THE HOUSE OF SHAME; THE LADDER OF GLORY
It was ten o'clock in the evening. The thunderstorm of the morning had
long since passed away. The night was cool and still. There was no moon,
but the sky above London was powdered with stars.
The Palace of the Tower was ablaze with lights. The King and Queen had
supped in state at eight, and now a masque was in progress, held in the
glorious hall which Henry III painted with the story of Antiochus.
The sweet music shivered out into the night as John Commendone came into
the garden among the sleeping flowers.
"And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine are in their
feasts." Commendone had never read the Bible, but the words of the
Prophet would have well expressed his mood had he but known them.
For he was melancholy and ill at ease. The exaltation of the morning had
quite gone. Though he was still pleasantly conscious that he was in a
fair way to great good fortune, some of the savour was lost. He could
not forget the lurid scene in the Closet--the four faces haunted him
still. And he knew also that a strange and probably terrible experience
waited him during the next few hours.
"God on the Cross," he said to himself, snapping his fingers in
perplexity and misease--it was the fashion at Court to use the great
Tudor oaths--"I am come to touch with life--real life at last. And I am
not sure that I like it. But 'tis too new as yet. I must be as other men
are, I suppose!"
As he walked alone in the night, and the cool air played upon his face,
he began to realise how placid, how much upon the surface, his life had
always been until now. He had come to Court perfectly equipped by
nature, birth, and training for the work of pageantry, a picturesque
part in the retinue of kings. He had fallen into his place quite
naturally. It all came easy to him. He had no trace of the "young
gentleman from the country" about him--he might have started life as a
Court page.
But the real emotions of life, the under-currents, the hates, loves, and
strivings, had all been a closed book. He recognised their existence,
but never thought they would or could affect him. He had imagined that
he would always be aloof, an interested spectator, untouched,
untroubled.
And he knew to-night that all this had been but a phantom of his brain.
He was to be as other men. Life had got hold on him at last, stern and
relentless.
"To-night," he thought, "I really begin to live. I am quickened to
action. Some day, anon, I too must make a great decision, one way or the
other. The scene is set, they are pulling the traverse from before it,
the play begins.
"I am a fair white page," he said to himself, "on which nothing is writ,
I have ever been that. To-night comes Master Scrivener. 'I have a mind
to write upon thee,' he saith, and needs be that I submit."
He sighed.
The music came to him, sweet and gracious. The long orange-litten
windows of the Palace spoke of the splendours within.
But he thought of a man--whose name he had never heard until that
morning--lying in some dark room, waiting for those who were to come for
him, the man whom he would watch burning before the sun had set again.
It had been an evening of incomparable splendour.
The King and Queen had been served with all the panoply of state. The
Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, Lord Paget and Lord
Rochester, had been in close attendance.
The Duke had held the ewer of water, Paget and Rochester the bason and
napkin. After the ablutions the Bishop of London said grace.
The Queen blazed with jewels. The life of seclusion she had led before
her accession had by no means dulled the love of splendour inherent in
her family. Even the French ambassador, well used to pomp and display,
leaves his own astonishment on record.
She wore raised cloth of gold, and round her thin throat was a partlet
or collar of emeralds. Her stomacher was of diamonds, an almost barbaric
display of twinkling fire, and over her gold caul was a cap of black
velvet sewn with pearls.
During the whole of supper it was remarked that Her Grace was merry. The
gay lords and ladies who surrounded her and the King--for all alike,
young maids and grey-haired dames of sixty must blaze and sparkle
too--nodded and whispered to each other, wondering at this high
good-humour.
When the Server advanced with his white wand, heading the procession of
yeomen-servers with the gilt dishes of the second course--he was a fat
pottle-bellied man--the Queen turned to the Duke of Norfolk.
"_Dame!_" she said in French, "here is a prancing pie! _Ma mye!_ A capon
of high grease! Methinks this gentleman hath a very single eye for the
larder!"
"Yes, m'am," the Duke answered, "and so would make a better feast for
Polypheme than e'er the lean Odysseus."
They went on with their play of words upon the names of the dishes in
the menu....
"But say rather a porpoise in armour."
"Halibut engrailed, Madam, hath a face of peculiar whiteness like the
under belly of that fish!"
"A jowl of sturgeon!"
"A Florentine of puff paste, m'am."
"_Habet!_" the Queen replied, "I can't better that. Could you, Lady
Paget? You are a great jester."
Lady Paget, a stately white-haired dame, bowed to the Duke and then to
the Queen.
"His Grace is quick in the riposte," she said, "and if Your Majesty
gives him the palm--_qui meruit ferat_! But capon of high grease for my
liking."
"But you've said nothing, Lady Paget."
"My wit is like my body, m'am, grown old and rheumy. The salad days of
it are over. I abdicate in favour of youth."
Again this adroit lady bowed.
The Queen flushed up, obviously pleased with the compliment. She looked
at the King to see if he had heard or understood it.
The King had been talking to the Bishop of London, partly in such Latin
as he could muster, which was not much, but principally with the aid of
Don Diego Deza, who stood behind His Majesty's chair, and acted as
interpreter--the Dominican speaking English fluently.
During the whole of supper Philip had appeared less morose than usual.
There was a certain fire of expectancy and complacence in his eye. He
had smiled several times; his manner to the Queen had been more genial
than it was wont to be--a fact which, in the opinion of everybody, duly
accounted for Her Grace's high spirits and merriment.
He looked up now as Lady Paget spoke.
"_Ensalada!_" he said, having caught one word of Lady Paget's
speech--salad. "Yes, give me some salad. It is the one thing"--he
hastened to correct himself--"it is one of the things they make better
in England than in my country."
The Queen was in high glee.
"His Highness grows more fond of our English food," she said; and in a
moment or two the Comptroller of the Household came up to the King's
chair, followed by a pensioner bearing a great silver bowl of one of
those wonderful salads of the period, which no modern skill of the
kitchen seems able to produce to-day--burridge, chicory, bugloss,
marigold leaves, rocket, and alexanders, all mixed with eggs, cinnamon,
oil, and ginger.
Johnnie, who was sitting at the Esquires' table, with the Gentlemen of
the Body and Privy Closet, had watched the gay and stately scene till
supper was nearly over.
The lights, the music, the high air, the festivity, had had no power to
lighten the oppression which he felt, and when at length the King and
Queen rose and withdrew to the great gallery where the Masque was
presently to begin, he had slipped out alone into the garden.
"His golden locks time hath to silver turned."
The throbbing music of the old song, the harps' thridding, the lutes
shivering out their arpeggio accompaniment, the viols singing
together--came to him with rare and plaintive sweetness, but they
brought but little balm or assuagement to his dark, excited mood.
Ten o'clock beat out from the roof of the Palace. Johnnie left the
garden. He was to receive his instruction as to his night's doing from
Mr. Medley, the Esquire of Sir John Shelton, in the Common Room of the
Gentlemen of the Body.
He strode across the square in front of the facade, and turned into the
long panelled room where he had breakfasted that morning.
It was quite empty now--every one was at the Masque--but two silver
lamps illuminated it, and shone upon the dark walls of the glittering
array of plate upon the beaufet.
He had not waited there a minute, however, leaning against the tall
carved mantelpiece, a tall and gallant figure in his rich evening dress,
when steps were heard coming through the hall, the door swung open, and
Mr. Medley entered.
