Before I arrived, Lady Arundel had made Basil privy to a great secret,
with warrant to impart it to me. In a remote portion of the castle's
buildings was concealed at that time Father Southwell, a man who had
not his like for piety and good parts; a sweet poet also, whose pieces
of verse, chiefly written in that obscure chamber in Arundel Castle,
have been since done into print, and do win great praise from all
sorts of people. Adjoining to his room, which only one servant in the
house, who carried his meals to him, had knowledge of, and from which
he could not so much as once look out of the window for fear of being
seen, was a small oratory where he said mass every day, and by a
secret passage Lady Arundel went from her apartments for to hear it.
That same evening after supper she led me thither for to get this good
priest's blessing, and also his counsel touching my marriage; for both
her ladyship and Basil were urgent for it to take place in a private
manner at the castle before we left England. For, they argued, if
there should be danger in this departure, it were best encountered
together; and except we were married it should be an impossible thing
for me to travel in his company and land with him in France. Catholics
could be married in a secret manner now that the needs of the times,
and the great perils many were exposed to, gave warrant for it. After
some talk with Father Southwell and Lady Arundel, I consented to their
wishes with more gladness of heart, I ween, than was seemly to
exhibit; for verily I was better contented than can be thought of to
think I should be at last married to my dear Basil, and nevermore to
part from him, if it so pleased God that we should land safely in
France, which did seem to me then the land of promise.
The next days were spent in forecasting means for a safe departure, as
soon as these secret nuptials should have taken place; but none had
been yet resolved on, when one morning I was called to Lady Arundel's
chamber, whom I found in tears and greatly disturbed, for that she had
heard from Lady Margaret Sackville, who was then in London, that
Lord Arundel was once more resolved to leave the realm, albeit Father
Edmunds did dissuade him from that course; but some other friend's
persuasions were more availing, and he had determined to go to France,
where he might live in safety and serve God quietly.
My lady's agitation at this news was very great. She said nothing
should content her but to go with him, albeit she was then with child;
and she should write to tell him so; but before she could send a
letter Lord Arundel came to the castle, and held converse for many
hours with her and Father Southwell. When I met her afterward in the
gallery, her eyes were red with weeping. She said my lord desired to
see Basil and me in her chamber at nine of the clock. He wished to
speak with us of his resolve to cross the seas, and she prayed God
some good should arise out of it. Then she added, "I am now going to
the chapel, and if thou hast nothing of any weight to detain thee,
then come thither also, for to join thy prayers with mine for the
favorable issue of a very doubtful matter."
When we repaired to her ladyship's chamber at the time appointed, my
lord greeted us in an exceeding kind manner; and after some talk
touching Basil's secret return to England, our marriage, and then as
speedy as possible going abroad, his lordship said: "I also am
compelled to take a like course, for my evil-willers are resolved to
work my ruin and overthrow, and will succeed therein by means of my
religion. Many actions which at the outset may seem rash and
unadvised, after sufficient consideration do appear to be just and
necessary; and, methinks, my dearest wife and Father Southwell are now
minded to recommend what at first they misliked, and to see that in
this my present intent I take the course which, though it imperils my
fortunes, will tend to my soul's safety and that of my children. Since
I have conceived this intent, I thank God I have found a great deal
more quietness in my mind; and in this respect I have just occasion to
esteem my past troubles as my greatest felicity, for they have been
the means of leading me to that course which ever brings perfect
quietness, and only procures eternal happiness. I am resolved, as my
dear Nan well knoweth, to endure any punishment rather than willingly
to decline from what I have begun; I have bent myself as nearly as I
could to continue in the same, and to do no act repugnant to my faith
and profession. And by means hereof I am often compelled to do many
things which may procure peril to myself, and be an occasion of
mislike to her majesty. For, look you, on the first day of this
parliament, when the queen was hearing of a sermon in the cathedral
church of Westminster, above in the chancel, I was driven to walk by
myself below in one of the aisles; and another day this last Lent,
when she was hearing another sermon in the chapel at Greenwich, I was
forced to stay all the while in the presence-chamber. Then also when
on any Sunday or holyday her grace goes to her great closet, I am
forced either to stay in the privy chamber, and not to wait upon her
at all, or else presently to depart as soon as I have brought her to
the chapel. These things, and many more, I can by no means escape, but
only by an open plain discovery of myself, in the eye and opinion of
all men, as to the true cause of my refusal; neither can it now be
long hidden, although for a while it may not have been generally noted
and observed."
