MY LORD PRIVY SEAL
LORD RABY and Mistress Carew walked up and down the terrace before
Wildrick Hall, while at the water-stairs a barge waited to take him to
Whitehall. Her white gown fluttered in the soft breeze as she walked,
and in her eyes shone the light of the spring sunshine.
“I go to arrange my affairs,” he said, “so that I may ride with you
and your uncle to Mohun’s Ottery to-morrow. Happily, there is naught
to detain me else, dear heart. I fear I should forget my duty for your
sake.”
Betty smiled. “You will need to be prompt,” she said lightly; “my uncle
waits for no man and is ever beforehand with time.”
“’Twould be a shame on me to be a laggard at such a time,” he answered.
“Ah, Betty, how different the world looks when love touches it with
golden fingers! I do think that I bear no man malice or ill-will, but
rather would be friends even with mine enemies, but never with thine.”
A cloud passed over her face. “I pray you,” she said slowly “remember
to avoid Barton Henge. My Lady Crabtree predicts that he will yet
endeavor to do us some great mischief, and it makes me uneasy for you.”
“Fear not for me, my love,” he replied tenderly; “and as for you,
surely the love that enfolds you shall ward off this snake. But I will
be mindful of your fears, albeit I think he will avoid me as he would a
pestilence.”
“I know not,” she said, shaking her head; “my heart is full of
misgivings when I think of how he set upon you like a cut-throat.”
“And I cannot but rejoice that you are anxious,” he said softly, “since
it shows that my safety concerns you.”
She looked at him with a tender light in her eyes.
“’Tis more to me than my own,” she said very low.
He kissed her hand passionately, although Sir William Carew was coming
down the walk toward them.
“Your love,” he said, “has made a new life for me. I swore when I left
Raby Castle that I would not return until I brought it the fairest
mistress in all England.”
“Alas, sir,” she answered, smiling, “’twas a foolish oath, and not
likely to be fulfilled.”
Without regarding their feelings, Sir William Carew cut short their
talk, which might have continued long; for they were lovers, and knew
how to make much of a little matter. He held a package of papers in his
hand, sealed with red seals, and gave it to Raby.
“I would have that sent by a sure hand to Cromwell,” he said; “it
pertains to some matters of the county of Devon and claims his eye, yet
is not so important that I need take it in person.”
“It shall be delivered directly,” Raby replied, putting it in his
breast; “’tis time I went, doubtless you came to remind me.”
“Ay,” Carew answered, smiling; “I remember the days when I lingered so.
It is nearly noon, however, and you were to have gone an hour since.”
“My excuse is so admirable that I deserve forgiveness,” Simon said,
laughing; but he hastened his farewells, and in a few moments he and
Sir William were walking to the water-stairs together, while Betty
waved her handkerchief from the terrace.
“You have your rogue yet with you, I see,” Carew remarked, his eye
lighting on Raby’s groom.
“Shaxter?” Simon replied, smiling; “ay, I had forgotten your prejudice.
He is a useful fellow.”
“He looks it!” said Carew, with a shrug; “farewell, and forget not the
packet.”
Looking back as the barge swept away, Raby saw the tall white figure on
the terrace and the fluttering of her handkerchief. The picture of the
great stone house, the green slope of the terrace, and the beautiful
girl waving him farewell, framed itself in his mind and was a solace to
him in the months which followed.
He was so light-hearted that he whistled to himself as the boat went on
to London. The river was full of water-craft, and the scene was gay.
The same river that had borne the unhappy Anne Boleyn to the Tower
smiled in the sunshine and rippled gleefully from the strong strokes
of the oars. Life was full of sweetness to Simon Raby, and he sat
in the boat with a smiling face and a ready greeting for any chance
acquaintance. In the afternoon he would go to my lord privy seal in
person, now he had matters of his own to attend to. He must go to his
haberdasher’s and his barber’s; he had a dozen errands, and presently
found dust upon his clothes and went to his old lodgings to change
them. Shaxter was with him as usual and helped him to make the change;
he put on a rich suit of satin with a short cape of velvet, and bidding
his attendant remain in his apartments until his return, made his way
down the stairs alone and opened the street door. Looking out into
the road, he saw no one, and came out humming a new song, popular at
court. He had taken but two or three steps when three men stepped out
from under an adjacent arched doorway. They barred his progress, and he
looked in surprise to recognize the captain of the watch.
“What now, Ludlow?” he said; “I need a little leeway to pass your
company.”
“My Lord Raby, you are arrested!” was the reply, as the officer laid a
heavy hand upon his shoulder.