He was a thick-set, bearded man of middle height, more soldier than
courtier, with the stamp of the barrack-room and camp upon him; a brisk,
quick-spoken man, with compressed lips and an air of swift service.
"Give you good evening, Mr. Commendone," he said; "I am come with Sir
John's orders."
Johnnie bowed. "At your service," he answered.
The soldier looked round the room carefully before speaking.
"There is no one here, Mr. Medley," Johnnie said.
The other nodded and came close up to the young courtier.
"The Masque hath been going this half-hour," he said, in a low voice,
"but His Highness hath withdrawn. Her Grace is still with the dancers,
and in high good-humour. Now, I must tell you, Mr. Commendone, that the
Queen thinketh His Highness in his own wing of the Palace, and with Don
Diego and Don de Castro, his two confessors. She is willing that this
should be so, and said 'Good night' to His Highness after supper,
knowing that he will presently set out to the burning of Dr. Taylor. She
knoweth that the party sets out for Hadley at two o'clock, and thinketh
that His Highness is spending the time before then in prayer and a
little sleep. I tell you this, Mr. Commendone, in order that you go not
back to the Masque before that you set out from the Tower to a certain
house where His Highness will be with Sir John Shelton. You will take
your own servant mounted and armed, and a man-at-arms also will be at
the door of your lodging here at ten minutes of midnight. The word at
the Coal Harbour Gate is 'Christ.' With your two men you will at once
ride over London Bridge and so to Duck Lane, scarce a furlong from the
other side of the bridge. Doubtless you know it"--and here the man's
eyes flickered with a half smile for a moment--"but if not, the
man-at-arms, one of Sir John's men, will show you the way. You will
knock at the big house with the red door, and be at once admitted. There
will be a light over the door. His Highness will be there with Sir John,
and that is all I have to tell you. Afterwards you will know what to
do."
Johnnie bowed. "Give you good night," he said. "I understand very well."
As soon as the Esquire had gone, Johnnie turned out of the Common Room,
ascended the stairs, went to his own chamber and threw himself upon the
little bed.
He had imagined that something like this was likely to occur. The King's
habits were perfectly well known to all those about him, and indeed were
whispered of in the Court at large, Queen Mary, alone, apparently
knowing nothing of the truth as yet. The King's unusual bonhomie at
supper could hardly be accounted for, at least so Johnnie thought, by
the fact that he was to see his own and the Queen's bigotry translated
into dreadful reality. To the keen young student of faces the King had
seemed generally relieved, expectant, with the air of a boy about to be
released from school. Now, the reason was plain enough. His Highness had
gone with Sir John Shelton to some infamous house in a bad quarter of
the city, and it was there the Equerry was to meet him and ride to the
death scene.
Johnnie tossed impatiently upon his bed. He remembered how on that very
morning he had expressed his hopes to Sir Henry that his duties would
not lead him into dubious places. A lot of water had run under the
bridges since he kissed his father farewell in the bright morning light.
His whole prospects were altered, and advanced. For one thing, he had
been present at an intimate and private conference and had received
marked and special favour--he shuddered now as he remembered the four
intent faces round the table in the Privy Closet, those sharp faces,
with a cruel smirk upon them, those still faces with the orange light
playing over them in the dark, tempest-haunted room.
"I' faith," he said to himself, "thou art fairly put to sea, Johnnie!
but I will not feed myself with questioning. I am in the service of
princes, and must needs do as I am told. Who am I to be squeamish? But
hey-ho! I would I were in the park at Commendone to-night."
About eleven o'clock his servant came to him and helped him to change
his dress. He wore long riding-boots of Spanish leather, a light
corselet of tough steel, inlaid with arabesques of gold, and a big
quilted Spanish hat. Over all he fastened a short riding-cloak of supple
leather dyed purple. He primed his pistols and gave them to a man to be
put into his holsters, and about a quarter before midnight descended the
stairs.
He found a man-at-arms with a short pike, already mounted, and his
servant leading the other two horses; he walked toward the Coal Harbour
Gate, gave the word to the Lieutenant of the Guard, and left the Tower.
A light moon was just beginning to rise and throw fantastic shadows over
Tower Hill. It was bright enough to ride by, and Johnnie forbade his man
to light the horn lantern which was hanging at the fellow's saddle-bow.
They went at a foot pace, the horses' feet echoing with an empty,
melancholy sound from the old timbered houses back to the great bastion
wall of the Tower.
The man-at-arms led the way. When they came to London Bridge, where a
single lantern showed the broad oak bar studded with nails, which ran
across the roadway, Johnnie noticed that upon the other side of it were
two halberdiers of the Tower Guard in their uniforms of black and
crimson, talking to the keeper of the gate.
As they came up the bar swung open.
"Mr. Commendone?" said the keeper, an elderly man in a leather jerkin.
Johnnie nodded.
"Pass through, sir," the man replied, saluting, as did also the two
soldiers who were standing there.
The little cavalcade went slowly over the bridge between the tall houses
on either side, which at certain points almost met with their
overhanging eaves. The shutters were up all over the little jewellers'
shops. Here and there a lamp burned from an upstairs window, and the
swish and swirl of the river below could be heard quite distinctly.
At the middle of the bridge, just by the well-known armourer's shop of
Guido Ponzio, the Italian sword-smith, whose weapons were eagerly
purchased by members of the Court and the officers both of the Tower and
Whitehall, another halberdier was standing, who again saluted Commendone
as he rode by.
It was quite obvious to Johnnie that every precaution had been taken so
that the King's excursion into _les coulisses_ might be undisturbed.
The pike was swung open for them on the south side of the bridge
directly they drew near, and putting their horses to the trot, they
cantered over a hundred yards of trodden grass round which houses were
standing in the form of a little square, and in a few minutes more
turned into Duck Lane.
At this hour of the night the narrow street of heavily-timbered houses
was quite dark and silent. It seemed there was not a soul abroad, and
this surprised Johnnie, who had been led to understand that at midnight
"The Lane" was frequently the scene of roistering activity. Now,
however, the houses were all blind and dark, and the three horsemen
might have been moving down a street in the city of the dead.
Only the big honey-coloured moon threw a primrose light upon the topmost
gables of the houses on the left side of "The Lane"--all the rest being
black velvet, sombreness and shadow.
John's mouth curved a little in disdain under his small dark moustache,
as he noted all this and realised exactly what it meant.
When a king set out for furtive pleasures, lesser men of vice must get
them to their kennels! Lights were out, all manifestation of evil was
thickly curtained. The shameless folk of that wicked quarter of the town
must have shame imposed upon them for the night.
The King was taking his pleasure.
John Commendone, since his arrival in London, and at the Court, had
quietly refused to be a member of any of those hot-blooded parties of
young men who sallied out from the Tower or from Whitehall when the
reputable world was sleeping. It was not to his taste. He was perfectly
capable of tolerating vice in others--looking on it, indeed, as a
natural manifestation of human nature and event. But for himself he had
preferred aloofness.
Nevertheless, from the descriptions of his friends, he knew that Duck
Lane to-night was wearing an aspect which it very seldom wore, and as he
rode slowly down that blind and sinister thoroughfare with his
attendants, he realised with a little cold shudder what it was to be a
king.
He himself was the servant of a king, one of those whom good fortune and
opportunity had promoted to be a minister to those almost super-human
beings who could do no wrong, and ruled and swayed all other men by
means of their Divine Right.
