FATHER HAMILTON IS THREATENED BY THE JESUITS AND WE ARE FORCED TO FLY
AGAIN
The priest, poor man! aged a dozen years by his anxieties since I had
seen him last, was dubious of his senses when I entered where he lodged,
and he wept like a bairn to see my face again.
“Scotland! Scotland! beshrew me, child, and I'd liefer have this than
ten good dinners at Verray's!” cried he, and put his arms about my
shoulders and buried his face in my waistcoat to hide his uncontrollable
tears.
He was quartered upon a pilot of the Schelde and Hollands Deep, whose
only child he made a shift to tutor in part payment of his costs, and
the very moment that we had come in upon him he was full of a matter
that had puzzled him for weeks before we came to Helvoetsluys. 'Twas a
thing that partly hurt his pride, though that may seem incredible, and
partly gave him pleasure, and 'twas merely that when he had at last
found his concealment day and night in the pilot's house unendurable,
and ventured a stroll or two upon the dunes in broad sunshine, no one
paid any attention to him. There were soldiers and sailors that must
have some suspicions of his identity, and he had himself read his own
story and description in one of the gazettes, yet never a hand was
raised to capture him.
“_Ma foi!_ Paul,” he cried to me in a perplexity. “I am the most
marvellous priest unfrocked, invisible to the world as if I had
Mambrino's helmet. Sure it cannot be that I am too stale quarry for
their hunting! My _amour propre_ baulks at such conclusion. I that
have--heaven help me!--loaded pistols against the Lord's anointed, might
as well have gone shooting sparrows for all the infamy it has gained me.
But yesterday I passed an officer of the peace that cried '_Bon jour_,
father,' in villainous French with a smile so sly I could swear he knew
my history from the first breeching. I avow that my hair stirred under
my hat when he said it.”
MacKellar stood by contemptuous of the priest's raptures over his
restored secretary.
“Goodness be about us!” he said, “what a pity the brock should be hiding
when there's nobody hunting him! The first squirt of the haggis is
always the hottest, as the other man said. If they were keen on
your track at the start of it--and it's myself has the doubt of that
same--you may warrant they are slack on it now. It's Buhot himself would
be greatly put about if you went to the jail and put out your hands for
the manacles.”
Father Hamilton looked bewildered.
“Expiscate, good Monsieur MacKellar,” said he.
“Kilbride just means,” said I, “that you are in the same case as myself,
and that orders have gone out that no one is to trouble you.”
He believed it, and still he was less cheerful than I looked for.
“Indeed, 'tis like enough,” he sighed. “I have put my fat on a trap for
a fortnight back to catch my captors and never a rat of them will come
near me, but pass with sniffing noses. And yet on my word I have little
to rejoice for. My friends have changed coats with my enemies because
they swear I betrayed poor Fleuriau. I'd sooner die on the rack----”
“Oh, Father Hamilton!” I could not help crying, with remorse upon my
countenance. He must have read the story in a single glance at me, for
he stammered and took my hand.
“What! there too, Scotland!” he said. “I forswear the company of
innocence after this. No matter, 'tis never again old Dixmunde parish
for poor Father Hamilton that loved his flock well enough and believed
the best of everybody and hated the confessional because it made the
world so wicked. My honey-bees will hum next summer among another's
flowers, and my darling blackbirds will be all starving in this
pestilent winter weather. Paul, Paul, hear an old man's wisdom--be
frugal in food, and raiment, and pleasure, and let thy ambitions
flutter, but never fly too high to come down at a whistle. But here am
I, old Pater Dull, prating on foolish little affairs, and thou and our
honest friend here new back from the sounding of the guns. Art a brave
fighter, lad? I heard of thee in the grenadier company of d'Auvergne.”
“We did the best part of our fighting with our shanks, as the other man
said,” cried Kilbride. “But Mr. Greig came by a clout that affected his
mind and made him clean forget the number of his regiment, and that is
what for the lowlands of Holland is a very pleasant country just now.”
“Wounded!” cried the priest, disturbed at this intelligence. “Had I
known on't I should have prayed for thy deliverance.”
“I have little doubt he did that for himself,” said Kilbride. “When
I came on him after Rosbach he was behind a dyke, that is not a bad
alternative for prayer when the lead is in the air.”
We made up our minds to remain for a while at Helvoet, but we had not
determined what our next step should be, when in came the priest one day
with his face like clay and his limbs trembling.
“Ah, Paul!” he cried, and fell into a chair; “here's Nemesis, daughter
of Nox, a scurvy Italian, and wears a monkish cowl. I fancied it were
too good to be true that I should be free from further trials.”
“Surely Buhot has not taken it into his head to move again,” I cried.
“That would be very hirpling justice after so long an interval. And in
any case they could scarcely hale you out of the Netherlands.”
“No, lad, not Buhot,” said he, perspiring with his apprehensions, “but
the Society. There's one Gordoletti, a pretended Lutheran that hails
from Jena, that has been agent between the Society and myself before
now, and when I was out there he followed me upon the street with the
eyes of a viper. I'll swear the fellow has a poignard and means the
letting of blood. I know how 'twill be--a watch set upon this building,
Gordoletti upon the steps some evening; a jostle, a thrust, and a
speeding shade. A right stout shade too! if spirits are in any relation
of measure to the corporeal clay. Oh, lad, what do I say? my sinner's
wit must be evincing in the front of doom itself.”
I thought he simply havered, but found there was too real cause for his
distress. That afternoon the monk walked up and down the street without
letting his eyes lose a moment's sight of the entrance to the pilot's
house where Father Hamilton abode. I could watch him all the better
because I shared a room with Kilbride on the same side of the street,
and even to me there was something eerie in the sight of this long
thin stooping figure in its monkish garment, slouching on the stones
or hanging over the parapet of the bridge, his eyes, lambent black and
darting, over his narrow chafts. Perhaps it was but fancy, yet I thought
I saw in the side of his gown the unmistakable bulge of a dagger. He
paced the street for hours or leaned over the parapet affecting an
interest in the barges, and all the time the priest sat fascinated
within, counting his sentence come.