Raby drew his sword. “You villain!” he said, “this will be a sorry jest
for you.”
“I arrest you in the king’s name,” repeated the captain, sharply; but
so angry was Simon that for a moment they grappled, and the officer’s
assistants were forced to take part in disarming the furious nobleman.
“Of what avail is this resistance, my lord?” cried Ludlow. “I tell you,
as your friend, you had best submit. I was ordered to take you and
must, sorely against my will.”
“Upon what charge?” demanded Raby, fiercely; “’tis an evil time if an
innocent man may not walk safe upon the streets of London.”
The captain shrugged his shoulders. He was a kindly, honest man, but he
could only discharge his office.
“I have the warrant for your arrest, my lord,” he answered soberly,
“from my lord privy seal; but the reason of it?” he raised his brows,
“you must ask the man who set the trap, not him who merely springs it.
Verily, Lord Raby, I trust it may be no great matter, for your own
sake. Mayhap you know well what folly brought it.”
“Not I,” said Simon, angrily; “’tis an insult. Where are you taking me,
Sir Captain?”
“To my lord privy seal,” he answered, glancing with some compassion at
the prisoner’s indignant face; “belike he has some questions to ask.
But come, here I linger talking like a featherpate, and Cromwell waits.
I would have left you your sword, my lord, but that you were so thirsty
for blood.”
“I will go quietly,” Raby said, in great perplexity and wrath; “it was
foolish to fly at thy throat for nothing, but it makes my blood boil.”
“For that I do not blame thee,” the officer replied, “though it doth
usually make a man’s blood run cold.”
“You speak for a guilty man,” said Raby, sharply; “no honest man would
shiver at an insult.”
There were but few more words exchanged, the little company closed up
about the prisoner, and the walk through the streets was a rapid one.
Many stared, and some insulting jests were made. It was no uncommon
sight; disloyalty was rife enough to make the arrest of a nobleman a
matter of usual occurrence. They passed some of the gay young gentlemen
of the court, who looked aside on seeing their acquaintance in such
company. He was taken to Cromwell’s house, and waited but a little
while at the door before he was brought before him.
Cromwell was in his private room sitting at a table by the window,
and a large mass of papers lay before him. It was his custom to apply
himself closely to business, and much of it was transacted by his own
hand. Here was a man who held the threads of many conspiracies, whose
falcon eye was peering into every secret lurking-place from Land’s End
to the Tweed, whose relentless grip closed on the traitor like a vise.
His back was to the light where he sat, so that his strong face was in
the shadow, but his penetrating eyes were bent on Raby at his entrance
with a not unkindly look.
“Master Raby, I had it in my mind to send you some advertisement of my
regret at your father’s death,” he said gravely, “when this charge was
lodged against you, to my infinite surprise.”
“Sir, I am ignorant of the cause of my arrest,” Raby replied, “nor can
I imagine what accusation has been made against me.”
“You are charged with high treason,” Cromwell said, turning over some
papers before him, “having conspired with certain persons against the
safety of the realm, and the life of the king’s grace.”
The expression of amazement deepened on the prisoner’s face.
“My lord,” he said, “I am dumbfounded; I have been absent more than
two months in Sussex, busy with the settlement of my father’s estate,
which, as I think you know, was much in need of my administration.
As for consorting with conspirators--you, who have known me from my
boyhood, should know the folly of the charge. I thought my loyalty
to the king’s highness was established by faithful service. This
accusation is but the baseless falsehood of mine enemies.”
“My Lord Raby, my heart inclines to believe you; I have ever held a
good opinion of your family,” Cromwell rejoined, “but the nature of
this charge doth not allow it to be overlooked. But ye shall have an
ample hearing. Sir, there is a strange house here upon the Thames, I
think you know it,--I see you do,--the house of the wizard, Zachary
Sanders. You were there one night this winter, and upon what business?”
Raby’s face had changed at the mention of the wizard’s house; the
shrieks of Anne Boleyn had a strange trick of haunting him.
“I was there indeed,” he said frankly, knowing no harm could come now
of the truth, “with Queen Anne and her ladies. It was an unhappy whim
of the queen’s, and the wizard caused her to see so evil a vision that
I was near seizing him as a traitor; would, indeed, have delivered him
to the guard but for her grace, who would not have the matter known,
fearing the king’s displeasure at her folly.”
Cromwell’s face clouded at the mention of Anne. He had seen her
die, sent to perform that duty by the king, and the man who had been
faithful to Wolsey, in the misery of Esher house, was not without
compassion.
