly jerked again. He hung there perhaps ten or fifteen seconds,
conscious only of the blinding pain—questions, questioners, roof and faces
all gone and drowned again in a whirling tumult of darkness and red
streaks. The sweat poured again suddenly from his whole body…. Then
again he sank relaxed upon the floor, and the pulses beat in his head, and
he thought that Marjorie and her mother and his own father were all looking
at him….

He heard presently the same voice talking:

"—and answer the questions that are put to you…. Now then, we will begin
the others, if it please you better…. In what month was it that you first
became privy to the plot against her Grace?"

"Wait!" whispered the priest. "Wait, and I will answer that." (He understood
that there was a trap here. The question had been framed differently last
time. But his mind was all a-whirl; and he feared he might answer wrongly if
he could not collect himself. He still wondered why so many friends of his
were in the room—even Father Campion….)

He drew a breath again presently, and tried to speak; but his voice broke
like a shattered trumpet, and he could not command it…. He must whisper.

"It was in August, I think…. I think it was August, two years ago."…

"August … you mean May or April."

"No; it was August…. At least, all that I know of the plot was when …
when—" (His thoughts became confused again; it was like strings of wool, he
thought, twisted violently together; a strand snapped now and again. He
made a violent effort and caught an end as it was slipping away.) "It was in
August, I think; the day that Mr. Babington fled, that he wrote to me; and
sent me—" (He paused: he became aware that here, too, lurked a trap if he
were to say he had seen Mary; he would surely be asked what he had seen
her for, and his priesthood might be so proved against him…. He could not
remember whether that had been proved; and so … would Father Campion
advise him perhaps whether….)
The voice jarred again; and startled him into a flash of coherence. He
thought he saw a way out.

"Well?" snapped the voice. "Sent you?… Sent you whither?"

"Sent me to Chartley; where I saw her Grace … her Grace of the Scots; and
… 'As Thy arms, O Christ….'"

"Now then; now then—! So your saw her Grace? And what was that for?"

"I saw her Grace … and … and told her what Mr. Babington had told me."

"What was that, then?"

"That … that he was her servant till death; and … and a thousand if he had
them. And so, 'As Thy arms, O—'"

"Water," barked the voice.

Again came the rush as of cataracts; and a sensation of drowning. There

followed an instant's glow of life; and then the intolerable pain came back;
and the heavy, red-streaked darkness….
 II

He found himself, after some period, lying more easily. He could not move
hand or foot. His body only appeared to live. From his shoulders to his
thighs he was alive; the rest was nothing. But he opened his eyes and saw
that his arms were laid by his side; and that he was no longer in the wooden
trough. He wondered at his hands; he wondered even if they were his … they
were of an unusual colour and bigness; and there was something like a
tight-fitting bracelet round each wrist. Then he perceived that he was
shirtless and hoseless; and that the bracelets were not bracelets, but rings
of swollen flesh. But there was no longer any pain or even sensation in
them; and he was aware that his mouth glowed as if he had drunk ardent
spirits.

He was considering all this, slowly, like a child contemplating a new toy.
Then there came something between him and the light; he saw a couple of
faces eyeing him. Then the voice began again, at first confused and buzzing,
then articulate; and he remembered.

"Now, then," said the voice, "you have had but a taste of it…." ("A taste of it;
a taste of it." The phrase repeated itself like the catch of a song…. When he
regained his attention, the sentence had moved on.)

"… these questions. I will put them to you again from the beginning. You will
give your answer to each. And if my lord is not satisfied, we must try again."

"My lord!" thought the priest. He rolled his eyes round a little further. (He
dared not move his head; the sinews of his throat burned like red-hot steel
cords at the thought of it.) And he saw a little table floating somewhere in
the dark; a candle burned on it; and a melancholy face with dreamy eyes
was brightly illuminated…. That was my lord Shrewsbury, he considered….

"… in what month that you first became privy to the plot against her Grace?"

(Sense was coming back to him again now. He remembered what he had
said just now.)

"It was in August," he whispered, "in August, I think; two years ago.

Mr. Babington wrote to me of it."

"And you went to the Queen of the Scots, you say?"

"Yes."