This was a position he perfectly accepted, had accepted from the first.
Already he was rising high in the course of life he had started to
pursue. He had no thought of questioning the deeds of princes. He knew
that it was his duty, his _metier_, in life to be a pawn in the great
game. What affected him now, however, as they came up to a big house of
free-stone and timber, where a lanthorn of horn hung over a door painted
a dull scarlet, was a sense of the enormous and irrevocable power of
those who were set on high to rule.
No! They were not human, they were not as other men and women are.
He had been in the Queen's Closet that morning, and had seen the death
warrant signed. The great convulsion of nature, the furious thunders of
God, had only been, as it were, a mere accompaniment to the business of
the four people in the Queen's lodge.
A scratch of a pen--a man to die.
And then, during the evening, he had seen, once more, the King and
Queen, bright, glittering and radiant, surrounded by the highest and
noblest of England, serene, unapproachable, the centre of the stupendous
pageant of the hour.
And now, again, he was come to the stews, to the vile quarter of London,
and even here the secret presence of a king closed all doors, and kept
the pandars and victims of evil silent in their dens like crouching
hares.
As they came up to the big, dark house, a little breeze from the river
swirled down the Lane, and fell fresh upon Johnnie's cheek. As it did
so, he knew that he was hot and fevered, that the riot of thought within
him had risen the temperature of his blood. It was cool and
grateful--this little clean breeze of the water, and he longed once
more, though only for a single second, that he was home in the stately
park of Commendone, and had never heard the muffled throb of the great
machine of State, of polity, and the going hither and thither of kings
and queens.
But it only lasted for a moment.
He was disciplined, he was under orders. He pulled himself together,
banished all wild and speculative thought--sat up in the saddle, gripped
the sides of his cob with his knees, and set his left arm akimbo.
"This is the house, sir," said the trooper, saluting.
"Very well," Johnnie answered, as his servant dismounted and took his
horse by the bridle.
Johnnie leapt to the ground, pulled his sword-belt into position,
settled his hat upon his head, and with his gloved fist beat upon the
big red door before him.
In ten seconds he heard a step on the other side of the door. It swung
open, and a tall, thin person, wearing a scarlet robe and a mask of
black velvet over the upper part of the face, bowed low before him, and
with a gesture invited him to enter.
Johnnie turned round.
"You will stay here," he said to the men. "Be quite silent, and don't
stray away a yard from the door."
Then he followed the tall, thin figure, which closed the door, and
flitted down a short passage in front of him with noiseless footsteps.
He knew at once that he was in Queer Street.
The nondescript figure in its fantastic robe and mask struck a chill of
disgust to his blood.
It was a fantastic age, and all aberrations--all deviations--from the
normal were constantly accentuated by means of costumes and theatric
effect.
The superficial observer of the manners of our day is often apt to
exclaim upon the decadence of our time. One has heard perfectly sincere
and healthy Englishmen inveigh with anger upon the literature of the
moment, the softness and luxury of life and art, the invasion of sturdy
English ideals by the corrupt influences of France.
"Give me the days of Good Queen Bess, the hearty, healthy, strong Tudor
life," is the sort of exclamation by no means rare in our time.
... "Bluff King Hal! Drake, Raleigh, all that rough, brave, and splendid
time! Think of Shakespeare, my boy!"
Whether or no our own days are deficient in hardihood and endurance is
not a question to be discussed here--though the private records of
England's last war might very well provide a complete answer to the
query. It is certain, however, that in an age when personal prowess with
arms was still a title to fortune, when every gentleman of position and
birth knew and practised the use of weapons, the under-currents of life,
the hidden sides of social affairs, were at least as "curious" and
"decadent" as anything Montmartre or the Quartier Latin have to show.
It must be remembered that in the late Tudor Age almost every one of
good family, each gentleman about the Court, was not only a trained
soldier, but also a highly cultured person as well. The Renaissance in
Italy was in full swing and activity. Its culture had crossed the Alps,
its art was borne upon the wings of its advance to our northern shores.
Grossness was refined....
Johnnie twirled his moustache as he followed the nondescript sexless
figure which flitted down the dimly-lit panelled passage before him like
some creature from a masque.
At the end of the passage there was a door.
Arrived at it, a long, thin arm, in a sleeve of close-fitting black
silk, shot out from the red robe. A thin ivory-coloured hand, with
fingers of almost preternatural length, rose to a painted scarlet slit
which was the creature's mouth.
The masked head dropped a little to one side, one lean finger, shining
like a fish-bone, tapped the mouth significantly, the door opened, some
heavy curtains of Flanders tapestry were pushed aside, and the Equerry
walked into a place as strange and sickly as he had ever met in some
fantastic or disordered dream.
Johnnie heard the door close softly behind him, the "swish, swish" of
the falling curtains. And then he stood up, his eyes blinking a little
in the bright light which streamed upon them--his hand upon his
sword-hilt--and looked around to find himself. He was in a smallish
room, hung around entirely with an arras of scarlet cloth, powdered at
regular intervals with a pattern of golden bats.
The floor was covered with a heavy carpet of Flanders pile--a very rare
and luxurious thing in those days--and the whole room was lit by its
silver lamps, which hung from the ceiling upon chains. On one side,
opposite the door, was a great pile of cushions, going half-way up the
wall towards the ceiling--cushions as of strange barbaric colours,
violent colours that smote upon the eye and seemed almost to do the
brain a violence.
In the middle of the room, right in the centre, was a low oak stool,
upon which was a silver tray. In the middle of the tray was a miniature
chafing-dish, beneath which some volatile amethyst-coloured flame was
burning, and from the dish itself a pastille, smouldering and heated,
sent up a thin, grey whip of odorous smoke.
The whole air of this curious tented room was heavy and languorous with
perfume. Sickly, and yet with a sensuous allurement, the place seemed to
reel round the young man, to disgust one side of him, the real side; and
yet, in some low, evil fashion, to beckon to base things in his
blood--base thoughts, physical influences which he had never known
before, and which now seemed to suddenly wake out of a long sleep, and
to whisper in his ears.
All this, this surveyal of the place in which he found himself, took but
a moment, and he had hardly stood there for three seconds--tall,
upright, and debonair, amid the wicked luxury of the room--when he heard
a sound to his left, and, turning, saw that he was not alone.
Behind a little table of Italian filigree work, upon which were a pair
of tiny velvet slippers, embroidered with burnt silver, a
sprunking-glass--or pocket mirror--and a tall-stemmed bottle of wine,
sat a vast, pink, fleshy, elderly woman.
Her face, which was as big as a ham, was painted white and scarlet. Her
eyebrows were pencilled with deep black, the heavy eyes shared the
vacuity of glass, with an evil and steadfast glitter of welcome.
There were great pouches underneath the eyes; the nose was hawk-like,
the chins pendulous, the lips once, perhaps, well curved and beautiful
enough, now full, bloated, and red with horrid invitation.
The woman was dressed with extreme richness.
Fat and powdered fingers were covered with rings. Her corsage was
jewelled--she was like some dreadful mummy of what youth had been, a
sullen caricature of a long-past youth, when she also might have walked
in the fields under God's sky, heard bird-music, and seen the dew upon
the bracken at dawn.
Johnnie stirred and blinked at this apparition for a moment; then his
natural courtesy and training came to him, and he bowed.
