With all this we have yet come no further than the noontime of the
Monday; but I have yet one more thread to gather up before I come
again to my proper part in this tale.
That stranger, the sight of whose back so frighted me, foolishly clad
in boy's garments, that I dared not risk encounter with the gaze of
his eyes, was, though, alas! I knew it not, my brother Philip. When
I did pass through the great hall on my way to the stables, he had
just come to an end of some talk with Simon Emmet, who was then gone
to fetch Sir Michael.
From his errand Simon hoped little good, fearing of the ills that
might arise from Philip's return at this conjuncture, most of all the
perturbation of spirit into which it was like to cast his master. So
much, indeed, he said, with such plainness as his old and unbroken
affection for my brother would allow. There is no little reason to
suppose that, even more than the lad's father, Simon Emmet had been
grieved by Philip's adoption of his mother's religion. For Philip,
upon his arrival and encounter with the old man, was no sooner
recognized than he was asked if it were indeed true that he was
become a priest: and when Simon was assured that so it was, he
counselled a speedy departure, since no good would come, Sir Michael
being minded as he was, of their meeting. Being told, with that
gentle severity which did use to sit very nobly upon my brother, that
he must inform his master with no more ado, he yet in going must turn
at the door to deliver a parting bolt through the man he loved at the
creed he abhorred.
"Now, I bethink me, Master Philip," says Simon, "there is, when all
is said, some good come of your heresy." And when Philip said gently
that he hoped indeed it was so, but saw not how he meant it, Simon
gave answer that, old man and sick though he was, Sir Michael upon
that dire news had gotten a mind to live, and had lived ever since,
in the firm intent that, as long as he might prevent, a Papist should
never rule at Drayton.
"But, Simon," says Philip, with a sadness political rather than
religious, "there was surely a time when my dear father had preferred
a Papist in his house to a Dutch Calvinist on the throne."
"Ay, Master Phil," says Simon, with an old man's chuckle of much
cunning, "but that was before the throne had tried a Papist," and so
left him.
And I do suppose it was while I listened unseen to little Prue's
willing news from her lover on the flags of the stable-yard that my
two nearest kin were threshing out, in the great hall behind me, a
question that can never be settled. There was no quarrel between
them, but little that was common to their two minds. And that day
the little seemed altogether naught. Yet in temper the two men were
as like as unlike in thought.
Now Philip's change of faith had but strengthened, and in a manner
embittered, the old Cavalier devotion to the house of Stuart. Being
commissioned by that great religious society of which he was a
member, and whose power is as far-reaching as its means are often
hidden and subtile, to travel from London through the southern and
western parts of England, exhorting, persuading, and commanding the
Catholic gentry to remain constant in the royal cause, he had, at the
end of two months so spent, at last arrived among us. He now told
his father that he held it within the spirit of his commission, if
not of its letter, to use upon him, did he waver in that political
faith of which his life hitherto was so noble an exhibition, the same
arguments and modes of appeal he was daily employing upon those of
the true faith.
"You lack, however, in dealing with me, my son, one weapon--and that
your strongest," said his father.
"And that, sir?" said Philip.
"The appeal to religious authority, my boy. And yet I scarce see by
what means you do bring it in use; for I hear that His Holiness is
ever at war of one kind or another with King Lewis, and favors rather
the cause of that alliance of the Empire with the Protestant Princes,
of which His young Highness of Orange is the soul and spirit. I
warrant, lad," said the old man, with some grimness of humor, "you
find the Pope but an unhandy weapon in your schemes and plots."
"I obey orders, sir, but do not deal in plots," the son replied, with
a pride that matched the father's.
"Art not a Jesuit?" asked Sir Michael.
And Philip answering, proudly and yet with much humility, that he
was, Sir Michael would have known of him what he did when the bidding
of the Society of Jesus ran counter to His Holiness's policy, or
enjoined action inconvenient with the honor of a gentleman. But
Philip, avoiding the former question, was yet stung into reply on the
second, saying boldly that the spiritual descendants of Loyola were
much belied, and had no traffic in the plotting of underhand schemes.