Lady Arundel sighed and said:
"I must needs confess that of necessity it must shortly be discovered;
and when I remember what a watchful and jealous eye is carried over
all such as are known to be recusants, and also how their lodgings are
continually searched, and to how great danger they are subject if a
Jesuit or seminary priest be found within their house, I begin to see
that either you cannot serve God in such sort as you have
professed, or else you must incur the hazard of greater sufferings
than I am willing you should endure."
"For my part," Basil said, "I would ask, my lord, those that hate you
most, whether being of the religion which you do profess, they would
not take that course for safety of their souls and discharge of their
consciences which you do now meditate? And either they must directly
tell you that they would have done the same, or acknowledge themselves
to be mere atheists; which, howsoever they be affected in their
hearts, I think they would be loth to confess with their mouths."
"What sayest thou, Constance, of my lord's intent?" Lady Arundel said,
when Basil left off speaking.
"I am ashamed to utter my thinking in his presence, and in yours,
dearest lady," I replied; "but if you command me to it, methinks that
having had his house so fatally and successfully touched, and finding
himself to be of that religion which is accounted dangerous and odious
to the present state, which her majesty doth detest, and of which she
is most jealous and doubtful, and seeing he might now be drawn for his
conscience into a great and continual danger, not being able to do any
act or duty whereunto his religion doth bind him without incurring the
danger of felony, he must needs run upon his death headlong, which is
repugnant to the law of God and flatly against conscience, or else he
must resolve to escape these perils by the means he doth propose."
"Yea," exclaimed his lordship, with so much emotion that his voice
shook in the utterance of the words, "long have I debated with myself
on the course to take. I do see it to be the safest way to depart out
of the realm, and abide in some other place where I may live without
danger of my conscience, without offence to the queen, without daily
peril of my life; but yet I was drawn by such forcible persuasions to
be of another opinion, as I could not easily resolve on which side to
settle my determination. For on the one hand my native, and oh how
dearly loved country, my own early friends, my kinsfolk, my home, and,
more than all, my wife, which I must for a while part with if I go, do
invite me to stay. Poverty awaits me abroad; but in what have state
and riches benefited us, Nan? Shall not ease of heart and freedom from
haunting fears compensate for vain wealth? When, with the sweet
burthen in thine arms which for a while doth detain thee here, thou
shalt kneel before God's altar in a Catholic land, methinks thou wilt
have but scanty regrets for the trappings of fortune."
"God is my witness," the sweet lady replied, "that should be the
happiest day of my life. But I fear--yea, much I do fear--the chasm
of parting which doth once more open betwixt thee and me. Prithee,
Phil, let me go with thee," she tearfully added.
"Nay, sweet Nan," he answered; "thou knowest the physicians forbid thy
journeying at the present time so much as hence to London. How should
it then behoove thee to run the perils of the sea, and nightly voyage,
and it may be rough usage? Nay, let me behold thee again, some months
hence, with a fair boy in thine arms, which if I can but once behold,
my joy shall be full, if I should have to labor with mine hands for to
support him and thee."
She bowed her head on the hand outstretched to her; but I could see
the anguish with which she yielded her assent to this separation.
Methinks there was some sort of presentiment of the future heightening
her present grief; she seemed so loth her lord should go, albeit
reason and expediency forced from her an unwilling consent.
Before the conversation in Lady Arundel's chamber ended, the earl
proposed that Basil and I should accompany him abroad, and cross the
sea in the craft he should privately hire, which would sail from
Littlehampton, and carry us to some port of France, whence along the
coast we could travel to Boulogne. This liked her ladyship well. Her
eyes entreated our consent thereunto, as if it should have been a
favor she asked, which indeed was rather a benefit conferred on us;
for nothing would serve my lord but that he should be at the entire
charge of the voyage, who smiling said, for such good company as he
should thus enjoy he should be willing to be taxed twice as much, and
yet consider himself to be the obliged party in this contract.
"But we must be married first," Basil bluntly said.
