He had to hear that night, after supper, and before he went to keep his

engagement in the chapel-room, the entire news of the county; and, in

his turn, to tell his own adventures. The company sat together before

the great hall-fire, to take the dessert, since there would have been no

room in the parlour for all who wished to hear. (He heard the tale of

Mr. Thomas FitzHerbert, traitor, apostate and sworn man of her Grace,

later, when he had come down again from the chapel-room, and the

servants had gone.) But now it was of less tragic matters, and more

triumphant, that they talked: he told of his adventures since he had

landed in August; of his riding in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and of the

fervour that he met with there (in one place, he said, he had reconciled

the old minister of the parish, that had been made priest under Mary

thirty years ago, and now lay dying); but he said nothing at that time

of what he had seen of her Grace of Scotland, and Chartley: and the

rest, on the other hand, talked of what had passed in Derby, of all that

Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick had done; of the arrest and banishment of the

latter, and his immediate return; of the hanging of Mr. Francis Ingolby,

in York, which had made a great stir in the north that summer, since he

was the son of Sir Francis, of Ripley Castle; as well as of the deaths

of many others--Mr. Finglow in August; Mr. Sandys, in the same month, in

Gloucester; and of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Adams and Mr. Dibdale, all together at

Tyburn, the news of which had but just come to Derbyshire; and of

Mistress Clitheroe, that had been pressed to death in York, for the very

crime which Mistress Marjorie Manners was perpetrating at this moment,

namely, the assistance and harbourage of priests; or, rather, for

refusing to plead when she had been arrested for that crime, lest she

should bring them into trouble.

And then at last they began to speak of Mary in Fotheringay and at that

a maid came in to say that it was eight o'clock, and would his Reverence

come up, as a few had to travel home that night and to come again next

day....

* * * * *

It was after nine o'clock before he came downstairs again, to find the

gentlefolk alone in the little parlour that opened from the hall. It

gave him a strange thrill of pleasure to see them there in the

firelight; the four of them only--Mr. John in the midst, with the three

ladies; and an empty chair waiting for the priest. He would hear their

confessions presently when the servants were gone to bed. A great mug of

warm ale stood by his place, to comfort him after his long ride and his

spiritual labours.

Mr. John told him first the news of his own son, as was his duty to do;

and he told it without bitterness, in a level voice, leaning his cheek

on his hand.

It appeared that Mr. Thomas still passed for a Catholic among the

simpler folk; but with none else. All the great houses round about had

the truth as an open secret; and their doors were closed to him; neither

had any priest been near him, since the day when Mr. Simpson met him

alone on the moors and spoke to him of his soul. Even then Mr. Thomas

had blustered and declared that there was no truth in the tale; and had

so ridden away at last, saying that such pestering was enough to make a

man lose his religion altogether.

"As for me," said Mr. John, "he has not been near me, nor I near him. He

lives at Norbury for the most part. My brother is attempting to set

aside the disposition he had made in his favour; but they say that it

will be made to stand; and that my son will get it all yet. But he has

not troubled us at Padley; nor will he, I think."

"He is at Norbury, you say, sir?"

"Yes; but he goes here and there continually. He has been to London to

lay informations, I have no doubt, for I know that he hath been seen

there in Topcliffe's company.... It seems that we are to be in the thick

of the conflict. We have had above a dozen priests in this county alone

arraigned for treason, and the most of them executed."

His voice had gone lower, and trembled once or twice as he talked. It

was plain that he could not bear to speak much more against the son that

had turned against him and his Faith, for the sake of his own liberty

and the estates he had hoped to have. Robin made haste to turn the talk.

"And my father, sir?"

Mr. John looked at him tenderly.

"You must ask Mistress Marjorie of him," he said. "I have not seen him

these three years."

Robin turned to the girl.

"I have had no more news of him since what I wrote to you," she said

quietly. "After I had spoken with him, and he had given me the warning,

he held himself aloof."

"Hath he been at any of the trials at Derby?"

She bowed her head.

"He was at the trial of Mr. Garlick," she said; "last year; and was one

of those who spoke for his banishment."

* * * * *

And then, on a sudden, Mistress Alice moved in her corner, where she sat

with the widow of her brother.

"And what of her Grace?" she said. "Is it true what Dick told us before

supper, that Parliament hath sentenced her?"

Robin shook his head.

"I hear so much gossip," he said, "in the taverns, that I believe

nothing. I had not heard that. Tell me what it was."

He was in a torment of mind as to what he should say of his own

adventure at Chartley. On the one side it was plain that no rumour of

the tale must get abroad or he would never be able to come to her again;

on the other side, no word had come from Mr. Bourgoign, though two

months had passed. He knew, indeed, what all the world knew by now, that

a trial had been held by over forty lords in Fotheringay Castle, whither

the Queen had been moved at the end of September, and that reports had

been sent of it to London. But for the rest he knew no more than the

others. Tales ran about the country on every side. One man would say

that he had it from London direct that Parliament had sentenced her;

another that the Queen of England had given her consent too; a third,

that Parliament had not dared to touch the matter at all; a fourth, that

Elizabeth had pardoned her. But, for Robin, his hesitation largely lay

in his knowledge that it was on the Babington plot that all would turn,

and that this would have been the chief charge against her; and here,

but a yard away from him, in the gloom of the chimney-breast sat

Anthony's wife and sister. How could he say that this was so, and yet

that he believed her wholly innocent of a crime which he detested? He

had dreaded this talk the instant that he had seen them in the hall and

heard their names.

But Mistress Alice would not be put off. She repeated what she had said.

Dick had come up from Dethick only that afternoon, and was now gone

again, so that he could not be questioned; but he had told his mistress

plainly that the story in Derby, brought in by couriers, was that

Parliament had consented and had passed sentence on her Grace; that her

Grace herself had received the news only the day before; but that the

warrant was not signed.

"And on what charge?" asked Robin desperately. Mistress Alice's voice

rang out proudly; but he saw her press the girl closer as she spoke.

"That she was privy to the plot which my ... my brother had a hand in."

Then Robin drew a breath and decided.

"It may be so," he said. "But I do not believe she was privy to it. I

spoke with her Grace at Chartley--"

There was a swift movement in the half circle.

"I spoke with her Grace at Chartley," he said. "I went to her under

guise of a herbalist: I heard her confession and gave her communion; and

she declared publicly, before two witnesses, after she had had

communion, that she was guiltless."

* * * * *

Robin was no story-teller; but for half an hour he was forced to become

one, until his hearers were satisfied. Even here, in the distant hills,

Mary's name was a key to a treasure-house of mysteries. It was through

this country, too, that she had passed again and again. It was at old

Chatsworth--the square house with the huge Italian and Dutch gardens,

that a Cavendish had bought thirty years ago from the Agards--that she

had passed part of her captivity; it was in Derby that she had halted

for a night last year; it was near Burton that she had slept two months

ago on her road to Fotheringay; and to hear now of her, from one who had

spoken to her that very autumn, was as a revelation. So Robin told it as

well as he could.

"And it may be," he said, "that I shall have to go again. Mr. Bourgoign

said that he would send to me if he could. But I have heard no word from

him." (He glanced round the watching faces.) "And I need not say that I

shall hear no word at all, if the tale I have told you leak out."

"Perhaps she hath a chaplain again," said Mr. John, after pause.

"I do not think so," said the priest. "If she had none at Chartley, she

would all the less have one at Fotheringay."

"And it may be you will be sent for again?" asked Marjorie's voice

gently from the darkness.

"It may be so," said the priest.

"The letter is to be sent here?" she asked.

"I told Mr. Bourgoign so."

"Does any other know you are here?"

"No, Mistress Marjorie."

There was a pause.

"It is growing late," said Mr. John. "Will your Reverence go upstairs

with me; and these ladies will come after, I think."

III

If it had been a great day for Robin that he should come back to his own

country after six years, and be received in this house of strange

memories; that he should sit upstairs as a priest, and hear confessions

in that very parlour where nearly seven years ago he had sat with

Marjorie as her accepted lover--if all this had been charged, to him,

with emotions and memories which, however he had outgrown them, yet

echoed somewhere wonderfully in his mind; it was no less a kind of

climax and consummation to the girl whose house this was, and who had

waited so long to receive back a lover who came now in so different a

guise.

But it must be made plain that to neither of them was there a thought or

a memory that ought not to be. To those who hold that men are no better,

except for their brains, than other animals; that they are but, after

all, bundles of sense from which all love and aspiration take their

rise--to such the thing will seem simply false. They will say that it

was not so; that all that strange yearning that Marjorie had to see the

man back again; that the excitement that beat in Robin's heart as he had

ridden up the well-remembered slope, all in the dark, and had seen the

lighted windows at the top; that these were but the old loves in the

disguise of piety. But to those who understand what priesthood is, for

him that receives it, and for the soul that reverences it, the thing is

a truism. For the priest was one who loved Christ more than all the

world; and the woman one who loved priesthood more than herself.

Yet her memories of him that remained in her had, of course, a place in

her heart; and, though she knelt before him presently in the little

parlour where once he had kneeled before her, as simply as a child

before her father, and told her sins, and received Christ's pardon, and

went away to make room for the next--though all this was without a

reproach in her eyes; yet, as she went she knew that she must face a

fresh struggle, and a temptation that would not have been one-tenth so

fierce if it had been some other priest that was in peril. That peril

was Fotheringay, where (as she knew well enough) every strange face

would be scrutinized as perhaps nowhere else in all England; and that

temptation lay in the knowledge that when that letter should come (as

she knew in her heart it would come), it would be through her hands that

it would pass--if it passed indeed.

* * * * *

While the others went to the priest one by one, Marjorie kneeled in her

room, fighting with a devil that was not yet come to her, as is the way

with sensitive consciences.

CHAPTER VI

I

The suspense at Fotheringay grew deeper with every day that passed.

Christmas was come and gone, and no sign was made from London, so far,

at least, as the little town was concerned. There came almost daily from

the castle new tales of slights put upon the Queen, and now and again of

new favours granted to her. Her chaplain, withdrawn for a while, had

been admitted to her again a week before Christmas; a crowd had

collected to see the Popish priest ride in, and had remarked on his

timorous air; and about the same time a courier had been watched as he

rode off to London, bearing, it was rumoured, one last appeal from one

Queen to the other. On the other hand, it was known that Mary no longer

had her daïs in her chamber, and that the billiard-table, which she

never used, had been taken away again.

But all this had happened before Christmas, and now a month had gone by,

and although this or that tale of discourtesy from gaoler to prisoner

leaked out through the servants; though it was known that the crucifix

which Mary had hung up in the place where her daïs had stood remained

undisturbed--though this argument or the other could be advanced in turn

by men sitting over their wine in the taverns, that the Queen's cause

was rising or falling, nothing was truly known the one way or the other.

It had been proclaimed, by trumpet, in every town in England, that

sentence of death was passed; yet this was two or three months ago, and

the knowledge that the warrant had not yet been signed seemed an

argument to some that now it never would be.

* * * * *

A group was waiting (as a group usually did wait) at the village

entrance to the new bridge lately built by her Grace of England, towards

sunset on an evening late in January. This situation commanded, so far

as was possible, every point of interest. It was the beginning of the

London road, up which so many couriers had passed; it was over this

bridge that her Grace of Scotland herself had come from her

cross-country journey from Chartley. On the left, looking northwards,

rose the great old collegiate church, with its graceful lantern tower,

above the low thatched stone houses of the village; on the right,

adjoining the village beyond the big inn, rose the huge keep of the

castle and its walls, within its double moats, ranged in form of a

fetterlock of which the river itself was its straight side. Beyond, the

low rolling hills and meadows met the chilly January sky.

For four months now the village had been transformed into a kind of

camp. The castle itself was crammed to bursting. The row of little

windows beside the hall on the first floor, visible only from the road

that led past the inn parallel to the river, marked the lodgings of the

Queen, where, with the hall also for her use, she lived continually; the

rest of the castle was full of men-at-arms, officers, great lords who

came and went--these, with the castellan's rooms and those of his

people, Sir Amyas' lodgings, and the space occupied by Mary's own

servants--all these filled the castle entirely. For the rest--the

garrison not on duty, the grooms, the couriers, the lesser servants, the

suites of the visitors, and even many of the visitors themselves--these

filled the two inns of the little town completely, and overflowed

everywhere into the houses of the people. It was a vision of a garrison

in war-time that the countryfolk gaped at continually; the street

sparkled all day with liveries and arms; archers went to and fro; the

trample of horses, the sharp military orders at the changings of guard

outside and within the towered gateway that commanded the entrance over

the moats, the songs of men over their wine in the tavern-parlours--

these things had become matters of common observation, and fired many a

young farm-man with a zeal for arms.

The Queen herself was a mystery.