"And what did you there?"

"I gave the message."

"What was that?"

"… That Mr. Babington was her servant always; that he regretted nothing,
save that he had failed. He begged her to pray for his soul, and for all that
had been with him in the enterprise."

(It appeared to him that he was astonishingly voluble, all at once. He

reflected that he must be careful.)

"And what did she say to that?"

"She declared herself guiltless of the plot … that she knew nothing of it; and
that—"

"Now then; now then. You expect my lord to believe that?"

"I do not know…. But it was what was said."

"And you profess that you knew nothing of the plot till then?"

"I knew nothing of it till then," whispered the priest steadily. "But—"

(A face suddenly blotted out more of the light.)

"Yes?"

"Anthony—I mean Mr. Babington—had spoken to me a great while before—

in … in some village inn…. I forget where. It was when I was a lad. He asked
whether I would join in some enterprise. He did not say what it was…. But I
thought it to be against the Queen of England…. And I would not."…

He closed his eyes again. There had begun a slow heat of pain in ankles and
wrists, not wholly unbearable, and a warmth began to spread in his body. A
great shudder or two shook him. The voice said something he could not
hear. Then a metal rim was pressed to his mouth; and a stream of
something at once icy and fiery ran into his mouth and out at the corners.
He swallowed once or twice; and his senses came back.

"You do not expect us to believe all that!" came the voice.

"It is the truth, for all that," murmured the priest.

The next question came sudden as a shot fired:

"You were at Fotheringay?"

"Yes."

"In what house?"

"I was in the inn—the 'New Inn,' I think it is.

"And you spoke with her Grace again?"

"No; I could not get at her. But—"

"Well?"

"I was in the court of the castle when her Grace was executed."

There was a murmur of voices. He thought that someone had moved over to
the table where my lord sat; but he could not move his eyes again, the
labour was too great.

"Who was with you in the inn—as your friend, I mean?"

"A … a young man was with me. His name was Merton. He is in France, I
think."

"And he knew you to be a priest?" came the voice without an instant's

hesitation.

"Why—" Then he stopped short, just in time.

"Well?"

"How should he think that?" asked Robin.

There was a laugh somewhere. Then the voice went on, almost good-
humouredly.

"Mr. Alban; what is the use of this fencing? You were taken in a hiding-hole
with the very vestments at your feet. We know you to be a priest. We are not
seeking to entrap you in that, for there is no need. But there are other
matters altogether which we must have from you. You have been made
priest beyond the seas, in Rheims—"

"I swear to you that I was not," whispered Robin instantly and eagerly,
thinking he saw a loophole.

"Well, then, at Châlons, or Douay: it matters not where. That is not our
affair to-day. All that will be dealt with before my lords at the Assizes. But
what we must have from you now is your answer to some other questions."
"Assuming me to be a priest?"

"Mr. Alban, I will talk no more on that point. I tell you we know it.

But we must have answers on other points. I will come back to Merton

presently. These are the questions. I will read them through to you.

Then we will deal with them one by one."

There was the rustle of a paper. An extraordinary desire for sleep came
down on the priest; it was only by twitching his head a little, and causing
himself acute shoots of pain in his neck that he could keep himself awake.
He knew that he must not let his attention wander again. He remembered
clearly how that Father Campion was dead, and that Marjorie could not
have been here just now…. He must take great care not to become so much
confused again.

"The first question," read the voice slowly, "is, Whether you have said mass
in other places beside Padley and the manor at Booth's Edge. We know that
you must have done so; but we must have the names of the places, and of
the parties present, so far as you can remember them.

"The second question is, the names of all those other priests with whom you
have spoken in England, since you came from Rheims; and the names of all
other students, not yet priests, or scarcely, whom you knew at Rheims, and
who are for England.

"The third question is, the names of all those whom you know to be friends
of Mr. John FitzHerbert, Mr. Bassett and Mr. Fenton—not being priests; but
Papists.

"These three questions will do as a beginning. When you have answered

these, there is a number more. Now, sir."

The last two words were rapped out sharply. Robin opened his eyes.

