The first thing that I did when I got home was to call for my man James,
and bid him shut the door. (My man was about forty years old, and he had
been got for me in Rome, having fallen ill there in the service of my
Lord Stafford--being himself a Catholic, and a very good one, for he
went to the sacraments three or four times in the year, wherever he was.
He was a clean-shaven fellow, and very sturdy and quick, and a good hand
at cut and thrust and the quarter-staff, as I had seen for myself at
Hare Street on the summer evenings. I had found him always discreet and
silent, though I had not as yet given him any great confidence.)
"James," I said to him with great solemnity, "I have something to say to
you which must go no further."
He stood waiting on my word.
"A fellow hath been after me to-day--named Dangerfield--a very brown
man, with no hair on his face" (for so Mr. Chiffinch had told me). "He
hath been branded on the hand for some conviction. I tell you this that
you may know him if you see him again. I take him to be a Protestant
spy: but I do not know for certain."
He still stood waiting. He knew very well, I think, that I was on some
business, and that therefore I was in some danger too at such a time;
though I had never spoken to him of it.
"And another thing that I have to say to you is that we must ride for
Hare Street to-morrow, and arrive there by to-morrow night--without
lying anywhere on the road. You must have the horses here, and all
ready, by seven o'clock in the morning. And you must tell no one where
we are going to, to hinder any from following us, if we can help it. We
must lie at Hare Street a good while.
"And the third thing I have to say is this; that you must watch out very
shrewdly for any signs that we are known or suspected of anything. I
tell you plainly that both you and I may be in some danger for a while;
so if you have no taste for that, you had best begone. You will keep
quiet, I know very well."
"Sir, I will stay with you, if you please," said James, as the last word
was out of my mouth.
I gave him a look of pleasure; but no more; and he understood me very
well.
"Then that is all that I have to say. You may bring supper in as soon as
you like."
Before I lay down that night I had transferred His Majesty's packet to a
belt that I put next to my skin; and so I went to bed.
* * * * *
It was still pretty dark when we came out upon the Ware road upon the
next morning. I did not call James up to ride with me; for I had a great
number of things to think about; and first amongst them was the
commission which His Majesty had given me. What then could such a
business be?--a packet that I must carry with me, and deliver to a man
whose name should be given me afterwards! Why, then, was it entrusted to
me so soon? And why could not the name be given to me immediately? But
to such riddles there was no answer; and I left it presently alone.
The second thing that I had to think of was the matter of the men whom I
had seen condemned yesterday; and even of that I did not know much more
than of the packet. His Majesty had not spoken of them, except to ask
questions at the beginning; and this seemed as a bad omen to me. Yet I
had the King's word on it that they should not suffer; and, when I
considered, there was no obligation or even any reason at all that he
should talk out the matter with myself. Yet, though I presently put this
affair too from my mind, since I had no certain knowledge of what would
happen, it came back to me again and again--that memory of Mr. Ireland
and Mr. Grove in the lodgings in Drury Lane, so harmless and so merry,
and again as I had seen them yesterday in the dock, with Mr. Pickering,
so helpless and yet so courageous in face of the injustice that was
being done on them.
The third thing that I had to think upon was Hare Street to which I was
going as fast as I could, and of those who would greet me there, and
most of all, I need not say, of my Cousin Dolly. Her father had written
to me two or three times during the four months that I had been away;
and his last had been the letter of a very much frightened man, what
with the news that had come to him of the proceedings in London and the
feeling against the Catholics. But I had written back to him that
nothing was to be feared if he would but stay still and hold his tongue;
and that I myself would be with him presently, I hoped, and would
reassure him; for in spite of the hot feeling in London the country
Catholics suffered from it little or not at all, so long as they minded
their own business. But it was principally of my Cousin Dolly that I
thought; for the memory of her had been with me a great deal during the
four months I had lived in London; but I was determined to do nothing in
a hurry, since the remembrance of her father's words to me, and, even
more, of his manner and look in speaking, stuck in my throat and
hindered me from seeing clearly. I knew very well, however, that my
principal reason why I urged Peter on over the bad roads, was that I
might see her the more quickly.