As he did so, the fat old woman threw out her jewelled arms, leant back
in her chair, stuttering and choking with amusement.
"_Tiens!_" she said in French, "_Monsieur qui arrive!_ Why have you
never been to see me before, my dear?"
Johnnie said nothing at all. His head was bent a little forward. He was
regarding this old French procuress with grave attention.
He knew now at once who she was. He had heard her name handed about the
Court very often--Madame La Motte.
"You are a little out of my way, Madame," Johnnie answered. "I come not
over Thames. You see, I am but newly arrived at the Court."
He said it perfectly politely, but with a little tiny, half-hidden
sneer, which the woman was quick to notice.
"Ah! Monsieur," she said, "you are here on duty. _Merci_, that I know
very well. Those for whom you have come will be down from above stairs
very soon, and then you can go about your business. But you will take a
glass of wine with me?"
"I shall be very glad, Madame," Johnnie answered, as he watched the fat,
trembling hand, with all its winking jewels, pouring Vin de Burgogne
into a glass. He raised it and bowed.
The old painted woman raised her glass also, and lifted it to her lips,
tossing the wine down with a sudden smack of satisfaction.
Then, in that strange perfumed room, the two oddly assorted people
looked at each other straightly for a moment.
Neither spoke.
At length Madame La Motte, of the great big house with the red door,
heaved herself out of her arm-chair, and waddled round the table. She
was short and fat; she put one hand upon the shoulder of the tall, clean
young man in his riding suit and light armour.
"_Mon ami_," she said thickly, "don't come here again."
Johnnie looked down at the hideous old creature, but with a singular
feeling of pity and compassion.
"Madame," he said, "I don't propose to come again."
"Thou art limn and debonair, and a very pretty boy, but come not here,
because in thy face I see other things for thee. Lads of the Court come
to see me and my girls, proper lads too, but in their faces there is not
what I discern in thy face. For them it matters nothing; for thee
'twould be a stain for all thy life. Thou knowest well whom I am,
Monsieur, and canst guess well where I shall go--e'en though His Most
Catholic Majesty be above stairs, and will get absolution for all he is
pleased to do here. But you--thou wilt be a clean boy. Is it not so?"
The fat hand trembled upon the young man's arm, the hoarse, sodden voice
was full of pleading.
"_Ma mere_," Johnnie answered her in her own language, "have no fear for
me. I thank you--but I did not understand...."
"Boy," she cried, "thou canst not understand. Many steps down hellwards
have I gone, and in the pit there is knowledge. I knew good as thou
knowest it. Evil now I know as, please God, thou wilt never know it.
But, look you, from my very knowledge of evil, I am given a tongue with
which to speak to thee. Keep virgin. Thou art virgin now; my hand upon
thy sword-arm tells me that. Keep virgin until the day cometh and
bringeth thy lady and thy destined love to thee."
There were tears in the young man's eyes as he looked down into the
great pendulous painted face, from which now the evil seemed to be wiped
away as a cloth wipes away a chalk mark upon a slate.
As the last ray of a setting sun sometimes touches to a fugitive
glory--a last fugitive glory--some ugly, sordid building of a town, so
here he saw something maternal and sweet upon the face of this old
brothel-keeper, this woman who had amassed a huge fortune in ministering
to the pride of life, the pomp, vanity, and lusts of Principalities and
Powers.
He turned half round, and took the woman's left hand in his.
"My mother," he said, with an infinitely winning and yet very melancholy
gaze, "my mother, I think, indeed, that love will never come to me. I am
not made so. May the Mother of God shield me from that which is not
love, but natheless seemeth to have love's visage when one is hot in
wine or stirred to excitement. But thou, thou wert not ever...."
She broke in upon him quickly.
Her great red lips pouted out like a ripe plum. The protruding fishy
eyes positively lit up with disdain of herself and of her life.
"_Mon cher_," she said, "_Hola!_ I was a young girl once in Lorraine. I
had a brother--I will tell you little of that old time--but I have
blood."
"Yes," she continued, throwing back her head, till the great rolls of
flesh beneath her chin stretched into tightness, "yes, I have blood.
There was a day when I was a child, when the poet Jean D'Aquis wrote of
us--
'Quand nous habitions tous ensemble
Sur nos collines d'autrefois,
Ou l'eau court, ou le buisson tremble
Dans la maison qui touche aux bois.'
... It was." Suddenly she left Johnnie standing in the middle of the
room, and with extraordinary agility for her weight and years, glided
round the little table, and sank once more into her seat.
The door at the other end of the room opened, and a tall girl, with a
white face and thin, wicked mouth, and a glorious coronal of red hair
came into the room.
"'Tis finished," she said, to the mistress of the house. "Sir John
Shelton is far in drink. He----" she stopped suddenly, as she saw
Johnnie, gave him a keen, questioning glance, and then looked once more
towards the fat woman in the chair.
Madame nodded. "This is His Highness's gentleman," she said, "awaiting
him. So it's finished?"
The girl nodded, beginning to survey Johnnie with a cruel, wicked
scrutiny, which made him flush with mingled embarrassment and anger.
"His Highness is coming down, Mr. Esquire," she said, pushing out a
little red tip of tongue from between her lips. "His Highness...."
The old woman in the chair suddenly leapt up. She ran at the tall,
red-haired girl, caught her by the throat, and beat her about the face
with her fat, jewelled hands, cursing her in strange French oaths,
clutching at her hair, shaking her, swinging her about with a dreadful
vulgar ferocity which turned John's blood cold.
As he stood there he caught a glimpse, never to be forgotten, of all
that underlay this veneer of midnight luxury. He saw vile passions at
work, he realised--for the first time truly and completely--in what a
hideous place he was.
The tall girl, sobbing and bleeding in the face, disappeared behind the
arras. The old woman turned to Johnnie. Her face was almost purple with
exertion, her eyes blazed, her hawk-like nose seemed to twitch from side
to side, she panted out an apology:
"She dared, Monsieur, she dared, one of my girls, one of my slaves!
Hist!"
A loud voice was heard from above, feet trampled upon stairs, through
the open door which led to the upper parts of the house of ill-fame came
Sir John Shelton, a big, gross, athletic man, obviously far gone in
wine.
He saw Johnnie. "Ah, Mr. Commendone," he said thickly. "Here we are, and
here are you! God's teeth! I like well to see you. I myself am well gone
in wine, though I will sit my horse, as thou wilt see."
He lurched up to Johnnie and whispered in the young man's ear, with hot,
wine-tainted breath.
"He's coming down," he whispered. "It's your part to take charge of His
Highness. He's----"
Sir John stood upright, swaying a little from the shoulders, as down the
stairway, framed in the lintel of the door, came King Philip of Spain.
The King was dressed very much as Johnnie himself was dressed; his long,
melancholy face was a little flushed--though not with wine. His eyes
were bright, his thin lips moved and worked.
Directly he saw Commendone his face lit up with recognition. It seemed
suddenly to change.
"Ah, you are here, Mr. Commendone," he said in Spanish. "I am glad to
see you. We have had our amusements, and now we go upon serious
business."
The alteration in the King's demeanour was instant. Temperate, as all
Spaniards were and are, he was capable at a moment's notice of
dismissing what had passed, and changing from _bon viveur_ into a grave
potentate in a flash.