"As to the first two questions," he whispered. "These assume that I am a

priest myself. Yet that is what you, have to prove against me. The third
question concerns … concerns my loyalty to my friends. But I will tell you—"

"Yes?" (The voice was sharp and eager.)

"I will tell you the names of two friends of each of those gentlemen you have
named."
A pen suddenly scratched on paper. He could not see who held it.

"Yes?" said the voice again.

"Well, sir. The names of two of the friends of Mr. FitzHerbert are, Mr.

Bassett and Mr. Fenton. The names—"

"Bah!" (The word sounded like the explosion of a gun.)

"You are playing with us—"

"The names," murmured the priest slowly, "of two of Mr. Fenton's friends are
Mr. FitzHerbert and—"

A face, upside-down, thrust itself suddenly almost into his. He could feel the
hot breath on his forehead.

"See here, Mr. Alban. You are fooling us. Do you think this is a Christmas
game? I tell you it is not yet three o'clock. There are three hours more yet—"

A smooth, sad voice interrupted. (The reversed face vanished.)

"You have threatened the prisoner," it said, "but you have not yet told him
the alternative."

"No, my lord…. Yes, my lord. Listen, Mr. Alban. My lord here says that if you
will answer these questions he will use his influence on your behalf. Your
life is forfeited, as you know very well. There is not a dog's chance for you.
Yet, if you will but answer these three questions—and no more—(No more,
my lord?)—Yes; these three questions and no more, my lord will use his
influence for you. He can promise nothing, he says, but that; but my lord's
influence—well, we need say no more on that point. If you refuse to answer,
on the other hand, there are yet three hours more to-day; there is all to-
morrow, and the next day. And, after that, your case will be before my lords
at the Assizes. You have had but a taste of what we can do…. And then, sir,
my lord does not wish to be harsh…."

There was a pause.

Robin was counting up the hours. It was three o'clock now. Then he had
been on the rack, with intervals, since nine o'clock. That was six hours.
There was but half that again for to-day. Then would come the night. He
need not consider further than that…. But he must guard his tongue. It
might speak, in spite—-
"Well, Mr. Alban?"

He opened his eyes.

"Well, sir?"

"Which is it to be?"

The priest smiled and closed his eyes again. If he could but fix his attention
on the mere pain, he thought, and refuse utterly to consider the way of
escape, he might be able to keep his unruly tongue in check.

"You will not, then?"

"No."

The appalling pain ran through him again like fiery snakes of iron—from
wrist to shoulders, from ankles to thighs, as the hands seized him and lifted
him….

There was a moment or two of relief as he sank down once more into the
trough of torture. He could feel that his feet were being handled, but it
appeared as if nothing touched his flesh. He gave a great sighing moan as
his arms were drawn back over his head; and the sweat poured again from
all over his body.

Then, as the cords tightened:

"As Thy arms, O Christ, were extended …" he whispered.

 CHAPTER IX

A great murmuring crowd filled every flat spot of ground and pavement and
parapet. They stood even on the balustrade of St. Mary's Bridge; there were
fringes of them against the sky on the edges of roofs a quarter of a mile
away. No flat surface was to be seen anywhere except on the broad reach of
the river, and near the head of the bridge, in the circular space, ringed by
steel caps and pike-points, where the gallows and ladder rose. Close beside
them a column of black smoke rose heavily into the morning air, bellying
away into the clear air. A continual steady low murmur of talking went up
continually.

There had been no hanging within the memory of any that had roused
such interest. Derbyshire men had been hung often enough; a criminal
usually had a dozen friends at least in the crowd to whom he shouted from
the ladder. Seminary priests had been executed often enough now to have
destroyed the novelty of it for the mob; why, three had been done to death
here little more than two months ago in this very place. They gave no sport,
certainly; they died too quietly; and what peculiar interest there was in it lay
in the contemplation of the fact that it was for religion that they died.
Gentlemen, too, had been hanged here now and then—polished persons,
dressed in their best, who took off their outer clothes carefully, and in one or
two cases had handed them to a servant; gentlemen with whom the sheriff
shook hands before the end, who eyed the mob imperturbably or affected
even not to be aware of the presence of the vulgar. But this hanging was
sublime.