They had seen, for a moment, as she drove in after dark last September,

a coach (in which, it was said, she had sat with her back to the horses)

surrounded by guards; patient watchers had, perhaps, half a dozen times

altogether caught a glimpse of a woman's face, at a window that was

supposed to be hers, look out for an instant over the wall that skirted

the moat. But that was all. They heard the trumpets' cry within the

castle; and even learned to distinguish something of what each

signified--the call for the changing of guards, the announcement of

dinner and supper; the warning to the gatekeepers that persons were to

pass out. But of her, round whom all this centred, of the prison-queen

of this hive of angry bees, they knew less than of her Grace of England

whom once they had seen ride in through these very gates. Tales, of

course, were abundant--gossip from servant to servant, filtering down at

last, distorted or attenuated, to the rustics who watched and exclaimed;

but there was not a soldier who kept her, not a cook who served her, of

whom they did not know more than of herself. There were even parties in

the village; or, rather, there was a silent group who did not join in

the universal disapproval, but these were queer and fantastic persons,

who still held to the old ways and would not go to church with the rest.

A little more material had been supplied for conversation by the events

of to-day. It had positively been reported, by a fellow who had been to

see about a room for himself in the village, that he had been turned out

of the castle to make space for her Grace's chaplain. This was puzzling.

Had not the Popish priest already been in the castle five or six weeks?

Then why should he now require another chamber?

The argument waxed hot by the bridge. One said that it was another

priest that was come in disguise; another, that once a Popish priest got

a foothold in a place he was never content till he got the whole for

himself; a third, that the fellow had simply lied, and that he was

turned out because he had been caught by Sir Amyas making love to one of

the maids. Each was positive of his own thesis, and argued for it by the

process of re-assertion that it was so, and that his opponents were

fools. They spat into the water; one got out a tobacco pipe that a

soldier had given him and made a great show of filling it, though he had

no flint to light it with; another proclaimed that for two figs he would

go and inquire at the gateway itself....

To this barren war of the schools came a fact at last, and its bearer

was a gorgeous figure of a man-at-arms (who, later, got into trouble by

talking too much), who came swaggering down the road from the New Inn,

blowing smoke into the air, with his hat on one side, and his

breast-piece loose; and declared in that strange clipped London-English

of his that he had been on guard at the door of Sir Amyas' room, and had

heard him tell Melville the steward and De Préau the priest that they

must no longer have access to her Grace, but must move their lodgings

elsewhere within the castle.

This, then, had to be discussed once more from the beginning. One said

that this was an evident sign that the end was to come and that Madam

was to die; another that, on the contrary, it was plain that this was

not so, but that rather she was to be compelled by greater strictness to

acknowledge her guilt; a third, that it was none of these things, but

rather that Madam was turning Protestant at last in order to save her

life, and had devised this manner of ridding herself of the priest. And

the soldier damned them all round as block-fools, who knew nothing and

talked all the more for it.

* * * * *

The dark was beginning to fall before the group broke up, and none of

them took much notice of a young man on a fresh horse, who rode quietly

out of the yard of the New Inn as the saunterers came up. One of them,

three minutes later, however, heard suddenly from across the bridge the

sound of a horse breaking into a gallop and presently dying away

westwards beyond Perry Lane.

II

Within the castle that evening nothing happened that was of any note to

its more careless occupants. All was as usual.

The guard at the towers that controlled the drawbridge across the outer

moat was changed at four o'clock; six men came out, under an officer,

from the inner court; the words were exchanged, and the six that went

off duty marched into the armoury to lay by their pikes and presently

dispersed, four to their rooms in the east side of the quadrangle, two

to their quarters in the village. From the kitchen came the clash of

dishes. Sir Amyas came out from the direction of the keep, where he had

been conferring with Mr. FitzWilliam, the castellan, and passed across

to his lodging on the south. A butcher hurried in, under escort of a

couple of men from the gate, with a covered basket and disappeared into

the kitchen entry. All these things were observed idly by the dozen

guards who stood two at each of the five doors that gave upon the

courtyard. Presently, too, hardly ten minutes after the guard was

changed, three figures came out at the staircase foot where Sir Amyas

had just gone in, and stood there apparently talking in low voices. Then

one of them, Mr. Melville, the Queen's steward, came across the court

with Mr. Bourgoign towards the outer entrance, passed under it, and

presently Mr. Bourgoign came back and wheeled sharply in to the right by

the entry that led up to the Queen's lodging. Meanwhile the third

figure, whom one of the men had thought to be M. de Préau, had gone back

again towards Mr. Melville's rooms.

That was all that was to be seen, until half an hour later, a few

minutes before the drawbridge was raised for the night, the steward came

back, crossed the court once more and vanished into the entry opposite.

It was about this time that the young man had ridden out from the New

Inn.

Then the sun went down; the flambeaux were lighted beneath the two great

entrances--in the towered archway across the moat, and the smaller

vaulted archway within, as well as one more flambeau stuck into the iron

ring by each of the four more court-doors, and lights began to burn in

the windows round about. The man at Sir Amyas' staircase looked across

the court and idly wondered what was passing in the rooms opposite on

the first floor where the Queen was lodged. He had heard that the priest

had been forced to change his room, and was to sleep in Mr. Melville's

for the present; so her Grace would have to get on without him as well

as she could. There would be no Popish mass to-morrow, then, in the

oratory that he had heard was made upstairs.... He marvelled at the

superstition that made this a burden....

At a quarter before six a trumpet blew, and presently the tall windows

of the hall across the court from him began to kindle. That was for her

Grace's supper to be served. At five minutes to six another trumpet

sounded, and M. Landet, the Queen's butler, hurried out with his white

rod to take his place for the entrance of the dishes. Finally, through

the ground-floor window at the foot of the Queen's stair, the man caught

a glimpse of moving figures passing towards the hall. That would be her

Grace going in state to her supper with her women; but, for the first

time, without either priest to say grace or steward to escort her. He

saw, too, the couple of guards under the inner archway come to the

salute as the little procession came for an instant within their view;

and Mr. Newrins, the butler of the castle, stop suddenly and pull off

his cap as he was hurrying in to be in time for the supper of the

gentlemen that was served in the keep half an hour after the Queen's.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, ten miles away, along the Uppingham and Leicester track, rode

a young man through the dark.

III

Sunday, too, passed as usual.

At half-past eight the bells of the church pealed out for the morning

service, and the village street was thronged with worshippers and a few

soldiers. At nine o'clock they ceased, and the street was empty. At

eleven o'clock the trumpets sounded to announce change of guard, and to

tell the kitchen folk that dishing-time was come. Half an hour later

once more the little procession glinted a moment through the

ground-floor window of the Queen's stair as her Grace went to dinner.

(She was not very well, the cooks had reported, and had eaten but little

last night.) At twelve o'clock she came out again and went upstairs; and

at the same time, in Leicester, a young man, splashed from head to foot,

slipped off a draggled and exhausted horse and went into an inn,

ordering a fresh horse to be ready for him at three o'clock.

And so once more the sun went down, and the little rituals were

performed, and the guards were changed, and M. Landet, for the last time

in his life (though he did not know it), came out from the kitchen with

his white rod to bear it before the dishes of a Queen; and Sir Amyas

walked in from the orchard and was saluted, and Mr. FitzWilliam went his

rounds, and the drawbridge was raised. And, at the time that the

drawbridge was raised, a young man on a horse was wondering when he

should see the lights of Burton....

IV

The first that Mistress Manners knew of his coming in the early hours of

Monday morning, was when she was awakened by Janet in the pitch darkness

shaking her shoulder.

"It is a young man," she said, "on foot. His horse fell five miles off.

He is come with a letter from Derby."

Sleep fell from Marjorie like a cloak. This kind of thing had happened

to her before. Now and then such a letter would come from a priest who

lacked money or desired a guide or information. She sprang out of bed

and began to put on her outer dress and her hooded cloak, as the night

was cold.

"Bring him into the hall," she said. "Get beer and some food, and blow

the fire up."

Janet vanished.

When the mistress came down five minutes later, all had been done as she

had ordered. The turf and wood fire leaped in the chimney; a young man,

still with his hat on his head and drawn down a little over his face,

was sitting over the hearth, steaming like a kettle, eating voraciously.

Janet was waiting discreetly by the doors. Marjorie nodded to her, and

she went out; she had learned that her mistress's secrets were not

always her own as well.

"I am Mistress Manners," she said. "You have a letter for me?"

The young man stood up.

"I know you well enough, mistress," he said. "I am John Merton's son."

Marjorie's heart leaped with relief. In spite of her determination that

this must be a letter from a priest, there had still thrust itself

before her mind the possibility that it might be that other letter whose

coming she had feared. She had told herself fiercely as she came

downstairs just now, that it could not be. No news was come from

Fotheringay all the winter; it was common knowledge that her Grace had a

priest of her own. And now that this was John Merton's son--

She smiled.

"Give me the letter," she said. "I should have known you, too, if it

were not for the dark."

"Well, mistress," he said, "the letter was to be delivered to you, Mr.

Melville said; but--"

"Who?"

"Mr. Melville, mistress: her Grace's steward at Fotheringay."

* * * * *

He talked on a moment or two, beginning to say that Mr. Melville himself

had come out to the inn, that he, as Melville's own servant, had been

lodging there, and had been bidden to hold himself in readiness, since

he knew Derbyshire.... But she was not listening. She only knew that

that had fallen which she feared.

"Give me the letter," she said again.

He sat down, excusing himself, and fumbled with his boot; and by the

time that he held it out to her, she was in the thick of the conflict.

She knew well enough what it meant--that there was no peril in all

England like that to which this letter called her friend, there, waiting

for him in Fotheringay where every strange face was suspected, where a

Popish priest was as a sheep in a den of wolves, where there would be no

mercy at all if he were discovered; and where, if he were to be of use

at all, he must adventure himself in the very spot where he would be

most suspected, on a task that would be thought the last word in treason

and disobedience. And, worst of all, this priest had lodged in the

tavern where the conspirators had lodged; he had talked with them the

night before their flight, and now, here he was, striving to get access

to her for whom all had been designed. Was there a soul in England that

could doubt his complicity?... And it was to her own house here in

Derbyshire that he had come for shelter; it was here that he had said

mass yesterday; and it must be from this house that he must ride, on one

of her horses; and it must be her hand that gave him the summons. Last

of all, it was she, Marjorie Manners, that had sent him to this life,

six years ago.

Then, as she took the letter, the shrewd woman in her spoke. It was

irresistible, and she seemed to listen to voice that was not hers.

"Does any here know that you are come?"

"No, mistress."

"If I bade you, and said that I had reasons for it, you would ride away

again alone, without a word to any?"

"Why, yes, mistress!"

(Oh! the plan was irresistible and complete. She would send this

messenger away again on one of her own horses as far as Derby; he could

leave the horse there, and she would send a man for it to-morrow. He

would go back to Fotheringay and would wait, he and those that had sent

him. And the priest they expected would not come. He, too, himself, had

ceased to expect any word from Mr. Bourgoign; he had said a month ago

that surely none would come now. He had been away from Booth's Edge, in

fact, for nearly a month, and had scarcely even asked on his return last

Saturday to Padley, whether any message had come. Why, it was

complete--complete and irresistible! She would burn the letter here in

this hall-fire when the man was gone again; and say to Janet that the

letter had been from a travelling priest that was in trouble, and that

she had sent the answer. And Robin would presently cease to look for

news, and the end would come, and there would be no more trouble.)

"Do you know what is in the letter?" she whispered sharply. ("Sit down

again and go on eating.")

He obeyed her.

"Yes, mistress," he said. "The priest was taken from her on Saturday.

Mr. Bourgoign had arranged all in readiness for that."

"You said Mr. Melville."

"Mr. Melville is a Protestant, mistress; but he is very well devoted to

her Grace, and has done as Mr. Bourgoign wished."

"Why must her Grace have a priest at once? Surely for a few days--"

He glanced up at her, and she, conscious of her own falseness, thought

he looked astonished.

"I mean that they will surely give her her priest back, again presently;

and"--(her voice faltered)--"and Mr. Alban is spent with his

travelling."

"They mean to kill her, mistress. There is no doubt of it amongst those

of us that are Catholics. And it is that she may have a priest before

she dies, that--"

He paused.

"Yes?" she said.

"Her Grace had a fit of crying, it is said, when her priest was taken

from her. Mr. Melville was crying himself, even though--"

He stopped, himself plainly affected.