He came up to Johnnie. "Now, Mr. Commendone," he said, in a quiet,
decisive voice, "we will get to horse and go upon our business. The
_senor don_ here is gone in wine, but he will recover as we ride to
Hadley. You are in charge. Let's begone from this house."
The King led the way out of the red room.
The old procuress bowed to the ground as he went by, but he took no
notice of her.
Johnnie followed the King, Sir John Shelton came staggering after, and
in a moment or two they were out in the street, where was now gathered a
small company of horse, with serving-men holding up torches to illumine
the blackness of the night.
They mounted and rode away slowly out of Duck Lane and across London
Bridge, the noise of their passing echoing between the tall, barred
houses.
Several soldiers rode first, and after them came Sir John Shelton.
Commendone rode at the King's left hand, and he noticed that His
Highness's broad hat was pulled low over his face and a riding cloak
muffled the lower part of it. Behind them came the other men-at-arms. As
soon as they were clear of the bridge the walk changed into a trot, and
the cavalcade pushed toward Aldgate. Not a soul was in the streets until
they came to the city gate itself, where there was the usual guard. They
passed through and came up to the "Woolsack," a large inn which was just
outside the wall. In the light of the torches Commendone could see that
the place was obviously one of considerable importance, and had probably
been a gentleman's house in the past.
Large square windows divided into many lights by mullions and transoms
took up the whole of the front. The roofs were ornamental, richly
crocketed and finialed, while there was a blazonry of painted heraldry
and coats of arms over and around the large central porch. Large stacks
of tall, slender chimney-shafts, moulded and twisted, rose up into the
dark, and were ornamented over their whole surface with diaper patterns
and more armorial bearings. The big central door of the "Woolsack" stood
open, and a ruddy light beamed out from the hall and from the windows
upon the ground-floor. As they came up, and Sir John Shelton stumbled
from his horse, holding the King's stirrup for him to dismount,
Commendone saw that the space in front of the inn, a wide square with a
little trodden green in the centre of it, held groups of dark figures
standing here and there.
Halberds rose up against the walls of the houses, showing distinctly in
the occasional light from a cresset held by a man-at-arms.
Sir John Shelton strode noisily into a big panelled hall, the King and
Commendone following him, Johnnie realising that, of course, His
Highness was incognito.
The host of the inn, Putton, hurried forward, and behind him was one of
the Sheriffs of London, who held some papers in his hand and greeted Sir
John Shelton with marked civility.
The knight pulled himself together, and shook the Sheriff by the hand.
"Is everything prepared," he said, "Mr. Sheriff?"
"We are all quite ready, Sir John," the Sheriff answered, looking with
inquiring eyes at Commendone and the tall, muffled figure of the King.
"Two gentlemen of the Court who have been deputed by Her Grace to see
justice done," Sir John said. "And now we will to the prisoner."
Putton stepped forward. "This way, gentlemen," he said. "Dr. Taylor is
with his guards in the large room. He hath taken a little succory
pottage and a flagon of ale, and seemeth resigned and ready to set out."
With that the host opened a door upon the right-hand side of the hall
and ushered the party into a room which was used as the ordinary of the
inn, a lofty and spacious place lit with candles.
There was a high carved chimney-piece, over which were the arms of the
Vintners' Company, sable and chevron _cetu_, three tuns argent, with
the figure of Bacchus for a crest. A long table ran down the centre of
the place, and at one end of it, seated in a large chair of oak, sat the
late Archdeacon of Exeter. Three or four guards stood round in silence.
Dr. Rowland Taylor was a huge man, over six feet in height, and more
than a little corpulent. His face, which was very pale, was strongly
cast, his eyes, under shaggy white brows, bright and humorous; the big,
genial mouth, half-hidden by the white moustache and beard, both kindly
and strong. He wore a dark gown and a flat velvet cap upon his head, and
he rose immediately as the company entered.
"We are come for you, Dr. Taylor," the Sheriff said, "and you must
immediately to horse."
The big man bowed, with quiet self-possession.
"'Tis very well, Master Sheriff," he said; "I have been waiting this
half-hour agone."
"Bring him out," said Sir John Shelton, in a loud, harsh voice. "Keep
silence, Master Taylor, or I will find a way to silence thee."
John Commendone shivered with disgust as the leader of the party spoke.
Even as he did so he felt a hand upon his arm, and the tall, muffled
figure of the King stood close behind him.
"Tell the knight, senor," the King said rapidly in Spanish, "to use the
gentleman with more civility. He is to die, as is well fitting a heretic
should die, for God's glory and the safety of the realm. But he is of
gentle birth. Tell Sir John Shelton."
Commendone stepped up to Sir John. "Sir," he said, in a voice which, try
as he would, he could not keep from being very disdainful and
cold--"Sir, His Highness bids me to tell you to use Dr. Taylor with
civility, as becomes a man of his birth."
The half-drunken captain glared at the cool young courtier for a moment,
but he said nothing, and, turning on his heel, clanked out of the room
with a rattle of his sword and an aggressive, ruffling manner.
Dr. Taylor, with guards on each side, the Sheriff immediately preceding
him, walked down the room and out into the hall.
Commendone and the King came last.
Johnnie was seized with a sudden revulsion of feeling towards his
master. This man, cruel and bigoted as he was, the man whom he had seen
with fanaticism and the blood lust blazing in his eye, the man whom he
had seen calmly leaving a vile house, was nevertheless a king and a
gentleman. The young man could hardly understand or realise the
extraordinary combination of qualities in the austere figure by his side
of the man who ruled half the known world. Again, he felt that sense of
awe, almost of fear, in the presence of one so far removed from ordinary
men, so swift in his alterations from coarseness to kingliness, from
relentless cruelty to cold, sombre decorum.
Dr. Taylor was mounted upon a stout cob, closely surrounded by guards,
and with a harsh word of command from Sir John, the party set out.
The host of the "Woolsack" stood at his lighted door, where there was a
little group of serving-men and halberdiers, sharply outlined against
the red-litten facade of the quaint old building, and then, as they
turned a corner, it all flashed away, and they went forward quietly and
steadily through a street of tall gabled houses.
Directly the lights of the inn and the square in front of it were left
behind, they saw at once that dawn was about to begin. The houses were
grey now, each moment more grey and ghostly, and they were no longer
sable and shapeless. The air, too, had a slight stir and chill within
it, and each moment of their advance the ghostly light grew stronger,
more wan and spectral than ever the dark had been.
Pursuant to his instructions, Commendone kept close to the King, who
rode silently with a drooping head, as one lost in thought. In front of
them were the backs of the guards in their steel corselets, and in the
centre of the group was the massive figure of the man who was riding to
his death, a huge, black outline, erect and dignified.
John rode with the rest as a man in a dream. His mind and imagination
were in a state in which the moving figures around him, the cavalcade of
which he himself was a part, seemed but phantoms playing fantastic
parts upon the stage of some unreal theatre of dreams.
He heard once more the great man-like voice of Queen Mary, but it seemed
very far away, a sinister thing, echoing from a time long past.
The music of the dance in the Palace tinkled and vibrated through his
subconscious brain, and then once more he heard the voice of the evil
old woman of the red house, the voice of one in hell, telling him to
flee youthful lusts, telling him to wait stainless until love should
come to him.
Love! He smiled unconsciously to himself. Love!--why should the thoughts
of love come to a heart-whole man riding upon this sad errand of death;
through ghostly streets, stark and grey?...
