IN PRISON
Anthony found several friends in the Clink prison in Southwark, whither
he was brought up from Stanfield Place after his arrest.
Life there was very strange, a combination of suffering and extraordinary
relaxation. He had a tiny cell, nine feet by five, with one little window
high up, and for the first month of his imprisonment wore irons; at the
same time his gaoler was so much open to bribery that he always found his
door open on Sunday morning, and was able to shuffle upstairs and say
mass in the cell of Ralph Emerson, once the companion of Campion, and a
lay-brother of the Society of Jesus. There he met a large number of
Catholics--some of whom he had come across in his travels--and he even
ministered the sacraments to others who managed to come in from the
outside. His chief sorrow was that his friend and host had been taken to
the Counter in Wood Street.
It was a month before he heard all that had happened on the night of his
arrest, and on the previous days: he had been separated at once from his
friends; and although he had heard his guards talking both in the hall
where he had been kept the rest of the night, and during the long hot
ride to London the next day, yet at first he was so bewildered by Mary's
death that what they said made little impression on him. But after he had
been examined both by magistrates and the Commissioners, and very little
evidence was forthcoming, his irons were struck off and he was allowed
much more liberty than before; and at last, to his great joy, Isabel was
admitted to see him. She herself had come straight up to the Marretts'
house, both of whom still lived on in Wharf Street, though old and
infirm; and day by day she attempted to get access to her brother; until
at last, by dint of bribery, she was successful.
Then she told him the whole story.
* * * *
"When we left the garden-house," she said, "we went straight back, and
Mary found Mr. Graves in the parlour off the hall. Oh, Anthony, how she
ordered him about! And how frightened he was of her! The end was that he
sent a message to the stables for her horses to be got ready, as she
said. I went up with her to help her to make ready, and we kissed one
another up there, for, you know, we dared not make as if we said good-bye
downstairs. Then we came down for her to mount; and then we saw what we
had not known before, that all the stable-yard was filled with the men's
horses saddled and bridled. However, we said nothing, except that Mary
asked a man what--what the devil he was looking at, when he stared up at
her as she stood on the block drawing on her gloves before she mounted.
There were one or two torches burning in cressets, and I saw her so
plainly turn the corner down towards the church.
"Then I went upstairs again, but I could not go to my room, but stood at
the gallery window outside looking down at the court, for I knew that if
there was any danger it would come from there.
"Then presently I heard a noise, and a shouting, and a man ran in through
the gates to the stable-yard; and, almost directly it seemed, three or
four rode out, at full gallop across the court and down by the church.
The window was open and I could hear the noise down towards the village.
Then more and more came pouring out, and all turned the corner and
galloped; all but one, whose horse slipped and came down with a crash.
Oh, Anthony! how I prayed!
"Then I saw Mr. Lackington"--Isabel stopped a moment at the name, and
then went on again--"and he was on horseback too in the court; but he was
shouting to two or three more who were just mounting. 'Across the
field--across the field--cut them off!' I could hear it so plainly; and
I saw the stable-gate was open, and they went through, and I could hear
them galloping on the grass. And then I knew what was happening; and I
went back to my room and shut the door."
Isabel stopped again; and Anthony took her hand softly in his own and
stroked it. Then she went on.
"Well, I saw them bring you back, from the gallery window--and ran to the
top of the stairs and saw you go through into the hall where the
magistrates were waiting, and the door was shut; and then I went back to
my place at the window--and then presently they brought in Mary. I
reached the bottom of the stairs just as they set her down. And I told
them to bring her upstairs; and they did, and laid her on the bed where
we had sat together all the afternoon.... And I would let no one in: I
did it all myself; and then I set the tapers round her, and put the
crucifix that was round my neck into her fingers, which I had laid on her
breast ... and there she lay on the great bed ... and her face was like a
child's, fast asleep--smiling: and then I kissed her again, and
whispered, 'Thank you, Mary'; for, though I did not know all, I knew
enough, and that it was for you."
Anthony had thrown his arms on the table and his face was buried in them.