* * * * *

Then, in a great surge, her own heart rose up, and she understood what

she was doing. As in a vision, she saw her own mother crying out for the

priest that never came; and she understood that horror of darkness that

falls on one who, knowing what the priest can do, knowing the infinite

consolations which Christ gives, is deprived, when physical death

approaches, of that tremendous strength and comfort. Indeed, she

recognised to the full that when a priest cannot be had, God will save

and forgive without him; yet what would be the heartlessness, to say

nothing of the guilt, of one that would keep him away? For what, except

that this strength and comfort might be at the service of Christ's

flock, had her own life been spent? It was expressly for this that she

had lived on in England when peace and the cloister might be hers

elsewhere; and now that her own life was touched, should she fail?...

The blindness passed like a dream, and her soul rose up again on a wave

of pain and exaltation....

"Wait," she said. "I will go and awaken him, and bid him come down."

V

An hour later, as the first streaks of dawn slit the sky to the

eastwards over the moors, she stood with Janet and Mistress Alice and

Robin by the hall fire.

She had said not a word to any of the struggle she had passed through.

She had gone upstairs resolutely and knocked on his door till he had

answered, and then whispered, "The letter is come.... I will have food

ready"; slipping the letter beneath the door.

Then she had sent Janet to awaken a couple of men that slept over the

stables; and bid them saddle two horses at once; and herself had gone to

the buttery to make ready a meal. Then Mistress Alice had awakened and

come downstairs, and the three women had waited on the priest, as, in

boots and cloak, he had taken some food.

Then, as the sound of the horses' feet coming round from the stables at

the back had reached them, she had determined to tell Robin before he

went of how she had played the coward.

She went out with him to the entry between the hall and the buttery,

holding the others back with a glance.

"I near destroyed the letter," she said simply, with downcast eyes, "and

sent the man away again. I was afraid of what might fall at

Fotheringay.... May Christ protect you!"

She said no more than that, but turned and called the others before he

could speak.

As he gathered up the reins a moment later, before mounting, the three

women kneeled down in the lighted entry and the two farm-men by the

horses' heads, and the priest gave them his blessing.

CHAPTER VII

I

It was not until after dawn on Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of January,

as the bells were ringing in the parish church for the Conversion of St.

Paul, that the two draggled travellers rode in over the bridge of

Fotheringay, seeing the castle-keep rise grim and grey out of the

river-mists on the right; and, passing on, dismounted in the yard of the

New Inn. They had had one or two small misadventures by the way, and

young Merton, through sheer sleepiness, had so reeled in his saddle on

the afternoon of Monday, that the priest had insisted that they should

both have at least one good night's rest. But they had ridden all

Tuesday night without drawing rein, and Robin, going up to the room that

he was to share with the young man, fell upon the bed, and asleep, all

in one act.

* * * * *

He was awakened by the trumpets sounding for dinner in the castle-yard,

and sat up to find young John looking at him. The news that he brought

drove the last shreds of sleep from his brain.

"I have seen Mr. Melville, my master, sir. He bids me say it is useless

for Mr. Bourgoign, or anyone else, to attempt anything with Sir Amyas

for the present. Mr. Melville hath spoken to Sir Amyas as to his

separation from her Grace, and could get no reason for it. But the same

day--it was of Monday--her Grace's butler was forbidden any more to

carry the white rod before her dishes. This is as much as to signify,

Mr. Melville says, that her Grace's royalty shall no longer protect her.

It is their intention, he says, to degrade her first, before they

execute her. And we may look for the warrant any day, my master says."

The young man stared at him mournfully.

"And M. de Préau?"

"M. de Préau goes about as a ghost. He will come and speak with your

Reverence before the day is out. Meanwhile, Mr. Melville says you may

walk abroad freely. Sir Amyas never goes forth of the castle now, and

none will notice. But they might take notice, Mr. Melville says, if you

were to lie all day in your chamber."

* * * * *

It was after dinner, as Robin rose from the table in a parlour, where he

had dined with two or three lawyers and an officer of Mr. FitzWilliam,

that John Merton came to him and told him that a gentleman was waiting.

He went upstairs and found the priest, a little timorous-looking man,

dressed like a minister, pacing quickly to and fro in the tiny room at

the top of the house where John and he were to sleep. The Frenchman

seized his two hands and began to pour out in an agitated whisper a

torrent of French and English. Robin disengaged himself.

"You must sit down, M. de Préau," he said, "and speak slowly, or I shall

not understand one word. Tell me precisely what I must do. I am here to

obey orders--no more. I have no design in my head at all. I will do what

Mr. Bourgoign and yourself decide."

* * * * *

It was pathetic to watch the little priest. He interrupted himself by a

thousand apostrophes; he lifted hands and eyes to the ceiling

repeatedly; he named his poor mistress saint and martyr; he cried out

against the barbarian land in which he found himself, and the

bloodthirsty tigers with whom, like a second Daniel, he himself had to

consort; he expatiated on the horrible risk that he ran in venturing

forth from the castle on such an errand, saying that Sir Amyas would

wring his neck like a hen's, if he so much as suspected the nature of

his business. He denounced, with feeble venom, the wickedness of these

murderers, who would not only slay his mistress's body, but her soul as

well, if they could, by depriving her of a priest. Incidentally,

however, he disclosed that at present there was no plan at all for

Robin's admission. Mr. Bourgoign had sent for him, hoping that he might

be able to reintroduce him once more on the same pretext as at Chartley;

but the incident of Monday, when the white rod had been forbidden, and

the conversation of Sir Amyas to Mr. Melville had made it evident that

an attempt at present would be worse than useless.

"You must yourself choose!" he cried, with an abominable accent. "If you

will imperil your life by remaining, our Lord will no doubt reward you

in eternity; but, if not, and you flee, not a man will blame you--least

of all myself, who would, no doubt, flee too, if I but dared."

This was frank and humble, at any rate. Robin smiled.

"I will remain," he said.

The Frenchman seized his hands and kissed them.

"You are a hero and a martyr, monsieur! We will perish together,

therefore."

II

After the Frenchman's departure, and an hour's sleep in that profundity

of unconsciousness that follows prolonged effort, Robin put on his sword

and hat and cloak, having dressed himself with care, and went slowly out

of the inn to inspect the battlefield. He carried himself deliberately,

with a kind of assured insolence, as if he had supreme rights in this

place, and were one of that crowd of persons--great lords, lawyers,

agents of the court--to whom for the last few months Fotheringay had

become accustomed. He turned first to the right towards the castle, and

presently was passing down its long length.

It looked, indeed, a royal prison. A low wall on his right protected the

road from the huge outer moat that ran, in the shape of a fetterlock,

completely round all the buildings; and beyond it, springing immediately

from the edge of the water, rose the massive outer wall, pierced here

and there with windows. He thought that he could make out the tops of

the hall windows in one place, beyond the skirting wall, the pinnacles

of the chapel in another, and a row of further windows that might be

lodgings in a third; but from without here nothing was certain, except

the gigantic keep, that stood high to the west, and the strong towers

that guarded the drawbridge; this, as he went by, was lowered to its

place, and he could look across it into the archway, where four men

stood on guard with their pikes. The inner doors, however, were closed

beyond them, and he could see nothing of the inner moat that surrounded

the court, nor the yard itself. Neither did he think it prudent to ask

any questions, though he looked freely about him; since the part he must

play for the present plainly was that of one who had a right here and

knew what he did.

He came back to the inn an hour later, after a walk through the village

and round the locked church: this was a splendid building, with flying

buttresses and a high tower, with exterior carvings of saints and

evangelists all in place. But it looked desolate to him, and he was the

more dejected, as he seemed no nearer to the Queen than before, and with

little chance of getting there. Meanwhile, there was but one thing to be

done, and that the hardest of all--to wait. Perhaps in a few days he

might get speech with Mr. Bourgoign; yet for the present that, too, as

the priest had told him, was out of the question.

III

Five days were gone by, Sunday had come and gone, and yet there had been

no news, except a letter conveyed to him by Merton, written by Mr.

Bourgoign himself, telling him that he had news that Mr. Beale, the

Clerk of the Council, was to arrive some time that week, and that this

presaged the approach of the end. He would, therefore, do his utmost

within the next few days to approach Sir Amyas and ask for the admission

of the young herbalist who had done her Grace so much good at Chartley.

He added that if any question were to be raised as to why he had been so

long in the place, and why, indeed, he had come at all, he was to answer

fearlessly that Mr. Bourgoign had sent for him.

On the Sunday night Robin could not sleep. Little by little the hideous

suspense was acting upon him, and the knowledge that not a hundred yards

away from him the wonderful woman whom he had seen at Chartley, the

loving and humble Catholic, who had kneeled so ardently before her Lord,

the Queen who had received from him the sacraments for which she

thirsted--the knowledge that she was breaking her heart, so near, for

the consolation which a priest only could give, and that he, a priest,

was free to go through all England, except through that towered gateway

past which he walked every day--this increased his misery and his

longing.

The very day he had been through--the Sunday on which he could neither

say nor even hear mass (for, because of the greatness of that which was

at stake, he had thought it wiser to bring with him nothing that could

arouse suspicion)--and the hearing of the bells from the church calling

to Protestant prayers, and the sight of the crowds going and

returning--this brought him lower than he had been since his first

coming to England. He lay then in the darkness, turning from side to

side, thinking of these things, listening to the breathing of the young

man who lay on blankets at the foot of his bed.

About midnight he could lie there no longer. He got out of bed

noiselessly, stepped across the other, went to the window-seat and sat

down there, staring out, with eyes well accustomed to the darkness,

towards the vast outline against the sky which he knew was the keep of

the castle. No light burned there to relieve its brutality. It remained

there, implacable as English justice, immovable as the heart of

Elizabeth and the composure of the gaoler who kept it.... Then he

drew out Mr. Maine's rosary and began to recite the "Sorrowful

Mysteries."...

He supposed afterwards that he had begun to doze; but he started,

wide-awake, at a sudden glare of light in his eyes, as if a beacon had

flared for an instant somewhere within the castle enclosure. It was gone

again, however; there remained the steady monstrous mass of building and

the heavy sky. Then, as he watched, it came again, without warning and

without sound--that same brilliant flare of light, against which the

towers and walls stood out pitch-black. A third time it came, and all

was dark once more.

* * * * *

In the morning, as he sat over his ale in the tavern below, he listened,

without lifting his eyes, engrossed, it seemed, in a little book he was

reading, to the excited talk of a group of soldiers. One of them, he

said, had been on guard beneath the Queen's windows last night, and

between midnight and one o'clock had seen three times a brilliant light

explode itself, like soundless gunpowder, immediately over the room

where she slept. And this he asserted, over and over again.

IV

On the following Saturday John Merton came up into the room where the

priest was sleeping after dinner and awakened him.

"If you will come at once with me, sir, you can have speech with Mr.

Bourgoign. My master has sent me to tell you so; Mr. Bourgoign has leave

to go out."

Robin said nothing. It was the kind of opportunity that must not be

imperilled by a single word that might be overheard. He threw on his

great cloak, buckled his sword on, and followed with every nerve awake.

They went up the street leading towards the church, and turned down a

little passage-way between two of the larger houses; the young man

pushed on a door in the wall; and Robin went through, to find himself in

a little enclosed garden with Mr. Bourgoign gathering herbs from the

border, not a yard from him. The physician said nothing; he glanced

sharply up and pointed to a seat set under the shelter of the wall that

hid the greater part of the garden from the house to which it belonged;

and as Robin reached it, Mr. Bourgoign, still gathering his herbs, began

to speak in an undertone.

"Do not speak except very softly, if you must," he said. "The Queen is

sick again; and I have leave to gather herbs for her in two or three

gardens. It was refused to me at first and then granted afterwards. From

that I look for the worst.... Beale will come to-morrow, I hear....

Paulet refused me leave the first time, I make no doubt, knowing that

all was to end within a day or two: then he granted it me, for fear I

should suspect his reason. (Can you hear me, sir?)"

Robin nodded. His heart thumped within him.

"Well, sir; I shall tell Sir Amyas to-morrow that my herbs do no

good--that I do not know what to give her Grace. I have seen her Grace

continually, but with a man in the room always.... Her Grace knows that

you are here, and bids me thank you with all her heart.... I shall speak

to Sir Amyas, and shall tell him that you are here: and that I sent for

you, but did not dare to ask leave for you until now. If he refuses I

shall know that all is finished, and that Beale has brought the warrant

with him.... If he consents I shall think that it is put off for a

little...."

He was very near to Robin now, still, with a critical air pushing the

herbs this way and that, selecting one now and again.

"Have you anything to say to me, sir? Do not speak loud. The fellow that

conducted me from the castle is drinking ale in the house behind. He did

not know of this door on the side.... Have you anything to say?"

"Yes," said Robin.

"What is it?"

"Two things. The first is that I think one of the fellows in the inn is

doubtful of me. Merton tells me he has asked a great number of questions

about me. What had I best do?"

"Who is he?"

"He is a servant of my lord Shrewsbury's who is in the neighbourhood."

The doctor was silent.