Lady Arundel replied that Father Southwell could perform the ceremony
when we pleased--yea, on the morrow, if it should be convenient; and
that my lord should be present thereat.
I said this should be very short notice, I thought, for to be married
the next day; upon which Basil exclaimed,
"These be not times, sweetheart, for ceremonies, fashions, and nice
delays. Methinks since our betrothal there hath been sufficient
waiting for to serve the turn of the nicest lady in the world in the
matter of reserves and yeas and nays."
Which is the sharpest thing, I think, Basil hath uttered to me either
before or since we have been married. So, to appease him, I said not
another word against this sudden wedding; and the next day but one, at
nine of the clock, was then fixed for the time thereof.
On the following morning Lord Arundel and Basil (the earl had
conceived a very great esteem and good disposition toward him; as
great, and greater he told me, as for some he had known for as many
years as him hours) went out together, under pretence of shooting in
the woods on the opposite side of the river about Leominster, but
verily to proceed to Littlehampton, where the earl had appointed to
meet the captain of the vessel--a Catholic man, the son of an old
retainer of his family--with whom he had dealt for the hiring of a
vessel for to sail to France as soon as the wind should prove
favorable. Whilst they were gone upon this business, Lady Arundel and
I sat in the chamber which looked into the court, making such simple
preparations as would escape notice for our wedding, and the departure
which should speedily afterward ensue.
"I will not yield thee," her ladyship said, "to be married except in a
white dress and veil, which I shall hide in a chamber nigh unto the
oratory, where I myself will attire thee, dear love; and see, this
morning early I went out alone into the garden and gathered this store
of rosemary, for to make thee a nosegay to wear in thy bosom. Father
Southwell saith it is used at weddings for an emblem of fidelity. If
so, who should have so good a right to it as my Constance and her
Basil? But I will lay it up in a casket, which shall conceal it the
while, and aid to retain the scent thereof."
"O dear lady," I cried, seizing her hands, "do you remember the day
when you plucked rosemary in our old garden at Sherwood, and smiling,
said to me, 'This meaneth remembrance?' Since it signifieth fidelity
also, well should you affection it; for where shall be found one so
faithful in love and friendship as you?"
"Weep not," she said, pressing her fingers on her eyelids to stay her
own tears. "We must needs thank God and be joyful on the eve of thy
wedding-day; and I am resolved to meet my lord also with a cheerful
countenance, so that not in gloom but in hope he shall leave his
native land."
In converse such as this the hours went swiftly by. Sometimes we
talked of the past, its many strange haps and changes; sometimes of
the future, forecasting the manner of our lives abroad, where in
safety, albeit in poverty, we hoped to spend our days. In the
afternoon there arrived at the castle my Lord William Howard and his
wife and Lady Margaret Sackville, who, having notice of their
brother's intent to go beyond seas on the next day, if it should be
possible, had come for to bid him farewell.
Leaving Lady Arundel in their company, I went to the terrace
underneath the walls of the castle, and there paced up and down,
chewing the cud of both sweet and sad memories. I looked at the soft
blue sky and fleecy clouds, urged along by a westerly breeze
impregnated with a salt savor; on the emerald green of the fields, the
graceful forms of the leafless trees on the opposite hills, on the
cattle peacefully resting by the river-side. I listed to the rustling
of the wind amongst the bare branches over mine head, and the bells of
a church ringing far off in the valley. "O England, mine own England,
my fair native land--am I to leave thee, never to return?" I cried,
speaking aloud, as if to ease my oppressed heart. Then mine eyes
rested on the ruined hospital of the town, the shut-up churches, the
profaned sanctuaries, and thought flying beyond the seas to a Catholic
land, I exclaimed, "The sparrow shall find herself a house, and the
turtle-dove a nest for herself--the altars of the Lord of hosts, my
king and my God."
When Basil returned, he told me that the vessel which was to take us
to France was lying out at sea near the coast. Lord Arundel and
himself had gone in a boat to speak with the captain, who did seem a
particular honest man and zealous Catholic; and the earl had bespoken
some needful accommodation for Mistress Martingale, he said, smiling;
not very commodious, indeed, but as good as on board the like craft
could be expected. If the wind remained in the same quarter in the
afternoon of the morrow, we should then sail; if it should change, so
as to be most unfavorable, the captain should send private notice of
it to the castle.