First, he was a Derbyshire man, a seminary priest and a gentleman—three

points. Yet this was no more than the groundwork of his surpassing
interest. For, next, he had been racked beyond belief. It was for three days
before his sentence that Mr. Topcliffe himself had dealt with him. (Yes, Mr.
Topcliffe was the tall man that had his rooms in the market-place, and
always went abroad with two servants…. He was to have Padley, too, it was
said, as a reward for all his zeal.) Of course, young Mr. Audrey (for that was
his real name—not Alban; that was a Popish alias such as they all used)—
Mr. Audrey had not been on the rack for the whole of every day. But he had
been in the rack-house eight or nine hours on the first day, four the second,
and six or seven the third. And he had not answered one single question
differently from the manner in which he had answered it before ever he had
been on the rack at all. (There was a dim sense of pride with regard to this,
in many Derbyshire minds. A Derbyshire man, it appeared, was more than a
match for even a Londoner and a sworn servant of her Grace.) It was said
that Mr. Audrey would have to be helped up the ladder, even though he had
not been racked for a whole week since his sentence.

Next, the trial itself had been full of interest. A Papist priest was, of course,
fair game. (Why, the Spanish Armada itself had been full of them, it was
said, all come to subdue England…. Well, they had had their bellyful of salt
water and English iron by now.) But this Papisher had hit back and given
sport. He had flatly refused to be caught, though the questions were swift
and subtle enough to catch any clerk. Certainly he had not denied that he
was a priest; but he had said that that was what the Crown must prove: he
was not there as a witness, he had said, but as a prisoner; he had even
entreated them to respect their own legal dignities! But there had been a
number of things against him, and even if none of these had been proved,
still, the mere sum of them was enough; there could be no smoke without
fire, said the proverb-quoters. It was alleged that he had been privy to the
plot against the Queen (the plot of young Mr. Babington, who had sold his
house down there a week or two only before his arrest); he had denied this,
but he had allowed that he had spoken with her Grace immediately after the
plot; and this was a highly suspicious circumstance: if he allowed so much
as this, the rest might be safely presumed. Again, it was said that he had
had part in attempts to free the Queen of the Scots, even from Fotheringay
itself; and had been in the castle court, with a number of armed servants, at
the very time of her execution. Again, if he allowed that he had been present,
even though he denied the armed servants, the rest might be presumed.
Finally, since he were a priest, and had seen her Grace at a time when there
was no chaplain allowed to her, it was certain that he must have ministered
their Popish superstitions to her, and this was neither denied nor affirmed:
he had said to this that they had yet to prove him a priest at all. The very
spectacle of the trial, too, had been remarkable; for, first, there was the
extraordinary appearance of the prisoner, bent double like an old man, with
the face of a dead one, though he could not be above thirty years old at the
very most; and then there was the unusual number of magistrates present
in court besides the judges, and my lord Shrewsbury himself, who had
presided at the racking. It was one of my lord's men, too, that had helped to
identify the prisoner.

But the supreme interest lay in even more startling circumstances—in the
history of Mistress Manners, who was present through the trial with Mr.
Biddell the lawyer, and who had obtained at least two interviews with the
prisoner, one before the torture and the other after sentence. It was in
Mistress Manners' house at Booth's Edge that the priest had been taken;
and it was freely rumoured that although Mr. Audrey had once been
betrothed to her, yet that she had released and sent him herself to Rheims,
and all to end like this. And yet she could bear to come and see him again;
and, it was said, would be present somewhere in the crowd even at his
death.

Finally, the tale of how the priest had been taken by his own father—old Mr.
Audrey of Matstead—him that was now lying sick in Mr. Columbell's
house—this put the crown on all the rest. A hundred rumours flew this way
and that: one said that the old man had known nothing of his son's
presence in the country, but had thought him to be still in foreign parts.
Another, that he knew him to be in England, but not that he was in the
county; a third, that he knew very well who it was in the house he went to
search, and had searched it and taken him on purpose to set his own loyalty
beyond question. Opinions differed as to the propriety of such an action….