To this his father, with much warmth, but with a greater kindness
than had yet appeared in his address, replied: "Truly, I think they
do not--through such as thou, my son. Believe your old father, lad;
your superiors are men of a boundless statecraft and a subtile, and
well know their tools. Who that has knowledge uses an axe to do the
office of a file? But files they have, and augers even down to the
finest gimlet; and these also work among us."
"Be that as it may, sir," answered Philip, "my mission is honest and
open. I come to conjure you to hold faith with the cause in which
you have so nobly spent your blood, your sons, your land, and your
gold."
"There is nothing left me but my daughter and the ragged edge of
life, Philip," said the old man, with a great sadness. "And these,
too, would I spend, as I thought, God knows, to spend all that is
gone,--for the good, I mean, of England. But not as you would lay
them out, Philip; not on James, his harlots, priests, and bastards.
The King is the slave of priests as his brother was of women; and,
Gad 's my life! the late King was more English in 's tastes. Women
may harm the king, but your priest in power is death to the kingdom.
I have learned one thing, son Philip, in my nine and seventy years:
that a man's king is much, but his country more. But it is enough.
Let us leave the matter, or, God forgive me, I shall end by lauding
the man I have most hated--the one Englishman since I drew breath
that was feared and honored by Pope, Emperor, and Kings. And since?
We have been laughed to scorn of the Spaniard, spat upon by the
Hollander, and paid--God's blood! ay, paid by a filthy Frenchman!"
"You have called a man traitor for less words than these, sir," said
his son, mightily amazed.
"Traitor!" quoth Sir Michael, with a great bitterness. "We are all
traitors now. It is the curse of God upon a wicked and adulterous
generation. There is no man among us but some will say of him,
'There goeth a traitor,' whether to his king, his country, or his
God."
Then Philip: "If I must choose, it shall be to all before my God."
"Ay," said Sir Michael; "but in my plain English way of thought, Sir
Priest, no man betrays his country but is traitor to his God."
And so they made an end, and Philip mounted his horse and rode away.
And all that day I knew not that my brother had stood in reach of my
arms. These things and the little more I have here to tell of Philip
I learned after from his own lips. Riding sad and thoughtful from
the house he did meet, at the turn of the avenue where it opens upon
the road, a short, fat man, with red hair that matched ill with his
dark and oily skin. His horse, though good, seemed but now painfully
to recover from hard running. The fellow's countenance being not
unknown to him, Philip was the less surprised to be addressed by name
as brother, and asked had he forgotten the speaker. And when he was
at length remembered for one Francis, that was in the time of
Philip's novitiate a lay brother in no good odor of repute, he told
with some boastfulness how he had received priest's orders and the
conduct of a great mission, concerning which he was loftily
mysterious, saying only it was a great work for the subduing the
heathen; to compel a blind and unquestioning assistance in which he
had powers granted him, he said, over any member of the Society he
should encounter. At present, he added, he was to be known and
addressed only as Mr. James Marston of the city of Oxford. He then
commanded Philip's attendance upon him, and, on his demurring, showed
him such writings as convinced my dear brother, rightly or wrongly,
that he had no choice but to obey. Which he did, riding with him
sadly enough, and wondering, as he has told me, whether he were not
soon about to give the lie to that proud speech wherein he told his
father that he, no more than the Society of Jesus, did deal in plots.
I will here say that grave doubt has since been cast upon the
authenticity of the alleged commission of Brother Francis. Philip
has ever held that he was deceived by the man; that the papers were
either forged, or used to ends far other than their purpose.
Mr. William Bentinck, whose great knowledge of hidden affairs as well
as his lack of bias in favor of that Society entitles his opinion to
a greater value, thought it to be a case in which one had been
employed that might, in event of failure, throw the fault upon a body
of men as accustomed to be blamed as to do good. However it may be,
we shall never certainly know the truth of the matter, since the
destruction of the papers and other accidents have put it quite
beyond the power of any man to enquire further with hope of success.
One thing at least is certain: that Philip was as ignorant as
innocent of the purpose to which he was led.
And so I find myself in the saddle, taming Roan Charley in the park,
where I have, in a manner of speaking, patiently awaited my reader
through the tedious course of two chapters.