Nothing of any importance happened to us on the way. At Hoddesdon the
memory of Mr. Rumbald came back to my mind, and I wondered where it was
in Hoddesdon or near it that he had his malt-houses; and before that we
stayed again for dinner at the _Four Swans_ in Waltham Cross, where the
host knew me again and asked how matters were in London; and we came at
last in sight of the old church at Hormead Parva, just as the sun was
going down upon our left. Peter, my horse, knew where he was then, and
needed no more urging, for he knew that his stable was not far away.
They knew of course nothing of my coming; and when I dismounted in the
yard there was not a man to be seen. I left my horse with James; and
went along the flagged path that led to the door, and beat upon the
door. The house seemed all dark and deserted; and it was not till I had
beaten once more at the door that I saw a light shewing beneath it.
Presently a very unsteady voice cried out to know who was there; and I
knew it for my Cousin Tom's; so I roared at him that it was myself.
There followed a great to-do of unlocking and unbarring--for they had
the house--as I found presently--fortified as it were a castle; and when
the door was undone there was my Cousin Tom with a great blunderbuss and
two men with swords behind him.
"Why, whatever is forward?" I said sharply; for I was impatient with the
long waiting and the cold, for a frost was beginning as the sun set.
"Why, Cousin Roger, we knew nothing of your coming," said my Cousin Tom,
looking a little foolish, I thought. "We did not know who was at the
door."
"I only knew myself of my coming yesterday," I said. "And whatever is
the house fortified for?"
My cousin was putting up the bolts again as I spoke; (the two men were
gone away into the back of the house);--and, as soon as he had done, he
said:
"Why, there are dangerous folks about, Cousin Roger. And it is a
Catholic house, you see."
I smiled at that; but said no more; for at that moment my Cousin Dolly
came through from the back of the house where she had been sent by her
father for safety; and at that sight I thought no more of the door.
I saluted her as a cousin should; and she me. She looked mighty pretty
to me, in her dark dress, with her lace on, for supper was just on the
table; and I cannot but think she was pleased to see me, for she was all
smiling and flushed.
"So it is you, Cousin Roger," she said. "I thought it might very well
be. We looked for you before Christmas."
* * * * *
At supper, and afterwards, I learned in what a panic poor Cousin Tom had
lived since the news of the plot, and, above all, of Sir Edmund Berry
Godfrey's death; and what he said to me made me determine to speak to
him of my own small peril, for he had the right to know, and to forbid
me his house, if he wished. But I hoped that he would not. It appeared
that when the news of Sir Edmund's death had come, there had been
something of a to-do in the village, of no great signification; for it
was no more than a few young men who marched up and down shouting
together--as such yokels will, upon the smallest excuse; and one of them
had cried out at the gate of Hare Street House. At Barkway there had
been more of a business; for there they had burnt an effigy of the Pope
in the churchyard; and the parson--who was a stout Churchman--had made a
speech upon it. However, this had played upon Cousin Tom's fears, and he
had fortified the house with bolts, and slept with a pistol by his bed.
I told him that same night--not indeed all that happened to me; but
enough of it to satisfy him. I said that I had been a good deal at the
Jesuits' lodgings; and at the trial of the three; and that a fellow had
attempted to follow me home; but that I had thrown him off.
Cousin Tom had the pipe from his mouth and was holding it in his hand,
by the time I had done.
"Now, Cousin," I said, "if you think I am anything of a danger to the
house, you have but to say the word, and I will be off. On the other
hand, I and my man might be of some small service to you if it came to a
brawl."
"You threw him off?" asked Cousin Tom.
"It was at Whitehall--" I began; and then I stopped: for I had not
intended to speak of the King.
"Oho!" said Cousin Tom. "Then you have been at Whitehall again?"