"Am I in danger?" asked the priest quietly. "Shall I endanger her

Grace?"

"You cannot endanger her Grace. She is near her end in any case. But

for yourself--"

"Yes."

"You are endangering yourself every instant by remaining," said the

doctor dryly.

"The second matter--" began Robin.

"But what of yourself--"

"Myself must be endangered," said Robin softly. "The second matter is

whether you cannot get me near her Grace in the event of her execution.

I could at least give her absolution _sub conditione_."

Mr. Bourgoign shot a glance at him which he could not interpret.

"Sir," he said; "God will reward you.... As regards the second matter it

will be exceedingly difficult. If it is to be in the open court, I may

perhaps contrive it. If it is to be in the hall, none but known persons

would be admitted.... Have you anything more, sir?"

"No."

"Then you had best be gone again at once.... Her Grace prays for you....

She had a fit of weeping last night to know that a priest was here and

she not able to have him.... Do you pray for her...."

V

Sunday morning dawned; the bells pealed out; the crowds went by the

church and came back to dinner; and yet no word had come to the inn.

Robin scarcely stirred out all that day for fear a summons should come

and he miss it. He feigned a little illness and sat wrapped up in the

corner window of the parlour upstairs, whence he could command both

roads--that which led to the Castle, and that which led to the bridge

over which Mr. Beale must come. He considered it prudent also to do

this, because of the fellow of whom Merton had told him--a man that

looked like a groom, and who was lent, he heard, with one or two others

by his master to do service at the Castle.

Robin's own plan had been distinct ever since M. de Préau had brought

him the first message. He bore himself, as has been said, assuredly and

confidently; and if he were questioned would simply have said that he

had business connected with the Castle. This, asserted in a proper tone,

would probably have its effect. There was so much mystery, involving

such highly-placed personages from the Queen of England downwards, that

discretion was safer than curiosity.

* * * * *

It was growing towards dark when Robin, after long and fruitless staring

down the castle road, turned himself to the other. The parlour was empty

at this hour except for himself.

He saw the group gathering as usual at the entrance to the bridge to

watch the arrivals from London, who, if there were any, generally came

about this time.

Then, as he looked, he saw two horsemen mount the further slope of the

bridge, and come full into view.

Now there was nothing whatever about these two persons, in outward

appearance, to explain the strange effect they had upon the priest. They

could not possibly be the party for which he was watching. Mr. Beale

would certainly come with a great company. They were, besides, plainly

no more than serving-men: one wore some kind of a livery; the other, a

strongly-built man who sat his horse awkwardly, was in new clothes that

did not fit him. They rode ordinary hackneys; and each had luggage

strapped behind his saddle. All this the priest saw as they came up the

narrow street and halted before the inn door. They might, perhaps, be

servants of Mr. Beale; yet that did not seem probable as there was no

sign of a following party. The landlord came out on to the steps

beneath; and after a word or two, they slipped off their horses wearily,

and led them round into the court of the inn.

All this was usual enough; the priest had seen such arrivals a dozen

times at this very door; yet he felt sick as he looked at them. There

appeared to him something terrible and sinister about them. He had seen

the face of the liveried servant; but not of the other: this one had

carried his head low, with his great hat drawn down on his head. The

priest wondered, too, what they carried in their trunks.

* * * * *

When he went down to supper in the great room of the inn, he could not

forbear looking round for them. But only one was to be seen--the

liveried servant who had done the talking.

Robin turned to his neighbour--a lawyer with whom he had spoken a few

times.

"That is a new livery to me," he said, nodding towards the stranger.

"That?" said the lawyer. "That? Why, that is the livery of Mr.

Walsingham. I have seen it in London."

* * * * *

Towards the end of supper a stir broke out among the servants who sat at

the lower end of the room near the windows that looked out upon the

streets. Two or three sprung up from the tables and went to look out.

"What is that?" cried the lawyer.

"It is Mr. Beale going past, sir," answered a voice.

Robin lifted his eyes with an effort and looked. Even as he did so there

came a trampling of horses' hoofs; and then, in the light that streamed

from the windows, there appeared a company on horseback. They were too

far away from where he sat, and the lights were too confusing, for him

to see more than the general crowd that went by--perhaps from a dozen to

twenty all told. But by them ran the heads of men who had waited at the

bridge to see them go by; and a murmuring of voices came even through

the closed windows. It was plain that others besides those who were

close to her Grace, saw a sinister significance in Mr. Beale's arrival.

VI

Robin had hardly reached his room after supper and a little dessert in

the parlour, before Merton came in. He drew his hand out of his breast

as he entered, and, with a strange look, gave the priest a folded

letter. Robin took it without a word and read it through.

After a pause he said to the other:

"Who were those two men that came before supper? I saw them ride up."

"There is only one, sir. He is one of Mr. Walsingham's men."

"There were two," said the priest.

"I will inquire, sir," said the young man, looking anxiously from the

priest's face to the note and back again.

Robin noticed it.

"It is bad news," he said shortly. "I must say no more.... Will you

inquire for me; and come and tell me at once."

When the young man had gone Robin read the note again before destroying

it.

"I spoke to Sir A. to-day. He will have none of it. He seemed highly

suspicious when I spoke to him of you. If you value your safety more

than her Grace's possible comfort, you had best leave at once. In any

case, use great caution."

Then, in a swift, hurried hand there followed a post-script:

"Mr. B. is just now arrived, and is closeted with Sir A. All is over, I

think."

* * * * *

Ten minutes later Merton came back and found the priest still in the

same attitude, sitting on the bed.

"They will have none of it, sir," he said. "They say that one only came,

in advance of Mr. Beale."

He came a little closer, and Robin could see that he was excited.

"But you are right, sir, for all their lies. I saw supper plates and an

empty flagon come down from the stair that leads to the little chamber

above the kitchen."

CHAPTER VIII

I

Overhead lay the heavy sky of night-clouds like a curved sheet of dark

steel, glimmering far away to the left with gashes of pale light. In

front towered the twin gateway, seeming in the gloom to lean forward to

its fall. Lights shone here and there in the windows, vanished and

appeared again, flashing themselves back from the invisible water

beneath. About, behind and on either side, there swayed and murmured

this huge crowd--invisible in the darkness--peasants, gentlemen,

clerks, grooms--all on an equality at last, awed by a common tragedy

into silence, except for words exchanged here and there in an undertone,

or whispered and left unanswered, or sudden murmured prayers to a God

who hid Himself indeed. Now and again, from beyond the veiling walls

came the tramp of men; once, three or four brisk notes blown on a horn;

once, the sudden rumble of a drum; and once, when the silence grew

profound, three or four blows of iron on wood. But at that the murmur

rose into a groan and drowned it again....

So the minutes passed.... Since soon after midnight the folks had been

gathering here. Many had not slept all night, ever since the report had

run like fire through the little town last evening, that the sentence

had been delivered to the prisoner. From that time onwards the road that

led down past the Castle had never been empty. It was now moving on to

dawn, the late dawn of February; and every instant the scene grew more

distinct. It was possible for those pushed against the wall, or against

the chains of the bridge that had been let down an hour ago, to look

down into the chilly water of the moat; to see not the silhouette only

of the huge fortress, but the battlements of the wall, and now and again

a steel cap and a pike-point pass beyond it as the sentry went to and

fro. Noises within the Castle grew more frequent. The voice of an

officer was heard half a dozen times; the rattle of pike-butts, the

clash of steel. The melancholy bray of the horn-blower ran up a minor

scale and down again; the dub-dub of a drum rang out, and was thrown

back in throbs by the encircling walls. The galloping of horses was

heard three or four times as a late-comer tore up the village street and

was forced to halt far away on the outskirts of the crowd--some country

squire, maybe, to whom the amazing news had come an hour ago. Still

there was no movement of the great doors across the bridge. The men on

guard there shifted their positions; nodded a word or two across to one

another; changed their pikes from one hand to the other. It seemed as if

day would come and find the affair no further advanced....

Then, without warning (for so do great climaxes always come), the doors

wheeled back on their hinges, disclosing a line of pikemen drawn up

under the vaulted entrance; a sharp command was uttered by an officer at

their head, causing the two sentries to advance across the bridge; a

great roaring howl rose from the surging crowd; and in an instant the

whole lane was in confusion. Robin felt himself pushed this way and

that; he struggled violently, driving his elbows right and left; was

lifted for a moment clean from his feet by the pressure about him;

slipped down again; gained a yard or two; lost them; gained three or

four in a sudden swirl; and immediately found his feet on wood instead

of earth; and himself racing desperately as a loose group of runners,

across the bridge; and beneath the arch of the castle-gate.

II

When he was able to take breath again, and to substitute thought for

blind instinct, he found himself tramping in a kind of stream of men

into what appeared an impenetrably packed crowd. He was going between

ropes, however, which formed a lane up which it was possible to move.

This lane, after crossing half the court, wheeled suddenly to one side

and doubled on itself, conducting the newcomers behind the crowd of

privileged persons that had come into the castle overnight, or had been

admitted three or four hours ago. These persons were all people of

quality; many of them, out of a kind of sympathy for what was to happen,

were in black. They stood there in rows, scarcely moving, scarcely

speaking, some even bare-headed, filling up now, so far as the priest

could see, the entire court, except in that quarter in which he

presently found himself--the furthest corner away from where rose up the

tall carved and traceried windows of the banqueting-hall. Yet, though no

man spoke above an undertone, a steady low murmur filled the court from

side to side, like the sound of a wagon rolling over a paved road.

He reached his place at last, actually against the wall of the soldiers'

lodgings, and found, presently, that a low row of projecting stones

enabled him to raise himself a few inches, and see, at any rate, a

little better than his neighbours. He had perceived one thing

instantly--namely, that his dream of getting near enough to the Queen to

give her absolution before her death was an impossible one. He had known

since yesterday that the execution was to take place in the hall, and

here was he, within the court certainly, yet as far as possible away

from where he most desired to be.

* * * * *

The last two days had gone by in a horror that there is no describing.

All the hours of them he had passed at his parlour window, waiting

hopelessly for the summons which never came. John Merton had gone to the

castle and come back, each time with more desolate news. There was not a

possibility, he said, when the news was finally certified, of getting a

place in the hall. Three hundred gentlemen had had those places already

assigned; four or five hundred more, it was expected, would have space

reserved for them in the courtyard. The only possibility was to be early

at the gateway, since a limited number of these would probably be

admitted an hour or so before the time fixed for the execution.

The priest had seen many sights from his parlour window during those two

days.

On Monday he had seen, early in the morning, Mr. Beale ride out with his

men to go to my lord Shrewsbury, who was in the neighbourhood, and had

seen him return in time for dinner, with a number of strangers, among

whom was an ecclesiastic. On inquiry, he found this to be Dr. Fletcher,

Dean of Peterborough, who had been appointed to attend Mary both in her

lodgings and upon the scaffold. In the afternoon the street was not

empty for half an hour. From all sides poured in horsemen; gentlemen

riding in with their servants; yeomen and farmers come in from the

countryside, that they might say hereafter that they had at least been

in Fotheringay when a Queen suffered the death of the axe. So the dark

had fallen, yet lights moved about continually, and horses' hoofs never

ceased to beat or the voices of men to talk. Until he fell asleep at

last in his window-seat, he listened always to these things; watched

the lights; prayed softly to himself; clenched his nails into his hands

for indignation; and looked again. On the Tuesday morning came the

sheriff, to dine at the castle with Sir Amyas--a great figure of a man,

dignified and stalwart, riding in the midst of his men. After dinner

came the Earl of Kent, and, last of all, my lord Shrewsbury himself--he

who had been her Grace's gaoler, until he proved too kind for

Elizabeth's taste--now appointed, with peculiar malice, to assist at her

execution. He looked pale and dejected as he rode past beneath the

window.

Yet all this time the supreme horror had been that the end was not

absolutely certain. All in Fotheringay were as convinced as men could

be, who had not seen the warrant nor heard it read, that Mr. Beale had

brought it with him on Sunday night; the priest, above all, from his

communications with Mr. Bourgoign, was morally certain that the terror

was come at last.... It was not until the last night of Mary's life on

earth was beginning to close in that John Merton came up to the parlour,

white and terrified, to tell him that he had been in his master's room

half an hour ago, and that Mr. Melville had come in to them, his face

all slobbered with tears, and had told him that he had but just come

from her Grace's rooms, and had heard with his own ears the sentence

read to her, and her gallant and noble answer.... He had bidden him to

go straight off to the priest, with a message from Mr. Bourgoign and

himself, to the effect that the execution was appointed for eight

o'clock next morning; and that he was to be at the gate of the castle

not later than three o'clock, if, by good fortune, he might be admitted

when the gates were opened at seven.