Isabel put out her hand and stroked his curly head gently as she went on,
and told him in the same quiet voice of how Mary had tried to save him by
lashing his horse, as she caught sight of the man waiting at the entrance
of the field-path, and riding in between him and Anthony. The man had
declared in his panic of fear before the magistrates that he had never
dreamt of doing Mistress Corbet an injury, but that she had ridden across
just as he drew the trigger to shoot the priest's horse and stop him that
way.
When Isabel had finished Anthony still lay with his head on his arms.
"Why, Anthony, my darling," she said, "what could be more perfect? How
proud I am of you both!"
She told him, too, how they had been tracked to Stanfield--Lackington had
let it out in his exultation.
The sailor at Greenhithe was one of his agents--an apostate, like his
master. He had recognised that the party consisted of Catholics by
Anthony's breaking of the bread. He had been placed there to watch the
ferry; and had sent messages at once to Nichol and Lackington. Then the
party had been followed, but had been lost sight of, thanks to Anthony's
ruse. Nichol had then flung out a cordon along the principal roads that
bounded Stanstead Woods on the south; and Lackington, when he arrived a
few hours later, had kept them there all night. The cordon consisted of
idlers and children picked up at Wrotham; and the tramp who feigned to be
asleep had been one of them. When they had passed, he had given the
signal to his nearest neighbour, and had followed them up. Nichol was
soon at the place, and after them; and had followed to Stanfield with
Lackington behind. Then watchers had been set round the house; the
magistrates communicated with; and as soon as Hubert and Mr. Graves had
arrived the assault had been made. Hubert had not been told who the
priest was; but he had leapt at an opportunity to harass Mr. Buxton: he
had been given to understand that Anthony and Isabel were still in the
north.
"He did not know; indeed he did not," cried Isabel piteously.
At another time, when she had gained admittance to him, she gave him
messages from the Marretts, who had kept a great affection for the lad,
who had told them tales of College that Christmas time; and she told him
too of the coming of an old friend to see her there.
"It was poor Mr. Dent," she said; "he looks so old now. His wife died
three years ago; you know he has a city-living and does chaplain's work
at the Tower sometimes; and he is coming to see you, Anthony, and talk to
you."
Three or four days later he came.
Anthony was greatly touched at his kindness in coming. He looked
considerably older than his age; his hair had grown thin and grey about
his temples, and the sharp birdlike outline of his face and features
seemed blurred and indeterminate. His creed too, and his whole manner of
looking at things of faith, seemed to have undergone a similar process.
The two had a long talk.
"I am not going to argue with you, Mr. Norris," he said, "though I still
think your religion wrong. But I have learnt this at least, that the
greatest of all is charity, and if we love the same God, and His Blessed
Son, and one another, I think that is best of all. I have learnt that
from my wife--my dear wife," he added softly. "I used to hold much with
doctrine at one time, and loved to chop arguments; but our Saviour did
not, and so I will not."
Anthony was delighted that he took this line, for he knew there are some
minds that apparently cannot be loyal to both charity and truth at the
same time, and Mr. Dent's seemed to be one of them; so the two talked of
old times at Great Keynes, and of the folks there, and at last of Hubert.
"I saw him in the City last week," said Mr. Dent, "and he is a changed
man. He looks ten years older than this time last year; I scarcely know
what has come to him. I know he has thrown up his magistracy, and the
Lindfield parson tells me that the talk is that Mr. Maxwell is going on
another voyage, and leaving his wife and children behind him again."
Anthony told him gently of Hubert's share in the events at Stanfield,
adding what real and earnest attempts he had made to repair the injury he
had done as soon as he had learnt that it was his friend that was in
hiding.
"There was no treachery against me, Mr. Dent, you see," he added.
Mr. Dent pecked a little in the air with pursed lips and eyes fixed on
the ground; and a vision of the pulpit at Great Keynes moved before
Anthony's eyes.
"Yes, yes, yes," he said; "I understand--I quite understand."
Before Mr. Dent took his leave he unburdened himself of what he had
really come to say.