He looked up dreamily and saw before him, cutting into a sky which was
now big and tremulous with dawn, the tower of St. Botolph's Church, a
faint, misty purple. Far away in the east the sky was faintly streaked
with pink and orange, the curtain of the dark was shaken by the
birth-pangs of the morning. The western sky over St. Paul's was already
aglow with a red, reflected light.
The transition was extraordinarily sudden. Every instant the aspect of
things changed; the whole visible world was being re-created, second by
second, not gradually, but with a steady, pressing onrush, in which time
seemed merged and forgotten, to be of no account at all, and a thing
that was not.
Johnnie had seen the great copper-coloured moon heave itself out of the
sea just like that--the world turning to splendour before his eyes.
But it was dawn now, and in the miraculously clear, inspiring light, the
countless towers and pinnacles of the city rose with sharp outline into
the quiet sky.
The breeze from the river rustled and whispered by them like the
trailing skirts of unseen presences, and as the cool air in all its
purity came over the silent town, the feverishness and sense of
unreality in the young man's mind were dissolved and blown away.
How silent London was!--the broad street stretched out before them like
a ribbon of silver-grey, but the tower of St. Botolph's was already
solid stone, and no longer mystic purple.
And then, for some reason or other, John Commendone's heart began to
beat furiously. He could not have said why or how. There seemed no
reason to account for it, but all his pulses were stirred. A sense of
expectancy, which was painful in its intensity, and unlike anything he
had ever known before in his life, pervaded all his consciousness.
He gripped his horse by the knees, his left hand holding the leather
reins, hung with little tassels of vermilion silk, his right hand
resting upon the handle of his sword.
They came up to the porch of the church, and suddenly the foremost
men-at-arms halted, the slight backward movement of their horses
sending those who followed backward also. There was a pawing of hooves,
a rattle of accoutrements, a sharp order from somewhere in front, and
then they were all sitting motionless.
The moment had arrived. John Commendone saw what he had come to see.
From that instant his real life began. All that had gone before, as he
saw in after years, had been but a leading up and preparation for this
time.
Standing just outside the porch of the church was a small group of
figures, clustering together, white faces, pitiful and forlorn.
Dr. Taylor's wife, suspecting that her husband should that night be
carried away, had watched all night in St. Botolph's porch, having with
her her two children, and a man-servant of their house.
The men-at-arms had opened out a little, remaining quite motionless on
their horses.
Sir John Shelton, obviously mindful of Commendone's warning at the
"Woolsack," remained silent also, his blotched face grey and scowling in
the dawn, though he said no word.
The King pulled his hat further over his eyes, and Johnnie at his right
could see perfectly all that was happening.
He heard a voice, a girl's voice.
"Oh, my dear father! Mother! mother! here is my father led away."
Almost every one who has lived from any depth of being, for whom the
world is no grossly material place, but a state which is constantly
impinged upon and mingles with the Unseen, must be conscious that at one
time or other of his life sound has been, perhaps, the most predominant
influence in it.
Now and again, at rare and memorable intervals, the grossness of this
tabernacle wherein the soul is encased is pierced by sound. More than
all else, sound penetrates deep into the spiritual consciousness,
punctuates life, as it were, at rare moments of emotion, gathering up
and crystallising a thousand fancies and feelings which seem to have no
adequate cause among outward things.
Johnnie had heard the sound of his mother's voice, as she lay dying--a
dry, whispering, husky sound, never to be forgotten, as she said,
"Johnnie, promise mother to be good; promise me to be good." He had
heard the sweet sound of the death mort winded by the huntsman in the
park of Commendone, as he had run down his first stag--in the voice of
the girl who cried out with anguish in the pure morning light, he heard
for the third or fourth time, a sound which would always be part of his
life.
"_O, my dear father! Mother! mother! here is my father led away._"
She was a tall girl, in a long grey cloak.
Her hair, growing low upon her forehead, and very thick, was the colour
of ripe corn. Great eyes of a deep blue, like cut sapphire, shone in
the dead white oval of her face. The parted lips were a scarlet
eloquence of agony.
By her side was a tall, grey-haired dame, trembling exceedingly.
One delicate white hand flickered before the elder woman's eyes, all
blind with tears and anguish.
Then the Doctor's wife cried, "Rowland, Rowland, where art thou?"
Dr. Taylor answered, "Dear wife, I am here."
Then she came to him, and he took a younger girl, who had been clinging
to her mother's skirts, his little daughter Mary, in his arms,
dismounting from his horse as he did so, with none to stay him. He, his
wife, and the tall girl Elizabeth, knelt down and said the Lord's
Prayer.
At the sight of it the Sheriff wept apace, and so did divers others of
the company, and the salt tears ran down Johnnie's cheeks and splashed
upon his breast-plate.
After they had prayed Dr. Taylor rose up and kissed his wife, and shook
her by the hand, and said: "Farewell, my dear wife, be of good comfort,
for I am quiet in my conscience. God shall stir up a father for my
children."
After that he kissed his daughter Mary and said, "God bless thee and
make thee His servant," and kissing Elizabeth also he said, "God bless
thee. I pray you all stand strong and steadfast unto Christ His Word,
and keep you from idolatry."
The tall lady clung to him, weeping bitterly. "God be with thee, dear
Rowland," she said; "I shall, with God's grace, meet thee anon in
heaven."
Then Johnnie saw the serving-man, a broad, thick-set fellow, with a
keen, brown face, who had been standing a little apart, come up to Dr.
Taylor. He was holding by the hand a little boy of ten years or so, with
wide, astonished eyes, Thomas, the Doctor's son.
When Dr. Taylor saw them he called them, saying, "Come hither, my son
Thomas."
John Hull lifted the child, and sat him upon the saddle of the horse by
which his father stood, and Dr. Taylor put off his hat, and said to the
members of the party that stood there looking at him: "Good people, this
is mine own son, begotten of my body in lawful matrimony; and God be
blessed for lawful matrimony."
Johnnie upon his horse was shaking uncontrollably, but at these last
words he heard an impatient jingle of accoutrements by his side, and
looking, saw that the face of His Highness was fierce and angry that an
ordained priest should speak thus of wedlock.
But this was only for a passing moment; the young man's eyes were fixed
upon the great clergyman again in an instant.
The priest lifted up his eyes towards heaven, and prayed for his son. He
laid his hand upon the child's head and blessed him; and so delivered
the child to John Hull, whom he took by the hand and said, "Farewell,
John Hull, the faithfullest servant that ever man had."
There was a silence, broken only by the sobbing of women and a low
murmur of sympathy from the rough men-at-arms.
Sir John Shelton heard it and glanced quickly at the muffled figure of
the King.
It was a shrewd, penetrating look, and well understood by His Highness.
This natural emotion of the escort, at such a sad and painful scene,
might well prove a leaven which would work in untutored minds. There
must be no more sympathy for heretics. Sir John gave a harsh order, the
guard closed in upon Dr. Taylor, there was a loud cry from the
Archdeacon's wife as she fell fainting into the arms of the sturdy
servant, and the cavalcade proceeded at a smart pace. John looked round
once, and this is what he saw--the tall figure of Elizabeth Taylor,
fixed and rigid, the lovely face set in a stare of horror and
unspeakable grief, a star of sorrow as the dawn reddened and day began.