III

And now that the priest was in his place, he began again to think over

that answer of the Queen. The very words of it, indeed, he did not know

for a month or two later, when Mr. Bourgoign wrote to him at length; but

this, at least, he knew, that her Grace had said (and no man

contradicted her at that time) that she would shed her blood to-morrow

with all the happiness in the world, since it was for the cause of the

Catholic and Roman Church that she died. It was not for any plot that

she was to die: she professed again, kissing her Bible as she did so,

that she was utterly guiltless of any plot against her sister. She died

because she was of that Faith in which she had been born, and which

Elizabeth had repudiated. As for death, she did not fear it; she had

looked for it during all the eighteen years of her imprisonment.

It was at a martyrdom, then, that he was to assist.... He had known

that, without a doubt, ever since the day that Mary had declared her

innocence at Chartley. There had been no possibility of thinking

otherwise; and, as he reflected on this, he remembered that he, too, was

guilty of the same crime;... and he wondered whether he, too, would die

as manfully, if the need for it ever came.

* * * * *

Then, in an instant, he was called back, by the sudden crash of horns

and drums playing all together. He saw again the ranks of heads before

him: the great arched windows of the hall on the other side of the

court, the grim dominating keep, and the merciless February morning sky

over all.

It was impossible to tell what was going on.

On all sides of him men jostled and murmured aloud. One said, "She is

coming down"; another, "It is all over"; another, "They have awakened

her." "What is it? what is it?" whispered Robin to the air, watching

waves of movement pass over the serried heads before him. The lights

were still burning here and there in the windows, and the tall panes of

the hall were all aglow, as if a great fire burned within. Overhead the

sky had turned to daylight at last, but they were grey clouds that

filled the heavens so far as he could see. Meanwhile, the horns brayed

in unison, a rough melody like the notes of bugles, and the drums beat

out the time.

Again there was a long pause--in which the lapse of time was

incalculable. Time had no meaning here: men waited from incident to

incident only--the moving of a line of steel caps, a pause in the music,

a head thrust out from a closed window and drawn back again.... Again

the music broke out, and this time it was an air that they played--a

lilting melancholy melody, that the priest recognised, yet could not

identify. Men laughed subduedly near him; he saw a face wrinkled with

bitter mirth turned back, and he heard what was said. It was "Jumping

Joan" that was being played--the march consecrated to the burning of

witches. He had heard it long ago, as a boy....

Then the rumour ran through the crowd, and spent itself at last in the

corner where the priest stood trembling with wrath and pity.

"She is in the hall."

It was impossible to know whether this were true, or whether she had not

been there half an hour already. The horror was that all might be over,

or not yet begun, or in the very act of doing. He had thought that there

would be some pause or warning--that a signal would be given, perhaps,

that all might bare their heads or pray, at this violent passing of a

Queen. But there was none. The heads surged and quieted; murmurs burst

out and died again; and all the while the hateful, insolent melody rose

and fell; the horns bellowed; the drums crashed. It sounded like some

shocking dance-measure; a riot of desperate spirits moved in it,

trampling up and down, as if in one last fling of devilish gaiety....

* * * * *

Then suddenly the heads grew still; a wave of motionlessness passed over

them, as if some strange sympathy were communicated from within those

tall windows. The moments passed and passed. It was impossible to hear

those murmurs, through the blare of the instruments; there was one sound

only that could penetrate them; and this, rising from what seemed at

first the wailing of a child, grew and grew into the shrill cries of a

dog in agony. At the noise once more a roar of low questioning surged up

and fell. Simultaneously the music came to an abrupt close; and, as if

at a signal, there sounded a great roar of voices, all shouting together

within the hall. It rose yet louder, broke out of doors, and was taken

up by those outside. The court was now one sea of tossing heads and open

mouths shouting--as if in exultation or in anger. Robin fought for his

place on the projecting stones, clung to the rough wall, gripped a

window-bar and drew himself yet higher.

Then, as he clenched himself tight and stared out again towards the tall

windows that shone in bloody flakes of fire from the roaring logs

within; a sudden and profound silence fell once more before being

shattered again by a thousand roaring throats....

For there, in full view beyond the clear glass stood a tall, black

figure, masked to the mouth, who held in his out-stretched hands a wide

silver dish, in which lay something white and round and slashed with

crimson....

PART IV

CHAPTER I

I

"There is no more to be said, then," said Marjorie, and leaned back,

with a white, exhausted face. "We can do no more."

* * * * *

It was a little council of Papists that was gathered--a year after the

Queen's death at Fotheringay--in Mistress Manners' parlour. Mr. John

FitzHerbert was there; he had ridden up an hour before with heavy news

from Padley and its messenger. Mistress Alice was there, quiet as ever,

yet paler and thinner than in former years (Mistress Babington herself

had gone back to her family last year). And, last, Robin himself was

there, having himself borne the news from Derby.

He had had an eventful year, yet never yet had he come within reach of

the pursuivant. But he had largely effected this by the particular care

which he had observed with regard to Matstead, and his silence as to his

own identity. Extraordinary care, too, was observed by his friends, who

had learned by now to call him even in private by his alias; and it

appeared certain that beyond a dozen or two of discreet persons it was

utterly unsuspected that the stately bearded young gentleman named Mr.

Robert Alban--the "man of God," as, like other priests, he was commonly

called amongst the Catholics--had any connection whatever with the

hawking, hunting, and hard-riding lover of Mistress Manners. It was

known, indeed, that Mr. Robin had gone abroad years ago to be made

priest; but those who thought of him at all, or, at least as returned,

believed him sent to some other part of England, for the sake of his

father, and it was partly because of the very fact that his father was

so hot against the Papists that it had been thought safe at Rheims to

send him to Derbyshire, since this would be the very last place in which

he would be looked for.

He had avoided Matstead then--riding through it once only by night, with

strange emotions--and had spent most of his time in the south of

Derbyshire, crossing more than once over into Stafford and Chester, and

returning to Padley or to Booth's Edge once in every three or four

months. He had learned a hundred lessons in these wanderings of his.

The news that he had now brought with him was of the worst. He had heard

from Catholics in Derby that Mr. Simpson, returned again after his

banishment, recaptured a month or two ago, and awaiting trial at the

Lent Assizes, was beginning to falter. Death was a certainty for him

this time, and it appeared that he had seemed very timorous before two

or three friends who had visited him in gaol, declaring that he had done

all that a man could do, that he was being worn out by suffering and

privation, and that there was some limit, after all, to what God

Almighty should demand.

Marjorie had cried out just now, driven beyond herself at the thought of

what all this must mean for the Catholics of the countryside, many of

whom already had fallen away during the last year or two beneath the

pitiless storm of fines, suspicions, and threats--had cried out that it

was impossible that such a man as Mr. Simpson could fall; that the ruin

it would bring upon the Faith must be proportionate to the influence he

already had won throughout the country by his years of labour;

entreating, finally, when the trustworthiness of the report had been

forced upon her at last, that she herself might be allowed to go and

see him and speak with him in prison.

This, however, had been strongly refused by her counsellors just now.

They had declared that her help was invaluable; that the amazing manner

in which her little retired house on the moors had so far evaded grave

suspicion rendered it one of the greatest safeguards that the hunted

Catholics possessed; that the work she was doing by her organization of

messengers and letters must not be risked, even for the sake of a matter

like this....

She had given in at last. But her spirit seemed broken altogether.

II

"There is one more matter," said Robin presently, uncrossing one

splashed leg from over the other. "I had not thought to speak of it; but

I think it best now to do so. It concerns myself a little; and,

therefore, if I may flatter myself, it concerns my friends, too."

He smiled genially upon the company; for if there was one thing more

than another he had learned in his travels, it was that the tragic air

never yet helped any man.

Marjorie lifted her eyes a moment.

"Mistress Manners," he said, "you remember my speaking to you after

Fotheringay, of a fellow of my lord Shrewsbury's who honoured me with

his suspicions?"

She nodded.

"I have never set eyes on him from that day to this--to this," he added.

"And this morning in the open street in Derby whom should I meet with

but young Merton and his father. (Her Grace's servants have suffered

horribly since last year. But that is a tale for another day.) Well: I

stopped to speak with these two. The young man hath left Mr. Melville's

service a while back, it seems; and is to try his fortune in France.

Well; we were speaking of this and that, when who should come by but a

party of men and my lord Shrewsbury in the midst, riding with Mr. Roger

Columbell; and immediately behind them my friend of the 'New Inn' of

Fotheringay. It was all the ill-fortune in the world that it should be

at such moment; if he had seen me alone he would have thought no more of

me; but seeing me with young Jack Merton, he looked from one to the

other. And I will stake my hat he knew me again."

Marjorie was looking full at him now.

"What was my lord Shrewsbury doing in Derby with Mr. Columbell?" mused

Mr. John, biting his moustaches.

"It was the very question I put to myself," said Robin. "And I took the

liberty of seeing where they went. They went to Mr. Columbell's own

house, and indoors of it. The serving-men held the horses at the door. I

watched them awhile from Mr. Biddell's window; but they were still there

when I came away at last."

"What hour was that?" asked the old man.

"That would be after dinner-time. I had dined early; and I met them

afterwards. My lord would surely be dining with Mr. Columbell. But that

is no answer to my question. It rather pierces down to the further

point, Why was my lord Shrewsbury dining with Mr. Columbell? Shrewsbury

is a great lord; Mr. Columbell is a little magistrate. My lord hath his

own house in the country, and there be good inns in Derby."

He stopped short.

"What is the matter, Mistress Manners?" he asked.

"What of yourself?" she said sharply; "you were speaking of yourself."

Robin laughed.

"I had forgotten myself for once!... Why, yes; I intended to ask the

company what I had best do. What with this news of Mr. Simpson, and the

report Mistress Manners gives us of the country-folk, a poor priest must

look to himself in these days; and not for his own sake only. Now, my

lord Shrewsbury's man knows nothing of me except that I had strange

business at Fotheringay a year ago. But to have had strange business at

Fotheringay a year ago is a suspicious circumstance; and--"

"Mr. Alban," broke in the old man, "you had best do nothing at all. You

were not followed from Derby; you are as safe in Padley or here as you

could be anywhere in England. All that you had best do is to remain here

a week or two and not go down to Derby again for the present. I think

that showing of yourself openly in towns hath its dangers as well as its

safeguards."

Mr. John glanced round. Marjorie bowed her head in assent.

"I will do precisely as you say," said Robin easily. "And now for the

news of her Grace's servants."

He had already again and again told the tale of Fotheringay so far as he

had seen it in this very parlour. At first he had hardly found himself

able to speak of it without tears. He had described the scene he had

looked upon when, in the rush that had been made towards the hall after

Mary's head had been shown at the window, he had found a place, and had

been forced along, partly with his will and partly against it, right

through the great doors into the very place where the Queen had

suffered; and he had told the story so well that his listeners had

seemed to see it for themselves--the great hall hung with black

throughout; the raised scaffold at the further end beside the fire that

blazed on the wide hearth; the Queen's servants being led away

half-swooning as he came in; the dress of velvet, the straw and the

bloody sawdust, the beads and all the other pitiful relics being heaped

upon the fire as he stood there in the struggling mob; and, above all,

the fallen body, in its short skirt and bodice lying there where it fell

beside the low, black block. He had told all this as he had seen it for

himself, until the sheriff's men drove them all forth again into the

court; and he had told, too, of all that he had heard afterwards, that

had happened until my lord Shrewsbury's son had ridden out at a gallop

to take the news to court, and the imprisoned watchers had been allowed

to leave the Castle; how the little dog, that he had heard wailing, had

leapt out as the head fell at the third stroke, so that he was all

bathed in his mistress' blood--one of the very spaniels, no doubt, which

he himself had seen at Chartley; how the dog was taken away and washed

and given afterwards into Mr. Melville's charge; how the body and the

head had been taken upstairs, had been roughly embalmed, and laid in a

locked chamber; how her servants had been found peeping through the

keyhole and praying aloud there, till Sir Amyas had had the hole stopped

up. He had told them, too, of the events that followed; of the mass M.

de Préau had been permitted to say in the Queen's oratory on the morning

after; and of the oath that he had been forced to take that he would not

say it again; of the destruction of the oratory and the confiscation of

the altar furniture and vestments.

All this he had told, little by little; and of the Queen's noble bearing

upon the scaffold, her utter fearlessness, her protestations that she

died for her religion and for that only, and of the pesterings of Dr.

Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, who had at last given over in despair,

and prayed instead. The rest they knew for themselves--of the miserable

falseness of Elizabeth, who feigned, after having signed the warrant and

sent it, that it was Mr. Davison's fault for doing as she told him; and

of her accusations (accusations that deceived no man) against those who

had served her; of the fires made in the streets of all great towns as a

mark of official rejoicing over Mary's death; and of the pitiful

restitution made by the great funeral in Peterborough, six months after,

and the royal escutcheons and the tapers and the hearse, and all the

rest of the lying pretences by which the murderess sought to absolve her

victim from the crime of being murdered. Well; it was all over....