"Master Anthony," he said, standing up and fingering his hat round and
round, "I said I talked no doctrine now; but I must unsay that; and--you
will not think me impertinent if I ask you something?"
"My dear Mr. Dent----" began the other, standing and smiling too.
"Thank you, thank you--I felt sure--then it is this: I do not know much
about the Popish religion, though I used to once, and I may be very
mistaken; but I would like you to satisfy me before I go on one point";
and he fixed his anxious peering eyes on Anthony's face. "Can you say,
Master Anthony, from a full heart, that you fix all your hope and
confidence for salvation in Christ's merits alone?"
Anthony smiled frankly in his face.
"Indeed, in none other," he said, "and from a full heart."
"Ah well," and the birdlike face began to beam and twitch, "and--and
there is nothing of confidence in yourself and your works--and--and there
is no talk of Holy Mary in the matter?"
Anthony smiled again. He wished to avoid useless controversy.
"Briefly," he said, "my belief is that I am a very great sinner, that I
deserve eternal hell; but I humbly place all my trust in the Precious
Blood of my Saviour, and in that alone. Does that satisfy you?"
Mr. Dent's face was breaking into smiles, and at the end he took the
priest's face in his hands and kissed him gently twice on the cheeks.
"Then, my dear boy, I fear nothing for you. May that salvation you hope
for be yours." And then without a word he was gone.
Anthony's conscience reproached him a little that he had said nothing of
the Church to the minister; but Mr. Dent had been so peremptory about
doctrine that it was hard for the younger man to say what he would have
wished. He told him, however, plainly on his next visit that he held
whole-heartedly too that the Catholic Church was the treasury of Grace
that Christ had instituted, and added a little speech about his longing
to see his old friend a Catholic too; but Mr. Dent shook his head. The
corners of his eyes wrinkled a little, and a shade of his old fretfulness
passed over his face.
"Nay, if you talk like that," he said, "I must be gone. I am no
theologian. You must let me alone."
He gave him news this time of Mr. Buxton.
"He is in the Counter, as you know," he said, "and is a very bright and
cheerful person, it seems to me. Mistress Isabel asked me to see him and
give her news of him, for she cannot get admittance. He is in a cell,
little and nasty; but he said to me that a Protestant prison was a
Papist's pleasaunce--in fact he said it twice. And he asked very eagerly
after you and Mistress Isabel. He tried, too, to inveigle me into talk of
Peter his prerogative, but I would not have it. It was Lammas Day when I
saw him, and he spoke much of it."
Anthony asked whether there was anything said of what punishment Mr.
Buxton would suffer.
"Well," said Mr. Dent, "the Lieutenant of the Tower told me that her
Grace was so sad at the death of Mistress Corbet that she was determined
that no more blood should be shed than was obliged over this matter; and
that Mr. Buxton, he thought, would be but deprived of his estates and
banished; but I know not how that may be. But we shall soon know."
These weeks of waiting were full of consolation and refreshment to
Anthony: the nervous stress of the life of the seminary priest in
England, full of apprehension and suspense, crowned, as it had been in
his case, by the fierce excitement of the last days of his liberty--all
this had strained and distracted his soul, and the peace of the prison
life, with the certainty that no efforts of his own could help him now,
quieted and strengthened him for the ordeal he foresaw. At this time,
too, he used to spend two or three hours a day in meditation, and found
the greatest benefit in following the tranquil method of prayer
prescribed by Louis de Blois, with whose writings he had made
acquaintance at Douai. Each morning, too, he said a "dry mass," and
during the whole of his imprisonment at the Clink managed to make his
confession at least once a week, and besides his communion at mass on
Sundays, communicated occasionally from the Reserved Sacrament, which he
was able to keep in a neighbouring cell, unknown to his gaoler.
And so the days went by, as orderly as in a Religious House; he rose at a
fixed hour, observed the greatest exactness in his devotions, and did his
utmost to prevent any visitors being admitted to see him, or any from
another cell coming into his own, until he had finished his first
meditation and said his office. And there began to fall upon him a kind
of mellow peace that rose at times of communion and prayer to a point so
ravishing, that he began to understand that it would not be a light cross
for which such preparatory graces were necessary.