"Why, yes," I said, trying to pass it off. "I have been there and
everywhere."
Cousin Tom put the pipe back again into his mouth.
"And there is another matter," I said (for Hare Street suited me very
well as a lodging, and I had named it as such to His Majesty). "It is
not right, Cousin Tom, that you should keep me here for nothing. Let me
pay something each month--" (And I named a suitable sum.)
That determined Cousin Tom altogether. My speaking of Whitehall had
greatly reassured him; and now this offer of mine made up his mind; for
he was something of a skinflint in some respects. (For all that I did
for him when I was here, in the fields and at the farm, more than repaid
him for the expense of my living there.) He protested a little, and said
that between kinsfolk no such question should enter in; but he protested
with a very poor grace; and so the matter was settled, and we both
satisfied.
* * * * *
So, once more, the time began to pass very agreeably for me. Here was I,
safe from all the embroilments of town, in the same house with my Cousin
Dorothy, and with plenty of leisure for my languages again. Yet my
satisfaction was greatly broken up when I heard, on the last day of
January that all that I had feared was come about, and that of the three
men whom I had seen condemned at the Old Bailey, two--Mr. Ireland and
Mr. Grove--had been executed seven days before: (Mr. Pickering was kept
back on some excuse, and not put to death until May). The way I heard of
it was in this manner.
I was in Puckeridge one day, on a matter which I do not now remember,
and was going to the stable of the _White Hart_ inn to get my horse to
ride back again, when I ran into Mr. Rumbald who was there on the same
errand. I was in my country suit, and very much splashed; and it was
going on for evening, so he noticed nothing of me but my face.
"Why, Mallock," he cried--"It is Mr. Mallock, is it not?"
I told him yes.
He exchanged a few words with me, for he was one of those fellows who
when they have once made up their minds to a thing, do not easily change
it, and he was persuaded that I was of his kind and something of a
daredevil too, which was what he liked. Then at the end he said
something which made me question him as to what he meant.
"Have you not heard?" he cried. "Why the Popish dogs were hanged a week
ago--Ireland and Grove, I mean. And there be three or four more
men--accused by Bedloe of Godfrey's murder, and will be tried
presently."
I need not say what a horror it was to me to hear that; for I had had
more hope in my heart than I had thought. But I was collected enough to
say something that satisfied him; and, as again he had been drinking, he
was not very quick.
"And those three or four?" I asked. "Are they Jesuits too?"
"No," said Rumbald, "but there will be another batch presently, I make
no doubt."
I got rid of him at last; and rode homewards; but it was with a very
heavy heart. Not once yet had the King exercised his prerogative of
mercy; and if he yielded at the first, and that against the Jesuits whom
he had sworn to protect, was there anything in which he would resist?
My Cousin Dorothy saw in my face as I came in that something was the
matter; so I told her the truth.
"May they rest in peace," she said; and blessed herself.
* * * * *
From time to time news reached us in this kind of manner. Though we were
not a great distance from London we were in a very solitary place, away
from the high-road that ran to Cambridge; and few came our way. Even in
Puckeridge it was not known, I think, who I was, nor that I was cousin
to Mr. Jermyn; so I had no fear of Mr. Rumbald suspecting me. Green,
Berry, and Hill were all convicted of Sir Edmund's murder, through the
testimony of Bedloe, who said that he had himself seen the body at
Somerset House, and that Sir Edmund had been strangled there by priests
and others and conveyed later to the ditch in Primrose Hill where he was
found. Another fellow, too, named Miles Prance, a silversmith in Princes
Street (out of Drury Lane), who was said by Bedloe to have been privy to
the murder, in the fear of his life, and after inhuman treatment in
prison, did corroborate the story and add to it, under promise of
pardon, which he got. Green, Berry, and Hill, then, were hanged on the
tenth day of February, on the testimonies of these two; and were as
innocent as unborn babes. It was remarked how strangely their names
went with the name of the murdered man and of the place he was found in.