* * * * *

And now he told them of what he had heard to-day from young Merton in

Derby; of how Nau, Mary's French secretary--the one who had served her

for eleven years and had been loaded by her kindness--had been rewarded

also by Elizabeth, and that the nature of his services was unmistakable;

while all the rest of them, who had refused utterly to take any part in

the insolent mourning at Peterborough, either in the Cathedral or at the

banquet, had fallen under her Grace's displeasure, so that some of them,

even now, were scarcely out of ward, Mr. Bourgoign alone excepted, since

he was allowed to take the news of the death to their Graces of France,

and had, most wisely, remained there ever since.

* * * * *

So the party sat round the fire in the same little parlour where they

had sat so often before, with the lutes and wreaths embroidered on the

hangings and Icarus in the chariot of the sun; and Robin, after telling

his tale, answered question after question, till silence fell, and all

sat motionless, thinking of the woman who, while dead, yet spoke.

Then Mr. John stood up, clapped the priest on the back, and said that

they two must be off to Padley for the night.

III

They had all risen to their feet when a knocking came on the door, and

Janet looked in. She seemed a little perturbed.

"If you please, sir," she said to Mr. John, "one of your men is come up

from Padley; and wishes to speak to you alone."

Mr. John gave a quick glance at the others.

"If you will allow me," he said, "I will go down and speak with him in

the hall."

The rest sat down again. It was the kind of interruption that might be

wholly innocent; yet, coming when it did, it affected them a little.

There seemed to be nothing but bad news everywhere.

The minutes passed, yet no one returned. Once Marjorie went to the door

and listened, but there was only the faint wail of the winter wind up

the stairs to be heard. Then, five minutes later, there were steps and

Mr. John came in. His face looked a little stern, but he smiled with his

mouth.

"We poor Papists are in trouble again," he said. "Mistress Manners, you

must let us stay here all night, if you will; and we will be off early

in the morning. There is a party coming to us from Derby--to-morrow or

next day: it is not known which."

"Why, yes! And what party?" said Marjorie, quietly enough, though she

must have guessed its character. The smile left his mouth.

"It is my son that is behind it," he said. "I had wondered we had not

had news of him! There is to be a general search for seminarists in the

High Peak" (he glanced at Robin), "by order of my lord Shrewsbury. Your

namesake, mistress, Mr. John Manners, and our friend Mr. Columbell, are

commissioned to search; and Mr. Fenton and myself are singled out to be

apprehended immediately. Thomas knows that I am at Padley, and that Mr.

Eyre will come in there for Candlemas, the day after to-morrow; in that

I recognize my son's knowledge. Well, I will dispatch my man who brought

the news to Mr. Eyre to bid him to avoid the place; and we two, Mr.

Alban and myself, will make our way across the border into Stafford."

"There are none others coming to Padley to-morrow?" asked Marjorie.

"None that I know of. They will come in sometimes without warning; but I

cannot help that. Mr. Fenton will be at Tansley: he told me so."

"How did the news come?" asked Robin.

"It seems that the preacher Walton, in Derby, hath been warned that we

shall be delivered to him two days hence. It was his servant that told

one of mine. I fear he will be a-preparing his sermons to us, all for

nothing."

He smiled bitterly again. Robin could see the misery in this man's heart

at the thought that it was his own son who had contrived this. Mr.

Thomas had been quiet for many months, no doubt in order to strike the

more surely in his new function as "sworn man" of her Grace. Yet he

would seem to have failed.

"We shall not get our candles then, this year either," smiled Mr.

Thomas. "Lanterns are all that we shall have."

* * * * *

There was not much time to be lost. Luggage had to be packed, since it

would not be safe for the three to return until at least two or three

weeks had passed; and Marjorie, besides, had to prepare a list of places

and names that must be dealt with on their way--places where word must

be left that the hunt was up again, and names of particular persons

that were to be warned. Mr. Garlick and Mr. Ludlam were in the county,

and these must be specially informed, since they were known, and Mr.

Garlick in particular had already suffered banishment and returned

again, so that there would be no hope for him if he were once more

captured.

The four sat late that night; and Robin wondered more than ever, not

only at the self-command of the girl, but at her extraordinary knowledge

of Catholic affairs in the county. She calculated, almost without

mistake, as was afterwards shown, not only which priests were in

Derbyshire, but within a very few miles of where they would be and at

what time: she showed, half-smiling, a kind of chart which she had drawn

up, of the movements of the persons concerned, explaining the plan by

which each priest (if he desired) might go on his own circuit where he

would be most needed. She lamented, however, the fewness of the priests,

and attributed to this the growing laxity of many families--living, it

might be, in upland farms or in inaccessible places, where they could

but very seldom have the visits of the priest and the strength of the

sacraments.

Before midnight, therefore, the two travellers had complete directions

for their journey, as well as papers to help their memories, as to where

the news was to be left. And at last Mr. John stood up and stretched

himself.

"We must go to bed," he said. "We must be booted by five."

Marjorie nodded to Alice, who stood up, saying she would show him where

his bed had been prepared.

Robin lingered for a moment to finish his last notes.

"Mr. Alban," said Marjorie suddenly, without lifting her eyes from the

paper on which she wrote.

"Yes?"

"You will take care to-morrow, will you not?" she said. "Mr. John is a

little hot-headed. You must keep him to his route?"

"I will do my best," said Robin, smiling.

She lifted her clear eyes to his without tremor or shame.

"My heart would be broken altogether if aught happened to you. I look to

you as our Lord's chief soldier in this county."

"But--"

"That is so," she said. "I do not know any man who has been made perfect

in so short a time. You hold us all in your hands."

CHAPTER II

I

It was in Mr. Bassett's house at Langley that the news of the attack on

Padley reached the two travellers a month later, and it bore news in it

that they little expected.

For it seemed that, entirely unexpectedly, there had arrived at Padley

the following night no less than three of the FitzHerbert family, Mr.

Anthony the seventh son, with two of his sisters, as well as Thomas

FitzHerbert's wife, who rode with them, whether as a spy or not was

never known. Further, Mr. Fenton himself, hearing of their coming, had

ridden up from Tansley, and missed the messenger that Marjorie had sent

out. They had not arrived till late, missing again, by a series of

mischances, the scouts Marjorie had posted; and, on discovering their

danger, had further discovered the house to be already watched. They

judged it better, therefore, as Marjorie said in her letter, to feign

unconsciousness of any charge against them, since there was no priest in

the house who could incriminate them.

All this the travellers learned for the first time at Langley.

They had gone through into Staffordshire, as had been arranged, and

there had moved about from house to house of Catholic friends without

any trouble. It was when at last they thought it safe to be moving

homewards, and had arrived at Langley, that they found Marjorie's letter

awaiting them. It was addressed to Mr. John FitzHerbert and was brought

by Robin's old servant, Dick Sampson.

"The assault was made," wrote Marjorie, "according to the arrangement.

Mr. Columbell himself came with a score of men and surrounded the house

very early, having set watchers all in place the evening before: they

had made certain they should catch the master and at least a priest or

two. But I have very heavy news, for all that; for there had come to the

house after dark Mr. Anthony FitzHerbert, with two of his sisters, Mrs.

Thomas FitzHerbert and Mr. Fenton himself, and they have carried the two

gentlemen to the Derby gaol. I have had no word from Mr. Anthony, but I

hear that he said that he was glad that his father was not taken, and

that his own taking he puts down to his brother's account, as yourself,

sir, also did. The men did no great harm in Padley beyond breaking a

panel or two: they were too careful, I suppose, of what they think will

be Mr. Topcliffe's property some day! And they found none of the

hiding-holes, which is good news. The rest of the party they let go free

again for the present.

"I have another piece of bad news, too--which is no more than what we

had looked for: that Mr. Simpson at the Assizes was condemned to death,

but has promised to go to church, so that his life is spared if he will

do so. He is still in the gaol, however, where I pray God that Mr.

Anthony may meet with him and bring him to a better mind; so that he

hath not yet denied our Lord, even though he hath promised to do so.

"May God comfort and console you, Mr. FitzHerbert, for this news of Mr.

Anthony that I send."

* * * * *

The letter ended with messages to the party, with instructions for their

way of return if they should come within the next week; and with the

explanation, given above, of the series of misfortunes by which any came

to be at Padley that night, and how it was that they did not attempt to

break out again.

* * * * *

The capture of Mr. Anthony was, indeed, one more blow to his father; but

Robin was astonished how cheerfully he bore it; and said as much when

they two were alone in the garden.

The grey old man smiled, while his eyelids twitched a little.

"They say that when a man is whipped he feels no more after awhile. The

former blows prepare him and dull his nerves for the later, which, I

take it, is part of God's mercy. Well, Mr. Alban, my father hath been in

prison a great while now; my son Thomas is a traitor, and a sworn man of

her Grace; I myself have been fined and persecuted till I have had to

sell land to pay the fines with. I have seen family after family fall

from their faith and deny it. So I take it that I feel the joy that I

have a son who is ready to suffer for it, more than the pain I have in

thinking on his sufferings. The one may perhaps atone for the sins of

the other, and yet help him to repentance."

* * * * *

Life here at Langley was more encouraging than the furtive existence

necessary in the north of Derbyshire.

Mr. Bassett had a confident way with him that was like wine to fainting

hearts, and he had every reason to be confident; since up to the

present, beyond being forced to pay the usual fines for recusancy, he

had scarcely been troubled at all; and lived in considerable prosperity,

having even been sheriff of Stafford in virtue of his other estates at

Blore. His house at Langley was a great one, standing in a park, and

showing no signs of poverty; his servants were largely Catholic; he

entertained priests and refugees of all kinds freely, although

discreetly; and he laughed at the notion that the persecution could be

of long endurance.

The very first night the travellers had come he had spoken with

considerable freedom after supper.

"Look more hearty!" he cried. "The Spanish fleet will be here before

summer to relieve us of all troubles, as of all heretics, too. Her Grace

will have to turn her coat once more, I think, when that comes to pass."

Mr. John glanced at him doubtfully.

"First," he said, "no man knows whether it will come. And, next, I for

one am not sure if I even wish for it."

Mr. Bassett laughed loudly.

"You will dance for joy!" he said. "And why do you not know whether you

wish it to come?"

"I have no taste to be a Spanish subject."

"Why, nor have I! But the King of Spain will but sail away again when he

hath made terms against the privateers, whether they be those that ply

on the high seas against men's bodies, or here in England against their

souls. There will be no subjection of England beyond that."

Mr. John was silent.

"Why, I heard from Sir Thomas but a week ago, to ask for a little money

to pay his fines with. He said that repayment should follow so soon as

the fleet should come. Those were his very words."

"You sent the money, then?"

"Why, yes; I made shift that a servant should throw down a bag with ten

pounds in it, into a bush, and that Brittlebank--your brother's

man--should see him do it! And lo! when we looked again, the bag was

gone!"

He laughed again with open mouth. Certainly he was an inspiriting man

with a loud bark of his own; but Robin imagined that he would not bite

too cruelly for all that. But he saw another side of him presently.

"What was that matter of Mr. Sutton, the priest who was executed in

Stafford last year?" asked Mr. John suddenly.

The face of the other changed as abruptly. His eyes became pin-points

under his grey eyebrows and his mouth tightened.

"What of him?" he said.

"It was reported that you might have stayed the execution, and would

not. I did not believe a word of it."

"It is true," said Mr. Bassett sharply--"at least a portion of it."

"True?"

"Listen," cried the other suddenly, "and tell me what you would have

done. Mr. Sutton was taken, and was banished, and came back again, as

any worthy priest would do. Then he was taken again, and condemned. I

did my utmost to save him, but I could not. Then, as I would never have

any part in the death of a priest for his religion, another was

appointed to carry the execution through. Three days before news was

brought to me by a private hand that Mr. Sutton had promised to give the

names of priests whom he knew, and of houses where he had said mass, and

I know not what else; and it was said to me that I might on this account

stay the execution until he had told all that he could. Now I knew that

I could not save his life altogether; that was forfeited and there could

be no forgiveness. All that I might do was to respite him for a

little--and for what? That he might damn his own soul eternally and

bring a great number of good men into trouble and peril of death for

themselves. I sent the messenger away again, and said that I would

listen to no such tales. And Mr. Sutton died like a good priest three

days after, repenting, I doubt not, bitterly, of the weakness into which

he had fallen. Now, sir, what would you have done in my place?"

He wagged his face fiercely from side to side.

Mr. John put his hand over his eyes and nodded without speaking. Robin

sat silent: it was not only for priests, it seemed, that life presented

a tangle.