* * * *
Towards the middle of September he received intelligence that evidence
had been gathering against him, and that one or two were come from
Lancashire under guard; and that he would be brought before the
Commissioners again immediately.
Within two days this came about. He was sent for across the water to the
Tower, and after waiting an hour or two with his gaoler downstairs in the
basement of the White Tower, was taken up into the great Hall where the
Council sat. There was a table at the farther end where they were
sitting, and as Anthony looked round he saw through openings all round in
the inner wall the little passage where the sentries walked, and heard
their footfalls.
The preliminaries of identification and the like had been disposed of at
previous examinations before Mr. Young--a name full of sinister
suggestiveness to the Catholics; and so, after he had been given a seat
at a little distance from the table behind which the Commissioners sat,
he was questioned minutely as to his journey in the North of England.
"What were you there for, Mr. Norris?" inquired the Secretary of the
Council.
"I went to see friends, and to do my business."
"Then that resolves itself into two heads: One, Who are your friends.
Two, What was your business?"
Now it had been established beyond a doubt at previous examinations that
he was a priest; a student of Douai who had apostatised had positively
identified him; so Anthony answered boldly:
"My friends were Catholics; and my business was the reconciling of souls
to their Creator."
"And to the Pope of Rome," put in Wade.
"Who is Christ's Vicar," continued Anthony.
"And a pestilent knave," concluded a fiery-faced man whom Anthony did not
know.
But the Commissioners wanted more than that; it was true that Anthony was
already convicted of high treason in having been ordained beyond the seas
and in exercising his priestly functions in England; but the exacting of
the penalty for religion alone was apt to raise popular resentment; and
it was far preferable in the eyes of the authorities to entangle a priest
in the political net before killing him. So they passed over for the
present his priestly functions and first demanded a list of all the
places where he had stayed in the north.
"You ask what is impossible," said Anthony, with his eyes on the ground
and his heart beating sharply, for he knew that now peril was near.
"Well," said Wade, "let us put it another way. We know that you were at
Speke Hall, Blainscow, and other places. I have a list here," and he
tapped the table, "but we want your name to it."
"Let me see the paper," said Anthony.
"Nay, nay, tell us first."
"I cannot sign the paper except I see it," said Anthony, smiling.
"Give it him," said a voice from the end of the table.
"Here then," said Wade unwillingly.
Anthony got up and took the paper from him, and saw one or two places
named where he had not been, and saw that it had been drawn up at any
rate partly on guesswork.
He put the paper down and went back to his chair and sat down.
"It is not true," he said, looking steadily at the Secretary; "I cannot
sign it."
"Do you deny that you have been to any of these places?" inquired Wade
indignantly.
"The paper is not true," said Anthony again.
"Well, then, show us what is not true upon it."
"I cannot."
"We will find means to persuade you," said the Secretary.
"If God permits," said Anthony.
Wade glanced round inquiringly and shrugged his shoulders; one or two
shook their heads.
"Well, then, we will turn to another point. There are known to have been
certain Jesuit priests in Lancashire in November of last year--do you
deny that, sir?"
"You ask too much," said Anthony, smiling again; "they may have been
there for aught I know, for I certainly did not see them elsewhere at the
time you mention."
Wade frowned, but the one at the end laughed loud.
"He has you there, Wade," he said.
"This is foolery," said the Secretary. "Well, these two, Father Edward
Oldcorne and Father Holtby were in Lancashire in November; and you, Mr.
Norris, spoke with them then. We wish to know where they are now, and you
must tell us."
"You have yet to prove that I spoke with them," said Anthony, for the
trap was too transparent.
"But we know that."
"That may or may not be; but it is for you to prove it."
"Nay, for you to tell us."
"For you to prove it."
Wade lost his temper.
"Well, then," he cried, "take this paper and see which of us is in the
right."