For a while after that, matters were more quiet. A man named Samuel
Atkins was tried presently, but was acquitted; and then a Nathaniel
Reading was tried for suppressing evidence, and was punished for it. But
our minds, rather, were fixed upon the approaching trial of the "Five
Jesuits" as they were called, who still awaited it in prison--Whitbread,
Fenwick, Harcourt, Gavan and Turner--all priests. But I had not a great
deal of hope for these, when I thought of what had happened to the rest;
and, indeed, at the end of May, Mr. Pickering himself was executed. At
the beginning of May too, we heard of the bloody murder of Dr. Sharpe,
the Protestant Archbishop in Scotland, by the old Covenanters, driven
mad by the persecution this man had put them to; but this did not
greatly affect our fortunes either way. One of the most bitter thoughts
of all was that a secular priest named Serjeant, who, with another named
Morris, was of Gallican views, had given evidence in public court
against the Jesuits' casuistry.
Meanwhile, in other matters, we were quiet enough. Still I hesitated in
pushing my suit with my Cousin Dolly, until I could see whether she was
being forced to it or not. But my Cousin Tom had more wits than I had
thought; for he said no more to me on the point, nor I to him; and I
think I should have spoken to her that summer, had not an interruption
come to my plans that set all aside for the present. During those months
of spring and early summer we had no religious consolation at all; for
we were too near London, and at the same time too solitary for any
priest to come to us.
The interruption came in this manner.
I had sent my man over to Waltham Cross on an affair of a horse that was
to be sold there on the nineteenth day of June (as I very well remember,
from what happened afterwards); and when he came back he asked if he
might speak with me privately. When I had him alone in my room he told
me he had news from a Catholic ostler at the _Four Swans_, with whom he
had spoken, that a party had been asking after me there that very
morning.
"I said to him, sir, What kind of a party was it? And he told me that
there were four men; and that they went in to drink first and to dine,
for they came there about noon. I asked him then if any of them had any
mark by which he could be known; and he laughed at that; and said that
one of them was branded in the hand, for he was pulling his glove on
when he came into the yard afterwards, so that it was seen."
I said nothing for a moment, when James said that, for I was considering
whether so small a business of so many months ago was worth thinking of.
"And what then?" I said.
"Well, sir; as I was riding back I kept my eyes about me; and especially
in the villages where it might be easy to miss them; and in Puckeridge,
as I came by the inn I looked into the yard, and saw there four horses
all tied up together."
"Did you ask after them?" I said.
"No, sir; I thought it best not. But I pushed on as quickly as I could."
"Did the ostler at Waltham Cross tell you what answer was given to the
inquiries?"
"No, sir--he heard your name only from the parlour window as he went
through the yard."
Now here was I in a quandary. On the one hand this was a very small
affair, and not much evidence either way, and I did not wish to alarm my
Cousin Tom if I need not; and, on the other if they were after me I had
best be gone as soon as I could. It was six months since the fellow
Dangerfield had asked after me at Whitehall, and no harm had followed.
Yet here was the tale of the branded hand--and, although there were many
branded hands in England, the consonance of this with what had happened,
misliked me a little.
"And was there any more news?" I asked.
"Why, yes, sir; I had forgot. The man told me too that the five Jesuits
were cast six days ago, and Mr. Langhorn a day later, and that they were
all sentenced together." (Mr. Langhorn was a lawyer, a very hot and
devout Catholic; but his wife was as hot a Protestant.)
Now on hearing that I was a little more perturbed. Here were Mr.
Whitbread and Mr. Fenwick, in whose company I had often been seen in
public before the late troubles, condemned and awaiting sentence; and
here was a fellow with a branded hand asking after me in Waltham Cross.
Oates and Bedloe and Tonge and Kirby and a score of others were evidence
that any man who sought his fortune might very well do so in Popish
plots and accusations; and it was quite believable that Dangerfield was
one more of them, and that after these new events he was after me. Yet,
still, I did not wish to alarm my Cousin Tom; for he was a man who could
not hide his feelings, I thought.