II

The evening before the two left for the north again, Mr. Bassett took

them both into his own study. It was a little room opening out of his

bedroom, and was more full of books than Robin had ever seen, except in

the library at Rheims, in any room in the world. A shelf ran round the

room, high on the wall, and was piled with manuscripts to the ceiling.

Beneath, the book-shelves that ran nearly round the room were packed

with volumes, and a number more lay on the table and even in the

corners.

"This is my own privy chamber," said Mr. Bassett to the priest. "My

other friends have seen it many a time, but I thought I would show it to

your Reverence, too."

Robin looked round him in wonder: he had no idea that his host was a man

of such learning.

"All the books are ranged in their proper places," went on the other. "I

could put my finger on any of them blind-fold. But this is the shelf I

wished you to see."

He took him to one that was behind the door, holding up the candle that

he might see. The shelf had a box or two on it, besides books, and these

he opened and set on the table. Robin looked in, as he was told, but

could understand nothing that he saw: in one was a round ball of crystal

on a little gold stand, wrapped round in velvet; in another some kind of

a machine with wheels; in a third, some dried substances, as of herbs,

tied together with silk. He inspected them gravely, but was not invited

to touch them. Then his host touched him on the breast with one finger,

and recoiled, smiling.

"This is my magic," he said. "John here does not like it; neither did

poor Mr. Fenton when he was here; but I hold there is no harm in such

things if one does but observe caution."

"What do you do with them, sir?" inquired the priest curiously, for he

was not sure whether the man was serious.

"Well, sir, I hold that God has written His will in the stars, and in

the burning of herbs, and in the shining of the sun, and such things.

There is no black magic here. But, just as we read in the sky at

morning, if it be red or yellow, whether it will be foul or fair, so I

hold that God has written other secrets of His in other things; and that

by observing them and judging rightly we may guess what He has in store.

I knew that a prince was to die last year before ever it happened. I

knew that a fleet of ships will come to England this year, before ever

an anchor is weighed. And I would have you notice that here are Mr.

FitzHerbert and your Reverence, too, fleeing for your lives; and here

sit I safe at home; and all, as I hold, because I have been able to

observe by my magic what is to come to pass."

"But that strikes at the doctrine of free-will," cried the priest.

"No, sir; I think it does not. God's foreknowledge doth not hinder the

use of our free-will (which is a mystery, no doubt, yet none the less

true). Then why should God's foreknowledge any more hinder our

free-will, when He chooses to communicate it to us?"

Robin was silent. He knew little or nothing of these things, except from

his theological reading. Yet he felt uneasy. The other said nothing.

"And the stars, too?" he asked.

"I hold," said Mr. Bassett, "that the stars have certain influences and

powers upon those that are born under their signs. I do not hold that we

are so ruled by these that we have no action of our own, any more than

we are compelled to be wet through by rain or scorched by the sun: we

may always come into a house or shelter beneath a tree, and thus escape

them. So, too, I hold, with the stars. There is an old saying, sir: 'The

fool is ruled by his stars; the wise man rules them.' That is, in a

nutshell, my faith in the matter. I have told Mr. Fenton's fortune here,

and Mr. FitzHerbert's, only they will never listen to me."

Robin looked round the room. It was dark outside long ago; they had

supped at sunset, and sat for half an hour over their banquet of

sweetmeats and wine before coming upstairs. And the room, too, was as

dark as night, except where far off in the west, beyond the tall trees

of the park, a few red streaks lingered. He felt oppressed and

miserable. The place seemed to him sinister. He hated these fumblings at

locks that were surely meant to remain closed. Yet he did not know what

to say. Mr. John had wandered off to one of the windows and was humming

uneasily to himself.

Then, suddenly, an intense curiosity overcame him.

His life was a strange and perilous one; he carried it in his hand every

day. In the morning he could not be sure but that he would be fleeing

before evening. As he fell asleep, he could not be sure that he would

not be awakened to a new dream. He had long ago conquered those moods of

terror which, in spite of his courage, had come down on him sometimes,

in some lonely farm, perhaps, where flight would be impossible--or, in

what was far more dangerous, in some crowded inn where every movement

was known--these had passed, he thought, never to come back.

But in that little book-lined room, with these curious things in boxes

on the table, and his merry host peering at him gravely, and the still

evening outside; with the knowledge that to-morrow he was to ride back

to his own country, whence he had fled for fear of his life, six weeks

ago; leaving the security of this ex-sheriff's house for the perils of

the Peak and all that suspected region from which even now, probably,

the pursuit had not altogether died away--here a sudden intense desire

to know what the future might hold overcame him.

"Tell me, sir," he said. "You have told Mr. FitzHerbert's fortune, you

say, as well as others. Have you told mine since I have been here?"

There was a moment's silence. Mr. John was silent, with his back turned.

Robin looked up at his host, wondering why he did not answer. Then Mr.

Bassett took up the candle.

"Come," he said; "we have been here long enough."

CHAPTER III

I

"There will be a company of us to-night," said Mr. John to the two

priests, as he helped them to dismount. "Mr. Alban has sent his man

forward from Derby to say that he will be here before night."

"Mr. Ludlam and I are together for once," said Mr. Garlick. "We must

separate again to-morrow, he is for the north again, he tells me. There

has been no more trouble?"

"Not a word of it. They were beaten last time and will not try again, I

think, for the present. You heard of the attempt at Candlemas, then?"

* * * * *

It had been a quiet time enough ever since Lent, throughout the whole

county; and it seemed as if the heat of the assault had cooled for want

of success. Plainly a great deal had been staked upon the attack on

Padley, which, for its remoteness from towns, was known to be a

meeting-place where priests could always find harbourage. And, indeed,

it was time that the Catholics should have a little breathing space.

Things had been very bad with them--the arrest of Mr. Simpson, and,

still more, his weakness (though he had not as yet actually fulfilled

his promise of going to church, and was still detained in gaol); the

growing lukewarmness of families that seldom saw a priest; the blows

struck at the FitzHerbert family; and, above all, the defection of Mr.

Thomas--all these things had brought the hearts of the faithful very

low. Mr. John himself had had an untroubled time since his return a

little before Easter; but he had taken the precaution not to remain too

long at Padley at one time; he had visited his other estates at

Swynnerton and elsewhere, and had even been back again at Langley. But

there had been no hint of any pursuit. Padley had remained untouched;

the men went about their farm business; the housekeeper peered from her

windows, without a glimpse of armed men such as had terrified the

household on Candlemas day.

It was only last night, indeed, that the master had returned, in time to

meet the two priests who had asked for shelter for a day or two. They

had stayed here before continually, as well as at Booth's Edge, during

their travels, both in the master's absence and when he was at home.

There were a couple of rooms kept vacant always for "men of God"; and

all priests who came were instructed, of course (in case of necessity),

as to the hiding-holes that Mr. Owen had contrived a few years before.

Never, however, had there been any use made of them.

* * * * *

It was a hot July afternoon when the two priests were met to-day by Mr.

John outside the arched gate that ran between the hall and the buttery.

They had already dined at a farm a few miles down the valley, but they

were taken round the house at once to the walled garden, where drink and

food were set out. Here their dusty boots were pulled off; they laid

aside their hats, and were presently at their ease again.

They were plain men, these two; though Mr. Garlick had been educated at

Oxford, and, before his going to Rheims, had been schoolmaster at

Tideswell. In appearance he was a breezy sunburnt man, with very little

of the clerk about him, and devoted to outdoor sports (which was

something of a disguise to him since he could talk hawking and riding

in mixed company with a real knowledge of the facts). He spoke in a loud

voice with a strong Derbyshire accent, which he had never lost and now

deliberately used. Mr. Ludlam looked for more of the priest: he was a

clean-shaven man, of middle-age, with hair turning to grey on his

temples, and with a very pleasant disarming smile; he spoke very little,

but listened with an interested and attentive air. Both were, of course,

dressed in the usual riding costume of gentlemen, and used good horses.

It was exceedingly good to sit here, with the breeze from over the moors

coming down on them, with cool drink before them, and the prospect of a

secure day, at any rate, in this stronghold. Their host, too, was

contented and serene, and said so, frankly.

"I am more at peace, gentlemen," he said, "than I have been for the past

five years. My son is in gaol yet; and I am proud that he should be

there, since my eldest son--" (he broke off a moment). "And I think the

worst of the storm is over. Her Grace is busying herself with other

matters."

"You mean the Spanish fleet, sir?" said Mr. Garlick.

He nodded.

"It is not that I look for final deliverance from Spain," he said. "I

have no wish to be aught but an Englishman, as I said to Mr. Bassett a

while ago. But I think the fleet will distract her Grace for a while;

and it may very well mean that we have better treatment hereafter."

"What news is there, sir?"

"I hear that the Londoners buzz continually with false alarms. It was

thought that the fleet might arrive on any day; but I understand that

the fishing-boats say that nothing as yet been seen. By the end of the

month, I daresay, we shall have news."

So they talked pleasantly in the shade till the shadows began to

lengthen. They were far enough here from the sea-coast to feel somewhat

detached from the excitement that was beginning to seethe in the south.

At Plymouth, it was said, all had been in readiness for a month or two

past; at Tilbury, my lord Leicester was steadily gathering troops. But

here, inland, it was more of an academic question. The little happenings

in Derby; the changes of weather in the farms; the deaths of old people

from the summer heats--these things were far more vital and significant

than the distant thunders of Spain. A beacon or two had been piled on

the hills, by order of the authorities, to pass on the news when it

should come; a few lads had disappeared from the countryside to drill in

Derby marketplace; but except for these things, all was very much as it

had been from the beginning. The expected catastrophe meant little more

to such folk than the coming of the Judgment Day--certain, but

infinitely remote from the grasp of the imagination.

* * * * *

The three were talking of Robin as they came down towards the house for

supper, and, as they turned the corner, he himself was at that moment

dismounting.

He looked surprisingly cool and well-trimmed, considering his ride up

the hot valley. He had taken his journey easily, he said, as he had had

a long day yesterday.

"And I made a round to pay a visit to Mistress Manners," he said. "I

found her a-bed when I got there; and Mrs. Alice says she will not be at

mass to-morrow. She stood too long in the sun yesterday, at the carrying

of the hay; it is no more than that."

"Mistress Manners is a marvel to me," said Garlick, as they went towards

the house. "Neither wife nor nun. And she rules her house like a man;

and she knows if a priest lift his little finger in Derby. She sent me

my whole itinerary for this last circuit of mine; and every point fell

out as she said."

* * * * *

Robin thought that he had seldom had so pleasant a supper as on that

night. The windows of the low hall where he had dined so often as a boy,

were flung wide to catch the scented evening air. The sun was round to

the west and threw long, golden rays, that were all lovely light and no

heat, slantways on the paved floor and the polished tables and the

bright pewter. Down at the lower end sat the servants, brown men, burned

by the sun; lean as panthers, scarcely speaking, ravenous after their

long day in the hayfields; and up here three companions with whom he was

wholly at his ease. The evening was as still as night, except for the

faint peaceful country sounds that came up from the valley below--the

song of a lad riding home; the barking of a dog; the bleat of sheep--all

minute and delicate, as unperceived, yet as effective, as a rich fabric

on which a design is woven. It seemed to him as he listened to the

talk--the brisk, shrewd remarks of Mr. Garlick; the courteous and rather

melancholy answers of his host; as he watched the second priest's eyes

looking gently and pleasantly about him; as he ate the plain, good food

and drank the country drink, that, in spite of all, his lot was cast in

very sweet places. There was not a hint here of disturbance, or of men's

passions, or of ugly strife: there was no clatter, as in the streets of

Derby, or pressure of humanity, or wearying politics of the

market-place. He found himself in one of those moods that visit all men

sometimes, when the world appears, after all, a homely and a genial

place; when the simplest things are the best; when no excitement or

ambition or furious zeal can compare with the gentle happiness of a

tired body that is in the act of refreshment, or of a driven mind that

is finding its relaxation. At least, he said to himself, he would enjoy

this night and the next day and the night after, with all his heart.

* * * * *

The four found themselves so much at ease here, that the dessert was

brought in to them where they sat; and it was then that the first

unhappy word was spoken.

"Mr. Simpson!" said Garlick suddenly. "Is there any more news of him?"

Mr. John shook his head.

"He hath not yet been to church, thank God!" he said. "So much I know

for certain. But he hath promised to go."

"Why is he not yet gone? He promised a great while ago."

"I hear he hath been sick. Derby gaol is a pestiferous place. They are

waiting, I suppose, till he is well enough to go publicly, that all the

world may be advertised of it!"

Mr. Garlick gave a bursting sigh.