Anthony rose again, wondering what the paper could be, and came towards
the table. He saw it bore a name at the end, and as he advanced saw that
it had an official appearance. Wade still held it; but Anthony took it in
his hand too to steady it, and began to read; but as he read a mist rose
before his eyes, and the paper shook violently. It was a warrant to put
him to the torture.
Wade laughed a little.
"Why, see, Mr. Norris, how you tremble at the warrant; what will it be
when you----"
But a voice murmured "Shame!" and he stopped and stared.
Anthony passed his hand over his eyes and went back to his chair and sat
down; he saw his knees trembling as he sat, and hated himself for it; but
he cried bravely:
"The flesh is weak, but, please God, the spirit is willing."
"Well, then," said Wade again, "must we execute this warrant, or will you
tell us what we would know?"
"You must do what God permits," said Anthony.
Wade sat down, throwing the warrant on the table, and began to talk in a
low voice to those who sat next him. Anthony fixed his eyes on the
ground, and did his utmost to keep his thoughts steady.
Now he realised where he was, and what it all meant. The little door to
the left, behind him, that he had noticed as he came in, was the door of
which he had heard other Catholics speak, that led down to the great
crypt, where so many before him had screamed and fainted and called on
God, from the rack that stood at the foot of the stairs, or from the
pillar with the fixed ring at its summit.
He had faced all this in his mind again and again, but it was a different
thing to have the horror within arm's length; old phrases he had heard of
the torture rang in his mind--a boast of Norton's, the rackmaster, who
had racked Brian, and which had been repeated from mouth to mouth--that
he had "made Brian a foot longer than God made him"; words of James
Maxwell's that he had let drop at Douai; the remembrance of his limp; and
of Campion's powerlessness to raise his hand when called upon to
swear--all these things crowded on him now; and there seemed to rest on
him a crushing swarm of fearful images and words. He made a great effort,
and closed his eyes, and repeated the holy name of Jesus over and over
again; but the struggle was still fierce when Wade's voice, harsh and
dry, broke in and scattered the confusion of mind that bewildered him.
"Take the prisoner to a cell; he is not to go back to the Clink."
Anthony felt a hand on his arm, and the gaoler was looking at him with
compassion.
"Come, sir," he said.
Anthony rose feeling heavy and exhausted; but remembered to bow to the
Commissioners, one or two of whom returned it. Then he followed the
gaoler out into the ante-room, who handed him over to one of the Tower
officials.
"I must leave you here, sir," he said; "but keep a good heart; it will
not be for to-day."
* * * *
When Anthony got to his new cell, which was in the Salt Tower, he was
bitterly angry and disappointed with himself. Why, he had turned white
and sick like a child, not at the pain of the rack, not even at the sight
of it, but at the mere warrant! He threw himself on his knees, and bowed
down till his head beat against the boards.
"O Lord Jesus," he prayed, "give me of Thy Manhood."
* * * *
He found that this prison was more rigorous than the Clink; no liberty to
leave the cell could possibly be obtained, and no furniture was provided.
The gaoler, when he had brought up his dinner, asked whether he could
send any message for him for a bed. Anthony gave Isabel's address,
knowing that the authorities were already aware that she was a Catholic,
and indeed she had given bail to come up for trial if called upon, and
that his information could injure neither her nor the Marretts, who were
sound Church of England people; and in the afternoon a mattress and some
clothes arrived for him.
Anthony noticed at dinner that the knife provided was of a very
inconvenient shape, having a round blunt point, and being sharp only at a
lower part of the blade; and when the keeper came up with his supper he
asked him to bring him another kind. The man looked at him with a queer
expression.
"What is the matter?" asked Anthony; "cannot you oblige me?"
The man shook his head.
"They are the knives that are always given to prisoners under warrant for
torture."
Anthony did not understand him, and looked at him, puzzled.
"For fear they should do themselves an injury," added the gaoler.
Then the same shudder ran over his body again.
"You mean--you mean...." he began. The gaoler nodded, still looking at
him oddly, and went out; and Anthony sat, with his supper untasted,
staring before him.
* * * *
By a kind of violent reaction he had a long happy dream that night. The
fierce emotions of that day had swept over his imagination and scoured it
as with fire, and now the underlying peace rose up and flooded it with
sweetness.