“Oh, by my faith and it is not so bad as that,” I protested on returning
to find him in this piteous condition. “Surely there are two swords here
that at the worst of it can be depended on to protect you.”
He shook his head dolefully. “It is no use, Paul,” he cried. “The
poignard or the phial--'tis all the same to them or Gordoletti, and
hereafter I dare not touch a drop of wine or indulge in a meagre soup.”
“But surely,” I said, “there may be a mistake, and this Gordoletti may
have nothing to do with you.”
“The man wears a cowl--a monkish cowl--and that is enough for me. A
Jesuit out of his customary _soutane_ is like the devil in dancing
shoes--be sure his lordship means mischief. Oh! Paul, I would I were
back in Bicêtre and like to die there cleaner than on the banks of a
Dutch canal. I protest I hate to think of dying by a canal.”
Still I was incredulous that harm was meant to him, and he proceeded
to tell me the Society of Jesus was upon the brink of dissolution, and
desperate accordingly. The discovery of Fleuriau's plot against the
Prince had determined the authorities upon the demolition and extinction
of the Jesuits throughout the whole of the King's dominion. Their riches
and effects and churches were to be seized to the profit and emolument
of the Crown; the reverend Fathers were to be banished furth of France
for ever. Designs so formidable had to be conducted cautiously, and so
far the only evidence of a scheme against the Society was to be seen
in the Court itself, where the number of priests of the order was being
rapidly diminished.
I thought no step of the civil power too harsh against the band of whom
the stalking man in the cowl outside was representative, and indeed the
priest at last half-infected myself with his terrors. We sat well back
from the window looking out upon the street till it was dusk. There was
never a moment when the assassin (as I still must think him) was not
there, his interest solely in the house we sat in. And when it was
wholly dark, and a single lamp of oil swinging on a cord across the
thoroughfare lit the passage of the few pedestrians that went along the
street, Gordoletti was still close beneath it, silent, meditating, and
alert.
MacKellar came in from his coffee-house. We sat in darkness, except
for the flicker of a fire of peat. He must have thought the spectacle
curious.
“My goodness!” cried he, “candles must be unco dear in this shire when
the pair of you cannot afford one between you to see each other yawning.
I'm of a family myself that must be burning a dozen at a time and at
both ends to make matters cheery, for it's a gey glum world at the best
of it.”
He stumbled over to the mantel-shelf where there was customarily a
candle; found and lit it, and held it up to see if there was any visible
reason for our silence.
The priest's woebegone countenance set him into a shout of laughter. His
amusement scarcely lessened when he heard of the ominous gentleman in
the cowl.
“Let me see!” he said, and speedily devised a plan to test the occasion
of Father Hamilton's terrors. He arranged that he should dress himself
in the priest's garments, and as well as no inconsiderable difference
in their bulk might let him, simulate the priest by lolling into the
street.
“A brave plan verily,” quo' the priest, “but am I a bowelless rogue to
let another have my own particular poignard? No, no, Messieurs, let me
pay for my own _pots cassés_ and run my own risks in my own _soutane_.”
With that he rose to his feet and was bold enough to offer a trial that
was attended by considerable hazard.
It was determined, however, that I should follow close upon the heels
of Kilbride in his disguise, prepared to help him in the case of too
serious a surprise.
The night was still. There were few people in the street, which was one
of several that led down to the quays. The sky had but a few wan stars.
When MacKellar stepped forth in the priest's hat and cloak, he walked
slowly towards the harbour, ludicrously imitating the rolling gait of
his reverence, while I stayed for a little in the shelter of the
door. Gordoletti left his post upon the bridge and stealthily followed
Kilbride. I gave him some yards of law and followed Gordoletti.
Our footsteps sounded on the stones; 'twas all that broke the evening
stillness except the song of a roysterer who staggered upon the quays.
The moment was fateful in its way and yet it ended farcically, for ere
he had gained the foot of the street Kilbride turned and walked back to
meet the man that stalked him. We closed upon the Italian to find him
baffled and confused.
“Take that for your attentions!” cried Kilbride, and buffeted the fellow
on the ear, a blow so secular and telling from a man in a frock that
Gordoletti must have thought himself bewitched, for he gave a howl
and took to his heels. Kilbride attempted to stop him, but the cassock
escaped his hands and his own unwonted costume made a chase hopeless. As
for me, I was content to let matters remain as they were now that Father
Hamilton's suspicions seemed too well founded.
It did not surprise me that on learning of our experience the priest
should determine on an immediate departure from Helvoetsluys. But where
he was to go was more than he could readily decide. He proposed and
rejected a score of places--Bordeaux, Flanders, the Hague, Katwyk
farther up the coast, and many others--weighing the advantages of each,
enumerating his acquaintances in each, discovering on further thought
that each and every one of them had some feature unfavourable to his
concealment from the Jesuits.
“You would be as long tuning your pipes as another would be playing a
tune,” said Kilbride at last. “There's one thing sure of it, that you
cannot be going anywhere the now without Mr. Greig and myself, and what
ails you at Dunkerque in which we have all of us acquaintances?”
A season ago the suggestion would have set my heart in flame; but now
it left me cold. Yet I backed up the proposal, for I reflected that
(keeping away from the Rue de la Boucherie) we might there be among a
good many friends. Nor was his reverence ill to influence in favour of
the proposal.
The next morning saw us, then, upon a hoy that sailed for Calais and was
bargained to drop us at Dunkerque.