The whole of that evening the earl spent in writing a letter to her
majesty. He feared that his enemies, after his departure, would, by
their slanderous reports, endeavor to disgrace him with the people,
and cause the queen to have sinister surmises of him. He confided this
letter to the Lady Margaret, his sister, to be delivered unto her
after his arrival in France; by which it might appear, both to her and
all others, what were the true causes which had moved him to undertake
that resolution.
I do often think of that evening in the great chamber of the
castle--the young earl in the vigorous strength and beauty of manhood,
his comely and fair face now bending over his writing, now raised with
a noble and manly grief, as he read aloud portions of it, which,
methinks, would have touched any hearts to hear them; and how much the
more that loving wife, that affectionate sister, that faithful
brother, those devoted friends which seemed to be in some sort
witnesses of his last will before a final parting! I mind me of the
sorrowful, dove-like sweetness of Lady Arundel's countenance; the
flashing eyes of Lady Margaret; the loving expression, veiled by a
studied hardness, of Lord William's face; of his wife my Lady Bess's
reddening cheek and tearful eyes, which she did conceal behind the
coif of her childish namesake sitting on her knees. When he had
finished his letter, with a somewhat moved voice the earl read the
last passages thereof: "If my protestation, who never told your
majesty any untruth, may carry credit in your opinion, I here call God
and his angels to witness that I would not have taken this course if I
might have stayed in England without danger of my soul or peril of my
life. I am enforced to forsake my country, to forget my friends, to
leave my wife, to lose the hope of all worldly pleasures and earthly
commodities. All this is so grievous to flesh and blood, that I could
not desire to live if I were not comforted with the remembrance
of his mercy for whom I endure all this, who endured ten thousand
times more for me. Therefore I remain in assured hope that myself and
my cause shall receive that favor, conceit, and rightful construction
at your majesty's hands which I may justly challenge. I do humbly
crave pardon for my long and tedious letter, which the weightiness of
the matter enforced me unto; and I beseech God from the bottom of my
heart to send your majesty as great happiness as I wish to mine own
soul."
A time of silence followed the reading of these sentences, and then
the earl said in a cheerful manner:
"So, good Meg, I commit this protestation to thy good keeping. When
thou hearest of my safe arrival in France, then straightway see to
have it placed in the queen's hands."
The rest of the evening was spent in affectionate converse by these
near kinsfolk. Basil and I repaired the while by the secret passage to
Father Southwell's chamber, where we were in turn shriven, and
afterward received from him such good counsel and rules of conduct as
he deemed fitting for married persons to observe. Before I left him,
this good father gave me, writ in his own hand, some sweet verses
which he had that day composed for us, and which I do here transcribe.
He, smiling, said he had made mention of fishes in his poem, for to
pleasure so famous an angler as Basil; and of birds, for that he knew
me to be a great lover of these soaring creatures:
"The lopped tree in time may grow again.
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorest wight may find release of pain.
The driest soil suck in some moistening shower;
Times go by turn, and chances change by course.
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.
"The sea of fortune doth not over flow,
She draws her favors to the lowest ebb;
Her time hath equal times to come and go.
Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web;
No joy so great but runneth to an end.
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.
"A chance may win that by mischance was lost.
The well that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none are crossed.
Few all they need, but none have all they wish;
Unmeddled joys here to no man befal,
Who least have some, who most have never all.
"Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring;
No endless night, yet not eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing;
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay;
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall."
The common sheet of paper which doth contain this his writing hath a
greater value in mine eyes than the most rich gift that can be thought
of.
On the next morning. Lady Arundel conducted me from mine own chamber,
first into a room where with her own hands she arrayed me in my bridal
dress, and with many tender kisses and caresses, such as a sister or a
mother would bestow, testified her affection for her poor friend; and
thence to the oratory, where the altar was prepared, and by herself in
secret decked with early primroses, which had begun to show in the
woods and neath the hedges. A small but noble company were gathered
round us that day. From pure and holy lips the Church's benison came
to us. The vows we exchanged have been faithfully observed, and long
years have set a seal on the promises then made.