So then the great crowd of heads—men from all the countryside, from
farms and far-off cottages and the wild hills, mingling with the townsfolk—
this crowd, broken up into levels and patches by river and houses and
lanes, moved to and fro in the October sunshine, and sent up, with the
column of smoke that eddied out from beneath the bubbling tar-cauldron by
the gallows, a continual murmur of talking, like the sound of slow-moving
wheels of great carts.

He felt dazed and blind, yet with a kind of lightness too as he came out of
the gaol-gate into that packed mass of faces, held back by guards from the
open space where the horse and the hurdle waited. A dozen persons or so
were within the guards; he knew several of them by sight; two or three were
magistrates; another was an officer; two were ministers with their Bibles.

It is hard to say whether he were afraid. Fear was there, indeed—he knew
well enough that in his case, at any rate, the execution would be done as the
law ordered; that he would be cut down before he had time to die, and that
the butchery would be done on him while he would still be conscious of it.
Death, too, was fearful, in any case…. Yet there were so many other things
to occupy him—there was the exhilarating knowledge that he was to die for
his faith and nothing else; for they had offered him his life if he would go to
church; and they had proved nothing as to any complicity of his in any plot,
and how could they, since there was none? There was the pain of his
tormented body to occupy him; a pain that had passed from the acute
localized agonies of snapped sinews and wrenched joints into one vast
physical misery that soaked his whole body as in a flood; a pain that never
ceased; of which he dreamed darkly, as a hungry man dreams of food which
he cannot eat, to which he awoke again twenty times a night as to a
companion nearer to him than the thoughts with which he attempted to
distract himself. This pain, at least, would have an end presently. Again,
there was an intermittent curiosity as to how and what would befall his
flying soul when the butchery was done. "To sup in Heaven" was a phrase
used by one of his predecessors on the threshold of death…. For what did
that stand?… And at other times there had been no curiosity, but an
acquiescence in old childish images. Heaven at such times appeared to him
as a summer garden, with pavilions, and running water and the song of
birds … a garden where he would lie at ease at last from his torn body and
that feverish mind, which was all that his pain had left to him; where Mary
went, gracious and motherly, with her virgins about her; where the Crucified
Lamb of God would talk with him as a man talks with his friend, and allow
him to lie at the Pierced Feet … where the glory of God rested like eternal
sunlight on all that was there; on the River of Life, and the wood of the trees
that are for the healing of all hurts.

And, last of all, there was a confused medley of more human thoughts that
concerned persons other than himself. He could not remember all the
persons clearly; their names and their faces came and went. Marjorie, his
father, Mr. John FitzHerbert and Mr. Anthony, who had been allowed to
come and see him; Dick Sampson, who had come in with Marjorie the
second time and had kissed his hands. One thing at least he remembered
clearly as he stood here, and that was how he had bidden Mistress Manners,
even now, not to go overseas and become a nun, as she had wished; but
rather to continue her work in Derbyshire, if she could.

So then he stood, bent double on two sticks, blinking and peering out at the
faces, wondering whether it was a roar of anger or welcome or compassion
that had broken out at his apparition, and smiling—smiling piteously, not of
deliberation, but because the muscles of his mouth so moved, and he could
not contract them again.

He understood presently that he was to lie down on the hurdle, with his
head to the horses' heels.

This was a great business, to be undertaken with care. He gave his two
sticks to a man, and took his arm. Then he kneeled, clinging to the arm as a
child to a swimmer's in a rough sea, and sank gently down. But he could
not straighten his legs, so they allowed him to lie half side-ways, and tied
him so. It was amazingly uncomfortable, and, before he was settled, twice
the sweat suddenly poured from his face as he found some new channel of
pain in his body….

An order or two was issued in a loud, shouting voice; there was a great
confusion and scuffling, and the crack of a whip. Then, with a jerk that tore
his whole being, he was flicked from his place; the pain swelled and swelled
till there seemed no more room for it in all God's world; and he closed his
eyes so as not to see the house-roofs and the faces and the sky whirl about
in that mad jigging dance….

After that he knew very little of the journey. For the most part his eyes were
tight closed; he sobbed aloud half a dozen times as the hurdle lifted and
dropped over rough places in the road. Two or three times he opened his
eyes to see what the sounds signified, especially a loud, bellowing voice
almost in his ear that cried texts of Scripture at him.