He thought he was in the north again, high up on a moor, walking with one
who was quite familiar to him, but whose person he could not remember
when he woke; he did not even know whether it was man or woman. It was a
perfect autumn day, he thought, like one of those he had spent there last
year; the heather and the gorse were in flower, and the air was redolent
from their blossoms; he commented on this to the person at his side, who
told him it was always so there. Mile after mile the moor rose and
dipped, and, although Skiddaw was on his right, purple and grey, yet to
his left there was a long curved horizon of sparkling blue sea. It was a
cloudless day overhead, and the air seemed kindling and fresh round him
as it blew across the stretches of heather from the western sea. He
himself felt full of an extraordinary vitality, and the mere movement of
his limbs gave him joy as he went swiftly and easily forward over the
heather. There was the sound of the wind in his ears, and again and again
there came the gush of water from somewhere out of sight--as he had heard
it in the church by Skiddaw. There was no house or building of any kind
within sight, and he felt a great relief in these miles of heath and the
sense of holiday that they gave him. But all the joy round him and in his
heart found their point for him in the person that went with him; this
presence was their centre, as a diamond in a gold ring, or as a throned
figure in a Court circle. All else existed for the sake of this
person;--the heather blossomed and the gorse incensed the air, and the
sea sparkled, and the sky was blue, and the air kindled, and his own
heart warmed and throbbed, for that only. When he tried to see who it
was, there was nothing to see; the presence existed there as a centre in
a sphere, immeasurable and indiscernible; sometimes he thought it was
Mary, sometimes he thought it Henry Buxton, sometimes Isabel--once even
he assured himself it was Mistress Margaret, and once James Maxwell--and
with the very act of identification came indecision again. This
uncertainty waxed into a torment, and yet a sweet torment, as of a lover
who watches his mistress' shuttered house; and this torment swelled yet
higher and deeper until it was so great that it had absorbed the whole
radiant fragrant circle of the hills where he walked; and then came the
blinding knowledge that the Presence was all these persons so dear to
him, and far more; that every tenderness and grace that he had loved in
them--Mary's gallantry and Isabel's serene silence and his friend's
fellowship, and the rest--floated in the translucent depths of it,
stained and irradiated by it, as motes in a sunbeam.
And then he woke, and it was through tears of pure joy that he saw the
rafters overhead, and the great barred door, and the discoloured wall
above his bed.
* * * *
When his gaoler brought him dinner that day it was half an hour earlier
than usual; and when Anthony asked him the reason he said that he did not
know, but that the orders had run so; but that Mr. Norris might take
heart; it was not for the torture, for Mr. Topcliffe, who superintended
it, had told the keeper of the rack-house that nothing would be wanted
that day.
He had hardly finished dinner when the gaoler came up again and said that
the Lieutenant was waiting for him below, and that he must bring his hat
and cloak.
Since his arrest he had worn his priest's habit every day, so he now
threw the cloak over his arm and took his hat, and followed the gaoler
down.
In passing through the court he went by a group of men that were talking
together, and he noticed very especially a tall old man with a grey head,
in a Court suit with a sword, and very lean about the throat, who looked
at him hard as he passed. As he reached the archway where the Lieutenant
was waiting, he turned again and saw the sunken eyes of the old man still
looking after him; when he turned to the gaoler he saw the same odd look
in his face that he had noticed before.
"Why do you look like that?" he asked. "Who is that old man?"
"That is Mr. Topcliffe," said the keeper.
The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Richard Barkley, saluted him kindly at
the gate, and begged him to follow him; the keeper still came after and
another stepped out and joined them, and the group of four together
passed out through the Lion's Tower and across the moat to a little
doorway where a closed carriage was waiting. The Lieutenant and Anthony
stepped inside; the two keepers mounted outside; and the carriage set
off.
Then the Lieutenant turned to the priest.
"Do you know where you are going, Mr. Norris?"
"No, sir."
"You are going to Whitehall to see the Queen's Grace."