Basil's wife! Oh, what a whole compass of happiness did lie in those
two words! Yea, the waves of the sea might now rage and the winds
blow. The haven might be distant and the way thither insecure. Man's
enmity or accident might yet rob us each of the other's visible
presence. But naught could now sever the cord, strong like unto a
cable chain, which bound our souls in one. Anchored in that wedded
unity, which is one of God's sacraments, till death, ay, and beyond
death also, this tie should last.
We have been young, and now are old. We have lost country, home, and
almost every friend known and affectioned in our young years; but
that deepest, holiest love, the type of Christ's union with his
Church, still doth shed its light over the evening of life. My dear
Basil, I am assured, thinks me as fair as when we did sit together
fishing on the banks of the Ouse; and his hoary head and withered
cheeks are more lovely in mine eyes than ever were his auburn locks
and ruddy complexion. One of us must needs die before the other,
unless we should be so happy that that good should befal us as to end
our days as two aged married persons I have heard of. It was the
husband's custom, as soon as ever he unclosed his eyes, to ask his
wife how she did; but one night, he being in a deep sleep, she quietly
departed toward the morning. He was that day to have gone out
a-hunting, and it was his custom to have his chaplain pray with him
before he went out. The women, fearful to surprise him with the ill
news, had stolen out and acquainted the chaplain, desiring him to
inform him of it. But the gentleman waking did not on that day, as was
his custom ask for his wife, but called his chaplain to prayers, and,
joining with him, in the midst of the prayer expired, and both were
buried in the same grave. Methinks this should be a very desirable
end, only, if it pleased God, I would wish to have the last
sacraments, and then to die just before Basil, when his time cometh.
But God knoweth best; and any ways we are so old and so near of an
age, one cannot tarry very long behind when the other is gone.
Being at rest after our marriage touching what concerned ourselves,
compassion for Lady Arundel filled our hearts. Alas! how bravely and
how sweetly she bore this parting grief. Her intense love for her
lord, and sorrow at their approaching separation, struggled with her
resolve not to sadden their last hours, which were prolonged beyond
expectancy. For once on that day, and twice on that which followed,
when all was made ready for departure, a message came from the captain
for to say the wind, and another time the tide, would not serve; and
albeit each time, like a reprieved person, Lady Arundel welcomed the
delay, methinks these retardments served to increase her sufferings.
Little Bess hung fondly on her father's neck the last time he returned
from Littlehampton with the tidings the vessel would not sail for some
hours, kissing his face and playing with his beard.
"Ah, dearest Phil!" her mother cried, "the poor babe rejoiceth in the
sight of thee, all unwitting in her innocent glee of the shortness of
this joy. Howsoever, methinks five or six hours of it is a boon for to
thank God for;" and so putting her arm in his, she led him away to a
solitary part of the garden, where they walked to and fro, she, as she
hath since written to me, starting each time the clock did strike,
like one doomed to execution. Methinks there was this difference
between them, that he was full of hope and bright forecastings of a
speedy reunion; but on her soul lay a dead, mournful despondency,
which she hid by an apparent calmness. When, late in the evening, a
third message came for to say the ship could not depart that night, I
begun to think it would never go at all. I saw Basil looked at the
weathercock and shrugged his shoulders, as if the same thought was in
his mind. But when I spake of it, he said seafaring folks had a
knowledge in these matters which others did not possess, and we must
needs be patient under these delays. Howsoever, at three o'clock in
the morning the shipman signified that the wind was fit and all in
readiness. So we rose in haste and prepared for to depart. The
countess put her arms about my neck, and this was the last embrace I
ever had of her. My lord's brother and sisters hung about him awhile
in great grief. Then his wife put out her hands to him, and, with a
sorrow too deep for speech, fixed her eyes on his visage.
"Cheep up, sweetest wife," I heard him say. "Albeit nature suffers in
this severance from my native land, my true home shall be wherever it
shall please God to bring thee and me and our children together. God
defend the loss of this world's good should make us sad, if we be but
once so blessed as to meet again where we may freely serve him."
Then, after a long and tender clasping of her to his breast, he tore
himself away and getting on a horse rode to the coast. Basil and I,
with Mr. William Bray and Mr. Burlace, drove in a coach to the port.