"I cannot understand it at all," he said. "There has never been so

zealous a priest. I have ridden with him again and again before I was a

priest. He was always quiet; but I took him to be one of those

stout-hearted souls that need never brag. Why, it was here that we heard

him tell of Mr. Nelson's death!"

Mr. John threw out his hands.

"These prisons are devilish," he said; "they wear a man out as the rack

can never do. Why, see my son!" he cried. "Oh! I can speak of him if I

am but moved enough! It was that same Derby gaol that wore him out too!

It is the darkness, and the ill food, and the stenches and the misery. A

man's heart fails him there, who could face a thousand deaths in the

sunlight. Man after man hath fallen there--both in Derby, and in London

and in all the prisons. It is their heart that goes--all the courage

runs from them like water, with their health. If it were the rack and

the rope only, England would be Catholic, yet, I think."

The old man's face blazed with indignation; it was not often that he so

spoke out his mind. It was very easy to see that he had thought

continually of his son's fall.

"Mistress Manners hath told me the very same thing," said Robin. "She

visited Mr. Thomas in gaol once at least. She said that her heart failed

her altogether there."

Mr. Ludlam smiled.

"I suppose it is so," he said gently, "since you say so. But I think it

would not be so with me. The rack and the rope, rather, are what would

shake me to the roots, unless God His Grace prevailed more than it ever

yet hath with see."

He smiled again.

Robin shook his head sharply.

"As for me--!" he said grimly, with tight lips.

* * * * *

It was a lovely night of stars as the four stepped out of the archway

before going upstairs to the parlour. Behind them stood the square and

solid house, resembling a very fortress. The lights that had been

brought in still shone through the windows, and a hundred night insects

leapt and poised in the brightness.

And before them lay the deep valley--silent now except for the trickle

of the stream; dark (since the moon was not yet risen), except for one

light that burned far away in some farm-house on the other side; and

this light went out, like a closing eye, even as they looked. But

overhead, where God dwelt, all heaven was alive. The huge arch resting,

as it appeared, on the monstrous bases of the moors and hills standing

round this place, like the mountains about Jerusalem, was one shimmering

vault of glory, as if it was there that the home of life had its place,

and this earth beneath but a bedroom for mortals, or for those that were

too weary to aspire or climb. The suggestion was enormously powerful.

Here was this mortal earth that needed rest so cruelly--that must have

darkness to refresh its tired eyes, coolness to recuperate its passion,

and silence, if ever its ears were to hear again. But there was radiance

unending. All day a dome of rigid blue; all night a span of glittering

lights--the very home of a glory that knows no waste and that therefore

needs no reviving: it was to that only, therefore, that a life must be

chained which would not falter or fail in the unending tides and changes

of the world....

A soft breeze sprang up among the tops of the chestnuts; and the sound

was as of the going of a great company that whispered for silence.

II

It was within an hour of dawn that the first mass was said next morning

by Mr. Robert Alban.

The chapel was decked out as they seldom dared to deck it in those days;

but the failure of the last attempt on this place, and the peace that

had followed, made them bold.

The carved chest of newly-cut oak was in its place, with a rich carpet

of silk spread on its face; and, on the top, the three linen cloths as

prescribed by the Ritual. Two silver candlesticks, that stood usually on

the high shelf over the hall-fire, and a silver crucifix of Flemish

work, taken from the hiding-place, were in a row on the back, with red

and white flowers, between. Beneath the linen cloths a tiny flat

elevation showed where the altar stone lay. The rest of the chapel, in

its usual hangings, had only sweet herbs on the floor; with two or three

long seats carried up from the hall below. An extraordinary sweetness

and peace seemed in the place both to the senses and the soul of the

young priest as he went up to the altar to vest. Confessions had been

heard last night; and, as he turned, in the absolute stillness of the

morning, and saw, beneath those carved angels that still to-day lean

from the beams of the roof, the whole little space already filled with

farm-lads, many of whom were to approach the altar presently, and the

grey head of their master kneeling on the floor to answer the mass, it

appeared to him as if the promise of last night were reversed, and that

it was, after all, earth rather than heaven that proclaimed the peace

and the glory of God....

* * * * *

Robin served the second mass himself, said by Mr. Garlick, and made his

thanksgiving as well as he could meanwhile; but he found what appeared

to him at the time many distractions, in watching the tanned face and

hands of the man who was so utterly a countryman for nine-tenths of his

life, and so utterly a priest for the rest. His very sturdiness and

breeziness made his reverence the more evident and pathetic: he read the

mass rapidly, in a low voice, harshened by shouting in the open air over

his sports, made his gestures abruptly, and yet did the whole with an

extraordinary attention. After the communion, when he turned for the

wine and water, his face, as so often with rude folk in a great emotion,

browned as it was with wind and sun, seemed lighted from within; he

seemed etherealized, yet with his virility all alive in him. A phrase,

wholly inapplicable in its first sense, came irresistibly to the younger

priest's mind as he waited on him. "When the strong man, armed, keepeth

his house, his goods are in peace."

Robin heard the third mass, said by Mr. Ludlam, from a corner near the

door; and this one, too, was a fresh experience. The former priest had

resembled a strong man subdued by grace; the second, a weak man ennobled

by it. Mr. Ludlam was a delicate soul, smiling often, as has been said,

and speaking little--"a mild man," said the countryfolk. Yet, at the

altar there was no weakness in him; he was as a keen, sharp blade,

fitted as a heavy knife cannot be, for fine and peculiar work. His

father had been a yeoman, as had the other's; yet there must have been

some unusual strain of blood in him, so deft and gentle he was--more at

his ease here at God's Table than at the table of any man.... So he,

too, finished his mass, and began to unvest....

Then, with a noise as brutal as a blasphemy, there came a thunder of

footsteps on the stairs; and a man burst into the room, with glaring

eyes and rough gestures.

"There is a company of men coming up from the valley," he cried; "and

another over the moor.... And it is my lord Shrewsbury's livery."

III

In an instant all was in confusion; and the peace had fled. Mr. John was

gone; and his voice could be heard on the open stairs outside speaking

rapidly in sharp, low whispers to the men gathered beneath; and,

meanwhile, three or four servants, two men and a couple of maids,

previously drilled in their duties, were at the altar, on which Mr.

Ludlam had but that moment laid down his amice. The three priests stood

together waiting, fearing to hinder or to add to the bustle. A low

wailing rose from outside the door; and Robin looked from it to see if

there were anything he could do. But it was only a little country

servant crouching on the tiny landing that united the two sets of stairs

from the court, with her apron over her head: she must have been in the

partitioned west end of the chapel to hear the mass. He said a word to

her; and the next instant was pushed aside, as a man tore by bearing a

great bundle of stuffs--vestments and the altar cloths. When he turned

again, the chapel was become a common room once more: the chest stood

bare, with a great bowl of flowers on it; the candlesticks were gone;

and the maid was sweeping up the herbs.

"Come, gentlemen," said a sharp voice at the door, "there is no time to

lose."

He went out with the two others behind, and followed Mr. John

downstairs. Already the party of servants was dispersed to their

stations; two or three to keep the doors, no doubt, and the rest back to

kitchen work and the like, to give the impression that all was as usual.

The four went straight down into the hall, to find it empty, except for

one man who stood by the fire-place. But a surprising change had taken

place here. Instead of the solemn panelling, with the carved shield that

covered the wall over the hearth, there was a great doorway opened,

through which showed, not the bricks of the chimney-breast, but a black

space large enough to admit a man.

"See here," said Mr. John, "there is room for two here, but no more.

There is room for a third in another little chamber upstairs that is

nearly joined on to this: but it is not so good. Now, gentlemen--"

"This is the safer of the two?" asked Robin abruptly.

"I think it to be so. Make haste, gentlemen."

Robin wheeled on the others. He said that there was no time to argue in.

"See!" he said. "I have not yet been taken at all. Mr. Garlick hath

been taken; and Mr. Ludlam hath had a warning. There is no question that

you must be here."

"I utterly refuse--" began Garlick.

Robin went to the door in three strides; and was out of it. He closed

the door behind him and ran upstairs. As he reached the head his eye

caught a glint of sunlight on some metal far up on the moor beyond the

belt of trees. He did not turn his head again; he went straight in and

waited.

Presently he heard steps coming up, and Mr. John appeared smiling and

out of breath.

"I have them in," he said, "by promising that there was no great

difference after all; and that there was no time. Now, sir--" And he

went towards the wall at which, long ago, Mr. Owen had worked so hard.

"And yourself, sir?" asked Robin, as once more an innocent piece of

panelling moved outwards under Mr. John's hand.

"I'll see to that; but not until you are in--"

"But--"

The old man's face blazed suddenly up.

"Obey me, if you please. I am the master here. I tell you I have a very

good place."

There was no more to be said. Robin advanced to the opening, and sat

down to slide himself in. It was a little door about two feet square,

with a hole beneath it.

"Drop gently, Mr. Alban," whispered the voice in his ear. "The altar

vessels are at the bottom, with the crucifix, on some soft stuff....

That is it. Slide in and let yourself slip. There is some food and drink

there, too."

Robin did so. The floor of the little chamber was about five feet down,

and he could feel woodwork on all three sides of him.

"When the door is closed," said the voice from the daylight, "push a

pair of bolts on right and left till they go home. Tap upon the shutter

when it is done."

The light vanished, and Robin was aware of a faint smell of smoke. Then

he remembered that he had noticed a newly lit fire on the hearth of the

hall.... He found the bolts, pushed them, and tapped lightly three

times. He heard a hand push on the shutter to see that all was secure,

and then footsteps go away over the floor on a level with his chin.

Then he remembered that he must be in the same chamber with his two

fellow-priests, separated from them by the flooring on which he stood.

He rapped gently with his foot twice. Two soft taps came back. Silence

followed.

IV

Time, as once before in his experience, seemed wholly banished from this

place. There were moments of reflection when he appeared to himself as

having but just entered; there were other moments when he might have

been here for an eternity that had no divisions to mark it. He was in

complete and utter darkness. There was not a crack anywhere in the

woodwork (so perfect had been the young carpenter's handiwork) by which

even a glimmer of light could enter. A while ago he had been in the

early morning sunlight; now he might be in the grave.

For a while his emotions and his thoughts raced one another, tumbling in

inextricable confusion; and they were all emotions and thoughts of the

present: intense little visions of the men closing round the house,

cutting off escape from the valley on the one side and from the wild

upland country on the other; questions as to where Mr. John would hide

himself; minute sensible impressions of the smoky flavour of the air,

the unplaned woodwork, the soft stuffs beneath his feet. Then they began

to extend themselves wider, all with that rapid unjarring swiftness: he

foresaw the bursting in of his stronghold; the footsteps within three

inches of his head; the crash as the board was kicked in: then the

capture; the ride to Derby, bound on a horse; the gaol; the questioning;

the faces of my lord Shrewsbury and the magistrates ... and the end....

There were moments when the sweat ran down his face, when he bit his

lips in agony, and nearly moaned aloud. There were others in which he

abandoned himself to Christ crucified; placed himself in Everlasting

Hands that were mighty enough to pluck him not only out of this snare,

but from the very hands that would hold him so soon; Hands that could

lift him from the rack and scaffold and set him a free man among his

hills again: yet that had not done so with a score of others whom he

knew. He thought of these, and of the girl who had done so much to save

them all, who was now saved herself by sickness, a mile or two away,

from these hideous straits. Then he dragged out Mr. Maine's beads and

began to recite the "Mysteries."...

* * * * *

There broke in suddenly the first exterior sign that the hunters were on

them--a muffled hammering far beneath his feet. There were pauses; then

voices carried up from the archway nearly beneath through the hollowed

walls; then hammering again; but all was heard as through wool.

As the first noise broke out his mind rearranged itself and seemed to

have two consciousnesses. In the foreground he followed, intently and

eagerly, every movement below; in the background, there still moved

before him the pageant of deeper thoughts and more remote--of prayer and

wonder and fear and expectation; and from that onwards it continued so

with him. Even while he followed the sounds, he understood why my lord

Shrewsbury had made this assault so suddenly, after months of peace....

He perceived the hand of Thomas FitzHerbert, too, in the precision with

which the attack had been made, and the certain information he must have

given that priests would be in Padley that morning.

There were noises that he could not interpret--vague tramplings from a

direction which he could not tell; voices that shouted; the sound of

metal on stone.

He did interpret rightly, however, the sudden tumult as the gate was

unbarred at last, and the shrill screaming of a woman as the company

poured through into the house; the clamour of voices from beneath as the

hall below was filled with men; the battering that began almost

immediately; and, finally, the rush of shod feet up the outside

staircases, one of which led straight into the chapel itself. Then,

indeed, his heart seemed to spring upwards into his throat, and to beat

there, as loud as knocking, so loud that it appeared to him that all the

house must hear it.

* * * * *