And now, as they left London, the progress was more rapid, the stern
business upon which they were engaged looming up and becoming more
imminent every moment, the big man in the centre of the troop being
hurried relentlessly to his end.
And so they rode forth to Brentwood, where, during a short stay, Sir
John Shelton and his men caused to be made for Dr. Taylor a close hood,
with two holes for his eyes to look out at, and a slit for his mouth to
breathe at. This they did that no man in the pleasant country ways, the
villages or little towns, should speak to him, nor he to any man.
It was a practice that they had used with others, and very wise and
politic.
"For," says a chronicler of the time, "their own consciences told them
that they led innocent lambs to the slaughter. Wherefore they feared
lest if the people should have heard them speak or have seen them, they
might have been more strengthened by their godly exhortations to stand
steadfast in God's Word, to fly the superstitions and idolatries of the
Papacy."
All the way Dr. Taylor was joyful and merry, as one that accounted
himself going to a most pleasant banquet or bridal. He said many notable
things to the Sheriff and the yeomen of the guard that conducted him,
and often moved them to weep through his much earnest calling upon them
to repent and to amend their evil and wicked living. Oftentimes, also,
he caused them to wonder and rejoice, to see him so constant and
steadfast, void of all fear, joyful in heart, and glad to die. At one
time during their progress he said: "I will tell you, I have been
deceived, and, as I think, I shall deceive a great many. I am, as you
see, a man that hath a very great carcase, which I thought would have
been buried in Hadley churchyard, if I died in my bed, as I well hoped I
should have done; but herein I see I was deceived. And there are a
great number of worms in Hadley churchyard, which should have had a
jolly feed upon this carrion, which they have looked for many a day. But
now I know we are to be deceived, both I and they; for this carcase must
be burnt to ashes; and so shall they lose their bait and feeding, that
they looked to have had of it."
Sir John Shelton, who was riding by the side of Commendone, and who was
now sober enough, the wine of his midnight revels having died from him,
turned to Johnnie with a significant grin as he heard Dr. Taylor say
this to his guards.
Shelton was coarse, overbearing, and a blackguard, but he had a keen
mind of a sort, and was of gentle birth.
"Listen to this curtail dog, Mr. Commendone," he said, with a sneer. "A
great loss to the Church, i' faith. He talketh like some bully-rook or
clown of the streets. And these are the men who in their contumacy and
their daring deny the truth of Holy Church----" He spat upon the ground
with disgust.
Commendone nodded gravely. His insight was keener far than the other's.
He saw, in what Bishop Heber afterwards called "the coarse vigour" of
the Archdeacon's pleasantry, no foolish irreverence indeed, but the racy
English courage and humour of a saintly man, resolved to meet his
earthly doom brightly, and to be an example to common men.
Johnnie was the son of a bluff Kentish squire. He knew the English soil,
and all the stoic hardy virtues, the racy mannerisms which spring from
it. Courtier and scholar, a man of exquisite refinement, imbued with no
small share of foreign grace and courtliness, there was yet a side of
him which was thoroughly English. He saw deeper than the coarse-mouthed
captain at his side.
The voices of those who had gathered round the porch of St. Botolph's
without Aldgate still rang in his ears.
The Sheriff and his company, when they heard Dr. Rowland Taylor jesting
in this way, were amazed, and looked one at another, marvelling at the
man's constant mind, that thus, without any fear, made but a jest at the
cruel torment and death now at hand prepared for him.
The sun clomb the sky, the woods were green, the birds were all at
matins. Through many a shady village they passed where the ripening corn
rustled in the breeze, the wood smoke went up in blue lines from cottage
and manor house, the clink of the forge rang out into the street as the
blacksmiths lit their fires, the milkmaids strode out to find the lowing
kine in the pastures. It was a brilliant happy morning as they rode
along through the green lanes, a very bridal morning indeed.
When they were come within two miles of Hadley, Dr. Taylor desired for a
while to light off his horse. They let him do it, and the Sheriff at his
request ordered the hood to be removed from him.
The whole troop halted for a minute or two, and the Doctor, says the
chronicler, "leaped and set a frisk or twain as men commonly do in
dancing. 'Why, Master Doctor,' quoth the Sheriff, 'how do you now?' He
answered, 'Well, God be praised, good Master Sheriff, never better; for
now I know I am almost at home. I have not pass two stiles to go over,
and I am even at my father's house.'
"'But, Master Sheriff,' said he, 'shall we not go through Hadley?'
"'Yes,' said the Sheriff, 'you shall go through Hadley.'
"'Then,' said he, 'O good Lord! I thank Thee, I shall yet once more ere
I die see my flock, whom Thou, Lord, knowest I have most heartily loved
and truly taught. Good Lord! bless them and keep them steadfast in Thy
word and truth.'"
The streets of Hadley were beset on both sides of the way with women and
men of the town and the country-side around, who awaited to see Dr.
Taylor.
As the troop passed by, now at walking pace, when the people beheld
their old friend led to death in this way, their voices were raised in
lamentation and there was great weeping.
On all sides John Commendone heard the broad homely Suffolk voices,
lifted high in sorrow.
"Ah, good Lord," said one fat farmer's wife to her man, "there goeth our
good shepherd from us that so faithfully hath taught us, so fatherly
hath cared for us, so godly hath governed us."
And again, the landlord of the "Three Cranes" at Hadley, where the troop
stopped for a moment to water their horses at the trough before the inn,
and the country people surged and crowded round: "O merciful God; what
shall we poor scattered lambs do? What shall come of this most wicked
world! Good Lord! strengthen him and comfort him. Alack, dear Doctor,
may the Lord help thee!"
The great man upon his horse, towering above the yeomen of the guard who
surrounded him, lifted his hand.
"Friends," he said, "and neighbours all, grieve not for me. I have
preached to you God's word and truth, and am come this day to seal it
with my blood."
Johnnie would have thought that the people who bore such an obvious love
for their rector, and who now numbered several hundreds--sturdy
country-men all--would have raised an outcry against the Sheriff and his
officers. Many of them had stout cudgels in their hands, some of them
bore forks with which they were going to the fields, but there was very
little anger. The people were cowed, that was very plain to see. The
power of the law struck fear into them still; the long, unquestioned
despotism of Henry VIII still exercised its sway over simple minds. Now
and again, as the horses were being watered, a fierce snarl of anger
came from the outskirts of the crowd. Commendone himself, with his
somewhat foreign appearance, and the tall, muffled figure of the King,
excited murmurs and insults.
"They be Spaniards," one fellow cried, "they two be--Spaniards from the
Queen's Papist husband. How like you this work, Master Don?"
But that was all. Once Sir John Shelton looked with some apprehension at
the King, but the King understood nothing, and though the sturdy
country-folk in their numbers might well have overcome the guard, a
rescue was obviously not thought of nor was the slightest attempt at it
made.
All this was quite homely and natural to Johnnie. He felt with the
people; he had spent his life in the country. Down at quiet, retired
Commendone his father and he were greatly loved by all the farmers and
peasants of the estate. His mother--that graceful Spanish lady--had
endeared herself for many years to the simple folk of Kent. Old Father
Chilches had said Mass in the chapel at Commendone for many years
without let or hindrance. Catholic as the house of Commendone had always
been, there was nothing bigoted or fanatical in their religion. And now
the young man's heart was stirred to its very depths as this homely
rustic folk lifted up their voices in sorrow.