“What was the queen’s vision?” he asked moodily.
“She saw her life, and her death upon the block,” Simon replied; “and
the poor lady was thrown into such terror that she would by no means be
quieted, and for hours her shrieks were heard at Greenwich. By Saint
Thomas! they ring yet in my ears.”
Cromwell was silent for a while; evidently the frankness and sincerity
of Raby, together with his previous knowledge of him, made it difficult
to reconcile the man with the accusation.
“I will be frank with you, sir,” my lord privy seal said, at last; “I
make no effort to conceal the perils of this realm, you know them.
My Lady Mary Tudor, by her stiff-necked attitude toward the king’s
grace and the Act of Succession, hath made herself a stumbling-block,
and a point round which the malcontents may gather. Then there are
the papists, ever stirring in the cause of the Bishop of Rome, and
with these the country gentlemen, who detest the breaking up of the
monasteries and the abbeys, with no profit to themselves, and the
travelling friars, and, God wot, I know not who, to stir up mischief
which would bring us swift to civil war. At such times, my Lord Raby,
I may not be lenient. The charge against you is so grave that I would
have you make a clean breast of the matter. You came to town this
morning from Deptford; what was your errand?”
Raby thought at the instant of Sir William’s packet and put his hand in
his doublet and drew it out.
“My lord, I came to attend to some matters of my own, of a petty
nature, but mainly to attend the king’s grace and also to give you
these papers.”
Cromwell stretched out his hand for the packet and broke the seals
without waiting for further explanation from Lord Raby. He unfolded
the wrappers and began to go through the papers without making any
comment. Simon, watching his grave face, read nothing after the first
quick flash of surprise. Of the nature of Carew’s communication, Raby
was ignorant, but believing it to refer wholly to affairs in Devon, he
did not greatly concern himself about it. His mind was but too actively
engaged with the state of his own fortune. His arrest had been so
sudden, so entirely without reason, that he found no immediate solution
of his difficulty. He noticed that Cromwell, with all his apparent
frankness, held back the full substance of the charge against him, and
the names and condition of his accusers. Secure in his own innocence,
Raby did not doubt his ultimate exculpation, but he knew not what
course to pursue, whose name to mention, fearing to drag others into
his misfortune. While these thoughts passed rapidly through his mind,
Cromwell was deeply engaged in the perusal of Sir William’s packet;
every paper was carefully examined and some were read twice over. Simon
began to think that Carew’s business would indefinitely prolong his
own suspense, when the king’s minister looked up. However, he did not
address Raby; his face was inscrutable; he touched a bell upon the
table and immediately an attendant replied to the summons.
“Call Captain Ludlow,” he said calmly; then turning to Raby, he looked
at him with cold eyes. “Sir,” he said, “you gave me the wrong packet.”
Simon returned the look with surprise.
“I had but the one, my lord,” he said.
The officers had entered at Cromwell’s orders.
“If you had but one, you did a strange thing to give it to me,” said my
lord privy seal; then to the captain of the watch, “Ludlow, remove Lord
Raby under strong guard to the Tower to await his examination.”
Taken by surprise at the entire change in Cromwell’s manner, Simon was
about to say that the papers were from Carew, when a second thought
made him hesitate. If Sir William’s name was not upon them it would
be strange indeed, and he did not wish to bring him under greater
displeasure.
“My lord,” he cried, “I pray you to remember that I was but the bearer
of those papers; I am ignorant of their purport.”
Cromwell’s face was both incredulous and unrelenting.
“You are not the man to bear such papers ignorantly, Raby,” he said
harshly; “who gave them to you?”
Simon started; then Sir William’s name did not appear. A horrible doubt
assailed him, but he was a man of stubborn loyalty to his friends.
He closed his lips; if his silence could shelter Carew it was well,
especially since he was groping in the dark.
Cromwell, who had waited one impatient moment for his answer, smiled
grimly. He had seen too many men turn traitors to feel amazement at
the aspect of one.
“You are tongue-tied,” he said sternly, “It may be we must enforce the
matter from you,” he added, touching the papers; “never saw I a greater
batch of treason in so little space.”
“My lord, I am innocent!” exclaimed Raby; “I--”
“Remove the prisoner,” Cromwell interrupted coldly, making a sign to
his officers, and returning to his work without another word or glance
at the nobleman.
A short while afterwards, Simon Raby entered at the water-gate of the
Tower, and its gloomy doors closed upon him, shutting out the beauty
and the fragrance of the summer world and separating him from the woman
he loved. The king’s prisoner, charged with high treason, had little
cause to rejoice in his lot.