It was yet dark, and a heavy mist hung on the valley. Folks were yet
abed, and the shutters of the houses closed, as we went down the hill
through the town. After crossing the bridge over the Arun the air felt
cold and chill. At the steep ascent near Leominster I put my head out
of the window for to look once more at the castle, but the fog was too
thick. At the port the coach stopped, and a boat was found waiting for
us. Lord Arundel was seated in it, with his face muffled in a cloak.
The savor of the sea air revived my spirits; and when the boat moved
off, and I felt the waves lifting it briskly, and with my hand in
Basil's I looked on the land we were leaving, and then on the watery
world before us, a singular emotion filled my soul, as if it was some
sort of death was happening to me--a dying to the past, a gliding on
to an unknown future on a pathless ocean, rocked peacefully in the
arms of his sheltering love, even as this little bark which carried us
along was lifted up and caressed by the waves of the deep sea.
When we reached the vessel the day was dawning. The sun soon emerged
from a bank of clouds, and threw its first light on the rippling
waters. A favoring wind filled our sails, and like a bird on the wing
the ship bounded on its way till the flat shore at Littlehampton and
the far-off white cliffs to the eastward were well-nigh lost sight of.
Lord Arundel stood with Basil on the narrow deck, gazing at the
receding coast.
"How sweet the air doth blow from England!" he said; "how blue the sky
doth appear to-day! and those saucy seagulls how free and happy they
do look!" Then he noticed some fishing-boats, and with a telescope he
had in his hand discerned various ships very far off. Afterward he
came and sat down by my side, and spoke in a cheerful manner of his
wife and the simple home he designed for her abroad. "Some years ago,
Mistress Constance," he said--and then smiling, added, "My tongue is
not yet used to call you Mistress Rookwood--when my sweet Nan, albeit
a wife, was yet a simple child, she was wont to say, 'Phil, would we
were farmers! You would plough the fields and cut wood in the forest,
and I should milk the cows and feed the poultry.' Well, methinks her
wish may yet come to pass. In Brittany or Normandy some little
homestead should shelter us, where Bess shall roll on the grass and
gather the fallen apples, and on Sundays put on her bravest clothes
for to go to mass. What think you thereof, Mistress Constance? and who
knoweth but you and your good husband may also dwell in the same
village, and some eighteen or twenty years hence a gay wedding for to
take place betwixt one Master Rookwood and one Lady Ann or Margaret
Howard, or my Lord Maltravers with one Mistress Constance or Muriel
Rookwood? And on the green on such a day, Nan and Basil and you and I
should lead the brawls."
"Methinks, my lord," I answered, smiling, "you do forecast too great a
condescension on your part, and too much ambition on our side, in the
planning of such a union."
"Well, well," he said; "if your good husband carrieth not beyond seas
with him the best earl's title in England, I'll warrant you in God's
sight he weareth a higher one far away--the merit of an
unstained life and constant nobility of action; and I promise you,
beside, he will be the better farmer of the twain; so that in the
matter of tocher, Mistress Rookwood should exceed my Lady Bess or Ann
Howard."
With such-like talk as this time was whiled away; and whilst we were
yet conversing I noticed that Basil spoke often to the captain and
looked for to be watching a ship yet at some distance, but which
seemed to be gaining on us. Lord Arundel, perceiving it, then also
joined them, and inquired what sort of craft it should be. The captain
professed to be ignorant thereof; and when Basil said it looked like a
small ship-of-war, and as there were many dangerous pirates about the
Channel it should be well to guard against it, he assented thereto,
and said he was prepared for defence.
"With such unequal means," Basil replied, "as it is like we should
bring to a contest, speed should serve us better than defence."
"But," quoth Lord Arundel, "she is, 'tis plain, a swifter sailer than
this one we are in. God's will be done, but 'tis a heavy misfortune if
a pirate at this time do attack us, and so few moneys with us for to
spare!"
Now none of our eyes could detach themselves from this pursuing
vessel. The captain eluded further talk, on pretence for to give
orders and move some guns he had aboard on deck; but it was vain for
to think of a handful of men untrained to sea-warfare encountering a
superior force, such as this ship must possess, if its designs should
be hostile. As it moved nigher to us, we could perceive it to be well
manned and armed. And the captain then exclaimed:
"'Tis Keloway's ship!"