Even then, however, he questioned nothing in his mind of the justice of
what was to be done. Despite the infinite pity he felt for this good
pastor who was to die and his flock who grieved him so, he was yet
perfectly loyal in his mind to the power which ordained the execution,
part of whose machinery he was. The Queen had said so; the monarch could
do no wrong. There were reasons of State, reasons of polity, reasons of
religion which he himself was not competent to enter into or to discuss,
but which he accepted blindly then.
And so, as they moved onwards towards Aldham Common, where the final
scene was to be enacted, he moved with the others, one of the ministers
of doom.
And through all the bright morning air, through the cries and tears of
the country-folk, he heard one voice, the voice of a girl, he saw one
white and lovely face ever before his eyes.
When they came to Aldham Common there was a great multitude of people
gathered there.
"What place is this?" Dr. Taylor asked, with a smile, though he knew
very well. "And what meaneth it that so much people are gathered
together?"
The Sheriff, who was a stranger to this part of the country, and who was
very agitated and upset, answered him with eager and deprecating
civility. "It is Aldham Common, Dr. Taylor, the place where you must
suffer; and the people are come to look upon you." The good man hardly
knew what he was saying.
Dr. Taylor smiled once more.
"Thanked be God," he said, "I am even at home," and alighted from his
horse.
Sir John Shelton, who also dismounted, snatched the hat from the
Doctor's head, which was shown to be clipped close, like a horse's back
in summer time--a degradation which Bishop Bonner had caused to be
performed upon him the night before as a mean and vulgar revenge for the
Doctor's words to him at the ceremony of his degradation.
But when the people saw Dr. Taylor's reverent and ancient face and his
long white beard, they burst into louder weeping than ever, and cried,
"God save thee, good Dr. Taylor! Jesus Christ strengthen thee, and help
thee; the Holy Ghost comfort thee," and many other suchlike godly
wishes.
They were now come into the centre of Aldham Common, where already a
posse of men sent by the Sheriff of the county were keeping a space
clear round a tall post which had been set into the ground, and which
was the stake.
Sir John Shelton, who now assumed complete command of the proceedings,
gave several loud orders. The people were pressed back with oaths and
curses by the yeomen of the escort, and Dr. Taylor was hurried quickly
towards the stake.
The long ride from London had not been without a certain quiet and
dignity; but from this moment everything that was done was rude,
hurried, and violent. The natural brutality of Shelton and his men
blazed up suddenly. What before had been ineffably sad was now changed
to horror, as John Commendone sat his horse by the side of the man whose
safety he was there to guard, and watched the final scene.
Dr. Taylor, who was standing by the stake and disrobing, wished to speak
to the people, but the yeomen of the guard were so busy about him that
as soon as he opened his mouth one or another of these fellows thrust a
fist or tipstaff into his mouth. They were round him like a pack of
dogs, snarling, buffeting him, making him feel indeed the bitterness of
death.
This was done by Sir John Shelton's orders, no doubt committed to him
from London, for it was obvious that any popular feeling in the martyr's
favour must be suppressed as soon as possibly could be done.
If Dr. Taylor had been allowed to speak to the surging crowd that knew
and loved him, the well-known voice, the familiar and beloved
exhortations might well have aroused a fury against the ministers of the
law which they would be powerless to withstand.
Dr. Taylor himself seemed to recognise this, for he sat down upon a
stool which was placed near the stake and did not offer to speak again.
He looked round while three or four ill-favoured fellows in leather were
bringing up bundles of furze and freshly cut faggots to the stake, and
as he was obviously not about to address the people, the guard was a
little relaxed.
He saw pressing on the outskirts of the crowd an old countryman, with a
brown wrinkled face.
"Soyce," he called out cheerily, "I pray thee come and pull off my
boots, and take them for thy labour. Thou hast long looked for them, now
take them."
The ancient fellow, who was indeed the sexton of Hadley Church, came
trembling up, and did as the rector asked.
Then Dr. Taylor rose up, and put off his clothes unto his shirt, and
gave them away. Which done, he said with a loud voice, "Good people! I
have taught you nothing but God's Holy Word and those lessons that I
have taken out of God's blessed Book, the Holy Bible."
He had hardly said it when a sergeant of the guard, named Homes, gave
him a great stroke upon the head with a waster, and said, "Is that the
keeping of thy promise, thou heretic?"
The venerable head, now stained with blood, drooped, and for a moment
the vitality and vigour seemed to go from the Rector. He saw that it was
utterly useless, that there was no hope of him being allowed to address
his folk, and so he knelt down and prayed in silence.
While he was praying a very old woman, in poor rags, that was standing
among the people, ran in and knelt by his side, and prayed with him.
Homes caught hold of her and tried to drag her from the Doctor, but she
screamed loudly and clung to the Rector's knees.
"Tread her down with horses; tread her down," said Sir John Shelton, his
face purple with anger.
But even the knight's men would not do it, and there was such a deep
threatening murmur from the crowd that Shelton forbore, and the old
woman stayed there and prayed with the Doctor.
At last he rose, blessing her, and, dressed only in his shirt, big,
burly, and very dignified, he went to the stake and kissed it, and set
himself into a pitch barrel, which they had put for him to stand in.
He stood there so, with his back upright against the stake, with his
hands folded together, and his eyes towards heaven, praying continually.
Four men set up the faggots and piled them round him, and one brought a
torch to make the fire.
As the furze lit and began to crackle at the bottom of the pile, the man
Homes, either really mad with religious hatred, or, as is more probable,
a brute, only zealous to ingratiate himself with his commander, picked
up a billet of wood and cast it most cruelly at the Doctor. It lit upon
his head and broke his face, so that the blood ran down it.
Then said Dr. Taylor, "O friend, I have harm enough; what needed that?"
Then, with Sir John Shelton standing close by, and the people round
shuddering with horror, the Rector began to say the Psalm _Miserere_ in
English.
Sir John shot out his great red hand and struck the martyr upon the lips
with his open palm.
"Ye knave," he said, "speak Latin; I will make thee."
At that, John Commendone, scarcely knowing what he did, leapt from his
horse and caught Shelton by the shoulder. With all the strength of his
young athletic frame he sent him spinning away from the stake. Sir John
staggered, recovered himself, and with his face blazing with anger,
rushed at the young man.
At that the King suddenly wheeled his horse, and interposed between
them.
"Keep you away, Sir John," he said in Spanish, "that is enough."
The knight did not understand the King's words, but the tone and the
accent were significant. With a glare of fury at Johnnie, he slunk aside
to his men.
The calm voice of the Rector went on reciting the words of the Psalm.
When it was finished he said the Gloria, and as the smoke rolled up
around him, and red tongues of flame began to be brightly visible in the
sunlight, he held up both his hands, and said, "Merciful Father of
heaven, for Jesus Christ my Saviour's sake, receive my soul into Thy
hands."
So stood he still without either crying or moving, with his hands folded
together, until suddenly one of the men-at-arms caught up a halbert and
struck him on the head so that the brains fell out, and the corpse sank
into the fire.
"Thus," says the chronicler, "the man of God gave his blessed soul into
the hands of his merciful Father, and his most dear and certain Saviour
Jesus Christ, Whom he most entirely loved, faithfully and earnestly
preached, obediently followed in living, and constantly glorified in
death."