"We have but one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus…."

"We then, being justified by faith…. For if by the works of the Law we are
justified…."

He opened his eyes wide at that, and there was the face of one of the
ministers bobbing against the sky, flushed and breathless, yet indomitable,
bawling aloud as he trotted along to keep pace with the horse.

Then he closed his eyes again. He knew that he, too, could bandy texts if
that were what was required. Perhaps, if he were a better man and more
mortified, he might be able to do so as the martyrs sometimes had done. But
he could not … he would have a word to say presently perhaps, if it were
permitted; but not now. His pain occupied him; he had to deal with that and
keep back, if he could, those sobs that were wrenched from him now and
again. He had made but a poor beginning in his journey, he thought; he
must die more decently than that.

The end came unexpectedly. Just when he thought he had gained his
self-control again, so as to make no sound at any rate, the hurdle stopped.
He clenched his teeth to meet the dreadful wrench with which it would move
again; but it did not. Instead there was a man down by him, untying his
bonds. He lay quite still when they were undone; he did not know which
limb to move first, and he dreaded to move any.

"Now then," said the voice, with a touch of compassion, he thought.

He set his teeth, gripped the arm and raised himself—first to his knees, then
to his feet, where he stood swaying. An indescribable roar ascended steadily
on all sides; but he could see little of the crowd as yet. He was standing in a
cleared space, held by guards. A couple of dozen persons stood here; three
or four on horseback; and one of these he thought to be my lord
Shrewsbury, but he was not sure, since his head was against the glare of
the sun. He turned a little, still holding to the man's arm, and not knowing
what to do, and saw a ladder behind him; he raised his eyes and saw that
its head rested against the cross-beam of a single gallows, that a rope hung
from this beam, and that a figure sitting astride of this cross-beam was busy
with this rope. The shock of the sight cooled and nerved him; rather, it drew
his attention all from himself…. He looked lower again, and behind the
gallows was a column of heavy smoke going up, and in the midst of the
smoke a cauldron hung on a tripod. Beside the cauldron was a great stump
of wood, with a chopper and a knife lying upon it…. He drew one long steady
breath, expelled it again, and turned back to my lord Shrewsbury. As he
turned, he saw him make a sign, and felt himself grasped from behind.
 III

He reached at last with his hands the rung of the ladder on which the
executioner's foot rested, hearing, as he went painfully up, the roar of voices
wax to an incredible volume. It was impossible for any to speak so that he
could hear, but he saw the hands above him in eloquent gesture, and
understood that he was to turn round. He did so cautiously, grasping the
man's foot, and so rested, half sitting on a rung, and holding it as well as he
could with his two hands. Then he felt a rope pass round his wrists, drawing
them closer together…. As he turned, the roar of voices died to a murmur;
the murmur died to silence, and he understood and remembered. It was
now the time to speak…. He gathered for the last time all his forces together.
With the sudden silence, clearness came back to his mind, and he
remembered word for word the little speech he had rehearsed so often
during the last week. He had learned it by heart, fearful lest God should give
him no words if he trusted to the moment, lest God should not see fit to give
him even that interior consolation which was denied to so many of the
saints—yet without which he could not speak from the heart. He had been
right, he knew now: there was no religious consolation; he felt none of that
strange heart-shaking ecstasy that had transfigured other deaths like his;
he had none of the ready wit that Campion had showed. He saw nothing but
the clear October sky above him, cut by the roofs fringed with heads (a skein
of birds passed slowly over it as he raised his eyes); and, beneath, that
irreckonable pavement of heads, motionless now as a cornfield in a still
evening, one glimpse of the river—the river, he remembered even at this
instant, that came down from Hathersage and Padley and his old home. But
there was no open vision, such as he had half hoped to see, no
unimaginable glories looming slowly through the veils in which God hides
Himself on earth, no radiant face smiling into his own—only this arena of
watching human faces turned up to his, waiting for his last sermon…. He
thought he saw faces that he knew, though he lost them again as his eyes
swept on—Mr. Barton, the old minister of Matstead; Dick; Mr. Bassett….
Their faces looked terrified…. However, this was not his affair now.