It was growing dark now; for it was after nine o'clock, and cloudy, with
no moon to rise; and all would soon be gone to bed; so what I did I must
do at once. I sat still in my chair, thinking that if I were hunted out
of Hare Street I had nowhere to go; and then on a sudden I remembered
the King's packet which he had given me, and which I still carried, as
always, wrapped in oil-cloth next to my skin, since no word had come
from him as to what I was to do with it. And at that remembrance I
determined that I must undergo no risks.
"James," I said, "I think that we must be ready to go away if we are
threatened in any way. Go down to the stables and saddle a fresh horse
for you, and my own. Then come up here again and pack a pair of valises.
I do not know as yet whether we must go or not; but we must be ready for
it. Then take the valises and the horses down to the meadow, through the
garden, and tie all up there, under the shadow of the trees from where
you can see the house. And you must remain there yourself till twelve
o'clock to-night. At twelve o'clock, as near as I can tell it, if all is
quiet I will show a light three times from the garret window; and when
you see that you can come back again and go to bed. If they are after us
at all they will come when they think we are all asleep; and it will be
before twelve o'clock. Do you understand it all?"
(I was very glib in all this; for I had thought it out all beforehand,
if ever there should be an alarm of this kind.)
My man said that he understood very well, and went away, and I down to
the Great Chamber where I had left my cousins.
As I came in at the door, my Cousin Tom woke up with a great snuffle;
and stared at me as if amazed, as folks do when suddenly awakened.
"Well; to bed," he said. "I am half there already."
My Cousin Dorothy looked up from her sewing; and I think she knew that
something was forward; for she continued to look at me.
"Not to bed yet, Cousin Tom," I said. "There is a matter I must speak of
first."
Well; I sat down and told him as gently as I could--all the affair,
except of the King's packet; and by the time I was done he was no longer
at all drowsy. I told him too of the design I had formed, and that James
was gone to carry it out.
"Had you not best be gone at once?" he said; and I saw the terror in his
eyes, lest he too should be embroiled. But my Cousin Dorothy looked at
me, unafraid; only there was a spot of colour on either cheek.
"Well," I said, "I can ride out into the fields and wait there, if you
wish it, until morning: if you will send for me then if all be quiet."
But I explained to him again that I was in two minds as to whether I
should go at all, so very small was the evidence of danger.
He looked foolish at that; but I could see that he wanted me gone: so I
stood up.
"Well, Cousin," I said, "I see that you will be easier if I go. I will
begone first and see whether James has the horses out; and you had best
meanwhile go to my chamber and put away all that can incriminate you--in
one of your hiding-holes."
I was half-way to the kitchen when I heard my Cousin Dorothy come after
me; and I could see that she was in a great way.
"Cousin," she said, "I am ashamed that my father should speak like that.
If I were mistress--"
"My dear Cousin," I said lightly, "if you were mistress, I should not be
here at all."
"It is a shame," she said again, paying no attention, as her way was
when she liked. "It is a shame that you should spend all night in the
fields for nothing."
As she was speaking I heard James come downstairs with the valises. As
he went past he told me he already had the horses tied under the trees.
I nodded to him, and bade him go on, and he went out into the yard and
so through the stables.
"I had best go help your father put the things away," I said. "They will
not be here, at any rate, until the lights of the house are all out."
We went upstairs together and found my Cousin Tom already busy: he had
my clothes all in a great heap, ready to carry down to the hiding-hole
above the door; my papers he already had put away into the little recess
behind the bed, and the books, most of which had not my name in them, he
designed to carry to his own chamber.
We worked hard at all this--my Cousin Tom in a kind of fever, rolling
his eyes at every sound; and, at the last, we had all put away, and were
about to close the door of the hiding-hole. Then my Cousin Dorothy held
up her hand.
"Hush!" she said; and then, "There was a step on the paved walk."