This man was of a notorious, infamous life, well known for his
sea-robberies and depredations in the Channel.
"God yield," murmured the earl, "he shall content himself with the
small sum we can deliver to him and not stay us any further."
A moment afterward we were boarded by this man, who, with his crew,
thrice as numerous as ours and armed to the teeth, comes on our deck
and takes possession of the ship. Straightway he walks to the earl and
tells him he doth know him, and had watched his embarkation, being
resolved to follow him and exact a good ransom at his hands, which if
he would pay without contention, he should himself, without further
stop or stay, pass him and his two gentlemen into France, adding, he
should take no less from him than one hundred pounds.
"I have not so much, or near unto it, with me," Lord Arundel said.
"But you can write a word or two to any friend of yours from whom I
may receive it." quoth Keloway.
"Well," said the earl, "seeing I have pressing occasion for to go to
France, and would not be willingly delayed, I must needs consent to
your terms, no choice therein being allowed me. Get me some paper," he
said to Mr. William Bray.
"Should this be prudent, my lord?" Basil whispered in his ear.
"There is no help for it, Master Rookwood," the earl replied. "Beside,
there is honor even amongst thieves. Once secure of his money, this
man hath no interest in detaining us, but rather the contrary."
And without further stopping, he hastily wrote a few lines to his
sister the Lady Margaret Sackville, in London, that she should speak
to Mr. Bridges, _alias_ Grately, a priest, to give one hundred pounds
to the bearer thereof, by the token that was between them, that _black
is white_, and withal assured her that he now certainly hoped to have
speedy passage without impediment. As soon as this paper was put into
Kelloway's hand, he read it, and immediately called on his men for to
arrest the Earl of Arundel, producing an order from the queen's
council for to prove he was appointed to watch there for him,
and carry him back again to land where her majesty's officers did
await him.
An indescribable anguish seized my heart; an overwhelming grief, such
as methinks no other event, howsoever sad or tragical, or yet more
nearly touching me, had ever wrought in my soul, which I ascribe to a
presentiment that this should be the first link of that long chain of
woes which was to follow.
"O, my lord!" I exclaimed, almost falling at his feet, "God help you
to bear this too heavy blow!"
He took me by the hand; and never till I die shall I lose the memory
of the sweet serenity and noble steadfastness of his visage in this
trying hour.
"God willeth it," he gently said; "his holy will be done! He will work
good out of what seemeth evil to us." And then gaily added, "We had
thought to travel the same way; now we must needs journey apart. Never
fear, good friends, but both roads shall lead to heaven, if we do but
tread them piously. My chief sorrow is for Nan; but her virtue is so
great, that affliction will never rob her of such peace as God only
giveth."
Then this angelic man, forecasting for his friends in the midst of
this terrible mishap, passed into Basil's hands his pocket-book, and
said, "This shall pay your voyage, good friend; and if aught doth
remain afterward, let the poor have their share of it, for a
thank-offering, when you reach the shore in safety."
Basil, I saw, could not speak; his heart was too full. O, what a
parting ensued on that sad ocean whose waves had seemed to dance so
joyously a short space before! With what aching hearts we pressed the
young earl's hand, and watched him pass into the other ship,
accompanied by his two gentlemen, which were with him arrested! No
heed was taken of us; and Kelloway, having secured his prey, abandoned
our vessel, the captain of which seemed uneasy and ill-disposed to
speak with us. We did then suspect, which doubt hath been since
confirmed, that this seeming honest Catholic man had acted a traitor's
part, and that those many delays had been used for the very purpose of
staying Lord Arundel until such time as all was prepared for his
capture. The wind, which was in our favor, bore us swiftly toward the
French coast; and we soon lost sight of the vessel which carried the
earl back to the shores of England. Fancy, you who read, what pictures
we needs must then have formed of that return; of the dismal news
reaching the afflicted wife, the sad sister, the mournful brother, and
friends now scattered apart, so lately clustered round him! Alas! when
we landed in France, at the port of Calais, the sense of our own
safety was robbed of half its joy by fears and sorrowing for the dear
friends whose fortunes have proved so dissimilar to our own.