As he was about to speak he felt hands about his neck, and then the touch
of a rope passed across his face. For an indescribable instant a terror seized
on him; he closed his eyes and set his teeth. The spasm passed, and so soon
as the hands were withdrawn again, he began:

"Good people"—(at the sound of his voice, high and broken, the silence
became absolute. A thin crowing of a cock from far off in the country came
like a thread and ceased)—"Good people: I die here as a Catholic man, for
my priesthood, which I now confess before all the world." (A stir of heads
and movements below distracted him. But he went on at once.) "There have
been alleged against me crimes in which I had neither act nor part, against
the life of her Grace and the peace of her dominions."

"Pray for her Grace," rang out a sharp voice below him.

"I will do so presently…. It is for that that I am said to die, in that I took part
in plots of which I knew nothing till all was done. Yet I was offered my life, if
I would but conform and go to church; so you see very well—"

A storm of confused voices interrupted him. He could distinguish no

sentence, so he waited till they ceased again.

"So you see very well," he cried, "for what it is that I die. It is for the Catholic
faith—"

"Beat the drums! beat the drums!" cried a voice. There began a drumming;
but a howl like a beast's surged up from the whole crowd. When it died
again the drum was silent. He glanced down at my lord Shrewsbury and saw
him whispering with an officer. Then he continued:

"It is for the Catholic faith, then, that I die—that which was once the faith of
all England—and which, I pray, may be one day its faith again. In that have
I lived, and in that will I die. And I pray God, further, that all who hear me
to-day may have grace to take it as I do—as the true Christian Religion (and
none other)—revealed by our Saviour Christ."

The crowd was wholly quiet again now. My lord had finished his whispering,
and was looking up. But the priest had made his little sermon, and thought
that he had best pray aloud before his strength failed him. His knees were
already shaking violently under him, and the sweat was pouring again from
his face, not so much from the effort of his speech as from the pain which
that effort caused him. It seemed that there was not one nerve in his body
that was not in pain.

"I ask all Catholics, then, that hear me to join with me in prayer…. First, for
Christ's Catholic Church throughout the world, for her peace and
furtherance…. Next, for our England, for the conversion of all her children;
and, above all, for her Grace, my Queen and yours, that God will bless and
save her in this world, and her soul eternally in the next. For these and all
other such matters I will beg all Catholics to join with me and to say the Our
Father; and when I am in my agony to say yet another for my soul."

"Our Father…."
From the whole packed space the prayer rose up, in great and heavy waves
of sound. There were cries of mockery three or four times, but each was
suddenly cut off…. The waves of sound rolled round and ceased, and the
silence was profound. The priest opened his eyes; closed them again. Then
with a loud voice he began to cry:

"O Christ, as Thine arms were extended—"

He stopped again, shaken even from that intense point of concentration to

which he was forcing himself, by the amazing sound that met his ears. He
had heard, at the close of the Our Father, a noise which he could not
interpret: but no more had happened. But now the whole world seemed
screaming and swaying: he heard the trample of horses beneath him—voices
in loud expostulation.

He opened his eyes; the clamour died again at the same instant…. For a
moment his eyes wandered over the heads and up to the sky, to see if some
vision…. Then he looked down….

Against the ladder on which he stood, a man's figure was writhing and
embracing the rungs kneeling on the ground. He was strangely dressed, in
some sort of a loose gown, in a tight silk night-cap, and his feet were bare.
The man's head was dropped, and the priest could not see his face. He
looked beyond for some explanation, and there stood, all alone, a girl in a
hooded cloak, who raised her great eyes to his. As he looked down again the
man's head had fallen back, and the face was staring up at him, so distorted
with speechless entreaty, that even he, at first, did not recognize it….

Then he saw it to be his father, and understood enough, at least, to act as a

priest for the last time.

He smiled a little, leaned his own head forward as from a cross, and
spoke….

"Absolvo te a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti…."

 VI

He only awoke once again, after the strangling and the darkness had
passed. He could see nothing, nor hear, except a heavy murmuring noise,
not unpleasant. But there was one last Pain not into which all others had
passed, keen and cold like water, and it was about his heart.

"O Christ—" he whispered, and so died.

THE END